Know Your Enemy: Remedies Against the Flesh—How to & How Not To Fast (1) | Matthew 15:11-20

ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

begin. I want to start out by also saying

00:07

Happy Reformation Month. All right, so as some of y 'all might know,

00:14

October 31st in 1517 was the year when

00:19

Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door of Wittenberg, and that was essentially one of the major catalysts that catapulted the

00:32

Reformation, the Protestant Reformation, into the public arena, the public sphere in the church.

00:38

And so I love studying the Reformation. It's one of my favorite subjects, and I think as a church it's extremely important to understand the significance of the

00:49

Reformation, of church history in general, but the Reformation in particular as well.

00:54

And so I want to encourage everybody to study the Reformation this month.

01:00

There's lots of good resources out there that we can recommend to you all for getting familiar with what happened and why, and why it's important.

01:10

And the two main principles of the Reformation are called the material principle and the formal principle, right?

01:17

The material principle was how do we get right with God, and that is by faith alone. We are justified before God by faith alone.

01:27

And the formal principle was on what grounds do we have the authority to say these things?

01:33

Where does truth come from? And that of course was the Bible alone, not traditions of men, not priests and prelates and popes and cardinals, but the

01:44

Bible, the Word of God alone is the final authority. And so that's what we celebrate among other things in the

01:51

Reformation, and we don't sugarcoat the bad stuff either because there was bad stuff as well. And at the same time, we want to shun and expose the evils of Halloween, right?

02:02

Because we understand that Halloween is a vile, wicked, pagan, superstitious holiday that has nothing to do with Christ and His Word, okay?

02:11

So we want to uphold what is good and shun what is evil. And so now that being said,

02:21

I want to do a brief recap of where I've taken us so far on the subject of fasting.

02:28

And we understand that the Old Testament fasting was done both publicly and privately, ceremonially, for supplication, meaning crying out to God for help, self -denial, affliction, and humiliation, right?

02:49

And in times of danger, calamity, war, persecution, sickness, affliction, mourning, and distress.

03:00

So those are the various different types of reasons that the old fasting was done under the Old Testament, the

03:06

Old Covenant. Now, as I also mentioned last week, most of the

03:14

Old Testament occasions for fasting are still good for us to consider and apply today.

03:21

So if you feel like you want to mourn for the death of a loved one, fasting is perfectly appropriate to do those things, things like that.

03:34

With the exception, though, of the national ceremonial fasts that Israel would do, that were instituted for the forgiveness of sins, like the

03:44

Day of Atonement, and for commemorating Israel's calamities. Okay, so we don't celebrate those fasts as a church anymore, as God's people, but many of those other reasons are still good to consider in our walk and the circumstance as well.

04:04

And on the previous Lord's Day, I also preached about fasting now in Christ.

04:10

We are no longer under the the law of the Old Covenant, we are now fasting in Christ, in the

04:16

New Covenant. He is our new head for those of us who believe in Him and trust in Him for the salvation of our souls.

04:26

And this was, I was primarily gleaning from the New Testament and from the way and words of our very

04:35

Master Himself, the Master Himself, Jesus Christ, and provided some reasons for fasting under the

04:42

New Covenant, which include the following. To resist sin and temptation, very important.

04:49

To resist and fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Also, to do it corporately, or together as a church, in service to God and for the ordination of church officers and missionaries, right?

05:04

The other reason was self -denial and humbling ourselves.

05:11

The other is to seek God's direction, to deny the flesh, to more willingly and easily obey the

05:18

Spirit. I really like that phrase from the Second Helvetic, that Reformed Swiss Confession that came out of the

05:25

Reformation, incidentally. Also, to intercede for ourselves and for others as well, and for healing, okay?

05:38

Physical healing and deliverance from demonic oppression, like we saw with Jesus healing the possessed boy who had seizures and such things like that.

05:53

So today, therefore, I now want us to focus on how we, as God's people, should and should not fast, okay?

06:05

And put it into biblical practice. Have it in our minds so that we can now recognize when we should fast and then do it properly, okay?

06:15

This is really important, and I'm very excited to dig into this topic with you because, like I mentioned last week as well, it gets so neglected in our day, sadly, tragically.

06:33

Okay, so this is a big, major contention that I want to lay out up front.

06:41

It's a big problem because there is a tendency for many in the church today to disconnect any and all spiritual consequences from the natural choices and actions that we make, okay?

06:59

Especially what we eat. We have a bad tendency in the church to not see the connection or to disconnect what we do in the natural, even what we put into our bodies, what we consume has spiritual consequences as well, okay?

07:21

Everything, in a sense, is spiritual, has spiritual consequences, but this gets very much neglected in the church today.

07:31

We cannot afford to lose that connection that the Bible clearly makes, and I'll tell you,

07:38

I'll share a story about this because I've run into it on a number of occasions, even something as spiritual as a men's retreat, right?

07:50

The whole point of a men's retreat is, in fact, I think it's the first one that I ever participated in.

07:57

You're supposed to get away from all the, you know, from all the world and society and from just from all your secular, your routine days and way of life and stuff, you're supposed to get away from all that so that you can draw closer to God, right?

08:15

To try to take some time away, work on praying, getting closer to God, fasting, that's also very appropriate to do when during a retreat like that, and getting the flesh under control, but the first retreat that I participated in was a different story.

