Inspirational Quotes by Arthur Wallis
“In giving us the privilege of fasting as well as praying, God has added a powerful weapon to our spiritual armory. In her folly and ignorance, the church has largely looked upon it as obsolete. She has thrown it down in some dark corner to rust, and there it has lain forgotten for centuries. An hour of impending crisis for the church and the world demands its recovery!”
― Arthur Wallis ,
from God's Chosen Fast
“Yet even now,” says the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting.” (Joel 2:12)”
― Arthur Wallis ,
from God's Chosen Fast
“His heart was being prepared for further blessing God had for him.”
― Arthur Wallis ,
from God's Chosen Fast
“I proclaimed a fast . . . that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a straight way for ourselves, our children, and all our goods” (Ezra 8:21, 23, 31).”
― Arthur Wallis ,
from God's Chosen Fast
“The Holy Spirit needs us to accomplish His intercessory ministry, and we certainly need Him to accomplish ours. What a privilege to be invited to join in this heavenly partnership. He wants to be free to think through our minds, feel through our hearts, speak through our lips, and even weep through our eyes and groan through our spirits. When a believer is thus at the disposal of the Holy Spirit, praying in the Spirit will be a reality.”
“It is a solemn fact that we may facilitate or frustrate the Spirit's intercession in us, by our co-operation or the lack of it. Though Christ does not require us for His intercession, the Holy Spirit most assuredly does for His. Here we can no longer be spectators, we must be participators. Christ prays for us in the sense that He makes us the object of His praying. The Holy Spirit prays for us in the sense that He makes us the vehicle of His praying. He prays on our behalf by enabling us to pray, helping us in our weakness, who do not know how to pray as we ought.”
“If a man is summoned to the king's palace to receive some decoration, the royal summons is his right to enter the king's presence. It takes him past the sentries and officers of the guard who would otherwise debar him from the palace. But having gained entry he would be at a loss to find his way into the sovereign's presence if left to himself in that labyrinth of corridors. the work of Christ provides us with the royal summons and constitutes our right of entry, but the indwelling Spirit is also needed to conduct us into God's presence. It is His work to make access to God a reality; to bring to us the deep conviction that we are not talking into the air when we pray, but communing face to face with a loving heavenly Father.”
“Though our main emphasis is intercession, a word may not be out of place here on the use of tongues in praise and thanksgiving. ‘If you bless with the Spirit . . . you may give thanks well enough’ (verses 16, 17). Paul’s restricting of the gift here is because of the presence of ‘the other man’ Who is not helped by an utterance he does not understand. In the solitude of one’s own devotions these restrictions no longer apply. Only God is present, and ‘one Who speaks in tongues speaks not to men but to God’ (verse 2). But is it not better to do it in your mother tongue and understand What you are saying? Not necessarily, or God would never have given this gift, nor would Paul have used it so much. Have we not known times when, in adoration of the Lord, we feel the inadequacy of our own language to express all that we feel in our hearts? The very language which is usually an indispensable channel of communication seems to become a barrier to communication. It is then that this gift comes to our aid, and the human spirit is released in an utterance of praise or thanksgiving that would not have been possible in our native tongue.”
“Now if we are always falling back on these 'if-it-be-Thy-will prayers' we are debasing this most well known prayer promise of the apostle John, and making it a prayer 'let-out', a useful carpet under which we can sweep all our unanswered prayers. We imply that what he is really saying is this: 'And this is the lack of confidence which we have in Him, that unless we happen to ask according to His will, He will not hear us, and we shall not have our petition.' So the promise that was intended to confirm our faith serves only to cover our unbelief and to confirm us in our state of weakness, in seeking to prevail with God.”
“Why do you submit to regulations, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch” . . . according to human precepts and doctrines? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting rigor of devotion and self-abasement and severity to the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh.”
