p. 4 | THE FORTY DAYS' FAST by G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jun 28, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 26.

THE FORTY DAYS' FAST.

By G.

JESUS did not fast forty days in the wilderness just to show what He could do. He did not do it on a wager, or tell about it in a boastful manner. He did not claim to be the champion faster, nor did He ever adduce the fact of this fast as evidence of His divinity. He was entering upon a great work, and with it assuming the great burden of the sins of the world. Because of this weighty responsibility, and His consciousness of the weakness of human flesh, He would humble Himself; He would seek spiritual strength by being alone with the Father. So the Spirit led Him away into the wilderness. The fasting was an incident of the situation. He was learning by experience that "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." It is more than probable that He did not give the matter of eating any consideration at all; or if He did, He was fasting and praying that He might gain more spiritual strength with which to cope with the great adversary whose sway over the minds of men He had come to break down.

But this season of personal fasting and prayer and communion with God, altho prolonged, must close. His work was not to be accomplished in the role of a recluse. He was not establishing monasteries in solitary places. While the demands of appetite, which had been made a means in the spiritual overthrow of the first Adam, must be brought under control, it was natural that after so long a fast the second Adam would experience real hunger. So at this critical moment, when physically weakened by a long fast, the arch tempter naturally deemed it a rare opportunity to assail Him with an apparently harmless suggestion.

Was it not his mission to manifest Himself to the world as the Son of God? and would it not be desirable first to establish that fact to the satisfaction of the one who claimed, by right of conquest, the dominion of the earth? "If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." Why not? He was hungry, and He was abundantly able to make bread, and where was the harm? That is the question that has overthrown so many when, without the Spirit of overcoming grace, they have been confronted with temptation. But while the long fast had somewhat weakened the body, the spirit had been far more than correspondingly strengthened by prayer and clinging to God for strength in just such emergencies. Jesus had gone into the wilderness in obedience to the Spirit's unction, to prepare for what the Spirit knew was coming. His faith in the Spirit's leading was implicit, and in the trying moment a great initial victory was won, which was the precursor of all that should follow.

Do you ask, Wherein would have lain the harm of Christ's making the much-needed bread to satisfy His hunger?—It would have been yielding to a suggestion of the adversary, and, like the one act of yielding on the part of the first Adam, would have forever broken His power to resist. It would have forever thwarted the purpose to save sinners. Jesus, the Son of God, would have gone the way of so many millions of others who have stopped to inquire, Where is the harm? when apparently innocent temptation came their way. It was not necessary to prove to Satan that Jesus was the Son of God. He knew that already, and that was the reason he was trying to overthrow Him. Had He been an imposter, there would have been no need of tempting Him.

This was not by any means the last time that Jesus denied Himself physical food in order to pursue the object of His mission. When His disciples knew He was hungry and urged Him to eat, His reply was: "I have meat to eat that ye know not of. . . . My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work." To know of that meat experimentally would save many a Christian from falling into temptation when he doesn't know where the next meal will come from. A people with such an experience, tho but a "little flock," would soon carry the Gospel of the kingdom to all the world. Fasting as a means of grace, or of self-denial for the truth's sake, is a far different thing from fasting for a wager, or as a mere trial of endurance. In these specially-trying times it is well to heed the Saviour's counsel, "Fast and pray, lest ye enter into temptation." G.