Ezekiel 23:1-49; Hebrews 10:18-39; Psalms 109:1-31; Proverbs 27:13
Today is the 11th day of November. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you today, kind of bringing this week in for a landing together. I have some nice, steamy wind farm coffee to my left, in my new roasted red pepper Clean Canteen, which I’ll tell you about at the end. Let’s dive in. Ezekiel chapter 23 verses 1 through 49 today. And we’re reading from the New Living translation this week.
Commentary:
Okay. So, some saucy stuff in the book of Ezekiel today. God compares Samaria and Jerusalem, so the northern and the southern kingdom, to prostitutes who lust for lovers who are hung like donkeys. And I don’t think we need to…I don’t think we need to go into that, it’s pretty self-explanatory, other than to say God is using a graphic metaphor to show how this constant generational mixture with all of the nations around them, we’re there mixing themselves in with these people and adopting all of their culture and mixing it with their own, including the worship of foreign and false gods is an utter betrayal of God. And God is pretty clear about how he feels about it.
But in the book of Hebrews we reach this kind of breakthrough moment, where everything that we’ve been talking about in the book of Hebrews leads to this place where the implications become apparent. So first, we have to remember, Hebrews was written to Hebrews. So, everything that’s being said is from a Hebrew cultural perspective. And at length, we’ve been looking at the sacrificial system that every Hebrew who grew up Hebrew would understand. We spent some time looking at things that happened before the sacrificial system, so before the Mosaic law, which is something that the apostle Paul also did in his writings. We talked about how there was precedent in the Hebrew culture, that something new was going to happen, that redemption would happen by God doing a new thing. And then we watched as the writer of Hebrew declared that Jesus is that new thing and then referred back to the Old Testament to show how. And, so, today we see the implications of Jesus being this new thing, this new high priest, this final sacrifice in the sacrificial system, and the institution of this new covenant, this new thing. And the implications are found in the 10th chapter of Hebrews, beginning with verse 19. ‘And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heavens most holy place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the most holy place. And since we have a great high priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts, fully trusting Him, for our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water’. Okay. So, this is something we take for granted, that we have instant and always on access to God. That’s not the story for the readers here. The only way they can get to God is by offering a sacrifice and the high priest once a year entering the most holy place and entering the presence of God on behalf of the people. So, the writer of Hebrews is saying, all of that has come to its completion. And now, because we have this high priest, Jesus, presiding over a new covenant, directly from heaven, we can actually go into the holy of holies. In other words, we can actually, personally individually, enter the presence of God. This is a massive, massive paradigm shift. A completely different way of looking at things and a giant leap of faith for the early Hebrew believers. It forces them, by default, to be at odds with their culture and flies in the face of their religious tradition. And the pressure that brings upon these people is remarkable. But the promise of intimacy, and union, and collaboration, and a personal relationship with God is also remarkable. Now, because the pressures are so remarkable, I mean, to the point of persecution, the writer of Hebrews leaves words of encouragement, words that echo across time, words that find themselves in our lives today, right now, because in a lot of ways we face these same kind of pressures, maybe not pressures of persecution like they were facing, but definitely the crush of culture in the world. So, I’m going to read the last little portion of Hebrews that we just read as words of encouragement to you, whatever is going on in your life and invite you to meditate upon it as you go through your day. So, beginning at verse 32. ‘Think back on those early days when you first learned about Christ. Remember how you remained faithful even though it meant terrible suffering. Sometimes you were exposed to public ridicule and were beaten and sometimes you helped others who were suffering the same things. You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail. And when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy. You knew there were better things waiting for you that will last forever. So, do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you. Patient endurance is what you need now so that you will continue to do God’s will, then you will receive all that He has promised. For in just a little while the coming One will come and not delay and my righteous ones will live by faith, but I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away.
Prayer:
Father we invite your Holy Spirit to sear these words on our hearts, that we may remember the magnitude of what You have done in doing this new thing through Jesus our Lord, that this relationship that we often take for granted is only available to us because of Jesus, and that we can come clean and righteous before You, into your presence, into the holy of holies, as it were, and be in Your very presence. Come Holy Spirit, and let us see what this means, because all of the other circumstances of life begin to fade away in the truth of this reality. Come Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com is the website. It’s home base. It’s where you find out what’s going on around here.
And what is going on?
