Should Christians Fast? Part 2

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Reformed Theology (Part 3)

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Amen.
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Let's open our Bibles and remain standing for the reading of God's Word.
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We're going to be in Matthew, Chapter 6, and we're going to be looking at verses 16 to 18.
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As already has been mentioned, the subject today is fasting.
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It's a carryover from last week as we began to look at this passage in our longer study of the Sermon on the Mount.
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Verse 16 says, And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces, that their fasting may be seen by others.
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Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
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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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Father in heaven, I thank you for your Word.
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I thank you for its truth.
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I pray that as we examine now this subject even further than last week, that you would keep us from error.
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Keep me from teaching error.
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Keep us from believing error and put a hedge of protection around your people from anything that might be wrong.
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Lord, let us go forward in what is right and be willing to add to our lives those disciplines which help us to draw closer to you and grow in grace.
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Thank you for your love and mercy.
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We pray that you will bless this time in Jesus name.
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Amen.
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Last week, when we looked at the subject of fasting and beginning to answer the question of why or should Christians fast, I made a note that American Protestants are not akin to fasting ordinarily.
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It is a very under practiced discipline because modern American Protestant Christians, well, modern Americans in general, are not accustomed to sacrificing in any way, in particular, sacrificing for faith.
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So when we consider the idea of taking away meals, taking away food, taking away our very sustenance, we tend to disregard that and often times it falls into the area for some as some sort of legalism.
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Well, if you do that, you must be some hyper legalist or someone who is a fanatic.
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It's a word I've heard thrown around quite a bit.
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If you're really dedicated to doing what God has called you to do, then you're a fanatic.
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Rather than simply being a biblical Christian.
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So last week, what we did for those who were not here, and that's always the case.
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I know it's always tough coming in halfway into a message.
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I want to simply tell you the earmarks that we have hit so you'll know where we are.
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And if you feel like you need to know more about these things, I encourage you.
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We always keep our messages online.
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You may go and listen to those.
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And if you don't have an opportunity or a way to get to them online, I can make you a copy.
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But these are the things that we have seen so far.
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Number one, fasting, by definition, is the voluntary going without a food.
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That is the textbook definition.
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The Greek word simply means to not eat.
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Now, can fasting be applied to other areas? Could you fast from the Internet for a week? Well, sure.
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Could you fast from television? Sure.
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The Bible even talks about married couples fasting from intimacy so that they can devote themselves to prayer.
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Sure.
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But directly and specifically, food is in view when we talk about fasting.
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Number two, fasting is a discipline which often in Scripture and almost always accompanies spiritual burden.
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Now, I said that last week, and as I was thinking about how I wanted to start today's message, I wanted to clear something up.
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Spiritual burden does not necessarily mean spiritual or emotional sadness.
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I think we too often accompany certain words together.
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And when you think of burden, you think of sadness.
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And I was thinking of how might I illustrate to you a burden that's not a sadness? Well, recently Aaron decided he had been called by God to go into the ministry.
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So he told us he wanted to go in the ministry.
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And so we want to help him and support him in his ministerial efforts.
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And I pray with him and talk with him.
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And I am happy about that.
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But I'm also burdened for him.
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It's not a sadness.
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It's a burden because I know the life which he is embarking on and I'm living that life.
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And I know the struggles and the difficulties and the hardships.
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And I pray for him with burden, but not necessarily with sadness.
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You see, when somebody comes to me and they receive Christ and they want to be baptized, I'm burdened for that person because I know the struggle of the Christian life.
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I know the struggle of the new Christian and how hard it is when the world is telling you you've made the wrong decision.
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You've backed the wrong horse.
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You've gone after the wrong one.
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You've gone after the wrong God, as the world will tell people when they follow after Christ.
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I know that and I'm burdened for that person, but I'm certainly not sad.
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I rejoice with the angels of heaven that another one has come to repentance and faith.
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When two people come to me and they say, we want to be married, I'm burdened for them, but I'm happy, usually.
