08/29/2019 DAB Transcript

Job 31:1-33:33, 2 Cor 3:1-18, Ps 43:1-5, Pr 22:8-9

Today is the 29th day of August. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian and it is wonderful to be here with you today as we around the corner on another week, continue taking steps forward, and allowing God to speak to us. So, let’s get to that. We’ve been reading from the New International Version this week, which is what we’ll continue to do all the way to the end of this week. And in the Old Testament, we are continuing our journey through the book of Job. And today we’ll read chapters 31 through 33. And Job is continuing to pour out his heart. He’s listened to his friends plenty. He’s in the middle of some things that he needs to say today. So, obviously Job wants an audience with God directly in person. This hasn’t happened yet. But let’s continue the story with Job, chapter 31.

Commentary:

Alright. So, when we were going through the book of Romans and reading that letter that Paul wrote and obviously it’s a very dense letter, a very theological letter. So, we explored a lot of the implications of what Paul was saying then, but as we continue to move forward in his letters, we notice all kind of different types of imagery that he uses and some of it’s very familiar to us, especially if we’ve been around the Christian faith for a long time. But Paul is rooted in his Hebrew identity, like even though he is the apostle to the Gentiles and his Hebrew brothers and sisters think he’s an apostate and a heretic and deserves to die, all of the things that Paul is saying in his letters are largely rooted in his Hebrew roots. So, he talks about veils today, right? And if somebody just randomly starts talking about veils in a religious conversation, right, you don’t necessarily know what’s going on, but a Hebrew person would, and a Gentile could learn really easy if they learn a little bit of the Old Testament. So, Paul’s talking about veils today and the reason that he is talking about veils is that he’s contrasting the old covenant law that began with Moses and a new covenant that is revealed through Jesus. So, the law had been given to Moses in glorious fashion, which is exactly how Paul describes it. And it was glorious because his face was glowing. Remember, we read this back in Exodus. So, his face was glowing. Moses climbed Mount Sinai to meet God in person on the people’s behalf and when he came down his face shone with the glory of God, which caused the people to fear Moses. And, so, Moses put a veil over his face. And, so, for Paul, as he’s looking back at that story for how Jesus comes into the story and carries it forward, this idea of looking through a veil represented the way that people had been viewing the law all along. He says it like this, “their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.” And then Paul starts making this distinction between this new covenant an old covenant. And again, we talked about this when we were going through Romans because we can pass by this like, “no big deal. Of course. Dah. Everybody knows this”, but what Paul is saying in this letter is incredibly or was incredibly controversial at the time he was saying it. So, for Paul, the law constantly pointed out how failure was occurring, right, like how you are failing while the redemptive work of Christ, this new covenant frees us from those failings and makes us righteous before God. And, so, what makes this compelling is how Paul paints a picture of what life might look like if we weren’t looking through a vail anymore. And this is where we need to start really paying attention. “Whenever”, Paul says this, “whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. And we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory.” In other words, not through a vail but looking upon His glory straight up we are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. Like that’s pretty big stuff on a number of levels. Friends, if Paul isn’t nuts, and I don’t think we believe he’s nuts, we trust in the Scriptures, if Paul’s right then where this Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. The veil has been removed. We can see clearly. Where is the Spirit of the Lord? Well, if Paul is right then he told us when we were reading from the book of Romans that it is the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in us. So, the Spirit of God, then, is within us, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is…do you see where we’re going here…there is freedom. Or for that matter we just turn to the Psalms. “Where can I go to escape from your Spirit” And this is from Psalm 139. “Where can I flee from your presence. If I go up to the heavens You’re there. If I go down to the grave You’re there.” Right? Like, “if I go to the far side of the earth You’re there.” What Paul is saying here, what the Scriptures are telling us is that we cannot get out of God’s presence. His presence, His Spirit lives within us, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. You are a freedom machine wherever you go. And at some point, I mean, at some point, I know, like we can go over this ground over and over…I can go over this ground over and over and over and over and over every year and still not, you know, and still find myself not walking in freedom, at some point in the year just be losing it. Like, I get it, I understand, but I also recognize it really actually is always available. It really is always there. Freedom is always there as well as bondage. It mostly boils down to what we choose. We often think like, “well if I were walking in complete freedom then everything in my life would be easy…like everything would be like moving in the same direction, the wind would be at my back, I would be sailing downhill.” That’s just not how life works though, like, not for anybody that I know and that’s not how life worked for the son of the living God and that’s not how life worked for the apostle Paul or any of the other apostles. That’s not how life worked for our early patriarchs that we’ve read their stories. That’s not how life worked for the Kings. That’s not how life worked for the prophets. So, we have some sort of ideal that we don’t even know we’re talking about. We’re gonna face opposition in this world, it’s been promised. Has nothing to do with whether we’re gonna walk in freedom. So, let’s think about it today. Where’s the veil, right? Is the veil over your over your face? Is it over our faces? Or has the veil been removed so that we can see? And hopefully, even for a moment…even for a moment in the Scriptures today the veil has been removed so we can at least see what we’re talking about. Even if we can’t reach out and attain it this moment, if we can see what we’re talking about. I am free. I am perpetually free. It is always mine. I just normally don’t choose it. Like, if we could at least just get that clear, that we have a beachhead to start walking in freedom. Friends, it’s ours. What would the world be like if we were truly free?

Prayer:

Holy Spirit we invite You into that because there’s no telling what could happen. There’s no telling what could happen in this world if all of Your people who claim Your name, who claim all of this to be true, who are banking on the Bible to be accurate. If this is true, and we believe this was true, and we began to walk in this, we would not be comparing ourselves to each other, we would not be bothered by each other, we would be doing everything in our power to stay in the freedom that You have given us as we are transformed into Your likeness. Like, some of this stuff is so good…so good that…that we haven’t even tasted of it. Transform us Lord into Your image with ever-increasing glory as we whose faces have been unveiled contemplate Your glory. This is what the Scripture says. This is how it works. And, so, we consider Your glory and we consider the way You are transforming us and we open ourselves up to You fully. Come, Holy Spirit and bring the light of truth and lead us into all truth we ask in Jesus’ 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.