11/26/2021 DAB Transcript

Daniel 2:24-3:30, 1 Peter 4:7-5:14, Psalms 119:81-96, Proverbs 28:15-16

Today is the 26th day of November welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is great to be here with you today. Today is my daughter China’s birthday. Her very first birthday as a mom. And she is mommy to our beautiful granddaughter Reagan whom we are smitten with. So, happy birthday China on this lovely Friday. And typically, it’s this day, this day we call black Friday, this big shopping day. It’s sort of like the first day, although it’s not, right? I mean, it’s not but it’s just this is day I guess that you start really really focusing on and paying attention to the fact that Christmas is really just a…just a few weeks away, like less than a month away, right? This is the 26th of November and Christmas is 25th December. So, it is definitely gets more busy and everything but what a wonderful thing that we get to celebrate and enjoy this season together as we continue our journey. And our journey takes us back into the book of Daniel. And we began the book of Daniel yesterday and will continue for today reading from the New English Translation this week. Daniel chapter 2 verse 24 through 3 verse 30.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we just concluded first Peter. So, this…this letter, not a superlong letter. Obviously, we read it in a couple of days. We’ve reached the conclusion and it should have been observable that this idea of long-suffering or endurance is practically on every page. It’s a theme that keeps coming up and will continue all the way until the very very end of the Scriptures, where endurance really is one of the central points of the final book of the Bible. And we’ve mentioned, we’ve said this endurance is an irreplaceable piece of our faith journey and that the Scriptures in the New Testament are going to kind of reiterate that over and over and over. But what were they and enduring? We know that they were enduring…enduring marginalization and persecution would break out here and there but why is practically every letter that we are encountering instructing or encouraging the receiver of the letter to endure? Basically, we’re in the Roman Empire. These letters are being written from within the Roman Empire and let’s remember that it was the Roman empire that executed Jesus. We know that the Jewish people were complicit. Like, we have the story in the gospels, but it was Rome that executed Jesus in order to stave off any possibility of any type of uprising. And at this point, it wasn’t illegal to be a Christian in the Roman Empire. The society of the Roman Empire was polytheistic, which essentially means the worship of many gods or the understanding that there are many gods. So, worshiping Jesus as a deity, that’s not…not a problem. You can worship whatever God you want because the gods were…were involved in all different aspects of life. And, so, maybe there’s this God that you need to do this thing and this Goddess that you need to do that thing. And, so, it’s not unusual. It wasn't…it wouldn’t have been unusual for people to be worshiping Jesus, although He would have been a God that wasn’t like an ancient God of theirs. Where it gets sticky is that you can worship whatever God you want in the Roman Empire, but the gods of the Empire, the ones that made the Empire great, everybody in the Empire had to worship those gods because those were the gods providing the stability of the Roman Empire. And, so, obviously Christians wouldn’t do that, and that made them stand out because this is part of public life. So, in this case, the Christians looked more like the Hebrews, the Jewish people because Jews also wouldn’t worship the gods of the Empire. But the Jewish people, they had a bit of covering. They sort of had an exemption. They were a people who were practicing of an ancient religion, Judaism. They had always been worshiping this way. They had always been separate. There never had been mixture. They were known for worshiping their God, the God of Israel. So, they were marginalized and didn’t have all of the rights of a citizen but they were allowed to…to just worship their god and not have to intermingle into Roman culture, basically, as long as they kept their act together, which is why we see like the Sanhedrin working together with the Romans to get Jesus killed. It made them look like they were turning over a terrorist to be executed who was going to cause an uprising because they thought He was a king. So, it would look good. It would keep Rome off their backs. We remember reading the story of Jesus trial and the high priest saying, “it’s better for one man to die than for all of us to get wiped out.” And, so, we can see how this all worked. For a while, Christians were mostly Jews. Infact for a while Christians who were not called Christians, they were either called followers of the way or Nazarenes, were only Jews. And, so, Christian’s kind of had the same past that the Jews had, because it does seem like they were part of the same thing. Once the Jews fully rejected Jesus and rejected His followers. Now you have this kind of newly evolving religion as it looks emerging in the Empire. And, so, everyone’s like, “that’s cool but you have to worship the gods of the Empire”, because as time went on more and more Gentiles, more and more Romans were coming into the faith, and they were not gonna be allowed to stop worshiping the gods of the Empire that they had always worshiped. And, so, therefore the tension and the need to endure. Not just endorse some kind of physical suffering, but to ensure the whole process as this is all getting worked out. And, so, this is why we see this theme of endurance happen so often as we move through the letters that are found in the New Testament. And this is why we can see instructions about it, instead of, “just hang in there”, you know, “have a stiff upper lip. Just don't…just ignore people who are saying bad things about you.” Instead, they were instructed, you are partaking in the suffering of Jesus. This is a posture. This is a lifestyle. This is a way to be in the world, understanding that you have the name of Jesus. You are saved forever no matter what bigotry you face no matter what slander comes your way no matter what physical oppression comes your way, endure because you are a witness for the truth of Jesus, and you are secure. No one can take your soul from you. And, so, we see why they would be saying