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But, you know, there's a joy in marriage, but there's burden there in your heart.
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You've got to stop and really think about the cost of what it is to join together with another person in lifelong matrimony.
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If there's ever a time to fast and pray.
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It's over our nuptials, you know, so I wanted to clear that when I say it's a spiritual burden.
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I don't necessarily mean that we're broken hearted.
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What I mean is we're pushed to prayer for this concern that is in our soul.
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The third thing I mentioned from last week is that fasting is both an Old Testament and a New Testament practice.
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It's not something that was only done in the times of Isaiah and Moses and all of those.
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It is something that was done in the early church, was continued into the ancient church, on into the medieval church and even into the more modern times.
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It was very strongly practiced among the Puritans.
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But yet today it is often left unpracticed, as I've already mentioned, because in the American church, we are often without any desire to make sacrifice.
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And that's what it is.
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It's a sacrifice of the sustaining food so as to reach out for the sustenance of God.
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So that's where we ended last week.
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That was our major points from last week.
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So we move on into this week and we're going to address unbiblical fasting.
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We're going to address the concept of unbiblical fasting because, quite honestly, that's what Jesus is addressing here.
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And my whole sermon last week was to give you an underpinning that most of us don't have so that we can go into this passage properly.
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Because if we don't even understand fasting, how can we understand Jesus when He says, when you fast, don't do this and when you fast, do this? If we don't do it, then we don't do it.
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And we need to understand it before we even continue.
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That's expository preaching to stop and deal with the subject and understand what it is that we are discussing.
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So this is where we are.
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We've reached the passage.
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And not to simply give away everything right away, I do want to share with you, I have a threefold message on what is unbiblical fasting.
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And if you want to write these out and we'll unpack them, that's fine.
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If you're not a note taker, that's fine as well.
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But here are the three things that constitute an unbiblical fast.
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They all deal with manipulation.
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Number one, an unbiblical fast is any fast which is meant to manipulate God.
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Number two, an unbiblical fast is any fast that is meant to manipulate men.
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And by that I mean people, not just men, but all people.
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And number three, an unbiblical fast is any fast that is intended to manipulate your body.
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We'll deal with that one last.
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But unbiblical fasting is what Jesus is dealing with.
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He's dealing primarily with the fact that He lives among a religious people.
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If there was ever a religious people in the history of the world, the Pharisees were them.
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They had rules for their rules.
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They had laws on their laws.
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They were highly religious.
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And if you remember the man who went to the temple to pray, remember Jesus told the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
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The Pharisee went into the temple and he said, Lord, look at me, for I tithe a tenth of everything I have.
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I fast twice a week and I give this and that and do thus and so.
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See, that was the attitude of the Pharisee.
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I am the most religiously devoted person in the universe.
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And yet Jesus said that is not what God seeks.
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So why? Is it that God doesn't want us to fast? No, because Jesus trumps that idea when He says, when you fast, He gives it as an expectation.
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Yes, this is a part of growing in grace.
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This is a part of Christian living.
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This is a part of what we do.
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But there certainly are ways to do it wrong.
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He's already said when you give to the needy, don't do it as a show.
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Don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.
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No one would say we shouldn't give just because Jesus said there's a wrong way to do it.
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He's already said when you pray, pray as this.
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Don't pray in the streets as to be a show.
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Don't pray in vain repetition as the hypocrites or the Gentiles do.
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But pray like this.
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Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name.
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He didn't say don't pray.
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He just said don't pray like that.
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So, too, when it comes to fasting, when you pray, don't do this.
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I'm sorry, when you fast, don't do this.
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But when you fast, do this.
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So let's look at the threefold reasons for an unbiblical fast.
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The first one, any fasting which is done to manipulate God is by its very definition unbiblical fasting because we do not have within ourselves any right to manipulate the Almighty.
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You might say, well, what is manipulating the Almighty? Well, what do you think that Pharisee was there doing when he was in that temple? God, look at me.
