Ezekiel 23:1-49, Hebrews 10:18-39, Psalms 109:1-31, Proverbs 27:13
Today is the 11th day of November welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today as we move forward in our week and forward in our year for that matter. Step-by-step day by day we make the journey together. And, so, the next step leads us back into the book of Ezekiel. We’re reading from the God’s Word Translation this week. Ezekiel chapter 23.
Commentary:
Okay, So, as we continue our journey through the letter to the Hebrews…I mean we…we keep reminding ourselves of certain specific things almost every time we talk about Hebrews and the first one is that Hebrews is for Hebrews. Hebrews was written to Jewish people. And Hebrews does a really good…I mean…it’s not the you can’t see this in other letters in the New Testament but Hebrews does this really good job of really providing us the Hebrew backdrop, the Hebrew side of the argument for Jesus, that God was the God of the Hebrews, is the God of the Hebrews. Jesus is that God incarnated as a human being among His own people showing them the way forward. O that in and of itself, that could, you know, that that could turn off lots of people. Like, well, it’s like just another cult leader or this is just a dynamic person that people are following…are following around or whatever. But the point in Hebrews is Jesus was foretold, like this was always supposed to happen, this was always on the radar. That’s the argument. Like basically, open your eyes and see what is actually happening…happening here. God is doing a new thing, but hints of this have been foretold from long, long ago. It’s happening now. We’ve also talked as we’ve read through Hebrews, if we read it at face value, just to understand that you don’t have any of the Hebrew context and that Hebrew context is very much provided in what we know as the Old Testament, then the implications, because they are religious implications, they are…they are unpacked through the lens of Judaism then they don’t make a whole lot of sense if you have no background whatsoever if you just come…while you just come to the faith itself but you come to something like the letter to the Hebrews and you start reading it and it’s all kinds of things about high priests and temples and sacrifices and this and that and the other and it doesn't…like…like there’s no context for it. So, without the Hebrew context it’s hard to understand the implications of Jesus. And then the third thing is why this letter seems to have ever existed in the first place. And that was because Hebrew believers who were following Jesus and were in community with each other were being marginalized on a lot of levels. And we’ve spent a lot of time, so I don’t need like to retell the whole thing. We’ve talked about this several times throughout this year, especially while we were going through the letters of Paul. So, they were being marginalized, persecution was beginning. The Jewish people, they weren’t not buying into the Jesus story en masse. They were mostly rejecting this story. The Hebrew leaders were rejecting the story because. It was the Hebrew leaders who had plotted the killing of Jesus. And, so, they basically had a stick by their story. And, so, no one is accepting this. And, so, people who do are being marginalized by the Jewish people. Meanwhile the Jewish people were marginalized by the Roman empire that was in…in the region of Syria where…where the land is. So, people who were following the way of Jesus who were following His teachings, they were like double marginalized. They were being marginalized by the marginalized. So, kinda not a lot of places to maneuver then. And, so, they were shrinking back, falling away, turning away, basically going back into their Hebrew tradition and into Judaism and going back and following the Torah religiously or just walking away from the whole thing. So, the letter to Hebrews comes along to encourage them not to do that, not to walk away. And that’s precisely what we’re seeing in our reading today. So, I’m quoting just to bring this point home. “Remember the past when you first learned the truth. You endured a lot of hardship and pain. At times you were publicly insulted and mistreated. At times you associated with people who were treated this way. You suffered with prisoners. You were cheerful even though your possessions were stolen since you know that you have a better and more permanent possession”, right? So, these are words encouraging them, “don’t fade, don’t disappear, don’t hide, don’t walk away, don’t go backward. God is going forward. God has come and a new thing is happening, and the only way is forward. Don’t go backward.” And understanding the things that we just talked about, we can see why they were going backward and why this letter comes at the right time to say, “don’t forget what God has done for you and don’t forget what God is doing for you. And even that is unpacked in our reading today. “Brothers and sisters”, I’m quoting, “brothers and sisters, because of the blood of Jesus, we can now confidently go into the holy place. Jesus has opened to new and living way for us to go through the curtain.” Okay. So, we may all understand the Hebrew context because we’ve heard this kind of stuff before but the Hebrew context