Classic Summer 2020: Is fasting for today?

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Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio, and I am the pastor of Bethlehem Bible Church.
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That's exactly what it's like studying the Bible, especially in First Corinthians. So Bethlehem Bible Church at bbchurch .org.
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And today we're going to talk about fasting. Fasting is everywhere in the news. Fasting, you can't read a
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Christian spiritual life section of the bookstore, or can't be in that section and read any books, without this spiritual discipline, fasting.
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My question is, is it really a spiritual discipline? Is it a modern -day superstition?
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Is it a good way to lose weight? Is it following WWJD? What would
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Jesus do since he fasted in the wilderness? Fasting isn't really my favorite topic in the world, but it is in the
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Bible and is very interesting when Jesus himself talks about it. And my question to you today is this, when was the last time you fasted?
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When was the last time you fasted for religious reasons? I had to fast last week for some test, you know, medical test, but what about for religious reasons?
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Not for weight loss, but for spiritual gain? Here's my question today,
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VNE and podcasters, if Christians don't fast today, are they sinning?
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In other words, should you regularly fast? Should you schedule regular fasts?
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I would ask this question, elders of a local church, should they be wonderful fasters?
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Should they be at the pinnacle of fasting? If fasting is good and biblical, shouldn't they be the best at fasting?
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Was fasting just for Old Testament Israel? Should you fast from food and or drinking or both?
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What about for Lent? Should you give up something for Lent? We'll talk about that later, but I actually gave up Lent for Lent, but that's another topic.
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We have a lot about fasting today, so let me just tip my hand to you and then we'll discuss it a little bit from the
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Bible. Fasting. I would make this challenge. There is nothing in the
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New Testament for a local church member that requires him or her to fast.
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Did you know that? It's not demanded. It's not commanded. It's not an imperative. And if you aren't fasting, you aren't necessarily sinning.
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Interestingly, when it comes to elder qualifications, it says nothing about fasting. And interestingly, we see the church having
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Christ Jesus close by, and you'll see Jesus is going to say to them, that's probably not a good time to fast.
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So my question is this. Why all these books on spiritual hunger? By excellent authors, even
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John Piper's got a book on fasting. Why this fascination with fasting? And I would like to say that it is my overall premise.
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Most people like to fast because they like to do something when it comes to Christianity. After all, it's quite hard to come home every day and say no to yourself and die to self and love your wife like Christ loved the church.
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It would probably be easier to fast. And so fasting is something we can do.
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It's tangible. Yet, I think you're going to find out as we look at Matthew 6 today, there's no place in the
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Bible that commands you to fast. If you're a New Testament believer, as a matter of fact, that's the only kind of believers there are now.
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If you're a Christian today, you aren't necessarily compelled to fast by the scriptures.
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Oh, you might be compelled to fast by a circumstance, and we'll talk about that as well a little bit later in the show.
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You might respond to some difficulty with fasting. But if you don't fast regularly in your life, but you always have a conscience that gets you because you think people in America, in churches, on the internet, in books say you ought to fast and give you this guilt complex if you don't,
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I want to relieve you of that burden today. And I want you to think for those who do fast, why am
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I fasting? Just keep thinking of Rodney King. Why are we fighting? Why are we fasting today?
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And so, if you'd like to fast, I'm all for it. But if you'd like to not eat for several days and then make a life -changing decision,
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I think that's going to be problematic. I think that's a bad thing. Most people I know in my life who say,
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I'm going to fast for about three days and then make some life -changing decision on who I might want to marry, what job
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I want to take. I'm scared for them. I think that's a horrible idea. And so, if you have your
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Bibles, turn to Matthew 6, or you can just listen if you're driving. Probably shouldn't turn your Bibles to any place except to turn them over and drive carefully.
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Hands at 10 and 2 position. Sorry, officer, I was going too fast because I was opening my
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Bible to Matthew 6. Matthew 6 is Jesus delivering the Sermon on the
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Mount, and he's got a principle, and the Giving, or praying, or fasting, don't be a hypocrite.
