Now, will you turn to Matthew chapter 17? I think we just must go back and look closely, once more closely, at one verse of Scripture in the last chapter as we move on through the 18th. But in the 17th chapter, there was a verse that I spiritualized on when I preached about it, a very perfectly legitimate homiletical device. But I want to speak specifically tonight to the matter of fasting. You will recall that over in Matthew 17, verse 21, if you'll pardon the pun, the disciples had been faced with one devil of a problem and they had not been able to solve it. And they came to Jesus and he said, not every problem's alike. There are degrees of difficulties. And he said, this particular kind is not solved except by prayer and fasting. I have brought many sermons to you on the matter of fasting, only on the prayer, only one on fasting about a year ago. And tonight, casually and informally and briefly, I want us to open our Bibles and just look at some passages and do an informal word study of this word fasting. Last week, our building committee had their final approval of the most fantastic church plans. I guess that there ever were. You wouldn't believe there's a book this thick of dozens and dozens of pages. And then there are two books that are almost, what, six or seven inches high of just the specs, every bolt and light bulb and every bit of fabric. Just the library is 8 ,000 feet and has the most fantastic learning center in any church in America. And I'll tell you that you won't believe how wonderful and effective it's going to be. And on the 12th day, yes, 12th day of July at 3 p .m., the bids will be open. Now, we projected and raised our amount from, as you know, I think about $4 to about $5 .5 million for the facility itself, exclusive of land and other things, as you know. And inflation continues to go. And we're hoping and praying that those bids will come back in pretty close to $5 .5 million. I don't think anybody would think we're very unreasonable if it were a little more than that, maybe $6 or $1 or $2. But if a bid of $8 or $10 million came in, it would be a tragedy that we would have to do some serious shifting to try to deal with. And I'm praying every day, almost every minute, that there's some hungry builders in the city of Houston and that God will lead us just to the right one, not only a good bid, but the right bidder, the right man. I'll tell you why. Because if you've ever built buildings before, it can be a headache if you're working with a builder. And I hope we get a Christian man that's effective and quick and that it's a beautiful thing. And I'm saying that we are about the 1st of August now when construction will begin, beginning on the most important and fantastically exciting phase, perhaps, in the history of this church. And God has laid heavily on my heart to call our church to a season of new commitment and prayer, not only for a good bid, but for ourselves in dedication and holiness to God as we begin this important phase in the life of this church. People, you know me to be extra vertical and enthusiastic and excited. But I'll tell you, I try to restrain myself. And sometimes when I think about this, I just want to say, Woohoo! I don't say it, but sometimes I want to say that because I'll tell you what's going to happen. What's going to happen when, I apologize to our Methodist friends and Episcopal friends, right, when I think what's going to happen, oh, well, it's going to be exciting, isn't it? It's wonderful, the future that's just before us. Over in Matthew 17, verse 21, Jesus says very clearly about this extra difficult problem. How be it this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. He is saying that there are particular times when great needs are before you that you need to call yourself through seasons of prayer and fasting. I've looked through the Bible and I found that there are four major periods of time, four circumstances under which it is right for one to fast. Turn with me, if you will. Now, let's flip through our Bibles and study some of these as hurriedly as possible. First of all, to the book of Exodus. Genesis, Exodus, the second book in the Bible, way back at the beginning. Exodus 34, please. Exodus chapter 34, verse 27. Moses had gone up to the mountain. God had given him the commandments. Listen, and the Lord said unto Moses, write thou these words. For after the tenor of these words, I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And it was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He did neither eat bread nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments. And it came to pass when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the Mount, that Moses wist or knew not, that the skin of his face shone while he talked with them. At the beginning of his ministry of leading the people under the direct leadership of God with the ten commandments, God had done something with him. And a new day was beginning with Israel, and God's man fasted for forty days and forty nights. Matthew chapter 4. Now let's go back to the first book of the New Testament. Matthew chapter 4. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. You see, he could not defeat temptation for us in the lives of believers until he had done it himself. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward and hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. Jesus Christ had been trained in the school of God's university for thirty long years. He had been baptized. At his baptism, he had been anointed by God publicly by the Holy Spirit. And now he was ready to do battle. His three -year earthly ministry was begun. And you that think college and seminary is not important and you need to get out now and win the world, let me remind you that Jesus prepared thirty years for a three -year ministry. And when he began, he went into the mountain and fasted for forty days and forty nights. Now turn over to the book of Acts, chapter 14, verse 32. