Fasting Without Hypocrisy, Part 1
Matthew 6:16-18
Let's bow together in prayer as we come to the word. Father, we thank You for the fact that You want to do that. To make us more like You each day. We thank You for the fact that You not only want to, but You're able to. By Your great power to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ. Use the word this morning in a small way to help in that shaping process to push us a little more in the direction of conformity to Yourself. In Christ's name, Amen.
Take your Bible, if you will, and turn with me to Matthew Chapter 6 and this morning I want to begin a study of verses 16-18; Matthew Chapter 6, verse 16-18. If you've been with us, you know that this means we are skipping verses 9-15. That is the passage of scripture known commonly as the Lord's prayer. And the reason I am skipping it is only very temporary. In this particular Chapter, Jesus is confronting hypocritical religion. He picks out three illustrations; the giving of the Pharisees was hypocritical. That's in the first part of the Chapter. The praying of the Pharisees was hypocritical. And finally, the fasting that they did was also hypocritical.
In verse 2, He says, "When you do your alms giving, do not sound a trumpet like the hypocrites." In verse 5, "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites." And in verse 16, "When you fast be not as the hypocrites." So these are the three illustrations of hypocritical religion our Lord gives. Now when He gets in to the subject of prayer, there is a wonderful introduction of this section on the Lord's prayer. But because we want to deal with it in such detail taking it statement by statement, we're going to deal with the three illustrations first and then back up and spend a rather lengthy time studying the Lord's prayer. So we'll be getting to that in a couple of weeks. I just wanted you not to be fearful that we had missed one of the great portions of the word of God.
It is in order that we can concentrate on it and not lose our perspective of the whole section that we're taking fasting now and we'll come back to that. Look with me after verse 16 and follow in your Bible as I read. "Moreover, when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites 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, but thou when thou fastest, anoint thine head and wash thy face that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father who is in secret and thy Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee."
Now, this obviously as the other two is a corrective to hypocritical fasting. The Pharisees and the scribes and the Jews were involved in many, many fasts. Very common part of their religious system. But it needed a corrective. It needed to be corrected. It needed to be set right. Before, however, we can understand the corrective, we must understand what fasting is all about. He simply assumes in saying when ye fast, the knowledge and the occasions of fasting. But fasting in our society, that is in the church of Jesus Christ is a little understood factor of religious or spiritual experience.
Now fasting is a very popular phenomenon today, but that is not to be confused with what the Bible is teaching us about fasting. So let's approach our study of this text this morning by backing up from the text to give you a frame of reference relative to fasting. And I have been doing a lot of reading on this in the last week. I couldn't count all the things I've read. I've probably gone through about 20 books. And the last three or four days I've been reading secular books on fasting and then yesterday finished a couple of books written from a spiritual viewpoint so that I could get the whole picture.
Let me see if I can help you to get an understanding of this. Now, I'm very much aware of the fact that we all like food and I like it too. I'm not any different than anybody else. I am also very much aware of the fact that God in a wonderful way permits that. I mean, let's face it, God has provided such an infinite variety of tastes and such an infinite capacity in the part of the tongue to enjoy those tastes that He must have known what He was getting us into. There's no question about it in my mind. God wanted us to have the fullness of enjoying all there is to enjoy in eating. Now basically, I think that's true in every kind of thing. I think God has made a world like this world because He wanted us to enjoy color, don't you?
I mean, everything could be khaki. The whole world could be khaki. And then khaki wouldn't be in. There would need to be some variety. The whole world...I mean, it's tremendous. You know, somebody was talking the other day, it's kind of a earthy illustration, but they said, you know, think about kissing the person you love. Isn't it wonderful that God invented that? He could have just had us exchange ear wax. But I mean there are a lot of alternatives, there are a lot of alternatives...I'm just watching Clayton down here. I think I've lost him for the rest of the...there are a lot of alternatives to what God has very graciously given us. When it comes to food, I think God is very much aware of the fact that there is variety. And I think that's the way He intended it. We're not like automobiles. We don't just take gasoline. We're different.
We're not even like animals who can live on a prescribed diet of the same thing all the time and so forth. Although some human beings in this world are not so fortunate as to have the variety that we have in our country. But God has made this for us. In Genesis 1:30 it says, "To every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food."
It's all here for us. And after the flood, God said "every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you even as the green herb have I given you all things." All things from the vegetables and the fruits to the meats and nuts, everything that God has provided in this world to make eating an enjoyable thing. Now God knew we had to eat and we would eat. We'll eat anything to survive; anything. But God gave us the wonder of taste so that life would be richer and more blessed just in eating. So it's a good gift from God just in its sustenance value.