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Don't be a religious hypocrite. And so he says in Matthew 6, verse 1, And he talks about that with almsgiving in verses 2, 3, and 4.
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He says don't do it for men. That is a prostitution of what you're wanting to do.
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It isn't righteousness. It is idolatry, and that idolatry has a goal, and that goal is to please men.
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Beware. Watch out. Be on the lookout. Don't do that. You possibly could do that.
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All of us can give money and alms and somehow brag about it and tell people about it.
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And so we want to try to impress them, and Jesus, knowing the heart of men, says don't do that.
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If people attend to notice, and they happen to notice, fine, but you don't want that as a goal.
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Take heed. Be very careful. Be on guard. Occupy yourself with the notion that this could be a problem.
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And so when it comes to practicing your righteousness, to give alms, our money, our prayer, or then he talks about fasting.
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And that is chapter 6, verse 16. Whenever you fast, and by the way, people say, see, whenever you fast, it assumes you will.
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He's talking to people pre -cross, isn't he? He's talking to people who are Jewish, isn't he?
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He's talking to people who are under Mosaic law, isn't he? He's not saying you, a
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New Testament believer. That's one of the biggest errors in hermeneutics, when you look at the word you and assume it's you today instead of you, the people
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Jesus is talking to on the Sermon, on the Mount of Beatitudes there, where he's giving the
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Sermon on the Mount. Whenever you fast, don't put you there. It's like Sinclair Ferguson who says, we read the
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Bible these days like a Where's Waldo book. You try to find Waldo in the Where's Waldo book.
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And we as Christians today, we tend to say to ourselves, we try to find ourselves in the
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Bible all over, when you certainly can find out who God is all over the Bible and how he deals with sinful men and how he's a great savior of sinners all over the
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Bible. But be careful, whenever you fast, that's not you listening today. That's you, the people who were listening back then, his disciples and those onlookers.
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He says, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting.
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Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full, but you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face.
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So you can't say that's for you today, because I don't know many of you who fast with anointed head and wash your face.
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So that you're fasting, verse 18, will not be noticed by men, but by your father who is in secret and your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
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Here's the overarching principle. Here's the main point. Whatever spiritual discipline you're engaged in, do it before your heavenly father and no one else.
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Real religion, real spirituality has God for an audience, before the face of God, quorum deo, as R .C.
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Sproul helps us to understand. In other words, you can do spiritual things in a sinful way.
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And so don't do that. When it comes to these things that people did often back in those days, almsgiving prayer and fasting, don't do that in a wrong way.
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Don't fast to impress God and earn his acceptance, of course we wouldn't do that, but don't fast so other people think you're really spiritual.
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This is a fasting that is for God. Don't act sad, like the
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Pharisees did, and they dress themselves up, the
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Academy Award goes to the Pharisees. Don't act like the Pharisees. That was Jesus' main point.
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All religion is to God. Duh! Think about it. Why do we do anything we do in our religious life?
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We do it for God, unless you worship other people. Jesus implies that the people who were following him in those days would from time to time fast.
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He didn't say anything about how often, how long, fast from food, food and or water, what the occasion would be, what the method would be.
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Jesus doesn't say any of those things. He just says this is the issue.
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You want to make sure you are spiritual before God and for not other people. And so here's my question today.
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My question today now is regarding fasting. Is there a time when fasting is appropriate? Certainly there was a time in Jesus' day, but what about today?
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Listen to Matthew chapter 9. Jesus is questioned about fasting, so we might as well hear what
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Jesus says. Matthew 9, 14. Then the disciples of John came to him, asking,
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Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? Pharisees fast.
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John the Baptist's disciples, they fast. And you're a rabbi, and you are religious.
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You call yourself godly, and you and your disciples aren't fasting.
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Now maybe they said this with sincere faces, but I think probably underneath there's some cloak of criticism or some kind of accusation there.
