Now to the scriptures, to the New Testament reading, Matthew's gospel chapter six, verses 16 through 18 of the teaching of our Savior on the vital matter of fasting, prayer and fasting. And then we turn to Joel's prophecy chapter two. So first to Matthew chapter six, and will you stand with me for the reading of God's word. Matthew chapter six, verse 16 down through verse 18. Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites with a sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your father who is in the secret place. And your father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And now to Joel's prophecy, chapter two. Joel is between the minor prophets, fellow minor prophets of Hosea and Amos. So turn to Joel's prophecy and we'll read chapter two, verse one, down through verse 19. Joel chapter two. Joel chapter two, beginning with verse one. Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. Like the morning clouds spread over the mountains, a people come, great and strong, the like of whom has never been, nor will there ever be any such after them, even for many successive generations. A fire devours before them, Behind them, a flame burns. The land is like the Garden of Eden before them. And behind them, a desolate wilderness. Surely nothing shall escape them. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses and like swift steeds, so they run. With a noise like chariots over mountaintops, they leap like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble like a strong people set in battle array. Before them, the people writhe in pain. Their faces are drained of color. They run like mighty men. They climb the wall like men of war. Everyone marches in formation and they do not break ranks. They do not push one another. Everyone marches in his own column. Though they lunge between the weapons, they are not cut down. They run to and fro in the city. They run on the wall. They climb into the houses. They enter at the windows like a thief. The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness. The Lord gives voice before his army, for his camp is very great. For strong is the one who executes his word, for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible. Who can endure it? Now, therefore, says the Lord, turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning. Surrender your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and he relents from doing harm. Who knows if he will turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God. Blow the trumpet in Zion. Consecrate a fast. Call a sacred assembly. Gather the people. Sanctify the congregation. Assemble the elders. Gather the children and nursing babes. Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber and the bride from her dressing room. Let the priests who minister to the Lord weep between the porch and the altar. Let them say, Spare your people, O Lord, and do not give your heritage to reproach, that the nation should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, Where is their God? Then the Lord will be zealous for his land and pity his people. The Lord will answer and say to his people, behold, I will send you grain and new wine and oil, and you will be satisfied by them. I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God abides forever. This is the word of the living God. And thanks be to God. Please be seated. And we turn here in the scriptures for the preaching of the word to Joel's prophecy chapter two, particularly focusing, we're gonna focus tonight on verses 12 through the beginning of verse 14, a relatively small portion of what we've just read together, as we consider the Christian duty of prayer and fasting. We love food, don't we? My family and I have only been here at Westminster a couple of months, but we've been impressed by your hospitality and your delight in the good gifts of food and drink. And this is good. We ought to be those who embrace the goodness of food and drink that the Lord has provided for us. He is good and we give him thanks for his kindness, even in the simple yet abundant gift of food. Remember in the Garden of Eden our first father Adam God placed him there and he had access to all the the trees in the garden except for one the Lord showed his abundance even in the gift of food to Adam long ago you can eat of every tree of the fruit of every tree of the garden except except for the one and that theme continues down through the over and over and over again. Psalm 104, 15, one of my favorite references to this good gift, that God grants wine that makes glad the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread which strengthens his heart. Isaiah 25 tells us of a coming feast that the Lord will make for his people. He'll set before all people, all of his people, all of his elect, a feast of choice pieces A feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of well-refined wines on the lees. Our Savior, the Lord Jesus himself, delighted in these good gifts. Remember what was his first miracle, but turning the water to wine at a wedding. He was one who enjoyed the gifts of food and drink, though he was also a man given to prayer and fasting. as we'll see in a moment. Both things are true in the life of our savior. He was one who even in his resurrection, one of the signs that he did to demonstrate to his disciples that the truth of his resurrection was making breakfast by the seaside. He taught us to pray give us this day our daily bread our Lord Jesus had no issues with Receiving the good gifts of food and drink also Paul and his first letter to Timothy chapter 4 every creature of God is good and nothing is to be refused if it is