Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to the Bible in a year podcast where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of scripture. The Bible in a year podcast is brought to you by ascension using the great adventure Bible timeline. We'll read all the way from Genesis to revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. Speaking of today, it is day 238, if that means anything to you. It means at least two things to me.

One, it means it's the last day on the sheet of paper. If you've ever downloaded the ascensionpress.com bibleinaore reading plan, you get to flip the page. You maybe even get to throw this page away. I am going to laminate my page so that I can keep it forever. But I check it off today after this reading.

Day 238. Also, it means we are beginning Daniel chapter one and two. So we're reading today Jeremiah 20 and 21 Daniel chapters one and two, as well as proverbs chapter 15, verses 25 through 28. As I'll always the Bible translation I'm reading from is the revised standard Version, second catholic edition. I'm using the great adventure Bible from Ascension.

As I said before, if you want to download your own Bible in a year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com babel Nier. You also can subscribe to this podcast in your podcast app and receive daily episodes. As I've said before, not everyone knows about that, so I don't want anyone to forget. And so it is day 238, reading Jeremiah 20 and 21 Daniel chapter one and two proverbs chapter 15, verses 25 through 28 the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah chapter 20 Jeremiah is persecuted by Pashur and complains to God. Now Pashur the priest, the son of Imhr, who was chief officer of the house of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things.

Then Pashur beat Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks that were in the upper Benjamin gate of the house of the Lord. On the next day, when Pashur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, the Lord does not call your name Pashur, but terror on every side. For thus says the behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. They shall fall by the sword of their enemies while you look on. And I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon.

He shall carry them captive to Babylon, and shall slay them with the sword. Moreover, I will give all the wealth of the city, all its gains, all its prized belongings and all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hand of their enemies, who shall plunder them and seize them and carry them to Babylon. And you, Pashur, and all who dwell in your house shall go into captivity. To Babylon you shall go, and there you shall die, and there you shall be buried, you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied falsely. O Lord, you have deceived me, and I was deceived.

You are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughing stock all the day. Everyone mocks me, for whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout violence and destruction, for the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say I will not mention him or speak any more in his name. There is in my heart, as it were a burning fire shot up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in.

And I cannot, for I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side. Denounce him. Let us denounce him, say all my familiar friends watching for my fall. Perhaps he will be deceived.

Then we can overcome him and take our revenge on him. But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior. Therefore my persecutors will stumble. They will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed.

Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. O Lord of hosts, who test the righteous, who see the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you have I committed my cause. Sing to the Lord. Praise the Lord, for he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers. Cursed be the day on which I was born, the day when my mother bore me.

Let it not be blessed. Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father. A son is born to you, making him very glad. Let that man be like the cities which the Lord overthrew without pity. Let him hear a cry in the morning and an alarm at noon, because he did not kill me in the womb, so my mother would have been my grave and her womb forever great.

Why did I come forth from the womb? To see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame. Chapter 21 the fall of Jerusalem this is the word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord when king Zedekiah sent to him pashur the son of Malkiah, and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseah, saying, inquire of the Lord for us. For Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, is making war against us. Perhaps the Lord will deal with us according to all his wonderful deeds and will make him withdraw from us.

Then Jeremiah said to them, thus you shall say to Zedekiah, thus says the Lord the God of Israel, behold, I will turn back the weapons of war which are in your hands and with which you are fighting against the king of Babylon and against the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the walls, and I will bring them together into the midst of this city. I myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm, in anger and in fury and in great wrath, and I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast, and they shall die of a great pestilence. Afterward, says the Lord, I will give Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his servants and the people in this city who survived the pestilence, sword and famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, into the hand of those who seek their lives. He shall strike them with the edge of the sword. He shall not pity them or spare them or have compassion.

And to this people you shall say, thus says the Lord, behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine and by pestilence, but he who goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging you, shall live and shall have his life as a prize of war. For I have set my face against this city for evil and not for good, says the Lord, it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. Message to the king of Judah into the house of the king of Judah, say, hear the word of the Lord, o house of David. Thus says the lord, execute justice in the morning, and deliver from the hand of the oppressed him who has been robbed, lest my wrath go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it because of your evil doings.

Beholden, I am against you, o inhabitant of the valley, o rock of the plain, says the Lord. You who say, who shall come down against us, or who shall enter our habitations? I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says the Lord, I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it shall devour all that is round about her.

The book of Daniel, chapter one four. Young Israelites at the babylonian court in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand with some of the vessels of the house of God, and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his God, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his God. Then the king commanded Ashpanaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish, handsome and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding, learning and competence, to serve in the king's palace and to teach them the letters and language of the Chaldeans. The king assigned them a daily portion of the rich food which the king ate and of the wine which he drank.