this, and we can see how they would be stereotyped, and we can see why they are encouraged to fly above the stereotype because you’re not gonna just be able to beat a stereotype with words. You’re gonna actually have to show a life that people can look at a go, “ahhh…I know them, they aren’t that. What…what’s being said, that’s not true, that’s not how they are.” To actually be different instead of just talking different. And if you’re curious about like what…what does that marginalization actually look like? We’ve talked about it so many times. But what were people actually saying that would stereotype believers in Jesus. There’s actually a description that has been preserved, written by a man named minutia’s Felix. I think if I remember right, sometime in the late second century. So, like maybe in like the 180s. So, just imagine you’re a believer, and hopefully you don’t have to imagine that. Just pay attention to the fact that you are a believer, you are in some kind of congregation with other believers, you have a certain way of conducting worship, certain things that you do like maybe taking communion or singing hymns. The kinds of things that we recognize even in churches today. We…we understand the rituals of our faith. And not listen to this description of Christians by a Roman observing Christians and buying into the stereotypes. So, Felix says, “they know one another by secret marks and insignia and they love one another, almost before they know one another.” Now, we could stop there and go, “I’m not so sure about the secret marks but the love part, that’s what we’re going for. But let me continue. “Everywhere also, there is mingled among them a certain religion of lust and they call one another promiscuously brothers and sisters that even a not unusual debauchery may by the intervention of that sacred name become incestuous”, right? Super old language, but the idea of calling each other brother and sister and feeling like you’re a part of the family of God, that was viewed as secret meetings, secret hand signals, secret insignia, lust, incestuous lust through this Savior because now their loving their brother and sister. So, you see that…the things that even today that we take for granted in our faith, how easily they can be misinterpreted. Let me continue on. “I hear that they adore the head of an ass, that basest of creatures consecrated by I know not what silly persuasion, a worthy and appropriate religion for such matters. Some say that they worship the virilia of their pontiff and priest.” Virilia is not a word we use now, but we’re talking about…well you can guess what we’re talking about. They’re being accused of worshiping the genitals of their priest. “And they adore the nature, as it were, of their common parent.” Because they would say, maybe “father” to their priest. Now we have father, brothers, and sisters. This is an entirely incestuous religion. That’s where the stereotype is going. But wait there’s more. If that…if that weren’t a horrible enough stereotype. It continues. “Suspicion is applicable to secret and nocturnal rights and he who explains their ceremonies by reference to a man punished by extreme suffering for His wickedness and to the deadly wood of the cross appropriates fitting altars for reprobate and wicked men that they may worship what they deserve.” These are the kinds of things that were being said about our brothers and sisters, right? Alright, I just said our brothers and sisters and we all know we’re talking about. We see how the stereotypes went. You start thinking those kinds of things about people, you start thinking, “yeah, they worship their pastors’ genitalia, they have secret insignia there are other descriptions of Christians actually eating human flesh and maybe killing and eating. The way stereotypes spread around. This is how the stereotype went around communion. This is the kind of stuff that we’re talking about when we’re talking about stereotyping and what the early believers are instructed to endure and…and rise above that. If somebody thinks you’re eating human flesh in some kind of ritual and your worshiping the genitals of your priest and you have all of the stuff going on, it’s pretty hard to combat that unless you’re just not that, and it can be seen that you’re just not that. And this is why they are told to endure and why it’s an important lesson for us today. We don’t have quite the same type of marginalization for most of us, although there are things going on the world today that…oh…are really really difficult to see. And, so, much of that is carried out through stereotyping. And they were told to endure. And we are being told to rise above it and fly higher than it and just not be what the stereotype is. That is so important right now for the body of Christ because so often we’re playing into the stereotypes by just being at war with ourselves. But let’s just make it is simple as possible. If these letters had not sufficiently encouraged our brothers and sisters, our spiritual ancestors in the first century, had they not endured we wouldn’t be here talking. We may very well be worshiping the gods of some empire somewhere. And it’s easy for us to say, “well this is the last generation, these are the end times, it’s all going down because every generation says that.” But our endurance is actually what keeps the story going forward. And should there be another say five centuries out in front of us or fifty centuries out in front of us, how will this story continue if we do not endure now, if we do not stay true now? And, so, let's…let’s carry that with us as we continue our journey through the rest of the Bible. But let’s carry that with us as we move through the holiday season and let’s carry it with us every day of our lives, that our actions, that what we do actually does matter, that we are a living testimony and we overcome a stereotype by not being it. We overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into that. We have confessed many times as we have come before You that endurance is one of the…one of the things that are not on our short list of things we love to do. And we fail at it all the time because we forget that there’s a reason for it. Help us to remember that there’s a reason for it. It builds strength within us. But it is also us standing in the face of whatever may be flying in our direction and holding true to the gospel. Holy Spirit come into this we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

