12/05/2020 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 great to be here with you today as we continue our journey and conclude another one of our weeks together. And in doing that we’re also opening up a new book and actually moving into the final grouping of books in the Old Testament and these are known as the minor prophets only. And when we talked of the major prophets, we…we clarified that major and minor doesn’t mean the level of importance. It has more to do with the length and how much material is in the text. So, the minor prophets are shorter, and they encompass the last 12 books of the Old Testament beginning here in Hosea and ending with the final book of the Old Testament, Malachi. So, we have…I mean it’s December 5th and we have 12 more books to go through in the Old Testament, and so that tells you, generally speaking, how quickly we’re gonna be moving. And we’ve been moving rather quickly through some of the shorter letters in the New Testament, which we will continue to do until we arrive at the final book in the New Testament which is the book of Revelation. And we’ll be arriving there. But now that we are moving into the minor prophets let’s talk about this first one. Hosea that we’re…that we’re gonna read.

Introduction to the book of Hosea:

Hosea probably lived somewhere in the vicinity of the eighth century BC, and he probably saw the disintegration of his own land, which was the northern kingdom of Israel. And we remember in the Scriptures the Assyrian Empire came in and conquered the northern kingdom, the northern 10 tribes of Israel and carried them into exile and they were dispersed. They’re known as the diaspora. They were never really cohesive tribes ever again. They disappeared from history as tribes. And it’s likely that Hosea was there and saw this. There are many scholars that believe that Hosea’s prophecies were eventually collected together in written form in the southern kingdom of Judah after the Assyrian conquest was over. But like so many of the other things in the Bible, we don’t know for sure these…this is just where…where we are in looking at where did these texts come…like what’s their pedigree? So much is unknown. What is known is what’s in the contents of the book of Hosea. And the theme of marriage is in the book of Hosea, not so much relating to man and woman, but more relating to a covenantal relationship with God. And this won’t be the first time that marriage has been used as an illustration, but it’s perhaps the most potent. So, often we hear the prophets coming and speaking of adultery. The adulterer, the covenant breaker, Israel, God’s people, the covenant breaker or the spiritual idolater. And we understand that people were chasing after other gods besides the most-high God and giving themselves in worship, giving their hearts, giving their lives, giving their agendas, giving their money, giving their goods to false gods. And God the most-high God considered this adulteress. We read these things in the Bible, and often just kind of move beyond them just kind of read through them without understanding the implications, but adultery is something that the implications are evident. Some of us in the sound of my voice have been through this, but nobody doesn’t understand what we’re talking about here. And, so, if your spouse gives herself or himself, gives their body to somebody else, gives their heart to somebody else, their motivations begin this shift to somebody else while they’re married to you then this is…I don’t even know…I mean…it’s disorienting, it’s hurtful, it’s painful, it’s torture, it just brings up the worst of the worst inside of us. It brings depression and anxiety and what’s going to come next and what about the children…it’s just an awful, awful thing and we can understand that in our own lives’ context. Hosea helps us understand that this is how God looks at His people when they give themselves to something that is false, choosing something that is false, and giving their heart and life and worship to something else besides the one that loves them passionately, the spouse in this…in this analogy. Then we begin to understand God’s reaction, we begin to understand the things that he says to the prophets, the betrayal of His people. It’s like being betrayed by your spouse. And, so, we hear the language of…of…of a lover who is heartbroken and longs for his lost love, and longs for a way to be restored to the one that he loves. And Hosea presents this more clearly and more poignantly than, at least in my opinion, anywhere else in the Scriptures, partly because God asks Hosea to make his life a living prophecy. So, as will see, Hosea is instructed by the Lord to marry a prostitute and her name is Gomer. And Gomer represents the idolatrous harlotry prostitution of Israel, spiritual prostitution. And, so, Hosea and Gomer have children together, and then God instructs Hosea that each child is to be given a prophetic name that speaks directly to Israel. And then Gomer, Hosea’s wife that was a former prostitute is then again unfaithful to Hosea. So, he divorces her, and this represents God casting Israel away. And then Hosea’s told to go back in pursuit of Gomer, once again. And he had to eventually buy her back. So, this woman who had been his spouse who had had his children who had formerly been a harlot and went back into adultery had to be bought back, which she was by Hosea. And this represents just how far God is willing to go to be reunited, to be restored to those that He loves. And, so, as we read through this, if we will just consider our own lives, look at our own lives and the ways that we have been a betrayer, the ways that we have committed the same type of adultery. Maybe we’re not bowing down to a statue, but whatever it is we are giving ourselves to, whatever we are looking for to bring us life, whatever we are giving our heart to and our time to and our focus to can be an idol. So, let’s begin. Hosea chapters 1 through 3 and we’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for another week and we just look at the calendar and observe there’s only three more weekends in this year. And, so, we have a ways to go and we have a lot of territory to cover, and we’re going to be covering massive territory in a quick amount of time as we move toward the conclusion of the Bible. And then we know we just start over again. This is the rhythm of our lives, but we mark this. We see this. We’re here now encountering the first weekend in this month of December and moving toward the second Sunday in Advent. So, we know where we are, but we also know how much we need You and the imagery in the book of Hosea today, it seems to show us how much You want us, how much You desire us and how much pain it brings when we are unfaithful. And we look to You and acknowledge that You have always been faithful. And, so, our own lives, our own actions can condemn us, and yet You talk of restoration, You talk of being reunited. You talk of coming home again. And, so, this is where we want to be. We don’t ever want to wander. We actually don’t ever want to wander, ever, ever, ever again. And, so, now that we have this imagery that when we do wonder when we do give ourselves to something else, thinking that it will be our security or that it will be our life, or that it will be the thing that fulfills us we are turning away and being unfaithful. So, come Holy Spirit we have no desire for this to be a part of our story ever again. We cannot do that without Your guidance. And yes, indeed we have to pay attention. And yes, indeed we have to stay awake to what You are doing. And yes, indeed we are grateful that Your word counsels us in that direction, but we have to do the work and participate, as we have learned from the letters recently. We can say whatever we want. Its ultimately what we live that is saying what we believe. And, so, come Holy Spirit, lead us into all truth and help us be awake and aware to see and respond to it. We pray this in the name of Jesus our Savior. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base it is…that’s the website for the Global Fire, for the Daily Audio Bible, for the community here, for…for everything that’s happening around here. So, check that out.

