Roaring Twenties FastChikamu

Atomic Power 

"And He told them, "This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting." (Mark 9:29)

Before social media, a global fasting movement was launched by Franklin Hall’s book, Atomic Power with God Through Fasting and Prayer. Lou Engle and I briefly recount the story in our book, The Jesus Fast, excerpted below:

“In 1946, a group of saints came together in San Diego from various denominations to hear the teachings of Jesus Christ’s gospel concerning prayer and fasting. Many of these Christians entered into consecration fasts…some of these fasts were from 21 to more than 60 days of continuous duration without food. They were burdened to see the Lord move in a special, spiritual way. These and many others wanted to see a worldwide revival for salvation and healing of mankind…The amazing results as these scores of Christians united in fasting and praying was stupendous.”

Note the date: 1946. A few months earlier, on August 6, 1945, the United States had employed a new weapon, a power of spectacular proportion never before seen in human history: the atomic bomb. Codenamed “Fat Man” and “Little Boy,” the bombs had leveled the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My point is not to argue the merits of nuclear power in military applications, or to minimize the suffering of those affected. It is simply this: Franklin Hall rightly perceived that a new metaphor had been found to describe the spiritual reality of fasting. As a matter of practice, fasting was hardly new in 1946. But combined with prayer on a massive corporate scale, this type of extended fasting has been extremely rare in church history.

Yet from those humble beginnings in San Diego, many across Los Angeles and southern California began to fast together. God breathed on the message. Suddenly, like wildfire, the call to extended fasting had spread into the American midwest, then north into Canada—all in the days before modern communications and social media. As the saints in San Diego had prayed, the Lord did move in what Hall called a “special, spiritual way.” Book orders came from around the world as small groups of believers in many different nations took up the call to fast and pray. Thousands of reports began to pour in.

The explosive quality of this relatively small movement disproportionately shook the earth, but this is the power of fasting! It is a far larger, spiritual reality that merely skipping food and praying. It is a weapon of divine proportions, sadly underutilized in the arsenal of the church.” 

Prayer: 

Lord, release your power upon the earth through united prayer and fasting. 

-Dean Briggs