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

It’s Black Friday. So, there’s all of that going on around here. And we have been talking about some of the brand-new resources that are available.

For example, our brand-new Christmas album that releases on the 1st of December but is available for preorder now. And when you preorder the album you get the first three tracks with the other seven just showing up like magic on your device on the first of December. This new Christmas recording is produced and arranged and performed by my son Maxwell of Daily Audio Bible kids fame. He did Daily Audio Bible kids for many years after China moved forward toward Chronological and some of the other things that she’s done over the years. Max seems to be our child that is walking in his father’s footsteps toward a vocation in the music industry. And he has been working so hard on that his entire childhood. He blows me away to be honest. He has far outpaced me as a pianist. He is a fantastic player and arranger. And, so, he’s well on his way. And it’s so thrilling to be able to offer this and remember talking to him about it back in the springtime and to create an atmosphere, to create the kind of album that you want to listen to while your unwinding, while kind of the day is unwinding at Christmas time. Maybe the way I always picture it because the way I always do this kind of thing is to shut the lights off in the house and just leave the Christmas lights on on the tree and we have a little village and that kind of stuff and just…just let that set the atmosphere. This record really fits the bill as a soundtrack for that time. So, the album is called Christmas Time. It’s by Maxwell Hardin. You can find it available for preorder on the iTunes store for Apple devices and the Amazon music store for those associated devices. So, I hope you can check it out and I hope it can bring an atmosphere of calm and contemplation and thoughtfulness and reflection in this holiday season.

Also, it's…it’s Black Friday so the Daily Audio Bible Christmas box for 2021 is now available. This year we are including a copy of the God of Your Story, which is a written companion, the perfect written companion to the Daily Audio Bible. We’re also including our Daily Audio Bible Journal 3.0, the Global Campfire candle that indeed smells like a campfire, fills the room with that sort of aroma. And that can be used all year long to just remind us, we’re not alone. We’re sitting around the Global Campfire together. We’re all over the world. Maybe we won’t see each other, but that does not mean we’re not connected in spirit because we are, and we’ve been traveling throughout this year with tens of thousands of our brothers and sisters around the Global Campfire. And, so, the Global Campfire candle brings the aroma into the room. We also have our Daily Audio Bible Christmas Ornament for 2021. So, it says Daily Audio Bible 2021 on it and the word for the year which has been “Mend”. That ornament is available only in the Daily Audio Bible Christmas box each year. Then you also will have your choice of fresh roasted DAB blend coffee from our Windfarm brand that we roast at altitude in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and then ship fresh to you. If you are a tea drinker, you can choose our…this year we’re…we’re offering our honey Bush and rooibos tea, which is one of our most popular. So, you can choose either Windfarm coffee or Windfarm tea for the box. Also included is a Global Campfire pop socket, 2 Global Campfire stickers, five…a series of five Global Campfire postcards. Of course, they can be used as postcards and sent anywhere. But they’re a series of five. They’re beautiful. They can be set around in places to remind us to pray for one another and be together in community as we’re taking the journey. And then a mystery item from the vault will also be included in every box while supplies last.

And then the other resource that makes a very very wonderful Christmas present would be Promised Land, photographs from the land of the Bible, which is a beautiful coffee table book that has photographs from the land of the Bible curated from nine different seasons in the land and then printed to exacting specifications. It is a beautiful book. And when we were just putting it all together I just decided if we’re going to do this I want this to be excellent, truly a beautiful thing. And it is a beautiful thing printed on beautiful matt art paper. It's…it’s lovely.

