6 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.

The month of fasting was probably borrowed by Mohammed from the Christian Lent. There are many traditions that tell how important fasting is. Let one suffice:

Every good act that a man does shall receive from ten to seven hundred rewards, but the rewards of fasting are beyond bounds, for fasting is for God alone and He will give its rewards. The chief Moslem fast is that of the month of Ramazan. The fast is extremely hard upon the laboring classes when, by the changes of the lunar calendar, it falls in the heat of summer, when the days are long. Even then it is forbidden to drink a drop of water or take a morsel of food. Yet it is a fact that Mohammedans, rich and poor, spend more on food in that month than in any other month of the year; and it is also true that physicians have a run of patients with troubles from indigestion at the close of this religious fast! The explanation is simple. Altho the fast extends over one lunar month, it only begins at dawn and ends at sunset each day. During the whole night it is usual to indulge in pleasure, feasting and dinner parties. This makes clear what Mohammed meant when he said that “God would make the fast an ease and not a difficulty.”

The hours during which fasting is prescribed are to be sacredly observed. Not only is there total abstinence from food and drink, but bathing, smoking, taking snuff, smelling a flower, and the use of medicine are prohibited. I have even heard Moslem jurists discuss whether hypodermic medication was allowed during the fast period. In eastern Arabia the use of an eye-lotion even is considered as equivalent to breaking the fast. The law provides, however, that infants, idiots, the sick, and the aged are exempted from observing this fast.--SAMUEL M. ZWEMER, “The Moslem World.”