Genesis 5:1-7:24, Matthew 3:7-4:11, Psalms 3:1-8, Proverbs 1:10-19
Today is the 3rd day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian, and it is wonderful to be here with you on day three of our adventure through the Scriptures together this year. We’re just getting going. We’re Just getting moved into this year and moved into the Scriptures for a rhythm that will be a daily rhythm around the Global Campfire together, taking one step forward every day leading us through the whole Bible and the whole year. And, so, as we’ve been spending this week, I’m moving in we’ve talked about Genesis. Yesterday we talked about Matthew, and we’ll talk about the Psalms when we get there today. But before we get there, Genesis chapters 5 through 7 today.
Introduction to Psalms:
Okay. So, this brings us to our portion of the Psalms that we read each day, and this is our move-in week so let’s just kind of fly over the Psalms and try to get a little bit of orientation to what we’re reading when we read from the Psalms. Psalms is…is actually five books contained in one volume contained within the Bible and we’ll notice that as we’re moving through the Psalms, because when we come to the next book it will be announced. Like we’ll start book one, which we already have and then when book two comes it will let us know we’re going inro book two. And these books are kind of organized by author or theme or the purpose of the poem or the song. And dating back into deep antiquity, the Psalms have been considered priceless. A collection of 150 of the most beautiful songs and hymns and congregational singing’s and individual songs and poems of worship that have ever been…that have ever been on earth. The staying power of the Psalms and the usage of the Psalms and the way that we turn to the Psalms for comfort and clarity and direction is really unsurpassed in any other work. In many ways this is sort of like the written version of the soundtrack to the culture of the people. These songs were used and continue to be used for century after century after century. And there are different kinds of Psalms. We’ll find very, very personal cries of the heart. We’ll also find groupings of Psalms, like for example the Psalms of Ascent. So, these songs were sung as people were on pilgrimage, on their way up to the holy city of Jerusalem. So, in so many ways this is the backdrop, the soundtrack like I said to the culture of the Bible. And one of the primary voices in the Psalms will be that of the second king of Israel. And at this point, like if you’ve been through the Bible plenty of times then you kind of know where this is going but if this is your first round and you’re like the second king of Israel…hmm. Like how does that work? Because like where we are on day three, there is…there is no Israel, there are no children of Israel, and so there is no king of Israel. We’ll get to that soon enough. The whole story will unfold before us. But the second king of Israel was named King David. Super famous person that we’re going to get to know really well. Actually, the Bible has a lot of material. So, we really, really do get to immerse ourselves in King David’s story and that will happen when we get to first and second Samuel and then in first Chronicles. And, so, we’ll get this sketch of the life and times of King David and his character, but it’s actually the fact that he was a creative, that he was a musician, that he wrote a lot of music to pour out the emotions that he was feeling in his life as creative people are prone to do. David was such a person. And, so, although first, and second Samuel first Chronicles will give us the story of David’s life it’s what we read in the Psalms that give us a picture of David’s heart. And David did a lot of really foolish things and did some downright horrible things, and we’ll see that, but he was a man after God’s own heart. That’s what the Scriptures tell us. He made some colossal errors, but his heart was after God, and we see that as we move through the Psalms. And, so, with that we will jump into reading Psalm chapter 3 today, which happens to be a Psalm of David. And, so, here we go. Psalm chapter 3, a Psalm of David. Regarding the time that David fled from his son Absalom.
Commentary:
Okay. So, in the book of Genesis today we covered like a thousand years. So, we started out going through different generations. And we would notice that those generations were pretty long, like many centuries long. We have these early ancestors who were living 800, 900+ years. And, so, we moved through a lot of territory…territory just reading through their history, the earliest recorded people that we know of by name. And then we met somebody who is pretty famous. If you’ve been around the Bible or been around Sunday school the story of Noah and the ark is certainly world-famous and has been for a very very long time, probably thousands of years. So, we met Noah as a righteous person who walked in close fellowship with God. We also really kind of got to the other side of the story. We were in the garden of Eden yesterday and we watched this deception happen. We witnessed something very sad. We witnessed God coming to His children in the cool of the evening and saying something terribly sad, what have you done? In today’s reading we kind of get to see how sad that really was because over time as the generations began to unfold as we meet Noah, we see that the Scriptures tell us that people had turned their hearts to nothing but evil. They had given themselves over to evil completely. So much so that God regretted ever making us here, for making this place for us ever, for putting us here. And, so, we saw God’s decision to reset the earth completely with a flood, and we began to see the first rumblings of a redemptive thread that winds its way through the Bible. Noah one was saved and along with him so was humanity. And then we come to some, you know, some of the fanciful things in the Bible. We…we hear of the Nephilim. We hear of the sons of God mating with the daughters of Eve creating the legendary people of old, the giants. And that is the stuff of theological legend and lore for a very, very long time as you can imagine. It captures the imagination. What are we talking about here? And although we can’t go into a super long convoluted thing, we can say that the Bible is telling us there are beings that are not human that existed that mated with…with the daughters of Eve, with human women and that essentially giants were born. We will see as we continue this story that giants being in the land is something that was terrifying to the Hebrew people as we go along and watch their formation. We will even see somebody like King David, who we were just talking about in the Psalms a minute ago, we will see that King David became famous for one specific reason, killing a giant named Goliath. And, so, kind of the story that lingers behind the stories throughout a number of passages in the Bible is that God has a divine family, a divine council of beings that are not human beings but are created beings. Many biblical scholars who kind of land in this territory and live in this territory would say these are actually gods. Now, even me saying that out of my mouth…like I do not want this to be misconstrued. There is one God, most-high. There is no