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 a pleasure and a joy to be here with you on New Year’s Eve eve. And man, just, we are about to dock at shore, and we are about to complete another revolution around the sun, and another revolution through the Scriptures. And what a joy, what a joy its been. We’ve got these couple of days out in front of us. Let’s just pay close attention what the Scriptures are speaking to us as they draw themselves to a close. And that is going to bring us into the Old Testament today and the final book of the minor prophets and the final book in the Old Testament, which is called Malachi. And every time we encounter a new book, we sort of fly over it and talk about it and try to get some orientation and context for what we’re reading. And we’ll do that right now with Malachi. This is the last book we’re gonna encounter this year. This is the last time we’re gonna do this.
Introduction to the book of Malachi:
So, Malachi’s obviously gonna last us two days, today and tomorrow, when we…when we complete our year together. And the name Malachi means my messenger, which is why biblical scholars have been debating about whether…whether Malachi is the name of the author or whether Malachi is the name of the book and it was written by somebody else. And the title is my messenger. But for our purposes, we’ll assume the author was a prophet of God named Malachi. And this book would make Malachi a likely contemporary of other prophets like Ezra and Nehemiah, but nothing is known about Malachi outside the book of Malachi, which is something we’ve grown accustomed to as we’ve moved through the minor prophets this year. So, we remember because we spent a lot of time working through the stories of exile. So, we remember that Babylon defeated the southern kingdom of Judah and conquered Jerusalem and took the people into exile. And then later, the Persian Empire defeated the Babylonian Empire and allowed Hebrew exiles to come back to their homeland. And, so, Malachi…Malachi lived about 100 years after the Persians defeated the Babylonians and it had been more than a half a century since the temple, spurred on by the prophetic voices of Haggai and Zechariah had been rebuilt, but the promises that the people were living into and hoping in, the promises of restoration and their return to prominence, those had remained unfulfilled. And, so, the people were in fact in their ancient homeland, they were the returned exiles, but the glory of their former days had not returned, and their homeland wasn’t theirs, they were a part of an empire, and they were discouraged. And…and…and…as a part of the Persian Empire, they were just a little province far, far away from the capital. And, so, they were tiny and distant and felt forgotten. And because of…of these circumstances, the people lost their interest in the worship of God, like the passion for God even though God had brought them out of exile. We’re…we’re in the future now. So, we have new generations that never knew what happened. And, so, they lost their passion for God. And then we’ve seen this so many times in the Scriptures, then there is a moral decline in the culture as their spirits are declining and so it begins to come apart at the seams and disintegrate. So, like…like the Mosaic law demands that sacrifices that were offered to God were to be spotless and were to be without blemish, but the priests had begun to use blind, blemished animals for sacrifice. And the law was just becoming further and further into irrelevant as like the north star for the Hebrew culture. And, so, into all of that Malachi comes. And Malachi’s probably the final prophetic writing of the Old Testament age. And he comes and he rebukes the doubt and speaks at their faithlessness and calls them to return to God, which is such a recurring theme in the Bible. And, so, after Malachi, after this was written, it would be four century’s, 400 years before God would send another prophetic voice and that prophetic voice is found as we begin the New Testament, the voice of John the Baptist, which would mark the beginning of the new or what we would call the New Testament era. And it’s like okay 400 years, like what happened? What happened between the Testaments? And if…if we want that…if we want to understand those stories that…that have been documented, in part, we can turn to what we know as the Apocrypha. So, in many…in many Christian traditions around the world, some of these books or all of these books are considered Scriptures. And then other people avoid them. Hey, I kind of grew up avoiding…like I didn’t know. I just knew there were these other ancient books, but I didn't…I didn’t know. I couldn’t…I couldn’t, as a kid even make sense of the Bible, so much less the Apocrypha. So, some people just like hold them suspect, or just like kind of stay away. And it’s interesting when you…when you open up a Bible because some…some printed Bibles have all of the…all the apocryphal books in them while other Bibles don’t have them in there at all. And I’m not telling you one way or the other what you should or shouldn’t read. I’m…I’m just saying, some of the material of the stories that took place between the Old and New Testament periods are found in the writings known as the apocryphal books and they definitely…I’ve read many of them and recorded many of them. You can find them in the Daily Audio Bible Shop. But many of them tell the stories that lead us between the Old and into the New Testament era and the coming of the Savior, but that’s what happened between the Testaments and that’s not exactly where we are. We are still entering the final book of the Old Testament’s unknown is Malachi. And, so, we’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. And today we’ll read Malachi, chapters 1 and 2.