Why We Should Fast

When you want something, what do you do? Well, you want it. You want it really badly. If you want it badly enough, well, maybe we humans covet it. We're consumed by it. Then we really, really want it. What do you do then? Well, you try to get it. You beg for it if you have to. You might have to do some negotiations. You might have to make some threats. You might have to get violent. Go into fighting in order to get what you want. That's kind of the human version. What if you still can't get it? Well, a lot of people will then pray. Pray real hard for it. Maybe have a prayer vigil and try to get it. Maybe fast and try to get it. You might think, this is kind of crazy. That's bizarre. Somebody would covet and crave and fight and then pray and maybe fast. That's nuts. That's nonsense. And yet, that's human. And that's also scriptural. Turn with me, if you will, over to James 4. We'll begin in verse 2. A fairly familiar passage to most of us because we've covered this before. This description that I just gave is a biblical example that James used that is sort of common to us humans. While it might seem out of place here, it doesn't seem out of place when you're doing it. When you want something really, really bad. Something that would benefit yourself, something for yourself, something that's desirous to the eyes, something that you just must have. And so in chapter 4, verse 2, he says, you lust. It's talking to us, not them. You lust. This is something you don't have. It's not yours. And you want it. You murder, at least mentally. You're not loving your neighbor. You're murdering with the tongue. You're slicing and dicing. A lot of what he talks about here stems from verse 14 of the previous chapter where he says, if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts. This is about me. It's about my promotion or me wanting stuff. Everything else seems to go out the window. He says, you murder and you covet and you cannot obtain. You fight and you war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. Oh, well then let's ask. Let's pray about it. Let's fast about it. Let's get God on our side. Well, he noticed here, he says, you do not receive because you ask amiss. Something wrong with this whole concept from the beginning. He talked about lust. He talked about covetous. Now he talks about adulterers and adultruses, friendship with the world. In other words, this is common to our old man, our old self that we supposedly repented of. We were baptized. We were forgiven of. Somehow we can go back into this concept of wanting God and wanting maneuverings, wanting something to get what we want. Well, what about this concept of needing something and what do we do about it?

We all are used to prayer. We're used to asking God for things. Too often we begin our prayers with whatever we think will appease God and then just get right in the I want list. I made my list. I checked it twice. Here it is.

I'm trying to figure out some way to wake you up, God, get you on board here, get this list checked off, filled out and shipped. This is really important to me. I'll do whatever you want me to. Here, watch. I'll do something.

I'll read my Bible if I have to, but you've got to do this for me. I'm just consumed by it. I'll even go without food. That'll do it. I'll go without a lot of food. Except maybe that. I'll really show you here. I'll stick myself with something if it's required. I'll endure pain. No, food will do that. I'll just be really, really hungry and have a bad headache.

I know you're going to wake up at the end of the 24 hours and I'll get what I want. What about that? Let me ask a question. What is the purpose of fasting?

The Day of Atonement comes around once a year. It tends to catch some by surprise. Like, oh, what's this? This is odd. Am I going to die? I'm scared. I'm afraid.

What is a fast and what's the purpose of it and why should we fast?

The Day of Atonement we're commanded for 24 hours to refrain from any food and any sort of beverage. Just nothing. Nothing goes in.

During the year, we're encouraged to declare personal fasts. A personal fast is not a commanded fast. It's a personal fast. It's something that you create.

You can set your own limits to it and your own factors in it and things like that. But God's Feast of Atonement is a little bit different. We'll talk about that later.

When you declare a personal fast, what's the purpose of the fast? What are you going to get from it? What's the reason to fast?

Many people don't see a purpose or a reason in fasting, so they don't fast. So they come around to Atonement once a year and say, I don't like this holy day. I don't see the need. I don't like what happens on this day. It's a negative day. It's a downer for me.

I look at that as not a feast day. No, no, no. Not a feast day. Not a festival. Not a celebration. But more something, oh, Atonement's coming.

Well, let's look at fasting today. Let's take a look at the purpose of fasting and see if fasting will indeed help you obtain what it is that you seek.

Let's examine things that the Bible says about the topic of fasting.

First of all, I'd like to say from a personal experience, fasting can be very valuable or a complete waste of time. It just can't. It can be either one. Maybe a combination of the two, but I tend to find it's either very valuable or it's a big waste of time.

And that just goes to show that going hungry of and by itself means going hungry. And that doesn't necessarily accomplish anything of real value.

It can bring a positive change or it can be a real annoyance. You can just go around, I'm hungry. I don't like being hungry. I don't want to do this.

Everything and everyone annoys me. I have a headache. I'm on edge. What's the point here? What's the purpose?

I hope God's getting something out of this, we might think, you know.

I hope this is doing something on high because I'm just in misery here. See, that can take place.

Or you can actually receive something. You can grow spiritually. It can be a richly rewarding experience.

And at the end, it can be a breath of fresh air and you'd be very, very happy that you fasted. Very happy you fasted.

