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[Music] [Music] The Fast That Frees, a message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman [Music]

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Let us continue in worship by hearing the words of the prophet Isaiah as they are recorded in the 58th chapter of the book of Isaiah beginning the reading at the verse numbered 1. "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet,

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declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. They seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God.

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They ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God. But why have we fasted and thou seest it not? Why have we humbled ourselves and thou takest no knowledge of it? Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure

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and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with wicked fists. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose a day for a man to humble himself?

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Is it to bow down his head like a rush and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord? No, this is the fast that I choose. To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke,

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to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and to bring the homeless poor into your house, when you see the naked to cover him and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

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Then shall your light break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up speedily. Your righteousness shall go before you. The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

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Then you shall call and the Lord will answer. You shall cry and he will say, "Here I am." May the same God who inspired the prophets illumine our hearts to understand him.

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Pray with me. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It was a new restaurant and had only been open for a few weeks. The manager was therefore very anxious to encourage all the new clientele that he could.

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One man came in one night and was given a good table. And as he paid his bill, at the end of the meal, the manager said to him, "Was everything satisfactory?" "Well," he said, "yes. The only trouble was you only gave me two pieces of bread."

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"Well," the manager apologized for this. The customer went out. The next night the same customer appeared again, and the manager, noting him, said to the waiter, "Be sure to give that man four pieces of bread."

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At the end of the meal, the customer came forward to pay his bill, and the manager said to him, optimistically, "Was everything all right tonight?" "Well, everything was all right, but you only gave me four pieces of bread." The manager was a bit disturbed at this,

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but he was prepared the next night when the customer appeared once more. He said to the waiter, "Put eight pieces of bread on this fellow's plate. That ought to fix it." The meal came to an end. With a big smile on his face, the manager welcomed the customer at the cash register.

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"I'm sure everything was fine this evening." "Well, everything was all right, but you only gave me eight pieces of bread." This time the manager was angry. And so the next night when the customer appeared, he went to his waiter and he said,

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"When this fellow sits down, I want you to go out into the kitchen and take one of those big, long Italian loaves, and I want you to cut it in half from one end to the other and put a pound of butter in between the slices and put it on his plate."

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When the meal was over, the customer came to the cash register, and with a leer, the manager said, "Was everything all right tonight?" And the customer replied, "Well, I see we're back to two pieces of bread again." We all desire food. Some of us desire too much of it.

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That perhaps is the reason that fasting, of all the disciplines of the faith, is the least practiced in our time. Because I have had very little experience in the area of fasting, I set myself to studying the subject,

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and I was astonished to discover that, at least to the best of my researches, in the last 26 years, only one book has been written which is devoted totally to the subject. Why is it that a discipline, specifically noted in Scripture,

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is so unknown and unpracticed in our day? I think generally for three reasons. First of all, because we're part of the time which is very suspicious of asceticism. The ascetic practice is to discipline your body.

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When the Apostle Paul says to us that we are to "pummel our bodies and to subdue them," that is, to let our minds rule our bodies, he is counseling us to be ascetic in our approach to life. That's what the word really means.

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But across the centuries, the word has taken on different overtones, overtones of severity, even of brutality and torture. Originally, to be ascetic meant to be self-controlled. But then the word in the monastic period came to apply to those

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who turned aside from all physical pleasures— sex, anything that satisfied the body. And finally, in the latter years of the great monastic period, the word "ascetic" came to apply to those who wore hair shirts

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and spiked belts and chains under their clothes and punished themselves terribly. The idea was that somehow God loved pain, and the more pain a person would inflict upon themselves, the more they would humble themselves and prepare themselves for the presence of God.

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As one views this period in church history, one discovers, however, that exactly the opposite was the result. Many of those who went in for these very severe and brutal ascetic practices, instead of becoming humbled, actually became very proud of their ascetic discipline.

