Leviticus 1:1-3:17, Mark 1:29-2:12, Psalms 35:17-28, Proverbs 9:13-18
Today is the 16th day of February welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian and it’s great to be here with you today as we continue the journey that we began, what, six weeks ago? And now we are…well…we’re out of sight of land. We’re in this together. We’re gonna sail all the way across this year and into all the different territory that the Bible takes us into. And today is one of those days where we’re kind of transitioning, kinda and kinda not. I mean we’re kind of picking up where we left off, but we are switching into a new book.
Introduction to the book of Leviticus:
We will begin the book of Leviticus today which is the third book of the Torah are the Pentateuch and certainly was indeed written to the children of Israel. Just recounting what we covered in Exodus. Obviously, the plagues and the freedom from slavery in all of the drama that that entailed and then into the wilderness, which is where the Lord instructed His people to go. He didn’t take them by the main route, the easy, the direct route into the land that they were promised. He took them out into the thick of the desert and that is not purposeless, neither is the wilderness in our own lives. And that’s one of the themes that we should be picking up on. The wilderness actually matters. In this case the wilderness matters because God is taking His people into a situation where they have no hope other than to utterly depend upon Him for survival. The irony is, that is the reality of life it’s just that we turn to so many distractions and try to become our own sovereign and prepare for all of our own eventualities and become strong in our own sight only to find out how quickly that can all just disappear. So, the children of Israel, they’ve only ever been slaves. This is a lesson that they need to learn, and they are learning it. We spent a lot of time around Mount Sinai, the mountain of God where Moses very, very clearly becomes the leader and the prophet of God in their sight. Also, where God comes and…and intends to speak directly with His people. That was His intention, but the people were freaked out and asked Moses to do all the talking, which is where we find ourselves. And then God begins to give out the ordinances and the statutes beginning to weave together the tapestry that will become the early Hebrew people, the culture of the early Jewish people. So, as we flip the page and begin the book of Leviticus we’ve been out of Egypt and out of slavery for about a year and God is establishing a covenantal relationship with these people. And, so, we’re going to be spending some time understanding the ordinances and customs and rituals and laws that govern this newly formed people. And one of the things that we’ll notice, if we’re paying attention, is that there are themes to what’s going on here. Like, I think of my own country. Like, I live in the United States. I was born here. I’m a citizen of this country. I don’t know all of the nuances of the governing law of all the nations of the world, although they’re very diverse, but here we have laws and whether we agree with them or don’t agree with them they structure, they weave together the culture that we live in, the boundaries of how we conduct ourselves toward one another in just about every conceivable scenario. And for us this is supposed to, this is supposed to all be working toward one goal which is to fulfill the…the dream of our Constitution. “we the people, in order to form a more perfect union.” So, conceivably the laws that govern the land are aimed at that goal. In the Scriptures as God is weaving together the laws and customs and rituals, the things that govern the conduct toward the people toward each other and toward God, we see that the covenant or the agreement being established is to set these people apart so that they would understand holiness, which is being set apart to God, being set apart to God so that we are available to do God’s work and represent His intentions upon the earth. And holiness is a huge thing. God tells them, “I’m holy therefore you’re gonna be holy.” Or maybe to use more modern vernacular, “if…if we’re gonna be in communion…if we’re gonna commune together, if we’re gonna be in covenant together, if we’re gonna be in fellowship and enjoy each other’s presence than it will happen through holiness.” Now, as we get deeper and deeper into the Leviticus, we’re gonna find a lot of sacrifice in this book because there’s a lot of sacrifice in this book. And if we approach the work that we’re moving through, the book of Leviticus, or for that matter, the Torah that we’re moving through, if we understand that this was inspired thousands of years ago and if we try to read it thousands of years in the future through the lens of how we understand the world today with the technology that we have and the advancements that have come in the last several thousand years then we won’t be able to relate to the people as a culture. It won’t look anything like our own, and it will look like a culture that we don’t want to be a part of, right? It’ll seem barbaric, antiquated and irrelevant. We’re reading back into a time when the world was largely tribal and we are reading about tribes, the…the 12 tribes of Israel. We’re looking back into this time and God is weaving something together that they completely understand although this is a giant leap forward in governance for the way the people are to conduct themselves toward one another. In fact, it set off things in motion that allowed over the millennia us to get to where we are. And we’re not…nobody’s got a perfect society. No matter what country you live in none of us have a perfect society because we’re…we’re cultures built of a broken people, but the things dramatically began to move forward with this example being set here in