We see a great contrast, in Isaiah 58, between what God honors and what He hates in the religious efforts of sincere people. He describes the difference between an effective fast and a fast that is an abomination to the Lord. There is such a vast contrast that we should give attention when we fast, that it be more than just the abstaining from food, that it actually measure up in spirit to that which God would bless, as He said: … the fast that I have chosen … Isaiah 58:6.
Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet and declare unto my people their transgression, and to the house of Jacob their sins (tell them what is wrong with them). Then He gives the contrast: Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways: as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God, they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near unto God (at the beginning they seem to be all right). Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Verses 1–3.
Why is fasting sometimes ineffective? Why does it not seem to work? They said, “We seek You daily, we delight to know Your ways. We delight to draw near to God, then why is it that when we fast there is no answer? We afflict our soul—You take no knowledge of it.” He answers, Behold, in the day of your fast ye find your own pleasure, and exact all your labors. This does not mean that you cannot work when you are fasting. The margin reads, “You oppress all your laborers.” Behold, ye fast for strife and contention, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye fast not this day so as to make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I have chosen? the day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a rush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? Verses 3–5. He is saying, “This isn’t the fast that I have chosen.” They were fasting to get their own way, to get what they wanted.
“I am right, so I am going to fast until God vindicates me!” That is not the fast God has chosen. It is surprising that the people who were fasting were condemned by the Lord, yet they were seeking God daily and delighted to know His ways. It was their delight to draw near to God. We could be guilty of the same thing with little effort. We could fall right into the same pattern and begin to fast with the wrong motivation.
A fast is very significant because it links you so completely with the omnipotence of God. The processes of the body are arrested. It is amazing that symptoms of vitamin deficiencies have disappeared in fasting, drinking nothing but water. At the end of a fast, vitamin deficiencies within the body have been corrected. No one knows exactly what happens. It is not just the process of going without food—something else is linked with it. There are principles that we do not even understand yet. Some day we will.
Is not this the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Verse 6. In our language today, we would say, “These are certain restraints, bonds that have been made.” We become a product of a lot of things.
Do you understand what fasting does for the body processes? In a fast, poisons in your body are soon picked up by the bloodstream and you may get headaches and feel feverish and sick. It is a sure sign that you need a fast. Your body is cleaning out the toxic poisons. Your breath gets bad, and you feel miserable, as if you have abdicated from the human race for awhile. It is almost a state of semi-convalescence because the body slows down, and you feel you are just dragging around; everything is changed. You may feel cold for a time if it’s winter, because of not eating food which the metabolism of the body converts to energy for keeping warm. The corruption is in your body because you put it there through your own mouth. Because of bad foods and bad ways of living, the body reaches a state of disrepair and the fast becomes necessary.
The same thing happens to a person psychically through the exercise of the soul. Through the years, whether you realize it or not, you may pick up a lot of corruption from the activities and thoughts you feed upon. The subconscious mind may be conditioned. Deep attitudes are there: experiences; sin in which you have lived; bonds that you have made with other people in moments of wickedness, as well as in moments of righteousness. All of these things can be eliminated. A probe with the Holy Spirit digging down in helps a great deal. But something that helps even more would be to go on a real fast and seek the Lord. As you wait upon the Lord, this is the fast the He has chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke—not only for others, but for yourself. Basically it is to loose you from all of these things. This is very important.
A fast can cleanse your soul, your body, and your spirit. If something is wrong in your spirit, if you have a bad spirit, fast. You may say, “I get crabby, I get mean.” The same way that your breath gets bad, your spirit gets bad. Corruption is coming out of it. Spirit, soul, and body, by a proper fast, can be purged. A fast has long been known for its therapeutic effects physically, but the mystics of the east used the fast for spirit purification. Without even knowing God, the system still worked sufficiently so they were able to eliminate many things out of their very natures by it.
