Secret Fasting Part 1

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Most of us really like to eat, but there are times in a Christian's life when eating should be the last thing on the agenda. Today, let's set aside that big lunch we planned on and remind ourselves about Christ's teaching on the benefits of fasting.

From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, for some, hunger pangs are warning signals that it's time to head out for some fast food. That's a hard habit to break. Yes, Dave, that is a habit that is very difficult to break, but we ought to break it.

We ought to break it with some degree of regularity. You know, fasting is something that is taught in the Bible. Paul fasted, Jesus fasted, and throughout the Old Testament you have references to fasting. Now, doctors tell us that fasting has physical benefits, but when you come to the Bible, fasting is always connected with spiritual need. It is a full-body response to God in light of some great need, and we ought to fast regularly.

You know, I think that that is a habit that the Christian church needs to get back to, but it needs to be properly understood. Well, I am so excited about a resource that we are offering you. I really have to say that this is going to be a tremendous book that is going to help you for the entire year. The name of the book is A Closer Look at the Evidence. Now, you must understand that this is a book that has a reading, a one-page reading, for every day of the year, and it's based on science, and it has beautiful pictures. For example, if you were reading for January 8th, I took this at random, you'd find that fossils have been discovered, of all things dinosaur fossils, that are only 20,000 years old.

So, what you'll discover is that nature really does reflect God in so many ways. For a gift of any amount, this can be yours. Here's what you do. You go to RTWOffer.com.

That's RTWOffer.com, or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337. And now let's go to the pulpit of Moody Church, and let's learn about a discipline that all of us should be practicing regularly. Well, today's subject is fasting.

The word fasting means that you're absolutely abstaining from food. That's a difficult topic to talk about at 11 o'clock. It would be much easier if I had the privilege of speaking about feasting.

Now, there's something that would go over. You know, we call a feast here at Moody Church, and people show up that we thought died during the days of Ironside. But when we call a fast, there are fewer. Be nice if we had a chef up here, and if we had a chef up here, I would have to vacate the platform and let him take over, because as my wife would be quick to confess, I am not a chef. But I am a shepherd, and as a shepherd, I have the responsibility of leading us sometimes to other kinds of pastures, to climb new hills, to learn to get to know God the better. And when it comes to fasting, I'm in the learning mode, just like you are.

I do not come as one who has all the answers. I come to learn because I want to benefit also from the transformation of life that fasting can bring about. You know, in the Old Testament, it's interesting that there was only one day that people were commanded to fast, and that was on the Day of Atonement. They were not supposed to eat any meat or drink any wine on that day. They were to fast.

They were to afflict themselves, as it were, to show the inward sorrow for sin and have that outward expression of that inward sorrow. But the Jews had a very carefully relegated fasting system. They had different kinds of fasts. For example, there was the fast that was oftentimes associated with mourning. If you had a friend who died, you would fast from the time of his death until the funeral and until after the burial, and then you could eat again. Or sometimes it was a fast that was associated with repentance.

Once again, it was that outward expression of the inner sorrow, the fact that you were concerned about your sin, and that was a part of it also. Then there were national days of fasting when they called what was known as a solemn assembly, and we're going to be doing that here at the church a week from this coming Saturday. And it's your opportunity to join us in a time of fasting and prayer as we come as a church recognizing our need before God. Sometimes in the Old Testament people fasted in preparation for a revelation from God. You remember, of course, Moses fasted. I believe that he fasted 40 days, if I remember correctly, on the Mount Sinai. Nehemiah fasted. You have many, many different examples of fasting throughout the Old Testament.

Probably the word is used hundreds of times in the Old Testament. But we struggle with fasting, don't we? We struggle with it because we just don't see the point.

We don't know what it's about. And I'm going to hopefully help us today. I've been impacted by a book by John Piper entitled A Hunger for God, which is really a book on fasting, and many of the ideas that I share with you today are based on his helping me understand what fasting is all about. And I really do genuinely believe that if you listen to this message carefully, that at the end of the time I will give you a principle and a reason that may be the means that God will use to bring you to a higher level of nearness with Him.