Let's ask some questions. Is it wrong to fast to get something you want? It's a good question. Is it wrong to fast to get something that you want?

Well, I think the answer is, that depends on what you want.

I think from the Bible we're going to see that if you want a certain thing, a fast can really help you get it.

And if you want a bunch of other things, well, we'll leave that for a little bit later.

If you go to Joel 2, verses 12-13, Joel 2, verse 12, It says here in Joel 2, 12, Enough of my opinion, my view of fasting and its values, my experiences. Let's go right to God.

What do you think about fasting, God?

Joel 2, verse 12. Now, if we want something, God's going to tell us what we can receive by fasting.

Now, therefore, says the Lord, turn to me.

You know, is there anything in the Bible that doesn't talk about that one phrase, turn to me?

From the fall of Adam and Eve, which happened just immediately, to the end of the book of Revelation, God is saying, turn to me.

Turn to me. Jesus said, you know, you're of your father, the devil, turn to your father from above.

Turn to me. He goes on, turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. Is that what you want? Is that what you desire? Do you want to turn to God? Do you want to set aside those things in your life that are out of sequence with God's law, His plan, His commandments, His Holy Spirit, with godly behavior, with the mindset of the God family? Do you want to turn from that and turn to God?

If so, do it with fasting, He says. Even with weeping and mourning, put your heart into it. Do it the real repentant way. Not just fake repentance, real repentance, deep repentance.

Verse 13, so rend your heart and not your garments and return to the Lord your God.

I think this summarizes fasting and every major application of fasting, from the commanded day of atonement, to the other fasts in the Bible, to the recommended fast that Jesus Christ talks about, is our returning to God.

You and I are at some point in a relationship with God. We may be coming towards baptism, we may be past baptism, but we are daily in a need to return to God. And that's why Jesus put in the model prayer outline that we need to ask for forgiveness.

We need to be repenting daily because we step outside. We all break God's laws. We break His commands. We get self-centered. And we find ourselves off the path. And what do we do? We need to return to God, don't we?

Not even on a daily basis. Sometimes we catch ourselves and we have to pray and ask God to forgive us and say, Put me back on track. Sometimes the church in its history has gotten off track. And we've had to say, God, as a church we're coming to You, we're going to fast. Put us back on track.

That has happened since ancient times in the Bible, even up through modern times.

Turn to me with all your heart with fasting is an integral foundational component of a fast that God wants and a fast that you're going to really receive what it is you're looking for. If that's what you're looking for, fasting is a great tool.

Going on, He says, for He is gracious. He's full of grace. He's going to forgive you. He's merciful. He's slow to anger of great kindness. And He relents from doing harm. Are you receiving curses in your life? Are you receiving the opposite of blessings in your life? Do little lights go on? You say, you know, I might not be living right. Something might be a mess.

I don't know what it is. I can't put my finger on it. But as part of returning to God and returning to doing what's right from the heart, I need to fast.

And if that is our true desire, God will be part of it. And He will answer that prayer.

This is the main biblical reason that I find in the Bible to fast.

It's used as a tool in conjunction with heartfelt repentance and moving closer to God.

Repent from sin. Get close to God. Tear down the wall that separates you. Be close to God. Tear down the wall that separates you with other people. Repent of that. Walls go down.

Unity is restored. And fasting and humility are part of the process.

If we notice Jesus Christ's statements regarding this turn to me and return to the Lord that we've just written here, when He came to earth, let's notice in Mark 2, verses 18-20, some things that He said.

Mark 2, verse 18.

Now the disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting.

It seems like everybody is fasting. Maybe not at the same time, but the Pharisees and the disciples of John the Baptist were fasting.

And then they came and said to Jesus, Why do the disciples of John and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? Hmm. Let me think about that for a minute. Why would that be? Now He's already given us, the same God has already given us, a directive previous to His coming to earth, and He said, you know, Come to Me, draw near to Me, and fast. Now He's saying, My disciples who are right here with Me are not fasting. He's actually being complained that they're not. Does that seem to sort of go hand in hand? Well, in verse 19, Jesus said to them, Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? So turning to God, being joined together with God, having a one relationship with God is helped and assisted by repentance and fasting. And Jesus is saying, I'm here right with them. We're not separated. We're together. In that physical sense, and even in a mental sense, He was there teaching them. And they seem to be fairly compliant to the teachings as far as they could understand them at that time. He says, verse 19, Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days. So we see that fasting has a basic core component to it of our being attached better to God, our coming to God, returning to God, turning to Him, steering us back close and following Him. Fasting is very, very integral to that. Why is that? Well, fasting from God's perspective in the Bible is a tool for spiritual relationships, for improving spiritual relationships. And that is what that tool is for. Now, I don't know about you. I have a toolbox, or a few tools, toolboxes. And if I want a tool to sew a canopy, a sun canopy, right? Do I get out my socket wrench and try to somehow sew it with a socket wrench? That wouldn't make much sense, would it? And yet sometimes when we want something very selfishly, you know, I want this really, really bad, really, really, really, really, really bad, we get out our, you know, some tool out of the box that's as ridiculous as a socket set for sewing. And we say, okay, let's try fasting to greedily get what I want, or selfishly get what I want. It's not greedy because it's me and I'm special, so it must be a holy request, but I really, really want it for me and I'm special.

