(Clip) The Power Of Prayer And Fasting

Prayer and Fasting Prayer and fasting, right? We've been talking about prayer and fasting. Prayer is wonderful. I don't want people to get discouraged. I want to give a point of clarification. God still hears your prayers if you're not fasting. We launched this church. I started a ministry. Got on the radio. All different kinds of things without fasting. God hears your prayers. God wants you to pray. He's not holding some carrot in front of you. God loves you. He wants you to pray. He wants to talk to you. He'll lead you. But fasting draws us closer to God. It makes us more sensitive to His will. The door of possibilities is enlarged. The power of the Spirit is magnified. So the power of the Holy Spirit is magnified. Do you have a proof text for that, Shane? Yes, I do. I'm glad you asked. Jesus, 40 days in the wilderness. The Bible says He came out in the power of the Spirit. The Bible says this kind cometh not out except by prayer and fasting. It engages the spiritual realm. It takes it up a notch. So prayer is like this. You're right. Prayer is like this. This is what prayer does to the strongholds, right? Have you ever broken concrete with something like this? Come on, guys. What is this called? Sledgehammer, right? Everybody has it. Most people have it at home. That's what prayer does. You're pulling down strongholds. This is actually the one I used to use in construction. You're pulling down strongholds. You're casting down arguments. You're breaking the strongholds. Praying, you're breaking and you're breaking, right? That's what prayer does. Come on, this is how we go to war. But then fasting, fasting takes it up a notch. I'm glad you asked. Here it is. That's fasting. But I'm being honest. Oh, that's a good little gimmick. This is not analogy. This is fasting. Prayer and fasting. My dad used to say, Shane, go back and get the big sledgehammer. We've got to remove an entire driveway. I don't need this. It's not going to do it all the time. This kind cometh not out except by prayer and fasting. That's how you break the strongholds of addiction. That's how you come against the attack of the enemy. I mean, either the Bible says what it says or it doesn't. This kind cometh not except by prayer and fasting. And the Bible scholars out there are going, yeah, but that verse is not in some translations of the Bible. Correct, we don't have time to go there, but I went there before. But Jesus came out in the power of the Holy Spirit because He was praying and fasting. Ezra said, call a fast. It saved the Jewish nation from destruction. Call. Joel said, if there's sin in the land, if the nation is going backward, call a sacred assembly. Sound the alarm. Raise an alarm. Sound the horn on the holy mountain of Zion. Call a fast. Call a solemn assembly. Nehemiah went to rebuild Jerusalem. He said, I must call a fast. Ezra said, we can't go and rebuild the temple. Nehemiah's doing the wall. We can't do the temple unless we fast. Elisha fasted. Paul said, in much tribulation and fasting. It's prayer and fasting. That's what it does. See, you can get by. Right? You've got a big block wall out back. It'll take you a few months. Right? But when you call down heaven, it's prayer. You just remember that.