Haman approached King Xerxes and said, “There is a certain race of people scattered through all the provinces of your empire who keep themselves separate from everyone else. Their laws are different from those of any other people, and they refuse to obey the laws of the king. So it is not in the king’s interest to let them live. If it please the king, issue a decree that they be destroyed, and I will give 10,000 large sacks of silver to the government administrators to be deposited in the royal treasury.” Haman deceptively persuaded the king to destroy the Jews. Xerxes was ignorant of the fact that his new queen, Esther, was a Jew too. Haman wasn’t privy to this information either.
Mordecai made contact with Esther and told her of Haman’s evil plan. In order to expose Haman’s evil scheme, and to reveal her secret to the king without being killed, Esther called for all of the Jews to fast. For three days they would neither eat nor drink (Esther 4:16).
Jesus said, “Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward” (Matthew 6:16). Allow me to take my liberty and say that fasting is a command and not just a suggestion. Jesus didn’t say, “If you decide to fast,” but He clearly says, “when ye fast.” I believe that fasting is a command that is just as important as His command for us to pray.
In Matthew’s gospel there is an account given about a young boy with a devil. Jesus was in the mountain with Peter, James and John being transfigured before their eyes. Yet, at the foot of the mountain the remaining disciples are trying to deal with boy and the devil, which has taken possession of his body. As Jesus approaches the situation the father cries out for help, because the disciples have been rendered powerless over this devil. They cannot seem to cure this boy of his spiritual affliction.
The disciples asked why they couldn’t successfully cast the devil out. Jesus replied, “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting” (Matt. 17:21). Like Esther and the Jews, there are some spirits that can only be overcome with prayer and fasting. It is my opinion that there are certain temptations, habits and vices that believers have little power over without the discipline of fasting operating in their life.
Esther was able to find favor with the king, thwart Haman’s evil plot, and bring victory to all of the Jews, because she knew the power of prayer and fasting.