What we're going to start tonight is, I'm going to just kind of give you a brief intro, overview of fasting, what that looks like in terms of a believer, what Jesus had to say about fasting. And that will kind of help spark some a thought process within you, so that you can begin to pray and plan of what prayer that this, this season of prayer and fasting, will look like for you in your life. Is it? Is it going to be a time that you fast from breakfast or lunch or dinner? Is it going to be a food fast? Is it going to be some other type of fast? Because maybe you have a medical issue that doesn't permit you to do without food or whatever for a meal or so. But I want to just introduce this to you so you can begin the process of thinking through and then for the next eight weeks, which will take us well on into the 40 days of prayer and fasting. We're going to go over. We're going to read a book together, and I've printed out copies for you, which is the most legal way that I can do it without anybody knowing how I'm supposed to order this book. It's not it's not in print anymore. It's written by it's called the power of prayer and fasting. It's by Dr Ronnie Floyd, who passed away a few years ago. He served as the Southern Baptist Convention president for a term, and he was pastor at a church in Arkansas, and he had lots to say about prayer and fasting, and he wrote this book, and we went through it with the family ministry at First Baptist Madison several years ago, back in 2019 and it's a really good book, but you can't find it online. You can't find it in digital print, and the law says that you can't make photocopies like I have, and unless the author is deceased and has been deceased for 20 years. But when I contact the contacted the publisher. They sent me to Lifeway. When I sent me to life when they when I contacted Lifeway, they sent me to the publisher. And so it was just this back and forth. And ironically, the publisher is owned by Lifeway, and no one, no one could tell me anything. So if any of you have any ties to the people that own the rights of this book, I will write them a check for what we're doing, but I need to know who to write it to. But this is too good of material for us to pass up. And so what I'm going to do is each of the book is eight chapters each week. I'm going to give you another chapter that you can take home with you and spend the next seven days reading it, thinking through and everything. There's some discussion questions at the end. We're going to come back for the next eight Wednesdays, and we're going to discuss what that chapter talked about and talk about the questions that was at the end of the chapter. So it'll be a very discussion oriented Wednesday night, not, not very kind of different from the setting that we're we've been used to. So come, come with some ideas and thoughts and some challenges. If there's something that is been written that you want to challenge or say, I don't agree with this, this is the way I look at it, please do this is for the benefit of our church family, so that as we enter into a time of prayer and fasting, we're able to wholly hear from God, so that he can talk to us and that he can do what only He can do. That makes sense. So that the chapter that you have before you is chapter one, and and I hope that you read it, get a lot out of it. If you miss a Wednesday, I can email you a copy, or we can print, print some, and you can pick em up at the church office, whatever is easiest for you. And we'll just, we'll plan on doing it like that. Okay, in the meantime, if anybody has the number to Ronnie Floyd's estate, please let me know. And it's on camera, so trying to be transparent here. So we know a lot about prayer. As Baptist, we are a praying people. We know how to pray, we know when to pray. Our prayer life can always grow deeper and stronger, right? But one of the things that we don't know a lot about is fasting. So tonight, we're going to take a look at fasting and what that actually means in the life of a Baptist, because when something happens in people's lives, Baptists are really good at caring for one another through casseroles. But when, when tragedy seems to strike and we need to hear from the Lord, fasting is sometimes the last thing on our mind, and so tonight, we're going to talk. Take a look at fasting. So if you have your copy of God's word, turn with me to Mark chapter nine. And we're just going to look at two verses here in a little bit, verses, 28 and 29 Mark chapter nine. Verses 28 and 29 and so the question that I want to open up and ask you is, have you ever wondered why we don't see miracles today the way that we read about them in the Bible? That's That's not it. Yeah, the font looks he has a few own fasting, prayer and fasting, but the font, the title, looks like that. So what's that I wonder, if it's a different version. Have to look at send me that. If you don't mind, send me that link, I'll I like to look at it. So yeah, have you ever wondered why we don't see miracles today the way that we see them, that we've read about in the Bible, and you can answer, you know, what, we may not look for them, that that's that is a that is a great insight there. You think the power died with the last, I'm going to