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts. The fifth book in the New Testament. Now let us look at Acts, chapter 14. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts. I'm turning with you. We'll take our time to find them together. Chapter 14, verse number 23. And when they had ordained them elders in every church, pastors, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord on whom they believed. When they ordained leadership and the leadership of the church began their ministry with the people, it was a season of prayer and fasting. And so we see that all through the Bible when men began great ventures, a new phase of ministry, a new day, a new season of conquest, it was begun with a period of fasting. And I want us to think what would God have us to do individually as we give ourselves to God and ask Him for a good bid for a good building for the beginning of a new day in our church toward the matter of fasting. Number two, it is important to fast when you feel that Jesus is very far away. Now turn to Mark, chapter 2. Back to the second book, Matthew, Mark of the New Testament. Chapter 2, verses 18 and 20. Mark, chapter 2. Let's find it. Verse 18. And the middle, the Pharisees said, we'll start in the middle of the verse 18. Why do the disciples of John, they asked Jesus, and of the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples, Jesus, fast not? Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bride chamber fast while the bridegroom is with them, as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. Jesus is saying here that fasting has to do with the nearness or distance of Jesus in a man's life. He is saying that when Jesus is near, he said the bridegroom is with them. It is a time for feasting and joy and praising and celebration. But he said the time will come when the bridegroom is far away from the bride. They will be separated from him. His presence will not be tinglingly near or vitally present. And that's the time to give yourself wholly to concentration and communication with the distanced presence of God that his presence may seem again to come near. From time to time, we go through periods of depression, through valleys of loneliness, when somehow it seems that our prayers are not getting off the ground. And no matter what else we do, that God is very far away. In those times, you can reestablish a sense of the nearness of Jesus, the bridegroom to the bride, by periods in which you give yourself totally in concentration to his living presence, through a separation, a cutoff of everything else, and give yourself only to fasting and prayer. Number three, it is good to fast when you need power over Satan, when you sense a struggle with him in your life. You will remember that at this point, Jesus' disciples returned home. Jesus had gone to the Mount of Transfiguration with three. Nine had gone out. They had healed. They had cast out devils. They had preached. But they came up against a case, and they prayed in faith the best they knew how. They said, in the name of Jesus Christ, come out. And the devil didn't come out. And nothing happened. They were embarrassed publicly. They were humiliated. They had done hand -to -hand conflict with the devil and had lost. And Jesus said, the reason is that there are different degrees of evil, different degrees of problems to be dealt with, and this kind of problem is not solved except by prayer and fasting. Do you think that Jesus was caught off guard on the Mount of Temptation? Do you think that he was surprised when Satan came to him? No, not at all. I believe the reason Jesus fasted for 40 days and nights was because he knew the devil was coming to him, and he would be prepared in the Spirit of the Lord. Now, we need to remember that Jesus was deity, but that his deity was clothed in his humanity, and we must have an excessive and exaggerated opinion of neither of them. He was both God and man. He had to fast. He had to pray. He was tempted at all points, like as are we. And he grasped and grappled with the devil. And to defeat him, he had to pray, and he had to fast. Many of you are going through experiences in the office where you work, in the social clubs to which you belong, in your business relationships. There is someone, there is something, and you are fighting the devil. Now, let me say this to you. Time spent fighting God's battles has not lost time. That's a good time. Keep on fighting, brothers. It's not the temptation that is the sin. It is the yielding to the temptation that is sin. But during this time when you feel that your heart is about to give in, I want you to understand that when you are facing temptation and fighting conflict with the devil, it is time to give yourself to a season of prayer and fasting. Then there's a fourth time. Now, I'll not reread this, but I suggest to you that it's time to pray and fast when you need a word from the Lord. You remember when Moses went up there on that mount I talked about a moment ago? He went into the presence of God, and it was critical for him to know precisely what God had to say. Not one word of those commandments could be wrong. Suppose he had come back and made a one -word mistake, and had said, Thou shalt steal instead of Thou shalt not steal. Well, we would have all been in trouble, wouldn't we? He had to hear a clear -cut word from God. I have found that when there are critical decisions to be made, and we must