Arthur Wallis Quotes

God is not merely concerned with what we do but why we do it. A right act may be robbed of all its value in the sight of God if it is done with a wrong motive.

When we fast, how long we fast, the nature of the fast and the spiritual objectives we have before us are all God’s choice, to which the obedient disciple gladly responds.

If you have been brought low through personal defeat; if there is a call in your soul to a deeper purifying, to a renewed consecration; if there is the challenge of some new task for which you feel ill-equipped—then it is time to inquire of God whether He would not have you separate yourself unto Him in fasting.

Behind many of our besetting sins and personal failures, behind the many ills that infect our church fellowships and clog the channels of Christian service—the clash of personalities and temperaments, the strife and division—lies that insidious pride of the human heart.

God reminds His people that the acceptable fast is the one which He has chosen. Fasting, like prayer, must be God-initiated and God-ordained if it is to be effective.

Then there will be times when we shall forget the matter of our personal gain, when we shall be caught up in wonder, love and praise, as we fast unto God.

There is always the hope that spiritual forces will be released which will work toward repentance and recovery.

The eyes of the Lord are still searching the earth today for the Ezras who will confess the sins of a faithless remnant,

If restoration and renewal are to come from the presence of the Lord—and what hope is there without them?—then it is men and women like these whom God will use to turn the tide.

In the fasting for personal sanctity, we must also include the positive aspect of consecration to God.

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.

All chronic pain, suffering, and diseases are caused by a lack of oxygen at the cell level." – Dr. Arthur

On our part there must be the recognition of the rightness and need of fasting, the willingness for the self-discipline involved, and the exercise of heart before God; but in the final analysis the initiative is His.

Matthew Henry said, "When God intends great mercy for His people, He sets them apraying." Indeed, when God wants anything accomplished in His Kingdom, He moves men to pray. God is always the initiator. All effectual prayer was moving in the heart of God before ever it began to move in the heart of man. What Kepler said as he unlocked the secrets of the heavens, could well be said by the man who prays in the Spirit: "O God, I am thinking Thy thoughts after Thee.

The cross must work in us if the life is to be centered in God. Only so can our spiritual motivation be radically altered and become Christward instead of selfward. “He died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him” (2 Cor. 5:15, RV).

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.

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!

What awe must have come to the hearts of that waiting band as they listened to that “sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind”—what a sense of the irresistible power of God! But there was also the appearance of “tongues parting asunder, like as of fire.” Fire typifies the activity of God’s holiness in relation to sin; fire consumes and fire purifies. When the Spirit came upon Christ, it was not as the fire but “as a dove,” for there was no sin in Him, as the Father then declared, “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). But here the tongues “like as of fire” sat upon each of them, bringing not only a sense of the infinite holiness of God but of the activity of that holiness in dealing with all that was unholy in themselves.

... the intercessor is not so much like a lamp in the electric circuit as a radio which is both a receiver and transmitter. The receiving aspect is often quite overlooked in the ministry of intercession. Communion with God should surely be a two-way traffic. We speak of prayer as our ‘coming to the mercy seat’, but when God first spoke about this to Moses He said nothing about it as a place where Moses would speak with Him, but rather as a place where He would speak with Moses (Exod. 2 5 : 22). In other words, the mercy seat was to be first a place of revelation, and then a place of intercession. This revelation may indeed be given to the intercessor as he prays, but it will often be necessary to tune in and hear what eaven is saying that he may know how to pray. To learn how to talk to God we must first learn how to listen to God.

The Holy Spirit needs us to accomplish His intercessory ministry, and we certainly need Him to accomplish ours. What a privilege to be invited to join in this heavenly partnership. He wants to be free to think through our minds, feel through our hearts, speak through our lips, and even weep through our eyes and groan through our spirits. When a believer is thus at the disposal of the Holy Spirit, praying in the Spirit will be a reality.