here is that the holy place, like the most holy place here is in the temple behind a curtain, behind a veil. The high priest can only go into the most holy place once a year. The writer of Hebrews is saying, “like…like there’s no veil anymore. It’s gone now. Why would you go back when you can confidently enter the holy place? Maybe you’re not gonna go up into the holy place in the temple in Jerusalem, but spiritually, you can enter into the very presence of the most-high God as His child, like confidently as a beloved child.” That is a drastic paradigm shift. And, so, the writer of Hebrews is saying, “don’t walk away from that. That’s all you ever wanted. That’s always been the goal, is to find righteousness so that we might enter God’s presence. It’s now possible. Don’t walk away from that.” And, so, we can see the context for the tension. But the mirror always goes up with the Bible. And we can look at ourselves. And maybe we’re not gonna be marginalized or persecuted, but we shrink back, we fade, we disappear all the time. And this ancient letter is speaking to us from thousands of years ago saying, “why would you do that? Why you fade when everything you’ve been after is before you? There’s only one way to go and that’s forward. God is doing a new thing. The veil has been removed. What could happen to the world if God’s people could experience God’s presence, knowing that there were no more hoops to jump through, that it’s a Father and His children not a veil and a chest with a covenant in it, and sacrifice? It’s like hearing about a relationship all your life as a kid. Like, one day…one day I’m gonna get married, one day I’m gonna have a spouse, someday I’m going to grow up and constantly thinking of the coming day when that will happen. It’s the difference between thinking about it and that day when your eyes locked with the one who would be your spouse and it started a brand-new story of actual intimate relationship. And, so, let’s ponder that today. What are the ways that we’ve just faded? What are the ways that we’re just kind of…we’re here but we’re just disappearing? It’s just happening. It’s like everything’s moving on and we’re standing still. And, so, before long, everything will have moved forward, and we’re just stuck here. Why would we do that when everything we’ve wanted, when the…the very intimacy that can make us whole, union with God is available.
Prayer:
Father we enter into that. By the fact…the very fact that we are reading this letter to the Hebrews and by the very fact that we still have these struggles, it may look a little different, but the heart issues are the same. We can see that this has been a struggle all along and that brothers and sisters have been struggling with this for thousands of years. And, so, on the one hand it’s comforting to know that we’re not alone and we’re not messed up. On the other hand, the question still remains, Why would we disappear? Why would we fade into the woodwork when everything we have ever wanted is before us? So, Holy Spirit we need eyes to see it again. That’s the thing. The veil keeps falling before our eyes and we can’t see it because the world is swirling around us and discouraging us in every possible way. And, so, we reach for You Father. Remove the veil. Let us see the joy of our salvation again and let us bear witness so that others who are struggling too can see that we can move forward if we move forward together. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com is home base. It is indeed the website it is where you find out what’s going on around here. And I promised yesterday that there was something to talk about today. And there is ad I’m just thinking. “how can I share this in five minutes? I think this is like the coming together of a couple of things that have joined themselves and made something. So, I guess…man…it’s been five years at least, maybe even longer that I started seeing vinyl records come back. And I come from the music industry so music packaging all the…just the entire apparatus of the music industry is something that I’ve spent a very very long time making a living doing. So, I get it. And, before all that I was younger and was a music fanatic. Like by the time I was 15, 16 years old it was like, “I’m gonna be in music business one way or another whatever it takes.” So, I was an avid music student, music business student, music listener. Like I was the guy reading every bit of the liner notes. So, when LPs faded away way back a long time ago I was kinda bummed because I kind of loved being able to hold my music in this kind of 12" x 12" square format where the…the artwork could be seen and appreciated and everything could be read. And we kind of migrated from there to CDs which was like a junior version of that and cassettes which were even a smaller version of that and then they faded. