Author: Daily Audio Bible Transcripts

Exodus 23:14-25:40, Matthew 24:29-51, Psalms 30:1-12, Proverbs 7:24-27

Today is the 6^th day of February welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian and it is great to be here with you. And this is kind of a time where I’m in two places at once. So, I’m coming to you right this moment from the rolling hills of Tennessee when I am actually arriving in Israel. And because of the time changes and all of the jostling around and the international travel and all that’s associated with that sort of stuff coming to you from the rolling hills of Tennessee and I will be with you from Israel tomorrow once we can get a little bit acclimated and a little bit set up for the excursion that we are about to go on together as a community. Tomorrow evening will be our first official gathering, our welcome dinner where we finally all arrive all blurry eyed and excited with adrenaline and exhausted from jet lag and…and we’ll get to see each other for the first time. And, so, excited about that, and very much looking forward to touring the land of the Bible together in person and as a community virtually for the first time since…since we all became familiar with a term called Covid. So, it is good to be back in the land of the Bible and I look forward to all that we will see and experience together. But the reason that we have come together around the Global Campfire today is to do what we do together every day, take the next step forward. And the next step forward leads us back into the book of Exodus. And we are around Mount Sinai. God has come to meet with the people, that has terrified the people, so much so that they’ve told Moses like, look, you you go talk to God. God can’t talk directly to us. We’ll die. You talk to God and tell us what He says and then we’ll obey you. And then God has begun to offer the instructions and statutes that will form this people together cohesively as a people, the terms under which they will live together and how they will behave toward one another. And we will notice that throughout all of this giving of the law that we will see that although there are very practical things going on everything that’s being instituted into this culture is aiming them back to God and its aiming them back to who they are and where they’ve come from and who rescued them, who God is. And, so, we pick up the story there. Exodus chapter 23 verse 14 through 25 verse 40 today.

Commentary:

Alright. So, in the book of Matthew today we’re sort of at the back end of a little discourse that Jesus began in our reading yesterday and it came about because his disciples, they were leaving Jerusalem and just kind of marveling at the construction in Jerusalem at the temple and just all of the magnificence of it all. And Jesus tells them it’s all coming down, it’s all going to be thrown down to the ground. That prophetic word did actually happen. And not too long later in 70 A.D. the Romans had had enough and they did completely destroy Jerusalem. But that’s what started this discourse. The disciples come to Jesus later when they’re on the Mount of olives and they want to know when. When is this is all going down? What will be the sign? Like, what will be the sign? If this is the end of the world, if this is all going down how will we know? And that’s when Jesus begins to talk about the times of the end. And ironically, the way that He talks about the time of the end is not to answer their question and tell them the day that this is all going to go down. He tells them how they can interpret what’s going on around them. And it’s not just how they can interpret what’s going around them so that they can discern what the sign of the times is. It’s because they have a role to play in it. There’s a posture or a way to be in it. And, so, Jesus is giving them warnings, like don’t be deceived. There’s lots of people that are gonna come and claim to be something or claim to be Me. And if somebody tells you, go over there, He’s there or come over here, it’s here, don’t believe it. Many false prophets will appear. Many people will be deceived, but…and I quote Jesus here, “but whoever endures to the end will be saved.” And that’s kind of where we were yesterday. Today He speaks of the sun being darkened, the moon doesn’t give it’s light, the stars fall from the sky, the powers of the heavens are shaken. And He’s saying these are the kinds of things to watch for. This is kind of how you know the climate of things. And He gives us a practical example. “When a fig tree has a branch that becomes tender and produces leaves, you know when that happens that summer is near.” And then He says, “in the same way when you see all these things, you know that He is near.” And then He says something that we should really hold onto because we have a tendency and have had a tendency for the last couple thousand years trying to date this, trying to figure this all out, trying to assume for sure that whatever is going on in our time is the worst it’s ever been. And, so, this must be the signs of the time. Jesus says, “no one”, and I’m quoting, “no one knows when that day and hour will be. Not the angels of heaven, not even the Son, but only the Father.” So, what is Jesus telling us here? That we can see this coming in the same way that we can see summer coming, but we can’t know precisely when, because that’s not the point. The point is that we live our lives ready, that we live our lives that it could happen at any time, that we live our lives that it could happen at any time, and we would be ready, which leads us to a little bit of a…kind of a common misreading of something that Jesus says. Jesus says. “at that time”, so this is the times that we’re talking about, “at that time two men will be in the field. One will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken, and one will be left. So, be alert because you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” So, throughout my life…I mean…there are songs about this…and throughout my life I’ve read this and thought, you don’t want to be the one left behind. Actually, though, with careful reading maybe you do. And that doesn’t really have to change this ongoing meaning that there is a rescue coming. It’s just that the assumption that the one that gets taken in this little parable is what you want to be when maybe what Jesus is saying is you want to be left. So, let’s look at this. I’m quoting. I’m just reading from the Gospel of Matthew. “No one knows when that day and hour will be. Not the angels of heaven, not even the Son, but only the Father. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be when the Son of Man returns. In fact, in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the very day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not realize what was coming until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be when the Son of Man returns.” So, if that’s the backdrop to the story that Jesus is telling then they did not realize what was coming until the flood came and took them all away. That’s how it will be when the Son of Man returns. And then Jesus says, “at that time two men will be in the field. One will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken, and one will be left.” So, it…I mean that’s like one sentence removed from Jesus saying, “they did not realize what was coming until the flood came and took them all away.” So, like I said, the meaning is not being changed here it’s just…it seems like what Jesus is saying is you want to be routed, you don’t want to be swept away, you don’t want to be taken. You want to be left. And believe me, I know this tweaks with sentiment, so much of our modern interpretation and our well-formed understanding of the times of the end. But the point in bringing this out is the point of what Jesus is making, nobody knows, not even the Son, but only the Father which is quoted out of the Bible. The point Jesus is making is how we live while we’re waiting. And I quote again from Matthew. “At that time two men will be in the field. One will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken, and one will be left. So, be alert because you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. Understand this. If the master of the house had known what time of the night the thief was coming, he would’ve stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into”, right? He would have been ready. “You also need to be ready for this reason. The Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not expect Him.” That is the point of what Jesus is saying. And then He goes on. “Who then is the faithful and wise servant whom his master has put in charge of his household to give them their food at the proper time?” Who did the master put in charge to take care of each other, to take care of the people? “Blessed is that servant, whom his master finds doing this when he returns.” Taking care of people. “Amen I tell you. He will put him in charge of all that He has”, right? The person that is a ready, the person that is taking care of people, the person that is trustworthy, alert and aware. “But”, Jesus says. “if that servant is wicked and says in his heart, my master’s staying away a long time.” Like, is he coming back? He hasn’t come back for 2000 years. Is he really coming back? “And he begins to not take care of others. He begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards. The master of that servant will return on a day when he does not expect it and at an hour he does not know. The master will cut him in two and assign him a place with hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This is about being ready. And part of being ready is how we take care of each other. And if taking care of each other isn’t even a category on our radar then we’re not ready. And, so, let’s give it some thought today. Maybe even crack open the Bible and go back and ponder the 24^th chapter of Matthew, for ourselves, and wrestle with it for ourselves and allow the Bible to do what the Scriptures do, challenge us, reprioritize, change things around, set us on a path that leads to wisdom and lead us on the pathways of truth.

Prayer:

Father, that is what we are asking for, that is what we continually ask for, that Your Holy Spirit would come and lead us into all truth and plant in us what needs to grow and take from us what needs to not be there. Show us and lead us into what it looks like for us to be aware and awake and alert and ready in the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is a home base. That is where you can find out what’s going on around here. You can also use the Daily Audio Bible app, which you can download free from whatever app store works with your device. And, so, check that out.

Obviously, what is going on around here is we are preparing to go on pilgrimage in the land of the Bible. And, so, obviously we’ll be talking about that as we go through the process. We’ll be talking about that, each day what we’re doing and what we’re gonna do, what we’re seeing or experiencing. We’ll also be posting photographs, maybe videos of some of the different goings on as we do the journey together. And we’ll be posting those on the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page. And, so, knowing about the Community section in the website or on the app, that’s where to find those links to things like Facebook and Instagram etc. etc. And, so, we’ll be posting to these places as things happen. And you can kinda just follow along and interact with each other there and then we’ll talk about it each day. And then on Saturday when we get ourselves arrived…well…in the Galilee area, that evening we’ll do a Facebook live from the land of the Bible. And, so, watch for that. I think that’s planned for 7:30 PM local time. And since we’re all over the world that’s like all different times all over the place, but you could easily Google like the difference between Tel Aviv and your location and find the difference and then you can join with us and will look forward to that. So, just asking for your prayers. We are arriving. There is a wall of jet lag that has to be overcome by everybody when you move so many hours different than what your body clock is used to and then there’s a lot of logistics a lot of technology a lot that…that we’re ready for and asking God’s blessing over but definitely asking for the community to cover us all in prayer as we move through the land of the Bible together. And thank you deeply for your prayers.

