Daniel 2:24-3:30 ~ 1 Peter 4:7-5:14 ~ Psalm 119:81-96 ~ Proverbs 28:15-16
Today is the 26th day of November. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible and I love it when I get to say this – from the shores of the Sea of Galilee, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. Ahhhhh! Out of the wilderness and into the promised land and I can’t wait to share that with you, but we have come here for a larger purpose and that is to center ourselves today in God’s word. So as we end this week, we’ve been reading from the New International Version, which is what we’ll do today, and read from a new translation beginning tomorrow, but we’ll pick up where we left off, just kind of getting going in the book of Daniel. Chapter 2 verse 24 through 3 verse 30 today. Daniel has a tall order. His life depends upon it. King Nebuchadnezzar has asked for the interpretation of a dream, but he won’t tell any of his wise people what the dream was. So they not only have to tell the king what he dreamed, but what the dream means. Everyone is freaked out because the king has essentially said “all of you are frauds” and he is going to do away with them all. Daniel has gone into seclusion where he is before God and God is speaking to him. So that is where we pick up today.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for another week in your word. And even here, as we’re in the land of the Bible on the Sabbath day, we take it to heart and we take to heart the words of the apostle Peter and humble ourselves under your mighty hand. We ask you to help us with this, for we easily slide into pride and arrogance. We ask, Holy Spirit, that you help us become aware and humble ourselves, that in due season you will lift us up. You are holy. You are good. You are all powerful and all knowing. You are God of gods and the only creator and we humble ourselves before you fully so that the life that you have offered us can be the life that we live with the Risen Christ inside us. You continually sanctify us, making us holy and set apart. We are humbled. We are grateful. We are in awe of you and we worship you. Come Holy Spirit, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Announcements
So a long day yesterday to get us here to Galilee. It feels like we’ve been wandering in the wilderness for maybe 40 years. That would be an exaggeration but like maybe four months. It doesn’t seem like we’ve just been out in the wilderness and on our journey for just three days but that’s true. They each have had their own moments that are just really rich and memorable and all sorts of adjectives like that.
We began the day yesterday at the Dead Sea. Gosh, that seems like a while ago, but it wasn’t. There are some wildfires burning in the north and there was and is a sandstorm that had blown in, so it was kind of covering the landscape and obscuring the mountains of Jordan or Biblical Moab and everything was kind of socked in. By the end of the day my throat was getting a little scratchy. I wasn’t alone. I had asked a few people and they were feeling it too. But it was a great day.
We left the Dead Sea and our first stop was the oasis of Ein Gedi which is spoken of in the Song of Solomon. It is spoken of in the book of Ecclesiastes. It has a rich heritage with King David because this is where a couple of psalms were written. The caves near there and all throughout that region, because there are caves all throughout those mountains, were the places that David had to keep moving around on the run away from the assassins of King Saul. You can see them. You can see them very clearly. So we were just kind of pondering how they got up there. How did this happen? We contemplated how David and his men had to keep him moving around, just living on the run, and how that was never what he was looking for. He killed a giant and became a national hero and then had to run for his life for so long that you begin to understand the temperament in the psalms where he was like “Man, this isn’t fair! I didn’t do this. Help!” All that stuff becomes so apparent where you realize what it was he had to actually go through.
So we had some good time to contemplate that and enjoy the waterfall at the oasis, consider some of the stories in the Bible, especially the story of King Jehoshaphat and the horde of armies that came across the Dead Sea and up the oasis of Ein Gedi to attack Jerusalem and just the helpless feeling that the king had because they were outnumbered and outgunned completely. And how the people threw themselves on the mercy of God and how God really set an ambush and the armies that had the intention of destroying Israel ended up destroying themselves and just the implications of the hordes that we may be facing in our own lives and how stillness and trust and obedience and utterly depending on God is the posture that changes so much. So that was great.
And then we moved from there just a little bit further north to Kumaran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Of course, they were found in caves as well, for all we know caves that David would have hid in. There is no way to know. There are caves that just kind of dot the landscape there. We know he had to keep on the move. But we definitely know the scrolls were found there and so we just kind of looked at that piece of biblical history. I mean, it was such a find that some of the most ancient manuscripts of the scriptures were found. So rich in heritage.
So we got to see those caves and see how the Essene people lived out in the desert before heading to the ancient city of Jericho and interacting with a different culture and a different kind of way of life and different food, different everything. Great, great time. Lunch, shopping a little bit, interacting with the people a little bit and then seeing some of the ancient ruins of the ancient city of Jericho. Jericho is thought to be the oldest continuous civilization in the entire world. So we looked at some of that and considered the biblical narrative. Of course, Jericho was the very first city conquered when the children of Israel crossed the Jordan River into the promised land. So that is obviously very biblical and goes back to early times.
