Zechariah 4:1-5:11, Revelation 14:1-20, Psalms 142:1-7, Proverbs 30:21-23
Today is the 23rd day of December welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it’s great to be here with you on Christmas eve eve. Man, this is it and the Christmas holiday is upon us. We are reaching the end of the Advent season. Of course, Advent is the season of…of…of longing, basically of longing, of putting…putting ourselves in the position of those before Jesus came, before the Savior came who were longing for His arrival, which is what Advent means. And, so, we continue with that in our hearts, a longing, a longing for God, a longing for Christ’s return, His second Advent. And we get this point in the season where maybe we’ve been thinking about it, maybe we have an Advent calendar or whatever to focus us, to remember, to put ourselves in that position and…and…and contemplate it as we move through the season, or maybe you just don’t even know what or pay attention to Advent, then that’s fine too. It’s just that the season is coming to an end, which means that the wait is almost over and then we get to midnight tomorrow night and it’s like joy around the world. And, so, I am overjoyed that we can be here together around the Global Campfire just kind of all snuggled up and longing and waiting and excited. And since we’re here let’s take the next step forward in the Scriptures. We’ve been reading from the New English Translation this week, which is what we’ll continue to do. Zechariah chapters 4 and 5.
Commentary:
Okay. So, we’re reading in the Old Testament from the book of Zechariah. We’re reading in the New Testament from the book of Revelation. They are far spread out in time, at least at the time of the writing and yet they sound, they sound familiar. There…there’s an incredible amount of symbolism involved in these texts. They come from the same genre, apocalyptic literature. And we’ve talked about apocalyptic literature in the past. It’s highly symbolic. So, it’s interesting when we read some of these visions that are happening in Zechariah or continuing forward with the book of Revelation. It’s interesting to just observe ourselves in a number of ways. One, we can be like, “what? What does that mean? Like, how…how…how is that supposed to go” because of all the different symbolism and creatures and this doing that. So, it’s interesting to look at ourselves and go, “what am taking literally? What do I understand is a symbol? Do I understand the symbolism? Where is this leading me?” And that’s good and that’s fine. And yeah, we can…we can get on the Internet or we can just look back into history and understand that interpretations of this literature are wide and varying and have been for thousands of years because other brothers and sisters have wrestled with the same thing in their time wondering what it means for them in their time. But when we hear the word apocalyptic or apocalypse, you know, it just sounds ominous, it’s an ominous word. And yeah, I mean an apocalypse, is a…it’s a…it’s a destruction, it’s a cat…it’s a catastrophe. But the word of apocalypses in Greek at its core means Revelation. In other words, although this may be highly symbolic it was written down to reveal something that has yet to be revealed. And out of that literature today from the book of Zechariah we read something very famous, “it’s not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Heaven’s armies.” Or maybe more famously quoted, “not by power, not by might, but by my Spirit’s says the Lord of hosts.” If there were something that we should carry forward into the future into the next few days as we observe and celebrate Christmas but the next week as we move to the end of the year and all of the days of our lives it would be this, “it is not by our might. It is not by our power. It will be by the Spirit that we are led forward.” So, we can just apply that to the next like…just…just the Christmas celebrations that we will be involved in. We talked about that yesterday, how quickly things can go into interesting directions as the family dynamics of our childhoods like reassert themselves and we become little kids again even though we may have families of our own. I mean, we can take this, “it’s not by might and put in our back pocket and reach in our back pocket any time we feel that anxiety or whatever rising up with…within and just remind ourselves, “it’s not by might, it’s not by power, it’s by the Spirit of the living God” that I can move forward. Or from the Psalms today, “even when my strength leaves me you watch my footsteps. I cry out to you oh Lord, I say you are my shelter, my security in the land of the living.” So, I mean we’re gonna receive gifts probably, we’re going to give gifts probably. No matter what is under that tree. No matter how beautifully wrapped it is it’s not gonna be able to shelter your very soul. And, so, maybe his cheesy, you know, restate the clichés, “Jesus is the reason for the season, etc. etc.” but we should understand that there is a gift given to us, a Savior who is a shelter for our sole. And again, we’re out in front of us so we’re not tearing paper and figuring out what…how many garbage bags its gonna take to fill up all this paper. We’re out in front of it. Let’s remember this gift. Like, you know, I don’t know how to say it without sounding kind of cliché because we have all these little sayings to say, but if we would understand, like slowdown and understand what we’re saying it could be profoundly meaningful to us. A gift was given to us by God and all are welcome to have this gift. And this gift was that God came in person to inaugurate, to institute a personal relationship with us. That is a…that is a gift that there is no way to really adequately describe, that the most-high, the most-high God, the Creator of all things would like to give himself to you if you would give yourself back.
Prayer:
Father we…we meditate on that today, we contemplate that, we invite Your Holy Spirit to allow us to be reminded to consider this today as we run around trying to get all the little things done and keep ourselves safe and keep our family safe and all of the things that are going on. Help us to remember that You gave Yourself as a gift to us. There is no gift like that. And, so, come Holy Spirit, as we meditate upon it today. May we feel the joy of our salvation we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s the website, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here. It’s Christmas Eve Eve so that’s kind of what’s going on around you. Can you guys believe tomorrow is Christmas eve? That is…that is amazing. We have made it this far and I’m gonna…I’m gonna celebrate in my heart, with all my heart, the arrival of the Savior this season. We need the arrival of the Savior more than anything and this year has made us more aware of it than anything. So, let's…let’s just enjoy where we are.
