05/15/2017 DAB Transcript

1 Samuel 17:1-18:4 ~ John 8:21-30 ~ Psalm 111:1-10 ~ Proverbs 15:11

Today is May 15th.  Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible.  I’m Brian. Like I say every day, it’s great to be here with you today.  How are you? Man, some mornings I’m like super tired, especially if a lot has been going on.  And a lot has been going on.  Ever get like that where it takes an extra little bit to kind of get fully locked and loaded into your day?  But I have found that the scriptures, no matter what, they kind of speak to the heart, speak to a different place inside of us so we’re going to pick up where we left off yesterday.  We’ve met David now and we’re going to get to know David really well and David and Saul’s interaction are going to become center stage pretty soon mostly because of what we’re about to read today.  So here we go, 1 Samuel chapter 17, verse 1 through 18, verse 4 and we’re reading from the Names of God Bible this week.  

Commentary

Okay, so 1 Samuel, battle of David and Goliath where David kills Goliath, one of the most famous stories in all of the Bible launches us fully into the story of David.  The story of David and the story of Saul are going to be intertwined for a while and it’s going to get a little on the ugly side and we’ll understand this as we go forward, but it kind of starts here.  I mean, all of a sudden there is this kid David, a shepherd, a kid that has just been sent to check on his brothers who are in the army who all of a sudden becomes a military hero, a national hero and does something that everybody else was afraid to do, so all of a sudden with one event David goes from an obscure shepherd to a national celebrity and that is not exactly what David was even looking for.  I mean, all of this, according to the scriptures, was motivated first of all by Goliath’s defiance of God.  That is something David was hearing and listening to and wanted to fight against, but the pot was sweetened.  The person that could go kill Goliath was going to get to marry the king’s daughter and was going to find riches and was going to be elevated.  The status of the family was going to be elevated in class. So David would have gone out and fought Goliath just for the sake of defending God’s name, but this other stuff, he’s thinking I watch sheep, I’m never going to get a shot like this again.

So there is this valley, the Valley of Elah, it does exist.  All of these places that are mentioned identifying the valley, they exist too.  This valley was sort of like a borderland.  Actually, it was just kind of inside the borders of Israel at the time and there were cities along that valley on both sides of the valley that kind of wound their way and were the border between Philistia and Israel at the time, so the cities that are named Azekah and Sokoh and Ephes-dammim and Shaaraim.  Well, Ephes-dammim is just like an area.  There is nothing excavated there, but Azekah was at the far end of the Valley of Elah and then next would be Shaaraim and then next would be Sokoh and then on down the valley would be a place called Adullam and we’ll visit that place.  We visited it in the book of Genesis.  You’ll have to go look it up, but we’ll visit that place again with David.  He is going to need to spend some time there and we’ll understand as the story goes.  This is a real place where real events happened that kind of changed the course of the history of the Bible and the history of the Hebrew people as this man David begins to take prominence, begins to become known, begins to gain some momentum. He has quite the future in front of us.

So when you keep looking at Saul, even as we’re looking at David, because both of these figures in biblical history are true, you’ll see truly rich and deep mirrors into our own hearts and our own stories.  

Prayer

Father, we thank you for your Word and we thank you for the myriad of ways that it speaks to us, the different ways, the stories, the emotions, the drama, the intrigue, the history, all opening our hearts not only to our biblical ancestors, but to ourselves.  So we invite you, Father, as we continue to move forward.  By the power of your Holy Spirit, speak to us about the choices that we’re making and the places that we’re headed in our lives, because you’ve given us your Word to show us where those places go.  So come Holy Spirit and lead we ask.  In Jesus’ name, amen.  

Announcements

Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website.  It’s home base.  It’s definitely where you find out what is going on around here.  There is always something.  We’ve been talking for a little bit about the fact that we’ll be going back here, so we’ll be going back to the Valley of Elah, this place, this story, everything we just talked about.  We’ll get to see that when we’re back in the land of the Bible.  We’ll be going back in February of 2018, so February 19th through March 4th and just letting you know you can come. You can get all the details at www.DailyAudioBible.com.  Just kind of scroll down, look for Israel 2018.  There is a banner and you’ll find out what you need to know.  Or go to www.DailyAudioBibleIsrael.com.  That will be like a direct link to what you’re looking for.  Looking forward to sharing this time with you on the other side, in the land of the Bible.  So yeah, you’re invited.  

