Fasting
As you study the concept of humbling oneself in the Old Testament, you see that the most common tool to do so is fasting.  Sometime very soon we are going to finish Ephesians 4 but this morning I want to take a little time to explore this issue of fasting.  I think it is important for our study on humility because so often it appears in Scripture as the means to humbling oneself.
For example, in Ezra 8, when Ezra was going to lead the people from captivity in Babylon back to their homeland, he was facing a daunting task.  He had to move a whole nation of people across a brutal desert with no protection from attackers.  He thought about asking the king of Babylon for some soldiers but he couldn’t do that; he had already told the king that the God of Israel was mighty and powerful and would take care of them.  Therefore, moving the people was a big deal because, not only was their safety at stake, but the name and reputation of the God of Israel was at stake.  Therefore, it was extremely important that nothing happen to them on the way.  Consequently, when the people prayed for safety, they didn’t just have a 15 minute prayer meeting and then set out.  They realized the importance of their journey; hence, they humbled themselves.

Ezra 8:21 There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey 

They fasted in order to humble themselves.  Why a fast?  Why not just pursue a humble heart?  Evidently that would not produce enough humility.
Again, in 1 Kings 21, Elijah confronted Ahab who was the most wicked of the wicked kings of Israel, and announced judgment.

1 Kings 21:27-29  When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and fasted.  He lay in sackcloth and went around meekly.  Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite:  "Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son."  (God Himself refers to fasting as an act of humbling oneself.)

Psalm 35:13 when [the false witnesses who unjustly accused David] were ill, I put on sackcloth and humbled myself with fasting.   (It doesn’t say he humbled him and fasted.  It says he humbled himself by means of fasting.) 

Another example is in Isaiah 58:3-5  where the terms humbling oneself and fasting are used as synonyms: 

Isaiah 58:3-5  'Why have we fasted,' they say, 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?'  (Note the parallelism – fasting is equivalent to humbling themselves.

Then God answers their question:

"Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers.  Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself?  Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?  Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?

God speaks the same way.  A fast is a day when you humble yourself, bow your head and lie on sackcloth and ashes.  However, God’s point in that passage is that simply doing those external things isn’t enough.

Isaiah 58:6-7  "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice…?  Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter…? 

The point is that fasting can’t be an empty ritualistic display of repentance that you carry out without even putting an end to your sin.  True fasting will always involve a repentant heart.  Consequently, if you truly repent of your sin and then you fast:

Isaiah 58:8-9  Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.  Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

So how do you humble yourself?  One way is through fasting; however, this does not mean simply going without food.  Going without food, in and of itself, means nothing.  Going without food as an empty religious ritual is offensive to God.  However, going without food with the right attitude can bring you to a point of humility.

The Pride of Overeating
Just as fasting and humility go together, so do overeating and pride. 

Ezra 16:49  "'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned

Over feeding yourself tends to focus your attention on yourself and your own desires – which is the root of pride.  Bit by bit you become less concerned with others because caring for them may infringe on your feeding time.  Overfeeding ourselves makes us focus on ourselves and puffs us up not only physically but spiritually.  Fasting can be a corrective to that.  We recognize that it is wrong to live an extravagant lifestyle in other areas.  We wonder about the Christian who drives a Rolls Royce or spends $1000 on a pair of shoes.  We recognize that as indulgent, extravagant living condemned in James:

James 5:1,5  Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you… 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. 

We try to avoid that in our lives; we do pretty well in many ways but what about food?  We eat like kings.  Every meal has to be something that not only tastes good but it has to be something for which  we are in the mood.  Did God give us food to enjoy?  Yes.  However, when we over-indulge, we deaden our taste buds and,  ultimately, we enjoy food less.  For example, we eat when we aren’t even hungry; we eat well beyond the time when we are full – sometimes to the point of pain.  We get so spoiled that we can hardly enjoy food.  We stand in front of a refrigerator packed full of enough food to feed a small village and say, “There’s nothing to eat.  I think I’ll go out tonight.” That just builds our pride stronger and stronger until it becomes full-blown idolatry and we begin to worship our own appetites as our god. 

Philippians 3:19  Their god is their stomach…their mind is on earthly things

Some of us can’t fast because we have become so enslaved to our stomachs that our flesh has total domination over our spirit; hence, our mind is stuck on earthly things.  Many Christians are enslaved to their stomach – enslaved every bit as much as the alcoholic or the drug addict.  (An interviewer recently asked J.C. Watts about his life and he said, “I’ve been trying a lot of new things since I got out of congress.  For one thing I tried dieting, but that was absolutely the worst 3 hours of my life.”)

