Please remain standing and turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Ezra, chapter eight. We'll read verses 21 through 36. I will explain the context of this situation in a little while. Ezra chapter 8, beginning in verse 21. Then I, Ezra, proclaim the fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from him the right way for us and our little ones and all our possessions. For I was ashamed to request of the king an escort of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy on the road, because we had spoken to the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all those for good who seek him. But his power and his wrath are against all those who forsake him. So we fasted and entreated our God for this, and he answered our prayer. And I separated twelve of the leaders of the priests, Sherabiah, Hashabiah, and ten of their brethren with them, and weighed out to them the silver, the gold, and the articles, the offering for the house of our God, which the king and his counselors and his princes and all Israel who were present had offered. I weighed into their hands six hundred and fifty talents of silver, Silver articles weighing 100 pounds and 100 pounds of gold, 20 gold basins worth a thousand drachmas and two vessels of fine polished bronze precious as gold. And I said to them, you are holy to the Lord. The articles are holy also in the silver and the gold are a free will offering to the Lord God of your fathers. Watch and keep them until you weigh them before the leaders of the priests and the Levites and heads of the fathers' houses of Israel in Jerusalem in the chambers of the house of the Lord. So the priests and the Levites received the silver and the gold and the articles by weight to bring them to Jerusalem to the house of our God. Then we departed from the river of Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month to go to Jerusalem. And the hand of our God was upon us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambush along the road. So, we came to Jerusalem and stayed there three days. Now, on the fourth day, the silver and the gold and the articles were weighed in the house of our God by the hand of Merimoth, the son of Uriah the priest, and with him was Eleazar, the son of Phinehas, with him were the Levites, Josabed, the son of Jeshua, and Noadiah, the son of Benue, with the number and weight of everything. All the weight was written down at that time. The children of those who had been carried away captive, who had come from the captivity, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, Twelve bulls for all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs, and twelve male goats as a sin offering. All this was a burnt offering to the Lord, and they delivered the king's orders to the king's satraps and the governors in the region beyond the river, so they gave support to the people and the house of God. Let's pray. Father, as we would consider this important topic of fasting in Scripture, A topic that is not very popular in our day, especially. We pray, Lord, that we would come to understand the practice and appreciate it and to make use of it, Lord, at the appropriate times. We look to you now, Lord, and ask for your blessing. We pray that you would fill us with your spirit. We pray, Lord, that you would meet with us in the preaching of your word and guide us, Lord, to be a people who would seek you in prayer as we have considered this topic these five weeks. We praise you in Christ's name. Amen. Please be seated. In this short series on prayer, we have considered the motivation for private prayer, the manner and motive of prayer, persevering in prayer and intercessory prayer. And I'm not going to pretend to have exhausted the subject of prayer, even in the topical sense. There are many other avenues of prayer I'm sure that people can preach on. There are volumes and many good books that have been written on the topic of prayer. So please don't see this series as anything close to exhausting the topic of prayer. If by the grace of God I have even been able to motivate you to set apart time each and every day in the prayer closet privately to seek God, then even then I have reason to rejoice in Christ. If that's been a motivation for you in this series, I'm content. Of course, there's a lot of other information I've given you that I hope has been helpful. Well, I want to now close this series with one final address on the topic of prayer Specifically, prayer and fasting. Fasting is not generally a popular topic today. It's not something you hear people talking a lot about. There probably are not a lot of books out there written on fasting. But it does hold a place in the life of the New Covenant Church, especially in relation to prayer. And I believe that it would do us much good to understand as much as we can the use of this biblical practice and to make use of it insofar as we ought to with proper in the proper way, in the proper context. And again, even on this topic of fasting and prayer, I want to tell you in advance that I don't understand everything about fasting. I don't want to tell you or pretend that I'm going to exhaust the topic today. What I really want to do with you is go through several texts. I want to do a survey, and some of you, many of you are familiar with what that means when I say that. I want to just survey several texts and kind of look at different texts that deal with this topic of prayer and fasting together. and to try to get an understanding of what this means, why it is done, so that we can lay hold of it and apply it to us today accordingly. And so our outline is very simple. It's two main points, because the first is going to be quite extensive. First, we will survey various texts to seek to get an understanding of prayer and fasting. Let's understand what this is all about. And then secondly, we will seek to lay out some basic principles for prayer and fasting. So we're going to survey. We're going to get some understanding, get some data, summarize some of that data, and then we're going to take from that and take principles for us to apply as a church. And so first, this survey of various texts so that we can get an understanding of prayer and fasting. And I want to begin our survey by considering this text in Ezra, chapter eight, that we had just read a few moments ago, as I believe it will help us start the motion or get the ball rolling and understanding this practice and this this practice. And I want to read again with you verses 21 through 23, just those three verses there, 21 to 23, because that's where it's mentioned. We read more before because I wanted you to get an appreciation for what happened as a result of that and what was going on. And I'll explain other things as well. Verse 21 says, Then I, as we're speaking here, then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek Him the right way for us and our little ones and all our possessions. For I was ashamed to request of the king an escort