12/13/2018 DAB Transcript

Obadiah 1:1-21, Revelation 4:1-11, Psalms 132:1-18, Proverbs 29:24-25

Today is the 13th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is a pleasure to be here with you today, taking another step forward as we continue the journey through the Scriptures. And…well…the journey never ends but years do and we are winding our way toward the end of the year, If you weren’t aware, like if you’ve been sleeping for the last couple months. And we’ve been moving rather rapidly Old and New Testaments through short letters in the New Testament and we’ve finally landed ourselves in the final book of the New Testament, Revelation, but we are continuing to kind of…I don’t want to say we’re speeding our way through the minor prophets because we’re not rushing, it’s just each day’s reading is leading us through the minor prophets, which are shorter and today’s no different. We will read in its entirety the book of Obadiah.

Introduction to Obadiah:

Obadiah happens to be the shortest book in the Old Testament. And even though within the text Obadiah identifies himself as the author almost nothing is known about him other than that his name means servants of Yahweh. And this name, Obadiah, this wasn’t an uncommon name. So, dating the prophecy is hard. The general consensus among biblical scholars is that Obadiah was probably contemporary with Jeremiah and that his prophetic work using Babylon’s conquest of Jerusalem as its context. And if this is right it would date Obadiah to the late 500’s B.C. As far as content the book of Obadiah contains 21 versus and yet it deals with a much longer running family issue and it heralds the doom and destruction for the Edomites. And we might be like, the Edomites, who are they, what’s the point? But if we’ll go back now, if we’ll reflect back to the beginning of the year, back to where we started on our journey through the Bible we’ll have to remember the story of Jacob and Esau, right? And Jacob’s name was changed to Israel. And, so, his descendants became, obviously, the children of Israel because that’s who they were. Esau’s descendants, they flourished and prospered as well, and they became known as the Edomites. So, when God delivered the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt the Edomites, their kin, wouldn’t allow their relatives to past through their land as they travelled toward their own land of promise. And at other points in history while Israel was being attacked the Edomites, they just stood by with hands in their pockets and watched it happen. And this wasn’t always like a silent kind of hostility, passive hostility. The Edomites, they had been willing to pillage their own kin while they were suffering, and God was less than pleased and ultimately the complete destruction of Edom was announced in Obadiah. But we have good enough application for this message in our own time. I mean, as believers, we each have been redeemed through Christ and therefore we each have become children of God. We are family. All too often we witness our brothers and sisters at war with each other or standing by silently, right, hands in your pockets as brothers and sisters suffer. And we might even smugly believe they are getting what they deserve. And the book of Obadiah rejects this posture outright and it gives us a picture of God’s displeasure with that kind of arrogance. And, so, we begin and will read it in its entirety the book of Obadiah. And we’re reading from the New International Version this week.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word, we thank you for another step forward in it, we thank you for community as we take this journey through it, we thank you for the book of Obadiah and what it represents. Yes, we have judged our brothers and sisters plenty and we see that that’s not helpful in any way. We thank you for the book of Proverbs that tells us, fear of man will prove to be a snare and this is probably our biggest snare, to be in comparison with and in fear of our fellow brothers and sisters in the world but we’re told that whoever trusts in you, whoever receives their identity from you and not by the fear of man or the comparison to each other, that person is kept safe. So come Holy Spirit because these are some of the biggest strongholds of our faith journey, judging and being in fear and in comparison with each other. So, you’ve touched on some of the A-list of things that we struggle with on this day alone. And, so, we invite you into this. Come Holy Spirit, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudibible.com is the website, its home base, its where you find out what’s going on.

