Prayer and Fasting: Keys to Set The Captives Free (part 2) by John Abiola

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 Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?

But thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children…. And all flesh shall know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob”.(Isaiah 49:24-26).

 “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting”.(Mathew 17:21). 

Examples of benefits of prayer and fasting in the Bible.

 Judges in the book of  Judges chapter 20 After Israelites’  failure in using physical force to secure justice came to the house of God and wept and their nation was delivered from evil, lawlessness, and gross darkness. God purged, cleansed the land from awful sin, and gave them victory when they fasted and prayed.

 Jehoshaphat and children of Israelites in Chronicles chapter 20 fasted and prayed and God delivered them and their land from their enemies.

Elijah in 1kings 19 and 11 kings 21

Fasted and prayed and one of the remarkable revivals in history broke out as the Israelites confessed their sins and turned from Baal worshiping to the true God. Elijah’s life was also revolutionized through fasting and prayer.

 In Jonah chapters 2 and 3, Jonah was saved, delivered, and restored through fasting and prayer. The heathen nation of Nineveh fasted and prayed and repented. And a great revival broke out and Ninevites were saved from God’s wrath and judgment.

 In Esther chapter 4, a great prayer movement broke out among the Jews and they were saved and delivered from extermination through Esther’s fasting and prayer programme.

 In Nehemiah chapters 1-13, Nehemiah fasted, prayed, and repented of national sin. Israelites confessed their sins and rebuilt the wall of their nation.  In Ezra chapter 9. Ezra fasting. Weeping, Repentance, and prayer led to a national Repentance and Revival.

 In Daniel chapter 9. Daniel’s fasting, prayer, and confession of his sin, the nation’s sin led to the deliverance and restoration of the Israelites to their land after 70 years of captivity in Babylon.

 In Luke 2:37, prophetess Anna was over eighty years and lived a life of fasting and prayer day and night waiting for the coming of Jesus Christ for the redemption of humanity.

In Acts 10:1-2.

Closed doors for the gospel was opened to the gentiles through fasting and prayer

In Acts 13:2. Through prayer and fasting the first missionaries were commissioned by the Holy Spirit .

How prayer and fasting saved  Felix Dinmah

Dinmah got saved and was rejoicing having left his dubious past behind. But right in the church where he wanted to marry, he got involved with a sister whose mother turned out to be a  witch.

Below is an account of his experience.

“I thank God for His saving power in this end-time. I was involved in a dubious business, popularly known as 419 before I met Christ. On this day I was going to collect my own share of a deal worth millions of naira. That day a man witnessed to me and gave me a tract and was gone. That was it.

From that moment the urgency to break free from my past was uppermost in my life. I never cared to go and collect the dubious money again. I knew my life has been transformed, but I needed a place to worship and experience my newfound faith and joy.

In 1998, I began to worship in a large church in Lagos. In order to express my gratitude to God for saving me, I joined the church workforce. Later I realized I was lonely and therefore needed a wife.I was however not spiritually experienced. I thought marriage could still be contracted using worldly criteria. I approached a “sister” for marriage which she agreed.

Our courtship started and she became my song day in and day out. I thought I was in love with her, and so everybody who knew us thought. But before I  could discover what was actually going on mind had been eroded. I came under her mother’s spell body, soul and spirit. Some ministers call it charismatic witchcraft.

 I lived in a three-bedroom flat at the Oko- Oba area in  Agege, Lagos. I have a Mercedes 230, a V boot, and a truck.

 But every day, I spend my time in the home of my mother-in-law. Throughout the period of our so-called courtship lasted, I was wearing only a flown gown and bathroom slippers, even to church. My relations and my friends would complain but I would not hear. Instead, I would go and relate all to my wife and my mother-in-law. Soon, my relations and my friends left me to my fate.

 Since I spend my waking time in the home of my mother-in-law, she made me undertake all sorts of errands in the house. I became a SLAVE to the entire family. All my properties including my cars and the  truck  were with her. I was already mad except I was still only wearing the only cloth “allowed”. The brethren in my church spoke to me and got tired. I would not hear.

My mother-in-law had collected all the original receipts of my properties including the receipts of my four-bedroom apartment.