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They boasted of it. It had exactly the opposite effect from that which was sought here in Isaiah 58. People cry out to God and they say, "We are fasting. Why do you not answer our prayers?" And Isaiah, speaking for God, replies, "Because you make of your fasting,

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you make of your self-discipline, something about which you boast, and I will not honor such boasting." Well, that's the same kind of perversion that happened with asceticism. A few years ago I was in—the country was called Ceylon then, it's called Sri Lanka today—

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and I was visiting Kandy, the ancient city of Kandy, to see the Temple of the Sacred Tooth. And on the way we passed a very interesting sight. A great number of elephants had gotten together in a stream to cool themselves. It was quite a show to see.

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And right beside these elephants was a forest and there were great bats, 15 to 18 inches long, hanging from the branches of the trees. And everyone going by stopped to see these bats and these elephants, and a Hindu holy man, recognizing the presence of the crowd, set up shop there.

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He took horrible metal hooks and he drove them through the flesh in the back of his arms and his legs, and he had others do it in his back, and then they tied cords to those hooks and actually suspended him by the weight of them. It must have been hideously, unbelievably painful.

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Now he did this, you see, as an act of abasement. He was trying to deny his body and show how he was seeking to be one with the one that is one. But this is what I noticed. As long as the crowd was paying attention to him, he was somehow satisfied.

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But as soon as the crowd would drift over to watch the elephants or the bats, immediately he would start to cry out in greater agony. This terrible thing he was doing to himself to make himself more humble actually led him to seek more and more attention for the suffering which was his.

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It had the opposite effect from that which was desired. That's often what happens with ascetic self-abasement. And a lot of people recognize that, and they see fasting as a form of asceticism, and so they reject it. Another reason why fasting is not popular in our time is

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that we live in a society which is constantly confronted with promotions to eat food. The other evening, when the political commercials were still filling the airwaves, I sat down with a pad and a pencil for an evening of television and counted the food advertisements that appeared.

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I learned that Ronald McDonald is still helping the cheeseburger cook robber. I learned that Mikey is still discovering the values of life cereal. I was reassured that Total still gives you everything you need in life. I learned that Kroger's will give you part of your money back if you will buy your food from them.

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Coke is still trying to teach the world to sing. Florida orange juice has become so popular that now that's the only thing some people have in their refrigerators or take with them on fishing or tennis trips. Kraft tells us that America spells cheese K-R-A-F-T.

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M&Ms no longer stick to your hands; they stick to your waistline instead. Baby Ruth is the biggest candy bar you can buy for the price. If you want to get someone to stay for dinner, feed him stovetop stuffing. But if you feed him it too often, he'll be back the next night also.

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If you want to eat fish that doesn't taste like fish, go to Long John Silver's. Dr. Welby, Robert Young is curing antique dealers, lawyers, dancers, and golfers of nerves by bringing them to Sanka. And Grape Nuts is the cereal with respect for nature. On and on it went.

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In 1970, there were 30,000 fast food places in America. Today, ten years later, there are 140,000. One out of every $12 spent on food in America is spent in these fast food spots. It's an $87 billion business.

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And because it is such a big business, there is, of course, much advertising associated with it, and we see that advertising all the time, and so we are conditioned to wanting to have it your way. And in a society that is so food conscious, it is not surprising that people do not think much about fasting. There's a third reason why people reject that discipline today,

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and that is that many people look upon fasting as being physically injurious. There is a notion on the part of many people that when you fast, you do damage to your body. Now, actually, we know that one could go, if one was in good health, without food for 40 days before one actually began to starve the vital organs and the vital parts of the body.

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We can go a long time without food before we begin to starve. But many associate any absence of food with starvation. This last summer, we had two women over in Newcastle, not far from here, who died of starvation while fasting. And the media made quite a thing out of this. Every night it was on the radio and on the television.

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What the media never pointed out was that these women were not following any discipline of fasting that was recommended in scripture or by medical science. They had developed a deep psychosis, a kind of anorexia nervosa, which led them to destroy themselves suicidally with fasting.