And it’s Christmas time. And, so, like yeah, in like two weeks. We’ve been talking about the annual Daily Audio Bible family Christmas Box for 2018. And that is available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop. And if you’re in the United States, we can still ship them to you to arrive in time for Christmas. So be sure to check it out. Its full of goodies and there’ll be things in there that you’ll want for your own personal library, resources that you will want to use as you continue your relationship with the Scriptures and then they’ll be things in there that you feel like you know exactly who needs to receive it. And, so, the Promised Land DVD set, the Essential Pilgrim’s edition, which is two DVDs, four hours of content allowing you to see for yourself with your own eyes the places where so many of the stories that we’ve spent so much time in in the Scriptures this year, where they actually happened, what it actually looks like. So, that’s in the box as well as two of my books, Reframe and Sneezing Jesus. And these are books that take a really hard look at some of the things that we say and some of the things that we believe as Christians. But what do we mean when we say them? And what is this faith of ours supposed to actually do beyond saving our souls for eternity? Like what is it supposed to do while we’re here, while we’re now? And, man it’s my best shot and I can’t think of a better way to approach the new year than to consider the conversations that are in those books. Also, my friend Robert has written a book called Going Solo and I’ve talked about that a number of times. I wrote the forward to that book because it is such an important topic. The book is called Going Solo and it’s about being a single parent, which is all…which are thousands of us here in this community. But it’s very unlikely that none of us, you know, like, aren’t touched by this. We all know someone that is that is wading through and trying to navigate that new normal. And this book does a good job of being a friend and a comforter and a counselor. It does a lot more than just give a pat on the back, it gives some practical advice and some practical tools for the way forward. And, so, you know, I mean, we put this resource in the Christmas box this year because it’s just an under supported topic and it needs to be supported. And, so, if you are a solo parent then this is for you. And if you know a solo parent in your life, then this could really help. So, that’s included in the box this year. The Daily Audio Bible Christmas bulb for 2018 with our word for the year which was “Hope” is in the Christmas box. And the Christmas Box is the only place to get this for your tree. It’s…what what we do in my family anyways…we certainly have them on our tree because it’s our way of welcoming the whole community into Christmas time around our Christmas tree. And I just look at those every year from the years gone by and just think of all of the different words the Lord is spoken, all of the different voices that we’ve encountered…just…they represent a whole year in the Bible so they represent a lot. So, those are available in the Christmas Box. You have your choice of our Windfarm coffee or tea as well a pack of the Christmas cards for the year, which have our word for the year, “Hope”, on the front of them and they’re beautiful ,beautiful cards and great for sending to your friends and family. And then the Black Wing. We have a Black Wing pencil, which we love around here. They’re great for journaling. They go so well with all of our writing instruments that we have in the Shop. So…but this year the Black Wing pencil is stamped with Daily Audio Bible on it and the folks at Black Wing were kind enough to do this for us. We can’t sell them but we can put them in the Christmas Box. So, there’s a Black Wing Daily Audio Bible pencil in the Christmas Box. You can check all this out at dailyaudiobible.com in the in the Shop in the Christmas section.

And you can get the Christmas cards separate. Also, the family Christmas music project that kind of grew up out of our community, just a lovely contemplative Christmas album. It’ the of record that you’ll wan to turn your Christmas lights on, shut every other light off, maybe get some hot cocoa or whatever and, you know, at the end of a long day just sit down and breathe and allow the music to set an atmosphere and just relax and contemplate the season of Advent and all of the festivities of Christmas and, of course, the arrival of the Savior and what it means to the world. It’s perfect for that, So, check that out. You can get the Christmas project wherever you can get music, Spotify, Apple music, iTunes, wherever, but you can also get it from Daily Audio Bible, if you want in physical form, at dailyaudiobible.com in the in the Christmas section.

We’re also talking about More Gathering for women, the final time that this gathering that was birthed in the mountains of North Georgia, thus will be the last time that it’s held in the mountains of North Georgia. And, so, it’s the end of an era. There’s a lot of energy around it this year. We’re really looking forward to it. And, so, it makes for a very unique and life-changing Christmas gift, which is why we usually bring it out around Christmas time. So, you can check that all out at moregathering.com or at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section.

I mentioned that there’s coffee and tea in the Christmas Box and there is but we have several different varieties of both coffee and tea and we roast fresh at altitude in the mountains of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and send it right to you. And, so, that makes for a great Christmas gift.

And also, you know, like I said a little bit ago about the journaling. Yeah, check out the Lifestyle section in the Shop and set yourself up for the new year. If God’s gonna speak to you through His word one way or the other best not to forget what was said. And the best way to do that is to journal your way through the Bible and through your life in a year and its amazing. It’s amazing the relationship that you get with a nice pencil and some good paper and what flows through you onto that page and what can be memorialized and remembered for years and years and years into the future, even into the future generations. And who knows what you write down, who that might help in future generations. So, we definitely encourage that. So, check it out at dailyaudiobible.com, there’s a whole set of writing things that make for fantastic gifts.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible here in the final days of the year then thank you humbly, profoundly, gratefully. Truly, thank you for your partnership. There’s a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. 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 PO 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 I almost forgot…I almost forgot…the other thing that’s going on this week is your Christmas calls for our upcoming Daily Audio Bible family Christmas party, which will be hopefully next week. So, all this week, yeah, we’re taking your calls. You can call in using any of the prayer lines and wish your Daily Audio Bible family happy holidays, Merry Christmas. We’ve shared quite a journey together and so this is one way to come in kind of come and memorialize our trip through the Scriptures as we approach Christmas time. So, be sure to do that. If you…well…you can use any of the prayer lines. So, in the Americas, 877-942-4253. In the UK 44-20-3608-8078. And in Australia 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to dial. Of course, that’s the prayer line. So, the only rule about this particular time of year is, like, don’t call in a prayer request and then a happy holiday, like a Merry Christmas greeting in the same call because neither one of them will get to where they’re going. Like, so make those separate. This is the one time you can hang up and make a separate call because they’re for different reasons. So, yeah, call in your Christmas greetings this week and, of course, if you have a prayer request or comment, those numbers work. That’s what they’re for.

And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.