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for Your faithfulness to us. We thank You for Your long-suffering and patience with us. We thank You for Your kindness toward us. Oh Father, we don’t deserve any of this, and yet You have bestowed it upon us freely. So, as we prepare Lord, one more day, one more day together on the journey of this decade, that we might feel Your presence strongly as we look back and feel Your guidance strongly as we look forward, and to feel the unspeakable presence of Your overwhelming love for us as we’re here, right now, in the present. We love You, Lord, and we thank You for all that You’ve spoken into our lives in all that You have yet to speak to us through Your word this year. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, its where you find out what’s going on around here. So, of course, be mindful of that. Stay tuned. Stay connected in any way that you can.
Oh, my goodness friends, like land is in sight. We are gonna reach the shore tomorrow. I cannot believe that tomorrow is the last day of the year. So, this…this is a good day to…to reach out to your friends and family, those if you plan to take the journey next year, those that come to mind and come to heart that you would like to journey with, to take the journey with you in the coming year through…through the Bible and what that does in our lives in the course of a year, this is a good time to reach. It’s funny, we know the end of the year’s coming, we know the end of the decade’s coming and it’s like we should get to December 31st and then we should have like a few days there just to sit there and appreciate the time. But, you know, it just doesn’t do that. The 31st will end and the first will begin just like every other day and we’ll set sail again. So, this a good time to invite those that you care about for the journey into the new year.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible in these last hours of this year and decade then I thank you as I’ve said humbly, profoundly, gratefully, deeply. I am grateful that man, tomorrow, tomorrow will complete 14 years, seven days a week. That's…I’m gonna wait till tomorrow to think about that because it shakes me up inside and, yeah, then a flood of just so many memories begin to come back. I just can’t believe it. But anyway, I am deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply grateful that we’ve been able to be in community and allow God’s word to center us in a rhythm of life that has carried us in transformative ways this far and I’m glad that we can be on that journey together and I’m glad that we can do that together. So, 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 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 or just press that Hotline button that’s in the Daily Audio Bible app at the top. It just lives there. And, yeah, anytime no matter where you are, day or night you hit that button start talking because we’re in this together and that’s the hotline. So, you can press that.
And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you hear tomorrow.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Hey everybody it’s Margo from Liberia. I really want to thank Brian for something that happened a couple of months ago. I did phone in at the time, but my Hotline button wasn’t working so I was reminded of it this morning. I can’t remember the date, but one day at the mission hospital I spent quite a few hours helping to stabilize a newborn baby. He came in basically almost dead and we managed to resuscitate him, get his vital signs back to pretty much normal. And it was quite amazing, it seemed supernatural, and I remember feeling so happy and just quite victorious that day. And the next day I went in and discovered that he had died overnight. And I remember I was so devastated and I kind of just lost the plot and thought just, “you know what. I can’t do this” and I actually went home. I remember I cried all the way walking home and boy did I question God that day. You know, like, “God why did You bring me here to see these things?” Anyway, I put DAB on when I got home, and the Lord spoke to me so beautifully through Brian’s commentary that day and I felt so loved by God that he would speak to me that way. The timing was amazing. So, during the commentary Brian said, “when you feel crushed, overwhelmed, and opposed don’t mistake the challenge for abandonment”. And I just remember weeping, kneeling on my __ floor saying, “God I don’t understand but thank You that You have not abandoned me. I know that I’m not here alone.” So, thank you Brian for letting God use you that day and for all the other days that God uses the DAB. Okay. Love you all heaps. Bye.
