Untitled Sermon

Fasting is not approved by God, except for its end; it must be connected with something else, otherwise it is a vain thing. Men by private fastings, prepare themselves for the exercise of prayer, or they mortify their own flesh, or seek a remedy for some hidden vices.

John Calvin (French Reformer)

Jesus’ understanding of fasting is significant in that it represents a shift in the role of fasting.

Clarence B. Bass

When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting.

Jerome

Do not limit the benefit of fasting merely to abstinence from food, for a true fast means refraining from evil. Do not let your fasting lead to wrangling and strife. You do not eat meat, but you devour your brother; you abstain from wine, but not from insults. So all the labor of your fast is useless.

Ambrose of Milan

The best of all medicines are resting and fasting.

Benjamin Franklin

First, let fasting be done unto the Lord with our eye singly fixed on Him. Let our intention herein be this, and this alone, to glorify our Father which is in heaven.

John Wesley (Founder of the Methodist Movement)

There are some people who fast because they expect direct and immediate results from it. In other words they have a kind of mechanical view of fasting; they have what I have sometimes called, for lack of a better illustration, the ‘penny in the slot’ view of it. You put your penny in the slot, then you pull out the drawer, and there you have your result. That is their view of fasting. If you want certain benefits, they say, fast; if you fast you will get the results. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (2), 39

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Welsh Preacher and Writer)

Fasting is not the forfeit of evil but of good.

John Piper

Without a purpose, fasting can be a miserable, self-centred experience.

Donald S. Whitney

Fasting is to be turned into feasting and misery into joy. Old Testament Evangelistic Sermons, 259

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Welsh Preacher and Writer)

What we gain from fasting does not compensate for what we lose in anger.

John Cassian (Monk)

Since [fasting] is a holy exercise both for the humbling of men and for their confession of humility, why should we use it less than the ancients did?

John Calvin (French Reformer)

Christian fasting, at its root, is the hunger of a homesickness for God.

John Piper

Fasting is the voluntary denial of a normal function for the sake of intense spiritual activity.

Richard J. Foster; Richard Foster

Jesus began his ministry with fasting. And he triumphed over his enemy through fasting. And our salvation was accomplished through perseverance by fasting.

John Piper

The birthplace of Christian fasting is homesickness for God.

John Piper

One of the reasons for fasting is to know what is in us—just as Abraham showed what was in him. In fasting it will come out.

John Piper

There is no great excellency in watching and fasting till thy head aches, nor in running to Rome or Jerusalem with bare feet, nor in building churches and hospitals.

Walter Hilton (English Contemplative Writer)

Christ saith that when the bridegroom was taken from them, his disciples should “fast” (Mk. 2:19, 20). And even painful Paul was “in fasting often” (2 Cor. 6:5; 11:27), and, “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection” (1 Cor. 9:27). And I am sure that the ancient Christians (Acts 5:30; 14:23; Lk. 2:37), that lived in solitude, and ate many of them nothing, … did not find this cure [fasting] too dear.

Richard Baxter (Puritan Divine)

I wonder whether we have ever fasted? I wonder whether it has even occurred to us that we ought to be considering the question of fasting? The fact is, is it not, that this whole subject seems to have dropped right out of our lives, and right out of our whole Christian thinking. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (2), 34

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Welsh Preacher and Writer)

By fasting, the body learns to obey the soul; by praying, the soul learns to command the body.

William Secker

By fasting, the body learns to obey the soul; by praying the soul learns to obey the body.

William Secker

Have you any days of fasting and prayer?

John Wesley (Founder of the Methodist Movement)

In general, in the OT, fasting was abused. Instead of a sincere act of self-renunciation and submission to God, fasting became externalized as an empty ritual in which a pretense of piety was presented as a public image. Hence, the prophets cry out against the callousness of such hypocrisy. Jeremiah records Yahweh as saying, “Though they fast, I will not hear their cry” (14:12; see Is 58:1–10.)

Clarence B. Bass

ʾinna napsho meant “to oppress” or “to afflict the soul” and refers to fasting. It illustrates the fact that fasting was more of a spiritual exercise in the Bible than an attempt to punish the flesh in any way. Fasting also emphasized that the spiritual life of God’s people was more important than their physical existence.

Eugene E. Carpenter; Philip W. Comfort

The absence of fasting is the measure of our contentment with the absence of Christ.

John Piper

The newness of our fasting is this: its intensity comes not because we have never tasted the wine of Christ’s presence, but because we have tasted it so wonderfully by his Spirit, and cannot now be satisfied until the consummation of joy arrives. The new fasting, the Christian fasting, is a hunger for all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19), aroused by the aroma of Jesus’ love and by the taste of God’s goodness in the gospel of Christ (1 Peter 2:2–3).

John Piper

No, the reward we are to seek from the Father in fasting is not first or mainly the gifts of God, but God himself.

John Piper

Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works. If you see a poor man, take pity on him. If you see a friend being honored, do not envy him. Do not let only your mouth fast, but also the eye and the ear and the feet and the hands and all the members of our bodies. Let the hands fast, by being free of avarice. Let the feet fast, by ceasing to run after sin. Let the eyes fast, by disciplining them not to glare at that which is sinful. Let the ear fast, by not listening to evil talk and gossip. Let the mouth fast from foul words and unjust criticism. For what good is it if we abstain from birds and fishes, but bite and devour our brothers? May HE who came to the world to save sinners strengthen us to complete the fast with humility, have mercy on us and save us.

