02/22/2019 DAB Transcript

Leviticus 13:1-59, Mark 6:1-29, Psalms 39:1-13, Proverbs 10:10

Today is the 22nd day of February. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here with you today. Coming to you from the Dead Sea currently and there is much to do and see today as there was yesterday and we will talk about that in a little bit. But before that we should that we should do what we’ve come to do and that is to take the next step forward in the Scriptures this year. So, we’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week and we’ll move back into the book of Leviticus. Today we’ll read Leviticus chapter 13.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of Leviticus as very specific statutes and regulations are being put in place about very specific conditions, you know, like like we were saying yesterday, we can glaze over on this, but yesterday we talked about the fact that there is still clean and unclean, and that principal still matters as much today as it ever did. So, we get into the book of Leviticus today and God is telling Moses and Aaron, you know, about people who have swellings or rashes or discolorations on their skin and what might develop into a serious skin disease and what my not. And, so, it’s easy again to just kind of tune out, like, come on, a reddish bump on the skin needs to be examined by the priest, he’s gotta declare clean or unclean. Whew…thankfully we don’t have to do this. And we can understand, you know, why these kinds of instructions would be given from a practical perspective because, I mean, we’re talking about a time without antibiotics. If there is an infectious disease that can infect another person, especially through blood or, you know, exposing raw flesh or whatever. Well, then that could affect a lot of people, not just one person. So, we can we can see that but it’s hard to know why God wanted this in the Bible at face value, but we have been talking about the fact that the tapestry of this culture that is being formed in the wilderness has certainly got practical value in how people are to relate to each other, keep each other protected, and keep each other healthy. But also, what is being woven into this culture is a spiritual underpinning so that pretty much everything they experience in life is connected to its spiritual reality. So, the priest was to inspect a rash or swelling and quarantine the infected person. And the way that the priest would determine whether what he was examining was dangerous was to determine whether it was on the surface of the skin or if it went deeper. We’re starting to see the spiritual implications here, right? If somethings on the surface, I mean, it can pretty much be plucked off the surface and disposed of easily but something that’s deeper can cause chronic problems, right, both in our body and in our Spirits and we can’t always tell was happening within us. So, in our modern era, we have the medical community, right, we have members of our clergy, we have the counseling community to help us work through these things. In Israel’s time they had family leaders, right, the tribal leaders and they had the priesthood. So, different labels, maybe different functions, but we’re not as different as it might seem. But regardless, the things that have become more than a surface issue, whether they are in our body, our mind or our spirit, those things should not be left to grow into a life-threatening issue that could impact everyone around us and Leviticus brought this clear, front, and center for us today.

Prayer:

Father, we come into Your presence. You are our great high priest. Examine us. We come and submit ourselves before You and ask You to show us the things that would be declared unclean because they are unclean. Show us the things that we’ve allowed to exist that have now become more than skin deep, the things that are seeping poison slowly into our souls and we know something is wrong and it feels like slowly fading but we can’t explain why. It’s because we’ve allowed things in our lives to grow beyond skin deep. Holy Spirit come show us these areas. We open ourselves to You. We want to be made whole. So, come Jesus we pray. In Your mighty name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

