The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 206: The Book of Baruch (2023)

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

Fr. Mike explains the context of the book of Baruch, he also highlights Isaiah's warning against complacency and how God's justice applies to everyone, even those who don't believe in Him. The readings are Isaiah 32-33, Baruch 1-2, and Proverbs 11:17-20. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

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. It is day 206, and we're reading from Isaiah chapters 32 and 33. We're also reading from the prophet Baruch chapter one and two, also Proverbs chapter 11, verses 17 through 20. As

always, the Bible translation that I'm reading from is the Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition. I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can go to ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year, and you can also subscribe to this podcast to receive daily episodes. As I said, today's day 206. We're reading Isaiah 32 and 33. Also Baruch. Baruch is also one of those seven Deuterocanonical books that if you have only read Protestant Bibles, where Martin Luther had taken out those seven extra, well, they're extra to you. But for us as Catholics, they are part of the canon. And for the Orthodox, it's part of the canon. For the first Christians, they're part of the canon.

So we're going to read and hear from the prophet Baruch chapter 1 and 2, as well as Proverbs 11 verses 17 through 20. The book of the prophet Isaiah chapter 32, reign of righteousness and justice. Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice. Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a covert from the tempest, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land. Then the eyes of those who will see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will listen. The mind of the rash will have good judgment, and the tongue of the stammerers will speak readily and distinct listen. The mind of the rash will have good judgment and the tongue of the stammerers will speak readily and distinctly. The fool will no more be called noble nor the

knave said to be honorable. For the fool speaks folly and his mind plots iniquity to practice ungodliness, to utter error concerning the Lord, to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied and to deprive the thirsty of drink. The knaveries of the knave are evil. He devises wicked devices to ruin the poor with lying words, even when the plea of the needy is right. But he who is noble devises noble things, and by noble things he stands. Rise up, you women who are at ease.

Hear my voice. You complacent daughters, give ear to my speech. In little more than a year, you will shudder, you complacent women. For the vintage will fail. The fruit harvest will not come. Tremble, you women who are at ease. Shudder, you complacent ones. Strip and make yourselves bare and put sackcloth upon your loins.

Beat upon your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine, for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briars. Yes, for all the joyous houses in the joyful city. For the palace will be forsaken, the populous city deserted. The hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks, until the spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field, and the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness quietness and trust forever. My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places, and the forest will utterly go down, and the city will be utterly laid low. Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.

who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free. Chapter 33, A Prophecy of Deliverance The Lord, the Majestic King Woe to you, destroyer, who yourself have not been destroyed, you treacherous one with whom none has dealt treacherously. When you have ceased to destroy, you will be destroyed, and when you have made an end of dealing treacherously, you will be dealt with treacherously. Lord, be gracious to us.

We wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble. At the thunderous noise, peoples flee. At the lifting up of yourself, nations are scattered. And spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers. As locusts leap, men leap upon it. The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high. He will fill Zion with justice and righteousness, and he will be the stability of your times,

abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge. The fear of the Lord is his treasure. Behold, the valiant ones cry out. The envoys of peace weep bitterly. The highways lie waste. The wayfaring man ceases. Covenants are broken. Witnesses are despised. There is no regard for man. The land mourns and languishes. Lebanon is confounded and withers away. Sharon is like a desert. And Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves. Now I will arise, says the Lord. Now I will lift myself up.

Now I will be exalted. You conceived chaff. You bring forth stubble. Your breath is a fire that will consume you. And the peoples will be burned as if burned to lime, like thorns cut down that are burned in the fire. Hear, you who are far off what I have done, and you who are near, acknowledge my might.

