God's Chosen Fast

When people do not like the plain, literal meaning of something in the Bible, they are tempted to spiritualize it and so rob it of its potency. Once the truth becomes nebulous, it ceases to have any practical application. They have blunted its edge; it can no longer cut.

Saul of Tarsus arrived in Damascus dazed and blinded by his encounter with the risen Christ, “and for three days he . . . neither ate nor drank” (Acts 9:9). The spiritual revolution that was taking place within the young Pharisee was not only to alter the whole course of his life but to shape the history of the Christian church. Possibly the upheaval was so great that he never gave food or drink a thought.

Fasting, like prayer, must be God-initiated and God-ordained if it is to be effective.

This is surely the loftiest conception, that fasting is a worshiping or ministering to the Lord, a giving of ourselves to God, and only secondarily a means to securing certain spiritual ends.

Mourning over personal sin and failure is an indispensable stage in the process of sanctification, and it is facilitated by fasting.

The eyes of the Lord are still searching the earth today for the Ezras who will confess the sins of a faithless remnant, weeping and casting themselves down before the Lord, or the Nehemiahs who will weep and mourn, fast and pray for the walls that are broken down and the gates that are destroyed by fire. If restoration and renewal are to come from the presence of the Lord—and what hope is there without them?—then it is men and women like these whom God will use to turn the tide.

Where are the churches today in which the leaders are set apart in a solemn season of prayer and fasting?

Fasting is designed to make prayer mount up as on eagles’ wings. It is intended to usher the suppliant into the audience chamber of the King and to extend to him the golden scepter. It may be expected to drive back the oppressing powers of darkness and loosen those powers’ hold on the prayer objective. It is calculated to give an edge to a person’s intercessions and power to their petitions. Heaven is ready to bend its ear to listen when someone prays with fasting.

When a person is willing to set aside the legitimate appetites of the body to concentrate on the work of praying, they are demonstrating that they mean business, that they are seeking with all their heart, and will not let God go unless He answers.

Prayer, however, is much more complex than simply asking a loving father to supply his child’s need. Prayer is warfare! Prayer is wrestling! There are opposing forces. There are spiritual crosscurrents. When we plead our case in the court of heaven, when we cry to the Judge of all the earth, “Give me justice against my adversary” (Luke 18:3), that adversary is also represented in court (see Job 1:6; 2:1; Zech. 3:1). It is not enough that the Judge is willing; there is the opposition that must first be overcome. This is a realm of deep mystery.

The promise given long ago to those who keep God’s chosen fast is still true: Then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

Though God has given us our bodies and planted within them certain basic instincts, including the bodily appetites, we are required to keep the physical subservient to the spiritual. The body is ever to be our servant, not our master. That lust for food displayed by Israel in the wilderness is still with us.