Derek Prince - Have You Humbled Yourself
This is a clip from the full sermon: Self-Humbling Through Fasting
Let me just turn for a moment to Joel 2. I want to now look at the prophetic element in prayer and fasting. It’s a very long chapter and I cannot read it all. I hope that some of you may be prompted to read it for yourself. It’s a time of tremendous crisis. I don’t know exactly what time it refers to. Maybe some others may, but at any rate it’s a time when the destiny of the nation is at stake. This is the prophetic charge. Joel 2:15. "Blow the trumpet in Zion", that’s the shofar. That’s the most solemn call to God’s people to get attention. "Consecrate a fast, Call a sacred assembly". That’s a time when you don’t do anything but seek the Lord, a sacred assembly. "Gather the people, Sanctify the congregation, Assemble the elders, Gather the children and nursing babes; Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber, And the bride from her dressing room".
So this is a total community, you understand. Just like it was with the pilgrims in Leiden. The whole community was involved, or is to be involved. Let the priests, who minister to the LORD, Weep between the porch and the altar; Let them say, "Spare Your people, O LORD, And do not give your heritage to reproach, That the heathen should rule over them, Why should they say among themselves, ‘Where is their God?’" So this is a time of national crisis. And God’s message to His people is, "Consecrate a fast". And if you analyze the instructions of the Lord they begin with the leadership, the elders, the priests and the ministers. That’s, I believe, how it has to be. It’s the leadership that has to take the first step. Now we won’t read the rest of that chapter until verse 28 "And it shall come to pass afterward", after what? Fasting. "That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy".
We don’t need to go any further. What provokes the outpouring of the latter rain? Fasting. Congregational, collective fasting. I believe God has not changed. I believe that if the churches of America would do that in the same Spirit, they’d get the same result. I believe it is possible that this ungodly nation can still be shaken to it’s foundation by the power of God. I’m not saying it will happen. I think it depends on what we do. But I think it could happen if we do the right thing. Amen. I just have one more thing to emphasize. How many of you know what 2 Chronicles 7:14 says? "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land".
Now I began to preach that actually before IFA came into being. 1965 But recently the Lord spoke to me, I believe, now this is subjective, you are entitled to question it, the Lord said to me, "What you have been preaching is absolutely correct, but My people have never taken the first step. And if they don’t take the first step, the others don’t work". "If My people". What is the first step? "Will humble themselves". I don’t believe that collectively the church in America has humbled itself. I believe many of us have not humbled ourselves. You can do all the rest, but it won’t work. You see fasting doesn’t necessarily make you humble. The Pharisee who fasted twice in a week was proud of the fact. So fasting doesn’t earn you a merit badge that you can carry around. You have to humble yourself. We have to humble ourselves.
And as I meditated on this I felt the Lord showed me a very simple practical way for us to humble ourselves, and I believe it absolutely has to work. You know what it is? Confess our sins. It says in 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins to God, He is faithful and just to forgives us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But God is not committed to do it if we do not confess. I don’t find anywhere in Scripture that God has committed Himself to forgive sins that we don’t confess. "If we confess our sins He is faithful". In confessing our sins to God we humble ourselves before God. You really cannot remain in an attitude of pride after you have just named all the awful things you have just been doing. At least I couldn’t.