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June 25 Daily Reading- Read the Bible in 1 Year
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If you would like to download my FREE calendar for keeping track of your commitment to read the Bible every day, you can find that on my site, here: https://www.inthefamilywaycoaching.com/pages/read-the-bible-in-1-year
Monthly memberships to support this event can be purchased on my site, here: https://www.inthefamilywaycoaching.com/offering_packages
Today's reading will cover Jeremiah Chapter 34:8-22 and Ezekiel Chapter 1. Today we will read about the people in Judah making a covenant with God to release their fellow Hebrew people that were being held as slaves and then breaking that covenant, changing their minds, and forcing the people back to being slaves. We will also read about an amazing image that Ezekiel saw about God in Heaven. God is described as having the appearance of a man, shining with glory, and having brightness surrounding Him, like a rainbow! We will read in Revelation chapters 4:2-3 and chapter 10:1 that these accounts of God are consistent with what Ezekiel saw. In our discussion for daily application we will talk about the fact that God appeared to be of human appearance and remember that in Genesis God tells us that He created us in HIS image. We are not created to look like aliens, nor are we descended from aliens. We will read Leviticus Chapter 25 about God's commandments pertaining to the Year of Jubilee and how people who sold themselves to be bond servants were meant to be treated as hired workers. Even then, their time as a bond servant was to be fulfilled after 7 years as well as in the year of Jubilee. In Leviticus 25 God is adamant that His people are HIS servants and are not to be taken as slaves and when people are working as hired workers they are not to be treated harshly. We will talk about the importance of keeping our promises to God as well as making sure we are treating others fairly, rather than harshly, especially those within the body of believers, in order to honor God's commands to us. We are to remember that everything we have belongs to GOD, including us!
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose of the Bible Reading
00:00:04
Speaker
Good morning everybody! Today is June 25th and you are here for our daily Bible reading as we go through the Day by Day Kids Bible written by Karen Henley. In case you don't already know, you are here with Robin and I am with In The Family Way Coaching.
00:00:19
Speaker
And this has been an event that has been on my heart for a long time and I am so excited that God has given me this year to read the Bible with you.
Overview of the Day by Day Kids Bible
00:00:29
Speaker
This is a fantastic version of the Bible. It's not every single detail, but this is giving us the big story all the way from the beginning in Genesis to the end in Revelation.
00:00:40
Speaker
And every day we have daily application for how the day's reading can be used in our lives. And
Readings from Jeremiah and Ezekiel
00:00:47
Speaker
I know that I am finding it particularly applicable. I know that God has been using each one of these daily lessons in my life every day, and his timing is just incredible.
00:00:58
Speaker
So I hope that you have been finding that same thing happening with you as we go through the Day by Day Kids Bible this year and read what our daily application is. so
00:01:10
Speaker
If you are following along with your commitment calendar, it's time to take that out and your sticker or however you're marking it off because that's right, you're about to hear the Bible today.
00:01:23
Speaker
We are going to be reading in the book of Jeremiah chapter 34. thirty four This will cover verses 8 through 22 and then we're going to begin the book of Ezekiel today.
00:01:35
Speaker
Ezekiel has a lot of prophecy in it, and it has a lot of amazing things that Ezekiel has seen.
Jeremiah 34: Slavery and God's Prophecy
00:01:41
Speaker
So we are going to get a glimpse of God today.
00:01:47
Speaker
First, let's check out our Jeremiah passage, and this is entitled, The People Change Their Minds. And we're going to go into this a little bit more to give us some better understanding after we read it today.
00:02:03
Speaker
King Zedekiah made a deal with all the people in Jerusalem. He said all of the slaves could go free. So the people said they would let their slaves go free.
00:02:15
Speaker
And they did. But later, the people changed their minds and they took their slaves back. They wouldn't let them go.
00:02:27
Speaker
So God spoke to Jeremiah. I made a promise to your families long ago, said God. I took them out of Egypt. I said my people could be slaves for no more than six years.
00:02:42
Speaker
Then you would have to let them go free. But your families long ago didn't obey me.
