12/05/2017 DAB Transcript

Hosea 1:1-3:5, 1 John 5:1-21, Psalms 124:1-8, Proverbs 29:5-8

Today is the 5th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It’s a pleasure and an honor to be here with you today. It’s so good to be here with you every day as we keep taking a step forward every day that leads us through the whole Bible in a year. And speaking of our progress, we finished the book of Daniel yesterday, we will finish first John today, but having completed Daniel, that leads us to the book of Hosea. So, let’s talk about that a little bit.

Hosea:

The theme of marriage is often used in the Bible to represent God’s love for His people, especially in the Old Testament between God and those He was in covenant with, the children of Israel. And the truth is, there is no better metaphor, because we often find God’s people off with other lovers committing adultery, as it were. And God’s reaction to this is very understandable. And, often when we’re reading about vengeful wrath that seems over the top, we’re actually reading the words of a scorned lover who deeply cares for his lost love. And nowhere in the Bible is this more clearly presented than in the book of Hosea, a book of prophecy. Because God asks Hosea to use his very life as living prophecy. The instruction to marry a prostitute named Gomer, and this represents the idolatry, adultery, and harlotry of Israel. The couple of children and each child is given a prophetic name that speaks directly to Israel. And then Gomer is unfaithful. Hosea divorces her as God thrusts away Israel and in an about-face, Hosea goes in pursuit of Gomer, once again. And this woman, who has been unfaithful, who was played the harlot, actually has to be purchased back, which Hosea does, representing God’s passion for His people, even to the point of rescuing and buying them back, buying back what He loves. It’s a beautiful picture of God’s love for us and we’ll find in Hosea. And we also get a good picture of our betrayal when we chase after other lovers and its impact on God. Most of us have experienced a broken heart or had a sense of betrayal at one point or another in our lives. The book of Hosea gives us a good picture of what that looks like from God’s eyes. And, so, we begin. Hosea 1:1 through 3:5 and we’re reading from the English Standard Version this week.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for every day, something new, something that moves things inside of us. We thank You for all of the people that we’ve been able to meet in the Scriptures this year, all of the narratives and stories, all of the letters and accounts of Your work in this world, and Your hopeful and redemptive nature, Your patience and kindness toward us. And we are grateful, and with great anticipation, looking forward to all that You have yet to speak through Your word. So, our hearts are open. Come, Holy Spirit. Continue to perfect Your love in us as we love one another. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website. It’s home base. It’s where you find out what’s going on around here. And there’s plenty going on around here, but something new today.

We have an annual tradition around here. It’s kind of our annual Christmas party for the Daily Audio Bible community. And, of course, we’re far-flung, we’re all over the world. Wouldn’t it be fun if we could all get together? But for now, it’s a virtual party. And we do this by just hearing from each other, Christmas wishes and we read through the Christmas story together. And Jill and I, we talk for a little while about the past year and talk about our hopes for next year and even our word for next year. And it’s just a beautiful time and we all get to participate. So, here’s the deal. Starting today, you can call in your holiday wishes and greetings to the Daily Audio Bible community at large. And we’ll do this for about a week and collect them all together and then put this whole thing together. And in a couple weeks we’ll have the Daily Audio Bible family Christmas 2017. So, there aren’t a lot of rules about this, but there are some instructions. There are no new numbers to call. Our normal prayer line 877-942-4253 is the number. Of course, we have a couple of other numbers. If you are in the UK or Europe, you can call 44-20-3608-8078, or if you are in Australia or in the lands down under, 61-3-8820-5459 is a number you can call. Of course, those are the other prayer request numbers. You just use that line and call in your holiday greeting. Here is the only instruction. If you actually have a prayer request, don’t combine that with the holiday greeting.  Call in your holiday greeting then call back with your prayer request. That keeps everything focused and moving in the right direction. We just don’t have the capacity to edit all of that. So, just make them separate. You can start doing that today and we’ll do this for about a week and begin putting this all together. It’s a beautiful time. I mean, there are many things that happen Daily Audio Bible community in any given year that can bring me to tears, but our family Christmas gathering is definitely one of those things. It’s just beautiful to reflect back. And just so wonderful to hear holiday greetings from around the world, inside this community. So, jump on that and you can start today.

The other things are going on are the annual Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box that is chock full of goodies, some you’ll want to keep, some that you’ll want to give away. And it's…I mean…they always go fast. We always sell out of them. So, check that out. You can find it at dailyaudiobible.com in the shop, in the Christmas section.

