Exodus 4:1-5:21, Matthew 18:1-20, Psalms 22:19-31, Proverbs 5:15-21
Today is the 27th day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a joy, a privilege, an honor, all things good to be here with you around the Global Campfire taking the next step forward on our voyage through the Scriptures this year. All things are a go here in the rolling hills of Tennessee and I trust that all things are well with you wherever you might be on our big, beautiful planet that God has given us to steward and live upon and enjoy life together. So, let’s dive in. we’re reading from the English Standard Version this week and we are getting to know this new figure that has appeared in the story. His name is Moses. And we’ll be traveling a long time with Moses. And I mean he…he will affect the rest of the Bible. So, Exodus chapter 4 verse 1 through 5 verse 21 today.
Commentary:
Okay. So, in the book of Proverbs we basically have some self-evident wisdom. It’s pretty clear what’s being said here. But underneath it all, what is the…what is the ultimate warning? The ultimate warning is do not stray from the path, right? Don’t leave the path of wisdom. So, isn’t this very, very similar to what we are taught in the Gospels in terms of following the path of Christ so that we might be Christ-like? And what we are watching in Jesus ministry is that He is at teacher of wisdom. And, so, what we begin to understand is that there is a path that leads to life and the Bible continually reminds us that it exists, but it also reminds us not to stray from it. And it gives us all kinds of advice along the way about what it looks like when we do if we need that advice. But so often we don’t need that advice because we’ve experienced what happens when we step away from wisdom or we walk away from the path and into rebellion. And, so, let’s remember, there is a path, there is a way. And if we would maybe…maybe slow down on all the excuses about why we can’t be obedient or why we can’t walk this path, maybe we should just try actually just walking the path and not…and not straying to the left or the right. I mean, here we are in the middle of the week about finish the first month of the year. How about we be very very intentional about walking the path and not deviating to the left of the right for the rest of this week. That would be a good way to bring the week to a landing. A lot of the things that have become tumultuous might begin to simmer down. So, let’s consider the voice of wisdom as we so often do as we so often should.
Okay. If we go back to the book of Exodus where we started our journey today, we’re getting to know Moses. Moses has met with God. God has given him a command to go back and set His people free and be His mouthpiece. Really one of the saddest scenes of the Bible happens today because Moses is talking to the Almighty most-high God, who has said, “I have seen the plight of your family, your people. These are my people to. And I have…now they have flourished but now they are in slavery and I have heard what is happening to them. I’m going to set them free and you are going to be my instrument.” And Moses…Moses is talking to God and giving God every excuse about why he can’t obey Him and they’re having a direct conversation. And Moses is like, “I’m not a good speaker and, you know”, and God’s like, “I’ll send Aaron.” And there’s all this stuff going on until Moses heart is completely revealed. And this is the sad part. And we should think about our own lives because this is why it sad. Moses is invited by God to be a part of the story. And Moses in the end, says, “could you send somebody else besides me?” Oh. that has been my story. I…I can’t run from that. That has been my story throughout many seasons of my life. That has been all of our stories at one point or another. And, so, this is how the Bible becomes this mirror where all the sudden, yeah, we’re in the story too. Certainly, we’re watching a narrative. Moses is going to Pharaoh. We’re watching all this stuff happen, but we begin to realize that the story here is mimicking our own story and that’s not an accident. In the end Aaron comes, Aaron’s the mouthpiece, Moses is the prophet, they convince all of the leaders that God has seen them. And then they go and confront Pharaoh and things only get worse, right? They only get worse. And, so, Moses is like, “what in the world have I done?” And the people are like, “what in the world have you done? You’ve made us stink to Pharaoh. He’s like, there’s no way we can do what he’s asking us to do. He’s gonna kill us all.” And that’s where we leave the reading today. If we remember the story that we read just before this one, that was the story of Joseph. And didn’t things get way worse before they ever got better? So, isn’t there some kind of theme emerging here about following God. when God invites us to be a part of His story He’s going to confront evil. He's…He’s not just going like, “Oh, now you believe. Let me…now you’ve won the lottery. Here’s a new couch and here’s a new voice activated TV, so you never have to leave that couch except to go into the kitchen and get food. Enjoy your life. God isn’t inviting us into laziness or idleness. He’s not just Santa Claus trying to bring presence. There’s evil in this world, and He would like to use this as His agents to be a part of removing it from the world. Because ultimately, we’re