Faith

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Two Misconceptions About Fasting
By Patricia Backora, author of the book
Tough Love in Christ's Millennium
Which you can order online from: http://www.publishamerica.com

Does Fasting Make a Person Holier?

In and of itself, no. It’s possible to fast and still be out of fellowship with God while doing it. Fasting does not guarantee access to God’s Presence or a right relationship with Him. Only the precious Blood of Jesus brings us those blessings. Fasting does not restore us to right relationship to God once it is broken. On one occasion King Saul ordered all his troops to fast until they’d finished fighting a long, hard battle and subdued the Philistines (I Sam.14:24-45). But Saul’s son Jonathan had not heard his father’s order, and ate some honey he found in the forest. Despite their hunger, the men of Israel managed to win the battle. Afterward Saul tried to inquire of the Lord about future military action, but got no response. Someone must be to blame for God’s refusal to commune with him, Saul reasoned. So lots were cast to find out who had offended the Lord. Jonathan was taken in the lot. Jonathan confessed to eating the honey, out of ignorance. He said their victory might have been even greater had the men not fought the battle on an empty stomach.

Too hardened to humble himself before God, Saul shifted the blame to someone else instead of first examining his own heart. He implied that the Lord had refused to give him guidance because his son had broken the decreed fast. Saul’s approach to placating God was essentially no different from the way the prophets of Baal tried to get the attention of their own god by slashing themselves with knives (I Kings 18:28). If Saul supposed it would endear him to God to make his troops fight an all-day battle on an empty stomach, it didn’t work. Saul felt humiliated before the people because God no longer recognized him as a great leader. God would not appear at Saul’s beck and call to answer Saul’s questions. So Saul had to take his frustration out on somebody. His fasting had only made him more irritable. Saul was mad enough to kill Jonathan, his own son, to save his own dignity. But the people would not let Saul do it. Still, Saul had foolishly cursed anyone who ate that day, and Jonathan’s reprieve was short-lived. He died in battle in I Samuel 31, along with those who had kept that particular fast. God had already made up His mind on Saul in I Samuel 13, the chapter just before Saul enforced a fast to try to gain His favor.

The problem with Saul’s fasting was this: It wasn’t accompanied by heartfelt repentance for disobedience. Fasting is no substitute for obeying God's will which has already been revealed to you . In I Samuel 13 Saul got tired of waiting for Samuel to arrive, so he tried to offer up a sacrifice himself, contrary to God’s explicit instructions. In doing so, Saul had, in effect, rejected God as Supreme General of the army of Israel. Imagine how the prophet Samuel felt as God gave him the assignment of informing Saul that he had been rejected from continuing as king. It must have felt like waving a red flag in front of a bull, but Samuel obeyed God and delivered the message. Saul’s carnal fast didn’t soften God’s heart in Chapter 14. Keeping an empty religious observance was not good enough to patch up Saul’s relationship with the Lord. Saul’s token act of humility didn’t change his heart. Saul’s apostasy eventually led to his murdering a whole city of priests and their families. Saul took vengeance on them because Ahimelech, the High Priest, had given David food and a sword as he fled from Saul’s wrath (I Sam. 21:1-9; 22:11-19).

One commonly cited example of a non-fasting reprobate is Esau. Hebrews 12:16-17 exhorts us not to be like that profane person Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his own birthright. Even Esau’s tearful repentance was not enough to regain the birthright he’d so cheaply sold. The sad tale is told in Genesis 25:29-34. Jacob, Esau’s brother, was cooking up some lentil stew when his brother Esau returned empty-handed from hunting. Esau was very hungry. Perhaps Esau thought Jacob was just joking, but Jacob offered to sell the stew to Esau in exchange for the birthright of the oldest son. Esau agreed and accepted Jacob’s hospitality.

So Esau’s sin is commonly held to be that he ate when he ought to have been fasting. But it goes deeper than that. Esau was no man of faith. He had no respect for his birthright as the elder son of Isaac, son of Abraham. Esau did not do what God would have expected of a righteous man, which would have been to keep on walking past the temptation and not look back. Esau might have felt faint from running after game he never caught, but instead of looking unto the Lord to give him strength to get past the temptation of the pottage, he trusted in that ill-gotten pottage to renew his strength. Esau’s heart was set on earthly things, not on the God of His fathers. Had Esau fled that temptation and gone elsewhere to get a meal, it would have been no sin. Esau’s sin lay not in eating the food but in the way he got it. His transaction with Jacob was the fruit of a perverse heart attitude which caused him to cast contempt upon his own birthright.

If, as some believe, Esau’s sin lay in non-fasting, what of Jacob, the son who DID get the birthright? At the time of Jacob’s deception of Esau, does the Bible depict him as a man of faith? Was he much better morally than Esau? Did Jacob fast and pray to persuade God to give him Esau’s birthright? Most likely not. Instead of waiting on God to fulfill His promise, Jacob resorted to deception and trickery to get what belonged to another. Jacob did eventually become a man of faith, though. He wrestled all night to get God’s blessing (Gen. 32:24-30). So Jacob went on at least one vigil (night spent without sleep) but nowhere in Scripture does it say Jacob ever went on a fast. Even if Jacob was fasting at the time he cooked the stew, it was still a sin to tempt someone else to sell something eternally precious for a mess of pottage. Esau sinned but Jacob sinned too in being his tempter. Jacob broke the tenth commandment (Ex. 20:17), although a wily guy like him might wriggle out of that one by saying that particular law wouldn’t be set in stone until the time of Moses! Jacob was no angel. Jacob had sins of his own which needed atoning for. Did God choose Jacob over Esau because Jacob fasted? No. God chose Jacob over Esau before either of them was born or could rack up any good works. It was by God’s predestination that Jacob was chosen instead of Esau (Rom.9:10-16).

God had the foresight to know that while Jacob had a shady beginning in life, he would eventually own up to his sins and become a man of faith. The Lord searches the wide expanse of the earth looking for a heart of faith, not for an empty stomach.

Fasting Does Not Guarantee Valid Supernatural Experiences

The enemy can be oh, so, subtle, the way he uses religious practice to sneak a bit more error into the Body of Christ. If the body is starved of basic nutrients long enough, hallucinations or even visions can be induced. Even New Agers and eastern mystics fast to help detach themselves from the material world and tune in better to the invisible realm of spirits. Just because a Christian has fasted a long period of time does not validate the vision induced by the fasting, or mean it is of the Lord. Jesus fasted forty days and nights to prepare Himself for His mission. During that time satan showed Christ a vision of all the kingdoms of this world and told Him how He could get the rulership over them by taking a convenient shortcut which bypassed the Cross. But the Holy Spirit was watching over Jesus and Jesus didn’t fall for the devil’s lie. Jesus would not accept satan’s lying vision as God’s reward for His protracted fast. satan even appealed to scripture to try to get Jesus to fly off the pinnacle of the Temple to test God’s willingness to protect Him. Oh, the devil is the most religious being you’ll ever meet. If a saint fasts for any length of time and says afterward: “God showed me a brand new doctrine because I fasted for a long, long time,”, you’d better take a second look at the “revelation”. If the “deep new doctrine” deviates from orthodox Christianity as taught by the original apostles, or if it contradicts the clear teachings of Christ, it comes from satan. Fasting does not confer automatic doctrinal infallibility upon a saint. We receive what God imparts solely through His grace, through the merits of the precious Blood of Jesus, not as wages for suffering through a long fast.

I do not subscribe to the Private Messenger Service. I can be contacted at:
[email protected] http://www.kingdomageministry.com

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