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The Finding Emet radio program encourages understanding and living the truth of the Bible from a Hebrew perspective. The host, Brother Daniel Rendleman, invites listeners to visit the Emet Ministries website for more teachings and resources. He shares a personal story about a double dog dare and discusses the challenge of fasting. He explains that fasting is an important biblical practice often overlooked in favor of other topics. He encourages listeners to embrace fasting as a way to deepen their faith and obedience to God's word. Hello and welcome to the Finding Emet radio program. Emet is the Hebrew word for truth. This program will help you understand and live the truth of the Bible from a Hebrew perspective. The Finding Emet radio program features the teaching ministry of Brother Daniel Rendleman of Emet Ministries. Prepare your heart to receive the Emet, the truth of the scriptures. More audio lessons and teaching articles are available at the www.emetministries.com website. Please visit our site to find all things spiritual including a free online Bible search program or submit your prayer request. That's www.emetministries.com or www.findemet.com. CD copies of this teaching are available for free by submitting a request at the website. Let's welcome our teacher Daniel Rendleman as he helps us find the Emet. I want to start today by telling you a story, a true story of a double dog dare. You've heard of double dog dares before? They dare you to do something, you know as children, kids play. They say, I dare you to do this. Maybe you play the game truth or dare, you do something stupid, you know really bad. Well I remember as a child that I was playing with a friend of mine and I was given a double dog dare and I was told, I dare you to do this. And I was double dog dare, that's right. I was dared to do it and I was going to be called what if I didn't? A chicken. So of course having to be proud of my manhood, I decided that I would accept this double dog dare. And it was pretty simple. The dare was on our road that I lived on as I grew up, that at the bottom of the road was a creek and right before that creek on the side of the road was a gutter. And all the water would just roll down into and it hadn't been raining recently and there was not a lot to fear. And the dare was, will you go in the gutter and then come out of the gutter? So I looked at the gutter, I looked at the size of my head. I knew I was not going to fit, you know. I knew I couldn't make it all the way in but I could get pretty close. So I as a child and my wisdom, right, decided that I was going to accept this double dog dare. No boy was going to call me chicken. So I began my descent. I took off my shoes knowing, you know, don't want to get my shoes messed up. Who knows what's down there. Because we were discussing was there a boogeyman or was there a lizard or what? Snakes? Who knows? Who knows what's in the bottom of the gutter? Could be, you know, anything. So I took off my shoes and I began my descent and I get, I get down on my chest and I start just putting my legs in and I start going down and I start and I'm like, alright, yeah, I'm making it. And I get to the place to where, you know, I'm almost up to my chest and all of a sudden I feel this pain. This sharp shooting pain all over my legs. And I start screaming, help! And I start grabbing the gravel. I'm trying to pull myself out and I had fire ants from my waist down. I was covered in them. Talk about pain. I started stripping right there on the main street. I mean, I was taking them off and I was, you know, that was it. I, you know, I might have been called chicken before but I wasn't chickened and get naked there and get those fire ants off of me. So my pride had been stripped there in the road and my clothes have been stripped and I now had all these fire ants and I'm getting them off but yet I had a proud heart because I made it. I answered that double dog dare. Later got a whooping or so. I got at least a scolding for going down there. You should have known better. Well, how was I supposed to know there'd be fire ants down there? Not one of my fondest memories of childhood. However, you know, that for that very reason I go see a counselor every week. I just want you to know that. I was scarred for life. I need to get a check from the government because I was scarred for life by that time. I answered that double dog dare of a challenge and my stupidity I did it. Let me encourage you, if anyone ever challenges you to do that, don't listen. Don't listen. However, I want to give you a challenge today. I want to give everybody a challenge. A double dog dare for you and for us the challenge, here we go, is a 40-day fast. No, it's not. Okay, I'm not going to do that to you. You know, we read in the Bible about fasting. You know, fasting, the favorite subject of everyone, right? I mean, we got to just go ahead and let the cat out of the bag. Most of us don't have a problem with eating. Can I get amen? We don't have a problem with eating. We do have a problem with fasting. I mean, we all know preachers who, you know, they get up there and they talk about, you know, this sin and that sin and it's evident they've got a couple sin issues themselves as, you know, they're rather large or so. That's all I'm saying. We don't have a problem eating. We don't have a problem satisfying our stomach. But we do have a problem with fasting and that's the issue we want to talk about today. So a challenge is the challenge to fast. That's the name of today's teaching. The challenge to fast. So the double dog dare that I've got you today, I want to ask you to accept today. I want to ask you to go and accept it now before you know all the details. Go and say, right? The challenge of this is to make fasting a part of your life and restore it in your faith as a key element. That's the double dog challenge. I'm not going to ask you to jump off a Ferris wheel or go down a gutter or to run across the street in busy cars, but to challenge you to open your heart and open your eyes and open your mind to fasting a little bit today. Is that okay? All right. Now in our desire to relive and reclaim the faith of the Apostles, we've learned a lot. Amen? I mean, we've learned about the sacred name Yahweh. We've learned about Yeshua. You know, we we've learned about our identity as Israel. That we are not some redheaded stepchild Gentiles. We are Israel. It tells us in the book of Galatians, it says, if you belong to Messiah, you are a seed of Abraham and heirs according to the promise. That because we are born again, we belong to Messiah. We are Israel. We've learned about the holy days. We've learned about why we should worship on Saturday as the seventh day Shabbat. We've taken out our calendar and realized that the first day of the week is Sunday. The Ten Commandments say the seventh day. I mean, we've done some math, right? We've looked at these issues. We've learned about the importance of the nation of Israel and the Hebrew language. And now Yahweh, I believe, today is going to help open our eyes and reveal to us the model, the biblical model of prayer and fasting. Not a comfortable subject. I understand. I know. No one likes to talk about not eating. We'd rather discuss our favorite recipes, what Rachel Ray or Emeril or so was cooking on TV, right? We love to share our stories of, you know, whether we should eat sugar or Splenda or Nunya or whatever, right? We love to share those stories. Food