Fasting For Favor From Authorities

# 295 – We are continuing a series on fasting. As we have seen, this spiritual discipline is not just for Old Testament believers, yet we can learn much about fasting from their example. We've been looking at Nehemiah's prayer in conjunction with his fast. The prayer is found in Ne 1:5 -10, and we'll pick it up today in v8, “Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations; 9 'but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name.' 10 "Now these are Your servants and Your people, whom You have redeemed by Your great power, and by Your strong hand. Here Nehemiah reminds God of His covenant promise to His church. When the church returns to God in humility and repentance, treasuring God's Words, God promises to restore it. This has always been the case with God's dealings with His people...the church. Then, he makes a plea that God would restore the people so that His redemptive work wouldn't be for nought. Let His church rise, rebuild the walls, restore the gates so that it would no longer be the laughing stock of the world.  It’s about God’s name being hallowed!   Finally, after (1) acknowledging the greatness of God, and (2) acknowledging God’s faithfulness, and (3) telling God that he is aware of the responsibilities of God’s people, then (4) confessing how far short they had fallen of their responsibilities,  and (5) reminding God of His promise toward the contrite people, and asking Him to intervene for His name’s sake, His glory, Nehemiah finally brings His request before God. This request was the focal point of his fast and prayer.   “give success to Your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. (King Artaxerxes) Nehemiah was simply asking for some forward movement in the project of rebuilding the walls. He had some ideas as to what he would need for the project, but he was going to first of all need the approval of Artaxerxes. So this fast served a twofold purpose. Nehemiah was fasting for the restoration of the church, and he was fasting to find favor with the government. The latter has been greatly overlooked in the church today. More on that next time. Father, thank You for this model from Nehemiah, let us put it into practice today!