12/30/2018 DAB Transcript

Malachi 1:1-2:17, Revelation 21:1-27, Psalms 149:1-9, Proverbs 31:10-24

Today is the 30th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is pleasure, of course, it’s an honor every day to come together around the global campfire that is our community. And, well, it’s December 30th. We’ve got a brand-new shiny, sparkly week out in front of us and before this week is out we will have entered a brand-new shiny, sparkly, new year. So, if you can believe it, we have two stops left to take of the 365 steps that we take each year, leading us through the entire Bible. There are only two steps left and today is one of them and today brings us to the final book that we will encounter in the Bible, and that is the final book of the Old Testament the book of Malachi

Introduction to the book of Malachi:

Malachi is also the last of the minor prophets and the name Malachi means my messenger. And this has left scholars trying to consider whether or not the title of the book is supposed to be attributed to an author that’s named Malachi or whether it was written by someone else and the title is referring to the content. So, for our purposes we’ll assume the author was a prophet of God named Malachi who was likely a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah. The hard part about things like this, and we’ve encountered this in some of the other minor prophets, pretty much nothing else is known about Malachi outside of the book. Malachi would’ve lived about 100 years or so after the Persians defeated the Babylonians. So, we know the story…like…we’ve spent a lot of time this year on exile. So, we know that the Babylonians defeated the southern kingdom of Judah and defeated Jerusalem and carried Judah off into exile. The Persians subsequently defeated the Babylonians and then they began to allow the Jewish people to return to their ancestral homeland even though they never had like an autonomous government again. So, Malachi lived about hundred years after that and it had been more than ½ a century since the temple spurred on by the prophetic voices of Haggai and Zechariah as we will remember because we just read through those books. So, a half a century after the temple and been rebuilt, but the promises of restoration and prominence and former glories, these had remained unfulfilled. So, the people were in their ancient homeland but, you know, the glory of their ancient homeland and their former days, that had not come back, that had not materialized, and they existed in the land but as a discouraged and distant and tiny province of the Persian Empire. And because of the circumstance the people had been become disinterested in their passion for God. And, of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this in the Bible and it’s not the first time, you know, we’ve experienced it in our culture and even in our own lives. And it brought about, like, moral and spiritual decline and became apparent and that’s what happens and we’ve seen it over and over in the Bible. So, for example, sacrifices that were offered to God, according to the Mosaic law, were to be spotless and without blemish. And in this time when Malachi’s prophesying, the priests had begun to use blind and blemished animals and the law was becoming more and more irrelevant as sort of like the centerpiece or the plumb line for the culture. So, into all of this came the prophetic voice of Malachi. He was probably the actual final prophet of the Old Testament age. And he rebuked the doubt and faithlessness of the people and called them, like so many of the other prophets had done, to return to God. And after Malachi, so we have these two days in this prophetic word, but after Malachi it would be another 400 years before God sent another prophetic voice and that prophetic voice would be one that was crying out in the wilderness and his name would be John the Baptist, which would then mark the onset of the New Testament era. And, you know, we might wonder what happened during the period of silence between the Testaments. And, so, for that, in part, we can turn to the books known as the Apocrypha. In many Christian traditions, some or all of those books are considered Scripture. Others avoid them or hold them as suspect but I mean the reality of our church history is that many traditional printed versions of the Scripture include the apocryphal books. Others don’t and I’m not suggesting that you go from here tomorrow, we finish the Bible, and then you go into the Apocrypha unless you just kind of want a historical glimpse at just understanding what was happening in that 400 here because many of them come from that time. It’s called the inter-testamental period. And, so, they kind of offer some insight on the path that led to the New Testament era and the coming of the Savior. And maybe the best articulation or understanding of these books, maybe that’s found in the Geneva Bible, which was published in 1560, which predates the King James version in English. And, incidentally, the original King James version in English included the Apocrypha but the Geneva Bible comes about a half-century before the King James version and according to the Geneva Bible these apocryphal books were to be considered as works written by godly men and, I’m quoting, were received to be read for the advancement and furtherance of the knowledge of history and for the instruction of godly manners. So, again, you know, it’s not a plug for the Apocrypha, it’s just that, you know, we’ll read Malachi today and tomorrow and then we will finish the year and then we can begin again on January 1st, but 400 years, right, so 400 years passes between those two days and between the Testaments. So, having said all of that we begin the final book that we will encounter this year. Malachi chapters 1 and 2 and we’re reading from the Contemporary English Version.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for bringing us this far into Your word. This leaves us at the threshold, we have one more step to take and that will be taken tomorrow, and we will have concluded the entire the entire Bible. And, so, yes, this is definitely a week of reflection where we consider what the trajectory of our lives is going to look like as we move into the new year. We have some goals that we would like to achieve, some things that we would like to see shifted and accomplished and we’ve invited You into that. And we acknowledge how grateful we are for Your word and how much it has influenced those sorts of decisions as we consider what is coming next for us. And, so, we invite You, once again, come Holy Spirit, plant the words that we’ve read deep into our hearts and lives. Let our hearts be fertile soil so that the fruit of the spirit may be yielded in abundance as we go into this new year. Come Jesus we pray. In Your mighty name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is, of course, the website, its home base, its we’re you find out what’s going on around here. So, be sure to stay tuned and stay connected.

