Fast With Understanding: 20 Blessings of a True Fast in Isaiah 58

Sermon outline

Fast and pray with a biblical understanding and expect the blessings of Isaiah 58, but rest your faith on the finished work of Christ and the mercy of God, not on the discipline itself.

1. Your challenges are designer-made for you

   It is a false gospel to promise believers a life without trials. God allows challenges at work, in finances and even at home to build your character and take you where He wants you, so do not run unless your season there is over. Nothing reaches you unless God allows it, so relax: He has already prepared what you need for your next level.

   Illustration: Joseph's brothers were acting a part in God's plan, and Pharaoh's heart was hardened by God. Newly-weds fight like two cockerels until they mature in Christ. God put your eyes in the front of your head so that you look forward, unlike Lot's wife.

   “The pit was for his promotion. The jail was for his promotion.”

   • Genesis 37:31-33
   • Exodus 9:12
   • Genesis 19:26
   • Isaiah 49:16
   • Romans 8:28

2. Number one: there is no private interpretation

   Rightly divide the word of truth, because wrong doctrine spreads like cancer and can make the word of God inoperative in your life. Scripture must be interpreted with Scripture and by revelation knowledge, and that applies to fasting too. The word that created all things has power in itself, so when you pray and speak Scripture you release power and send angels to work.

   “Wrong doctrine is like cancer, wrong doctrine is like gangrene.”

   • 2 Timothy 2:15-17
   • Hebrews 4:12
   • 2 Peter 1:20
   • John 1:1
   • Acts 17:28

3. Number two: have a biblical understanding of fasting

   Fasting with understanding multiplies your prayer power. God expects you to grow progressively, from strength to strength, from faith to faith and from glory to glory. You were bought with a price and belong to Him, so the opposition He allows is training.

   Illustration: David killed the lion and the bear before he faced Goliath. If you cannot take a small impi down, you will never take Goliath down.

   “When you fast with a biblical understanding, it will multiply your prayer power.”

   • Psalm 84:7
   • Romans 1:17
   • 2 Corinthians 3:18
   • 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
   • 1 Samuel 17:34-37

4. Twenty blessings of a true fast: one to ten

   Having given ten blessings from Isaiah 58 the week before, he now gives twenty. (1) You shall have light as the day, (2) your health will spring forth speedily, (3) your righteousness will go before you, (4) God's glory will be your rear guard, (5) you will call and receive answers, (6) you will cry and God will answer, (7) your light will rise in obscurity, (8) your darkness will be as the noonday, (9) the Lord will guide you continually, (10) He will satisfy you in drought. If God has heard you the answer is on its way, so do not kill the seed with doubt.

   Illustration: Get up each morning saying, 'Lord, today is a miracle day for me', and if it does not come, say tomorrow will be that day. Do not be frightened by news of the economy going through a crunch.

   “He takes pleasure in answering you.”

   • Isaiah 58:6-14

5. Twenty blessings of a true fast: eleven to twenty

   (11) He will make your bones fat, (12) you will be like a watered garden, (13) you will be like an unfailing spring, (14) your waste places will be built up, (15) you will raise up the foundations of many generations, (16) you will be called the repairer of the breach, (17) and the restorer of paths to dwell in, (18) you will delight yourself in the Lord, (19) God will cause you to ride on the high places, (20) and He will feed you with the heritage of Jacob. As the seed of Abraham you have a new lineage, born of the Word.

   Illustration: Contracts that said no suddenly say yes, and the name that kept being lifted off the promotion list pops up. When a job application comes back 'no', a better one is coming.

   “God doesn't give you second best. He gives you first best.”

   • Isaiah 58:6-14
   • John 7:38

6. Fasting in the New Testament

   Nowhere in the Gospels did Jesus institute a fast or tell His disciples to fast on set days or avoid certain foods; tradition and religion brought those things in. None of Paul's letters instructs the church to fast. Yet we know Paul fasted, because he lists fastings among the marks of his ministry.

   “Nowhere in the New Testament did Jesus institute any type of fast.”

   • 2 Corinthians 6:4-5

7. You do not fast to cast out devils: it is finished

   Fasting ministers to the Lord, brings the flesh under and makes you more sensitive to the Spirit, but it is not what gives power over demons. Jesus said 'this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting' before His death, burial and resurrection. After He had conquered the devil and cried 'It is finished', He delegated His authority to the believer: in My name cast out devils.

   Illustration: He recalls a story from an earlier part: an evangelist who had stopped praying was overcome by a demon, was led to fast and was set free. The fasting made her sensitive enough to receive deliverance; it was not the fasting itself that delivered her.

   “It is not the fasting that brings more power to cast out devils.”

   • Mark 16:17
   • Matthew 17:21
   • John 19:30

8. Rest on the finished work, not on Christian disciplines

   You were saved by faith, so do not go back to works by leaning on prayer and fasting as the be-all and end-all. They are good and necessary disciplines, but you can say 'I'm rich' and 'I'm healed' only because of what Jesus did. He prays, tithes and gives because he loves God, not because a law forces him.

   Illustration: The woman at the well was so excited about Jesus that she brought her whole town to meet Him.

   “You are no longer laboring under a law or a commandment. You are in a love relationship with God.”

   • 2 Corinthians 8:9
   • Matthew 8:17
   • Mark 16:15
   • John 4:19
   • John 4:28-29

9. But God, who is rich in mercy

   You were not saved because you were likeable, by a church, a pastor or a denomination, but because God in His mercy loved you and chose you before the foundation of the world. Remember 'but God' after a fight at home or a bad day at the office, and quote it to the devil when pressure and depression press in. Do not lust after money: seek God first and He will add to you.

   Illustration: In a salon a very drunk old man came in, and the lady said not to judge him by his looks because he was very rich. He thought the man very poor.

   “A rich man without Christ is a poor man. And a poor man with Christ is a rich man.”

   • Ephesians 2:2-5
   • Ephesians 1:4
   • Zechariah 2:8
   • Matthew 6:33
   • Matthew 22:37

10. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord

    The angel of the Lord camps around those who fear Him, and the Lord delivers the righteous out of all their afflictions. Nothing can accuse God's elect or separate you from the love of Christ, and what He has begun He will finish. Pray with purpose and fast with understanding: if you work the Word, it will work for you.

    Illustration: After reading 'the Lord is my defence' in the Faith Chronicle, he turned that scripture over in his mind the whole day.

    “Christianity is not a hit and miss thing.”

    • Psalm 34:7
    • Psalm 34:19
    • Romans 8:33
    • Romans 8:35
    • Philippians 1:6
    • Hebrews 12:2
    • Luke 17:21