Fasting

INTRO

1 Tim 4:7-8 Train ourselves to become godly

Review

Consider the discipline of fasting

DISCUSSION

Fasting explained

Food is a gift of God (1 Tim 4:3-5)

Fasting is...

seeking comfort in God not food--

Spiritual matters take precedence; physical sustenance fades into the background (Ps 69:10; 102:4)

Finds sustenance in God beyond food (Jn 4:32-34)

Types of fasts

Typical fast—no food but water, perhaps fruit juices (Lk 4:2; Mt 4:2)

Partial fast—limited amounts of food (Dan 1:12; Mt 3:4)

Absolute fast—no food or water (Ez 10:6; Est 4:16; Acts 9:9)

Miraculous fast—Moses (Dt 9:9); Elijah (1 Kin 19:8)

Private fast (Mt 6:16-18)

Congregational fast (Joel 2:15-16; Acts 13:2)

National fasts—Jehoshaphat (2 Chron 20:3; Neh 9:1; Lincoln declared a national fast in 1863)

Other kinds of fasts—(1 Cor 7:5)

Fasting expected

Commanded in the OT—on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:29-31)

Jews added some fasts (Zech 8:19)

Fourth month—remember the end of the Davidic kings—Zedekiah fled Jerusalem in the 4th month

Fifth month—Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of the temple (2 Kin 25:8)

Seventh month—the assassination of Gedaliah (Jer 41)

Tenth month—the beginning of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem

25 examples of fasting in the OT (All the Fasts in the Bible logosres:fballfasts;art=toc)

7 examples of fasting in the NT

Not commanded

Jesus’ expectations (Mt 6:16-17; Mt 9:14-16)

Paul’s example (2 Cor 11:27; 1 Cor 11:1)

Fasting Examined—reasons for fasting

To strengthen prayer (Ez 8:21-23; Dan 9:3)

To seek God’s guidance (Judg 20:26-28; Acts 14:23)

To express grief

over death (1 Sam 31:11-12)

over sins of others (1 Sam 20:34)

To seek deliverance

Esther before the king (Est 4:16)

To express repentance (Joel 2:12)

1 Samuel 7:4–6 KJV 1900

Then the children of Israel did put away Baalim and Ashtaroth, and served the Lord only. And Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mizpeh, and I will pray for you unto the Lord. And they gathered together to Mizpeh, and drew water, and poured it out before the Lord, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against the Lord. And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpeh.

Jon 3:5-8 Nineveh’s fasting

Lincoln’s Proclamation in March 1863—one of 9 days he declared as days of fasting

A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer Abraham Lincoln

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishment and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting, and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain on that day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the divine teachings that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and restoration of our now divided and suffering country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

To humble oneself

Physical way to express humility

Ahab’s repentance (1 Kin 21:27-29)

David (Ps 35:13)

To express concern for the work of God

state of Jerusalem Neh 1:3-4

Mission work (Acts 13:1-3)

to minister to the needs of others (Is 58:6-8)

to overcome temptation

Mt 4:1-4 prepares the heart for struggling against sin

The self control required to abstain from food strengthens one’s resolve in other areas

Willard: “Persons well used to fasting as a systematic practice will have a clear and constant sense of their resources in God. And that will help them endure deprivations of all kinds, even to the point of coping with them easily and cheerfully…Fasting teaches temperance or self-control and therefore teaches moderation and restraint with regard to all our fundamental drives. Since food has the pervasive place it does in our lives, the effects of fasting will be diffused throughout our personality (Willard, Spirit of the Disciplines, 167).

To express love to God

Anna expressed love by regular prayer and fasting (Lk 2:37)

“Fasting must always have a spiritual purpose—a God-centered purpose, not a self-centered one—for the Lord to bless our fast. Thoughts of food must prompt thoughts for God. They must not distract us, but instead remind us of our purpose. Rather than focusing the mind on food, we should use the desire to eat as a reminder to pray and to reconsider our purpose.” Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1991), 176–177.

EXHORTATION

As we think about food, do we desire food more than we desire God?

Job 23:12 “Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.”

Do we desire bread more than the Bread of Life?