NL-Day365 Malachi 4; Isaiah 66; Revelation 22

12/29/24 • 19 min

As I finish this podcast series, I am really thankful for this year-long experience. If you are one of the faithful ones who have listened through a year’s worth of daily podcasts— and no matter whether this has taken longer than a year, I say Way to go! I sincerely hope these podcasts have been a blessing for you— as they have been for me. I hope that nothing that I have said has caused you to stumble or decreased your desire to study God’s Word. I started this project in the hope that my four grandchildren would— in some future year, listen to this series of recordings. Now we have five grandchildren. If you are Luke Fields, Laura Fields, Ava Baughn, Joel Baughn, or Devan Baughn, know that Grampa loves you and that I desired to share spiritual treasures with you. I am proud of you and wish that we could have shared these readings in person. I urge you to stay centered upon God’s Word. And to ALL of you in the family of Christ Jesus our Savior, I send warm greetings and love. May the Lord bless you as you continue your journey with Him!

MALACHI 4: As people like Simeon and Anna (Luke 2) waited for the Messiah to come, I am sure that they were thinking of verses like Malachi 3:1:

Mal. 3:1 NLT “Look! I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his Temple. The messenger of the covenant, whom you look for so eagerly, is surely coming,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.

Re-reading ISAIAH 66: Isaiah ends with blessings and promises that foreshadow Revelation, such as these:

Is. 66:12 GNT The Lord says, “I will bring you lasting prosperity; the wealth of the nations will flow to you like a river that never goes dry. ... 22 “Just as the new earth and the new heavens will endure by my power, so your descendants and your name will endure.

In stark contrast to the promises and blessings, Isaiah also ends with vivid warnings against judgments and punishments that are like those in Revelation. Jesus himself quoted that final verse about the worms and the unquenchable fire. (Mark 9:48) You can take that as Jesus’ stamp of approval on all that Isaiah said!

REVELATION 22: In chapter 21 we heard the invitation to receive free life-giving water for anyone who is thirsty, and that invitation is repeated in today’s chapter. The culmination of everything promised and the healing of everything sick and broken occur here. God says, “Look, I am making all things new.” There is again symbolism in every aspect of the New Jerusalem— including even the shape of a huge cube. As noted above at the end of Isaiah, in stark contrast to the eternal blessings for God’s people are the vivid ending warnings of eternal judgment in the last two chapters of Revelation.

In Rev. 22:8-9, most translations make it sound that John made the same mistake twice— bowing down again to the angel that was showing everything to him. But the Greek in those verse in chapter 22 can be understood to be retelling that event that happened in chapter 19, and I think that makes better sense. The probable reason that John included the story twice was to emphasize that angels should not be worshipped. Let’s beware of such heresy! Because such false teaching keeps on resurfacing and some forms of Gnosticism remain to the present day.

Congratulations on finishing the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan!

NLT Translation Notes: Rev. 22:1b On each side of the river grew [the/a] tree of life, 8b And when I heard and saw them[— as I said before], I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me. 16b I am both the [founding] source of David

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

MALACHI 4: As people like Simeon and Anna (Luke 2) waited for the Messiah to come, I am sure that they were thinking of verses like Malachi 3:1:

Re-reading ISAIAH 66: Isaiah ends with blessings and promises that foreshadow Revelation, such as these:

Congratulations on finishing the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan!

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

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NL-Day364 Malachi 3; Isaiah 66; Revelation 21

MALACHI 3: In chapters 1-2 yesterday, 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 is like this:

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

Topics for such exchanges 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 exchanges happen in today’s reading.

ISAIAH 66: I highlight verse 17 from 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 these moving verses from that same chapter 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 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.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.How have you loved us?”

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000: 2025 DDeeper Introduction and How-to's

Hi there!

I’m so glad you have clicked to listen to this introduction to the Digging Deeper Daily Bible reading plan and podcasts for 2025.

If you want to read the Bible in a great reading plan that will hold your attention and enable you to stay with the program, you are in the right place.

If you want to listen, the complete Bibles I have recorded following my reading plan are the New Living Translation and the Good News Bible.

If you can, do both: listen to the podcast while reading along.

My name is Phil Fields. I’m almost 75 years old and happily married to Gale. We have three children, and five grandkids. In 1983, when our kids were still small, our family went as Bible translators to Papua, Indonesia. We finished a New Testament translation for the Orya people in 2005. Since that time I have been leading an organization which is translating the Bible into the national language of Indonesia. We’re hoping that the entire Bible in the Plain Indonesian Translation will be finished at the end of 2025. Our sponsoring organization is Pioneer Bible Translators.

When I started the Daily Bible Reading Podcast in 2014 the primary audience I had in mind was my grandkids. I wanted to make a set of Bible recordings for them, to leave behind what I would tell each one of them if, and when, they fall into difficult times.

Here’s a list of what I will cover:

Our web addresses
How to contact me
Podcast release schedule
Take a look at the How-to's at our site.
Different ways to follow the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan
Choose a Bible translation that makes sense for you for daily reading.

Please note these web addresses:

For NLT podcasts and How-to information, go to http://ddeeper.today, or http://dailybiblereading.info.

For GNT podcasts and How-to information, go to http://dailygntbiblereading.info.

You can listen to the podcasts at the websites just listed, but it is a better user experience to use a podcast app for listening.

How to contact me:

My favorite way for you to contact me is via the contact button at the top of all my websites.

Podcast release schedule:

Every Sunday, seven podcasts will be released covering the next week of listening. Sometimes an eighth bonus episode will also be released.

How-to's:

If you would like pointers on podcast listening apps, please see the How-to's, linked in the banner of the websites above. A good podcast app

makes it easy to see the episode notes,
remembers your place and will automatically queue up your next episode,
and lets you speed up my reading to 1.20%.

Please also see the How-to pages for detailed information about the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan.

Different ways to follow the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan:

READ in a real-book Bible: To do that, download the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan PDF. See the banner at our website and click on Plan.PDF.

Follow the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan using the YouVersion Bible app on your phone or tablet. To find the 3D plan, go to the Plans page, choose Find Plans, and search for the name, Digging Deeper.
How about READing and LISTENing?! Open your podcast player and start the introduction to your next episode. While listening to my greeting, you’ll have time to open the YV app to your next day in the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan.

When you sign up for a YV reading plan, you are given an option to do the plan privately or share it with your friends. If you share the plan with friends, at the end of each day’s readings, you will be given the opportunity to share something you gleaned from the readings. This is fabulous and a great way to connect with your friends through the Bible app. But since the Digging Deeper Daily plan is for the whole Bible in 365 days, I suggest you share with a select group of close friends, or maybe 1-2 other people, or just do the plan privately.

Choose a Bible translation that makes sense for you and for a year-long reading program. Many churches use literal translations like the ESV. My own church uses that translation. But the ESV is not very well suited for a year-long reading program, especially if this is your first time reading the whole Bible. I strongly recommend the NLT or the GNT for following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. Please take my advice as a Bible translator: Using a translation like the NLT or GNT is even more important if you will be listening to your Bible readings while doing something like driving to work. For more information about Bible translations, see the READ heading in the How-To pages.