02/07/2018 DAB Transcript

Exodus 26:1-27:21, Matthew 25:1-30, Psalms 31:1-8, Proverbs 8:1-11

Today is the 7th day of February. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it’s great to be here with you. It’s a bit of a travel day. I’ll be heading out to California for this evening. But we can talk about that in a little bit. Let’s dive in and take the next step forward as we move deeper into and through the Bible this year. We’re reading from the Good News Translation this week and we’ll pick up where we left off.  Exodus chapter 26 and 27 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, Jesus told two stories, also known as parables, about the kingdom of heaven. One story about waiting for the bridegroom to arrive. There were ten young women waiting for the bridegroom and the other story was about a master who put three of his servants in charge of a pretty good deal of resources and asked them to use them wisely in his absence. And in these stories, some were able to enter into the presence of the king or the master and enjoy fellowship and the others weren’t. So, if we were to distill this down, what characteristics shape the people that were able to enter into the presence of the bridegroom or the master? Readiness, awareness, vigilance, preparedness, patience, risk, faithfulness, loyalty, wisdom. And there are probably other characteristics that we could name. So, there’s a famous passage of Scripture, of course, in the second story. The well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful. Right? You have been faithful in little, so I will put you in charge of much. Come in, enjoy my happiness, share in my happiness. We’re all longing to hear that. But are we aware? Are we vigilant? Are we prepared? Are we willing to risk it all? Remember just a few days ago we talked about friendship with God is for those who fear Him and how that requires risking it all, including our identity? These are the characteristics required to receive the ‘well done good and faithful servant’ in these stories. And, so, they are the characteristics that we need to cultivate and live into. And we won’t be able to do that without wisdom.

And wisdom is speaking today in our reading from Proverbs 8. I don’t mean, like, it’s speaking metaphorically. I mean, the voice of wisdom is speaking on behalf of herself today. And she’s saying…she’s everywhere calling out to anyone who will listen. And I refer to wisdom as ‘she’ because wisdom is referred to in the feminine in the book of Proverbs. So, she’s saying, I am everywhere. I’m trying to make myself heard. I’m on the hilltops. I’m at the roadways. I’m at the crossroads. I’m at the entrances to the cities. I’m calling out. I’m appealing to you. So, we’re being told that wisdom is available, but we will have to cultivate it. We will have to become friends. We will have to slow down enough to consider wisdom in our choices. But it is available.

So, if our lives are kind of swinging from chaos to chaos and we feel like we’re living upside down most of the time, we probably are. And we’re probably not exhibiting the characteristics that Jesus talks about in the parables that He gave describing His kingdom. And we’re probably not slowing down enough to cultivate and become intimate friends with wisdom. And we’re going to see, as we go forward from this point how wisdom speaks. Like, we should pay very keen attention to when we come to reading the Proverbs each day. And we even have a resource here at Daily Audio Bible called Daily Audio Proverb. It’s a chapter from the book of Proverbs going through the entire book of Proverbs each month to simply pour this unfiltered wisdom of the ages into our hearts and lives. But as we move through the book of Proverbs, we should pay attention. This is wisdom. And wisdom claims, in today’s reading, noting you want can compare with me. Alright, so, like, that’s either the truth or it’s not. But if we consider the things that we’re passionate about are the things that are pulling us in a lot of different directions because we’re trying to achieve them or gain them and then we consider wisdom and we realize we want these other things more than we want wisdom so we’re not willing to slow down and consider the path of wisdom, well, then we don’t want wisdom more than we want those things. And we are upside down. Nothing we want can compare with wisdom, and if we can live in an intimate relationship with wisdom, then we will be vigilant. We will be faithful. We will be aware. We will be prepared. We will understand how to risk. We will hear, ‘well done’. So, let’s begin to pay very keen and close attention to the words of wisdom found in the Proverbs, found from the lips of Jesus, and found in the lives of many of the people that we’ll meet along the way in the Bible. We’ll also meet a lot of people who ignore wisdom. And we can see, if we’re looking, where these paths lead. And we get to choose what path we’re going to walk. Is it going to be the narrow path that leads to life? Then we’re going to need wisdom to walk that path. So, the best thing we can do, right now, is commit ourselves to understanding and gaining wisdom more than gaining anything else because the counsel is, if we gain wisdom, we can gain anything.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for the counsel of wisdom. We thank You this gift that You’re offering to us, that’s calling to us from everywhere and we’re ignoring it because we’re too busy, we’re too distracted, we’re too in the midst of all kinds of chaos when wisdom simply calls and calls and calls. We’re listening now. And, so, we pray the Psalm that we read today. We come to You, Lord, for protection.  Never let us be defeated.  You are a righteous God. Save us, we pray. Hear us.  Save us now.  Be our refuge to protect us. Be our defense. Save us. You are our refuge and defense. Guide and lead us as You’ve promised. Keep us safe from the trap that has been set for us. Shelter us from danger. We place ourselves in Your care. You will save us, Lord. You are a faithful God. So, Holy Spirit, we invite You to lead us into all truth. We invite You to help us be vigilant and pay attention to the voice of wisdom. Teach us how to follow her paths. Teach us how to listen to her counsel. Come, Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website. Home base. It’s where you find out what’s going on around here.

