Episode 53: Day of Prayer and Fasting

To the Ruled Church podcast.

Christ Is King and the Church Is Not a Democracy

This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas? You see that one in Pechote, Mexico?

Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

The church is not a democracy.

It's a monarchy.

Christ is king. You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

When I signed into our podcast today,.

I got a little banner. It said,.

Today, August 9th, is one year that we posted our first podcast episode.

August 9th is one of my favorite days.

It's your son's birthday.

It is my oldest son's birthday. He is 17 years old today. Of course, this podcast won't come out for probably a month or so, but yeah, I love this day. It is the day I became a dad.

And also a second father of the podcast.

That's right.

Welcome to the Rural Church Podcast. I am your co-host, Alan Nelson, pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Central Arkansas, the big metropolis of Perryville. With me is my good friend, brother in the faith, partner in the ministry from North Central Arkansas, the one and only Eddie Ragsdale, which we've already established, you're not technically the one and only, but you're the Eddie-est Ragsdale of them all.

That's right, that's right. So good morning, everybody. So Providence Baptist Church, I know we mentioned this on the last podcast, but I just love that. I love that name. Can we start like a string of Providence Baptist churches?

Maybe we can all change our church names to Providence Baptist, as long as we're in a different town.

Yeah, like the Providence Baptist Network.

Yeah, that's right. I love it. It's a great name.

That sounds good.

You know what would sound good? Providence Podcast.

That would be a great podcast. Maybe you and Jacob should do a Providence Podcast.

Maybe we should just rename this to Providence Podcast.

Oh man, I love the Rural Church though.

Yeah, that's good too. So by the time, this is episode 53, by the way, and by the time this episode comes out, we'll have already done that episode. We've already done the episode with Jacob and I talked about the name.

So if you haven't listened to that, you can go back and listen to, I believe it was last week's episode when we talked about the name change. So yeah, it's been good. Been a good journey, an encouraging journey.

Next week, our church is going to start meals.

On Wednesday night.

So we're gonna do 545 to 620 meal, and then we're gonna start our service at 630. Y 'all do meals on Wednesday night too, right?

We do meals on Sundays and Wednesdays.

Okay.

My wife thinks that's way too much.

Yeah.

But that's what we do.

Yeah.

A Global Day of Prayer for Revival

Well, what we wanna talk about today is the opposite of meals, right?

That's right. That's right. I'm assuming that you're not gonna do a meal. You're fixing to start meals on Wednesdays for the fall, but I'm assuming you're not gonna do a meal on October the 4th.

Well, we need to talk about that actually strategically. We may have something for the children and we may figure it out. We'll just walk through it. But what Eddie and I wanna talk about today is something that really the Lord put on the heart of our friend.

I almost said my friend. He's your friend too, Eddie. Jeff Johnson. And it's just kind of spiraled out from there, contacting Tom Askell, Paul Washer, several faithful brothers, Joel Beakey. They've kind of caught this partnership.

I mean, not really just informal, but basically let me get to the point. A global day of prayer for revival. And so this is going to take place Wednesday, October 4th of this year. And that's why we're going ahead and talking about it now.

We hope that you listen to this podcast and would desire to jump on and be part of this, either individually or if you're able to, bring your whole church. So let me give you the website and we'll put it in the show notes as well.

GlobalPrayerForRevival .com. GlobalPrayerForRevival .com. At the time of this recording, 1 ,971 people have signed up from 13 different countries. And we hope that that number just grows and grows. It's not about numbers obviously, but it is about a desire for people to gather together and to cry out to God together for revival.

And then there's a fast declared to begin on Tuesday. I'll just read through the schedule really. The website is basic instruction schedule, but October 3rd, Tuesday evening, family prayers start fast around 8 p .m.

Take time with your family to pray for revival. Then Wednesday, October 4th, individual prayers continue fasting and praying throughout the morning and day. If possible, come together in small groups to pray.

