Well, the first thing we should do is pray. Let's pray together. Our Lord, the entrance of your word gives light and it gives understanding to the simple. And we need your light and we need understanding from you. And above all, we need the transforming work that the Holy Spirit does in our hearts. And so give us light, give us understanding and give us transformation. We pray through Christ our Lord. Amen. Let me speak to you for a few minutes about what I'm calling a fasting life. Jesus is pretty clear in Matthew 6 and verses 16 and 18 that fasting needs to be part of our lives. He doesn't say if you fast, he says when you fast. And of course he puts this after an extended treatment of the Lord's prayer. And one of the ways in Haven Church life here on Long Island, as we did in Franklin Square, my previous pastorate, is the elders call two days a year for prayer and fasting. One, the Wednesday when our prayer meeting evening is. the Wednesday before Easter Sunday, when usually you get a lot more people coming to worship, and you always want converting work. You especially want converting work then. And the other is the Wednesday before the Tuesday of Election Day in the United States of America, and that is actually every year, there's off-year elections and on-year elections. But that was a way of reminding people to pray when we fasted, that we're dealing, regardless of what administrations are in, we're dealing with serious cultural issues, as the church always does. And then it would have personal days of fasting. But I've got to confess, and I think I'm probably speaking for all of us in here, that there was something not particularly satisfying about especially my personal days of prayer and fasting. It became kind of routine and I just sensed that I lost a lot of the urgency of what's given in the scripture about when people fast. And Just to give you some background in here, there's tremendous light in John Calvin's Institutes, Volume 4, Section 12, and Chapters 14 and following. You know, more people would Look, fewer people would be embarrassed about the word Calvinist if they realized Calvin spoke a whole lot more about prayer than he did about predestination. He speaks so much about piety. And he has this section about fasting. Pastors, we would say probably today elders, according to the need of the times, should exhort the people either to fasting or to solemn supplications or to other acts of humility, repentance, and faith, which the time, the manner, and the form are not prescribed by God's Word, but left to the judgment of the church." Notice he puts the emphasis not first on the fasting, but what prompts it, as he says the time that we're in and so forth, the manner. Then he adds at this point, for we see that whenever anything grave occurred, The people were called together and supplications and a fast appointed. I'll read one of the texts he refers to here. The apostles therefore followed what was not new to the people of God and what they foresaw would be useful to them. In other words, one of the reasons you don't read a lot about fasting in the New Testament is that enough of it in the Old Testament that describes circumstances when I'll put it this way, the constitution of a renewed person calls for fasting. That's why I'm speaking about a fasting life. Now the key text here is in Joel. And Joel is an interesting book to study in itself, but especially if you're doing what's called Old Testament introduction, which is when the book was written, who wrote it, the circumstances, and so on. There is remarkable disagreement about when Joel was written. It doesn't affect its inspiration, to be sure, but its origination is in view. And I'm one of the ones who holds the view that there was an earlier date for Joel and that what you read here is very much a framework for the life of the people of God in all ages. In Joel chapter 2, this is of course the big theme in Joel, right? The day of the Lord, the day of judgment is very awesome, and who can endure it? And brothers and sisters, we are always under that day of judgment, not just our Lord coming at the last day, But even the Apostle Paul can speak in Ephesians chapter 5 about the wrath of God that comes in the present tense on the children of disobedience. So we're always dealing with that dark, dark cloud. And Joel writes, yet even now, declares the Lord, even when there's that sober view of the Lord's judgment, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. And those three terms are usually used in connection with fasting, weeping, and mourning, but in one place in the Psalms, Those words are left out because it puts the emphasis on what fasting does. But we'll get to that in a little bit. Fasting, weeping, and mourning. And rend your heart and not your garments. And that may be one of the reasons why just saying, I have certain days of fasting every week, don't always scratch where we itch, because it can very often be rendering our garments and not our hearts. Return to the Lord your God for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him. Sometimes judgment will still come when we fast, but the Lord still gives a promise and notice it ends with this. I'll tell you later on, I think what's in view, he'll leave a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God. Even if judgment is not averted, he'll leave the blessing of knowledge. Think about it for a bit, a grain offering and a drink offering. I suggest to you that's really a framework for all that the scriptures teach about what I'm calling a fasting life. And notice it's in the context of your heart being broken and mourning and weeping. And in most of the cases, if not all the ones in which you read about fasting in the Old Testament, there is that exercise of your soul. Ezra 9.5, there's the intermarriage, the pollution of the people of God with those who are not the people of God, and let alone the fact that there are still God's people in slavery in Persia, and let alone the fact the temple's not been rebuilt, and there's a lot of work to do for the kingdom. Nehemiah 1.4, again, Nehemiah is concerned about the exile, but he speaks of trouble and of shame among his people. Esther, chapter 4 and verse 3, the people of God are being opposed and the people are exercised so that, if I could put it this way, it's almost natural that they fast and that they pray. I think it's very interesting. Don't think about this. The king of Persia, Darius, believe it or not, he's a pagan. He fasted, Daniel 6 and verse 18, because he was so