12/30/2020 DAB Transcript

Malachi 1:1-2:17, Revelation 21:1-27, Psalms 149:1-9, Proverbs 31:10-24

Today is the 30th day of December welcome to the Daily Audio Bible…I can’t even believe it, 30th day of December, here we are though, the 30th day of December welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian and it’s great to be here with you in our…in a space that we have created together and that we know well, our place around the Global Campfire. And we have made quite a journey and we have only a couple of steps left to go before we complete this journey. And we concluded the book of Zechariah yesterday, which leads us to the final book that we will encounter in the Bible, the final book of the Old Testament. It’s called Malachi

Introduction to the book of Malachi:

So, it’s the last book of the Old Testament, it’s also the last book of the grouping of books that we’re in right now known as the minor prophets. So, tomorrow’s the last day of the year and we’re going to be completing Malachi and Revelation. And, so, we will be completing the old and the new Testaments and getting all of our badges in the app for completing the Bible and for completing the minor prophets and for completing the apocalyptic literature in the New Testament. So, yeah, we are we…are right on the threshold. But anyway, Malachi this word or this name, Malachi means “my messenger”. And, so, there have been scholars that have debated, like is that the title of the book because it…it…it is…is the book a prophetic book that’s called my messenger or is the book bearing the name of the author and is the author a prophet named Malachi? And we’ve talked about all these kinds of things, about many, many different books of the Bible just giving us the nuances of where they sit. The tradition views that Malachi is the name of the prophet who gives this prophetic utterance, and he would probably have been contemporary with Ezra and Nehemiah. It’s just that Malachi is not mentioned anywhere…anywhere outside of Malachi. So, don’t really have a lot of information like a lot of these prophets. Malachi would’ve lived, probably 100 years after the Persians defeated the Babylonians and the Hebrews began to have like little waves of return from exile to their homeland. It would’ve been about 50 years since the temple was rebuilt. And we remember moving through Haggai and Zechariah and this was a focus, the rebuilding of the temple. So, like a half-century past all of that. But these promises of being restored and being prominent and being recognized in the world and being respected in the world, these had not been fulfilled. The people were indeed restored to their ancient homeland, but they were not restored in any way to the glory of their former days. And, so, they were…well…they were just living, existing, discouraged in a distant region of the Persian Empire. And, so, because…yeah…things were not taking off they had become discouraged and had become disinterested. Their passion for God was fading away. And, so, when that happens, then all kinds of things. Morality declines, spirituality declines, society declines. So, we’ll…one of the things we’ll see in Malachi, sacrifices to God were supposed to be spotless and without blemish, but they were using blind and blemished animals for sacrifice. So, the law that they were to obey was becoming more and more irrelevant. And, so, Malachi steps into that situation with the words that we’ll read over the next couple of days. And he’s probably the last prophet of the Old Testament age. And his prophetic voice is like many of the other prophetic voices, “come back to me, return to me, come home. Return.” And as it turns out this message would be the final prophetic message for 400 years, the Old Testament era would end and a New Testament era would begin and a new prophet would rise and his name was John, John the Baptist. And the irony is, we will complete this year, but then January 1st we’ll start this journey all over again and sail it again and we will be hearing plenty about this new profit John the Baptist in mere days once we get on the other side of the year. And, so, let’s begin. Malachi chapters 1 and 2. And we’re reading from the New Living Translation this week.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we began the book of Malachi and the mirror into our own soul goes up pretty quickly. We hear these words, “a son honors his father, and his servant respects his master. If I am your father and master where are the honor and respect I deserve?” Throughout our year to together we have been in no uncertain terms counseled and taught and educated that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, that the respect and awe of God is…is where everything begins. Acknowledging God in all that we are, giving Him all that we are, loving the Lord our God with all are - heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving our neighbor as ourselves - these themes are throughout the entire Bible. What’s happening here in Malachi is conversation with people asking questions and God is asking questions and answers are being given and…and then God presses into how this disrespect has come to be. And it gives the example of how they are giving blemished animals and sacrifice. And we can wax over and go, “well, I’m not giving that because I don’t give bulls and goats and sheep and stuff. Like, we don’t do that stuff anymore.” But as we’ve learned, there's…there’s the letter of the law, right? There’s…there’s what’s written and then there’s the reason for it, the spirit of it, and the spirit of the law. And what God is addressing here is “you are giving your leftovers to me. You are giving the things you don’t want or that are less valuable to you. You are giving them to me. So, you are pacifying yourself by still participating in rituals, but the spirit of it, the reason for it was to bring me your best. In every conceivable absolute way of life, you are to acknowledge me. Like, this is the way to live, understanding that everything you have has come from me. So, you give your best not your second-best, not your leftovers.” And friends, tomorrow’s the last day of the year. So, day after tomorrow it’s gonna be a new year and we’re gonna start over and we’re gonna go into the new year with our resolutions. And we’ve even talked about a number of ways of looking at that in this in between week, even just looking at what the Bible is telling us and pulling out things from there to just inform the posture of our heart as we’re making our New Year’s resolutions. And we became clear. We can be self-focused, certainly about our resolutions, but if there’s no outward look, outward view, then it’s incomplete. God has withheld nothing from us. He has invited us into a covenantal relationship, right? And it's…it's…it’s described in marital terms on a number of occasions in the Bible to bring it close to home so we can understand the depth, the level they we’re talking about here. Essentially, the story of the Bible is God saying, “I will give you everything I have in exchange for all that you are. Give yourself back to me fully and watch what I will do.” Of the many biblical new year’s resolutions that we could come up with…I don't…is there a greater one in this – “give yourself fully to God. Put all of your hope in His unfailing love. Become the delight of your Father in the new year.” No longer a compartment, no longer an obligation, no longer a set of rituals or customs. That we give our best and our all first and foremost to God acknowledging Him in all things. It’s the way we’re supposed to live. So, maybe we should. Maybe we should. Maybe we should consciously become aware of His presence in every situation in everything and give ourselves, our best to Him by acknowledging that we are here to be His servants, we are here to be His hands and feet. We are here to do the work of God, to be the representatives, the ambassadors of God in a world that is going dark. And the more the darkness rages the more the light is needed. And we are that. And that light, as we have learned in the Bible this year, isn’t about what we say. It’s about how we live. It’s about what we do, how we live what we do, how we are, how we have our being, how we be in this world is the truth not what we say. But when we say things that we are do…like when our words…when our words and deeds are in alignment with each other, then we are true. When our words and deeds are in alignment each other and with God’s will, then we are being exactly how we are supposed to be in this world, and we are being a light, our lives are the light. This is the way forward. We have to go forward. All year we’ve asked for eyes to see and ears to hear. All year we’ve asked the Holy Spirit to lead us on the narrow path that leads to life. May we press into that with all of our hearts as we go into this new year, wholeheartedly devoted, wholeheartedly given to our Creator to our Father.

