Leviticus 6:1-7:27, Mark 3:7-30, Psalms 37:1-11, Proverbs 10:3-4
Today is the 18th day of February, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it’s great to be here with you today as we take the next step forward together. At this point we are working through the third book of the Torah or the Pentateuch, the book of Leviticus and we are sort of watching God reveal the law to Moses. The law, the Mosaic law would establish and govern the society or the culture or the people of God who had come out of slavery. Their identity was that of a slave. Their culture was that of the slave. Their understandings were that…those of slaves. God is creating a new people out of these former slaves and setting in place the rules and customs and holidays and rituals and laws that they are to obey. And, so, let’s take the next step. We’re reading from the New International Version this week. Leviticus chapter 6 verse 1 through seven 27.
Commentary:
Okay. Let’s talk for a minute about blasphemy. That word or that action, that sin is not something that is in the modern vernacular. Like we don’t really hear discussion about blasphemy all that often unless we’re talking about it out of the Scriptures. And yet within the Scriptures it’s all over the place. It is what Jesus is accused of, and ultimately what He’s found guilty of. It is also what Jesus is saying that the religious leaders are doing. So, is it just like he said she said? What are we talking about here? To blaspheme is to elevate someone or something to the place of the most high God. And as we know from history, both Old and New Testament many gods were worshiped. Like idolatry is something that we see a lot in the Old Testament, that giving your heart in worship to something that’s not real, but that is elevating that thing, putting your belief and hope and faith into that thing, and elevating it to the place of God in your life. And, so, the religious leaders accused Jesus of blasphemy because He elevated himself to the place of God blasphemy because they did not believe that He was God incarnate, or God made flesh or the human God. And, so, for anyone to make that claim about Jesus to their way of thinking and interpretation this is straight up textbook blasphemy. So, even though they were incorrect in their judgment this is what they were accusing Jesus of. Jesus in their view, was a man not a God and not a God made flesh, but how are they blaspheming? So, let me read just a couple of verses from our reading today. “Then Jesus entered a house and again a crowd gathered so that He and His disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this thing want to take charge of Him, for they said He is out of His mind and the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said He is possessed by Beelzebul, by the prince of demons He is driving out demons.” Jesus responds so that basically saying, “that doesn’t make any sense”, right? Like, “why would the devil throw out the devil? How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand. His end has come. In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up then he can plunder the strong man’s house. Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. They are guilty of an eternal sin.” He said this because they were saying He has an impure spirit. So, what the religious leaders who had come down from Jerusalem…we’re talking about the cream of the crop. We’re talking about powerful and educated Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes and those with religious authority. They see what Jesus is doing and they say He is possessed by Beelzebul. So, they are essentially saying that God made flash is possessed by the devil and it is the devil giving God made flash the power to do these signs and wonders. They are crediting the devil for what God is doing and they are calling God made flesh, Jesus, of the devil elevating the devil to the place of God. That is blasphemy. So, if we understand that then all of the sudden the gospel of Mark is becoming a mirror. What was happening with religious authorities saying Jesus is getting his power from Beelzebul, etc., etc., is that they’re seeing something that they do not understand. It is outside of their interpretations, and they think Jesus is a fraud. And, so, even though the work of God is accompanying Jesus everywhere he goes where else would the work of God be besides with God? So, even though Jesus is doing the work of God they don’t understand it, they don’t have a grid for it and so they label it of the devil. The mirror is that we do that too. If something is happening, the work of God, but it is outside of our framework, we don’t have an interpretation for it or a grid for it. It looks different than we think it should look. Then often we can find ourselves, whether we say it out loud or we think it in our hearts, of the devil. We should be supremely cautious about that because crediting the devil for something that God is doing, even if we don’t understand it is blasphemy. And we could say, “well…you know…there’s no way God could be involved in X, Y, and Z. There's…He just doesn’t do things that way.” That is exactly what the religious authorities in the time of Jesus thought. So, before we start labeling things, we may need to push pause and take a step backward and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit before we step into that territory because it doesn’t lead anywhere good. And, so, that’s worth giving some consideration to. It’s worth observing ourselves. It’s worth just thinking of what triggers us and why we begin to say the things that we do. If the Bible shows us anything, it’s God is all mighty and all powerful and He doesn’t really care about doing things according to the formulas that we create for Him. And He doesn’t really care about living in the boxes that we craft for Him. God is God. God is good. God is love. God will do what God will do. And whatever God does is right regardless of what label we put on it. And, so, let’s give it some thought.