Sermon Tone Analysis

*LESSON TEN: MEDITATION AND FASTING*

 

We are much like the African cheetah that must run down its prey to eat.

It is well suited for the task, as it can run at speeds of 70 miles per hour.

The cheetah has only one problem, however, in that it has a disproportionately small heart, which causes it to tire quickly.

If it doesn’t catch its prey quickly, it must end the chase.

How often we have the cheetah’s approach in prayer.

We speed into our closets with great energy, we speed to the front of the church, or we speed to someone else for prayer.

But lacking the heart for a sustained effort, we often falter before we accom­plish what is needed.

For our next prayer excursion, we decide to pray harder and faster, when what is needed may not be more explosive power, but more staying power—stamina that comes only from a bigger prayer heart.

One helpful "tool" for stamina and effectiveness in both prayer and Bible study is meditation.

In this lesson, I would like to first discuss meditation, and then move to the topic of fasting and prayer.

Meditation is the missing link between Bible intake and prayer.

The two are often disjointed when they should be united.

We read the Bible, close it, and then try to shift gears into prayer.

But many times it seems as if the gears between the two won't mesh.

In fact, after some forward progress in our time in the word, shifting to prayer sometimes is like suddenly moving back into neutral or even reverse.

Instead there should be a smooth, almost unnoticeable transition between Scripture input and prayer output so that we move even closer to God in those moments.

This happens when there is the link of meditation in between.

At least two Scriptures plainly teach this by example:

 

David prayed in Psalm 5:1: "/Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my sighing/."

The Hebrew word rendered as "sighing" may also be translated "meditation."

In fact, this same word is used with that meaning in another passage, Psalm 19:14:  "/May the words of my mouth and the mediation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer/."

Notice that both verses are prayers and both refer to other "words" spoken in prayer.

Yet, in each case meditation was a catalyst that catapulted David from the truth of God into talking with God.

In 5:1 he has been meditating and now he asks the Lord to give ear to it and to consider it.

In Psalm 19, we find one of the best-known statements about Scripture written anywhere, beginning with the famous words of verse 7, "/The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul/."

This section continues through verse 11 and then David prays in verse 14 as a result of these words and his meditation.

The process works like this: After the input of a passage of Scripture, meditation allows us to take what God as said to us and think deeply on it, digest it, and then speak to God about it in meaningful prayer.

As a result, we pray about what we've encountered in the Bible, now personalized through meditation.

And not only do we have something substantial to say in prayer, and the confidence that we are praying God's thoughts to Him, but we transition smoothly into prayer with a passion for what we're praying about.

Then as we move on with our prayer, we don't jerk and lurch along because we already have some spiritual momentum.

About two hundred years after the Puritans came the man recog­nized as one of the most God-anointed men of prayer ever seen by the world, *George Muller*.

For two-thirds of the last century he operated an orphanage in Bristol, England.

Solely on prayer and faith, without advertising his need or entering into debt, he cared for as many as two thousand orphans at a single time and supported mission work through­out the world.

Millions of dollars came through his hands unsolicited, and his tens of thousands of recorded answers to prayer are legendary.

In the spring of 1841, George Muller made a discovery regarding the relationship between meditation and prayer that transformed his spiritual life.

He described his new insight this way:

 

    "Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer after having dressed in the morning.

Now, I saw that the most impor­tant thing was to give myself to the reading of God’s Word, and to meditation on it,/ /that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the Word of God, while meditating on it/, /my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord.

I began therefore to meditate/ /on the New Testament from the beginning, early in the morning.

The first thing I did,/ /after having asked in a few words of the Lord’s blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God/, /searching as it were into every verse to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word, not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul.

The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that, though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to medi­tation,/ /yet it turned almost immediately more or less to prayer.

When thus I have been for a while making confession or inter­cession or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it, but still continually keeping before me that food for my own soul is the object of my medi­tation.

The result of this is that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation,/ /and that my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened, and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart.

The difference, then, between my former practice and my present one is this: formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time.

At all events I almost invariably began with prayer. . . .

But what was the result?

I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, or even an hour on my knees before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.; and often, after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then really began to pray.

I scarcely ever suffer now in this way.

For my heart being nourished by the truth, being brought into experimental fel­lowship with God, I speak to my Father and to my Friend about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.

It often now astonishes me that I did not sooner see this point. . . .