So you see what happens? We get out the tool of fasting and say, let's try it! I'll try going hungry. Did it work? Well, it doesn't seem to be working. Maybe I need to fast more often. Maybe I need to fast with needles stuck in me. You know? Maybe I need to fast two days instead of one day. I don't know. Upside down. Whatever we would come up with, you see. But is this the tool for getting what you really, really want? Let's try to analyze and read the instruction manual here for the fasting tool and see what we get from it. See what it's intended to. We see another New Testament example concerning fasting.

A God-supported fast. And this is really a God-supported fast, so we know God is right on board with this. And that's in the example of Cornelius. Cornelius was a centurion in the Roman army. He was also a Roman. He was not of Israelite-ish or Jewish descent. He was a Gentile. Gentiles were not presumed to be part of the covenant that Christ came and gave. It was a new covenant for the Jews. It was a better covenant than what the Israelites had been given. It had better promises. And now Cornelius is wanting to come on board and be part of this covenant. That created quite a challenge for the thinking of the day. If we go to Acts 10, just skimming the overview here, we see in Acts 10 the first verse. This situation is starting to brew in two different locations.

The first one we are introduced to is that man in Caesarea, upon the coast, probably. There are two Caesarea's. There was a Roman citadel up in one Caesarea.

There was a man called Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian regiment. This is a guy in the army with the Romans. He is not part of the Jewish church of the day. He was a devout man and one who feared God with all his household. He gave tithes generously, or alms generously, it says, to the people. He prayed to God always. About the ninth hour of the day, he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, Cornelius! So we do see some interaction here on God's part.

If we drop down to the rest of the chapter here in verse 9, we see somewhere else that Peter is going out on his house top, maybe he's praying, and next thing you know he sees a vision. And an angel is letting down sheets after sheets of unclean animals, saying, Eat! He's saying, No, no, no, no, not me, I'm not going to touch that stuff. So, that is something that really bothered him and spoke to him the second time in verse 15.

What God has cleansed you must not call common. This was done three times and these unclean animals were taken back up into the first heaven, up into the sky. Now, what did that mean? That mean that you can now eat? You're supposed to go eat unclean animals? No. Scripture will certainly explain itself. We don't have to wonder what the explanation was. In verse 17, we notice that Peter didn't know what it meant.

But he says, Peter wondered within himself what this vision he had seen meant. So, it might be obvious to those who think that it's okay now to eat pork or something. Peter didn't come to that conclusion at all and he was the one experiencing the vision. Behold, the men who had been sent from Cornelius made inquiry for Simon's house and stood before the gate. Oh, so now they are up here near Simon's house. They called and asked whether Simon, whose surname was Peter, was lodging there. While Peter thought about the vision, the Spirit said to him, Three men are seeking you. Arise therefore, go down and go with them, doubting nothing, for I have sent them.

So Peter went down and asked for what reason have you come. And they said, verse 22, Cornelius the Centurion, a just man, one who fears God and has a good reputation among all the nation of the Jews, was divinely instructed by a holy angel to summon you to his house and to hear words from you.

Then he invited him in and lodged them. Now on the next day Peter went away with them and some of the brethren accompanied them. So this is kind of getting interesting here. Dropping down to verse 28, they got together, they entered Caesarea. So Peter's house was on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee and he's traveled to Caesarea. And as they're talking, verse 28, he said to them, You know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company with or to go to one of another nation, which he had just done.

But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean. There is the end of the unclean animals. There is the Bible's explanation of what that vision meant. Peter has been shown that it's not about eating unclean food, it's about people. Therefore, he says, I came without objection. As soon as I was sent, I asked then, For what reason have you sent me? Now these two individuals, having God involved with them in two separate cities, They've come together and we're going to see what's happening here.

Let's take a look. So, in verse 30, Cornelius says, Four days ago I was fasting until this hour, till this time of day. I don't know what the hour was, but he had proclaimed a fast, And I guess his fast stopped at that hour.

He was fasting at the ninth hour. I prayed in my house, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing. He's getting an answer here to his prayer, isn't he? His fast is having some considerable success in achieving what it is he's wanting. This angel said, Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, And your alms are remembered in the sight of God. Send therefore to Joppa and call Simon here, whose surname is Peter, And he is lodging at the house of Simon a tanner by the sea. Okay, this wasn't Simon's house on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee after all.

This is Simon the tanner, sorry. And when he comes, he will speak to you. So I said immediately, you've done well to come, Therefore we're all present before God to hear all the things commanded you by God. Wow! Here's a man trying to do better, trying to grow in a relationship, trying to get near to God, and he's fasting. That's just what God said to the reason why God said to fast.

