I was going to pick up where I left off 2 weeks ago but I started thinking about Ash Wednesday and lent.  We have these traditions as part of our christian worship, but the traditions arent meant to be centered around outward observance as much as they’re meant to point to the faith revealed in Jesus.  Jesus says in John 4 the true worshippers of the Father, worship him in spirit and truth.  The Lord Jesus is that Spirit and truth.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent in the Christian tradition.  Lent points to the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness, enduring the temptation of satan.  Traditionally it’s observed by getting ashes on your forehead in the shape of a cross.  It’s meant to serve as a time of reflection, repentance, and fasting.  Some people lay something down, like chocolate, or meat, or candy, or drink, really anything they like.    

The idea of ashes and fasting comes from the law.  Leviticus talks about the fast on the day of atonement.  The idea was to afflict your soul and do no work.  Sackcloth and ashes were associated with the fast.  A sackcloth is a garment made of black goats hair.  It was course, and rough, and thick.  Remember potato sack races.  Remember how rough and course those sacks were.  Thats what a sackcloth was like.  So during a fast you would cloth yourself in a sackcloth and put ashes on your head.  

Putting on sackcloth and ashes wasnt supposed to be about following external ordinances.  There was deep meaning associated with the sackcloth and ashes.  The ashes represent dust, and the fact we were made from the dust of the ground.  Abraham says to God in Genesis 18 I am dust and ashes.  You put the ashes on your head, but the ashes were meant to be a sign of what is in your heart.  The ashes were a testimony to God, that you were created from the dust of the ground, and apart from His grace you can do nothing, and will ultimately return to the dust of the ground.  

The sackcloth was a sign you were clothed in sorrow.  David says in Psalm 30:11 you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.  The sackcloth representing the opposite of joy, which is sorrow.  

Psa 127:1  A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
Psa 127:2  It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.

The bread of sorrows.  Theres a bread that cloths in sorrow.  The psalmist says when you look to your labours as the bread that can give life, it will feed you with sorrows. 

The point of the sackcloth is you were clothed in sorrow on account of making your labours the bread that can feed you with life.  You put on the sackcloth for a testimony you believe your works are as filthy rags.  It was meant as a sign of meekness.  It was meant to be a sign you werent taking thought of your own life, what you shall eat, what you shall drink, or what you shall wear.  Putting on the sackcloth and the ashes was a sign you were humbling yourself under the mighty hand of the Lord.  It was a sign you were no longer seeking to be fed with life by your labours, but were instead seeking the face of the Lord as your food for life.  

So what was fasting all about?  What’s the meaning and purpose?  Is it about putting on sackcloth and ashes?  Is it about abstaining from food?  Hebrews 10 says the works performed in the law were a shadow of good things to come, but not the very image.  Abstaining from food, doing no work on the sabbath day, putting on sackcloth and ashes, are a shadow pointing to the fast God has chosen but they’re not the very image of the fast God chose.  Colossians 2:16-17 says let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.  The body of what these things are pointing too is realized in Christ.  

Isa 58:3  Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.  ** laboring to care for your natural life **
Isa 58:4  Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.
Isa 58:5  Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?
Isa 58:6  Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

God says the fast He’s chosen is to loosen the bands of wickedness, to undo heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, so that every yoke is broken.  Bands of wickedness is bondage to hard toil.  The hebrews were in bands of wickedness when they were in bondage to pharaoh.  Wickedness talks about your conscience being filled with your own labours to care for your natural life instead of being filled with the worm of God.  Its hard toil toil trying to bring forth immortality, by looking to the power contained in mortality.  Hard toil is looking to dust as the power to overcome death in the flesh …. It’s like the Hebrews trying to make bricks without any straw. 

Isa 58:8  Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward.
Isa 58:9  Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;

God says the point of a fast is to take the heavy yoke off people.  He sees people oppressed because they’re obligated to hard toil, and He wants to bring them rest.  If you keep reading verse 13-14 of Isaiah 58 God connects the fast he’s chosen with observing the sabbath.  If you look at the Hebrews, and their captivity to pharaoh.  God wanted to break the bands of wickedness.  The fast God chose to loose the Hebrews from their hard toil was for them to partake of His life, through His lamb.  God chose for them to believe on His lamb, and through partaking in His lamb, the angel of death would passover them, and the bands of wickedness would be loosed from them.  

Mat 6:16  Moreover when you fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
Mat 6:17  But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face;
Mat 6:18  That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

Paul talks in romans 2 about the secret place referring to the heart.  He calls it the secret place because you cannot see into the heart through outward appearances.   Jesus says let your fast be in secret, meaning in the heart. 