say, yes, with the disciples, possibly see what I did there. But I think miracles still happen through the power of God today, but the the ability for the individual may come into question and and I've got a good sermon for that, I'm gonna have to bring that one in. What else? What do you think about miracle? Modern day miracles? Think they happen. Okay, I would agree. Okay, fantastic. Would you say, let me throw out an example, and you may disagree with me, and that's okay. You have a right to be wrong. Would you say that they that the birth of a child is a miracle? Would anybody say no? I'm going to raise my hand and say no, okay. May have offended some of you, or either piqued your interest. Would you say that an asteroid headed to the earth to crush the earth is somehow veered off course by no sort of man made thing, and the earth is spared, would that be a miracle? Yeah, I would say yes. It make a good movie here. Here's why. I would say that the birth of a child is not a miracle. And the move and and the asteroid going off course. Unexplained is a miracle. A miracle in and of itself, is defined as God disbanding the natural laws of science to meet his will. Does that make sense? A miracle? Is God disbanding the natural laws of science for his will to be accomplished? Okay, so let's think back to a baby being born. Is that natural law of science for a baby being born? Yes, so I would say that that happens every single day, hundreds of 1000s, if not millions, of times a day a child is born. So that is the most natural thing that we could probably use as an example. Now, there are instances when medical issues cannot be explained and the child something's wrong, and then the child is miraculously healed in utero, or whatever. I would classify that as a miracle. But the fact, the perfect fact, of a of a child being born, no complications have ever been listed. The birth of a child is a natural thing. Yes, ma'am, yeah, I would say the child itself is a miracle. We're all miracles because God has spoken all of this into existence, so that the creation, in and of itself is a miracle. So, but, but do you see the differentiating factors there? And then an asteroid heading to destroy the earth, all of a sudden goes off course, unexplained, and no human flew a rocket into it. You know that that that's unexplained. That's, that's, it was unnatural for that. To happen, but anyway, so, yes, there are miracles. I believe that still happen today. Why don't we see them like we read about in in the time of Jesus? Exactly, we're so focused on us and everything that we tend to not be looking for them. But let me throw this out there too. We tend to forget to ask. We forget to ask for God to show up and show out and do what only He can do. The reason Jesus performed miracles in the New Testament was to call attention to himself as to who he is, the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Messiah, the One who has come to show his authority and to show his authenticity. That's why Jesus performed miracles that and because of the compassion that he had for others. And so when we get to Mark chapter nine, we're introduced to this weird story that occurs a couple different times in Scripture, of a demon, possessed person being healed. And so in Mark 928, and 29 we see that there is a young guy, and he has a son, and his son is possessed by an evil spirit, a demon. And he has been possessed since birth, and all throughout his life he has this demon has caused him to throw himself in the water, throw himself in the fire, and cause physical harm to the young man, and so he has had this struggle since infancy, infancy and and this loving father does what a loving father would do. He looks for ways to help his son out. And as the disciples are coming, one day, he sees the disciples, and He calls them over to perform the miracle and to cast out the demon out of his sons. And the disciples believe that they have the authority to do this. After all, Jesus told them, you will have the authority to do like things. And so, believing what Jesus has told them, they approach the Son, and they do their best to cast the demon out of the young man, but it fails, and they're not able to it doesn't work. The boy is still the same, and so the disciples are perplexed. Jesus said, we could do this, but it didn't happen. They're arguing. And so here comes Jesus into the picture. And when Jesus walks in to the picture of our lives, you can be assured that hope will be restored. You see you may be going through turmoil and trials in your life right now, but the moment you open the doors of your heart and you let Jesus take control of that situation, hope can be restored now. It may not be instantaneous, like we read in certain accounts, but Jesus will restore the hope. And so Jesus walks in, and especially for the father, the hope is restored. And so the father rushes over to Jesus, and he he asked him if he can cast the demon out, because his disciples couldn't. Well, Jesus was a little taken aback, if you, if you read it a little correctly, you Jesus. The verbiage here shows that Jesus was a little, wait a minute, you asking me if I can do this? And so Jesus says to him, Can I do it? As if that's a no brainer. You know, you