If you want partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if what we do as we gather each day and take a step forward in the Scriptures and process it together and consider it together, if that is life-giving to you than thank you for your partnership. We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t…if we weren’t taking the journey together. And, so, thank you profoundly and with all humility. There is a link on the homepage 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, 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:

Coming soon…

Exodus 21:22-23:13, Matthew 24:1-28, Psalm 29:1-11, Proverbs 7:6-23

Today is the fifth day of February, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian, it is great to be here with you today as we greet a…a shiny, sparkly week out in front of us. A busy week it will be indeed, for us, later this afternoon, and all through this evening and all night, we will be journeying to the land of the Bible, from the rolling hills of Tennessee, all the way over to Tel Aviv, where we will be preparing to begin our 2023 tour of the land of the Bible. And that will indeed, be a community experience. There will certainly be a couple of buses of us there, but we will be talking about what we’re doing and where we’re going and how we’re getting along and what’s up and posting pictures on social media, of what we’re doing and where we are. And then, later, about a week from now, we’ll have a live broadcast. Once we…once we make it to the Galilee, we’ll be doing that. So, we’ll be talking about all this stuff as we go. I’m just, I’ve got all these like jitters, you know, like am I forgetting something, do I have everything packed, am I ready because it’s not like you can just run down the street to the local whatever store to get what you need. So, thank you for your prayers. And we’re looking forward to that. But that’s not until later, and so, this is now, and let us take the next step forward in the Scriptures. We’ve got ourselves a brand-new week here, we’ll read from the EHV, the Evangelical Heritage Version this week. And of course, picking up right where we left off yesterday, Exodus chapter 21 verse 22, through 23 verse 13.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for this brand-new, shiny week. We thank You for resets, we thank You that Your and mercies are new every morning, and that every day is a reset. We thank You for Your kindness and Your patience with us, as we continue to grow and mature. And Father, as this week is a week of traveling, and…and…and immersing ourselves in the land of the Bible, we pray for all of those who will be boarding planes and traveling far, and we pray for ourselves. We have to do the same thing, tonight. So, Holy Spirit, come cover in and among us, over all of the details, over all of the logistics, over all of the moving parts, as we navigate to another part of the world and immerse ourselves in the places that the Bible happened. We ask that You would change us, that this would mark us, that this would change us, irreversibly that we would never see the Bible the same again. Come, Holy Spirit, we pray into all of these coming days. Whether we are in the land or whether we are there, virtually as a community together, make this an important part of our journey, an important part of our year, an important part of our understanding of the Scriptures. We pray in the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Prayer and Encouragements:

Good day, Daily Audio Bible community, my brothers and sisters. This is Kacey, the Single-Minded Plumber. I’m feeling inadequate, as a father. A lot of you guys know, when I first started listening and calling in, I was an alcoholic, my wife was an alcoholic. We were alcoholics for almost a decade raising children. And I was just hoping that some of you guys might help me pray to be a better father. Feeling lacking as a parent. And there is so much that I can’t do, that I can’t defend for the kids. I am just not good enough. But I know someone who is and I’m hoping you’ll ask the Lord if He could help me be a better parent. But I help, my brave boy Bradley, feel included in my family. And that my son Derek isn’t so mad a lot of the time, cause he sees me mad, lot of the time. And my daughters, Hannah and Heaven, don’t pursue gender dysphoria, cutting. Thank you, guys, I love you.

Good evening, this is Pray without Ceasing in Atlanta. Today is January 31st. I am finishing up the January 21st prayer and encouragement. I just wanted to reiterate for the others, who like me, missing and pray with and for the callers who cry and rejoice with the callers. And sometimes we just shake our heads because we have no words. We don’t’ always call in to let our family know that we are praying but we do call to God, the God of all possibility, on your behalf. And often we get to pray more than once when we hear someone else praying for you. So, I just wanted to let it be known that though you may not hear us, we are on the other side praying for you and thinking of you and caring about you and loving you from a distance. But we are here, we stand with Rosie, Great to be Free in Jesus, as she prays for the children. We stand with Sparky and Beloved as they pray for the parents. We pray for Duane, I mean, Duane from Wisconsin. And Valiant Val as she encourages us. We pray with Jonathan from Denver, as he prays for the students. So, we’re here, we’re not calling, we’re not, you know, recording, but we’re with you. Anonymous on Purpose, I’m with you. I’m praying for you. Amen. Love you guys.

I’m calling from Melbourne, Australia and I’d like to say, God bless you to all the DABers. Love listening to the word of God and hearing your testimonies and praying for the people who call. I’d like you to share with me please and pray for a Christian friend of mine who’s desperate at the moment. She’s a solo mum and the other day she walked into her garage and found her 28-year-old son ready to hang himself. He had a prepared noose. And she got there just in time. We really need prayer for her. Things are really quite desperate. I told her I was gonna ring you. She is a DABer herself. And so, I just know that with combined prayer it makes a difference. And God bless you all, thank you so much. The boy’s name is …

Hi, I’m calling to ask for prayer for my grandson Willem. He has autism, he’s non-verbal. He’s in the psychiatric hospital right now. But he’s going to start a new living situation on Friday, the 3rd of February. And I’m asking for prayer for God’s protection for his safety. For God to manifest His presence and His love to Willem. He’s not able to communicate well. And in this living situation isn’t successful, the next step is a facility two hours away. I love my grandson very much. I actually would like to have him here with me but that’s not a choice that’s available to me right now. So, please pray for Willem. I do pray for all of you every day. And I’m very thankful for the DAB. Thank you.

This is Road Toad. I was raised in a home where appearances were valued, where we never admitted to any wrongdoing, where we judged people of standards other than that of the Bible. Even though it is a Christian home. I struggle to overcome this, yet today. However, this weekend, my wife and I were in a public place. And I probably was not even consciously aware of what I was doing but looking at beautiful women. One of those women, saw me looking at her and looked at my wife and laughed. My wife is overweight. She’s a wonderful woman. She’s a Godly woman. I am the one who pails in her light. I regret this. I feel shamed this morning as I think about this and tell you. I struggle to not to even do this because, as I said, in our family, we didn’t want to admit, we ever done wrong. Don’t want to be looked at in that light. But I need prayer folks. And I listen to your prayers, and I listen to your words, and I know our nickname’s give us anonymity. So, would you pray for us please?

Exodus 19:16-21:21, Matthew 23:13-39, Psalms 28:1-9, Proverbs 7:1-5

Today is the 4^th day of February welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today as we gather around the Global Campfire and take the next step forward together. And our next step leads us back into the book of Exodus, where we are in the wilderness with the children of Israel. We’ve been reading from the New English Translation this week, which is what we’ll continue to do today. Exodus chapter 19 verse 16 through 21 verse 21.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for the gifts of Your word. We thank You for bringing us to the conclusion of another week. And father even as we prepare to begin this new week and make a journey into the land of promise, into the land of the Bible and begin that journey tomorrow we ask heavenly Father that You bless us with safety and that You knit us together as a community as we…whether…whether being there in person, or whether experiencing this day by day around the Global Campfire that You would knit us together as a community and bring the land of the Bible immediate to us that we may learn, that we may experience these places where these things that are so monumental in our lives occurred. Come Holy Spirit, we pray. Lead us into all truth, we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, and that is where you can find out what’s going on around here. You can also do that using the Daily Audio Bible app which you can download free from whatever app store works with your smart device. So, check that out. Just search for Daily Audio Bible and you’ll be able to find it and go from there.

Check out the different sections like the Community section. There are links to get connected on social media there. That is also where the Prayer Wall lives and that is a resource that is always available to us, no matter what’s going on. No matter what time of day or night it is we can always ask for prayer and we can always offer prayer and encouragement to our brothers and sisters. So, that is in the Community section. Check it out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, thank you humbly. We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t in this together. And, so, thank you humbly. 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, of course, 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:

Hey DAB family this is Burdened Brother in Christ in Virginia and this is my first time calling in. I just joined the DAB family recently and I’ve loved everyday listening to Brian read the word of God and it’s been very encouraging. It’s been very powerful in my life. Getting back on track reading the Bible again. Today I just wanted to lift up anyone who’s struggling with depression or anxiety or thoughts of suicide or anything like that. Lord I just…I ask that You be with those people Lord, that You mind them of their worth Lord. I pray that they recognize that they have a purpose in You, that You have a plan for their life Lord and that whatever they’re going through, whatever they feel about themselves, that You can change them, You can make them new every day. Whatever happened in their past can be changed. They are not defined by their past Lord, but they are defined by You, what Your will is for their life. I pray that they recognize that Jesus died on the cross for them so that don’t have to tear themselves down anymore. They don’t have to…they don’t have to die on the cross because God took their sins. Remind them that they can put the yoke of sin on Jesus. I just pray that there can be some light of hope to their lives Lord. In Jesus’ name. Amen. God bless.

