40 Days Closer to Christ

What if they decided to hold a concert and every member of the orchestra showed up with their instruments tuned anyway they wanted? I’ve been to a few middle school concerts and I have to tell you that it wouldn’t be good. There must be some standard to which all the instruments are tuned, or else you end up with a cacophony. But not only do the instruments need to be tuned, but they need to be tuned to a Master note.

In my house I have three guitars. (Actually since my kids played rock star with one of them only two are playable, but for illustration purposes lets suppose all three can be played.) If I tune one of them to with a pitch pipe or with an electronic tuner than I am pretty sure that it is conditioned for optimal performance. Now I can go to the second guitar and tune it by the first one. And I can get around to tuning the third one by using the second. Theoretically, all three should be tuned up just right. But if I strum a note on the third one, and check it with the tuner, more than likely it will be a little flat or a little sharp. It is just not quite in tune. No matter how good my ear is, a little variation sneaks in as they get tuned down the line. All three guitars have different tones and pitches but if they are all tuned with the electronic tuner and to the same standard then they sound good together.

It is the same way with us. We can get pretty close to where we should be in our spirituality, in our righteousness, and in our walk with God by sharpening ourselves against each other, but we will always be a little off. We need to go back to the Master to make sure that we are where we need to be. It is Christ alone who is the standard by which we measure ourselves. And it is by Him alone that we will be able to perform as we should. That is why we take forty days leading up to Easter and use it to draw closer to Christ and to reestablish our discipleship.

Forty days is the optimal period to form a new habit, to establish a new practice, and to change the pattern of your life. 40 Days – Closer to Christ is an activity (we won’t use the word program) that can change your life.

Forty is a significant number in the scriptures. When God brings about change, the scriptures often represent a significant event as having a forty day duration. Noah’s world was changed forever in forty days. Moses saw God face to face and in forty days received the word which is still the basis for law and government. The city of Nineveh repented in sackcloth and ashes and turned away God’s wrath in the space of forty days. David became a hero after all Israel cowered under Goliath’s forty day challenge. Elijah lived by faith for forty days after God sustained him with one meal. The disciples were given the mysteries of the kingdom as they were taught by the Lord during an intensive forty day seminar after the resurrection. Jesus prepared with a forty day fast for a ministry which culminated in the salvation of mankind.

We can grow closer to the Savior as we study His life and His appearances throughout scripture. We become the people we should as we strive to lead a life of diligent discipleship. In these forty days we can review and renew the vital things that bring us to the Lord. We can refresh our memories and recall the eternal truths of who God is, who we are, and how we can have a close relationship with Him. 40 Days – Closer to Christ is an opportunity to more fully develop that relationship, so that we may see as we are seen and know as we are known.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Day 7 ~ Prophet (Luke 24:19)


Jesus Christ was a great prophet. The people knew it. The Jewish leaders tried to denounce His reputation as a prophet because He was a Galilean, "Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet" (John 7:52). They were wrong by the way; Nahum and Micah were from Galilee, possibly Elijah as well. Today the Jews reject Jesus as a prophet for many different reasons including the belief that prophecy can only exist in Israel when the land is inhabited by a majority of the world's Jews. They claim that at the time of Ezra (circa 300 BCE), when the majority of the exiled Jews refused to move from Babylon to Israel, prophecy ended upon the death of the last prophets – Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. Jesus appeared on the scene approximately 350 years after "prophecy had ended." The closing pages of the Old Testament closed the book on the promise of any more prophecy coming from God.

Jesus was a prophet in the truest sense for the "testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy" (Rev 19:10). Certainly Jesus left no doubt as to whom He was. In fact, He was hounded to the day of His death because of the testimony He bore of Himself. Perhaps what people mistakenly look for when they think of a prophet is actually the calling of a Seer. A Seer must draw upon God's omniscience to accurately know things to come. Jehovah proved He could foretell the future. Thousands of prophecies from the Old Testament have been fulfilled; sometimes dramatically. At times they reveal that God has a sense of irony and humor.

Around 587 BCE, Babylon was banging on Jerusalem's gates, and Nebuchadnezzar was threatening to destroy everything in his path. The Lord told Jeremiah that "the broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken...it shall be desolate forever" (Jeremiah 51:58, 62). Herodotus, a Greek historian, recorded that the walls of Babylon were two hundred feet tall with towers extending to three hundred feet. Their width was one hundred and eighty seven feet at the base and they encircled an area of one hundred ninety six square miles. The prophecy of the utter destruction and desolation of those walls was laughable. In the 4th century AD, Flavius Claudius Julianus (Julian the Apostate), nephew of Constantine, grew tired of Christianity's intolerance toward any views but their own. So when he came to power Julian stripped them of their powers, privileges, and rights. His chief aim as emperor was the eradication of Christianity. In a campaign against the Persian army near the remains of Babylon, Julian became so enraged by the way the Persians were able to use the walls as refuge that he ordered the walls destroyed. How ironic that Julian, the antagonist of scripture, was the fulfillment of God's word.

Saddam Hussein started a project to restore Babylon and had the paving stones inscribed with the motto "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq". The project stalled with the beginning of the Gulf War. Later Saddam attempted to build himself a palace in Babylon but the Iraq war finished that dream forever. A small tourist town exists today on a small piece of what was ancient Babylon but most of it remains a ruin and used as a hunting preserve. "And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall ...never be inhabited...But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and owls shall dwell there…" (Isaiah 13:19-21)

Was Jesus as great a prophet as the Old Testament prophets? One of the fun stories of the New Testament is when the disciples came asking about the tribute tax. Jesus told them to go and cast a hook into the sea, "take up the fish, that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money; that take and give unto them for me and thee" (Matt 17:26). Christ also foretold his own death and resurrection. He even gave his death as a sign unto them: "Destroy this temple [physical body], and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). This was fulfilled.

In Matthew 24:1-2, Jesus said that the Temple would be destroyed. In 70 AD, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and killed an estimated 1.1 million Jews. During the destruction, fire was set to the Temple. The gold-leaf ornamentation on the Temple ceiling began to melt. The melting gold flowed down the walls and settled into crevices within the stones. The Romans pried apart the stones to remove the gold. This fulfilled Jesus' prophecy that not one stone would be left standing on another. In Luke 21:24 Jesus said that "Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" On June 7, 1967, the Jewish people took control of Jerusalem as foretold by Jesus. Jerusalem is no longer trampled underfoot by Gentiles.

Jesus (Jehovah) is a great prophet and his "words shall not pass away" (Luke 21:33).
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