ARME 7: Waialua, HI - Nov 2011

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ARME Bible Camp

Martin Kim

Prayer and Fasting

I just want to really thank those of you who have been showing up extra early for the morning prayer time.

I believe there's just a special blessing for those of us who get up early, seek the Lord.

How many of you are sad that Army Bible Camp is coming to an end?

You know, Army for many is a taste of heaven.

As God outpours His Spirit upon us, we feel that heaven is very near.

The Christian life is full of mountaintop experiences followed by experiences down in the valley.

And Army Bible Camp has been a mountaintop experience.

And a lot of us will be descending from this mountaintop experience, we'll be going back home.

And there will be challenges, there will be trials, there will be temptations.

And guess who's waiting for us down in the valley?

And the enemy can't wait till we get back into our homes, into our neighborhoods.

He can't wait till we get back into our schools and into our workplaces.

And he's just waiting for us because He wants to pound us.

And sadly, some people will get slaughtered.

And I'm wondering, do you feel equipped to go back and to move forward and to do the task that God is calling you to do?

Is it possible that you could have a high experience here at Army and then go back home and be actually worse off than you were before you came here?

What is it that we can do so that we can, from this experience, we can go even higher and higher?

You know, a lot of people go to these short camp meetings or they go to Bible conferences because they're doing so low spiritually and they want to go higher.

But sadly, they do go higher only to go lower again.

And they live down in the valleys constantly.

I believe that God wants us to go higher, and He wants to take us even higher and higher, because He wants us to walk with Him.

How many of you want a deeper, more intimate, more powerful experience with God?

I believe that if you will take this message to heart and you will apply it, then you will certainly experience a more intimate, deeper, more powerful experience with God.

Dear Lord, I thank you for your great love for us.

I thank you for your promise and your word where you say, I know the plans that I have for you.

And I Know that you have a plan for each 1 of us.

You have a plan to prosper us, to give us a future and a hope.

And Lord, as I begin this message, I once again just want to ask for the mighty outpouring of your spirit.

Lord, I pray that there would be nothing in my heart that would hinder the working of your spirit in me and through me.

Encourage us, give us hope, and prepare us for the journey that we will make out of here back down into the valley.

Couple of weeks ago, I got this email from a friend.

Now I had been planning for a whole month to share another message on this morning.

I was going to talk about the importance of knowing God's will and how to be in the center of God's will because there is no better place to be on earth than to be right in the center of God's will.

For when you are in the center of God's will, you will see so many doors opening, you will see so many answers to prayers.

Someone has said that prayers are always answered on the pathway of God's will.

So I was working on that message for over a month, but 2 weeks ago, I get this email, and then I'm thinking about it, and about a week ago, I realized I need to change this message.

And I'm thinking, this is the message that I want to leave with the attendees at Army Bible Camp.

It begins with an email, and it goes like this, Hi Martin and Liana, I've been thinking about you 2 for the past few weeks now.

I've been meaning to write you, but I've been so busy.

I know you go around and preach about praying and it's so wonderful, but I wanted to ask if you also preach on fasting and praying.

Have you heard just a little bit about fasting in the past few days?

Can you think of the last time you heard about fasting in a church?

Amazingly, the Bible talks quite a bit about fasting.

A few weeks ago, I walked into my church and on the bookshelf, I read a book out of curiosity and afterwards I was so very inspired.

The book is titled Fasting by Jennison Franklin.

Jennison Franklin is a Sunday church pastor of a mega church out in Georgia with over 10, 000 members.

This book is not only inspiring but just amazing.

Pastor Franklin and his brothers, since they were 18 years old, would fast constantly before they would preach, and God opened up doors all over the world.

He fasted each year beginning January 1 through the 21st for 21 days.

He said when you dedicate the new year to God, then God blesses throughout the whole entire year.

God was blessing him so much that he started asking his church members to fast with him from January 1 through the 21st of each year.

Now how popular do you think you would be as a pastor if you encouraged your members to pray and fast with you?

Not for a day or 3 days, but we're talking for 21 days.

The amount of time Daniel spent in prayer as he was grieving over the plight of his people, which you can read about in Daniel chapter 10.

Each year this is what his church does, and God blesses the church and the members left and right.

There were so many testimonies from the book how God had blessed them with physical healing, emotional and mental healing, spiritual healing, and even stories about how God has helped people get out of serious debt.

I want you to pay very careful attention to this message.

There's a story about a single mom with a child who has leukemia.

She fasts for 21 days and wrestles with God, and after 21 days, the leukemia is gone.

This is just 1 out of many, many amazing stories.

Anyways, after I read the book, I was so inspired that I started fasting for 21 days.

Today is my 18th day of my Daniel's Fast, where you just eat fruits and vegetables.

We're not talking about just going with water, but you can have your fruits and veggies.

You should really get the book, it's such an eye opener.

My parents were amazed at how God was answering my prayers and so they also started fasting for 21 days.

But God has been pouring out his blessings upon our family.

We're not just talking about spiritual and physical blessings, but financial ones too.

And we've been praying for relatives who left God who would never have come back to Him, but just 2 days ago, 1 relative called out of the blue about this very reason.

I shared this with a few of my other friends who are all my age, we're talking about young people in their late 20s, 29, 30 years of age.

They have started fasting and God has been answering their requests which they have been praying for years.

There are certain things they've been praying for, for years, no answers and here they start praying and fasting and they're seeing these answers come through.

I wanted to share this because I really think in the last days the only way for God's Holy Spirit to be poured is if our people fast and pray.

The 2 goes hand in hand in order for the blessings to be poured into our lives.

He goes over verse after verse from the Bible, why we must fast and pray and give for us to be able to know God's will for our lives.

I just wanted to share this because I thought you may be interested in looking into it.

Thank you, and so sorry if you already knew about the book.

I happened to check my email on Sabbath morning, and I read this, and I just realized that God was calling me to take this, this spiritual discipline of fasting to a higher level.

On Sunday, my wife and I got on the phone, put her on speakerphone, and we wanted to have a chat with Esther.

I had a chance to tell her that the Lord led me providentially to this same book 11 months ago, last December.

I was at the South Bend Regional Airport with my wife.

We were heading out to Seattle, and our flight was 2 hours delayed.

Well, my wife was over where the books were in the small airport, and she was reading this book on fasting by Pastor Franklin Dennison.

I went over, I said, what are you reading?

Interestingly, this book is a New York Times bestseller.

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Prayer and Fasting

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