is fun. I love to eat. I love to eat. However, indeed, fasting or withholding from physical satisfaction is in dire and direct opposition to the influences of the world, right? I mean, think about it. You tell your boss you can't go out to lunch that day because you're fasting, and he looks at you like you're crazy. Like you've got a snake sticking out of your tongue or something while you're talking to it. Everywhere we go, everywhere, the supermarket, in magazines, TV, radio, we are bombarded with new menu items, fast food restaurants, improved candy bar ingredients, better tasting concoctions of our favorite meals, and we're told by the FDA or whoever you got to have three meals a day. We got the food pyramid, all this going on. So it's natural for us to, it's natural for us to want to fast fasting. Agree? Nobody really wants to fast. We kind of avoid it like the stomach virus. We wonder how we can do it. How in the world can you make it 24 hours without eating or drinking or three days or seven days or, heaven forbid, 21 days like Daniel or 40 days like the Messiah? We need food, right? It's natural. And it's natural to wonder how could withholding from breakfast, lunch, and dinner affect your spiritual life? Because that's probably what's happening right now. You're wondering how in the world can not eating a bowl of cereal for lunch, my peanut butter and jelly, excuse me, a bowl of cereal for breakfast, my peanut butter and jelly for lunch, and my hamburger from McDonald's at night make me more spiritual? It's not, I mean that's a good question, because we've all missed meals before. Amen? We've all missed meals before. Maybe because of busyness or because of work, maybe a diet has forced us to cut back. It's not withstanding from food that does magic to our spirit. Instead, it's the power of faith that empowers our actions. It's the power of faith that empowers our actions. And as we act in trusting obedience to the Word of Yahweh, we put into motion a powerful principle. This is the challenge to fast. I'm not necessarily challenging you to get more healthy, even though that's a good idea, or to eat better, or to even eat less. I'm encouraging you, challenging you, double-dog daring you, maybe, to take the printed words off the pages of our Bibles and live them. Here's some truth I want to share with you. Hebrew, the word for truth, emet. Here's some truth. The emet is that there's more in the Bible about fasting than speaking in tongues. Yet, how many more sermons, how many more books, how many more arguments have we heard about speaking in tongues than fasting? You can't really deny the principle of fasting. There's more in the Bible about fasting than the gifts of the Holy Spirit, than ladies wearing skirts, than ladies or men wearing head coverings, than tying tzitzit, than hanging up a mezuzah, than celebrating Hanukkah or Rosh Kodesh, or wearing a Star of David, and the list goes on and on and on and on. Fasting from a biblical perspective and a biblical viewpoint is a very popular subject. It's referred to 94, everybody say 94, 94 separate times in the Bible. That's a lot. There are at least 35 people in the Bible who we read fasted, including Joshua, including Moses or Moshe, Eliyahu or Elijah, Daniel, Yeshua or Messiah are an example. The great Rabbi Shaul or Paul and others. A key concept to the biblical lifestyle, however not very common to us today, most groups don't discuss fasting. They don't talk about fasting. Most churches would rather have dinner on the ground with a big old pork barbecue than set aside a day for fasting and prayer. Let's just be honest here. That's the truth. Others say that you should fast to have your prayers answered, so that Yahweh hears you, gives you favor, to have power over demons, to cleanse and purify yourself. The Lutherans, Methodists, others, they talk about a fasting for 40 days called Lent. The Jews teach that there are four minor fast days along with Yom Kippur, and at least minor fast days they teach are optional but should be kept and these are days to remember terrible things that have happened in Jewish history. The Charismatics tell us to fast in order so Yahweh hears you and that he answers your prayers so that revival comes. To change the world you should fast, they're telling us. The truth is that fasting is not a New Testament concept. It's not a new idea propagated by the Roman Catholics. They're not big on fasting very much. Instead, fasting is a well-established biblical principle, well-established in biblical Judaism, well-established when Yeshua came. Very similar to baptism. Many people think, oh, there's John the Baptist doing something new, when scripturally he was doing something that had been done for thousands of years. So fasting, let's talk about it. In Hebrew, the word for fasting is sum, sum, and it's spelled with a zadi, a vav, and a mem. Sum, zadi, vav, and mem. And if you were to look this word up in your Strong's Concordance, it literally means to cover over, to cover over, like you would cover over your mouth. It's a word picture. Hebrew is a living language. It gives us word pictures and actions. To cover over your mouth, to abstain. And the biblical virtue of fasting is not just to abstain from eating, and not just to, oh, I'm just not going to eat today, I'm fasting, but to also deny yourself. Self-denial is a part of the biblical concept of fasting. And we see this throughout the Scriptures, several different verses as we read or so. If you turn to the book of Psalms, Tehillim, chapter 35, verse 13, it talks about fasting, and it talks about denying yourself. That's not a popular subject today. You know, we hear about having great self-esteem through various television evangelists. I'm not going to name any names. I'm going to be nice today. Today. You know, we hear about, you know, having a great day. We hear about, you know, all the miracles and healings, but we hear very little from Judaism or Christianity, pretty much anybody, about denying yourself or fasting. But it tells us a lot about this in the Bible. Psalms, Tehillim 35, verse 13, says, But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I humbled my being with fasting, and my prayers returned into my own bosom. I behaved myself as though he had been my brother. I bowed down heavenly as one that mourns for his mother. Here it talks about, in verse 13, fasting by humbling yourself with prayer and with sackcloth. That means denying yourself that physical, nice clothing. Now, Yeshua talked about this when the Pharisees, they would fast, and they would fast with mourning and sackcloth, and they would announce to everybody in the room, I'm fasting! I'm fasting! You know, come see me. I got burlap on. You know, I'm fasting! Come on! Yeshua wasn't telling them not to fast. He wasn't even telling them not to fast with sackcloth and mourning. He was telling them, don't make a public spectacle out of it. And the truth is, one reason why we don't hear a lot about fasting is because it's a private worship. We hear a lot about the public worship. There are, you know, people out there that will argue with you about the Jewish calendar, about this calendar, that calendar, about head coverings. I know people that have left congregations because of head coverings. That's a minor detail compared to fasting. What a greater issue. That's a part of the heart. So, we don't need to major in the minors. Amen? Praise Yahweh. We don't need to major in the minors. However, let's remember the challenge to