2006-09-15
Good Morning Dear Ones,
I am led to continue sharing stories from the Scriptures about fasting. We all know the story of Jonah, who was told by the Lord that he should go to Nineveh, the capital of Israel's most ardent enemies, the Assyrians, and began traveling toward Spain instead. This was in totally the opposite direction and was a rejection of God's will. Jonah is shipwrecked and lands in the belly of the big fish for three days, before he relents and is heaved out of it. God was giving him a second chance to be obedient. By the third chapter in this fascinating little book of the Bible, Jonah is in Nineveh ready to obey. JON 3: 4, "Jonah started through the city, and after walking a whole day, he proclaimed, 'In forty days Nineveh will be destroyed.'" At this point something really unusual happens. God makes an exception to His usual practice of giving the truth to Jews only, and He gives it to the citizens of Nineveh.
JON 3: 5-6, "The people of Nineveh believed God's message. So they decided that everyone should fast, and all the people, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth to show that they had repented. When the king of Nineveh heard about it, he got up from his throne, took off his robe, put on sackcloth, and sat down in ashes." This was followed by his decree to all the people that this fast should happen. This story is interesting from a number of aspects, because it is a case of God deviating from his normal approach at the time, the people really being the driving force before their king who follows, the king's decree [which is most probably a face-saving act], and the act of mourning and contrition for having been so evil in the recent past. We have reason to believe that God performed a miracle of transforming enemy minds here in order to demonstrate His superior and supernatural power to bring about His will. This fast is a real one for valid reasons, not one to put over wrongful reasons. And yes, there is also the element of fright at the prospect of their city being destroyed. We see one more remarkable, although not unprecedented action on God's part in JON 3: 10, "God saw what they did; He saw that they had given up their wicked behavior. So He changed His mind and did not punish them as He had said He would." So, Nineveh was not destroyed then after all.
Fasting is found in the book of Joel too. Little is known about the prophet Joel, but it is thought that he lived during the time of the Persian empire in the 5th or 4th century BC. He describes a terrible invasion of locusts and a devastating drought in Palestine. In these events he sees a sign of the coming Day of the Lord, a time when the Lord will punish those who opposed His righteous will. Joel conveys the Lord's call to the people to repent, and His promise of restoration and blessing for His people. In response to the destruction of the crops, Joel calls out in JL 1: 14-16, "Give orders for a fast; call an assembly! Gather the leaders and all the people of Judah into the temple of the Lord your God and cry out to Him! The day of the Lord is near, the day when the Almighty brings destruction. What terror that day will bring! We look on helpless as our crops are destroyed. There is no joy in the temple of our God." Joel responds to the coming of the locusts as a warning of the Day of the Lord in JL 2: 1-2, "Blow the trumpet; sound the alarm on Zion, God's sacred hill. Tremble, people of Judah! The Day of the Lord is coming soon. It will be a dark and gloomy day, a black and cloudy day. The great army of locusts advances like the darkness spreading over the mountains. There has never been anything like it, and there never will be again." All of this is followed by a call to repentance. JL 2: 15-18, "Blow the trumpet on Mount Zion; give order for a fast and call an assembly! Gather the people together; prepared them for a sacred meeting; bring the old people; gather the children and the babies too. Even newly married couples must leave their homes and come. The priests, serving the Lord between the altar and the entrance of the temple, must weep and pray: 'Have pity on Your people, Lord. Do not let other nations despise us and mock us by saying, 'Where is your God?'" Once again, fasting is shown to be a way to demonstrate corporately a nation's submission to and reverence for God. The focus here in fasting is to communicate Israel's belief that God really does have the power and compassion to save their nation in the face of awful distress.
We can learn a lot from the experience of people who came before us. I find it a great shame that we don't do more of this, but such is human nature. It seems that we are doomed to suffer the negative consequences of repeating mistakes made by other people and nations before us. God has given us these stories from the Scriptures to help us learn His will and our need to submit to it. Those of us who do, will enjoy a blissful eternal fellowship with Him in heaven, despite the trials we must face on earth. That is why Paul found himself inspired by God to write in 2 COR 4: 18, "So we do not look at the trouble we can see right now; rather we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever."
PRAYER: O Lord, we stand before Your mighty throne today after pondering these stores from the Bible and the rich lessons for us they contain. We stand in awe of our own opportunity to ask for and receive Your intervention in our lives. It is because of Christ's work on the cross and our belief in Him that You have chosen to give us grace. Your very presence in our lives in the form of the Holy Spirit and Your protection are wonderful blessings for us. We are imperfect and in need of those things to live righteously, to learn Your will, and to live according to it. MICAH 6: 8, "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." We sometimes fast as individuals or corporately to call Your attention to our needs, to focus our attention on You, and to demonstrate our belief that You alone can help us with the reasons for our distress. Jonah's final willingness to obey You allowed You to demonstrate Your power to do things out of the expected. The people of Nineveh showed us Your power to "transform hearts inwardly by the renewal of their minds" [RO 12: 2]. Their fast was authentic, and You responded to it in a positive way. Joel's call to repentance and a fast was one more step in a most amazing outcome-that Israel has survived unparalleled persecution from other nations to still be intact after over 3000 years. This is while many of their enemies- peoples such as the Amalekites, Edomites, Moabites, Babylonians, Philistines, those responsible for the Spanish inquisition, and the Nazis-have been vanquished. Heavenly Father, we owe our very lives to You and thus, we offer You our thanks, praise, and eternal worship. In Christ's mighty name, we pray. Amen.
Next week, I am led to continue with more fascinating examples from the Scriptures of fasting. We can revel in the fact that God has so many valuable lessons for us in them. We can also enjoy knowing that our God hears our prayers and answers them [PS 116:1]. Those of us who choose to fast in healthy ways and for authentic reasons can take comfort in the knowledge that God really does care and listen. We may not always understand His answers to our prayers initially or His timing at the time, but His answers to our prayers are never without our best eternal interests from His lofty perspective in mind. We must remember the truth we learn from such citations as PS 139: 6 and IS 55: 8-9, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to know!...'My thoughts,' says the Lord, 'are not like yours, and My ways are different from yours. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are My ways and thoughts above yours.'" Our lack of God's perspective provides us the opportunity to learn to trust the Lord, even when we can't see the eventual outcome or understand His ways at the time. We are given a wonderful promise in the Sermon on the Mount in MT 5: 3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for their's is the Kingdom of heaven." We can take comfort despite our limited perspective in the fact that those of us who obey MICAH 6: 8 [given above] are on the way to victory over evil. Those who believe in Jesus Christ and live according to God's will shall indeed win that victory and be saved for a life of eternal bliss and fellowship with God where we shall be permanent citizens of heaven.
Praise be to our God, Who loves us enough to reclaim us from sin and certain spiritual death!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn