In the sermon 'Fasting to Set the Oppressed Free,' Scott Brown discusses the spiritual practice of fasting, emphasizing its importance within Christian faith and its connection to biblical teachings. He references Matthew 6:16-18, where Jesus instructs believers on the proper attitude towards fasting, contrasting genuine fasting with the hypocritical practices of the Pharisees. Brown points out that fasting should not be for show but rather an expression of devotion to God, aimed at spiritual growth and preparing for the 'marriage supper of the Lamb.' The sermon highlights the neglect of fasting in modern Christianity and argues that this neglect is due to a self-focused mindset and a lack of concern for the lost and oppressed. Brown outlines various biblical reasons for fasting, such as repentance, seeking guidance, and overcoming temptation, and emphasizes that fasting is integral to fulfilling the Great Commission. The sermon urges a return to heartfelt fasting to advance the Kingdom of Heaven and support the oppressed.

Matthew 6, 16-18 Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites with a sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces that they may appear to man to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward, but you, when you fast, anoint your head, wash your face, so that you do not appear to man to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. Heavenly Father, we just praise you for your Word and your direction. We thank you.

In Jesus' name, amen. As we come to this text, I just want to acknowledge that in the history of our Church, we've never, ever had a sermon on fasting. And so, this is strange in view of the fact that in the history of the Church, there's really only been a three-year period where the disciples of Jesus Christ didn't fast. And that was during the time when Jesus Christ was with His disciples. And just by way of introduction, I want us to be very clear that both fasting and feasting are important categories in the Bible.

The whole Bible is a testimony of how a redeemed people on that great day are ushered into a great hall for the marriage supper of the Lamb. That there will be a great feast. All of history, all of the imagery of feasting and fasting finds itself summarized right there as after the gospel has been preached, as God has redeemed those from every tongue and tribe and nation because of the sovereign hand of God working through the laborings, the prayers, the giving, the fastings, the evangelization of the lost, that they would be gathered at that great feast. And there would be those who would be cast out into everlasting darkness, but those others who would be included. And so, our time on earth between now and that great supper, The people of God are called to spread the gospel through praying, through giving, through fasting and through opening their mouths about the greatness of the Kingdom of Heaven.

And we've just been taught this in Matthew chapter 6. We've just concluded the Lord's Prayer where we learn that our great calling in life is to say, Oh Lord, howl o'd be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so this whole section that we've started in verse 1 has continued with the same theme that there is the design of the Church of Jesus Christ, that they would be a people who would cry out to God, they wouldn't pray for man, they wouldn't give for man, they wouldn't fast for man, but that they would do all of these things only for one reason, and that is to gather those to that great supper. Fasting today is for feasting tomorrow. And so Jesus is documenting the tragedy that existed among the people of God in his day.

He's speaking to his disciples on the mountain, and he's teaching them the way in which they should go. And he's pointing his finger at the Pharisees and saying, don't go that way. And when it comes to fasting, the Pharisees were fasting not for the reasons that fasting was created. And so that's where we are in this whole context here. So there is a kind of praying that is simply to be thought of as spiritual and has nothing to do with the Great Commission.

And that's the kind of praying that the Pharisees were doing. They were praying for themselves, not for the glory of God. They were giving for their own glory and not for the glory of God. And here we find them being accused of fasting, just going through the motions, just fasting, just doing it and liking it and being so religious and regular and regimented about it. They love to pray, they love to give, and they love to fast.

Religion means nothing without the heart, and Jesus is pounding that over and over and over again. And so all of this is in preparation, all this fasting is in preparation for a great feast. Now, because we have this terrible problem, we're so wrapped up in ourselves, we care so much about our reputations, We care so much about our reputations. We care so much about our own pocketbooks, our own everything, that we don't have any energy or passion for fasting. With the Pharisees they were just going through motions but there was no passion for the glory of God in it.

And so that's why Jesus says take heed that you do not do your righteousness before men, to be seen by them, otherwise you have no reward in heaven." So Jesus is following the same pattern in this text that he's followed in all of the others on the other categories of religious life. So first of all, he says, when you fast, in verse 16. So fasting is assumed. Jesus Christ is saying that fasting is a good practice. He's liking it to the normal activities of Christians.