fast, and the challenge is to Tassum. Tassum, which is Zadivav Mem, spelled in English T-S-O-O-M. Almost like Zoom. Like you're going to fast real fast. Wouldn't that be nice? Okay, Zoom. Anyway, to fast in Hebrew is not simply to deny yourself, but it's to afflict yourself. To withhold and withstand. Now, the concept we get from this is from Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. And on the Day of Atonement, there's a fast that begins on the 9th of Tishrei, goes through the 10th of Tishrei, from evening to evening, kept and observed by Jews for thousands of years. And you can read about this in Leviticus 23, Leviticus 16, more in depth. And we are told that on the 10th day of the month, the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies to make atonement for sin. And the people would not be able to go in. They couldn't offer the offering, but they could accept the offering by fasting. Do you see that? They could accept the offering and pray for him by fasting in anticipation that the rites would be accepted, the high priest would do things correctly, the sacrifice, everything would go well. And the fast on Yom Kippur is a picture of biblical fasting, no matter whether we fast on Yom Kippur, or we fast on February the 12th, or we fast on December 25th, or whatever day it is that we fast, it's a picture for us. So Leviticus 16, by Eccles 16 verse 29, it says, and this shall be a statute to you forever, that in the seventh month, on the 10th day of this month, you shall afflict your souls. Do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country or stranger that sojourneth among you. In the good old King James Version. The words here for afflict your souls mean much more in Hebrew than they do in English. We are at a huge disadvantage in the fact that most of us do not read Hebrew, biblical Hebrew, fluently. Right? Consider a conversation you would have with someone at the McDonald's checkout, or McDonald's drive-thru, and they speak and only understand Spanish. And so you drive up, not knowing that much Spanish, you drive up and getting ready to order that, you know, Big Mac, Value Meal, supersize, right? We got to supersize it, right? Amen? With a Diet Coke, right? Got to have it supersized with a Diet Coke. I'm not looking at you. So we got to have it supersized with a Diet Coke, and we're there, and we pull up, and the voice over the speaker is a recorded message that says, you know, thank you for choosing McDonald's. Would you like this? And you say, no, I'd like a Big Mac. And the person says, no comprende inglese. No comprende. And you say, I want a Big Mac. You know, the Big Mac. The big thing that McDonald's has always done. Some French fries. No comprende. I want some fries. And you get frustrated, and you get mad, and you start yelling at it, and finally he says, por un round, please. You know, finally that happens. Think of how difficult that would be. How much is lost in translation. Now apply that times a billion. That's what we get when we try to understand the Bible without understanding the Hebrew language, without understanding the Hebrew culture. Yahweh's trying to communicate to us. He has communicated to us, and all these translators that come in, guess what they do? Even the best of them mistranslate, or they don't put everything just exactly right, but the best translation is to get it straight from the horse's mouth, right? You know, it's so much easier when they speak English very clearly in the drive-thru. Not when they're there, you know, we all go through that. It's so much easier when we can understand it. Add the whole other language to it, and it makes it worse. So it's not that we need our Bibles to be watered down, and we get, you know, the new baby Bible version translation that's so easy. It's only got about 12 words in it, you know, but we understand the Hebrew. Go back to the Hebrew, the culture, the times, and that's what's so important to our faith. The words here for afflict your souls are the words Enul Nefesh, Enul Nefesh, Enul Nefesh, and the word for Enul, if you were to look it up in the Strong's, which, you know, is a good resource, it says to afflict, to humble, to submit, to depress, and the word for soul here, Nefesh, is a very popular Hebrew word. One of the words translated as body, also as soul, also as person, or desire, or will, or the King James translates it a few times as appetite, telling us to depress your person, depress your appetite, humble your desire, submit your will, afflict your soul. In modern Hebrew today, even, your body is considered Nefesh, and we've taught on this before, that even today it's kind of slang. On the road, if you go up to somebody, you can say, hey, how's it going friend or buddy? You know, in Hebrew, you know, you'd say, you know, what's up, Nefesh? You know, that's actually what they do. Maybe not quite what's up, but you would, it's a slang word for, how's it going, buddy? That's a person. You know, so it's, it means a body or a person. In fact, when we read, it says to love Yahweh with all your, with all your soul, with all your might, with all your strength, with all your, all of who you are. It's one of those key phrases here that as a human, you have a Nefesh, that's your body, that's your earth suit. Okay? You also have a Ruach, that's your soul, that's your mind, your will, your intellect, and you have a Neshama, which is your spirit. That's the part of Yahweh in you, because you are born again, amen? So it's born again, it says our spirit is one with Yeshua, 1st Corinthians chapter 5. So it tells us here, we see here that it says to afflict your Nefesh, and if you were reading it in Hebrew, from a Hebrew perspective, you know exactly what that means. And in these passages, Nefesh is translated as, as afflict your soul, your being. I want to share a few, two verses. It says in Proverbs 27, 7, that the full, this is King James, okay? The full soul loathes honey. In Hebrew it says, the full Nefesh loathes honey. That means if you're full, you don't want anything sweet, you don't want anything else, you've had enough. We've been there, right? We've all passed the mark of gluttony, to super gluttony, and just couldn't eat another thing if it was forced down our throats. And it says here that the full Nefesh loathes honey. Here's an interesting verse we'll talk about a lot today. Proverbs 23, 2. This is a good verse to memorize. It says, put a knife to thy throat if you be a man given to appetite. Oy vey. Put a knife to your throat if you're a man given to appetite. What's interesting here is that the word for appetite is Nefesh, or Nefesh. It says, put a knife to your throat if you are a man given to your soul, to your body. Here's another interesting word. It says, if you are a man given, that word there for man is not the normal Hebrew word for man, but it's the word used for husband, or Lord, or master. It's the word Baal, Baal. So in Hebrew it says, put a knife to your throat if your appetite is your master. If your stomach, if your body is your master. Do you see that? If it's your Lord. Appetite. Now most of the time we want our appetite, what? We want it comforted. We want it satisfied. But I want you to see here that the word, we're not just talking about fasting food. Even on Yom Kippur it's not just about fasting food. It says to afflict your Nefesh. That's your soul. That's your body. That's your appetite. Which includes, everybody, the five senses. Touch, taste, hear, smell, and see. That's your body when you think