So, you can find at Christmas Time, the new album in the iTunes Store or the Amazon music store. You can find the Daily Audio Bible Christmas box in the Daily Audio Bible Shop in the Christmas category. And you can find Promised Land, photographs from the land of the Bible in that same section, the Christmas section in the Daily Audio Bible Shop and I hope you get a chance to check it out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, thank you. If this mission to continue to read the Bible, the scriptures fresh every day and offer it to anyone in the world any time of day or night freely and to build community around that rhythm so that we know we are not alone in this endeavor. We’re doing this as brothers and sisters all over the world. If that has been meaningful and life-giving to you then thank you for your partnership as we approach the end of the year. Thank you so much. We wouldn’t be here if we were not in this together. And, so, thank you. There is 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:

Hello friends this is Alisa from Colorado. I called in a couple months ago asking for prayer for my taste and smell to get better and I just want to thank you so much for those of you who prayed for me because it is slowly improving. So, praise God for that. Today I just wanted to ask for prayer because since I called, I found out that I have stage four kidney disease and my kidneys are quickly failing and the doctors don’t know why. And I actually need a transplant as soon as possible. S0, I’m only 30 years old. I have a 3-year-old daughter. And, so, as you might imagine this time’s pretty scary for me and my family. So, I just need prayer that we find the perfect donor match for my body and that the Lord has His way. I do trust Him, and I do know that He’s going to get a glory through this but it’s just a scary time. I did want to say to Blind Angel that I do relate with you. So, I to pray for you, And I’m also blind. So, we’re in this together sister. And I just want you to know I love you and I pray for you. Thank you so much for all of your prayers in advance. God bless you all and I hope you have a very happy Thanksgiving.

Good morning my DAB family this is Judy from Georgia. Today I want to thank Brian Hardin for that beautiful book, that Promised Land. I was looking at all the pictures and imagining that I was there, or I could see when the apostles were traveling through spots and just awestruck by how far they walked and how much they went through. It’s just beautiful. And then today, Tuesday November 23rd you mentioned about Maxwell having an album. So, I went I listened to some of the tunes that were available to listen to and preordered it and then I got the three songs right away and it is beautiful. So, thank you Brian and Maxwell for brightening my day and my Christmas season. I love you all. Thank you for this platform. I am very grateful. God bless you. Goodbye.

Good morning, DABbers Marjorie from New Mexico. I’m calling in prayer request. I have a younger sister she just turned 47. She married her husband when she was 15 because she became pregnant. And I don’t know how to put this but he…he was the devil in disguise. Well anyway, long story short he had an extramarital affair, and he got the woman pregnant, and this was in 2014. Well, my sister divorced him. He…he had been abusive throughout their marriage. Anyway, they still live together in the same house. She says they’re sleeping in separate beds, but he’s controlled her her whole life. He’s kept her from my mother and I. And now we’re back in contact but we have to hide to talk because if he finds the messages, he will go off. But my sister denies that he’s in control of he. But then the next breath she’ll say that…that…that she is afraid, that she doesn’t want him to find out. And I said OK but why would…why would it matter? Anyway, just pray for her to…to come to Jesus and to know Jesus and to allow her to leave that…that abusive relationship. I know their divorced. She says that they’re separate but she tells me lies because __ she’ll contradict what she just said. So, I just ask for prayer for her. Her name is Crystal. Thank you, DABbers…

Hello. Good morning family this is Hope in Nebraska. It is November 23rd. I would just like to share with you the mighty works of God in my life. When I was two years old my older sister was taken away, adopted by another family member. And…and let’s fast forward 41 years that God has brought her back into our life and my heart just rejoices…it rejoices. Yes. And I would like to say that God is doing a mighty work in your life and that he loves you So much. I pray for the renewal of your spirit, that as it says in Numbers chapter 6 verse 24 through 26 that the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you, the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace. And I say this in the name of your son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Hey there Daily Audio Bible family this it’s John calling from Bethlehem PA I hope you’re doing well. Today is the 23rd of November and I just got through listening to the prayer requests or the program from today and listening to their requests for today’s program and then transcribing the prayer requests and I wanted to thank Work in Progress in California for being just an awesome example of light and life and hope in the world for your friend Marlene that you’ve come to know over the course of time from frequent visits to the…the grocery outlet there in your neighborhood. And I wanted you to know work in progress that I am praying for Marlene, thanking God for how He’s treated her and His hand His healing hand in her life with regard to the cancer that she’s overcome through Him, I’m certain. And of course, so sorry to hear about the loss of her husband tragically in the motorcycle accident. So, yeah brother, I’m here with you lifting her up as well and will be…will be keeping her in mind. And then I also wanted to just thank His Girl Warrior from Alabama for calling in. And I’m praying for the salvation of your family your parents and your brothers. And, so, I’m lifting Shane and Joshua and Benjamin and Normie…and Norman and Becky along with Madis, Manesis, Brianna and Riley up and thank you sister for again for being a shining example of Jesus light and life in the world. Keep on doing your thing. They’ll see you and you’re a testimony to God’s greatness. I love the family. Take care. Bye-bye.