of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy on the road, because we had spoken to the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all those for good who seek Him. But His power and His wrath are against all those who forsake Him. So we fasted and entreated our God for this, and He answered our prayer." Now let me give you some context here, which I think will be helpful. In the beginning of the book of Ezra, for those of you who were here a few years ago and in the evenings, I preached through the book of Ezra. And so you'll recall some of this. But if not, I will help you get a contextual understanding of what's going on here in the beginning of this book of Ezra. You might recall, those of you who have read it, that Cyrus, king of Persia, issued the decree for the Israelites to go back and to rebuild in their land. And up to that point, you can recall that the Israelites had been exiled from their land, and they'd been sent into captivity to a foreign nation, to Babylon, and the temple and the wall of Jerusalem had been utterly destroyed. God had brought about a great judgment and devastation upon His people for their continuous rebellion, for their failure to give heed to the prophets to the point where God would speak to them and it would have no effect. And so He brought upon them the ultimate curse. He had them exiled from the land, their temple destroyed and the wall of Jerusalem leveled as well. Well, God had brought about that judgment and following a 70 year exile, They were in exile for 70 years in fulfillment of his prophecy through Jeremiah. God was now preparing to bring them back into their land. He was going to show grace. He was going to bring restoration to his people. And under the leadership of Zerubbabel, you'll see early in the book of Ezra, a large assembly of captives, not everyone, but a large assembly of captives had gone back to the land to start the rebuilding process. And in the face of opposition, you can remember there's all kinds of opposition to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah trying to stop the people. The people still were able to, by the grace of God, to press on, to persevere and to rebuild and dedicate in Ezra, to rebuild and dedicate the temple so that they might worship their God. They started with the temple so that they can reinstitute the proper worship of their God. Following this, the temple now being complete or as complete as it at least could be acceptable to be useful to them with the permission of King Artaxerxes. Ezra, believe it or not, only comes onto the scene in chapter 6 or so, I believe. He's not even at the beginning of the book. The very person who the book is named after. But following the building of the temple, Ezra gets permission from the king. And Ezra is a scribe. He is an expert in the law of God. And he was given permission to go to Jerusalem now that the temple had been built. and to instruct the people as to the nature of God's law, to teach them, basically, the law of Moses and what was in there, and to explain it to them, so that the people might now understand, having been in exile, having been rebellious before that, now might understand the will of God, and they might obey and keep His will. And our text here that we just read in verses 21 and following, brings us to the scene where Ezra and another group now, another assembly from where he is, he was the cupbearer, oh no, it was Nehemiah, I'm sorry, but from where Ezra was in the foreign captivity, Ezra was now going to come back to Jerusalem with another drove or another assembly of people who were preparing to return with him to Jerusalem. And as they're preparing to leave, Ezra finds himself in a bit of a serious predicament. There's a problem that arises here. They're heading toward Jerusalem, carrying all kinds of precious gifts for the temple. We read about those things in verses 24 and following. The amounts are amazing when you think about what they were carrying, all kinds of gifts of silver and gold and bronze, valuable things to be used in the temple. And they were vulnerable to the attacks of enemies who might seek to ambush them along the way. They were weak. They would be an assembly of people coming with all this valuable monetary things that they were going to carry and walk and go all the way to the land of Jerusalem. And they were vulnerable to attacks that were very common in that day. And even today, I think so. I read in one commentary that there is still those kinds of troubles in those areas where you can be ambushed and so on and attacked. So they're in this predicament. And normally, however, you would say, OK, well, Ezra had already received the approval from King Artaxerxes to go. He had favor from the king. The king had given him a lot of gold and riches and so on to use for the temple. You would say, OK, Ezra just asked the king for some help. If the king gives you an escort of soldiers to come with you, there won't be a problem. You'll have the protection of the king. However, Ezra could not do that. He could not make that request because if he had, he would have tarnished the testimony that he had given the king about his God. Ezra had already boasted of his God before the king with these words. We read these words in verse 22. He had told the king very proudly in the sense, in the right way, about God, about his great God. The hand of our God, he said, is upon all those for good who seek him. But his power and his wrath are against all those who forsake him. So he made this bold statement about the power of his God. And now he was concerned that the king would find his request for protection to be contradictory to his bold statement about the power of God. Right. What would the king think if God were so powerful that he would protect his people, those who seek him, those who fear him? And he turns his wrath against those who forsake him. Then why would Ezra request help from the king? You can see the predicament that he's in, and it could tarnish the testimony he gave about God. Wouldn't God fight for Ezra and the Israelites, even though they were a weak company of people? Would he not do harm to those who would seek to harm Ezra? Well, remaining committed to his trust in God, and not wanting to tarnish his testimony of God's power before the king, what then does Ezra do? Well, we're told in verse 21, Then I proclaimed a fast, there at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from Him the right way for us and our little ones and all our possessions. And then in verse 23, we are told, So we fasted. He proclaimed it. So we fasted and entreated our God for this. And He answered our prayer. Here we see that the people fasted and sought the Lord. They set their case before the Lord. And as we consider the matter of prayer and fasting here, we can begin to note a few key things about this practice we can appreciate already in this text. First, in this context, a matter of urgency led Ezra to call this fast. There was a sense of urgency here. The road to