Forty Days and Nights

Matthew 4:1-4 says, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” 4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’”

There are several times in the Bible where God uses forty days to prepare His follower for what He has planed. For Jesus, He spent forty days fasting to be strong enough not to fall into the temptation of Satan. Moses spent forty days on Mount Sinai writing down the laws of God, and Exodus 34:28 says he did not eat bread or drink water.

Everywhere else you see the words, “forty days,” it usually has to do something with a waiting period that one goes through. Noah went through the waiting period of forty days with the flood. The spies spent forty days checking out Canaan, and in return for their disobedience, they spent forty years in the desert wandering.

I don’t know why forty or seven or three are important numbers in the Bible, but for some reason, God is working through them to show a point either of consistency or something else.

Going back to Jesus’ example, He fasted because He was going to be tempted. Now why would you do that? Think about it. If someone threatens to attack you, wouldn’t you want to build up as many defenses as possible and make your defenses impossible to break through?

That was exactly what He was doing. He knew He was going to go through spiritual warfare with the devil, so He relied on the most powerful being possible. When one fast, he says that food is not sufficient, but just the grace of God, and that He will uphold me with His right hand. God works through fasting because His strength shines through weaknesses. What better weakness to have then to fully rely on the will of God to sustain you?

Sometimes the modern day church begins to spread out the meaning of “fasting.” They say that one doesn’t have to fast from food, but rather a bad habit, or a time consuming action. When I was younger, they said I could fast from anything I wanted to, and so I decided to fast from computer games.

Don’t get me wrong, computer games waste my time, but what would happen when the fast was over? Do we just say, “Well, that was a nice break. Back to my computer games”? I remember that was exactly what happened after the fast. We all went back to things we were originally doing in the first place.

The whole idea of a fast is to build trust in God that He will sustain you. While He sustains you everyday, it becomes less evident when you go through your day feeding yourself and taking care of yourself. The idea is to rid yourself of a need and watch how God provides. Then you see God working in a way that says, “I am beyond all human necessity, for I am the only one you need.”

Build faith in God, not just because faith can move mountains, but because we are called to. – Forsake All