01/02/2020 DAB Transcript

Genesis 3:1-4:26, Matthew 2:13-3:6, Psalms 2:1-12, Proverbs 1:7-9

Today is the 2nd day of January, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it’s great to be here with you as we take step number 2 of 365 steps that will lead us not only through a year of our lives together, but through the entire Bible. So, obvious, this is our second step. So, we just set sail, just kind of moving out of the harbor, land is still in sight, we’re headed out into the deep. And we realize that even as we began this journey yesterday, even on day one, the Bible gives us plenty of things to consider. And, so, here we are now to take the next step, day two. We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week and our next step is back into the book of Genesis and we’ll read chapters 3 and 4 four today.

Introduction to the book Matthew:

Okay. This brings us to the New Testament, and we began the book of Matthew yesterday, but we didn’t spend any time kind of flying over it or just kinda understanding the context of it very much because we were focusing on Genesis. And we’re just kinda getting moved in, we’re just getting moved into this year. So, let’s talk about Matthew for a second before…before we read it. So, Matthew is obviously the first book found in the New Testament but…but Matthew is part of a grouping of four books that are the first four books of the New Testament. These are called the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and they each give us an account of the life of Jesus. So, we get this wonderful benefit at the beginning of the year to begin moving our way through the Bible alongside of the stories and messages of Jesus our Savior. Matthew was one of the apostles of Jesus. So, Matthew…well…he was eyewitness, rights? He had first-hand knowledge of the events that…that he recorded in the book of Matthew. And Matthew had a…had a radical transformation in the presence of Jesus, previously had been a tax collector. So…so, he was not well-liked socially but then this Rabbi comes along to this person who is not liked socially at all and invites him to come and follow him. So, he does. So, this…this first witness, this first gospel of the life of Jesus that we have, Matthew, is coming from a man who had a decent life. Although he was not well-liked, he had steady reliable paycheck. He was working for the Roman government and there were plenty of perks that went along with that. He was pretty much able to abuse the people by extracting taxes that were more than they owed kind of at will. So, although he was not like he was fairly well connected and was making some money. And he left, he just left, he left it all and took the leap of faith to follow a man that he believed was the son of God. So, that’s who’s writing us this book. That’s the story that’s being told and the story is…it is aimed at Hebrew people, so Jewish believers. And the Hebrew Scriptures we…we would we would understand them as the Old Testament today. And the gospel of Matthew quotes from the Old Testament more than any of the other Gospels do because the book of Matthew, it seems that its mission is to show Jesus fulfilling the Mosaic law and fulfilling the prophecies of one to come, a Messiah, an Anointed One, a Deliverer. And we’ll get to know this Jesus pretty well in the book of Matthew. There…there are over 20 parables. These are wisdom stories that Jesus told, and we’ll encounter them. And Jesus also begins speaking about something that we won’t really stop speaking about the entire year and that is the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. And Jesus said that it was near and that it was now that it was happening and that it was present within and among us. And we’ll talk about that. But for now, that gives us a little bit of context for…for the territory ahead in the book of Matthew. And, so let’s get to that. Today we will read chapter 2 verse 13 through chapter 3 verse six.

Commentary:

