The significance of 40- God’s Righteous judgment and testing
Let us consider the significance of the number 40 within the whole scope of scripture.
Noah’s flood was a judgment upon mankind because God said their thoughts were continually evil. There was rain for 40 days and 40 nights. "For after seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made." (Genesis 7:4)
Moses was called to Mount Sinai to receive the commandments where he was upon the mountain for 40 days. When he spoke these words the people trembled in fear of God’s judgment on their disobedience. “So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.”(Exodus 34:28)
Once the Israelites rejected God’s invitation to enter into the land He had prepared for them, to the time they all perished (except Joshua and Caleb), was exactly 40 years. “'And your sons shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and bear the brunt of your infidelity, until your carcasses are consumed in the wilderness.” (Numbers 14:33)
This was God’s time of testing them to see if they would obey His word or they would reject Him.
“And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.” (Deuteronomy 8:2)
Jesus was tested and tempted by the Devil in the wilderness as he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights.
“being tempted for forty days by the devil..” (Luke 4:2)
From the death and resurrection of Christ, to the year the Romans sacked Jerusalem and slaughtered the people, marked exactly 40 years. During which time Josepheus wrote his eye witness account of the destruction;
"The slaughter within was even more dreadful than the spectacle from without. Men and women, old and young, insurgents and priests, those who fought and those who entreated mercy, were hewn down in indiscriminate carnage. The number of the slain exceeded that of the slayers. The legionaries had to clamber over heaps of dead to carry on the work of extermination.”
Josephus claims that 1,100,000 people were killed during the siege, of which a majority were Jewish, and that 97,000 were captured and enslaved.
“The Jewish Amoraim attributed the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem as punishment from God for the "baseless hatred" that pervaded Jewish society at the time. Jesus prophesied Jerusalem's destruction (Mark 13:2; see also Matthew 24 and Luke 19) four decades earlier.”
It is un-deniable that the connection between these events and the exact distinction of 40 is no coincidence. God gave His people 40 years before His judgment fell for their un-belief and disobedience. God tested his messengers for 40 days before He brought His righteousness.
Consider that those killed in the siege of Jerusalem in comparison to what has happened in our nation in the last 40 years. Even the holocaust in which over 6,000,000 Jews were murdered still doesn't come close to the carnage that has happened within this country.
You might be shocked to know that 55,000,000 innocent children have been murdered in this country with consent of our own government since 1973. God has shown us His amazing mercy and grace for exactly 40 years. I can’t help but remember the truth of God’s word through the ages, and His sure judgment that came in His precise timing. 2013, the 40th year since abortion has been instituted in this country rings like an alarm clock in my ear. Will He continue to hold back His wrath?
www.marchforlife.org
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