Month: May 2021

1 Samuel 2:22-4:22, John 5:24-47, Psalm 106:1-12, Proverbs 14:30-31 

Today is the 8th day of May welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is great to be here with you today as we bring to the close another one of our weeks together, this being the first full week of the month of May. So, well done. We moved through quite a bit of territory in this past week landing ourselves where we are in the book of 1 Samuel. We began 1 Samuel yesterday we talked about it then and were just getting to know Sammy. He is just a little boy. His mother, Hannah, prayed for him at Shiloh which is where the permanent tabernacle was for…for hundreds of years before the temple was constructed. And, so, Samuel has been given back to God and he lives there in Shiloh under the priest Eli’s supervision. And he’s got this little robe, this little priestly robe that his mother…she makes him a new one each year when she comes to worship. It’s a beautiful story because we all know how we like to dress up our toddlers in grown up looking clothes and they just look so sharp and handsome or beautiful. And, so, you can just imagine Samuel with this little priestly robe and ephod on. It’s just a little junior version and he walks around the temple and he’s learning the ways of the Lord from the high priest Eli. So, that’s basically where we are. We’re reading from the New International Version this week, which is today. 1 Samuel chapter 2 verse 22 through 4 verse 22. 

Prayer: 

Father, we thank You for another week in Your word, this first full week of this fifth month were taken note of it. You have been faithful. We are here. You have carried us this far and we are learning and You are shaping and we open ourselves and invite You to continue this work of sanctification within us that we might be set apart as holy to You and we might be living sacrifices, living the light in this world. Come Jesus we pray. In Your precious name, we ask. Amen. 

Announcements: 

dailyaudiobible.com is home base. That is…well…home base. It’s home base, it’s the homepage, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here. So, check it out. 

Check out the different sections of the website, specifically the Community section and the Shop. And, of course, if you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app…and if you’re not using the Daily Audio Bible go download the Daily Audio Bible app. It’s free, just search for Daily Audio Bible in your store…in your app store, download the Daily Audio Bible app and off you go to find the Community section, the Prayer Wall, the Shop, all that by pushing the Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner of the app screen. 

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that on the web or in the app as well. On the web there is a link on the homepage. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner. And I thank you with all of my heart for your partnership. We wouldn’t be here, these servers wouldn’t be spinning, the word of God wouldn’t be spoken out across the world on a continual basis every day, all day, if we weren’t in this together. And, so, thank you for your partnership. So, there’s a link on the web. There is the Give button in the app, or if you prefer the mail, the mailing address, it’s 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, the little red button up at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253. 

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 Daily Audio Bible family my name is E, I’m from Texas and this is my first time calling in asking for prayer. I’m sure I’ve needed to plenty of other times but I just I don’t know why I haven’t. But thank you to this entire community for constantly praying for being committed. For Brian for you and your entire family for pouring into people daily and touching people and just being obedient to God to help people in a way that many people have probably shied away from, so thank you. I’m calling today because I’m actually not too far off and I’m trying to stay ahead of the curve and in prayer. I’ve had a lot on my plate in so many ways. I’m interested in writing a book about it. It’s just so much. I’m coming off of it’s been about a year since I’ve kind of my husband of 14 years has been having an almost yearlong affair with his assistant in my face and the girls at my house been around my kids. It’s just absolutely overwhelming and unbelievable but I’m still I feel like God actually told me to stay in the marriage. He prepared me that this would happen years before it happened, and it happened and so now I’m just dealing with the aftermath of it but it impacts my life. I’ve been on anxiety drugs I’ve taken I’ve gotten off all of that and I’m just trying to trust God and but it is overwhelming. I’m in a support group but it’s still a lot to deal with daily paired with just regular life where I have a family member an aunt who I’ve actually had to take care of and become a carrier and power of attorney and everything. Plus, I have my own 3 little kids and other businesses that I’m running and new ventures for career paths and I manage artists. I’m deeply embedded in the music community and just trying to function as a normal person when your life isn’t normal it’s very hard it’s overwhelming. So, I’m asking everybody for prayer today that I can stay balanced and… 

Hi DAB Emmy from Illinois here just calling in to say hi and just continued prayer for my husband and I that we can find a way to work through our marriage. My husband is still pretty much adamant that nothing can be fixed. He’s actually contemplated moving across the country and working at a job that he would only be home a couple of weeks every few months and I haven’t he’s not really communicating much with me so I don’t know if he got the job or not. But if that happens it would be in June in that would leave me through the bulk of my pregnancy to be home alone. I have support systems but both of them are an hour plus away. I kind of live in the middle of nowhere. So, it would just be a really hard transition of living life by myself. I can do it, I did it for 37 years before we got married but I wasn’t pregnant then. So, I’m hoping and praying that God will use my pregnancy and I don’t know maybe my husband going across the country to open his eyes to the realities that running from God is what’s making him unhappy, and our marriage is just taking the is the scapegoat for his struggles. So, if you could just continue to pray. I am trying to stay happy and positive and stay as healthy as possible for this baby. So, thank you. Bye. 

Hi everyone this is Mary. I don’t really have a nickname but I guess it could be white or something. I don’t know. But I just wanted to come on here and just ask for prayer for my mom. She recently lost her job and it’s just been really scary. But I’m trusting in God and, you know, I say that but it’s hard to do, you know, and so he’s first. So, I just ask that you pray that she gets to find another job. She’s actually going on an interview today. So, I hope it goes well. I know God blessed her with the interview. So, I know that he will bring her through it. But yeah, if you could just keep us in your prayers. And yeah, I’m keeping you all in my prayers. Thank you for inspiring me and reminding me that God’s in control and just all the inspiration, all the positivity that you guys say. It just really, really encourages me. So, I thank you. God is so, so good even in, you know, the worst moments. And, yeah, thank you Brian for this community. I pray blessings over your new granddaughter. And yeah, I was so excited for that new chapter that you guys are experiencing. My sisters also having a baby in July. So, I’m really excited. She’ll be having a baby boy. So, yeah, I just pray blessings over you guys and peace and yeah, I love you guys. Have a good one. Bye. 

Hey family this is Lazarus calling. I’ll let you know through the prayer request since I was baptized, reborn I went deeper and deeper into Christ father and his Holy Spirit has just been amazing transformation and powerful. I, so, I want you to know that I pray for you all and I care about you all deeply and here for you. Just know about that was out there praying for you in response to your prayer request. So, I have an ask. And come along way. Some of you know my story. It’s been pretty brutal. But right now, I’m about to finish up here on a project that will at least dig me out of the ditch for the moment and it’s been a deep and long ditch as many know. So, I just ask for your prayers. The other party has been this more complicated and has put me at risk even more risk than I am and this will make a huge difference for what I can do for the community. It’s not about me. That job is dead this is the new Lazarus talking and this is about God. This is about doing the right thing getting in a posture of heart and position to be able to work out his plan the father’s plan support his plan. And again, he’s first, I’m last and that’s just the agreement that we have. So, we go out together every day to fight evil and darkness and he’s with me and it’s made all the difference. So, I ask your prayers that I get through this one last step and get on my new track completely. I pray in Jesus’ name. God bless you all. 

