Beloved, I am glad to share with you today on the next window of the temple, namely fasting. Fasting is a voluntary deprivation of food and water. It is the exercise of abstinence that has been a mark of mourning and affliction in all times and in all countries, because it is the natural manifestation of it.
It is an act recommended by example and by the precepts of the Lord Jesus and his apostles. It can be considered an act of penance, or a preparation for a life less carnal, less earthly and purer.
Thus, we understand more fully what the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 6.16-18 “When you fast, do not look sad, like the hypocrites, who make their faces defeated, to show men that they are fasting. I tell you truly, they receive their reward. 17 But when you fast, perfume your head and wash your face, 18 so as not to show men that you are fasting, but to your Father who is there in the secret place; and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you. “
I. General biblical considerations about fasting
Psa 69.11 “I shed tears and I fast, and this is what draws me the reproach”;
Es 58.3 “What is the use of fasting, if you do not see it? To mortify our soul, if you do not respect it? -Here, on the day of your fasting, you surrender to your inclinations, And you treat all your hirelings hard. “
Jeremiah 14.12 “If they fast, I will not listen to their supplications; If they offer burnt offerings and offerings, I will not accept them; Because I want to destroy them by the sword, the famine and the plague. “
Zechariah 7.5 “Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests, When you have fasted and cried in the fifth and seventh months, and have not been for seventy years, have you fasted me?”
Mat 9:15 “Jesus answered them, Can the friends of the bridegroom grieve while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. “
Joel 1.14 “Publish a fast, a solemn convocation! Assemble the elders, all the inhabitants of the land, in the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto Jehovah. “
Joel 2.12 “Even now, saith the LORD, come to me with all your heart, with fasts, with weeping, and with lamentation!”
Mat 6.17-18 “But when you fast, perfume your head and wash your face, 18 so as not to show men that you are fasting, but to your Father who is there in the secret place; and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you. “
Hebrews 10.2 “let us approach with a sincere heart, in the fullness of faith, the hearts purified of an evil conscience, and the body washed with pure water.”
Examples:
-Moses: Exo 34.28 “And Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights. He did not eat bread, and he drank no water. And the LORD wrote on the tables the words of the covenant, the ten words.
-Israel: 1 Sam 7.6 “And they drew water, and poured it out before the LORD, and fasted that day, saying, We have sinned against Jehovah. Samuel judged the children of Israel at Mizpeh. “
-Elie: 1 Kings 19.8 “He got up, ate and drank; and with the strength that this food gave him, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God at Horeb. “
-Esdras 10.6 “And Ezra departed from the house of God, and went into the chamber of Johanan the son of Eliashib; when he entered there, he did not eat bread nor drink water, because he was desolate because of the sin of the sons of captivity. “
-Daniel: 10.3 “I did not eat any delicacies, he did not bring meat or wine into my mouth, and I did not go away until the three weeks were over.”
-Christ: Luke 4.1-2 “Jesus, filled with the Holy Ghost, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. He did not eat anything during those days, and after they had passed he was hungry. “
-Paul: Ac 9.9 “He stayed three days without seeing, and he neither ate nor drank.”
-Paul and Barnabas: Ac 14.23 “And they appointed elders in every church, and after praying and fasting, they commended them to the Lord, in whom they had believed.”
II. Fasting occasions
to manifest his sadness because of sin: Nehemiah 9.1-2 “On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the children of Israel assembled, clothed in sackcloths and covered with dust, for the celebration of a fast. 2 Those who were of the race of Israel, having separated themselves from all strangers, presented themselves and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. “
Jonah 3.6-9 “The thing came to the king of Nineveh; he rose from his throne, took off his cloak, covered himself with a sack, and sat down on the ashes. 7 And he caused this book to be published in Nineveh by order of the king and his nobles; Let not men and animals, oxen and sheep, taste anything, nor graze, nor drink water! 8 Let the men and the beasts be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry to God with might, and let them all return from their evil way, and from the violence of which their hands are guilty. 9 Who knows whether God will not come again and repent, and that he will not give up his fierce anger, so that we shall not perish?
-to manifest humility: Psa 35.13 “And when they were sick, I put on sackcloth, and humbled my soul with fasting, and prayed with my head bent over my bosom.”
-for the needs of the nation: 2 Ch 20.3 “In his fear Jehoshaphat prepared to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast for all Judah.”
Esd 8.21 “There, near the river of Ahava, I proclaimed a fast of humiliation before our God, to implore of him a happy journey for us, for our children, and for all that belonged to us.”
4.3 “In every province, wherever the king’s order and his edict came, there was great desolation among the Jews; they fasted, wept, and lamented, and many slept on sackcloth and ashes. “
Joel 2.15-17 “Blow trumpet in Zion! Publish a fast, a solemn convocation!
16 Assemble the people, make a holy meeting! Assemble the old men, Assemble the children, Even infants with udder! Let the bridegroom come out of his house, and the bride of her chamber!
17 And between the porch and the altar, mourn the priests, servants of the LORD, and say, LORD, spare your people! Do not deliver your inheritance to the shame, To the jeers of the nations! Why do we say among the peoples: Where is their God?”
-to accompany a deep and personal prayer: 2 Sam 12.16,21 “David prayed to God for the child, and fasted; and when he returned, he spent the night lying on the ground. 21 His servants said to him, What is it that you do? As the child lived, you fasted and cried; and now that the child is dead, you get up and eat! “
Nehemiah 1.4 “When I heard these things, I sat down, and wept, and was desolate for many days. I fasted and prayed before the God of heaven, “;
Daniel 9.3-4 “I turned my face to the Lord God, to pray and supplicate, fasting, and taking sackcloth and ashes.
