How To Fast Successfully

Our theme of this study is how to fast successfully. It’s not really a preaching message, but it’s some practical teaching on various aspects of fasting. A lot of people ask questions on: How do I fast? How long should I fast? How often should I fast? May I eat? How shall I break my fast? and things like that. So the purpose of this message is to try to clear up some of these misunderstandings.

I think it’s good to begin with a definition of fasting. The definition I’ve used several times is that fasting is ‘abstaining from food for spiritual purposes.’ Normally it is not abstaining from fluid, but only from solid food—though there are occasions in the Bible when people did fast without food or without water, as much as forty days. But I’ll come to that point later in my talk. For the time being, we’re considering fasting as abstaining from food for spiritual purposes.

Many, many people have asked me: How do I fast? How do I begin? And these are people who have been Christians for many, many years, members of churches and so on. And yet apparently no one has ever preached to them or taught them about fasting, and yet there’s a great deal about fasting in the Bible. Most of the people who ask these questions are people who know something about praying. So I think it’s good to begin by pointing out a relationship or a parallel between fasting and praying.

In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 6, Jesus speaks first about praying and then about fasting. And He uses very similar language about these two things. The main difference is that when He talks about praying He includes a pattern prayer which is what we call the Lord’s Prayer. But I think there is a basic parallel between fasting and praying and I’ll point out two aspects of it. We are all familiar with the fact that we all pray as individuals. Most of us also are familiar with praying in groups. Group praying we call usually the prayer meeting. Individual praying is what we do when we’re by ourselves.

Now I believe there’s the same distinction in fasting. There is group fasting where people fast together, and there is individual fasting where a person fasts on his own.

Then again, in the matter of prayer we are familiar with two kinds of prayer—that’s what we’d call regular prayer when we have a regular time of prayer usually each day. And then there is what we call special times of prayer when the Holy Spirit causes us to take extra time if we have a special need or something causes us to go beyond our usual pattern of prayer.

The same, I believe, is true of fasting. There are times of regular fasting; I think fasting should be a regular practice in the life of every disciplined Christian. But beyond those regular times of fasting, there are times when the Holy Spirit causes us to give extra time or extra emphasis upon fasting for a special need of some kind. So that we see there’s a parallel between praying and fasting. We’re familiar with individual prayer and collective prayer. There’s also individual fasting and collective fasting. Then there are the regular patterns of normal prayer and there are times of special extra prayer. I believe there should be normal patterns of fasting in the life of every Christian, and there should be special times of fasting as the Holy Spirit leads.

If we go to the Bible and the history of Israel and the church, we find that fasting was a regular part of the life of God’s people. Under the Old Covenant, Israel were required by God to fast at least once every year collectively—on the Day of Atonement—and on other occasions there are records of individuals who fasted: Moses fasted, David fasted, Elijah fasted, many of the kings of Israel fasted and led their kings in fasting. And then there are other individual instances of fasting in the Bible in the Old Testament which we will not take into account just now.

In the early church in the book of Acts we have records of Christians fasting together in groups for special needs, particularly when they were sending forth apostles, and also when they were appointing elders in local churches. And reliable church tradition or history tells us that the early church for several centuries used to practice fasting regularly on Wednesday and Friday of each week. Those were the two days that were normally recognized for fasting.

Since then in church history there’ve been many movements of groups that have recognized the need for fasting. The early Methodists under John and Charles Wesley regularly practiced fasting. It was a normal part of their procedure, though I find today that many Methodists have never even heard of it. And in fact John Wesley would not ordain a man to the Methodist ministry unless he would commit himself to fast each Wednesday and Friday until 4 o’clock in the afternoon. In other words, Wesley regarded it as an absolutely normal part of any Christian minister’s life and discipline. And I believe, myself, that the restoration of this practice would change many lives and many ministries.

Now when it comes to planning a fast, the first thing that I would like to speak about is the mental attitude with which we go into a fast. That has a great deal to do with whether the fast is successful or not. I believe that we should approach fasting with an attitude of positive faith. It’s God’s will for me to fast, and God will bless me when I do fast in accordance with His will. I believe it’s God’s will because the Scripture reveals that it’s the will of God. We do not need some feeling or revelation about the fact that fasting is the will of God because the Bible clearly indicates that it is God’s will. We do not need some special revelation that it’s God’s will for us to pray because it’s plainly taught in the Bible. People who wait for a special revelation for something that’s revealed in the Bible often don’t get that special revelation and therefore miss the purpose of God.

Furthermore, I believe that God will reward us if we seek Him with right motives and in a scriptural way in fasting. I think the Bible clearly promises this. I’ll just give you two promises of this. Matthew chapter 6, verses 17 and 18, Jesus says:

“But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.”