And yet now, since God has taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything that the first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is to obtain food for his inner man.

Now what is food for the inner man?

Not prayer, but the Word of God; and here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water passes through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it and applying it to our hearts.

When we pray we speak to God.

Now prayer, in order to be continued for any length of time in any other than a formal manner, requires, generally speaking, a measure of strength or godly desire, and the season therefore when this exercise of the soul can be most effectually performed is after the inner man has been nourished by meditation on the Word of God,/ /where we find our Father speaking to us, to encourage us, to comfort us, to instruct us, to humble us, to reprove us.

We may therefore profitably meditate/ /with God’s blessing though we are ever so weak spiritually; nay, the weaker we are, the more we need meditation for the strengthening of our inner man.

Thus there is far less to be feared from wandering of mind than if we give ourselves to prayer without having had time previously for meditation.

I dwell so particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it myself, and I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my fellow believers to ponder this matter.

By the blessing of God, I ascribe to this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials, in various ways, than I have ever had before: and having now above fourteen years tried this way, I can most fully, in the fear of God, commend it."

How do we learn to pray?

How do we learn to pray like David, the Puritans, and George Muller?

We learn to pray by meditating on Scripture, for meditation is the missing link between Bible intake and prayer.

*Practical Note: "Solitude, quiet, and being set apart from the distractions of this world is vital to hearing God speak."

- Ronnie W. Floyd*

 

 

*FASTING*

* *

In a south Asian city when a missionary saw a cow about to be slaughtered in front of a mosque, he stopped his car, took a few pictures, then drove home.

But that night the Holy Spirit began to challenge him to be less of a tourist and more a missionary.

He was directed to commence praying and fasting, to return to the scene of the sacrifice and to be a witness to the greater sacrifice of Jesus.

In the steaming pre-monsoon heat of the next day, he set off with his shoulder bag full of tracts and gospels to the same place in the bazaar, where he had taken pictures the preced­ing day near the mosque.

Having sold and distributed much, as he returned home he felt well satisfied that he had done ‘his duty’.

But again the Holy Spirit impressed upon him that night to continue praying and fasting and to return to repeat the process in the same place the next day.

Night after night as the missionary continued to pray and fast, the Holy Spirit repeated his instruction.

It didn’t take long for local opposition to realize what was happening.

A somewhat angry group formed and waited for him in the bazaar and threatened to take his life.

He was dragged through the market place, doused in dye, kicked and pushed into a dirty ditch and stoned.

Twice a fanatic tried to kill him with a dagger, but was restrained by his own people.

Finally, two well trained trouble-makers were appointed to stop his witnessing.

They warned him that if he returned to the bazaar, he would not leave there alive.

On the fortieth day of this supernaturally sustained period of prayer and fasting, directed by what the Spirit was saying, he bade farewell to his wife realizing he might never see her again.

No sooner had he arrived in the bazaar than the trouble-makers showed up.

They tore his gospels and tracts to pieces and began to stir up the growing crowd which quickly gathered to watch the spectacle.

Soon there were calls to kill him.

Then just as men moved in to grab him, two unusually tall strangers appeared.

Spearing a path through the crowd which was now calling for the missionary’s blood, in one swift move they grabbed him, removed him from the crush of people and took him down a lane at the end of which was a waiting cycle rickshaw.

Amazingly, no one followed them.

Placing the missionary in the rickshaw, the unusual stranger said to him ‘It is enough for now.

Don’t come back.’

God’s messengers had saved his servant.

That night the Lord spoke to him once more saying, ‘Now you know how much I love and care for Muslims.

It is not my will that any of them should perish without hearing the message of salvation.’

With no other resources other than the practice of sustained prayer and fasting, that missionary went on to be God’s instrument to build what became one of the largest churches in that somewhat hostile environment.

When Christians combine prayer with fasting, powerful spiritual forces seem to be harnessed and then released.

Today however, at least in the western church, fasting is hardly a widespread or spiritual discipline.

In fact, there is ample evidence to suggest that the practice of the opposite, overeating, may be more widespread.

However, the  Bible has much to say on the topic of fasting.

By fasting, we mean voluntarily going without food and~/or fluids for a period of consecrated prayer.

The Bible is studded with many examples of the practice.

Moses fasted for forty days, twice (Deuteronomy 9:9-18).

Joshua fasted after defeat at Ai (Joshua 7:6).