Have you ever noticed how a crisis forces you to pay attention? When things go bad, I mean really, really bad, suddenly the things you were ignoring become urgent. The disaster wakes you up in a way, and you realize that you can't be coasting through life anymore. You have to respond. And it's always been fascinating to me that in times of crisis, even those who reject God in everyday life, they suddenly feel compelled to pray and to cry out to God for help.
This common human reaction to crisis is pointing us to something deeper, and we should pay attention to it. My name is Jeremy and I'm the lead pastor with Mountain View Church. If you've never connected with our faith community, feel free to visit mountainview.church slash connect or search on social at Mountain View Whitehorse. Today's message is titled Call to Fast, week two of our series Return, Restore, Renew, studying the Old Testament book of Joel. In this text, God is calling his people back through repentance. As they walk through the chaos caused by their own sin, he calls them to gather together to fast and cry out to him. Today, we'll see what it means to truly cry out to God in crisis. We'll see what humble repentance looks like and how it opens a door for God's mercy.
Today's scripture reading is from the book of Joel, chapter 1, verses 13 to 20. A call to repentance. Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests. Wail, O ministers of the altar. Go in past the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God, because grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God. Consecrate a fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the Lord your God and cry out to the Lord. Alas for the day, for the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes. Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? The seed shrivels under the clods. The storehouses are desolate.
When we read those words fast or solemn assembly, it can sound like old religious language to our modern years. But we should lock into these. These words are powerful within spiritual practice. They represent a desperate, unified cry for help. Let's look at verse 14 again. Joel says,
to consecrate a fast means setting it apart as holy. This wasn't a diet or some sort of casual skip a meal moment. This was a call to humble themselves, admitting they couldn't fix this disaster on their own. And it shows a complete dependence on God. Fasting is like deliberately saying through actions and words, I am desperate for God's presence. And I'm so desperate that I can't focus on anything else right now.
As a reminder from last week's text and message, God called Joel to be a prophet to the people of Judah, the southern king of Israel. Judah had embraced sinful practices walking away from God. As a result, God withheld his provision and protection, which led to all their food and commodities being wiped out by either a plague of locusts or an invading nation. Scholars have debated which metaphor is the correct one. Again, from last week, we let you decide. But coming back to today's text, the content indicates that a drought and famine have followed the invasion, further emphasizing the desperate state of Judah. With that in mind, I should add a caveat and an apology about a comment I made last week. In last week's message, I stated that the animals were likely eaten as well, since there was no grain left. But today's passage proves that it hadn't come to that yet.
As I was speaking last week, I let a modern Western view slip in, assuming the animals were eating all the grain as well. But I should have known better. I do know better that ancient Middle Eastern animals would have predominantly been open grazing livestock. And again, I knew this to be true, but for some reason, I spaced and I made an off-the-cuff assumption. So my apologies for last week giving you an inaccurate picture. We'll adjust that right now. In verse 18 of today's passage, we read, the herds of cattle were perplexed because there is no pasture for them. Even the flocks of sheep suffered.
So you might be wondering, why didn't the people just eat the animals? It's a valid question. You know, after all, the animals were starving, too weak to sustain people for long. Well, after doing a bit of research, I learned that killing and consuming the animals would have destroyed any hope of future herds and milk production, as well as the sacrifices they needed as pertaining to the Mosaic law. From the description in verse 18, it sounds like God sent Joel at the perfect time, right before the complete collapse of their entire community where they'd be forced to eat the animals, because there's really nothing left.
Now, perhaps they were even looking at their emaciated animals and discussing whether or not they should kill them and eat them when Joel stepped in. And maybe that contemplation or that apparent conversation would be a final act of desperation. We don't really know what the circumstances or conversation was at that time, but we know that the timing of God is always perfect. And thankfully, God stepped in. The prophet Joel has called them to realize the outcome of their sinful behaviors and to return to the Lord in repentance. But what does that repentance look like? Let's come back to the text.
they need to call a solemn assembly. This would have been a nationwide call to gather in their places of worship. It's not private and it's not optional. Everyone was called through the priests, passed on through the elders, and for all the people of Judah. This would have been a collective response, confessing sin and seeking God's mercy together. They were to unite in repentance and return to God because the whole nation had rebelled against it.