08:35

When I, when I, when we were leaving to go, we stopped by a gas station and people picked up food and snacks and whatever, and so when we got there, there was like, there are these cabins, there were these cabins, and so, you know, part of it is to get closer to nature, get away from technology, all of those are good things, those are all good things, but then when we got there and everybody started unpacking their stuff,

09:01

I looked into the main area where everybody was and I saw piles and mountains of junk food everywhere, junk food everywhere, and I'm talking like brownies,

09:16

Twinkies, cookies, like chips, Doritos, like all kinds of junk food, and and that, and nobody seemed to have a sense of like, wait a minute, is that, is this something that, like, is this counterproductive to what we're doing here, or is it just, we can just do whatever, and it's not a big deal, and so there was a clear disconnect, in fact,

09:42

I think only one brother that I saw actually fasted in the retreat, and now, of course, we don't want to compel people to fast or force them to, but at the same time, it's like, what, what, what does it cost you to just stay away from that stuff?

09:58

Well, I mean, we shouldn't be eating that stuff in the first place, because it's bad enough, but especially of all places in a men's retreat, in a retreat where we're supposed to try to get more, in a position where we try to receive more from God and be more susceptible to His will, right, because these things do affect us, they do affect us, what we eat affects our spiritual walk with God, and if you're having a hard time seeing that, don't you worry,

10:30

I will more than prove it to you in a little bit. Now, and some may object and say, well, wasn't it

10:38

Jesus who said, it is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man, in Matthew 15 11, right, let's turn to that chapter in Matthew 15, the

10:53

Gospel of Matthew, and see what Jesus was saying there, because it seems to completely contradict what

11:01

I'm telling you now, so let's see if I'm not misleading us today.

11:12

Matthew chapter 15, started in verse 17, so in the

11:28

Gospel here, Jesus, I believe, is speaking to the

11:34

Pharisees, and he says in verse 17, do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and goes into the sewer, it goes into the toilet, basically, it gets discarded, in other words, but the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart and those defile the man, for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adultery, sexual immoralities, thefts, false witness, slanders, these are the things which defile the man, which condemn the man, in other words, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man, why?

12:23

Because you discard it, you flush it down the toilet, that's what

12:30

Jesus was saying here, but here, then, Christ was strictly and specifically refuting the hypocritical traditions of the

12:42

Pharisees that required hand -washing before eating in order to avoid becoming defiled or unclean, quote -unquote, okay, they considered that an act of becoming defiled if you didn't wash your hands before eating and Jesus was rebuking them and saying, you hypocrites, it's not that whether your hands are dirty, it's whether your mouth is dirty, what's coming out of your mouth, that's what makes you defiled and unclean, that's what condemns you before God, not having dirty hands when you eat, right, that was what

13:23

Jesus was saying, only this and nothing more, only this and nothing more, because what after all, ask yourself this, what was man's very first sin, what was our first sin, that's right, that's right, the very first sin had to do with eating, eating the forbidden fruit, amen, that, this, the first sin that catapulted the entire mankind was eating the wrong food, cursed the entire planet, because man disobeyed

14:18

God and ate the wrong food, so I hope we're starting to see that we need to make that connection spiritually between what we eat and our spiritual walk, that's very important, it is very important, so then, therefore, what we consume and physically put into our bodies does have consequences, sometimes dangerous consequences that could affect your health, including spiritual ones and even including sin, okay, it can be a sin to eat the wrong thing or eat too much of something, right, this is not, you know, this is, this is not like, this shouldn't be a surprise, right, even a secular doctor will tell you not to eat too much, the world understands this, right, the church needs to understand this and not think like, oh, well, it doesn't matter because I'm, you know,

15:33

I could just do what I want because I'm saved now, no, that's not how this works, we are still under the natural world and we have to, we have to respect the natural order of things, so, and Jesus was not denying this reality at all, at all, it's why we need balance, we need balance, right, beloved, have balance between the natural and the spiritual, we need to live in both and recognize both and their connection to each other, they are connected, that's the whole series

16:15

I spent on the flesh, how the flesh is not just some spiritual thing inside of us, it's our physical bodies as well, our senses, it's all, it's part of the physical realm, so, um, just because we are saved,

16:35

Christians filled with the Holy Ghost now does not mean that God automatically delivers us from any of the physical and spiritual consequences of eating or drinking the wrong thing, you will still die from a heart failure if all you eat is junk food, this, this, this just, we have to recognize this reality as believers, okay, um, and this includes consequences that come from eating or drinking foods and drinks that were not created by God, according to 1st

17:16

Timothy 4, 4, remember I preached on that last time as well, fake man -made food and processed food and Twinkies and brownie, that stuff is not, that has no business in our bodies, it's, it's, it's gonna mess up your insides and your outsides, um, so, this is no different from what a doctor will tell you, okay, these are very simple doctor's orders, even when we're not fasting, it is best for our own sakes,

17:48

I'm saying this to help you all, not to put a, a, a wet blanket on you and say, oh, well, now you can't eat anything sweet or whatever, no, no, this is,