Jerusalem was long and dangerous, and without seeking protection from the king, they would be very vulnerable to an attack. So there is a sense of urgency which leads them to deprive themselves of food so that they might set themselves to seek God for his direction and his guidance and protection. Secondly, in keeping with the first point, of course, we see that prayer and fasting go together here. You generally when you fast, it's just to bring them together and always this prayer is always directly associated with prayer and fasting. And that's why you'll hear me talk about them as a single as a single entity, as it were, they go together. And fasting is the expression of setting aside their food and urgently seeking God. And there's more to it, but it's setting aside food and they're seeking God. And prayer, of course, is the actual verbal supplication of God or the pursuit of God verbally. So they set aside their food by fasting and they pursue God in prayer. They fasted and they set their case before God as a matter of urgency. Thirdly, We're also told that this fasting was a means of humbling themselves before God. He said, let us fast and humble ourselves. Now, I wrestled with this a bit, especially last night. And when I first considered this immediately, my thinking was that this was a way of their owning and acknowledging their own weakness and frailty and confessing their complete and absolute dependence upon God for help and guidance. Now, I believe that is true. I believe that that's what they were doing. They're expressing dependence upon God. However, after looking at some commentators on this, I think there's more to this idea of humbling that is written here, and that goes with the idea of fasting. And the idea of humbling oneself, in this text, it can actually be interpreted afflicting as well, as afflicting oneself. And it really has to do with the idea of afflicting oneself, neglecting yourself for the sake of what your body needs, your food, for the sake of confessing your sin and repenting of your sin. It's as if you're purifying yourself before God. They confessed their sin and they repented and they made sure that they had Come before God with clean hearts, as it were, to seek Him in this way. So a lot of times when you see this idea of humbling oneself in fasting, there is a sense of dealing with sin. And we'll see later on that there are times when offerings are offered up, burnt offerings and sacrifices, when people fast, which would go in, which would be right in line with this idea of afflicting oneself in this way. And then fourthly, Finally, we can just note that God had honored their fast and answered their prayer. In verse 31, we are told, Then we departed from the river of Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month to go to Jerusalem. And the hand of our God was upon us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambush along the road. So God answered their prayer. He respected, he honored their fast and answered their prayer. And so, in this case, we see that the people fasted and prayed as a matter of humbling themselves before God, that they might seek Him with a sense of urgency concerning direction, guidance and protection. Well, I want to now build on this with some other examples. This will kind of set the stage for some other examples and we'll get a well-rounded understanding of this practice. Turn with me to Judges chapter 20. Turn back to the book of Judges, right after the book of Joshua. Judges chapter 20, a sad time when you look through the book of Judges and you read through this book. It's it gets from good to worse. It's a sad thing and it shows you the sense of the need for a king at the God's own heart. And by the time you get to the end of the book of Judges, you really you see so many faithful judges at the beginning and then you see more and more judges sinning and getting worse. And you get to the end of the book and you want to weep. at what happens by the time you consider the end of this book. Chapter 20. We're just going to read verses 26 to 28. We don't have time to read the whole section, but I will say some things to you. 26 through 28. Then all the children of Israel, that is all the people, went up and came to the house of God and wept. They sat there before the Lord and fasted that day. until evening, and they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. So the children of Israel inquired of the Lord. The Ark of the Covenant of God was there in those days. And Phineas, the son of Eliezer, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days, saying, Shall I yet go out to battle against the children of my brother Benjamin, or shall I cease? And the Lord said, Go up for tomorrow. I will deliver them into your hand. Let me just give you an understanding of what's happening here. Here the Israelites are preparing to go up to battle against the tribe of Benjamin. One of the twelve tribes, one of their brothers, one of the brothers of the twelve, all the children of Benjamin, they were going to actually seek to destroy that tribe. And here they were going up for the third time, we're told, the third day to battle against them. And you might recall the situation that led to this beginning in chapter 19. A Levite who was passing through Gibeah, which is a town or a place within the city of Benjamin or within the country of Benjamin. It belonged to Benjamin. A Levite was passing through Gibeah with his concubine, and he was harshly treated by the men of Gibeah. In fact, we're told that the men of Gibeah wound up ravaging the Levite's concubine. They ravaged her to the point that she died. She had died and her life was taken by these men. So the Levite then, and for those of you who are young children, you might want to close your ears at this point, but the reality is that the Levite cut his concubine into pieces and he sent one piece of this woman, of his concubine, to each of the tribes of Israel, to all the territories throughout Israel, he sent a part of her body, so that he might bring the tribes together to address this horrible injustice that was committed against him and his concubine. He wanted to raise their ears, he wanted to get their attention and to deal with this injustice that had taken place. And so the tribes come together and see this atrocity and they band together and they call upon Benjamin now, They tell, they go to their brothers, Benjamin, and they say to them, they ask them or they command them to deliver up the men who had committed this horrible atrocity. Give us these men so that they could be put to death and the evil could be removed from Israel. They're all furious that this happened and they just want the men. They're not looking to attack Benjamin at this point. However, the Benjamites refused to deliver the men to them, which led to all of the tribes declaring war on Benjamin, having gone up to battle against Benjamin two days already in our text and having lost many thousands of soldiers in the battle. The Israelites