I had just started a rigorous discipleship intensive program with my church in mid-January 2024, which involved such things as reading the New Testament, reading Christian books, praying, worshiping, and meditating daily on the Word, fasting all social and secular media, meeting regularly with other program participants, and fasting food once a week for 17 weeks, including a 3 day fast and a 7 day fast. I was anticipatory of what the Lord was going to show me throughout those 17 weeks, but truthfully, I wasn’t looking forward to the fasting.
Mind you, this wasn’t my first fasting rodeo. I had fasted at various times before. I was familiar and always amazed at the power of it, but one question that came to mind this time as opposed to other times was “What is it about depriving myself of food that makes fasting such a powerful tool? I don’t understand,” I asked myself, almost grumbling. However, one of the many amazing things about the Holy Spirit residing in all who believe is that He hears the thoughts and questions floating around in your head, and He’s more eager to respond than you might think. After this experience I’m about to share, I’m convinced that He longs to address our questions in the most surprising, experiential ways.
For Everyone Who Asks, Receives
A few days went by after I had that passing thought. In fact, I had completely forgotten about it, but the Lord never did. It was as if He was waiting for me to ask this question just so He could answer, even though I never asked Him directly.
I had a dream that, after waking up from it, had me absolutely bewildered. My heart was beating fast, and my eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling, as I pondered what I just saw. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I knew it was from the Lord, and that I had to write it down immediately.
I had a dream that night that I was in a place that was almost pitch black, save for this opening that I saw above me. It was the only thing I saw at first. I noticed that it expanded and contracted, and every time it expanded, dozens of people were falling through it into this darkness. These looked like normal, everyday people you’d see pass by you on the street. I was horrified. I thought to myself “It didn’t have to be this way… How are this many people not accepting Jesus?!” I continued watching as more handfuls of people fell helplessly into the abyss.
I then realized that this wasn’t a mere abyss. It dawned on me that I had now become a spectator in hell, and that the Lord wanted to reveal something important to me.
I looked below to where they were falling, and saw a large pool of lava and burning rocks. Now realizing that this was a dream from the Lord and that He wanted me to pay attention, I began to look as intently as I could at this pool of lava. I wanted to get every detail of where I was, but because of the heat and brightness, it was too difficult to look directly at it for an extended period of time. Though I didn’t feel the heat, the heatwaves were making everything blurry.
Then, instinctively, I knew the Lord was going to pull me through this lava and that I needed to hold my breath. After I went through, the dream started over again, and it was on a loop until I awoke. I knew that in the Bible, repetition is meant to create emphasis, highlighting its importance and/or meaning, requiring one to pay careful attention. I knew that the Lord was putting emphasis on this and wanted me to pay attention, but I didn’t know why.
Peeling Back the Layers
My first clue was, shortly after waking up, immediately hearing the phrase “belly of hell.” The wheels in my head began to turn.
“Belly of hell…I know there’s biblical precedence for this phrase since it was written that Jonah cried out from the ‘belly of Sheol’ when he was in the belly of a fish. It also makes sense with what I saw, because that opening that expanded and contracted was like an esophagus, and the lava could be akin to stomach acid. It was also dark, like I imagine a stomach would be. But Lord, why would you show me this? What does it all mean?”
I went to church that Sunday morning after the dream with these questions reeling in my head. I told a couple of people about it, hoping they’d have insight to offer, but they were as perplexed as I was.
We started worship, and in my head, I continued to wrestle with the Lord with this question of why He showed me this devastating place. Then, He gave me another hefty bread crumb.
“Hell is ravenously hungry. I showed you a picture of why fasting is important.”
After He spoke this phrase, the proverbial lightbulb flickered on, then continued to get brighter with every passing minute as He began sharing His heart on the matter.
In that moment, He reminded me of the question I asked in passing, seemingly to myself, about why we have to fast from food, and I realized that by fasting food, we are both metaphorically and spiritually starving hell to death. The question then becomes:
“Then what is hell hungry for?”
It’s hungry for the ultimate destruction of souls, devouring them whole. It will lie, cheat, steal, and kill to satisfy this hunger, though it’s never ultimately satisfied. Thus, when we fast, we stop devouring food to symbolize our rebellion against the hungry forces of hell in our lives, and even the lives of others. We feel its hunger for destruction, but we actively choose not to feed it, and instead, to deprive it of its fuel source.
Yet, though we’re not eating physical food, the difference between mere starvation and a fast is that we’re still consuming spiritual food, that is, the Word of God. When Jesus fasted 40 days and Satan came to tempt him, asking Him to turn a stone to bread, He quoted Deuteronomy 8:3, which states “Men do not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” The larger context of what Jesus quoted is that God was reminding the Israelites how He led them 40 years in the wilderness in order to humble them, test them, and discipline them, and also demonstrate that it’s He who ultimately sustains. God providing them bread from heaven (manna) foreshadowed the coming of the ultimate Bread of Heaven, Jesus of Nazareth, and it’s His torn flesh and spilled blood that we should eat and drink to live, and according to Jesus, dining on Him is likened to abiding in Him (John 6:32-35, 48-58). It’s no wonder that He likens it to abiding in Him, since He brings up the same topic when He shares His last meal with His disciples before sacrificing Himself, and explains that the broken bread of His body and spilled wine of His blood was the heralding of a new covenant and a new era. Eating the bread and drinking the wine of His impending sacrifice signified their agreement with this covenant that God was making with them through Jesus (Matthew 26:26-28). Thus, when we eat of Him, or eat spiritual food instead of temporal food, we empower the influence of the Spirit and weaken the influence of the flesh.
