Lamentations 4:5-22, Hebrews 2:1-18, Psalms 103:1-22, Proverbs 26:23
Today is the 31st day of October. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it’s great to be here with you as we end our 10th month together. Seven days a week we’ve been taking this journey and, I mean, we’re just right around the bend from being able to see the home stretch. So, well done. This is our 304th day together as we’ve taken daily, step-by-step, to get this far. So, we’re reading from the New Living Translation this week and we will move back into the book of Lamentations, chapter 4 verse 1 through 5:22 today.
Commentary:
Okay. So, in Lamentations, you know, there’s some pretty awful mourning going on. I mean, obviously it’s a lament. These are poems of lament and we can certainly enter into them as we spoke of when we began the book of Lamentations because they give us language, right, for this pouring out of the heart from such deep sadness. But as we read of the deep sadness in Lamentations we can go like, wow, like those are some…it’s pretty bad if a tenderhearted woman is cooking her…her starved child to survive. Like, that’s pretty awful and we can look at that and go, like, that’s pretty awful, and why is in the Bible? Why would God let that stuff happen? Why would God bring that kind of judgment on people? And that’s the thing about the books of prophecy. We get this very, very angry God kind of mentality. But we have to pause. So, push pause for a second on that idea. All we have to do is go back one book, one book to the book of Jeremiah. We could go lots of other places but all we have to do is go back one book to the book of Jeremiah and understand in this prophet Jeremiah prophesied for 20 years about what was on its way and had specific counsel from God. And that specific counsel was, the generational sin has gotta be wiped off the map, and the king of Babylon is coming and is part of that process. Surrender to the king of Babylon and you won’t die, right? Now we explored all that when we were going through the book of Jeremiah and we can understand why that would have been a difficult instruction. Had the old bead God’s word though, had they obeyed we wouldn’t be reading the book of Lamentations because there wouldn’t be the events that brought the book of Lamentations to lament about. So, yes, we are reading definitely sad territory and it is pretty, pretty sad stuff but it didn’t have to happen, which is the nature of the prophetic books, they’re prophetic, right? So, they’re words in advance of something that doesn’t have to happen. And we can pause. You know, maybe we don’t have our own personal book of prophecy to us about what specifically might, you know, where the trajectory is leading but we can pause and go like, we have allot of material in the Bible to show us the paths that people take and where they lead. And we can think, okay, where am I heading? Where is this going? Is this the road I want to be on? Because if it’s not than we need to be on different road. And if there’s one thing that the Bible has instructed us on is that there is one road and it is a narrow path and it leads to life and few ever find it. And, so when we go through these prophecies we can go like, yeah, they didn’t they didn’t find that. But they were certainly invited too. And what was the primary invitation? Return to me. It’s like, come home, come home son. What are you doing this for? Come on, come on sweetheart. Why are you going in this direction that is going to destroy you? Turn around. Come home. It doesn’t have to go this way. And may we remember this. May we spend some time contemplating the trajectory that we are on because it’s going somewhere. We’re all going somewhere and we’re gonna end up right where we’re going. And we can look and see whether that’s where we want to go.
And then in the book of Hebrews, I just want to remind us, we’re moving into Hebrew territory. And, so, the Christian faith that we believe comes out of Judaism and is affected by Judaism. The apostle Paul spends a lot of his ministry trying to make distinctions about what has ended and what is beginning, like what the new thing God is doing in the world through Jesus is. But it comes from that context. The book of Hebrews is even more so. There’s no way that we can read the book of Hebrews and understand any of it without understanding the Jewish context. And we’ll explore that as we go through it but we need to understand just how intertwined what it is that we believe is and where it comes from because the Christian faith is certainly influenced by Judaism. I’ll just give you one example. Like, we read about Jesus being a high priest. And we’ll explore this more because the book of Hebrews will explore this more. Well, if we’re Gentile and we have never in any way ever been around Judaism, we would be thinking like, who cares? Like, high priest of what? Like what does this matter. So, these things that we kind of take for granted in our faith, we’re going to explore them in detail because the book of Hebrews explores them in detail. And if a pay attention it will be a very rich foundation for our faith.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You. We thank You with our whole hearts. What will we do without You? And this gift that You have given to us in Your word that guides and directs every day of our lives, what a gift it. It’s beyond words and were grateful because it continually orients us to You. And, so, we trust You Lord and we glory in You and we rejoice in You and we worship You for You are the God of heaven’s armies and the Lord of our hearts. We love You Jesus. Come Holy Spirit, plant the words that we read from the Scriptures today in our lives and let them stick, let them change us from within we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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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 Prayer and Praise:
Hi family, this is Gee and I just wanted to say thank you. __ welcome home __ any time soon. Thank you, thank you, thank you everybody for your calls for me, for the women who called, and the men who stood up like men, for those who shared their stories. __ you have given me strength. __. Thank you. I feel a huge weight off my shoulders and your calls encouraged me. There are so many horrific things from that night I could’ve shared but I just know that you’re __ and I hear your advice __ seeking help. And if there’s anybody, anyone, anyone, anyone that has gone through something like this, please tell somebody. Say it to somebody. Thank you so much family. Thank you.