And God is making it take place through miracles. He says in verse 34, Peter said, In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation whoever fears him and works righteousness is accepted by him. The word, you know, verse 37, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached, and he goes on and explains that, that we are witnesses of those things.

In verse 41 at the end, that Jesus rose from the dead, and he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that it is he who was ordained by God to be the judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets witness that through his name whoever believes on him will receive remission of sins. This is a big, big, big part of fasting. It's the remission of sins.

God gets involved to bring us closer to him through the remission of sins, and fasting is a great tool for that to happen. How did God support this fast? How did God support Cornelius' request? While Peter was still speaking these words, verse 44, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word.

Similar thing happened here to the Gentiles visibly that happened to the apostles on the Feast of Pentecost. And the Holy Spirit came to the Gentiles in a very visible way so that all that were present, including you and me today in reading about it, would understand that God also is now calling all people from all nations, all tribes, and all tongues, whomever the Father will draw at this time.

In verse 46, For they then heard, for they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God, and Peter answered, Can anyone forbid water that they should not be baptized?

Verse 48, And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord, and they asked him to stay a few days. You know, you can read over that. It's just a story, but that's a profound use and godly supported incident involving fasting in the New Testament.

It goes right back to, Turn to me with your heart with fasting, God says. Return to the Lord your God. In this case, it's a new convert. He was fasting, and God got involved in a big way to answer his prayer through miracles. He brought him all the way through, baptized him, and gave him the Holy Spirit.

That's an incredible story of fasting and receiving that which you want according to the purpose of God's fasting, prayer, the will of God, etc. When you think about it, atonement has these same elements. Atonement has a fast, but think about the Feast of Atonement for a minute.

What were we commanded to do? Yes, fast for 24 hours.

Two Azazel goats, one representing Jesus Christ, one representing Satan. One has guilt put all over it and sent away by the hand of a strong man. Another one has sins confessed on it and is killed for the atonement of the sins of God's people.

Repentance, forgiveness, at one with God, which is what Jesus prayed for, is one of the central things of his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane in John 17. That they may be one with us as we are one. This getting rid of the sin that separates, getting rid of Satan, getting rid of haughtiness and pride, fasting, prayer, atonement, righteousness. All these things come together wherever we see fasting.

We need to understand this from God's perspective. Sometimes we say, well, can we use this tool for something else? Well, let's try it. Many in the Bible have. David was one. In 2 Samuel 12, verse 15, it simply says, And the LORD struck the child that Uriah's wife bore to David, and it became ill. So David and Bathsheba not only had a fair, but a murder was involved. Now you have an illegitimate son, and they're saying, this is working. This is going well. And we've even got a child. Everything's good. Our sin is working out. And God struck the child ill.

Many will say, oh, if I get into a pickle, what can I do to get out of it? Well, verse 16, Therefore David pleaded with God for the child. Please, please, please, please. I want to want to want to want it. I want to have it.

I want it really, really, really bad. I know it's wrong. I know it came wrong. I know he did wrong to get it, but I got it. And I want to keep it. He pleaded with God for the child. And he fasted. And he went in and lay all night on the ground.

See, it wasn't just good enough to fast. Okay, let's do something else. We don't have any pins to stick in. We won't even sleep on a bed. We'll lie on the ground. It's very uncomfortable. And then God will give it to me. Well, the result was the child died. There's no indication of David's fast being for repentance, wanting forgiveness, wanting to put off his old self, his old nature, to come close to God, to turn to God with all his heart. We see, after the child died, as we tend to see, a little bit mercurily or without a lot of detail in the Old Testament, that Psalm 51 was written after that event.

And David did repent and cry out for a clean heart and a right heart and for forgiveness and for God's Spirit to be with him. That was heartfelt. And I'm sure there was fasting at that time as well. But here we seem to have an indication that David was wanting to avoid a penalty, wanting to sin but not have to pay a penalty. Another question might be, does going hungry motivate God more than if we merely pray?

And if I really want something, maybe God has not motivated as much as I am, but if I go without food, does that somehow motivate him? Does it get him on board? Does it kind of wake him up or make him feel, well, you know, the person's really suffering down there. If I don't come through after all their suffering, you know, I'm going to let him down.

Does God feel obligated? In Isaiah 59, verses 1-2, you find that God knows our games, but God has a will. And God's will is that all repent and all do not perish. And that will is stated very clearly in 2 Peter 3. I believe it's verse 9. And that is what God wants for us. We want a lot of other things, but that's what God wants for us. And he says here in Isaiah 59, verse 1, Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save.

But let's remember for a moment what is God's will. God's will is for us to repent, come like him, and be in his kingdom. Sometimes what we want is not that. We want something else. And so we will cry, and we'll wail, and we'll fast, and we'll pray, and we'll be in a real pickle in something else unrelated to the will of God. And so he says, Hey, my hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor is ear heavy that it cannot hear. We don't have to fast. We don't have to sleep on the hard floor.