were told again in our passage, inquire of the Lord for the third time. But this time we are told that they fasted as well while offering up burnt offerings and peace offerings. And when they inquire of God this time, God sends them out to battle again. And he assures them this time, he assures them that he will deliver the Benjamites into their hand. The war would be over. This would be finished. They would have victory at this point. Well, here we see again that this fast that took place erupted out of an urgent situation. Generally, when you're preparing to fight a battle, you are not going to put away food. You're going to make sure that you eat well so that you can endure the battle. But here the people greatly humble themselves, greatly express their sense of dependence upon God. They confess their sins. They come before God so that they could deal with this matter and seek God's help. concerning it. They had already lost thousands and they were at war with one of their tribal brethren. What a sad reality. They were warring against Benjamin. And so they seek the will of God and God tells them to go up to battle. We also notice in this context as well that the people wept and you start to get an appreciation for the idea of mourning, which is oftentimes associated with fasting, this idea of mourning. And we'll see that more as well. Well, let me ask you to turn to First Samuel now. Right after Judges, 1st Samuel, chapter seven. Again, we're just surveying these texts and trying to get an understanding of this, get a picture of fasting. I have to give you context, and that's the difficult thing is you can read a text about fasting and it's in the middle of all kinds of things going on, but it needs to be explained if we're going to appreciate it. 1st Samuel, chapter seven, we'll just read six verses. The first six verses there. were told these words. Then the men of Kerjath-Jerim came and took the Ark of the Lord and brought it into the house of Abinadab on the hill and consecrated Eleazar, his son, to keep the Ark of the Lord. So it was that the Ark remained in Kerjath-Jerim a long time. It was there twenty years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, If you return to the Lord with all your hearts, Then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths from among you, and prepare your hearts for the Lord, and serve Him only, and He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.' So the children of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and served the Lord only. And Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray to the Lord for you. So they gathered together at Mizpah, drew water, and poured it out before the Lord. And they fasted that day, and said there, We have sinned against the Lord. And Samuel judged the children of Israel at Mizpah. Prior to this situation, that we just read about, the Israelites had been defeated by the Philistines. And you could remember many of you, if you've read this book, that the Israelites, after they were defeated by the Philistines, they decided, well, let's go get the Ark of God and let's bring the Ark of God out to the battle and then we'll have the victory. And of course, it was a grievous time because the Ark of God wound up getting taken by the Philistines. The Israelites were conquered again. We could remember that Eli's sons, his wicked sons, were killed, and we could also remember that Eli himself, when he heard that the ark was taken, he fell over and broke his neck. It was a grievous time in the history of Israel, and the Philistines had conquered them. Well, following later on, after the Philistines had taken the ark of God, By God's grace, they could not keep that ark too long. Wherever they put it, it caused problems to them. They were afflicted with disease. Their god was destroyed in the presence of the ark. So the Philistines put it, they basically send it out of their town and want to get rid of it. They don't want anything to do with this ark. And ultimately, it comes back to where the people of God are. And following the return of the ark, we're told that the Israelites lamented after God. It came back to them. They put it on these wagons or this carts. And it came back, and they lamented after God. Samuel then called the people, as we just read, to put away the foreign gods and to return to the Lord with all of their hearts. The people then genuinely repented, we're told. There's a sincerity here. And we're told that they fasted and confessed that they had sinned against the Lord. They fasted and confessed their sin. Following this, Samuel offers up a burnt offering, and the Lord then gives the Israelites a major victory against the Philistines. Now the Lord protects them, the Philistines come up against them, and they don't even have to, if I recall, they don't even have to do much. God does a lot for them, and they go out and just destroy the Philistines. In this context, we see that the Israelites had fasted as a means, again, of humbling themselves and confessing their sin before God. It's associated with confessing sin in this context. And their fast accompanied their repentance as they put away their idols and returned to God with their whole hearts. It accompanied their repentance. And so that's what we can see from this text. Now, brethren, without turning there, I want to note several other accounts where fasting is mentioned in scripture. I'm not going to have you turn to these texts. I'm just going to note some things and mention them to you again. We're going to get a full picture here before we can understand what this practice is all about. In 1st Samuel 31.13 and 2nd Samuel 1.12, we're told the fasting that took place after Saul and his son Jonathan had been killed, along with those Israelites who had died in the battle against the Philistines. You could remember that when they were killed, the people fasted. We're told that David and the men with him, in fact, tore their clothes. They mourned and they wept and fasted until evening. Here we see again another connection between fasting and mourning in this context. In fact, oftentimes in the Old Testament, when you see people fasting, not all the time, but oftentimes you'll see them mourning and they'll put on sackcloth, sackcloth. To me, it just reminds me of like that, like a potato sack, just something very uncomfortable. It would rub against your body. But it was a sense of humiliation and they sat in ashes. they would sit themselves in a pile of ashes, put on sackcloth, mourn, and seek God. And oftentimes that was associated with fasting. In fact, you can recall that that was the case of what happened with the people of Nineveh. Remember when Jonah came to Nineveh, when God turned him around and took him through the belly of the fish and brought him out of the water and sent him to Nineveh, sent him back in the right direction? When Jonah had gotten there, he proclaimed, yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. And what happened when Jonah proclaimed