DBRP_308 EZK.41 ISA.17 HEB.11.17-40

EZEKIEL 41:
Yesterday we started Ezekiel’s account of his long vision about the future and ideal temple of God, and this is another vision that is referred to in the book of Revelation. The reason for this vision is given in chapter 43:

10 “Son of man, describe to the people of Israel the Temple I have shown you, so they will be ashamed of all their sins. Let them study its plan, 11 and they will be ashamed of what they have done. (NLT)

ISAIAH 17:
Yesterday we finished the two chapter oracle concerning Moab. It was really not so much a prophecy of condemnation, but a lament for the people.

HEBREWS 11b:
The Faith Chapter of Hebrews is an exposition of the verse from Habbakuk 2:

38 And my righteous ones will live by [fully believing in Me//faith].
But I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away.”

It is unfortunate that the King James Version of the first verse of Hebrews 11 doesn’t make good sense but is still so often quoted as the definition of faith. The KJV says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for …” But how can I use that idea of ‘substance’? This became the definition that is quoted, but no one can figure out what to do with it after quoting it. No one can— so to speak, put their finger on that ‘substance’. The Greek word translated as ‘substance’ can also be translated ‘confidence’. And using that word, our definition makes sense.

Translation notes:
13 [All these people kept on fully believing until they died.//It was in faith that all these persons died.] They did not receive the things God had promised, but from a long way off they saw them and welcomed them, and admitted openly that they were foreigners and refugees on earth.
17 It was [Abraham’s belief in God’s promise//faith] that [moved him to//made Abraham] offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice when God put Abraham to the test. Abraham was the one to whom God had made the promise, yet he was ready to offer his only son as a sacrifice.
20 [It was Isaac’s belief in God’s promises that moved him to promise//It was faith that made Isaac promise] blessings for the future to Jacob and Esau.
21 [It was Jacob’s belief in God’s promises that moved him to//It was faith that made Jacob] bless each of the sons of Joseph just before he died. He leaned on the top of his walking stick and worshiped God.
22 [It was Joseph’s belief in God’s promises that moved him— when he was about to die, to//It was faith that made Joseph, when he was about to die,] speak of the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and leave instructions about what should be done with his body.
23 [Moses’ parents believed in God’s promises. And that is what moved them to hide//It was faith that made the parents of Moses hide] him for three months after he was born. They saw that he was a beautiful child, and they were not afraid to disobey the king's order.
24 [When Moses had grown up, it was his belief in God’s promises that moved him to//It was faith that made Moses, when he had grown up,] refuse to be called the son of the king's daughter.
27 [It was his belief in God’s promises that moved him to lead the people of Israel out of//It was faith that made Moses leave] Egypt without being afraid of the king's anger. As though he saw the invisible God, he refused to turn back.
28 [The same beliefs moved him to//It was faith that made him] establish the Passover and order the blood to be sprinkled on the doors, so that the Angel of Death would not kill the first-born sons of the Israelites.
29 [It was the Israelites’ belief in God that enabled them//It was faith that made the Israelites able] to cross the Red Sea as if on dry land; when the Egyptians tried to do it, the water swallowed them up.
30 [It was the Israelites’ belief in God that//It was faith that] made the walls of Jericho fall down after the Israelites had marched around them for seven days.
31 [It was Rahab’s belief in God that kept her//It was faith that kept the prostitute Rahab] from being killed with those who disobeyed God, for she gave the Israelite spies a friendly welcome.
33 [Their belief in God enabled them to be overthrow other kingdoms.//Through faith they fought whole countries and won.] They did what was right and received what God had promised. They shut the mouths of lions,
34 put out fierce fires, [and] escaped being killed by the sword. They were weak, but became strong; they were mighty in battle and defeated the armies of foreigners.
35 [By means of their full belief in God,//faith] women received their dead relatives raised back to life. Others, refusing to accept freedom, died under torture in order to be raised to a better life.
39 What a record all of these have won by [means of their full belief in God and his promises!//their faith!] Yet they did not receive what God had promised,

 

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DBRP_307 EZK.40 ISA.16 HEB.10.35-39 HEB.11.1-23

EZEKIEL 40:
In chapter 38-39 we heard of the kingdoms of Gog and Magog, which point to future kingdoms in the north. Like Ezekiel’s prophecies against the kings of Tyre and Babylon, Gog and Magog also refer to spiritual entities beyond this world, and we will hear of them again in Revelation chapter 20. And today we begin hearing of something else that appears in Revelation.

ISAIAH 16:
Today’s chapter is the continuation of the prophecy against Moab.

HEBREWS 10:35—11a:
As I have told you again and again this year, because of a quirk in English, the tight connection between the noun ‘faith’ and the verb ‘believe’ has been broken. These two words have the same root in Greek. It would have been better had English preserved the connection such as between ‘confidence’ and ‘confident’. The reason I mention that again here is because this is the famous ‘faith chapter’ of Hebrews. Note that this chapter is actually expounding on a quote from the end of chapter 10, so that’s where we begin today.