Your iniquities have separated you from your God. And what did Jesus say? Come to me. Come to God. Return to me. Your sins and iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear. Being hungry is not going to fix that, is it? Sticking needles in yourself isn't going to fix it. Sleeping on a bed of nails isn't going to fix it. Cutting your ear off isn't going to fix it.

What fixes it is repentance and change. That's what God wants. And what's a good tool for repentance and change? Well, prayer and fasting and meditation, all those tools in the toolbox work real well for that. When you come to a situation in your life where your iniquities have separated you from God, your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear, that is a good time to fast.

A good time to humble oneself, to stop, take notice, to fast and say, God, with my whole heart I'm sorry, I'm wrong, I've been wrong. Forgive me, put a clean heart in me, renew a right spirit in me, help me get back on the path.

But doing our own will, doing our own will, is not something God can get on board with. God knows how to give blessings to his children. He says, you fathers know how to give physical things to your kids. I know how to give blessings to you. He knows what we need before we ask.

We really, I think, come up with a lot of these things in our mind as being more important, more pressing than what they are. We start begging for all the wrong things and maybe throwing in prayer and fasting on top of them. God is ready and willing to bless his children, like Jesus said in Matthew 6. At the end of that chapter where he said, don't come and beg and plead for all these physical things and put your mind on them.

That's what all the Gentiles, the unbelievers, seek these. But you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. You have a passion for righteousness, a hunger and a thirst for a good relationship with God and each other. And all these other things will be added to you. He knows how to add those things on. And believe me, he does know how to add those things on. He can open the windows of heaven and just dump things on you to where you just say, no more.

You know, I've got enough physical stuff. Don't need anything. That can happen. That does happen. If we are actually going about the things that are his will, the things that he puts you and me on earth to be doing. What does God want from you? To do his will. Do the will of the Father. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. That's what God wants. That's what we're even to pray about. Have first in our mind. What do you and I want? Well, according to James 4 that we read earlier, we want our will. We covet, we lust, we want, we can't obtain.

You know, and we start getting to this process of, how am I going to get whatever it is I want? God's will, our will. Fasting to get God to support our will is more like a hunger strike mentality. And I would be careful with this personally because God is not mocked, it says in the Bible.

We can put it this way. Humans will go on hunger strikes. They call them fasts sometimes. And if, until I get this, or until you do this, or until something, I'm going to not eat. Now, there are some notable individuals in the last hundred years that have applied this tactic. Some of them are quite famous. Groups of individuals in prisons here and there. Various people in countries where the politics or the politicians have been very oppressive. Even Gandhi over in India used hunger fasting or hunger strikes to get his own people to do things that were right in one or more instances. To stop a civil war that was going on.

And he essentially put himself out and he was going to starve to death. And he was starving to death until the people on both sides that loved him and revered him said, Okay, we won't kill each other. But you see, that's a little different. All of these hunger strikes for whatever reason. Or the person says, I'm not going to eat until they change this law or whatever. Those things are intended to get my will enforced on someone else.

Even though it sounds good at times. Fasting is not a tool by which to get your will recognized and approved on high by God. Even if we might think our will is a good will or our deed or whatever the situation is.

Fasting from the scriptures as we've been looking at is something for us to get in line with God's will. And if you look in your toolbox and say, Oh, I can use this wrench for all... I can use it as a hammer. Watch this. I can use it as a clock. I can use it to sew with. It's my tool so I can use it for... Well, go ahead and try.

But you know, wrenches are really good for loosening or tightening bolts. They're not so good for other things. And fasting is really good for performing God's will of humility, repentance, of seeking righteousness, and getting rid of self-centeredness. In Isaiah 58, verses 3 and 4, God puts back to us that which we send His way too often. We want our will to be done. We want our thing to be approved. And so we fast about it.

God's gotten these requests down through the ages in many different forms. And I'm sure He gets tired of them because He kicks it back at us. And Isaiah 58, verse 3, He says, You say to me, Why have we fasted, they say, and you have not seen? He's saying, I get this all the time up here in heaven. Why have we fasted and you haven't seen?

Why have we afflicted our bodies and you take no notice? I mean, we're really trying here. Well, God answers that. The middle of verse 3 says, In fact, in the day of your fast, you find pleasure and exploit all your laborers.

You fast for strife and debate and to strike with the fist of wickedness, shake hands with the fist of wickedness. You will not fast as you do this day to make your voice heard on high. We don't listen to that up here. That's what He's saying. That stuff doesn't reach our ears. When you come up with something you want, that's not heard up here. You can look at His words there and you can analyze them and match them to whatever requests you want to make through prayer and see if fasting is applicable. But here's what God is saying is approved on high. And if you want to have your voice heard on high, that's not the kind of fast that you'll be doing. Again, what does God want from you? He wants you to do His will, to humble yourself, to grow relationships through His laws. His laws are about relationships between you and Him and you and us, your fellow man. God wants those relationships grown. He wants unity. He wants people to get closer and closer together.