And then Wednesday evening, corporate prayer meeting, come together with your local church at your normal service time. After a few words of instruction and exhortation from your pastor or church leader, pray for at least an hour for revival.

Keep your prayers focused on God's glory and the need for revival and then end fast after the corporate prayer meeting. So logistically, Eddie, we may start our fast, say around 7 .30 on Tuesday, and then we may just eat afterwards or something.

Yeah, yeah. I was looking at that and we may do something like that as well. I can see us doing something like that.

But let's chat about this a little bit. What do you think about a day like this where several, well, many churches, even not just in the United States, even of different denominational affiliations coming together and seeking God together for the purpose of revival?

Yeah, I think that we see examples of this in the scripture where God's people are coming together to pray for things and to pray not just for individual needs, although we do see that in the Bible, but we see these corporate times, both in the Old and New Testaments, when God's people come together to pray for the Lord's work.

And we even see the Apostle Paul, in almost all of his letters to the churches, he's urging them to pray for his ministry and to pray for the gospel to go forward. And so if we're serious about evangelism, we're serious about gospel proclamation, then we've also got to be serious about prayer.

If we're not gonna pray, then what are we really gonna accomplish or do with the other things that we're trying to accomplish?

It comes down to whether or not we believe practically, are we dependent on God or not? Of course, we don't believe that we can manipulate God. We don't believe that our prayers change God or something like that.

But there's twofold aspect of crying out to God in prayer. One is God uses prayer to change us. And another is God uses prayer as a means for accomplishing his ends. It's a mysterious thing. But for example, if I wanted to, or I'm sorry, not if I wanted to, if God wanted to, he could make it where I get from my house to church without walking, without driving, like he just transports me from my house to the church.

But he doesn't do that. He uses means, right? He gets me, he accomplished me, moves me from point A to point B via means. Well, those physical means are similar to the spiritual means God uses. God can and does pour out revival whenever he wants, but he uses means.

And one of the means of revival is his people praying. And I love the idea of people praying in a concentrated effort. You know, there's nothing magical about a special day, you know, October 4th or whatever, but it's just the day to come alongside one another and to cry out to God together.

I do love, by the way, that it's Reformation month. A lot of great things have happened in the history of the church in the month of October.

Fasting as a Means of Seeking God

Yeah, and I do think that, like you said, there's nothing magical about the day, but I do think that there is something important about us coming together to pray. At the same time to say, Lord, like you said, we're not thinking we're gonna manipulate the Lord with the fact that we plan this day, but we are trying to come before the Lord and just show an earnest desire for the Lord to send true revival, true awakening in our land and in our day and around the world.

And we really wanna see that. And I think even the aspect of fasting goes along with that. We do not believe that we're having a, fasting is not a hunger strike to get God to do what we want him to do.

We're not a little kid holding our breath and saying, I'm gonna hold my breath until you do what we want you to do. But rather it's us saying, we desire this so much that we desire it more than our food.

We desire this so much that we desire to spend time in prayer more than these other regular concerns of life and trying to just turn our attention to the Lord and seek him that he would give us a good gift from his hand.

Amen, amen. In Joel chapter two, verse 12, yet even now declares Yahweh, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, free his gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

And he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God. Blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the people, consecrate the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, even nursing infants.

Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. In other words, we see biblical examples here of the Lord calling for his people to fast. The fasting, others have said this better than me, but fasting is not about, like you say, manipulating God, but it's a hunger from God.

It's giving up. Now there are other ways to fast, but primarily in the scriptures, it's talking about giving up food. And there are some for health reasons, may not be able to do that, but there's other creative things you could do for example, you could eat, you know, unflavored oatmeal or what, you know what I'm saying?

You know, I mean, you say, well, you know, doctor's orders, I have to eat, that's good. Like we're not against that, but there's ways, you know, that you don't have to necessarily enjoy it, right? It's like, and the idea is not punishing yourself, but the idea is a reminder that above the delight of food, you're seeking God.