 Each time my truck comes from a trip, she would collect the money and give me only a token of money just for my transport to Oko-Oba and back to their house. My money was used to buy all the furniture in their house; also, in the training of their children in school, and rent a flat apartment for her sons.

Meanwhile, the sister I was supposed to marry was not allowed to see me. I can’t remember when  I saw her last yet she was only the star in my apartment. Her mother would never allow any form of contact with her daughter– I mean sitting down to discuss our marriage.

 My stock in trade anywhere I could find a listening ear was ” I want to marry, my wife” etc, but the wife I could not see. I started to talk uncontrollably. I became mad. Madness in the literal sense of the world. I had more than 200 pairs of cloth in my wardrobe but I would only wear only one day and night. I was however still a worker in the church. It was on my way from the church one day that I met brother Abiola. Actually, he called me and asked what I was doing which I responded and went to him to discuss my upcoming marriage with the hope of asking him to pray for me.

 That was all I knew. In fact, the mother-in-law had taken me to a  Christian camp at Lagos- Ibadan Expressway for prayers supposed to be for the success of our marriage. When brother Abiola showed me his house and asked me to see him the next day I went, since marriage was always in mind, and the only thing I know,  though my outward appearance contrasts as an intending couple, I went to him as scheduled.

 We started prayers suddenly he began to rebuke the spirit of insanity. He continued rebuking the spirit persistently, and after a while, momentary sanity assailed me. I became more conscious of myself and my surrounding.

 I came back to my senses and it was then I knew that I had been under bondage all along. He suggested that I fast and pray for three days which we did before I was completely delivered.

 Today, I  give God the glory,  I am doing fine in the Lord, and my business is doing well. Though they tried to bring me under their subjection again, but the power of the Lord  Jesus has always been my shield. For over seven month it was a serious battle between light and darkness. The Lord has been with me. I have retrieved all my properties and am about to get married to a spirit-filled sister. Moreover, I am now a pastor in my state, Delta State.

 

The power of fasting and prayer. By Ja In Lee

 I was so wonderfully blessed of God through fasting and prayer that I cannot help but share my experience with you. I had joined a mutual loan club with some other ladies.  This proved to be a bad investment and I lost all of my property including our house. In addition to that I incurred a debt of $20,000. Finally our entire family had to move into a small room which we rented for only $10.00 a month.

My husband began to stay out until around midnight drinking heavily and playing poker with his friends, and I rarely saw him. I could find no way out of the suffering, failure, and self-condemnation.

I tried to commit suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping tablets, but I failed in that. One day, on my way to a dance hall, I met a friend of mine. She asked me where I was going, and I told her I was going to the dance hall to try to forget everything.

She asked me If I would go with her to a place that was better than any of those places of entertainment so I consented and she took me to the Full Gospel Central Church.

That night the sermon was just for me from beginning to end. The pastor preached for me to surrender all my burdens to Christ and to accept the peace that comes from Him.

 I poured out my heart to Jesus and confessed my sins to Him. I searched my heart and repented of every sin and accepted Jesus as my Saviour. I remembered the marriage ceremony when my husband and I were joined in matrimony by a pastor. However, from the time of my wedding, I continued in a life of sin. But as I repented that day, I was given peace and rest from above.

 My husband continued living an ungodly life. I thought to myself, “When I lead him to Jesus Christ, our family can have a happy home.” With this thought, I determined to fast and pray for my husband.

Shortly after this, my husband had to leave on business for a week. After he left I went to the Full Gospel Prayer Mountain without his knowledge and fasted and prayed.

 At the end of the week, I hurried home in order to be there when he arrived, but he was already at home. He accused me of not caring for the house while he was away and said that I was responsible for the collapse of our home.

 I shared my experience of the past few days with him and told him of the joy, new hope, and real peace God had given me since I accepted Christ as my Saviour. I told him I was fasting and praying for him to receive Jesus Christ as his Saviour also, emphasizing that only through Christ could new hope and joy be found.

 He listened quietly for a while and then said he would like to go to church with me. Hallelujah! God had answered my prayers. My husband became a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. He quit smoking, drinking, and gambling, and we are worshipping in church every Sunday and Wednesday without fail.