Theologian A.R. Fawcett points out that this was literally a day of restraint or concession from work so that all might give themselves to supplication. The priests were addressed first, then the elders as the older generation, because as we discussed last week, they could have prevented this current crisis. If they had have taught and led the younger generations about Judah's past failings, this wouldn't happen. Simply put, they wouldn't have been in this spot and the older generations should have known better.
Dr. Michael Redelnik, professor of Jewish studies explains, the priests as spiritual leaders should be the first to grieve, lament, and wail for the judgment. Not only are the priests to mourn, they are to consecrate, set apart a fast and a solemn assembly to cry out to the Lord for mercy. Fasting was required on the day of atonement and often during times of calamity. It was time for all the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to gather in the temple, the house of the Lord, your God.
The Lord is the only source of Judah's salvation. Joel is showing them the process of returning. The process is to cry out to God in crisis by embracing a designated time of prayer and fasting. Joel is calling Judah to express in word and action a deep, authentic sorrow over their sin and the disaster that followed. They were to acknowledge that the rejection of God led to a collapse of their entire communal and societal system. And don't miss the underlying principle that God wants them to return, but wholeheartedly. Not just...
actions to do what they're told. This call to fast is a reconnection point for their relationship with God as the only one who holds their survival in his hands. And so the solemn assembly is an acknowledgement that he is their protector and provider, that he is their savior and sustainer. The call to fast is communal, communal repentance, initiating those first steps toward restoration. Now, if you're new to church or you're just exploring Christianity, this whole thing may sound strange or even counterintuitive to human nature. Because in our modern time, when disaster hits, our instinct is to buckle down and try to fix it. Fix it ourselves or get a crew around us to fix it. And in worst case scenarios, we panic or we just give up in despair. But Joel's message is both an intellectual one and a spiritual one. To stop, take stock of the current situation, to humble ourselves, admit our need for help, and then in faith, turn to God.
Notice how I say intellectual as well as spiritual. This is because the fasting component is deliberate. It's a deliberate, set apart, specific, scheduled, put it on the calendar, and yet a holy act of dependence. There would have been mass communication needed. There would have been planning needed to gather everyone from all these different places, from throughout the land, from the highest spiritual authority at the time, the priests, to the leaders of the community, those older generations, those elders, and then to everyone else. Would it take planning?
It would have taken a lot of communication. And it should be noted that communal fasting isn't some magical immediate fix to the current crisis. They didn't think that. And we shouldn't, as we look at scripture, think that either. It may, God may miraculously just come down and spring forth all these plants to eat, but it didn't happen like that. And it doesn't happen like that. It's more of a prayerful posture displaying this unified, humble confession. It's like a starting point and waiting for what will happen next. It's a way of saying, God, we are not in control.
We cannot save ourselves. So Lord, we need you. You alone can save us. And so as we scroll down in the passage, we get to verse 19 and we see that Joel models this. wholehearted, internal, spiritual, and intellectual call to the Lord. And he models the desperation. He actually speaks himself for the people. He says this simple phrase, to you, O Lord, I call. Let me say that again. To you, O Lord, I call. This is an important aspect of the old covenant prophet and the role they carried. You see, a prophet doesn't just command repentance on behalf of the Lord. He lives it.
And so he displays the actions, words, and behaviors that are expected of the people he's called to communicate to. He lives it out. He's kind of the front runner. And so Old Testament prophets were required to practice what they preached. Prophets are also a picture of what Jesus, God's son, would eventually do for all people, interceding for them, taking on the responsibility that wasn't initially his to bear.
So Joel has been called to intercede for the people of Judah. He cries out as a spokesman for God, living in this conviction that God alone can save them from this terrible, terrible catastrophe. When Joel cries out the words, to you, O Lord, I call. He gives Judah the core example of what each and every person should embrace. Joel refuses to let anyone hide in the crowd or rely on empty tradition. By his willingness to be that front runner of crying out with them or before them or leading the charge, he's calling each heart to join with him in his humble and urgent prayer. But now let's widen our perspective a bit.