00:02:51
Speaker
Not so long ago, you acted like you were sorry and you did what was right. You set your slaves free. Now you have changed your mind and you took your slaves back.
00:03:02
Speaker
You did not obey me. You did not let your slaves go free. They are my people. You are my people too. So I will set you free.
00:03:15
Speaker
You are free to die in fights. You are free to go without food. You are free to get sick. I will give King Zedekiah to the enemies in Babylon, says God, and I will bring Babylon here to fight.
00:03:33
Speaker
I'll get rid of the cities in Judah and nobody will be able to live in them.
Ezekiel's Vision and Divine Beings
00:03:41
Speaker
In the Windstorm, Ezekiel, Chapter 1 I'm going to try to read some of it very slowly. So try very hard to picture what it is that Ezekiel is describing. It's gonna be a little bit tough.
00:03:56
Speaker
Ezekiel was with God's people in Babylon and he wrote this from Babylon. We had been in Babylon for five years and one day i was by the Khabar River.
00:04:09
Speaker
All of a sudden, I saw pictures in my mind. I saw heaven open up. I saw things about God. I saw wind storm.
00:04:24
Speaker
It came from the north. There was a big cloud. Lightning flashed. Bright light was all around the cloud.
00:04:36
Speaker
The very middle looked like fire and shining metal.
00:04:42
Speaker
Four beings were in the fire. They were like men, but each one had four faces and four wings.
00:04:55
Speaker
Their legs did not bend, and their feet were like cows' feet. Their feet shone like shiny brown metal. The beings had hands under their wings.
00:05:11
Speaker
and their wings touched each other. They moved straight ahead. Their hands looked like people's hands.
00:05:23
Speaker
They didn't turn at all when they moved straight.
00:05:28
Speaker
Each being had a face like a man's face, and each one had a lion's face on the right side. An ox's face was on the left side.
00:05:44
Speaker
There was also an eagle's face.
Reflections on Ezekiel's Vision
00:05:48
Speaker
So the wings went out and up.
00:05:54
Speaker
Each being had two wings and each wing touched the wing of the being next to it.
00:06:04
Speaker
Each being had two wings that covered its body.
00:06:11
Speaker
The beings would go wherever their spirit went.
00:06:16
Speaker
And they looked like burning coals of fire.
00:06:22
Speaker
Fire went back and forth between the beings. And lightning flashed from the fire.
00:06:32
Speaker
The beings went back and forth like lightning. I watched them.
00:06:40
Speaker
Then I saw a wheel on the ground beside each being. And each wheel shone.
00:06:50
Speaker
Each one seemed to go into another wheel.
00:06:56
Speaker
Eyes filled the rims of the wheels.
00:07:02
Speaker
The beings would move, and then the wheels would move.
00:07:08
Speaker
The beings went up from the ground. Then the wheels went up. They would go wherever their spirit would go. And the spirit of the beings was in the wheels.
00:07:24
Speaker
A wide space was above the heads of the beings. And the space shone. It looked like ice
00:07:34
Speaker
The beings moved and they sounded like water rushing and roaring. They sounded like God's voice. They sounded like a noisy army and then they stood still and brought their wings down.
00:07:54
Speaker
A voice came from the space above them. And above the space was something that looked like a king's chair.
00:08:06
Speaker
This throne was made of beautiful blue stone.
00:08:13
Speaker
Someone who looked like a man sat on the king's throne. His top half looked like shiny metal, full of fire.
00:08:25
Speaker
Bright light was all around him. He looked like a rainbow in the clouds.
00:08:34
Speaker
And that's what God's greatness looked like. i put my face down to the ground when I saw it. And then I heard a voice.
00:08:46
Speaker
But guess what? That's the end of our reading today. We won't find out what that voice said again until tomorrow. So I hope you join me tomorrow to hear what the great voice said.
00:08:56
Speaker
I
Covenants, Slavery, and Promises with God
00:08:57
Speaker
couldn't wait. I had to read ahead. It was too much of a cliffhanger for me.