This is Janet from the UK. I found my new name. It’s Learning to Completely Trust God. I was lying in bed listening to the community prayer on January 28^th and I’m just so uncomfortably in bed. I can’t lie properly. My hips hurt. My leg hurt. And I was listening to one of our DABbers talk about her listening to the community prayer I think on January 8^th and somebody was encouraging us to just listen to it and, you know, praying that, you know, if we’re sick in our bodies and stuff to claim victory. And I got up to go do that. I also listened to the lady asking for prayer for her student Elijah and I was gonna go put that in…in my journal because I’ve always wanted to journal, but I really don’t know how. So, I’ve taken up my Daily Audio Bible journal and I realized that I started to write things down and the last thing I wrote was “today I’m going to see my mom” and that’s the day my mom passed which was last year. And I…I’m just having a difficult time. And then this song just came to me, you know, why do I feel that discouraged? Why should the shadows come? Why should my heart be broken, that I long for heaven and home when Jesus is my portion, a constant friend is He, His eyes on the Sparrow and I know He watches me. Pray for me please. Thank you. God bless you.

Good morning, DABber family this is the Burning Bush that will not be Devoured for the Glory of our God and King. I just heard a sister call in. Her mom battles with I think manic depressive and schizophrenia disorders. And sister I am praying for Shalom in your life. God is your peace. I pray for peace in your heart right now in the name of Jesus. I pray that God will still the storms around you in the name of Jesus. I pray that God will allow you to see yourself seated up in high and heavenly places with him where the enemy can do you no harm in the name of Jesus. And I pray for healing for your mom right now in Jesus’ name, that she will accept whatever medication has been assigned to her by her medic…medical professionals and I pray as you wait for that to happen that God will give you a peace beyond your understanding even at work even as I speak right now sister. God loves you beyond comprehension and I pray for healing in your heart for all that you’ve been through in the name of Jesus I pray. There was also a brother who called. He’s moved out of his family home because his family’s stealing from him. Brother, I hear your voice. I heard a sister call after you with a testimony of how God has healed her from addictions and from all other sorts of things. I don’t know what you and your family have been through, but it sounds like you’ve been through a lot and God hears you and he sees your efforts that you’re making, and I just want to encourage you to keep moving forward. The birds of the air, they don’t sow a seed, but God tends to them. Gods got you. I pray that God will open your eyes, that you will see that those that are with you that are greater than those that are in the world. I pray that God would light your path and give you discernment as you move, that God will provide a place for you, a permanent place for you in Jesus’ name. I love you all. Bye.

Hi DAB family out there this is Christine in North Carolina. I wanted to say a prayer of encouragement but first I was just realizing as I was listening to the final day of January, I wanted to give thanks to God for placing upon my heart the desire for…for more, more of His word and more of what’s a part of His kingdom because I'm…I’m very new to all of this. Probably…probably just about a year a year ago I was baptized in the faith and not too much before then met Jesus and was saved for the first time or saved by Jesus and I’m 41 years old. So, I…I just started listening to the Daily Audio Bible I guess about a year ago, but it was very inconsistent, and I barely could get through the whole reading. Had a hard time hearing the…the prayers and the request for prayer because I just felt very overwhelmed like, how…I don’t know how to hold all of this, how to pray, and how to hear all of these things going on in people’s lives. It’s hard. But now it feels like it’s too short. I’ve been listening every day since the beginning of January. That was my commitment to myself and to the Lord and now it’s just like oh it’s over already. So, I’m just I’m thankful for that. I have to send…

Exodus 17:8-19:15, Matthew 22:34-23:12, Psalm 27:7-14, Proverbs 6:27-35

Today is the third day of February, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is great to be here with you today. Got my nice steamy cup of wind farm coffee to my left, as is customary and got the Bible right in front of me, that’s not only customary, it’s necessary. So, were locked and loaded and ready to go. It’s great to be here with you around the Global Campfire today as we gather around this winter day to take the next step forward. I know it’s summertime for some of you as you gather on this summer day, depending on where you are the world, as we gather and find our place and just let it all go. Exhale, deep breath in, big exhale out. Oh, that is, that is so refreshing and knowing that these next few minutes, it’s a sacred space, safe space we can go back and face whatever we need to face, however, we need to face it. This is some time to allow our hearts to be bathed in the Scriptures. And so, let’s dive in. We’re moving back into the book of Exodus, which is where we left off yesterday. Children of Israel are in the wilderness, and they are learning that they must utterly trust in the God that delivered them from slavery. They don’t know it, but the wilderness is changing their identity. So, let’s dive in, Exodus chapter 17 verse 8 through 19 verse 15 today.

Commentary:

Okay so, in the book of Exodus today, we find ourselves in the open wilderness. We are in the deep desert. It is barren. It is mostly lifeless. It is not the kind of place that could sustain the lives of a multitude of people wandering around it. So, there are some lessons that have to be learned that the wilderness will be the backdrop and the teacher for. And we talked about that yesterday, how they were learning utter dependence upon God, and we talked about how this story, like this wilderness journey, is kind of a retelling of our own stories. If we will look into it and see how the children of Israel respond and realize we’re reading this and going, why would you guys respond that way, you have a pillar of fire, you have all that you need, God is right with you. How can you respond this way? Then we look at our own lives and our own wilderness journeys and realize, I’m grumbling, I’m murmuring, I’m afraid, I am just like the children of Israel. And so, one of the lessons that I’ve gotta learn is utter dependence upon God. So that’s kind of where we were yesterday. Today, we’re still in the wilderness, we’re still moving forward. But it’s Moses that has a bit of a lesson to learn on his wilderness journey, he hasn’t done this. He didn’t want to be doing any of this. He asked the Lord; he asked God directly. Like, he was having a conversation with the burning bush, he asked God to send somebody else, right to God. So, he didn’t want to be doing this, he has no experience leading like a multitude of people and navigating the wilderness. So, he’s got some lessons to learn, and they come by way of his father-in-law, Jethro, who meets him along with the multitude of the children of Israel and he bring Zipporah, was his wife and his sons back to him, to rejoin the household, as they continue their journey through the wilderness. So, Jethro is watching Moses and just kind of seeing his day-to-day activities. And if they’re not on the move than Moses, every day is morning until night, just kind of seated, being surrounded by people, making judgments on the issues that are arising among the people. It’s a lot of people, on a very, very big camping trip. So…so, there’s going to be some interpersonal conflict, as people jostle around and sort of figure out what they’re doing and…and they have all kinds of reasons to be concerned because they’re worried about food and water and how they’re gonna survive. So, Moses is out among them, and Jethro simply observes, this isn’t sustainable, my son-in-law. Like, this, you will burn out or to quote it directly out of Exodus, “you will surely wear out both you and these people who are with you.” So, in other words, the lesson that Moses is receiving from Jethro is, as you burnout you’re going to also be burning the people out. Everyone is not going to end up healthy here. This isn’t a sustainable way to navigate the season that you are in. And so, Jethro encourages Moses to a point, to appoint leaders among the tribes and to fill those positions, those spots with people who can actually be of help. Not just fill the people, or fill the spots with people who want authority, or fill the spots with people who are not good, do not…do not have good character, but to fill the positions with worthy candidates who can be passionate about the work of the Lord among the people and helping to organize and govern the people. So, Moses is learning that he can’t do it alone. This is…this is important because Moses never fully like, completely learns this lesson, he’s the senior leader and so there’s a ton of pressure on him and the people constantly are coming to him with their griping and complaining. And so, Moses is constantly reminded, like on a daily basis of his utter need for God to sustain him. And he does a remarkable work based on what he had to navigate. But we can see that it is a heavyweight upon his shoulders that he has to work through in the wilderness. So, this becomes a good lesson for us to learn, one of the wilderness lessons, we can’t do this all by ourselves. We were never meant to do this all by ourselves. We actually need each other to do this. But then we move into the 19th chapter of the book of Exodus and we’re…we’re beginning to learn some new things because they are at the mountain of God, in the desert of Sinai and God has invited the people to purify themselves, because a holy convocation is going to happen. God is going to come and meet directly with the people. So far, Moses has been kind of a back and forth speaking the mouthpiece, but God is going to reveal himself to the people and communicate with them directly. And so, Moses is sent to let the people know, three days from now, on the third day they need to be ready, they need to purify themselves. They need to wash their clothes; they need to get changed and cleaned and spiffy. Put on deodorant, I’m making a joke, they didn’t have any of that stuff. But get prepared. Purify yourselves. We will be meeting with God. And so, that is the backdrop for where we leave off today and we will continue the story tomorrow and find out if they do meet with God and if they do. How does that go?

Prayer:

And so, Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for another day, another day around the Global Campfire, another day to be together in community, another day to know that we are not alone, that we are moving through these things together. And that we are wrestling through together, wrestling and gaining deeper understanding in the Scriptures and wrestling through the issues of life as we follow the leading of Your Holy Spirit. So, Holy Spirit, plant what we’ve read in our lives today, lead us into all truth. We ask in the name of Jesus, expecting that You will do just that for us. Thank You, we pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base and that is where you can find out what’s going on around here. The alternative is to use the Daily Audio Bible app, and that can be downloaded from whatever app store works with your device and that puts it all in the palm of your hand. We have about sold-out of the snapback hats and wholly sold-out of the beanies that we had. We’ve ordered some more, and we’ll have those in supply here, probably within a week and we’ll let you know about that, but they kinda flew out and so glad for that. Can’t wait to see some pictures but we’ll be getting some more of those, and I’ll let you know when they are safely arrived. But in the meantime, definitely check out the Daily Audio Bible Shop. There are resources there for the journey that we are taking together through the Bible this year and so, certainly check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible. If the mission to bring the spoken word of God read fresh daily and offered freely to anybody, anywhere, any time and to build community around the rhythm of showing up together, knowing that we’re going through this together and not alone, if that is meaningful than thank you deeply for your partnership. 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 P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

And as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app 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.