I will be travelling from here all the way to the west coast and I’ll be speaking in Bakersfield, California this evening at New Life Church. So, looking forward to that very much. Been looking forward to it for a while. So, glad that the day has finally arrived. Looking forward to seeing you. Come out and say hello if you’re in the area. You can get the details at dailyaudiobible.com in the Events section. So, phone numbers, websites, maps, times. All that, you can find at dailyaudiobible.com.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your partnership. So, there’s a link on the homepage. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is P.O Box, 1996, Spring Hill, Tennessee, 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 and Praise:

I love You Lord oh my strength for it is You who light my lamp. The Lord my God lightens my darkness for by You I can do anything. I can man against a troop. By You I can leap over a wall. I can face this day Lord. I can face that ever-growing to do list that I’m not sure what to do about and I can ask for help. You are my strength. You light my darkness. You’re my lamp and my guide. Help me focus on You this day to face the seemingly impossible tasks, what is before me. Your law Lord is perfect. It revives the soul. Your testimony Lord is sure, making wise the simple. Your precepts Lord are right rejoicing the heart. Your commandments Lord are pure and lightening our lives. The fear of You Lord is clean enduring forever. Your laws Lord are true and life altogether. Father God help me focus on what is true and just and honorable and all those things that we focus on your word today and keep my eyes where they should be. And please Lord keep me back from willful sin and presumptuous sins. Things, the habits I fall back on when I’m in trouble, when I’m stressed, those habits that I have that aren’t good, that keep me from the Lord, let them not have them lean over me, help me develop good habits, that I can reach for You, that I can rejoice, that I cannot be anxious about anything because I can talk to You and give them to You in prayer so that Your peace which passes all understanding covers me. By the words of my mouth and the lamentation of my heart in Your sight oh Lord my rock and my Redeemer. In Jesus name. Amen. Beloved by Him from Gloucester in the UK.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family. My name is Shelley and this is my first time calling in. I’ve been listening to the Daily Audio Bible for about three months now. I was turned onto it from a cousin of mine who said You have got to check out this app, you will love it and I absolutely do. I just want to say that I’ve been listening to a lot of the prayer requests. Yesterday, I spent about four hours listening to everyone and I just want to pray for all of you, for those that are seeking promotions in your jobs and direction in your career such as myself. I’m seeking the Lord to remove me from place, my current place of employment, and give me the confidence, give me the confidence to venture out and use the skills that He’s given me and the talents. And I want everyone to know that you do have a purpose, and God is showing you your purpose and you just have to listen and stay in prayer. And I’ll be praying for each and every one of you and all of your prayers, your prayer request really touched my heart and I’ve been listening to everyone. And I can’t remember every name, but I just want to say I am praying for those who are heartbroken right now, who are going through issues with their family and the children, and those who are sad through divorce, I know how that feels, and those who have illnesses or health issues I currently suffer from vertigo and sometimes it really prohibits me from being well enough to do certain things, but the Lord, over the past year, has been slowly healing that and I’m thankful for Him doing that as well. And I want to just let everyone know that, just keep Your faith, keep praying, but God does answer our prayers. And sometimes I shake my fist and say Lord when are You going to answer this prayer? I’ve been praying every day and…

