What do I know with Isaac Carroll
What do I know with Isaac Carroll
The Divine Connection Forged in Sacrifice and Fasting
Together, we tread the sacred path of fasting, which has been embedded in spiritual practice since the time of biblical prophets. Through scriptures and personal reflection, we uncover the multifaceted nature of fasting—how it serves as a tool for deep sorrow and repentance, and yet, a conduit for a profound connection with the Divine. We'll venture beyond the personal, exploring how fasting calls us to a selfless embrace of others' needs, inspired by King David's example that true sacrifice comes at personal cost. I'll share insights into the power of fasting combined with prayer for healing, not just within ourselves, but for the brokenness of our world.
As we prepare for Easter, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our conversation extends an invitation to contemplate the larger impact of our spiritual disciplines. How can the act of fasting intercede for a nation divided? Reflecting on 2 Chronicles 7:14, I confront my own lapses in praying and fasting for our country, stirring a clarion call to all of us to intercede with humility and hope. In this personal narrative woven with scriptural wisdom, we seek to glorify God and elevate others through our acts of fasting and prayer—immersing in a journey that promises to touch every facet of our lives with grace, peace, love, and divine guidance.
May God bless you and lead you always.
Welcome to the podcast. I'm Isaac Carroll, and this is what Do I Know? All right, at the end of the month, we're going to be celebrating Easter and it, as everyone knows, easter is the day we choose to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, jesus Christ, but not only the resurrection we're also going to be celebrating sacrifice, as he paid the debt for our sin. Now, I had it in my mind that I want to do something special for Easter, and I knew I wanted to fast, and I know that. True, fasting as Jesus did in the wilderness requires us not to eat anything, and to not eat anything for an entire month is a challenge. That and commitment that I just don't know that I can be willing to or able to to to make. Now, I know God can strengthen us to do anything, but the idea of failure once you've committed to do something for God seems like something I'm not willing to even chance. So I didn't set myself up for failure. I decided to do the Daniel fast, and the Daniel fast is something I've had great success in, and actually, the last time I did the Daniel fast, in honor of all the things that God did for me during that time, changed my eating habits. I no longer eat certain meats, not if I stay away from all meat that's not from the sea or the water. God really moved in my life and it's good for me to honor it in such a way. Fasting is such a powerful and spiritual practice and I would just encourage anyone who wants to increase their faith in any way, to grow in a relationship with God, to fast and pray.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about fasting for a minute. Let's see what God's word says about fasting. Let's read a few scriptures. When did God introduce fasting? Well, if I'm correct, this goes all the way back to the Israelites in Exodus, when they grumbled against God because they had no food. It actually says this in Deuteronomy 8 and 2. It says remember that these 40 years, the Lord, your God, led you all the way in the wilderness so that he might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. He humbled you and in your hunger, he gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your father said no, since you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Now remember, jesus famously uses this scripture while he's in the in the wilderness, being tempted. It does so to remind us of this very important fact that the bread of God, which is Christ Jesus himself, is so much more substantial. Needed Then physical bread, for what is this life that we live, what is this body that we take care of, compared to our soul, our spirit? The life that is to come is so much greater and so much longer than this short little existence that we live that we should be focusing on it, and not this time. So let's look at a few passages scripture in the Bible, and, and I believe that if we read these it'll give us a better understanding of fasting. Let's start in the Amaya. The Amaya one and one says these are the words of the Amaya, son of Hakeelia.
Speaker 1:In the month of Shizlev in the 12th year, while I was in the citadel of Suza, hannah, one of my brothers arrived with the men from Judah, so I questioned them about the remnant of the Jews who had survived the exile and also about Jerusalem, and they told me that the remnant who survived the exile are there in the province in great trouble and in disgrace. The walls of Jerusalem are all broken down and its gates are all burned with fire. When I heard these words, I sat down and wept. I mourn for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven. Psalms 35, 13 and 14 reads but I, when they were sick, I wore sackcloth, I Afflicted myself with fasting, I Prayed with my head bowed to my chest and I went about as though I agreed for my friend or my brother as one who laments his mother. I bowed down in mourning. Daniel 9 and 3 says. Then I turned my face to the Lord, god, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. Joel 2, 12. Yet even now, declares the Lord return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weakening and with mourning.