It's nourishing, filled with the things we need. And also in its enjoyment element, it's a good gift from God. It's also a good gift from God because it is the source of fellowship. The mealtime is when all of those independent activities stop and we come together and we enjoy each other and it's always been that way. When God and two angels visited Abraham, they dined together. All through the Old Testament the people of God came together and dined and families still find a resource of love and fellowship and discussion and understanding when they come together to eat. The body of Christ has done that. They have broken bread since the church was born on the day of Pentecost from house to house and we continue to enjoy that fellowship even today. Having breakfast or lunch or dinner with other folks with whom we love.
Jesus in John 21 made breakfast and then said to His beloved disciples, "come and dine." In Revelation 3:20, He stands at the door knocking and wants us to open that He may come in and supp with us; have supper with us and us with Him. Food then provides sustenance. It provides enjoyment. It provides fellowship. And I even think that food provides a certain amount of worship. I don't know about you, but our house we're trying to be very conscious of every meal that we eat is a gift from God. The Lord's prayer say "Give us this day our," what, "our daily bread."
It is simply the constant recognition that the source of all our sustenance is God Himself who grants to us the food that we eat. And that's why 1 Timothy says what it says in Chapter 4, and it's a wonderful verse. 1 Timothy 4, verse 3 says, "Forbidding to marry," talking about the teachers and so forth. It says, "foods which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving by them who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving."
God has created all this food and because it's good for sustenance and because it's good for enjoyment and because it's great for fellowship and because it's a source of worship, it is to be received with thanksgiving. We are to be grateful to God for such a wonderful provision. Now I just want to say that to you to let you know that it's okay to eat and it's okay to enjoy eating. You don't have to eat mush all your life and think you're being spiritual. God has created this for us to enjoy. And obviously you need to have some common sense about putting things in your body that are unhealthful. But nonetheless, we have the right to enjoy fully the provision that God has given us.
You know, the rabbis had an interesting statement. Some of them reacted against fasting and they said, "When you get to heaven and to the judgment seat, you will have to answer to God for every good thing that you didn't eat." Now that's one way to look at it folks. The next time you go out for dinner and you say oh my, I'll have one of each. I certainly don't want to have to answer in the judgment for not eating some good thing that God created. Now that's the other extreme.
But some of the rabbis went to that end. Now others went to the extreme of not eating anything and fasting and that was their pious pretense. But no matter what extreme you were on, somebody developed the theology to accommodate it. If you gorged yourself and ate everything, that was good because when you got to the judgment day you could say here I am Lord, I stand in need of nothing and I have tasted all of Your creation. On the other hand, there were the pious ones who said that they fasted and they made sure everybody knew they had fasted so they'd look holy and righteous and spiritual because of their abstinence. And these are the extremities to which Jesus applies the corrective in Matthew Chapter 6.
Now I want you to understand that food is good and food is from God and food is fine. But that being as it may, there is still a place for fasting in our lives. Now you may be aware of that because you may have been reading the things that are being said and written today about fasting. Fasting is a very popular phenomenon. There's a lot of it going on today. Many people are fasting. There are fasting diets where you don't eat anything. You go days and days and weeks and weeks without eating and they prescribe certain pills you take. You have to get your potassium or whatever and you have to drink, you know, volumes and volumes of water in order that your body can put off those toxics that are there.
So there are lots of people talking about fasting. In fact, I went to the bookstore, I was in San Jose the other day, and I thought I'm going to get the world's perspective on this. So I walked in a bookstore and I said, "Where's the fasting section?" And whenever you say that, they always look at you, you know. Just check you out to see if you're going there as a student or as somebody who's desperate. So I said, "Where's the fasting section?" The lady kind of looked at me for a moment. She said, "Oh it's over there." And I walked over and there were just a lot of books on fasting.
All different angles on it. The ones that seem to be the best sellers I found out are Fasting, The Super Diet, by Shirley Ross. And then there's Fasting As A Way Of Life, and then there's Fasting The Ultimate Diet written by a medical doctor named Allan Cott. And in the book, this is what he guarantees that fasting will do for you. Now, just listen to this. "Weight loss," that's the first thing he guarantees. Now, the very fact...the very...why are you laughing? The very fact that he said that first shows you what people are looking to fasting to accomplish.
All right, then he said, feeling better physically and mentally, looking and feeling younger, saving money. Obviously, if you don't food, you're going to save money. Resting your system, cleaning out the body, lowering your blood pressure, lowering your cholesterol level, cutting down on smoking, drinking, and drugs, relieving tension, sleeping better, digesting better, feeling euphoric, sharpening your senses, quickening your mental processes, boosting your self-esteem, gaining control of yourself, sharing with those who are hungry and even receiving spiritual revelations.