Hi DAB family this is Katie __ from Pennsylvania and I am just praising God so much today. Thank you, Brian, Jill, and family, for everything that you do. And I just pray for strength for your entire family. Family I just want to praise God, praise God for all that he has done in the last five years, six years even. In my life He started cleaning me up about five years ago, about, maybe five years ago. And I started a personal Bible study in the book of Job and I was being strongly convicted about my behavior at the time. I was living with someone I wasn’t married to and I had a lot of other problems. And after reading the book of Job I started to seek Him harder and I let go of that relationship. Praise God for strengthening me. And then I started to seek Him more, a personal study. And I was able to, through a friend, find out about this community and I’m so grateful, so grateful. This is my third year through the Bible with you and I just thank you. There have been a lot of other physical ailments along the way. There has been a possible pituitary tumor…

Greetings this is Deborah or Hope Never Failith in Northern California. I’m calling with a praise report. It’s a little overdue but I think it’s just beginning to sink in. After eight months I sold my second house. The mortgage closed a couple weeks ago. I received the profits, was able to pay off the debt that I owed, and I am now financially fit again. Thank you so much for everybody who prayed for me, especially Lisa the encourager. It meant a lot to me to hear somebody praying for me. Life is always a challenge and Hope never Failith has been my motto since I was 17. More than 40 years ago, you can do the math. Anyway, I was thrilled to hear that it was Brian’s word of the year. I look at hope as the same as trusting in God, where trusting that things will get better, where trusting that His plan for our life will unfold, where trusting that He’s going to love us always and take care of us. I pray that all of you seeing that peace that comes from hope and trust in the Lord. Thank You Brian and Jill. Thank You the entire DAB family. I pray for everyone daily. In Jesus name. Amen.

So, don’t You love how God works sometimes guys. I’m sitting here laughing. Just a couple days ago I listened to a call from a gentleman, I forget your name, I apologize, from Canada, who was in a hurry for an appointment, didn’t have time to pull over to help somebody that was stuck. Today, up in Saskatchewan, where we had a good blizzard going, I’m a mail carrier, I had an appointment like immediately after I was done work. And, so, I was hustling all day today. And wouldn’t you know, I look over and there’s this guy, his tires of just spinning away, and I looked at it and in that split-second decision I said, I don’t have time for this I’ve got to keep going. So, I turned away and I started walking away and like in that split-second I thought of your call and I had to turn back. I’m like okay, okay, I get it. See how the Holy Spirit’s moving. So, because of your call the other day, it made me aware to that moving, and I turn around. It took me like five minutes. I got the guy out. So, I thank you for your call. He thanks you, even though he didn’t know about you or your call. He thanks you for your call. Yeah, God’s moving people. We’ve got to be attentive to when He’s moving and say yes, which I reluctantly did today and here I am about 40 minutes early for my appointment. So, yeah, God’s funny sometimes. I love it. Love You guys. I Appreciate the call again. And we’ll talk to You again soon. Bye.

Good morning, it’s Beloved by Him from Gloucester in the UK. Father Jesus this is my second call of the morning. I called in __ the morning when I was in Gloucester. I’ve driven to work and listened to Wednesday, 31st of January’s podcast and __ Brian. Thank You for wrestling with that piece of Scripture. Thank You… And thank You for sharing that with us. I’m going to have to spend plenty of time now getting my head around it and getting my heart in the right place for it. So, yeah. Guys if you haven’t listened to 31st of January yet, listen to it. If you have listened to it, listen to it again and get our heads around it because that is what it’s all about isn’t it. Father God, thank You that we can be Your friend. Thank You that You want us to be Your friend. And Father God, help us to be a better friend. Help us make the time to get our heads around what it actually means to see You and get our hearts in the right place in our attitudes in the right place. In Jesus precious name. Amen. Thank you very much Brian as always. I hope you guys have a blessed day wherever You are. Bye.