Hello DAB DABbers, family, I’m calling from Arkansas and I’m calling to let the parents, the mother of a young man named Josh, that I am praying for him, mightily. I have put him on the altar and I know that he is safe there and God will hear our prayers. I want to know that you’re not alone in praying for your son Josh. I empathize with you because I have grandsons that I am praying for but I’ve already put them on the altar but remind God about them every now and then, reminding Him that they are there. But he has a purpose for each and every one of us and my prayer is that Josh will be surrounded by friends that God has placed in his life that he will become a new creation as God says that we are really come to Him. My prayer is for you also to hold out. Don’t let the devil make you nervous or anxious. God hears the prayers of the righteous and He does answer prayer but He does it in his own time. God bless and God keep you and remember that someone in Arkansas is praying for you and your family. Bye-bye now.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family, I greet you in the name of our beautiful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Today is the 29th October. This is Egbert from California by way of __ city. I’m calling in for Asia this morning my sister. Psalms 30 and 5, we’ve been named __ for a night but joy comes in the morning. I want to let you know that Jesus said that He ever stands on our behalf to make intercession for us. So, just know that He is there, and He is interceded on your behalf. I greet all the brothers and sisters, Brian, his family, all the Daily Audio Bible family in the name of Jesus. I pray that you would keep me in your prayers. I thank you for the compassion and for the love this community provides in the name of Jesus. Alleluia, I pray. Amen.
Hi DAB family, I’m just so grateful right now to be able to call in these prayer requests. Please pray for Callie, she is a sick week-old baby that is in Children’s Hospital with RSD right now and she’s in intensive care. And I’m just so thankful that she is in the hospital and being cared for. Just pray for healing. I also ask for prayer for my fifth-grade son who was beat up in the locker room school on Wednesday and is also being bullied by another kid. And I just…I pray for protection over our kids. And then I also would like to lift my husband up in prayer. He’s been battling alcohol addiction and one of his friends passed away. And now he’s really starting to assess his own self and he really wants to break free of this bondage. And I am just asking for all of your prayers to cover him so that he can he can have victory over this and allow God to continue to work in his life. Family, I’m so thankful for you and your awesome and just…this is such a great body of believers. And for those of you that are listening that aren’t sure if God is speaking to you, He is. He is speaking loud and clear. So, He has called because He wants you home with Him someday. Thank you, family. Love you, bye.
Hello Daily Audio Bible family, this is Nathan from Bloomington Illinois. I know it’s been several months before I called but I was recently reminded of a few phone calls we’ve heard regarding similar circumstances and yet opposite circumstances. Joe the Protector’s daughter, age 15, I know this is not the way you pictured life and probably more so for your daughter. But now you’ve got this challenge in front of you. You’ve got a baby coming into your presence whom you can have influence. And Asia, oh my, we’ve been with you a long-time girl and this is not the way you pictured life. This has been your hope to have another baby and yet this is not what you asked for. Very similar circumstances, a picture of life that we did not ask for and yet we’re faced with and we can be sad and it is a sad moment and we can be troubled and it is a troublesome moment and we can feel hopeless. But the root word of hopeless is still hope. The root word of testimony is still test. And we cannot provide that testimony if we are not tested. So, I come preaching to people who know exactly what I’m talking about. So, we are praying for both your situations, that there is still a God who knows what’s going on despite the fact that we may not. I used to and, have a great day make it a great day but I’m going to start ending with a motto of my wife’s practice. Listen to this. Embrace your journey. Thanks family.