to be received if it is received with Thanksgiving for it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer and Nothing we're going to say tonight and see regarding this matter of prayer and fasting will negate the good gifts of food and drink and the fact that we ought to be a people who delight in these things and yes, who even feast. At the same time, at the same time as we confess this line of truth from the scriptures, we also have to recognize that prayer and fasting is a Christian exercise, a spiritual discipline that has fallen on hard times. That what our fathers and mothers in the faith used to do with greater regularity, we as a church in the 21st century, that we've lost sight of. There's actually, there's very little currently on the matter of prayer and fasting together. There is a vital necessity of prayer and fasting. The scriptures, just as much as they present the good gift of food before us, they also call us on occasion, they certainly, the scriptures always call us to pray, and then at times to fast as well, to abstain even from the good gift of food that we might set our hearts on God, that we might turn our hearts to Him. in our own day as well, and we give very little thought to prayer and fasting, and we live in a time of rich abundance, almost at times approaching wastefulness. perhaps approaching wastefulness. We live in the days of Instacart and Grubhub and DoorDash. You can have groceries and takeout delivered to your front door in a matter of moments. We are people who have our favorite restaurants and our favorite meals. These things are good. We've even created a new word. What do we say when we go without a meal or even a meal is delayed for a few minutes? We get hangry, don't we? We have to have our meals and our snacks and all in between. We've lost sight. I do believe we've lost sight, even in this rich abundance. of the vital necessity of prayer and fasting. So we have a golden opportunity this week, by God's grace, to give ourselves afresh, to learn what it is. This is not austerity for austerity's sake, or self-deprivation for self-deprivation's sake, but as you're able, prayerfully considering the truth of God's Word, what I want to call you to is a greater hunger for God. What I need, what I need and what each of us needs is a greater hunger for God. And may we learn to use prayer and fasting as a spur to the same. Certainly to cry out to the Lord for his blessing on our nation, on our state, on the church of the Lord Jesus Christ more broadly, but let's not neglect ourselves, our own hearts before God. What I want to set before you, particularly here in Joel chapter 2, and of course we'll reference other scriptures as well, is very simple. The duty of prayer and fasting and the motivation to that duty. Very simple. The duty itself and then why you should do it or what should move you. What should move you to this duty of prayer and fasting? First, the duty itself, and there's many scriptures we could have gone to. Remember that Moses was on Mount Sinai 40 days and 40 nights. In fact, he had no water there. He went without food and water as he received the law of God. So many of the Old Testament heroes of the faith Fasted. Hezekiah fasted. David fasted when confronted with his sin. Many of the Old Testament saints, Esther called for a fast as well when she went in before the king on behalf of the people. The children of Israel were called to fast. on the Day of Atonement to afflict their souls. They were given many feasts. Remember, this was part of their worship and part of their approach to God. But at the same time, there was one day a year they were to afflict their souls and even to fast. And lest we think that this is an Old Testament thing that doesn't continue in the New Testament, this voluntary going without food so that we might seek the face of God, what did we read from Matthew's Gospel chapter 6? Jesus did not say, if you fast, but when you fast. When you fast, there's this, as it were, an assumption, a presupposition on the part of our Savior that at times we will seek the Lord's face in a particular and an urgent way. Matthew chapter 9 our Lord Jesus says as well that when confronted by the Pharisees as to why his disciples don't fast he says the friends of the bridegroom don't Don't fast while the bridegroom is with them But the days are coming when the bridegroom will go away and then they will fast there's coming a time even for New Covenant believers When they will need to give themselves to fasting Matthew 17, and this is a haunting passage I believe it's a haunting passage where the disciples, remember it, the father brings his little boy to the disciples. And what's the little boy doing? He's throwing himself into fire. He's possessed by a demon and the disciples are completely unable to throw the demon out of the little boy. The Lord Jesus mercifully comes in rescues the little boy from the demon, casts out the demon, and then says, these words are haunting, this kind only come out by prayer and fasting. We read in the book of Acts that as Paul and Barnabas are set aside for their mission, the disciples do so, the church does so with prayer and fasting. And then when elders are appointed, as Paul and Barnabas continue on that first missionary journey, as they appoint elders in every city, they do so with prayer and fasting. These examples should, and there's many more we could add, it should be evident that the Lord expects his people to pray and then at points to accompany that prayer with fasting. This is a duty in the Christian life, a duty that we exercise in our own heart, particularly in our own conscience before God. But here