Study the Word

Guest (Male): Pastor Thom Keller with a word about fasting.

Pastor Thom Keller: Hey folks, of utmost importance is this: Please do not approach fasting legalistically or with a mindset that God will love you more if you begin fasting or love you less if you do not. His love is not conditional upon what you do. He loves you because you love His son Jesus. That's what the Bible says. On your best day, He loves you to the max. On your worst day, He loves you to the max. His love does not ebb and flow. It is not performance-based. But if God prompts you to fast, you will see prayers answered that were not answered before.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Study the Word, the radio ministry of Calvary Chapel Lebanon. We're glad you could join us. Burdened by the poor state of affairs in Jerusalem, Nehemiah responds with fasting and prayer. In the next few studies, we'll be examining both of these important practices in greater detail. Pastor Thom Keller is our Bible teacher as we continue in Nehemiah chapter 1.

Pastor Thom Keller: Nehemiah 1:1-4: These are the memoirs of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah. Hanani, one of my brothers, came to visit me with some other men who had just arrived from Judah. I asked them about the Jews who had returned there from captivity and about how things were going in Jerusalem. They said to me, "Things are not going well for those who returned to the province of Judah. They are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem has been torn down and the gates have been destroyed by fire." When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven.

When God lays a burden on someone's heart like He did here—a heavy burden—in this case, it's evidenced by his weeping over the situation. Sometimes burdens can be almost crushing. Romans 8:26 speaks to this: Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Groanings too deep for words. Have you ever experienced a prayer burden, a weight that God placed upon you that was so strong you groaned, sometimes involuntarily?

When I thought of this, I remembered years ago for a young woman, a young mother who was in our Monday night Bible study group in the city. I was driving. I remember where it was on State Drive near the VA. This burden for her salvation came over me and I groaned. It was like someone hit me in the stomach and knocked the air out. I was just shocked at this groaning, the weight of that burden. When that weight, that burden comes on us, we should really consider doing exactly what Nehemiah did.

Chapter 1, verse 4: As soon as I heard these words, the burden came. I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. I wept, mourned, and continued fasting and praying. Exactly what is fasting? Is this something that we should consider making a part of our spiritual disciplines? In Hebrew, the word here for fasting is *tsuwm*, and it literally means "to cover the mouth." Strong's says "to abstain from food." Let's take a closer look.

Spiritual fasting is usually but not always a reference to voluntarily going without food for a certain length of time. It might be one meal or one whole day, one week or longer. Why should we consider fasting? Fasting is a spiritual discipline that allows us to more fully yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit and to Christ's will for our lives by willingly placing our body, mind, and spirit under the lordship of Christ. You might ask, how does our appetite affect our spirituality? Paul said this in Romans 16: For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but they serve their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple. They serve their own belly.

Philippians 3:19: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is their shame, who set their mind on earthly things. He speaks of these evil people whose God is their belly. The point Paul is making here is that there are some Christians who are not only not controlled by the Spirit of God, but they are in fact so far at the opposite end of the scale that they are instead controlled by their base, carnal, animalistic cravings, which Paul describes as their belly—controlled by their base appetites, their base instincts. This places all eating disorders, both overeating and undereating—gluttony, anorexia, bulimia—in this category.

Because with these eating disorders, you no longer control your eating; it controls you. But spiritual fasting is the complete opposite of a slavish yielding to over- or undereating. It is instead a choice to fully yield your body, mind, will, and emotions to God for the purpose of building a hunger for and intimacy in your vertical relationship with God. To validate this point, I don't know anyone who has an eating disorder, over or undereating, where their driving motive in eating is to build a hunger for God.

As we look to the Bible, there is no shortage of examples for us to follow. In fact, you will find that most of the heroes of the Bible fasted. The first explicit reference to fasting is found in Exodus 34, where it says that while Moses was in Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments, he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. Other Bible heroes of the faith who fasted included David, Elijah, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and in the New Testament, Anna, the elders at Antioch, the Roman centurion Cornelius, the apostles Paul, and of course, Jesus Himself.