look at all the things that I have done up until this point, and Jesus says something. He says, All things are possible for the one who believes. And so Jesus tells him, if you have your Bibles open, just go a few verses before what Jesus says to the Father. You may want to underline, put an asterisk beside it, because what Jesus tells us is applicable. Tells the father is applicable for us still today, and Jesus tells him all things are possible for the one who believes. And the father cries out and said, I believe, but help my unbelief. You ever get to that moment in your life? You know you believe, but there's something deep down inside that that may be from satan telling you, the Lord really isn't going to do that, the Lord's really not going to revive his church, the Lord's not going to heal your loved one. You believe that he can, but there's still a little doubt. And so the father says what many of us have said time and time again, I believe but Help my unbelief. That needs to be our prayer every single day, I believe but Help my unbelief. And so Jesus then extracted the demon, and the boy looked dead. He looked like a corpse. But before anybody could get extremely worried, Jesus reaches down, grabs the young boy's hand and raises him up to show that he is okay. And so after Jesus did this, everyone rejoiced, now comes a teachable moment, because this story is not necessarily about casting out demons and miracles in and of himself, but this story is what Jesus ends up teaching his disciples about not relying on themselves, but relying on the Father. So in Mark 928, and 29 we read this, and when Jesus had entered the house, the disciples asked Him privately why they could not cast it out, and he said to them, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but by prayer and fasting. Now your version may just say prayer. There may be an asterisk there. There are many manuscripts that do couple that prayer with fasting. So also, always read your footnotes and things like that too. So So several manuscripts show prayer and fasting, but that's that's beside the point. So the question now becomes, as Jesus is instructing his disciples on this, what was Jesus saying? What did he mean? Well, the disciples had been given the authority by Jesus to exercise this demon and to perform a miracle, just as Jesus had done. They had seen him do it before Jesus told them, You have the authority to do this. And so they thought they did, and they went about doing exactly what they saw Jesus do, and they they failed. But in that moment, in the moment that they tried to excise the demon out of the young boy, the moment that it failed, here's what happened. They realized that their power was insufficient. They realized that their power was limited and they could not do what Jesus could do. Jesus comes in. Jesus performs the miracle. He raises the boy up, and he takes the disciples in the back room and says to them, listen, in this case. This case is different. This case is very unique. This is special. What you're trying to do is different from any other thing that you have seen. And the only way that you can exercise authority in this case, is by prayer and fasting. What did he mean? You see in the minds and the of the disciples and in our minds, oftentimes, they thought that it was their authority and their power and their ability that would be leveraged in order for them to perform the miracle, but Jesus reminded them that it is not your authority, it is not your power, it is not your strength that you can do something like this. It's not about you, and it's not about what you can, can or cannot do. It's not about you. And so he says that this only comes from the supernatural act and power of your heavenly Father through prayer and fasting and in order disciples chose. Church. In order to be in a position to exercise that kind of authority and power, you must be in a position of prayer and fasting so that God can do what only God can do. And the same is true in our lives. We have to put ourselves in a position to not only believe that God can do what God can do, but to allow God to do what God can do. And that comes through what Jesus was saying here, prayer and fasting, and you see from that time on, the disciples knew what it looked like to work under the authority of God. Do you know what it looks like to work under the authority of God? Remember John 15, verse five says this, apart from me, you can do everything, no, apart from me, you can do nothing that that should humble us and put us in a position to say, Okay, God, it's all you. I can't but you can revive our church, send people our way that we can share the gospel with and not just to the front doors of the church, but as we're going through the shopping lines in Walmart and Kroger and at the gas station and in our jobs and in our families and in our homes. Give me a gospel opportunity, because if you're not actively sharing your faith, and you're not intentionally looking for opportunities to share the gospel. You are in direct disobedience of Jesus Christ. Jesus said in Matthew 2819 and 20, All authority has been given into given unto me, go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. That was a command church, that was not a