12/08/2017 DAB Transcript

Hosea 6:1-9:17, Jude 1-25, Psalms 126:1-6, Proverbs 29:12-14

Today is December 8th. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is wonderful to be here with you today. And even as we get to the end of the year and just things speed up in the culture as we begin to move into the holiday season, things also speed up in the Bible because we’re moving through shorter epistles or letters in the New Testament and the minor prophets in the Old Testament. So, we’re moving quite rapidly. And that will continue today. We will conclude, in the Old Testament, the book of Hosea and we will read in its entirety, the epistle of Jude, in the New Testament. So, from the English Standard version this week, Hosea chapter 10 verse 1 through 14 verse 9.

Jude:

Okay. So, like we were talking about the beginning, we read through first John, then second and third John each in one day because there are short. And that’s what we’ll do here with the epistle or letter of Jude because it’s just 25 verses. And yet, it’s going to pack the punch of more than 25 verses. It’s very direct and succinct. And we don’t know a whole lot about Jude’s background and his life, but we do believe he was the half-brother of Jesus and the brother of James, neither of whom believe that Jesus was the Christ, right, the son of God, during his earthly ministry. But His resurrection from the dead seems to have changed their viewpoints considerably and that’s understandable. We don’t know exactly who Jude wrote this letter to other than that we know he was writing to believers in Jesus. But he wrote this letter to aggressively, to vigorously combat a false doctrine that was going through the church that basically said that, God’s grace through Jesus covers everything and we can do anything that we want, like you have license to do whatever you want to do because God’s grace covers it all. And, so, that led to some people but misbehaving in all sorts of inappropriate ways. And Jude writes this letter to hit this on the head and calls it false doctrine and challenges the believers to contend for their faith. And these are really, really important words for today because, as were turning the corner and heading into the final chapters, of the Bible, if there’s one thing that we’ve learned through the year in the Bible and through our experience as believers, the life of faith is something that you have to contend for. It’s something that we have to be vigilant about. It’s not something that we finally get everything right and then everything just stays right. It’s a vigilant collaboration, a relationship that needs constant maintenance just like marriage does. So, with that, we read the letter or the epistle of Jude.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we talked about the epistle of Jude before we read it to get a little bit of an overview. And, in a broad sense, we’re dealing with the same issues in first and second Peter, first, second, third, John and Jude. So, we kind of know there’s a lot of teachings that are not what was taught from the beginning, and people are moving in all kinds of directions, and some of them are very unhealthy and very unhelpful to the faith. And, so, we see, you know, the corrections made in these letters, the renouncing of a number of these behaviors or ideas. And, so, we kind of have the lay of the land there. But there are some peculiarities in the book of Jude, the epistle of Jude, and they actually capture for us extra biblical thought, that is documented in extra biblical writings. That is to say, they are not explicitly found in other parts of the Bible, kind of like when we talked about Melchizedek in the book of Hebrews. So, Jude talks about angels who were given a position and a job by God who then overstepped those boundaries and were chained up in gloomy darkness until judgment day. And the interesting thing is that Jude doesn’t really explain ways talking about. He just refers to it. And what we can take from that is that everybody that he’s talking to, they already know what he’s talking about. Like, he’s writing a letter not a theological treatise. And, so, he refers to this as if everybody knows what he’s talking about. It’s just an understanding in their culture. But we don’t have that embedded into our culture, so we can be, like, what is going on here? And some scholars think that what he’s referring to is, back in the book of Genesis, when the sons of God see the beauty of the daughters of Eve and then they come and have sex with them and giants are born, in order to tie it back to something in the Hebrew Bible. But what we can see is a fascination with angels and what they do and what happens to rebellious angels. And, so, you know, a lot of discussion happened over the centuries. It still happens today. But one of the places that some of this thought was captured is found in a writing called the book of Enoch. And, although the book of Enoch wasn’t canonized into the Bible, people were aware of it, read it, used it. Some churches in the second century used it as the in the authoritative word of God. And Jude seems to be referring to it here. And speaking of fascination with angels, Jude also refers to this confrontation, where the devil confronts the archangel Michael over the body of Moses. Well, that story is not found anywhere else in in the Bible and it’s not found in Enoch either, although Enoch talks about six different archangels of God. And the two that we would recognize from the Bible would be Michael and Gabriel. And people were trying to figure out the hierarchy of the Angels, like, how does that whole angelic world work? And it was thought that archangels were like the top, the chief angels, and they were in charge of different territories. And some of that thought is found in the book of Daniel. And from the book of Daniel, the idea that Michael was an archangel who was over the territory of Israel, God’s people, he was in charge of protecting them from evil. So, for the devil to confront the archangel Michael over the body of Moses doesn’t particularly mesh with the rest of the Old Testament because the devil has the personification of evil. Right? Like the Prince of evil, the Prince of darkness is an understanding that came over time. I mean, there is some language like this in the book of Job, but even there it’s not quite as we understand it now. But the awareness that he’s evil and the accuser and the adversary, these things are clear and present in the writings of the New Testament. As for Michael,  his role that kind of expands by the time we get to the book of Revelation, where he is a protector of the church from the dragon. But as for the devil confronting the archangel Michael over the body of Moses, I mean, the only thing we have about the body of Moses in the book of Deuteronomy is that nobody knows where he’s buried. But there is a writing that is dated to around the first century, so, basically contemporary with the New Testament writings called the Assumption of Moses. And in it, after Moses died, Michael was given the job, the task, of burying him. And the devil comes along and basically claims that he has jurisdiction and Michael refuses and then the devil claims that Moses was a murderer because he killed the Egyptian who was mistreating his fellow Hebrew. So, it’s very similar to what Jude is saying, but in that story Michael doesn’t rebuke the devil or anything like that. He just simply buries Moses. So, that is all fascinating stuff. But Jude doesn’t unpack any of the story. And, so, what we can assume from that is that the people that that Jude is talking to, they know all of this and there’s a common understanding of it, which gives us an intriguing look at some of the thoughts and discussion happening early on in the development of the church. So, I didn’t tell you all that to make a theological statement. It’s just interesting when you read certain things in the Bible and you’re like, what is being talked about here? When you dig into it you find intriguing snapshots and in those snapshots you find thoughts, ideas, and convictions take form and it gives us a wider scope of understanding, not only in the lives of our ancestors, but in the way that we form these things still today.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for all of the journey that we have been on for every day of this year so far and we look ahead and we have 11 different books to move through in a very short space of time. And tomorrow we will begin the final book of the New Testament. And we are awed by all that You’ve done inside of us. Your word is so comprehensive, such a treasure. This book that we all looked at one point or another as something big and unattainable, and maybe antiquated, hard to understand, and even archaic is anything but. It speaks into our human experience from every conceivable direction and peels back the layers and changes us and we are thankful. And we invite Your Holy Spirit to continue to speak through Your word and to continue to speak into our lives and to continue to speak through our lives as we continue to open ourselves fully to You. 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. Plenty of things are happening’

