You Can Read the Bible Guided Podcast

The story we find in Habakkuk is an old one, but it has a contemporary feel. While Habakkuk was written a long time ago, it could easily have been written today. While some details would change, the basic story would remain the same.

Bad people succeed. The proud and corrupt take power. Humble people suffer. It feels like life isn’t fair. Yet we know that God’s creation is good. The problem of course is sin and the evil that spirals out from sin, spewing struggle across all of life.

The faithful prophets of God are rightly frustrated by this injustice. Some of us like Habakkuk start marching up to the ramparts, shaking our fed up fists at God. “Life isn’t fair God! Good people don’t deserve this! Why do you let the selfish take all the power?! How can you expect us to live like this?! We need you to answer and to act!”

God answers Habakkuk, and He answers us. He will set things right. He will bring justice, rescue, and restoration. Wait for it, God says, for it will come. The restoration and renewal of all things comes through Jesus Christ. During this advent season of waiting, we wait not just for the annual celebration of His birth but also for His return. Our job while we wait is to stand up at that watchpost and call others to Him.

The Lord is in His holy temple, and the whole creation will be silent before Him.

The Jesse Tree is a Christian tradition dating back to the European Middle Ages. For each of the days of Advent leading up to Christmas Day, we read about someone in Jesus’ family tree. The name Jesse Tree derives from Isaiah 11:1, which is where we begin our Jesse Tree readings.

There has always been the promise, through the likes of Abraham and King David, that through God’s chosen people all nations would be blessed. There was also always belief that God would be faithful in keeping His promises. Hope is born from the marriage of this belief and that promise. Hope, however, is hard to see in Isaiah 10.

This chapter describes the barren burned out landscape of Israel’s exile. Israel, God’s chosen people, rejected Him time and again, but there was always a faithful remnant. Though the forest of Israel has been chopped down and burned over with fire, there will emerge a shoot and branch from the charred stump of Jesse.

Imagine or remember walking through a forest after a forest fire. The air is still pungent, and the ash is everywhere. This is a grayscale landscape, all white ash, smoky gray, and charcoal black. From this bleak black and white world, the green growth of new life will arise.

Jesus, this shoot of Jesse, was born as the evergreen fulfillment of that promise. From the ashen desolation of Israel’s exile, however, the shoot of Jesse is off in the distant future. Israel’s remnant clings to this future hope, trusting in the faithfulness of God.

On this first day of Advent, imagine sitting in the barrenness of exile with the remnant of Israel. There is absolutely nothing you can do about your situation. Your only hope is that shoot of Jesse. You cling in faith to that promise.

Do we have that faith of Israel's remnant in God today? When life seems to be burning down around us, is Jesus the hope to which we cling? Or do we instead place our trust in the cherished idols of money, power, and success?

This long promised son of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is our hope and our king. When the forest is felled and burned over, He is the One who remains. Thank God for that!

The Jesse Tree is a Christian tradition dating back to the European Middle Ages. For each of the days of Advent leading up to Christmas Day, we read about someone in Jesus’ family tree. The name Jesse Tree derives from Isaiah 11:1, which is where we begin our Jesse Tree readings.

There has always been the promise, through the likes of Abraham and King David, that through God’s chosen people all nations would be blessed. There was also always belief that God would be faithful in keeping His promises. Hope is born from the marriage of this belief and that promise. Hope, however, is hard to see in Isaiah 10.

This chapter describes the barren burned out landscape of Israel’s exile. Israel, God’s chosen people, rejected Him time and again, but there was always a faithful remnant. Though the forest of Israel has been chopped down and burned over with fire, there will emerge a shoot and branch from the charred stump of Jesse.

Imagine or remember walking through a forest after a forest fire. The air is still pungent, and the ash is everywhere. This is a grayscale landscape, all white ash, smoky gray, and charcoal black. From this bleak black and white world, the green growth of new life will arise.

Jesus, this shoot of Jesse, was born as the evergreen fulfillment of that promise. From the ashen desolation of Israel’s exile, however, the shoot of Jesse is off in the distant future. Israel’s remnant clings to this future hope, trusting in the faithfulness of God.

On this first day of Advent, imagine sitting in the barrenness of exile with the remnant of Israel. There is absolutely nothing you can do about your situation. Your only hope is that shoot of Jesse. You cling in faith to that promise.

Do we have that faith of Israel's remnant in God today? When life seems to be burning down around us, is Jesus the hope to which we cling? Or do we instead place our trust in the cherished idols of money, power, and success?

This long promised son of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is our hope and our king. When the forest is felled and burned over, He is the One who remains. Thank God for that!

But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe. For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of His bones will be broken.” And again another Scripture says, “They will look on Him whom they have pierced.”  - John 19:33-37

Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him. Even so. Amen. - Revelation 1:7

The first chapter of this book infers that John wrote his introduction after receiving this prophecy in its entirety.  His celebration of Christ’s love and freedom, of the kingdom and the priesthood, comingles with “and every eye with see Him, even those who pierced Him.”  John knew Him; he also knew those who pierced Him.  And now his vision is complete. 