There is a very clear promise that if you fast in the right way with the right motives, God will reward you openly. So if you fail to fast, bear in mind that you’re depriving yourself of a reward, because God cannot give you the reward if you don’t meet the condition. And then again in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 6, the writer of Hebrews lays a basic principle for approaching God and seeking anything from God. Hebrews 11:6:

“But without faith it is impossible to please him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

When we approach God the Bible says we must approach Him on the basis of faith. There is no other basis on which to approach Him, and that if we do come to God on that basis, we must believe two specific things—first of all, that He is, that He exists; and secondly, that God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. So if you diligently seek God, He will reward you. That’s guaranteed. He may not always reward you the exactly the way you expect to be rewarded, but there will never fail a reward to those who diligently seek God. So if you make up your mind to seek God diligently in fasting, Jesus promises a specific reward to fasting in Matthew chapter 6 and in Hebrews 11. The Bible tells us generally that God is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him.

Also in Isaiah chapter 58 we have a series of promises to those who fast according to the will of God, and I think it’s worthwhile just looking at some of these statements. In Isaiah chapter 58, just reading verses 8 and 9, and 11 and 12. These all follow from fasting in a way that is pleasing to God. It says in verse 8 of Isaiah 58:

“Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward [or rear guard]. Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. … [Verse 11] And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.”

I made a list which I’ll just give you briefly, of ten specific promises for those that fast according to the will of God—ten things that are promised to them.

“No. 1 light,
No. 2 health,
No. 3 righteousness,
No. 4 glory,
No. 5 answered prayer,
No. 6 continual guidance,
No. 7 satisfaction,
No. 8 refreshing,
No. 9 work that endures,
No. 10 restoration.”

To me any Christian who does not desire those benefits is very foolish, and they are specifically promised to those who fast in accordance with the will of God. So when we begin to fast we should go in with a positive attitude of faith that we’re doing what the Scripture teaches, we’re obeying the revealed will of God, and that God Himself will reward us, and we can expect the specific rewards that are listed in Isaiah chapter 58.

Then I think in fasting we need to have the right attitude toward our own body. Many Christians I think have the wrong attitude towards the body. They have the impression that the body is something evil that we’ve got to live with; it’s a necessary evil but it will be a good thing when we’re out of it. And meanwhile let’s not give too much thought or time to the body, because if we do that, we’re unspiritual. Now I don’t find that the Bible teaches that attitude towards the body. I’d like to read to you just two verses in 1 Corinthians 6:19 and 20:

“What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

So the Bible teaches that our body, our physical body, is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and that when Jesus died on the cross and shed His blood, He redeemed not merely our spirit and our soul, but He redeemed our body. He bought the whole of us with the price of His shed blood and we belong to Him entire—spirit, soul and body. And He has a very real interest in our body and a very specific purpose for our body. Our body is to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. It’s to be the place in which the Holy Spirit dwells. The Bible tells us that ‘God does not dwell in temples made with hands.’ We can build any church, any synagogue, any tabernacle that we like, but God will not dwell there. God has chosen and ordained to dwell in the physical body of those who believe in Him. And so my body has a very, very important function. It’s a residence of the Holy Spirit. And I believe that it’s pleasing to God that we make that residence of the Holy Spirit in the best possible condition that we can—that it should be healthy and strong and able to do the things that God wants done. Furthermore, in Romans chapter 6 and verse 13, Paul tells us about our physical members, the members of our physical body. He says:

“Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”

So the various members of my physical body are intended to be instruments—or the alternative reading in the margin is ‘weapons that God can use.’ They do not belong to me. They belong to God. I’m to yield them to God.

Now I think it’s logical and obvious that God wants His weapons in good condition. He doesn’t want them enfeebled and broken down and unhealthy. He wants our body to be healthy as the temple of the Holy Spirit. He wants our members to be strong, effective and active, because they are members of Christ and they’re the instruments that God uses for His purposes in the earth. In a certain sense, Christ has no body in the earth except our bodies. Our bodies are the instruments that He uses for His will in the earth. And I have become convinced that God expects us to keep our bodies strong and as healthy as we can. And I am convinced that fasting is a very practical way to make and keep our bodies healthy. I believe that many, many physical problems and other problems, would be solved if Christians would learn to fast in a practical and healthy way. And part of what I’m going to say is intended to help you to do it with the maximum benefits to your body.

When I look at the way that American Christians treat their body and the kind of things they pour into it, the kind of things they feed it with, I ask myself how their cars would be if they treated their car with as little understanding and little respect that they treat their bodies. And I’ve come to the conclusion, most people’s cars wouldn’t be running. Our bodies are much more long-suffering then our cars. Personally, I think it’s simply common sense to treat the body with at least as much concern and intelligent care as you treat your car, and in fact more because four thousand dollars will buy you a new car. Four thousand

dollars won’t begin to buy you a new body. In fact, it couldn’t even buy you one eye. There is no price in terms of money to be set on a healthy body, and I believe one of the basic problems with Christians is they simply don’t appreciate the importance of a healthy body.

Now in regard to physical aspects of fasting, there are some people who should be cautious about fasting. If you have certain types of physical problems such as diabetes or tuberculosis or you’re on some kind of regular medication, my advice would be that before you embark on fasting you consult a physician, and get his advice and his opinion. And there are some people, I would think, who probably cannot practice fasting. Those who are diabetics and have to maintain their body chemistry at a certain level. And that’s, I believe, the responsibility’s on other Christians to fast for those who cannot.