To Fast or Not to Fast?
Fasting is a fascinating topic in Scripture.  On the one hand, it seems so important; on the other hand, it is never commanded in the New Testament.  All the most godly people in the Bible did it; yet they didn’t tell us to do it.  The Bible has thousands of commands covering every detail of life but the only commanded fast was the Day of Atonement which was an Old Testament requirement only.  Now, we are not commanded or instructed or urged to fast at all.  Yet, almost across the board, godly men and women do it.  Across denominational lines, across the theological spectrum, in every age, throughout the centuries, God’s people tend to fast.  For example, in the back of Piper’s book are quotes on the importance of fasting from the following:  Ignatius, Augustine, Cyril of Jerusalem, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Matthew Henry, William Law, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, Andrew Fuller, Abraham Lincoln, J.C.Ryle, Phillips Brooks, John Hyde, Andrew Murray, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Oswald Sanders, Edith Schaeffer, Jerry Falwell, Bill Bright, Cornelius Plantinga, and John Piper (and others).  If that list doesn’t impress you, we could add these people from the Bible:  Hannah, David, Daniel, Moses, Elijah, Ezra, Barnabas, the Apostle Paul, the rest of the Apostles, John the Baptist, the early Church, and the Lord Jesus Christ.  All those people fasted.  
Fasting was not eliminated after Jesus’ resurrection because we see the early Church fasting in Acts 14.  On the other hand, Acts 14 is the last time we see fasting mentioned in the Bible.  Throughout all the epistles, which are for the specific purpose of teaching how to live and how to worship, fasting is never mentioned.  Prayer, Scripture, fellowship, and worship are referred to countless times – but never fasting.  If it is important at all, why wouldn’t it be discussed in the epistles?  
If it is not important, why did Jesus do it?  In Matthew 9, Jesus calls it old wine that is no longer appropriate now that the Bridegroom has come – which is why His disciples were right not to fast.  Nevertheless, in Matthew 4, Jesus Himself fasts.  
If it is not important for the Church, then why does God always respond so favorably to fasting?  For example, Anna fasted in the Temple and God responded by saying, “Here, I’m going to let your eyes see the redemption of Israel.  The Messiah has arrived on earth, and I wanted you to be among the first to see Him.”
Jesus fasted at the outset of His public ministry; therefore, God gave Him the greatest earthly ministry by far than anyone has ever had.  Jesus accomplished more in three years than anyone else has ever accomplished in a lifetime.
In Acts 13, the Church in Antioch prayed.  God responded by pulling out of their midst a missionary that would have a fairly significant impact – Paul.  (Not a bad guy to come out of your church as a result of fasting and praying – all he did was spread the gospel through the known world and write almost a quarter of the New Testament!)
The last example of fasting is when Paul and Barnabas fast over the selection of elders in all the churches.  How did God respond to that?  The Apostles died and that next generation of pastor elders faithfully preserved and taught and spread the Gospel so that, instead of Christianity dying out with the Apostles, it is now a worldwide, dominating reality and millions of people have been saved.
Just as in the Old Testament, God responds in extremely favorable ways to fasting in the New Testament.  If that’s the case, though, why is it so rare?  In the New Testament era, we know of one time when a church fasted, one time when Paul and Barnabas fasted, and one time when Jesus fasted – that is it.  We have no knowledge that Jesus ever fasted any other time.  Even the night before the crucifixion we don’t see Him fasting; instead, He enjoys a big meal with the disciples.  If God responds so favorably to it, why is it so rarely done?  To find the answer, let’s take a look at exactly what Jesus taught about fasting.

Jesus’ Teaching on Fasting 
If you just skim over the references to fasting in the Gospels, they seem like a contradiction at first.  The disciples ask Jesus why He doesn’t fast, and He gives them His reasons.  First, it is not appropriate now.  Second, it is a thing of the past; it is the old wineskin.  

Matthew 9:14-17  John's disciples came and asked him, "How is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?"  Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.  "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse.  Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."  

