The Synod each year appoints a day of humiliation and prayer to be observed in all the congregations of the Church. Besides this yearly Synod appointment, each congregation of the Church appoints a congregational fast day on the Thursday before each communion season as a day of humiliation and prayer.
What are the dangers connected with the appointment of such a day?
Its regular appointment may make it become a common-place occurrence to us. If its significance becomes lost to us and we forget the purpose of its appointment we will, as a consequence, treat it lightly and observe it half-heartedly. The perfunctory observance of a fast day may be more God-dishonouring than not having one at all. All religious worship is solemn and weighty and ought to be engaged in seriously. Surely, then, it is particularly solemn when our purpose, as a congregation or Church or nation, in coming before God, is to confess our sins before Him. If we do this in an insincere or light way we not only make a mock of sin—a particularly serious offence before God—but we mock God Himself. What need we have to bear in mind that exhortation of God’s Word—”Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.” Eccles. 5: 1. Unless we are duly sensible of the weightiness of a day of humiliation and prayer, we may run great hazard in negligently observing it. As is true in the case of vows—”Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay”—so it is in the case of fast days too. Better to have no fast day than to set a day apart and then fail to observe it or not observe it aright.
What is a fast day?
The prophet had to ask of old—Is it a day for a man to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Isaiah 58: 5. It is very clear that it does not consist in mere outward postures or observances or mere lip confession of sin. It is a day for sinners to humble themselves in the dust before the Majesty of heaven. It is a day for open acknowledgment of personal sins of heart and life as well as confession of national sin and backsliding in the presence of God. If there is to be true confession of sin there must be also a forsaking of sin, and there can be neither apart from the power and blessing of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit of God which begets in the heart true grief and sorrow for sin and which wrings from a soul truly sensible of sin and guilt those groanings which cannot be uttered. We need the Holy Spirit in this as in all other exercises of acceptable worship for He is the Spirit of grace and of supplication.
What advantage is to be derived from the right, that is, the spiritual observance of such a day?
Though there was no blessing promised as a reward, it would be our reasonable duty to acknowledge our sins at special times and particularly in times of gross backsliding. Yet many blessings are held out in God’s Word as an encouragement to engage in this duty—such as, for example, the averting of temporal calamities and the reviving of the Lord’s Cause. How often has the fierce anger of the Lord been turned away through the intercession of His people. His ear is open to hear their cry. On how many occasions have seasons of reviving come to the Church through God’s people humbling themselves in the dust before Him. “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 2 Chron. 7: 14. Let us keep these things clearly before our minds as we approach another day of humiliation and prayer. This may be our last opportunity to gather together as a Church to plead with the Lord to intervene in the affairs of our nation and prevent, if that is His holy will, our projected entry into the European Common Market on 1st January, 1973. Should that alliance be finally consummated, who can venture to predict the extent of the adverse effects upon us as a people through its ensnaring entanglements. Such an alliance could well be the precursor of darker days than our land has ever seen. Let us be thankful, then, that we have this renewed opportunity of publicly appearing before God in His Courts to plead with Him at this time. Let us ask Him to appear for us, for His great Name’s sake. Such a day of humiliation and prayer might well mark a turning point in the history of our nation, and even in the history of the nations of the world. If we gain the ear of the Most High then we have the ear of Him who controls the universe—and with Him nothing is impossible.