Hi Daily Audio Bible this is Rebecca from Michigan December 23rd. I know the New Year’s is coming up, so I want to pray for you guys. Father God, I pray for everybody in DAB to have a wonderful new year day and that they’ll be safe driving to and from wherever they’re going. I pray that this year will be a special year. 2020 is the eye vision. So, I pray to have perfect vision this year and accomplish a lot of stuff this year. I pray I can continue to stay with DAB again for the next year and I maintain the whole year like I have been now, and that God has just totally changed my life through listening to His words and changed the life of the DAB people. I pray financially you would change my life, that you help me get my dad’s __ paid off and my student loan and my car paid off this year. And I pray you teach me on tithing and the importance of tithing to the church and helping other people out who are in need and giving to those who need food or shelter, clothing, and places to sleep and a job. I pray you provide all those needs and I pray you provide everybody here with mental health and emotional health and physical health and financial health and that you will bless them and give them more abundance. And I pray that they’ll be feeling God’s presence through the whole time on DAB. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen. I pray for Brian and Jill and his…
Hi, this is Lawrence. I’m listening to the podcast of December 22nd and I just heard Mary’s call. Mary said her husband had died two days ago and that she really needed prayer at this time. Mary, I want to tell you, you are getting prayer for me and I’m sure you are getting it from everybody in the DAB community. God bless you in this very difficult time.
Good day my Daily Audio Bible family. I received my Christmas box today December 23rd and upon looking at the Christmas bulb with the word “maintain” it finally struck me what that word might mean for me. I’m always looking ahead, looking ahead at different situations, that when we get through this situation this will happen, and when we get beyond this crisis this might change. I think God wants me just to be still and maintain a sense of being in the moment, being in right now, being thankful for this very moment, quit looking ahead, quit thinking that the other side of the rainbow is going to be happier and better because it’s been a long, long journey and I’m tired. Thank you all for everything that you do for each other here on this beautiful line. Have a Merry Christmas. I love you all. Bye.
Hello family this is Lady of Victory calling from Illinois. I am a first-time caller and I am just blown away. Today is Monday, December 23rd and I was listening, again a new listener, and I was listening to both Beloved regarding the inappropriate sister…stepsister as well as a guy I believe from California about his son Kevin from getting out of jail and just felt prompted to want to call in. God, we lay our DAB family before You, God for stepsister who has been inappropriate to husbands and God Kevin. We are trusting You Lord God that You would give them the right things to say, the right attitude to have, the right behavior to display Lord God that will show Your presence God and not to give any airtime, if You will, to the enemy God but to let them know that You are with them God and that You are going before them to make every crooked place straight Gpd. We pray specifically for Kevin, that he will get rid of the anger Lord God, that when he comes out that he will be a Father to his 11-year-old son God, that he will be able to hear You and hear You well God. Prayerfully he has heard from You well while he has been in prison incarcerated God and You have gotten a hold of his heart and arrested his heart God to be the Father that he needs to be to Kevin. And as well as beloved God, help her to know that You said that marriage is sacred and that the marriage bed is undefiled. And, so, we come against the enemy and any attack that he is coming against our fellow DAB family in any way form or fashion. We come against it, Satan in the name of Jesus and we thank You for victory. And we look forward to hearing the report in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Hey DAB family this goes out to Carla Jean in Las Vegas concerning your adult children, Dakota Hazel concerning your newest grandson Liam, Alexis in Texas concerning Andrew, and Jerry from Duluth Minnesota concerning your son Stephen. [singing starts] It’s not in trying but in trusting. It’s not in running but in resting. It’s not in wondering but in praying that we find the strength of the Lord. Oh. It’s not in trying but in trusting. It’s not in running but in resting. It’s not in wondering but in praying that we find the strength of the Lord [singing ends]. Be encouraged family. Know that I’m praying for you and God is with you. Your 10-day-old brother, new brother in DAB, Kingdom Seeker Daniel from South Holland Illinois. God bless you guys. Love you.