about it. That's your Nefesh. And guess what? Food has, it just includes all of that. You can smell it. I can smell it now. You can see it. You can touch it. Boy, that Snickers really satisfies. You just pull it out and you're like, I'm fasting today. I'm not going to eat it. But boy, it looks good. If I just, or how about this, you can taste it. If I just chew it and spit it out, then I haven't broke my fast. Right? And you can even hear the food, right? I mean, you jump into a bunch of pork rinds, you can hear those things, just a crackling. So all of our senses are involved here. Fasting, this is good. Fasting is telling your desires, your Nefesh, it's telling your body, no, it's telling your spirit, yes. By fasting, we know that we can cleanse our body of toxins. If you go on a complete fast, that's a great thing. You can go on a juice fast for three days and it will do your body wonders. We are cleansing our physical body of toxins and also our spiritual body of influences. One of the most powerful, powerful ways to have victory over sin and sinful desires is to Enul Nefesh, to afflict yourself. I'm not talking about that, that idea of beating yourself with a rod, okay? But of withstanding. It tells us in Yochanan Allah, 1st John, chapter 2, verses 15 through 16. Let's turn there and read. It says, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. So it tells us here that what we see, what we desire out of our pride, out of our flesh is not of Yahweh, but is of the world. And we're told not to love it. We're told very clearly not to love it. So in the challenge to fast is to not love what brings us all the time satisfaction, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. And I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy chocolate cake. Let me tell you something. I enjoy chocolate. I am not a chocoholic. I am like a chocolate addict, okay? I am. It's okay for me to enjoy it in moderation, amen? Yahweh has given us beautiful fruits and vegetables and all types of natural products. It is all right for us to enjoy that. But there comes a time when we say, you know what? It's not all about what I can satisfy my lust and my flesh and my cravings, but it's recognizing I'm a spiritual being. And I'm going to withstand from that and prove that that has no power over me. Think about addiction, how difficult that is to stop drinking if you're addicted and an alcoholic or smoking or drugs or caffeine addiction, sugar addiction. I've got that. And you just quit cold turkey or you stop doing that. What happens? Your body has withdrawals. When you fast, guess what? Your body has withdrawals. So as we take the challenge to fast, we begin teaching our body that it's not in charge anymore. We are. We do, normally, we do whatever it takes to feel good. We do whatever it takes to feel good. James Brown talked about it. I feel good, you know? We do that. By nature, we intentionally refuse to place ourselves in uncomfortable positions. If you've got a nice lazy boy chair and a hard, straight, you know, ladder back chair, which one are you going to sit in? Ninety-nine percent of the time, you're going to sit in the lazy boy. And fasting, though, is more than denying our body's food. It's denying the flesh pleasure, pulling away the power, stripping the flesh power, telling your body and your physical senses that the spirit is in control. We're not fasting to make Yahweh love us more. Let me make that clear. We are fasting to gain power over our own body, to gain power over our own senses. Each time a hunger pain strikes, we can call to mind the name of Yeshua and say, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh. When you're fasting, you are actively worshiping Yahweh in the spirit. And it tells us in the book of Yochanan, John chapter four, it tells us an interesting story here as Yeshua goes to a well. Now, normally, you go to a well to get some water. You go to a water fountain to get something to drink. You go to Starbucks to get some coffee. So Yeshua is going there. And he goes there to the well and he sits there and even tells the woman, John four, seven, there came a woman of Shomeron or Samaria to draw water. And Yeshua said to her, give me something to drink, please. And it says in verse eight is how Medim had gone away to the city to buy food. They were going to get food. He is thirsty. And he asked the woman to give him something to drink. We know the story, you can go through and read it. Does Yeshua get something to drink? Does he ever get that big 20 ounce? No. But it tells us here very clearly in Yochanan four, John four, verse 24, it says Yahweh Elohim is spirit, Ruach. And those that worship him must worship him in spirit and in emet and in truth. Yeshua said Yahweh is spirit and those that worship him don't just worship him by their lustful desires to have something to eat or something to drink. But by spiritual worship, the way to worship Yahweh, the true way is to worship and to do it in spirit. It tells us later in the same chapter, they were ready to give him something to eat. It says in verse 31, his disciples, the Talmudim urged him saying, Master, eat something. He says in verse 32, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. They were so focused on physical eating, on physical pleasure that they did not know about the spiritual eating, the spiritual pleasure that Yeshua was doing. Right, because we don't know that Yeshua was there, that the Talmudim were there with him. They went out to buy food. They missed it because they were so focused on what they were eating. They were so focused on their pleasure or on their appetite. So many times we can miss spiritual blessings when we're so focused on our appetite. Now, many people want to be spiritual. We could take a show of hands who wants to be spiritual. Few do what it takes. Few come together and will put stuff aside. Notice I said the word stuff aside, little problems aside to worship together in unity. A lot of people talk about it, but few will do it. Few really keep the mitzvah. Few really study the word. Few really fast and pray. But I don't know about you. I want to be part of that few. I want to be part of that. For most believers, the flesh has more control than the spirit. And instead of fasting, what do we do? We feast on the world. We feast on entertainment. We feast on our hobbies. We feast on getting the house ready or being busy with got to clean the car. You know, we feast on life in general, drama, busyness, worries, even our family. Yahweh says, Enul Nefesh, afflict your appetites. So let me make this clear. Fasting doesn't twist Yahweh's arm. Don't fast to change Yahweh. Fast to change you. Starve unbelief. Remember, our challenge to fast. To fast is to rid yourself of one of the biggest constraints and hindrances of the spiritual life. And the challenge I want to encourage you to do is to begin fasting one day a week. And to begin fasting for a specific purpose, a specific reason. And one of those reasons I want to challenge you today is to rid yourself of one of the biggest hindrances to your spiritual walk. And that is unbelief. Unbelief. Get this. This is good. Unbelief paralyzes our prayers. It silences our witness. And it stops the power of Yahweh from appearing in our lives. That's what unbelief does. And we need to fast it. We need to fast to get rid of it. We need to starve it. So turn with me to Matthew 17. Matthew 17, verses 15 through 21. And we see that fasting in prayer is part of the cure for unbelief. I did not