that the king was terrified and he proclaimed a fast and they put on sackcloth and satin ashes and they couldn't eat or drink anything. And they waited and God wound up turning away his wrath from the people. He wound up sparing the people of Nineveh by his grace when they humbled themselves in that way. You can also recall the time when David had sinned with Bathsheba, and he had Uriah killed, and God had struck the child that Uriah's wife had bought to David with an illness. This child that was born was now ill with this serious disease. And we're told that David pleaded with God for the child, and David fasted, and he went in and lay all night on the ground. In 2 Samuel 12, you see that. Then on the seventh day, the child died. And David arose from the ground, he washed himself, he anointed himself, he changed his clothes, and he went into the house of the Lord and worshipped. Following this, he requested food and he ate. And this, in fact, confused David's servants. Some of you might recall when his servants come to him and they say, why is it now? that you don't fast. Now you eat. The child just died. You would think that while he was alive, you would have been eating and everything would have been fine. And when he died, you would fast. That's normally what would happen. However, David explained to them that he had fasted as a means of humbling himself before God with the hope that God might graciously spare the child. In other words, while the child was alive, David hoped to be able to Come before God with this humility that just maybe God might spare the child. Just maybe God might honor that fast and bless in that sense and be gracious to David. And while God did not spare the child, David knew that he was yet at fault for his sin and that God was under no obligation to extend his grace. And so David went into the house of the Lord and worship. I like that text. I don't. It's not a joy to see the child die, but just the heart of David. to see that after that had happened, he tried. He got down. He knew that he had sinned greatly in the sight of God. He fasted. He lay on the ground. He humbled himself before God. And even though God took the child, David did not rebel. David did not get angry. David got up and cleaned himself off, and he went and worshipped. He worshipped God. In 1 Kings 21, when judgment was pronounced against Ahab and his house, You could remember Ahab was one of the most wicked kings. He was with Jezebel. When judgment was pronounced against Ahab and his house because of the great and grievous sins of Ahab and Jezebel, we're told that after this judgment was pronounced that Ahab humbled himself before God. He tore his clothes. He fasted. He put on sackcloth and he went about mourning. And as a result, even of Ahab humbling himself in this way, God held off bringing the calamity on Ahab's house until the days of his son. In other words, God even still honored that humility from Ahab, as wicked as he had been with Jezebel and how he let that woman influence him and how he had done horrible things. God still respected that sense of humility and said he would not bring that judgment about until the days of his son. In 2nd Chronicles chapter 20, when Moab, Ammon and others were preparing to attack Judah, we're told that Jehoshaphat proclaimed a fast in Judah. In doing so, we're told that he set himself to seek the Lord. He set himself to seek the Lord. And during that fast, Jehoshaphat and the people were seeking help from the Lord. And God ultimately fought for them and gave them rest on all sides. God fought the battle for them. In Ezra chapter 9, following the great prosperity that God had given the Israelites as he had brought them back into their land and enabled them to rebuild the temple. We saw this already. The people began to intermarry and mix again with the pagans. Everything was going so well. God had been gracious to the people, brought them back to their land. They built the temple again. They're beginning to worship God and Ezra's. They're teaching the law and they begin to mix with the pagans. They begin to intermarry. And we're told that the hand of the leaders and the rulers had been foremost in this trespass. Those who ought to have set the greatest example, the leaders, had been the foremost in this sin. And so, what did Ezra do? Ezra had fasted on this occasion. And at the evening sacrifice, he arose from his fasting. And having torn his garment and his robe, he fell on his knees and spread out his hands to the Lord his God. There he prayed, confessing the great guilt of the sin of the people, leaving them wholly at the mercy of God. And again, we see this fast as conveying an urgent sense of seeking God, especially in the humble pursuit of his mercy in light of the grievous sin of the people. The people had blown it big time. They had no right already to God's grace and what God had already done. And now they had done this. They intermarried. And Ezra just says, you know, I need to just I just throw myself at the mercy of God. I thought we throw ourselves at the mercy of God and plead for his mercy. And they fast. And they seek God, and God is yet gracious to them. I'm going to skip over a few examples I had with Haman and what happens with him and Esther and the book of Daniel. And there's so much more, brethren, that we can get into about this idea of fasting. But I want to go on because I want to consider with you some New Testament texts as well. These up to this point, we've considered Old Testament texts. And I want to just consider a few New Testament texts with you. If you'll turn with me to Matthew 17. We read this for our first scripture reading. I think as you look at more of these texts, you do get more of an appreciation for this practice as far as what it means and why it was done and in general, and Matthew 17, verses 14 through 21. And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Jesus, kneeling down to him and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely. For he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to disciples, but they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, Oh, faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to me. And Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of him. And the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, why can we not cast it out? So Jesus said to them, because of your unbelief, For assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. In this particular context, we find an interesting situation where fasting is mentioned. Apparently, this child was possessed by a particular type of demon. Now, the disciples had cast out many demons already, but this was a particular type of demon that could not simply be cast out as easily as some of the others were. When the demon gave the disciples some level of trouble, They lack the faith, we are told, to move forward in casting it out, and their inability to cast it out confirmed their unbelief in God's power. Once there was some resistance