This sermon delves into the powerful story of Peter's vision in Acts 10, where he receives a divine revelation challenging his beliefs about clean and unclean foods, leading to a transformation in his understanding of God's inclusive love for all people. The narrative highlights the significance of fasting as a spiritual discipline, emphasizing how denying the flesh through fasting can open us up to deeper spiritual insights and transformation, aligning us with God's will and breaking strongholds like anger and negative behaviors in our lives.

Chapter 10 verse 9, the next day as they went on their journey and they drew near to the city, so this this this entourage is coming to meet Peter. Peter went up on the housetop to pray, and about the sixth hour he did this. Then he became very hungry. So he was famished. The Bible says very hungry. He's famished here, and he wanted to eat. But while they made ready, he fell into a trance and saw heaven open up and an object like a great sheep bound at the four corners descending to him and letting him down, letting it down to the earth. So what's happening? There's this big sheet that's descending down, and in it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. And a voice came and said to him, rise Peter, kill and eat. So it's a kind of an interesting vision, this vision of these different animals that Peter is not supposed to eat. They're unclean, probably like pigs and lobsters. Fry you pork and seafood lovers. So he sees his food. He says, I'm not going to eat this. But God says, Peter, rise and kill. Peter said, no, not so, Lord. I've never eaten any of these things. And a voice spoke to him again a second time. What God has cleansed, you must not call common. This was done three times, and the object was taken away up into heaven again. So Peter, because if these men would have just came and said, Cornelius is beckoning you, is calling you, he would have said, he's a Gentile. I cannot go with him. I'm not going to listen. I'm not going to preach to them. I can't have anything to do with these people. So he sees his vision, his heart's changed. And now when the men show up, oh, okay, now I see what I'm supposed to do. But he would, I want to stop here for a minute. He was very hungry. He was famished. And as much as I would like to go into off into fasting again, I won't do that to you. But I will for just a minute. It won't be a long, long topic on it. But whether it was a person purple, purposeful, personable, whatever, whether it was a fast that he wanted to do, and he was meant to do it. The fact is that the flesh was starved. And this is not something we should overlook. Cornelius was fasting, we're going to read it again, it's going to confirm that Cornelius was fasting. And Peter is very famished. He's hungry, something, the flesh is starved. And Scripture is clear that God speaks to us in more profound ways when we fast, when the body is is starved, when that flesh that carnal nature is starved. There's nothing wrong with food. But when we can constantly give into it, we're feeding the flesh. Here's just go try this sometime. Go try praying. After a big full meal. One of the worst times I went to me and my wife had dinner, a good dinner at night on Lancaster Boulevard, probably a year and a half ago, and we went to visit the hospital homes. Oh, man, I don't want to do this. I just want to go home late. This is and try it. Try coming to church, try preaching. I never preach on a full stomach. That's why usually fast is so I'm just that the flesh is just dead. I'm, I'm wanting more of God. And when I learned this a long time ago, big meals or something, I don't want to preach. You don't want to do isn't it? Try it. Try it sometime. What do you go out and minister after Thanksgiving meal? You're on the couch for about three hours. And then the next day, so it's just something to think about. Scripture is clear that God speaks in profound ways when we fast. You want to start with Ezra, Nehemiah, should we start with Moses, Elisha, Jesus himself, Paul, Peter, Nehemiah, Ezra. I can keep going. Esther. I mean, it's everywhere. It's, it's everywhere. This is something that's pretty interesting to me that it's everyone in the Bible, but nobody wants to talk about it. It's okay. Tell me, convict me to read my Bible, but don't convict me to give up that Krispy Kreme. The reason is we have two competing appetites. That's what's happening. I have an appetite. My flesh has an appetite and the spirit has an appetite. That's why the Bible says feed on the things of the spirit, be filled with the spirit. And then the appetite of the flesh, if you, if you continue to feed that appetite, you will starve out the other one. That's what I believe when it talks about quenching and grieving the spirit is we have so filled ourselves up on the appetites of the world that we have quenched and grieved the spirit. So the wonderful thing about fasting is denial. Now, I believe that Roman Catholicism has given it a bad name, even in the common book of prayers with some of the other denominations hundreds of years ago, fasting became a ritual and you had to do it. You had to do it. You had to do it. And the heart of fasting is really like what Jesus says, when you pray, when you give and when you fast, it's lead of the spirit. It's seeking God and wanting not to be held to religious type of rules that you have to do. I just, this testimony was too good. I have to read it. I've got permission from Jack. He actually goes here to this church. He said, fasting has changed my life in an amazing way. And now I know exactly why it's so hard. It puts you in alignment with God and Satan hates it. I used to have a temper with my family. And just so you know, this applies to a lot of people in this room, right? We can try to hide it, but there is a lot of anger in our homes. I was getting upset at the stupidest little things, yelling over nothing. My family was suffering. I knew I needed to change. I heard caffeine played a role in mood swings. I don't know who he heard that from. So I started fasting from soda. I found that I did not need it and my attitude improved. Then I fasted from coffee and cut out caffeine a hundred percent. God really calmed my spirit. Then I decided to fast for two days on water. Only that turned into four days. God really convicted me on the way I treated my family. How can I go to church and portray a Christ-like life, but yell at my wife and kids and have them fear me while at home? Guys, this is people coming to church every Sunday. So we better get off our high horses and our pride and our arrogance and start saying, God, I need more of you. I don't want to be like that. So I cried out to God to change my heart, and He did. I felt a massive shift of peace and His love take over. My anger is totally controllable. I'm not going to say it's gone completely, but God changed my heart through fasting, and I'm so grateful for that. Do you see why? Because that lashing out is the works of the flesh, and the flesh is being fed by, well, don't even get me into all that stuff, but you're feeding the flesh, and you're starving the Spirit. You need to feed the Spirit and starve the flesh. That's exactly what fasting does.