It should be as normal as giving, as normal as praying. And he puts fasting on the same plane. And none of it is commanded here. It's just assumed. And of course, also, he's talking about the practice of secret fasting.

He's talking about secret giving and secret prayer, now secret fasting. These are things that are done out of the urgent churnings of the heart in love toward God. And so he's not saying that fasting is optional. He's saying that fasting is just a normal part of everyday life. He himself fasted 40 days and 40 nights.

I mean, you contrast this with our modern Christian culture. Modern Christian culture pretty much seems to have forgotten fasting. Case in point, this church in ten years has never heard a sermon on the subject of fasting. And I don't know how much people fast, but it's hardly ever mentioned here in our church. You know, how many of you have fasted in the last year?

How many of you have heard a sermon on this subject? You know, most people would probably answer the question, pretty much no, because fasting is something that seems to have sort of dropped off the radar screen of modern Christians. In Matthew 9.15 we find one of the really critical texts to help us understand why it is that fasting is necessary and actually endorsed by the Lord Jesus Christ. It's one of the definitive passages to teach us about the New Testament doctrine of fasting. The disciples of John the Baptist ask why the disciples of Jesus aren't fasting.

And Jesus replies, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? So Jesus is saying, I'm the bridegroom. And when the attendants of the bridegroom are together, you just don't fast. It's a time to feast. And then he makes an interesting statement that fasting is actually connected to mourning.

And while Jesus is with them, they're not mourning. But then he speaks of the day when the disciples will fast. And he says, but the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. So there's a three-year period when the disciples of Jesus don't fast while the bridegroom is with them. Then they will fast, and Then they will feast again at the end of the age.

And fasting is just assumed. Now why is it that we don't fast today? There are probably many reasons. Ignorance might be one of the reasons. We might, some have said that we don't fast today because we're overreacting to Roman Catholicism and we're making sort of a, you know, an overcorrection to the kind of fasting that we see in Roman Catholicism.

It might indicate a lack of seriousness about Scripture. It might be that the Church is so focused on itself that it doesn't have the capacity in the heart to labor and mourn and fast for other people. It's a self-focus. You know, Jesus talked about the Word of God being choked out by the pleasures of this life in Luke chapter 18. Our minds get clogged up and we're longing for all the wrong things.

We have no capacity for brokenheartedness for those around us. We don't fast because we don't care. We don't care about the lost enough. We don't care about the person whose life is falling apart. We don't care about our lost friend.

Our hearts don't break because we just don't care. We can't care because our minds are so clogged up with all of our own pursuits. We're so excited about everything else but the lost or the divorced or the heartbroken or the son or the daughter who is destroying his life and so we don't fast. We might even do that as parents when we have something going on in our families. And we as parents are so cold-hearted that all we do is jabber about it, and we don't cry out to God with a broken heart.

So there are many reasons that we might not fast. It's the pleasures of this life, the desires of other things, comes and steals the things that matter the most. One of the critical passages of Scripture on fasting is in Isaiah 58. And we learn there that fasting is connected with brokenness and heartache and difficulty. And it follows that if you don't understand those things, then you cannot fast.

In Isaiah 58, go ahead and please turn there, Isaiah 58 in the first five verses there's a testimony of how the people were just, they were fasting, but It wasn't a Lord's fast. It was a fast just like the Pharisees. See, what Jesus was talking about, the Pharisees wasn't new at all. It was really very old. It's something that people of God always struggle with.

When their hearts grow cold and they have no capacity for tears, no reason big enough that they can see as they scan the needs of the people around them that they ought to actually go without food to cry out for someone. That's what the Jews were doing. Isaiah is confronting this. And he's saying, you're fasting, you're afflicting your souls, you're bowing your heads, you're spreading your sackcloth. That's not my kind of fast.

Here's my kind of fast. Is this not the fast that I have chosen, in verse 6, to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burden, to let the oppressed go free, and that you may break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out, when you see the naked and you cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh. In this passage there are six reasons to fast. One, to loose the bonds of wickedness.

Two, to undo the heavy burdens. Three, to let the oppressed go free. Four, to share your bread with the hungry and to have them into your house. Five, when you see the naked, you cover him. Six, and not hide yourself from your own flesh.