It could be a life-changing experience. But as I was thinking about this, I wanted to jot down some of the problems, or at least, if not problems, some of the questions that we have about fasting that come immediately to the American mind. For example, there are people who say, well, you know, why should we do it? It is not specifically Christian. It isn't specifically Christian.

And you're right, it isn't. Almost all the other religions of the world also have fasting. We think, for example, of the Muslims during the month of Ramadan where there's fasting, and the other religions have fasting too.

It is not specifically Christian. And then we have people who fast for political reasons. We think of Gandhi, and all of us remember seeing pictures of this small man, almost emaciated, as he was fasting for his country, for political freedom. There are those who fast for health reasons. And I happen to be one who believes that fasting has tremendous health benefits. But I'm not going to comment on that today, because I'll leave that to the experts.

I'll leave that to the nutritionists who know all about the human body. But there are benefits to fasting, and there are some people who don't even believe in God who fast just because of the health benefits. And so people are confused, and they say, why is this distinctively Christian? Well, if you listen to this message carefully, and so far I think you've done that, at the end, near the end of the message, I'm going to give you the basic concept, the bottom line, so to speak, which I think you will agree will distinguish the Christian fast from all other options out there. It is something so distinctive that you will not find it in any other religion. It will not be because of its health benefits or for its political reasons.

It will be a distinctly uniquely Christian reason. And by the way, speaking of health benefits, when I preached on fasting here a couple of years ago, someone was quite upset saying that probably I was giving ammunition to those who struggle with anorexia and those who are already fasting far too much and somehow justifying what they are doing. So in a word of clarification, let me say that if you struggle with an eating disorder, the answer is not more fasting for you.

The answer is to get help, and I'll tell you why. Because those kinds of eating disorders have to do with the people who struggle with a sense of self-perception, oftentimes the shape of their body and the struggles as to who they are. Sometimes they may have at their root some anger and some hostility against the world. There are various causes, but that's not what I'm talking about today. That's not what I'm talking about.

If you fit into that category, you be sure to go to someone who'd be able to help you. That is not Christian fasting. Let me give you a second problem that people may have with it or a question they may say, well, why food? Why food? Why not television? Give it up for a week or two or three.

And why not somebody giving up sports? And that might not be a bad idea as we anticipate the Super Bowl. Just ignore it.

Did you know that if you ignore it, the score is going to be the same as if you watched it? That's often occurred to me. So there are some people who say, why not that? And you know the answer is not a bad idea.

Not a bad idea. You don't have to, but there is that element. If you struggle with being able to fast in terms of food because of the metabolism of your body and so forth, it might be okay to use something else that you would give up. Another question people have is, doesn't it lead to pride? Isn't that the problem is that we become prideful of the fact and we begin to glory in self-will and say, you know, I haven't eaten for three days and just look at me?

And the answer is yes. That's why it is so fraught with dangers. That's why this business of fasting has to be so uniquely studied and it needs to be understood because that's exactly the problem.

Exactly. You remember the Bible itself in Colossians chapter 2, the Apostle Paul says, you know, you've been converted and you're free in Jesus and now you're going back to old pagan ways of saying, don't touch this, don't handle it, don't eat that. He said, that's pagan.

He says, you're free in Jesus. So you see, there is that danger, that danger. In fact, you talk about danger. It is a very real danger.

It is a subtle danger. Look at this. In Isaiah 58, which is the great Old Testament passage on fasting, they come before the Lord and they say, Lord, this is the way the chapter opens, Lord, we have mourned and you haven't heard us and we have fasted and the heavens are shut. And God tells them why it is that he hasn't responded. And in effect, the Lord says, you know, you're fasting for the wrong reasons.

In fact, catch this. The Lord is saying, you are using fasting as a substitute for repentance because, you see, it's supposed to be an outward sign of something that is inward, but you just have the sign and there's no reality about it at all. In fact, your fasting is nauseating to me.

I can't stand it, God says. Here you are, you know, you're fasting and you're dishonest in your business. You're fasting and you are taking advantage of people. You're fasting and you're living with loose morals. I mean, what do you think? You think that just because you're fasting, God's going to listen to you?

