If the physical benefits were all that were received, they would be worth fasting for, and people would live 25 to 35 years longer (according to some authorities.) Many of God's people are committing "slow suicide" by being continually on a three meal a day stuffing habit, not satisfied with stuffing God and faith out of their lives, but stuffing out their own life years ahead of time as well. They stuff health out and invite diseases and demons in. After wearing out one set of teeth digging themselves to the grave, many secure another set to finish digging with. Food addicts abound in the church. Food addiction or food drunkenness is as harmful to the temple of the Holy Spirit as other types of addiction. Please see
Ps. 78 for proof of this. We shall consider some of the physical reasons "Why to Fast"-believe it or not:
41. Fasting is the greatest curative agency known.
42. Fasting is the quickest curative agency known.
43. When you feed a diseased body you feed the disease; fasting starves the disease.
44. Fasting rids the body of practically all the unwanted poisonous filth of auto-intoxication.
45. Fasting purifies the blood stream.
46. Fasting improves circulation. It even cleanses the blood vessels so that the blood circulates all through vessels that may have heretofore been choked up. A blood transfusion comes automatically.
47. Fasting rests the heart, improves health and helps the body overcome heart troubles.
48. Fasting conserves energy. Sick people cannot get well unless there is a conservation of energy. Many times food will destroy or waste what little energy a sick individual has
49. Fasting gives the overworked stomach a vacation as well as nearly all other parts of the
body.
50. Fasting rapidly removes the cause of many many diseases. Oftentimes the very disease itself is turned into food fuel for its own destruction, any value in it being utilized for nourishment.
51. Fasting will cure 99% of functional ailments.
52. Fasting quickly heals simple diseases such as boils, skin blemishes, indigestion, dyspepsia, constipation (although at first the fast seems to aggravate the condition) rheumatism, fever, asthma, change of life and irregular periodical functions in females, restoring to normal and healing other diseases. Major fasting will also cure most other major
diseases caused by impurities in the system.
53. Fasting Improves the mental faculties, making it easier to think, study, remember and concentrate.
(During some parts of the fast, this may not always be true.)
54. Fasting eradicates mucous, stringy, ropey fecal material and floating food particles within the body.
55. After ten or fifteen days of fasting the individual usually becomes stronger, physically day by
day, after the initial cleansing of the body takes place.
56. The headache generally felt while fasting is a sure indication that you should fast.
57. Fasting will remove ordinary headaches and the coffee or caffeine headache, along with the over-use of coffee or any other abnormal habits.
58. Fasting will also eradicate tobacco, drug and drinking habits in as little as three days, water only taken during the fast, with temperate eating habits after the fast. The roots of these habits are embedded within the stomach. Fasting consumes these very roots, banishing addiction.
59. A person cannot starve while fasting. Only the things that are not needed within the body are used. Some of these are poisonous, contaminated, rotten food particles that have been on the walls of the stomach for months. Some doctors have said that dehydrated food and even worms were found to impact the walls of the intestinal tract for more than 15 years. This very condition invites disease and demons, and with fasting they are starved out.
60. Fasting is the greatest natural youth restorer known. It beautifies the complexion.
61. Regular fasting prolongs life from twenty to forty years, depending on how much and how properly the fasts are entered into.
62. Fasting will remove tumors as large as watermelons, also ulcers, cancer and goiters, and will revitalize the glands
63. The weakness felt while fasting generally disappears after the worst poisons and pollution are removed by the house cleaning process. (This weakness is caused by rubbish and poisons being stirred within the body.)
64. Fasting after two weeks, more or less, causes the breath that was foul during the first of the fast to become clean and pure like that of a child.
65. Fasting removes bad tastes from the mouth.
66. Fasting will so purify the skin that often the complexion becomes rosy and like a young person's.
67. The older a person becomes the more often he should fast, though shorter fasts should be taken. No one is too old to fast. In fact, the older one is, the less food is required. History and the Bible show us that men and women who fasted the most lived the longest. Study the lives of Moses, Elijah, and Anna the prophetess. These individuals were likewise the most spiritual.
68. Fasting helps us to overcome many bad habits.
69. Fasting develops patience, aids temperance and enables one to have proper spiritual growth as well as physical prosperity.
70. Fasting overcomes and aids in the prevention of disease.
71. Fasting draws the intestinal tract up and into its normal size and overcomes and prevents colitis and piles.
72. Fasting restores a natural, normal appetite (after the fast is broken properly.)
73. Thin persons might not realize that they need to fast, in some cases even more than a heavy person. The reason is very simple. The thin individual has so many times overworked his organs by overeating, that he is incapable of putting on weight. I have seen many an underweight person fast from two to three weeks and weigh more after breaking the fast properly than he weighed before fasting. A heavy person usually is in good enough health so that his organs should not put on weight. However, one should not in any case be a glutton.
74. Fasting is a normalizing agent: It will help to restore weight to underweight folk and aid in preventing excessive weight on overweight folk.
75. Fasting will aid in cases of insomnia. At first an automatic blood transfusion is set up within the body by the blood remaining from the weight that is lost. This excess blood goes through the body to bathe the organs and it enters the head causing sleeplessness for a time. Later on, and after the fast, one finds rest and sleep easier and more refreshing. 76. Excess starches and sweets cause the body to be converted into an alcohol factory. This in turn causes habit hunger (lust hunger) which is entirely different from true hunger. There are perhaps more people bound to this habit than there are to the drinking habit. The former is about as difficult to break. Jesus classifies it as just as much of a sin as the drink
habit. (Luke 21:34)
77. Fasting will undo the hunger habit of lust and will prevent folk from being drunk on food. Actually, when folk have great difficulty in fasting, they are under bondage to the food addiction habit in the same manner as those who are under alcohol, drug, tobacco or other types of bondages. Fasting only a few days can break the bondage of food addiction. 78. Fasting aids and improves our sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. All sense faculties are benefited.
79. Fasting should be frequent, to keep clean the temple and home of the Holy Spirit and to keep from food addiction habits.
80. Fasting seems to take one into a different world. It is wonderful to taste and experience. It makes for better harmony
for the person, his family, friends and community. Couples having family difficulties and discord oftentimes come together in a new understanding, with new love and success after a major fast. (See 1 Cor. 7.)
WARNING: Please do not attempt a long fast without first having complete information as to the proper procedure of breaking into eating again. Consecrated Bible fasting is not harmful, but the way and manner of starting to eat ajal can prove detrimental and the physical benefits received may be undone if too much is eaten, too soon. Satan tempted the Lord to eat after His fast. We also may be tempted to overeat right after a major fast.
(Further copies of this tract are available from Christie Ryker, Bible Fasting Adventures, P.O. Box 389, Pretoria South Africa. Tel: 082 4404 645)
Rewritten with kind permission granted by the Hall Deliverance Foundation, PO Box 9910, Phoenix, Arizona 15068 U.S.A.