suggestion. So the command from Jesus to go and make disciples and baptize and teach you're in direct defilement or disobedience if you're not actively looking for someone to share the gospel with, and that's sinful, and I'm guilty of that as well. So may the Lord burden our hearts for the lost and just evermore knocked a stew out of us when we miss it. You see, for God to do something amazing, supernatural, powerful, you need to be in a position of prayer and fasting. That's what prayer and fasting is all about. It's about putting ourselves in a position to let God do what only He can do. The direct definition of fasting that I gave you a couple Sundays ago is abstaining from food with a spiritual goal in mind, abstaining from something predominantly food with a spiritual goal in mind. So let me ask you this, what do you have in your life that is distracting you from listening to God to receive spiritual advice, spiritual direction and spiritual humility. There are so many things that distract us, and especially for southerners, food tends to be number one. And that's why, throughout the Old Testament, the New Testament, you see many examples of fasting. And so what you do is you abstain from food in in a specific moment of your of your day, or however the Lord leads you, you abstain from this food so that you can work on your relationship with your heavenly Father. But let me tell you, it's through your time of prayer and fasting over these four over this 40 day period. If you don't start with yourself, I don't believe you're ever going to see God move if you, if you start big picture with the problems that our nation has and and they've got some big problems, you. But you're not focused on yourself. You may be the one that one of the ones that's in the way that God needs to move in order to move. And so throughout the Old Testament, the New Testament, we see fasting being used throughout the rhythm of the Bible. And did you know that in the Bible, fasting is spoken more of than baptism? It's pretty close, but fasting is mentioned 77 times in the Bible, and baptism is only mentioned 75 times. That's how important it is. So as we look to our church wide fast that we will be doing September 27 through November the fifth, I want to give you four guidelines for fasting, four things that it's that would help you out. I thought I printed a listening guide with these on there, and I didn't, so I'm sorry. So congratulations. You get to write them all down, or, if you're really smart, pull out your phone and just take a picture of the screen when they come up. Brilliant, Alright, number one, four guidelines. Jesus never gave a spiritual command regarding the frequency or the duration of a fast he never told us, this is how long you should fast, and this is how often you should fast, seven days. He did it for 40 days, which is why we're doing it, but that there's no magical number in in 40 days, there's no magical number in seven There's no magical number in one day. He didn't do it. He didn't he didn't do the fast and talk about prayer and fasting in order to be legalistic or ritualistic. If he if that was the case, then you could look at prayer and fasting as a prerequisite or a post requisite of your salvation. And so he didn't do that because of that very reason. He left it up to the individual to do as the Lord leads you to do. And so it like we said a few Sundays ago, there are different types of fast. There's a national fast, an individual fast, a congregational fast. Congregational fast is what we're doing. And so there may come a time in your life that you need to have just a fast between you and God, for God to reveal something to you His will. And that's fine, and it may need to last a day, it may need to last a week, but that's between you and God there. There's no line item in in the scripture that says that it has to be a certain time and it has to be a certain frequency. Number two, fasting must always have a spiritual purpose. Fasting must always have a spiritual purpose. We have several different medical reasons to fast, and that's fine. You know that if you, if you're fasting for to lose weight and things like that, that that's fine. That is one of the benefits of fasting. If you if you do it faithfully. The the intermittent fasting is a popular diet and everything, but that's not a spiritual maneuver. And so a biblical fast is God centered and God focused? Okay, when you enter into a fast. If it is self centered and self focused, you're not going to hear from God. And so in my newsletter article, I share me fasting to decide whether or not me coming here was God's will or not. And fortunately for me, I don't know about you, God said yes, but that was an individual, private fast that that I did just so I could get clarity on God's will. It was God centered and God focused had nothing to do with Brian. Thank goodness. Number three, a normal fast involves abstaining from food, but not from water. Okay, there, there's difference of opinions and things here. There's nothing in the Bible that says, hey, don't eat but drink water or anything like that. But let me, let me, kind of give you my thought process behind this is when, when we take the biblical fast and we look at the biblical fast, it