Morning and Evening: Daily Readings
by C. H. Spurgeon
Thursday Morning, July 7
Brethren, pray for us.
1 Thessalonians 5:25
This one morning in the year we reserved to refresh the reader's memory upon the subject of prayer for ministers, and we do most earnestly implore every Christian household to grant the fervent request of the text first uttered by an apostle and now repeated by us. Brethren, our work is solemnly momentous, involving weal or woe to thousands; we treat with souls for God on eternal business, and our word is either a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death. A very heavy responsibility rests upon us, and it will be no small mercy if at the last we be found clear of the blood of all men. As officers in Christ's army, we are the especial mark of the enmity of men and devils; they watch for our halting, and labour to take us by the heels. Our sacred calling involves us in temptations from which you are exempt, above all it too often draws us away from our personal enjoyment of truth into a ministerial and official consideration of it. We meet with many knotty cases, and our wits are at a non plus; we observe very sad backslidings, and our hearts are wounded; we see millions perishing, and our spirits sink. We wish to profit you by our preaching; we desire to be blest to your children; we long to be useful both to saints and sinners; therefore, dear friends, intercede for us with our God. Miserable men are we if we miss the aid of your prayers, but happy are we if we live in your supplications. You do not look to us but to our Master for spiritual blessings, and yet how many times has He given those blessings through His ministers; ask then, again and again, that we may be the earthen vessels into which the Lord may put the treasure of the gospel. We, the whole company of missionaries, ministers, city missionaries, and students, do in the name of Jesus beseech you
Brethren, pray for us .
Evening, July 7
When I passed by thee, I said unto thee, Live.
Ezekiel 16:6
Saved one, consider gratefully this mandate of mercy. Note that this fiat of God is majestic. In our text, we perceive a sinner with nothing in him but sin, expecting nothing but wrath; but the eternal Lord passes by in his glory; he looks, he pauses, and he pronounces the solitary but royal word, Live. There speaks a God. Who but he could venture thus to deal with life and dispense it with a single syllable? Again, this fiat is manifold. When he saith Live, it includes many things. Here is judicial life. The sinner is ready to be condemned, but the mighty One saith, Live, and he rises pardoned and absolved. It is spiritual life. We knew not Jesus--our eyes could not see Christ, our ears could not hear his voice--Jehovah said Live, and we were quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. Moreover, it includes glory-life, which is the perfection of spiritual life. I said unto thee, Live: and that word rolls on through all the years of time till death comes, and in the midst of the shadows of death, the Lord's voice is still heard, Live! In the morning of the resurrection it is that self-same voice which is echoed by the arch-angel, Live, and as holy spirits rise to heaven to be blest for ever in the glory of their God, it is in the power of this same word, Live. Note again, that it is an irresistible mandate. Saul of Tarsus is on the road to Damascus to arrest the saints of the living God. A voice is heard from heaven and a light is seen above the brightness of the sun, and Saul is crying out, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? This mandate is a mandate of free grace. When sinners are saved, it is only and solely because God will do it to magnify his free, unpurchased, unsought grace. Christians, see your position, debtors to grace; show your gratitude by earnest, Christlike lives, and as God has bidden you live, see to it that you live in earnest.
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Fasting Is A Powerful Aid To Prayer
By Gordon Cove
Fasting Produces Faith
Now let us come to the benefits of fasting, which are numerous. Among the spiritual benefits, one of the greatest is that fasting helps to generate faith. Our unbelief is far greater than we realize. It is like an unseen and powerful enemy. Fasting brings us to the threshold of a new faith in God and His Word. One of the main purposes of fasting is to get an increase of faith – faith so that we can believe and receive. Jesus said, "When ye pray, believe that ye receive…and ye shall have" (Mark 11:24). Fasting is the great faith producer. It kindles and develops faith far quicker than any other process.
Although it may seem difficult at first to grasp, the very weakness that one develops through fasting is the building up of faith. When one seems to be groping around in the dark during a fast, and perhaps the devil whispers that you are accomplishing nothing, that is the very time you are building up your faith, for Paul says: "When I am weak, then am I strong" (2 Cor. 12:10).
Your unbelief will be eliminated through fasting. Fasting is a powerful spiritual factor in obtaining special favors from the Lord, and one of these favors is added faith. Faith is increased through fasting. Remember, there are certain kinds of demons that only come out through prayer and fasting. If you want to move those mountains of pain and fear, then pray and fast. Faith and fasting go together!
Fasting Intensifies Prayer
Then, secondly, fasting reaches and obtains what prayer cannot do alone. It is a powerful aid and asset to prayer. If your prayer is not answered, then go into prayer and fasting.
Many Christians have been praying for years about certain problems. Sometimes these prayers are not answered. But in many cases, where fastings have been added to the prayers, along with deep consecration and weeping before God, the answer has miraculously come to hand. Without fasting, prayer is often inefficient, but when coupled to fasting the prayer power is greatly amplified.
Many have proved that shorter prayers under the influence of fasting are far more effective than longer prayers without fasting. We do not claim that fasting, in itself, will produce miraculous answers in every case. But it prepares the heart by humiliation as almost nothing will do.
Sometimes there is something in us that displeases God, and that is why prayer is not answered at first. Therefore, to find out what this is, the best thing to do is to fast and pray. Many a Christian who does not prosper could learn the reason if he would wait before God with such sincerity and abandonment of self that he would not eat, would not sleep, and would not carry on his regular affairs of life until God revealed what was wrong.
