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Several years ago, it was reported that the telephone operator in a town in Cape Cod received a call every morning asking for the correct time. Finally, overcome with curiosity, she asked the inquirer, “Would you mind telling me why you call about this time every day and ask for the correct time?” “Sure, I’ll tell you,” The man said. “I want to get the exact time because I’m the man who blows the whistle at noon.” Well, that’s funny,” said the operator, “because every day at the stroke of noon I set our clock by your whistle.”
How often do we set spiritual standards for ourselves based on what others are doing?
Jesus based His spiritual standards on Scripture. He was committed to fulfilling what the Scriptures foretold about His life, ministry, death, burial, and resurrection.
No human being, depending on their own knowledge, can look into the future and tell what is going to happen even tomorrow. Only knowledge given by God could predict the future. This is how the prophets knew that Jesus was coming to this world because God told them. The inspired words they spoke are Scripture. Jesus was devoting His life and mission to fulfilling the Scriptures.
Notice in Matthew 26:56 Jesus stated, “But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then in Galatians 4:4, we read, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son…” Jesus’s spiritual standards were based on the Scriptures, He came at the right time, just as God had planned.
When we come around the Lord’s Table to remember Jesus’s crucifixion remember it was no accident. It was fulfilled according to the Scriptures.
Mark T. Tonkery
Norval Park church of Christ
Zanesville, OH