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You should be honored to have me.
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I want to share with you a passage in Acts 23.
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Turn to Acts 23 and go to verse 12.
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I'm going to read to verse 14.
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When it was day, the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul.
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There were more than 40 who made this conspiracy.
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They went to the chief priests and elders and said, we have strictly bound ourselves by an oath to taste no food till we have killed Paul.
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A few years ago, Mahatma Gandhi gave himself to multiple days of lengthy fasting on behalf of his people.
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Often that's lauded as a great thing.
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You know, here's this man who's willing to not eat on behalf of his people.
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And I'm not saying necessarily that he did anything wrong in that fast.
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But what I'm comparing it to in some ways is this, because what is happening here is we're saying we're going to manipulate the ends of things by our fasting.
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And these men, Paul's adversaries, said, I know what we'll do.
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We want to kill Paul.
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We can't kill him.
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We'll take an oath.
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Who do you make oaths to? God.
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Notice they went to the scribes and to the Pharisees to make this oath.
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So it's a religious exercise.
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I know it doesn't say specifically in the text that they made this as an oath to God, but it's implied within the text that they're going before God and saying, God, we will hold back ourselves from food.
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We will hold back ourselves from water.
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Deliver Paul into our hand.
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You think God was listening? You think God was going to honor such a fast? I mean, I mean, the natural mind would say, well, Paul is God's servant.
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So it wouldn't be right if Paul did honor that fast.
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But you think that's the attitude that so many people come to fasting with.
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If I do this, God, you must give me my desire, even if my desire is opposed to what your will is.
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That is what we call manipulative fasting, treating God as he were a vending machine and fasting is the capital that we put into the vending machine.
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It's the coinage.
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God, I want wealth.
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So I will put this coin of fasting into the slot and I will expect, I demand satisfaction because I have paid my payment.
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You know, one of the most frustrating machines in the world is the skill crane.
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Why? Because you often don't get anything for that quarter that you put in the slot.
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You might feed five dollars worth of quarters in that thing, which is like got motor oil dripped in it because it never grabs anything.
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I never do that.
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My son's great at it, but I don't do that.
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I don't like taking that chance.
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It's money.
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But the reality is that's the way people treat fasting, like a vending machine.
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And you say, Pastor, you're exaggerating.
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I did a little research.
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I do think about these things before I say them.
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And I went out and I did a little research on what modern, quote unquote, Christian teaching is saying about fasting.
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There's a very popular health and wealth teacher who encourages people to fast according to the Daniel method.
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It's called the Daniel Fast.
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If you are interested in looking up what he teaches on it, it's all over the Internet.
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Just type in Daniel Fast, Google it and thou shalt know the answer.
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But here are just a few of the nine benefits.
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The nine reasons for fasting.
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I'll read to you just a few.
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Are you in need of healing or a miracle? That's number one.
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Number two, do you need the tender touch of God in your life? Number three, is there a dream inside you that only he can make possible? What's the one word which keeps coming in to this equation? You, you, you.
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Are you, number four, in need of a fresh encounter? Whatever that means.
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It's popular.
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That's a new thing.
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A fresh encounter is all the rage.
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And there's more.
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Do you need to break the bondage of something holding you hostage? You know, all this language.
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But it comes out as if it's a, as if it's a, if it's currency that we're exchanging with God.
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It's something we're using to purchase the blessing of God.
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And there's elements of virtue in some of these.
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Is there a friend or a loved one who needs salvation? That's number eight.
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I would say that's a virtuous reason to fast.
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If I have a person who is unsaved.
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But I would never fast thinking that I could manipulate the heart of God.
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I fast on behalf of that person.
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I fast because God has commanded me to fast and pray for such matters.
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But I don't fast thinking that I'm going to change the eternal decree of God with my fasting.
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I fast in accord with God's sovereignty, not in lieu of it or in opposition to it.
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And that's the key.
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Paul Washer said this, if you're going to fast properly, you have to have a proper understanding of God's sovereignty over this world.