Alright, there are probably a number of directions we could go in today, plenty of things to talk about but we probably need to stick in the book of Genesis because we saw a story today that…that…that changed…that changed the story, that changed everything and affects us today profoundly. So, yesterday we had this little rare glimpse into a time of perfection and then today we saw that come to a close. So, like, we don’t have to go blow-by-blow, this is one of the most famous stories in the Bible. So, there’s a serpent, there’s a tree and there’s a man and there’s a woman at that tree looking at that tree and there’s a serpent’s asking questions. “Did God really say you couldn’t do this”, right? “Did God really say you…you can’t eat this?” So, he’s responding, “yeah, he did say that, that we can’t eat it, we can’t touch it, we’re not supposed to do any…anything like this or we’ll die. Okay. What we are about to see is a shift in consciousness, a shift in awareness of how things work. So, prior to this event, Adam and Eve, God’s children, His first children are in complete union and intimacy with Him, in fellowship with Him, they don’t understand the concept of separation from God. They’ve never known anything like that. It’s not a category for them. The idea that…that rebellion against God, disobedience, would carve a chasm between them and God, like they had never experienced sin or its repercussions. They wouldn’t even have known what…what that was or wasn’t like. They’d have to have faith that sin existed because they had no experience with it other than God’s warning, “don’t eat…like…like…you can have whatever you want, I’ve made this entire place for you to explore and enjoy and steward and care for, and you can have it all, except this one tree, this one tree with this one fruit.” So, a couple of really important things to just kinda begin to wrap our minds around because they affect our journey through the Bible continually. So, this tree. It’s really easy to wrestle inside of our minds about this tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why put a tree with…with such dire consequences in front of these people to tempt them when they don’t really know what’s going on? So, what’s the point here? What's…why the tree? And now we have to take a step back and just explore love and just explore relationship. And those things we as human beings are still experiencing and so we…we all know what these are. And, so, we know that love is not something that can be coerced out of some…someone, right? Like you could not enslave a person and…and…and be brutal to them and tell them that they will not stop receiving this kind of treatment until they love you, right? Because that person’s going to do whatever…like at some level they will behave in whatever way they think you want them to behave, but that wouldn’t actually be love. That would be modifying behavior to look a certain way to simulate whatever the aggressors trying to get. Love, like actual love is something that can only be given freely. Like, you can’t sell your love. You can sell your body. But that…that’s not selling love. You can’t sell love. Love is given, its freely given and requires a choice to love. And love does not enslave, love actually can’t be love if there is no way out of it, right? Like if there is no way out, well then, you’re entrapped and that isn’t love. So, God creates humanity on this planet, created in His image and He loves them, but true love has to be given back freely and love isn’t love if there is no way out. And, so, we have this tree in the garden and God’s simply saying, “just don’t eat this. Just trust me in this one thing. The rest of the world is yours, its your playground, its perfect, its how I intended it to be for you, just don’t eat this one thing. This is their way out and they took it. And what I said a second ago, that what we are reading here in the third chapter of Genesis is a shift in consciousness. I mean, I know that sounds kind of…kinda weird, like “okay…okay what…what kind of spiritual path are we gonna be walking here as we walk through the Bible here?” Let me just go back to the Scriptures here and let’s look at this story. The serpent told Eve after she had replied that they shouldn’t eat it or touch it, or they’ll die. the serpent said you won’t die, which is a complete contradiction to what God said. So, all of a sudden, this possibility of a different reality is introduced and then the serpent attempts to describe what that reality would be like. And I’m quoting from the Bible. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon you eat it and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” So, the serpent is fundamentally saying there is another reality that God has kept from you, has withheld from you that you are not aware of. This God is maybe keeping secrets from you, things that you might need to know, things that you should probably be aware of. And He doesn’t want you to eat from this tree now because you’ll die because you will become aware of things that you are not aware of. You will have a shift in consciousness or in awareness. And, so, they ate. And I am again quoting the Bible. “At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness.” Okay. So, in fact their consciousness shifted, and they became aware of things they had not been aware of before and the first thing they felt was ashamed. And the next thing they did was figure out how to cover themselves. Boom! That is how life on earth is lived today – naked, ashamed, and trying to hide. Look at your own life and see if it’s not true. Heck, look at the technologies we use, look at social media, a wide-open platform for us to lie about our lives, to curate our lives and make them look like they are different or better in some way than they actually are. But that’s just like a modern iteration. And believe me, I’m not like bashing social media, we’re on it too. All I’m pointing out is, look how easy it is to hide. And here’s the thing about hiding, you can’t be known if you’re hiding. And the thing is, we as people created in the image of God deeply, deeply desire to be known and understood and accepted. In fact, that’s why we hide. Because we believe that if all were revealed then that the end of us. And we’re not realizing that we are all, everyone, we are all trapped like this. The good news though about that is that there actually is good news about that, and we will be exploring that good news as we continue forward into the life of Jesus.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You. We thank You for bringing us successfully into this new year. And here we are, this brand-new year, we’re just moving in and You are already…You are already right here with us explaining things, unpacking things and helping us to move forward and we are so grateful. And today we…we did, we witnessed something very, very sad, something that really, really changed the course of humanity, and we acknowledge that we can see those repercussions, like it…we see this now. And it’s easy for us to just go, “okay, let’s move from there to Jesus and let’s find how I get my salvation”, but we’re pausing here for a second Father and acknowledging the heartbreak that You must’ve felt in these moments that we read about today where You had loved and given of Yourself and in some way it was communicated that You aren’t not enough. And, so, humanity, we…we have run around trying to fill every void and prepare for every eventuality with all of our knowledge of good and evil and we have filled our heads with knowledge that is simply not revealing Your kingdom. We are not moving forward without You because we can’t. And, so, we bear witness to a very, very, very sad scene that we find in the Bible today and we invite Your Holy Spirit to allow us to sit with the repercussions and understand and begin to understand the story that we are getting ourselves into as we move forward into the Bible. Come Holy Spirit we pray in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, that’s the website and that’s we’re you find out what’s going on around here. And I mentioned that yesterday, just…just to say get…get familiar there with what…what’s going on. That’s…that’s the portal into the community, its one of the ways that we stay connected.