other. But that does not mean there are not lesser beings that were known as god’s, not rival gods to the most-high, but divine, celestial beings nonetheless. We could simplify the whole thing and say well this is the sort of angelic realm. These beings are divine beings created by God, who are not human beings but who do visit the earth from time to time, and we see some of them in the Bible and human beings can see them and hear them, but the topography of the divine realm may be more extensive than we know. you want to be on a scholarly search, a place to go is to just start searching for the divine counsel, God’s divine counsel. This is kind of first place in the Bible that we get an inkling that this exists. Many scholars would say no, the first time you hear that this exists is when God is creating the world and says, “let us create man in our image.” Of course, there’s all kinds of theological implications there. And, so, a lot of times we fall on the place that God is talking to Himself in the form of the Trinity, that He’s talking to the Spirit and the son Jesus at the same time. There are lots of scholars who would say no, that’s not how the Hebrew reads, that’s not how it is. And, so, I’m just pointing this out. I’m not trying to do a teaching on this. I don’t think I have enough background on this. It’s not really where our focus is, to…to dig into the all the esoteric things in the Bible. We’re here daily, taking steps forward every day to learn as much as we possibly can, but to also take what we learn and apply it to our lives so that we become transformed people and so that we realize we’re getting into a relationship with the Bible. This isn’t a book that we’re gonna read once because…I mean…we can do that, just check it out of the list and say I read the Bible. But what we’ll find is that it’s living and it’s important and it’s poignant in our lives. And, so, we…we try to look into the Scriptures and say, how…how do I live into this today? God’s divine family, God’s divine counsel, the angelic realm, the demonic realm. If you dive in it’s gonna be a deep dive because you will find that every conceivable thing that can be added into the mix has already been, and you’ll find a plethora of scholarly as well as science fiction explanations. But I’m just suggesting now, like…well…go as deep as you want to go but just watch as we go through the Bible that we’ll see giants over and over again and all kinds of references throughout the Scriptures about the divine counsel of the Lord God, a counsel that we…we get to be invited into, a part of the spiritual story that we get to play a role in. And we begin to realize there’s more going on here than just the problems of my life and what I’m trying to arrange for to make my life more comfortable. There’s a lot more going on. And as we will see from the apostle Paul when we get into Paul’s letters that he will tell us we do not fight against flesh and blood. That’s not the wrestling match here. That’s not what we’re fighting against. This isn’t a fight against each other. It’s against principalities, it’s against powers, it’s against the rulers of the darkness of this world. It’s against spiritual wickedness in high places. And, so, for us to simply have the category is important. This is where it begins to be introduced in the Bible. And, so, we will continue tomorrow with the story of Noah.
And then we flipped over and read from Matthew today we began hearing what John the Baptist was teaching about repentance and then Jesus comes and invites John to baptize him in the Jordan River which he does, and then the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness where he is tempted by Satan or the devil. And it’s really interesting because we just came through Genesis chapter 3, and we saw people perfectly created and a world as it was intended to be and then we saw sin enter the story. We saw deception enter the story. And, so, Jesus coming to earth now, we have the first sinless human being walking upon the earth since Adam and Eve and what happens? Same kind of invitation into a similar kind of deception. Like basically the evil one is telling Jesus, I’ll give all of this to you if you will worship me. Like there doesn’t have to be any conflict here. Worship me, and you get everything that you came here to get. Take the easy way bro. Take the easy way. Jesus sends him away. A different response than what we saw in the garden of Eden. And, so, as we’re just getting to know Jesus and just watching how He conducts Himself and understanding that we’re looking at a person as they were supposed to be. Then we realize that we also face these temptations into a false deceptive reality that looks like the easy way. And are we going to be like Adam and Eve or are we gonna be like Jesus? And this is a daily choice whether to eat what is forbidden, right? Or whether to put what is forbidden into our lives. Not because there’s a bunch of rules that are there to cage us but because deception and evil will destroy us. And when we realize that we have this choice to make each and every day it’s an ongoing progressive thing. And as we’re learning from the Bible there’s a whole lot more going on than just us and our self-absorbed issues that continually trip us up. And, so, we’re starting to get a bigger picture and it will be a joy to watch it unfold in our lives and allow it to transform us.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for day three, another day to step forward together in community as we’re getting moved into this year. And we ask Your blessings over what we read in the Scriptures today. Plant it deep in the soil of our hearts. We open ourselves to You and long for Your instruction. Lead us into all truth, we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I will be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer and Praise:
This is Marissa from southern Ohio just calling for Jonathan, I think, from Denver said he was struggling not feeling…not really feeling like he’s being made new and everything. I just wanted to tell you I heard a really great analogy. If, let’s just say there’s an off-duty police officer and he goes into a gas station and there’s a robbery occurring. Does the robbery stop just because the police officer is there. No. The police officer has to exercise the authority he’s been given and do something. And I just wanted to encourage you. Christ has given us authority to trample on the works of the enemy. So, use the authority you have. Don’t allow the enemy to make you feel these ways. Don’t believe and go along with the lies of the enemy. You can just say in the name of Jesus I renounce the enemy that’s, you know, making me believe whatever it is. I no longer agree with or will continue to behave in ways if these things are true. I’ve really found that to be helpful in just taking back…you know…I mean we have the authority. Christ gave it to us to be able to rebuke the enemy. And, so, just really exercising that authority. I think it’s great that you called in for prayer because I think that other people praying for you helps you…it’s like emboldens your Spirit. It gives it gives you that in our motivation. So, anyways hope that makes sense. I’ve prayed for you, and I will again as soon as I hang up. So anyway. Blessings. See ya.