17:57

I'm saying this for our benefit, so we don't end up getting all these health problems down the road and, and have weight problems and all of these different things, because this affects our flesh as well, it feeds our flesh, so we need to learn to stay away from fake processed junk foods, because they affect our spirit as well, not just our bodies, and we should learn to read food labels and ingredients, look at the back and look at what the ingredient, if there's a bunch of ingredients on there that you can't even pronounce, it's probably not good for you, it's a bunch of fake chemicals and stuff, so we have to have maturity and be responsible with ourselves, with what we do with our, what we consume as well, and put, put in and on our bodies, and so just watch what you eat, be, be, be, have an awareness of that, and by all means, you could, we could talk more after church about this, if you have questions,

19:04

I mean, we've been doing this for years, and we try to be very careful about, especially with children, my goodness, some food, food that is geared towards children is just a bunch of sugar bombs, that are going to, there's so much hyper deficit disorders in kids these days, because all they do is give them coke and sweets and stuff,

19:26

I mean, there is a connection to those things, and it affects you, your mind as well, it affects everything, your ability to serve and follow

19:38

God, what you put into your mouth, so this is no different, like I've been saying, from what any good doctor worth his salt that understands nutrition would tell you, no different, okay, and even if it was created by God, we still need to have balance, okay, what do

20:06

I mean by that, well, you can't just eat honey all day, right,

20:12

I mean, that's something that God created, you know, He created the bees, but you're not a bee, right, we are not bees, we can't just eat honey all day, you'll probably, you,

20:21

I mean, you're going to mess yourself up, so we have to have balance, okay, it's good to be on certain diets, some diets are better than others, but we should be balanced and not go to extremes, in fact, some plants may look edible, but can cause you to hallucinate or even kill you, right, y 'all know what shrooms are, special mushrooms, special brownies, all that stuff, those are natural things that came from the earth, but they will cause you to hallucinate and they will have demons attack you and come into you, if you consume these things, that's what the hippies were trying to bring back, you know, they're trying to bring back all this, you know, spirituality, quote -unquote, the

21:14

Rastafarians too, they do the same thing, they try to get spiritual by smoking weed and hallucinogenic drugs, psychoactive drugs, so that stuff is forbidden, that stuff is forbidden in the

21:27

Bible, you are, we are not allowed to be, to consume those things, because they have spiritual consequences, amen, so we, again, this is, this is just, this should be common sense, but it just needs to be said, because the church has such a, has, we have such an imbalance sometimes between how to figure out the relationship between the natural and the spiritual, what happens if you actually eat these things or smoke weed, which is, again, it's natural and some of those things may actually be good for you, but you have to be careful not to be under the influence of anything that is not the

22:12

Holy Spirit, so if there's something that messes with your mind, it causes you to, to, to lose control of your mind, including alcohol, including these drugs, we have to be careful to not avoid, to not consume them, and so, again, drinking too much alcohol, what happens even if you just eat too much, even if it's okay to eat, even if it's like meat or, or healthy bread, whatever it is, you can still sin by eating too much of that, because we need to have self -control, amen, we need to have self -control and discipline, and so, that's really what this is about, eating the wrong foods, again, chips and MSG and monosodium glutamate, all of these things are, they will just rip your insides apart, so we need to be aware of these things, and obviously, these things also have chemicals in them that will entice you to become addicted to them and to become more, to crave them, and it's just like having an alcohol addiction in a lot of these cases, that's how powerful these sugar cravings can also be, so, we just need to be aware of these things, okay, just be careful, and all of this, again, it, it leads to indulging the flesh when we are not careful and checking ourselves and having the self -awareness to recognize these things, there are consequences to putting the wrong things in your mouth or too much, eating too much, consuming too much, whatever, physical and spiritual, okay,

24:12

I hope that's more clear now, and obviously, it goes without saying that God condemns these excesses as well, clearly in the

24:19

Bible, drunkenness, gluttony, intemperance, which means a lack of self -control,

24:26

God condemns all of those things, and the fruit of the Spirit is the opposite, it's love, joy, peace, gentleness, meekness, temperance, self -control, so, we need to practice these things and ask the

24:43

Lord to help us, and that's the beauty of fasting, because it's a powerful way to help us to restore that balance in our lives, now, um, we are, we understand that the wages of sin is death, it's death, and this also includes physical death, okay, physical consequences to sin as well, it works both ways, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our

25:16

Lord, that's Romans 6 23, now, or do you not remember that when you go on presenting yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, either of sin leading to death, or obedience leading to righteousness, okay,

25:43

Romans 6 16, there is very clearly this aspect of dominion, mastery, and bondage in the

25:52

Bible, I preached on it for several weeks, on the flesh, the flesh is a physical part of who we are, and when you cater to the flesh, when you feed your flesh, and you do not keep it under subjection, and under control, it is going to master you, and rule over you, and it will prevent you from following God, it will lead you into sin, leading to death, including physical death, so, and it leads to, you know, how does this lead to death, you can get all kinds of multitude of health problems, ranging from obesity, okay, depression, anxiety, heart problems, losing a taste for healthy food, and even losing your appetite, which also consequently makes you lose appetite for spiritual things, you're going to have a hard time reading the

26:53

Bible, praying, and doing spiritual things when your flesh is out of control, and when you are over indulging your body, your physical body, so we have, it affects, it affects our flesh, obviously, even if you're not overweight, you can still struggle with food, and with self -control problems, intemperance, when you get that feeling that you just can't help it, or you can't, you can't break the bad habit, you can't stop doing it, you feel like you can't stop doing it, that is a flesh problem, that is a lack of self -control, that needs to be broken, and so it can lead to, also lead to a lack of self -awareness, because it's a fog, it fogs your mind, it fogs your brain, it prevents you from thinking straight, and leads to sleeping problems, which leads to other problems, and allergies, and mood swings, irritability, selfishness, it can lead to early death, just by eating, not eating right, that this is what happens, and we also need to be aware, brothers and sisters, we cannot afford to be ignorant of the agendas that are behind a lot of these foods, okay, there are agendas behind them, and scripture says that we are not to be ignorant of satan's devices, right, second corinthians 2 11.