Now I want to talk about choosing objectives when we fast. Somebody said once, ‘If you aim at nothing, you can be pretty sure you’ll hit it.’ So let’s have an aim or an objective when we go into something like fasting. I believe there are many good and scriptural purposes. I’ll just give you some suggestions. I’m relating them to myself.

First of all, a scriptural purpose for fasting is to humble myself. David said, ‘I humbled my soul with fasting.’ We need to bear in mind that humility is not an emotion, it’s not something vague, it’s specific, and that God will not humble us because He’s told us to humble ourselves. And I have proved by experience that if I do it with the right motive and in faith I can humble myself with fasting. And I’ve learned that it’s true when I humble myself God will exalt me. That’s a principle that runs right through the Bible. ‘Everyone that exalts himself shall be abased, and everyone that humbles himself shall be exalted.’ So we have to make the choice. Do I want to be abased? Then I can exalt myself. Do I want to be exalted? Then I need to humble myself. And I believe the basic scriptural way for a believer to humble himself is by fasting.

Then another motive for fasting is to come closer to God. The Scripture says that ‘if we draw near to God, He will draw near to us.’ Another reason, I believe, is to understand God’s Word. I’ve learned by experience over the years that in times of fasting and when I’m seeking God, He gives me further and deeper understanding of His Word.

Another very important reason for fasting is to find God’s will and to receive direction in your life. In Ezra chapter 8 verse 21 Ezra said: ‘I proclaimed a fast by the river of Ahava, that we might seek a right way for us and for our little ones, and also to seek protection.’ And again, it’s my experience and my testimony that when I humble myself before God and seek Him by fasting for direction and guidance, He does lead me in the right way. I’ve proved this in many situations, where we’ve had to move from country to country, where we’ve had to make decision between going to one field of work or another field of work, to one type of ministry or another. I’ve found that if we take time to fast and pray in humility seeking God’s direction, we receive what we pray for.

“Then another very common reason for fasting is to seek healing. In Isaiah 58 verse 8 it says: … thine health shall spring forth speedily…”

Or, deliverance from evil spirits. Jesus said in one place about a certain type of evil spirit, ‘This kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting.’ And before Jesus Himself entered into His ministry of healing and deliverance, as you know, He spent forty days fasting.

Then, I think, we fast when we need God’s intervention in some particular crisis, some tremendous problem that’s arisen that we can’t handle by ordinary means. I believe that’s an occasion to seek God. There are many examples in the Bible. In the 20th chapter of 2 Chronicles, Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah found that they were facing an invading army which they could not meet with normal military methods. So they humbled themselves together, fasted, prayed, and God dealt with the invading army. They didn’t have to use a single weapon. God totally defeated their enemies for them, and I believe God has no favorites. I believe He’s just as willing to intervene on our behalf when we seek Him in the same way.

Then another reason for fasting is to intercede and pray on behalf of others. Many, many people come to me about their unsaved relatives, and they ask me, ‘What can I do to get my relatives saved?’ And I often suggest to them, ‘Have you ever fasted and prayed for your unsaved husband, or for your unsaved son or daughter? Or are you not willing to make a personal sacrifice of something that in a sense costs you something on behalf of your loved ones?’ There are many, many testimonies from many believers of how God has answered the prayer that’s accompanied by fasting on behalf of unsaved relatives. If you’re going to have a period of fasting, say more than a day or so, or you have some special purpose for fasting, sometimes it’s good to make a written list of what you’re fasting about, and date it. I’m glad that many years ago in the early 1950s I did that on several occasions, and I still have the lists and the dates. And looking back over those lists I see with amazement how many of the things that I fasted for, God answered them. And some of them were great things. To give you one example, I fasted and prayed for the salvation of my mother, and, though it took many years, God saved her very definitely and very dramatically almost at the last moment—about the last time that I could ever be assured that she really understood the gospel. She had a tremendous experience of salvation, and really I mean dramatic. So it pays to pray and to fast. And when I look back at those lists now, I praise God for the marvelous answers to prayer, because this can be true just of your ordinary prayer life to keep a list of the things you pray for. I’m not saying that everybody needs to do it, but if you do it and keep it, one day you’ll praise God for the way He’s answered your prayers.