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is Carla Mathis from Orlando FL. I’m calling to pray from my husband and my family. My husband is in a federal facility in __ County Texas so I’m here with my daughters. I just wanna say a quick prayer for him. Oh Lord I pray that you will protect __ from any accidents, diseases, dangers or evil influences ___ especially where he is, hide him from violence __ evil people wherever he walks secure his steps keep him on your path so that his feet don’t slip. If his foot does slip, hold him up by your mercy. Give him the wisdom and the discretion that will help him walk away safely and not fall into danger. Be his fortress, his strength, his shield, and his stronghold. Make him to dwell in the shadow of your wings. I pray that__ that we might __ what will happen around him will not come near us and not hurt him. Save him from anything that the enemy __ against him or to destroy him. Lord God I just __ continue in the faith and let him come home. __ When I come back __ . __ I love him so much and I love daddy and he’s going to come home sooner but we have to wait until __. Amen. Amen. 

Hi family this is Biola from Maryland I hope you’re all doing well. Well, congratulations China and Ben on the birth of Reagan the Brave. What a beautiful name. Beautiful baby, I saw her on Facebook. Congratulations to you Brian and Jill. Brian I must say that I am really impressed. I mean I’ve always been impressed by the I am doubly impressed by your dedication to this beautiful ministry you know even after your first grandbaby girl. I know you have other grandkids who are who are boys. Came into the world you still came to read to us. May God bless you brother. May God answer you before your call you and Jill in the name of Jesus and I pray for Reagan Brave. I pray that as her name indicates she will be brave for the Lord. This little girl will be on fire may God give her parents wisdom to know how to raise her in the way of the Lord in the name of Jesus. May they never lack for any good thing in Jesus’ name. And I pray the same for you Brian and I want to encourage everyone who listens to Daily Audio Bible, as you listen and put your log in the fire, please give to Daily Audio Bible. This is really important. Honey Bee I am praying for you my sister that God will touch your eyes and heal you, that God will work a miracle in your life in the name of Jesus. Cammy, I want to give you kudos for such a beautiful, beautiful encouragement that you give to the sister who wanted to know what to do while she’s in an unequally yoked relationship. What a beautiful advice that you gave to her. And Lastly, Tony the Truck Driver I’m so sorry for your loss. I pray for the Ramirez family that God will touch them, that God will wrap his arms around them, that God would comfort them, and God would provide for them. It’s a name of Jesus…

1 Samuel 1:1-2:21, John 5:1-23, Psalms 105:37-45, Proverbs 14:28-29

Today is the 7^th day of May welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it’s great to be here with you today on this 7^th day of May. We concluded the book of Ruth yesterday. So, that means were heading into some new territory. And in the books of Samuel, we’ll begin to migrate out of the time of the judges and into the time of the monarchy.

Introduction to the book of First Samuel:

Samuel is the last judge of Israel. He’s also a prophet. He’s also a priest. He’s also monumental figure in the Bible, but he’s speaking with a voice as prophet, priest, this kind of voice speaking for God. This is something that the people were more accustomed to under Moses leadership. So, we’ll begin today, and we’ll begin just getting to know Samuel’s story. And then the story of his birth. And then before Samuel’s time is done, before we’ve finished the stories of Samuel, we’ll be lead all the way to Israel’s first monarch because it’s Samuel that will anoint king Saul. And then we will spend some time with Israel’s first king Saul, which will challenge us in a manner…in a number of ways to look at the parallels in our own lives, and then eventually we’ll meet David. And Samuel plays a role in David’s life as well. And then we’ll be kinda getting to know David a bit through his poetry and songs found in the book of Psalms. But we’ll get to know his life and his story, and his life and story will also teach us remarkable things about ourselves. So, there are two books of Samuel - first and second Samuel. And followed by that we will read first and second Kings. And this is a good time to just point out that there…originally there wasn’t first and second Samuel, first and second Kings. These were all grouped together as one text. So, eventually the…what we know as the Old Testament was translated into Greek and we call that the Septuagint, which was around the time of Jesus. Then the books were divided into four different parts. And these were known as the books of the kingdoms. Then later, the same Hebrew text, the Old Testament as we know it now was then translated into Latin. It was called the Vulgate and then these four texts became the books of the Kings. So, at this time then we’re looking at First Kings Second Kings Third Kings and Fourth Kings. So, First and Second Samuel, what we’re about to start reading was then known as First and Second Kings. You get it? Like, I know this is confusing. So, First and Second Samuel was at one time First and Second Kings and then there was a Third and Fourth Kings, which is now First and Second Kings. And, so, this all changed ultimately to what…what we are more familiar with, the books of Samuel and the books of Kings when the King James Bible was created in 1611. Unless we think that 1611 was so long ago, that’s like 400 years 400 and change years ago in a tradition that goes back thousands and thousands of years. But anyway, our Bible now reads First and Second Samuel and then First and Second Kings. And, so, that’s what we’ll be reading starting with First and Second Samuel here in about a few seconds. Let’s just remember the territory that we’ve come out of as we’ve come out of judges. Israel had no king. Everybody was doing what was right in their own eyes. That is the set of circumstances that Samuel enters into the story. He’s the last judge. But as we’ll see from his story, he is a prophet and he’s speaking directly for God and the people listen. And, so, with that we begin. First Samuel chapter 1 verse 1 through chapter 2 verse 21.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for this new…this new territory that we’re getting to settle into with the story of Samuel that will lead us to other stories of people that we need to get to know as we’re making our way through the Bible. And, so, thank You for Your word and for bringing us to this point. We’ve been traveling in a specific direction for so long that now we’re seen things unfold before us as the story of the ancient Hebrews in the promised land begins to flesh itself out. And, so, as we continue to move forward on this journey, we ask that You continue to help us see what we need to see, that our lives might be informed, that the paths that we choose are informed by the stories that are found in the Scriptures. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s the website, and its where you find what’s going on around here.

It’s with a prayer wall lives. It’s where to get connected on social media.

It’s where the Shop is. Different categories in that Shop for this journey. All kinds of different resources for this journey through the Bible in a year. So, check those things out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if…if this community, if our seats around this Global Campfire brings light and life and good news and hope into your world than thank you for being life-giving. We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t here together. And…and it it’s amazing that we are. And, so, thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage. If you’re using the 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, the little red button up at the top, hard to miss, or you can dial 877-942-4253.

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:

[singing starts] When I look around at what the Lord offers, I begin to pray on the things that I see. I should keep my eyes on Jesus my savior He has promised every treasure to me. All that I need is my faith in Jesus. All that I need is my home above. All that I need is my Father’s mercy. All that I need is my Saviors love. [singing stops] That was Emily in the UK.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family, first-time caller. My name is Isaiah. I want to send an encouragement to the mother suffering from kidney failure with the 8-year-old son. My heart was breaking when I heard her voice asking for prayer and that really blew me away a0s well as everyone else I’m sure is. Her heart for other people. And I want to reach out and say that you have an entire family praying for you. We love you. And amidst all of these trials the fact that you can still praise God is an incredible testimony to the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, just want you to know that I’m praying for you and your son. God bless you and thank you for this incredible Daily Audio Bible app and this family. God bless you all.

Congratulations China and Ben and for your baby Reagan the Brave. It’s so awesome. Congratulations, grandma and grandpa, Jill, and little E. Just congratulations to all of you. And Brian, just such a blessing to have this baby upon us. Happy to hear the announcement. Isabel from Australia from Melbourne just congratulations you guys and praying for all you guys Daily Audio Bible. Love you’s all. Congratulations.