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If you are going to fast properly, you have to understand God.
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Some have said that David tried to manipulate God with a fast.
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If you remember when David went into Bathsheba and they had a child out of wedlock and that child became ill and was dying.
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David fasted prostrate before God as that as that baby died.
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And he didn't let food or drink touch his tongue.
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He didn't do anything.
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He laid chest to the ground and he ate and drank nothing.
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And he prayed to God.
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And somebody said, well, he's trying to manipulate.
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No, he's he's not trying to manipulate God.
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And I can prove it from the text because the baby died.
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And David arose from his fast.
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And he went and ate and the people said, what, what, why are you stopping? Shouldn't you now more than ever be broken hearted and fasting? And what was David's response? I fasted as long as the child was ill, but now I know the will of God.
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And thus I eat.
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Some man smitten with the sovereignty of God.
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To me, when we fast with a proper view to God's sovereignty, we will never fast to manipulate him.
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We will never fast with the idea that our will should trump his will or our desire should override his desires or that our viewpoint should supersede his.
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But every act of fasting is an act of submission to the sovereign will of God.
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And so I fast in the same way when I pray, I pray nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.
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I've told this story before, but most and some of you heard it, some of you haven't.
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Years ago, I was praying next to the bedside of a man.
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I prayed, God, would you please heal this man? And then at the end of the prayer, I said, but not my will, Father, but thine be done.
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We prayed.
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We ended and then we left.
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And as we were leaving, the man who was with me, we got to the car, we sat down in the car and he couldn't contain himself any longer.
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He wasn't going to say anything while we're in the hospital room.
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But when we got to the car and we were sitting down, he said, why would you pray like that? I said, what do you mean? Because I know what he meant.
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He said, why would you say nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done? God's will is to heal that man.
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I looked him dead in the face.
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I said, you don't know that.
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And if you want to bring me a Bible verse where Jesus told a man whose son was sick, it's my will to heal him and apply it to every person who's ever been sick, who's a Christian.
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I will tell you that you have faulty theology because we all will die one day.
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And it is not always God's will to heal.
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And if you bring me that nonsense, I will tell you you are wrong.
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We will not agree to disagree because that is wrong.
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Just is sometimes we're just wrong.
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So we don't manipulate God.
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We seek God, we teach God, we petition God, but we in everything say, God, you know more than I do and your will is stronger than my will and your will is perfect.
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And thus I submit and fasting is not manipulation, fasting is submission and ought to be done with a submissive heart.
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All right, let's I could say more, but I think I have expressed myself enough.
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Let's move on to men, as we say, we don't fast and manipulate God because it's a fool's errand.
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Number two, we don't fast and manipulate people or men.
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What I mean by that, well, you go back to Matthew six, you look at the text, it says, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.
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For they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.
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I did a little study of the original language here.
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Scrupera is the word for sad or sullen, sullen, sad face.
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They make their face look sad.
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But the next word is the word I thought was very cool.
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This word that he uses for disfigure.
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What is it in the NAS? I didn't look that up.
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Is it disfigure? Huh? OK.
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OK, that word is actually a play on words because the word in the Greek actually means to make invisible or to make unseen.
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Literally what what Jesus is saying here, in essence, is they they make themselves unseen so as to be seen.
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Because what they would do is they would take the ashes.
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And they would cover their face with these ashes so as to disfigure their face and hide their face.
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But why are they doing it so that people will see it, they they make themselves unseen so as to be seen.
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And they disfigure so as to be a figure and they do this to show themselves unto men.
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And what's not in the text, but is learned from history, is they also would fast on market day, they would go on the day where everyone was coming to market.
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There were two days in the Hebrew week, the Jewish week where they would come together and they would bring together.
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They have Wal-Mart.
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You can go at midnight and buy a ham.
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They didn't have that two days a week.
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And if you missed it, you better come around the next one because you don't want to miss twice.
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Two market days.