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible in the common mission that we share to continue to bring the spoken Word of God every single day, then thank you profoundly.  Thank you for your partnership.  There is a link.  It’s on the home page of www.DailyAudioBible.com.  If you use the Daily Audio Bible App, you can press the More button in the lower right-hand corner.  And if you prefer the mail, 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 family.  This is Candace from Oregon.  Oh, it is so good to hear from you, Brian, every day, especially the reading of the Word and your comments about it.  I’m a bit behind.  I didn’t get to hear the last two community prayers so I’m just starting to catch up on that, so I just heard Jen from SoCal, your beautiful prayer for my daughter. I’m going to prevail upon you all to pray for all three of my children once again.  Lord, thank you for everything you are doing.  How many times over these 40 years that I’ve been a mom I have said to you, Lord, whatever it takes, whatever it takes, that they might come into relationship with you, Lord.  Please keep me, keep all of us parents from harming our children in any way. Help us not to be any stumbling block, but only a conduit, only an encouragement toward that relationship with you, Lord.  We ask these things in Jesus’ name.  Thank you, Lord, for this place where we can agree together on this.  We pray also for our grandchildren, Lord.  May they come to know you and walk with you.  May we be people who only encourage that and never, ever stand in the way of it.  Help us, Lord, to do good and not harm, in Jesus’ name.  

Hi everybody.  It’s Lisa the Encourager.  I’m calling tonight for my dear, sweet friend Christy from Kentucky.  She is going through a real battle with her mom and an illness that she’s going through and that is why she hasn’t been able to call in, I think, for a while.  For those of you who don’t know, her mom has been sick and she has posted some things on Facebook and we’ve been praying for her.  Christy draws these gorgeous pictures every, I don’t know how often she does them, but she paints them and incorporates our names with art while she’s praying for us in the community prayer and all the people out there in Daily Audio Bible.  I just wanted to say this to you, Christy, out of love, just wrote this for you.  I pray that God draws you a picture of all his love as he walks on water and reaches out to your troubled spirit and he points out to you a flock of birds with their vibrant tapestry of feathers in the sky reminding you, Christy, that you are even more valuable and precious to him. You are a lily in the valley and he is the refreshing beam, the sun of light that will hold you up.  God will part this water with his miraculous, comforting hand and never fail you because he will be the strength of your heart and portion forever.  His peace will transcend all understanding.  And I love you, I love you, I love you and I’m praying for you and your mom and your dad.  Amen.  

Hello everyone.  My name is Ashley and I’m calling from Virginia.  I have two prayer requests.  The first is my cousin went home to be with the Lord and we have every reason to believe that she is in heaven now based on her testimony of the work of Jesus Christ in her life, but her family is really struggling as she died of a heroin overdose.  So I just pray that you could wrap your arms around her family, her husband and her two little kids by just lifting them up in prayer.  And the second request is as Mother’s Day is coming, I am thankful for my mother, but I am just asking that the Lord would bless my husband and I with a baby We have been asking for this for almost three years and I just pray that God will open my womb and I ask that all of you will pray for that for me as well.  In Jesus’ name.  And thank you so much and God bless you all.  Bye-bye.

Hi, this is Diane from Pennsylvania.  I feel led to read this reading from The Message Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, the Way of Love. If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but a creaky, rusty gate.  If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain jump and it jumps but I don’t love I’m nothing.  If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr but I don’t love I’ve gone nowhere.  So no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.  Love never gives up.  Love cares more for others than for self.  Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.  Love doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a swelled head, doesn’t force itself on others, isn’t always me first, doesn’t fly off the handle, doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, doesn’t revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back but keeps going on to the end.  Love never dies.  Inspired speech will be over someday, praying in tongues will end, understanding will reach its limit.  We know only a portion of the truth and what we say about God is always incomplete, but when the complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.  When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like an infant.  When I grew up I left the infant ways for good.  We don’t yet see things clearly.  We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist.

Hello my beautiful brothers and sisters.  This is Dawn calling from New York and I’m calling on the Saturday of Mother’s Day weekend and I just want to wish a Happy Mother’s Day and ask God to encourage all the moms who are working hard to love their families.  And I also wanted to remember that we have people among us who’ve lost moms this year.  I know it to be such a hard time.  It is a hard time, especially the first holiday without your mom on Mother’s Day. So we pray for you, Brian, and your family.  We pray for sweet Lana in Canada, you’ve lost your mom this year too, and so many others. So God have mercy on all of you and comfort you and we know it is a hard time.  And I would also like to pray for all among us who would like to be moms.  It is a tough holiday for people who wish they had children as the celebrations are going on all around, so dear Jesus, we ask you to have mercy on all of our sweet friends among us who have grieving hearts this weekend and we ask you for your encouragement to them and your comfort, Lord for those who lost moms, for those who wish they were moms, for those who might be estranged from their children, for those who might be having a hard time with them.  We ask you, O God, to please wrap your arms around them and comfort them.  We do ask you also, God, to please strengthen all those moms out there who are loving on their families and need that extra strength from you.  We thank you, God, for your grace among us.  In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.