That means your own family. That means fasting for the people in your own family. You're so concerned about your extended family, your siblings, your parents, your aunts and your uncles, some of them may even hate you. Maybe you don't even talk to them anymore, but have you fasted for them? I mean, this is your own flesh.

Often we are so hard, cold-hearted, even to our own flesh, we might fast for an unbeliever, but we would never fast for our family member who hates us. And so, why don't we fast? But fasting here is just assumed. Now, fasting was being practiced according to at least the command of the Pharisees once a year on the Day of Atonement. If you go to Leviticus 16, you'll find This is the verse that the Jews claimed that they should fast once a year, and they were fasting once a year.

I'm not confident this verse actually demands a one-year, you know, rhythmic regular fast, but the Pharisees were doing it once a year. The Pharisees were fasting on Mondays and Thursdays. And so the early church turned around and said, well, we want to distance ourselves from that. We're going to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. And so there are these regular fasts that we learn about in the Didache as well, which was a writing that explains life in the early church after the first century.

And there were various kinds of fastings. There's kind of the conventional fast that you see in Matthew 2, Matthew 4 verse 2, where Jesus is fasting. And he has no food, but he's still drinking water for 40 days. Then there's a partial fast, you know, abstaining from certain kinds of foods. That's what Daniel was doing.

He wasn't eating the king's food or there was a complete fast like with Ezra and with Esther and in the book of Acts. And then there's secret fasting like we see in Matthew chapter 6. And then there's a congregational fast like you see in Joel chapter two and Acts chapter 13. And then there's a national fast that you see in Second Chronicles 20 and Nehemiah 9 and Jonah 3. You find You find fasts that are called even by presidents.

John Adams, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, all called for fasts in our country. So when Jesus says, when you fast, he's acknowledging a category that most people just think that should be normal in the church. So that's the first thing that we learned. That Jesus is just assuming fasting and he says to his disciples when you fast. Then he gives the example of the Pharisees and explains it in verse 16 and he said he issues a Command do not do not be like them.

It's appropriate to say do not be like this religious group It's appropriate to say that Jesus is saying that here. He says, do not be like the hypocrites. And I would love to have seen the look on his face when he said this. They're sad countenance. They disfigure their faces that they may appear to be fasting.

He's speaking very clearly and is identifying how ridiculous they looked and how foolish it actually was. And so, but Christ is most concerned about one aspect of fasting, and that is doing it before men. And they were disfiguring their faces. People today put ashes on them in order to let the world know how spiritual they are when they're fasting. And you know during Lent people do this.

And the Pharisees were fasting like I said twice a week. When the publican and the sinner were standing there in the square, the Pharisee says, I fast twice a week. The fasting was never to be done as a matter of a routine. You never see that in the Bible. You never see regular, routine fastings in Scripture.

As far as I can tell, I haven't been able to find any. Or there were some regular, we fast on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We fast on Friday. There's nothing like that. There are many examples of fake fasting in Scripture as well.

If you go to Zechariah chapter 7, there's really an amazing section where the people were fasting, and I mean they were fasting big time, but they did not have compassion. And the prophet Zechariah comes to them to confront them about their formalism and their externalism and how they were doing these religious things, but their hearts were not broken. And so in the fourth year of Darius, in Zechariah chapter 7, verse 1, that the people come and they ask the priests, and they say, should I weep in the fifth month and fast as I've done before. In other words, should we just keep doing this? And the people are wanting to know because they're being confronted by Zechariah the prophet.

And then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah in verse 4 saying, Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, when you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those 70 years, did you really fast for me? For me? That's exactly how he says it. Did you fast? Did you really fast for me?

For me? That's what he says. That's the problem we always have. He says, when you eat and when you drink, Do you not eat and drink for yourselves?" He's saying the same thing Jesus is. And then he says, should you not have obeyed the words which the Lord proclaimed through the former prophets?

He's speaking of the testimony of fasting through the prophets of God. When Jerusalem and the cities around it were inhabited and prosperous, and the south and the lowland were inhabited, then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah and said, thus says the Lord of hosts, execute true justice, show mercy and compassion. Everyone to his brother, do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother." And verse 11 is terrifying and striking because we read, but they refused to heed and they shrugged their shoulders. They shrugged their shoulders because they had no compassion.