00:09:03
Speaker
If you have a copy of the Day by Day Kids Bible with you, I'm sure you will be curious to know what the voice said. But we won't find out ah until tomorrow. Wow, wasn't that an amazing description of God?
00:09:17
Speaker
So those beings were below God at his feet and they were amazing creatures. They had four faces and one of the, the front face was like a man.
00:09:30
Speaker
The face on the right was like, uh, Let's see, which kind was like a lion. The face on the left was like an ox and the face on the back was like an eagle.
00:09:44
Speaker
And the hooves were like those of a cow. And the legs didn't move, but each face, the the the body was able to move according to the direction of the face, of which what direction it wanted to go in.
00:10:02
Speaker
Isn't that interesting? And that the spirit was in the wheel
00:10:07
Speaker
I want to point out that when Ezekiel saw the greatness of God, the figure looked like a man. Remember, God said that we were made in His image.
00:10:22
Speaker
In Genesis, it tells us that we were made in the likeness of God. Nowadays, there are people who believe that aliens have made the world and that we are descended from aliens.
00:10:36
Speaker
And God tells us that he made us in his image. So I wanted to be sure and point that out. And also what you may not know is that when Ezekiel wrote this ah accounting of God with his many colors that he looked shining and bright and like a rainbow, we know that Moses, when he was in God's presence, his face shown because he was in God's presence.
00:11:05
Speaker
So God's glory shining. He's bright. And we know that being in his presence, caused Moses to have a glowing, bright face.
00:11:17
Speaker
And in Revelation, in the ah written by John, when he wrote about seeing God, I'm going to get that out here.
00:11:33
Speaker
Ezekiel tells us that I saw the appearance of fire ratiding ah radiating around him, like the appearance of the rainbow in the cloud on a rainy day.
00:11:44
Speaker
So was the appearance of the radiance, and it was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. This is also what was seen by John in Revelation chapter four, verses two through three, where John says, immediately I was in the spirit and behold, a throne was standing in heaven and one seated on the throne.
00:12:10
Speaker
And the one who was seated was like Jasper and carnelian in appearance and a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance.
00:12:23
Speaker
And he also says in Revelation chapter 10 verse one, then I saw another powerful angel coming down from heaven wrapped in a cloud with a rainbow over his head.
00:12:37
Speaker
His face was like the sun and his feet like pillars of fire. So I just wanted to point out that these images are consistent throughout the Bible.
00:12:51
Speaker
that God is surrounded by beautiful color like that of a rainbow. That is not exactly our our daily application, but I just wanted us to discuss a little bit about that because it was amazing.
00:13:06
Speaker
Wasn't that amazing? I loved that. And to remind us that we are created in God's image. We are not created to look like aliens.
00:13:18
Speaker
So we are going to look at Jeremiah chapter 34 today, where we are talking about the people having ah made an agreement with God to let the slaves go free.
00:13:35
Speaker
Now, the reason this is important is because this, ah first of all, in the big version of the Bible, it gives us a little more detail. And it tells us that they actually, the people actually cut a covenant with God, which means they made a promise.
00:13:54
Speaker
And so then they broke their promise. If you've been around for a little while, you may have listened to the, uh, reading where we talked about covenants and the fact that a covenant was done with blood.
00:14:10
Speaker
And so like Jesus's new covenant involved his blood. And when God made the covenant with Abraham, it involved blood in the cutting of animals and they would cut the animals in half and then walk between them.
00:14:24
Speaker
And in that case, when, ah God put Abraham into a deep sleep and God went through and they had fire and God went through and then a torch went through and that was Jesus going through in the covenant on Abraham's behalf.
00:14:44
Speaker
In this case, the people, it says, when God is upset with them, he explains, he says,
00:14:54
Speaker
in, let's see, Verse 10, it says, all the princes and all the people obeyed who had entered into the covenant.
00:15:08
Speaker
Oh, a little bit before that.
00:15:16
Speaker
Okay, actually it was after that and God is saying,
00:15:22
Speaker
I will actually start with ah verse 12. So the word of Adonai came to Jeremiah saying, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt.