know precisely what God is saying, that it is a time to give ourself to a clear mind in a season of prayer and fasting. Well, our time is a bit late, and I'll not read this, but let me just say that in 1 Kings chapter 19, you find the story of after that great experience, as often happens, when Elijah called on the prophets of Baal, far from heaven, after a great experience, the prophet backslid. He went into a state of depression, and he ran from the presence of Jezebel, and hid in a cave and sat down and wanted to die. Well, our time is a bit late, and I'll not read this, but let me just say that in 1 Kings chapter 19, you find the story of after that great experience, as often happens, when Elijah called on the prophets of Baal, far from heaven, after a great experience, the prophet backslid. He went into a state of depression, and he ran from the presence of Jezebel, and hid in a cave and sat down and wanted to die. And in the 19th chapter, you can read it when you get home, you will find that God was far removed, and he began to fast and pray, and he prayed and fasted for 40 days. And the Bible says at the end of his fast, and the word of the Lord came again unto Elijah. Oh, what a world we would have if every preacher and every Sunday school teacher of every church would spend a period of time a week so preparing, so getting their ear attuned to God, that when they stand before their people and stand before their class, they know they have a word from heaven to give to the people. Now, let me call to your attention a couple of things about how one is to fast. I do want us to read in Matthew 6, verses 16 to 18. Matthew 6, again the first book of the New Testament, verses 16 to 18. Moreover, when ye fast, you will note that Jesus did not say, if ye fast. He assumed that his followers would do so. When ye fast, don't be like the hypocrites of a sad countenance, for they disfigure their face. They get it all screwed up and look so miserable so that they will appear unto men that they're fasting. Verily say I say unto you, that when men look at them and say, Oh, poor soul, he's suffering so much, and they get a pat on the back, they already have their reward. No. He said, when you fast, anoint your head. Put on some perfume. Wash your face. Well, some cologne. As you appear not unto men to fast, but only unto thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Ladies and gentlemen, Jesus is saying that fasting must be done alone and in private as much as is possible. It is well never to speak of a fast until after the fast is concluded. It is well that only your wife or those who are involved intimately in your life who perhaps protecting your schedule or preparing your meals must know but quietly and privately that none know for we fast unto God. Another thing about fasting, I do not believe that one should fast unless he has been specifically led by the Spirit of God to do so. Now, there are two kinds of fast. The health fattest people talk about fasting for weight, and it's good to purify the body. And a few days of no food and only water kind of lets the body tune itself, and that's good. We're talking about a spiritual kind of fast, which is for the soul as well as the body. I don't believe that I'm not asking any person in the church to make any public decision to go on any kind of a fast on any particular basis. And maybe that some of you will think about fasting one day a week for the next three weeks, or maybe one meal a week for six months, or maybe four days or four, I do not know. Maybe most of you, God will not lead at all. But I am saying that whatever type of fast and for whatever duration, if he does, he must lead. The third thing is the fast must be a time of inactivity. This was very important. I did not notice it until only a few weeks ago. Look back again in Matthew 15, verse 32. Matthew chapter 15, verse 32. 15, 32. You see, a group of people were in the presence of Jesus. The disciples said, send them home, but it was late and they were hungry. And Jesus called his disciples and said, I have compassion on this multitude because they continue here with me now three days. They have nothing to eat and I will not send them away fasting lest they faint in the way. He said, I want them to eat before they take this long journey back to Jerusalem. They had come to the Sea of Galilee, some eight or 10 or 20 miles away. The time to fast is not while you're in a tennis tournament or putting in six hard days a week. It's a time when you can find somewhere on the calendar to get alone. You need to spend most of your time in bed with your Bible, resting. It's not a time to mow the yard and dig up trees. It is a time of inactivity. Jesus said, they'll faint. This is not to go together. The effort of work and a fast. It is time, a time for separation. Let me say to you that a fast brings about terrific benefits. For one thing, the mind clears. Some of you have something wrong with you and you don't know what it is. And you go from pill to pill and psychologist to psychologist and you're as religious as you know how and you come to church and you read the Bible. But all you know is that there is confusion and gloom and depression. I think depression may be the number one problem in America. And there's just gloom and God is separate and you're just distanced from God and life is just out of balance. A time of fasting can beautifully reorient your whole life and miraculously somehow bring everything back into focus. Physically, the body throws off poisons that have been stored. The eyes clear. The brain is quickened. The speech is sharp. The thought processes are keen. The spiritual power is intensified. It does much. As a man who