Translation notes:
10:39 We are not people who turn back and are lost. Instead, we [are those people who keep or believing//have faith] and are saved.
11:1 To [believe means//have faith is] to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see.
2 It was by their [believing//faith] that people of ancient times won God's approval.
3 [By means of our believing//It is by faith] that we understand that the universe was created by God's word, so that what can be seen was made out of what cannot be seen.  
4 It was [Abel’s believing//faith] that [moved him to//made Abel] offer to God a better sacrifice than Cain's. [It was by means of his believing that//Through his faith] he won God's approval as a righteous man, because God himself approved of his gifts. By means of his [believing//faith] Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.
[and etc.]
13 [All these people kept on fully believing until they died.//It was in faith that all these persons died.] They did not receive the things God had promised, but from a long way off they saw them and welcomed them, and admitted openly that they were foreigners and refugees on earth.
17 It was [Abraham’s believing God’s promise//faith] that [moved him to//made Abraham] offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice when God put Abraham to the test. Abraham was the one to whom God had made the promise, yet he was ready to offer his only son as a sacrifice.

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DBRP_306 EZK.38 EZK.39 ISA.15 HEB.10.12-39

EZEKIEL 38-39:
Yesterday we heard the famous ‘dry bones’ chapter of Ezekiel. Again the prophecy is that David will rule over the nation of Israel, which is like a nation of bones brought back to life. The references to David of course point to his heir, Christ.

Starting in this chapter we hear of the kingdoms of Gog and Magog. These names point to future kingdoms in the north (in Turkey or farther north). Like Ezekiel’s prophecies against the kings of Tyre and Babylon, Gog and Magog point to spiritual entities beyond this world, and we will hear those names coming up again in Revelation. I doubt that these names pointed to a specific kingdom in Ezekiel’s day, but if they did, the knowledge about that is lost.

 

ISAIAH 15:
Yesterday’s reading in Isaiah started out like Ezekiel, talking of Israel’s return from exile and slavery. Then we heard another portion where the king of Babylon is clearly portraying Satan. That section starts with these words (in the NLT):

12 “How you are fallen from heaven,
O shining star, son of the morning!
You have been thrown down to the earth,
you who destroyed the nations of the world.
13 For you said to yourself,
‘I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars. …

HEBREWS 10b:
In the first part of chapter 10, the writer is still speaking of the advantages and greater glory of the new covenant, proving this with a reference to Psalm 40 and returning to the extended quote from Jeremiah 31.

Translation notes:
22 So let us come near to God with a sincere heart[, with full belief, and// and a sure faith,] with hearts that have been purified from a guilty conscience and with bodies washed with clean water
39 We are not people who turn back and are lost. Instead, we [are those people who keep or believing//have faith] and are saved.

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DBRP_305 EZK.36 EZK.37 ISA.14 HEB.10.1-22

EZEKIEL 36-37:
In chapter 34, we heard the passage that many Jews would have thought of when they heard Jesus say, “I am the good shepherd. I give my life for the sheep.” The Lord promised to take away corrupt shepherds and to shepherd the flock himself.

ISAIAH 14:
Like we heard in Ezekiel and in Isaiah, and will hear in Revelation, Babylon will be judged. That kingdom was God’s tool to execute judgment, but they themselves will feel God’s judgment.

HEBREWS 10a:
In chapter 9 of Hebrews, details about rituals under the first covenant were given. The writer was showing by contrast how Jesus entered a greater, permanent, holy, divinely made Most Holy Place with the one-time-only sacrifice of his own blood. In our time, I think the details also show us the impossibility of our ever rebuilding a system like the Mosaic covenant. I take this opportunity to share my opinion— which I recognize will not be shared by all listeners. But here it is: Those who want to add old covenant observances to our Christian faith just add accretions of man-made ritual. It is better to study and understand how much better the new covenant is, rather than to add empty and powerless ritual and symbolism from the old to the new.

Translation note:
22 So let us come near to God with a sincere heart[, with full belief, and// and a sure faith,] with hearts that have been purified from a guilty conscience and with bodies washed with clean water.

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DBRP_304BackHomeNews

Hi there!

It feels great to be home. Thanks to all of you who prayed for me and Gale while I was in Indonesia for seven weeks.

 

In my news podcast before I left for Jakarta, I told about how I wanted to change the face of our non-profit organization into this:

Albata is a network of friends who pray that the understanding of God’s Word will increase everywhere in Indonesia.

I was unhappy that the business of running Albata (our organization) had taken our focus away from one of our main spiritual founding principles: We were supposed to be basing everything we were doing on prayer. Instead, forgetting to pray, we were spending our time thinking about adding personnel or programs and wondering how we would pay for them.

I am thankful that the Lord has given me four key men in Indonesia that God used

• To keep me from tearing down things that didn’t need to be done away with,
• To modify my impractical ideas into practical ones appropriate to Indonesian people,
• To recognize that some people were kind of idolizing me and to avoid building anything on that,
• To help me mentor Daniel, formerly our operations manager, to become our prayer and communications coordinator.