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Fasting itself is not dangerous when it is done as scripture and medicine suggest. But because of these reasons, because people reject asceticism, and because we are conditioned so much to want food, and because many people think fasting dangerous,

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most people today turn away from it as a spiritual exercise. And this is unfortunate, because scripture speaks of it very often and very approvingly. Moses fasted. David and Elijah and Daniel and Hannah and Anna and our Lord Jesus Christ himself fasted. Some of the greatest students of scripture in all time,

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Luther, Calvin, Knox, Aquinas, Augustine, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, Charles Finney, all practiced the regular discipline of fasting. The Bible speaks specifically of three kinds of fasting. First, there's what's called the normal fast,

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which simply means that you turn away from all food and drink except water. This is the kind of fast into which Jesus entered right before the beginning of his public ministry. We read in Luke 4 that he did not eat, and that at the end of the period of his fast, he was very hungry. It does not say that he did not drink and that he was very thirsty.

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This is a normal fast which separated him from food and drink, but not from water. That's a normal fast. The Bible mentions two other kinds of fasts, however. First, there's the partial fast.

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In Daniel, for example, we read of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who were selected to serve King Nebuchadnezzar, and they were fed all the rich and luxurious foods at the king's table. But they fasted with regard to those foods.

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They ate only very simple food, vegetables and the like. And it says in scripture, incidentally, that some days later, they were much better in appearance than those who had eaten the rich and luxurious food, showing that a simple, wholesome diet is the best.

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They did not fast totally, you see. They fasted partially. We see this same kind of partial fast in the ministry of Elijah. And then scripture speaks of the third kind of fast, which is the absolute fast.

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And this is a fast in which you give up all food and all drink. And it's very interesting to notice that besides reference to two supernatural fasts, which are described in scripture, no absolute fast is described on the pages of God's Word that last longer than three days.

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Medical science tells us that we can go without food for 40 days, but we can't go without water for more than three days. And the Bible squares with that exactly. In Ezekiel 10, for example, we are told that the prophet fasted from all food and drink,

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night and day, for three days because of the faithlessness of the exiles. Or in Esther, chapter 4, Esther calls out and asks that all will join her in a fast from all food and drink for three days. And she too will be a part of this together with her maids.

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Or in the book of Acts, when we're told about the conversion of Paul on the Damascus road, when he gets to Damascus, it says in scripture that he went without food or drink for a period of three days. The fast most often described in scripture then is the normal fast. But there are references to partial and to absolute fasts.

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Another thing to notice is that scripture speaks of both private and public fasts. Most often the fasts described in scripture are private, individual things. But there are public fasts enjoined also. Last year, John Chapko, one of our coalition workers, came and told me about a young man here on the campus

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who was very concerned about our fast day, which we observe annually in November. He said he was afraid that this might be a violation of what Jesus spoke of in Matthew 6, when he said that we were to fast without ostentation. We were not to go around with long faces, but instead we were to do, wash our faces and be good in appearance

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and, as it were, conceal what we were doing from others. As soon as it was pointed out to this young man that the public fast, the fast in which people joined and knew that they were fasting, is basic to scripture, he was much relieved.

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In Judges, for example, we read about the tribe of Benjamin fasting in order to win a battle. And they did win the battle. Or in Ezra, we read about all of the people fasting in order to know God's will. And they did discover God's will.

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Or in Daniel, we read about all of the people fasting toward the restoration of Zion. And this promise was ultimately fulfilled. Elizabeth O'Connor, the noted writer in her book "The Search for Silence" and those of you who are trying to discover God's will for your life ought to read that book.

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It's a devotional classic on discovering your gifts and using them. In her book "The Search for Silence" she says that fasting in groups is really better than fasting as individuals because members of the group can encourage each other in the activity.

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Now this young man last year, who was very concerned that we not make fasting into a public ostentatious exercise, had a very valid point. He is to be commended for it.

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Jesus says very specifically in Matthew 6 that if you go about entering into fasting or any other spiritual discipline in order to be seen of men, that's all that will happen. You will be seen of men, but you will not gain favor with God.

