4 Sermon Illustrations on Fasting

"Although Christians," says Dr. Neander, "did not retire from the business of life," yet they were accustomed to devote many separate days entirely to examining their own hearts, and pouring them out before God, while they dedicated their lives anew to him with uninterrupted prayers, in order that they might again return to their ordinary occupations with a renewed spirit of zeal and seriousness. These days of holy devotion, days of prayer and penitence, which individual Christians appointed for themselves, were often a kind of fast-days. They were accustomed to limit their corporal wants on those days, or to fast entirely. That which was spared by their abstinence was applied to the support of the poorer brethren. R. Watson.

Men accused in times past were wont humbly to abase themselves before the judge, with long beards, uncombed hair, and black array, that they might secure his mercy. So when pestilence, famine, or war begin to rage, or any calamity hangs over us, it becomes us to present ourselves in piteous array, with fasting and prayer. before the Judge of all the earth, that his anger may be turned away from us. Cavedray.