Their hearts never broke for anyone. They just did their duty. They prayed their prayers, they did their fasting, they did their giving, but they had no broken heart. And in verse 12 he says, yes, they made their hearts like Flint. So when you bring up the subject of fasting, you ask, why are you not fasting?

Or why are you fasting? What are you doing when you're fasting? You have to ask yourself whether any of this figures in to the equation of your own life. A people whose shoulders shrug, a people whose hearts are like flint, while the lost are perishing, while people are suffering greatly. A hard, cold-hearted people is what Jesus is talking about here.

You're just fasting for men. You're just praying. You're going to church for men. You're doing your family worship for men, but your heart is not broken. Whatever it is, you can make a list.

Whatever Religious activity that includes the shrugging of the shoulders is not true religion. They shrugged their shoulders. Now There are many ways that people fast today. There's the Roman Catholic method. They fast on Fridays.

It's the fake fast, actually. They have fish. Dan Horn was selling a survival study that he used to work at Long John Silver's. He said that the cars would be stacked up around the block at Lent, you know, for the Roman Catholic celebration. There's Hindu fasting, the men never fast, the women do for their husbands once a year, and they make a big deal out of it, and they walk around, and they do, they're just so humble.

I've learned this from one of my Hindu friends, Sonia Noah. And she says the women just fast and her husband says, yes, my wife is so nice. She's fasting for me. And then when they break the fast, they dress to the nines and they whoop it up for the evening. That's how they break their fast.

Or you can be like the Mormons. Once a month, Saturday night to Sunday night, they fast as a church and then they bring a tithe together at the end of that time. Even the pagans fast. They fast to get in touch with the earth, to cleanse their bodies. You know, the pagans, the wiccans, the UFO religion people, they all do this as well.

Fasting is no sign of being religious at all. Islam has rigorous fasting requirements during the 40 days of Ramadan. They fast from all food and all drink, smoking, everything from dawn to sunset during Ramadan. It's a way, they do it to discipline themselves, to show their love to God, to beat their bodies, to give themselves what they call a mature adaptability. They do it out of duty.

So there's always a danger in fasting. Whoever fasts is in danger. The Bible is very careful to warn us about those who advocate abstaining from foods, which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. First Timothy four, one through three. So fasting is always a danger for us.

Instead, it should be to lose the chains of injustice, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, to break every yoke, to share your food with the hungry, to provide clothing, and to not turn away from your own flesh and blood. That's why we should be fasting. Now this week, This week I want to confess to you that I fasted more like a Pharisee than a disciple. I got my family up on Monday morning and I said, this week we're going to be talking a lot about fasting. And I'll be reading different things and I said, I would like to fast today because I have all kinds of appointments for the rest of the week.

And then some of the other, my other family members chose another day. I said, why don't you choose another day since this is not the best day for you. So I asked them to choose a day. And so after I completed my day of fasting, I looked back on the day and I recognized that I scarcely cried out to God at all. And I did remember a couple of times to pray.

But I'll have to tell you, my heart was not broken. I was not specifically laboring for oppression and brokenness that is all around me. I'm like a blind man. I'm like this Pharisee who stands and says, I fast twice a week. And so I come to the end of that.

And honestly, it wasn't until I was driving home from work that it hit me, Scott, you scarcely even prayed. Where was the broken heart? Where was it? I was fasting like a Pharisee. And so I came home to my family and I said, I have, I've led you astray.

I've asked you to choose a fast day. And it was wrong of me to just ask you to choose a fast day. And I've sinned, I've sinned against my family by misleading them about fasting. And I told them that it would have been right if I had called them to find the brokenhearted and fast, to find the oppression and dedicate for that, rather than just to choose a fast day. So this week I fasted more like a Pharisee than a disciple.

But then Jesus explains how to properly fast in verses 17 and 18. But you, so he's drawing a contrast with those two words, when you fast, again assuming that you'll fast, anoint your head and wash your face, verse 18, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your father who is in the secret place." So there are a number of things that are here. And anoint your head and wash your face so that you don't appear to be. In other words, Take the whole appearance part away from it. You lubricate your head.