― Arthur Wallis ,
from God's Chosen Fast
“How then are we to reconcile these two facts - we are ignorant of the will of God, and yet, in order to receive, are required to pray according to it? Here is a weakness serious enough to render all our praying ineffectual. But the apostle points us to this wonderful fact that Someone has been sent to help us who has a perfect knowledge of the will of God. 'The Spirit helps us in our weakness . . . the Spirit Himself intercedes for us . . . the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
“Wesley declared, “Some have exalted religious fasting beyond all Scripture and reason; and others have utterly disregarded it.7 In studiously avoiding the one, let us watch against the other. The much more prevalent error of our day is an easy indulgence which permits us to pamper the flesh when we should buffet it; to feast and enjoy ourselves when we ought to fast and to pray.”
― Arthur Wallis ,
from God's Chosen Fast
“When our minds are conditioned by prejudice or paralyzed by traditional views, we may face a truth in Scripture again and again without its ever touching us. Our spiritual inhibition concerning that truth permits us to see, but not to perceive. The truth lies dormant within, mentally apprehended but not spiritually applied.”
― Arthur Wallis ,
from God's Chosen Fast
“The outcome of the struggle reveals whether or not we are open to receive and obey fresh light about God, and so grow in the knowledge of the truth.”
― Arthur Wallis ,
from God's Chosen Fast
“Paul’s prediction about “the form of religion but denying the power” (2 Tim. 3:5) was being fulfilled.”
― Arthur Wallis ,
from God's Chosen Fast
“The fact still remains that “to fast” means primarily “not to eat.”1”
― Arthur Wallis ,
from God's Chosen Fast
“It meant abstaining from all food, solid or liquid, but not from water.”
― Arthur Wallis ,
from God's Chosen Fast
“There is nothing to suggest that true fasting involves abstaining from sleep. God may call us to do this for very short periods, such as giving up a night’s sleep. Paul speaks of “watchings” as distinct from “fastings” (2 Cor. 6:5; 11:27, KJV).”
― Arthur Wallis ,
from God's Chosen Fast
“The normal fast, then, involved abstaining from all forms of food, but not from water, and must be distinguished from the other two forms, the absolute fast and the partial fast, which we must now consider.”
― Arthur Wallis ,
from God's Chosen Fast
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Through the teaching and writing of Arthur Wallis, most notably his book The Radical Christian (1981), Wallis gained the reputation of ‘architect’ of that expression of UK evangelicalism initially dubbed ‘the house church movement’, more recently labeled British New Church Movement.
Born the son of ‘Captain’ Reginald and Mary Wallis. He attended Monkton Combe School, near Bath, before going on to Sandhurst and wartime service in the Royal Tank Regiment. He was wounded at the Anzio Bridgehead, an event that led him to question the compatibility of his army service with his sense of calling to Christian ministry.
Following in his fathers footsteps, Arthur then embarked on an itinerant preaching and teaching ministry, with a particular emphasis on revival, prayer, the work of the Holy Spirit, and the ‘restoration’ of the church. He had deeply impacted by accounts of the Revival that took place on the Isle of Lewis in 1949 which he visited. His book In the Day of Thy Power (Christian Literature Crusade: 1956) was the fruit of this visit and his subsequent studies. He wrote some eleven books on themes promoting the Christian life, and travelled widely (in particular to the USA, Australia and New Zealand).
For much of his life Arthur lived in Talaton in Devon, moving in the last decade of his life, first to Yorkshire to join Bryn Jones’ Covenant Ministries, and later in 1981 to Southampton to be part of the leadership of the Community Church.
Shortly before his death, twenty years ago this year, he asked for no other memorial than “fruit in people’s lives”. Those who had the privilege of knowing him testify to the lasting impact that Arthur made upon them. His vision for revival is as fresh and as relevant now as it ever was. His book, God’s Chosen Fast (Kingsway: 1968) is the acknowledged classic on the topic of fasting, whilst his book The Radical Christian (Kingsway: 1981) which was his most difficult to write continues to call the Christian to live the dynamic life of Jesus.