And when you feel those hunger pains, the idea is, let me turn this back to God. I'm reminded what I'm doing, I'm seeking the face of God for revival. And it's particularly in this time, you know, fasting is sometimes just a personal thing, but this is a corporate fast, hopefully for your church, but also Christians all over, really all over the world.

Yeah, and you know, another way, like you said, just another thought for folks that are thinking, I have, you know, maybe they have diabetes or something like that, and they just, they can't go many hours without eating.

There may be a scenario though, where you normally drink, you know, Diet Coke or coffee or something, and you could go without that, and while you're still eating food and drinking water, but you went without this particular thing, and it can still serve the same purpose because you're gonna probably, I drink a lot of coffee, most people that know me know that, and every now and then, about once a week, I'll go a day without drinking coffee, or once every two weeks, I'll take a day without drinking coffee, and I feel different on the days that I don't drink coffee.

Yeah.

And so in some ways that can be, when I'm noticing, man, I feel different than I normally do, I can use that to direct me back to the Lord. In prayer, which is really the idea of fasting, is instead of eating, we're praying.

If you're not praying, if all you're doing is not eating, and you're not praying any more than you were praying, then you've kind of missed the point of the fasting.

Public Prayer, Secret Motives, and Biblical Precedent for Corporate Fasts

Yeah, that's kind of the point too, so like in meals, usually there's preparation that has to go, and then, you know, the eating, but you're using that time to pray, and particularly on this day, just some ideas.

So we'll have a corporate prayer meeting that evening. We'll probably keep things together for the children, classes and such, but we'll have a corporate prayer meeting, I don't know, I'll have to think through all of that, and then during the day, there'll be an encouragement to get together, you know, maybe a couple of different times to pray in small groups, and specifically pray for revival, and I don't remember what episode it is, but we did a podcast on prayer meetings where we gave some ideas, but like you say, we're not just fasting to just not do food, but to get together and pray.

I did wanna mention in Matthew 6, I won't read this, but there's three things that Jesus talks about his followers. He says, when you give, when you pray, and when you fast. So in all of those, he doesn't say if you give, if you pray, if you fast, and those were things, by the way, that the Pharisees were doing.

Jesus doesn't come along sometimes like, no, they shouldn't be doing this. He rebukes them basically for their self-righteousness in those things. They were doing those things to bring glory and attention to themselves, but Jesus says his disciples don't do away with those things.

We do give, we do pray, and we do fast. There is an expectation of disciples of Jesus to do this, and it's really sad that particularly fasting is one of those disciplines that maybe, Baptists are known for eating a lot, but not necessarily known for their fasting, and so I think this is something that ought to be recovered in Baptist churches, for sure, all Christian churches.

Right, right. Hey, I'm gonna throw you what I hope is a softball. Maybe it's a curveball, but a person might read the Lord's instructions there in Matthew chapter six and say, well, he tells us to do that in secret, and here we're having this day where, I mean, it's got a website, and we're gonna be doing it as a church, so kind of.

What would you say to somebody that said, but the Lord told us to fast in secret and to go into our closet and pray in secret, and here we are having this day where everybody's gonna know you're fasting, everybody's gonna know you're praying.

Yeah, I think that's an excellent question, and some people may wonder that, and I think that some people, if your heart motivation for joining in on this is for people to pat you on the back, then I wouldn't even sign up on the website.

Like, I wouldn't do any of that. I wouldn't even tell anybody, and I would. I would just fast in secret, you know?

Right, yeah.

Because that's the point Jesus made. Jesus prayed in public, and so we know that Jesus is not against public prayer, and that public prayer is not a sin in and of itself because our Lord prayed publicly, and so we ought to pray publicly and corporately, and I would make the same application to fasting.

Yes.

The point is, so twofold answer to that. Number one, I would tie fasting with prayer there and the application I just made, but the point is not being self-righteous, not broadcasting your fast for the point of self-encouragement and self-exaltation.

