1. Fasting increases our sense of humility and dependence on the Lord (for our hunger and physical weakness continually remind us how we are not really strong in ourselves but need the Lord). 2. Fasting allows us to give more attention to prayer (for we are not spending time on eating). 3. [Fasting] is a continual reminder that, just as we sacrifice some personal comfort to the Lord by not eating, so we must continually sacrifice all of ourselves to Him. 4. Fasting is a good exercise in self-discipline, for as we refrain from eating food, which we would ordinarily desire, it also strengthens our ability to refrain from sin, to which we might otherwise be tempted to yield. 5. Fasting also heightens spiritual and mental alertness and a sense of God’s presence as we focus less on the material things of this world (such as food) and as the energies of our body are freed from digesting and processing food. 6. Fasting expresses earnestness and urgency in our prayers: if we continued to fast, eventually we would die. Therefore, in a symbolic way, fasting says to God that we are prepared to lay down our lives that the situation be changed rather than that it continue.
Wayne Grudem

After His Resurrection

After His Resurrection AFTER HIS RESURRECTION B4-07-5P Mt. 27:51-53

INTRODUCTION:

  1. This is Easter–when we remember the resurrection of our Lord
  2. Rememberance is paid every “Lord’s Day” as well
  3. His own resurrection was not the last of His acts, however–
  4. Let us look at what happened “After His Resurrection”
  5. HE ASCENDED TO HIS FATHER
  6. Returned to the glory which once was His and which rightfully belongs to Him alone
    1. “O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” Jn. 17:5
    2. Heavenly host, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing” (Rev. 5:12)
  7. Took the sacrifice of His own blood as atonement for our sin
    1. “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb. 9:14)
    2. “Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish” (1 Pe. 1:18-19)

II. HE INTERCEEDS FOR HIS SAINTS

  1. Is. 53:12 He makes “intercession for the transgressors”
  2. “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not” (Lu. 22:32)
  3. Ro. 8:34, “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us”
  4. “Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession” (Heb. 4:14)
  5. “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 Jn. 2:1)
  6. Limits the jurisdiction of forces opposed to us: (1 Pe. 3:22) “[Jesus Christ] Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him”

III. HE SENT THE HOLY GHOST BACK TO BAPTIZE BELIEVERS

  1. Comfort: “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever (Jn. 14:16)
  2. Instruction: “The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your rememberance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (Jn. 14:26)
  3. Power: Acts 1:8, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth”

    

IV. HE RAISED THE DEAD

  1. The saints which slept (text)
  2. The dead in Christ (& living) at Rapture (1 Thess. 4:15-18) “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in t GOD’S EARNEST MEMORIES B5-05-5A

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