We also got to see one of King Herod’s palaces from a little bit of a distance and then also look into the Valley of the Shadow of death, literally the valley that inspired King David to write Psalm 23 as well as the exact same valley that inspired the story of the Good Samaritan that Jesus told. Yeah, that is pretty powerful stuff too.
And then it was time to leave the desert behind and a couple hour drive up here to Galilee and we’ll be looking forward to a great, great day today. So, like I’ve been saying, thank you for your prayer support and cover. We feel it. We continue to covet it. We love you for it. We know that you’re interceding for us in health and technology and travel and everything that goes into all the little moving parts. Thank you so much.
Okay, www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website. Obviously, that is the place where you find out what is going on around here. Yesterday we launched the Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box for 2016. That is now available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop, so check it out. There is a bunch of stuff in there that you’ll want to keep. A bunch of stuff that you’ll want to give away. We filled it as full as we can fill the box this year. So the Promised Land double DVD is in there. All the places that we’re visiting in person right now are in that DVD set so you can see all the places we’ve been talking about. Then there is also Bible Stories About Jesus, the age-appropriate reading of the book of Mark that we released a couple months ago. It’s a beautiful double CD set. Great. Great for the car. Great for the kids. Just a beautiful rendition of the story of Jesus, so that is in there. The Family Christmas CD project is in there. Jill’s album that was released this year on CD is in there. My latest book, Reframe, is included and then the Reframe – From the God We’ve Made to God With Us DVD, the films that we created are in there. This will be the last time those are available on DVD, so that is included. The choice of Windfarm Coffee or Windfarm Tea, one of those is in there. The Christmas Bulb that we have each year, and it is only ever available in the Christmas Box, is in there. So for 2016 it has the word healthy on it for the word for our year as well as a pack of 20 of the Daily Audio Bible Christmas cards for 2016. So it’s chockful, an absolutely beautiful package this year. So check that out. We always sell out of them. Wonderful things. Wonderful resources to give away. Wonderful resources to keep for yourself and they are available at the Daily Audio Bible Shop right now.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at www.DailyAudioBible.com. I cannot possibly thank you enough. Without us doing this together as a community, there is no way for this to even be here. So thank you for your partnership as a community to do this. I mean, really, I don’t have the right words. Thank you profoundly, humbly, beyond my ability to say. Thank you. There is a link on the home page. It lives there. Thank you for clicking it. If you use the Daily Audio Bible App, you can push the More button in the lower right-hand corner. Or if you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.
And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, (877) 942-4253 is the number to dial.
And that’s it for today. I’m Brian. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports
Hello Daily Audio Bible. This is Blessed Like Me. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I have a prayer inside of my spirit, inside of my soul. We all do but sometimes we hold those prayers in and those prayers are just like the wind that blows. Those prayers just go away. Right now I’m going to release this prayer. God, we thank you, we love you, and we bless your holy name today, Lord. We bless you for everything that you have done in our lives. We thank you for bringing us in out of the darkness and into your marvelous light. You’re such a great God. You’re a great God and you’re worthy of all of our praise. You’re worthy of all of our worship and you’re worthy of all of our attention. So right now, God, we ask you to help us to be the people that you would have us to be. Help us to be your arms and feet. Help us reach out to those that are in need. Help us see who we need to be and who needs your help. Right now, for the DAB family, God, I ask you to give us a blessing. Give us an anointing. Give everyone that is within this prayer earshot a blessing of the anointing, Lord, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, Lord. Let us grow that anointing by learning more of you, by feeding on your word. We love you and we thank you, God, for who you are in our lives. It’s the blessing that keeps on coming. It’s a blessing that helps us every day. We love you and it is you who we thank and love. It is in Jesus, Jesus, Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Love you, Brian and Jill. Thank you for this ministry. Blessed Like Me signing off.
Hello, this is Candace from Oregon. I want to pray for Brian and all that is taking place in the trip to the Holy Land. I want to pray for Jim from Central Coast of California and your son, Alexander, who, like my son, struggles with addiction to alcohol. And I want to pray for Jen and Abbie and also Jim’s daughter Cassandra. Lord, we come before you actually with so many of us who have grown children that are in really serious struggles and we lay them before your throne, Lord. Thank you that even though my cold continues to reach on, it sounds like Brian’s has completely subsided. Thank you that he sounds so good. And I pray that you keep him in top health. I pray that you bless this entire trip, Lord. Thank you for Thanksgiving. Thank you for a national holiday where we can all just stop and remember all the benefits you load us with every day. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your Holy Spirit. Thank you, Lord, for being so near to every one of us. Thank you that when we’re really struggling with anything, that is when you really come near and that you have done everything to secure an eternity together with you. Thank you that we have all this to look forward to. In Jesus’ name.