say praying fast was the cure, but fasting in prayer. So a man comes to Yeshua and he's got a demon possessed son. Possessed, oppressed, you know, whatever. It's all the same word. Master, verse 15. Matthew 17, 15. Master, have mercy on my son. He is a lunatic. You've said that before, haven't you? Anyway, he is a lunatic. He is sore vexed. For oft times he falls into the fire, and often into water. And I brought him to your disciples. They could not cure him. Then Yeshua said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him here to me. And Yeshua rebuked the devil, and he departed out of him, and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came, this is key, then came the disciples, Talmudim, to Yeshua. And they said, why could we not cast him out? And Yeshua said, because of your unbelief. What's the answer? Because of your unbelief. For I say unto you, if you have the faith of the grain of a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove. Nothing, nothing, everybody say it, nothing shall be impossible unto you. How be it this kind goeth out not, but by prayer and fasting. The whole concept, the whole context of this section is unbelief. It was because of unbelief that they could not cast out that demon. They had cast out demons before. They had done it before. But notice what happened here. It says that the child would, he would foam at the mouth. He was a lunatic. He would fall into the fire, into water. They saw it. And what they sensed caused them to have unbelief. They heard him. Maybe he was convulsing right in front of them. You've seen someone have a seizure before? It's a scary event. And that will just put fear and unbelief right in your body. That's what happened to them. And notice here, but he says very clearly, they they asked him, why could we not cast them out? And he didn't say because you haven't, you know, you haven't taken this course on spiritual warfare. He didn't say you've not, you know, red pigs in the parlor. He said, because of your unbelief. The context of this section is unbelief. So what comes out by prayer and fasting? Not demons, but unbelief. Demons come out. He says, look, if you have just a little bit of faith, you can tell a mountain to be moved. You can move a mountain. Can't you move a demon out? Let's think about it. Demons come out by what? By faith. By the name of Yahweh Yeshua. It tells us that in James, that the demons of Yeshua, Yahweh is one and they shudder. Yeshua said you have power over every demon, you know, even over strong men. Strong, bad, whatever, you got demon, you got power over those demons. By his blood, not by anything you do, because if it goes back to fasting and prayer, guess what? It's all about works and it's not about works. It's not about what we do. So when we step out in faith, when we declare healing or health or success or a miracle, when we say, when all the world around us is falling down and yet we're strong, that is counteracting that unbelief. We are being productive for the kingdom. And yet when we do that, think about the last time you did that. Where does it hit you? Right here in your gut. You feel it in your belly. Unbelief stings the stomach. I mean, you get butterflies. I don't know about you. I'm just going to tell you, I do. When I pray and I believe for healing, I have to deal with those butterflies in my stomach. Because I'm believing for healing, I believe, but what did he say? Help my unbelief. You can have belief and unbelief at the same time. And yet when we pray, it hits our stomach. Why? Because the nervous system is directly connected there. You've heard of a worry wart who gets what? Not warts, but an ulcer. It's all connected to the stomach, to our appetites. One of the most sensitive parts of the body. By fasting, you're training your appetite, your body, to come under subjection. And when you fast, you're training your soul. This is important. When you fast, you're training your soul not to believe what your body says. When you fast, you're telling your body to get rid of unbelief. By fasting, you are training your soul. Sometimes it may take fasting for you to get the unbelief out of your body so that you can have a healing. Think about that for a minute. Because you're training yourself. Not that you're begging Yahweh to heal you, but you're tapping into that healing that he already provides. Ephesians 3.20. Now, Yahweh is able to do exceedingly abundantly over anything you can think, ask, or imagine. How? According to the power that works in you. I want to talk about, real quickly, three types of unbelief that we got to get rid of. Unbelief comes in three stages. This is good meat right here. Number one type of unbelief is ignorance. Ignorance. Ignorance is bliss, right? Too bad ignorance isn't painful. Anyway, ignorance, anyway, ignorance is a type of unbelief. You just don't know the truth. Maybe you've been raised all your life to believe that Yahweh doesn't heal. Yahweh doesn't save. Yahweh doesn't forgive this certain sin. Maybe you've been raised all your life to believe that once you hear certain words, that's it. Once you do something, that's all. That's ignorance. Just not knowing. Just not knowing the truth. There's a lot of people out there. There's a lot of our brothers and sisters who are just waiting on heaven. They don't know about the great life we can have. By being mikved in the Ruach HaKodesh. By having the truth of Torah. They don't know. They just are waiting on heaven. And let me tell you, some of those people are faithful to what they know. But because of their unbelief of ignorance, they don't know that there's so much more power out there for them to be a witness. To be a light. If your heart is open, this type of unbelief is easy to deal with. A lot of people are ignorant to precepts of Torah. You mentioned a new moon celebration and they think you're a pagan. Right? That happened to me. But yet you mentioned this is a scriptural concept. You get together once a month and you celebrate Yahweh and you have a feast. And you just just worship him and you start a new month together. But because of unbelief, some people aren't open to that. And what do they got to do? They got to deal with that unbelief. And the way you deal with that is learning truth, learning the Emet, studying the word, being open. The second type of unbelief is disbelief. Disbelief. This comes by being taught, but by being taught incorrectly or being taught wrong. You have unbelief in that you don't believe it. Some people today are told that Yahweh's power is not for today. Some people are told that the gifts of the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit, are not for today. That that passed away. But healings and miracles and signs and wonders and the gifts of the Spirit passed away with the apostles. That is an absolute untruth. In fact, I'm going to call it a big word here. Antichrist. That is against what Messiah did. Yahweh said he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Amen? He doesn't change. Now, I'm not saying all those people are going to hell. I'm saying that concept is against Mashiach. Anti-Mashiach. There is so much that we have to unlearn. We've been taught wrong. And we have unbelief there. We have disbelief. That's the second type. Disbelief. So what do we need to do? We need to take Yahweh's Word over the traditions of man. Over man's theologies. And we need to have our mind renewed. Romans 12, 1 and 2. To be transformed by the renewing of our minds to the truth of Yahweh's