 From time to time I have fasted for five days or a week, and God has blessed us. God gave me a precious son to go with our two daughters and miraculously cleared our debt. Before we met Christ, we had only false happiness but now we have true joy that only comes from Christ. There is no doubt that the power of fasting and prayer has opened the door of God’s blessings to us.

Hallelujah! We praise and thank Him for what He has done.

How Fasting and Prayer Saved a Marriage By Raluca Ril

 The testimony started when I received a personal e-mail from a stranger. I will call her Laura to protect her privacy. Her e-mail was essentially a desperate plea for help.

 “I need someone to pray for me and advise me on how to fast and pray. Please pray for me. Our marriage has serious problems, which is leaving me emotionally broken. And because of that, I am struggling spiritually. I feel I am going deeper and deeper into things, which are not good. I can’t pray, I can’t read the Bible no matter how much I want to (I know it sounds crazy!). I don’t know who I am anymore, and my life is falling apart.”

 I wrote Laura back, promising that I would be praying for her. I also sent her some of my resources on fasting and prayer. After that, I didn’t hear from her, so I wasn’t sure what happened.

 A month or so went by, then she e-mailed again. I had no idea what to expect as I opened the message. Would she be asking for more prayer? Did she have more issues she needed to tell me about?

Her e-mail flooded my heart with joy as I once again saw that we serve an amazing God who hears and answers prayer.

The following are excerpts from her e-mail, which she has given permission to publish anonymously:

Dear Raluca,

For six years my husband and I have been struggling with many issues in our marriage. We tried getting counseling from our pastor. It didn’t work. We went for marital counseling. It didn’t work. Marriage seminars didn’t work. Nothing was working.

 From the outside, our marriage looked perfect. People would tell us how wonderful we are. But inside we both knew that we were not connected. Our love had faded away, and this problem affected me seriously. Knowing that I was not loved by my husband made me feel empty, sad, very confused, and very lost, to the point where I could not pray.

 The more I was not praying, the more horrible I felt! I was becoming more and more depressed!

 To give you some background, my husband is more spiritual than me. He has been my spiritual mentor since we met. Many things I know about God are from him. When I told him about your blog on 100 Days of Prayer regarding prayer and fasting for 21 days he was very skeptical. He gave me all the reasons why I should not do it. But I was not convinced. I knew for sure I needed to do it right away, even if it meant I would do it alone.

 It was a Sunday early in the morning when I told my husband to pray for me because I was going to start the 21 days of prayer and fasting. Guess what? Without any hesitation, he told me, “I am doing it with you!”

 That was my first miracle! You see, before we got married we used to pray together, but after our wedding, everything faded away. One would hardly see us praying together. Now my husband and I were going to do 21 days of prayer and fasting together! It was like a dream come true for me!

 And so we began. During the 21 days of prayer, my greatest request was “Lord change my life, I want to fall in love with Jesus again.” I knew very well if I don’t have the love of Jesus in my heart, the love of my husband that I was looking for could never fill my heart.

Read the first part of this article, follow this like: https://churchtimesnigeria.net/prayer-fasting-captives/

The Bible says in Psalm 38: 4, “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.”

Dear Raluca, God is so good and so merciful, His love endures forever. I can testify to it. God has healed my marriage and brought peace and happiness into our marriage again. My husband is crazy in love with me more than you can imagine. But the greatest miracle God did is the work He did in my spiritual life. I fell in love with the Word of God again, and I love being in His presence. If I wrote everything that has happened, it would take forever. Just know that I am not the same woman who wrote you that first message a little over a month ago! Jesus came to my heart and this time He has come to stay.

Much love, Laura

 

Of course, I don’t take any credit for what God has done for Laura and her husband. But as we share our testimonies, God can use this to help others. And that’s one reason why I’m sharing Laura’s testimony. Her story is evidence of what the Holy Spirit can do in the heart of a couple that is truly seeking the help that only God can give. Yes, prayer works, and fasting and prayer could save your marriage.

 Raluca Ril and her husband, Roman, have co-authored several years of the 10 Days of Prayer materials for the world church. Both are active in ministry, and they currently live in Germany.

 

John Abiola

Revive Us Again series 68.

prophetjohnabiola97@g.mail.com.