Prayer:

Father, that is…that's…that’s what we desire. It’s just…we don't…we don’t know what we’re talking about most of the time. We…we know that we are to be devoted and to aim our hearts in Your direction, but what this boils down to more than anything is that we aren’t asleep, is that we are awake and aware and alert, that we are paying attention, that we become in the habit of first paying attention to look at what’s going on behind what’s presented, to seek Your Holy Spirit in everything so that we really do operate as You did on this earth Jesus, that we operate and look like You did as You navigated and operated on earth. And we acknowledge once again, we are going to fail. In our own strength we will not get past the first week. And, so, it’s important that we acknowledge You, that we are aware, that we are submitted, that we humble ourselves before You as we go forward. And we’re gonna need Your help Holy Spirit. This world does everything it can possibly do to demand every conscious moment. And the second that we start letting go of that, very very quickly we start feeling like everything is going to pass us by. And that feels like we’re gonna miss out and it feels like we’re going to become irrelevant and it feels like the whole world is moving forward without us and You’re just kind of like, “finally. Finally, You got off that train. Finally, we can enjoy life together. All that other stuff was nothing but smoke and mirrors. It was false to begin with. That’s not life. That’s running all of Your years on a treadmill trying to achieve something that doesn’t really matter. What ultimately will matter is that You knew us, and we knew You and we want that, deeply. So, come Holy Spirit as we surrender ourselves as we move with all of our hope in You toward the new year. Come Jesus we pray. In Your mighty name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com it’s home base, it’s the website, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here in the community. So, be sure to check out. Stay tuned and stay connected.

The app is also a portal into community. The things that are accessible on the website are accessible in the app as well. So, check out like the Community section. That gives us the links to where we…where we live and communicate on social media. All the different social media links are there. The Prayer Wall lives in the Community section and that is…well…every single one of us should be aware about that because that is a place to always no matter what time it is and no matter what’s going on, reach out, reach out for prayer. And then as that request gets out there and around then people from all over the world have the ability to respond and request prayers of their own. So, definitely check out the Prayer Wall.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, especially in the year 2020 then that’s today and tomorrow and thank you humbly and deeply, graciously. Truly, thank you for your partnership. We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t in this together. And, so, as we prepare to bring to conclusion a year that I doubt we will ever forget, thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address, is that is your preference, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174. And, as I was mentioning yesterday, if…if you want to use the mail and you want to tax deductible receipt for 2020 then just make sure that…that is postmarked no later than December 31st.