00:15:38
Speaker
out of the hand out of the house of bondage, saying, At the end of seven years you are to set free every man his brother, that is a Hebrew, who has been sold to you and has served you six years.
00:15:52
Speaker
You are to let him go free from you. But your fathers did not obey me nor inclined their ear. Now you had repented and had done that which is right in my eyes by proclaiming liberty everyone to his neighbor.
00:16:08
Speaker
You even made a covenant before me in the house where my name is called. But you turned around and profaned my name and made every everyone his servant and his handmaid whom you had let go free at their will.
00:16:22
Speaker
Return and you brought them back into subjection to be your servants and handmaids. Therefore, says the Lord, you have not obeyed me to proclaim liberty, everyone to his brother and everyone to his neighbor.
00:16:37
Speaker
And behold, i claim I proclaim for you a liberty to the sword, to plague, and to famine. I will give the men who have transgressed my covenant, who have not performed performed the words of the covenant, which they made before me when they cut the calf in two and passed between its parts.
00:17:01
Speaker
The princes of Judah and the princes of Jerusalem, the officers, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf.
00:17:13
Speaker
I will even give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of them who seek their life. And their dead bodies will be for food to the birds of the sky and to the beasts of the earth.
00:17:24
Speaker
So these people, they didn't just make a deal with the people. They made covenant. They made a promise to God. And they sealed that promise by cutting a calf and the people walked between it.
00:17:39
Speaker
So it's it might seem like a small detail, but it's a very, very big detail. They didn't just say, oh, we will do this and then not do it, which would have been bad enough, but they went through the effort of cutting a covenant And that is not a light agreement.
00:17:59
Speaker
So they were supposed to, first of all, so supposed to be following God's decree that he gave them in Leviticus, where he had proclaimed that nobody was to remain a slave.
00:18:11
Speaker
They were to be what was called bonds servants. They were paying a bond. They were paying off ah a debt that they owed. If they were too poor, then they would sell themselves as a slave.
00:18:24
Speaker
But even then, it was only meant to be temporary because God's people were not meant to be slaves. And God did not want his own people treating his own people like slaves.
00:18:39
Speaker
So there are a couple of applications in today's reading. Is that one, when we make a promise to God, we need to honor that promise because God does not take our breaking of promises lightly.
Sabbatical and Jubilee Principles
00:18:53
Speaker
Number two, we are not meant to enslave one another. We may not have actual physical slaves right now, but we can be enslaving one another by refusing to pay somebody of proper wages.
00:19:09
Speaker
We can enslave someone by asking them to do something and then not paying them for it. And God does not want us to treat people badly. We're going to look at Leviticus chapter 25.
00:19:27
Speaker
And we're going to look at why God did this, not only to have his people treated properly, but because it was meant to be a time that we were to be looking to God for provision, much in the same way that when the people were traveling through the desert for 40 years, God provided manna for them.
00:19:46
Speaker
And he provided manna for six days. And on the sixth day, there would be a double portion given to them so that they were not to gather food on the seventh day.
00:19:57
Speaker
Because the seventh day was to be ah so a Shabbat, a day of rest. And so the time period that the people were going to be in exile was going to correspond with the number of years of Shabbats, Shabbatots, Sabbath.
00:20:15
Speaker
that That Sabbath's plural is Shabbatots. Like when we had the Feast of Weeks, it was the Feast of Shabbatots. They were going to correspond to the number of failed times to observe God's year of Jubilee.
00:20:32
Speaker
First, there was the seventh year where the people were to be set free as bondservant or to redeem their land. And then in the seventh of seven, so there would be seven sevens. Remember we've talked about how the number seven is important and how we have the 50 days for Pentecost.
00:20:52
Speaker
And here's another 50. In the 50th year, God would proclaim the year of Jubilee. And that is the year that the land would also be free and the people would be free.
00:21:07
Speaker
And for an entire year, they were not to use it. And the God was teaching them that he would supply them with abundance. And they would say, oh well how are we supposed to have food?
