Exodus 23:14-25:40, Matthew 24:29-51, Psalms 30:1-12, Proverbs 7:24-27
Today is the 6th day of February. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is great to be here with you today as we take our next step forward into this month and through the Bible. And we’ve been reading from the Amplified Bible this week, which is what we’ll continue to do. We’re in the book of Exodus in our Old Testament reading. Today we’ll read chapter 23 verse 14 through 25 verse 40. And we’re reading some of the first laws to be given.
Commentary:
Okay. So, in the book of Matthew today Jesus is continuing a conversation that He started yesterday as He’s walking with His disciples by the Temple complex and they’re kind of marveling about the construction of the whole thing and Jesus says, “the whole thing’s coming down” basically and then He begins this conversation about the end times. So, He’s like, “the sun will be darkened and the moon isn’t gonna have any light and the stars are gonna fall from the sky and the powers of the heavens are gonna be shaken and then at last the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens and there’ll be deep mourning among the peoples of the earth.” This is Jesus actually quoting Isaiah chapter 13 and Joel chapter 2 as He’s discussing the time of the end. And as we talked about yesterday when we began this conversation, Jesus is…He’s revealing that the thing that we deeply long for, right, the rebirth of everything, when all things are made new. So, what we long for is preceded by things that we’d probably rather skip, right? We want the baby without the labor pains but it’s only the labor pains that bring the new birth. So, for millennia we’ve been trying to, you know, observe the signs of the times and make the predictions on where we are, and an apocalyptic worldview kind of leaves a sense of unease just kind of permeating everything, but Jesus actually pulled us away from that fear and hysteria and asked us to look from a different perspective. Jesus said, “nobody knows the day or the hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven, not even the Son Himself. Only the Father knows. So, see you gotta keep watch because you don’t know the day when your Lord is coming.” That could change our lives if we would embrace that because it involves every moment of our lives starting like right now. So, Jesus said, “yeah, I mean it’s gonna get rocky out there and there’s going to be some tumultuous situations to go through but we’re not supposed to be pulled toward fear or panic, instead we’re supposed to live with awareness and hope, awareness of what’s going on so that were not blindsided and surprised and hope for what is actually happening. Even though at first it’s gonna look hard and bad, it’s actually birth pains, new life comes out the other side of this story.” And we aren’t gonna figure out…we’re not gonna figure out something in Jesus Himself from His own lips is claiming not to know. What we’re supposed to do is be ready, be prepared, is the whole story that Jesus told, the last of our reading today where a master has put a servant in charge of caring for the other servants and then goes away, and he expects that servant to care for his other servants until he gets back. And if he does then the master will put them in charge of all his possessions but if he doesn’t and he says in his heart, and this is where it gets a really, really familiar, “it’s taking a long time, he’s not going to return for a long while.” If the servant in the story takes that perspective, then he will stop being vigilant about how he cares for the other servants and may even begin to be abusive toward them and may begin to be seduced into what…in Jesus vernacular, “drink with drunkards”, right? So, be seduced into a worldly lifestyle that’s full of partying and no vigilance, well then, the servant wasn’t paying attention, wasn’t aware, and the master will show up unexpected. So, basically the posture Jesus is suggesting that we espouse and live into is to approach…is to approach the future as if it’s already underway. And if we’ll heed this then we will be ready, not just like for whenever the end times may be truly upon the human race we’ll be ready to participate and collaborate with God in the redemption of the world wherever we are on the continuum. And watch as I tell you this, these themes of vigilance, of awareness of endurance, and stamina, preparedness, they’re gonna run through the rest of the whole Bible. The Bible will continually shake us awake because we’re not supposed to go through life asleep, we’re supposed to be participating.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for this, another day to kind of contemplate these things, these matters of vigilance and preparedness in the context of the end times, which is what You were speaking of today Jesus. And, so, we thank You for this opportunity and we invite Your Holy Spirit to begin to speak to us about what it looks like to be ready and prepared, what it looks like to live as if the coming of the kingdom is underway, is happening, is now, and is moving forward, and we are a part of the story. Come Holy Spirit we pray in the mighty name of Jesus we ask. 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.