One of the points of Luke is to say,

God precedes the coming of his king through expectant people who yearn for him and long for him and look for him and fast for him,

and he gives special, wonderful glimpses of his glory

to people like that.

Hi, I'm your host, Dan Kroover. Why would anyone fast for the end of history?

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper opens Luke 2, verses 36 to 38 to reflect on

an elderly woman's devotion and invite us to hunger for Christ's return with the same intensity.

This message was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on January 29, 1995.

In this series of messages on fasting, we have seen from Acts 13 in the city of Antioch

how history was changed through a group of leaders fasting and worshiping and hearing the

Holy Spirit say set aside Barnabas and Saul to the work to which I called them.

Then we saw Jesus in Matthew 9, 15, say, the reason my disciples are not fasting is because

you don't fast at weddings. The bridegroom is here, but the days are coming when the bridegroom

will be taken away and then my disciples will fast. And then we saw Jesus in the wilderness say to the devil who tried to interrupt his fast,

man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.

And we learn that we're to feed on God and to feed on His word when we're fasting

and nurture our lives not first on physical food,

but on spiritual food, namely God revealed in His spoken word.

And then last week we saw from Ezra 821 that through fasting and the humbling and the praying of it, God delivers

his people even the little ones.

Next week, I'm going to jump ahead and tie it back into this week.

Next week we're going to go to the sermon on the mount, and in Matthew 6 we're going to see Jesus

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