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On the other hand, Jesus also says that as Christians we are to let our light shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven. You remember the passage in which he says that we are to be like lamps

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that are put not under a bushel, but on a lamp stand. You see, the homes in those days were very small and dark. They usually only had one very tiny window. And a lamp was simply a bowl of oil with a floating wick in it.

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And it was very hard to relight that wick once it was extinguished. You see, there was no one around who had a bick to flick. And therefore, the lamp was kept burning all the time. When the people would go out, it was customary to put the lamp under a basket

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to protect it that no wind might blow it out. Jesus says our lives are not supposed to be like lamps hidden under a basket. They're to be put up on a lamp stand where they can give light to others. Jesus says that secrecy and discipleship never go together.

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If you're a disciple, you're not going to keep it a secret. If you're secret about your discipleship, you will soon lose that discipleship. You know how the lights on buoys on a river will guide the course of a ship. Or how no pilot, except in a case of extreme emergency,

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will land a plane on an airstrip at night without having some kind of lights. Lights guide us. So, Jesus says, our good works are to guide others. You see, there is a need for conspicuous goodness in the world.

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There are millions of people, you see, who do not have sufficient courage or strength to initiate goodness on their own behalf. And therefore, they need to have those who will stand before them and set an example. And that's what Jesus calls us to.

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Be like a lamp on a lamp stand. Let your work show before men, not for your glory, he says, but to glorify your Father in heaven. So there are public fasts in which many participate,

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and Jesus also says that we are to use our devotion as a sign and a symbol to encourage others. But this must be noted too. There is nowhere in Scripture where Jesus specifically commands us to fast. Jesus does give us some specific commands.

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He says, for example, as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, do this in remembrance of me. He instructs us to keep the memorial of the Last Supper. Or he says, go ye into all the world and make disciples of all nations,

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teaching them whatsoever I have commanded you. We do have specific instructions from Jesus. But he never specifically commands us to fast. It's very interesting to notice, however, that he assumes that we will fast.

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For example, in Matthew 6 he says, "And when you fast," he doesn't say, "Thou shalt fast," and he doesn't say, "And if you decide to fast," he says, "And when you fast, assuming that we will fast."

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Again, he often mentions fasting at the same time that he mentions prayer and giving. Now, prayer and giving are not options in the Christian life. And to put fasting in a group with them implies, I would suggest to you, that this discipline is to be taken just as seriously

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as the discipline of prayer and the discipline of good stewardship. Luther commented on this when he says, "It is not Christ's intention to reject or to despise fasting. His intention is to restore it."

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And that's what comes out very strongly in Matthew 9. The disciples of John the Baptist come up to Jesus and they say, "Why is it that your disciples do not fast?" And Jesus replies, "They do not fast because you don't fast when the bridegroom is present.

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When the bridegroom is there, you don't fast, you feast. And I'm the bridegroom and I'm here with my disciples, and so we are feasting together." But he goes on, "The time will come when I go away,

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and when I go away, then my disciples will fast." Jesus was referring, of course, to when he ascended to his Father in glory, to the time of which we are now a part, that time which will continue until the cry comes, as it's indicated in Matthew 25,

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"Behold, the bridegroom cometh!" When Jesus returns again, the time for fasting will be at an end. But until then, Jesus assumes that we will be fasting. It is true. He does not command it.

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But I would suggest to you that that's little more than a semantic technicality. He says specifically that his disciples will fast until he returns, and those of us who are seeking to be guided by his words ought to be influenced by that. One last question, then.

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Why do we fast? Well, the answer to that can be given in only two words. Fasting frees. First of all, it frees us in order that we might focus on God.

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When we are in the discipline of fasting, we can see God more clearly. John Wesley instructed all Methodist pastors to fast at least two days every week in order that they might see God. Here in Isaiah, in the passage which I read a few minutes ago,

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Isaiah says that the people are to enter into a true fast in order that they might see God as he really is. I was helped in understanding this this week by a conversation I had with Dr. Harold Condor, a very brilliant chemist on our staff here at the college. Dr. Condor was telling me about an element called selenium.

