Heroes of Fasting - Day 9

It's day nine of our 10-day fast! Here is today's "Heroes of Fasting" video (3:08), from Matt Bennett, Founder and CEO of Christian Union Day and Night.

Get your free 5-lesson Seeking God course!

You’ve shown such a great commitment to seeing our nation transformed with the Gospel! We know how hard it can be to carve out time to sit in God’s presence when we are daily bombarded by distraction. That’s why we created this free 5-lesson course to help fuel your prayer life. Is this something you would like?

Get my free course

Transcript
Hi, Matt Bennett here. We're looking at heroes of fasting. The episode we're going to look at today in this video is what to do when the Christian is facing a really difficult and really awful situation. What is the pattern that we see in the Scriptures? The Scriptures make it plain that what we're to do when we’re to see and we need God to do something really big, what we need to do is to fast and really press in. We get this from the story of Esther, the queen, married to king Xerxes of the Persian empire. This is about 470 B.C.

This incredible situation plays out. A man named Haman who hates Jews manipulates the king to get a decree issued that all the enemies of the Jews can destroy them. He didn't know that the queen was also Jewish but here she is, what is she going to do and how is she going to get out of this situation? Her cousin Mordecai encourages her and helps give her strength so that she can do the right thing. That she can go to the king and ask him to reverse this awful decree that's going to mean the death of thousands of Jews throughout the Persian empire. The way the situation was, she wasn't allowed to come to the king any time that she wanted. She could only come when called for.

If she did come before, then it would mean she would be put to death unless he extended her the golden scepter with an exception. He hadn't seen her for 30 days or so. So, she needed to go, though. She needed to go before the king. So, she was terrified, but she did the courageous thing. It says—this is a remarkable famous verse in the book of Esther—this is what it says. It says, starting in verse 15 of chapter four, "Then Esther told them in reply to Mordecai, “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa," —that's the city where they were, found in modern day Iran—"hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.”

So, she encouraged her cousin and others throughout all of the city of Susa who were Jewish to fast day and night, to not eat food or water for all of this time. The Lord was gracious. He heard their cry. They prayed with the fasting of course. When you're fasting, you're always praying as well. She went before the king. The king nullified the decree and actually all of the enemies of the Jews got destroyed instead. This remarkable, incredible story happens, but this same principle is true today. The message of this book tells us that we can trust God and that we need Him and when we turn to Him, He will hear our prayer. So, as we want Him to save our loved ones, to bring revival to America, this is a time to fast and to pray and ask Him to do extraordinary things. Thank you and God’s blessings to you.