Hi, I’m calling…I’m calling for the father who was begging the Lord to reconnect with his daughters, with his children, one who is 20 and one who is 18 and that he has sorrow in his heart. He…he would like to reconnect with them and that the mother doesn’t let him reconnect. I just want to let you know that God hears you and you…you know…you've…it touched me to so deeply this love and pain that you feel. And I know that if it touches someone like me who’s in Paris and I have a dad whose sick right now and. you know. sometimes it’s not easy to connect with our parents. And, you know, I’m just going to pray for you now that the path is going to be opened for you. Father, Father sweet Father heavenly Father have mercy on us. Thank You. Thank You, Father for connecting us through technology and through beautiful people like Brian and his family, for gracing us with beautiful hearts. Father, I beg You to forgive our sins, forgive my sins please hear my voice. Please hear my plea for this father who has so much love to give to his daughters. And You alone can connect and repair time. Father sometimes the difficulties in life like illnesses can help families come together. Please use this illness, this diagnosis that his father has to…

Hey, my sweet DAB family this is Kingdom Seeker Daniel. Family, I wanted to reach out to my brother Norman. Double DABber Norman first-time caller from the East Coast of Pennsylvania. Oh, my beloved brother my heart goes out to you in a major way for both the cancer diagnosis as well as the trial and the challenge that you’re experiencing of not having had contact with your children with…which I so relate to, probably around the same timeframe particularly with my girls but maybe even longer. But I just wanted to encourage you to know that the Lord sees you, the Lord knows all about your struggle and he absolutely cares. And, so, I want you to just hold fast my friend, hold fast Norman. God knows and He cares. I don’t know exactly how He’s gonna move but I know He’s at work in the lives of your children. So, let me pray for you. Father I lift up Your son Norman. God, You see both the diagnosis of cancer and the separation and the heartache of not having contact with his children for at least 10 years. God, is there anything too hard for You? We know emphatically there is nothing You cannot do. Will You show up for Norman both in his health and in the relationship break? In the name of Jesus. Amen.

So, my name is Alexander Schultz I’m Annette Marie Allison’s son and I’ll have to say that I was in a jail cell in Telluride Co and I got sent a couple of books from Mr. Brian Hardin, one of them being Sneezing Jesus. And I recall reading his story in that book talking about how Brian had gotten stranded out in the middle of the desert and he ended up in this bar where he didn’t belong, and he ended up needing a ride from somebody. And this guy in this old beater truck gave him a ride and he’s talking trash on this truck and it ends up being the one that he rides in. And I’m in a jail cell laughing to myself as hard as I can on lock down. And people are wondering looking in my cell, “what’s going on?” And I’m here reading this story about Brian and this truck that he’s riding in with this guy who’s half drunk. And it just gave me…gave me a lot of encouragement right there, gave me… gave me a good an uplifting feeling to read that he had been through all this trouble and the person that he just probably didn’t even want to be beside ended up being the only man who would help him. I thought I’d share that though. I thought it was pretty funny.

Ruth 2:1-4:22, John 4:43-54, Psalms 105:16-36, Proverbs 14:26-27

Today is the 6^th day of May welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is great to be here with you at this beautiful time of the year here in the rolling hills of Tennessee. Whether rain or shine it’s just a beautiful…yeah…when the seasons transition it’s just a beautiful month. It gets hot here. That’s coming. That’s how summer is but it’s a beautiful time of year and I trust that it is lovely no matter where you are. And if it’s not lovely, we…we have this place, this little oasis around this Global Campfire where there’s always peace. And we can always come here and exhale, right, and just breathe and let the Scriptures wash into our lives. And, so, let’s move in that direction. We’re reading from the New International Version this week. We concluded the book of Judges yesterday and turned a page and entered into the book of Ruth, which is where we find ourselves situated today. And it…it’s a shorter…it’s a shorter book. So, we began it yesterday. We’ll conclude it today. Ruth chapters 2, 3, and 4.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we concluded the book of Ruth today. And yes, a breath of fresh air. What a beautiful ending to a story that was really a very very bitter story in the first place. It’s a story a famine in the land. And we’ve seen famine in the land of Canaan before, right? That’s how the children of Israel, those first-generation children of Jacob ended up in Egypt because there was famine in the land. And Joseph had gone before and there was provision. So, there’s famine in the land again and in this case a family, the Elimelek family, they have to go to Moab and the sons of Naomi and Elimelek, they had Moabite wives. Now, Moab basically is on the other side of the Dead Sea. Moab is sort of the territory of modern-day Jordan. In centuries past when the children of Israel were kind of wandering around the wilderness, we remember stories with Moab, like the story of Ballam, sent to curse them and he couldn’t. He could only bless them, right, with king Balak. So, there’s some history here. Ruth is a Moabite woman who will not leave her Hebrew mother-in-law. I mean on the one hand, it’s a noble thing at all to stay with your mother-in-law but she’s leaving her country. She’s leaving her family. She’s leaving her people. She’s telling Naomi that “wherever you go, I will go. Your God will be my God. Where you die, I will die. Like your people will be my people.” So, Ruth is, in so many ways, putting her in her life in Naomi’s hands because they do go back to her people and she does have to find a way to…to eat. So, she does have to go and…and basically glean from the leftovers anything that she can. And we see this provision is made in the Levitical law, this provision for the foreigners among you, right, the orphans and the widows…like a way for people to still find food. And, so, she’s doing this and that’s when Boaz comes onto the scene and doesn’t take too long before Naomi recognizes what’s going on here and what could go on here and how this could be a…this could provide for Ruth because Ruth’s gonna outlive Naomi. And, so, she needs this kind of covering and this kind of protection because she’s a foreign woman. So, she mothers Ruth. Naomi mothers Ruth and mentors Ruth and shows her the way to signify to Boaz that she…that she’s available. And she guides her through this process with dignity, right? She’s not like, “okay Ruth, here’s what you do. Boaz is a little bit older. You can seduce him. You’re a younger woman. So, when he has little to drink after the harvest or whatever then you find out where he went to sleep and then you go teach them the ways of the world girl.” That’s just…that…that’s not what happened. She signified by laying at his feet. He woke up and responded with dignity and character - the entire process. We see like something finally is through and through done with character and uprightness. And, so, Ruth and Boaz are appropriately married and she has a son, which changes the whole complexion of Naomi’s bitter life into joy and brings a child to an elderly father in Boaz and the reputation of Ruth only grows as a faithful, committed, dignified, valiant woman. And as the story goes, as we’re told when we get the genealogy at the very very end, we find that Ruth and Boaz are the great-grandparents of a man who would become king of Israel, David, king David, the author of so many of the Psalms whose story we have not come to yet but we’re about to before too long. And, so, let’s just let this story sink into our hearts and minds as we meditate upon it for…well…for as long as we think about it. Character matters. Faithfulness to God matters. Wisdom matters. There is a way to live with honor and when we do tragedy has a way of working itself out. And although weeping may last a night the joy comes in the morning.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for bringing us to this point where we can read the story of Ruth as we continue to just experience the changing of the seasons. And we ask Holy Spirit, come plant the Scriptures into the depths of our lives so that they can speak to our very identity transforming us, showing us the path ahead. Come Holy Spirit we pray in the name of Jesus. Into all this we pray. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, that is where the Global Campfire is, and that’s where it burns, and that’s where we gather each and every day. And, so, it’s good to be aware of and aware of the different sections.

Check out the Community section. This is where the Prayer Wall lives.