Okay. So, coming to you today from the Dead Sea where we will be heading out and heading north and by the time that the days over today, we will have left the wilderness behind. Yesterday, we spent our second full day in the wilderness by beginning in Eilat where we had spent the night and then beginning our journey North because you can only go north. And our first stop was at a place called Timna. Ancient mines are there and human activity from the time archaeologically is there, but there is also a scale replica of the tabernacle. So, we read about the specifics of the tabernacle that God outlines, the place to be the center of the camp of the Israelites, the place where God would dwell, right in the middle of all of them. And it’s detailed completely but so much detail is given that it's…it’s kind of…you know…and so many of the measurements, like, how big is a cubit exactly and all of this. So, it’s like hard to imagine exactly how it looked and how it would be. So, there’s a full-scale replica of the tabernacle out in the wilderness just kind of sitting in the desert. So, it’s in the right setting and it’s just powerful to see the themes in the tabernacle emerge and how they point the way forward toward Jesus. So, we spent some time there viewing and hearing about the tabernacle before continuing forward and we made another stop at our favorite Yatvota dairy. Stopped for some more ice cream and a bathroom break before a bit of a long drive going north but actually descending to the lowest point on earth, which is where we ended up, in the Dead Sea. But before that went to Masada. And Masada goes back all the way to King Herod’s time, at least where Herod at an opulent palace out in the desert but it was also us a stronghold. And, you know, if you’ve ever been to Masada, if you’ve been to Israel than you know, like…it…you see that place and you wonder how it could ever be taken, but it’s the Romans did and that’s part of the Hebrew story and that’s part of the heritage here, but it is also a an unbelievably spectacular view of the wilderness. So, we spent some time there before, just coming back to the shores of the Dead Sea and considering some of the Genesis stories about Abraham and Lott and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and Lott fleeing and how his story went, which we talked about when we read through it in Genesis, but we just kind of revisited that right there on the shores of the Dead Sea before getting to our hotel before dark so that everyone would have the opportunity to bathe themselves in mud and float in the Dead Sea, which is always a highlight and always a lot of fun. So, we covered some significant ground today allowing us to kind of stage ourselves at the Dead Sea and begin to move north a few stops along the way and begin moving our way out of the wilderness. So, we’re having a blast, you know, we’re slowly all moving through jet lag and all this kind of stuff and just enjoying community and company and fellowship and fun and conversation and friendship all while being aware that God is speaking to us through the wilderness, speaking to us about the wilderness, and in many ways reinterpreting things that we’ve considered maybe incorrectly about the wilderness. And at this point , now that we’ve had a couple of days to just kind of view the vastness of the wilderness it’s unspeakably clear, you take roads out of the equation and you take electricity out of the equation and everything that we are accustomed to and you take a horde of people into the wilderness that there is nothing to do but be utterly dependent upon God, which is kind of the point and kind of the point when we go through our own seasons of wilderness. And, so, we have often invited the Holy Spirit to speak into and interpret these wilderness seasons of our lives as we’ve wandered in the wilderness and it creates a foundation for the story that’s being told here as we do our best to tell the story that the Bible is telling through the land of the Bible. So, we thank you for your prayers continually. Believe me when I tell you that we feel them, and we sense that and it brings an incredible amount of peace over the entire journey. So, thank you for your continued prayers and I will look forward to describing all that we will do today tomorrow because we have to do all we’re going to do today before I can buy can tell you about it. But thank you for following along and you can certainly follow Daily Audio Bible on Facebook or Instagram and we are posting things as they happen. And, so, excited to have you along virtually.

One way to really come along virtually is this Saturday, this Saturday evening, at least for us here in Israel, we’ll be at the Sea of Galilee and we always get together and just kind of debrief a little bit, talk to each other a little bit as we approach the halfway point of our journey, not quite the halfway point but as we’re getting there and just kind of talk through a little bit, share some experiences, but we spend a bit of that time throwing up a camera and broadcasting on Facebook Live. And, so, you are invited. This is gonna happen at 7pm here in Israel. So, the difference there, like back to where I live in Tennessee, it will be 11 AM on Saturday. So, you can just Google the time difference between Tel Aviv, Israel and wherever it is that you are and you’ll be able to figure out what time that will be for you. But do tune in, we’ll be broadcasting this on Facebook Live at the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page, which is Facebook.com/Daily Audio Bible or just, you know, search for Daily Audio Bible on Facebook and you’ll find it. And hope to see you there. And that’s a fun time because that draws the whole community together. So many people are chatting with each other from all over the place and throwing questions to the group here in Israel and getting those questions answered and it’s always a good time. So, hope to see you there. It’ll be fun.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link that lives on the homepage and I thank you for everyone who’s ever clicked that link. My heart is grateful beyond words. Thank you. 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 that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello, good morning Daily Audio Bible, this is Yolanda from Atlanta. I’ve been listening for about seven years. I have not called in in about five years, but I was very convicted when I heard the prayer from, I believe, Byron concerning his 12-year-old son that he believes has been exposed to carnal, maybe lustful things at some point. And it was super amazing to me to hear this because it is…I have an 11-year-old son and it is something that I kind of struggled being afraid of knowing that __ have YouTube, you have the Internet and so many kids have so much exposure to so many things and I try my best to monitor things that, as you all know. And as we were growing up there were probably things that our parents never knew that we got into that we got into and it created strongholds in our lives that we still deal with today. So, understanding how I grew up and kind of what I dealt with. I am praying fervently for your son, I’m praying for all of our sons our daughters and whatever it is the enemy is trying to do in their lives I’m binding it in the name of Jesus, I’m coming against it. Lord God…but even in that…even in that because I have a story from when I was very young, my father having a pornography addiction and me finding things, whether it was VCR tapes, projectors, magazines, all that stuff at the age of four and having that stronghold all of my life. So, knowing how I’ve been able to come out of that and still be able to be a testimony also comforts me. So, I want to comfort you, that maybe ultimately where your son’s pain is will be his purpose. So, I’m praying for you, praying for all of our kids Lord God, I pray that they’re all covered in the name of Jesus. Have a Wonderful day.

