Daniel 5:1-31, 2 Peter 2:1-22, Psalms 119:113-128, Proverbs 28:19-20
Today is the 28th day of November. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and, like always, it’s wonderful to have this opportunity to be together for a few minutes as we take the next step forward into our adventure through the Bible this year. And, right now, the path is leading us through the book of Daniel, and through second Peter in the New Testament. This week we’re reading from the contemporary English Version and we begin with Daniel chapter 5 verses 1 through 31.
Commentary:
Alright. In second Peter today we have a bit of a tirade against false prophets. And our understanding of prophet in this day and age is often tied to a person who predicts the future. But here we’re more appropriately talking about a person commissioned and sent by God to speak on his behalf. And, so, sometimes this is translated, false teachers. So, a person claiming to be commissioned and sent by God to speak on his behalf, but it’s not true, it’s false. And there was plenty of this going on. A lot of people were saying a lot of things for a lot of reasons about the faith. Before we dive into this, I think an important distinction needs to be made, because we can read passages in the Scripture like this and get the impression that we can’t ask any questions because we’ve seen a lot of that in our time. Anyone who asks questions that might mess with our tidy little box of assumptions can be labeled a false prophet, a false teacher, simply for posing questions or asking them. And I don’t think that’s the same thing and I don’t think that’s fair. I ask questions constantly. I ask questions of the Bible. I ask questions of the Lord every single day of my life, simply because I want to know the answers and you probably due too. That’s not what we’re talking about here in second Peter. Peter is being very forceful about people who are claiming to speak on behalf of God, who have come to faith in Christ and then have begun to or have completely turned away from some of our all of the core essentials of the Christian faith and are leading people to do the same thing. And Peter has little tolerance for this. And, so, to quote him, ‘these teachers don’t really belong to the master who paid a great price for them and they will quickly destroy themselves. Many people will follow their evil ways and cause others to tell lies about the true way.’ And, so, we’re pretty clear what he’s talking about and what he’s saying is, this is not going to work for those people, in fact, it’s going to go quite badly for them in the end. And then he goes on to give some examples of what that will look like, and he uses the examples of rebellious angels in heaven, the wicked and ungodly people in Noah’s time, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. So, we could all agree, that’s not a good time and that’s not a trajectory to aim your life in. And then Peter tells us what’s going on. Right? What the behavior is that he’s so upset about. And it’s here that we have the opportunity to look into our own lives to see if any of this is going on with us. These people, Peter says, ‘speak evil of things they don’t know anything about. They have done evil, and they will be rewarded with evil. Their immoral and the meals they eat with your spoiled by the shameful and selfish way they carry on. All they think about is having sex with someone else’s spouse’. Right? So, in other words, they are consumed with lust. ‘They trick people who are easily fooled and their minds are filled with greedy thoughts, but they are headed for trouble. They have left the true road and have gone down the wrong path by following the example of the prophet, Balaam’, which is a reference to unrighteous behavior for personal gain. ‘These people’, Peter says, ‘are like dried up waterholes and clouds blown by a windstorm. They brag out loud about their stupid nonsense and by being vulgar and crude they trap people who have barely escaped from living the wrong kind of life. They promise freedom to everyone, but they are merely slaves of filthy living because people are slaves of whatever controls them.’ And there’ something to put in your pocket carry around today. I am a slave of whatever I let control me. And it is here in this last paragraph that we read today that Peter shows us what happened to these people and where that road is going. He says, ‘when they learned about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ they escaped from the filthy things of this world, but they are again caught up and controlled by these filthy things. And now they are in worse shape than they were at first. They would’ve been better off if they had never known about the right way, because even after they knew what was right, they turn their backs on the holy commandments that they were given. And that is like a dog coming back to lick up its own vomit.’ Alright, this is pretty poignant, and this is pretty direct, this imagery that Peter’s using to describe what it’s like to know the truth, have tasted the goodness, and then turn around and walk back into the filth of a former life. So, I imagine that most of us have at least been around a dog. I guess I’ve been around dogs most my life in one way or another and I’ve watched them do this. Right? Haven’t you. Dog goes out into the yard, has to poop, and can barely finish before they have to turn around and smell that nice steamy pile of waste. You’re out walking your dog, they’re smelling every mailbox, but if they can come around some other dog poop, oh, that’s just a treasure and they smell that and maybe even eat it. Dog is sick, pukes on the ground, pukes in the kitchen, and they might give it a nice whiff and even lap it up. I know, I mean I know that’s gross, I know what I said is his disgusting, and I said it frankly because it’s disgusting to go back to a former life after the beauty of the presence of God. It’s like puking in a bowl and then eating it like soup. Sometimes understanding something starkly can shake us away to what we’re doing. And when we realize what we’re doing it explains a lot about the shape our life is in. To turn away from the narrow path that leads to life and go back and try to resurrect a life that is no longer a part of our story is like walking into a gas station bathroom, seeking out toilet that has been backed up for days, hoping to ladle out some of that filth into a Styrofoam cup so that we can go back to our car and drink it down. That is what it is like to try to resurrect the corpse of who we were before Christ. That is what it is like to wander into territory that will only lead us away from our union with God and the intimate collaboration in life that we’ve begun with Him. And that helps us understand the context of so many of the books of prophecy that we’ve read and are reading, when God is exasperated and essentially saying, why would you choose this over me? Why would you choose sewage over the banquet I have prepared for you?
Prayer:
Father, those are questions that have no valid answers. They never have. And we’re all guilty of this. And we’re all humbled at the starkness of what we’re doing. And, once again, we are called to repentance, we are called to change from within. And this can only happen with our surrender and Your participation. And, so, together we pray the ancient prayer of repentance, most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved You with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. In Your mercy, forgive what we have been, help us to amend what we are, and direct what we will be, that we may do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with You, our God. 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.
Song:
O God Forgive Us
for KING & COUNTRY
https://youtu.be/tz4toSf-xQU
Lyrics
We’ve prayed the prayer with no reply
Words float off into the night
Couldn’t cut our doubt with the sharpest knife
O, O God forgive us
Silence isn’t comfortable
We want drive through peace and instant hope
Our shallow faith it has left us broke
O, O God forgive us
O, O God forgive us
A slave to our uncertainty
Help us with our unbelief
O, O God forgive us
Young and old, black and white
We’re rich and poor, there’s no divide
Hear the mighty, hear the powerless, singing
O, O God forgive us
O, O God forgive us
A slave to our uncertainty
Help us with our unbelief
O, O God forgive us
With our white flag sailing in the night
Eyes pointed to the sky
Hands up and open wide, open wide
With our white flag sailing in the night
Eyes pointed to the sky
Hands up and open wide, open wide
With our white flag sailing in the night
Eyes pointed to the sky
Hands up and open wide, open wide
With our white flag sailing in the night
Eyes pointed to the sky
Hands up and open wide, open wide
O, O God forgive us
A slave to our uncertainty
Help us with our unbelief
O, O God forgive us