Check out the resources in the Shop. This is where there are definitely resources for the journey that we are on. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if this mission that we…that we are all a part of to bring the spoken word of God read fresh every day and given freely to anyone who will listen to it anywhere on this planet any time of day or night and to build community around that rhythm so that we know that we’re not alone, we’re not alone on the endeavor to move through the Bible and read every paragraph and sentence and word of it but we’re also not alone on the journey through a year of life together. And it makes all the difference as so many of us can attest to. And if that has made a difference in your life than thank you for your partnership. There’s a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the 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. That’s the little red button up at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

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, everyone it’s Lisa the Encourager. I’m calling to let you all know that I lost my daddy this past Thursday April 29^th. And I’m very blessed because I had a wonderful dad, and he was a Christian man and he raised us, all my brothers and sisters up in the Lord and taught us. He was a wonderful example for all of us and I’m so thankful for that. I know everyone doesn’t have that. And he had some health concerns and he’s overcome a lot over the years. He was 85 and I was blessed to be with him at the time he passed and could look right in his eyes and tell him how much I loved him. And I knew that at that moment he transitioned and was able to be in the open arms of our Savior. And that’s a true blessing for me. Although it’s been very difficult and I’ve been very sad, like I said I’m very grateful that I had that opportunity to have a wonderful father. And through this I just want to continue to pray for two of my brothers that have walked away from their beliefs. And I just would ask for your prayers for their Salvation or the reassurance or knowing and knowledge and acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their names are Daryl and Shane. And I would just pray that you would pray with me for their salvation and renewed faith through this time of our funeral services for our dad or just in life in general. If you could pray for their Salvation, I would greatly appreciate it and just that we’ll have peace as we have the funeral. My mom is transitioning with…

DABber family, this is the Burning Bush that will not be Devoured for the Glory of our God and King. I just got off the phone with family in Chad, central Africa. There is a war there. The president got killed in battle. They’re stranded in the capital city. The borders are closed and so are the airports. Can you please pray. I’m not sure I understood exactly what’s going on, but I heard that Boko Haram was also in the mix with the fighting. And this is a Christian family. I pray for all the believers out there, just all the citizens, the innocent people. God, I pray for protection in Jesus’ name. And God I pray for peace in Chad. Oh my God, yeah….

Good morning DAV family this is David from Texas. Ultimately, I just wanted to call in and thank you guys because this is a community that I never had before. Before the pandemic I never had, you know, certain convictions that I…that…that were on my heart. I was raised by a pastor and a very God-fearing woman but, you know, I was just kind of walking through the steps. And…and…and by chance I found this podcast and my life has changed just by going through the Bible in these first couple months of the year…few months of the year. I really…I really pray that you guys…you know…I’m 21 years old, I’m in college, and I’m going through a phase where I’m trying to separate myself from a lot of the habits that I had before. And I pray that you guys, you know, can…can send your prayers out for me and strengthen me in this time because I do feel like I have a calling, you know, to speak to people and help people. But sometimes I struggle with, you know, being a hypocritical Christian, you know, not…not…not in that I’m telling people to do things that I’m not doing, but I don’t feel like I can give people advice and speak to people when I'm…I’m still…I’m still kind of living the way that I used to and it’s hard to phase out the things that I used to do. So, I thank you guys. Thank you, Brian. You know, this is this is a really great platform. And God bless you guys. Thank you.

Good morning DABbers again. This is B from Ireland. First of all, Brian, Jill, congratulations on China and Ben’s baby, Reagan. Congratulations. I pray that Reagan will live in the footsteps of her ancestors, mainly you and Jill, that that baby will grow up in favor and stature before God and man, that that baby would do great exploits for God, do greater things than you and Jill and even China and Ben ever will do, that the generation of blessing that is so evident in the life of your family continues through Reagan the Great in the mighty name of Jesus. Thank you for all you do. Thank you for this platform. It’s been a lifesaver. I’m six years in, I think. I started 2016. Is that six years? Yes, I think. And I can’t begin to say what Daily Audio Bible has done for me, in me through the work that you’re doing. May God continue to bless the work of your hands and the mighty name of Jesus. And I want to use this opportunity to give, you know, a call to all DABberds to give to the Daily Audio Bible ministry however way you can. You know, sacrificially or if it means that you, you know, share your tithes with this ministry because this ministry feeds you every day. So, this is what I do. I don’t pay all my tithes to my church. Occasionally I do tithe into this ministry because in a funny way Brian also serves as my pastor. And before I sign out, I want to pray for Rachel a lady who had covid. Oliver, you called. You said your sister Rachel had covid. I pray healing into her body right now in the name of Jesus and restoration in the name of Jesus. The name of Jesus is higher than any other name and at the name of Jesus covid bows.

Hey DAB family this is Sparky from Texas. Monday May 3^rd and I wanted to take a minute and pray for a couple people that last Friday was…it hit my heart. Running Bear, I’d like to pray for you and hope that…hope that your healing, your family gets the healing that it needs and sees the love and the Christianity of this community. I’d also like to pray for Norman with the diagnosis and hoping to speak to his family. Let’s just go ahead and pray together. Father we come to You and we thank You for Running Bear and both Norman Lord. We ask that You touch their hearts and help them to feel Your healing touch and help them to feel the love of Jesus and the kindness and help them to guide…help guide them to let people see Your light in them Father and to trust You. Father I…I pray for Running Bears family, that he meets the Christian part of our family and the part of You that You told us to be like. Father also pray that You heal Norman in the name of Jesus. There’s some powerful things You do Father, and we know that You can heal it. Help to bring his family back together Father and move mountains. You move mountains so much. Father we thank You for everything You do, for every one of us. Amen. I love you guys. Pray for every one of you every time I hear request. I love you all and be blessed.

Hi DAB family my name is Kristen and I’m calling from Oceanside CA and I am a first-time caller, and I was introduced to the DAB family, the DAB community November 2019. And this year is the first year since I was introduced that I have made it a goal to listen every single day. And that has made me so happy and so strong. I am so thankful for the DAB family and I am just overjoyed about Reagan. And I…I love hearing your prayers and I love being able to pray for you. I’m calling to ask for prayer that someone…I…I get spiritual guidance in my life. I don’t have many people…I…I have one person that’s close to me that believes Jesus died for our sins and that is our heavenly Lord. And it is hard because I need more, and I need to be able to have counsel with someone. I just…I need…you know…I’m praying for a woman to come into my life that I can speak to on a daily basis about the Bible, about Jesus and just…I just need help. Thank you for your prayers.

Judges 21:1- Ruth 1:22, John 4:4-42, Psalms 105:1-15, Proverbs 14:24-25

Today is the 5^th day of May, Cinco de Mayo, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today as we gather around the Global Campfire to take the next step forward. In the Old Testament we’ve been reading from the book of Judges and we’ve found our way into a pretty difficult story, a very…a horrible story yesterday and it happens to be the last story in the book of Judges. And, so, we will conclude what we began yesterday by concluding the 21^st chapter of Judges and then we’ll turn the page into the next book and we’ll talk about that when we get there. It’s the book of Ruth. So, let’s dive in and bring to a conclusion the book of Judges and this difficult story that we find ourselves in, where a woman has been raped to death then her body parts have been sent to all the tribes who have come together to go against the perpetrators of the violence which were people…the people of the men of Gibeah, which is a town in the tribe of Benjamin. As it turned out, Civil War broke out and the tribe of Benjamin, although many non-Benjamites lost their lives in battle, the tribe of Benjamin is nearly completely destroyed. And, so, we kind of pick up the story in the aftermath of that final battle when Benjamin…when Benjamin’s men are nearly annihilated. Judges chapter 21.