exercised about Daniel being in the lion's den. He didn't want to be devoured. Even a pagan is fasting because he's exercised in that way. Psalm 35 and verse 13, a time of mourning. Listen to this. Even when the enemies of the Lord's people are sick, there was that love, as Christ had love for his enemies, that was exercised to the point of fasting. And then Psalm 69 verses 9 and 10, Christ himself fulfills this, zeal for your house has eaten me up. and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me, exercised as our Lord was from Gethsemane to the cross, where quite frankly eating would have been the last thing on his mind. But this is the text that I think really brings all of this out. In verse 10 of Psalm 69, after speaking about the reproaches of those who've reproached you have fallen on me, He says, and Christ really is saying, this is fulfilled in Christ, I literally, he does not say, I wept with humbling and fasting. He literally says, I wept my soul with fasting. In other words, I couldn't help but fast. I was so exercised by zeal for your house and by the reproaches of those who reproached you that have fallen on me. I didn't even want to eat. I didn't care to eat. I was that exercised by things. Whether we believe Mark 9 29 is in the text, I happen to believe it is, that this type does not come out but by prayer and fasting, you can see why it would be there. And we're talking about demon possession, folks, and you're exercised by that. If you see the effects of demon possession. You will be exercised by it. And then last but not least, and then let me bring some application to you, Mark 9 and verse 15 and Luke 5, 35, this is where commentators, they'll argue over things. Well, Jesus says, when the bridegroom's not with you, then you will fast. And so you've got the camp that says, well, Jesus really is with us by the Holy Spirit, so we're not supposed to fast in the New Testament. We're supposed to rejoice. And then you've got others that say, yeah, but the bridegroom is in glory. He's going to come. He's not with us physically, so we are to fast. And brothers and sisters, both of those things are true. We rejoice in the new covenant because Jesus is with us by the Holy Spirit, but he's not with us. He's in glory, and he's going to come again, and so we fast. They're both true. So what am I giving you? Just kind of an overview of what I think gets to the heart of what a fasting life is, and what will help scratch where you itch. How do you and I scratch where we itch? And brothers and sisters, I can't put it any more bluntly than this. We all need to be really, really dwelling upon the seriousness of what we are dealing with in this fallen world. And in our fast-paced culture, Even for those with deep biblical convictions, all these things that pull us away from serious meditation upon the Word of God, we really don't sense what we're dealing with. James, I won't read it because it would take too long, but I recommend the book by John Angell James, An Earnest Ministry. I prefer the old title, The Want of the Times, rather than The Need of the Times, although it's both a want and a need. But John Angel James has a paragraph in there in which he says, why is earnest Christian ministry so important? He says, you're dealing with the carnal mind that is at war with God. And that warfare comes in so many fronts, not least people putting sight before faith. And they suppress the truth of God and unrighteousness. And we're battling against these things. Doesn't that exercise you? Things that we pray for in this kind of standard ways, but they become, again, like the formalism of some of our fasting. The darkness that is on the world, the death that reeks in the world, war, war that begins with what? You know what war begins with? It begins with a brother and sister in a church that are not reconciled with one another. That's what James speaks about. the delusions over people, superstitions, let alone the devil itself, slavery that comes. There's so much talk about slavery, and I'm not minimizing the seriousness of the physical issue of slavery, but brothers and sisters, do you realize whoever commits sin is a slave to sin? Now why do I say all that? I think for a fasting life, let yourself be exercised by those things. Take the time to let yourself be exercised by those things. And that will come in various ways. It may be an issue in your family life. It may be an issue in your personal life. It may be an issue in your local church life. It may be an issue in church life beyond the local level. It may be national things. We don't lack for things that exercise our souls. And when, quite frankly, you're like the Psalmist in Psalm 69, 10, I wept my soul through fasting. You cannot but fast. Take the time not only to abstain from food, John Piper's statement, food is good but God is better, but really to give yourself to prayer for those specific things. And here's your encouragement, don't ever leave imperatives without the encouragement. What does Joel say? Who knows whether you will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind. That judgment may be averted, as it was in Nineveh. But then he adds a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God. Why does he put that in there? At least in our times of prayer and fasting, one of the fruits will be the conversion of people so that whether they eat, grain offering, or drink, drink offering, they do it all to the glory of God. And isn't that what we're praying for, folks? We're praying that God turn people from being self-centered sinners to being God-centered saints. And I think that's a specific promise that attends it. And then last but not least, Jesus promised, don't ever, folks, the promises of God, this is your inheritance in Christ. Paul says, hey, I could say yes and no, and I might not, for various reasons, be able to fulfill my yes or no. We're all like that. You want to intend to do yes, you want to intend to do no. It doesn't always work like that. But all the promises of God are yes, because of Christ's shed blood. That is our inheritance. And in the same way, when you have an inheritance, we need to be humbled because there's death that precedes an inheritance. We should be humbled by the death of Christ for this. At the same time, we rejoice. And Jesus says, when you fast, When you fast, the God who sees in secret will, he will, mighty might, he will reward you. So I'm working through this. I hope that you will as well. Let's think more carefully about fasting and a fasting life. Okay.