Derek Prince - Disasters Can Be Averted Through Fasting
This is an excerpt from: The Secret Power Of Fasting
Now then, let's consider for a moment people under God's judgment. If the judgment of God were to be proclaimed upon the nation of New Zealand and we wanted to avert it, and that could easily happen, I don't believe it's far away. What could we do? We could fast and humble ourselves before God. See, there was one outstandingly wicked king in Israel called Ahab. I don't know whether you remember the story of Ahab, but he married Jezebel and he led Israel into idolatry and every kind of wickedness.
And in 1 Kings 21, Elijah had a confrontation with Ahab. He pronounced God's judgment on him and God says to him in verse 22: I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah Every male and every female in your family will be destroyed. That's God's judgment. And then it goes on to say in verse 25: But there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the Lord, because Jezebel his wife stirred him up. So, he was the most wicked king. And God had pronounced judgment on him through the prophet Elijah. But Ahab feared the Lord in verse 27: heard these words, he tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his body and fasted and lay in sackcloth, and went about mourning. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah, saying, 'See how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the calamity in his days, but in the days of his son.'
Now there is a man singled out as the most wicked king of Israel up to that time. God's judgment was pronounced on him and his family. But when he humbled himself with fasting God said I won't bring the judgment in his day. If fasting could do that for Ahab, what could it do for you, and me as children of God? You see the potential? And then in the story of Jonah and his message to Nineveh we read how he walked into the city a very wicked, violent, evil city and he proclaimed that in forty days the city would be destroyed. That was a message from God. How did the inhabitants of Nineveh respond? It says in Jonah 3: Then word came to the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. He caused the whole city to fast. Even the animals fasted.
And it says at the end of that: Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it. A Gentile city notorious for its wickedness heard the message of one prophet once, repented with fasting and mourning, and God spared the entire city. And Nineveh was spared judgment for well over one hundred years from that time. So, if fasting would do that for Nineveh, what would it do for this nation? What would it do where people of God humbled themselves, call out to Him? And then to avert disaster, if you read the book of Esther, you'll read how Haman had succeeded in bringing a plot in which the entire Jewish nation in the territory of the kingdom of Persia was to be destroyed.
I suppose every Jew on earth in those days was in that kingdom because it consisted of a hundred and twenty seven provinces and extended from India to Ethiopia. And the decree had gone out but there was in the king's palace a Jewess whose nationality was not known, Esther. And her cousin Mordecai sent a message to her and said, Don't think that you'll escape more than other Jews in the king's palace because who knows if you're there for such a time as this? And Esther rose to the challenge and she said, Go gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan and fast for me. Neither eat nor drink for three days, night and day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king [which is against the law], and if I perish, I perish.
You read the rest of the story, a further edict was issued, the whole situation was totally reversed and it ended up in a triumph for the Jewish people and the preservation of the Jewish nation. What changed history? What was the turning point? When God's people fasted. See, I think it would be almost impossible to exaggerate the potential for fasting to change the course of history. It's no wonder that Satan tries to keep this key out of the hands of God's people. He's afraid of it.