and trouble here, they lacked the faith to cast it out. And exercising, or had they had any measure of faith in God in this situation, Jesus says they would have succeeded. And exercising of such faith would have led them to all the more urgently pursue God, rather than give up, to pursue God, even to the extent of fasting and praying, which would have led to them casting out this demon. It would have led them to fast. In other words, there's a connection here between Jesus saying, you of little faith and the necessity to fast. There's an expression of faith that would have taken place had they fasted and trusted God in this situation. In keeping with the Old Testament text that we've considered, which addresses this practice of prayer and fasting, here we continue to find the parallel idea of, at least to some degree, humbling oneself and expressing total dependence upon God by setting oneself to seek God with a sense of urgency. In other words, this is not that different from the Old Testament. It is a little bit. different situation, but it's similar in a lot of ways. There's a sense of seeking God with urgency so that he might intervene regarding a matter that is certainly beyond our capabilities. We would seek God. And that's the idea here in this text. Turn with me to First Corinthians. Chapter seven. Just a few last texts and then we'll be done with this survey. I do want to finish this because I think it's important. A lot of data in this situation is going to help us. We don't have a chapter in the Bible that just talks about fasting and describes it and gives you every detail as to what it is. So we need to really search it out. First Corinthians chapter seven, we'll read the first five verses. Now, concerning the things of what you wrote to me, the apostle Paul says it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. So I'm going to stop there because the idea of fasting is mentioned here. Here, the apostle Paul commands those Corinthians who are married to be sure that they fully they fulfill each other's intimate interest, that they are fulfilling each other intimately. However, he also states that there is a time to set apart such desires for a time that they might give themselves to fasting and prayer. And there are two things that I just want to note from this text. First, we see that prayer and fasting is a new covenant practice, right? Here's a confirmation as well that it's not just something for the old covenant people of God. Even the Gentiles, these aren't Jews now, even the Gentile Corinthian Christians had set apart time for prayer and fasting when appropriate. And second, we see the idea as well in this text of depriving oneself not only of food for a time, but also of the pleasure of sexual intimacy as a means of setting oneself to earnestly seek God about a matter. There's a sense of separating oneself for pleasure from pleasure for a time when fasting takes place as well. It's just good to note that. Well, moving on, then I just, of course, we know that the Lord Jesus Christ fasted 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness. I'm not going to comment on that, but we know that in the New Testament. And there's two other texts that I want to leave with you to go over this matter of prayer and fasting. The first one is in Acts 13, and I'll read it to you. Verses one through three were told these words. Now, in the church that was at Antioch, there were certain prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Menaean, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, Now separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work of which I have called them. Then, having fasted and prayed and laid hands on them, they sent them away. Here, these certain prophets were told and teachers were given direction by the Holy Spirit while they prayed and fasted. They were told to separate Barnabas and Saul for the work of missions, and they fasted and prayed and laid hands on them and sent them away. In this context, again, we see the idea of seeking and receiving guidance from God. during a time of prayer and fasting. And also, we can at least see the practice of prayer and fasting in connection with sending out missionaries in some respect, with sending out missionaries or seeking God's blessing on those who would be sent out and seeking his wisdom in that respect. And then Acts 14, 23 is the last text that I want to go over with you. Again, the New Testament text speaking about this idea of fasting. Acts 14, 23. We're told these words. So when they had appointed elders in every church and prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed. Here we're told that Barnabas and Paul are the two who were involved with this, had appointed elders in the various regions where they had planted churches. Remember, they went around in their missionary journeys and they planted churches in Lystra and Iconium and Antioch and so on. And upon a point upon planting these churches, they were to appoint elders as an apostle. The apostle Paul could do that. They appointed elders to lead these churches. But when they had done that, we're told they prayed and fasted before commending them to the Lord in their respective ministries. And so we see that setting these church plants in motion under the newly appointed leadership led Barnabas and Paul to pray and fast on their behalf. We see this idea of fasting and prayer associated with the raising up of leadership and setting apart men unto the ministry, the work of ministry. Well, brethren, we spent a lot of time, and in fact, I skipped some texts, surveying texts that deal with prayer and fasting. Because I had hoped that we might gain a greater appreciation and understanding of this practice. Like I said, I don't know of a lot of resources that address this. It is important to get an appreciation of it. And I wanted you to get a well-rounded view of it before we consider some basic principles of prayer and fasting, which will not be long. Let me just conclude this survey with some summary thoughts. I want to take now all that we've gone over and kind of give you some summary thoughts at this point. Through this scriptural analysis, we can make a few general statements about the practice of prayer and fasting. Generally speaking, prayer and fasting is practiced in a context of urgency. A context of urgency where the child of God, or the children of God, are setting themselves to wholly pursue God for critical direction, for help, and for guidance. There's a sense of urgency. We've seen that. Seeking God. for critical help, direction and guidance. Now, aside from the Israelites did have certain fast days and so on. And I'm not including that in this. They had some some special holy days. They separated for fasting. But generally speaking, prayer and fasting was to pursue God in an urgent sense. In every instance, prayer and fasting is a means of humbling oneself before God, where the creature comes before God, his creator, with a sincere sense of dependence