They were to be educated for three years, and at the end of that time they were to stand before the king. Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah of the tribe of Judah. And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names. Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach. Meshael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego.

But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's rich food or with the wine which he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. And God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs. And the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, I fear lest my lord, the king who appointed your food and your drink should see that you were in poorer condition than the youths who are of your own age, so you would endanger my head with the king. Then Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, test your servants for ten days.

Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king's rich food be observed by you and according to what you see, deal with your servants. So he listened to them in this matter and tested them for ten days. At the end of ten days it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the king's rich food. So the steward took away their rich food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables.

As for these four youths, God gave them learning and skill in all letters and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. At the end of the time when the king had commanded that they should be brought in. The chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar, and the king spoke with them, and among them all none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. Therefore they stood before the king, and in every matter of wisdom and understanding concerning which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all his kingdom. And Daniel continued until the first year of King Cyrus.

Chapter two in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams, and his spirit was troubled, and his sleep left him. Then the king commanded that the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers and the Chaldeans be summoned to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king, and the king said to them, I had a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream. Then the Chaldeans said to the king, o king, live forever. Tell your servants the dream, and we will show you the interpretation.

The king answered the Chaldeans, the word from me is sure, if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you shall be torn limb from limb, and your houses shall be laid in ruins. But if you show the dream and its interpretation, you shall receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. Therefore show me the dream and its interpretation. They answered a second time, let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show its interpretation. The king answered, I know with certainty that you are trying to gain time, because you see that the word from me is sure that if you do not make the dream known to me, there is but one sentence for you.

You have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me till the times change. Therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that you can show me its interpretation. The Chaldeans answered the king, there is not a man on earth who can meet the king's demand, for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or chaldean. The thing that the king asks is difficult, and none can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh. Because of this the king was angry and very furious, and commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed.

So the decree went forth that the wise men were to be slain, and they sought Daniel and his companions to slay them. Then Daniel replied with prudence and discretion to Arioch, the captain of the king's guard, who had gone out to slay the wise men of Babylon. He said to Arioch, the king's captain, why is the decree of the king so severe? Then Arioch made the matter known to Daniel. And Daniel went in and besought the king to appoint him a time that he might show to the king the interpretation God reveals.

Nebuchadnezzars dream. Then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, his companions, and told them to seek mercy of the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions might not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. Daniel said, blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might.

He changes times and seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and mysterious things. He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him.

To you, o God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and strength, and have now made known to me what we asked of you, for you have made known to us the king's matter. Daniel interprets the dream. Therefore Daniel went in to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon. He went and said thus to him, do not destroy the wise men of Babylon. Bring me in before the king, and I will show the king the interpretation.

Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste and said thus to him, I have found among the exiles from Judah a man who can make known to the king the interpretation. The king said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, are you able to make known to me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation? Daniel answered the king, no wise men, enchanters, magicians or astrologers can show to the king the mystery which the king has asked. But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these to you, o king?

As you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be hereafter. And he who reveals mysteries made known to you what is to be. But as for me, not because of any wisdom that I have more than all the living has this mystery been revealed to me. But in order that the interpretation may be made known to the kingdom and that you may know the thoughts of your mind. You saw, o king, and behold, a great image.

This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was of fine gold. Its breast and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly iron and partly of clay. As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand. And it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces.

Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold all together were broken in pieces and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors. And the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This was the dream. Now we will tell the king its interpretation.

You, o king. The king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power and the might and the glory and into whose hand he has given wherever they dwell, the sons of men, the beasts of the field and the birds of the air making you rule over them all. You are the head of gold. After, you shall arise another kingdom inferior to you. And yet a third kingdom of bronze which shall rule over all the earth.

And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron which crushes it shall break and crush all these. And as you saw, the feet and toes partly of Potter's clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom. But some of the firmness of iron shall be in it. Just as you saw iron mixed with miry clay and as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle.

As you saw, the iron mixed with miry clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage. But they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay. And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end. And it shall stand forever.

Just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be hereafter. The dream is certain and its interpretation sure. Daniel and his friends promoted then King Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face and did homage to Daniel and commanded that an offering and incense be offered up to him. The king said to Daniel, truly, your God is God of gods and lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery.

Then the king gave Daniel high honors and many great gifts and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon. Daniel made a request of the king, and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach and abed Nego over the affairs of the province of Babylon. But Daniel remained at the king's court.

The Book of Proverbs, 1525 28. The lord tears down the house of the proud, but maintains the widow's boundaries. The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the lord. The words of the pure are pleasing to him. He who is greedy for unjust gain makes trouble for his household.

But he who hates bribes will live. The mind of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things.