4 And I prayed to the LORD my God, and confessed unto him, O Lord, great and fearful God, which keep thy covenant, and show mercy to them that love you, and keep your commandments.
III. Jesus criticized hypocrite fasting
Mat 6.16-18 “When you fast, do not look sad, like the hypocrites, who make their faces defeated, to show men that they are fasting. I tell you truly, they receive their reward.
17 But when you fast, perfume your head and wash your face,
18 so that you do not show men that you are fasting, but your Father who is there in the secret place; and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you. “
Luke 18.9-14 “And he spoke again this parable, in the sight of certain persons, persuading themselves that they were righteous, and making no mention of others: 10 And two men went up to the temple to pray; one was a Pharisee, and the other a publican. 11 And the Pharisee stood up, and prayed thus unto himself, O God, I thank thee, that I am not as the rest of men, who are ravenous, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector; 12 I fast twice a week, I tithe all my income. 13 And the tax collector, standing afar off, dared not even lift his eyes to heaven; but he struck his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, who am a sinner. 14 I tell you, he went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For whoever rises will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be lifted up. “
Thus, after prayer, fasting is another manifestation of piety. This sad look on the defeated face has no other purpose than to simulate hypocrisy. In fact, they make their faces disappear so that they appear to men as fasting. While serious fasting, as a means of moral discipline, is something else, as we read in the verses below:
Psalms 35.13 “And when they were sick, I put on sackcloth, and humbled my soul with fasting, and prayed with my head bent over my breast.”
Matthew 17.21 “But this kind of demon comes out only by prayer and fasting.”
Acts 10.30 “Corneille said: Four days ago, at this time, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour; and behold, a man, clothed in a bright robe, stood before me, and said:
Acts 13: 2-3 “While serving the Lord in their ministry and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. 3 Then, after fasting and praying, they laid hands on them, and let them go.
2 Corinthians 6.5 “under the blows, in the prisons, in the troubles, in the works, in the watches, in the fasts”; And yet he tells us in Matthew 5:12, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven; for that is how they persecuted the prophets that were before you. “
So, while fasting, stay in your ordinary state, for your father who is in heaven “will reward you himself,” and “publicly”.
That is why the word of Jesus implies that we will receive a retribution for the alms we have made, yet we must not attach to them any idea of merit or of our own justice. He reminds us of it in Matthew 6.1,2 “Beware of practicing your justice before men to be seen; otherwise you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. 2 Therefore, when you give alms, do not sound the trumpet before you, as hypocrites do in synagogues and in the streets, that they may be glorified by men. I tell you truly, they receive their reward. “And in Matthew 5.12” Rejoice and be glad, because your reward will be great in heaven; for that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you. “For all that is done out of love for God has its reward in God Himself.
And the prophet wondering about Isaiah 58.5: “Is this the fast I enjoy, One day when man humbles his soul? Bend your head like a rush, And lay on the sackcloth and the ashes, Is this what you will call a fast, A day pleasing to the Lord?
And the Savior to say in Mat 6.1: “Beware of practicing your justice before men, to be seen; otherwise you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “
For in the time of Christ, fasting had reached in importance proportions a little colossal; in the absence of piety, religion had been sought in practices and in fasting; the pious persons knew how to fast and to rejoice in the expectation of a Savior: Luke 2.37 “Remained widowed, and aged eighty-four, she did not leave the temple, and she served God night and day in fasting and in prayer. “
Note that the disciples of John the Baptist, who had not yet entered the bright light of the Gospel, shared the prejudices of the merits of fasting: We read it in Matthew 9.14 “Then the disciples of John came to Jesus, and said, Why are we and the Pharisees fasting while your disciples are not fasting? the Pharisees were devoted to this idea, and they showed themselves fasting twice a week: Luke 18.12 “I fast twice a week, I tithe all my income”, the fifth day of the week that Moses went up on Sinai and the second to which he descended. For many also saw in their fasting only a merit of which they were proud.
From the foregoing, we note that fasting allows believers and Christians to be better prepared to support their prayers in order to achieve better results: to pull a nation or a person out of a difficult situation. You have to do it without looking sad, at the risk of losing your reward. For some demons can not be expelled only by prayer, but rather by fasting and praying. Our prayers are with you in your efforts to fast in this way.
PRAYER OF ACCEPTANCE OF JESUS CHRIST AS LORD AND PERSONAL SAVIOR
I now invite anyone who wants to become a new creation by walking in the truth, to pray with me as follows :
Lord Jesus, I have long walked in the lusts of the world ignoring your love for humans. I acknowledge that I have sinned against you and ask forgiveness for all my sins, because today I have decided to give you my life by taking you as my Lord and personal Savior. I acknowledge that you died on the cross of Calvary and that you rose from the dead for me.
I am now saved and born again by the power of the Holy Spirit. Lead me each day to eternal life you give to all who obey your Word. Reveal to me and strengthen my heart and my faith so that your light may shine in my life right now.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for accepting me in your divine family so that I too can contemplate the wonders of your kingdom.
I will now choose a nearby waterpoint to baptize myself by immersion, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
To you all worship, power, and glory, now and forever and ever. Amen!
I would be glad to respond to your queries and comments as necessary, before sharing with you next week on the next window of the temple of truth, namely the heavenly investments.
May the Lord Jesus Christ bless you profusely.
David Feze, Servant of the Lord Almighty.