Fasting for Spiritual Breakthrough: A Guide to Nine Biblical Fasts (20 page)

Write and rewrite the decision you need to make during the Saint Paul Fast
. Don’t be satisfied with one writing of the problem facing you. Each time you study the data, clarify your thinking. Each time you go through the strategy of decision making, rewrite the problem or the decision you must make.

Write out facts that influence your decision and review them with prayer
. Reading through all of the facts in a folder will help, but rewriting them
on a sheet of paper will give you greater insight. As you rewrite the facts, you objectify the situation. Sometimes it helps to draw a line down the middle of a sheet of paper listing the reasons for “yes” on one side and the reasons for “no” on the other side. This “scales” approach transfers the problem from your mind to the paper in front of you to study objectively.

Write out all possible solutions before attempting to make a decision
. The best decision is usually one of several possible decisions. Add to the list even those decisions you first rejected. Look at all possible decisions before you make the final decision.

Wait for inner confidence in your darkest hour
. It may not be in a dream or a vision, but in your darkest hour when God will give you inner confidence about what you must do. He may give it to you through a phone call, letter or an open door of opportunity. The servant of the Lord must wait as did Eleazar, Abraham’s servant, who said, “Being on the way, the Lord led me” (Gen. 24:27). If you commit to being “on the way,” genuinely seeking God’s will, God will give you inner confidence that the world can never give. You can be “led by the Spirit of God” (Rom. 8:14).

I
N
A
PRIL
, 1985, D
EAN OF
S
TUDENTS
V
ERNON
B
REWER OF
L
IBERTY
University was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors gave him a short time to live. Vernon Brewer was a well-liked dean because he was fair in handling discipline problems. His life magnified the Lord Jesus Christ. Word about his cancer grieved the entire student body.

All 5,000 students were asked to join in prayer and fasting for Dean Brewer’s healing. The students were given several days to prepare themselves for the fast and to learn what fasting would do. Then the students began a 24-hour prayer vigil in the school chapel. The chapel only seated 200 people, so the students were asked to alternate 1-hour segments throughout the night and day. The chapel was always overflowing; therefore, the chapel windows were opened, allowing students sitting on the grass outside to join in the time of prayer with those inside.

The number of those praying during the darkest hours of the night was greater than during the day when classes were in session. The food services of the university shut down, except for a small serving line for about 50 diabetic students who had to eat and could not physically join in the fast. Even then, those whose conditions required them to eat prayed just as intently as those who were fasting.

After fasting and praying, three medical procedures were performed to save Dean Brewer’s life. First, a five-pound cancerous mass was surgically removed from his chest. Next, he received both radiation
and chemotherapy. As I write this story 10 years later, Vernon Brewer is alive, and as healthy as he was before we fasted and prayed. He directs World Help, a missionary and humanitarian organization. Every time I see Vernon Brewer, I know God heals in answer to prayer and fasting.

God has promised, “Is not this the fast that I have chosen...[that] your healing shall spring forth speedily” (Isa. 58:6,8). When we begin fasting and praying for physical health and healing, we must realize that it is God who heals. His name Jehovah Rapha means, “I am the
Lord
who heals you” (Exod. 15:26, emphasis mine).

We enter the Daniel Fast for two physical reasons: (1) as therapy when we are sick and need healing, or (2) as prevention to keep us from becoming sick or getting a disease.

Preventive Healing

In the setting of Exodus 15, the Lord was promising preventive healing. He promised His divine protection to keep his people from becoming sick, rather than just “prescriptive” healing—removing an illness from them. “If you obey me by doing right and by following my laws and teachings, I won’t punish you with the diseases I sent on the Egyptians” (Exod. 15:26,
CEV
).

Preventive medicine is like the mother who gives her children vitamins and bundles them in warm clothing before sending them off to school in the snow. Curative medicine is like putting the children to bed, providing medicine and rest.

An example of God’s preventive healing power is the Old Testament law prohibiting eating blood and animal fat (see Lev. 3:17). Recent medical research seems to show that bacteria and disease reside primarily in blood and fat. God wanted his people to enjoy good health.

We also know that despite the way rich food and desserts pander to our tastes, they aren’t the best for our health. The Daniel Fast withholds extra rich foods such as “finger food,” “party food” and desserts. Those who enter the Daniel Fast eat only necessities to (1) cleanse the digestive system, (2) rest the body and (3) renew the system.