John Chrysostom

The honor of fasting consists not in abstinence from food, but in withdrawing from sinful practices; since he who limits his fasting only to an abstinence from meats, is one who especially disparages it. Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works! Is it said by what kind of works? If you see a poor man, take pity on him! If you see an enemy, be reconciled to him! If you see a friend gaining honor, do not envy him! If you see a handsome woman, pass her by! For do not let only the mouth fast, but also the eye, and the ear, and the feet, and the hands, and all the members of our bodies.

John Chrysostom

Prayer is reaching out after the unseen; fasting is letting go of all that is seen and temporal. Fasting helps express, deepen, confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, even ourselves to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God.

Andrew Murray

Prayer is reaching out and after the unseen; fasting, letting go of all that is seen and temporal. Fasting helps express, deepens, confirms the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, even ourselves, to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God.

Andrew Murray

Fasting expresses, rather than creates, hunger for God.

John Piper

Prayer is the one hand with which we grasp the invisible; fasting, the other, with which we let loose and cast away the visible.

Andrew Murray

Down on your knees, And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love.

William Shakespeare

What’s new about Christian fasting is that it rests on all this finished work of the Bridegroom.

John Piper

Fasting if we conceive of it truly, must not … be confined to the question of food and drink; fasting should really be made to include abstinence from anything which is legitimate in and of itself for the sake of some special spiritual purpose. There are many bodily functions which are right and normal and perfectly legitimate, but which for special peculiar reasons in certain circumstances should be controlled. That is fasting.2

John Piper

Down on your knees, And thank Heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love. Sc. 5.

William Shakespeare

He clearly instructed His followers to fast with the heart, in secret to God, and not as a show for other people (Matt. 6:16–18). When fasting, keep your focus on the Lord and His will for you.

Eugene E. Carpenter; Philip W. Comfort

Conquering the tongue is better than fasting on bread and water.

Saint John of the Cross (Carmelites)

When the sense of God diminishes, fasting disappears.

John Piper

“But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place” (vv. 17–18).

Elmer Towns

Fasting is for times of yearning and aching and longing. But the bridegroom of Israel is here. After a thousand years of dreaming and longing and hoping and waiting, he is here! The absence of fasting in the band of disciples was a witness to the presence of God in their midst.

John Piper

In every scriptural account genuine fasting is linked with prayer. You can pray without fasting, but you cannot fast biblically without praying. Fasting is an affirmation of intense prayer, a corollary of deep spiritual struggle before God.

John F. MacArthur

Fasting without prayer is starvation.

Unknown

Fasting is not a no to the goodness of food or the generosity of God in providing it. Rather, it is a way of saying, from time to time, that having more of the Giver surpasses having the gift.

John Piper

Fasting as an automatic way to get the attention of God, however, was condemned. Moreover, unless the person fasting was keeping faith with the Lord in all other areas of his or her life, that person’s fasting was in vain (Isa. 58:5–12; Jer. 4:11–12; Zech. 7:4–8)

Eugene E. Carpenter; Philip W. Comfort

The fasting practice of the early Church closely reflects that of its Jewish milieu. When Christian leaders are commissioned, fasting is the natural adjunct to fervent prayer (Acts 13:2–3 and 14:23).

John Muddiman

The motive for praying and fasting is what matters, not whether the acts are public or private.

John Piper

Jesus’ disciples will fast; but the fasting they have known is not suitable for the new reality of his presence and the inbreaking kingdom of God.

John Piper

Fasting was always supposed to be directed toward God as a means of acquiring guidance and help from Him (Exod. 34:28; Deut. 9:9; Ezra 8:21–23)

Eugene E. Carpenter; Philip W. Comfort

Christian fasting is not self-wrought discipline that tries to deserve more from God. It is a hunger for God awakened by the taste of God freely given in the gospel.

John Piper

Both fasting and praying in this narrative are considered a service unto God. The acts were directed toward God and served God’s purposes. Anna did not fast for revelation, but God gave her spiritual insight.

Romara Dean Chatham

The final answer is that God rewards fasting because fasting expresses the cry of the heart that nothing on the earth can satisfy our souls besides God. God must reward this cry because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

John Piper

If the appetite alone hath sinned, let it alone fast, and it sufficeth. But if the other members also have sinned, why should they not fast, too? Let the eye fast from strange sights and from every wantonness, so that which roamed in freedom in fault-doing may, abundantly humbled, be checked by penitence. Let the ear, blameably eager to listen, fast from tales and rumors, and from whatsoever is of idle import, and tendeth least to salvation. Let the tongue fast from slanders and murmurings, and from useless, vain, and scurrilous words, and sometimes also, in the seriousness of silence, even from things which may seem of essential import. Let the hand abstain from all toils which are not imperatively necessary. But also let the soul herself abstain from all evils and from acting out her own will. For without such abstinence the other things find no favor with the Lord.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

A ritual of abstaining from food and/or drink for a predetermined period; practiced in the Bible primarily as a means of mourning. Fasting frequently occurs in the Old Testament in response to suffering or disaster, in conjunction with other mourning rituals.

David Seal

The hunger of fasting is a hunger for God, and the test of that hunger is whether it includes a hunger for holiness.

John Piper

Jesus triumphed over the great enemy of his soul and our salvation through fasting.

John Piper

Half of Christian fasting is that our physical appetite is lost because our homesickness for God is so intense. The other half is that our homesickness for God is threatened because our physical appetites are so intense. In the first half, appetite is lost. In the second half, appetite is resisted.

John Piper