upon God. And at times, as well, there should be a sense of confessing sin, where appropriate, when it's known. And even if it's not, we can generally just confess our need of God's grace. There's a sense of repentance and a confession of sin that takes place, oftentimes associated with fasting. At times, mourning accompanies prayer and fasting, particularly if the practice is initiated in the context of a grievous situation. Something extremely grievous has taken place in your life, and you seek God with a sense of mourning. Or, where grievous sin is to be repented of, some type of grievous sin has been committed, Usually, there's a sense of mourning associated with it. In fact, in Matthew 9, 15, the Lord Jesus Christ associates fasting with mourning. In that text, we can see that as well. In the Old Covenant, at times in the Old Covenant, prayer and fasting was accompanied by offering up burnt offerings and sacrifices to God. In the new covenant, we see the practice continue, of course, without the animal sacrifices, because we have the sacrifice of Jesus Christ once for all on our behalf, but with the same sense of an urgent pursuit of God's direction and help, and even as a means of expressing one's sincere faith in and dependence upon God regarding a particular urgent matter. It's a sense of really pursuing God about an urgent situation. Well, brethren, with this summary in view, I want to close by taking these thoughts and translating them into principles for prayer and fasting. Now we can take some general statements that I've given already and give them and form them into principles that we can apply as a church. And that's what I want to do at this time. Some basic principles for prayer and fasting. First, prayer and fasting ought to find some expression in the life of the new covenant church. Prayer and fasting ought to find some expression in the life of our church. There's a place for prayer and fasting in the life of our church. Now, let me give you some reasons why I believe it would be called. We would be called to do that during times when we are facing deep trials or urgent situations that require a unique and powerful expression of our faith in God. We ought to consider calling a fast. A time of urgency when there's deep trials, there are trials we've gone on, gone through in the past in this church. And sometimes I wonder, as I think about this, if we ought not to have fasted and some people have. And I know that. But as a church really fasted and sought God about the situation, expressing our faith in him in a unique and powerful way. Another reason why we would fast in the life of this church during times when we ought to mourn over the spiritual condition of the church or have undergone sad events that have taken place in the life of the church. If the condition of the church is the spiritual lack, we ought to perhaps fast to repent, to seek God in a special way as a body. During times when we are called to repent as a church for spiritual drifting or grievous sins, when grievous sins take place in the body, we ought to consider this idea of fasting. During times when we are pursuing and setting apart leadership in the church, and we've done that when we're looking to see what God's will is concerning deacons or elders and leadership, and as we would seek them, we would fast, and even as we would commend them and bring them into the body as leaders, we ought to consider fasting as well to seek God's blessing on their ministry. And then also, lastly, with respect to the church, during times when we are pursuing direction and guidance about matters that are complicated, perhaps beyond our current understanding and control. Sometimes there are very difficult decisions that have to be made where we need to seek wisdom from other people, maybe other pastors. That's appropriate. But it's also appropriate to fast and to pursue God as a body in that way, expressing our dependence upon Him and seeking his guidance about important matters and decisions. Secondly, prayer and fasting. That's at the level of the church. Prayer and fasting can be practiced privately for the same types of reasons that I just gave you. The same ideas privately. People can do this privately. If you want to repent, if you're repenting over a particular sin that's a grievous sin of some sort, or if you realize that your life has declined spiritually and significantly and you really want to seek God in this way, you can do that. During times when you're seeking direction and guidance, major decisions, maybe about moving or whatever it might be, there's a place to fast. and to seek God about those kinds of things during sad events that take place or whatever it might be. Those kinds of things you can fast personally in your own home as well and pursue God and seek wisdom in doing that as well. Thirdly, prayer and fasting. ought never to be practiced, this is important, ought never to be practiced simply as a plastic religious observance or with the intent of meriting any favor with God. We don't merit anything from God when we fast. We don't earn anything and say, well, God, I fasted three days, so you owe me this. And we also don't just do it for the sake of doing it, just to be religious in some sort. It ought to be practiced with the intent of genuinely seeking God And if it's with the body of Christ, then in cooperation with the body, in cooperation with the church, there ought to be a humble pursuit of and dependence upon God. And as our Lord states in Matthew's gospel, fasting with the intent of impressing people or trying to simply look religious is certainly wrong. And it's sinful to fast with those kinds of intentions. That's what the Pharisees did. They wanted to show off. But we fast twice a week. Well, it's not acceptable to God to fast for those reasons. Fourthly, prayer and fasting can be practiced to the extent of missing one meal, several meals. And some people would even go as far as missing several days worth of meals. You have to be cautious and consider any health concerns that you might have as you plan your fasting period, certain ailments, certain types of illnesses that people have, diabetes and so on. You have to make sure that if you're going to fast, that you don't do anything that's going to be a detriment to your health. Certain medications that people take need the intake of food. So I'm just saying you need to consult a doctor at times. You need to be wise and careful when you practice fasting. Pregnant mothers and nursing moms have to be very cautious as well. Many people drink some water during the time of fasting. However, sometimes people even forego water for a time. But again, you have to be very cautious there as well, because you can dehydrate. I heard of one situation where a brother who was saved early on He had decided to fast and he did not drink water. And I think he had done this for a few days and he passed out. He wound up in the hospital. So you need to be very careful when you start thinking about not