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| Over the mountain and far away. |
Isaiah 58 – a relationship and the true purpose of fasting
Don Bradley August 3rd, 2025
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We've read your article Mister Don, but how do we know this to be so? Given what Isaiah 58 teaches?
Fair enough. Let's see what Zechariah 7:5-7 reveals to us.
5Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?
6And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?
7Should ye not hear the words which YHVH hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when men inhabited the south and the plain?
Here, YHVH makes it quite clear, years after Isaiah, what He is on about. It's a thing between you and Him. Heart to heart, Mind to mind, Spirit to spirit. This only comes from a fountain of Real Love within your heart filled with tenderness, as one would have with a much loved child or spouse directed toward Him, YHVH. Yet more so.
DB
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To come straight to the point, the True Purpose of fasting is an act of love. That's it. All it is.
It is your way of demonstrating in fact, that you love Him so very much, that you have come to the understanding and knowing, that fasting opens wider the doorway, between your heart and mind, and His.
Simple, easy to understand.
In Isaiah 58, YHVH remonstrates those that fast and pray as empty motion. Null and void. Because, it is a device and little else. To be heard or appear holy, when they are none. He tells them in that chapter that He does not hear them. This is because their love to Him is not present and on top of that void, they fill the time not trying to have perfect dialogue and connection, but to get something they want or need or wish.
These are all wrong motivations.
The proper way to prayer and fasting is as stated above. You love HIM so VERY MUCH, that you have found this increases that bond between you and that you VALUE THIS LOVE ABOVE ALL ELSE. You could be shopping, mowing the lawn, working a job, those details do not matter, providing it's your heart – to and for Him – is your MOTIVE.
Stop and consider for a minute, before pushing on here.
Very often, on days I pray and fast (once a week, on the 7th day, sunset Friday to sunset Saturday), I get a lot of stuff done and also, work for the world. Yet, my mind and heart is centered on Him always. Usually, I am internally singing made-up-as-I-go songs to Him, and any extra time, many hours in fact, I sit and just talk to Him, internally, in private, as Yeshua taught us so. Around the clock, even when not fasting.
He answers. Right then and there. Every confirmation either through the Holy Word or through some minor miracle, He provides. Right then and there.
You will find, if the world finds out you do this, they will assail you with portions of the Holy Word, they themselves have no understanding of. Or, they will start harassment campaigns to break your connection with Him. These are often vicious attacks, meant to knock you off that connection and down in the dirt, where they are. Don't let them.
Sing louder. Aloud, as I do. I love just telling Dad how much He means to me and how very awesome He has been to us, and my heart just fills to bursting.
This is correct.
Ignore the attacks and villains. They are legion.
They want you angry, bitter and bitchy.
No way!
Beat the slugs and gimps at this game, and go on the offensive. Pray against the Beast system, and use whatever level of spiritual warfare you have learned and lean into it.
I am permitted to say that if your day or days of prayer and fasting are as described above, the line of fire (light beam, visible and present in most souls still in the book of life, and demonstrated on this site) becomes a massive column of fire 50 feet across, with streamers coming out from you in all directions. On top of that, is fiery streamers from the Sun in the sky, straight into you, whether indoors or outdoors.
All from proper prayer and fasting.
Okay then.
Don
Isaiah 58
1Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.
2Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.
3Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.
4Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.
5Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to YHVH?
6Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
7Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
8Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward.
9Then shalt thou call, and YHVH shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;
10And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday:
11And YHVH shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
12And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
13If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of YHVH, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
14Then shalt thou delight thyself in YHVH; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of YHVH hath spoken it.