Habakkuk 1:1-3:19, Rev 9:1-21, Ps 137:1-9, Pr 30:10
Today is the 18th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian and it is always a pleasure, always an honor, always a joy to be here with you in your presence, and us together in the Lord’s presence centered around the rhythm of the Scripture. It’s always a joy, always a pleasure. So, we read in its entirety the book of Nahum yesterday and I mentioned that we might be observing a rhythm and that is the fact, that we’re reading basically a book a day. And we’ve been doing this for a while. We’ were reading through the letters in the New Testament and some of those are short. And now that we are in the minor prophets in the Old Testament we’re kind of moving through those rapidly because there short and today is no different. We will read the 8th of the minor prophets in its entirety today, the book of Habakkuk.
Introduction to the book of Habakkuk:
Habakkuk, like a lot of the other minor prophets, almost nothing is known about Habakkuk’s life and in this case maybe less than any other biblical writer. There is a Jewish tradition that speaks of him as the son of the Shunamite woman who was resurrected through the prophet Elisha back in the book of second Kings. There’s another tradition found in the apocryphal book Bell and the Dragon that depicts Habakkuk ministering to Daniel while he was in the Lions den. Of course, these are traditions and scholars find particularly the last one about Daniel to be the stuff of legend. But many verses in Habakkuk are very well known. One in particular, “but the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God.” That’s often repeated in the writings of the apostle Paul, right? “The righteous will live by faith but the just to live by faith.” And this is also expounded on in the book of Hebrews. So, this is a core doctrine of the Christian faith that finds some of its roots in the Old Testament book of Habakkuk. As far as the tone of this book, because it’s poetic, because it has kind of a lyrical form, especially as it closes, there’s like a closing Psalm or hymn, some have assumed that Habakkuk was possibly a temple musician. The book of Habakkuk is unique in that it contains a pointed conversation between the prophet Habakkuk and God, a conversation that moves from doubt all the way to worship. And we’ll see this in the second when we read it. Habakkuk begins by simply saying out loud what he was seeing in the world, “I’m surrounded by people who love to argue and fight. The laws become paralyzed. There is no justice in the courts. The wicked outnumber the righteous and justice has become perverted.” Habakkuk wanted to understand why God kept on allowing every evil imaginable almost as if he wasn’t paying attention at all. And then, God responded, but cryptically, that he would use the evil Babylonians to punish His own people, which left Habakkuk confused and perplexed. And, so, he’s crying out, God, rock You sent the Babylonians to correct us for our many sins but You’re pure, right? You can’t stand the sight of evil, are you gonna wink at what they’re doing to us? Are you gonna be silent while the wicked swallow up people who are more righteous? And then God responded that although the Babylonians would punish His people, they would not go unpunished in the end, they would be completely destroyed. And, so, this reveals that God wasn’t indifferent or that He wasn’t, like, you know, caught sleeping at the wheel, He wasn’t unaware at all, but that His sovereign plan was true and just. And, so, this ultimately led Habakkuk into worship. And, so, we begin and we’ll read to the end. Habakkuk chapter 1 verse 1 through 3 verse 19 today. And we’re reading from the new living translation this week.
Prayer:
We thank You Father, once again, for the community that You have established here that we call the Daily Audio Bible and we thank You for the image that we have in our minds of this global campfire, that we’re never alone, that whenever we push play we’re not alone, someone else somewhere is also listening. We’re coming around the global campfire for warmth and guidance and light but also for community and we thank You for this. And Father as we continue to move deeper into this holiday season, this being the last week of the Advent season, we continue to contemplate, we continue to embrace and acknowledge the longing in our souls that pulls us forward, the longing that tells us that there’s more to the story because there is. And as the children of Israel, as Your people of old were waiting for a savior to arrive, we are too, we’re waiting for Your second arrival, for Your return, for all things to be made new, for all things to be made right. And, so, as we continue to embrace this season, we invite Your Holy Spirit to come, lead us where our hearts need to go. There’s plenty of distraction, there’s all kinds of noise. Lead us where our hearts need ago. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.
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So, it’s Christmas time and we’re just days away from Christmas…I mean…look at the calendar. What is one week from today? Christmas day. So, we’re in the thick of Christmas and our Daily Audio bible family Christmas will be coming up later this week. And that is always a joyful time to spend around the global campfire with the Daily Audio bible community. And that just leads us right into all of the events of Christmas. So, yeah, let’s just breathe and enjoy these final days of the Advent season. Andyou know, for some people this is sort of the end of the flurry of activity, and all the gifts are kind of under the tree and everything is just settling in for the next few days and then other people are just getting started and it’s frantic. And whichever version of that or combination of that you are try, try to find some moments of just contemplation, slow the world down, this is a big deal that God came to rescue the earth. And this is why the earth celebrates in such a grand way, even though we’ve kind of forgotten the plot of the story. But let’s make sure that we stay connected to the plot of the story and the story of Christmas as we move into the season fully.
Remind you, if you are in the flurry of activity trying to figure what you’re gonna do for Christmas out for everybody, for the woman in your life, you may want to look at the More Gathering for women. And you get all the details at moregathering.com. So, check that out
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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.