The pharisees were all about outward appearances.  Jesus calls them hypocrites because all they care about is making a fair show in the flesh.  They define things according to outward appearances instead of the heart, so their heart is far from God.  Their heart is full of their own righteousness, and their own works.  Their god is their belly.  They are feeding on what they do outwardly, as if abstaining from food, and putting on sackcloth and ashes, is the power to attain to the blessing of life.  It’s the same as what proverbs describes as a glutton.  The glutton in the book of proverbs is the anti type for the fast God has chosen.  A glutton is someone who fills their belly with the strength of the flesh.  If Jesus would have turned the stones into bread in the wilderness, making the works of his hands his food for life, he would be what proverbs describes as a glutton. 

Example of Luke 18 which one do you think was really fasting?

Mat 9:14  Then came to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not?
Mat 9:15  And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast.

Jesus tells us what fasting is all about when he uses the word mourn to describe a fast.  To mourn is to seek the face of the Lord when you’re afflicted.  It’s to seek the grace in Gods hand to care for your natural life, as opposed to seeking the strength in your own hand.  Jesus mourned on the cross.  He committed his life into the hands of the Father.  

Zec 8:19  Thus saith the LORD of hosts; The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore love the truth and peace. 

2Ch 20:3  And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. 

“Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes”(Daniel 9:3).

Isa 58:3  Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. 

God draws a parallel to fasting and afflicting your soul.  How do you afflict your soul? Leviticus 16:29 says the way you afflict your soul is by doing no work. You afflict your soul by doing no work to serve yourself with life.  The point is to take no thought of what you need to do for your natural life to be cared for, for God has taken thought to care for you …. in the wilderness when the devil was tempting Jesus to turn the stones into bread.  Jesus afflicted his soul, and did no work to feed himself with life.  He took no thought to care for his natural life; what he will wear; what he will eat, or what he will drink. When Jesus says man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, he was afflicting his soul.  He was seeking the Fathers face.  He was humbling himself under the mighty hand of the Father.  He was doing no work to feed himself with life.  He wasnt eating the bread of sorrows.  He was fasting.  

The fast God has chosen is for your heart to be persuaded that man does not find life by bread alone but by every word of God.  The fast God has chosen is for you to be filled with meekness, casting the care of your life onto Him, taking no thought of the care you can give your own life.  The fast God has chosen is for you to humble yourself under His mighty hand so He can exalt you to life.  

Deu 8:3  And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live. 

This is talking about the fast of God. You guys are thinking it’s meat that can strengthen you with life, but the only bread that can give you life comes from heaven.  Notice God says He hungered them, and He fed them.  God doesnt humble us by causing us to suffer.  He humbles us by giving our lives the care they need.  God was teaching the Israelites to turn from seeking the meat that perishes, and turn towards seeking the bread from heaven which endures to life everlasting.  God wanted to exalt them but they were seeking the meat that perishes.  They were trying to love themselves unto life through the strength in their own hand.  God chose a fast for them.  He wanted to loose them from the bands of wickedness.  So He fed them with manna from heaven; He poured out water from the rock; so they can see God with them, giving their lives the care they need, and they he filled with meekness thinking little of the care they can give themselves and making much of the care God gives.  

So where did abstaining from food come from?  Remember Jesus says in Matthew 6 take no thought for what you will eat or what you will drink, neither what you shall wear.  He says the Father knows what you have need of.  The idea is that in seeing the Fathers righteousness to care for my life, i take no thought to care for my natural life.  I cease from my labors to care for my natural life … and in that I might not eat food or drink water. 

Fasting is about seeking God for the care your life needs.  We dont seek God by abstaining from food.  Just as we dont observe the sabbath by not physically working on a certain day.  We seek God through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.  We seek God by looking to the faith of him; the faith revealed in Jesus.  Just as Christ is our sabbath; Christ is our firstfruit; Christ is our fast.  We come to the Father through him.  We turn towards the Father through Jesus.  We seek the Fathers face through Jesus.  Jesus is the fast God has chosen.  Remember God says in Isaiah the fast he’s chosen is to break heavy bondages and the yoke of wickedness.  Well, Jesus says in Matthew 11 come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest for your souls.  Fasting is about being meek and lowly in heart.  Jesus says take my doctrine upon you, and it will make you meek and lowly in heart.  Take my doctrine upon you, and it will be unto you a fast.  It will loose the bands of wickedness, and break the heavy burdens that comes from trying to love your self unto life.  

Prayer ….