00:21:21
Speaker
And God said, I will give you a abundance in the year before that to last for three years. But they had to have faith in God. Remember, we've spoken about seeking God's kingdom first and then everything we need will be provided to us.
00:21:39
Speaker
Jesus taught us that. And so this is something that God started way back in the beginning when he set his people apart. Just like when we give the prayer for the counting of the Omer, where we say, Blessed are you, O Lord our God, ruler of the universe.
00:21:59
Speaker
who has command who has set us apart by his your commandments and has commanded us to count the Omer. We are set apart by God's commandments. And this was a commandment that God had given to the people.
00:22:13
Speaker
We're going to look at Leviticus in chapter 25. The
00:22:19
Speaker
the Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai, Speak to the children of Israel and tell them, When you come into the land which I give you, then the land is to keep a Sabbath to the Lord.
00:22:32
Speaker
For six years you may sow your field, and for six years you may prune your vineyard and gather its fruit. But in the seventh year there is to be a Sabbath rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord.
00:22:47
Speaker
You are not to sow your field or prune your vineyard.
00:22:56
Speaker
six whatever Verse 6, whatever the Sabbath of the land produces will be food for yourself, for your servant, for your maidservant, for your hired worker, and for the outsider dwelling among you.
00:23:10
Speaker
Even for your livestock and for the animals that are in your land, all its increase will be enough food. you are to count off seven Shabbatot of years. Remember, seven Sabbaths of years.
00:23:25
Speaker
Seven times seven years, so that the time is seven Sabbaths of years, 49 years. Then on the 10th day of the seventh month, on Yom Kippur, you are to sound a shofar blast, and you are to sound the shofar all throughout your land.
00:23:42
Speaker
You are to make the 50th year holy. It is to be a jubilee to you throughout the land to all its inhabitants, when each of you is to return to his own property, and each of you is to return to his family.
00:23:59
Speaker
That fiftieth year will be your jubilee. You are not to sow or reap that which grows by itself or gather from the untended vines. Since it is a jubilee, it is to be holy to you.
00:24:13
Speaker
In this year of Jubilee, each of you will return to his property. If you sell anything to your neighbor or buy from the neighbor, you are not to wrong one another. God cares deeply about the fact that we are not to wrong one another.
00:24:30
Speaker
Corresponding to the number of years after the Jubilee, you are to purchase land from your neighbor's hand. It's really more of a lease. He is to sell it to you based on the number of years of crops.
00:24:44
Speaker
In proportion to the extent of years, you may increase its price or decrease its price in proportion to the fewness of years, because he is selling a number of harvests to you.
00:24:58
Speaker
You are not to cheat one another, verse 17 says, but fear your God, for I am the Lord your God. Therefore you are to keep my statutes and observe my ordinances and carry them out so that you may live securely in the land.
00:25:15
Speaker
They failed to observe it. And so God is going to remove them from the land. And coincidentally, no, we know nothing is coincidence. The number of years that they would end up being gone, it would end up being 77 years.
00:25:31
Speaker
It corresponds to the number of Shabbatot Sabbaths that were failed to be observed. The land had no rest. And so God gave the land a rest.
00:25:44
Speaker
He says in verse 20, oh, in verse 19, then the land will yield its fruit and you may eat your fill and live there in safety. Now, if you ask, it says in verse 20, what are we to eat during the seventh year?
00:26:00
Speaker
If see, we are not to sow nor gather in our increase. Now I will command my blessing to you in the sixth year so that it will yield a harvest sufficient for three years.
00:26:16
Speaker
When you sow during the eighth year, you will still be eating the old stored harvest until the harvest of the ninth year comes in. Wow, God is going to provide for his people.
00:26:31
Speaker
They merely had to follow God's commands, seek first his kingdom. Over and over, we see this repetition. God is very consistent.
00:26:42
Speaker
He does not change. He is taking care of the people, and he cares for the land.
Modern Application of Biblical Principles
00:26:49
Speaker
The land would become depleted, and it needed rest, and God, in his great wisdom, knew this.
00:26:57
Speaker
And so he would give them a bumper crop in the so in the sixth year so that they would have plenty to eat for three whole years. That is amazing.
