Read To Me Daily Semester 4Sample

MALACHI 3:
Yesterday in Malachi chapters 1-2, we heard how skeptical and sassy the Israelites had become. This came out in the way Malachi has the people of Israel talk back to God. The first interchange is like this:

Mal. 1:2 NLT “I have always loved you,” says the LORD.
But you retort, “Really? How have you loved us?”

Topics for such interchanges included offering sacrifices that don’t show appropriate honor to God, breaking covenants of marriage through divorce, and not honoring God as the God of justice. Two more sassy interchanges happen in today’s reading.

ISAIAH 66:
I highlight verse 17 from Isaiah chapter 65, as it foreshadows what we will read in Revelation today and tomorrow:

Is. 65:17 NLT “Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth,
and no one will even think about the old ones anymore.

And I believe that verses 13-14 from the same chapter so sadly portray the torment of the lake of fire:

Is. 65:13 GNT And so I tell you that those who worship and obey me will have plenty to eat and drink, but you will be hungry and thirsty. They will be happy, but you will be disgraced.
14 They will sing for joy, but you will cry with a broken heart. 

REVELATION 21:
In Revelation chapter 20, we read about the millennium or the thousand year reign of Christ, the defeat and imprisonment of Satan, his brief release following the 1,000 years, and his eventual eternal judgment in the lake of fire. Death and the Grave were also abolished in the lake of fire.

Let’s pray.
Our awesome Creator, sovereign God, and heavenly Father: How far more awesome You are than we can know or think. You are not a God that simply created a blob of protoplasm and left it to evolve. Such a God would not have a plan spanning from before the world existed until new heavens and a new earth exist. Such a God would not have written the Lamb’s book of life before the world existed. You are not a disinterested God who simply allows mankind to go their own way. Nor are you a Santa Claus sort of God that whimsically looks down occasionally and sometimes give nice things to mankind. You are a God who knows us through and through, and who causes records to be kept for every single person that ever lived on earth. You are a God who put concepts of right and wrong in the hearts of every person. This proves we didn’t simply evolve from animals. And it was You who decided that there would need to be a spiritual battle with evil, that there would be an enemy named Satan, and that he would need to be decisively defeated. You determined that there would need to be a way to save mankind and yet at the same time not compromise your justice, righteousness, or holiness. We bow before You. You are the God who sees us!