11/13/2019 DAB Transcript

Ezekiel 27:1-28:26, Hebrews 11:17-31, Psalms 111:1-10, Proverbs 27:15-16

Today is the 13th day of November. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It’s great to be here with you on this 317th day of the year, which is our 317th day together as we’re making our way to the Scriptures this year. We’re continuing to work our way through the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament and the book of Hebrews in the New. And we’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Today, Ezekiel chapters 27 and 28.

Commentary:

Alright. So, yesterday we were talking about what is known as the “hall of faith” found here in the book of Hebrews. And, so, we continued walking down that hall of faith in today’s reading. And, so, what we’ve done basically is begin in the book of Genesis and then the author of Hebrews begins to point out instances in the Hebrew Scriptures where faith was like the irreplaceable part of the story. And, so, we spent all of our time walking down those examples in today’s reading from the Old Testament, right? So, it was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice for God was testing him. It was by faith that Isaac promised blessings for the future of his sons, Jacob and Esau. It was by faith that Jacob when he was old and dying, blessed Joseph’s sons. It was by faith that Joseph when he was about to die talked about leaving Egypt. It was by faith that Moses parents hid him for three months when he was born. It was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be identified with Pharaoh’s daughter. It was by faith that Moses left the land of Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger. It was by faith that Moses commanded the people of Israel to keep the Passover. It was by faith that the people of Israel went right through the Red Sea as they were on dry ground. It was by faith that the people of Israel marched around Jericho for seven days and the walls crashed down. It was by faith that Rahab the prostitute was not destroyed. So, you can see it was “by faith”, that phrase pounded over and over as we’re looking at the examples simply starting at the beginning of the Bible and working our way forward. This is because the author, the writer of Hebrews was pointing out something that had always been obvious but hadn’t been seen, hadn’t been understood in this context. And the larger point is the same point that the apostle Paul made in his writings, it was by faith that all of these things happened not by adherence to some sort of code or ethic. It was by faith. Faith was the component that…that changed all of the stories. Like today We worked from Genesis all the way to the book of Joshua and without faith all of the major characters and all of the major decisions of those stories that carry the narrative forward in the Bible wouldn’t have happened. Like what if this was the hall of disbelief that we were walking down and all of these people had the supreme opportunity to live by faith with God in covenant, but they chose not to, right? We would have…we would either not have the Bible or we would have a different Bible. And this is the point that’s being made. Like, faith is the key to our union with God and our awareness of the spiritual realms. Faith has always been the essential component of life with God. It still is. Nothing has changed there. Without faith we can’t please God. And in all of the examples that we read of today in the hall of faith, God responded to their faith. So, we’re talking about faith because we’re walking down this hall of faith, but we have to think about our own faith. We can certainly look and go, like, “He's…that’s right…that’s right…faith was the thing because all the way back to the beginning I can see that now.” But what about your faith? What about our faith right now? Because what we are putting our faith in is essentially what we are giving our hearts to in worship as if it were God, as if it were going to be able to bring us life. So, let’s think about it because that’s the point. That’s what the author of Hebrews is trying to show here. Where is your faith because without it you’re going nowhere? So, it would be a good thing to not lose it, and it would be a good thing to know where it is at all times. So, it comes down to, like, in whom, or in what have we put our faith? We see from the hall of faith with…that when people against all odds put their faith in God, God responds. That hasn’t changed. So, maybe we’re waiting for God to respond only to sit down and realize we do not have faith that He will and we have put our faith in someone or something else. Or maybe we put our faith in ourselves and we’ve gotta dig out of this. Maybe our faith is in the wrong place. Something to think about today.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit we invite You to help us think about that, to begin to unpack where is we’re putting our faith because it’s been made abundantly clear, we will never please You without faith. And, so, forgive us for all of the times that we’ve tried to navigate without it or that we’ve put our faith in something that can’t deliver, and given our hearts in worship to that thing or that person. Forgive us for these things. We see the foolishness of our ways. We place our faith, all of it…all of it…there is no plan B…all of it is in You and You alone. We invite You Holy Spirit to come into that. Show us all of the areas that we’ve placed our faith in other things. We pray this in the name of Jesus. 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.