Quotes from Arthur Wallis

When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you" (Jer. 29:13–14). When a man is willing to set aside the legitimate appetites of the body to concentrate on the work of praying, he is demonstrating that he means business, that he is seeking with all his heart, and will not let God go unless He answers.

Yet even now," says the Lord, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting." (Joel 2:12)

I proclaimed a fast . . . that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a straight way for ourselves, our children, and all our goods" (Ezra 8:21, 23, 31).

His heart was being prepared for further blessing God had for him.

In giving us the privilege of fasting as well as praying, God has added a powerful weapon to our spiritual armory. In her folly and ignorance, the church has largely looked upon it as obsolete. She has thrown it down in some dark corner to rust, and there it has lain forgotten for centuries. An hour of impending crisis for the church and the world demands its recovery!

Why do you submit to regulations, "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch" . . . according to human precepts and doctrines? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting rigor of devotion and self-abasement and severity to the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh.

Wesley declared, "Some have exalted religious fasting beyond all Scripture and reason; and others have utterly disregarded it.7 In studiously avoiding the one, let us watch against the other. The much more prevalent error of our day is an easy indulgence which permits us to pamper the flesh when we should buffet it; to feast and enjoy ourselves when we ought to fast and to pray.

When our minds are conditioned by prejudice or paralyzed by traditional views, we may face a truth in Scripture again and again without its ever touching us. Our spiritual inhibition concerning that truth permits us to see, but not to perceive. The truth lies dormant within, mentally apprehended but not spiritually applied.

The outcome of the struggle reveals whether or not we are open to receive and obey fresh light about God, and so grow in the knowledge of the truth.

live according to scripture" (1 Cor. 4:6).

Paul's prediction about "the form of religion but denying the power" (2 Tim. 3:5) was being fulfilled.

The fact still remains that "to fast" means primarily "not to eat."1

It meant abstaining from all food, solid or liquid, but not from water.

There is nothing to suggest that true fasting involves abstaining from sleep. God may call us to do this for very short periods, such as giving up a night's sleep. Paul speaks of "watchings" as distinct from "fastings" (2 Cor. 6:5; 11:27, KJV).

The normal fast, then, involved abstaining from all forms of food, but not from water, and must be distinguished from the other two forms, the absolute fast and the partial fast, which we must now consider.

We have a few examples in Scripture of what we have called the absolute fast, that is, abstaining from drinking as well as eating. Normally this was never for more than three days

She called this absolute fast because desperate situations require desperate measures.

I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth. Daniel 10:3 The emphasis here is upon restriction of diet rather than complete abstention.

The partial fast allows a great many variations which have been tried with blessing and benefit. There is the method of living exclusively on one type of food for the duration of the fast.

Others have partially fasted by omitting a certain meal each day, thus strictly limiting the quantity of food consumed.

Vigilance is needed to ensure that the value of omitting the one meal is not offset by increasing the intake at others!

The partial fast is of great value, especially where circumstances make it impossible or inconvenient to undertake a normal fast. Certainly it requires no less self-discipline. It can be used as a steppingstone to the normal fast by those who have never fasted before. One of its great advantages is that even after being sustained for a long period, normal eating can be resumed almost at once, which is not the case with the other two kinds of fasting.

recognize prayer as a vital necessity.

It is significant that the Lord dealt with fasting as a spiritual exercise distinct from praying.