Now we come to the question of choosing a time to fast, and my advice is don’t begin with a very long fast, normally. Don’t set yourself a week to begin with or two weeks or say, ‘I’ve got to fast forty days.’ Some people do and they achieve it, but I find it’s better to start climbing a ladder from the bottom, rung by rung. And the problem is if you start with too long a period and you don’t achieve it, then you feel defeated, and you may give up and never try again. I would suggest that normally it’s better to begin at the bottom of the ladder and climb towards the top. So I would suggest that if you’re not familiar with fasting and you don’t really know what to do and you don’t feel equal to a big test, you could just as well omit the last meat of the day. Suppose you eat normally your last meal about 6:00 or 6:30 and you don’t have any snacks afterwards, so you don’t eat the last meal of the day, so you don’t eat again until breakfast the next morning. Well, actually you’ve fasted from lunchtime till breakfast time which is about eighteen hours. That’s quite a substantial period to be without food, yet you’ve only missed one meal. So that way without too big a change in your life pattern or too big an objective, you achieve a real fast. Then

if you succeed in that, then next time you can miss out the last two meals of the day—the noon meal and the evening meal. And if you don’t eat again until breakfast, then you’ve actually been twenty-four hours without food and then you begin to feel like a soldier and you think, ‘Really, I can do it.’

And then, of course, if you omit all three meals one day and don’t eat at all, you’ll fast from your supper the previous night until breakfast the day after that. In other words, if you work it out you will have fasted thirty-six hours, which is a substantial period of time. So once you’ve achieved that and you know you can do it, then I think it’s time to seek the Lord about if He wants you on a longer fast. And again, I still advise that you don’t take too big a step the first time. For instance, take two days or three days or a week. If you’ve spent a week fasting that will probably have a substantial effect on the course of your life.

I’d like to say this, looking back on my own career and ministry, I believe that if I had not practiced fasting many years ago, I would not be where I am today. I believe that, in many ways, settled the destiny that my life was to take. I come back to the Scripture that I quoted once already, ‘God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.’ I say that not only on the basis of Scripture, but on the basis of experience.

Now it’s perfectly possible to fast for two weeks or three weeks, and in the Bible quite a number of people fasted forty days, and I know a good many people that are alive and whom I know well who have fasted as much as forty days. But I do not believe that it’s wise to make the length of time your main objective. It isn’t really so important how long you fast, as that you fast in the will of God, that your motives are right and that you get the benefits that should be yours from fasting.

than the usual amount of fruit or salad or fruit juice or maybe you need something like All Bran. I mean that’s something that you can settle for yourself. But once you’ve got it in mind that you don’t want to be constipated, you can work out the details for yourself.

Okay, now we’ll talk about what happens during a fast. This is rather a larger section of our study, and there are a number of things that I would like to suggest. During a fast I very strongly recommend that you take extra for Bible reading and for prayer. And I put Bible reading first. In my opinion you’d be wise to make it a practice not to pray without first reading your Bible. Because when you read your Bible it anoints your spirit and it gets your mind in line with the mind of God and your prayer will normally be much more effective after Bible reading.

Now if you’re just fasting for say for a couple of meals you may be busy. You may say, ‘Well, I don’t have much time,’ but after all you have the time that you would have spent on two meals. So offer that time to the Lord. Spend that time specifically in Bible reading and prayer if you can’t do more than that. That’s the first thing.

Secondly, guard against spiritual attack. The real sacrifice in fasting is not going without food. It’s the fact that when you really begin to fast for things that matter and pray and seek God, Satan is going to turn extra spiritual forces loose against you, and you will find strange oppressions begin to come over you, doubts, maybe a feeling of fear or loneliness, or you may somehow feel yourself in a dark place and you lose some of the usual feelings that you have as a Christian of joy and peace and happiness. Now don’t get worried if that happens. In fact, it’s a kind of back-handed compliment from the devil. It means that he’s worried about you, that he’s out to prevent you going through with your objective. Don’t yield to theses emotions. Don’t let feelings dictate to you. Bear in mind the great basic truths of the Word of God: ‘God is on your side, God loves you, God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.’ This is true whether you feel it or not. Don’t let feelings turn you away.

Then another thing I would say is in the words of Jesus, ‘Avoid religious ostentation.’ I think maybe we should just look at that again for a moment in Matthew chapter 6. I think we read these verses once, but let’s look at them again—Matthew 6 verse 16. Jesus said:

“Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites [or the actors], of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.”

Don’t put on a religious act. Don’t let everybody know that you’re fasting. I mean, some people will have to know, but don’t make a show of it, don’t make a display of it. Do it as quietly and as unostentatiously as possible. And, generally speaking, you will be able to carry on your normal daily duties and activities. My wife once went on a prolonged fast when we lived in London which was over four weeks, and during all that time she prepared all the meals for the family and always sat with us at the table although she didn’t eat. I mean, she didn’t give up any of her normal domestic activities.

About the same time in London I fasted for a period of over three weeks, and still carried on with every one of the normal activities I had. We used to have five indoor meetings and three open-air meetings in our church at that time, and I was there for every one of them, conducted them, preached in them and so on. Normally speaking, with a few exceptions which I’ll explain in a few moments, fasting does not prevent you doing the things you would normally be doing. In fact, after a while you may be able to do them much better when you’re fasting than when you’re eating. But as I say, don’t make a show of your fasting. Don’t be boastful, because the Bible says boasting is excluded by the law of faith. If you’re doing it in faith, you will not be boastful.