So, it’s time to call in your holiday greetings in anticipation of our annual Daily Audio Bible family Christmas program. And then we get together and wish each other Merry Christmas and good will toward each other and we move through the gospel story of Christmas and we just talk about the year and what’s to come in the year. Jill and I usually get on and talk about that for a while. So, that’s coming up pretty soon. It’s time to call in your holiday greetings. You just use the prayer line, 877-942-4253, for that. The only request is that you don’t combine a prayer request with a holiday greeting. We just don’t have a way to manage all of that. Just call in your holiday greeting and if you also have a prayer request then call that in separately.

The Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box 2017 is available. And as I’ve been saying, it’s chock full of goodies -  some you will want for yourself, some you will want to pass on his gifts, and you get to choose, and that’s the magic of the Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box. In the Christmas Box this year is a CD called Advent, full of contemplative songs meant to put us in the season, to put us in the contemplative mode of considering the mystery of the coming of the Savior and our longing for His return. The family Christmas CD is in there, full of traditional carols, set in a backdrop of lush instrumentation, and just wonderful to shut the lights off and just take a minute in this busy season. Two copies of Sneezing Jesus are in the box. A book called The Road Back to You, which has been a really helpful book for me this year, written by my friend Ian, who is a fellow pastor, a brother in Christ, and also a licensed therapist, is included in the box. The Daily Audio Bible Christmas bulb for 2017 is in the Box. A Black Wing pencil is in the Box. A pack of the Daily Audio Bible Christmas cards for 2017, so 20 Christmas cards with the envelopes is in the Box. And your choice of the DAB blend of coffee or our honey bush and ribose tea. So, it’s a great Box this year as it always is.