Prayer and Encouragements:

Hello Daily Audio Bible family, my name is Hannah. I’ll go by Grace Over Me. I’m up in northern Canada, I live on the Alaska Highway. And just like to ask prayer for guidance for my family. We are a foster family. And we recently, we took in a little three-year-old boy who was basically described as frail from our coordinator. No one else could handle him. And so, we agreed to take him on an emergency basis. There’s nowhere else for him to go right now. So, he’s with us. And he’s really hard to take care of. He has thrown tantrums where it takes my husband and I to hold him down, so he doesn’t hurt someone or something. And he’s occasionally hurt my other children and tried to hurt us. At the same time, we’re teaching him to communicate with sign language and we see progress. And we pray over him, and we have gotten prayer and a friend of ours has fasted and prayed. And we are seeing strongholds falling and this beautiful boy underneath. But we’re just not wanting to harm our own children in the process of trying to help this boy. And so, we’re faced with a really hard decision about keeping him long term. Or requesting that he move on. So, if you could just pray for us. That would be great. And include my parents at the same time because my mom has severe dementia, and my dad is trying to take care of her, and he has health issues. And she’s refusing any medical help at this time. So, if you guys could keep us in your prayers. A lot of people I love, hurting. Thank you.

Hello DAB family. This is Apex Adam from Washington State. I just finished up on the 30th, January 30th podcast. At the end of the prayer requests section, a young lady or a lady was sharing how she had been involved for 17 years with DAB, listening every day, new and fresh. And I’m in the same boat. And her testimony was so powerful for me because it really demonstrated what it means to be consistent in God’s word, amidst failure, amidst being on the journey. It was just so…so real to me and vulnerable. It meant a lot; it really spoke to my spirit. And regards to freedom, freedom from addiction and cycles of sin and behavior and rebellion and just how she processed that. I really loved that; she didn’t give her name. And she shared her testimony of growing up in a household where there was schizophrenia and things like that. And then there was some reflections on that. All that said, it was such a blessing to hear and so real. I oversee a staff of therapists. I’m a pastoral counselor and do some other things within the body of Christ. And I oversee a some staff therapists and we just see this as such an important role to understand what it means to deal with these kinds of psychological issues and give them over to the Lord in healing but also to follow the rules of thumb for medicine as well. So, just so grateful for everything that you stated. I can’t say it enough. Grateful for everyone. I pray for you every day. I’m always listening and considering and thank you for teaching me so much along the way. God Bless you all. I look forward to hearing more prayer requests. This is Apex Adam, Washington State, out.

Hey DAB family, it’s Mike in OIC. And I’d like to ask for prayer for community. I don’t have a Christian community right now. And motivation and just mentorship, I don’t have it and I need it. I just turned 40 a couple months ago, and I feel like I’m just not really being in active in life. Just kind of being more passive, if that makes sense. So yeah, I ask for prayer for motivation for a kick in the butt, and for my obedience to Christ. Cause like the Proverbs say, you know, little more sleep, a little more folding of my hands and poverty comes. And I’ve been sleeping way too much. Yeah thanks, that’s it for now.

Hello DAB family, this is Diana from Florida and I want to pray for Eyes of a Dove. I believe I said that correctly. She is dealing with her mom who has schizophrenia and for many, many years had been medicated and had been doing very well. However, now she has gone off her medication, as a result is having some very manic episodes. I know that can be very, very frustrating and so let me pray for her. Dear Heavenly Father, I pray for this mother, I pray for this daughter, I pray for them because for so many years, there’s been so much trauma and turmoil that has come as a result of this schizophrenia that the mother has had. So, many wounds, so many difficulties. And Dear God, solutions had been drawn with the medication that she was on, but now for whatever reason she has gone off of the medication. I pray in the name of Jesus, that You would encourage her to get back on that medication, dear God. I pray in the name of Jesus, that she would return to that so that she can be in a normal state of mind. I don’t understand, I pray that it would be so, that she would be healed completely and not have to depend on the medications but God, You know more than us, why these things are the way they are. And so, I pray that You would bring the resolution needed, and that she would have the medications needed. And dear God, in this, her daughter would be strengthened, comforted, that she would put appropriate boundaries and, in the end, find Your peace. In Jesus name. Amen.

Exodus 15:19-17:7, Matthew 22:1-33, Psalms 27:1-6, Proverbs 6:20-26

Today is the 2^nd day of February welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian and it is great to be here with you today as we get ourselves acclimated to our brand-new month and get ourselves moved in. And moving forward leads us right to where we left off. The children of Israel have walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. The Egyptian armies were not so fortunate. And the children of Israel now on the other side of the Red Sea have been singing songs of worship. That’s where we pick up the story with the end of what they are singing. Exodus chapter 15 verse 19 through 17 verse 17 today.

Commentary:

Alright. So, in the book of Exodus now the children of Israel have crossed the Red Sea and the Egyptians are dealt with and so now they have to deal with the wilderness. And they are not being led the short way toward the promised land. They are being led into the open wilderness. Let’s just let that sink in. They are not being led the short route. It’s not a route that will be good for them. They are not prepared for it. They are being led into the wilderness. As we watch this story begin to unfold before us, we will notice that the wilderness is the backdrop for the story. This is where they are. And we need to understand that it’s not only this historical retelling of the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness, but it’s also the backdrop to investigate our own wilderness seasons of life. And we do everything that we can to avoid the wilderness, except embrace it usually, like go through it. But what we’re going to find in the story of the children of Israel is that the wilderness completely transforms their identity. It’s not they don’t have all kinds of struggles and that they didn’t always have all kinds of struggles, but a very important thing has to happen and the wilderness is the place that it happens. And that is that this people who had a promise over them who have flourished have gone centuries in slavery, 430 years. So, they were in slavery for centuries. And, so, no one alive knew anything else but slavery. This was their lot in life. This was their identity. God coming and rescuing them and bringing them into the wilderness is to transform, in part, that identity of slavery and replace it with that of chosen, selected by God for a purpose and a mission, which is to reveal Him to all nations. And, so, there are some practical things that have to be learned in that transformation. While they were in slavery, they were working all the time, certainly, but provisions were being provided. And, so, we see that one of the first lessons that they learn in the wilderness is that there’s no water, there is no food, what do we do? And they begin to grumble. And we even hear them kind of murmuring, wow, you guys, you remember when we could sit around the pots of food when we were slaves in Egypt. It was so awesome to be a slave back then. And, so, they’re…they’re looking back at who they were and longing for the ease of being a slave because it’s hard to be on your own in the wilderness when you don’t know where the provision is going to be coming from. And we watch God teach them these first wilderness lessons. I will supply your needs. I will take care of you, but you are in a place where only I can provide so You will know it is Me that is sustaining you. If we’re going to do this covenant people thing, then your job is to reveal Me, and you will have to do that by actively and openly and utterly trusting in Me and where I lead and direct you. And, so, this is like one of the first things that they learn as they go into the open wilderness, is that they are utterly dependent upon God, and we watch them bucking against that. And we realize, O my goodness, this is my story too. I do the same things. I need to learn the same lessons. And, so, may we embrace all of the wilderness journey that we are going into with Moses and the children of Israel but may we begin to open our hearts to the fact that this story is reading back to us our own story in so many ways and there’s so much for us. And, so, let’s learn these lessons of the wilderness. Nobody likes to be in the wilderness but everybody faces it. And, so, what we do with it? Do we do everything we can to get out of it or do we embrace the fact that it is shaping us and is necessary because some of the things that we have put our trust in need to be shaken loose and in the wilderness, there is no way to survive. I’ve been in that wilderness. We will be in that wilderness in mere days, and you cannot survive out there, not with that many people. And, so, may we learn what’s going on here, that our first wilderness lesson is to understand that our source is God, and we are utterly dependent upon Him, whether we realize it or not. But realizing it sets us free. It frees us up to know like I don’t have to take care…I am on a mission and God is my source.

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into that. We…we all can relate to this. We have all faced challenging hardship and suffering in some way or another. We’ve all gone through what we would call the wilderness and some of us are in the middle of it right now and some of us are heading into it and some of us are heading out of it but it’s all part of our story and there are profound lessons that we discover when we’re walking through the seasons. So, help us as we walk through our own seasons to walk through this with the children of Israel and see what You are doing and how they are responding and how so much, we find ourselves kind of in the same place. Wasn’t it awesome when we were in slavery? We could have all these things. When You are leading us forward and inviting us to grow up and move into something new, something more expansive, something deeper that draws us deeper into relationship with You and into the story that You are telling through us. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudioboble.com is home base, it is the website, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here. And, so, certainly check it out.