Introduction to the book of Ruth:

Okay. So, that concludes the book of Judges, which is its own thing…like it’s his own territory. We really do see what it’s telling us. There is no king and everybody’s doing what they want and it’s a tribal time, and there is no cohesive leadership. And, so, this is what happens. And the people have…they’re chasing the foreign gods of the…of the other people in the land. And, so, I mentioned that the book of Judges continually reminds us that there’s no king. And that’s how it ends. “In those…” that…that’s the last verse, “in those days Israel had no king. Everyone did as they saw fit”, which lets us turn the page. And really at this time of the year after going through what we’ve gone through, through the book of Joshua and the conquest of the settling of the promised land and then the slide of the next couple centuries into the time of the Judges, turning the page feels like a sigh of relief. And the territory that we’re turning the page into is a breath of fresh spring air. Basically, the story that we’re about to read is not a long story. It’s mainly the story about three people, two women and one man who show character and honor. And these women are valiant women. And after what we just read it's…it’s such a kindness to read a story of valiant women. And this isn’t just a transitional story to kind of give us a little bit of relief from what we’ve been experiencing in Judges. It’s a story with consequence because of Ruth’s and her mother-in-law, Naomi’s faithfulness. One day king David would be born. And through the line of King David Jesus would come. So, let’s go ahead and take a deep breath and exhale as we turn the page and move into some new territory. Ruth chapter 1.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we concluded the book of Judges with a pretty riveting story and we worked our way through that story, found out that there were just 600 people, 600 men left in the tribe of Benjamin and the move that the rest of Israel made to try to preserve that tribe so that it would disappear from the face of the earth. And then we ended being told, “this is…this is what everybody was doing. They were doing whatever they thought was right. They were doing whatever they wanted. There was no king”, which…which has been the story of the Judges.

Then we turned into the book of Ruth and…yeah…it’s just like an exhale. The complexion changes, although we are still in the time of the Judges, which is what Ruth tells us right from the get go. We’re not really dealing with a specific judge, somebody who rose up to lead Israel into battle against her enemies. Rather, this is a story situated in the time of the Judges but it’s dealing much more with…with family, with how people were living during this time. Everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes, which implies that everybody was doing wrong. But that’s not true. Some people wanted to do right. Doing right was right in their eyes, and we see this beginning to play out in the story of Ruth.

In the gospel of John we have…we have an interesting concept that we need to kinda get our minds wrapped around because it would explain a lot of things. We have talked plenty about like the wilderness and the message of the wilderness and the lessons that we need to learn, that we are utterly dependent upon God, and what a relief that is, that we don’t have to worry about everything, that we are utterly dependent on God. And all of the anxiety and all of the depression and frustration that we can experience often is that we can’t control things. But we could just fall. We could just surrender. We could lay back and understand that we are utterly dependent upon God. But that’s kind of how this all works. That’s kind of how His kingdom works. And that kinda plays out a little bit in John with some things for us to consider. I mean let's…let’s just consider our own lives. Let’s say that we want to…we want to invest in something. We have little money, and we see this little piece of property and we think, “wow…if I but this low I can sell it high. And, so, we buy it and we hold onto it so that it can double, triple, whatever, and so we can make a profit. We took the risk, we made the investment, we waited the time, and then we sold when we could, or any other kind of thing. Basically, we have this concept of if I put in X amount of effort or money than I should receive no less than X, but I should receive Y, I should receive more. You win some you lose some. But the whole idea is, my effort, whether that be financial effort, investment effort, or just sweat equity effort or just work, my effort toward this goal will give me back more than I started with in the end. And that’s fine. That’s a fine way to think. It’s just slightly different in God’s kingdom because we kind of carry this theory. Like my effort should yield to me more than I put in if I do this right. This kind of carries over into our spirituality. I put in this amount of effort for God then He turns around and sends me back my direct blessings because of my direct effort. So, I quote Jesus here. “I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work and you have reaped the benefit of their labor”, right? So, the converse would also be true. There will be times where you will sow and not see that harvest. Somebody else is gonna come and reap that harvest. In other words, we’re all sowing and reaping all the time. There are seeds that have been planted in people’s lives, people that you know or people that you will know but you do not know yet, seeds have been planted in their lives and have been watered along the way by other people so that one day you could come along and reap the harvest. And you are planting seeds. You may not even know that you planted one, but it will be watered and someday somewhere somebody’s gonna reap that harvest. So, what’s the point here? The point is in God’s kingdom we are all in this together because we are all on a level playing field. We are all ultimately utterly dependent upon God. And if we would get about the business of opening our eyes and seeing His kingdom and revealing His kingdom and participating in the love of God for this world, and for its people than we…we would understand that we are in this together. There is no lack. Lack comes when we get divided from each other and then we have to hoard and then we have to go through this process of thinking, “if I do, X then I should receive Y in return.” Basically, what we learn from the Scriptures is that if we will believe and trust then our eyes will be opened, and we will realize that it’s all already ours. And, so, let’s pour that into our coffee and stir it around, think it over today because it…it gives us a check on our motives and it realigns us to the truth of our dependence on God.

Prayer:

And, so, come Holy Spirit. Help us to look at things this way, that we don’t put in a bunch of effort with a certain expectation, that we follow Your leading and we do whatever is necessary, whatever we can wherever we are, whenever You need us knowing that we are in this together. And when we give, we may not get right back from that same person or that same entity but it’s coming from somewhere because we are dependent on You. And ultimately everything we have is a gift from Your hand including this next breath. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudibible.com is home base, it’s…well…its home base, it’s where the Global Campfire burns. It’s the website, it’s the whole backend enterprise that is home for us and that’s how you access it at dailyaudiobible.com or just use the Daily Audio Bible app. Check it out. This is where to get connected as we continue to take that journey forward.

So, check out the Community section. Be familiar with the Prayer Wall. Check out the resources that are available in the different categories of the Daily Audio Bible Shop, resources for the journey that we are on together that we are taking together. And, so, check that out as well.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There’s a link on the homepage and I thank you with all my heart for your partnership. We wouldn’t be in this if we weren’t in this together. And, so, thank God that we are and that we continue to take steps forward every day. Thank you for your partnership. So, there’s a link on the homepage. If you’re using the 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 little red button up at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

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:

Hey this is Natalie from Kansas City it’s my first-time calling in. My boyfriend Micah, I know you guys have heard him, he calls and often, Micah in Awe. He called in and asked for prayers for my thyroid nodules that I was getting biopsied, and they came back benign. So, those prayers worked. I wanted to call and say thank you so much for all of you that prayed for me, that sent good positive thoughts. I appreciate it because I was really struggling on not worrying about it. I wasn’t sleeping. I was just not trusting God to…to take care of me and he did, and I want to thank all of you for praying for me. I know this is my first time calling but I listen to you guys and I pray for you guys and I cry with you guys. And I’m not really one that calls in. I’m kind of shy. So, I just wanted to say thank you and maybe I’ll call in again. Bye.

Hey DAB family this is Stephanie from Bangalore and I feel like I should have probably called in prayer requests earlier and maybe I will continue to…to keep you updated. I know that this may not play. It’s Saturday here and now and it may not play until Saturday of next week. I don’t know but things are dire in India right now. I know that the temptation is to see what’s on the news and think oh it’s being, you know, over…over exaggerated. And there may be some of that. I haven’t watched the US news so I don’t know but I will say that I know of many people in my church right now who are sick. And I know that the…I mean there’s one guy who came to test my father-in-law…yeah…I’ll get to that in a minute…and he’s been testing 80 people a day himself. So, it's…it’s very bad and the shortages are very, very real. We just had a church member lose her mother because they couldn’t get an ICU bed and couldn’t keep her oxygen saturation’s up. So, it’s a very difficult time here in India. So, pray for all of us. For my family. Specifically, my mother-in-law has covid. For reasons the doctor didn’t want us to get her tested for a while. And, so, she finally got tested and tested positive. Seems like she’s on the upswing now. She’s had a…we know she’s had it for at least a week, a little over a week and she’s on medications and everything but my husband and my father-in-law have been tested. My sister-in-law also probably has it. I think she finally got tested as well. So, prayers needed please for India. Thanks. Love you family.