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And so what days do you think the Pharisees fasted? Market day.
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I'm going to fast on the day that when I put that ash on my face and I look like I haven't eaten in months and I come just dragging myself through the city, people will say that's a religious man.
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Look at his religion and that's what they wanted people to say.
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That's what they wanted people to see.
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And you know what Jesus does with that? Jesus paints a picture wherein believers would be going about their days of fasting and no one would ever know.
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In fact, in the early church, the didache, I mentioned this last week in the didache, it was forbidden in the early church to fast on market day because it wasn't a show.
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Don't do it this day.
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Now, that's not biblical, but it was part of the early church discipline.
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Don't do it on this day because that's the you're showing off.
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Choose other days to fast.
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Jesus tells us in the text, he says, anoint your head.
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The Jews of the day and the people that region would use oil because it was such a dry climate and they would use oil to keep themselves hydrated and nourished in their body to look nice.
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And these oils often had fragrances in them because they didn't have swab antiperspirant back then.
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They didn't have, you know, they didn't have any type of deodorant at all.
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So these oils would also provide a pleasant scent to people who didn't bathe daily.
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Thank heavens that was a nice little addition for them.
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He said, do that in today's term, take a bath, wear the same clothes you'd wear every day.
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Don't come in your fasting attire, but don't even be seen at all as any different than you would be on any other day, because if you do, you are trying to manipulate people.
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You're trying to get someone to say, look at you.
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Oh, how I wish I were as good as you.
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And that's not the reason for fast.
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Thirdly, fasting should not be done to manipulate the body.
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Now, I want to stress something.
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I'm not saying we should not watch our diets and that we should not exercise and take care of ourselves.
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Of course, we should.
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And of course, we should look at that as the scripture says, bodies being a temple and treat it properly.
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But.
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Fasting, especially back in the 70s, 80s, 90s, there was like all kinds of books that came out about fasting as a way of losing weight in a diet plan, and can it be beneficial physically? Yeah, if you don't feed the fire, it's going to go out.
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If you don't feed yourself, eventually it's going to start eating itself and eventually you'll lose some weight.
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I mean, yeah.
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There are some physical benefits to fasting.
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I did a little study this week and basically here's what happens.
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First couple of days you fast, you get rid of all the all the all the trash in your system.
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You basically sort of detox.
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And the first couple of days you feel really bad.
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Third day you feel terrible, according to the gurus that do this, that know all about it.
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Third day is horrible.
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Fourth day you feel great because your body starts to feed on its own fat and it begins to generate energy again.
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And you start between the fourth and seventh day you feel good.
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And after about seven days, your body gets used to eating itself.
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I mean, that's what's happening.
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It's feeding on its own stores of fat.
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And once you run out of stores of fat, you'll get you'll you'll begin to die from lack of nourishment and you can't fast forever because you call that starvation.
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But, you know, in Scripture, we see that we see three day fasts, we see one day fast, we see 40 day fast.
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And let me recommend this to you.
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If you in fact, I am encouraging us all to fast and in a moment I'm going to really press this point, but if you see in this message yourself a need to do this, because I believe we all should.
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Don't start with a 40 day fast.
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I'm in some of you don't you don't have physical health that you can fast totally.
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You may need to simply just remove certain things from your diet as a sacrifice, but you can't eat nothing.
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But don't start with a 40 day fast.
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Ask God for the strength, take away a meal, take away a second meal.
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You know, you know how it was fasting was in the old time, it was fasting from sundown to sundown.
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So the days began like tonight when the sun goes down, you stop eating and tomorrow when the sun goes down, you eat again.
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So that was the 24 hour fast.
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It wasn't that you would go a whole day and into the night without eating.
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It was that you went a whole night and into the day without eating so that at the end of the day, when the sun went down, you could eat again because it's very difficult physically to do these things.
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So we need to understand if we're going to practice this, there's ways to do it and ways to do it in a healthy way so as not to damage ourselves physically.
