Exodus 23:14-25:40, Matthew 24:29-51, Psalms 30:1-12, Proverbs 7:24-27
Today is the 6th day of…I almost said January, but it is, indeed February, the 6th day of February, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today as we just us…ahhhh…do that. Let’s take a deep breath just to exhale. We’re entering a new space in our day right now. This is…this is a safe space and we’re not alone. We’re here around this Global Campfire together and we’ve come to just let God’s word speak to us. Maybe it’s been a chaotic day, maybe it’s been a hectic week. We just exhale all that. It’ll still be there if you want to go pick it back up, it’ll be right where you left it. We give ourselves permission to have peace right now as God’s word speaks to us. And maybe as we reenter the day or the evening we go back with fresh perspective. So, we’re reading from the Voice this week. God is giving some initial regulations and laws. They are at Mount Sinai in the wilderness. People are down below and Moses at the top of the mountain communing with God. And God is giving Moses the regulations that will form the people. They don’t really have a form. They…they’ve been slaves for 400 years and they’ve operated in a slave system inside the culture of Egypt. They don’t have their own way of doing things. And God is out in the wilderness, laying out the plans that form this people, and in the process dramatically pulling things forward among the cultures of the time. So, we pick up that story in Exodus chapter 23 verse 14 and we will read through 25 verse 40 today.
Commentary:
Okay, let’s look at a truth that is emerging out of the Scriptures In…in the book of Exodus God is…is giving laws and regulations and stipulations and how…I mean He’s building the infrastructure of a culture that will be His chosen people. And as we’ve already learned, like the children of Egypt didn’t leave Egypt and take the most direct route into Canaan and just defeat Canaan and take over. That’s not how it went. They went into the desert and they are in the middle of the desert and they’re at the very beginning of their desert journey. But God is forming them and He gives instructions today about what He’s gonna do when they go into the land and then He tells them this isn’t gonna all happen at once. Like, you need to grow and increase so that you can handle the land. Little by little, I will drive them out in front of you, and before any of that can happen, they will be spending time in the wilderness. So, they’re in the wilderness and they’re going to have to stay in the wilderness to learn the lessons of the wilderness before they can enter into the promise.
So, then we go into Matthew’s gospel and Jesus is talking about things that will happen on the earth at the end. The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give light, the stars will fall from the sky, the powers in the heavens will be shaken, there will be deep, deep morning upon the earth among the people before all things are made new. So, we see that we long for all things to be made new or we long to get ahead of this wilderness season that we find our lives in. We want out of here. And, so, we spend most of our energy and effort trying to find the most direct path out of whatever it is that’s going on. And yet the most direct path at least in our understanding is usually not the path that God leads us upon. We don’t like the idea that things might get more difficult before they get better. We don’t like the idea that we might have to endure until we see that promise. I don’t. I don’t…I mean…I’ll just out myself here. I don’t like that. I’m learning. I’m learning to observe and understand what’s going on but I don’t like enduring but I am going to try to learn to love little by little, day by day because this seems to be the way of things, right? Like Jesus in yesterday’s reading was saying, “when you see the hardships, when you see these things come, they’re signs, they’re…they’re…they’re birthing pangs. New birth, the new is being born. Alright. We should take that metaphor and apply it to just about anything in our lives. I mean just physical childbirth, which I have never…which I have never had or endured but I have been involved several times. And, so, I have watched my wife endure. I have watched her work. I have watched her absorb the pain into herself. I have watched her because something new was being born and when it was born I don't…by some sheer magic or grace all that pain is worth it and it dissipates. But if we stick to that metaphor for the most part in our lives, we want the baby, but we want nothing to do with the labor. And yet I…I point this out now because this rhythm of being willing to endure and to endure by actually relaxing, sitting back in God’s lap and relaxing while we endure whatever we’re enduring is a huge, huge irreplaceable part of this spiritual journey. And believe me when I tell you this because I’m telling you this at the beginning of the year. By the time that we get to the end of the year the theme of endurance will be so prevalent that we will not be able to miss it. We can spend our entire lives trying to avoid it or we could understand that it is a part of this life and we can learn to embrace it and save ourselves enormous amounts of wasted energy and time and anguish.
Prayer:
Jesus, we recognize this and I guess that…that this was lived out most vividly in the coming pages that…that we’ll be reading when we hear You say, “not my will but Yours be done.” And, so, Father that’s a difficult posture when we are so full of our own desires and our own objectives and hidden motives. It’s hard for us to say, “I don’t have a will anymore. I want Your will in all things.” And yet this is one of the big lessons that the Bible is teaching us now? Who do we trust? What do we trust in? Do we trust in ourselves? Is this…is this working out for us? Are we just killing it at life? Or is this not working out and every time we try to grab the reins, we drive into a brick wall? Maybe our will isn’t getting us anywhere. But we are told the Yours will lead us to life, will illuminate a narrow path. And so, although this is a process, we surrender our will to You and Your ways, and even as that happens, for some of us it just…it just doesn't…it doesn’t feel right to let go of control. It feels so scary and all of this is exposing where our trust is. Thank You for that. Come Holy Spirit we pray in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
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It's…wow…it’s a week from today that we will begin the journey that will end us in Tel Aviv and then all over the land of the Bible. And it’s been an annual thing for a while. And, so, it’s a virtual trip. So, I hope…hope your packing. I mean it’s a physical trip. Many of us will be there in person, but there’s plenty of room in my suitcase. I can put you all in there just bring your toothbrush and we’ll be taking this journey. And it’s always a very special time in the community because it draws us together as we kind of peer into what were actually doing there, but we’re posting so much, so many pictures, so many videos that it becomes a…it becomes a community experience as we get to look at these places that we’re visiting in the Bible, see what they look like, see what it feels like. So, you know, that’s coming up and I’m looking at it going “wow. We’ve got a lot to do here to get ready”, but it always gets done. But we thank you for your prayers and just raising a canopy a prayer over all that we will be doing and we’ll pray for this all during the time because there’s just a lot involved with so much travel from so many points in the world and so many logistics to do it. So, asking for your prayers as we begin to prepare for this journey. I will mention that we have committed and are intending to take a trip in 2021 to the land of the Bible. We’re gonna do it I think about a week earlier than we are this time. But all of the details for the 21…2021 pilgrimage to the land of the Bible with the Daily Audio Bible are dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section. Just look for Israel 2021. And , so, registration for that, holding your spot for that is now available, like I said, in the Initiatives section in Israel 2021. And all of the details, everything that you…all of the kind of questions that you would want to know as you explore that, they’re…they’re all there. So, check that out. Just letting you know that’s open now and that usually fills up fast. 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.