Hi family this is Soaring on Eagles Wings from Canada. Thank you, Brian for opening my eyes to the story of Jephthah and letting me see how doing things according to our own ways can cause us to make decisions which God has never asked us to do. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Song of Solomon from India, I heard you call in and I was so happy because I’ve been praying for you. I’ve been praying for India. I’m asking God to send help into India as the people are in desperate need and only our provider can send the doctors and the resources and the equipment, everything that is needed. Leah from Detroit, I heard your…your cry to ask this community. You’re going through this emotional upheaval. You have some physical issues that the doctor aren’t able to diagnose. While the great physician is our Abba Father and I’m asking him to look down upon you today, guide the doctors, give them wisdom and you too so you can see the part you can play in your own health. I pray that you’d be able to do your job and do it well. Father God deliver her from that which is trying to keep her in bondage. Renzo from Florida, I am so praying for you today. You’re always calling in to pray for others, never yourself. Father God open the windows of heaven. Pour forth such a blessing in…in Renzo’s life and may he be an instrument of Yours to bring others into the…Your Kingdom. Thank you, God for all those that listen in on this podcast, for those that their prayer requests come into you. I join them in prayer, and I thank You Father God.

My name is Angie, and this is my first time calling but I’m very new to Daily Audio Bible and I’m just learning so much. And, so, I wanted to say thank you first. The stories just come alive to me whereas before I haven’t really been able to follow them very good or understand them. But anyways so my prayer request is for a relationship with God, and Jesus I guess that I’ve never really had that I’m searching for. I’m searching for it because I’ve sort of kind of lost my own family. Anyways…and in order to get my family back, and this sounds wrong, but in order to get my family back this is what I know I need to do. And…and it’s also what I want and what I’ve always tried to get in my life but somehow it never has happened, I guess, in the way that I feel happy or fulfilled, the way I believe you do feel once you have that relationship with Jesus that everybody talks about. So, that’s what I’m searching for…just happiness and security in Jesus and understanding and relationship. Thank you so much. Thanks again. Bye.

You gave us your word to clearly revealed to us our own powerlessness
and then you turned around and gave us your own dear son to clearly reveal to us your own magnanimousness
help me truly internalize the message that these two wonderful gifts reveal
first that you knew I would never be able to transcend my own fragility
unless you provided a catalyst through which I could heal
secondly that all I had to do at least for my part
was to acknowledge and confess my condition and believe in Jesus your son with all my heart
believing that he really is your son and has all power to save
not only in this life but also beyond the grave
it sounds so simple so easy to do
but I can definitely confess that that is not true
because every day is a struggle every step of the way
because there’s a part of me that always wants to do things my own way
to work out my own problems with the strength of my own hands
to draw my own line of demarcation and to make my own stance
but after repeatedly trying and failing over and over again
I’m happy to confess that I’ve reached my wits end
and I’m very thankful father for the catalyst of your son
and for showing me how easily this battle can truly be won

blindtony1016@gmail.com. I’d like to give a shout out to Egbert. It was nice hearing your voice again and knowing that all is well with you. And also, Tony the truck driver. It’s good to…definitely good to hear your voice again and to know that AJ is doing well. It’s hard to believe he’s 20 now. Time is passing so fast. And once again Brian and the Hardin family, first off congratulations on the birth of Reagan and I want to thank you for this wonderful…

Hello family it’s Shannon from Salem Oregon and I am calling to rejoice, and we are rejoicing with the Browns and the Hardin’s - China and Ben and family. Congratulations! We are so excited for you and we pray you that the Lord blesses Reagan and all of your family, that He would continue pouring out those blessings of the generations over Reagan and all of you. So, welcome Reagan. I also am rejoicing and would love too for you all to rejoice with me. I graduate on May 8^th. Woo Hoo! With my Master of Arts in school counseling. I started my school program an August of 2019 and none of us had any idea what was around the bend with COVID-19. It has been a challenge to do my master’s program and be here for my family, do my different internships and…and come through. And the Lord has done it. He has brought me through. He is faithful. So, I get to walk across the stage next week. I don’t get to have any guests with me in person because of the all the covid regulations and I’m not going back into extreme risk, but at least I get to do a ceremony because last year’s cohort didn’t get to do that. So, I am celebrating in all the ways that I can including sharing this story with all of you. So, thank you. I know many of you have prayed for me and my family over the last couple of years as I’ve called in. So, thank you. I love you. God is faithful. And please continue to pray for me and all of those educators out there who are working hard to care for kids and families. Thank you.

