Prayer & Fasting 1/28/09 _ Pastor Nora Joel 1:14-17 - Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the LORD your God and cry out to the LORD. Alas for that day! For the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty. Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes? joy and gladness from the house of our God? The seeds are shriveled beneath the clods. The storehouses are in ruins the granaries have been broken down for the grain has dried up. ? Can refer to the depth of the Word & Joy ? Prayerfulness is the key to this day & hour that we now live in. ? This passage also refers to a lack of finances ? The church needs to discover the Word and it?s power. God?s solution to the above: Joel 2:1 - Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble for the day of the LORD is coming. it is close at hand- Joel 2:12 - "Even now" declares the LORD "return to me with all your heart with fasting and weeping and mourning." Joel 2:17 - Let the priests who minister before the LORD weep between the temple porch and the altar. Let them say "Spare your people O LORD. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples 'Where is their God?' " ? Ministerial responsibility is to call for fasting & prayer. There are benefits to turning to the Lord and fasting can accelerate the process. Joel 2:25-29 - "I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten? the great locust and the young locust the other locusts and the locust swarm?my great army that I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat until you are full and you will praise the name of the LORD your God who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed. Then you will know that I am in Israel that I am the LORD your God and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed. "And afterward I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy your old men will dream dreams your young men will see visions. Even on my servants both men and women I will pour out my Spirit in those days. Ephesians 3:20 - Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us Isaiah 58:6 - "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?