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Verse 7. That has many meanings. Look upon dealing your bread to the hungry in a spiritual sense, and not literally fast so that you can take the food you would have put in your own stomach and give it to someone else to eat, is what it really is talking about. The bread it is talking about is the living word that you have in your heart, the spiritual bread that you have to share. You are fasting, believing that this can be loosed to reach the rest of the hungry of the world.
You may think, “They are hungry, but they’ll stick around; pretty soon they will find us.” Do not think that way, because there is a spiritual process—no one comes into anything from God unless there is some intermediary action wrought for it. I do not believe anyone finds Christ without someone praying and interceding on a human level as well as the sacrifice that Christ made to bring him in. I doubt if anyone comes into anything, any time, anywhere, apart from a human channel through which God loosed faith to bring the miracle into being. Fasting can come so that you can deal your bread to the poor. How many ministries fail because there is no one to intercede? The congregations sometimes feel that it is not important. It is important. The Apostle Paul in his epistles entreated the churches to intercede for him, and he spoke of how he did not cease to pray for them day and night. He believed that much in prayer. Because you do not always see the visible results, you tend to feel in your heart that prayer is not the significant channel that God says it is.
Fasting is the prayer of waiting before God. It is to deal your bread to the hungry. All over this world there are hungry people, hungry in their spirits, who will be met if we will fast and pray concerning it.
… and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him (talking about those who need to be clothed in God); and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? What does it mean, “to hide yourself from your own flesh? On a natural plane it would be speaking about your own family. A son could do his parents an honor by helping them when they have a need, but he works around it: he hides himself, literally, from his own flesh. Or a father would see a need in his son and wouldn’t meet it. Instead, he would say, “Well, that’s good for him,” not knowing what he could do. But spiritually, it goes deeper than that: don’t hide yourself from the members of the body; don’t withdraw; don’t hold back when you can be a blessing. You do not know how much depends upon the flow of love within the body. You do not know who comes suffering, with heartaches, with problems to the house of God. You can look at your brother and sister and not actually have the discernment to interpret what they are hiding deep in their hearts. A superficial discernment would never reveal it. Do not hide yourself. Be available. “This is fasting, Lord, that I reach out.”
Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy healing shall spring forth speedily (how quickly you will recover; you will heal on every level: spirit, soul, and body); and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord will answer; thou shalt cry, and he will say, Here I am. Verses 8, 9. That is fasting. That is linking yourself right with the Lord.
If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke (bondage and oppression that is upon people), the putting forth of the finger (that is judging, discerning with a judging spirit), and speaking wickedly (instead of with love—anything that is not spoken with love when relating to another person is a wickedness); and if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul: then shall thy light rise in darkness, and thine obscurity be as the noonday; and the Lord will guide thee continually … Verses 9–11.
If you went into a real fast and nothing else happened except that one phrase, the Lord will guide thee continually, you would have attained the one thing that people seek more than anything else in the house of God. “I want the Lord to guide me. What is the will of the Lord? What am I to do?” They want to be led by the Lord. This will bring it.
The Lord will guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in the dry places (that is very essential) and make strong thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. Verses 11, 12. A hole in a wall, which was built for defense about a city, was called a breach, where the enemy could come in. If we need anything now, it is fasting which will bring the repairer of the breach. Wherever the enemy is coming in, wherever he is reaching in, I would like to see that breach shut up. I would like to see Zion be like a fortified city, a fortress. I would like to see everything that gets into this assembly to trouble and oppress it, stopped.… The restorer of the paths to dwell in—that means going back to the full restoration.
Can fasting do all these things? It can. It links you with God in an amazing way. Doesn’t this make you want to have more understanding and go into a deeper level of fasting? The thing that God can do for us through this incredible process is like a great cycle. It is a prayer of process, because it is something that goes on and on and on. We are too far along in this walk, and we need too many of these promises given in Isaiah 58, not to do it.
Very rarely do people get discouraged while they fast; in fact, they begin to pull out of their discouragement. They also have an immunity and rarely catch any virus or germ while fasting. We believe that there are stages of immunity we can all reach as we fast and seek the Lord together.