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Selenium is one of the few semiconductors in nature. That means that selenium does not conduct electrical current under normal circumstances. But if you bring light to bear on the selenium, if you bathe it in light, it will then begin to conduct electricity.

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As a matter of fact, the amount of light that is focused upon it will determine how much electricity it will carry. He explained to me why this was so. It seems that when the selenium receives the light,

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the molecular structure or arrangement of the selenium changes so that what before could not conduct electricity suddenly is enabled to conduct electricity. Well, fasting is like that. Fasting so focuses us upon God, so reorders our priorities,

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so rearranges the structure of our thinking that we become channels of his power. That is, when we pay some price for our focusing upon him, when we say by our fasting, "Lord, I really mean business in coming to you," there is a special demonstration of his power made available to us.

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Fasting frees us to focus more on God. Fasting also frees us from the control of bodily desires. It's interesting to notice in Scripture how many times when people fast, unusual things happen to them.

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I mentioned Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel chapter 1. They have a partial fast, and as a result of it, this is what the Scriptures say. God gave them great learning and skill. They were able to learn beyond the capacities of others.

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In Acts 10, Peter receives his great vision, which leads him to begin the proclamation of the gospel to the Gentiles. When? It's very specifically noted in Scripture, "When he was hungry." In Acts 27, Paul is visited by an angel,

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and the angel brings to him a very comforting word of God. But the visitation of the angel comes after a period of fasting. The greatest vision which is described in Scripture, the book of Revelation, comes to John when he's on the Isle of Patmos, living in a time of great privation,

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which, and I will admit this is surmise on my part, but it seems logical, which must have been a time of great privation and limitation and of hunger. Fasting opens us to things because it takes our eyes off our bodies. I have discovered in my very limited experience in fasting that it reveals my sins to me.

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There are times when it's very easy to subdue your sins, that is to push them down so you don't notice them, by giving yourself some kind of oral satisfaction. I discovered that when I would fast, I would become very angry,

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or sometimes very fearful and insecure, or very prideful. These are the sins which assault me the most regularly. And at first I thought these things were happening to me, I was becoming angry or I was becoming insecure because I was fasting.

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And then I realized that the sin of anger and the sin of insecurity and the sin of pride were in me, but I usually didn't see them because I covered them over with food. When I fasted, they were revealed, and when they were revealed, I could begin to pray and to focus and to work upon them.

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When we throw out the things that cushion us so that we can't discover the great verities we need to know, when we lay aside food, we are freed from the control of bodily desires and discover things we otherwise would not know. And notice this too. Fasting frees our minds for prayer.

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I've been thinking and praying about perhaps preaching a sermon next semester on biblical principles for leadership. And as I've been thinking about this, I've been reading books on leadership and what the scriptures have to say about leadership and matching the two. And in reading some of these books on leadership, I've discovered

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that one of the techniques that's often suggested today is that you have your most important meetings with your subordinates right before it's time to eat. You do that for two reasons. First of all, they'll work more quickly when they're hungry and want to go and eat.

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And secondly, they'll think better when their stomachs are empty. When you eat something, blood is summoned to the stomach in order to assist you in the process of digestion. When your stomach is empty and the digestive processes are not in action, there is more blood free to go to your brain while you are thinking and using your head.

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This is the reason it's never good, for example, to eat a big meal right before you take a test. We are taught then, it seems to me, in fasting, to clear the boiling belly, shall we say, in order that our prayers might rise up on wings of special focus. Jeremiah says, "When you seek God with all your heart, you will be finding him."

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I think a lot of people never find God when they pray because they don't seek him with all their heart. But what does it mean to seek God with all your heart? Well, I'm sure it means a lot of things. But Joel says in the second chapter of his prophecy,

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"Yet even now turn to me," that is to God, "with all your heart," that is, he says, "with fasting." Fasting is defined by Joel as going to God with all your heart. Andrew Murray, one of the great writers on prayer, millions of people have been blessed by his teaching with regard to prayer, wrote this,

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"Fasting helps us to express, to deepen, it helps us to confirm our resolution. It shows that we are ready to sacrifice anything in order to discover God's will in his kingdom." You know how sometimes people will go on hunger strikes in order to show that they're really serious about something.