Hi, this is Cherry from Claremore Oklahoma. I called in last May for __ and Greg and I have to say this real quick to get in. And I thank you everyone for praying and Victoria Soldier your words bring life. I always struggled remembering your name because the only name __ soldier of truth. It’s just been that way since I heard your name. Anyway, __ Greg struggles with severe alcoholism and when I called back and they he was in the hospital fighting for his life from a brain bleed and two surgeries in two days. They said he would die and he didn’t and they said he would be a vegetable and not recognize anyone and that didn’t happen either. He’s only 48 yet he struggles with anxiety, depression, __ his feet - L4, F5, and F1 - just from being a paratrooper in the military, cerebella ataxia where the lower part of the brain sits against the spinal column and let’s see, brain surgeries I mentioned earlier. Today he is with me as I travel across the country on my job, a door God’s opened to stem cell injections this Thursday the 21st. So, for the first time in his life he’s willing to try and stop drinking on his own due to the pre-and post-cell injection requirement. And he’s a fighter. His hearts willing, but please pray, his flesh is __ strong. And now he listens to Brian with me and he repeats every morning the famous loved words of Brian Hardin, “I love you and I’ll be waiting here for you tomorrow” with tears in his eyes. He prays for the callers with a broken voice and so many changes in his heart and mind and so many more are needed. Another issue is he will have to stop drinking…oh…I’m sorry…he’ll have to stop working out after the injections for quite a few weeks and that’s what releases his anxiety and he’s always been a gym rat and it’s just really gonna be a hard thing to overcome and work through. I trust God to lead each and every one of you on how to pray that my thoughts are praying for purity and the mind of Christ, that he would have pure thoughts, desires and an identity in Christ and not what he thinks he should be or expected to be. So, okay, I think I got it in. Hope you understand it. Thank you, guys.

Hey family this is Darrell down in Georgia calling in, I think for my third time. Anyway, this is my first time that I’m calling and asking for some prayer. It is for a very good friend of mine his name is Al and his wife Kathy. They’re in their early 80s and Al came home from the hospital yesterday. He’s been battling cancer and he is now involved in hospice. They are anticipating a week or two and he will be home with Jesus, which, I know that Al is ready to go and excited about going. He’s just the most wonderful man with the most gentle heart, gentle spirit. I’ve known this man for many many, many, years, love him and his wife to death but he’s very sad because he knows he’s breaking the hearts of his children and, of course, his wife. His wife Kathy is the one that is really going to need the prayer because she’s very dependent on Al. She doesn’t drive. She has friends around her. She has us around her. She has her family, but Al was her strength and she loves the Lord, absolutely. But if you could pray for Kathy I would really appreciate that and for Al that there wouldn’t be any suffering. I heard today, and I teared up today as I learned that he was starting to struggle in his breathing and it literally breaks my heart. So, if you guys could remember Al and Kathy my good friends I would be very grateful. Thanks so much. I love our family. Have a great night.

Hey Daily Audio Bible family this is Trish calling in Chicago…and head down…let’s pray. God, thanks for today. Thank You that You give me parents that love me, and You give me friends as well. I ask that You would encourage my heart and anybody else’s out there that’s really discouraged about things __ and just really sad __. Lord, I ask that You would raise up godly men and godly women __ each other and make an impact on this world and that You would provide for __ as well. Thank You that You see us and You are the living __ You are the living one who sees us and we thank You God for that. I ask that You would encourage the heart of anybody that is thinking of taking their lives, that You would enable them to be impacted by a sermon or reminded them of something You’ve taught them in the past. Thank You that I’m not suicidal right now but…trust in You dearly __ as a result of hearing this prayer request. Thank you for the Daily Audio Bible and everyone here. Amen. Good night friends. Thanks for praying. Bye.