Now listen, that's an amazing thing if it can give you all that. Everything from dropping some pounds to getting spiritual revelations through fasting. And then the book went on to give testimony after testimony of how people said they got all these things from fasting. Fasting's been around a long time. Do you know that many of the pagans used to believe that demons entered the body through food and when they felt a special onslaught of demons they stopped eating so they wouldn't be taking any demons because they thought they came in through the mouth?
In eastern mysticism, the mystics were very, very involved in embracing fasting. Yogis were very committed to fasting as a source of receiving mystical revelations. The disciples of Buddha fasts. Frankly Buddha doesn't look like he ever got anywhere near a fast, but his disciples fast and the disciples of Buddha believed that you induce a vision situation when you fast. There are many, many in the history of the world that have given themselves to fasting. But let me say this people, be that as it may what is physical is not spiritual and the Bible never presents any place in the entire scripture fasting for physical reasons. Never.
The only even remote hint that that could be consider is in Isaiah 58 which we'll get to next week where the would health is used, but in my judgment, it has reference to a spiritual wholeness, not a physical one. The Bible never deals with fasting on a physical level. Fasting, in order to get the body beautiful, is not the issue. And frankly that's why people fast in our society. It is for a sense of social acceptance. It is to fill the need of their ego. And by the way, I read that people who are models today live in a constant state of malnutrition. And some medical journals are now redefining the scales of what the proper weight is for the proper height and the proper age and adding seven to ten pounds to it. Because people tend to be healthier when they fill out a little bit.
But because of this insatiable desire for the beautiful body, we have even created a new disease, this anorexia disease, where people get a mental aversion to eating. They can't put it in their mouths without eventually vomiting it back out again and they continue and continue and continue and continue to lose weight. And it's a very serious disease. Now this is not a biblical approach to fasting. Fasting is not to give you the body beautiful. Fasting is not to take you on an ego trip so you don't have to be self-conscious about the fact that you're a little pudgy.
Fasting is not to feed your pride. Fasting for that reason may be sinful. Now fasting as a way to reduce your gluttony is okay. I mean, then there's some virtue to it. Although it's not the biblical definition of fasting. If you're gluttonous and you've just gorged yourself, you've overspent your money, you've indulged yourself beyond the point where it was right and it became sinful, then withholding food may be in some sense virtuous, but that is not the biblical fast. That just makes sense.
You know, there are even people who fast in anticipation of being gluttons? Have you ever done that? Boy I know that tomorrow I'm going over to their house and their really going to...I'm going to really put it on. They've got great stuff, so I'm not eating today. That is not a spiritual fast. Preparation for gluttony is the same as gluttony. You know, all I'm trying to do is to somehow make a distinction between what the world is talking about when it's talking about fasting and what we're talking about.
If you are on some kind of a fast for physical reasons don't think you have the right to feel spiritual, because you don't. It has no spiritual value at all. Fasting in and of itself is unknown in scripture as an end in itself. All of the benefits of fasting in the scripture are indirect, not direct. Fasting is never isolated to create some virtue in and of itself. You don't just say well, I'm going to be spiritual, I will not eat. You are no more spiritual because you don't eat than because you do eat. "The kingdom of God." says Romans 14, "is not food and drink." That is not the issue. That is not the substance of spirituality. John Calvin said many for want of knowing its usefulness undervalue it's necessity. And some rejected all together as superfluous, while on the other hand where the proper use of fasting is not well understood, it is easily degenerates into superstition.
So on the one hand you have the superstitious approach and on the other, you have the indifference. And so if we can correct both of those, we'll perhaps do a service to you. Don't be superstitious about fasting. It isn't going to get you any super spirituality. In and of itself, it doesn't isolate itself to be a spiritual virtue. It is always connected with something else and we'll see that as we go today and next time through the study. So we're not interested in a physical, self-centered mystical kind of fast to get a better looking body or to get yourself ready for a gluttonous activity tomorrow. We're not interested in a fast just for the sake of saying you fasted. That isn't the issue. There must be a spiritual context for a fast to be biblical.
And that is essential. And I think that that is basically outlined in the only fast ever commanded in all the Bible. There's only one. Only one time did God ever command a fast. There is only one compulsory fast from one end of scripture to the other, just one. And it was a general public national fast. Leviticus 16, God said, on the day of atonement, Yom Kippur, that one day a year when sacrifices of the nation are given for the sins of the people for the year past. On that day from sunrise to sunset, you will fast, Yom Kippur. That is the only fast ever given as compulsory by God in the entire scripture. That's it.