And then we’ve been mentioning the More Gathering for women, our annual women’s conference that will take place this coming April. Early registration is open for that, along with early registration pricing that lasts till the end of the year. You can find out all about it at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section. All the details, everything that you’d need to know or want to know can be found there. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link that’s right on the homepage. And, certainly, thank you for your partnership here at the end of the year. If you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And as always if you have a prayer request or, 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:

Morning everybody. This is a call for whoever said they were praying for their coworker fighting cancer. They have multiple jobs and can’t pay the bills. So, I pray Lord Jesus, please lift up this coworker in Your name. Thank You for putting them on their colleagues heart and I pray that You will give them the word to  encourage to facilitate in their daily walk and if they are not with You Lord, I pray that You will bring them to Your heart and make a way for them to be saved. I pray also for Gloria and Tony, who both their parents are fighting Parkinson’s disease and dementia ___ as well. And I pray that You will make a way for them to be helped in any way possible. Thank You Jesus for Your love and Your kindness ___ authority ___ them. Please increase that. ___ in whatever way ___ Lord that you can make a way. Thank You. And all those with anxiety ___. And the lady’s daughter struggling with bi-polar, lift them up Lord. Thank you. Amen. Bye guys.

Hello everyone. This is Tammy, Wrapped in the Arms of Jesus from Pennsylvania and I just want to call and let…I believe it was Sharif from Canada that called a while back and I’m kind of a little nervous about calling. She called about my granddaughter that went into psych ward. She’s home. They stayed with me for the summer and I worked with her mom and my son to help them understand bi-polar more. And also, I need prayer…just for my life in general. I have no idea where it’s supposed to go. I’m struggling with, not just my alcohol addiction, but also sin, sexual sin, and lust over someone that is from my past. So, I want to thank everybody and I pray with everybody. As I hear every prayer, I pray with you. I’m always listening. I’m always praying and I love DAB and I would not know what to do or how to be without it if I didn’t start my day with it. And thank you, Brian, Jill and everyone behind the scenes doing all this. And the guy that mentioned Tumblr. Thanks, that’s so great that we have that there so we can go back and listen and actually follow with each and every one of the days. So, I hope you guys have a great day and a wonderful Christmas and I’ll talk to you all soon. Take care. God Bless you all. Thank you.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible people. This is Diane Olive B. from Newburgh Indiana. And it is November 30th at a few minutes before 8 in the morning. And I really feel like I want to call in this morning to confess and repent and to be forgiven. I have had diabetes for over 20 years. It’s type 2 diabetes but lately I’ve been out of control in my eating and my A1C is at 11. It should be around 7. And I just want to repent and confess to you all that I’m sorry and I ask for your prayers. And I thank you. And Father, I just…I’m sorry I’ve been so out of control and I ask for Your help and I humble myself before You, Your throne of mercy and grace. And I ask for Your mercy and Your help. And I thank You for this community. I pray for this community and I know that the Lord has heard and answered my prayers. Thank you and God bless you. Shalom, shalom.

Hello. This is Mary from Mississippi. This is my 3rd year listening to the DAB and I am so thankful to God for the strength in the family from the DAB. I just called to just say I’m just grateful to God just for being a member. When I found myself drifting away and going about my own thinking I said…oh…go back to the DAB. Get back on that every day. And that has been my strength. There’s power in hearing the word of God every day of my life and I share it with everybody that I know. I do call to the DAB just praying for everyone that has prayer requests. And mine, specifically, is for the youth of our world, they are disconnected with the Scriptures and the way we were brought up and I just pray for the youth of our world that they believe ___ God’s word and that we, as strong believers, would be an example to them and share with them our plight. It was not as easy for us but to staying true to the bible, staying true to God’s word, has been a light in my life and I’m sure it can be a light in our youth life. So, I just want the DAB to pray for our youth in the world, that they would draw back to the word of God and draw less to the world. Thank you for Jill. Thank you for Brian for bringing this podcast to the world and Merry Christmas to you all. Bye-bye.

Hey family. Drew from the Bay Area. Listen, I’m calling today to give thanks to this family and encourage some of you. Give you a little history. Many of you know me for a while. I believe that the Holy Spirit led me to this family back in 2011. I was a broken man. I give thanks to this family and I don’t think I would be here today without your encouragement and your love. I’m holding back tears now and I’ve been praying for you the last hour and a half with tears of joy and sadness, and coming to more and more knowledge of the truth. Brian, you are amazing. We’ve watched you grow and grow and grow. And what you’ve done for us is immeasurable. I know that God deserves all the glory, but we thank you and Jill. There’s people like Glenn who called in that are addicted, and people like me that call in that are broken and don’t know what to do with our lives, we’re confused, we’ve lost our identity. But family, we’re spiritual beings and one thing I found out is that this is eternal, that what we are going through, it seems it’s so big, but really, in the grand scheme of things, we’re a part of God’s plan. And just worshiping Him here is probably the most important thing that we do every day. If you look at your life and what you’re going through, it’s like a couple grains of sand in your hand compared to all the grains of sand in the whole world. And when we all come together it’s so important, what we do and what we say, how we pray…