You act like normal life. I don't think this is the sufficiency of Scripture for your hair, that you have to gel your hair, but you put oil on. You act like a normal person. You don't act like you're fasting at all. But your father, who is in the secret place, sees in secret.

So there's this time of secret fasting. This is not corporate or national fasting. This is secret fasting. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And you bring weighty matters before God, which is consistent with the rest of Scripture.

Jesus here doesn't tell us everything about fasting. He identifies a particular sin and then just encourages them to fast in a certain way. Now I want to give 20 reasons people fasted in Scripture. And I'll go fairly quickly, won't be able to really develop them, But I want to do this to give us a range of what kinds of fasting takes place in the Bible, because it can help us. If you're thinking, well, what kinds of problems should I be crying out for?

Well, This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but it is a list that I think can help us to maybe break some patterns of fasting and prayer. Fasting and prayer are always together, or whenever fasting and prayer is always there together with it. So it's difficult to unburden them. And so 20 reasons people fasted in Scripture. For number one, for love and devotion to God.

For love and devotion to God. Luke 2.37. There was a woman whom I pictured to be very much like my own mother. She was 84 years old. And night and day, she was in the temple.

Her name wasn't Mary. Her name was Anna. And she did not depart from the temple at age 84, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. She was a widow most of her life. Number two, for repentance.

For repentance. Jonah chapter 3 verse 5. So the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed to fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them." And so this was a time of fasting for repentance. So if there's a need for particular repentance, fasting is really appropriate. There's a sin that has gripped your life and you have struggled with it, it's appropriate to fast in repentance of that particular sin.

So we should be thinking about that. Is there anything that requires a greater brokenheartedness than you have now about your own sin? Often we trivialize our sins, we make less of them than what they really are. Sometimes we give them nice names. We might say, well, I'm stressed out when actually I'm rejecting the sovereignty of God.

So repentance is another, is a second way that people fasted. You can find it again in Joel 1, 14. Number three, for threat of coming disaster. 2 Chronicles 20, for threat of coming disaster. The people of Moab and the people of Ammon were going to battle against Jehoshaphat.

And Jehoshaphat saw the danger and he called for a fast. And there was a battle, but God slew the enemies of Jehoshaphat without him ever even partaking in the battle. That was, you know, fast and secret, He will reward you openly." That's an example of that. Number four, for obedience to the word of God. For obedience to the word of God.

Nehemiah 1.4. Nehemiah sat down and wept and mourned for many days and he was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. Because of the destruction of Jerusalem, it was left in ruins, the survivors were in distress, and it was a time to fast for the people to be obedient to the word of God. Number five, to seek God's guidance. In Acts chapter 14 verse 23 we find that elders were appointed in every church and they prayed with fasting and commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed for guidance for the deployment of leaders.

When guidance is needed to deploy people to particular works, fasting is often helpful and good. In Judges 20, verse 26, there are eleven tribes coming against the people of God because Benjamin was attacking and they fasted. Number six, to spare the life of a child. To spare the life of a child, 2 Samuel 12, 23. David sins with Bathsheba, and David, of course, is rebuked for his sin, and he fasts for his baby.

And yet his baby dies. Number seven, to seek protection for families of families and possessions. Ezra 821 says, And then I proclaimed a fast there at the river 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, to seek protection of our families and our possessions. Number eight, for compromised marriages. Ezra chapter 9 verse 5, people of God had engaged in unlawful marriages.

And we read in Ezra 9, at the evening sacrifice I arose for my fasting and having torn my garment and my robe I fell on my knees and spread out my hands to the Lord my God." Number nine, fasting to express sorrow. 1 Samuel 31, 13, 2 Samuel 1, 11 and 12, 1 Samuel 20, verse 34. Saul is killed by the Philistines and David and his men fast. They mourn and they weep for Saul and his son, Jonathan. Number 10, to overcome temptation.

This is what Jesus does in his battling with the devil in Matthew chapter 4, to overcome temptation. You see yourself in a time of temptation, perhaps ahead, it's appropriate to fast. Prepare for it. Number 11, mourning for sin. Song 35 verse 13.