Its Christmas times so we’ve been talking about that for the last week I guess and just talkin’ about how…well…we’ve passed the international shipping deadline. We’re still good domestically. We don’t have a Christmas box this year, but we tried to make it so you can make your own Christmas box and Just browse and peruse the resources that are available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop, everything from things to write with, things to read or things to listen to. Check out the family Christmas album that we released a couple years ago. That makes a fantastic soundtrack for the season. The Christmas album is called family Christmas and you can look it up like on Google play or iTunes or anywhere you can stream music, Spotify, whatever. Just look for family Christmas and look for my name Brian Hardin and you should find it. And we released this a couple years ago as…well…as a companion to the season. And if you’ve been around here this long and gone all the way through the Bible this year you see the rhythms. There are rhythms in the week and brand-new shiny sparkly new weeks and there rhythms in the month and this…just the rhythm of life centered around the fact that we are going to devote a certain portion of the day, small as it might be to staying in the rhythm and allowing God’s word to be a part of our lives and staying in community as we move through the Scriptures. And, so, we released really really contemplative, lushly orchestrated Christmas album a couple years ago that’s really meant to be that…that go to album when you want to shut off all the lights except for the Christmas tree, right, or just whatever Christmas lights you have…just maybe a fireplace…maybe you don’t but, you know what I’m talking about. You shut off all the lights and then just…the glow and the calm and the piece and the quiet can descend upon you. This is meant to be the soundtrack for those moments. So, check that out. You can stream it, like I said, on Spotify Apple mucic, Google play or wherever, or you can get a physical copy of it as well as a digital…digital version at the Daily Audio Bible Shop. And there’s a bunch of other resources. The Klean Kanteens that we have talked about, although I gotta tell if those survive past the first of the week, like I think they’ll be gone by then. So, if you’re thinking about it, don’t wait. They’ll be gone. We only get those rarely and so they go pretty quickly when we do. The Klean Kanteens are there. The God of Your Story, the written resource that is a January 1st through December 31st devotional that contains some of the gold of all of these years. And this is year 16 of the things that we’ve talked about as we’ve gone to the Scriptures. And, so, it is a great companion to the Daily Audio Bible. It’s a great invitation to the Daily Audio Bible and it’s a great one-year resource for people who just want to read through the Bible, but don’t always…aren’t always able to grasp the context. And, so, the God of your story does a really good job in written form of what we do here every day. So, that’s just a handful of resources, but check those out. If you spend $40 or more in the Daily Audio Bible shop. We will include in your order and you’ll see it show up in your order if you pass the $40, the Daily Audio Bible Christmas ornament for 2020 and it’s got Daily Audio Bible 2020 on it and its got our words for the year, which were “Vision” and “Settle”. And they are right there on the ornaments. So, check that out in the Daily Audio Bible Shop.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. There is a link on the homepage. I thank you humbly and deeply for your partnership here as we approach the end of the year. Cannot thank you enough. We can’t be here if we’re not here together. And, so, I thank you. There’s a link on the homepage. If you are using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address, if that is your preference, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you a prayer request or encouragement 877-942-4253 is the number to dial or you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button up at the top and share from there.