In fact, it appears as though the early church fathers openly fasted corporately as a regular part of discerning God's will. In Acts 13, we read this: As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, "Now separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." Then, having fasted and prayed and laid hands on them, they sent them away. The next chapter, Acts 14: And when they had appointed elders for them in every church with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they believed. Corporate open prayer.

Of interest is the fact that I am not aware of any examples in the Bible, Old or New Testament, where people fasted and God did not answer their prayers—except for some insincere, fraud fasts, insincere fasts that God condemned through the prophets. There's one very interesting story about the effectiveness of fasting that comes out of the book of Judges. Some of you know the story, but due to the gross sexual sin of the men of Gibeah, which was of the tribe of Benjamin, the other eleven tribes go to war against the tribe of Benjamin, intending to wipe them out. And the leaders of the eleven tribes pray and ask God for direction.

This is a little bit longer in verses, but I don't want you to forget this story. It makes a strong point. Judges chapter 20: Israel had 400,000 experienced soldiers. These are the eleven tribes, armed with swords, not counting Benjamin's warriors. Before the battle, the Israelites went to Bethel and asked God, "Which tribe should go to attack the people of Benjamin?" The Lord answered, "Judah is to go first." So the Israelites left early the next morning. The eleven tribes are going against the one. They've never done this before. Israel had 400,000 experienced soldiers armed with swords, not counting Benjamin's warriors.

Before the battle, the Israelites went to Bethel and asked God which tribe should go first to attack the people of Benjamin. The Lord answered, "Judah is to go first." So the Israelites left early the next morning and camped near Gibeah. Then they advanced toward Gibeah to attack the men of Benjamin. But Benjamin's warriors, who were defending the town, came out and killed 22,000 Israelites on the battlefield that day. But the Israelites encouraged each other and took their positions again at the same place they had fought the previous day. So now round two. They were defeated the first day. Don't understand why. They prayed. Now they go back.

For they had gone up to Bethel and wept in the presence of the Lord until evening. They had asked the Lord, "Should we fight against our relatives from Benjamin again?" And the Lord said, "Go out and fight against them." So the next day they went out again to fight against the men of Benjamin. But the men of Benjamin killed another 18,000 Israelites, all of whom were experienced with the sword. Then all the Israelites went up to Bethel and wept in the presence of the Lord and fasted. They added this. And peace offerings. They fasted until evening. They also brought burnt offerings and peace offerings to the Lord.

The Israelites went up seeking direction from the Lord. In those days, the Ark of the Covenant of God was in Bethel. Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the grandson of Aaron, was the priest. The Israelites asked the Lord, "Should we fight against our relatives from Benjamin again or should we stop?" And the Lord said, "Go; tomorrow I will hand them over to you." Now note twice they were defeated. Each time they prayed. The third time they added fasting, and they were victorious. The victory only came after they had fasted.

In the New Testament, Jesus confirms that His disciples would (implying should) continue to fast regularly once He departed. In Luke 5:35, we read this, Jesus speaking: "But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast." And the disciples did fast. Jesus did. Cornelius did. Paul did. The elders at Antioch did. Do you? I haven't given a teaching on fasting in 10 years. I probably won't give another teaching on this in 10 years, wherever I am in 10 years. So my point is, you either do something with this today or you push it aside and go on, because I'm not going to bring it up again. It's the opportunity to really consider this today.

As you know, we are under grace and liberty from the law, so you are free not to fast. So it might be best for me to share some reasons why you might want to fast and to introduce a regular discipline of fasting into your life. Here are some reasons. Number one: In Matthew 17, Jesus says that some prayers will only ever be answered if fasting is added. In Matthew 17, the nine disciples were apart from Jesus while He was up in the Mount of Transfiguration. And they encountered a boy down at the bottom of the mountain who was demon-possessed.