28:40

a big one, for example, is soy, right, soy, when i was uh in college, i got convinced by one of my radical professors to become a vegan, so i replaced a lot of my meat protein with soy, and uh and i didn't i didn't realize, i don't understand what happens when you when you consume soy, but this, we have to be very careful, because soy is a phytoestrogen, okay, soy is a phytoestrogen that mimics estrogen, which is what makes women feminine, so if you can, if you're a man, and this i've, i know men who have eaten a bunch of, who have drank soy milk, or eaten soy, and they start growing breasts, they start to become emotional, because they're eating soy, okay, this is, i'm not making this stuff up, this is serious, and that's why we have to be aware of these things, and these agendas, because look at society, and the feminism in our society, what is society trying to do to men?

29:54

it's trying to turn them into women, and to effeminize them, to castrate them, to emasculate what makes men men, right, but we're not having that in this church, amen, we want to, we want to make sure that we take care of ourselves, and not expose ourselves to things that are going to do us harm, physical and spiritual harm, okay, like i mentioned the other preservatives too, monosodium glutamate, msg, all of these things will tear your insides apart, it can lead to cancer, and all kinds of other addictions, food addictions, just another example too, if you, and this is probably worse now, but one can of coke, of soda, has at least nine spoonfuls of sugar in it, okay, nine spoonfuls, and you typically, you wouldn't do that, right, you wouldn't take that amount of liquid, and pour nine spoonful, unless you have a really bad sugar craving, but that's how bad these things are, and if you put a tooth in a glass of soda, watch what happens to it, how quickly it disintegrates, okay, so i want to encourage us, brothers and sisters, i'm not trying to be legalistic about this, i'm not saying, well, oh, we can't ever drink bad stuff, go ahead, but just be aware that there's consequences, and you may need to back away for a time to help not lose your balance, so strive to remove junk food completely from your diet, right, no different from what a good doctor or nutritionist will tell you, with the preservatives, and try to stick to natural food as much as you can, even the corrupt world health organization, okay, admits that obesity is a global pandemic.

32:01

i was shocked when i read this, i didn't think they acknowledged this, but according to them, the global prevalence of obesity nearly tripled between 1975 and 2016.

32:13

my god, this is, and the church has not been exempt from this, because if we're not careful to avoid these things, it's going to happen in the church as well.

32:26

how many of you know, or have seen, or have met overweight pastors, for example? you know, it's like that shouldn't be the case, we need to set a good example, and i get it, i understand that there could be hormonal problems, there could be thyroid problems, i get it, there are, but in order to fix those things, you need to have a clean diet, so it all goes hand in hand.

32:56

the top two causes of death in america are heart disease and cancer, okay, heart disease and cancer, and this is a quote from an actual health website, making healthy choices can lower your chance of being affected by these and other leading causes of death, okay, so would you rather live a long and healthy life or a short miserable one that cripples you and ends you up in the hospital and with pipes down your nostrils, because you can't breathe on your own, right?

33:36

this is something that we just need to take responsibility for of our own health, and to take care of ourselves, and to look out for each other, because we cannot afford to be careless with our health either, no matter how old we are, especially young ones and even older folks as well, our habits will catch up to us, good or bad, okay, it's only a matter of time, it is only a matter of time, and then of course, we have, and i'm leading into the fasting, okay, this is all leading into the fasting as i think you'll you're seeing now, but there is the epidemic of sexual sin, not just in society, but in churches, okay, there is an epidemic of sexual sin in churches, here are some very disturbing statistics for you all to chew on, most pastors, according to this study, this

34:45

Barna study, 57 percent of pastors and 64 percent of youth pastors admit that they have struggled with porn, either currently or in the past, that's disturbing, in both cases that's more than half, more than half, overall 21 percent of youth pastors and 14 percent of pastors admit that they currently struggle with using porn, currently, that's a disqualifying sin, you cannot be addicted to pornography and preaching and leading

35:29

God's sheep, that disqualifies you from ministry, you need to get away, sit down, what happened to Steve Lawson, right, i preached on this last week, 73 year old man, having a five year of inappropriate relationship with a 25 year old woman, meaning she was 20 years old when they started this affair, and you see these men need to sit down and go on a fast, that's exactly the whole point of what fasting is for, this is such a, and you see it even in conservative churches,

36:16

Steve Lawson was one of the most prominent conservative bible pastors and teachers in the world, considered so -called, now personally,

36:26

I didn't really care for him, I didn't really like him, I didn't really listen to his stuff, I listened to a few of his sermons and they were very strongly lordship salvation, very sort of legalistic, ironically, and I read one of his books on Martin Lloyd Jones and it was terrible, a bunch of hero worship and it was just not good, so I didn't,

