Daniel 7:1-28, 1 John 1:1-10, Psalms 119:153-176, Proverbs 28:23-24
Today is the 30th day of November welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here. I’m kinda giggling because I almost said it’s the 30th day of May, for no reason whatsoever. Maybe I’m already longing for springtime to get here. I don’t know. Nevertheless, it is the final day of the 11th month of the year which means that tomorrow we will be heading into the home stretch, the final month of the year. So, what a…what a year it is been and there is so much out in front of us yet. So, let’s dive in. We’re reading from the Christian standard Bible this week. We are in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament today. And this is gonna happen like I’ve already mentioned, both old and New Testaments are gonna speed up. We’re gonna be encountering shorter texts and so we’ll be moving through them more quickly. Today when we get to the New Testament, we will…we will be reunited with somebody that we spent a lot of time with, the evangelist John. And we will read first John or will begin to read first John when we get there. But first, Daniel chapter 7.
Introduction to first John:
Okay. As I mentioned just a few minutes ago when we get to the New Testament we’re moving into new territory and finding ourselves reunited with a voice that we got to know earlier in the year, the voice of John. Ironically, first John, like the letter, it…it doesn’t make any mention of who it’s from and doesn’t really make any mention of who it’s too. And, so, it would be easy enough to just conclude that the letter is anonymous similar to the book of Hebrews, but we would say in our church history that the church fathers in the mid-second century, so we’re talking about the mid-100s about like 50 years roughly after this letter was written, they attributed the letter to John the evangelist. And the authenticity of the letter and even its author didn't…didn’t find controversy or dispute when the New Testament was canonized. It’s in more recent times that scholars have been examining the text and just wondering of the stylistic differences between like say the gospel of John and the letters of John, the epistles of John. But taking this as a letter of John you wonder like, why is this not addressed, like why isn’t it addressed to somebody specific? And the reason might be that the people that received this letter in the first place, they knew John really well. He's…he’s an elderly person, an elderly…elderly saint, an elderly man at this point. And, so, he didn’t need to introduce himself in the letter. It’s also possible that the…the recipients of the letter weren’t specifically named so that if the letter fell into the wrong hands they couldn’t be tracked down. Maybe it was to protect them from potential persecution. But this letter, most likely was written from Ephesus pretty late in the apostle’s life…very late and the apostle’s life and the letter finds its dating, and again, dating letters has its challenges, but likely this is written in the mid-90s or maybe the early 100s. And…and John was writing really for one thing. He was undressing false teachings. This is interesting in the development of the church and in the development of the New Testament canon because during the time that all of these things that we are reading were written there wasn’t a New Testament canon. And ideas about Jesus - who He was, what He represented, what His work was, where He came from, where He went - there were all kinds of things being said. Some of them would later be branded as heretical. Some of them are still just a part of the church library not part of the canon of Scripture, but are stories that have been passed down and still exist until this very day throughout generation after generation that…that actually provide us some of the church history that we have. So, some of the earlier forms of Gnosticism had begun to take hold and were forming theology and forming a whole written corpus around…around those beliefs. And if I had to…it's…it’s hard…it’s hard to summarize all of what’s going on in Gnosticism because it’s not just one thing, but the general understanding that the body is a bad thing and that our spirits are trapped within the body and that our spirituality and goal is to live an ascetic life, like depreciating bodily experiences in favor of spiritual ones so that we could achieve some form of enlightenment and deny…and deny bodily experience in favor of…of a spiritual experience. This is generally what we’re talking about. But there’s also the early docetic view and John seems to be speaking specifically toward this view quite a bit in this letter. And that’s a view that Jesus was indeed who He said He was, but He was not an actual human being. He appeared to be one more like, He was an apparition. And John also seems to be speaking against the view of Cerinthus who basically taught that Jesus was a human being, He was a person, but the divinity, the divine Christ nature actually entered