The nine disciples tried to cast this demon out, but they were unsuccessful, which would have been quite a surprise to the disciples because prior to this encounter, Jesus had already commissioned the twelve to heal and to cast out demons, which they had done regularly and successfully and with huge crowds that they encountered almost daily. But not this demon. Then in verse 14, Jesus shows up on the scene and we read this: At the foot of the mountain, a large crowd was waiting for them. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said, "Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn't heal him."

Jesus said, "You faithless and corrupt people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy to me." Then going on in verses 18 to 20: Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of him and the boy was healed instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said (they really wondered the answer to this question), "Why could we not cast it out? Why could we not cast that demon out?" Because they had cast out many demons. Why not that one? He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly I say to you, if you had the faith like a grain of a mustard seed, you would say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you."

But even with that degree of faith applied in this case, in the very next verse it says fasting is still necessary. Because Jesus adds and says, "But this kind of demon does not go away except by prayer and fasting." Remember, God wants us to know this. In John chapter 21, the last verse of John's memoirs, he says this: Jesus did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written. I've often said this: When you read the New Testament, we should be in awe of what we're reading, the significance of what we're reading, because of everything that was left out that could have been written, and this was given to us instead.

These are priority lessons for us that are given to us. And this lesson in Matthew 17 on fasting is a prime example. So in Matthew 17, we see that God wants us to know that some prayers will not be answered unless and until we add fasting to our prayers. Am I adding to the scriptures when I say that? That's what the scriptures say. Now here is an interesting question: In this account of this demon-possessed boy, how could the disciples have practically done this? How could they have fasted? Did you ever think about that?

I mean, did Jesus mean that the disciples should have left the boy there foaming at the mouth, retreated to their condos, fasted for 24 hours, and then come back for round two with the boy? Is that what Jesus intended? Well, if that is what Jesus intended, then there would have been a lot of delayed healings and deliverances with the disciples leaving defeated and returning 24 hours to victory. Is that what Jesus meant? I don't think so. I personally believe that Jesus is making the point that if fasting is a regular discipline in our lives, we will have a daily, moment-by-moment power in prayer and effectiveness in prayer that will be lacking if we ignore the spiritual discipline of fasting in some of those settings.

To make the case, when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, Jesus didn't fast in reaction to Satan's temptation. No, He fasted for 40 days prior to the temptation and was victorious when the temptation came. It has wisely been observed: You don't manufacture arrows and bullets on the front line of a war. You manufacture them earlier, back in some quiet place, so you're prepared for that day of war. So consider this thought: that maybe, maybe there are some things you've prayed about, maybe for years, that haven't been answered, that won't be answered, perhaps, unless you fast.

So let's look at some questions concerning fasting. Why should I fast? What are the benefits? Well, number one, fasting humbles your soul and aids in dethroning self. It knocks the stuffings out of you, the big "I." If you have a meeting coming up and there's tension between you and another person, and you're afraid that your anger will get out of control, fast. It knocks the stuffings out of you. It knocks that big "I" out of you, that pride out of you.

Secondly, you fast in order to pray more effectively. You know, I wouldn't want to get to heaven and ask God, "God, I prayed for 10 years for this or that to happen and it never did. Was that because your answer was no?" And sometimes He will say, sometimes He will say, "No, that would have been answered if you would have fasted." Always? No, of course not. A lot of those demons were cast out. But one was not. This kind only goes out by prayer and fasting. A majority of time? I would guess not. Sometimes? What does the Bible say? Sometimes, yes. Matthew 17 says yes.

And the most important reason we should fast is because Jesus told us to fast. He said "when you fast," not "if you fast." Matthew 6:16-18: "And when you fast, don't make it obvious as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people would admire them for their fasting. They would put white powder on their faces to look like they were so beat up. I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get. But when you fast—when you fast, not if you fast—comb your hair, wash your face, and then no one will notice you are fasting except your Father who knows what you do in private. And your Father who sees everything..." He's speaking about fasting. "...will reward you."