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Well, I'm not suggesting that fasting is going on a hunger strike against God, but there is a kind of importunity in it. Wallace, who wrote the only book on fasting that's come out in recent years, says that if you leave fasting out of your spiritual armory,

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you are laying aside one of God's choicest weapons. This last Friday night I was in Chicago addressing a dinner at the Hilton Hotel there, and the master of ceremonies was George Beverly Shea. You may recognize that name.

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He's the famous soloist who appears with Billy Graham all the time. He's in all the crusades with Graham and has been for a long, long time. And as we sat during the dinner talking, I shared with him my thoughts about fasting this week.

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He said, "Well, I myself do not practice the discipline of fasting, but I regret that." He said, "My father was a Wesleyan minister. We first served up near Ottawa in Canada and then in New Jersey." And he said, "My father used to fast two days every week,

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and on those days he always gave himself to prayer." And I can testify to this, that on those days there was--and these were his words-- there was a special glow about him. Fasting, you see, clears the way for our prayers, and the glow comes.

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One last thing. Fasting frees our resources so we can use them for the poor. Notice what Isaiah says here in this 58th chapter, which incidentally is the longest discussion on fasting in all of the Bible.

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He says that this is the fast which God chooses, to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free. He says, "It is to share your bread with the hungry

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and bring the homeless poor into your house, when you see the naked, to cover them, and to never hide yourself from those who are in need." He concludes by saying, "If you do these things,

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then shall your light break forth like the dawn." When Isaiah says this, he stands in line with the other great prophets, Amos and Hosea and Micah and Jeremiah. He is saying that basic to the experience of devotion,

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and specifically to fasting, is this. When we fast, the resources that are freed can be put to the service of the world's suffering. Which reminds me, in closing, of Sister Teresa,

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you know, the little Yugoslavian nun who was given the Nobel Peace Prize? She was being interviewed on television a couple of years ago by Malcolm Muggeridge, the distinguished English Christian journalist. It was a talk show, and they were constantly being interrupted by commercials,

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as is the case on those shows. And it so happened that that night, almost all of the commercials were about food. And it also happened that many of the commercials were about food

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that didn't do you any good. In other words, diet food. You could eat it and it wouldn't make you fat. And here's Mother Teresa,

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who's given her whole life to trying to get some fat on the thin people's bones, trying to get them some food that will do them some good, being barraged all evening long with commercials about "Here's food that you can eat, and you ought to eat it because it won't do you any good."

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And she sat there in amazement. And finally she said, right out on the airwaves, "I perceive that Jesus is needed in this matter." And Muggeridge, commenting on it, said,

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"Everybody in the studio was shocked into silence. The cameraman, the director, the sound men, all of us came immediately to attention because," he said, "something unusual for television had happened.

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A word of truth had been spoken." And it is the truth. Jesus assumes that we will fast because it frees us to focus on God.

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It frees us from the controls of the body. It frees our minds for prayer. And it frees our resources for the poor. I have never followed the discipline of fasting regularly in my life.

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I preach this sermon tonight only because the Religious Activities Committee asked me to explore the subject and to bring it to the pulpit. But I have been richly blessed in this, and I am now building into my experience my devotion before Christ, regular fasting.

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I invite you to join me in this, to let our light so shine before men through our free prayers and discipleship that they might see our good works

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and not glorify us, but glorify our Father who is in heaven. Let us pray. O thou who didst call thyself the Bread of Life,

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may we so feed upon thee, so gain our nourishment and our fulfillment from thee, that all our lives will be set free. Deliver us from any servitude which is ours,

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except our service of thee. And may we, in serving thee, be led to serve others, thus to glorify thee and our Father in heaven.

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And the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give to you and to all those whom you love

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and to all those whom nobody loves his peace.