Judges 19:1-20:48, John 3:22-4:3, Psalms 104:24-35, Proverbs 14:22-23

Today is the 4^th day of May welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is a joy and a privilege to be here with you today as we continue to take steps forward, day by day and they keep leading us a day forward. And every time we do that then, a week passes and then a month. And here we are in this fifth month of the year on this fourth day of the month we find ourselves in the book of Judges all the way from the book of Genesis. So, we’ll just keep going and before we know it we’ll be reading the last paragraphs of the Bible and it’ll be like, “where did the year go?” So, let’s continue our journey learning about the different judges of Israel, the people that rose up to lead the children of Israel after Joshua. And after that entire generation died out everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Israel didn’t have a king or a supreme ruler and they were pretty meticulous about abandoning the Lord and doing some of the very, very critical things He asked them never to do. And we kind of see that coming out in the book of Judges. So, today we’re reading from the New International Version. Judges, chapters 19 and 20.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we have a little bit of a cliffhanger going on in the book of Judges and we have a story that is really difficult - profound injustice followed by very very costly injustice. I mean there are a few really really difficult stories in the Scriptures, and we’ve encountered a couple of them. This one…this one is up there at the top of the list of just being hard to imagine and, you know, trying to find some sort of spiritual undercurrent here that…that we could look at. That’s not really in this story, though, is it? Kind of hard to find that redemptive thread and maybe that’s the point. It’s not there. And this is what happens when it’s not there. So, we’re not done with this story. We’ll have to continue forward into tomorrow and maybe we’ll have some…some things talk about tomorrow. But let’s just look at the story in as much as we know of it and let’s take note of something. The story begins not like, “once upon a time in a land far far away”, the story begins, “in those days Israel had no king.” And that is a phrase and a theme that we keep seeing in the book of Judges. The book of Judges kind of opens up with this idea that Israel has no king, and everybody is doing whatever they think is right in their own eyes almost like it’s a little bit of a disclaimer. Like, “okay the things you are gonna read you need to understand that Israel didn’t have a supreme ruler, and everybody was doing whatever they wanted. You need to know that as you go into this time period.” Judges makes it very clear to us if we’re paying attention. So, just like this story begins, “in those days Israel had no king.” And that’s when we learn of the story. A man in the remote country of Ephraim had a concubine. So, she’s like his common-law wife as we see later in the story, like when he goes back to get her, her husband treats him like a husband. This is just a different arrangement. We don’t have these kinds of…of arrangements typically in the cultures that we live in. So, we can back read our culture into this time and go, “how strange, how weird, how awful”, when what we need to do is just go, “this is a totally different point in history. People are valuing completely different things and they have different priorities.” So, this man, he has this woman. She’s not named. She is unfaithful to him according to what we…we read…we read in the book of Judges and she goes and returns back to her father on Bethlehem. And, so, four months later he goes back essentially to see if the relationship can be repaired. The father welcomes him into the house. He stays there for several days. There all getting reacquainted. The…perhaps the relationship is being repaired because she ends up leaving with him and. And then we just begin to realize that the systematic choices in this story actually draw out the conclusion of the story. It’s just so bizarre. If any one of these little, tiny decisions were different the whole story would be different. Like, what if he didn’t go for months to get her? Then this is a total…this story never happens. And then what if he just gets her and leaves for home the next morning? Well then, this story never happens. But it’s the father-in-law that keeps like trying to delay the departure. And we can understand that. We don't…I mean…if our kids come to visit we don’t want them to leave. And, so, stay another day or whatever. So, we can kind of read into that or just look into that and go, “I kinda understand what’s going on here little bit” or at least potentially what’s going on. The father-in-law keeps trying to delay their departure. Finally, the man is determined he’s gonna get away. Like, he’s not waiting another minute. He’s not staying another night. And, so, he ends up instead of leaving early in the morning leaving late in the afternoon. That choice right there, like if he left in the morning this is totally different story. So, they’re traveling north, they’re traveling north. I mean Bethlehem’s like 6 miles south of Jebus, Jerusalem. So, they had traveled that 6 miles and it was getting dark and there were near the city of Jebus, which is Jerusalem and the servant’s like, “let’s stay with the Jebusites.” And he’s like, “no. We’re gonna stay only where there are Israelites.” And, so, they continue to move on a couple more miles until they…until they get to Gibeah, which is where this whole thing happens. They probably didn’t stay in Jebus for fear of what actually happened in Gibeah. Again, these choices, they stack up to tell the story. So, they’re waiting to be taken in. They’re sitting in the city square looking for some hospitality. This is the custom. They get no hospitality until an older man from Ephraim comes in, welcomes them into his home. And then the…the men of the city surround the…surround the old man’s house. They want the guy to come out. They want to have sex with the man, the visitor. And, so, the old man comes out and is like, essentially what he’s trying to tell those men is, “these are my guests. They are under my roof. I have extended hospitality to them. They are under my protection. It’s against the code, basically. It’s kind of against our unspoken ethics here, that you don’t do this kind of stuff. We have offer…offered hospitality and they’re safe here.” But then this…just the whole thing goes sideways when he’s like, “look, take my virgin daughter, take this man’s concubine. Do whatever you want to with them. Just leave this man alone.” This is when we brush up with the patriarchal nature of a very ancient time and it's… Look, this story bothers me. It doesn’t bother me that it’s in the Bible. It bothers me that there is such a thing as this story and you probably feel the same. So, what we’re not trying to do is figure out some way to whitewash and paint this thing into a good story. It’s a horrible story. It’s in the Bible because it’s a horrible story. Nobody’s gonna read this story. Nobody has been reading the story over the last several thousand years, “going that is in awesome story. Let’s make a movie. I’m gonna write a children’s book about this story and it should be told throughout the generations.” Nobody’s doing that. It’s not that kind of a story. This story is supposed to be an awful story. We’re supposed to read it like it’s a bad story, like it’s a disruptive, disconcerting story. And we can see…like I’m not making that up, but just keep going…like…we’ll see how in just the second. So, that happens. The concubine gets thrown out the door. The men of the town rape her to death. She dies on the doorstep with her hand on the threshold. Don’t think for a second that those details, all those details are not meant to make us that much more unsettled about a kind…this kind of a story. And the Ephraimite, he wakes up in the morning, which…man… He wakes up in the morning, he steps out the doorstep. He’s gonna go on his way. He finds concubine, apparently sleeping on the doorstep because she’s had, I guess, apparently a long night. And he’s like, “let’s go. Let’s go. Get up. Let’s go.” But she’s dead, so she doesn’t answer, and he realizes that she’s dead, so he puts her on his donkey and takes her back home to Ephraim. It’s okay to look at this kinda look at this guy and go, “I have no respect. I…I don’t respect how this went down.” That’s okay. Nobody does. But he does set off something because he cuts her up into 12 pieces. And that’s grisly and gory enough, but they don’t have email and they don’t have local or national news. They don’t have Internet. They…they spread the word in very different ways than we do now. And in this case if you have a body part of someone along with a bit of a story that shows up to your tribal Council then your tribal leaders are probably going to get together with the others because they’re getting body parts to to try to figure out what this all means. And they do get together. They do come together, and they come together with outrage, which is how we begin to know that this is actually an outrageous story. The people, 400,000 armed men from the other tribes come together outraged. “How could something like this happen among us?” This is the question. “Nothing like this has ever happened among us before since we came out of Egypt.” This is what they’re saying. So, this is an outrageous thing that has happened. And once the story is told in their hearing, they…the story binds them together as one with one voice. And that one voice is justice will be served upon those people in Gibeah. And, so, at that point we can go, “okay. I’m on board with that. Like, I see…I see that the people are shocked by what happened.” And, so, this wasn’t like the normal way of things. The people are shocked enough to go to battle…to go to Civil War over it. And, so, they send messages to the tribes, the tribal leaders of Benjamin saying, “hand over the perpetrators” basically “hand over the evil people that were…perpetrated this kind of violence, this kind of outrage, this kind of sin among our people. It must be purged from among us.” The tribe of Benjamin, though, they just get their own army together. And, so, it is…and so it is…so it is Civil War. And we watched several battles. And we watched tens of thousands of people die in pursuit of justice. And we see one final battle that pulls the Benjamites out into the open and they are defeated, robustly defeated. What we don’t quite understand yet, what we will begin to see as we conclude the story, but what we don’t quite understand at this point in the story is that Benjamin is destroyed, an entire tribe. The youngest son of Moses, remember that…that younger son and Joseph sees his younger brother that he hasn’t seen since he was a baby, and he weeps? Remember that whole story back in Egypt? These are his offspring, Benjamin’s children, the tribe of Benjamin. They are utterly destroyed. There are only you hundred people left in the entire tribe. So, an outrageous crime, like an outrageous tragedy, an obscenity committed within Israel and then the rebelliousness of those who will not turn over those who perpetrated the violence has led to the tens of thousands of people losing their lives and the annihilation of one of the tribes of Israel. And we can look at it and go, “there is no redemption in this story”, but there is actually. Taking the long view, there really is and we’ll see that. We’ll see that…we’ll see that as the story continues, but we’ll see that as we continue our journey into the era where there are kings in Israel because Israel’s first king, his name will be Saul. Guess where he comes from? The smallest family in the smallest tribe. He’s the insignificant person in his family who lives within an insignificant tribe known as Benjamin. So, we’ll allow the story play out while keeping in mind that at those…in those days Israel had no king, because that’s we keep being told. It’s being told to us almost like a warning, like some of this territory is tough and we just happened to past through some of that tough territory. Because this is what happens when people in covenant with God abandon God and go their own way. And we can see, like all these little choices, they add up to stuff. I mean we could say, “well…dah…like you didn’t have to make it about that story. Every little decision that we make adds up to stuff all the time.” Yeah, that’s kind of the point. We’re telling the story of our lives with the choices that we make all the things we choose, all the motives of our heart, they’re leading somewhere. And, if anything, we can look into this story and go, “a couple different decisions change this whole story.” And, so, maybe we should slow down and be just a little more cautious about the decisions that we’re making because a couple different decisions can change anybody’s story.