in Joel chapter 2, Why Joel chapter 2? Well here, very simply, this duty of fasting is set in the larger call to repentance. It's part of the humbling of a people before God. These people, here in Joel's day, faced by an invasion of a foreign enemy, very likely the Assyrians, the ones who will swoop in. They're coming to a land like the Garden of Eden before them, but then when they're done, This foreign invasion, when they're done, it will be a desolate wilderness. In the face of God's judgment upon the land, the Lord calls his people to repentance and even to prayer and fasting. Verse 12, Now therefore, says the Lord, turn to me with all your heart with fasting, with weeping and with mourning. Fasting is an accompanying condition or an attendant circumstance to the greater duty of repentance, of turning to the Lord. And that's what we hope to do. That's what I believe we're called to do in our prayer and fasting. It's not, again, it's not depriving ourselves just for the sake of depriving ourselves of the good gift of food. But it's to turn our hearts to God, to say, Lord, you are worthy, you are worthy of our affection, of our love, and even of our sacrifice, of forgoing the good gifts that you've given us, that our hearts would be lifted to the giver of those good gifts. We see the goodness of God in giving us food and drink. But as we humble ourselves before the Lord, we say, Lord, you are better even than the good gifts you've given. Our hearts are upon you. Some of you know that our family received the gift of a new puppy in recent days, and I've talked with several of you about this. And we've cued the YouTube videos to try to help us learn how to train our puppy. And one thing I hope I've learned, and I hope it's actually true, but one thing I've observed from various trainers on the internet, is that it's good to give your puppy treats as he learns to obey you, as he performs various commands, but not every time. Not every time. You don't want the dog doing things just for the treats. They're good motivators. But what's the highest motivation for the dog is affection and a desire to please the master. You don't just want the dog following you for the treats. And if this is true of silly relationship between a dog and its master, how much more with the Lord. We follow Him. Unlike those people who followed the Lord Jesus and wanted to see the physical miracle of Him providing bread for thousands, unlike them, we follow the Lord not merely for the good stuff that He gives us. We follow Him for who He is. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is no one on earth that I desire beside you. This is why we fast, turning to the Lord, Again, it's not self-deprivation for the sake of self-deprivation. This is not just going without a meal at times for health reasons. That's not biblical fasting. It might be helpful in its own way, but the kind of fasting the Lord calls us to, along with prayer, is to set our heart upon Him, to have focused time, to cry out to Him, to deny ourselves and to seek His face, to repent of our sins and our selfishness. And even as the hunger pains grab hold of our physical bodies, that we would cry out to our God for all that we need with greater dependence, faith, and hope, and love. This is a turning to the Lord with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, a setting of our hearts on God. A couple more things we could say about this duty, this duty of fasting. It is a spiritual duty. It is a spiritual duty. The Lord causes people to turn to him with all their hearts, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. Verse 13. So rend your heart and not your garments." Rend your heart and not your garments. The Lord is interested predominantly with our hearts, not the external action itself, but with the affection of our hearts. Certainly, when the Old Testament saints repented, I've been struck recently in reading 2 Kings, how many times the Old Testament saints would tear their clothes in repentance before the Lord. Certainly, they were at times to rend their garments. The Lord is, as we're not saying, It's never appropriate to render your garments. But he's saying the important thing is your hearts. The important thing is that you turn to the Lord, not just in external conformity. Anyone, as it were, can do that. But to turn to me with all your hearts. This is a spiritual activity. This is inward devotion, not just external conformity. This is a diametrically different from the religion of the Pharisees who drew near to God with their lips, but their hearts were far from him. This is like the worship that God called for from David in Psalm 51 and his repentance and his humbling himself before God. Verse 16 of Psalm 51, for you do not desire sacrifice or else I would give it. You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. These, oh God, you will not despise. Why do we pray and why do we fast? We do so not to be as the Pharisees to receive the kudos of the world or even our fellow worshipers, but the reward of our Heavenly Father. We humble ourselves before God. Let us examine our hearts. And even as we consider this opportunity that we have as a congregation to fast and pray, and perhaps you even in the quiet place, in your own communion with God, as you think about setting aside particular times for prayer and fasting, you do so in secret and in private. Remember the words of our Savior that we read in Matthew 6. You don't do this for the reward of men. You don't do it so that others can see how spiritual you are. But you rend your heart and not your garment, a heart for God, of humility before him, sensible and sensitive to your