The sinners in Zion are afraid. Trembling has seized the godless. Who among us can dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us can dwell with the everlasting burnings? He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed

and shuts his eyes from looking upon evil. He will dwell on the heights. His place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks. His bread will be given him. His water will be sure. Your eyes will see the king in his beauty. They will behold a land that stretches afar. Your mind will muse on the terror. Where is he who counted? Where is he who weighed the tribute? Where is he who counted the towers? You will see no more the insolent people, the people of an obscure speech which you cannot comprehend,

stammering in a tongue which you cannot understand. Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet habitation, an immovable tent whose stakes will never be plucked up, nor will any of its cords be broken. But there, the Lord in majesty will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams, where no galley with oars can go, nor stately ship can pass. For the Lord is our judge. The Lord is our ruler. The Lord is our king. He will save us. Your tackle hangs loose. It cannot hold the mast firm in its place or keep the sail

spread out. Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided. Even the lame will take the prey. And no inhabitant will say, I am sick. For people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity. The Book of Baruch. Chapter 1, Baruch and the Jews of Babylon. These are the words of the book which Baruch, the son of Neriah, son of Masiah, son of Zedekiah, son of Hasadiah, son of Hilkiah, wrote in Babylon in the fifth year on the seventh day of the month, at the time when the Chaldeans took Jerusalem and burned it with fire. And Baruch read the words of this book in the hearing of Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim,

king of Judah, and in the hearing of all the people who came to hear the book, and in the hearing of the mighty men and the princes, and in the hearing of the elders, and in the hearing of all the people, small and great, all who dwelt in Babylon by the river Sud. Then they wept and fasted and prayed before the Lord. And they collected money, each giving what he could, and they sent it to Jerusalem, to Jehoiakim the high priest,

the son of Hilkiah, son of Shalom, and to the priests, and to all the people who were present with him in Jerusalem. At the same time, on the tenth day of Sivan, Baruch took the vessels of the house of the Lord, which had been carried away from the temple, to return them to the land of Judah. The silver vessels, which Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, had made after Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had carried away from Jerusalem Jeconiah and the princes and the prisoners and the mighty men and the people of the land, and brought them to Babylon. A letter to Jerusalem. And they said, Herewith we send you money. So buy with the money burnt offerings and sin offerings and incense, and prepare a cereal offering, and offer them upon the altar of the Lord our God. And pray for the life of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,

and for the life of Belshazzar, his son, that their days on earth may be like the days of heaven. And the Lord will give us strength, and he will give light to our eyes. And we shall live under the protection of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and under the protection of Belshazzar his son. And we shall serve them many days and find favor in their sight. And pray for us to the Lord our God, for we have sinned against the Lord our God, and to this day the anger of the Lord and his wrath have not turned away from us. And you shall read this book which we are sending you, to make your confession in the house of the Lord on the days of the feasts and at appointed seasons. Confession of Sins

And you shall say, Righteousness belongs to the Lord our God. to the Lord our God, but confusion of face as at this day to us, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to our kings and our princes and our priests and our prophets and our fathers, because we have sinned before the Lord and have disobeyed him and have not heeded the voice of the Lord our God to walk in the statutes of the Lord which he set before us. From the day when the Lord brought our fathers out of the land of Egypt until today, we have been disobedient to the Lord our God, and we have been negligent in not heeding his voice. So to this day, there have clung to us

the calamities and the curse, which the Lord declared through Moses, his servant, at that time when he brought our fathers out of the land of Egypt to give to us a land flowing with milk and honey. We did not heed the voice of the Lord our God in all the words of the prophets whom he give to us a land flowing with milk and honey. We did not heed the voice of the Lord our God in all the words of the prophets whom he sent to us, but we each followed the intent of his own wicked heart by serving other gods and doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord our

God. Chapter 2. So the Lord confirmed his word which he spoke against us and against our judges who judged Israel and against our, and against our judges who judged Israel, and against our kings, and against our princes, and against the men of Israel and Judah. Under the whole heaven there has not been done the like of what he has done in Jerusalem, in accordance with what is written in the law of Moses, that we should eat, one, the flesh of his son, and another, the flesh of his daughter. And he gave them into subjection of all the kingdoms around us, to be a reproach and a desolation among all the surrounding peoples where the Lord has scattered them. They were brought low and not raised up because we sinned against the Lord,

our God, in not heeding his voice. Righteousness belongs to the Lord, our God, but confusion of face to us and our fathers as at this day. All those calamities with which the Lord our God, but confusion of face to us and our fathers as at this day. All those calamities with which the Lord threatened us have come upon us. Yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord by turning away each of us from the thoughts of his wicked heart. And the Lord has kept the calamities ready, and the Lord has brought them upon us, for the Lord is righteous in all his works which he has commanded us to do. for the Lord is righteous in all his works which he has commanded us to do.