No, you've missed it by a mile. God says, that's not the fast that I have chosen. You talk about dangers. You know, I happen to be the kind of person who can skip meals and can be absent without food for a day or two without a great deal of problem. And I remember, especially in the early days of marriage, you know, I'd want to skip a meal and then Rebecca would have to eat. And I used to say to myself, now, why can't she be like me?

Well, you know, I discovered later that she struggles with low blood sugar. There are people, you know, who cannot fast. And God had to rid me of any sense of saying that because it's easy for me, it's easy for somebody else.

It isn't. And that's exactly the subtlety of the pride of the whole thing. You begin to glory in willpower. And when you glory in willpower, you have missed the whole point of fasting. That's a different kind of fasting. That has nothing to do with Christian fasting.

That's dangerous. Well, then you have people who say, well, you know, Pastor Luther, that's Old Testament. They were mourning because Jesus hadn't come.

But this is a new day. Well, turn to Matthew chapter 9. And by the way, you say, well, I thought that this is an exposition of Matthew chapter 6. Well, part of fasting is patience. We will get to the sixth chapter of Matthew.

And since we don't have to eat today, I can go as long as I like. That's the deal. Look at Matthew chapter 9, verse 14. The disciples of John came to him saying, why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? And Jesus said to them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them.

And then they will fast. Jesus is saying, my disciples aren't fasting because they are with me. I am the husband. I am the bridegroom. And they are the bride. And this is a time of rejoicing. This is a time of happiness.

That's true. But the time is coming when I'm going to be away. See, what Jesus is saying, you don't fast during a wedding feast. In fact, one of the longest fasts I ever took was broken at a wedding. I just said, you know, I think it's God's will that I eat and rejoice here.

And that seemed to be a very convenient decision to make. You see, the point is, Jesus is saying that what you do is you make sure that you recognize that when Jesus is there, once the kingdom is established, once Christ is with us, then we do not have to fast. But, he says, the day is coming when I'm going to be taken away from you.

And then you'll fast. And that's the church age. That's now. Oh, I know Jesus has come. I know that redemption has been purchased. I know that the victory has already been carried out. I know it's already a done deal.

It is finished. I understand that. But we do not yet see him face to face. And that's why Piper says that fasting, if you understand it correctly, fasting is really first and foremost homesickness for heaven. We are fasting because we long to see the king. And we are, in that sense, in mourning because we do not yet see him face to face. But we delight to. And the day is coming.

The day is coming when he will again return. And we fast until the return of Jesus Christ. In fact, Piper would even say in verses 16 and 17 when Jesus said that no man puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment because the patch will pull away from it. And verse 17, men do not put new wine into old wine skins or else the wine skin is going to burst. You know that the old wineskins is Judaism.

And Jesus said what I am bringing here is so unique and so special that you can't even take that old wine skin of Judaism and pour into it the new wine that I'm going to give you, Jesus says. And as I mentioned, Piper thinks that that new wine even is a new kind of fasting for a new day. It is New Testament fasting. It is a kind of fasting that is really a feasting.

It is a feasting on God. What can we say about this new kind of fasting? First of all, it is a fast of faith. It's a fast of faith.

You see, we fast, as I mentioned, in anticipation of Jesus Christ. We become so satisfied with Christ that even the allurements and the desires of the body are broken because we so desire God. We are saying that there is an inner sense of contentment that is so strong that we can even put up with the irritability of going without food. That there is a sense in which we recognize that there is a meat to eat of which the world knows nothing in the secret satisfaction with God, and we don't even need food to be satisfied.

That's how deep God's satisfaction is in our hearts. So it is a fast of faith. I might say also it is a fast of fighting, a fighting. And I need to comment on this before we get to Matthew 6, which we shall do in just a moment, but it is a fast of fighting. You know, you look at the New Testament, the Apostle Pulses in 2 Corinthians, in fastings often, he says. There you go, for those of you who think that fasting is just an Old Testament idea.

He says in fasting often. And then you remember in 1 Corinthians, chapter 9, where he says, I buffet my body. I buffet my body. You know, I was, I'm glad some of you caught that.

I have written on this topic, and I wanted to put that bit of humor into it and say that instead of buffeting our body, we buffet our body. And the problem is the editor looked at it and said, you can't write that joke. You can only tell it because it is indeed true that the word buffet and the word buffet are spelled the same. So I can only say it. I can't write it.