I mentioned yesterday about a brand-new resource in the Daily Audio Bible Shop, the brand-new daily Bible snapback hats with Horween leather patches on the fronts as well as the Daily Audio Bible beanies that also have the leather patch on them as well. And, so, we have a couple colors. We have a gray and white option I love very much. I didn’t expect to but I love it very much and then the all-black option and then gray beanies and black beanies. While supplies last. you can find them in the Daily Audio Bible Shop. We’ve been looking for a much better addition to our…to our hats than what we’ve had over the years, and these are our favorites. And, so, we’re looking forward to those being out in the world. And you can find them in the Daily Audio Bible Shop in the lifestyle section. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if this mission to bring the spoken word of God read fresh every day and offered freely to anyone who will listen anywhere on this planet any time of day or night and to build community around that rhythm just showing up here every day around the Global Campfire, if that’s life-giving to you then thank you for your partnership. There’s a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you are 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 if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app 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 DAB fam this is Beloved in Texas and I just want to pray for the mom…I cannot remember what you called yourself…but the mom who called in about anger and yelling at her kids. Girl if there’s a mom out there who hasn’t been there, I’d like to meet her. I understand completely and it is extremely frustrating when you’re trying to…I kind of equate it to like having a handful of helium balloons and each one is a responsibility, and it feels like you are just constantly losing one and running after it and grabbing it and once you’ve got that one another ones floated off out of reach. And I understand. All that to say, I understand. So, Father we just lift up this woman and we also lift up all the other moms who are dealing with this Lord and we just ask that you just bring supernatural peace to our hearts. Help us to have patience with our kids, Father. Give us…allow us to discipline and wisdom and love and not out of anger and frustration. Father, I thank you that you…that Your Holy Spirit can whisper in our ear the steps that we need to take when we feel like we are just overwhelmed, or we’re frustrated by all of the things that have happened in the day. Thank you, Jesus for your Holy Spirit, to lead us and comfort us and guide us in Jesus’ name.

This is Living by Grace, and I just heard some prayer request on January 24^th’s podcast. And just two women who…O…the brokenness that they’ve had in their life and what they are experiencing just broke my heart. And I’m praying with both of you. One was a lady who had an eye injury and found the DAB because she wanted to read her Bible but can’t right now and lost her son to an overdose and she’s now lost all of her children and I can’t even imagine the pain that comes with that. And, so, God I just pray You lift her up Lord that You’d bring healing to her body as she has heart issues and this eye issue Lord and that through these struggles and this deep pain that she has Lord that You would hold her up and draw her near to You. And I pray for her as she has had a burden on her heart to minister to others who are grieving Lord and that You would bind up her broken heart and that she can offer comfort to others. And then there was another lady who called in and I don’t remember her name, but she is just broken and bitter and compared to herself to Naomi who came back and said call me Mara because I’m no longer happy and blessed I’m bitter. And I just pray Lord the enemy is fighting against her and her soul and I pray in the name of Jesus Lord that You would break through that bitterness that hardness that hatred in her heart and that You would make her new Lord that You restore joy to her soul and her heart. God You could do that. Only You could do that, and I pray that that would be so. I thank You that she’s found the DAB Lord. I thank You that she called in and that she asked for prayer Lord. That shows that her heart is still for You. She wants to grow in You, she wants to have this bitterness taken away. And God I pray You’d do that. I pray in the name of Jesus. I plead Your blood over both of these women.

Good morning, DABbers it is Monday January 30^th I am in Southwest Florida so the weather’s gorgeous right now. It’s perfect this time of year. I hope this day finds you all well. I am calling in to ask for prayer for my daughter Sarah. Sarah is someone who does believe that God exists, but she doesn’t really have a relationship with Him. She doesn’t really know Jesus and really doesn’t like the fact that I’m a born again Christian, so we’ve been sort of estranged from one another for lack of a better word since 2009 when I embraced Jesus. I just need some prayer for her. My daughter is 34, lives alone, works from home, has become quite isolated and depressed and anxious and suffering panic attacks. And all of a sudden realizing how lonely she is and just a whole laundry list of things that every mother dreads to hear. I kind of knew this would happen eventually. I just wasn’t expecting it. I guess we never really are, but I went and spent five days with her while she had her nervous breakdown I guess for lack of a better explanation. I don’t know what else to call it. Not sleeping, not eating, racing thoughts, nausea, gagging, puking dry heaving, you name it. All of those things associated with high anxiety. So, please just pray for Sarah. Please pray that she can begin to heal now that we spent five days together purging and crying and talking and laughing and joking and cleaning and organizing. Please just pray for Sarah. Thank you all so much. I love this community. Blessings on this Monday.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible DABbers my name is Comfort and I’m calling from the United Kingdom today is the 30^th of January and I just so happened to __. I’m just calling to say a big thank you to…this podcast has really helped me over the years since I’ve been a listener and I’m just so grateful for all of the prayers that I hear. You know, I pray along as well and I’m just so thankful for the word itself and how Brian, how you really digest the word, and you break it down into a way that is easy to understand. I just want you guys to just continue to pray that God would excel and grow this ministry even further. And if you would like to pray for me as well, please do. Thank you so much. Take care everyone. Have a lovely, lovely day. Bye.

Hi Daily Audio Bible family this is Olivia from Michigan. This is my 4^th year listening and my first time ever calling in. I’m just calling today to ask for prayers for my dad. He’s been in horrible pain for so many years now and been to so many doctors and nobody can figure out what’s wrong with him and it’s just really hard to watch him in so much pain. I…I really believe that the only person that can heal him is God. So, I just wanted to call and ask for prayers. Please keep him in your thoughts and just hope he gets better. Thanks.

Exodus 13:17-15:18, Matthew 21:23-46, Psalm 26:1-12, Proverbs 6:16-19

Today is the first day of February, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it is awesome to be here with you today, as we greet this new month on day 32 of our brand-new sparkly, shiny year. We have made it. We have navigated through a month together, well done. We can do this, like that’s the thing, we’ve made it through a month and look at all that has happened in the Scriptures in a month. Look at all the different things we’ve been able to talk about, all of the different things we’ve been able to consider in our own lives through the Scriptures in a month. And we’re just gonna keep going, we get 11 more of these in front of us and that’s exciting. We can gather together each and every day around the Global Campfire and take another step forward. So, here we are, brand-new month. Hang out until the end if you can, I have this brand-new resource that I want to announce at the end today, in commemoration of this brand-new month. But for now, let’s dive in, take the next step forward and step into this month together by picking up where we left off, which leads us back into the book of Exodus. The children of Israel have just been delivered from Egypt and they have navigated their way out of Egypt, moved into and toward the wilderness. And as the Bible told us 600,000 men so, and their dependents, their households. So, a moving city, a huge amount of people, moving out into the wilderness, and this is where we pick up the story. Exodus chapter 13 verse 17 through 15 verse 18.

Commentary:

Okay so, as we begin this brand-new month, we have some pretty monumental things taking place in both Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, the children of Israel have made their way to the Red Sea, and they’ve camped along the banks. And so, there are mountains before them and the sea behind them, or vice versa, depending on which way they’re standing. They’re kind of hemmed in by mountains and…and sea. And I was thinking about this because man, we will be leaving for the land of the Bible in just a few days, on Sunday, and making our way over and since, like next we’ll actually be standing by the Red Sea and seeing the mountains and things in, and the banks of the shore, kind of seeing this visually and being able to kind of visit this visually. The children of Israel are camped by the sea and the mountains are hemming them in and then all of a sudden, they hear the rumblings of something coming and, in the distance, they can see the dust flying and then they can realize what is coming and it’s the Egyptian army coming against them. They are hemmed in by the ocean and by the mountains, kind of sitting ducks. And here comes the enemy down upon them and they’re terrified. And if we look into our lives, we can find times that we’ve had that sensation, maybe not literally standing by an ocean, hemmed in by a mountain and some marauding warriors are coming down against us. But in our lives where it feels like we’re hemmed in, there’s nowhere to go and an enemy is descending upon us and there’s no way out and we do not have the resources we need to defend ourselves, and it looks pretty clearly like we’re going to get destroyed. That’s the position that the children of Israel are in, as they enter the wilderness. And Moses says to the people, and we should all hear this, we should all hear this and take this to heart and apply this and look back at the times that we’ve been hemmed in, or that we feel that way, and remember Moses’s words. Do not fear, stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord that He will provide for you today. For the Egyptians that you see today you will never ever see again, the Lord will fight for you, you can be still.