The most important role of a fast is humility and repentance in order to perform the will of God, which is righteousness, which is His way of selflessness and serving and loving others. And if we were to come on board and take that tool out of the box when it's needed, I'm not as righteous as I should be. I'm not as loving. So my relationships are fracturing. My relationship with God is dicey. Relationships with humans are dicey. Get in the tool box. Which tool will help me repair this problem? Which tool will it be? If I take a gun out? Do I take a hammer out? What do I take out? Oh, here's fasting. Here's what will really make you have a bad day fast. It will humble you and make you realize, oh, you're going to die if you don't take something as simple as food and water. Well, that could work. That might help loosen the nut a little bit. In James 4 and verse 3, let's go back to that passage that we began with and notice a little bit more about these relationships that get out of sync. James 4, talking and not thinking. Let's read verse 3 again. You ask, you pray, and you do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures, your own wants, your own desires, whatever that may be. So God up on high is saying, I get these requests all the time, but you're not asking of the things that are according to that which I respond with.

If we look in verse 10, it says, but God gives more grace. Oh, he's ready to be gracious. Therefore, he says, God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Now, how does the tool of fasting work here? Pride, me, I want, I should have, God, you know, get on board here with my little program, or humility. God supports humility. How does fasting work with humility? It works pretty well.

Therefore, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God. Well, there's that phrase again. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. This is speaking to me. This is speaking to my nature. This is speaking to the thing that I need to be doing.

Fasting works really well with humility, with the repentance. It's a great tool for this.

Verse 10, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up. That's a great tool for that. Going by the words that we've seen God has said already. You know, God's will is that we repent of the self, and be godly. And when we're not, we break relationships. We cause problems between ourselves and God, and ourselves and our fellow man. If you look over just one chapter further on, same topic going on, verse 16, he says, Confess your trespasses, or your sins, to one another.

You sin against each other. You break the six of the ten commandments and the finer points of the law, and you have relationship problems because of it. Therefore, repent to each other. What are you saying? Apologize, recognize your sins. Pray for one another. You can fast that you may be. Thayer's says this Greek word can be translated, freed from sin. Confess your faults to one another, and pray for one another that you may be, or can be freed from sin, is one of the meanings of that Greek word.

The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Now, you see, if you repent, you fast, and you change, and you obey, what are you? You're a righteous man or a righteous woman. And then your prayer avails much with God. That's where we want to be, isn't it? We want to be righteous. We want to be freed from this broken relationship with God, broken relationships with our fellow man.

Jesus said in Luke 15 verse 7, I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents. You know, what brings joy in heaven? Is it your desire for this, or your desire for that, or your craving for something? No! God gets excited. There's more joy in heaven over a sinner who repents.

That's God's will. Jesus Christ came saying, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. The great tool of repentance is fasting. No, this world needs to be healed. It needs to be freed from sin and the penalties of sin. Day of Atonement, the fast of Atonement, the removal of Satan, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and the atoning blood of Him represented by that goat. All of those work together.

And those same elements can work in your life and in my life. Humble repentance promotes spiritual growth. Spiritual growth promotes oneness. It will now. It will forever. So if we fast, we can be assisted in humility. We can really be able to receive God's blessing, God's help, God's gift of change, change of heart, change of mind, stirring up His Spirit, being forgiven and replacing it with righteousness.

If that's what we crave, Jesus said, blessed are those who essentially crave, who really, really, really want righteousness. They're going to be filled. That means to be really hungry for it and passionate about it. Now, if we come before God, God, I want to be like you. Help me be like you. Really help me. I'm going to fast about this.

I want you to correct me and show me where I can change and how I can change. Then give me more of your Spirit to help me change. What do you think the answer to that prayer is going to be? It's going to be hurt on high. Miracles are going to take place. That person, hopefully you and me, will grow. We'll move forward. Other blessings will come just because God likes you. He put you on a nice earth and sprinkled a few blessings here and there. He just didn't see them coming. That's fun, too.

Let's see how fasting can assist repentance and spiritual growth. In Ezra 8, verse 21, we have a great example. Ezra 8, verse 21, he says, Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river Ahava that we might humble ourselves before our God. Here's somebody coming with a fast. What do they want? They actually do want something from God. We set our face to God to make a request. I proclaim a fast that we might humble ourselves.

He sees what fasting can do. He takes the tool out of the box because he wants to be humble. Let's try fasting. That'll help with the humility. That's not all. To seek from Him. Here's what it is. To seek from Him the right way. You think God will get behind that fast? To seek from God the right way for us in our little ones, in all our positions. So we fasted and entreated our God for this. And He answered our prayer.