Now we come to the question which always occupies people’s minds about unpleasant physical reactions from fasting. And as we live our lives today, most people will experience various types of physical reactions in the early stages of a fast. Some common ones are headaches, and they can be very severe, a feeling of dizziness and a feeling of nausea or desire to vomit. I’m no medical expert but the people who’ve studied these things from the medical point of view say that in most cases what is happening is that the blood in your body which is normally taken up with the process of digestion, is now liberated from that and begins to work in other areas to clear them up. For instance, if you’re a heavy coffee drinker, I think I can say you’ll normally get quite a severe headache when you fast. That is the coffee drinker’s penalty for all the coffee that he drinks. I’m not saying don’t drink coffee, but I’m just saying that there’s a link-up. Or there are other things similar to that.

See, what we don’t realize is, most of us, that the process of digestion is very hard work. If you eat a heavy meal, much of your physical energy for the next hour or two is mainly taken up with dealing with that meal. And consequently the blood that’s there cannot be used in other areas of your body. For instance, I think it’s a matter of experience that if you go swimming too soon after a heavy meal you may get cramps in your arms and so on. Why? Because all the blood is in the stomach being used on the food. So by the time your food’s digested, you can go swimming and you won’t get the cramps. In other words, the blood is liberated for other activities.

Now if you’re fasting and you don’t eat, say, for a day, you’re liberating your blood to do a whole lot of clean up jobs which badly needed doing which it never got around to doing when you kept demanding that it spend it’s time digesting food. In actual fact, to overeat is to reduce your physical energy, because when you go beyond what you need in food, you’re simply making your body do extra unnecessary work digesting unneeded food and it isn’t able to do the other things that need doing. For instance, I’ve discovered by experience that I cannot preach my best after a heavy meal. I have to have at least an hour or two between a heavy meal and preaching because the blood isn’t in my brain, it’s in my stomach and my brain is fuzzy and it isn’t equal to the job. So there are going to be various physical reactions in most people, especially in our modern way of life, from fasting. If you can find the faith to do it, praise God for them. Say, ‘Thank you God for my headache. I realize my blood is there doing something that needed to be done a long while ago.’ Don’t stop your fast, because then you’ve let the devil defeat you.

Daniel said in one place, he said, ‘I set my face to seek the Lord my God by prayer and fasting.’ When you fast, you’d better set your face. You’d better make up your mind you’re going to do it. And don’t leave open the possibility, ‘Well, maybe I will have my meal after all,’ because then the devil will be at you all the time to have that meal. If you’ve made your mind up, ‘I’m not going to eat again today,’ and dismiss that possibility from your mind, it’s much easier.

Now at mealtimes you may feel real hunger pains. Actually, probably you really don’t need food, but your stomach operates by habit. And if you don’t eat for about an hour, you’ll find the hunger pains will go without your having eaten. It was just a habit. Your stomach was set like a clock to react that way at that time. If you want to fool your stomach and it’s feeling empty, take a couple glasses of water and drink them, and when you fill your stomach up with water, it gets fooled, it thinks it’s had some food, and it stops protesting.

Now if these physical reactions become severe, you may have to give up everything else and lie down and rest, and that is good for you too. Of course, if you’re in a position of employment where you can’t do that, then you have to choose another way or another day. If your reactions become so severe that you really cannot endure them, then I advise you to break the fast and take a little while to recover and go back. And you may be quite surprised next time you’ll hardly have any reaction.

Let’s say this, that fasting uncovers our problems, both spiritual and physical. And so when the problem comes to light don’t blame the problem on the fasting, thank the fasting that it’s revealed the problem which was already there. If your problems are severe—either emotional or spiritual or physical—as a result of fasting, then I think you need to consult somebody with experience—either a pastor or a physician. Once you’ve overcome your initial problem, then if you want the maximum physical benefit from your fast there are certain things that will help you. Take plenty of rest, take extra time to rest. For instance, you can just as well pray lying on your bed as you can lying on your knee. Take some exercise and try and get some fresh air. Another thing I find is it’s very easy to pray when I’m walking. When I’m walking I’m getting fresh air, exercise and I’m praying—all three things at once. And it greatly improves, it increases the benefit of the fast both spiritual and physical. Usually in most people’s experience of fasting, in about the second or the third or the fourth day, these unpleasant reactions come to a climax, and if you get beyond them, then you’re into a period where fasting really becomes exciting and exhilarating and enjoyable. And if you get that far, you may easily find that your physical strength increases in a remarkable way. My experience is not so much with physical but with mental activity, that when I get to that stage in a fast I can do in one hour work that would normally take me two or three hours. My mind is much clearer though my body still may be protesting a little bit with a sense of weakness.