Then we turn over into the book of Matthew, Jesus is in Jerusalem. So, as we’re in the Old Testament in the book of Exodus, like there’s no Jerusalem, yet there is no nation of Israel. There is no king, there is no kingdom. There’s just people moving through the Red Sea and being delivered by God, as God destroys their enemies, but when we go into Matthew we’re moving well forward in the story. And so, Jerusalem is the established Holy City, the city of God, the place where God dwells and meets and speaks with man. And so, there is a whole order of clergy, there is a whole order of ministry, the Levitical ministry. There’s a whole group of priests and scholars and rabbis and people who wrestle and debate about what God wants, and they lead the people spiritually. Jesus is in Jerusalem. He won’t get out alive. And we see some of his provocation today. Some of the things that had them plotting to get Him killed. But when we look deeper, we realize some of the same things are still going on. So, Jesus is in the temple courts, a very commonplace for Rabbi to be teaching while in Jerusalem. The chief priests and the elders of the people came to Jesus as He’s teaching and interrupted and said, who told you, You could do this stuff? Right, by what authority are You doing these things? Who gave You this authority? So, there’s the shot across the bow. There is the challenge. Who do You think You are? Did You get a permit from us to go around healing people? Like, who told You, You could do this stuff? And Jesus knows exactly what’s going on here. And as Jesus is prone to do, He asks a question, and the question reveals the motive behind what’s really going on. And so, He says, I’ll ask you. And He asks them about John the Baptist, who, who gave him his authority? Did his baptism come from heaven or was it invented by mankind, because their answer to that question is the same answer by which Jesus got His authority. So, if they say John was clearly from God and that is where he got his authority, then Jesus can say I’m working in the same direction. My authority comes from God. But Jesus then asks them the question that reveals what’s really going on and they can’t answer that. If they say John was sent from heaven, then Jesus will say, then why were you not on board? Why were you fighting against God? And why are you asking me was authority I’m doing what I’m doing under? But if they say he was from man, then people believe that John was a prophet and their hearts of turn toward God. And so, so they’re gonna be in trouble with the people. And so, they can only say that they don’t know. And so, Jesus is like fine, I’m not playing this game with you. And He goes on to tell two parables. A man had two sons and if we remember as we’ve gone through these parables, so often they start with a man did this or a man went out to do this, and this so often represents God and that’s the case here. Man had two sons. He went to the first son, go work in the vineyard the boy answered, I’m not gonna, I won’t, I will not. But then later he changes his mind. He has a change of heart, that is repentance. Later, he repented. So, the father goes to the first son and says come work in the vineyard, come work toward the harvest, come, the vineyard being the kingdom here, come, work doing the work that we do together. And the boy answered, I will not but then later repented and obeyed. The father went to the other son and said the same thing and the boy said sure, I’ll obey you. And then didn’t. Which of the two did his father’s will is the question Jesus asked. And they said the first, the one who said no but then repented and obeyed. So, they could answer correctly but they couldn’t be self-reflective enough to know that they were doing the latter, they were saying we will obey the Lord, but they don’t. And so, then Jesus says, I’m telling you the truth, tax collectors and prostitutes will go ahead of you into the kingdom of God. That’s provocative. Like, that was the scum, right. Like, that was the marginalized, that was the people that jokes were made up about and slanderous things were said, and these are the people pushed to the margins and dehumanized so that they’re a group of people that can be hated, as opposed to actual human beings, with beating hearts and feelings. Tax collectors and prostitutes, we could expand that any marginalized, persecuted people. They believed and according to Jesus would enter the kingdom before the pious, religious, educated leaders because those people were saying the right things but not obeying at all. Then He tells another parable. A landowner planted a vineyard again, landowner, God, vineyard, kingdom. He put a fence around it, dug it, like made it nice. Built a watchtower, leased it to tenant farmers. These tenant farmers then in this, in this story are the religious leaders. So, he put it in their care and went on a journey and was expecting to reap a harvest. And when harvest time came, he sent servants to collect his portion of the crop and the tenants beat the ones that were sent. Beat one, killed another, stoned another. These are the prophetic voices that God had sent to speak on His behalf, and they were beaten and killed and thrown out. And then He sent other servants, more prophetic voices, more than the first and they treated in the same way. Finally, He sent His son, right, the Son of Man, Jesus here. Finally, He sent His son, saying they’ll respect my son. I’m gonna send my son down to my people, the people of covenant, to the religious leaders to turn their hearts so that they can turn the people’s hearts toward God. I’m gonna go. They have not respected generationally, the prophetic voices that I have sent, I will send my own Son, He will go. Surely, they will respect Him. But when the tenants saw the Son, they said to themselves, this is the heir, let’s kill him and get his inheritance. In other words, let’s take what does not belong to us and let’s take it over. And what Jesus is talking about, is God’s kingdom. And so, it’s a very provocative that what he is saying to them is, God has come to you so many times, in so many ways and He is here before you write now and your giving lip service, you’re saying the right things but it’s not true and you are leading people into deception. You are the blind leading the blind. And Jesus is revealing just how blind they were. Because this is not getting through to them. Their response to this is to make plans to kill Jesus. And so, Jesus says, as we closed our reading today, for this reason I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. And I’m quoting from the gospel of Matthew. “When the chief priests,” right, “the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they realized that He was speaking about them.” They did not, they did not repent. Like, they did not open their eyes to see, instead and I quote from the gospel of Matthew, “they wanted to arrest Him, but they were afraid of the crowds because the crowds regarded Him as a prophet.” And so, we see that Jesus is in a pretty sticky, prickly situation. We probably all know how this story goes, so we know that Jesus ends up on a cross, from this point. So, the people that He is calling out and calling up aren’t listening, and they’re going to do away with Him exactly as His parables are describing. It’s kind of prickly because anyone who has any sort of spiritual authority needs to be paying really close attention to what’s going on here. Because what’s going on here is that people who are devoted to God and the ways of God and are teaching and leading people in the ways of God, have gotten things so twisted and upside down over time and through tradition and because of the situation that they find themselves in trying to protect themselves as a people under Roman authority, that they are completely blinded to what God is actually doing. I mean, we’re going to be witnessing a story here that is so twisted that the people of God kill God who has come to rescue them, because they believe it has to happen a certain way, because they’re expecting a certain thing, because they’re expecting a Messiah, a military figure, somebody who can lead them into war against their enemies. They missed the fact that their rescuer came for them, and they did away with Him. We have to be sensitive about our labeling system, the way that we label people groups, marginalized people and dehumanize them into ways that…that make them easy to be against. When Jesus came to rescue them and anyone who believes. Like, man, it’s so provocative. Jesus is telling these people that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom before you and the kingdom will be taken away from you. That’s provocative stuff, that still has application. And so, may we examine ourselves, especially those of us who are leaders, may we examine ourselves and be convicted as these parables are supposed to do. Like, this is what’s supposed to happen, is that we are shaken, and we consider and we wrestle, so that we can expose what’s really going on in our motives, so that what is broken can be put back together, so that what is within us is the same as what we are presenting, so that we are true.

Prayer:

And so, Holy Spirit, we invite You into that. Some days You come to us with such comfort and just such words that we need to lift us up and then some days You come to us with things that we really need to consider, because You are calling us up and forward and we need to mature, we need to grow up, we need to be capable sons and daughters of Your kingdom, fully loyal, fully committed, fully surrendered. Come, Jesus, we pray, in your mighty name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

Okay, so I mentioned at the beginning we had a new resource to announce today, on this first day of the second month of the year. And we do. We’ve been shopping around for a while looking for much, much better hats than we’ve had in the past, for Daily Audio Bible. And we’ve had them over the years, but we’ve been just searching for quality things that will last, things that will look good and can continue to be used, five, ten years from now. So, Christian went on a search and found us what we were looking for. So, in the Daily Audio Bible Shop, we now have brand-new snapback hats, like the ballcap style of hats, as well as Daily Audio Bible beanies, as we’re moving through the wintertime and like to put those on our heads and keep our ears warm in the winter. So, what he found was a leatherworking company, that works with Horween leather that gets sourced in from Illinois and then it’s fashioned in Wyoming and everything is made in the United States. And so, these leather discs are then hand stamped with our logo and affixed, the leather is affixed to the cap, and it looks great. It looks super classy. So, the ballcap, there’s the round logo on the front, with the beanie it’s a little patch right on the very, very edge, with the Daily Audio Bible logo stamped into the leather and then applied to the garment and then sent to us from our friends at Range Leather in Wyoming, to you, all over the world. So, we have selected to ballcaps and two beanies, all-black and gray and white. And you can see them in the Daily Audio Bible Shop. Just go into the lifestyle section and you’ll find them, they’re brand-new. By far the best hat that we’ve had, we have them in limited quantities right now, just to kind of try them. Although, I’m pretty excited about them, they look great. They are now available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop, while the supplies last. And so, jump over to the shop, jump over in the Lifestyle Section and get yourself a little, little, tiny piece of, of the story, the ongoing story of the Daily Audio Bible, step-by-step, day-by-day. But our brand-new snapback hats and beanies are available right now. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, humbly, thank you, we wouldn’t be here if we weren’t a community, if we didn’t show up around the Global Campfire every day, if we weren’t in this together, we wouldn’t be here at all. And so, thank you, humbly for your partnership. 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 P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

And as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, that’s 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.

