Fasting
Stephan challen
The Four Gospels • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 41:30
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· 6 viewsMorning 18 August 24
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“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
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"in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “
Prayer & Fasting are often combined in scripture
“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
Fasting is not a condition that is forced upon a person
But is a voluntary abstinence from food as a religious excercise
1) Expression of humiliation, that is, sorrow for and in connection with confession of sin
Then I lay prostrate before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin that you had committed, in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger.
Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments,
2) Lamentation (often a natural basis of loss of appetite)
Bereavement
And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.
Sad News
As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.
Plague
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly;
Threatened
Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord; from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord. And Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court,
3) Important Religious Act
setting apart missionaries
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
appointment of elders
And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.
Fasting Regularity & Length
Fasting Regularity & Length
initially established for one day a year - day of atonement (Lev 23:26-32)
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Now on the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves and present a food offering to the Lord. And you shall not do any work on that very day, for it is a Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God. For whoever is not afflicted on that very day shall be cut off from his people. And whoever does any work on that very day, that person I will destroy from among his people. You shall not do any work. It is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. It shall be to you a Sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict yourselves. On the ninth day of the month beginning at evening, from evening to evening shall you keep your Sabbath.”
Normally short in length with exceptions listed
Sunrise to Sunset
Then all the people of Israel, the whole army, went up and came to Bethel and wept. They sat there before the Lord and fasted that day until evening, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord.
Seven days
And they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh and fasted seven days.
3 weeks
I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks.
Forty Days - specially sustained by God
Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain.
Day of fasting in 5th & 7th Month
saying to the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts and the prophets, “Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?” Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me: “Say to all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted?
Day of Fasting in the 4th, 7th, & 10th Month
“Thus says the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month and the fast of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. Therefore love truth and peace.
Pharisee boasted ...
I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’
Jesus discouraged Fasting as expression of Lamentation
Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”
Jesus fasted 40 days and nights in preparation for his ministry
Jesus now speaks of fasting as expression of Humiliation (atonement)
“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
Scribes and Pharasees would make themselves look forlorn
Even putting ash on their faces
Causing others to consider that they were pious and deeply sorrowful, entirely as an act
they tried to look glum to impress the fickle crowd
“Truely, I say to you, they have receive their reward”
actors seek the applause of the crowd
But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Jesus does not forbid fasting
Neither does he say they should
In certain circumstances he seems to regard fasting as entirely proper
The point Jesus stresses
when they think they ought to fast they should
by annointing their head and washing their face
making this voluntary observance as inconspicuous as possible
Giving to poor, prayer & fasting to take place “in secret” - away from the eyes of men
They should be sincere acts of devotion to God, and to him alone
Fasting is no longer a religious requirement
The day of atonement has passed
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
Otheer Considerations
Self control in eating, as with everything else
Gluttany rebuked...
One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”
A mark of the enemies of the cross...
Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.
Strive to keep physical appetites under control....
For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
Our bodies are the Holy Spirit’s temple...
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
Even the limiting of eating animal fat is not a moden medical discovery...
It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, in all your dwelling places, that you eat neither fat nor blood.”
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, You shall eat no fat, of ox or sheep or goat. The fat of an animal that dies of itself and the fat of one that is torn by beasts may be put to any other use, but on no account shall you eat it. For every person who eats of the fat of an animal of which a food offering may be made to the Lord shall be cut off from his people.
Summary: Jesus proclaims sincerity in worhip (Matt 6:1-18)
Next time: Worship also requires unlimited trust in God under all circumstances …
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