Now while you are fasting it’s normally wise to consume plenty of fluid, because that has the effect of flushing out your kidneys and generally cleaning out your body. What kind of fluid? Well I’ve come to believe that in a way the best thing is absolutely pure water, and I don’t mean the water that comes out of the tap, but I mean the purified water that you can buy in the supermarket or buy from one of the firms that sell pure water. You will notice I think almost invariably when you fast that your taste becomes much keener and you’ll taste all sorts of horrid tastes in the drinking water which you hardly noticed when you were eating—particularly that vile taste of chlorine. And no one can convince me that chlorine is really good for anybody, seeing that in its ultimate form it’s mustard gas, which kills people. So I really feel strongly, myself, that it’s wise to take just pure water. But at the beginning of your fast it may be wise to put some honey in the water and take the water hot and a little lemon. Honey and lemon together are kind of purifying. They tend to release you from catarrh and things like that. Now if you don’t feel that you want to stick just to water there are various other fluids obviously available such as broth, or fruit juice, or things like that. For instance, you can get this chicken broth that you just make a cube and put it in boiling water and so on. Personally, again, I would advise people during fasting not to take things like tea or coffee, which are fairly strong stimulants. I think you get more physical benefit from your fast if you avoid those things.

Now there are times when God does lead us to abstain from fluid. We fast without food or drink, but this is a very dangerous area physically. The only example I can find in the Bible apart from Moses and Elijah who each fasted forty days without food and drink. But let me say about them first, I believe they were on a supernatural plane. They were in the immediate presence of God or they were under some kind of supernatural power, and I don’t believe that’s a normal pattern for us. Though if God puts us on that plane, that’s another matter. I know one man who is a friend of mine who fasted eighteen days without food or drink, and later saw some very remarkable results in his own ministry. But I wouldn’t put that as a pattern. I believe the pattern for the length of time without fluid is in Esther chapter 4 verse 16. Esther said to her uncle Mordecai, ‘Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day.’ Three days night and day is seventy-two hours,

and personally I would not advise anybody to go beyond seventy-two hours without fluid, and if you try seventy-two hours without eating or drinking I think you will find you will be on your knees at the end, if not spiritually at least physically. And I would not recommend anybody to go beyond that length of time. I think it’s very dangerous physically. I think any doctor would confirm that. But I have twice been seventy-two hours without food or drink, and God blessed me in it.

Now while you are fasting your bowels may not move, but if you’ve begun, if you’ve avoided constipation to begin with, you don’t need to worry about that because when you resume eating, your bowels will start functioning again. And if you start eating in the right way, which I’ll speak about in a moment, you’ll find that, as a matter of fact, you have probably cleansed your bowels considerably and they’re in better condition than when you started fasting. So if your bowels don’t move, don’t worry about that. Sometimes they will, sometimes they won’t. Ultimately, if you go for a considerable period of time and they haven’t moved, there isn’t much left in them to go on moving.

There’s also a biblical precedent for what I could call a partial fast. In other words you eat something, but you don’t eat much. This is found in Daniel chapter 10, verses 2 and 3, Daniel 10 verses 2 and 3:

“In those days I Daniel was mourning three full weeks [21 days]. I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh [that’s meat] nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled.”

That was not a complete fast, but it was what I call a partial fast. He didn’t eat meat, he didn’t eat anything that was like deserts for fancy food, he just ate simple, basic food, and it was a kind of mourning. Fasting and mourning are very closely related. There is a spiritual mourning which God has promised to bless. ‘Blessed are they that mourn in Zion, for they shall be comforted.’ And so there may be a time when you’re led to a kind of partial fast like Daniel.

Just the last few days I met a priest, a Catholic priest who is a Catholic missionary in Japan, and he had just come from a place here in the United States—he’s on furlough—where a group of priests were fasting for forty days, fasting and praying for forty days on behalf of all the priests. And this really was exciting to me. Now some of the priests have been there the whole forty days, but others like the one who spoke to me from Japan, he’d just been there a week. But they take time off from everything else and they’re just there seeking God and praying and asking God to bless all the priests in the Roman Catholic Church. And he came up because I’d been preaching on fasting and shared what a tremendous blessing they were experiencing. So let’s bear in mind that none of this is out of date. It’s all taking place today, and if the Protestants aren’t doing it, then the Catholics are.

All right, now another little point about during a fast, that is if a group agree to fast together, I think that it’s reasonable that, if possible, they should meet together at least part of the time to pray together. I think there are things accomplished by praying together that we don’t get always by praying on our own.

Now then, I’ve got one or two other things to say. One more thing which is a little bit beyond fasting. It’s about taking time for God. The 58th chapter of Isaiah, we’ve already looked at tells us about the blessings that are promised to fasting in accordance with the will of God. Now the first twelve verses of Isaiah 58 deal with fasting. Than the last two verses deal with keeping God’s sabbaths, and I believe they’re related. So I’m going to read the last two verses of Isaiah 58, verses 13 and 14:

“If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.”