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Now, I went a little off topic there, but you understand I don't want anybody to just run out and say, well, I'm proclaiming a 40 day fast and then after two days, I can't do it.
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And then you just feel like a total spiritual failure.
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It's not the goal here.
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But the point of the fasting, manipulate the body, don't don't fast because it might make your waistline a little smaller.
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I mean, at least don't call it a biblical fast, if that's what you're doing.
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Because if we're fasting to manipulate God, if we're fasting to manipulate men, if we're fasting to manipulate our waistline, we're not fasting with a biblical eye towards fasting.
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We're fasting with some type of personal benefit, and the goal of fasting may have a benefit.
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In fact, it does.
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Jesus said you will have your reward from the father, but the goal is always to glorify God.
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That is the highest and greatest reward.
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What is the chief end of man, according to the catechism? What is the chief end of man to glorify God and enjoy him forever? That's our goal.
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And it's that goal even in fasting.
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So the question is, should Christians fast? Well, I want to answer that with a simple question to you.
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Should Christians give? I hope you would all say yes.
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Should Christians pray? Yeah.
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Well, if we follow Jesus's reasoning, he said, when you give, give like this, when you pray, pray like this, when you fast, fast like this.
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If we follow Jesus's reasoning, the same unction that should cause you to give, the same unction that should cause you to pray is the unction that should cause you to want to fast.
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In fact, fasting is not a matter of have to, because if somebody comes to me after church and you say to me today, Pastor, do we have to fast? I will say it's not a matter of have to.
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And it's not even a matter of want to.
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It's a matter of need to.
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John Piper said this, if there's anything that signifies seriousness, it is when you want something so badly that you will stop eating in pursuit of it or when the absence of something in your life or in the church or in the world grieves you so badly that you give up eating to express your humiliation and your longing to see it come.
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That when we are on our knees before God, because we have a burden for the church or for an individual or for our family or for something in our lives.
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And again, it's not a coin in a slot.
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It's not automatically, you know, you don't fast a day and say, well, God, it didn't happen.
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So my fasting was obviously unfruitful.
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No, it teaches us, it leads us.
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And it grows us in a couple of months, in a couple of months, we are going to be doing something we do every year as a church.
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We come together and we affirm a budget.
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And we affirm leadership in the church.
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Have we ever stopped and said, you know what, these are things that are worth burdening ourselves over.
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These are things that are worth stopping the normal day today.
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And giving ourselves to fasting and prayer, you know, the two greatest ministries in the Bible.
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We're started with fasting.
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Jesus Christ went into the wilderness for 40 days and he did not eat a thing so as to prepare himself for fasting or prepare himself for ministry.
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And the Apostle Paul, when he was struck down from his animal on the road to Damascus and he was taken to the house there in Damascus, he sat for three days and had nothing to eat or to drink as he considered the burden of what had just been displayed to him in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the two greatest ministries in Scripture.
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And you could add the third, Moses fasted, neither drink nor eat for 40 days because he was sustained by God on the mountain.
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Fasting goes before powerful ministry.
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Do we care about our ministry here? Do we want to see God's work done here? Are we willing to give ourselves to fasting and prayer? Let's pray.
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Father, thank you.
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Thank you for your word.
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Thank you for the ministry of the gospel that you've given to this church.
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And thank you for the leadership.
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And we do, Father, we pray that in the weeks and the months to come that we will have times wherein we not as a show unto men, but as a demonstration of our fidelity to you would step away from the table of feasting, would step away from our food and we would step into our closets and we would get down on our knees and that we would beseech you on behalf of our church, that we would beseech you on behalf of our ill, that we would beseech you on behalf of our newly saved, that we would beseech you on behalf of our leaders, that we would beseech you on behalf of our nation.
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Father, as Paul Washer has said, there are so many reasons to fast.
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We don't have to look very hard.
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Give us, O God, a desire that leads to a burden, which leads to your glory and our submission to you.
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In Jesus' name we pray and for his sake, Amen.