Prayer and Encouragements:

Good morning DABers, this is Jerry from Wyoming. It’s 5 o'clock in the morning on a Saturday morning. It’s the 27th or the 28th, I’m not sure. But I just wake up and wanna run to listen to my DABers and listen to what the Bible has to say for today. Just praise God for that. I’m in the midst of major snowstorm and I’ve got these two cats and a dog who just cuddle up next to me when I’m ready to listen to Daily Audio Bible. And I just wanted to praise God for all of you out there and pray for all of you out there, all your needs and wants and desires. And I ask blessings and healing and comfort to all of you out there. I ask that the Lord just shines upon us all. And my heart is so warm to be able to, even though I’m here by myself with my two dogs, or, with my two cats and one dog. And sitting here with my cup of coffee and kind of my loneliness but it’s okay. I’ve got you all out there and it makes me happy. And I thank God for ya’ll. And I pray for you all and I’m thankful for you all. And that I have this place to go and sit here in my comfort. Though it’s crazy snowy. I love it, I love it, the comfort of it all. Love you guys.

Hello, my wonderful DAB family. This is Rosie, aka Great to be Free in Jesus. I’m calling in with a prayer request for my granddaughter Anisa. I’ve told you about her before. She was married and as soon as she had their first child her husband decided that he didn’t no longer wanted to be in the relationship with her. So, he left and then he came back and they reconciled and now she’s got a daughter. Damari is 2 and a half and he’s been diagnosed with Autism. And Malani is a year and a half and she’s doing well. My granddaughter is doing all this by herself and she’s really exhausted and I want to help her but I’m not physically able to and it just breaks my heart that I can’t help her. Please pray for her that God will send her the help that she needs and that God would heal Damari of this Autism. And I love you my wonderful DAB family. God Bless you.

Lonely DABers, this is God’s Chosen from Georgia. And I just want to say a short prayer over all of us. Dear Jesus, we come before You this morning to thank You for the work You are doing in each of our lives. We’re grateful for every new opportunity that this day bring our way. We thank You for Your grace that is so amazing. As we grow stronger, may our faith in You continue to grow deeper, so that we will continue to remain thankful. We know that the plans You have for our lives will slowly unfold with each new day. We’ll be patient as change comes because we know that You are in absolute control. Help us Lord, to help others today. We pray for all those who are hurt in our community. We pray, Lord Jesus, that as You continue to lead in their mystery You will continue to help and strengthen them. We pray for those who’s lives have been impacted by the disastrous addiction. We pray, Lord Jesus, for all the families that are torn apart, especially for the children left behind to wonder and grieve. God, we pray that You will give them peace and You will guide them gently through the next hour. We pray, Lord Jesus, and thank You for giving us roof over our head and giving us a bed that we can sleep in. For putting shoes on our feet. Forgive us when we ever start to complain and forget about all the great blessings that You have given to us. We pray for all those that are sick in our community, all with diagnoses, different situations, life changing situations. We pray for your peace and invite You, Jesus, to come and be our comforter. Thank You for all You do, we love You and we appreciate You. We pray this prayer in Jesus name. Amen.

This is Laquita from Vinita. I just wanted to say thank you Brian for what you were talking about on January the 27th about how Moses didn’t want to go to Egypt because he knew it was gonna be a hard task. And my mom died of COVID last year and I’m having to take care of my dad which is 89-years-old. And he has a lot of problems and I don’t complain but everyday I think, uhhggg, I’ve gotta go over there and take care of him and it’s gonna take all my day. I could be doing all these wonderful, great things for the world. And whine, whine, whine and why me. And I realized today that when we look at ministry, sometimes we look at ministry in the church, helping the people on the street, ministering to the hungry and doing all those things. And in taking care of my dad, that’s what I’m doing. I’m ministering to someone who is alone, who needs meals, taking care of him, who needs companionship. And I just want to repent of my hardness that I have. And thank the Lord that I have a dad that I can touch and minister to. Thank you Brian, I needed so badly to hear that.

This is Stephanie from North Carolina. I was originally from Maryland and I went on the pilgrimage with Brian some years ago. And I’d like to pray for each of you on the pilgrimage to the Holy Land, will abide under the shadow of the Almighty. May He cover you and your household under the shadow of His wings. May your flights to Israel and back home, will be smooth and safe, including all your luggage will arrive. May your bodies adjust well to the time zone difference. As you walk where Jesus brought the Gospel, I pray you will have a deep revelation and understanding of the love of the most High God. May the Lord, Most High, be with you at every stop. I pray for strength and wisdom for Brian and his team. Empower them with discernment. In Jesus name. Have a marvelous pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Exodus 12:14-13:16, Matthew 20:29-21:22, Psalms 25:16-22, Proverbs 6:12-15

Today is the 31^st day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today on the last day of the first month of the year. Obviously our 31^st day on our journey through the Scriptures. And, so, we’re a month in. We’re kind of out beyond the shoreline now. We have sailed and we look back at where we started, and we can’t see. We’re out in the deep. We’re sailing across the year together and it is a joy to be on this voyage with you and it is a joy to be able to gather around the Global Campfire today and take the next step forward, the step that leads us to end our first month and that next step forward leads us back into the book of Exodus, back into the story of Moses, back into the story of the deliverance of the children of Israel from their Egyptian slavery. And we will see that story come to its fruition today. Exodus chapter 12 verse 14 through 13 verse 16.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of Exodus today we have the…the moment of deliverance and we were able to witness that as Passover was observed and…and Egypt lost their firstborn. And it didn’t have to happen, but it did happen. And at that point, like there was nothing else to do would let the people go. Because after the firstborn have died than who’s next? Like if this is where…if this is where were at then this God who is invading Egypt is a very powerful God. And…and they can keep resisting but every time they resist, they get destroyed more and more. So, they can resist until they’re completely destroyed, or they can realize that they’ve Artie been destroyed and it’s time to let the people go. And the people marched out plundering Egypt - silver and gold, garments supplies, 600,000 men on foot. Well over a million people by the account in the book of Exodus are heading into the wilderness and it’s a magic moment because freedom has come for the children of Israel. It’s a terribly sad moment for the Egyptians who were becoming more and more clear that their gods were not powerful enough to save them. And the awe and reverence for the God of Israel, the most-high God had descended upon Egypt, and God was made famous in Egypt and stayed famous in Egypt and this whole Exodus story spreads throughout the entire land as we will see as we go forward. And it might seem like, great man! They’re going to go to the promised land now. This is the story. This is awesome! And it is awesome, but this is just the beginning of the story. We have many dusty miles and many lessons to learn as we navigate ourselves into the wilderness.

In the book of Matthew, we are…well…we are heading toward the conclusion of the book of Matthew, but we are heading into the passion narrative, the story of the last days of Jesus. And, so, we arrived in Jerusalem today for these last days and we will be moving through that for the first time this year in the coming days. But while He is on his way to Jerusalem. So, like while He’s coming from the Galilee and going to Jerusalem He’s going south. It’s like 90 miles south, but the way that the path could be handled most easily was to head from the Galilee down into the Jordan Valley, and then follow the Valley like along the Jordan River, follow the Valley and follow it all the way to the city of Jericho and then go up to Jerusalem from there. And, so, Jericho being below sea level, that’s a pretty steep climb, but it’s an 18-mile hike up to Jerusalem. And, so, we find Jesus in Jericho today on His way to Jerusalem. So, He’s left the Galilee, gone into the Jordan Valley, made His way south to Jericho and now He’s got this climb up into Jerusalem. But He’s in Jericho and as He’s passing to Jericho there are blind men on the road and they hear that it’s Jesus that is passing by and they begin yelling, “have mercy on us, Son of David.” They’re just calling out because they can hear that there’s a big crowd but they’re blind so they can’t see. They can’t get through the crowd, they can’t find Jesus, they wouldn’t know Jesus if they found Him. They don’t know what He looks like. But they’ve heard of Jesus, and they know what His reputation is and they’re yelling to try to get His attention. And the crowds trying to keep them quiet of course. And they’re just yelling, “Jesus. Jesus Son of David, have mercy on us.” And He heard them. He heard them and He stopped, and He brought them to Him, and He said, “what you want me to do for you?” And they said they wanted their eyes opened. And Jesus opened their eyes and they could see and they followed Him. It’s a beautiful story. It’s just story that if we go one layer deeper, we realize it’s our story. It’s our story encapsulated in their story, and it reveals to us a posture, a posture of heart that we are to espouse, knowing that on our own we are spiritually blind, that we are wandering, that we can’t see where we’re going, that we fall down, that we’re disadvantaged, that we can’t get anything done, that we’re blind. And when we reach a point where we realize this, and we understand that it’s total and we cry out, have mercy upon me, when we realize our utter need and our utter dependence and reach then we hear these words coming back, “what you want me to do for you?” And our response is what Jesus has been calling out in His ministry. Our response is to ask for eyes to see and ears to hear. The blindmen say it beautifully. “Lord, let our eyes be open.”

Prayer:

Jesus, this is our prayer today. Let our eyes be opened. May we see things as they are. May we see through Your eyes, not only the world and the people in the world around us, but may we see ourselves through Your eyes. We are reaching for You in desperation, knowing our utter dependence and our complete need of You. We are blind. Open our eyes. May we have eyes to see and ears to hear, we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it is the website, it’s where you can find out what’s going on around here. And, so, certainly do that. And you can do all this with the Daily Audio Bible app as well right in the palm of your hand and the app can be downloaded. Just search for Daily Audio Bible at whatever app store works with your device and you can download it from there. And, so, check it out.