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. Music is pretty much in your pocket now, right? Anything you would want to listen to you can carry in your pocket. You remember when it used to be, we had…you maybe 2had 0 CDs in your car or whatever, and you know, those were your choices and now you have hundreds of thousands of choices. So, anyway, trying to consolidate a long story. It’s like a year and half ago I started collecting records like vinyl records. I bought a record player. I started listening to records. What I was specifically doing was re-accumulating all of the albums that were meaningful to me in my childhood in the format that I had them in and I just realized really interesting things listening to records again, like you can’t just get 15 or 20 seconds into a song and go, “nahhh I want the next song. You have to get up and go switch it. And, so, you…you find yourself appreciating the way records were laid out, how they were a journey and how you listened to a side of an album, you sit there and you’re participating with the artwork, etc. etc. I started doing that mostly trying to get vintage albums from my childhood and vintage Christmas music because that’s the sound of my…my childhood, like the crackle of the records at Christmas and just sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting for it to finally arrive. Okay, so that’s one part of the story. The second part of the story is that for the last several years I had been working on some music that we released in July, July 7th in specific. That was the day of the Daily Audio Bible long walk. Doesn’t that sound like forever ago. And didn’t come at a time when we needed to get outside and out of quarantine and hear the birds again and feel the breeze on her face and go for a long walk with God. And, so, we released this music. It’s called Heart, a contemplative journey. And it's…it’s like a guided prayer journey with the intention of leading us into the emotions of our heart, the things that we’ve been dealing with in our lives but maybe don’t have language for. And, so, the prayers lead us to that place, and then the music does what music does. It speaks volumes with no words at all. And, so, we released that and it struck a nerve and ended up becoming the number one album…Christian album in the in the nation for a minute there, which was shocking and encouraging. And then the feedback started coming back in just letters and emails sent in about how it did what it was sent to do basically, how it did what I hoped it would do, lead us back to feeling again, to feeling our heart beat again, to not just closing down to all of the chaos going on around us. So, that was in July and it’s been available since then online at the iTunes Store or the Google play store. And then there’s one more component to this story. It’s been two and a half years I think about now that we were preparing to launch our own, very own Daily Audio Bible app. And for all of the years previous to that we had worked with technology partners and strategic alliances and the app was a paid app in the store and we had invested heavily in the building our own specific app because there was just no way to go forward where we were wanting to build the app to be a real community presence. There was no connection points. There’s no way to do it. We…for the things we were dreaming up it’s like we’re gonna have to build this from scratch. We’re gonna have to this. And, so, we…we did. And it was very time-consuming and very expensive. And, so, a couple years ago we did something called the Global Campfire initiative. Some of you…many many many of you will remember this and we printed up some hatch prints. That…that’s a Nashville, classic Nashville thing that just dates back pre-Elvis even. These hatch prints were all over…all over Nashville…Nashville and all over the world for that matter. There’s books on them. Anyway, I digress. We had this Global Campfire initiative and just invited people to so into the app. And as a way of being grateful we sent on these hatch prints. Here’s where the whole thing begins to converge into the story we’re trying to tell now. After it was apparent that the heart album was really striking a nerve, I thought, “let’s press up some vinyl of this, let’s press up 500 copies of this. This will be so interesting to do.” So, I set about the business of seeing what manufacturing…manufacturing was gonna look like and I realized “wow…there’s only a few places to do this and they are backed up months and months and months and months.” So, I was like, “well maybe that won’t work. But I was like why not?” And we pressed into it and made them and waited months and months and months and months to get them, and now we have them. And now is…is the right time. It’s been two and half years and it’s time for a Global Campfire initiative again where I’m just inviting anybody who can participate in this to sow into the development of the app that is more and more and more becoming home base for us. When we release the Daily Audio Bible app we released it as a free app. That was never the intention while we were developing. It was like, well, we’ll slowly over time be able to deal with this and I felt so strong the Lord that it’s supposed to be free. So, that was counterintuitive and that’s what we did. We released a brand-new app, it has been free, it will be free, it is free but it’s no less expensive to develop. So, here’s the long and short of the story. Some of the things that we’re trying to build into the app right now, some of the things we have underway are important pieces and we just need to sow into this. One of the important pieces that have been in develop…development