"The Hinge of History"

Who Knows

1. Joel 2:11 “For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; Who can endure it?”

After several waves of economic crisis, followed by military crisis, the prophet gives an important and sobering picture. “Let this be a statement about what is to come… the day of the Lord is great”

What comes next is the how the both the people of God in national crisis are to respond and how the generation of the great and terrible day is to respond.

Joel 2:12-13 12 “Now, therefore,” says the Lord, “Turn to Me with all your heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” 13 So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.

Turn - Repent

Center on the First Commandment

Fast- embrace voluntary weakness and restraint, confess your dependance on God, persuade yourself that the pleasures of loving God are superior, cultivate hunger for God.

weeping and mourning - The bridegroom fast, to grieve over all that is not right until He comes.

Joel 2:14 14 Who knows if He will turn and relent, And leave a blessing behind Him— A grain offering and a drink offering For the Lord your God?

“who knows?” This is the hinge of history, where God beckons His people, “the history of a city can hang in the balance of prayer and fasting!”

The corporate prescription: Joel 2:15-17 15 Blow the trumpet in Zion, Consecrate a fast, Call a sacred assembly; 16 Gather the people, Sanctify the congregation, Assemble the elders, Gather the children and nursing babes; Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber, And the bride from her dressing room. 17 Let the priests, who minister to the Lord, Weep between the porch and the altar; Let them say, “Spare Your people, O Lord, And do not give Your heritage to reproach, That the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’ ”

Blow the Trumpet- God is calling messengers who are willing to say this: “The day of the Lord is near,” “Step back from the rhythms of life to fast an pray.”

This messenger ministry is so invasive as to disrupt every member of society! The old, the young, and the newly married

Don’t just fast, call a sacred assembly: gather to pray!

In the face of crisis, the prophetic word of the hour is to shut down business as usual and gather together in times of extended prayer and fasting.

Page 41 “The Jesus Fast”

The Battle in the Air

*Brian Kim’s Story*

Daniel 9:1-3 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans—2 in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. 3 Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

Daniel was taking the word of God and praying it through for his own people.

In verses 20-27 The Lord responds to Daniel in saying “I have something much bigger than the destiny of your people in returning from Babylon, I want to talk to you about the end of your story!”

Daniel 10:1-15

From the moment Daniel begins to fasts for three weeks a war breaks out in in the heavens! An angel (presumably Gabriel) comes to bring Daniel revelation of his people’s destiny! He is withstood by a demonic prince that ruled over the region of Persia. The archangel Michael is sent to help breakthrough.

When we fast and pray, especially extended fasting, we inaugurate war in the Heavens and destinies hang in the balance!

“The Jesus Fast” page 90

Two more examples

John the Baptist

Before the most dramatic intervention of God in all of human history thus far, God raised up a fasting messenger to prepare the way!

Anna Luke 2:36-38 36 Now there was one, Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; 37 and this woman was a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. 38 And coming in that instant she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.

Anna was a prophetess and was the first evangelist in the NT

Both John and Anna are pictures as individuals of what God will do in mass before the second coming!

Simeon Luke 2:26 26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.