Word. Disbelief. And if you're open, that can be dealt with pretty easily. However, don't we know a lot of people that are closed? I mean, they won't open themselves up to Hebraic roots. Much less about the gifts of the Spirit. There are some people out there that don't want to hear it. And because of that unbelief, they are hindering the power of Yahweh. Remember that? They are limiting Yahweh. Go back to Psalm 78. I'll tell you about that. The third type of unbelief is the hardest to deal with. Because you and I deal with it. Every day. It's called natural unbelief. Natural unbelief. This is the third type of unbelief and the hardest type of unbelief to deal with. Natural unbelief. It's just natural. It's just natural to believe that when you step out on the ocean, your foot is going to sink. It's just natural to think that a person with leprosy or a person with AIDS is not going to be healed miraculously. Is not going to see their arm just recreated. It's just natural to believe that a person that is born blind is never going to be able to see. It's just natural. It's not wrong. It's just natural. It's not ignorance. It's not wrong teaching. It's natural input contrary to the truth. You hear me? And our body deals with it all day long. Our supercomputer up here, some of us have a bigger hard drive than others, but our supercomputer of a brain up here is all the time taking in information. And that's okay. That's natural. We all go through life making decisions based on what our five senses, what we feel, what we hear, what we taste, what we touch. Think about it. There are some foods you just don't like and there may be some foods that you love. You know, I'll just go ahead and admit it. I used to eat pork skins. I'm talking about the good deep fried, southern fried pork skins. Okay. That would just melt in your mouth. They were like my favorite thing in the world. This is Pork Skin Anonymous. Okay. And I'm telling you, my name is Daniel and I'm a pork skinaholic. And I can tell you and I can tell you that I like the taste. I don't know why. And yet my senses told me it tasted good. I heard them crackle, right? I could smell them cooking at the flea market. I'd go by and cook them, you know, get them fresh. I could smell it. I could see them. I could taste them. All of my senses were just satisfied. And yet Yahweh's word says, Leviticus 11, that pork, pig, is an unclean animal and not considered food for us. And that was hard for me. At first I'm like, what do you mean? This tastes good. I'm not supposed to eat this because it goes against the natural. You follow me? It goes against everything in my life tells me. It's good. I like it. What's it going to hurt? And it's not that that flavor is evil. You know, I like turkey bacon. I like the flavor of bacon. It's not evil or wrong to have some imitation bacon bits, for example. Okay. It's not that that flavor is evil. It's not that it's bad. Natural input is not always bad. You know, you don't want to drive by faith. You want to be able to see, right? You want to be able to feel the steering wheel and hear if there's a train coming. But there are things, there are entire and there's entire world that we cannot perceive with our physical senses, the world and realm of faith. And when we follow what the word says and follow what the word says and we walk in faith, whether we understand it or not, we are taking out unbelief. We are building up our faith. We are empowering our spirit man. Matthew 17, it says the disciples had this kind of unbelief. They saw him come in the mouth or vexing and they tried to cast him out. And that child, it says here, he was a lunatic, sore vex. He fall into the fire, into the water. They saw it and they saw it and it made them to doubt. Maybe there's things you see or taste or touch or feel that make you doubt. Yeshua said this kind goes out only with prayer and fasting. Natural unbelief is conquered by fasting. I believe Yahweh's word, therefore, I'm going to fast pork skins. I am pork skin free for several years. Praise Yahweh. Fasting, whether it's food or whatever, restrains your body to respond to Yahweh's word. Let me say that another way. Fasting trains your body to respond to Yahweh's word. Now you can put a pork skin in front of me and I just wouldn't want it. Fasting does that. When you fast, you're telling your body what to do. You are breaking the natural dominion and control your appetite has. Here's the truth. Either you let your physical realm rule or you rule the physical realm. The physical realm says you're too tired to go to synagogue. The physical realm says you're too tired to pray. You're too tired to read. The physical realm says you're too busy to pick up the phone and call someone and encourage them. The physical realm tells you all these things. How many know that after you go through the initial hunger pains, what two or three days of fasting, there's actually a place in fasting that you're not hungry. That's when you've broken your body's subjection. You've conquered that part of your body. And once you fast, whether you're fasting TV or whatever, once you fast, you're teaching your body who is in control and you can have power over that. I can't tell you the last time I've just cut on cable and watched a television program. And now I think, when did I ever have time? When did I ever have time to do this? Now I think, I cut on the TV and I can't believe what I see. Because I haven't done it in so long. When you fast, you are telling your body who's in control. So let's say, for example, you fasted to get the unbelief out. And you're telling your body who's under control. So when that headache comes, you tell your body, you say, body, by his stripes, I am healed. And I believe what his word says. And I thank you, Yahweh, that I am healed, that I've accepted your salvation. I've accepted your healing. Because it's for spirit, soul, and body. Challenge to fast. If we never discipline your body or discipline your appetite or afflict yourself, then your body's going to rebel. It's going to say, who do you think you're talking to? Right? Who do you think you are? You can't tell me I don't have a headache. You can't tell, my head should be hurting right now. But your body is to be under subjection of you. But how many times do we allow our body to tell us how we feel? Or what we should do? You know, I get a craving for a butterfinger. Nobody better lay a finger on my butterfinger. Right? And I'm going to get ugly over that butterfinger. What is that telling me? This happened this week. It was my wife's butterfinger. I went after hers. Hell have no fury than a woman and her butterfinger. Let me tell you something. All right. We got to tell our bodies. You know what, body? I can make it. I can make it. Because when you begin doing that, you're telling your body you're in control. Otherwise it says, I'm hurting. Don't tell me what to do. Or I don't like this. Don't tell me what to do. We've all been in uncomfortable situations. I don't like what I see, what I feel, what I hear. What do you have to do? Accept the challenge. Accept the challenge. Your body is not evil. I do not believe there's a teaching out there. Your body is evil. You shouldn't enjoy life. Enjoy life. But train your body. Hebrews 5 14. Key verse to memorize. It says, strong meat belongs to those who by reason of use have trained their senses to determine or discern between both good and evil. Exercise your senses. Exercise your senses. My wife knows when our baby is crying, whether