When I left for Indonesia, I was really frustrated with our operations manager, Daniel, because I blamed him for things that were probably my own fault in not leading effectively. Prayer really does change everything. Daniel helped me figure out that our new prayer emphasis needed someone to shepherd it. He was right. We changed his job description, and I have seen a transformation in him. Before, he was a capable manager. Now he is showing new talents in networking with people in multiple provinces to encourage and coordinate a spiritual ministry: the increase of the understanding of God’s Word all over Indonesia. Some of the things that he has encouraged are seen in the pictures I will share at the Digging Deeper Facebook Group. (below) One can see the results of his work popping up at the Friends of Albata Group. They include a man writing short devotional texts using our TSI New Testament, a weekly radio program quoting from our translation, and new groups praying that the Plain Indonesian Old Testament will all be drafted by 2020. Volunteers are spreading news about our translation and prayer requests, and all this is a huge answer to prayer.

One thing I asked prayer for is that 30 people would join our online Bible translation course by the end of September. We didn’t get even close on that. Right now there are 17 members in the course. Unless things change, I anticipate than only 4-5 will finish and be able to help our team. I praise the Lord that one of the students is taking our course, not to work with Albata’s team, but because she is working in an ethnic language translation project.

Albata and our publishing partner have agreed that starting in January, our second edition TSI New Testament will be sold all over Indonesia for a subsidized price of $3. Please pray that this special price being available at all bookstores will move Indonesian believers to give copies to friends. Pray also that some people will moved by the Lord to distribute copies to rural people groups. Giving a discounted price means that we will need to come up with the subsidy of $2.25 per copy, and that mounts up when we’re talking about 10,000 New Testaments! That means that I took the step of faith that the Lord would provide $22,500. Praise the Lord that He has already brought one donor who will help with this project.

Our translation coordinator and I are busily working on revisions to the TSI New Testament. We’re especially trying to improve verses where the phrasing is odd or hard to read. We need to have the revisions all done by the end of November, so that typesetting can be done in time for printing in January. Please pray for us in making very exacting decisions, and I especially ask you to pray for my accuracy in typing in changes. I don’t want to add any errors.

Perhaps some of you are wondering what I will be doing with the DBRP for 2017. I am planning to continue with my on-one-year off-one-year schedule. This means that I do not plan to re-record the whole Bible again next year. If the Lord wills, I do plan to make another set of recordings in 2018. Here is what I am planning for 2017: I will publish a new blog post every day with links to both the NLT set and the GNT set of readings. I’m doing this as a service to any new people who find the DBRP and want to start their reading plan in the first week of the new year. I won’t actually have to work at this every day, since the blog posts can be scheduled in advance. I plan to make another news podcast in December where I will give you recommendations for other Bible reading podcasts that you can listen to in 2017. One year listening to me is plenty.

May the Lord bless you ‘real good’!

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DBRP_304 EZK.34 EZK.35 ISA.13 HEB.9

EZEKIEL 34-35:
In Ezekiel yesterday, we heard of how Pharaoh was to be mocked in the world of the dead. Then we heard of God’s justice, which he showed by the illustration of Ezekiel as a watchman for a city.

 

ISAIAH 13:
Yesterday’s reading in Isaiah was a psalm of praise including these poetic lines (which I am quoting from the NLT):

The LORD GOD is my strength and my song;
he has given me victory.”
3 With joy you will drink deeply
from the fountain of salvation!
…
Tell the nations what he has done.
Let them know how mighty he is!

HEBREWS 9:
Important conclusions from yesterday’s reading include:

6 But now, Jesus has been given priestly work which is superior to theirs, just as the covenant which he arranged between God and his people is a better one, because it is based on promises of better things.
13 By speaking of a new covenant, God has made the first one old; and anything that becomes old and worn out will soon disappear.

 

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DBRP_303 EZK.32 EZK.33 ISA.12 HEB.8

EZEKIEL 32-33:
Again, as seen in the messages to Tyre and to Egypt, God was not just speaking to one king or about one kingdom, but was also speaking against the kingdom/city of Man or the world system under the rulership of Satan.

ISAIAH 12:
In yesterday’s reading we again heard of the righteous Branch, a shoot growing from David’s root. And we heard these famous words which I give here from the NLT:

2 And the Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
3 He will delight in obeying the LORD.
He will not judge by appearance
nor make a decision based on hearsay.
4 He will give justice to the poor
and make fair decisions for the exploited.
The earth will shake at the force of his word,
and one breath from his mouth will destroy the wicked.
5 He will wear righteousness like a belt
and truth like an undergarment.

HEBREWS 8:
In yesterday’s reading, the writer of Hebrews showed many similarities between Melchizedek and Christ, including that they are kings of righteousness and peace, they live forever, and are higher in position and better than Abraham and Moses. Christ is also better than the Levitical priests because he received his priesthood by an oath from God and because he holds his office as priest forever. These things are amazingly confirmed by that prophetic verse in Psalm 110. And very significantly, Jesus thus being our High Priest signifies a change in the Law— something that the original Jewish audience would have found surprising and controversial. Note how skillfully the writer wove in that controversial topic— which he brings to a conclusion in today’s chapter.

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