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit we can think all we want and maybe we can kind of catch ourselves in these kinds of postures but to truly get to the root of anything we need Your help. We can’t do this on her own. We’ve tried plenty to do all kinds of things in our own strength and by our own power and we are not capable. And we may be able to keep the plate spinning for a while, but we crash. We cannot survive without You. And when You are at work in our lives or You are or work in the world or around us in ways that we may or may not understand, and so we just listen to whatever the crowd is saying then we need to think that the crowd said to crucify Him. We need Your Holy Spirit to guide us and to help us keep our mouths closed until we understand what You are doing. We choose so many battles against each other that are not our battles. Help us Holy Spirit. We are so lost without You. And we are so lost when we are not paying attention to You. But we’re paying attention now. And, so, come. Lead us into all truth we pray and ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Hey DAB family this is your sister Ashley from California and I want to come on here first and foremost and say thank You God for the goodness that comes through this app. Every day I am able to wake up and I have psalms to turn to, to have songs to sing. I have proverbs. The wisdom of the Lord is just poured out into my heart into my mind. And then I have the DAB and I get the chance to listen to that. And not only that I’ve been also able to invite my son into listening to the New Testament to develop the foundation of his faith with Ezekiel. So, Lord I just want to thank You so much for this app and for leading me here. Brian, Jill, Ezekiel, China, the whole Hardin family, thank you. Thank you for your faithfulness in the small things and being obedient and thank you for that. I’m coming on here to cry out for your help DAB family. My grandmommy Jody was just diagnosed with acute mass leukemia and she started chemo yesterday, Valentine’s Day and she’s having a reaction. We don’t have a lot of answers right now but last year diabi family when I called in and asked you for prayer and for help because I was scared about my dad you met me and you reached out and guys my dad is still doing the cha cha with his recovery but he is on the mend and I need you all to join me in prayer for my grandmommy Jody. So, I love DAB family. Bye.
Hi DAB family this is Cami I’m from Southern Oregon I’m a new listener and a first-time caller. I’ve been listening to all the prayer requests and often find myself so moved because I can relate to them. But I really wanted to reach out and pray for Daughter of Honor. I’m already getting emotional, but I related to so much of your prayer request. I have gone through miscarriage and stillbirths, and it really rocked my relationship with God for a while trying to come to terms with bad things happening. It sounds like you’ve had your fair share of trials lately with parents passing away and your mom having Alzheimer’s and…and on top of that that struggle with wanting another child so badly. And I just wanted to pray that Lord please give her family strength and peace and help them get through all of these hard times. It’s so hard to see the light sometimes when we are just beat down with everything going on in life. And I pray that You would bless them with a child that they so desperately want and would love so wonderfully. Lord above all let Your will be done but please bless these beautiful people who have been going through so much. In Your precious name we pray Lord. Amen.
Hello this is John from the UK. I’d like to pray for my daughter Hannah who’s 13-/12 who has anorexia nervosa. She was a perfectly healthy girl until about September and then just started restricting on her eating and drinking to the point where she was dehydrated and had to be admitted to hospital. She’s in hospital now with my wife Rachel who has been caring for her and she’s been in the hospital with her 24/7 most of the time and is quite exhausted. We’ve had a lot of prayer, but we ask that in Jesus’ name you would set Hannah free from any evil that is making her not eat or drink and free her to eat and drink normally like a healthy girl and be the healthy, happy, Hannah she was especially when she gave her heart to Jesus last summer at the church youth camp. So, I pray please agree with me in Jesus’ name that she would be healed. Thank you very much. And bless you all. Amen.
Hey everyone, this is Casey from Missouri and I’m currently 17 weeks pregnant. A few weeks ago, I had a blood test done which was a genetic screening and it came back positive for trisomy 13. I have two other kids, ones 6 and ones 2 and on Wednesday the 22nd is when I’m going to go in for a MEO test which we’ll tell me for sure whether the baby has trisomy 13 or not which I’m trying to stay calm and stay positive for my older kids but this is a very trying time and I could use all the prayers as possible all the prayers that I can get. Thank you all and have a good day.
Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is Ben from Minnesota. I’ve been a listener for about 2-½ years and I’m very grateful for…for the Daily Audio Bible. It makes a big difference and it’s like being served good food every day and you always know it’s gonna be good. You always know it’s gonna be there and you don’t have to think about it but it’s always delicious. So, thank you. Say it, my wife Sarah and I are traveling to Liberia in Africa to adopt A little boy and we leave tomorrow, which is January 7th…no February 17th. So, please pray for us as we go. We expect to be there three to four weeks. This process has been a long journey for us. It started in 2015 and lots of bumps along the way but we are excited and grateful and just really thankful to God for carrying us through this time and also the wonderful community of support that has walked with us. But just wanted to throw that out there for you all. And again, thank you to Brian and the family for all that you do and thank you to all of you who lift each other up in prayer. Blessings. All the best.