all year, and that should hopefully see the light of day sometime next year is the multilingual nature of the app. Like there’s several languages and we have several teams reading the Bible in different languages. But the app is in English. And, so, if English is not even a second language. If English isn’t the language you speak, then it’s pretty hard to navigate, but to be able to build an onboarding process that just simply asks, what’s you’re primary language here and if it’s one of the languages that are…that…that we have the Bible in, to be able to switch to that language natively and then matter where you are if English isn’t your language to still be able to navigate and be involved, this is a missional effort to allow the spoken word of God to reach anyone who will listen anywhere on this planet any time of day or night. But we’ve also been working really, probably the dominant priority this year was to build in the badges. Remember when badges came online. And, so, every time we cross a threshold, a portion, a section of the Bible and we’ve completed it then we get to see that we’ve completed it. We get a little word of encouragement, a little badge that comes up and says we’ve completed this. And that was kind of phase 1. Phase 2 was a more robust view of where we are in the Bible, like…like what percentage are we completed in the Bible? What percentage are we completed in the New Testament? What percentage are we completed in the Old Testament? To give us a more robust view of the journey that we are on every year. And, so that is…well…that’s been being rolled out all year and that whole phase should be completed. In fact, the next major update that we do will have all of that technology baked into it. All of this development is to more completely to more robustly dial us in together and dial us into the fact that we are on a journey and there are indicators along the way they we’re making progress, that this is happening. And it’s all free for anybody to get involved and take the journey. So, here’s the deal. Anyone who is willing and is able to donate, to contribute to the Global Campfire initiative this year by giving $100 or more. And, gosh you guys, you have no idea how much like I squirm inside when I say those kinds of things because I kinda grew up watching televangelists and all that and I made it the mission of my life to not become that guy. And, so, I’m not but this is a need and we are a community and really do want to bring excellence into this community, but it just can’t happen if we don’t do it together. And this is a specific need. So, anybody who can, is willing to contribute $100 or more, if you’re one of the first 500 people than we want to send you the Heart, a contemplative journey album on vinyl, like on one hundred and eighty graham audio vinyl. Like this is not the kind of vinyl I used to buy when I grew up. It’s so thick and sounds so good. But one of the major reasons people collect vinyl these days is for the packaging, to be able to hold your music in your hand again, instead of it being like a virtual thing. So, we worked really hard to make it really, really beautiful. It has a gape…like it opens up like a double LP. It is beautifully packaged. It’s serene. And all of the prayers that are included in the Heart project for the first time that like they’re printed, they’re printed and included in the package. So, it’s the one place that you can get the prayers in a written form. It’s just really, really beautifully done. And if you are in a position, if you are able, if you have a desire to help in this way then we’d love to give this to you as a collector’s item, as a limited-edition that’s only available here and is only available until there gone. So, I can keep saying words but I think that’s the long and short of the story. And if you’re if you’re in a position, if you’re able you can check it out at dailyaudiobible.com. You can check it out in the Daily Audio Bible Shop or there’s an Initiatives section and that will just zoom you right there. Just click the Initiatives button and then look for the Global Campfire initiative and that’ll take you right there and you can look at it and see what I’m talking about. And I…I thank you I thank you humbly. I mean I thank you with all of my heart. What we’re doing is remarkable to me even though this has been like my everyday life for almost 15 full years, it’s still remarkable to me that we can do this, that I can be here speaking to you knowing that this will go out across the world and that we have the community here and our desire is to be together around the context of being together in the Scriptures each and every day. And, so, I am grateful beyond words. In Fact, that’s a frustrating thing in my life. I don’t know what other words to say. It’s just…you just keep saying bigger words. This is amazing, this is spectacular, this is miraculous. But it’s just special that we get to spend our lives together and that we get to grow together as God words…as God’s word speaks into our lives. So, that’s it, brand-new Global Campfire initiative supporting, specifically supporting app development and our development team. If you can partner with that than we want to send you the heart album and you can find it a dailyaudiobible.com.