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And they said there's two groups of fasters, the disciples of John and the disciples of the
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Pharisees. Why don't they fast? John's disciples may have been fasting because he was in prison at the time, or maybe they're waiting for the messianic age.
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We don't know exactly why, but they're fasting. And then you've got a group of fasters called the
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Pharisees. And the law in the Old Testament gave only one command to fast, yet they upped it.
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They did more. This is what we were talking about in the Legalism series with Pastor Steve on Tuesdays. What did the Pharisees do?
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Luke 18, I fast twice a week. I pay tithes of all that I get. And you have to be very, very careful.
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That reminds me of the man who bought the new radio and put it in his house, put it on the refrigerator, turned it to WSM in Nashville, home of the grand old
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Opry, and then pulled off all the knobs. He had already tuned into all he ever wanted or expected to hear.
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And so the Pharisees didn't care. They could care less. Their spirituality was fake, faux.
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They were posers. They were joyless. They had all kinds of pomp and circumstance. Yet on the inside, they were like dead men's bones.
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And so, Matthew 9, it goes on to say in verse 10, Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and his disciples.
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So we go from fasters to dining. By the way, this is Mike Abendroth. You're listening to WVNE 760
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AM in Central Massachusetts, or you're on the podcast. And today, it's Thursday, we're talking about issues in the church.
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My premise is this. My premise is there's nothing in the New Testament that commands a member of a local church to fast.
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If you'd like to fast for certain reasons, that's up to you. But anybody that wants to give you a guilt trip to fast,
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I think they have no New Testament legs to stand on. If you've got a crisis in your life, and you like to fast, you're able to, but you're not commanded to.
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If you've got somebody that doesn't fast very much, could he be an elder? The answer is yes, he could.
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Because when Jesus says in Matthew 6, when you fast, he's not talking about New Testament Christians.
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Now, we're moving to Matthew 9, you've got fasters, John the Baptist disciples,
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Pharisees. They're fasting. Now, Jesus is dining with tax collectors and sinners.
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Verse 11 of chapter 9 in Matthew, when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, why is your teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?
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They were murmuring. They weren't directly attacking Jesus, but pretty much, they were going directly for him through his disciples.
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When Jesus heard this, he said, is it not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick?
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Go and learn what this means, one of Jesus' favorite verses in all the Bible. I desire compassion and not sacrifice, for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
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You external phonies, you Pharisees are tenacious externally, and God says the issue is mercy from the inside.
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You need to go and learn this. What sarcasm from our Lord. How biting that was to them.
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He slams them as he vindicates both himself and his actions.
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He's talking about feasting. They're talking about fasting, and he says it's inappropriate.
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Verse 15, I'll tell you why it's inappropriate. Think about a marriage. The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them.
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Can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.
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Who thinks even these days at a wedding ceremony that while the bridegroom is around, you don't partake in the great marriage feast?
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That would not be thought of even today, let alone back in the Middle East culture where people would be, the new married couple would be king and queen for a week, and they'd have a huge party, a huge feast.
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The bridegroom is Jesus himself, and when he's around, you're going to fast? He then gives another parable about another situation.
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It's a parable about mending. He says in Matthew 9, 16, but no one puts on a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the worst tear results.
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And so he's giving these illustrations on why at certain times actually fasting is inappropriate.
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There's an inappropriate time to fast. These situations where you take old
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Judaism and all its fasting, and then the Pharisees' extra -biblical fasting, and somehow attach it to the cloth of Christ's New Testament, New Covenant thinking, it doesn't work.
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It destroys both. And then he talks about the mashed grapes parable in verse 17. Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins, otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out, and the wineskins are ruined.
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And they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved. They didn't have any glass bottles back then, any
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PVC, two -liter bottles. You've got these new skins, soft and pliable, and they would stretch, and they would be able to take some of those things.