And that is it for today, I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hey DAB family its Dr. John from Jordan New York. Val from Vegas. Just loved your phone call. And when you said “you won’t understand how I feel” and I’m gonna beg to differ here. I think most of us really do understand the love that is poured out through this community to each of us in individual ways, whether we hear the…the praise reports or whether we’re personally recipients of the prayer power that this community provides. And, so, yeah, I…I do kind of understand how you feel about just what this community does for everyone. I do have a prayer request for everybody. This is to pray for the hospital workers. My wife is a physical therapist in the ICU for Covid patients and their losing patients…patients are dying every day. Patients she was working with last week are dying this week. And the morale is really, really bad. And for the nurses, for the physical therapists, for the respiratory therapists, for the doctors, the intensivists, it’s just awful. This crisis is much worse this time around compared to the first time. A lot of hospitals maybe 30% at the first wave. This second wave we’re…one of the hospitals is over 95%. So, please pray for all of the healthcare workers are having to deal with the Covid and give them strength and courage and peace as they as they provide for this awful disease. Thank you. Love you all.

Daily Audio Bible family this Alfio calling from Central Valley California. How are you? I hope that everybody had a great Christmas. May we continue to remember the reason for the season. I know how much this year has been very challenging to each one of us. Each one of us has struggled through this year. I know that probably a lot of things did not go the way we envisioned 2020 to go but God is still on the throne. I just want to wish each one of you a great happy New Year. May the new year bear new gifts, visions, new talents and gifts and new purposes and may the Father in heaven bless each one of you. Personally, I’m so grateful each one of you for this family for the dedication for your prayers and your praises and the testimonies. They really do give us hope. They really do. And as we continue to hold each other together up in prayer I’m asking for prayers for myself. God is on the throne and I’m praying that He might just continue to help me. Internally I’m having a…a…a void, a struggle and I know that only God, only God can fill it. So, please family pray for me. Pray for me. Make it a great day. Alfio calling from Central Valley California.

Hello this is Candace from Oregon bringing all of you my greetings. I especially want to warmly welcome any new listeners and those of you who are committing to listen in now for 2021. May the Lord bless and keep you, our Lord who proves Himself faithful and true, gracious to us even when we have been graceless, that He will transform our hearts and use His word to do this. Thank you, Brian Hardin and may the Lord bless and keep you throughout 2021 as all of us mend together. And thank You Holy Spirit for that word, mend, and just the power of that single word and all that you…all the meaning that You Lord have behind it. I want to thank people who have prayed for my son Micah, he’s really doing well, extremely well. I…I wouldn’t even know where to begin to tell you about this but pray that nothing gets in the way of his continued growth toward walking with the Lord. Thank You Lord for everything that You’re doing. We love You Jesus. Candace from Oregon.

Happy new year everyone. Hi, everyone it’s TooToo a.k.a. TBT it’s his precious seeing one. I just wanted to say happy new year to everyone. I love you guys so, so much. I was listening to the Christmas party and honestly, it’s just brought tears to my eyes because I’ve net never met any of you, but you guys feel like family to me and I just love that. I love that we can connect with Christ. I love that we have Brian’s commentary. I…I just love everything about it. So, happy new year everyone. Hello to all the old DABbers. Welcome, welcome to all the new DABbers. And I pray that this year you will start strong, you will continue strong, and you will finish strong. I pray that in everything you do that you will be the hands and feet of Jesus on earth. I pray that God will bless you. I pray that He will lavish His love upon you. I pray that your heart will be a dwelling place for His spirit. And I pray that in everything you would give thanks because that’s what the Bible instructs us to do, give thanks in every situation, every circumstance and through it all. I’m so happy to be part of the DAB family. This is my third year and by God’s grace I will keep going on. So, yeah, so just happy new year to everyone. I love you all so much. I may not see you, but I hear you and I love you.

Hey everyone, this is Valerie from Arizona it is December 29th 11:30 in the morning and I am officially completely 100% caught up on all of the DAB podcasts for the year. I can’t believe I made it this far and I caught up with everybody. I started listening in June and like I said before I’ve been kind of living in the past, but I am just so thankful for the Hardin family and everything that this community stands for. I feel so incredibly blessed to have found this platform and I’m just so, so looking forward to the new year. So, thank you for everyone who prayed for me in the past to keep on keepin’ on. And I just…I’m really looking forward to a new year and hopefully I will continue to listen every day. Now that I’m caught up, I’m gonna be able to listen to, I think the Chronicles, so I’ll get to know Jill and then I will also be able to listen to the community prayers. So, I’m gonna have so much…just…joy every day listening. And thank you everyone in advance for everything. And this has just been a blessing and I couldn’t be more thankful. So, Merry Christmas everyone. Happy new year and we’ll talk soon.