However, in Matthew 4, He fasts in the wilderness for 40 days.  Then He preaches the Sermon on the Mount and tells us how to fast in such a way as to receive reward from the Father.  So which is it?  Is fasting a thing of the past – part of the Old Testament ritualism that is no longer in place?  Or is it something Jesus did and taught us how to properly do?  The answer is Yes! It is both.  However, you must  understand  that there are two kinds of fasting: 1) empty ritualism and 2) the fasting that comes as a genuine expression of the heart.

Two Kinds of Fasting
The Ritualistic Fast
At the time of Jesus, many of the Pharisees prided themselves on their strict adherence to what they regarded as the three great pillars of virtue: 
•	Praying
•	Giving to the poor
•	Fasting

Therefore, they fasted every Monday and Thursday as part of their religious routine. 
When Jesus told the parable about the Pharisee praying at the Temple, He gave us insight into the way a self-righteous person in that day would think:

Luke 18:9-12  To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:  "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men-robbers, evildoers, adulterers-or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' 

This self-righteous person took pride in his adherence to the three pillars; he fasted twice a week, he tithed on everything and, obviously, he prayed.  His fasting (along with his giving and praying) was a matter of religious routine.  That is the kind of fasting that Jesus and His disciples didn’t do; the kind of fasting that He called old wineskins.  
A ritual that points you to God can have some value but a ritual just for ritual’s sake is worse than worthless.  Some people seem to think it is more spiritual to fast than to eat i.e. in order to be religious, you have to abstain from the pleasures of eating.  In fact, some Christian writers make it sound like fasting is the solution to everything and the key to real godliness.  (They can really get carried away – “if  only Eve had been fasting…”)
There is nothing spiritual about simply abstaining from food.  God’s desire for your normal, day-to-day life is that you eat – and that you enjoy eating.

1 Timothy 4:1-5   The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.  Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.  They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.  For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

It is not unspiritual to eat; in fact, eating is an important part of the Christian life.  Scripture speaks far more about eating than about fasting.  In the Old Testament, God was forever commanding the people to have feasts.  In the New Testament, those feasts were all replaced by the Lord’s table which was celebrated with what they called a Love Feast – a huge potluck fellowship meal.  Instead of fasting the night before the crucifixion Jesus enjoyed a big meal with the Disciples. 

Luke 22:15  I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you 

When Jesus talked about heaven, He could hardly mention it without talking about food.  There is absolutely no spiritual benefit in simply going without food – even if you do it as a religious act.  Sometimes eating is the most spiritual thing you can do.  The Jews recognized that.  In fact, one rabbi said we will have to give an account on judgment day for every good thing we didn’t eat!

1 Corinthians 8:8  food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

Fasting as a religious ritual doesn’t mean anything; therefore, Jesus wrote it off as old wine that is a thing of the past.  When you commit to something as a religious ritual, it tends toward externalism and inevitably leads toward pride:  “I am so much more committed than all these other people…”
That is what the Pharisees had done with their three essential virtues (prayer, giving to the poor and fasting).  Hence, Jesus addressed those three things in the Sermon on the Mount.  First, He says that giving to the poor, if done out of pride to be seen by men, is sin (Matthew 6:2-4).  Second, praying is a sin if it is done to impress men (Matthew 6:5).  Third, He says the same thing about fasting (Matthew 6:16-18).  True fasting is supposed to be an expression of deep sorrow in repentance, or of great earnestness in prayer, or of some kind of special neediness and dependence upon God.  
It is interesting that the Pharisees fasted every Monday and Thursday.  Do you suppose they happened to be broken and contrite over their sin every Monday and Thursday?  Do you suppose it happened to always be on Monday or Thursday when some great, overwhelming need came up that they needed to pray about?  No.  They did it on Mondays and Thursdays because those were the scheduled days.  It is probably no coincidence that, according to Barclay, those were the big market days when all the people from the countryside would come into town.  The Pharisees fasted for show.  That is why the Pharisee who came to the Temple and bragged about his fasting went away unjustified.  If the purpose of fasting is to humble yourself, then obviously it is of no value at all if your motive is pride.  However, that is not the only kind of fast.