the baby is in our room or in another room. She has trained her senses at night, just like many mothers do, to know what's going on. I sleep through it. Let me give you another example. We used to live a hundred yards maybe from train tracks. And that train would come through in the middle of the night. In the first week, I didn't get any sleep. It was loud. It was obnoxious. It would shake the house. After about a week, guess what? Didn't bother us. I had trained my senses not to pay it any attention. Even during the day, I just kept going. Before I'd be like, oh this is loud. I'd hold my ears. Train your senses. You can do it. Our senses don't have to remain carnal. Our senses don't have to remain carnal. They can be trained to discern spiritual truth. Amen. Praise Yahweh for that. This is the reward of fasting. If you accept the fasting challenge and make fasting a part of your life, your senses will begin to discern spiritual truth. You will be able to see more keenly in the spirit realm. You will be able to determine between good and bad. Hebrews 5 14, again, it says that the meat of the word belongs to those who have by reason of use or exercise their senses. Our senses have got to be exercised to operate in faith because our senses are trained to operate in the physical. What you see is what you get, we say. But yet Yahweh's word says, ask and you shall receive. Everyone that asks receives, and we read it in Matthew 17. Nothing shall be impossible for you. Our physical body says you can't move a mountain. Yahweh's word says, speak to the mountain, be thou removed, be cast into the sea. And I will say to this mountain that stands in my way, be removed and that you shall have whatsoever you say. That's what it says. I'm not telling you go out and say Corvette, Corvette, Corvette and expect the Corvette to pull up. All right. Don't go crazy on me. Unless it's good rabbi Corvette, good rabbi Corvette. Anyway, cast out unbelief by training your body, your nefesh, by afflicting it, bring it under control. Cast out unbelief. It tells us in Joel 2 chapter 12, we all want to love Yahweh with all our heart. It tells us in Joel 2 12 how to do that. It says, Yahweh says, return to me with all your heart with fasting. So I have to ask you this, can, this is tough, the steps on my toes, can we love Yahweh with all of our heart and not fast? I've had you to come to conclusion this week as I've studied this, that that's difficult because so much unbelief is built up there and we see so much, we go by so much of our senses. Turn with me to Nehemiah 9. I'll give you a minute to find Nehemiah 9. Nehemiah 9. In verse 1, it begins, it says, the children of Israel were assembled together with fasting and with sackcloths and earth upon them. And the seed of Israel, the children separated themselves from all the nations, the gerim, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. Verse 3, and they stood up in their place and read in the scroll of the Torah of Yahweh, their Elohim, one fourth part of the day. And another fourth part of the day they confessed and worshiped Yahweh, their Elohim. Then stood on the stairs with the Levim, Yeshua, the Benai, and it goes on and says that they went and they confessed and they have done these things. And then if you scoot on down to verse 38. And because of all this, we make a sure pledge and write it and our heads, the Levim and the Kohanim, set their seal upon it. So let's go back here. This is a fast, a biblical fast in Nehemiah 9. Nehemiah 9. And it says here they were fasting with sackcloths and earth upon them. And what this teaches us that real fasting has humility. This is a key part of fasting. If you fast regularly, it's hard to be prideful. And pride is a major sin affecting our movement, the Messianic movement, all over the world today. In a sense, our movement encourages pride and rebellion. Think about this for a minute. This is hard. In a sense, we actually encourage pride and rebellion because we encourage people to, you know, you know, step aside from religion, study all this stuff about religion, right? Rebel against what we've been taught in the past, you know, question everything you hear according to the word. And yet what that does for people who are weak is it makes them prideful and rebellious to the extent they can't submit to anyone. They don't want to submit to their pastor who taught their pastor who taught them about Easter and Christmas and whatever else, you know, taught that the Torah was done away with. And there because of that, the seed of rebellion is put in them. Friends, we've got to learn to walk in balance. Balance, not rebellion. But there are those out there who get that little bit and it's like it's encouraged almost by other rabbis out there just, you know, rebel, rebel, rebel, or not in those words. Somebody's going to come out and say rebel, okay? But it comes out and where there's no love shared towards people. We've got to love people where they're at. And yet what does the word say? Come out of her, my people. But that doesn't mean that we then don't come out and don't submit somewhere else and humble ourselves. Yes, question. Yes, study. Yes, read. But don't allow pride and rebellion to build up so that nobody can teach you. Nobody can show you. And that's for me, too, because I've got a rabbi and you've got a rabbi and we all learn together. I mean, I'm off my soapbox. Let's continue humility. Verse one here, it says that they were with humility, fasting and sackcloth. They debased themselves. Pride is about excuse me, reverse that, back it up, rewind it. Fasting is about getting the pride out. It's about denying yourself. Denying yourself is passive while debasing yourself is active. That's why on Yom Kippur, Jews, traditional Orthodox Jews, don't shower, don't bathe, don't brush their teeth. They don't wear leather. They don't wear leather shoes. They debase themselves in a way. Perhaps for us that means not buying that huge big screen TV and debasing yourself to something a little less because who needs that? You know, a life size MacGyver anyway. OK, humility. Maybe you need to fast that TV a little bit. I don't know. Verse two, let's look at it. And the seed of Israel, the children of Israel, separated themselves from all the Garim, from the nations and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities. So true fasting includes separation, a withdrawal from the normal. And every Shabbat is a type of fast for us, a time that we can withdraw from the normal. So you might not be able, OK, I'm going to fast on Thursday. You might not be able to take every Thursday off, but you may be able to purify your environment. You hear me? Purify your environment. Maybe separate yourself. Maybe at lunchtime, when everybody's taking a lunch break, get in your car or just pull out your Bible and read and study and pray a little bit. Purify your environment. Separate yourself. Look at verse two, the end of this verse. It says that they confess the sins of their fathers. This is key. Fasting includes viability and and national responsibility. We all know and believe in personal salvation, personal redemption. How about national salvation, praying for the people, praying for the nation of Israel? We've been commanded to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. The Jewish feast, the minor feast, teaches this very powerfully because on this day and on fast days we are to pray for others. It's not just about me, myself and I. Verse three, they stood up in their