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WHY FAST and PRAY
WHY FAST AND PRAY? PRAY THAT YOU MAY ESCAPE…
Luke 21:3621st Century King James Version (KJ21)
36 Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”Luke 21:36The Message (MSG)
Luke 21:36Amplified Bible (AMP)
36 But keep alert at all times [be attentive and ready], praying that you may have the strength and ability [to be found worthy and] to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand in the presence of the Son of Man [at His coming].”
34-36 “But be on your guard. Don’t let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled by parties and drinking and shopping. Otherwise, that Day is going to take you by complete surprise, spring on you suddenly like a trap, for it’s going to come on everyone, everywhere, at once. So, whatever you do, don’t go to sleep at the switch. Pray constantly that you will have the strength and wits to make it through everything that’s coming and end up on your feet before the Son of Man.”
Isaiah 58 (AMP)
58 “Cry aloud, do not hold back; Lift up your voice like a trumpet,
And declare to My people their transgression And to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek Me day by day and delight [superficially] to know My ways,
As [if they were in reality] a nation that has done righteousness And has not abandoned (turned away from) the ordinance of their God. They ask of Me righteous judgments, They delight in the nearness of God.
Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and You do not see it?
Why have we humbled ourselves and You do not notice?’
Hear this [O Israel], on the day of your fast [when you should be grieving for your sins] you find something you desire [to do], And you force your hired servants to work [instead of stopping all work, as the law teaches].
The facts are that you fast only for strife and brawling and to strike with the fist of wickedness. You do not fast as you do today to make your voice heard on high.
Is a fast such as this what I have chosen, a day for a man to humble himself [with sorrow in his soul]? Is it only to bow down his head like a reed
And to make sackcloth and ashes as a bed [pretending to have a repentant heart]? Do you call this a fast and a day pleasing to the LORD?
[Rather] is this not the fast which I choose,
To undo the bonds of wickedness, To tear to pieces the ropes of the yoke, To let the oppressed go free And break apart every [enslaving] yoke? “Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry And bring the homeless poor into the house;
When you see the naked, that you cover him, And not to hide yourself from [the needs of] your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break out like the dawn,
And your healing (restoration, new life) will quickly spring forth; Your righteousness will go before you [leading you to peace and prosperity],
The glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; You will cry for help, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you take away from your midst the yoke [of oppression],
The finger pointed in scorn [toward the oppressed or the godly], and [every form of] wicked (sinful, unjust) speech, And if you offer yourself to [assist] the hungry
And satisfy the [a]need of the afflicted, Then your light will rise in darkness And your gloom will become like midday. And the LORD will continually guide you, And satisfy your soul in scorched and dry places, And give strength to your bones; And you will be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. And your people will rebuild the ancient ruins;
You will raise up and restore the age-old foundations [of buildings that have been laid waste]; You will be called Repairer of the Breach, Restorer of Streets [b]with Dwellings.
Keeping the Sabbath
If you turn back your foot from [[c]unnecessary travel on] the Sabbath,
From doing your own pleasure on My holy day, And call the Sabbath a [spiritual] delight, and the holy day of the LORD honorable, And honor it, not going your own way Or [d]engaging in your own pleasure Or speaking your own [idle] words,14
Then you will take pleasure in the LORD, And I will make you ride on the high places of the earth, And I will feed you with the [promised] heritage of Jacob your father; For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
Matthew 6:16-18 (KJV) Jesus assumes his followers will Fast!
“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 which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. He says “when you fast” — not “if you fast.”
Those who fasted in the Word
1) Moses – Exodus 34:28 (KJV)
“And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.”
2) David –
(A) 2 Samuel 12:16 (KJV) “David therefore besought God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the earth.”
(B) Psalm 35:13 (KJV) “But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer returned into mine own bosom.”
(C) Psalm 69:10 (KJV) “When I wept, and chastened my soul with fasting that was to my reproach.”
(D) Psalm 109:24 (KJV) “My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness.”
3) Jehoshaphat – 2 Chronicles 20:3 (KJV) with all of Israel “And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.”
4) Ezra – Ezra 8:21 (KJV) with those traveling with him to Israel “Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river of Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before our God, to seek of him a right way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance.”
5) Nehemiah – (A) Neh. 1:4 (KJV) “And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven”, (B) Nehemiah 9:1 (KJV) “All the children of Israel Now in the twenty and fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackclothes, and earth upon them.”
6) Esther 4:16 (KJV) “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: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish”
(7) Daniel 9:3(KJV) “And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes:”
(8) Jeremiah 36:9 (KJV) Josiah with all Israel “And it came to pass in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, in the ninth month, that they proclaimed a fast before the LORD to all the people in Jerusalem, and to all the people that came from the cities of Judah unto Jerusalem.”
(9) Jonah 3:5 (KJV)“So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them”
(10) Luke 2:37 (KJV) The Prophetess Anna “And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fasting and prayers night and day”.
(11) Matthew 4:1-2 (KJV) Jesus “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.”
(12) Acts 13:3 (KJV) Paul with the Leaders at Antioch “And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away”.
(13) Acts 14:23 (KJV) Paul & Barnabus“And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed”.