God does not tell lies, and the reason many have not their prayers answered is because they have not met all of God's conditions, and one of these conditions is to fast. Some things never come to a child of God except "by prayer and fasting" (Matt. 17:21). There is a big difference between prayer alone, and prayer combined with fasting. Even a few minutes of prayer during a fast are equivalent sometimes to several hours of prayer when not fasting, especially if the fast has been going on for some days.
The true incident is recorded of a certain minister who, before he entered the ministry, was locked up in prison in New York, awaiting his trial. He already had a life sentence awaiting him in Canada, also. His mother spent twenty-two days fasting and praying for him. At the time she did this, she was not aware that he was in prison, but she was praying for his conversion. He was converted and afterwards pardoned by the authorities, and became a pastor.
Another Christian prayed eight years for her brother, who was a drunkard, with seemingly no results. Then she got desperate, and prayed and fasted for twelve days for him to be saved. Thirty days after she finished fasting for him, her sister-in-law wrote to say he was completely delivered from the drink to which he had been addicted for thirty years. He had no desire for it and was serving the Lord. Fasting is praying intensified!
Fasting Brings Deliverance and Power
And so we see that fasting produces great power and also victory over sin. Fasting can bring revival when ordinary prayer fails. The great victories of faith mentioned in the Bible often happened after fasting.
A protracted fast will often bring to naught the devil's devices in a Christian's life. It will assist you to bring deliverance to those who are bound. Fasting and prayer makes faith strong enough to cast out demons. You may receive a still deeper experience than you have yet had, through fasting.
With fasting will come added power and liberty in your preaching, if you are a minister of the Word of God. It will so neutralize the flesh that you will become a conductor of spiritual power. The tragedy is that many Christian workers, just for the pleasure of eating regular meals each day, will continue in their powerless condition spiritually, when all the time they have within their finger tips the secret of power.
Certainly one needs an iron will to practice fasting, but God would not ask us to do it if it was impossible.
Obtain Guidance through Fasting
There are many other things that fasting will do. Of these we might make mention briefly: Fasting can help us in the matter of guidance when we are seeking to know the will of God. "As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said…" (Acts 13:2). In this remarkable incident, we learn that men who were willing to fast received direct instructions from the Holy Spirit as to where they were to go.
Twice in this short passage (Acts 13:1-3) we are told that these prophets and teachers fasted. First they fasted and prayed for wisdom, which teaches us that wisdom may be obtained from God through fasting. You will notice the immediate response of the Holy Spirit to fasting. "As they…fasted…the Holy Ghost said." Perhaps it is because we do so little of the fasting, that we hear so little about the Holy Ghost telling us definitely what to do. Then, secondly, they fasted for power to rest upon the men they were sending forth as the first foreign missionaries of the New Testament church.
Perhaps you have some problem about where you should go to serve Christ, or about what particular course you should take in some matter. Then why not set a time of waiting before God until you get the answer? If it takes fasting as well as prayer; if it takes giving up other matters, then do it – and get the blessing that God has for you! You can find the will of God if you seek sincerely and unreservedly by prayer and fasting.
Whenever a man of God or the people of God have taken to fasting in the past, it has enabled God to accomplish what otherwise He was unable to bring to pass. When sincerely done in the Holy Spirit, fasting never failed to move God.
Apart from power and guidance and many other things, fasting will help to develop in us a love and compassion for the lost. We cannot pray and fast for souls for long periods without there being generated in us some of the compassion for the lost that the Master Himself possesses.
It would almost seem, as we study the New Testament, that in the first century they literally ran the church with periods of prayer and fasting. We are told that in the early centuries Christians made fasting part and parcel of their lives. They set aside Wednesday and Friday each week for fasting and praying, and took no food until three o'clock in the afternoon. On these occasions it appears that the whole church fasted. Wherever they were at those times, all the church knew that the rest of the members would be fasting. No wonder their united, fasting prayers were miraculously answered!
When a Multitude Fasts, Things Happen!
In Old Testament times, the people of Israel proclaimed certain fast days. They often proclaimed a special fast for a certain purpose (Jer. 36:9; 2 Chr. 20:3; Ezra 8:21; Jon. 3:5). They fasted because of their backslidden condition and their sins (1 Sam. 7:6; Joel 2:12; Neh. 1:4; Dan. 9:2-3). They fasted in times of impending calamity (2 Chr. 20:1-4), and when there was a grave crisis (Judg. 20:26). In every case the Lord saved them from whatever they feared (Esth. 9:31; Ezra 8:21-23; Acts 27:22-44).
Even the wicked King Ahab fasted and God took notice of him. The Lord said his fasting was equivalent to humbling himself, so fasting is humbling (1 Kgs. 21:25-29). Job evidently believed in fasting, for he declares, "I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food" (Job 23:12). The Jews fasted when Jeremiah prophesied against Judah and Jerusalem. "They proclaimed a fast before the Lord" (Jer. 36:9).
A classic Scripture on fasting is Joel 2:12: "Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to Me with all your heart, and with fasting…." This Scripture clearly infers that in order to make a complete surrender to God, fasting must be undertaken. The two phrases, "all your heart" and "and with fasting," are definitely connected. The inference can be, if we have not fasted, we have not yet turned to the Lord with all our hearts for revival.
Jesus said, "When ye fast…thy Father ... shall reward thee" (Matt. 6:16-18).
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