own sin and desirous of his blessing and of communion with him. It is a spiritual activity. But one more thing, it's an urgent, it's an urgent activity. There's a note of urgency in the text. Verse 12, now therefore, says the Lord, turn to me with all your heart. The time is now. There's an urgency to our repentance. The foreign invaders were upon the people of Judah long ago. There was no time to waste. Now therefore, turn to me with all your hearts. This is not a duty to be delayed or to be put off. We turn to the Lord and we turn to him now. We desire to get first things first. Certainly we ought to, in this urgent duty of prayer and even of fasting, we do well to cry out to the Lord for his mercy on our nation, on our state, on the broader church. We ought to have those needs before us, but we need to consider our own hearts first. We need to consider the urgency of our own repentance and our own standing before God. How out of order, just completely out of order would it be for us to seek God's blessing on our denomination, even our Presbytery, our state, and our nation, and the mission of the church to the ends of the earth. How out of order would it be if we prayed for those things? but we held our own sins tight. We held our own idols close. We ought to pray for those broader matters, yes, and that's a reason for us to call for a day of prayer and fasting, abundant reason, there's abundant need, but let us deal with our own hearts first and recognize the urgency of our own repentance before the Lord. Are you turning from your own sin? Have you seen the urgency of repentance? Maybe there's someone here who's just gone through the motions your whole life. You've never humbled yourself before the Lord truly. You're like the Pharisee that Jesus tells us about. The Pharisee who boasts in external conformity the whole way. You fast twice a week even. And you give a tithe of all that you have. You give to the poor, and it's all external conformity. You've never humbled yourself truly before the Lord. I call you tonight. This is an urgent duty. There's no time to waste. There's never a bad time to repent. This is not a duty to be put off. Humble yourself before God and cry out to him for mercy. And praise God, as we'll see in a moment, he is merciful. And that's the motivation. We turn from the duty itself. It's part of the larger duty of repentance, of Christian repentance. It involves setting our hearts on God. It is a spiritual duty. It's an urgent duty. Why do we do this? What moves us? to prayer, to fasting, and to repentance. In fact, what moves us to do any of the good things that the Lord has commanded us to do? We do so because He's good. You see the motivation in the text, simple. Motivation in verse 13, return to the Lord your God, why? For He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and He relents from doing harm. Part of the biblical preaching of the gospel is calling sinners to flee from the wrath to come, to run to God while there's time. And there are repeated warnings through the scriptures to turn from sin because playing with sin is a dangerous thing. And there's wrath to come. And our God is a God of strict justice. He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah by his wrath. Hell is real. And it is, it ought to move us to repentance and see the urgency of repentance. But that's not, and again, even in the text in Joel, the people who were about to descend upon the promised land were a wicked and a barbarous people. And these were all motivations to repentance. And certainly in our own day, in our own time, in 2025, living in Tennessee and the US, the time is urgent. And we see many things happening around us that concern us. Apostasy in the church, a coldness toward God, a loss of zeal, a loss of sound biblical teaching. We see a lot of wickedness and perversion in our own time. And all those things we ought to take into consideration. Well, what is the ultimate motive? What is the ultimate motivation for us? Return to the Lord, not merely because of the wrath to come. We ought to consider that. But return to the Lord. for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness." Our God is good. Our Westminster Shorter Catechism teaches us on this doctrine of repentance, that we ought to turn to God out of a true sense of our sin, even with grief and hatred of our sin, seeing it for what it is. But there's more, an apprehension or an understanding of the mercy of God in Christ, that our God is good. that he's merciful, that he's a God who forgives sin. And if all you've seen is the wrath of God and the justice of God, you certainly have seen the holiness of our God, and that's good. You need to see that. But you also need to see his mercy. and your repentance will not be complete in full repentance until you see his mercy. That he's a God who delights to hear the broken and the contrite cries of hearts before him that mourn their sin, that hate their sin, not only because it deserves the judgment of God, but also because it's so against his goodness and his mercy. And ought not this to be our great motive in praying and fasting and seeking God's face this week, that He is good, that He hears the cries, the brokenhearted cries of His people. And that if we humble ourselves before him, he will hear our cries because he is gracious, because he's merciful. He's merciful and deals with a miserable and sin sick people in tenderness. He's gracious and doesn't deal with us according to our merit and our deserving. but for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ. He's slow to anger. He's long-suffering. His wrath certainly falls on us due to our sin, but