But I digress.
Where is the Proof?
The pieces were starting to come together, but I needed more. I needed biblical proof for what I saw. What good is a dream if I can’t sift it with God’s Word? Luckily, not only did this dream confirm what was in the Word, but it revealed something in the Word that I didn’t even know was there.
The first verse I found, as mentioned before, is Jonah 2:2. He says:
“I called by reason of affliction unto Jehovah, and He answered me; out of the belly of Sheol cried I, and He heard my voice.”
Then, Jesus references this verse to prophesy His death and resurrection after the Pharisees asked for a sign, saying:
“… no sign will be given to [this generation] except the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was in the stomach of the sea monster for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and nights” (Matthew 12:39-40).
We know that even though Jesus was buried in the earth physically, spiritually, He went to the depths of Hell and back, as Peter writes in 1 Peter 3:19 that He “preached to the spirits in prison” (possible reference to 2 Enoch, where Enoch is said to have witnessed angels enchained in Sheol, awaiting judgement; also see Jude 1:6). Jesus also states in Revelation 1:18 that He retrieved the keys of Death and Hades (aka Hell aka Sheol). You’d have to defeat death and actually go to the realm of the dead to be able to hold those keys.
I also found this verse from Proverbs, which says:
“Death and Destruction are never satisfied, and neither are human eyes” (Proverbs 27:20).
Most translations use the word “satisfied,” but other translations say that it’s “never full,” “insatiable.” The Message translation even says it has “a voracious appetite.”
On hell’s appetite, Isaiah, and later Peter, says this:
“Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite and opened its mouth beyond measure, and the nobility of Jerusalem and her multitude will go down, her revelers and he who exults her” (Isaiah 5:14).
“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a lion seeking who he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
Lastly, Paul seems to tie this all together with a bow, saying:
“For many walk, as I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame—who set their mind on earthly things” (Philippians 3:18-19).
All considered, it seems that we can safely conclude based on biblical evidence that hell indeed has a stomach, that it's ravenously hungry for death and destruction, to the extent that the enemy is literally hunting people down to devour them, of which we should on guard, and that the people “whose god is their belly” are physical representations of a deeper reality revealing that the forces of hell serve themselves and are led by this destructive appetite, and the people that are led by these appetites, as in, walking in the flesh (see the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19), will themselves ultimately become victims of hell’s appetite. In essence, those whose god is their belly and not the one true God who saves and redeems will find themselves in the belly of hell. This is a sobering thought, not to be taken lightly.
The good news is, hell’s hunger for the destruction of souls is far outweighed by God’s ardent desire to rescue those that are headed to this destination. Remember, the same powers that want to destroy humanity are the same ones that Christ disarmed, triumphed over, and made a public spectacle of by his willingly being crucified in our place in a brutal public execution, though He was innocent, and then resurrecting from the dead (Colossians 2:15). Anyone that believes in their heart and confesses with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and that God raised Him from the dead, the same will be saved (Romans 10:9), since He not only took your place on the cross to satisfy the punishment for your sins, but He also went to the belly of hell and back, as we read before, so you wouldn’t have to go there.
Other Considerations
We also see that fasting starves out the powers of hell when the disciples ask Jesus why they failed to cast a demon out of a young boy. After Jesus then cast the demon out, He turned to them and famously said “This kind only comes out by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:21). This suggests that they couldn’t overpower this demon since they hadn’t empowered the spirit and starved the flesh.
Another thing I noticed, which is an experiential connection rather than a biblical one, per se, is that people being delivered of demons tend to vomit. I’m fully aware of how strange it sounds to those unfamiliar with this, but all things considered, it makes sense in light of everything we’ve explored. Physically, vomiting is our natural response to, say, consuming bad food, but perhaps consuming spiritually bad food and walking after the flesh can make people vomit in the same way when the demons operating in their lives are finally confronted.
Final Thoughts
I wish I could say that discovering all of this made fasting easier during my discipleship program. Unfortunately, it didn’t, because let’s face it… food is GOOD. However, I’m that much more motivated to keep fasting, and fast more often, knowing the power of fasting food to feed the spirit and help stomp the powers of hell out of my life. As James puts it; if we submit to God and resist the devil, he will flee (James 4:7). Fasting is a good way to actively submit to God and resist the devil. When you stop feeding him, he has to flee somewhere else to get his fix. Consequently, if we feed the flesh and submit to the devil, we resist God and starve out our spirit by default, and we end up fleeing from God.
Therefore, I charge you with this, and even ask myself:
What are you going to feed—your flesh, or your spirit? Are you going to choose the physical food that satisfies temporarily over the spiritual food from heaven, that satisfies forever?
Though difficult at times, since our flesh likes to oppose us, and our flesh and the spirit are always at war, choosing spiritual food is always worth it. I speak by experience.
There’s more I can say, because this revelation has become its own fountain that hasn’t run dry yet, but I pray that the Lord takes you deeper into the different facets of these fasting truths that far transcend anything I could communicate with mere words. I know what I’ve written is only scratching the surface.
The Secret Girl
Comments