Hey, my Daily Audio Bible family this is Mary from Virginia and I just wanted to call and just remind you all to share the Daily Audio Bible with family, friends, those you know that may just benefit from this…this app. I’ve shared it with my family and I’m just praying that…that they will take the time to download the app and listen to it. I’ve been listening for a few years now, since 2020, and it’s had a really positive impact on my life. And, so, just praying that my family…I’ve been sharing it with them for a few years now. So, hopefully just one of them will listen to it. But just remember, especially starting the new year to just share it with…with…yeah with everybody that you can, family, friends, coworkers whoever you can that you think will, you know, just benefit from it. Alright. With that, happy new year. Bye.
Good evening, DABbers this is Donna from Pennsylvania. I’m calling to thank Brian for the wonderful sleep album. I’ve been listening every night. It’s just beautiful and helps me. I’ve had sleep issues for years and it helps me go right __ when my head hits the pillow. And thank you Diane Olive Braun for the beautiful analogy of the sensitive massage horse. And isn’t that just how we are supposed to be, sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit just as the horse responds to the lightest touch of the hand communicated from the reign to the mouth and to thighs knees and heel. And also to Marilyn who was riding motorcycles with her husband and would be separated by cars getting between them so she couldn’t see him and would become anxious and isn’t that what Jesus does just as your husband does. He waits for us and he will turn around and seek us. What…how blessed we are. And I’ve got a story of my own. When I was praying, I noticed that the twinkling Christmas lights were on my window some of them were off but some of them were brighter than ever and that was because it was morning, and the sun was shining by lighting them up so much brighter than they ever could sign on their own battery power. And isn’t that just what the Holy Spirit does with us. He works and shines through us so that we can light up way brighter than ever we could under our own power. So, blessings to you all. Happy new year. Love you. Donna from Pennsylvania.
Good morning DAB family this is burning Bush that will not be devoured for the glory of our God and king. Today I listened to the DAB. Just before the years end, I heard a lady call in for her son Darian I think, Dorian, who got into drugs and then got arrested for that. My sister, I want you to know that my heart goes out to you and I’m praying for your child. I’m praying that God will protect him in the name of Jesus and heal him, deliver him from addictions. I pray for all parents right now that are dealing with kids who are struggling with addictions or behavioral problems. Father God, I pray that You give us the strength O Lord to parent like You parent us Father to love O God to not give up on our kids but Father God to be strong Father. Help us O Lord. Give us wisdom as we move forward. I pray for these kids as they are moving forward under foreign management. Father, I pray that in the name of Jesus You will deliver them by the name of Jesus, Father God. Protect them Father while they’re away, while they’re prodigal. God give them grace. I prefer deliverance in the year of 2023 in the name of Jesus. And until then Father give the parents wisdom O Lord to trust You Father. These are Your children first and foremost. We didn’t cause anything to happen, we can’t change, we can’t control, but we…we trust You Father. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
Hi Daily Audio Bible this is Riptide currently in Ohio. I just wanted to wish everyone a happy new year and although it’s cloudy outside, God we know that above the clouds the sun is always shining God. So, we just thank You. I just ask for wisdom and mercy to be over us in the new year, that we would seek You in all of our ways. You know how they say Matthew 33. Seek the Lord in all Your heart in all these things. That means all. Underline. All these things will be given unto You. And that saying that people say at Christmas time a lot, that wise men still seek him. So we thank You God. We are wise. We are wise sons and daughters and under Your name God the living God we plead Your blood over our family God and our nation. We thank You in Yeshua’s name Amen. Blessings. Happy new year.