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The Commentary

Fasting at the crossroads

A Passion for Life is a great evangelistic project and there is much excitement in our own congregation as we have seen many outsiders attending events as part of the build up to the main mission during Easter week. I am sure it is the same in other churches nationwide and we thank God for this.

If we long to see A Passion for Life being effective then we need to give ourselves to prayer, perhaps even prayer with fasting.

Even apart from A Passion for Life there are other reasons to seek God earnestly over the next month or so. We face an imminent General Election, the outcome of which will have a major influence on our future. None of the major parties have a programme with which Bible-believing Christians can feel at all comfortable. And whereas many oppose any voice for Christianity in the public square, the present government is quite clear that they would like to dictate to churches and Christian families what they can and cannot do. Meanwhile it is salutary to watch and listen on YouTube to what Jack Straw’s Justice Minister Shahid Malik had to say to a conference of Muslims recently. Celebrating the ever increasing Islamic influence in Britain, he says: ‘At this rate, the whole Parliament will be Muslim’. When we also consider the economic dangers for Britain caused by our stupendous national debt and the massive moral dangers current in our media and much proposed legislation, it is very clear that we stand at a crossroads.

Serious with God

The spiritual battle for Britain is raging as rarely before.

Prayer with fasting is a way of expressing how serious we are with God. Going without food for a period is a way of saying, ‘We need you, Lord, more than we need our food’. In the Bible the people of God fasted at times of approaching danger (Esther 4.16); at times of public calamity (2 Samuel 1.12). Fasting also took place in connection with asking God to fulfil his promises (Daniel 9.2,3) and at the beginning of new ventures for the gospel (Matthew 4.2; Acts 13.3).

Fasting requires fresh repentance and submission to God to be effective. The people of Isaiah’s day engaged in fasting, but were rebuked because at the same time they carried on in their sins (Isaiah 58.3-7). Of course, Christ reminds us that our fasting should be done in secret and not by way of spiritual ‘showing off’. ‘When you fast, do not look sombre as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen.’ From there our Lord goes on to make us a promise: ‘and your Father, who sees what is done in secret will reward you’ (Matthew 6.16-18).

In his recent book, Fire from heaven, concerning past times of extraordinary revival, Paul Cook encourages us to serious prayer. The Call to Prayer of 1784, begun among the Particular Baptists, was joined by other denominations. ‘As the movement gathered support, it spread to Scotland, America and Europe. All over the land a cry to God ascended to heaven for an outpouring of the Spirit upon the churches… Carey’s missionary vision arose out of the Call to Prayer; and the revivals which broke out in 1791 and continued until the 1840s all over the British Isles were surely God’s answer.’

John Benton