36:48

I never really cared for the guy, but a lot of people did respect him and looked up to him and sadly because he didn't get his sin under control, now he's disgraced publicly by the world and the church as well, so these are very disturbing statistics and they're becoming more and more common, in the past few months several high -profile pastors have stepped down because of sexual sin and more, more are going to come,

37:22

I guarantee you, I guarantee you, unless they get on their face before God and learn to deny themselves, it will happen and it's already happening, it just hasn't been found out yet, right, and this, remember, these are people who admitted it, they can't because a lot of these folks, they won't want to admit it because that they know that would disqualify them from ministry, right, about 12 percent of youth pastors and five percent of pastors say that they are addicted to porn, addicted to it, not just struggled, but it's an addiction and despite the awareness of the problem, most churches do not have programs specifically designed to assist those struggling with porn use, most churches don't know how to deal with this, it's like you don't need a program, starve yourself, it's not a, this isn't difficult,

38:18

I mean it's difficult if you've never done it before, yeah, it's going to be a challenge, but it's, it's just another tragedy and it goes without saying, but the church, we need to recover the practice of addressing the whole man, the whole man, not just the inner man, not just the spirit, not just your, your spiritual activities, we need to address the body as well because there is a lot of problems that come from not taking care of your body and keeping your flesh under control, this includes health, diet, and food, amen, we need to have a balance as a church, as believers, that's, that's pietism, right, it's piety, it's, it's false piety to say, oh, you know,

39:16

I just do spiritual stuff, I don't really worry about the natural stuff, it's like if you don't worry about the natural stuff, you're likely going to die, you will likely die, or you're going to get sick and you're going to mess yourself up,

39:30

God is not going to exempt you from these consequences of eating the wrong thing, okay, so we, the, again, and youth pastors, that's just, we understand, we need to understand that there's no such thing as youth pastors, okay, parents are the youth pastors, we are the youth pastors as parents, youth pastors, look at these guys, these guys don't even have themselves under control, many of them, and I will,

40:04

I will, I have no problem admitting, I struggled with pornography before I was a Christian, I got tempted maybe one time after I got saved, the

40:13

Lord graciously delivered that burden from me when I got saved, and by God's grace,

40:19

He has helped me to not, of course, there's temptations, we're always, there's, there's temptations everywhere, what you put on the

40:27

TV, on social media, the temptation is everywhere, so we always need to check ourselves, especially as men, women as well, but men especially, to guard ourselves, to set no unclean or wicked thing before our eyes, right, so is there really an answer that addresses all of these problems affecting the church?

40:53

So many of these problems of poor health, of overeating, of obesity, of all of these problems of sexual sin, lust,

41:03

I mean all this stuff, what is the real, is there really a simple answer to this?

41:12

Remember that the word says in Romans 8, 12 through 13, remember then brothers, we are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh, you must die, you must die, you will die, but if by the spirit, and again, remember y 'all, the flesh is primarily your physical body, because it hasn't been redeemed by God yet, we do not have our new glorified resurrected bodies yet, there are still fallen and susceptible to sin and to tempt us to sin, so but if by the spirit you are putting to death actively in the present tense, always the practices of the body, you will live, you will live, so that's the beauty of fasting, fasting is the answer to all of these problems and more, that's how powerful this is, and sometimes it's the only effective solution that will actually help us to master and overcome certain struggles and sins, the only one that will actually help, you can pray all you want, but if you're not denying yourself of those certain struggles, you are not going to be able to overcome it, and it's as John Nolan explained masterfully in his mortification of sin, there are times when we must, we must meet the natural distempers, physical lack of self -control, physical appetites that are out of control, or the temptation from these natural lusts, such as sexual lust, gluttony, food, lack of discipline, all of these things, we need to meet those things, confront them with physical restraints by pushing the plate away, denying ourselves food and drink physically, because that has a powerful spiritual effect, and that's why

43:25

Jesus said to do it, and that's exactly why he told us to do it, because it has spiritual rewards and benefits that the father gives us, bestows to us, and ordains for our good, so we, we need to understand these things carefully, and I want to read once again from the second

43:51

Helvetic confession, it's just an amazing document that has such a well laid out description of the purpose of fasting here, to help us to really cement this in our minds, it says, now the more seriously, in light of what

44:08

I just talked about, all the sexual sin and lack of self -control, all of that lust and sin that's rampant, even in churches, the more seriously the church of Christ condemns surfeiting or excess, drunkenness, and all kinds of lust and intemperance, a lack of self -control, so much the more strongly does it commend to us

44:31

Christian fasting, Christian fasting, amen, this is from our forebears that came before us in the 1500s, recognizing the reality of an importance of Christian fasting, why?