David says, but as for me when they were sick my clothing was sackcloth, I humbled myself with fasting, and my prayer would return to my own heart. He's fasting for his sins. To strengthen in prayer, number 12. To strengthen prayer. Perhaps this is why prayer and fasting are often mentioned.

Fasting strengthens prayer. It focuses it. It intensifies it. So it's a good thing. It's a help for prayer.

Ezra 8.23. For I was ashamed to request the king and 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. Number 13, before an important meeting, Esther fasted for three days before she went before the king to intercede for her people. Number 14, in time of distress and rejection and persecution, Psalm 69 10, in time of distress and rejection and persecution, David says, I wept and chastened my soul with fasting that became my reproach.

David is crying out to God for deliverance from his enemies. And he is crying out because he has a passion for God's glory, which is why he says in Psalm 109 verse 24, my knees are weak through fasting and my flesh is feeble from lack of fatness. My knees are weak from through fasting. Number 15, before an important journey. Ezra 821, as the exiles were getting ready to leave Babylon, they fasted and Ezra led them.

Number 16, for the forgiveness of the people, Daniel 9. Daniel fasted and prayed for the forgiveness of the people with supplications and fasting and sackcloth and ashes. And he says in Daniel 9 verse 5, we have sinned and committed iniquity. We have done wickedly and rebelled even by departing from your precepts and your judgments. Neither have we heeded your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name." So Daniel is praying for forgiveness for the people, but he's including himself.

He's always saying, we, we, we. He's crying out for his sins and the sins of a nation. Usually you can find the sins of a nation in your own life, somehow. It's often so unrighteous to try to castigate a nation when in reality many of the seeds of those same sins are in your own heart. And you live them out every day.

Number 17, for extreme situations, for extreme situations, Mark 9.29, this kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting. There are certain situations that just require an enormous amount of energy and crying out and outpouring and grief strickenness and labor and extending into the night and letting your knees be weak. There's that kind, there are situations like that. And maybe there are situations like that in our own church and we're just so blind to them. Because we just think so much of ourselves and our own problems that the extreme situation is just that it doesn't seem that extreme to us.

Number 18, To mourn the death of a significant person. 1 Chronicles 10, 12. 19. For the dominion work of husbands and wives. Fasting is appropriate for the dominion work of husbands and wives.

The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 verse 5 says, do not deprive one another except with consent for a time that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer. So it's appropriate for husbands and wives to set aside one of the most wonderful things God has given them, so that they would cry out to God, and that you would not have husbands and wives who are so obsessed with their physical needs and life, that they wouldn't be willing to set that aside for a time, for some other sorrow or difficulty. So it's a gift of God that we are required to use. And when husbands and wives deprive one another, it's sinful. At the same time, there is a time when husbands and wives, as they are taking dominion before the Lord, to fast and pray for their own flesh, for their families, for their churches, for their nations, for the lost that are around them.

But if husbands and wives' hearts are so hard and they don't care, then they won't fast. Are you a husband and wife like that? Number 20. We should fast because the bridegroom has been taken away. The bridegroom is taken away and he's preparing a bride, sanctifying her and washing her with the water of the Word.

And there's so much need for sanctification. There's so much sin in the church. There's so much darkness in the world. And because of that, the sons of the kingdom are to fast and to cry out to God during this season. Not on Mondays and Fridays, but to cry out to break oppression whenever they see it.

The bridegroom has been taken away. He's preparing a bride to come and be ushered into this great hall of the marriage supper of the Lamb. And He's created fasting for that feasting later on. So that there would be more from every tongue and tribe and nation. So that the debilitating sins of our brothers and sisters, the power of them would be broken because we prayed for one another, because we cared enough to make our knees weak.

But we don't care. That's why we don't fast. Because we fast like the fast like the Pharisees. We have to distinguish fasting from health or for penance. Fasting is never done for physical purposes.

You can make a case that it's good for your body, but it's totally irrelevant. Scripture is blind to the health factor. While your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, there's something greater than your body. We take such good care of our bodies and such poor care of those who are suffering. Who can call for fasts?

In Scripture, authorities can call for fasts. Fathers can call for fasts. Husbands and wives can call for fasts. Individuals can call for fasts. I've just summarized a couple of dozen passages of Scripture.