Curative Healing

God has promised that prescriptive healing can come by faith and prayer: “The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up” (Jas. 5:15). Faith and prayer must be joined. Faith is an instrument of healing when it is joined to the tool of prayer. Even when you have faith and pray, it is still God who heals, or maintains health. The Daniel Fast rests on a three-platformed foundation: (1) faith, (2) prayer and (3) fasting.

Kevin Romine, a student at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, sat through my course “Spiritual Factors of Church Growth” during the summer of 1994. One of the assignments is to fast for a project, and/or faith event. Kevin had injured his back delivering packages while working to put himself through seminary. He was not only disabled, but he was also in intense pain. Often he had to stand in my classroom because of back pain.

In February of 1995, Kevin pitched a tent in his backyard in the county where he lived. For three days he fasted, taking neither food nor drink. He prayed for deliverance from pain, and for healing. He said, “Withholding food and drink was not the difficult part—it got extremely cold in that tent!” At the end of the 3-day fast, he continued with a 21-day fast, taking only liquid and juices.

“The pain is completely gone!” he told me three months later. “However, I haven’t tried to pick up any heavy boxes, thinking I might reinjure my back.” This student is looking forward to full-time Christian service in evangelism.

God Can Heal Through Fasting

God has placed within every physical body the ability to heal itself. Technically, doctors, surgical procedures and medicine do not heal people. In the study of pathology, we see that disease and germs cause illness in the human body. When the doctor, surgery or medicine removes the cause of the disease, then the body will heal itself.

God has given each of us a wonderful physical body that He calls “the temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:19). Every normal person is born with internal mechanisms whereby the body reproduces itself and heals itself. When a person eats a proper diet, at the proper time, in the proper way, that person will have a healthy body if disease or other physical barriers to health are not present.

A correct diet will make you healthy because you are what you eat. The Bible is neither a health book nor a diet book; however, it gives principles that can help you enjoy good health. Eat unhealthy food and you will be sick or sickly. Eat the correct food and you will normally enjoy good health.

This book is not about diets and correct nutrition, although fasting is one discipline that will improve your health. Fasting’s physical benefits include eliminating impurities, and resting the physical system so that its functions may begin balancing themselves.

The Daniel Fast may be preventive (joined with the John the Baptist Fast), keeping us from disease. Or it can be curative, moving God to intervene as the Great Physician if we already have a disease. God’s promise, “I am the
Lord
[Jehovah Rapha] who heals you” (Exod. 15:26, emphasis mine) includes both preventative and curative action. As you pray for good health, the Daniel Fast allows God to restore or maintain your body’s health.

The Hebrew, Daniel, had been taken into captivity by the Babylonian army as a young man, and transported to the city of Babylon. He and his three friends from Judea were being trained as diplomats/bureaucrats to serve in the Babylonian government. It was probably King Nebuchadnezzar’s plan to have them carry out his administrative policies over the Jewish remnant.

The plan included giving the four Hebrews the finest delicacies and wine from the king’s own provisions (see Dan. 1:5). But for reasons we will discuss later, such food was not acceptable to the Hebrews. So Daniel proposed to the king’s servants that they be allowed to “fast” from the king’s sumptuous fare, and to eat only vegetables and drink only water (v. 12). If, after 10 days, they were not in better health than their Babylonian counterparts, Daniel promised that they could be dealt with as the Babylonian guards wished. (The fact that they were allowed to demonstrate the effectiveness of their vegetarian diet indicated how important Daniel and his three friends were to the Babylonian government.)

At the end of the 10-day test period, Daniel and his friends were healthier in body and mind than the men who were served food from the
royal palace (vv. 19,20). As a result of his faithfulness, Daniel lived a long and useful life. Captured by Nebuchadnezzar as a teenager, he lived until the reign of King Cyrus of Persia, 73 years later. He was over 90 years old when he died.

The following are some steps for fasting for preventive or curative health, drawn from the biblical account of Daniel.

Step 1: Be Specific

Daniel was not vague in his objection to the Babylonian diet. He defined the problem immediately, and had a clear solution to suggest to the king’s servants. Although it was an act that had social and political implications and may well have cost him his life, Daniel was specific about his plan.

With so much at stake, why did Daniel reject the delicacies offered by the king? Three possibilities have been suggested: (1) The king’s food was against Jewish dietary laws; (2) Daniel and his three friends had vows against partaking of the alcohol (wine) that was included; and (3) the king’s food had been offered to foreign idols/demons.

The exact reason Daniel refused to eat the king’s meat is not clear. Two principles, however, are evident: (1) Daniel felt it was a religious test of his faith (he “would not defile himself” [v. 8]); (2) Daniel had a desire for a strong physical body in which to serve the Lord.