gonna watch throughout the stories of the Bible and we’re gonna hear all kinds of prophecies in the Bible that this is ultimately the objective. Gods not mad at people. He’s not trying to destroy people. He is fed up with the evil that is destroying people and His ultimate goal is to eradicate it, to remove the things that would separate us from God. And once that begins…I mean just like we were talking about, like, let’s not deviate from the left to the right and stay on the path of wisdom for the rest of the week. If we do that, then the darkness that may exist on the margins of our lives, it won’t take long before kicking and squirming. It won’t be long before we’re confronted with our own selves. And then we have to start asking ourselves the kinds of questions that we see in the ministry of Jesus. Do I actually want to live true even if that marginalizes me, even if all the games that I’ve been playing to kinda make the culture work for me, even all the falsehoods that I present to the world, even if those have to go do I want to be true? Even if it’s gonna get more difficult before it gets easier, do I want to live true? Some pretty poignant things for us to think about as we continue our journey through the rest of this day.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit come. These are definitely penetrating things to consider - the path before us and not deviating from it, paying attention to wisdom to illuminate that path, understanding that living in wisdom and walking the narrow path that leads to life is not always going to be easy. In fact, often it won’t be. Yes Jesus, we…we haven’t reached this point yet but You will tell us that it is important to count…to count the cost and we’re beginning to see why that matters. So, come Holy Spirit and help us to walk true and walk the path of wisdom, even if only for the rest of this week. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. 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:
Hello DABbers this is daughter of the King from Tennessee. Father we thank You according to Your word You have established us as Kings and priests unto the most-high King Jesus Christ. You said in Your word when the King said he decrees a thing it shall be established. Therefore, we DABbers decree and declare according to Your word that we are blessed in the city, we blessed in the field, where above only and not beneath, we are the head and not the tail, we blessed coming in, we blessed going out, we’re the lenders and not the borrow. We thank You Father we blessed upon our jobs. We blessed in our homes. We confess Your word that are families are blessed, our children are blessed, and prospers all the days of our lives. We thank You. Welcome everyone to this brand-new year. Welcome newcomers. And we thank You. Brian we just so…oh my God January the 22nd recording is so good, and we all need to save this and go back continuously on faith. The…the substance of faith allows us to have access to something we cannot prove, right Brian? We cannot prove. And we must have faith. Peter was walking on it, but he looked around. And that’s what we do. We get discouraged when we look around and we fall. But we trust in God that we…that this 2021 would be the best year ever and we would not continue to look with our eyes that we would trust God in every…every area of our lives. I wanna continue to lift up Gary who called for prayer he would be going to Hospice. God we just praying and believing You with our faith that You would give him life, that he would…life would be restored and we thank You guys for everybody…
Hey this is Micah in awe in Kansas City. So, yesterday I didn’t make it all the way through the DAB. Something with work came up or something where it stopped me during Brian’s…before the final message and I didn’t get to hear the prayer. So, it kept bugging me, like I need to listen to the rest that just so I do my due diligence. And I was like, but the prayer is not that important, like it’s just it’s just the same old prayer da da da da. But man was I wrong. This morning I started out by listening to that. It would have been…it’s the January the 22nd and heard these totally encouraging messages like Alyssa from Montana talking about how the Daily Audio Bible lets you be in the Bible daily. Amazing! Like, if…if the Daily Audio Bible only ever helps just you have a relationship with God in the mornings then it was so worth it, and it’s done it to so many people and all…just insane. I'm…I’m so happy that I listened to the prayers. And I want to welcome you. I’ve been here like a year and a half or something like that and totally excited to have you in our family. Please call in and tell us how you’re doing. Tell us…give us prayer request praise reports. The brother from Indiana. Man…like when you went through the faith of the people that called in, I really felt that. That’s incredible. And then there’s another brother or you didn’t leave your name, but you were talking about how you were struggling with a hard heart towards people. Dude, that is me too. Like, I’ve been struggling so hard to be loving and this virus times just makes it so easy to just put people off to the side and like get away from me. You know what I’m saying? And I want to join in on that prayer with you. I’m praying for you. This is Micah. Pray for me. God soften our heart. I love you all.