Jesus when He was baptized and then affirmed by the dove by the Holy Spirit, “this is my beloved son”, and then Jesus operated in His ministry divinely, but at His crucifixion, He’s dying, His…his body is dying, He’s in the middle of an execution and He cries out, “my God, why have you forsaken me” and all this. And it’s then the view of Cerinthus that the divine spirit that had embodied Jesus left Him at that point. And there are many, many others, many other different things that people believe, like Marcionism, which was a very, very wide populated group of people who had very different beliefs, believed very, very much in the writings of the apostle Paul, but really only took the gospel of Luke as something that could depict Jesus. And, I mean we could go on and on about different things like this all day. John is speaking against some of these things. And, so, it’s here where we begin to see that the teachings about Jesus had spread and then some of the earlier church fathers including disciples of Jesus, like actually who walked with Him, like John, began to get into the process of forming orthodoxy. And we can only imagine that John, elderly as he might have been, would have authority to speak because He was there, like he was a part of Jesus inner circle and he’d been with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry. So, he could at least from an eyewitness perspective talk about what Jesus said and did. And that’s what we find him doing in first John. But just beyond just going after teachings that he was finding were getting kind of pretty far out there, this letter does provide contrasts for us, ways in which we can test the posture of our own heart. And, so, let’s dive in. first John chapter 1.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for bringing us through these 11 months. Strange as they have been You have never left us. You have not forsaken us and we have learned in just beginning this letter of first John, that You are faithful and You are just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from wickedness if we’ll confess our sins to You. And, so, there’s a level of intimacy portrayed here, conversational intimacy, one in which we could come to You and confess and one in which You would restore us. This is what we want every waking moment and every sleeping moment to be like - aware of Your presence, aware of Your guidance, aware of where You are leading us - and that we can remain in conversation. And then we fail we can come and say we failed instead of getting all twisted up and estranged, instead of failing and then throwing up our hands in the air and just running into rebellion and crashing our lives, and then being angry at You, only to eventually get crushed into powder and return again. We see this story repeated over and over and over and over in the stories of the Bible and we see that we have repeated the same patterns. We don’t want that to be the pattern of our life anymore. We want to lock in for the rest of our days into the grand adventure of the life that You have given us to live and we want to be joyful in it because we get to live it and we get to walk with You. You father us. You show us all the beautiful vistas and views when we don’t run into a brick wall of rebellion. So, come Holy Spirit. We want to lock in as we move into the final push, the final month of the year. We want to finish this year stronger than we have finished any year in our life’s and that will require our submission to Your authority and our paying attention, our continually being aware that there is no where we can flee to escape Your presence. You are here with us right now. Come Holy Spirit. Help us to stay awake we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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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:
Hi, I’m Melissa from New Castle Australia. Been listening this year. I’m a first-time caller. I’m a mom of 5. 3 grandchildren and a grandchild on the way. My two boys are special needs as well as my oldest granddaughter. They’ve been learning…I’ve been learning this year to cast my problems and issues with my kids and my marriage that for the past six years out of the past 26 has been deteriorating. I can’t change any of this. God is the only one that can change this. Please pray that He’s working in all our hearts and refresh my heart and allow His light to shine through me and allow me to be a blessing for Him and show me the way that I should be going. Please also pray for my two boys. I have an 11-year-old boy Russell and a nine-year-old boy Axel. I’m with __ dad. I have the same issues. They are getting older. They are having meltdowns every day and I’m having troubles controlling them. So, I’m just asking for the cursing and violence to just stop and just give me a breather. I don’t think there’s any other thing, yeah, that I can think of but yeah that’s…that’s my points for today. I’m praying for you’s all. Have a blessed day. Bye.