44:51

For fasting is nothing else than the abstinence of moderate, and moderation of the godly, and a disciplined care and chastisement, submission of our flesh undertaken as a necessity for the time being, whereby we are humbled before God, and we, listen to this, and we deprive the flesh of its fuel, so that it may the more willingly and easily obey the spirit, amen, that is powerful, powerful words, straight from scripture, fasting deprives the flesh of its fuel, it starves it, it starves it to death, so that it gets under your control, and it no longer masters you, and tries to pull you towards sinning, and doing things that you know you shouldn't do, that you don't want to do, powerful stuff, fasting is a powerful, effective, yet neglected means of disciplining our bodies, and one of the ultimate forms of self -denial, when done properly, of course, it is truly an effective biblical solution to so many of the problems which plague

46:22

Christians and churches today, you might even say most, you might even say most, our society is so bombarded with overstimulation, and all of this sensual sin, you might as well say most, problems can be actually addressed by taking up the biblical practice of fasting, it's that powerful, but first, okay, now that being said, all this background being said, let's first deal with false fasting, or improper fasting, and with the wrong reasons, or wrong ways to fast, okay, do not try any of these at home, okay, we don't want to do these, this is trying to give you all a heads up to avoid them, okay, there are pitfalls to fasting that we want to avoid, so that we don't cancel out our fast, and render it ineffective, or unprofitable, or useless, okay, we want to avoid these things, to not mess up the fast, okay, we understand, for example, or we should, that we no longer fast, because we sin, right, we don't fast because of sin, as if that's some kind of a penance, right, some kind of Hail Mary, 10

48:00

Hail Marys, five Our Fathers, fast for three days, that's not how this works, fasting is not for the forgiveness of sins, no longer, that doesn't work that way anymore, that was old covenant practice, we don't do that, that's the wrong motive, that's a wrong motive to fast, if you have a sin problem, that requires the gospel, and biblical reconciliation,

48:23

I'm talking about forgiveness of sins, right, and that includes repentance, and forgiveness, both asking for it, and giving it, that's how we deal with sin, at the legal level, the justification level, we need the gospel of Christ to forgive us of our sins, and we must remember, this is very important, we have to remember to distinguish between a fast and a diet, okay, abstaining from only some foods is not fasting, that is only a diet, and drinking food instead of eating it is not fasting either, right, because your body will find a way to replace what it's missing, and if you start drinking stuff like nutritional shakes, or liquefying food, or whatever, that's not going to do you any good, that's not going to help you, remember that story

49:26

I told about the kefir, where if you start drinking that stuff instead of eating it throughout the day, you're gonna, you're not going to go hungry, you're not going to deprive your flesh, and actually experience the hunger that you need to experience to break your bad fleshly habits, or sinful struggles, so very important, now also remember fasting, okay, this is really important, fasting is not an end in itself, fasting is not an end in itself, it is a means to an end, right, it's the means to a better end, not the end or the goal itself, it is the means by which we deny ourselves, by which we regain control of our flesh, by which we mourn, by which we improve our health, all of these are means, but fasting is only a means to that, it is not the practice of fasting for the fasting, just for the sake of doing it, that's not the point, okay, now also very important, this is a, this is a, this is a very important one, what you do before, during, and after a fast matters, it's critical, because what you do before, during, and after will determine how effective your fast will be, or if you're, or if it'll be effective at all, okay, one big thing to do before, not, to not do before, there is that we need to resist going into hibernation mode prior to starting a fast, right, you know what

51:20

I mean, right, I'm talking about this Fat Tuesday mentality, this Romanist mentality, of where, oh, the day before we need to do the 40 -day

51:29

Lent fast, on Fat Tuesday, we're just going to indulge ourselves with everything we can't do for the 40 days, so that we will have our fill, and not feel the deprivation, so you stuff your face in advance, you stuff yourself, your flesh in advance, so that you can go through 40 days, and not feel the actual deprivation, that is a completely carnal, totally useless, in fact, detrimental way of fasting, okay, that's, that hibernation fast, it's also known as hyperphagia, when bears hibernate, before they hibernate, they start eating in excess, eating and eating and eating, because they spend months in the winter sleeping, so they don't eat, and by the time they wake up, they wake up thinner, because their bodies are in, their metabolism slows and everything, that's part of their natural, okay, we're not supposed to do this, right, because we don't hibernate, right, we don't hibernate, so, but bears do it for that reason, they stuff themselves, and they gain a bunch of weight, and you can even see this happen in real time, in Fat Bear Week, this is great for kids too, the homeschoolers and stuff, in Fat Bear Week in Katmai, Alaska, they show that you can vote who who do you think the fattest bear is going to be, for that, for the, it's actually happening right now, this week, and so, that's a perverted form of fasting that we do not practice, okay, do not do that, that's not fasting, okay, also, by, by, on the flip side of things, resist the temptation to overeat when the fast is over, okay, don't overcompensate everything that you didn't eat when you finish the fast, because you're going to kill your fast, you're going to nullify it, okay, this is what happens a lot with Muslims, during the month of Ramadan, they spend a month fasting, they're supposed to be fasting during the day, but a lot of them, they will indulge, overindulge at night, and sometimes, in most, most, most of the time,

53:46

Muslims gain the most weight after Ramadan, because they deny themselves for, for, in a certain way, but then, when the fast is over, they overindulge and, and overeat everything that they come, they overcompensate everything that they didn't eat while they were fasting, that will completely cancel out the point of your, your fast, don't do that, and that's also bad for your health, because you will gain weight, you will likely gain weight, and have health, you can have health problems from that, so don't do that, you're going to mess up your metabolism, and you're, you, we don't want to go through those kinds of extremes, okay, and I've, I've talked to brothers and sisters that, like, yeah, when