Well, you know, the answer is, even though they're spelled the same, the pronunciation is different, and there's a world of meaning, a world of meaning between the two. And so we like to pamper our bodies. We like to buffet it. What in the world does Paul mean when he says, I buffet my body? I buffet it.

Well, part of it surely is fasting. What he's saying is, I bring it under subjection. He says, I count all things but loss to gain Christ. Some of you lost something this week. You lost something on the stock market.

You lost something at work. There was some loss. Paul says, I count everything but loss that I might gain Christ. For the Christian, every loss is another opportunity to gain Christ. And then Jesus Christ, you remember, as he was talking about fasting, he said on one occasion regarding people trying to cast out demons, he said, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. I know that not all manuscripts add fasting, but I think that that could be indeed the very words of Jesus, that there are times of spiritual struggle when only fasting is really going to subdue the enemy, the enemy within our souls, the enemy that is outside of our souls. Think of our marvelous example, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here he is. He is asked now to be tempted tempted of the devil. He fasts for 40 days, and then the tempter comes to him. And it says that after the 40 days, he was hungered, and he was hungry, and the tempter said, turn these stones into bread. Could Jesus have done it? Yes, it's the kind of miracle he was going to do.

In just a couple of months, he'd be doing those kinds of miracles. But you see, Jesus said that man shall not live by bread alone. He quotes Deuteronomy, and in context, that verse has to do with the giving of manna, not the taking away of food, but the giving of food. You remember how Israel, they didn't like the cafeteria in the desert. You remember how they were complaining, and they said, you know, we don't like what God is giving us, and God says I'll give you manna. Later on, he said I'll even give you some quail until it comes out of your nostrils, if that's what you want. But they were complaining about the menu. They complained about the menu. It's probably happened in other contexts since, but that's what happened back then. And the Lord says, I am going to let you be hungry, and I'm going to feed you from something that you know not of, namely the manna, which is going to come from heaven every single morning.

Why? That you might know that man shall not live by bread alone, but he lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And what is the word that proceeds out of the mouth of God? It is the manna. Every single morning, the word proceeded out of the mouth of God, and God says, let there be manna, and there was manna. And you see, what he wanted them to know is that you don't live necessarily with security, that God has the ability to create food. He has the ability to speak, and the manna comes, and that's the word by which you should live. Now, says Jesus to Satan, in effect, I can turn these stones into bread, but I'm relying totally upon my Father, and there is within me something that is even more satisfying than eating, and that is the will of my Father. And therefore, be gone to Satan, for man shall not live by bread alone. But I'm living by the word of God that proceeds out of God's mouth.

There is something even more important than food. And with that, Satan, of course, left, though he came back later. It is a fast of faith.

It is a fast of fighting, fighting. You know, we're living at a time, aren't we, when there is very little discipline, even among Christians. And you think of Jesus there in the wilderness, who is willing to speak with Satan, or ask him to leave, that would be more accurate, but reminding the devil that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. We here at Running to Win are totally committed to the word of God. Whatever it teaches, that's what we believe.

Let me ask you a question. Are you sometimes stymied by some of the questions that scientists ask about the Christian faith? I have in my hands a book. It's entitled A Closer Look at the Evidence. It has 400 pages, because it's actually 365 devotional readings for the year.

And when you read it, you will encounter fields like biology, botany, history, and philosophy, all from a Christian viewpoint. And it even has many colored pictures. What a resource.

Here's what you can do for a gift of any amount. It can be yours. You go to RTWOffer.com.

That's RTWOffer.com. Or if you prefer, you can call us, and I hope that you have time to grab a pen or a pencil. You can call us at 1-888-218-9337. Ask for a closer look at the evidence. I can assure you, you will not regret it.

It will be on your shelf for the rest of the year. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. To stop eating for a time has known health benefits. But for the Christian, it also has great spiritual benefits.

You don't hear much about fasting in a fast food culture. Next time on Running to Win, more on the why and how of fasting, as Jesus taught in Matthew chapter 6. Running to Win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race of life. For Dr. Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.