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 and it’s really, really wonderful to come to you for the first time from the land of the Bible from Israel. And this evening will be the inaugural dinner, our orientation dinner where we’ll finally get to see each other from all of the travel and just see the family that’s gonna be created here in the in the land of the Bible for the next couple weeks. So, I’m excited to be here and I’m excited that…that we’re a virtual community. And, so…so…there was room in the suitcase for you and I’m glad we can all be here together, whether physically or whether in spirit to take this…this pilgrimage, to root ourselves in the places that the Bible happened and to allow that newfound context to awaken things in us so that we don’t see the Bible the same. And, so, we’ll certainly be doing that physically, but we’ll be doing that virtually as we go through the next several days together. So, it’s good to be here for the first time this year and broadcasting the Daily Audio Bible. So, we’re reading from the New International Version this week. We are in the book of Leviticus. We are learning a lot about sacrifice. We are learning, as we talked about yesterday, just how treacherous sin is and how costly it is to our lives. So, we will pick up where we left off yesterday. Leviticus chapter 6 verse 1 through 7 verse 27.
Commentary:
Okay. We’re moving our way through the second gospel, the gospel of Mark. And, so, we’re back alongside Jesus watching His ministry coming from a little bit of a different perspective. And Jesus is…is doing his ministry, He’s revealing the kingdom of God and people are being healed and restored because of this. And, so, His family, they’re watching all of this and they decide somebody needs to get Jesus under control. And, so, the Bible says, “they went to take charge of him for they said he is out of his mind.” Oh…that’s not very encouraging. And, so, Jesus continues to heal and reveal the Kingdom and…and the religious leaders come down from Jerusalem and they decide Jesus is possessed by Beelzebul. And we talked about that when we were going to the book of Matthew. So, this this is not a good day. Like, if…if you go out your door prayed up and ready and you enter the day and you’re looking for God’s kingdom and your revealing God’s kingdom and everything that you touch and your family tells you you’re out of your mind and your spiritual leaders tell you that you’re possessed by the devil, yeah, that…that's…that’s discouraging. May we just notice this. Jesus faced all of these things as a human being. But the one that the…the religious leaders spoke over Jesus, that He is possessed by Beelzebul, that…that didn’t work. Like, that was a line way too far. And, so, Jesus tried to expose what was going on there. So, he tells a story. “How can Satan drive out Satan”, right? “If a kingdom is divided against itself it can’t stand. If a house is divided against itself the house can’t stand.” So, I mean, that’s Jesus on one level setting the record straight. “Why would you accuse me of doing God’s work while being possessed by the devil. That doesn’t make any sense.” But there was far deeper far far far more dangerous territory that they were stepping into. Jesus told them, “truly I tell you”… and when we read that stuff in the Bible it’s like “truly, verily, verily I say unto thee” but “truly I tell you”, that’s Jesus saying “I’m telling you the truth. 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.” Like, yikes. What is that? How do you blaspheme against the Holy Spirit? What is Jesus saying here? First of all, He’s talking to the religious leaders who had just accused Him of being possessed by the devil. And that’s how He got his power to perform these miraculous signs of God’s goodness. What the religious leaders in effect were doing was calling the Spirit within Jesus that was capturing the hearts of Jesus hearers, they were calling that the devil. They were blaspheming the Holy Spirit. They were denigrating what God was doing by calling it of the devil. So, we can go, “oh…sigh of relief. I would never do that. I would never call…I mean I would never call Jesus of the devil.” But it’s actually a little more convicting than that. Have you ever called anyone of the devil or anything of the devil because you didn’t understand it or because everybody else was saying that, everybody else was saying this is false and so you’re on that bandwagon without actually knowing what you’re talking about? What if it’s not of the devil? What if God is at work and you are unaware and then you call it of the devil? That’s what they were doing to Jesus. I’m not saying that things that are evil should not be called out as evil. But you don’t have to look too far in our religious climate to find believers calling other believers of the devil because their theological persuasions might be nuanced, or their doctrinal differences are just too far of a bridge to cross they think. And, so, they label it of the devil. And that is what happened to Jesus. And that is why He commented this way. And it gives us certain things to think about this day. And isn’t that wonderful, isn’t it a gift that God’s word most every day gives us something to meditate upon throughout the day.
Prayer:
Father we invite you into this. In what ways have we denounced what you are doing in the world through someone or situations in the world that we don’t understand and so we’ve miss labeled things? We haven’t been gracious, merciful, compassionate, kind, or any of the other fruits of the Spirit. Instead we’ve been about the business of labeling things or mislabeling things, things that you might be doing and we are simply unaware. Forgive us of this because we would have to then accept the fact that we have gotten in your way when we thought we were defending you. And then we have to confess how foolish that sounds coming out of our minds, our hearts, our mouths. You don’t need us to defend you. You are the most-high God. You’ve invited us to reveal you to the world. That’s a pretty hard thing to do when were simply focused on what each other is doing, and labeling it. So, help us God, forgive us. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear your kingdom. Let us move through this day looking for it, looking for the good, looking for the righteousness that is in this world that is pushing and fighting back the darkness. And forgive us when we have stood in the way. Come Holy Spirit into all of this we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here.
It's…it’s pilgrimage time around here. So, that’s what we’ll be talking about here for the rest of the month as we journey North, South, East and West throughout the land of the Bible rooting ourselves in the stories where they happened. So, it is…it’s good…it’s good to be back in the land. Feeling like…like turning the corner, getting stronger from the jetlag, and get ready for this. Tonight is our inaugural dinner together, our orientation, first time we get to see each other all together in one place at one time. So, that’s super exciting. Today I’m planning…so we talked about this yesterday…third attempt to get to this ancient Philistine ruin called Akron, which is mentioned in the Bible several times. And, so, hoping to get some photography and some…some video of that site today then on the way down to Ashdod where we get settled in and get ready for this evening. So, thank you for your prayers and those of you who are in route who are on the journey then welcome Israel if you’ve landed. This will be…this, whether virtual or whether in person, I pray that this will be epic and that it will deepen our love for God’s word. So, thanks to everybody who continues to pray over all that is involved in doing what we’re doing. Can’t…couldn’t appreciate it more. Humbled in awe of this community the way that we pray for each other. And, so, asking for prayers over this journey.
And that Reminding you, if you’re like, “I would love to take this journey” then at registration for next year’s pilgrimage 2021 is now open and available. You can get all the details dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section. So, you can read all about it and we’ll look forward to seeing you.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, thank you. We wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be here doing anything at all. None of this would be happening if we hadn’t done this together over the years. And, so, I’m also in constant awe of that, that we’re still here every day and have been now into this 15th year. So, if that’s life-giving to you then thank you for your partnership. There’s a link on the homepage. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address, if you prefer is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.
And, as always, if you have a prayer request a comment you can hit the Hotline button in the app, the little red button at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.
And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.