54:30

I, I fasted for a few days, and then I went to Carl's Jr. and bought the biggest, juiciest burger that I could find, and I just devoured it, it's like, yeah, you, that's exactly what you're not supposed to do, okay, we have to eat modestly and slowly after you break your fast, slowly work your way to a regular diet, okay, don't start eating a bunch of heavy food, just try to eat some vegetables or fruit, so that you don't overwhelm your body, and, and resist that temptation to start overeating, okay, you have to be very careful, and, and this takes, this will take time, this may take time and practice, okay, it's okay, this will, we, but, but we, the point of this is to get us into that mindset of, of, of doing it, and experiencing it, so that we understand where our limits are, we push our limits, and we're able to practice these things effectively, okay, so very critical, another problem,

55:38

I'll finish up here in, in a little bit, I'm almost done, fasting, another problem is when, is fasting too much, or not enough, okay, you can, you can fast for too, for too much, or too often, or not do it long enough, okay, and a lot of this happens with the aesthetics, you know, there's aesthetics where they just deprive themselves and turn themselves into toothpicks, and it's like, you're not, you're not supposed to do that, the point of the fast is not, like, again, like I mentioned last time, it's not to harm ourselves, or to deprive ourselves into physical harm, okay, so don't overfast and start going crazy, and, and, you know, passing out and stuff, don't do that, that's not the point, but most of us don't have that problem,

56:34

I suspect, most of us don't have the problem, oh, I just, you know, you practice, you overfast, like, that's not, we're, we don't probably struggle with the way

56:44

Luther had his struggles, that of going through extremes and everything, I think the majority of the problem that we face as believers in, in America, especially, to other places as well, that doesn't exempt other places, but our struggle is more likely that we do not fast enough, we don't do it enough, as opposed to doing it too much, we are underfasted rather than overfasted, in general, okay, so the, this is why

57:18

I want us to make sure that, that we, we can have this mindset to recognize our need for a fast, and to practice it accordingly, you know, some people say, like, well,

57:34

I fast all the time, you know, I do, I do fast regularly, in my sleep and before breakfast, right, it's not, that's not a fast, right, that's not a fast, yes, they do call it breakfast, because the first meal that you break your fast from when you were asleep, that doesn't count, that's not a real fast, and if you're still not hungry during your fast, you're not doing it right, okay, the point of the fast is to feel the hunger, to feel the hunger, and you're, you will start feeling your flesh tugging at you, and it's like, oh, feed me, feed me, feed me, and everything's going to start turning into food, and so that's why it's so effective, because you, you have a addictive, addiction to pornography, instead of trying to look at, at women, you're just going to start looking at, looking for chickens, looking for actual food to eat, right, that's the point of it, you have to feel that hunger to do it right, and it needs to be for long enough until you break your, your flesh, you're going to feel your flesh, when, when you feel that, that, that struggle, it will subside, your, your flesh basically gives up, and it says, okay, okay, fine,

59:00

I get it, you're, you're the boss now, you're the boss now, because you deprive the flesh of its grip on you, that's where the, the power of this comes from, it should be a challenge, and it should be, you will be hungry, the point, like I said, in many cases of fasting, is to submit the flesh back under your control, okay, now,

59:27

I also want to give a disclaimer, so people don't die on me, and you know, get into accidents, right, there are exceptions and limitations to fasting, right, we have to be self -aware, if you have health problems, or medical problems, or occupational hazards, that would preclude you from fasting, don't do it, right, don't, don't fast if you can't, if you have, if you operate heavy equipment, or if you do very strenuous work, you, you should not go on a fast, you need to be careful, okay, or pick a right time to fast in the weekend, or something, when you're not operating heavy machinery, and you cause an accident, right, don't, don't do, let's not do that, also, if you have health problems, you're going to want to be careful, although, like I mentioned before,

01:00:28

I thought diabetics couldn't fast, but it's been amazing, it has been transformational for me to actually do this intermittent fasting, it has totally changed my, my, my, my life, and my health, so there are ways to do it, but you have to do it properly, according to your limitations, right, and your restrictions, just be very careful, and, and, and I would encourage you all now, because, like I mentioned,

01:00:55

I want us, when I finish out the series, Lord willing, next week, I want us to start a church fast, to go on a fast together as a church, so start looking into your situation, if you need to be careful, or figure out what you may need to do to try to account for your fast,

01:01:13

I'm not saying it's obligated that you need to do it, but I would encourage you to do it, to look into it, talk to your doctor, talk to your, you know, medical experts, whatever, to see how you can go about it, okay, and so, very, that's very important, and also exercise caution with children, because now, some children may benefit from a fast, sadly,

01:01:38

I see all too often, you know, oh gosh, I see so much, like, just kids are so overweight these days with, and me, it's, it's, a lot of it is just because it's this junk food that they keep getting, and, and I remember talking to one of my family members about this, uh, because their son was so big, and it's like, but, but I saw, like, they wouldn't, they wouldn't deny him anything, he would want a coke, and he'd start going crazy, and it's like, okay, here, here's your coke, and it's like, they, that boy needs to, you got to take that stuff away from him, that's going to destroy their, their, their ability to discipline themselves, they're not going to be successful in life if they don't have discipline, right, so we want to be careful with our kids, but at the same time, so some of them may benefit from fasting, and from not, at the very least, from not giving them that kind of food, but, uh, and, and it could also be a useful form of discipline, like,