00:27:09
Speaker
He says, moreover, the land is not to be sold permanently because the land is mine. Everything we have belongs to God.
00:27:21
Speaker
God made the earth. It is God's to give and God's to take away.
00:27:28
Speaker
For you are travelers with me. For any land you possess, you are to provide for redemption of the land. If your brother becomes poor and sells some of his property, the way Ruth had sold some of her property when she went to, ah was that, Ruth?
00:27:48
Speaker
Oh gosh, what was her name?
00:27:52
Speaker
Boaz's wife. Oh, I'm drawing a blank. But Boaz redeemed the family's land.
00:28:00
Speaker
If your brother becomes poor and sells some of his property, then his nearest kinsman may come and redeem what his brother has sold. If a man has no kinsman redeemer, but beau but he himself recovers and finds sufficient means to redeem it, then let him reckon the years since its sale and restore the surplus to the man to whom he sold it.
00:28:22
Speaker
Then he will return to his property. But if he is not able to get it back for himself... then what he has sold is to remain in the hand of the one who has bought it until the year of Jubilee.
00:28:36
Speaker
Then in the Jubilee it should be released so he may return to his property. So the the people in Judah had made an agreement to let go the people whom they had been holding for more than their time.
00:28:52
Speaker
And God is reminding them they were only supposed to be held for six years maximum. Land could be held for 50 years maximum. But people could only be held for six.
00:29:07
Speaker
If, let's see. If a man sells a house, and then then it gets that, talks about that. Let's see.
00:29:19
Speaker
If your brother has become poor, chapter of verse 35, and his hand cannot support himself among you, then you are to uphold him. He may live with you like an outsider or a temporary resident.
00:29:32
Speaker
Take no excessive interest from him, but fear your God so that your brother can live with you. You are not to lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit.
00:29:46
Speaker
I am the Lord your God who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God. If your brother has grown poor among you and sells himself to you, you must not subject him to slave labor.
00:30:03
Speaker
Let him stay with you as a hired worker or as a temporary resident, and he will work for you into the year of Jubilee, and then he is to be released from you, he and his children with him, and may return to his own family and to the property of his fathers.
00:30:21
Speaker
For they are my servants. whom I brought out of the land of Egypt, they are not to be sold in a slave sale. You are not to rule over him with harshness, but fear your God.
00:30:36
Speaker
And the people were not obeying this.
00:30:42
Speaker
It says in verse 46, over your brothers, you must not rule over in one another with harshness. Again, it says that. And in verse 55, the last verse of that chapter, it says once again, for the children of Israel are my servants, my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt.
00:31:02
Speaker
I am the Lord your God.
00:31:07
Speaker
God wants us to take care of each other. He wants us not to treat each other harshly. And the people had broken covenant with them. So our daily application today is to be sure that we are treating one another, especially our brothers and sisters within the body of Jesus, as we should be treating them, not harshly,
00:31:29
Speaker
If somebody is in need and needs to borrow, we are not to charge them excessive interest. We are not to make money off of food that we give them. It's okay to hire them as a worker, but we are to be sure and treat them well, for we are all servants of God.
00:31:49
Speaker
and Jesus tells us that we all have our work that is set out for us to do. Even those people who are poor have work that God has set out for them to do. Good work.
00:31:59
Speaker
And so we need to honor that and remember to treat all of humanity with kindness, but especially those who are our brothers and sisters.
Encouragement and Engagement with Listeners
00:32:11
Speaker
So I hope that you feel that God has lit your light today and that you would be mindful of promises made to the Lord that we would keep them and mindful to treat each other well in our the body of Jesus.
00:32:25
Speaker
And if you feel that God has lit your light, please click that light button that looks like a thumbs up or a heart and let us draw people to God so that other people will also know how to treat their fellow brothers and sisters in Jesus.
00:32:43
Speaker
We want to be sure and point other people to God, and we want people to read God's word. We want to help spread the word about reading God's word. So thank you for joining me here today, and I will see or hear everybody again tomorrow.