Another way that we stay connected is that this is a community that over the years, has…has really left me in awe od and all of how well we pray for and love one another. And, so, I just want to share a couple of different ways to reach out in that way.

At dailyaudiobible.com, in the Community section, there is a link that says “Prayer Wall” and if you using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can just press the little Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner and get there as well. And the Prayer Wall is…is sort of like an ever-present place to go for prayer and to offer prayer. So, use that as a resource if you’re shouldering some burdens that you just shouldn’t carry by yourself. There is a community of brothers and sisters who are on the same journey moving through the Bible together that will pray for you and in turn ask that you will pray for them. So, the Prayer Wall is a great resource for that.

And then another way is…is what you hear at the end of a Daily Audio Bible, when you hear the voices and the stories and the struggles and the joys of life inside this community as we move forward. And there are a couple of ways to access that. The primary way would be using the Daily Audio Bible app. There is a little red Hotline button that lives at the top of the app and you press that button you’re able to share right from within the app, but if you prefer the phone, there are several numbers that you can use depending on where you are in the world. If you are in the Americas 877.-942-4253 is the number to call. If you are in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078 is the number. And if you are in Australia are that part of the world 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to dial.

So, that’s kind of our little lesson for today. This is a community certainly desiring to work through the Scriptures and talk about it and do that in a year, but it is also a community of prayer and love and acceptance for one another. So, check that out. Check out those resources. If you’re kind of curious about what you can or can’t say in a prayer call, you can….I mean there aren’t that many rules, but you can see that at dailyaudiobible.com in the FAQ section.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. There is a link on the homepage, and I thank you profoundly, humbly for those of you who have clicked that link over these years. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a have prayer request or comment, you can dial any of those numbers that I mentioned a second ago or just press the Hotline button in the app.

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 DAB family, hello Brian and Jill and Merry Christmas to everyone. This is Tracy calling from Edmonton Canada. I would like prayer for something that I’m doing for Christmas. My family is all coming over, I’m hosting everyone for the Christmas dinner and we weren’t going to be exchanging gifts and I just felt strange about that and I remembered that I had purchased about 10 copies of the Sneezing Jesus hoping that I would either do a Bible study or something. Anyway, I realized I have these and so that is what I’m giving out to each of my family members most of whom are not saved. So, my prayer request is that you just pray over these books and the people that I am giving them to that they will see Jesus in this new light and that there will be opportunities for the Holy Spirit to speak within them and that they may reach out back to me if they have questions or want to talk about it. But I left it as no pressure. So, I would love prayer for that. I would love to see all of my family members come to see the glorious faith and the saving power of Jesus. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s and we will be talking and listening in the near future. Thank you. Bye for now.