The Good Fast
There is another kind of fast that still is appropriate (which Jesus did) that God rewards and that the early church did in the book of Acts.  It is the fast of genuinely humbling oneself in prayer.  That kind of fasting is a good thing and we should do it.  If we doubt that, maybe we need to rethink Matthew 4.  In Matthew 4, Jesus began His public ministry with a 40-day fast in the wilderness.  That fast was intended by Jesus to be a reenactment of the time of Israel’s testing in the wilderness after the Exodus.  This is not just some novel idea I dreamed up; if you compare Matthew 4 with Deuteronomy 8, you can’t miss the similarities.  In fact, to make sure you don’t miss the similarities, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8 to help you:

Matthew 4:1-4  Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.  The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."  Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"  

Deuteronomy 8:2-3  Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert (Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert) these forty years (Jesus stayed out there 40 days), to humble you and to test you (Jesus was led out there to be tested – the word tested and tempted are the same word in the Greek)  He humbled you (Jesus humbled Himself by fasting), causing you to hunger (Jesus was hungry) and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD (the passage Jesus quoted).

It is pretty clear that Jesus’ fast in the desert was a reenactment of Israel’s testing in the desert.  
Remember, the core idea of humility is the idea of helplessness and dependence upon God.  Fasting is a way you can remind yourself of your helplessness and dependence.   As we saw last time, the testing of Israel in the desert, particularly their going without food for a time, was designed both to test them and teach them – teach them that they are utterly dependent upon God.  Hunger tests and teaches the heart.  Physical circumstances can help the heart along in the quest for humility.  We all love the following:   

Psalm 63:1  O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you,

David was a man after God’s own heart.  We all wish we were like that more; we all wish we had that passionate thirst for God that would drive us to earnestly seek Him.  How did David get that way?  
When you hear that verse, you never hear the whole thing quoted.  You should know that the little background notes at the beginning of some of the Psalms are Scripture.  They are not added by the editors; they are part of Scripture.  Let me read you all of Psalm 63:1:  
 
Psalm 63:1  A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah. O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 

(When this was written, David was running for his life from his son who had taken over the throne.  David was in one of the most desolate, barren places in the world.  The dryness and weariness of his body made the thirst of his soul all the more acute and pronounced.)
Jesus put Himself in a context like that on purpose and was testing His own heart and teaching Himself to rely on the Father.  That is part of what Hebrews 5:8 is talking about when it says He learned obedience through what He suffered.  
One way to humble yourself is by giving up things you have every right to keep.  Isn’t that how Jesus humbled Himself to begin with?

Philippians 2:8  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!

Do you want to humble yourself?  Fasting is a wonderful way to do that; however, it has to be the right kind of fast.  People in Scripture fasted for various reasons and on different kinds of occasions but there does seem to be one constant.  Fasting is always a display of an extreme recognition of dependence upon God.  When a person gets to the point of being desperately aware of his dependence upon God, or if he wants to increase his awareness of that, the appropriate response is to fast.  The Biblical references to fasting can be divided into two categories:  sorrow and seeking something very important from God. 

1.	Sorrow
When John’s disciples asked Jesus why His disciples didn’t fast, Jesus’ answered “Why would they?  This isn’t a time of sorrow.”

Matthew 9:14-17  Then John's disciples came and asked him, "How is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?"  Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.  

That is the reason why there is so little fasting in the New Testament – this is a time of joy.  Fasting is for times of sorrow.

2 Samuel 1:11  Then David and all the men with him took hold of their clothes and tore them.  They mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the army of the LORD and the house of Israel

Nehemiah 1:3  They said to me, "Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire."  When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.

Sadness and sorrow are the times when it is appropriate to fast because that is when you have the most urgent sense of your neediness.  If a loved one dies or some other devastating thing happens, you realize your own helplessness and inability to control anything.  Not only that but you realize more than ever that, without God’s grace, you won’t be able to make it.  You won’t be able to handle the suffering.  Therefore, you express your helpless dependence upon God through fasting.

2.	Seeking something from God
When there is something especially important to you, you can express that to God through a fast.
I believe that is why fasting is so uncommon in the New Testament.  In one sense, it is like crying wolf – the less you fast, the more meaningful it can be when you do fast.  One thing that is very clear in Scripture is that God is extremely responsive to people who pray for things with true fasting.  Remember Ezra’s fast for safe travel for the Israelites across the desert?  

Ezra 8:23 So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.