says that we do not have food. You. Biblical fast does not have food. And it's it could be you could substitute that for whatever that's between you and the Lord. Remember, it's not to be legalistic, but it does not say that we cannot have water. There's nothing in scripture that says, When you fast, you cannot have water. And so think back to the time when Jesus was beginning his ministry, and he goes out into the Judean Desert. And while he was out there, he fast for 40 days and 40 nights. During that time, Satan tempted him three times. He rebuked Satan every time with scripture. That's a good thing to have in your in your front pocket is knowledge of biblical scripture that you can quote when Satan starts putting doubts and distractions in your life period, but especially during your time of fast, because your mind's going to wander and and you're going to be tempted to eat and give in and all of that kind of stuff. Put scripture in your pocket and quote Scripture. And so while he is out there, he uses, he uses the scripture to fight the battle. But notice that the Bible never says during this fast that Jesus, it says that Jesus abstained from food, but the Bible doesn't say that he drank water, but it also doesn't say that he didn't drink water. So it says he he fasted from food, but it never says that he drank or he didn't drink water. Okay, so there's nothing in Scripture that that says that you can or cannot drink water. It's, it's left unstated. And here's the here's the idea behind the body can do without food a lot longer than it can do without water. But you are the master. Here's, here's the point. You are the master of your mind, and you are the master of your stomach. You are as hard as it. I mean, it doesn't look like it from my I give in to gluttony way more than I should. And that may be something that we want to call the church to as well, to honor the god. Honor God with the temple of the our bodies that he has given us here in the future, and let's all commit to eating clean. I need to honor him a lot better in that in my life too. But you are the master of your mind and your stomach. You're not a slave to your mind. You're not a slave to your stomach. If you decide to fast in the morning, when that grumbling starts to take place and make itself known with the well sound. You know what I'm talking about. In the middle of a prayer, when it's the most quiet with the most people around, is when your stomach is going to let you know that it's hungry. Anybody ever been there? Can you testify? Yeah, and so and it usually happens if you're fasting in the morning from breakfast. It's usually going to happen around nine or 10am and but here's what you need. Let that be a reminder. That's your body reminding you that you need God more than you need food. Let that be your reminder. It's a reminder that we feast on God and not on food. It's a reminder that apart from God, there is nothing that we can do on our own, and so we need him in our lives, but you do what your body can handle. Okay, don't, don't, don't go into this ignorantly blindly. Know what your body can handle and know what your doctor has advised you to do if you take a if you take medicine that requires you to have food on your stomach, good grief, don't fast from that meal. Okay, that that's that's crazy. We've all had medicine that we should have eaten with, and we know that the toll that it plays, but between you and your doctor and your wisdom, do what you think that, and you know that your body can can handle and that's healthy for you. If you can't abstain from from food and water, that's okay. God still loves you. He's got a great plan for your life. But pick something else that that you can abstain from that you can fast from, that's going to help you focus your life on God. You can find something that you can abstain from. But the point is this, it's not to be legalistic. Okay, there's no, I'm not going to hand you a checklist that says, Okay, I did this, I did this, I did this. It's between you and God, and what you put into it is what you'll get out of it. And so it's not legalistic. It's it's to be moving from the substance that we crave for us to be moving toward a God who we need, amen. We move from the substance that we crave to a God that we need. And lastly, number four, fasting should be done in private. Fasting should be done in private. 99.9% of the time when we look at Scripture, fasting is conducted in private. And Jesus said in Matthew 16, in Matthew 616, and 18. He said, When you. Do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces and their that their fasting may be seen by others truly. I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret, and as your Father, who sees in secret, he will reward you. And so church fasting is done, also individually, also congregationally, like we're doing, but it is to be done in private. So don't come on up in here and and church during the 40 days and look like you're just miserable and and ain't got it all together, and all of that stuff come up in here looking like you just ate some of Babs chicken pot pie. That was fantastic, by the way. But here's my question for you, what do you want God to do in and through you and in and through his church? You?