Father in heaven, we thank you so much. We give you praise and glory and, ah, lord God, thank you so much, not only for your wisdom and proverbs, but also helping us follow along with JEReMiah, the weeping prophet, and help us. And thank you for introducing us to Daniel and to his companions, Hananiah, Azariah, Misha, we thank you so much for the gift that you are gift that these prophets have been to us, to the world, to history, and how they have just keep pointing back to you. Keep pointing to your truth. Help us to walk in your truth, to live in your truth this day and every day of our lives.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Gosh, you guys.

Okay, so as much as I love Daniel, and we're gonna get to Daniel in just a Second, I just have to say, jeRemiah, we get a sense now of how. How profoundly hurt JeRemiah was, like, how profoundly rejected JeREMIah was. Here in chapter 20, where he's put in the stocks, and. And we even can get the sense that JeRemiah, he says. What does he say to God?

This is incredible. He says to God, he says, lord, you have deceived me, and I was deceived. You are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughing stock all the day. Everyone mocks me, for whenever I speak, I cry out.

And the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision. All the day long he goes on to say, if I say, I will not mention him or speak any more in his name. There is in my heart, as it were, a burning fire, shut up in my bones, and I am weary from holding it in. And it's just like that sense we get here is Jeremiah. He doesn't want this job.

His call has been to be a prophet and to speak the truth. Now, there are lying prophets. We had Peshur, the priest, right, the son of Emr, at the beginning of chapter 20. But the recognition is that not only is Jeremiah have to speak the truth, but he's surrounded by prophets who have no problem with lying. You have prophets who have no problem with saying, listen, God is going to deliver us from the.

From the Babylonians, just like he delivered us from the Assyrians. Remember this story, right? That God did deliver the people of Israel, the people of Judah and Jerusalem from the AssyrIans. And these lying prophets are saying he's going to do the same thing for us with the Babylonians. And yet JEremiah is saying that is not going to happen, that God actually is.

He's going to allow us to fall into. By the hands of the Babylonians. And so here's JErEmiah Today after being put. I'm so excited. I'm sorry to slow down.

After being put in the stocks. Here's Jeremiah, who's saying very, very clearly that God is going to. God is going to allow Jerusalem to fall. That's chapter 21 we heard today. This is Jeremiah's heartbreaking.

We heard Jeremiah's heartbreaking, and he uses it, and he says it in these terms. He says, curse be the day on which I was born. Would have been better if I just would have died. And we've heard, remember the very beginning of this whole journey with the Bible in a year, we heard Job say something very, very similar. And it's one of those ways of just trying to express and trying to capture and convey great grief, right?

Great distress, such despair of just, I am really hurting, and God has called me to this moment. Remember that God commanded Jeremiah not to marry because he knew what Jeremiah would have to go through. He knew the pain that Jeremiah would have to go through, and he didn't want Jeremiah to. I mean, he spared him in this way. I don't want you to have to see your wife and your children go through the pain that you're going through.

You know, we know for ourselves, right, that it's one thing to be the one going through pain. It's another thing to have to see the people we love going through pain. And so he kind of made Jeremiah an isolated individual. I mean, he called them to be alone, but even that was almost to spare him that extra pain of the cost of love, because all of us know Jeremiah is going to be even more deeply into this place of great pain. And so here he is, a celibate man, a single man, to limit the pain to just Jeremiah and not extend it to his wife and to his children.

As we heard in chapter 21, the message is, Jerusalem is going to fall and it's going to be horrible. Now we're going to get to the place where we start reading the book of Lamentations. In fact, we're going to get to lamentations relatively soon. It's going to be a couple weeks away. Lamentations is also from Jeremiah, and it's when Jeremiah walks around the city of Jerusalem during the siege by the Babylonians, and he just.

I mean, the rain's coming down, and Jeremiah has this lament of just. It seems like the city itself is weeping. Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. Today in Jeremiah 21, he says the hard word of God to the people of Jerusalem. Here's what's going to happen when he actually sees it happening in the book of lamentations.

He doesn't just describe it. He doesn't describe it as an impartial observer. He doesn't describe it as someone who's delivering the prophecy of God, of here comes the righteous judgment of God. He describes it as one who not only is suffering himself, but one whose heart is breaking because of the suffering that the people are going through. And that's.

We're going to get to that when it comes to lamentations. In the meantime, we just kicked open the book. Broke open the book, cracked open the book of Daniel and the first half of Daniel. This is important to note. The first half of Daniel are these stories, the stories that we know.

Right. Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. I always go back and forth with Abednego. And Abednego. It's Abednego, I hear, because I believe the accent is on the third syllable.

Anyways, back to our story. That's the speaking of the beginning of Daniel is stories, and the second half of Daniel is revelation. So we get to have this narrative in the first half of the Book of Daniel, and then it's all in the third person, right? Daniel did this, and he went over here, over there. And then in the second half of the book of Daniel, it's revelation.