Now I believe it’s no accident that those two verses come immediately after the twelve verses on fasting. Let me say that I do not believe that Christians are required to observe the Jewish Sabbath, nor do I believe that Sunday is the Sabbath. I believe the Sabbath is Saturday and the Jews are required to observe it, but Christians not under the law are not required to observe that Sabbath. That’s my personal conviction. But in the epistle to the Hebrews it says, ‘There remaineth a keeping of the sabbath to the people of God.’ The root idea of the Sabbath is resting and ceasing from our own activity, and I believe that together with fasting it’s very profitable to unite this idea of resting from our own works. The average American practically never really rests. There’s hardly a time when he isn’t doing something. He’s either working or at home busy with his family or he’s got a spare job or he’s out in some kind of recreation. I do believe that there is a tremendous spiritual blessing from relaxing and waiting upon God and not being busy with anything. And I find that this is a principle of the Bible.

When God brought Israel into the Promised Land He said, ‘Every seventh year your land is to have a Sabbath. For one year out of seven you don’t sow it, you don’t do any work on the land. You let it lie fallow.’ And Israel, all the time they were in the land, failed to observe that. So God warned them and He said, ‘If you don’t do it when you’re in the land, I’ll turn you out of the land and the land will have its Sabbath while you’re out of it.’ I’d like to read that for moment—it’s in Leviticus chapter 26 verses 33 through 35. God says, and He’s warning Israel about His judgments that will come upon them if they disobey Him:

“And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.”

In other words, Israel refused to keep the Sabbath of the land, so God said, ‘All right, I’ll turn you out of the land and the land will have nothing but Sabbath all the time you’re out of it because you wouldn’t observe the Sabbath when you were in it.’ And I’ve come to see that God deals with quite a number of Christians the same way. We’re so busy, we’re so het up, we’re so active, we’re so busy doing things for God. God says, ‘Take time off, relax, rest, get alone, get away from everything. I’ve got things I need to tell you, but you’re too busy to listen to Me.’ And I can think of men whom I could name. They’re friends of mine. God went on speaking to them and warning them, and they wouldn’t listen so God said, ‘All right, you’ll be in a hospital bed for twelve months. See how you feel about that. Then you’ll have to rest.’ And my personal conviction is it’s better to rest voluntarily than to be compelled to rest. And I’ve made a personal decision that I’m going to try to do that. See, Israel wouldn’t keep the Sabbath while they were in the land so God said, ‘All right, I’ll turn you out of the land and while you’re out the land will have its Sabbath and you have no option.’

And I think there’s a great deal of importance in taking time to relax and to rest and to wait upon God, and often to combine that with fasting. Then your spirit rests and your stomach rests. Your whole body gets a rest, your whole personality rests. Let me point out to you that God ordained this for the Day of Atonement. I’ll read in Leviticus 16 verse 29 through 31—the ordinances for the Day of Atonement:

“And this shall be a statute for ever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month [that’s the Day of Atonement], ye shall afflict your souls [that was by fasting], and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own county, or a stranger that sojourneth among you: for on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the LORD. It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a statute for ever.”

Now the priest had his part to do. He had to go into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the sacrifice and make a propitiation for the sins of the people, but the people had their part to do, and their part was twofold. Number one, it was to fast; number two, it was to abstain from all kind of work. And I feel that the Lord is emphasizing that we unite these two things again. But when we fast, if possible, we take time off from every other activity, not necessarily a whole day, but half a day, just set that time aside for God. Let our busy minds stop turning over for a little while. We’re so busy even when we pray telling God what to do, that we never give God a chance to tell us what to do. Praying is not just telling God. It’s listening to God, and sometimes it takes a good many hours to get into the place where we can hear God. So I believe that this is united with fasting, specially in times of crisis. Let me give you one other Scripture where fasting is united with taking a Sabbath. In Joel, the first chapter of Joel there’s a tremendous crisis come over the people of God and they had no answer, so God tells them His answer through the prophet Joel beginning in Joel 1:14:

“Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, . . .”

A solemn assembly means a day when nobody does anything but seek God. When we were in Jerusalem years ago, before the state of Israel came into being, every now and then there would be a kind of upheaval in the city and they would proclaim a curfew, for which the Hebrew word is atsarah, it’s the same word that’s used here, a solemn assembly. A curfew is a time when nobody’s allowed out.

Everybody has to stay at home. In other words, there’s a kind of restraint on all activity. God says ‘Sanctify a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly’—a setting aside a time for God when you stop from your own activity. And in the second chapter of Joel, verses 15 and 16:

“Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast. . . . Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, . . .
And everybody’s to stop all their own activities and take time in seeking God.”

All right just one more word before we close this study, that’s about breaking a fast. Now this is very important. You may lose a lot of the benefits that are due to you from fasting if you break your fast unwisely. Some of us don’t realize that the word breakfast, which we still use in the English language, means ‘the meal that breaks your fast.’ That’s why it’s called break fast, but some people eat so much so late at night they never have a fast to break. We’ll say not more about that anyhow.

All right, after fasting, always begin with a light meal, even if you’ve only fasted a short period. Don’t begin with anything cooked or greasy or fat or heavy. I would say preferably begin with a raw salad or fruit, but my experience is that if you begin with a salad, especially things like lettuce or raw greens, it does a tremendous purging job on your whole—all the pipes that go through your body. It’s like a brush, it sweeps them out. And you will actually experience this. And then you start eating with a real cleaned out intestine. This I have proved in experience.