Hello, this my name Golden McQueen. I’m from __ McGill Nevada I’m nine years old and when…somebody really close to me and my grandma and me and my grandma died in…in a car crash and her name was Betsy Lopez. Today we’re going to her funeral, but I could wish you…I wish you please send it out because I don’t I…I want everybody to hear how sad that people because we live in a…how sad we are because we love __ and it’s hard to get messages out. And we live in a the…rural area of Nevada. So, it's…it’s hard…very hard to get messages…messages out. And I’m only nine years old but…but…but I wanted to do this for my grandma and for her as a lasting memory. Thank you very much and…
Hi this is Pamela from Pennsylvania. I am not feeling well today. So, it gives me a wonderful opportunity to catch up on the community prayers. I’m sitting here with my notebook and pen recording names and prayers. I’m getting to know all of you and lifting each request up in agreement with you. I wanted to share…the woman who’s praying with hope for healing, I didn’t catch her name today, talked about all of her life living in fear and that resonated with me. And just recently I the Holy Spirit may be aware that all of my life I’ve been making decisions out of fear. It started because of the environment that I grew up with…grew up in with my father being schizophrenic and beating my mother and I had to play the protection role standing in between. God has now healed me from all of that. He’s healed me from the continuing saga of being married to two abusive husbands and I am now living in God’s grace, freedom, healing and victory. I praise our Lord and savior and I encourage all of you that He really does love us and He really will heal us completely.
There was a woman that was very beautiful and her beauty was
from the Lord
she had never ever been with a man she was a irgin and very much adored
even her brother who knew right from wrong wanted her so bad that it burned
but his sister the Virgin wanted to please the Lord so all his advances she
spurned
he continued to burn and got physically sick and he forced her to do things his
way
and because he was bigger and stronger than she was there wasn’t too much she
could say
but after the act his love turned to hate and he wanted her out of her sight
She begged and she pleaded the best that she could but there was no way to make
this thing right
now the brother who raped her was soon killed himself by another brother who
heard what he had done
the father of all of them David was now very much ****** and the killer was now
on the run
then the killer got killed and the father was sad
when the families in conflict it’s all just plain bad
families are very important to God but even more so they’re important to us
sometimes we don’t understand all God’s ways so it’s very important just to
trust
don’t desire the things that are wrong don’t allow them to fester and burn
Satan is always waiting my friends to trap you wherever you turn
he destroyed their whole family and he’ll destroy your house too
he started in Eden and he’s definitely not through
so keep your desires above board and chase
let all of your dealings be done face to face
all of God’s ways are wholly and pure
and he won’t give you more than you’re able to endure
pray in his spirit do things his way
and your strength will increase as you grow day by day
blindtony1016@gmail.com. I’d like to shout out to Mark Creed from down under. Know that you’re being thought…
Good morning dear DAB this is Jeanette from Denmark I want to share something that I thought changed my life step by step. There’s been many things, but since I moved here when I was twenty, I learned the example of two house church leaders who shared what their life had been like by simple example. We were at the little building that we had gotten permission to use and the pastor…well our school teacher he…he asked us to be quiet after a good period of singing together welcoming the Holy Spirit in. And I was at the projector and he said, well let’s stop singing. Just let your heart rest and think of the Lord. Be still before the Lord. Know that He is here, and He is with, that He always has been and always will be and that you are in His arms at this moment. He is so good. He will never leave. He will never forsake you and He loves you. And that moment of breathing opened my heart to a whole different realm of possibility. The pattern started to become a walk, but also I knew I could be in the stillness with my Jesus, my savior, my father in heaven and the Holy Spirit. And in this time stillness and, yeah, the song of worship, it brings hope. I love you all. Bye.