Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Luke chapter 5, verses 33 through 35.

And they said to him,

the disciples of John fast often and offer prayers,

and so do the disciples of the Pharisees,

but yours eat and drink.

And Jesus said to them,

can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,

and then they will fast in those days.

These are really important verses for us to understand on multiple levels. So first, just the context here,

critics are coming after Jesus because his disciples are not fasting like other disciples of

Pharisees or even John the Baptist fast. And in his response, Jesus teaches one of the reasons for fasting.

He uses this illustration of a wedding.

When the bridegroom is there, it's a time for celebration.

It's a time for eating and drinking, not for abstaining. And the implication is clear.

Jesus is here. And so his disciples are not abstaining from food. They're eating and drinking and

enjoying food with the one who is worthy of celebration, Jesus himself. But there is coming a day, Jesus says,

when, just like when the bridegroom is away from a wedding, that Jesus will be gone,

and then his disciples will fast. So one of the biblical reasons why we fast is because we long for Jesus to return.

We long to be physically in his presence.

He's not here right now.

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