And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, like in the app is where that hotline button lives and this is what we are sowing into, further developing this, this is home base for us., So, you can hit that hotline button in the app 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.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Hello this is Daughter of the King from Tennessee. Lord I thank you for being our shepherd and as our shepherd you said that we would have no need or want because you promise to supply all our needs according to your riches and glory by Christ Jesus. And we thank you for your promise not only to supply all our needs but to supply them exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or think. And we thank you father. Mike, I want to thank you and take you up on that five minutes a day Proverb challenge. I will do that. Ms. Tyler you’re a first-time caller and you’re seeking a place to live. God will help you and we’re praying for you. Brian we just commend you for choosing to do the right thing in your marriage. Two wrongs don’t make a right. But we know God can make it right and we pray for healin’. Lisa the Encourager always, and we just thank you for the beautiful prayer, praying for our elderly parents. And yes, I can remember praying for Brian go through with his mother. Brian we just thank you and know that must’ve been hard too. Danny, we’re praying for Christopher your 15-year-old grandson, his friend Tony and Dustin. We know it was a horrible situation and we know God can still make that thing right. And Kathy your martial art test that you’re taking on, that’s important to you and we just commend you as a sister that wants to do this and that’s important to us as well. Jordan we’re praying that God will get you back on track and don’t surrender your joy. Peg where praying for your dead son and Jared where praying for your son and we hope things went well with you guys when you all met during his birthday. As well as running walking in the light we are praying for your son. As you say don’t surrender your joy. And that was so beautiful. And we won’t surrender our joy. Emberley…
This is Charlotte from Missouri and I want to share some testimony. Recently my partner of seven years abandon me for somebody else. The pain of this heartbreak has been hell and has been agony and the heartbreak I’ve experienced has been like…unlike any other. I’ve been asking God why and how to get through this. And today’s reading and it was Ezekiel and describing God’s heartbreak with us, how we…we have caused him the same heartbreak. It’s really just humbling and exactly what I need because this relationship I had this man on earth, you know, will never be able to be again. It will never be able to be restored but there is a man who will always restore me, who will always restore our love, who will always take me back, and that’s just exactly what I needed. Today I’m just asking for your prayer. I need to move out of the city and get a new job. So, I’m asking for prayer, direction, and wisdom. Thank you DAB family. Love you guys.
Good morning DABbers it’s November 6th and am praising the Lord thanking Him. Oh, His love is so great. I knew this Ezekiel song would be just coming again. I just felt it was coming and today’s the day and oh my goodness that song, wow. It is so good. Thank you, Brian for playing it again. It totally wrecks me but in a good way because it just once again just reminds me to the full extent, it’s like nothing, nothing does God not know about heart and suffering and loss and pain and rejection and all those things. There’s nothing that we go through that he doesn’t totally understand. And the magnitude of his understanding is just so great. And, so, even though I cry, it’s tears of joy because we’re so loved by such a loving loving loving loving loving Father. We have everything to rejoice in every day no matter what. And, so, on this day I’m just thanking You Lord. I’m praising You. I’m rejoicing in You. Bless Your people Lord. May they just turn to You and just rest in You and be bathed in Your love. Thank You. Amen.
Hello this is Chile from Florida. I’m calling about that teacher on the 7th of November your…your heartfelt request to be able to be in your classroom. I just want to speak a word of encouragement to you. That was a…that was a beautiful thing that you shared. Lord Jesus I pray for this teacher and I thank you Lord Jesus that the day will come sooner than she expects where she will be able be back in her classroom teaching her kids. And Lord I ask you bless not only her but all…all those out there who want to get back in the classroom and teach our kids one on one. We…we…we thank you for them in Jesus’ name.
Good afternoon DABbers this is Soaring on Eagles Wings from Canada. It’s with a heavy heart that I come to pray for Danny from Southern Oregon, her grandson, the family of the young man that was shot. One is in jail and then the other friend who was present during the shooting. This is a hard hard time. It’s so difficult. One doesn’t even know what to pray. But our Father knows everything. So, I am asking Father God that You would touch these boys Father. Chris’s best friend, that’s the grandson, was shot by Dustin and Tony is the other boy who was present. These boys are going to go through some awful times. But Father God You are there to protect them, their minds. I pray for all the families. And Lord I don’t know what happened, but You do. And in the midst of all of this please be real to these boys. I pray that their families will get together and try and get peace and harmony, that bitterness won’t overtake. But it’s difficult. And, so, we need intervention Father for grandma, Danny here, she’s worried about her grandson and the whole situation needs Your intervention.
Seeking your face at the start of my day
I found that for me there’s no better way
in fact you said to acknowledge you in all of my ways
and to bring all of my thoughts in subjection to you whenever my mind and heart
strays
because trouble surrounds me wherever I go
health problems family problems bills a sack full of woe
should I try to work it all out with the strength of my own hands
or stand in faith and wait on you ignoring my hearts well thought out plans
because you said the wisdom of man is foolishness to you
and I know that all your words are faithful and true
so I’m gonna seek your face the start of my day
because I know that for me there is no better way
I’d like to give a shout out to Sherlock Washington and Kim and also to Victoria soldier haven’t heard your voice in a while and I sure miss it. Know you’re all thought of pray for love daily and missed very much. And once again Brian and the Hardin family thank you for this wonderful podcast for God’s Holy Spirit to flow. Keep it flowin’ y’all. All right. Bye-bye.