It's I Daniel saw this. And so we get some really incredible imagery in the second half of the Book of Daniel. In this part, what we're seeing is, remember, this was the first wave of deportation after Jerusalem fell. So Daniel and Jeremiah are contemporaries. They're living at the same time.

Daniel. At this point in the book of Jeremiah, Daniel's already been exiled, he's already been brought to Babylon. So that first wave has already happened here in this book of Daniel. It's Daniel and the three companions, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Hananiah, Azariah, Mishael.

And they're trained for three years in the king's house, and they're trained to be helpers, basically, and they're trained to be part of the people of Babylon and get service out of those who Babylon has conquered. And of course, we had this incredible two big moments, right? The first moment where here's Daniel and his companions basically say, let us eat jewish food. Lets not eat from the king's table. For this rich food, this rich wine, let's just eat vegetables and drink water, which I imagine at some point I was in my head, I want to say the joke of this was someone's mom put this in the Bible because to make kids eat their vegetables.

But we know it's the word of God, so it's legit, it's completely true. And God blessed them. God blessed the four of them for being faithful even in a place of exile. That's one of the points of this story. God blessed them for being faithful even in the midst of their exile.

And that faithfulness can still happen even in the midst of exile. You know, almost all of the Bible is, here's what you're going to do when you live in the land, when you live in the promised land. But here we have this experience of, here is Ezekiel. We just got done with him yesterday. Here's Daniel today.

But what about when you're not living in the land? What about when you're not living in the promised land? What do you do then? And we heard Ezekiel say, yeah, you're going to build houses and you're going to plant gardens, you're going to marry jewish people, but you're going to marry and have children. Here's how you're going to live in exile.

And Daniel is a great example of someone saying, okay, here is how we can live in exile. And so we get that picture. And now in chapter two, of course, we have this story of Nebuchadnezzar, who has this dream. And it's really remarkable. Nebuchadnezzar is no one's fool.

He knows that if he says, I had this dream, give me the interpretation. And he tells them the dream, they'll tell them whatever they want to hear. He has no way of proving or of knowing, really, whether or not the interpretation of the wise people is accurate. So he throws out the decree. Basically, you have to tell me not only the interpretation of the dream, you have to tell me the dream itself because, or else you just, how would I know?

How do I know if you're telling me the truth or tell me something accurate? And of course, no one can do that. And I love this. I love it so much where Daniel comes forward and he asks Hananiah, Azariah, Mishael, he asks them, hey, pray with me because, or else we're going to get destroyed. We're part of the wise crew.

We're part of the wise guys here, and Nebuchadnezzar is going to kill us all if we can't give the dream and the interpretation. And so they pray before the Lord and, oh, it's so good. Here's Daniel who says, here's the dream. And I know the dream, not because of my wisdom, not because of me, but I know this dream because the God of heaven has revealed this to me. So even in this moment, Daniel's giving witness.

He's bearing witness to the God of heaven, to the Lord God, who has brought Daniel and his companions into covenant with him, the Lord God from the Old Testament. And Daniel doesn't take credit for this. He says, no, this is from God, because it's true. There's no way Daniel on his own could ever possibly dream or imagine what Nebuchadnezzar's dream was, or the interpretation of the dream. And the dream is remarkable.

Here's the great statue, right? And the head is of gold, the chest is of silver, the belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, its feet partly iron and partly clay. So what this is an image of is, as Daniel interprets, the head of gold is the kingdom of Babylon. Incredible, beautiful, powerful. The kingdom after Babylon is going to be Persia.

Persia is going to come to power after Babylon. And that's silver. Then you have bronze, and that is Greece. You know, Alexander the Great is going to conquer the Persians, and after that is iron, and that's Rome, the Roman Empire, that conquers everything else. And then what happens is, as we know, the Roman Empire collapses in the fourth century.

You know, a couple hundred years after the time of Christ and is replaced by what is replaced by this stone that is not cut out of the earth by human hands, but by God himself, and becomes a great mountain over all the earth. So you have the babylonian empire, overcome by the persian empire, overcome by the greek empire, overcome by the Roman Empire, that gets destroyed, and all of it is overcome by the kingdom, the empire, essentially that God himself establishes that the kingdom of God is the church. And that goes throughout the entire world. It actually is further reaching than the babylonian empire or the Persians or the Greeks or the Romans could ever possibly have been, is the church throughout the world. And that's what's going to replace all these other kingdoms.

And it's established, of course, by God himself, by Jesus Christ himself, who established the church. So this is, we're going to get the next couple days. We get some great stories, great stories of how to live in exile. And Daniel's going to show them to us with his companions, Hananiah, Azariah, Mishael. More on their names tomorrow.

Just is really interesting about who they are, what their names are. But this is a little bit longer episode. So how about, you know, I just let you know that I am praying for you? How about I ask for you, please, to pray for me? My name is Father Mike.

I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God.