drinking any water and you need to use wisdom with that. And so, brethren, it's important to note that health factors must be taken into account when considering the practice of fasting. If you have never fasted before, you might not want to start with a multiple day fast. You want to be careful and see Try maybe a meal or try a day or whatever it might be and do it, of course, with the right heart and right motives. And then lastly, fifthly, lastly, you don't ever want to pressure people into fasting, especially new believers. It's not wrong to fast with others. Sometimes people in the church will get together and they'll fast for different reasons over the condition maybe of their children or seeking God on those matters and for salvation, but you don't ever want people to feel pressured into fasting. In fact, Jesus presented the danger of compelling new believers to fast when the disciples of John came to him asking why his disciples, Jesus's disciples don't fast. Remember, they came to Jesus and said, well, the Pharisees fast and we found the disciples of John's fast. Why don't your disciples fast? And Jesus went on to basically tell them that, you know, they'll have there'll be a time for them to fast later on right now. They're young in the faith. You don't want to overwhelm those who are young in the faith by pressuring them toward the practice of fasting or by giving them the impression that somehow you are more holy because you fast. Well, brethren, these are just some principles for prayer and fasting. I thought it important to address this practice as the final portion of our series for two reasons. Again, first, not much attention is given to this practice. And it does. Secondly, it does have a place in the New Covenant church. There is a place for prayer and fasting as we would humble ourselves before God, expressing our total dependence upon him, seeking his continual guidance and direction in dealing with sin and especially seeking him concerning urgent matters. I have to say for myself that I have not given nearly enough attention to this matter. And again, I'm not saying people should fast all the time. But I think there's more places that it should be done in the life of the church. And I know that I'd like to improve upon that myself. Charles Spurgeon, I read a quote from him yesterday and he had said that some of the I don't remember exactly how it was worded, but he said some of the most some of the most blessed times that they've had as a church together were during times where the people fasted and sought the Lord in their fasting. Finally, brethren, While it would be beneficial for us to set apart times for mourning and for fasting and prayer, let us thank our God that in Christ we also have every reason to celebrate and to feast because of the great victory that He has given us in His death and resurrection. We have every reason to feast and celebrate as well. In fact, every Lord's Day is a reminder of the celebration that we have in Christ. The battle is difficult, and we will face our deep, dark challenges along the way. But in Christ, we already have the ultimate victory. We have victory. In Christ, we anticipate the marriage supper of the Lamb, where we will feast in celebration with our glorious Savior, alongside of the people of God who have existed throughout all the ages. We look forward to that celebration, which will be at a time of feasting. And so for now, we are the church militant. We are in the battle. But at the same time, we anticipate becoming the church triumphant because the cornerstone which we rest upon has guaranteed and wholly assured our victory through the precious and holy blood that He has already shed on our behalf. In other words, we have a lot of reason to celebrate as well, and I don't want to detract from that when I present this issue of fasting to you. So, brethren, let us make much use of our prayer closets, and let us be about praying and seeking God in those ways that would express our total dependence upon Him. And let us fast where suitable, and let us ever be rejoicing in the sacrifice and offering that has fulfilled all sacrifices and offerings, namely the atonement given to us to the blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Let us rejoice always in all that we have in Christ. For those of you who don't have this Christ, let me encourage you this morning to pursue Him. Let that be your urgent pursuit. I've gone over this idea of pursuing God with an urgent sense where people fast. You need to pursue Christ with all your heart. You need to seek the salvation that only the Lord Jesus Christ can give you. You need forgiveness for all of your sins. You need to find reconciliation with God. You need to have a relationship with God to know that He's pleased with you, to know that His love is upon you. And all that only comes through Jesus Christ. So, I want to charge you this morning, if you don't know Christ, to repent of your sins, to turn from your way, and to believe the Gospel, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, to pursue Him with all your heart, to follow Him so that you will be saved, and that in the end, when you die, you will be with Him in glory. Let's pray. Father, we do thank You so much for Your Word. and all that it teaches us, and even this practice of prayer and fasting, it is throughout your scriptures. And Father, while we don't have necessarily a place of instruction that gives us all of the data in one area that would help us understand what this practice is all about, we thank you, Father, that doing the difficult work of laboring through the scriptures, we can get a sense of what it is, Lord. And though we're not perfect in our understanding, we know, Lord, that there is a real sense in which we ought to pursue You at times in matters especially of urgency, even with the practice of prayer and fasting. Father, we pray that You would forgive us for our sins as a church. We pray that You would cleanse us. We pray, Lord, if we have drifted in any way, Lord, if we're outside or if we're off the path in some way, that we would, Lord, repent and seek You with our whole hearts. We pray, Father, that we would be pleased to bring our souls before you, Lord, afflicting ourselves, if necessary, to seek your ear, Lord, to seek your guidance and direction. We thank you, Lord, for the times that we've had fasting and prayer in this church over urgent matters and how you have answered and how you are blessed and our times where you may not have answered according to our desire at the moment. We know that you have heard us and blessed. And we know, Lord, that as we would act with sincerity, that you would be pleased to meet with us. And we pray for those who don't know you, Lord, that you would give them the urgent sense of their desperate need of the Lord Jesus Christ, that they might be saved. We praise you and love you, Father, and ask you to bless us now as we would sing our final hymn. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.