He's slow to anger. He's not quick-triggered. He's tender in mercy. He's of great kindness. He's of great kindness. And we see all of these things in the face of Jesus Christ. This is the great motivation for any of our duties, particularly this call to prayer and to fasting, to see the goodness of God in the land of the living, to see particularly His goodness and mercy in the face of Jesus Christ. Isn't this ultimately what we long for? Isn't Christ the great aim of all of our desires? And even in Him, don't we see the goodness and the grace and the mercy of God? The one who went out into the wilderness Himself, the one, again, who delighted in the good gifts of food and of drink, as we've already recounted, but the one who went without who went without food those 40 days in the wilderness. Why? because even as he resists the temptation of the wicked one to turn the stones into bread, what does he say? Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God. Our Lord Jesus taught us that the ultimate goodness of mercy comes from God, not merely from the gifts that he gives us, but our life doesn't just consist in the receiving of these good gifts, but in the delight of the giver of those good gifts. Our Savior taught us of the grace and the mercy of our God when He taught us in the Beatitudes, "'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled.'" He's the one who went to the cross for our gluttony, our selfishness, our wastefulness, our preoccupation with the good gifts that our God gives rather than dwelling on the giver. And so in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we see on full display the grace, the mercy of God that calls us from our selfishness, from our natural inclination to live for self and to take the good gifts and never to think of the giver. We see in Christ goodness and mercy and the offer of grace to us as we turn to the Lord this week. So you think of Him, Christ, the great aim and object of your fasting and of your prayer, that you would know more of Him, the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His suffering, the joy of communion with God in Him. And one more thing, one more thing. Again, we live, as we've said, we live in uncertain times. We do not know. Similar, I guess, very similar to the days of the prophet Joel. Verse 14, who knows, as the prophet has called the people to return to God with all their heart, to rend their hearts and not their garment, to return to the Lord for He's gracious and merciful. Verse 14, who knows if He will turn and relent and leave a blessing behind Him. We don't know the future. Will the Lord be pleased to grant revival and reformation unlike anything we've ever seen? To leave a blessing behind him as it were in his grace and mercy to reform the church, to revive her, to grant us conversions and mass, a delight in the Lord's day, a repentance in our community and even in our state, our nation, the sending of more missionaries as we prayed all the good things that we so long to see. Will the Lord, on the other hand, call us to increasing marginalization, being cast off to the sideline in culture and society? Will He call on the church? Will He call on us, even at one point or another, to be persecuted for His name? To be willing to suffer profoundly for His sake? Will it be some of both? Perhaps kingdom advance on one hand and great opposition on the other. We do not know. We do not know that that belongs to the Lord. It's in the Lord good, in his very good hands. But verse 14, who knows if he will turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him. In a very real sense, as the people of God turn, this is always true. that He will turn to us, that He will have mercy upon us, and that He will bless us. Because you see, the point of prayer and fasting is that our hearts would rise to God, that our hearts would yearn for Him with greater affection than ever before, that come what may, whether there's great outward blessing or not, There's greater affection for God. There's greater desire for Him. That even as our bodies ache with hunger, our hearts are turned to our God with greater urgency, greater affection, greater holiness, and greater comfort in the gospel. So that it's true, that come what may, Come what may in the future that we do not know, we can say that the Lord will turn and relent, and he will leave a blessing behind him for his people. And that blessing, first and foremost, is the blessing of greater communion with him, and a lesser fixation on the things that do not satisfy the things of passing time and sense. So we embrace feasting on one hand and delight in God's good gifts. And we are also those who humble ourselves before the Lord, who at times Turn to him, not only with prayer, but with fasting, forgoing the goodness of the gifts, that we might taste and see the goodness of the giver, that our hearts would be set on him. Let us pray. Gracious God and Heavenly Father, Lord, we do pray that you would enable us to taste and to see that you are good. that we would set our hearts to seek your face. Lord, forgive us for so often taking your good gifts for granted, and for sinning even, and not giving you adequate and proper thanks and praise. Lord, help us to turn to you. Lord, we would cry out for our own hearts first that you would give us this gift of repentance and that then you would see fit to grant those around us a world awash with sin, this gift of repentance as well. Turn us, oh God, to you. May sinners be converted unto you, and may our mouths and our hearts sing forth your praise. And do all of this for the glory of King Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.