When Ye Fast

Driving home: And so there was this same problem we face today of the pendulum swinging from this extreme to this extreme and throwing out the baby with the bat, a phrase that you've heard, I'm sure, many times.

The reformers (Zwingli, Calvin, Luther, Knox) reacted violently against the 'religious rigamarole' and 'sham' of Rome, including its fast days, which were seen as earning merit. This historical example explains why evangelicals might neglect fasting.

This is true of us in the physical realm. This is also true in the spiritual realm. And our spiritual roots as evangelical believers in America go back to the Reformation, that mighty work of God in which the great human instruments were Zwingli and Calvin and Luther and then later on Knox and some of the other great reformers. And the reformers who had seen the fallacy of this terrible religious trappings of the Church of Rome with all of its fast days, with all of its religious rigamarole, violently reacted against the sham and the hypocrisy of the Church of Rome.

2:34 - 3:13 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And so there was this same problem we face today of the pendulum swinging from this extreme to this extreme and throwing out the baby with the bat, a phrase that you've heard, I'm sure, many times.

This common idiom illustrates how the reaction against Roman Catholic abuses led to discarding the legitimate practice of fasting along with the false teachings.

And so there was this same problem we face today of the pendulum swinging from this extreme to this extreme and throwing out the baby with the bat, a phrase that you've heard, I'm sure, many times. And this is the first reason why you and I know little about fasting. We are part of a movement which is a reaction against the sham of Rome. Just look at the so-called fast day of Friday.

4:06 - 4:33 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And so there was this same problem we face today of the pendulum swinging from this extreme to this extreme and throwing out the baby with the bat, a phrase that you've heard, I'm sure, many times.

The practice of eating fish and eggs on Friday as a 'fast' is presented as a ridiculous, artificial sham that lacks true self-denial, reinforcing the reformers' reaction against such abuses.

It's just any thinking person can't help but laugh. You can laugh at it. You can stuff yourself full of fish and eggs and you're fasting. Well, that's ridiculous.

4:33 - 4:41 Read in full sermon

The point: Learn to search out the whole counsel of God with a concordance, Bible, and Bible dictionary.

Martin recounts how, as a young Christian, he learned the doctrine of repentance by looking up every reference in a concordance, rather than from his churches. This personal story illustrates the power of direct scriptural study and the danger of relying solely on tradition.

Learn to search out the whole counsel of God with a concordance of Bible and a Bible dictionary. If you've got those three tools, that's about all you need to have some wonderful time. I can remember as an early Christian, you know where I learned the doctrine of repentance? I didn't learn it from the churches I went to.

7:52 - 8:07 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The third reason is an ignorance of Christian history, leading believers to judge 'normal' Christianity by their immediate surroundings. Martin uses an extended analogy of an…

An extended hypothetical story about an island where everyone has three eyes and a green right hand, and they consider it normal. This analogy illustrates how people judge what is 'normal' by their immediate surroundings and how a lack of historical perspective can make a deviation (like neglecting fasting) seem standard.

We always judge things by what we see about us. We make the standard of our judgment as to what is normal, what we see about us in the sphere of our experience. Let me illustrate. There's a certain island and everybody on that island has three eyes and a green left hand.

9:53 - 10:11 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The world has squeezed the church into its mold of feasting instead of fasting.

Martin quotes John Wesley, who considered his two days a week of fasting as important as cardinal doctrines. This example highlights a historical figure's rigorous spiritual discipline and contrasts it with contemporary indulgence, serving as a challenge to the listener's conscience.

And the influence of our overstuffed society has gripped us. It's gripped me, dear ones, when I read, and I sometimes wish I hadn't read them from the standpoint of the wounds they give to my conscience. When I read of John Wesley, he said he would no more think of giving up his two days a week of fasting than he would of giving up one of the cardinal doctrines of Christianity. The early Methodist societies, two days a week, fasted till three in the afternoon to give themselves to concentrated prayer.

20:00 - 20:31 Read in full sermon

Driving home: There's a difference between merit and means. Prayer is not merit. So much prayer does not earn so much blessing, but prayer is a means by which we obtain blessing.

Martin uses the example of people who teach tithing as a means to earn material blessings (Cadillacs, expensive suits) to illustrate the error of viewing spiritual disciplines as merit-based rather than as means of grace.

That's the way some people teach tithing. They say, oh, I was in a mess. My business was shot. My family was poor.

26:04 - 26:10 Read in full sermon