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The old wineskins couldn't handle the new, fermenting, bubbling wine. You can't preserve some kind of Old Testament system by slapping this other stuff on there.
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Fasting sometimes actually is inappropriate. Sometimes it may be appropriate, but here
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Jesus says it is inappropriate. So you say, when would fasting be appropriate?
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I don't think you can find a command that makes you, the imperative of God commands you to fast, but there are times you'll see in the
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Scripture, and I wonder, even in your own life, when it would be right to fast.
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One of the times people fast is in response to afflictions.
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You'll see, fasting is in response to something that is going on in your life that's associated with a time of trouble or testing.
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In this particular case, a time of sorrow. If you're sorrowful, if you're sad, you probably aren't thinking about your appetite.
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If you know someone's loved one is in the hospital, you may bring them over food because you don't know how to say
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I love you in any other way. That's fine, but I think you should resist this kind of statement.
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You better eat. You've got to eat something, because they don't really need to eat something. Their body is telling them there is something more going on here than just eating.
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Life is more about eating. I don't need food right now. You can go for quite a few days without food, and I'm not trying to say you should go for a week without food, but when there's some problem in life, you respond with fasting.
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It's just normal. David said to Nathan in 2 Samuel 12, I have sinned against the Lord. Nathan replied, the
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Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. And so, what happens?
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But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt, the son born to you will die,
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David. And that's exactly what happened. David's son became ill. David pleaded with God for the child, and in verse 16 of 2
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Samuel 12, he what, fasted. He went into his house and spent the nights lying on the ground.
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And so when you have an affliction in your life, a time of trouble, a time of testing, a time of sorrow, you can respond with fasting.
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It's not a sin to fast, but it's not a sin not to fast. You get that? If you say people are putting you under some
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Mosaic law, you must fast. That's not true. But if you have a time of sorrow or sadness and you'd like to fast, that's just normal.
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That's just natural. David's child died, and then what happened?
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He stopped fasting. He said, while the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, who knows, the
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Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live. But now that he's dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again?
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I will go to him, but he will not return to me. And so you can fast if there's some kind of time of sorrow.
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2 Samuel 1, there was a public calamity, and people fasted for Saul and his son
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Jonathan because they had died. You go to a funeral, lots of people say, I'm just not hungry, because it's a time of sorrow, a time of trouble.
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Sometimes in the Bible, 2 Chronicles 20, people were scared that they were in danger.
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They fasted. Queen Esther and all the Jews in Susa for three full days, asking the
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Jews to be spared. Fasting, do not eat or drink, day or night, three days.
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Esther 4. Sometimes people fast when it comes to times of sin being confessed.
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First Kings chapter 21, they put on sackcloth and fasted. Ahab heard these words of Elijah, he tore his clothes.
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This is no compromise radio ministry, and there are times to fast. But don't get guilt -tripped into fasting because you're supposedly under some
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New Testament command. When you fast, Jesus said, and people throw that around all the time.
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When it has nothing to do with fasting today for the people today. If you'd like to fast because you're going to set apart ministers,
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I see that in Acts chapter 13, ordination of ministers. You want to pick a new elder, so the church fasts.
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I don't have any problem with fasting as long as people aren't forcing you to fast. It should be something that you do, that you do yourself.
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And so when you read all these books, Fasting for Spiritual Breakthrough by Elmer Townes, Christian Fasting by Kent Bergeus, Fasting, Opening a
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Door to a Deeper, More Intimate, More Powerful Relationship with God by Jennison Franklin, Fasting is
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Unto the Lord by Marilyn Samuelson. These books are not right. That's not how you get a better relationship with God.
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That's not what you do. That's not how you go about it. If you'd like to fast because there's trouble in your life and you want to respond by fasting and then the more you think about food, then the more you pray,
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I am all for it. This is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. Don't let anybody tell you it's a sin not to fast, but don't let anybody tell you it's not okay to fast in response to trial or temptation.
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God bless you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.
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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.
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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.
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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.