wrestles from the cradle to the grave with the good and the evil within him takes things by the horns and says of the spirit to the flesh, we're going to get in control of you. We will not be dictated by our appetites and passions and bodily needs. The Bible also makes it very clear that it is not a time for a sexual relationship between married persons in 1 Corinthians 7 .45. But the totality of all one's being is to be thrust into the time of a hunger and seeking for God. Let me say a couple of practical things to you if God should lead you to fasting. For one thing, the way you come into a fast is critical. Now listen to me. You shouldn't eat a big, greasy dinner three times a day and then cut it off the next day. You need to taper off in your food and you need to eat nothing but fresh fruit the day before a fast. And then about a day or two into the fast, just a little bit for breakfast and then just maybe one piece of fruit the last day and then go on water. By all means, don't ever fast without water. In the fast, you will find a strange thing that happens. The first day is pretty bad. The second day is not quite so bad. And the third day is hell on earth. Your headaches, your stomach burns. The fourth day is the easiest of all. The fifth day, it's almost gone. And from about the end of the fifth day on for whatever duration, you feel almost no hunger at all. Eventually lose your appetite for food. Did you notice something I read a moment ago? Jesus went into the mountain and fasted for 40 days and was afterward and hungered. Jesus didn't get hungry until the fast was over. Now, you'll get hungry at the beginning of the fast, awfully so, but in a protracted fast, you actually don't get hungry until it's over. Now, let me say this to you, too. I don't believe that anyone should go on any kind of a protracted fast. I suppose that would be seven days or longer without the consultation of a physician. And listen, please, very closely. At the end of a fast, you can kill yourself if you eat too much. You can go without food for 30 or 40 days and sit down and eat a big, greasy meal and stuff yourself and die. It can kill you. You must come off of the fast very, very slowly. Steamed carrots are very good the first day. Not the most edible thing in the world, for somebody's been dreaming about T -bone steaks, but it sure keeps you from killing yourself. Consult a doctor. Let me say this one other thing to our hearts. I rather imagine that ideally, ideally, philosophically, the best kind of fast and concept of fasting is that one is so consumed with a desire, a burden, a project, so concerned with it, so burdened, so enamored, so enraptured in prayer, so obsessed with it, that actually he simply loses his appetite. That ideally is what fasting is. But it is also true that repeatedly the Bible ordered fasts and fasting was given by directive. Leviticus 23, 27, 29, God ordered a fast on the day of the day of the seventh month, a specific time, Joel 2, 16. Joel calls for a public fast in time of calamity. And I have noticed that there were such awesome experiences in the people of God when they wanted and needed God's presence in difficult times so much that women even refused to feed their children. And once Moses took all of the cattle and all of the livestock off of all food and water for a period of time, that all of the people in their possessions would fast. 2nd Chronicles 23, Jehoshaphat proclaims a fast. Ezra 8, 21, Ezra ordered the people to fast. Isaiah 58, 3, Isaiah proclaimed a fast. Joel announced a fast. Jonah pronounced a fast in 3, 5, and Jeremiah in 36, 9. So I am saying that there are times when it is right for us to proclaim a season of fasting. I am saying that God has given us the most wonderful building, the most wonderful opportunity with the most wonderful church, the most wonderful plans, the most wonderful plans, the most wonderful loan he ever did for anybody ever. Only one other thing needs to occur. We need a good bed, and we need a blessed experience with no problems as the building is beautifully constructed to the glory of God. And I would call you as a church to a season of fasting. I do not know what God would lead you specifically, if any of you, to do. I want you for a few days to make it a matter of prayer. Whether it's one meal a week or 40 days or any combination thereof that God leads you to, I want you to ask you as a church at some means to the next three weeks when those bids are open, about four now, that as God leads you and if he leads you, you personally would respond to his call. Give yourself to a season of prayer and fasting as we dedicate ourselves to God for the beginning of a new day. Now, maybe that there are some of these other things which are needs personally in your life. You need a word from the Lord. You need direction. You need to hear from heaven. You need power over temptation. Maybe it's to control the body for a season, which can turn your whole life around and gets you in control of things and starts you in the other direction. But as God leads you for whatever purpose and under whatever conditions, I know that you will respond. May we stand. Our Father, we stand before thee tonight with open hearts. Oh, we love you, Lord Jesus. Oh, we love our church, our staff, these dear young people, our wonderful folks. And we are on the verge now of a critical need. We need a good bid. We need a beautiful building. We need it done quickly and effectively to God's glory. Satan can get in a million ways. And we call our hearts to this type of program as God would speak individually to us about it. And pray thy people to respond as you lead them. In Jesus' name, amen. God bless you and you're dismissed.