The other thing that I would say, and this is where it comes down to how you read your Bible, but the Old Testament is full of corporate fast, you know? And so we don't just say, well, that was just for Israel.

Like, no, God, even what we just read in Joel, you know, Esther asked Mordecai, you know, to be fasting for in the book of Jonah when the Ninevites repent, there is a citywide fast, and so we have biblical precedent, biblical example of corporate fast, and I would say even in our country, historically, there have been presidents, can you believe that?

Presidents of the United States who have called for national days of fasting. It's almost unimaginable now, or if they did, it would be some sort of, you know, just ungodly, you know.

Good vibes, good vibes days.

But anyway, I've kind of rambled.

I mean, what do you think?

Prayer Meetings in Acts and the Call to Gospel Ministry

No, no, no, that was really good, and like you said, we see it all throughout the scripture. You see it in the Old Testament. We also see throughout the book of Acts. You know, the book of Acts, there are a series of prayer meetings that we see taking place in the book of Acts, and maybe another thing that we want to recognize, this is a global day of prayer for revival, but the reality is the Lord is gonna give the good gifts he desires to give through the prayers of his people, and so we don't know what things the Lord may bring from this day.

In the book of Acts chapter 13, it says this. This is verses two and three. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.

Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. So think about this. We don't know what the Lord's gonna do with that day. We're gonna spend time fasting, praying, seeking the Lord, and he may, the Lord may choose to use this as a day when he launches a mighty revival in terms of turning people's hearts to him.

It may be a day when he calls many people to missionary work or pastoral work or whatever other kind of work and calling in Christian ministry. You know, I think one of the issues today is when I was younger, I can remember 20 years ago, it seemed like there were far more men who were stepping up to lead and to serve in churches.

And we need more men stepping up to lead, especially when it comes to taking the gospel to the least reached parts of the world. That being said, who knows how the Lord might use this day to set apart people for the work of the gospel ministry.

Yeah.

Amen, that's good. And, you know, you said Acts 13, it's also Acts 14, 23, when they had appointed elders for them in every church with prayer and fasting. So we see fasting used in the scripture for repentance.

We see it used for seeking God's guidance. We see it for strengthening prayer, Ezra 8, 23. We see it for expressions of humility. We see it for expressing love and worship to God. There's just so many examples and it is something that needs to be recovered.

So the point of this episode has been to encourage you to be part, to participate in the Global Day of Prayer for Revival. I believe when this episode comes out, you'll have about a month to prepare. I hope you'll jump in, GlobalPrayerForRevival .com.

They've got some videos there, Jeff Johnson, Tom Askell, some other brothers with videos on this website and just some helps and some teaching. And I hope that it's something that your church will do.

If you can't, something's already on the schedule, you just absolutely can't. Well, then perhaps you could schedule one this fall. And I do think there's something to be said of lots of churches coming together on the same day, but at the same time, better to come together at a different day than to not do anything.

And we live in a time period, we're always desperately in need of God, but we look at the decay of culture around us. We look at the desperate need of lost people in the world. We look at just the desperate need of reformation in the churches and revival.

And for all of these reasons, we implore you to seek the Lord. And hopefully you can join on October 4th, but beyond that, seek the Lord. You've got anything else, Edward?

I was just gonna say, you had mentioned the website, GlobalPrayerForRevival .com. You guys can also probably go to either one of our social media and we'll be sharing links to it, leading up to it. So, at QuattroNelson, at EddieRagsdaleX, I guess it's called X now, and of course on Facebook.

And then of course on Facebook. So you guys can look for that there too.

Well, thank you guys for joining us on this episode of the Ruled Church Podcast. Happy September. Say goodbye, Eddie.

We'll see you guys next week.

The Church as God's Work and the Need for Ephesians

If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what God's doing. This is His work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the hoemos, the masterpiece of God.

How are you gonna respond?