There’s a couple of Christmas things that you could get involved in, the Family Christmas album that is sort of our Global Campfire soundtrack to the season, you can stream that wherever you stream music, or download it wherever you download music as well as the Christmas single that we released this year, O, Holy Night with Jill singing beautifully. So, you can do the same. You can stream that wherever you stream music or download that wherever you download music. So, check those out as we move right into the heart of…I mean this is the whole purpose of the season is to arrive at these days where we really, really, rejoice - joy to the world, the Lord has come. So, yeah, those resources are available. Tomorrow Jill will be virtually performing O Holy Night at a candlelight service. We will post up the links to that tomorrow in case like if you can’t I mean there’s just a lot of things that have been switched around and switched up this year. A lot of us can’t go to candlelight services while others of us can. So, if you have to attend a virtual candlelight service then we’ll post a link to where we will be virtually. So, we’ll post a link for that on social media tomorrow.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible in these remaining days of this unforgettable year that we have been navigating together in community day by day step-by-step then thank you. If what’s been going on around here bringing the spoken word of God read fresh every day for anybody to listen to it anywhere any time and to keep building community around that rhythm, if that makes a difference then 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 the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.
And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the…which is the Hotline button in the app, the little red button up at the top that looks like a hotline button. You can press that or you can dial 877-942-4253.
And that is it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer and Praise:
…and you’re wanting to be with Jesus, you’re wanting to die. I get that. I mean we probably all do, we probably all know that feeling, the pain of this world and then the goodness of God, the serenity we can feel in worship and the anguish we feel in struggles in life and the wickedness and sin of life. I want to encourage you, do not kill yourself. That is schemes and attacks of the evil one. Paul felt it in Scripture I’ve felt it, we’ve all felt it in different ways. Do not kill yourself. But yeah, like you are doing, give it to the Lord. If He wants to take you, have you die in some way and be with Him in life forever, Amen. If He has you here for a purpose, you know, what’s our purpose as a Christian? To share who He is, to evangelize so the rest of the world of people we know and love and see all the time when they die too they will not die forever in hell, they will live with Christ, with Yahweh. So, I want to encourage you. Don’t kill yourself. Don’t do it. But surrender your life to Him and evangelize. Don’t be some crazy old lady. I mean, you can be. The prophets were crazy. But, you know, just be a lady of love and a daughter of love and a wife of love. Alright, love you. Bye. Mike from New York.
Hello good morning, I just listened to your prayer request from my sister quiet confidence from Virginia and I’m so touched I have to call him right now. And the song and the prayer I said because your soul is overwhelmed the father will lead you to the rock that is __ than you right now. Even though you are asking for the Lord to take you home may the father that knows what is best for the children I pray that He will step into you matter and do what is best for you. This I ask in Jesus name, that the Lord will touch your body, your spirit and your soul and do what is best for you for his name’s sake in Jesus’ name. And I pray for as many of our brethren, brothers and sisters suffering one thing or the other that the spirit of the Lord will touch them, the balm of Gilead will heal you, and the hand of the Lord will touch you wherever you are in Jesus’ name. For skis the Lord that He led us, He sent His word and His __. Shalom __ this is your sister Addie from London. Bye.
I’m calling in for Quiet Confidence in Virginia. Sister I just want you to know that God is with you and He has never left you. He’s promised never to leave us or forsake us. And I won’t begin to say that I understand why and how it is that His children can suffer like you are. I know that in my life there’ve been times I’ve asked the Lord to go ahead and take me and remove me from whatever pain I was going through but I want to encourage you to lean on the Lord, to let Him love on you and…and also want to tell you that that is a lie of the accuser of our soul, that we are not saved. God has promised that He will hear the cry of repentance and that He will forgive you and He said that He sent Christ into this world so that we could be saved. That is his greatest joy, for you to call on Him as your heavenly Gather. So, Lord I pray across these miles for my sister who is tormented today, and I ask You by the Holy Spirit to strengthen her mind soul body and spirit and to raise her up and give her new joy and new peace in the midst of her pain Lord, to work a miracle in her life as only You can do and give her joy in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Good morning everyone this is Danny from Southern Oregon. Brian I just listened to Jill’s O Holy Night song and…O…was brought to tears. O my gosh she did such an absolutely phenomenal job. So, definitely gonna listen to that one over and over and over. And I just got my Klean Kanteen in the mail. I’m so excited to give that to my husband for Christmas. So, just wanted to say thank you for all…everything you do Brian just to enrich our lives every single day not only with the word but all these other things that you bring into the mix. So, thank you and God bless you and your family.
Dear Quiet Confidence this is Susan from Canada God’s Yellow Flower calling and I just want to encourage you my dear, sweetheart that God is not finished with you yet. I have been in that pit where there’s no sunlight, there’s only darkness. I have been suicidal and it’s only by the grace of God that it didn’t work out. And I just persevered with medication, with counseling and in prayer. Sometimes I would just lay on my bed and just pray the Lord’s prayer because I just did not know what to do. But He’s not finished with you yet my sweet. And once you rise out of this and into the light you will have an awesome testimony where you can encourage and help others as I hope I am doing for you. God will use you in this situation to help others. And, you know, I’ve been so blessed. And, oh my, I can’t even explain it. I’ve been so blessed with…with work at God has wanted me to do that I would have missed if He would have answered my prayer to end my life and take me home. Don’t forget, God is always with you. He’s walking you through this and you will be victorious as I have been victorious. It’s difficult…so hard. It’s not easy but hang in there, sweetheart. I’m praying for you and I love you. God bless.
Yes this is Lady T from Tennessee I would love to pray for the young lady that called in. She go by the name of Quiet Confidence from Virginia. I just lift her up. Father I pray for a sound mind over her. She’s asking God day take…take her home. Father I just pray that You restore the joy back in her in the name of Jesus, that she is made whole in Jesus’ holy name.