the book of Leviticus. And I get it. Nobody goes to the library…I say this most every year…nobody usually goes to the library to check out law books unless you’re studying to be an attorney or unless you are a lawyer. Like unless the law is your thing, like reading…reading covenantal language, which is what agreements are. Like reading the laws because although it would be good if we understood…like it would be good if we did this in our cultures and understood the laws of our land and understood why they were created and what they’re supposed to accomplish, but I admittedly it’s not riveting. You’re not so engaged with it that it’s just such a page turner. It’s the law. We’re reading the laws that are being laid down to establish a people who are supposed to continually in every way remind…be reminded that they are set apart to God. So, we’ll read plenty of sacrifices and go, “like I’ve never seen an animal sacrifice in my life, and I don’t ever want to see an animal sacrifice in my life. It sounds like a horrible thing to witness.” This is just part of the normal world at this time. And as I’ve suggested many times during our journey so far, we have to look behind the story. We have to look behind what is the motive for these laws. What’s happening here? And what we begin to realize is that if the law is obeyed then the people have built in governing mechanism that reminds them in every way in everything that they do of their identity and who God is and where they are going together with God. And, so, let’s remember all of that as we begin the next leg of the journey, the book of Leviticus. We’re reading from the Common English Bible this week and we’ll read the first three chapters of Leviticus today.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for Your word and certainly from the book of Proverbs, we ask Holy Spirit, help us to see the folly before we enter into it, before it destroys us. Help us to see it and keep going on our way not moving…diverting to the left of the right. Help us to have wisdom and discernment. We need it. We can’t navigate without Your counsel, without wisdom’s advice. And, so, we ask again for it. We also thank You for the new territory that we’ve entered into these last couple of days, into the…the gospel of Mark and into the book of Leviticus. And we ask Holy Spirit, come. Even as we’ve discussed these books over the last couple of days understanding the context, understanding the lay of the land. Now that we have that we ask that You help us to enter into it appropriately, properly, understanding the context and being able to look behind it all and see how You are shaping the heart of mankind, how You are drawing us in everything that we do to remind us of who we are and who You are and that we are in covenant together. We…we confess we’re distracted. We forget all kinds of things all the time and now we are seeing that this has been going on a long time. It’s not a new phenomenon, that You are weaving into the tapestry of this new culture reminders in everything that we do. Show us how to build different reminders into our own lives, different practices into our own lives that continually register with us, who we are and who You are and that we are in covenant together, that we are going somewhere together. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the 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.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Hello, my Daily Audio Bible brothers and sisters. Just wanted to say hello and let you know that I am in the prayer wall. I’m praying for people. And if you ever need my prayers I am there. Leave your comments, leave your prayers, leave your requests and…and we will be praying. Brian I wanna say happy birthday to you. I wanna say may the Lord bless you; may the Lord protect you, and may the Lord give you the desires of your heart. Thank you so much for feeding us spiritually. And I just wanted to congratulate you on your birthday and to let you know that I am always listening to the Daily Audio Bible. I listen to the psalms; I listen to the proverbs. I listen to the chronologically and I am very blessed by Jill. And I listen to the kids, which is Ezekiel and I love it. And I also listen to the one in Espanola. So, thank you, thank you Brian for blessing us and may the Lord bless you immensely. Have a great day. This is spiritdove1@yahoo.com Angel from California.
Hey, my wonderful DAB fam this is Kingdom Seeker Daniel. This call is for a gentleman who called whose call was aired on the 23rd community prayer and encouragement. You didn’t leave your name brother but you so grabbed me. You…matter fact you took me back and it wasn’t a real pleasant experience to have to go back there. So, shame on you. But no, seriously. Brother, I remember when. We’re talking about probably between 12 and 10 and 12 years back when our adult children, two of our adult children were living with us and long story short it was the ride of my life, I felt like, and it was not a fun experience. And the Lord had to take me to a place where I had to die to Daniel. And, so, first of all I salute you my brother that you’re calling to…to admit that you’re not in a good place. I so remember. Oh…oh man…I remember. And, so, I just want you to know I’m standing in the gap with you and believing that God is working on you because that’s where it all begins. We…we are the priests of the home and if we’re not in the right place as you admitted to then nobody basically is going to be right. So, Father strengthen Your son and help him in his very trying time that he’s dealing with his son through marriage where his son is not in the right place and he’s not spiritually where he needs to be. I pray that You would help this man to get to where he needs to be so that then the family will follow suit in Jesus’ name. Amen. Praying for you brother.