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 DAB family this is Brother Ox praying for Carla Jean and her family. Father God we hear Carla Jeans tearful request for prayer. Her husband has come under heavy affliction and with his diabetic ketoacidosis condition as well as the new diagnosis of COVID- 19 and he’s in ICU. We’ve heard how she and her son had to…to shake him to…to even go to the hospital and now with them…them demonstrating system symptoms of Covid themselves they sounded rattled Lord. I lift up my sister right now along with many others in the DAB family undoubtably declaring that COVId-19 and diabetic ketoacidosis are names and those names will kneel before the name of Jesus. And, so, we declare such right now in Jesus’ name that these symptoms will leave this family, that they and I…I pray to encourage them that they need not fear what they see, that they need not be caught in the circumstance but to fix their eyes on the Lord who is good and is faithful to see us through. He is our shelter. He is our refuge. We replace ourselves under the shadow of the most-high God and we know that we are dearly loved and dearly protected. And, so, we lift up our prayers to our good, good Father. May she and her family be encouraged and lifted up. Stay well Carla. We love you.

Hey Daily Audio Bible family it’s Nobody Gets Left Behind in Colorado. It’s funny, I put a reminder on my phone to remind me once a month to just put a log on the campfire and just connect with the family from all over the world. I always like to think of it as a preview into heaven and how it says that there’ll be multitudes glorifying God. So, I just wanted to let you all know that we have about 14 to 16 people in Colorado that are reading the Daily Audio Bible together and this year we’re gonna have a year end Bible reading celebration and gonna go through the Daily Audio Bible Shop today and find some unique gifts to give out and I just want just celebrate being one big, you know, family and us throwing one big giant log on the fire from Colorado to end this year in celebration just because God is so good and all glory be to Him. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Love you guys. Hope you’re all doing well. I’m praying for you all I listen to your prayers. You all mean so much to me.

Hi, my beautiful family this is Suzanne calling from Albuquerque. Michaela from Gloucester, I have been overjoyed to hear your voice again. I missed you. I know you mentioned you had been going through some…some difficult times and I’m not sure what was going on there, but I am so glad to hear you again and welcome back to us. We love you very much. Michaela your heart is a beautiful example to all of us. You open your arms, your heart, the arms of your heart so big that you often pray for…for people in other religions, people in countries we don’t often hear that much about and you just…your heart is huge and I just…I’m just so grateful for your example of Jesus’ love. And I’m very happy to hear your voice again.

Hey Daily Audio Bible it’s Christy from Ohio. I just came back from a couple hour trip for my parents back to where I live, and we had our first like snowstorm of the year. So, the last hour or so the snow was coming down and already sticking which has kind of made me think that, yeah, it seems like a lot of the US is getting a lot of their first big snow of the season, which made me think of all of the truckers out there and it’s always important to pray for our truckers. But just thinking now especially with, you know, how people make, you know, other drivers just make more mistakes the first couple snows and there’s more accidents. And, you know, truckers have to be out there no matter what. So, just thinking of you Terry the Trucker and I know there’s probably a lot of other truckers too that listen. I think Jeanette from Oklahoma City, I think you used to be a trucker. I might be wrong. But anyways just wanted to let you guys know that I’m thinking of the truckers out there and, yeah, we should all just, yeah, be in prayer for their safety. So, all right. Talk to guys later.

Hi this is Goldberry in the Sequatchie Valley of Tennessee. I am a first time caller and I’ve been listening since March and I wanted to say thank you to Brian and for this wonderful ministry and for the Daily Audio Bible family that I have come to feel a part of. I am so grateful for the beautiful hearts for Jesus that I hear every day and for the prayers that are requested and prayed for each day. I’m calling to ask for your prayers for my daughter. She is 21. She has an eating disorder. She knows the Lord and loves him dearly but is really struggling with this. She is married and her and her husband lost a baby. He was…had a genetic problem and he…she carried him to term. Even though they said that she could abort him they carried him to term, and he died shortly after he was born. This has been a tragic loss for my daughter and for our whole family. My daughter would like to have another baby but there’s a 25% chance that this could recur. So, I wanted to ask that you would pray that my daughter would be healed of her eating disorder and would be able to have a healthy baby and also that her and her husband would be able to stop vaping. Thank you so much for your prayers. God bless you all.