But notice it is a fast connected with a deep mournful spirit in confessing sin. Now that ought to give you a hint of what fasting is all about. It is never isolated from something else. It is extricably connected to a great sense of spiritual anxiety. A time in that case of confession of sin and seeking forgiveness at the hand of God. In fact, the Jews went so far as to say on the day of atonement, it is forbidden, says the Talmud, to eat, to drink, to bathe, to anoint oneself, to wear sandals or to engage in conjugal intercourse. And even the little children on the day of atonement couldn't eat. And that's hard on little children, but they had to learn that that was to be a prescribe fast and they had to learn it when they were young so they would maintain it when they became older.
Now, beyond that, now get this beloved, beyond that, the Bible never commands a fast. The New Testament never commands us to fast. The Bible commands us to give again and again, commands us to pray again and again, but doesn't command us to fast. That just is not a biblical command. And yet isn't it interesting that it fits right in with these other two things in this section. Fasting then, was a personal, watch this, non-compulsory, spontaneous, voluntary act. There's no structure to fasting delineated in the scripture.
There's just endless variety, endless variety. Now by the time Jesus arrives, fasting has become a great part of the Jewish society. It was in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is filled with fasts. There just a lot of fasts. Some times by the nation, some times by a small group of people and sometimes by one individual, but the Old Testament is full of them and so this was a part of their society. This was a part of their life. But when you come to Jesus time, this thing had gone beyond it's bounds. What started as a true, spontaneous, voluntary, heartfelt fast had ended up as a point of hypocritical, self-righteous demonstration in front of men. Where they put on this tremendous pretense, made themselves look as wretched and miserable and dismal as they could and paraded around letting everybody know they were fasting so they'd think they were super spiritual.
Because frankly folks, fasting is hard isn't it? I mean, if you just say well, I'm going to fast, all you can think about is eating. That's true. I'm going to fast and all you can think about is food. There must be a very...almost a natural and yet a supernatural inducement to fasting to take away that anxiety there. And we'll see how that works in a minute. But the Jews were fasting for every reason and their basic motive was to be seen by men. The ego trip, super spiritual, super pious and Jesus must correct this. It's kind of interesting to me too that in Luke 18:12 it says the Pharisees fasted twice a week. Remember the Pharisee came into the temple to pray and he said I thank you that I'm not as other men, even as this public and sinner over here, I fast twice in the week. Amazing.
That is not a biblical prescription. They had come to the place where they did that and the Talmud tells us they fasted on the second day and the fifth day. And when you ask the Pharisees why the second and the fifth day, they will say because it was the second day and the fifth day which Moses went up and down from Sinai. He went up to Sinai, they say, to get the law on the fifth day of the week. He came down on the second day of the week. And in commemorating that, we fast on the second and the fifth day. But, as spiritual as it sounds, if you look a little closer in Jewish history, in the City of Jerusalem, you will find out that market day was the second and fifth day. And those were the two days in the week when everybody from the countryside came to town. And if you were going to parade your piosity that was the time.
And so on the second and the fifth day, market day, with people teaming in the city and the country all moving around and milling about, it was a great time, an ideal place for those who fasted for a public pretense to put on their act, and they would do it for spiritual pride. They would walk through the streets with their hair all disheveled. They would put on old clothes and get dirt all over them. They would over their faces with white stuff so they'd look pale and dump ashes on their head. And they would parade around on market day so everybody would see how spiritual they really were.
Jesus attacks this in this text. But let's back up a little bit. I want to give you several points. Number one the principle of fasting. We must understand what the Bible teaches about this, the principle of fasting. Now I'm going to give you a very simple statement here. Fasting is total abstinence from food. Fasting is total abstinence from food, that's the idea. In fact, the Greek word, it's a very simple word, nestea, from nea which means not and estea, which means to eat. It means not to eat; not to eat. To abstain from food.
There is a sense in which a modified fast or a partial fast can be taken where you don't totally fast and totally abstain from food, but you abstain from banqueting. You abstain from lavishness. You abstain from the rich foods, to eat a rather common food. I think Daniel did that and we'll see more of that tonight as Daniel wouldn't touch the delicacies of the king's meat, but said I only want to eat what is called pulse and water. In other words, it was not a total fast, but it was a restricted fast for spiritual priority reason. But basically speaking, those are the rare ones, it is a total abstinence from food for a short or a long period. Now there's no doubt in scripture that this total abstinence from food was connected with a very, very troubled spirit or a very anxiou