Yet we have not obeyed his voice to walk in the statutes of the Lord which he set before us. Prayer for Deliverance And now, O Lord God of Israel, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and with signs and wonders and with great power and outstretched arm, and have made you a name, as at this day, we have sinned, we have been ungodly, we have done wrong, O Lord our God, against all your ordinances. Let your anger turn away from us, for we are left few in number among the nations where you have scattered us. Hear, O Lord, our prayer and our supplication, and for your own sake deliver us, and grant us favor in the sight of those who have carried us into exile, that all the earth may know that you are the Lord our God, for Israel and his descendants are called by your name. O Lord, look down from your holy habitation and consider us.

Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see. For the dead who are in Hades, whose spirit has been taken from their bodies, will not ascribe glory or justice to the Lord, but the person that is greatly distressed, that goes about bent over and feeble, and the eyes that are failing, and the person that hungers, will ascribe to you glory and righteousness, O Lord. For it is not because of any righteous deeds of our fathers or our kings that we bring before you our prayer for mercy, O Lord our God. For you have sent your anger and

your wrath upon us, as you declared by your servants the prophets, saying, Thus says the Lord, Bend your shoulders and serve the king of Babylon, and you will remain in the land which I gave to your fathers. But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord and will not serve the king of Babylon, I will make to cease from the cities of Judah and from the region about Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, and the whole land will be a desolation without inhabitants. But we did not obey your voice to serve the king of Babylon,

and you have confirmed your words which you spoke by your servants the prophets But we did not obey your voice to serve the king of Babylon. And you have confirmed your words, which you spoke by your servants, the prophets, that the bones of our kings and the bones of our fathers would be brought out of their graves. And behold, they have been cast out to the heat of day and the frost of night. They perished in great misery by famine and sword and pestilence. And the house, which is called by your name, you have made as it is today because of the wickedness of the house of Israel and the house of Judah. God's covenant recalled, Yet you have dealt with us, O Lord our God, in all your kindness and in all your great compassion,

as you spoke by your servant Moses on the day when you commanded him to write your law in the presence of the people, saying, If you will not obey my voice, this very great multitude will surely turn into a small number among the nations, where I will scatter them. For I know that they will not obey me, for they are a stiff-necked people. But in the land of their exile they will come to themselves, and they will know that I am the Lord their God. I will give them a heart that obeys and ears that hear, and they will praise me in the land of their exile, and will remember my name, and will turn from their stubbornness and their wicked deeds, for they will remember the ways of their fathers who sinned before the Lord. I will bring them again

into the land which I swore to give to their fathers, to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob, and they will rule over it. And I will increase them, and they will not be diminished. I will make an everlasting covenant with them to be their God, and they shall be my people. And I will never again remove my people Israel from the land which I have given them. The book of Proverbs chapter 11 verses 17 through 20. A man who is kind benefits himself, but a cruel man hurts himself. A wicked man earns deceptive wages, but one who sows righteousness gets a sure reward. He who is steadfast in righteousness will live, but he who pursues evil will die. Men of perverse mind are an abomination to the Lord, but those of blameless ways are his delight.

Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. We ask you to please help us. Once again, as we pray these Proverbs, we ask you to help us to become the people who are kind and the person who is righteous and the person who lives in your right relationship with you. Help us to actually live in right relationship with you this day and every day.