This concept of crying out to God in prayer and fasting isn't just an Old Testament practice. First, there's biblical evidence of fasting found in the New Testament church. Jesus taught on the future of fasting in Luke 5. He said that days will come when the bridegroom, speaking about himself, is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days. After Jesus' resurrection and ascension, prayer and fasting continued as a way of crying out to the Lord, expressing repentance, seeking guidance, and interceding for God's help.
And then in Acts 13 and 14, the early church fasted and prayed as they sought the Holy Spirit's guidance. When missionaries were sent out or when elders were appointed, they did so with prayer and fasting to ensure God was at the center of those decisions. Moving into the epistles, we see in 2 Corinthians 11, Paul describing a ministry life that included hunger and thirst and often fastings. This was a personal example from Paul of what a devoted sacrificial service to God should look like. Now, moving on, adding fasting with prayer is found throughout church history. Early church writings, like the Didache, encouraged regular fasting on certain days. These were specific acts of devotion and repentance for the early church. The church fathers, such as Augustine and others, practiced and taught fasting. It was a regular part of humbling themselves before God in worship and seeking his mercy and help. Then we move on to the historical records show that fasting took place during times of plague and persecution or national crisis like war.
From medieval Christianity to the Reformation, Puritan colonies, the 19th century wartime, Christians have been proclaiming fast days or fasting seasons to seek God's intervention, provision, and protection. Finally, fasting is still practiced today by Christians and in church communities all over the world. There's a corporate practice, which is a churchwide fasting event or gathering. Local churches will set aside specific days or seasons of fasting and prayer to seek God's guidance, renewal, and mercy for their congregations or for their communities or cities. There's a leadership practice among pastors and elders. These leaders commit to fasting and prayer as they make important decisions or seek spiritual breakthroughs for some reason, like a healing or a movement in their church community. And sometimes there's...
Interceding for those that they shepherd may be a very tangible healing for a certain person. Fasting is a part of that. Then there's an individual practice of personal devotion for all Christians. Believers everywhere continue to fast and pray privately as a personal discipline of humility and repentance, but also to draw nearer to God and to supercharge their prayer in a way. So as you can see, Joel's call about prayer and fasting during crisis, it's timeless. It's been here for thousands of years. When everything collapses, when there's no way forward, God says, stop, humble yourselves in prayer and fasting. Return to me by crying out in prayer. And that fasting piece is mixed into it where it's supercharging the prayer. It's putting everything aside, feeling the hunger, and that hunger reminding us to pray and to cry out to the Lord. We sacrifice all that so that we can draw nearer to God.
Joel and the other prophetic writings point to a future time when God would send a Messiah. The Old Testament shows us that time after time after time, the sinful nature of human beings is to walk away from the Lord. We're unable to live holy lives on our own. We're unable to come back to him on our own. And the Old Testament proves that. Thankfully, God had a plan. He sent his one and only son to take on the judgment for sin that we deserved, to make a way. And he made it possible for us to be restored through Jesus.
You see, in this fulfilled time, this great time that we live in, all of our fasting, praying, and crying out has a greater meaning. You see, under the new covenant of Christ that Jesus brought in, they can still be forms of submission like they were in the Old Testament, but they carry more in a way because we receive the Holy Spirit and we're sealed with the Holy Spirit. And when we accept God's grace through Jesus for the first time, maybe mixed in some prayer and fasting, the Holy Spirit indwells us. We're filled with the Spirit and sealed with the Spirit. And then the ongoing practice of prayer and fasting, it's even better as our soul and the spirit are united because of Jesus. And this becomes an amazing practice for us as Christ followers. Because of Jesus, we can come boldly to God knowing he hears us. And maybe you've wandered down a self-destructive path recently and you're listening to this right now and you feel ashamed and you feel broken. I get it. And although this is a painful journey, even just maybe right now acknowledging it, it's a good thing. It's an amazing thing that you've come to the end of yourself and you realize you can't do it on your own.
That means that this is a great time to hit the pause button and to fast and pray and repent. This is a great time to stop everything, push it all aside, turn to God and confess your sin and just acknowledge that you can't do it on your own and that you need him. Remember that Jesus has already done the work of restoration. You're invited to receive that. You're invited to receive his mercy, to trust him fully and to walk with him in a new life.