Second question: What happens when I fast? Well, first, fasting weakens the flesh and strengthens the inner man, the spirit within us. Second, you become more sensitive to the needs of others: less self-centered, less arrogant, less self-focused, less self-absorbed. Thirdly, fasting teaches you discipline. You deny your desires. And once you develop discipline through fasting, this is the beautiful part: the principle transfers. You know, the Roman centurion was accounted for faith because of his understanding of the principle of authority. He learned that principle of authority by telling his men to go and they went, come and they came.

He was under direction, and his superior said "go" and he went, "come" and he came. And so he applied that principle to Jesus, knowing He was a man in authority. Spiritual lessons, spiritual principles that we learn transfer, and this is one of those cases. The principle of discipline we learn through fasting transfers to other parts of your life. So when a man comes to me and says he struggles with pornography, I send him right to fasting. Why? Because he needs discipline to not go back to that.

Remember Paul's point in Romans 16:18: For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but they serve their own belly. So to break that—pornography, drugs, alcohol, smoking, envy, anger, gambling, spending money—think about it: they all hinge on self-discipline. The principle transfers. Third question: How should I begin this new discipline of fasting? I would suggest by starting with just one meal a week, but one meal every week. Get the routine started. Whatever day you choose, I'd suggest staying with that day. If you have to move it to another day because of schedules, move it to another day. But try to maintain that one meal.

You give up breakfast every Monday. You start with that. You first establish that routine. Then, once that routine is set, then go to two meals on that same day. And once you have that down to routine where that's comfortable, then go to skipping three meals a day, the whole 24 hours. Which meal do you begin with? It really doesn't matter. Maybe the easiest is to go from dinner to dinner: skip breakfast, skip lunch, eat dinner, skip, go to the next dinner the next evening.

Now, one caveat: If you have any underlying health conditions or eating disorders, you should really check with your family doctor or specialist to be certain that fasting does not pose a health risk for you. That's critical. Now, although you can fast from both food and water, for the sake of our discussion and historically, the fast that we're talking about, the fast that Christians vast majority participated in, is just fasting from food but not fasting from water. You can go 40 days fasting without food.

After 40 days, after about two days, the hunger pains go away. They really do. You don't get hungry again until somewhere around 40 days. It depends on your body. Starvation starts to set in. And I've never been there, but they say you can—you'll know that because if you ever had strep throat, it's like there's a fire around the top of your throat. That's what they say it is when starvation sets in. You feel this ring of fire at the top of your throat. It's the warning sign you've gone to the limit.

There are other types of fasts in the Bible: partial fasts, full fasts, liquid fasts. And in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul mentions a sexual fast that married couples can establish. And as I said, you can fast from other things that you might benefit from having given up, such as buying stuff, TV, sports shows, cable news (cable news, cable news), video games, social media (social media, social media). Anything you feel or others feel—video games, did I mention that?—that others feel is somewhat out of balance in your life.

So how does today's lesson apply to me? Hey folks, of utmost importance is this: Please do not approach fasting legalistically or with a mindset that God will love you more if you begin fasting or love you less if you do not. His love is not conditional upon what you do. He loves you because you love His son Jesus. That's what the Bible says. He loves you because you love His son Jesus. On your best day, He loves you to the max. On your worst day, He loves you to the max. His love does not ebb and flow. It is not performance-based. Approach this with grace; approach this the way it's intended for it to be a blessing. But if God prompts you to fast, you will see prayers answered that were not answered before.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Pastor Thom Keller on Study the Word. Would you like to hear this message from Nehemiah again? Just go online to ccleb.com or subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel Lebanon. Those interested in a CD copy can call 717-273-5633. As you're studying the Word with us, we'd love to know what you're getting out of the messages. If you find them encouraging or helpful to your walk, give us a call at 717-273-5633 or write to Study the Word: 740 Willow Street, Lebanon, Pennsylvania, 17046.

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