Lord God, help us to hear your words clearly, to understand them and understand not only how you spoke to your people Israel, but also how you are speaking in your scripture today to us, to your people now. We bear your name like they bore your name. So please, as you were faithful with them, be faithful with us. And we give you praise and we love you. We make this prayer in the mighty name of your son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Wow, okay. So, oh man. So we're going to get to Baruch in just a second. But first, Isaiah 32 and 33, just a little context. The first thing we have in chapter 32 is we have this prophecy of a righteous king. And one of the things that Isaiah could be talking about,

he could be talking about Hezekiah. Hezekiah, in many ways, was righteous, right? Remember, Hezekiah prayed before the Lord as the Assyrians, led by Sennacherib, were coming into Jerusalem. And it was a desperate, hugely desperate situation. What did Hezekiah do? Hezekiah took that letter from Sennacherib, and he put it and brought it to the temple of the Lord. He placed himself basically, you know, face down and just honored the Lord and asked for his intercession, and God heard his prayer. So it could be that Hezekiah is that righteous king. But also could be that the great, great, I think it's the great, great grandson, no, just the great grandson of Hezekiah was Josiah. And Josiah definitely was a righteous king. Second Kings chapter 22 mentions

that. And so this could be, you know, Isaiah saying, okay, talking about Hezekiah, could be Isaiah prophesying about the future king, King Josiah, who would be a righteous king, but also he's calling people back. You know, gosh, there's this recognition of not only the righteousness and integrity from the king and how a blessing that is in chapter 32, but also a call to prepare for the coming of the Holy Spirit. And it talks about those complacent women, right? And sorry, ladies, a lot of times it's you men of Judah

turn back to the Lord because you're wicked. Today, it's the complacent women. And what is that essentially? The women who are at ease or complacent daughters. You could be a people, it doesn't just have to be the women, but it's the people who are self-indulgent, right? Self-focused life, just like I'm untroubled by all the trouble happening around me and that complacent, that self-satisfied. And what it ultimately can become is lukewarm,

right? So we know in Book of Revelation that the Lord God says to the church in Laodicea, I believe, he says, I wish you were hot or cold, but you're lukewarm. Because you're lukewarm, I'd like to spew you out of my mouth. I want to vomit you out of my mouth. And there's this element here where the complacent women of Judah or complacent people of Judah, yeah, I'm self-satisfied. So therefore I'm self-indulgent and I just don't really care about the troubles that are happening around me. And so there's this call to wake up from this and a call to turn back to the Lord. Because Isaiah 34 talks about what? Talks about the righteous justice of the Lord against all the nations and the completeness of the judgment. We read about the completeness of God's judgment in the

other prophets where it was like, no, there's no one who's going to escape God's judgment. And here is chapter 34 that reemphasizes this to when it comes all you nations here, all you people listen to me because the indignation of the Lord is coming against all nations. His justice come against all nations and it's thorough, right? And so one of the things that we can take away from this is not only that God is calling the people of Israel and therefore now here in the current context, the Christian people back to repentance, but everything belongs to God. That even those people who don't believe in God belong to God. That even those who don't profess any religion still belong to God.

And this recognition that all those things that are not handed over to God will be burned away. Everything that doesn't belong to the Lord will fade into oblivion. And so if I don't want to belong to the Lord, then that's one of the things that will be burned away. Man, it's powerful and it's dreadful, but it is also true. Now let's go to the book of the prophet Baruch. Baruch, just a little context. So Baruch, as I said, is one of the Deuterocanonicals. It's part of the canon. Remember, I mentioned, I didn't fully explain this when we were talking about the book of Tobit, but if you remember, there are Sadducees and there's Pharisees in the time of Jesus. I mean,

