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Supercharging Your Spiritual Authority: The Role Of Fasting
Thursday, October 20, 2016 by Dr. Paul D. Norcross

Satan uses stolen and deceitfully obtained spiritual authority. 

Jesus stripped him of all his spiritual authority, and Colossians 1:13 says that He rescued us out from the authority of darkness.  As with the 12 and the 70, Jesus proceeded to give all available spiritual authority to born-again believers when He seated us with Him in the heavenlies after the day of Pentecost.

To acquire spiritual authority to work in secret, Satan needs to get it from somewhere. He has none of his own.  The somewhere he gets it from is from those who have it—believers in Christ. 

This is why the tactic of pitting believers against believers is so extremely effective for Satan.  It multiplies his spiritual authority immensely.

A great illustration of the role of spiritual authority and pitting believers against each other is noted in Judges chapter 20, which happens to be the first application of fasting in the Bible.  

In Judges 20, a man of God was traveling to bring his concubine-wife back home. He wound up at nighttime in the town center of Gibeah.  You know the record—the  concubine was gang-raped by sodomites and she died on the doorstep in the early morning hours.  The tribe of Benjamin defended their sodomites and fought against all of Israel.

Notice both sides were believers.  Yet in the first two days of battle, the side with the moral high ground lost thousands of warriors. Why? Because both sides held a legitimate spiritual authority as God's children.  The devil was able to seize advantage in this case.

Two days, staggering losses of tens of thousands of "good guys."

The battle turned when Israel fasted one day and then prayed.  The enemy sodomites and their supporting tribe were destroyed.

Fasting At The Constitutional Convention

In 1787, during the U.S. Constitutional Convention, the drafting of this foundational document became gridlocked over partisan interest.

Finally, on a sweltering August day, an aging Benjamin Franklin arose with unparalleled wisdom to remind the delegates of the daily prayers the same men had prayed for the protection of our soldiers each morning in the same hall during all the preceding years of war.

Franklin concluded with a challenge that we must adhere to and apply afresh today:

“I have lived, sir, a long time. And the longer I live, the more convinced I become of this truth - that God governs in the affairs of men, and if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it possible that an empire can arise without His aid?”

In the stunned silence that followed, the assembly resolved to pray and fast to God for three days.

When they returned from their private invocations, astonishingly the Constitution flowed smoothly into place.  Important compromises were worked out. 

That the deadlock was broken after prayer and fasting underscores the divine underpinnings of this unique document—the one to which every American serviceman and woman to this day takes an oath to support and defend against all enemies foreign and domestic, so help them God.

Today a deadlock looms in our country. What will break the darkness, and enable God to rally on behalf of those who stand for the rights of the unborn, for the protection and freedoms of our Constitution, and the unalienable rights given to us by our Creator?  

What will tip the scales in the spiritual warfare that threatens the continuance of Judeo-Christian ethics in the United States?

Let us fast and pray.

 

Excerpted from Principles For Overcoming In Spiritual Warfare available in our Bookstore.

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