Prayer:

Father we thank you for your word and we thank you for disruption. We thank you. It’s not like it was an enjoyable story to read but this is what happens. And we think you for leaving that in there, for leaving that for us. This is what happens when the covenant is broken, and everyone goes their own way and chases after all other gods and gives themselves in worship other things. This is where the trail goes. So we don’t like to read these stories, but this is where that path goes where awful things can happen. And, so, help us Holy Spirit to pay attention to the decisions that we make, especially the ones that can be consequential. And help us Holy Spirit to have wisdom’s voice that is calling to us at every crossroads, help us to stop ignoring, help us to follow the path of wisdom because it’s not like this sort of thing doesn’t still happen on planet Earth. Human beings still stray incredibly far from you and lose all tethering to humanity and become animals and do this kind of stuff. It still happens. So come Holy Spirit let us be the wise ones. Let us see what’s going on and learn the lessons that are bestowed upon us from the Scriptures. We pray this 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. Always something going on around here.

So, we are settling in with this new baby that’s a part of our lives now, Reagan the brave, and seeing her with her eyes open and looking around and becoming aware and getting to know the voice of her mommy and her daddy and loving, loving, loving that. And yes, I think probably for the next several months I could give to daily update on Reagan. I won’t. But it brings up something else that we have discovered to be quite exciting in our neck of the woods and that is that we have been informed that there will be another baby coming into our world yet this year. Our son Christian and his wife have announced that they are also expecting, and they will also be…be bringing up baby girl into our lives this September. So, the girls are making a comeback, they’re making a show here and I love it, I love it. And, so, we are certainly excited and overwhelmed with all of this is news and that’s just…I mean…part of the of the world around the Global Campfire here. And, so, thank you for he hooker prayers over this next little one and her development and her safe delivery into this world come this autumn. We’re gonna have a couple of babies around Christmas time this year and that's…that’s pretty exciting. So, thank you for your prayers over our family as we expand.

And, of course, we’re a community of prayer and so we pray for each other all the time every day and there are a number of ways to stay connected in prayer and fellowship. One would be…well…the Community section in the app or on the website. That gives links to different social media channels as well as that…well…that’s home base for the Prayer Wall. And, so, there’s always prayer happening there.

And if you have a prayer request or encouragement that you want to call in then there are a number of numbers that can be used. But first of all, you can use the Hotline button in the app, the little red button at the top no matter where you are in the world, or if you want to use the phone, the…the number in the Americas is 877-942-4253. In the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078. And in Australia or that part of the world 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to call.

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:

Good evening Daily Audio Bible this is Faith from Mississippi. I just want to say congratulations to China and Ben on the birth of their little Princess Reagan. It’s such a blessing. And I want to let Honeybee know that I am praying for her as well as well as everybody else. Have a blessed day. Again, this is Faith from Mississippi. Thank you to Brian and Jill for this podcast.

Hi, this call is for…brother you went by the name, I think it was Running Bear, it was like a trail name or something. I just…man that totally…your message there…I’ve done that to people who have lost people and I didn’t even…didn’t even realize that was what I was doing or why. So, thank you for calling. I’m gonna do my best not to do that. I’m praying for you guys. I love you guys. And yeah, thank you for calling man. I’ll be praying for you guys.

Hi, it’s Donna from California and it’s April 29^th and I’ve listened a few times now to a prayer request from, I think his name is Running Bear whose wife passed away about four years ago. He has teenage children and was describing something that really just should not be but sadly is, just an abandonment by the church because people, I don’t know, are uncomfortable. People, as you very acutely noted, want to avoid any hint of suffering. People don’t want to be reminded of something could happen like that to them. That is our American culture. And Running Bear I am…I just…I wanna say I am so sorry for that. That just shouldn’t be. I…I…I repent of that in my own life of times that I’ve just withdrawn from somebody who…who had suffered a tragic loss. And I don’t want that to be. That…that should not be who we are as Christians. And thank you so much for that reminder, that we need to step up, we need to do better as…as Jesus followers. We need to care about one…one and other much better than that. And please call in again. We love you and I…I bet lots of people are praying for you. I am too.

Good morning DAB family God bless you all. So, congratulations China, Ben, and Hardin family. Oh, my goodness Reagan Brave Brown you are in this world and the Lord’s gonna do amazing things in your life. I pray that over you in the name of Jesus. Alright family, here we go. Tony the Narrator I am so sorry you have not been feeling well and this anxiety over you, but we bind those spirits in the name of Jesus. I bind those spirits of anxiety that are trying to take over you in the name of Jesus. Madison from Cali a newbie welcome sweetheart welcome. Your dear friend Tray, I am praying for sobriety. I have prayed alongside with you. I am praying that he will be able to find his Sabbath, you know, to take his release from work in the name of Jesus and to be free of alcoholism in the name of Jesus. David from Pennsylvania, yes, that revelation, Hallelujah. God’s love never fails. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for sharing that in the name of Jesus. Tim congratulating us. Praise you Jesus, you know, for being a part of this family as you are, and we congratulate you for being here too. And happy birthday to your sweet little one who turned 2. Diane Olive Braun, shalom, shalom. Yes sweetheart, I thank you Jesus. Every day should be like today because there are new mercies and new grace every day, every morning. We are so blessed to be here with the Lord. We are so blessed to share His love. We are so blessed to share His word. We are so blessed to be a beacon of light to others. I love you family. I love you. I love you. __. Esther from…

Hello Daily Audio Bible friends and family. I just want to take this time to…just to pray and just to give God glory, just to remember who He is, what He’s about and what He stands for. Too many times we forget just like the Israelites. When they got in trouble they called out to God. God rescued them and he went…they went back to their sinful ways serving other gods and then they get in trouble again, call God…call on God again to rescue them. One time He told them, “hey you get that other God that you serving to…to…to…to rescue you.” But they kept crying out. And we know the blessings and the greatness of our God. He always…He always comes through. So, let us never forget who God is and what He’s about. Let us serve Him with all our heart. Let us not keep dabbling back and forth into sin and righteousness because it’s not a good mix but instead let us hold on to His mighty hand and have Him help us to live a righteous life, a godly life, a godly life that is free from idolatry, a godly life that is free from serving other gods because we know the one and true God, the only God is our Lord and savior. So, let us not go back and forth but let us pray and ask God to help us to live in a way that honors Him every day, each day, all day long, and from here until the time that we…until the time that we enter in…

First and foremost, thank you God because a lot has happened in my life and you are really truly watching me, keeping me. This is Carla from East Texas and I’m…I called with a prayer request for my great niece who I still have guardianship over. We are taking a tiny vacation in Galveston right now and it’s lovely here. We’re just chilling and I’m listening to my…my Daily Audio Bible on a swing outside listening to these strange birds while the girls are running around, and my mom is here with us. And it’s nice to get away. And I praise God that we were even able to do this because I’ve never done this in my life. But praise God that she is thriving in school things are still a little bit rough sometimes, but she loves it with us, and I tell her every day that we’re so glad to have her. Family life is still a little rough. Just please keep praying for all of us including her dad, my nephew who’s going through a lot and my daughter who’s adjusting pretty good. But I just wanted to get on and at least update you. I love hearing this - the prayers and the praises. And I just feel like I’m a part of an awesome new big family. So, God bless, and I love you.