01:02:37

I know this happens with our kids, my wife will cook up a delicious meal, and our kids are like, I don't want that, it's like, okay, well, you're not eating nothing, you need to be grateful for the food that mom makes, right, if you, okay, fine, you don't want to eat, well, you're not going to eat nothing, all right, that's, that helps to teach our kids appreciation and gratitude for what our, our, the parents do for them, um, that's a little different though, but kids need to be properly nourished as well, especially because of their growing, developing minds and bodies, right, so we don't want to deprive them in an unhealthy way, so just be aware of these things, be aware of these limitations, um, but hey, it's, it's a great exercise to have kids, hey, well, let's, let's try a scapegoat meal or to see how you feel, some, some, some kids in Africa feel this way every day, you know, the kids with the over, over bloated bellies because they're malnourished, their bodies don't have the nutrition that they need, and they stay, they stay shriveled up and shrunken because they don't have the proper nutrition, it's very, very sad, very tragic, but, um, so that's also important to consider, and I want to, again, recommend everybody to look into intermittent fasting, even if you're sick, it will more than likely help you even if you're sick, it is an amazing, uh, it is a, an amazing, uh, um, way of, of, of, of eating and of, well, actually, it's an amazing way of not eating because that's really the point of it, is to restrict your eating window, so it is very powerful, even when you're not fasting, um, it is incredibly effective for fighting disease and getting better and healthier and restoring your weight, a healthy weight, um, all of those things, but even so, even if you can't technically fast, or for that long, or whatever,

01:04:41

I think in most cases we can, we should be able to, but even if you can't, and again, in some cases you just have to be careful, especially if you're like a truck driver or something, you're driving long distances, just be careful, but we can all still nevertheless fast, quote -unquote, from something, right, we can all deny ourselves from something, at the very least in this church, the fast that we do, this corporate fast that we do as a church, we can all at the very least examine ourselves and take time away from the things that have been consuming us, right, from phones, from tv, from social media, from entertainment, let's push those things away, even if you can't fast, take some time away from those things to clear your mind and to be more receptive to the lord's will and to be more malleable to his spirit and his word, right, let's, let's, we can all do that, that's something we can all do as a church, and I would encourage us to do that as well, although that's not a true fast, keeping in mind, that's not, that's not a true fast, but it does help to get our flesh under, it does help to deny it.

01:06:02

Now, and then one last thing, when you fast, do not guilt trip others into fasting just because you're doing it, right, or don't make people feel inferior because, because when you're fasting and they may not be fasting, that, that's, that's that false pharisaic spirit, right, and piety, that's false piety, we don't want to guilt treat people and make them feel bad, oh, look at me,

01:06:33

I'm more spiritual than you because I'm fasting and you're not, right, that's, that's, god, christ, that's exactly why christ was rebuking so fiercely the pharisees, because that's what they would do, they would walk up and look into the sky and fast and that they would, they would disfigure their faces and stuff and all this false piety to look holy and spiritual.

01:06:57

Fasting is not for that. Fasting is to help you get your flesh under control so that you can better serve god and follow him, but it is not a, it is not an end in itself, it is not an end in itself, so don't do that and don't try to make people feel bad just because you're doing it and they're not.

01:07:19

You might need to do it and they might not have to do it, right, but that being said, beloved,

01:07:27

I really hope that this was a blessing. I know some of these things are not typically discussed as a church, but I, I think we need to break that vicious cycle, right, we need, we need to, we need to recognize and look out for each other and be, just be careful with what we put into our bodies and learn the discipline of not eating and how powerful that is.

01:07:57

It is amazing. I can't tell you how excited I am to do this as a church. I am so looking forward to this because it's such a powerful remedy.

01:08:07

So that, with that being said, brothers, let's go ahead and close out with a word of prayer.

01:08:16

Our dearly beloved, beloved heavenly father, our lord and savior, we thank you, father, for your blessing today to gather as, as your people and to be able to engage in these spiritual activities of worship, father, as it, to do it together, lord, including what you have been putting before us today and these past few weeks on, on fasting and on denying our flesh and all of those things, lord.

01:08:40

Help us, father, as, as a church to look out for ourselves and for each other and to really be more mindful of what we put into our bodies, lord, of how we live in our habits and how we take care of ourselves, father god, so that we can be more, so that we can be more temperate, more disciplined and show that fruit in a, in a more healthy way, father, and to reflect your glory as we are, strive to live in a world that is full of excess and vanity and, just like Vanity Fair, just full of so much overindulgence and excess and sensual, sensuality, lord.

01:09:24

Help us, father, to stand out, not, not for the sake of attention, but for, to, to reflect your glory and your spirit working in us, father, and to seek together as a church to help each other, knowing that, yes, there will be struggles and there will be, it will take time to get adjusted to these things and to learn these things and to absorb and digest them spiritually, but help us, father, through that process and in, in your precious son's name we pray, amen.

01:09:59

Thank you for listening to the sermons of Thorne Crown Covenant Baptist Church, where the bible alone and the bible in its entirety has applied to all of faith and life.

01:10:07

We strive to be biblical, reformed, historic, confessional, loving, discerning

01:10:12

Christians who evangelize, stand firm in, and earnestly contend for the Christian faith.

01:10:18

If you're looking for a church in the El Paso, Texas area, or for more information about our church, sermons, and ministries such as Semper Reformanda Radio and Thorne Crown Network Podcasts, please contact us at thornecrownministries .com.