There is nothing essentially vile in the human body, for God created it, even with its desires and appetites. There is nothing evil in a hungry man’s desire for a square meal, or a healthy woman’s longing for a husband, children and a home of her own. It is not the way of the Spirit to repress these natural instincts, but to control them and keep them within the bounds prescribed by God. We do not need to extinguish the fire in the grate; only to prevent the coals from falling out and setting the place on fire. The physical is not to be ruthlessly suppressed but firmly disciplined and subordinated to the spiritual. When asceticism becomes a thing of form enforced by man-made rules, it is incapable of dealing effectively with the bodily lusts. Self-control on the other hand is the fruit of the Spirit, springing from divine life within, cultivated by the habit of a disciplined life.

John Wesley’s famous sermon on fasting: First, let it be done unto the Lord, with our eye singly fixed on Him. Let our intention herein be this, and this alone, to glorify our Father which is in heaven; to express our sorrow and shame for our manifold transgressions of His holy law; to wait for an increase of purifying grace, drawing our affections to things above; to add seriousness and to obtain all the great and precious promises which He hath made to us in Jesus Christ. . . . Let us beware of fancying we merit anything of God by our fasting. We cannot be too often warned of this; inasmuch as a desire to “establish our own righteousness,” to procure salvation of debt and not of grace, is so deeply rooted in all our hearts. Fasting is only a way which God hath ordained, wherein we wait for His unmerited mercy; and wherein, without any desert of ours, He hath promised freely to give us His blessing.1

How then are we to reconcile these two facts - we are ignorant of the will of God, and yet, in order to receive, are required to pray according to it? Here is a weakness serious enough to render all our praying ineffectual. But the apostle points us to this wonderful fact that Someone has been sent to help us who has a perfect knowledge of the will of God. 'The Spirit helps us in our weakness . . . the Spirit Himself intercedes for us . . . the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

It is a solemn fact that we may facilitate or frustrate the Spirit's intercession in us, by our co-operation or the lack of it. Though Christ does not require us for His intercession, the Holy Spirit most assuredly does for His. Here we can no longer be spectators, we must be participators. Christ prays for us in the sense that He makes us the object of His praying. The Holy Spirit prays for us in the sense that He makes us the vehicle of His praying. He prays on our behalf by enabling us to pray, helping us in our weakness, who do not know how to pray as we ought.

Now if we are always falling back on these 'if-it-be-Thy-will prayers' we are debasing this most well known prayer promise of the apostle John, and making it a prayer 'let-out', a useful carpet under which we can sweep all our unanswered prayers. We imply that what he is really saying is this: 'And this is the lack of confidence which we have in Him, that unless we happen to ask according to His will, He will not hear us, and we shall not have our petition.' So the promise that was intended to confirm our faith serves only to cover our unbelief and to confirm us in our state of weakness, in seeking to prevail with God.

If a man is summoned to the king's palace to receive some decoration, the royal summons is his right to enter the king's presence. It takes him past the sentries and officers of the guard who would otherwise debar him from the palace. But having gained entry he would be at a loss to find his way into the sovereign's presence if left to himself in that labyrinth of corridors. the work of Christ provides us with the royal summons and constitutes our right of entry, but the indwelling Spirit is also needed to conduct us into God's presence. It is His work to make access to God a reality; to bring to us the deep conviction that we are not talking into the air when we pray, but communing face to face with a loving heavenly Father.

Though our main emphasis is intercession, a word may not be out of place here on the use of tongues in praise and thanksgiving. ‘If you bless with the Spirit . . . you may give thanks well enough’ (verses 16, 17). Paul’s restricting of the gift here is because of the presence of ‘the other man’ Who is not helped by an utterance he does not understand. In the solitude of one’s own devotions these restrictions no longer apply. Only God is present, and ‘one Who speaks in tongues speaks not to men but to God’ (verse 2). But is it not better to do it in your mother tongue and understand What you are saying? Not necessarily, or God would never have given this gift, nor would Paul have used it so much. Have we not known times when, in adoration of the Lord, we feel the inadequacy of our own language to express all that we feel in our hearts? The very language which is usually an indispensable channel of communication seems to become a barrier to communication. It is then that this gift comes to our aid, and the human spirit is released in an utterance of praise or thanksgiving that would not have been possible in our native tongue.

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 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.

under these three main fasts we have now considered, biblical fasting may be public as well as private, regular as well as occasional, involuntary as well as voluntary. We shall notice too the differing needs and circumstances that moved men to fast, and their application for us today.

recognize prayer as a vital necessity.