Reminding you, tomorrow’s the last day of December and when we move into the new year we have to reset all of the channels and all of the feeds and it’s a fairly intense project that requires absolute perfection. And, so, thank you for your prayers over that but also just, you know, we’re resetting the year. And, so, we’re starting over. And, so, the old year will pass away. So, anything you haven’t downloaded from 2018 that you want to keep, this is the time. If you’re a little bit behind in certain areas or you want to pass the word along, we usually keep the last couple of weeks of December up for little bit so that those who are just a little bit behind can kind of finish strong. Those, like, if you’ve gotten months and months behind, you’re not even gonna hear this, but this is the way that it works. It’s a daily rhythm through the year and that requires quite a little dance at the end of the year for all of us. So, that’s a reminder.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible here in this year and would like that to be receipted to you as a tax deductible contribution for this year than that has to happen this year. Thank you profoundly, profoundly, humbly, and gratefully for your partnership. There’s a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer the mail, 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 and we’ll lock arms and hearts and we’ll put our foot forward and take a step through the final threshold and complete our reading of the entire Bible tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Good morning, it is December 26th, this is Joanne Marie from Southern California and I just want to wish everybody a post Merry Christmas. We’re still in the Christmas season and I want to wish everyone a very happy and a blessed New Year’s and just a quick prayer that I am reading. Father, we are Your people, the sheep of Your flock. Heal the sheep you are wounded, touch the sheep who are in pain, clean the sheep who are soiled, warm the lambs who are cold. Okay my fellow by the Christ followers. Have a great day, God bless you. Ciao.

Hello, this is the Greatest Trucker from way out West. Don’t take much to be the greatest trucker, sometimes the greatest trucker, well, he ain’t so great. I’m calling in today for Prodigal as many people have been and I hear that on the prayer line. And I would like to say the Prodigal that there is a job for you, like to have you do while you’re still here and that is to pray for a little boy named Ezra in Oregon, I think. And there’s a lot of us that are praying for this little boy named Ezra. He got beat up by somebody as a baby, almost killed. He’s still struggling but he’s actually gaining a little bit and doing better. And, so, between doing that and counting whatever blessings you have, maybe there’s just one or two, keep doing that, just keep praying for Ezra and counting the one or two blessings you have in your life and I believe that that will pull you through, I really do. You just hang onto the name of Jesus until your last breath brother no matter what. God bless you and we’re all playing for you, we’re all pulling for you. So, hang in there. Don’t give up. We love you and pray for Ezra. Adios.

Hi this is Sharon the Victorious, not really Victorious. I want to thank you all for all your prayers. __ my daughter passed away I don’t know how I can do it anymore. My husband and I were supposed to go away but he left me, he went by himself and I’m here alone. And I don’t like the thoughts they hurt my head. I miss my daughter terribly. I’m here alone. __ . Please pray for us because I can’t deal with being alone right now without my daughter and my husband. And I don’t how I can even do Christmas this year by myself. And you need to pray for me because I don’t know what I must do. I’m scared and need prayer. I don’t want to do something to myself, but I don’t see any way out. I can’t deal with it anymore. Thank you, guys for all your prayers. You have a Merry Christmas.

Hello DAB family, Merry Christmas to you. This is Abby calling from Maryland. I just wanted to wish you all a Merry, Merry Christmas. I know I missed the call, you know, I missed calling in last week but I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas. I want to thank God for the family and the community I have in Daily Audio Bible and I really want to give God the glory because three years ago I called early in the morning asking you guys for prayers because I was so scared. I was having pregnancy complications and to the glory of God later that evening I had my daughter. She was 9lbs and 1 ounce. She was a big baby and today’s her birthday and I just wanted to just call and thank you all to give a praise report that she’s doing well, my family is doing well. I call in, I listen to all the prayer requests, and I just want to keep you all encouraged, God is good, He’s always God, He will come through, He always comes through in every situation He always comes through. He’s never late. He’s always on time. So, Merry Christmas, I love you guys so much. Very Merry Christmas to Viola from Maryland, to Blind Tony, to just everyone that I’m not even mentioning. Merry Christmas to you all. God bless you this is Abby from Maryland. I love you all and Merry Christmas Brian and Jill and just the whole family. I just really, really love you all. Thank you so much for all you do. Merry Christmas and happy new year. Bye.

Hi DAB family this is Wendy calling from California. I’m calling this Christmas morning with an extremely heavy heart. And yesterday was my birthday and this past Friday me and my husband got into physical __ and he assaulted me. And I called before about him being bipolar and having episodes and yesterday night on my birthday I watched him, I watched him __ . And I’m feeling so much guilt and hurt that it had to come to this level. Please pray for him to get some help and my heart is so heavy that he’s in jail for Christmas. So, I just ask that God is watching over him, that He performs a miracle in his heart and mind and with the judges that he can actually get through this and not have it destroy his life. I just…I need prayer. My heart is so heavy right now and it’s so sad. I really am. I love my husband and I just know he needs help. And he’s been doing this all along. I just want to call in and reach out to my family and I truly ask you guys. This is so hard. __. So, please pray for me and my family. My husband’s name is Jonathan. Thank you family.