In 1697, there was a time of fasting and repentance after the Salem witch trials. Several years after the witch trials, the general court of Massachusetts called for a fast. Judge Samuel Sewell, who had been in charge of many of the hangings, wrote a confession, and he confessed his sin. And so in 1710, the Massachusetts authorities gave compensation to the families and the people who were accused. The same much trials happened because a pastor allowed sin to be cultivated in his children.

And his children and the guests in his house were accusing people wrongly and many, many were killed. That's what happened with the Salem witch trials. When that time of fasting happened in 1697, revival broke out. Many, many church historians Mark the beginning of the great awakening to that fasting because a man a judge he repented of his sins and It released everyone to repent of their sins as well And often what what holds back? Revival is that we are holding onto our sins.

We don't care about the wickedness out there, nor in ourselves. And so the awakening is held back because we just don't care. But it begins with how much we care about our own sinfulness. We could speak of many fasts in history, but I want to move to some application. I want to return to this question that I've been working through this entire time together, why don't we fast?

The symptoms are that we're not experiencing fervor. The symptom might be that we are content. We're experiencing a contentedness, a sinful contentedness. Of course, there's a godly contentedness, and there's a sinful contentedness. Insensitivity to the sufferings of others.

A loss of love for country or countrymen. Country, or countrymen, or a lack of care for the emergencies that are in our nation. So we're connected to the sufferings in this world, and we have obligations, and our God is not our belly. Paul in Romans 12 said, Now I beg you, brethren, I beg you through the Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit that you strive together with me in prayers to God for me. Paul is begging the Romans to strive in prayers for him so that he can preach the gospel, so that he can go to the place that he's intending to go, because he's thinking about that feast.

Paul has on his mind that feast. He's making tents, living in houses that aren't his, because he has a greater feast in mind. And so he's gathering the people of God in Rome to fast so that there would be a feast, to lose the chains of injustice, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, to break every yoke, to share your food with the hungry, to provide the poor with shelter, when you see the naked to clothe him and not turn away from your own flesh and blood. So those are the symptoms. So those are the symptoms.

Insensitivity, contentment, things like that. Those are just symptoms. Whenever you find a symptom, there's always something underneath, right? If you have a fever, something's going on. You have to go find out what's going on.

If you're angry, the anger is not the problem. There's something else underneath. Something is driving the anger. So it's like that with these symptoms here, these symptoms of contentment and lack of care, these maladies of our souls. They exist for a reason.

There is something there. And I want to talk about why. How do we find these symptoms? There's always a sin at the bottom of a symptom like this. So the answer is not, I'm going to start fasting again.

Don't anyone do that. Don't anyone make a commitment to fast in this room. Please do not do that. Do not say, well, family, it's Monday's, first Monday of the month, we're going to fast. Please do not say that.

Because you haven't gotten to the root of why we don't fast. So why? Why don't we care? Why don't we care? I'm going to quote John Piper on the answer to this question.

He's written a book called Hungry for God. What dulls our appetite for the kingdom of heaven? Because ultimately the lack of fasting is a lack of appetite for the kingdom of heaven. It's a lack of love for that great feast. It's being so absorbed in the world.

What dulls our appetite for the kingdom of heaven? It's not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, that endless nibbling at the table of the world. It's not the X-rated video, but the prime time dribble of triviality that we drink in every night. For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love. It is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife." Luke 14, 18-20.

The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies, but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of the earth. For when these replace an appetite for God Himself, the idolatry is scarcely and almost incurable. So, but it is curable. It's curable.

And it's only cure is repentance. And so we come here to recognize that the purpose of fasting is really for the fulfillment of the Great Commission, for the gathering at that great day, at that great feast. And in between now and then, that we would be the kind of people, as we've been instructed for three weeks now, that we would be the kind of people who are urgently crying out to God, bringing heaven down and saying, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, to loose the chains of injustice, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke. To break every yoke. That's the purpose that we have been given in this world, to break the yoke of the world and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, who said, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls.

Let's pray. Now, O Lord, we all have stood before this text, and we know who we are, and I pray that you would help us with our affections so that our hearts would burn again and break again for that great feast on that great day. Amen.