Today we read the end of the story.  Satan is seized, then released, only to be thrown into the pit with the beast and the dragon, forever and ever.  The Thousand Years; the Great White Throne; The Book of Life; resurrection; judgment.  The Bride – that image of the church.  A new heaven, a new earth, the holy city: New Jerusalem.  “’Behold, I am making all things new…  It is done!  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”

I’ll close with the same questions that we’ve asked all along.  What do you notice?  What is repeated?  Where does dialogue reveal character?  And remembering that God is the primary subject of this Bible: what do we learn about His character, His nature, His will, His power, His authority, from this passage?

 “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus. 

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.  Amen. 

Our verse for this week is Psalm 8:9: O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Revelation 20 through 22.  Now let’s read it!

And the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and His power, and no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.”  - Revelation 15:8

Our reading opens today with these angels being sent out from the temple with a command to “’Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.’”  The first three are poured out in quick succession: painful sores, and the deaths of the seas and of the rivers.  Then an interlude, as the angel, and the “blood of saints and prophets” affirm the Lord’s judgments.  After this comes fierce heat, followed by darkness.  Still, the earth “did not repent and give Him glory.”  Finally, after the sixth plague dries the River Euphrates, the dragon and the beast strike back, assembling the kings and armies of the earth “at the place that in Hebrew is called ‘Armageddon’”  Then the seventh bowl; and it is finished. 

In chapter 17 the spiral returns us to Babylon: “Then one of the angels said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters…’” This again is reminiscent of Old Testament prophecy, where Israel is rebuked for placing herself under the protection of false gods and foreign armies.  In this chapter the angel not only reveals her and her “scarlet beast” – which again has “seven heads and ten horns” – but also explains to John what she represents – Babylon, on the River Euphrates – and tells of her end.

In chapter 18, the kings of the earth mourn that “in a single hour all this wealth has been laid waste” – this “single hour,” repeated three times, carries some significance – and an angel, throwing a millstone into the sea completes the metaphor.  “After this,” however, John hears “what seemed to be a loud voice of the great multitude in heaven, crying out, ‘Hallelujah!  Salvation and glory and power belong to God, for His judgments are true and just.’”  And there is rejoicing; and there is worship; a white horse, a bride, a marriage feast.

And there is The Word – the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords.  “And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following Him on white horses.”  And if you can picture that, then imagine this: on the way to meet the armies of the beast, the King of Kings calls out to the birds overhead, “’Come, gather for the great supper of God…’”

Our verse for this week is Deuteronomy 15:11: For there will never cease to be poor in the land.  Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’

Revelation 16 through 19.  Now let’s read it!

The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.  I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”  - Genesis 3:14-15

Let’s take stock of what we’ve seen in the first half of this book.  There’s the prominence of the number seven: seven spirits, churches, golden lampstands, stars, torches of fire, seals, angels and trumpets.  There’s the ever-presence of heaven, of angels, of whirring action.  The emphasis on endurance, and repentance, and on the activity of Satan… The symbols: the thirds, the three-and-a-half days, the Euphrates, the 144,000.  The characters: the elders and the angels, the horsemen, the two witnesses, the beast, the Lamb… and even John himself.  

Remember that this is a vision, conveyed to people who may have understood the symbols, or who may have, like us, wondered at them.  Like all prophecy, there is no guidebook that simplifies it, no class that reduces it.  John is recording what he sees – nothing more.  Reading through, as I’ve said before, reveals a spiral that goes still deeper today.  Stick with it.  

Chapter 12 opens with the appearance of two signs: a woman, “crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth…” And a great red dragon, whose tail “swept down a third of the stars and cast them on the earth.”  A male child is born, “who is to rule all the nations…”  There is war in heaven; the dragon – that ancient serpent – is cast out.  But while the heavens rejoice, the dragon takes hold of the earth.  His pursuit of the woman thwarted, he becomes furious, raising a beast which all nations worship.

Revelation 12 through 15.  Now let’s read it!

“I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus…” – Revelation 1:9

Yesterday we watched a growing parade of worshippers: first the four living creatures, then the twenty-four elders, then the voice of many angels – numbering myriad of myriads and thousands of thousands.  Today, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, appear.  Their voices complement the din: “Amen!  Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to God forever and ever!  Amen.” 

We also saw a scroll, with seven seals – six of which were opened.  The four horsemen, the altar with the souls of the slain, the day of wrath.  Today the seventh seal is opened, and “there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.”  Then an angel steps toward the altar, offering incense “with the prayers of the saints.” Suddenly he takes fire from the altar and throws it on the earth… six angels blow their trumpets in succession, trailed by hail and fire, a great mountain thrown into the sea, a star falling from heaven, the opening of the bottomless pit, locusts, the four angels who are bound in the great river Euphrates… Everything and everyone cut down by one-third…

And finally, when still “the rest of mankind, who were not killed by the plagues,” refused to “give up the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood…” nor “of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts,” the angel “swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, that there would be no more delay, but that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as He announced to his servants the prophets… The kingdom of the world” would become “the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever…”

This reading is intense.  Pay attention to your emotions before, after, and in the midst of it.  As when we read the prophets, we acknowledge that there is a purpose not only to the message but also – perhaps significantly – to the mode of delivery.  What is John – is Jesus – trying to stir in the original readers?  What is it stirring in you? 

Our verse for this week is Deuteronomy 15:11: For there will never cease to be poor in the land.  Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’

Revelation 7 through 11.  Now let’s read it!