Hi family this is Janice calling from the mountains of Phoenix Arizona and have a special request. Please pray with me for my best friend of 50 years. Her name is Sherry and Sherry’s very ill and the doctors…there’s a lot she’s failing, and nobody really knows why. And she’s now…I don’t know 62. So, Sherry is suffering and we…she is a Christian but she’s mostly worried about her son Michael who’s in another state. And, so, we need to pray for Sherry and Michael and Lord we just need you to come down and be real to this family Lord. Break through to Michael. Get through to his brain. Let him know that You are not the God of confusion. Lord he’s running away from You. Lord please reach down with Your love and bring them home. And Lord please reach down and save my dear friend. We’ve been together for so long and she needs You desperately. And she’s feeling so alone, and everyone is confined at home with this Covid scare. And Lord we just need You big time and we know You’re there and we have faith in You, and we trust that You will see us through this all. And we just want to give You praise and honor and glory. And thank You for my DAB family Lord. I love them so much. Please bless each and every one of these praying warriors. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Bye guys. Talk to you soon.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone this is Joyful Jay from the Everglades. I just listened to the daily podcast and there was a husband praying for her wife in Georgia who’s been bedridden for three months with nausea. She’s a longtime listener. Oh Lord right now at 5:30 AM on Thanksgiving I pray that you will calm this woman’s stomach, that you will settle her inner ear. Lord have her get up. Lord, have her get up so her husband will know that his prayer for her is answered. And I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. And that somebody who’s on my heart often is Rebecca from Michigan and Lacey from Cape Cod. Rebecca, I know your mom is in the hospital and I know your heart for her. Lord I just thank You for those hearts of daughters towards their parents. Rebecca, I just love you, I love your heart. My heart pops every time I hear you speak with a little bit of joy. Lord, Rebecca has asked you to heal her mama. And in the name of Jesus I believe that ask is answered in Rebecca’s favor. Amen. And Lord for Lacey, I haven’t heard from her for a while. I pray for her often. I know she says she’s lonely and her little dog is sick. Lord we need…I need to hear an update. And prompt her heart Lord that she will call in with an update. I pray that she will just find what she needs to resolve this issue of loneliness.
Good morning to my Daily Audio Bible community. My name is Tony Rome. That’s what I go by. I’m so thankful to God for this forum and this community. I called this morning after my daily listening to the studies of brother Hardin and thankful for the message that was given. First, I would like to ask if the community would offer a prayer for my grandson. I call him by the name or the initials KJ. He has been plagued with some bouts of schizophrenia if you want to call it that. But just keep him…lift him up in prayer for he’s such a beautiful spirit, such a sweet young man and I love them so much. I’m a very infrequent caller but a constant listener to this community. I thank God for the message in regards to faith this morning. Where would we be without it? I think on the opposite end of the spectrum is fear. So, we often times act in one or the other and that dictates or determines our future outcomes. I thank brother Hardin for the lesson of faith and where we would be without it. Had Moses parents…had not set him in that basket there would be no Moses and no story of Moses today. And what is our story? And where would we be? I just thank God for all as I pray in Jesus’ name.
Happy Thanksgiving to my DAB family this is Danny from Southern Oregon. I’m down here in Southern California spending Thanksgiving with my parents and I’m just so thankful that I’m able to do that make them Thanksgiving dinner that I know that they appreciate so much. But I wanted to start my day out of course listening to the DAB of course as I always do but I just decided to go for a long walk and listen to Brian’s Heart album. And, gosh, within the first 60 seconds I was just balling tears of thankfulness for our heavenly Father. You know, no matter what life throws at us He’s there. I don’t know…I don’t know what I would do without God. I’m just so grateful. And I know you all are too and I’m so grateful for you all. And, so, I just told myself I wasn’t gonna to ask God for anything today I was just gonna praise Him all day long and not ask for a thing. And I didn’t realize how hard that is, that how much I ask of God when I’m prayer with Him. And when I start to ask for something, I’m like, “no. I can’t do that. I need to just praise God. Just today. just give thanks.” And, so, oh heavenly Father I am just in awe of what you do for us every single day and when the world is falling apart all around us and we’re struggling with fear, anxiety, and everything else You lift us up. I’m so thankful for you. I love you DAB with…
Good afternoon it’s such a joy to be able to listen to the word and know that…hi my name is Nelly…and to know that other people are also listening to the word and that they’re…they’re also praising and worshiping God at the same time. And I’m new so I don’t know most…most…most of the people but I’ll begin to start listening more and more and more so I can…so I can start praying for people and worship with other believers. So, I thank you from San Juan Capistrano California. May the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Yeshua __ bless you and just fill your hearts with…with praises and thanksgiving for all the things that He is done throughout the year, that there’s some hidden…there’s some hidden treasures in all the situation. For myself being in…in this this first pandemic, it has drawn me closer to the Lord Jesus to where now He’s number one in my life and I am so joyous because He’s finally sitting on the throne where he belongs.