Speaker 1:Well, I set my mind to study fasting and while I was Well, I was attempting to fast for the Lord. I wanted to Read up on fasting and learn as much as I could about it that I might fast in an appropriate way. And while I was dwelling on these things that I read, I came to understand that there are two types of fast, and the first type I like to call, and then involuntary fast. This happens when Sometimes to drive or the desire for food Leaves us. Now this could be because of anxiety, anxiety over a loved one who becomes hurt or ill, and in a worry over their condition. We have no desire to eat. Sometimes, even the very thought of food makes us feel ill. Now I was thinking about this. I thought, man, I wish my sin did that to me, that the very thought of the sin just drove the desire for food away, that I was forced to fast without even realizing it and I thought to myself would have sinned. Itself was like a food that we ate. That made us very ill.
Speaker 1:You know that time when you got so sick you thought you was going to die because you ate something. What happens later on, after you get well? The very thought of the food that you ate, even attempting to think about eating it, makes you feel ill. Remember when I was young, I ate fondue one night and I really thought I was going to die. It made me so sick. And I can tell you, 40 years later, I still have never ate fondue again Because of it, because the very thought of it just turns me. No, thank you, I'll pass. This is what I wish my sin did for me. No, thank you, I'll pass Now.
Speaker 1:The other type of fasting is obviously voluntary, and this is what happens when we set a specific link to time to not eat or to not eat certain things. Now I know that in today's time we have branched out a little bit. We don't just fast from food anymore. We fast from other things, like social media, or maybe it's the news or something that we spend time in or we actively pursue, and we take that time that we'd be pursuing whatever it is that we are fasting from and we spend it with the Lord. So I decided to do this as well. I had to stay in office, social media and from actually pursuing hobbies and other interests to spend more time reflecting on the Lord and reading my Bible here.
Speaker 1:A while back, I was introduced to the idea of intermittent fasting, and intermittent fasting is when you don't eat for a certain period of time and then you eat moderately and then you don't eat after a certain time. And someone told me if I really wanted to lose weight, this was the best way to do it and had great health benefits that went along with it. So I tried it and I became angry because I felt like I was taking something that got it. I was taking something that was spiritual and I was turning it, turning into something that was physical, like I was portraying God in some way and this may seem silly to you, but that's just kind of how I felt. I felt it just natural that they would take something that God give us to grow with spiritually and they would turn it into something mundane. So I refused to do it any longer and sick the fasting for only that purpose, because I feel like it's something special that I have with God.
Speaker 1:Now, one thing you have to remember when you fast is when you fast, you're in inviolably driven into the wilderness. The Bible says that Jesus was driven by the spirit into the wilderness. Well, we're not actually driven into an actual wilderness, but we are driven into some isolation, not from people but kind of from God. We kind of get in our head a little bit because we're focusing on God and God has a way of really testing us during this time. Here's a way of showing us some things that are keeping us from growing closer to Him, things that might be hindering our growth. I know with a Daniel fast there is a 10 day acclimation period, let's call it. And when you start eating this style of food and you haven't been used to eating it to the extent that you've been eating it, staying away from sugars and those kind of things and eating hearty vegetables every day with beans and some fruit your stomach tends to cramp a great deal and it takes 10 days to acclimate. But after 10 days, man, you feel like you feel great. It's like all the inflammation leaves your joints and you just feel more alive than you had. That's why you never left.
Speaker 1:To go back to the other food reminds me of Israel when they were in the wilderness. So they were hungry. They were hungry for what the world offers. They were hungry for the food that they had in plenty back when they were in captivity to Egypt. We find that we hunger for things in our flesh and our captivity to sin. Instead of craving manna from God, which is the bread of life, the word of God, they were craving regular bread, regular food. Isn't life so much more than food?
Speaker 1:I was brought to mind a passage about when we hear God speaking in our life. As God was speaking to me, I was reminded of this verse, and it was in Psalms. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in Mariba in the day of Massa, in the wilderness, where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen me work for 40 years. I was angry with this generation. They are a people whose hearts go astray and they have not known my ways. So I swore an oath in my anger they shall not enter my rest. Now, paul, he quotes this in Hebrews 315, and this is what he says today. If you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion. For what were the ones who heard and rebelled? Were they not all that Moses laid out of Egypt? And with whom was God angry for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest? Was it not those who disobeyed?