there's also Essenes and some other groups of people, but you have the Pharisees and Sadducees. And when it comes to the canon of the Bible, like all the lists of the books of the Bible, the Sadducees, they only acknowledge the first five books of Moses as canon. And so Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, they acknowledged only those five as part of the canon, whereas the Pharisees and others had a larger canon and the Essenes had a lot of writings as well. And so we even can see that in the time of Jesus, there was no established canon. And that's why I pointed out that since there was no established canon at the time of Jesus, then it was up to who to establish a canon. Well, not the Jewish people post-Jesus because the Jewish people post-Jesus are meant to be in the fulfillment, right? They're

messianic people now. They were waiting for the Messiah. The Messiah came in Jesus. And so Jesus fulfilled all of the hopes and all the promises, all the prophecies. He fulfilled everything that was meant to be fulfilled in Judaism. And so he wasn't, in some ways you can say, he wasn't starting something new, but he was doing something new, but he was, he was fulfilling the ancient prophecies. He's fulfilling Judaism in himself. And so those first Christians are the fulfillment of Judaism. Because of that, those who did not accept Christ have essentially no authority to establish a canon. It took the church that Christ founded to establish the canon. And Baruch is part of that canon that Christ's church founded, if that makes any sense. Okay. So the little context, it's the book of the prophet Baruch.

Baruch was a contemporary of Jeremiah. In fact, he would be a, I don't want to just say a traveling companion with Jeremiah. He might have been Jeremiah's scribe. He might have been a co-prophet with Jeremiah. And so he is writing after the Babylonian exile. That's what he's saying. He's actually writing to the people of the exile. So that's why he's in the baby blue, right? Jeff is the color-coded nest that we're in baby blue because they're singing the blues in exile. And what happens is here is Baruch who's ministering to the people who are in Babylon. And a number of the things that he's doing is he's writing a letter to Jerusalem, basically

saying, we're taking up a collection and we're asking you, because here we are in Babylon, we're exiled. We're not in the temple. We're not in Jerusalem. That's the only place worship can happen. So we're taking a collection and we're sending it to you. Please pray for us, offer worship on our behalf, but also, and this is crazy, offer worship on behalf of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon and for Belshazzar, his son. And that's just, it's remarkable, but you know, St. Paul is going to repeat this in Romans chapter 13, talking about praying for the rulers, even unjust rulers, because at the time of Paul, there was pretty unjust And that's just, it's remarkable. But you know, St. Paul is going to repeat this in Romans chapter 13, talking about praying for the rulers, even unjust rulers, because at the time of Paul, there was pretty unjust

rulers and Nebuchadnezzar is the one who brought them all into exile in the first place. And so it's remarkable that here in, even in the old Testament, they're saying, pray for the, pray for the rulers. But then they go on to have a confession of their sins and talk about how, yeah, we disobeyed the Lord. We knew his law. We didn't lack anything. The only thing we lacked were hearts that were willing to be changed, ears that were willing

to listen, eyes that were willing to truly see. And, you know, lives are willing to truly be who God had called us to be. And so this lengthy confession, because righteousness belongs to God, but know what we chose? We chose something other than righteousness. And then he leads them into this prayer for deliverance, basically saying, Lord God, bring us back, bring us back. And even Baruch even includes the words of God himself saying, well, don't worry, I'm going to bring you home. I am going to bring you out of this land of exile. Because why? Because I have established my covenant and I will bring you back. And this is the beginning of the book of the prophet Baruch. We're going to continue journeying with him for a couple of days and just three days total. And it's just, it's remarkable to be able to not only be with Isaiah as he's with, you know, these, these kings Ahaz and Uzziah and Hezekiah before the Babylonian exile,

but also to hear the words of Baruch during the Babylonian exile, where here's a people that have been humbled. They were a massive people that have become a small remnant. And yet that remnant is saying, God, don't forget. God, maybe in the declaration of faith, God, you won't forget and you will bring us home. And it's just so good. In the last line of chapter two, it says, I will make an everlasting covenant with them to be their God and they shall be my people. I will never again remove my people Israel from the land which I've given them. And that's just God's promise. And we just, we give God thanks. We're so grateful. I'm grateful for you. So keep on praying. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see

you tomorrow. God bless.