Now then the next thing to bear in mind about this is, the longer the fast the more gradually you must break it. Somebody has said you should take as long to break your fast as you spent fasting. Now I think that’s not necessarily completely accurate, but I discovered when I fasted a long time and it was over three weeks, that my stomach was like a baby’s. It was really fantastic. And I had to be about as careful feeding myself at that time as you would feeding a baby, and it took me a week at least to get back to normal food. Now here is where you’re going to have to have real self-control. When you’re in a fast, about the first two or three days, you probably don’t feel hungry. But when you start to eat, then hunger is going to come back, and that’s where you’ve really got to hold onto yourself. You’ll get mental pictures of all sorts of things that you love eating, but you just can’t give way because you can ruin many of the physical benefits of fasting by breaking your fast rapidly or unwisely.

One more point and that’s all I have to say. As a result of fasting, even if it’s only a couple of days, your stomach will have contracted and it’s usually not wise to expand it again to the same extent, because most people in Western civilization have over expanded stomachs. And you’ll find when you start eating after a fast that you’ll begin to feel full sooner than you would before you fasted. Now habit will make you go on eating the rest of the meal, but wisdom says, ‘Why not stop there? You’ve had enough.’ And so fasting is a way also to change your eating habits, which many of us need to do and a good way to begin it is by fasting. But bear in mind that if you’re planning to slim or reduce, fasting alone normally will not do that. You’ll get a few pounds off but you’ll put them on just as quickly unless you combine it with a changed program of eating.

“All right. Does anyone have anything they want to ask?”

The question is, What would we understand by normal fasting as distinct from special fasting? Would it be one day a week or something like that?

My answer would be basically yes. I would suggest that many Christians would do well to set aside one day in the week regularly in their personal life for fasting, just as many Christians set aside a certain period each day for prayer. Or if one day a week is not practical or doesn’t fit in, than maybe two half days. As I said, John Wesley required every Methodist minister to fast on Wednesday and Friday until four o’clock in the afternoon. There are many different possible ways to arrange it, but I think the point is we need to discipline ourselves. We need to have some program in our lives where we make sure that we give time to fasting and praying that’s needed.

The question is that, Since fasting enhances our spiritual awareness, are their possible dangers that the person while fasting might become involved in some kind of relationship or contact with demons or evil spirits?

Let me say, first of all, that I heartily agree that fasting does enhance our spiritual awareness, and we have become much more aware of spiritual realities when we’re fasting. And it is perfectly possible that we will become aware of evil spirits, not only of the Lord and the Holy Spirit. In fact, this has happened in my experience a number of times. The safeguard is that we are seeking God with all our heart, that we come to God through Jesus Christ, that we believe in the protection of the blood of Jesus, that we know the Word of God and that we do not accept what is unscriptural as a revelation from God. When you get in the realm of fasting you are in a dangerous spiritual realm, but all power is dangerous. So whenever we get into the realm of power we need adequate safeguards, and that was one reason why I recommended that while fasting you always make a habit of reading the Word before you pray. And then if you get any revelation or anything, check it by the Word. And if that isn’t adequate then you should go to somebody more mature than yourself for spiritual counseling. But I’m glad that the point was raised and it is a point that we do need to bear in mind.

The question is, Is it always true that you must not let people know that you’re fasting? Are there not occasions that it’s essential that people know?

Well, obviously, if you’re a member of a family you’ve got to let people know that you don’t want food. It’s not fair to let your wife cook a meal and then say, ‘Well I’m not eating.’ And if I were to do that, I’d get in trouble. So I agree. In other words, we’re not to be ostentatious, we’re not to parade it, but in a practical way, we are free to let people know.

And also, another point about that is that if we’re to fast collectively—about which a lot is said in the Bible—obviously we have to let all the other people in the group know in order to synchronize the time and choose the place. When Jesus spoke about not being ostentatious about fasting, He used exactly the same language about not being ostentatious about prayer. So if we were to carry that to the extreme then we would never let anybody know that we pray and we’d never arrange a prayer meeting, which is obviously illogical and unscriptural.

The question is, There are many instances in the Bible where fasts were proclaimed. When and how should they be proclaimed?

I think you’ll find that in almost every case of a fast proclaimed in the Bible it was proclaimed by the leaders of God’s people, as, for instance, a king or the elders. And I believe here is another important responsibility that’s placed upon spiritual leadership which is to take the initiative in proclaiming times of prayer and fasting and seeking God. And I find that this practice is returning to the people of God across the United States. There are many places today where the elders are taking the lead in proclaiming a fast, which is something that wouldn’t have happened before about 1970. It would scarcely have entered anybody’s mind to do such a thing.

The question is, Does fasting maybe have a greater potential when two or more people are fasting together?

I believe in many cases it does, just there is greater power unleashed by two people agreeing together in prayer. I think the principle applies equally to fasting and to praying. Of course, whether we’re to do it one way or another is subject to the leading of the Holy Spirit in a given situation.