Numbers 11:24-13:33, Mark 14:22-52, Psalms 52:1-9, Proverbs 11:1-3
Today is the 9th day of March, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great be here with you today as we move ourselves into this new work. I’m excited for all that God will speak to us through His word and I’m so grateful that we have this oasis to come to. Oh, my goodness! The cares of life can be…can be large. I mean, we can be surrounded. There can be a lot of chaos and stress but we have a place, we have a place around the Global Campfire where we’re not alone and where peace rules as we just allow God’s word to…to work inside of us and to wash over us so that we can reemerge into the day getting our heads on straight, right, reoriented to God. So, it’s such a gift we can do this. You guys, I’m so grateful. And, so, let’s do it. We’re reading from the Contemporary English Version this week. Today numbers chapter 11 verse 24 through 13 verse 33. And now we’ve kind of turned the corner in the book of Numbers. The whole first part of Numbers were like really, really specific instructions and very, very consistent numbering and counting of everything. But now we’ve left Mount Sinai. Now we’re on the March. Moses said goodbye to his father-in-law and the people around the wilderness are complaining about how they used to be able to eat cucumbers when they were slaves and maybe should go back to being slaves so they could have their cucumbers. And God is planning to send them meat.
Commentary:
Alright. Since we left Mount Sinai, like we slowed things down in the Old Testament once we got out of Egypt and went through all of the giving of the laws and statutes and customs and rituals and instructions and all of that and all the counting. And since we left Mount Sinai it’s been kinda busy. People are complaining and a bunch stuffs happening, but a very pivotal, very pivotal thing happens in the Hebrew story today because the children of Israel have broke camp and they have moved out and now they have sent some spies to cross over into the Promise Land and spy out the land. And we encountered a place that…that we know, like a place that we were there when it was set in our translation that we are reading from this week. They go to Bunch Valley, but its native name is the Valley of Eshkol. In that Valley is a field and at the end of that field is the cave and that cave was bought by Abraham as a burial place and he first buried his wife Sarah there. And it became the ancestral burial ground for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and it’s it still exists, it’s still there today, but it’s interesting to note that the spies went back to this place where their…where their ancestors were, their patriarchs were buried. And this is where they got the grapes. This is where they brought the grapes back from. So, they come back to camp and they basically say, “the place is awesome but we can never take it.” And it’s so weird because just a couple weeks ago we were in the wilderness of Zin where this is taking place. But they come back and they can’t take it. There’s giants in the land, the Anakim and Nephilim. And this is another one of those places. Remember way back in Genesis where we’re like strange things pop their heads up from time to time and it’s like, how are these connected because we’ve seen Anakim and Nephilim, the giants. We saw them earlier. We saw the sons of God and the daughters of Eve. This is where they came from and we discussed how there is so much conjecture about what they are, what they were, what they represented. But to try to get like as clear as a theological understanding as we can, we can say, okay the Bible says these were the sons of God. These were lower Elohim. They were lower created beings that were higher than humans, perhaps in some way. Many people think they were to be the guardians of humanity, but they…they fell. And I’m not somebody that can say for sure. I didn’t have the pleasure of being there. I’m not sure. But what I know is that these giants keep popping up and they don’t pop up in a friendly way, like in a…they…they pop up in a way that the Hebrew people are against them. So, we see that the children of Israel at this point are terrified of them but when they do go into the land…well…they…they will war with them and conquer them and we will even see it show up again in the famous story of David and Goliath. Who is he fighting? A giant. So, it’s just interesting to observe these undercurrents. But the spies come back and say it’s a good land that we cannot conquer. And as we leave today’s reading discouragement is spreading and this is dooming an entire generation as we will see. It’s actually dooming one generation and completely affecting the next, their children, because they do not believe they can take this Promise Land and so they won’t. And there will be plenty for us to look at us in our own lives as we travel that story.
Then we are in the gospel of Mark, and so we have reached the time of Jesus arrest, the time of his trial and his execution and resurrection. And we’re in the season of Lent now, the season that is designed on the Christian calendar and has been for millennia to…to guide our hearts into a proper posture of understanding deeply the cost of sin, the cost of separation from our Creator, the separation from God. We were never meant to live that way and sin is what carves the canyon and lent helps us…and there’s a lot of fasting and stuff that happens…and lent all toward keeping our hearts posture in the story as we are led toward Easter. And, so, we encounter this story of the last supper today and we should give it the gravity that it is due. We should understand that this is the story that changed everything for us and we should go into this day doing all that we can to have eyes to see and ears to hear, and an open heart that…that we might live worthy of the story that we’re telling in the gospel of Mark.
Prayer:
Jesus, we invite You into that. You…You’re well aware of our failures and misgivings, all of our hang ups, all of the masks that we wear, all of the ways that we are naked and ashamed, all of the ways that we try to hide, all of the ways that we try to hide what we’re trying to hide and just bottle it up, and the ways that we’re just not living pure and true, You…You’re well aware, and yet You cover it all and You just reach with a hand inviting us forward, day by day step-by-step with You, inviting us forward. And, so, we reach for You as we contemplate what it took to make this possible and we give our hearts gratitude to You in worship. We thank You Jesus, for coming to rescue us and we will love You for all eternity. We pray these things in Your name. 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.