God responds to fasting.  He even had mercy on wicked Ahab when Ahab fasted in 1 Kings 21.  
When the Benjaminites committed a terrible sin, God commanded the rest of Israel to attack them.  They tried and lost.  Then they prayed, asking God if they should do it again.  He said, “Yes.” They tried again and were routed again.  The third time they prayed the same prayer but this time they fasted – and they won.  It is not that fasting is some magical ingredient that gives a boost to your prayers, rather it is a way to bring yourself to a point of desperate dependence on God – which is a critical component of faith.  
The Israelites were very confident at the beginning and didn’t seem to think they needed God’s help.  But by the time they were reduced to fasting, they were saying, “We can’t do this – we are desperate for You to help.”  
I’m not saying we need to fast to let God know how earnest we are – He already knows that better than we.   However, I do think that it is something we can do to show ourselves how earnest we are.  “I’m really serious about this God…”  Well, does it drive you to fasting?   When you think about fasting do you find yourself thinking, “Well, maybe I’m not all that serious about it.”?  
Also, fasting doesn’t necessarily have to be a fast from food.  I said the epistles don’t mention fasting but, technically, that is not entirely true.  The epistles don’t specifically discuss fasting from food, but 1 Corinthians7 does mention the practice of a husband and wife, by mutual consent, deciding to forgo their physical relationship for a short time for the purpose of prayer.  That is not to say you can’t pray just fine while regularly carrying on marital relations.  It is talking about abstaining as a kind of a fast, during a time of special, earnest, concerted prayer.  Every time someone in the Bible seeks something from God with fasting, they receive what they ask for (with only one exception – David’s child by Bathsheba).
God is responsive to fasting.  We saw the same thing in the New Testament as well.

•	Jesus expressing His great dependence on God at the inauguration of His ministry 
•	the church in Antioch desperately seeking God’s guidance in evangelizing the world 
•	Paul and Barnabas desperate to make sure they ordained the right men as pastor elders in the churches.

In each case the people fasted and changed the course of human history.  You can see that same responsiveness in church history as well.  I won’t take the time to go through all the examples of that; however, I will tell you about Korea.
The Church in Korea is known for its commitment to fasting.  In Korea, within one single denomination alone, there are over 20,000 in that group who have completed a 40 day fast – and the Lord has responded in amazing ways.  For example, the first church was planted there in 1884; by 1984, there were 30,000 churches.  Even with the churches that close, still that is a net of almost one new church per day every day for 100 years!
God responds to true fasting.  Fasting is fitting for times of sorrow and times of seeking something of great importance from God.  Furthermore, there is a third category that is a combination of those two.
 
Repentance 
Fasting at a time of repentance includes both the ritualistic and the good fast.  For example, when you have sinned and are returning to God, it is both a time of sorrow and a time of asking for something important from God – asking for restoration and deliverance from the spiritual consequences.
When I sin,

•	I distance myself from God.  
•	I inhibit my ability to worship
•	I deaden the love and intimacy I have with God
•	I put myself in a pattern of being more vulnerable to that temptation the next time
•	I make it more difficult to think on things above and look at things from a right perspective
•	I must face all kinds of consequences – often other people suffer from my sin as well
•	I inhibit my ability to pray
•	It saps the power from my ministry

In fact, I am in desperate straits when I sin.  Therefore, when I repent, I am not only expressing sorrow, but I am begging God to do something only He can do – deliver me from all that, especially if it is one of those besetting sins.  We cry out to God to just take it away as a problem in our life.  When could fasting ever be more appropriate?  When are you more desperately in need of God’s grace than when you have sinned against Him?  
One of the greatest anxieties of my life is my failure to be broken and properly repentant over the sin that is in my life.  God is so gracious and so forgiving and so patient, there is always the tendency to pray on that and begin to just expect His forgiveness, patience and graciousness.  Hence, we become cavalier about our sin.  We commit some great sin and the process of repentance takes all of 30 seconds.  That is how we act towards our besetting sins; we’ve committed the sin so many times that we just don’t have the energy to take our confession and repentance very seriously.  Fasting can help with that.  When my heart is not properly humble, I can fast to humble myself and bring myself to a point of grave seriousness and genuine repentance.  God calls us to this when we sin.

Joel 2:12  "Even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning."

In Daniel 9, Daniel confesses the sin of the nation with fasting and God responds with deliverance.  If you feel like you are not sufficiently afflicted by your own conscience, you can afflict yourself through fasting.  
However, let me give a very important caution:  Never use fasting or anything else as a punishment for sin.  We have a tendency to want to punish ourselves for our sins – that is part of our sinful pride.  It is an insult to think you could ever torture yourself enough to pay for even one sin against God.  There is a vast difference between trying to stimulate your conscience and trying to pay for your own sin.