And when they came to the crowd, a man came to Him, falling on his knees before Him and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has epilepsy and suffers terribly; for often he falls into the fire and often into the water. And I brought him to Your disciples, and they were not able to heal him. And Jesus answered and said, O unbelieving and perverted generation! How long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me. And Jesus rebuked it, and the demon came out from him, and the boy was healed from that hour. Then the disciples, coming to Jesus privately, said, Why were we not able to cast it out? And He said to them, Because of your little faith; for truly I say to you, If you have faith like a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, Move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible to you. But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. Matt. 17:14-21
Dear saints, let us pray that the saints would see that the way to bind the strong man for the plundering of sinners out of his house is mainly by prayer and fasting (Matt. 17:14-21).
The way to bind the strong man is to pray. When we come to [Matthew] seventeen, we shall see that the disciples came to the Lord and asked Him why He could cast out the demon and they could not. In 17:21 the Lord told His disciples, “This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” If you do not pray and fast, you simply cannot cast out this kind of demon. The Lord’s word to His disciples indicates that before He cast out a demon, He surely fasted and prayed. In order to bind the strong man, we must fast and pray. The Lord fasted and prayed secretly. The disciples did not see this. We must learn of the Lord to fast in secret and to pray in secret. I believe that when the Lord Jesus was on earth, He often fasted and prayed to fight the battle and to bind the strong man. We all must be in the same spirit today. Every day our spirit must be a fasting spirit and a praying spirit so that we may daily bind the strong man, who is Satan, the king of the kingdom of darkness. (Life-study of Matthew, msg. 33, pp. 411-412, by Witness Lee)
More details via Beseeching.org, day 375.