The Daily Audio Bible Christmas cards are available outside the Box. You can just get as many packs of 20 as you want. They’re $4.99 for a pack of 20 with the envelopes. So, probably can’t be that anywhere. And it’s a great opportunity to invite those that are in your sphere, those that you love, to take the journey with you in 2018 through the Bible.

Also, in the Daily Audio Bible shop is the new Daily Audio Bible journals and the Black Wing pencils and all of the associated instruments that work for journaling. And we’ve got a number of bundles that I think are great gift ideas. So, check that out.

Early registration for the More Gathering, which is our annual women’s conference that will take place in April is open now and makes for a great gift idea as well. And that can be found at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible at the end of the year here, then thank you very, very much, very humbly. The global campfire that we share together burns because we do it together. So, there’s a link on the homepage of dailyaudiobible.com. If you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow 

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports:

Help me shine brightly within this dark place
I want men to see You when the see my face
Let love surround me and light up this place
Kiss me with kindness I’ve been touched my Your grace
My smile is enormous and reflective of You
It’s stretching my insides and making me new
Changing my heart my desires my tongue
I know that I’m aging but it’s keeping me young
So let me shine brightly each moment for You
And not be deterred by what others do
And when shadows fall as often they do
Help me stay focused on that which is of You
Let me shine brightly within the dark place
Making a statement the world can’t erase
The Spirt is light the Spirit is Love
The Spirit is joyful and comes from above
Caring forgiving it’s patient It’s kind
It gives me Your peace that surpasses the mind
It looks for the best from out of the worst
It safeguards the tongue when one wants to curse
It doesn’t bring up the past when often we sin
It gives you a mindset and power to win
Let me shine brightly my Savior for the
I want men to see You when they look at me

Blindtony1016@gmail.com. I’d like to give a special shout out to Dean S. and Kim. Hope all is well. And Michelle from LA, know you’re very much loved. Marvin and Cynthia, know you’re daily y’all in my prayers. Anyway. And thank you Brian for this wonderful podcast for God’s Holy Spirit to flow. Keep it flowin’ y’all. Alright. Bye-bye.

Hello this is Jamie from Phoenix. I need your prayers for a friend of my husband. Her name is Andy and she has a young 3-year-old son that is at Phoenix Children’s hospital right now. And needing a lot of prayers. Long story short, his father tried to kill her and the baby, stabbing the baby in the head and he had brain surgery a couple of months ago and has been in the hospital ever since. He has not woke up in the last 4 days and she feels that God is punishing her. So, please pray for a miracle that this all turns around and God is glorified so that she can see that God does not hate her. Please join me with this and I will keep you posted. God bless you all. I love you. Bye-bye.

Hi DAB family. This is Brandon from western Colorado. I was wondering if you could pray for me and my family. I’ve been having a bunch of weird anxiety lately and been having a hard time sleeping and my wife’s been having a hard time sleeping too. So, if you could pray…we’ve been praying and stuff like that, but I wanted you guys help as well. So, we all appreciate your prayers and love you all. Alrighty. Bye-bye.

What’s up everybody. It is a Miguel from Santa Rosa. And this might sound a little bit out of left field but I’m going to trust that this is the Spirit leading this prayer, but I’m actually traveling through San Francisco right now and driving down 19th Ave. and just in awe of the lights of the night right now. And I feel led to pray for this city and the people in this city. So, I just want to do that and invite you to do that with me. Father God, as I travel through here and I see people in the hustle and bustle in the malls and the streets in this great city that has been built, Lord I ask that You would move here Lord, that Jesus, Your Spirit would move, that your church would move in this place Lord. And that people would be brought to you Jesus, and that there would be healing in Jesus name, that there would be a unification of churches under the name of Jesus, and God, that you do a mighty work in this city, that there would even be a revival of your church here in this city. I don’t even know what this looks like. I barely even know what I’m asking here, but God, I believe You are leading me to pray this because You have plans for this city. You have plans for San Francisco and You have plans for California, for the United States, for the world, Lord. I pray in faith, fixed on You, asking You to do exactly what Your willed to do Lord. Would You bless every Daily Audio Bible listener in this city Lord that’s listening to this, that they would be healed, that they would be met by Your Spirit Jesus? God, do mighty, great, unexplainable things in San Francisco. And I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.