Good morning DAB family it’s Terry the trucker it’s Christmas Eve morning and I am in Brady Mississippi heading to the house, 6 ½ hours and I’ll be home. So, Merry Christmas to each and every one of you. I’m a little late, but better late than never. Annette Allison, congratulation on your grandbaby. So glad to hear that all is going well despite the circumstances under which the baby was born. That is truly a blessing and I pray that continue. Diane Olive Brown, my heart broke when I heard you just start speaking. I could tell by the sound of your voice that something wasn’t right. You broke my heart to hear what you said. I lost my dad many years ago. I was at my anniversary dinner with my wife and I got the call, unexpected but nonetheless very painful. But to know that someone is in their last days makes it harder. I pray that you get to go spend time with him and I pray that God comforts you. Just like you said, God don’t ever leave us, we know He’s there. But we’re human. It’s hard. It’s not to hurt and be sad. So, I want you to know I’m lifting you up in prayer. I’ll be praying for you daily. I love my DAB family and I’m praying for each and every one of you. God bless you.

This is Lori from Central Ohio and I’ve been listening often on for a few years, but this is the first year that I have successfully maintained through the entire year. As Brian chose the word maintain this year, I initially thought I’m just going to maintain, I’m going to maintain a job I was considering stepping away from, I was going to maintain a number of things but what I did not realize at the time was it was to maintain growing closer to God. This year brought the DAB supporting me through my sister’s cancer, Joni, and her death. It has brought me through strength as my son has faced legal issues. Thank you for your support and your love and your prayers. Blessings to you throughout the rest of this year and the new year. And I also want to encourage you to give a one-time gift between now and the end of the year. Just considering it like another stocking stuffer or Christmas present and let’s flood the DAB with one-time gifts between now and the end of the year. Blessings to you friends.

Hey…I’m calling in for some…some prayer requests and my name’s Jim I’m from Ohio and I’ve been a DAB listener…gosh it’s going on 10 years now and I just…it’s Christmas Eve so I want to wish everyone a blessed and happy Christmas. A really good friend of mine I’ve known for a long time way back from our days in the Marine Corps, his wife Gina is…went into the hospital last night and she had a brain aneurysm and she was in the OR for seven hours and they still aren’t able to correct it and she’s…she’s in a very tough situation. And Glen, my friend, he’s her husband and their two daughters are the same age as my two daughters and their college students. They’re really going through an awful lot right now, especially Christmas Eve. I just came from the hospital and she…she needs a lot of prayers and their family. So, yeah, just please pray for Glenn and Gina and her daughters Holly and Chloe. And, so, yeah, that’s, that’ I what I wanted to do, just ask everybody to pray for them. Thank you and have a very Merry Christmas. I love you DAB community. Thank you.

Good evening DABbers this is Running Desperately to Jesus. I’d like to welcome Daniel from Illinois into the family. You have chosen an awesome family Daniel. You will find so many people and so much love until it’s overwhelming sometimes. Although you will never…maybe never see everyone, maybe you will and never know who they are, but you will feel as though we are standing right there with you. We pray with you, we cry with you, you and your wife. We listen to each other’s burdens. We give words of encouragement and this is such an awesome family. If we had to make up a family, this is the family that I’ve chosen. So, Daniel, welcome again, Daniel from Illinois. This is running desperately to Jesus.

Good morning this is Marilyn calling from Farmington New Hampshire Merry Christmas to everyone and this is really a thank you to Brian and the DAB but thank you Brian for your amazing commentary this morning on Christmas day. In fact, I cried the whole time while you did your commentary but is just really touched something deep and my…my soul really resonated with everything that you are saying like I’m sure everyone’s. It was just like…wow! You blew it out of the park Brian. It was the best Christmas message that I could’ve heard because I know that you are making all things new in our family in my…in our blended family in our children. I know that you are making all things new. And there’s a groaning, such a groaning in my heart and my soul to just go deeper. And anyway, I’m just saying thank you Brian because that was just like, wow! It was an awesome Christmas message. Merry Christmas to everyone. I love DAB I’m so grateful for this and love you all. God bless. Bye-bye.