The Fundamentals of Fasting V

 Another question that has come across my desk is whether someone should fast if they’re not in the right spiritual frame. Should they fast if they’re not where they’re supposed to be in their walk or if they’ve been neglecting their time with God? To that, I say, the Ninevites did.

God had passed judgment on the people of Nineveh. They were told that in forty days, they, along with their city, would be no more, and it wasn’t because they were in the right spiritual state or their righteousness was spoken of throughout the land. If only the righteous fasted, there would be even fewer people fasting than there currently are.

Fasting aids in repentance. Fasting aids in bringing you to that place in your walk where you know it should be because when you declare a fast fully aware of your shortcomings, you are declaring that you need to draw closer to God and pursue the repentance required of you to do so. Declaring a fast when you are struggling, when the enemy is gaining ground, or when you’ve divided your time unwisely and have spent less time in His presence than you ought presupposes awareness and acknowledgment of these things.

It is when we think ourselves righteous and beyond the need to fast and pray and humble ourselves that we become vulnerable, and the enemy has an easier time of ensnaring us and pulling us into the deep. If I’m dependent upon God, if I walk humbly with Him, if I know that it’s His provision and protection that are carrying me through the dark days, the enemy will have no way in. He will find no chink in my armor. If I lean on my own understanding and trust in the arm of the flesh, if I think myself invincible and not needing God’s grace and mercy, then the enemy will fell me as surely as a woodsman fells a sapling.

As I said, I don’t know how long the people of Nineveh fasted for, but fast they did. Since they only had forty days at their disposal, logic would dictate they topped out at forty, but since we know the human body tops out at three with no food or water, we have a baseline. Keep in mind that the people of Nineveh did not have the promise of relief or any hint that God might change His mind about their destruction. Jonah’s message was not one of repentance but a declaration of judgment. He was not commanded to tell the people of Nineveh that their judgment would be forestalled if they repented. Forty days, and it’s over, was the only message Jonah delivered, but the people of Nineveh believed and took proactive action.

Jonah 3:5-9, “So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?”

One thing that often gets overlooked is that there is no mention of Jonah in the reasoning behind the people of Nineveh’s decision to proclaim a fast. It doesn’t say they believed Jonah; it says they believed God, even though the individual delivering the message, albeit grudgingly, was Jonah.

The people believed God! There are nations in this world to whom God has shown grace, to whom he has sent repeated messengers with repeated warnings, hoping those nations would do after repeated attempts what Nineveh did after one messenger came and delivered the message of the Lord.

First, it was the people, then the king. This goes to show how important a wise ruler is for a nation and how paramount it is that their judgment is sound. The king could have balked at the idea of humbling himself, he could have balked at the idea of a messenger from God, or that they would be destroyed within forty days, but instead of reacting poorly, the king also humbled himself, rose from his throne, set aside his robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes.

Had he not done this, the story of Nineveh would have played out very differently. After humbling himself, he decreed that neither man nor beast taste anything, whether food or drink, cry mightily to God, and turn from their evil way and the violence that is in their hand.

The king humbled himself first, then proceeded to decree that all others do so as well. He didn’t belong to the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do crowd, which is also noteworthy. The king’s entire reasoning for doing all this is that perhaps there was a shot, there was a chance, there was a possibility that God might relent and turn away from His fierce anger. There were no guarantees, no olive branches extended by Jonah, just the realization that without repentance, there was no shot at all of God relenting and doing everything in their power to entreat God to mercy.

There is never a wrong time to fast if the heart's intent is to draw closer to God, whether through repentance or spiritual growth. God is never absent, away, or otherwise engaged. He sees all, and if we ask Him for bread, He will not give us a stone.

Jonah 3:10, “Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.