Hi my DAB family. This is Samantha calling from New Jersey. God bless everyone. I just wanted to call and wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving and a blessed time with your families and your friends as you gather together to give thanks to God for all that he has done for us. I wanted to pray over Brian and family and everyone that is traveling to Israel and have a blessed and safe trip. And if everyone could just keep me in prayer as me and my family travel to India over these holidays. You could just pray for protection and safety and peace and that God’s will be done. As my friend, Annette A. says, sometimes we think we’re going somewhere for one reason, but God has another plan. So may his will be done. And Annette, I just want to thank you for being such a source of a smile on my face. I can be having a very rough day and as soon as I hear your voice that smile just comes right on me. So thank you, Sister, for always being a source of encouragement. I love you guys and have a great day and I’ll keep in touch and let you know how India goes. Be blessed.
Hey DAB brothers and sisters. This is Byron out in Florida. I just wanted to give a big thank you to Drew in the Bay Area for your encouragement, man. It’s always good to hear your voice. And Joe the Protector, thank you, man. Alicia in Kansas, thank you for that beautiful prayer that you led us through. That was really, really awesome. I wanted to take this chance to tell you guys about what God did. I am driving now in my Prius, which is fixed. It was broken down last I called and now it is fixed. The problem was with the hybrid battery in it which was looking to be about a $2500 deal which was absolutely the worst thing that could happen given my financial situation. But God is awesome. He moved in the hearts of people to help me find favor with them, that gave me instruction on things that I can do, gave me tools and I found instruction and after hours of watching You Tube videos and __________, I was able to turn a $2500 problem into a $25 solution. God is always good. He is worthy of the glory in any situation. So thank you guys so much for your continued prayers. God is really, really awesome. There is gentleman that called. His name was Sam from New Hampshire. What you’re going through sounded really similar to what I’m going through. I’m praying for you, man. Hang in there. God is faithful. Awesome that you’re putting through the tithe. He will honor that. Obviously, he is doing it for me. Love you guys and talk to you later. Bye.
Hey. Blessings Daily Audio Bible family. This is Cliff, aka in some places Brother Simon. I am just so blessed by this community, the connectivity. The opportunity to connect like this around the world is just awesome. I love praying with many of you, my family, our family in the body of Christ and the DAB family. I have a request here. I work with young people and there is a mother that I’ve known for many years, one of the mothers of the young people that I work with that I have known a little bit of her story. I know that she has just had a rough life just to put it lightly and directly. Just sitting down with her and the family, I heard a little bit more of the story, but it provided the opportunity to share the gospel, just to connect with her and to share the good news of Jesus Christ and the gospel. I think she was receptive. There is a lot going on. There is a lot going on in her heart and a lot going on with her, but she was receptive enough. Also she is very open to things I send, videos I send. There is a video I made a couple of years ago called Jesus Saves, __________ powerful testimony. I sent that to her. She watched that. She is very receptive to watch things I send so yeah, just praying that the Lord will use all that to draw her. I do believe she will be powerful and be used greatly in the kingdom. I believe, yes, she needs a powerful encounter with love and the love of God so please remember her. Her name is Nicole. God bless.
My name is Teri. I’m calling from the Heartland of Missouri. I’m a first-time caller and I find so much strength in listening to the word and to this community every single day. I come today to my DAB family to ask for support and prayer as my baby sister battles a recent diagnosis. She was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. Needless to say, we’re devastated. I’m the oldest of three girls and we led a turbulent childhood with an alcoholic father who abused our mother. We witnessed many things children should never see. Our mother was a strong person and held us together and provided for us and brought us to adulthood. I know it wasn’t easy for her. My baby sister has continued a turbulent life that included rape, being robbed at gunpoint, a gambling addiction, severe anxiety and an abusive marriage as well as having a daughter with cerebral palsy who is now 17 and a son with an anxiety disorder and an eating disorder who is only 13. She recently was becoming a stronger person. She left the abusive relationship after 20 years. She quit smoking and was turning her life around when we received the horrible news of cancer invading our family. My whole family is turned upside down. My mother who is 74 is having such a horrible time of this. We’re all suffering this domino effect. We’re broken and we need lifted up. I know God knows what our future holds and I need prayer for us to handle this with grace and strength and love. Thank you for your prayers. I love you, DAB family.