What was the prayer? Well, we asked Him to help us be humble and to seek from Him the right way. And He answered our prayer. That is a fantastic example of the tool of fasting being used for the right reason, or I should say, an effective reason. Consider how fasting can be done during times of crisis in the church. You might think, well, isn't this off topic? Well, let's see. Is it off topic when we are having problems in the church and the relationships are breaking because of what? Well, we all know the truth and we all have the truth.

So it looked like sort of the people there in James 4. Doesn't mean we always live by the truth, does it? We are God's people. Well, Ezra and the Israelites there were God's people. It doesn't look like we always act like God's people, do we? And so at times, just like Ezra, we proclaim a fast to seek from God the right way to repent. We entreat God for this and He answers our prayer. We find out we were over here. We should be back over here.

A good example of this is in Daniel 9. We'll start in verse 3. Daniel 9. Starting in verse 3. Daniel says, Then I set my face towards the Lord God to make my request by prayer and supplications with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. Then we'll close our bios and say, I'm going to do like Daniel. I want a new car, so I'm going to use the fasting and the sackcloth and the ashes, see?

And stick some in my eyes, so it really hurts. You've got to read on a little bit further. Verse 4. And I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession. And I said, O Lord, great and awesome, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him and with those who keep His commandments. Hello. Ding, ding. Verse 5. We have sinned. We, the people of God, have committed iniquity. We have done wickedly and rebelled, even departing from your precepts and judgments.

You know, we can say all day, oh, yeah, we're the people of God. But if we do the seven things that God hates and He despises, He'd uphores, well, you see, then what kind of people of God are we? If we're the Church of God, but we're like the six churches mentioned in Revelation, that He says you're really, you know, not being the Church, you're really not doing what a Church, my Church, would be doing, then you've got a problem.

So what would we do in a situation like that? Well, here's a great example. Verse 7, O Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but to us shame of face. O my God, incline your ear and hear, and open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city which is called by your name, or in this case, the Church that is called by your name, but Jerusalem from above that is often, there's a passage in the Bible where it talks about the Jerusalem from above by which we are all free.

The Church of God is in the name of God, and we can give that Church that name of God, a very bad name, if, like Daniel's praying here, if righteousness only belongs to God, but shame of face belongs to us in the way that we're acting or what we're doing.

For we do not present our supplications before you because of our righteous deeds, but because of your great mercies. Verse 19, O Lord, hear, O Lord, forgive, O Lord, listen and act, and do not delay for your own sake, my God, for your city, for your people that are called by your name. So by fasting and repentance, it can be done by the Church in times where we're able to perceive that the fruits are showing that changes are need, tighter focus, a more careful obedience of God's laws and commandments, not just sort of a, yeah, we like the law, we love the law, we publish the law, but we're not careful to observe and obey the law. We're all humans, and consequently we have the daily admonition to look at ourselves, examine ourselves, pray for forgiveness, and ask God to forgive us and forgive us as we forgive others, because we are all sinning every day. Getting close to God through repentance and through humility is a big motive of the fast mentioned in the Bible. Again, sin separates us from God, so repenting of that with fasting can bring us closer to God and then we can do His will. And God can bless us in other ways. He can bless what we're doing. To get close to God is one thing, but when sinners start persecuting you and harming you, we might easily fall back into our selfish nature and go to war with them. That's also a good time to fast, it turns out. David said in Psalm 35, verse 12, They reward me evil for good, to the sorrow of my life. So what should we do? Well, we're not careful. We'll sin like they do. We'll answer in kind. We'll start disobeying the law of God. We'll start doing the six things God hates, the seven that are revulsion to Him. Good time to fast. David said in verse 13, Psalm 35, But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I humbled myself with fasting, and my prayer would return to my own heart. I placed about as though He were my friend or my brother. I bowed down heavily as one who mourns for His mother. Remember that Jesus, before He was tempted, just like David was being tested and tempted, before Jesus was tempted, He fasted 40 days and 40 nights. You know, that strong connection with God, come to me, God said. Get rid of anything that separates us. Use fasting as a tool.

Be strong in the Lord and the power of His might. Fasting is a good tool for that.

To get rid of any selfish desire or preoccupation, or just to examine yourself, sometimes fasting is good. A good example of this is in ordinations. You have leaders in the church, and they're going to ordain and raise up other leaders of the church. Who might you raise up? You might raise up a friend, somebody who's done something nice for you, well, I'll do something nice back for them.

My own relatives, or this person, or that person, you know, it can be a political system. So what does the Bible say to do? Well, we don't want our will done, do we? But it said very clearly in Ephesians 4 and verse 11, he says, I have appointed some in the church, some as evangelists, pastors, apostles, prophets, teachers, etc. He appoints them. He places them. If you really want to have a bad life, you do it in his stead. I would not want to be there. And any time an ordination were to take place, or even come up with somebody who you liked, let alone liked you, or you might be related to, even a distant relationship, this is the time to fast.

