Bible Study (Isaiah 58:1-10 NKJ) Fasting 1 "Cry aloud, spare not; Lift up your Scripture Reading: Isaiah 58:1-10 voice like a trumpet; Tell My people their transgression, And the house of This Bible study looks at the topic of fasting as described in the Bible. 2 Jacob their sins. Yet they seek Me It seeks to show the purposes, types, and results of fasting. daily, And delight to know My ways, As a nation that did righteousness, Why Do We Fast? And did not forsake the ordinance of a) To approach God, to be seen and heard on high through their God. They ask of Me the humbling ourselves (vv. 2-4). ordinances of justice; They take b) But what does God say about the type of fasting that was being delight in approaching God. 3 'Why done (vv. 3-5)? have we fasted,' they say, 'and You have not seen? Why have we afflicted c) Who ordains a fast (vv. 5-6)? our souls, and You take no notice?' "In d) What kind of fast does God ordain (vv. 6-9)? fact, in the day of your fast you find e) What does God say about “being heard on high” (vv. 6-9)? pleasure, And exploit all your laborers. 4 Indeed you fast for strife and debate, Isaiah 59:1-2 – Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it And to strike with the fist of cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your wickedness. You will not fast as you do iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have this day, To make your voice heard on hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear. high. 5 Is it a fast that I have chosen, A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to Zechariah 7:4-13 bow down his head like a bulrush, And 4 Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying, to spread out sackcloth and ashes? 5 "Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests:`When you Would you call this a fast, And an fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those acceptable day to the LORD? 6 " Is this seventy years, did you really fast for Me-- for Me? 6 `When you eat not the fast that I have chosen: To 7 loose the bonds of wickedness, To and when you drink, do you not eat and drink for yourselves? undo the heavy burdens, To let the `Should you not have obeyed the words which the LORD oppressed go free, And that you break proclaimed through the former prophets when Jerusalem and the every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your cities around it were inhabited and prosperous, and the South and bread with the hungry, And that you the Lowland were inhabited?'" ……. 10 Do not oppress the widow bring to your house the poor who are or the fatherless, The alien or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in cast out; When you see the naked, his heart Against his brother.' 11 "But they refused to heed, that you cover him, And not hide shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so that they could 8 yourself from your own flesh? Then not hear. ….. 13 "Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed your light shall break forth like the and they would not hear, so they called out and I would not listen," morning, Your healing shall spring says the LORD of hosts. forth speedily, And your righteousness shall go before you; The glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. 9 Then Fasting – An Expression of Humility you shall call, and the LORD will 1 Kings 21:25-29 25 answer; You shall cry, and He will say, But there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness 'Here I am.' "If you take away the yoke in the sight of the LORD, because Jezebel his wife stirred him up. from your midst, The pointing of the 26 And he behaved very abominably in following idols, according to finger, and speaking wickedness, 10 If all that the Amorites had done, whom the LORD had cast out before you extend your soul to the hungry the children of Israel. 27 So it was, when Ahab heard those words, And satisfy the afflicted soul, Then that he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his body, and fasted and your light shall dawn in the darkness, lay in sackcloth, and went about mourning. 28 And the word of the And your darkness shall be as the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, 29 "See how Ahab has noonday. humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the calamity in his days. In the days of his son I will bring the calamity on his house."

Fasts Ordained by God to Gain Power & Conviction My brethren, Dueteronomy 8:3 So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which count it all joy you did know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live when you fall by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. into various trials, knowing Luke 4:1-2, 14 Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was that the testing led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those of your faith days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. …. 14 Then Jesus produces returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the patience. (Jas. surrounding region. 1:2-3 NKJ)

Mark 9: 28-29 And when He had come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, "Why could we not cast it out?" 29 So He said to them, "This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting."

Types of Fasts Daniel 10:2-6 2 In those days I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks. 3 I ate no pleasant food, no meat or wine came into my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled.

Fasting as Worship Luke 2:36-37 36 Now there was one, Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; 37 and this woman was a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.

Fasting as Repentance and Mourning Jonah 3:5-9 So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. 6 Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. 7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water. 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?

James 4:7-10 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

Mark 2:18-20 18 The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting. Then they came and said to Him, "Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?" 19 And Jesus said to them, "Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. 20 "But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.

Questions: Are we aware of how much sustains our life apart from physical food? Do we have enough of an inner conviction that Christ is our life? Can we make a connection that fasting can become a kind of food? While food is necessary to life, can it become more necessary than God? Jesus tells us that he is the “bread” of life. Can fasting be connected to feeding on Christ by faith?

Reflect on how fasting brings us face to face with how we put the material world ahead of its spiritual Source.