Yesterday we talked about the new clean canteens that we have in stock. We get them in stock a couple of times a year and this will be the last time this year they are in stock. And these are a special edition. In the past, we’ve imprinted our logo on the food grade stainless steel that these are made out of and they are awesome. This time we made them in a roasted red pepper color, a deep red color, that we use a lot at Daily Audio Bible with the Daily Audio Bible logo in white and they are striking, really beautiful. I may be a little biased, but I think they stand out. So, the way that it usually works is that they’re gone in a matter of days and that is definitely proving to be the case. So, they won’t last long. And I’ll be surprised if we have any left before the weekend is over. So, grab them while you can. They’re in the Daily Audio Bible shop, in the active and drink wear section, until we run out of them.
And then, looking at the calendar, the 19th of November will be the final travel date for Sneezing Jesus this year. And that will be in the Shreveport Louisiana area. We’ll be in Bossier City, Louisiana at River Valley church and we’re looking for that. You can get the details at dailyaudiobible.com by scrolling down to the events section and clicking this event. And we’ll look forward to seeing you on the road.
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayers and Praise Reports
Hey, good morning everybody. This is ___ from Oklahoma City. I hope you all are doing well today. Good news, my young son Alex in Colorado got a new job building tanks for oilfield stuff, which is going to pay him pretty good. Thank you. Praise the Lord. Hey, I’m praying for everybody who is thinking about attending the Louisiana, Bossier City family gathering. I’m pretty sure I’m going to go or get to go. That’s a long drive but I love and I get to stop in Dallas and that’s cool. Hey, my husband, Lloyd, is going for an interview this Friday with the power plant to become a supervisor and it looks like it’s pretty much like one of those shoe-in kind of jobs where he’s been doing it for a while and you’ve pretty much got it but he is going to be up against some of his friends. And I would just pray that everybody goes through the interview and does well and the person that they would like to select, whoever God wants to put in that position, let Him put him them there. And we are both on that page for sure. So, I would appreciate all the prayers that cover that. And then, hopefully, there’s no any animosity afterwards, you know? Because sometimes it can be that way among your friends. So, anyways, guys, I love you guys. Kristy from Kentucky, my sister, I couldn’t even imagine being in your shoes. If something happened to my dad, I mean, he was like, I mean, is my best friend and I’m sure your dad was the same way. So, I’m giving you some great big hugs about that. Okay, I love you guys. Have a great day. Bye-bye.
Good morning. This is November the 7th and I’m calling anonymously because I don’t want to offend anyone that knows me, but Brian you said it today, you said something that I’ve been trying to, I guess, put in the words for six years since I’ve been listening to the Daily Audio Bible, every day. And what you said is you said it’s the covenant being talked about here and not the scriptures. You see, I grew up in a religion that discredited the Old Testament and I was told things like, music was wrong in worship, and this and that were wrong. And when I started reading the Daily Audio Bible, listening in, and reading along, within a few months of the first year, I would read in the Psalms about one of my heroes, David, who would often talk about worshiping the Lord with cymbals and harps and the liar. And my encouragement to everyone today is to, with your life, is to, if you are just getting started with this, to continue on and read these Scriptures for yourself and ask God to speak directly to you. And He’ll reveal to you the truth like he did to me. And Brian, I don’t think you, in your talk about the Global Campfire initiative, I don’t think you gave enough credit to your commentary and your prayers, and I just thank God for your insight and your wisdom and your prayers that continue to teach me and so many others the truth. So, I thank you for that and that’s why I invested in the Global Campfire Initiative. I’m so excited about my print coming and I’m going to be able to put it on the wall of my office.
Good morning DAB family. It’s Patty calling from Calgary Canada. Just want to say hello to everybody and thank you so much for Brian for your ministry and Jill for supporting him. I’ve been listening for about 7 years. I’ve only called in a couple of times. Once was about 4 years ago when our son was heavy in an addictive addiction and I just want to say, praise the Lord. He is now over 2 years in recovery, doing very well. But I do have a prayer request today. My husband has been out of work for 18 months because of a down turn in the economy here in Alberta. And, so, could you please pray for him for employment. It’s really weighing heavily upon him. I’ve gotten a job in order to help support us. But we’re pretty close to retirement and it’s not working for us. So, if you could please pray for my husband Neil to find employment in his field I would so appreciate it. Thank you so much I love listening to you all. I lift you all up in prayer when I hear your prayers and see you on the Facebook page. Love you and God bless.
Hey guys. If you could pray for my wife, that would be great. She is like 26 weeks pregnant or something with twins and she having some Braxton Hicks and lots of discomfort and stuff. It’s still within the normal range of things, but could use some prayers for her that would be great. The longer they’re in there the better. I’m praying for you guys. I love you all. I will keep you updated and I will be praying for you guys. God bless you.