This is Laquita from Veneda Oklahoma. I want to pray for my sister in California that’s having trouble with her housing. She called in on February the 12th. Father I just lift up my sister. I pray that You give her favor, that You give her wisdom. Father I pray Father Lord that You would send the right people her way Lord to help her and Lord that her house would be repaired Father in Jesus’ name. Father that You would just give her the desires of her heart, that You would send forth or a friend who will show her love and compassion Father Lord and let her know that You’re always with her period. You said that You’d never leave or forsake us Father God. And Lord just surround her with Your love, Your mercy, Your grace, Your peace. Help her financially Father Lord. Bless her children and Father just lead her down the path that You’ve called her to in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Hello good morning I’m calling from…from snowy cold Canada this morning and I’m just reflecting on Brian’s reading of Matthew 27 versus 32 to 66 this morning and I just wrote down some reflections and I just wanted to share that with you all today. So, we, in this reading Jesus is at the hardest moment of the cross and He cries out, my God my God why have You abandoned Me. If Jesus can cry out these words, I am certain that we who are so much weaker can also struggle that moment when we feel abandoned by God, that moment of complete heartache, that moment of tremendous fear, that moment of utter aloneness. Yet we see that Jesus after saying these words died and it was only through His death that He experienced true freedom, that He understood God’s plan, that He was risen to a new way of living. So, Father we two journey in the same way. We reach that moment of feeling abandoned but we must choose. We can harden our hearts and turn completely from You or we can choose to die to ourselves and surrender to Your plans. Help us Father in our darkest moment to be willing to die to ourselves to surrender to You. In You, Father is the hope of new life. Help us. Help me Father to fall into Your arms. Just pray that today for all of us. May you be encouraged.
Good afternoon everybody. Good afternoon. This is God’s Smile. I’m Peter and we’re going to have a little sing aren’t we Pete. Are we ready? [singing starts] We bring sacrifice of praise into the hearts of the Lord. We bring sacrifice of praise and into the House of the Lord. And we offer up to you the sacrifices thanksgiving and we offer you up to you the sacrifices of joy [singing stops]. Father God we thank You when we come into Your presence where aware at times that it is a sacrifice to pray to You. But Lord we gladly offer this up to You and we lift our voices in praise. And what we have learned lord is when we turn to You away from what’s hurting our hearts and our minds and our bodies Lord, that as we turn to You in praise we are lifted, we are lifted in spirit and all that…all that would try to hold us back Father loses its grip in the light of You. So, we thank You Lord and we thank You for the joy that You pour over us when we offer up our praise to You. In the House of the Lord, in the body of Christ. Isn’t good Pete? Amen. It is. Do you want to say something? We’re running out of time. Again, we’re running out of time. We’re running out of time. Time is ticking away Helen. Say bye bye Helen. Bye bye Helen. Bye bye Peter. Kiss kiss.
Blessings on all you Daily Audio Bible readers and listeners. It’s so good to be a part of a group at the campfire. I’m Matt from Michigan and just asking blessings on you all and happy Valentine’s Day.
Good morning and happy Valentine’s Day DAB family. Of course, by the time you hear this it won’t be Valentine’s Day, but my sentiments are still the same. This is Mommy’s Little Rock from Arkansas and I just wanted to lift up those of us who, like myself, are feeling alone today on a day that’s usually spent loving a…a loved one or a spouse and all of the balloons and of course the candy which I’m eaten today regardless. And I just want you to know that even though today is historically spent with someone in a relationship or what have you, I want you to know that love is still there and I’m praying for all of those that feel alone. If you’re single and you’re wondering when the Lord is gonna send you someone, I’m with you on that too. Today is usually a day when my mom who passed away in December, so I’m still mourning and grieving or not being here, but she would normally send some type of flower arrangement or a card to me on Valentine’s Day and she would always sign it, “your secret admirer” as if…as if I didn’t know who sent it. So, I’m just…I’m thinking about that today and I’m also thinking about you all and praying for you all and I just want you to know that even though you feel alone you’re not alone. The DAB family has you in our prayers and that God has you, He’s with you when you’re feeling this way. He knows when the time will be for Him to send you someone special. And I want you to hold on to that and know that He has you in His heart and in His hand. So, stay encouraged. I love you. Bye.