place and read from the scroll of the National Enquirer. No, it says they read from Torah. They didn't read Max Lucado. They didn't read Charles Stanley. You know, that's some good reading, but it says they read from Torah. When we fast, we should spend a little extra time in Torah. What is Torah? Torah is the first five books of the Bible. It's living guidelines and instructions for us. They could have read from the prophets. They could have read from the writings. They could have read the Psalms, but it says they read from Torah. They read from what Yahweh expects. Think about that. Now, for us, we can also read from the living Torah, the Brit Hadashah, specifically the words of Yeshua, and apply that to us. Responsibility. And notice it says they sat for a fourth of a day. Few people can sit and do that. I mean, our backside gets tired after an hour. It's like, okay, Rabbi Daniel, wrap it up. Wrap it up. Hurry up. Come on now. And yet it says a fourth of the day was spent listening to the Torah being read, and then the other fourth was spent worshiping and confessing their sins. And in verse 3 all the way through 38, it talks about confessing sins and worshiping Yahweh. And verses 3 through 37 tells us how they did it. And they just confessed their sins to Yahweh. But look at verse 38. I like this. It says that they made a pledge and wrote it down. I want to encourage you to fast and document the change. Because if you're not changing when you're fasting, why just miss dinner? Why miss that meal at Sonic? You know, have that sandwich. But document it. It says in verse 38 and in chapter 10, if you go through and read chapter 10, they documented the change that took place in the people after the fast. You might not see anything while you fast. All you might do is just really feel hungry. You might not feel Yahweh's presence. You might just feel your stomach churning. It's not about what you feel, right? It might be that next day when that blessing comes through. Might be that day when you're able to step into the spiritual realm. Let's review a couple things. There's more in the Bible about fasting than many, many other subjects we hear about. It's a part of the biblical faith. The Hebrew word for fasting is tzum, or to cover, like to cover your mouth. We're told in the Bible to enul nephesh, to afflict your soul or to afflict your nephesh, your appetite. That a powerful way to conquer the five senses and sin, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is to withstand, to withdraw, to humble yourself. Yahweh is spirit, and we must worship him in what? In spirit and in truth. There are three types of unbelief we cover, and these types of unbelief hold us back from Yahweh's perfect will in our lives. There's the unbelief of just ignorance. There's the unbelief of disbelief. We just don't believe what Yahweh's word says. Then there's natural unbelief that's fed to our body all day, every day. And yet we're told in Hebrews 5.14 that the way we conquer that is by exercising our senses, training our senses to do what? Determine between both good and evil. The challenge to fast is to withhold your physical pleasures and my physical pleasures and seek Yahweh in order to be changed. A change of heart, not to change him, but to change us. To focus on him, to see more clearly, to get rid of unbelief so that we can fulfill his will for our lives. That unbelief holds us back, and our pleasures hold us back. You know, I really believe that we have filled ourselves with so much pleasure, especially in America, that it stops us from really experiencing the abundant life Yahweh has for us. I want to conclude with a couple of verses here. And I want us to look at this and remember the type of fast that Yahweh has chosen for us and has called us to be a part of and to experience. Amen? Yeshayahu 58.8. 58. We'll conclude with this. It's not about us mortifying ourselves, but changing ourselves and tuning in to Yahweh's power and presence. Yeshayahu 58.5. Is this the kind of fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to mortify himself? Is the object to hang your head down like a reed and to spread sackcloth and ashes underneath yourself? Would you call this a fast, an acceptable day to Yahweh? Rather, is not this the type of fast I have chosen? This is what it is. To loose the chains of wickedness, to untie the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, to break off every yoke. Now think about that for your soul, for your life, for your appetite. That fasting is to loose the chains of wickedness that are around your appetite, that are around your desires. To untie the heavy burden that is upon you, placed on you by the enemy, by others, by whoever. To let the oppressed go free. That's the kind of fast Yahweh wants. Verse 7. Is it not to distribute your bread to the hungry, to bring the poor that are cast out to your house? When you see the naked and cover them, and you fulfill your duties to your family? Then shall your light break forth as a morning, and your health shall spring forth speedily, and your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of Yahweh shall be your reward. Then, verse 9, shall you call, and Yahweh shall answer. You shall call, and He shall say, I am here. If you take away from your midst the yoke, the finger pointing, and the speaking of unrighteousness. And if you extend your heart to the hungry, satisfy the afflicted being, then shall your light rise in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noon day. This is the point of fasting. To purify ourselves, so we don't finger point, we don't speak unrighteousness, we don't allow evil to rule us. We don't allow our appetite to rule us. We rule over it. We have power over it. That's what Yahweh wants for us. It's not for us to be under control, but for us to be in control. To get to the place where we can say like Job. Job 23, 12. We'll end with this. This is the goal. Job says in Job 23, 12, that I have esteemed the words of Yahweh's mouth more than my necessary food. But in the King James and in the Hebrew, the word food isn't there. It says, I have esteemed the words of Yahweh's mouth more than my necessary, fill in the blank. Father, Yahweh, we come before you asking you to show us what is in our life and maybe the appetite or craving or desire or what is stopping us from fulfilling your will. Father, what is controlling us? Father, there's so much in our senses that we take in that feeds our unbelief. Father, may we choose and take up the challenge to fast. That we could decree and declare that we seek your word more than whatever we think is necessary. Father, I pray that fasting would become part of our spiritual life. Of everyone here and those that hear this teaching. That we would incorporate fasting, abstaining, withdrawing and debasing ourselves, humbling ourselves as part of our normal worship. Not in essence to twist your arm, but to purify ourselves from all the influence of this world. For this world is wicked. And we don't love it, Father, because your word says if we love the world, we don't love you. So purify us. Help us. Help us to accept the challenge, not to go on a 40 day fast starting tomorrow, but to begin to incorporate fasting into our lives. That the unbelief would be gone and that we could see your power and your love manifest in our lives. We pray. B'shem Yeshua. Amen. Thank you again for listening to Finding E-Met with Daniel Rendleman. May you find the E-Met and may the E-Met, may the truth set you free. Amen.