Speaker 1:I found that, in my fast, god was showing me things that were keeping me from growing, as I said earlier, because I was focusing too much on myself, focusing on my lack of control, things that I had not done in my life, things that were hurting my witness, with my wife, with my children and with those around me. For some reason, I thought if I was focusing on doing the right things and if I was praying and reading God's Word every day and I was doing all that I could do to grow more spiritually with God, that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. But even in this fast I show that I'm selfish. My spiritual walk is all about me and my fast were even for my benefit. Now, if you go back and reread those scriptures that I read earlier, what was the general theme when they fasted? They didn't fast for themselves, they were mourning over something or someone. They fasted for others. Davis said in his grief he afflicted his body with fasting on their behalf. And I found that if I wanted to grow truly grow with the Lord, then I had to become less in every way Like manna in the wilderness that God gave the Israelites, if you recall, it fell with a dew and when the dew evaporated it was like a fine dust and they had to go out and collect it.
Speaker 1:Right, it says they had to ground it up into a paste and they had to form it and they boil it, or they would make it into cakes and they would eat it or they would bake it. But nowhere in all those verses is it say that manna formed itself into loaves and Was giving them to eat? No, they were. They were given something and then they had to do something with it. And if we want God's word to have any meaning in our lives, we're going to have to not stiffen our necks when we hear his voice. We're not to get off our butts and do something about what he's shown us. When he wants us to change, we're gonna have to change. When we, when we're convicted of a sin, we're gonna have to repent and turn from them. I Know that we become so and rich with Teachings that salvation is free and Nothing, nothing that we can do, can affect our salvation, that we forget that To grow in the Lord, god just he desires for us to work. There are many passages where it says the work he has given you to do and when God is showing you that there's work to be done, don't stiffen your neck and harden your heart. Using this Teaching as a way of getting out of doing anything Reminds me of a passage in 2nd Samuel talking about King David.
Speaker 1:Now, in this passage, king David had had asked for a census and then he told God I have sinned and I've done them. I have done wrong. And God gave him three choices. God said that you can run from your enemies for three years. You can have a famine for 10 years or for three years think it was three years or you can have a pestilence for three days. And David chose to pestilence and Israel was struck with a severe plague. And God and David wanted to appease God. He wanted God to turn his anger towards him because he was the one that sinned. But God was. He was correcting Israel because Israel was going astray even in David's time and God was punishing Israel because they wouldn't obey. So David wanted to appease God.
Speaker 1:Was told to go and buy or to get the threshing floor and to build an altar there and sacrifice to the Lord. And we know that this threshing for would one day become the temple mount. But in that verse, in second Samuel is, david was on his way up and the man who owned it came down and prostrated himself before David and said what can I do for my Lord? And David told me one of the bias threshing floor and to build an altar. And he said take it, it is yours. And David said in verse 24, says no reply to King. I insist on paying a price, for I will not offer to the Lord, my God burnt, offerings that cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shickles of silver. David was willing to give it all. He wanted to pay whatever price was necessary. Matter of fact, he was unwilling to. He was unwilling for it to cost him nothing, and we know that David had a.
Speaker 1:What does it say about David? David was a man after God's own heart. We shouldn't let and we shouldn't desire our salvation, we shouldn't want our, our sacrifice to God, our commitment to God, our, our walk with God to cost us nothing. When we fast, we give up things in effort to glorify God. When God answers, are we willing to pay the price? I know he's worth it. He's so very worth it.
Speaker 1:I have been shown that my fasts need to be about others. I have many friends and loved ones who are suffering. I have those who are lost, those who are in need of guidance In my mourning for their behalf, in my fasting and praying to God For healing for those who are ill. I haven't been, but I need to. I need to in every way.
Speaker 1:Second Chronicles seven and 14 says if my people, who are called by my name, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn it from the wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal the land. Aren't we praying and fasting for our country that has become so divided, has become so wicked, has become so lost? Are we? Are we fasting and praying for them that they may come to know Jesus, that they may come to know salvation? I haven't been.
Speaker 1:Now the God has shown me that. Will I change? Will I change the options up to me? It's put before my face. I can either stiffen my neck and harden my heart, or I can submit and obey and pay whatever price God asked for me. I hope and pray that every one of you take on this attitude, that we start praying for one another, that we desperately seek God on behalf of others, and when we fast and we humble ourselves, it's to glorify God to the benefit of others. God's grace to you, guys. I pray peace and love and God's guidance in every aspect of your life. Until the next time, guys. Goodbye.