This is the time to say, okay, what of me is involved in this? Or get me out of the... what does God want to be done here? What is God's will? Who is Jesus Christ trying to point? Get other people involved. Get other elders, other ministers. So we see in Acts chapter 14 and verse 23, So when they had appointed elders in every church and prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

This is God's business. And whenever you come up to getting self in the way, or self is in the way, you need to fast. Self gets in the way, and so we have sins. We've got to fast, we've got to repent. Fasting, in order to do God's will, get God's will in our minds, get our self out. It's a good tool to pull out of the toolbox. In other words, if you're thinking of yourself, get the tool out, start hitting yourself on the head with it. Get the old self humbled, get the vanity, the inflation out, pop a hole with it. That's pretty good. Good fasting is a good tool for letting some of the hot air out.

God gave us instructions for fasting, and those instructions are pretty much boiled down to fast to help you remove sin. Isaiah 58, our final scripture, will turn to Isaiah 58, verses 5-10. Isaiah 58, verse 5. We've read up through verse 4 before. Is this a fast that I have chosen a day for a man to afflict his body, to bow down his head like a bull rush, to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Would you call this a fast and acceptable day to the Lord? See, just because we do those things, or some version of those things, doesn't mean that God respects it.

Let's see what he does respect. Is this not the fast I have chosen? Verse 6. This is God's kind of fast. To loosen the bonds of wickedness, so that sin does not enslave us anymore. Go to Romans 6 and read about baptism and how we die to sin, and the old man dies off, and then we rise and we're no longer to be slaves for sin.

Fasting can help with that process, not just baptism, but every day afterward we have to repent. And this is a tool that fasting works well to loosen the bonds of wickedness, that bind us, that drag us along, to undo the heavy burdens that we place on other people to our sins and our selfishness. To let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke. To get our mind off of ourself and these things that we really laden other people down by. What we say and what we do is it not to share your bread with the hungry, the kind of fast.

And you bring your house, the poor who are cast out, when you see the naked that you cover him. Wow! These are some things that Jesus Christ said He is going to use, these criteria that He is going to use to choose who the sheep are that are going to come into the kingdom. And He is saying in the context of a fast will help us be able to analyze this, humble ourselves, get in line with the will of God and perform them.

And once that happens, verse 8, God is going to be growing in your life. This is what God wants us to do. And then, verse 9, you will call and the Lord will answer and you will cry and He will say, And He will say, Here am I, if you take away the yoke from your midst, the thing you chained other people up with to pull the heavy loads, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of wickedness, if you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted life body, then your light shall shine in the darkness.

That's what God's will is. That's what fasting works really, really well for. God wants a right heart in us. He wants us to repent and change and humility. And fasting is an important tool that we can use on ourselves privately. Just, you know what, there's a problem and I think I have a tool that will help me work on that problem. Each of us can make personal fast during the year. That's a tool you can use it. Or you can show up, I'm not what God wants. I'm not the sheep. I'm really more of the goat. Well, why didn't you use the tool more often? Why did you just see it as this feast day that you didn't like because you didn't like the tool?

You didn't like what it did. We need to change that mindset. First of all, ask yourself, what's the purpose of a fast? Are you going to fast? What is your purpose? Does it match what you see in Scripture that God has actually supported in Scripture? Does it match what we've read today? What is the method of your fast?

Choose your own method. Some are more effective than others. Like, nothing, eating and drinking, nothing is going to take you to humility or feeling bad a lot quicker than, say, just fasting everything except grape juice.

You'll probably feel just fine at the end of the day. You won't really accomplish much of anything. But it's your fast, you see. At least you're calling it a fast. Sometimes it might be if the temperatures are 125 degrees or 50 Celsius that you want to drink water so that you don't just evaporate. That's your business once again. What's the timeframe? Is it going to do it sunset to sunset, noon to noon, morning to night, tonight until I have repented? There's a good one. Put a little pressure on. With no in-time specified. I know something's wrong. I'm going to God. I'm going to repent. I'm going to examine. I'm going to study. I'm going to pray until I get this. When I get it, the lights come on like David did. You injure fast. That's one way of doing it. What is the goal? What will you achieve by fasting? How will you determine the success of your fast? How will you know? By knowing what you're going to do, how you're going to do it, when you're going to do it, and what you're doing it for, then you go into fasting and you're using this tool. It's like with a wrench. When this thing is all secure and the bolts are tight, then I'll put the wrench away. Until that happens, we need the wrench. In conclusion, fasting can be a tool. Fasting often is misunderstood and assumed to be something all by itself. It's like a work of magic. Just fast and things happen. You might have a tool, but if you don't use it and use it properly, it may not accomplish something. Fasting can be a tool to help us humbly seek God and pursue godliness. The result of that will be good relationships with God and with mankind. Relationships in your life need help. There's the tool that can be brought out to help you start humbling yourself, repenting, asking God for direction. The result will end up with you being more like God when it's all over. The result of a proper fast, I would say, is reflected in Proverbs 15 and verse 29. It simply states, The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous. So let's fast for righteousness' sake.