And so crisis can be a good thing because it becomes a spiritual wake-up call for us. It becomes like this internal summons to return to the God who created us and loves us. So wherever you're at, whoever you are, let's humble ourselves before God. And knowing that he is merciful and ready to restore us, let's take this moment together. Wherever you are, whoever you are, together, let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you with humble hearts. We admit that we don't have all the answers.
We can't fix our own sin or heal our own wounds. We need you. Remind us to fast and pray when we face crisis. Forgive us for our pride and self-reliance. Thank you for Jesus, who took our judgment and made a way back to you. Help us respond with genuine repentance and trust in your mercy. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Thank you so much for watching and listening with us here at Mountain View Church. If you want to know more about our church or connect with our faith community, visit mountainview.church slash connect. That's mountainview.church slash connect. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel or a podcast and continue walking through this message series with us. Now, please stick around for a few more minutes to check out our weekly updates, followed by our discussion and prayer focus.
Hi, everyone. It is Katie Baldwin here with Senior Youth Group. Just wanted to pop in and say we are on for Senior Youth Group this Sunday. Hours will be as normal, 6 to 8 p.m. here at the church. We have some exciting things planned and some new youth leaders that will be joining us. So we look forward to seeing you there. Bring your friends. It's going to be a great time.
We have a special youth ministry announcement. To begin, I would like to take a moment to thank Katie Bowden for her leadership of senior youth over the past year. Katie has given so much of her time and heart to guiding our youth, planning events, teaching, and building connections. We're so grateful for the way she has served our students and led the youth team. Katie has shared her desire to transition from leading a youth ministry to more of a serving and supporting role this coming year. We respect her decision, and we're so thankful that she's not stepping away entirely. Now, she'll still be walking alongside our youth, but just in a different capacity.
As Katie was feeling compelled to step down from leading, God was already at work calling someone else to step up. I'm excited to introduce Kaylee as our new leader of Senior High Youth Ministry. Hey everyone, I'm Kaylee and I've been attending Mountain View for almost two years now. God has continuously led me on my journey to working with youth and his perfect timing lined up for this role. I'm so excited about the opportunity to foster spiritual growth and community for our students. With that in mind, we'd like to keep youth ministry rolling throughout July and August. If any parents or volunteers are willing to help senior youth continue over the summer, please reach out.
Amazing. Thank you, Kaylee. This starts tonight, folks. So if you're a parent of a student or your child or youth volunteer and you're able to support Kaylee, please email sryouth, that's senior youth, at mountainview.church. Or if you see Kaylee hanging around the building, please feel free to introduce yourself.
Now, it's worth noting at this point that Arrow Lynn, our junior youth lead, is also looking for summer support. So if you lean more toward junior high than senior high, please email arrow at junior youth, that's jryouth at mountainview.church. We're so grateful for what God is doing in the lives of our students. Please keep praying for them. Pray for our youth ministry in this season of transition and potential growth. Thank you.
To all you parents out there, remember to check out our children's content available at mountainview.church slash base camp. We have kids video lessons and downloadable activities available for you right now. For any teens out there, you're invited to youth group every Sunday evening from 6 to 8 p.m. For more info, go to mountainview.church slash youth. That's mountainview.church slash youth. Now it's time for our discussion of prayer focus. Gather around with people you're listening or watching with or leave a comment in the feed below. Here's the question. How will you add fasting to your prayer life in this season?
How will you add fasting to your prayer life in this season? After you've left a comment or you've talked about it with each other, pray, pray for God's help to respond with a humble heart and honest repentance. Pray for God's help to respond with a humble heart and honest repentance. Last item for today, please join us next week for week three of Return, Restore, Renew. We'll hear from Pastor Aaron as we continue our journey through Joel's prophecy. We'll see why preparing our hearts for repentance matters. It's a powerful call to examine our lives and turn fully to God. We'll see you then.
If you prayed to receive Jesus today or would like to connect with our church community, visit mountainview.church and click the connect link. If this podcast and radio ministry has been a blessing to you, please consider partnering with us or making a tax-deductible donation at mountainview.church. Thanks for listening to Mountain View Church Audio. Join us next week for more Christ-centered teaching from the Wilderness City of Whitehorse UConn.