There is concern in the hearts of many for the recovery of apostolic power. But how can we recover apostolic power while neglecting apostolic practice? How can we expect the power to flow if we do not prepare the channels? Fasting is a God-appointed means for the flowing of His grace and power that we can afford to neglect no longer. The fast of this age is not merely an act of mourning for Christ’s absence, but an act of preparation for His return.

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!

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

It needs to be stressed that fasting, whether regular or occasional, is a matter between the individual and God.

Why are we not more holy?” asked John Wesley, another regular faster, addressing his preachers. “Chiefly because we are enthusiasts, looking for the end without the means.

I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chron. 7:14).

They were not ministering to God but to the pride of their own hearts.

We are not to be in bondage to rules, even spiritual ones. “If you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law” (Gal. 5:18).

God’s chosen fast, then, is that which He has appointed; that which is set apart for Him, to minister to Him, to honor and glorify Him; that which is designed to accomplish His sovereign will.

Moses went on to warn them, “Take heed . . . lest, when you have eaten and are full . . . your heart be lifted up” (8:11–14). Hosea tells us that this is exactly what happened (Hos. 13:6), despite the warning.

Fasting, then, is a divine corrective to the pride of the human heart. It is a discipline of the body with a tendency to humble the soul. “I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God,” records Ezra (8:21; see also Isa. 58:3).

Mourning over personal sin and failure is an indispensable stage in the process of sanctification, and it is facilitated by fasting.

His baptism in the Jordan was His dedication unto death in anticipation of the cross. Though He received the Spirit then in measureless fullness, the power was not operative until He returned from the wilderness testing. By His acceptance of those six weeks of fasting, He was reaffirming His determination to do the will of His Father even to the end. It was His final preparation and consecration for His heavenly mission. As He returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, the works of God were manifested in Him.

God had to say: “Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high” (58:4). But that is clearly one thing that fasting is intended to do, for, describing the fast that He has chosen, God goes on to say, “Then you shall call and the Lord will answer” (58:9).

Fasting is designed to make prayer mount up as on eagles’ wings. It is intended to usher the suppliant into the audience chamber of the King and to extend to him the golden sceptre. It may be expected to drive back the oppressing powers of darkness and loosen their hold on the prayer objective. It is calculated to give an edge to a man’s intercessions and power to his petitions. Heaven is ready to bend its ear to listen when someone prays with fasting.

Says Andrew Murray: Fasting helps to express, to deepen, and to confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, to sacrifice ourselves to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God.1

Without doubt this is an important aspect of the fasting prayer. Of course, we must not think of fasting as a hunger strike designed to force God’s hand and get our own way! Prayer, however, is much more complex than simply asking a loving father to supply his child’s need. Prayer is warfare! Prayer is wrestling! There are opposing forces. There are spiritual crosscurrents. When we plead our case in the court of heaven, when we cry to the Judge of all the earth, “Vindicate me against my adversary” (Luke 18:3), that adversary is also represented in court (Job 1:6, 2:1 ; Zech. 3:1). It is not enough that the Judge is willing; there is the opposition that must first be overcome.

Fasting is calculated to bring a note of urgency and importunity into our praying, and to give force to our pleading in the court of heaven.

they fasted as well as wept before the Lord, and God gave them overwhelming victory (Judg. 20). What power with God to turn the tide has prayer accompanied by fasting!

fasting is an opportunity to push the pause button and slow down for a brief period of time to draw near to God, to come to Him for critical needs, to discover His wisdom, and to get back in touch with our first love and our life purpose.

Tu as été le Merlin de Nnanji-Arthur. Maintenant, tu peux devenir Aristote, Alcuin ou Imhotep – un ami loyal, un conseiller et, parfois, une conscience. Un sorcier à demeure. Le pouvoir dans l'ombre. — M'écoutera-t-il seulement ? — Il le fera la plupart du temps. Je ne dis pas que ce sera facile, mais il sait que tu connais des choses qu'il ne saura jamais – tout comme il peut faire des choses dont tu ne seras jamais capable. — Nnanji et moi ? Comme une épée : la souplesse et le tranchant de la lame ? — Comme le griffon : un lion et un aigle ! Wallie