Check out the different sections like the Community section. This is where to get connected on social media, different links to the channels that we participate in. But it is also the home of the Prayer Wall where we can always share our stories, our struggles, our victories with our brothers and sisters and allow them into our story, that they might come along side of us and encourage us and pray for us, that they might come along side of us and jump up and down and rejoice with us. This is a resource that is always available to us. And, so, certainly check that out in the Community section.

If you are a partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if you find that coming around the Global Campfire each and every day is life-giving then thank you humbly for being life-giving. There is a link on the home page 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:

Good morning this is Early Riser. I’m on my way to work. I’m simply calling in to express how much joy I have when I hear the variety of people talking. Last week someone prayed in the Asian language I think it was Chinese. Hearing different accents. I’m in the Midwest. So, hearing what an accent is to be from the northeast or the southeast or a western accent or Canadian accent or people calling from the UK, South Africa, it’s such a beautiful picture of what the diversity in the Kingdom of God is like. What I consider an accent is flavor, different minerals, and salts. Somebody else can hear me and think that I have an accent. And it’s just this beautiful expression of the diversity of who the Kingdom is and who is also around this…

Hello this is Lisa from Oklahoma and I just listened to DAB and I heard Emily from Washington praying about her anger. I also struggle with these issues. So, I would like to know if you up in prayer. Dear God as we come before You we ask that You would help Emily Lord Jesus. You see her heart and You know that she doesn’t want to be this way. And You see her trying and I just ask that You would bind Satan in the name of Jesus and that You would keep away this anger and help her Lord to find peace and comfort in knowing You and that You can give her what she needs to be the mother that she needs to be to her kids. And help her give herself and not to beat herself up Lord because sometimes things affect us that we’re not even aware of and it makes an anger and we don’t even know where it’s coming from. I have been there, and I have lived through it and You have helped me and You can help Emily. God just wrap her in Your arms. Give her the peace that she needs. Let her know that she can get through this and with God all things are possible. I’m praying for you Emily I hope you have a great…

Father God we just praise You today, we worship You today. And I lift up my brother Garrett today God. I will lift up his return to You, his falling in love with You, his knowing that the addiction and the drift and disconnect from You came when he gave all the love that should have been Yours to another god. I pray that You would heal him and You would hold him and he would fall so deeply into serving You God that he will be healthy in the next relationship. I lift my sister Emily God. I lift up the anger of God that she has given way to this year, __ out on her children God. I lift up her children and I pray for a healing of their spirits and their hearts of all they’ve heard and all they’ve experienced. But God I pray that Emily would know that this time does come up as prayer and fasting God. Let her know no spirit has control of her God. Let her know right now in the mighty name of Jesus that greater are You in her than anything in the world, that the anger is the work of the flesh that can be broken, the entire back of it can be broken through prayer and fasting, not only her but anybody else dealing with the same stronghold God. I lift up Devon God. I lift her up right now right now God. I thank You for her journey as a pregnant mom and God the journey she’s had in learning Your word God. I pray that she’ll take it one day at a time, that she won’t feel so overloaded with trying to catch up God, that the value and the treasure in each day will be lost in this seed and the load she’s trying to carry every day. Let that word just permeate her soul. Thank You for Brian, thank You for China God, thank You for Jill and the DAB family in Jesus’ name. This is Dawn of a New Day. Love you DAB family.

Hi Daily Audio Bible family. My name’s Derek from Oklahoma. I’ve been dealing with a lot of things in the last year - health issues, started drinking heavily. I was terrible to my loved ones and the people around me and my addiction was helpless. In the past month I’ve been listening with Daily Audio Bible, seeking God. And in my prayer and fasting He gave me this prayer that I want to share with you guys for anybody that’s dealt with some of the stuff I’ve been dealing with and maybe different things, but you know if this is you. Dear God, I felt like I’m not enough for Your service. From this I see come all of my weaknesses. I’ve short sighted You Lord. I’ve lacked faith. God please show me that I’m worthy of You and that I’ve allowed Satan to trick me into believing that I’m not. Forgive me. Put me into situations where I can find my worth in You. Help me to be of service to You Lord Jesus. Make me enough. I’ve shied away from Your service and I’ve tried every single thing I can think of to not be all in. Help me to forgive myself like You forgive me and to see myself I was Your temple and Your child. Redeem me Lord. Renew me. Make me whole in You. May my body be a fitting drawing piece for You. Maybe I be light and salt in Your world and help others to seek You. That was the prayer He gave me last night. I love you all. I’ve cherished listening to your prayers for others and your requests for prayers and I’ve been praying along with you. I’ve been listening with Brian. Grateful for all of you and grateful for community of Christians. You’re so sincere. Love you all. God bless.

Good evening my DAB family this is Mavis calling in from Grenada in the Caribbean. I want to pray for Paul out in Houston who has been separated from his wife and his family for six years and is going to __ at the end of February to be able to bring the family together again. Lord, we thank You. We bless Your name. We thank You Lord because You are in the healing and the restoration business. Nothing is too hard for You to do. We thank You cool Paul and for the strength that You have given him over those years father. We thank You for touching his heart oh Lord. Oh we thank You for his family that You are restoring them, You’re restoring his wife and his children unto him. Bless that relationship oh God. Bless him in the name of Jesus. We thank You that You are going to take full control of this situation. Bring the family back together again. Let him experience Your amazing love. Oh God we pray that You will strengthen him. Oh, he will look to You the author and finisher of his faith. We thank You Lord that he can find the strength in the midst of the storm to continue to serve You. So, we love you Paul and we thank you that God will strengthen you and give you the courage to continue to hold on. Do not give up. Hold on. God is standing right there with you. We love you. Bye.

Exodus 10:1-12:13, Matthew 20:1-28, Psalm 25:1-15, Proverbs 6:6-11

Today is the 30th day of January, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian, it is wonderful to have the opportunity to gather together around the Global Campfire and just enter this place of peace and serenity and allow the Scriptures to wash over us and into us. I am so grateful for this community and this place that we create each and every day. So, let’s do what we do every day, which is to take the next step forward together. We are pretty well enmeshed in the book of Exodus at this point, a showdown is happening. God is desiring to set His people free, people that began with Abraham, Isaac then Jacob, who was Israel and then Israel had children, the children of Israel. Joseph was one of those children who is taken into slavery in Egypt but as things turned around, Joseph became second in command of all of Egypt, which brought the household to Egypt 70 people, but now 400 years have passed and those 70 people have turned into a multitude, a great and mighty people that have made the Egyptians nervous, so they have enslaved the Israelites. And then we met Moses and God calls Moses to go back to the land that he came from, the land of Egypt, and set his people free. And there’s lots of twists and turns along the way. We’ve gone through them all. That’s where we are. Now, Moses and Aaron are confronting Pharaoh regularly and plagues are descending upon the land and things have gotten beyond what the magicians of Egypt can replicate. And so, now, people are taking notice, like this is the finger of the Almighty God. This isn’t a trick. But Pharaoh’s not convinced and that’s where we pick up the story, Exodus 10 verse 1 through 12 verse 13 today.

Commentary:

Okay so, we have navigated our way in the book of Exodus, all the way to the precipice of a freedom for this enslaved Israelite population. Egypt has been destroyed by plague after plague after plague, each increasing in intensity, each very, very clearly showing the hand of God and the distinction that He is making between the Israelite’s, His people and the people of Egypt, not because he hates the people of Egypt but because their faith is in what is false and you can bet they are crying out to their gods to take these plagues away and it’s not happening and people are respecting Moses, but their respecting God. God’s name is being elevated among the Egyptian population. The fear of the Lord is descending over the population. But Pharaoh, believing that he has supernatural powers and is descended from deity himself, cannot submit himself to a God that’s invading his land. And so, we hear that God is hardening Pharaoh’s heart. And we read that like Pharaoh doesn’t have a choice in the matter; this is his destiny. But when we think of hardening hearts, we need to think about how our hearts get hardened and if somebody just shows up and starts telling us what to do and how we should do everything and how we must submit and how we must obey, we will probably resist against that, and we may even dig in our heels and say I will not do that. And our heart has become hardened to the situation. We will not move in that direction. At any point, this whole thing could have been called off. In fact, it didn’t have to happen. The people could’ve just been set free to begin with. But that would radically have changed Egypt and its economy and there are all kinds of implications to letting a whole slave population go free. And the increasing intensity of the plagues have made it clear that, there isn’t a choice in the matter, one way or the other God is leading His people out of slavery in Egypt. And so, we see the institution of well, the instructions for Passover, to gather together and have this meal and so, they are painting the blood of the animals over the door posts of their homes, marking themselves as God’s people, under a covenant, protected by God for God’s purposes, which are to reveal God to all the nations of the world. Protected by God and prepared to walk into their freedom. Ironically, it’s Passover, when we come into the Jesus story and we’re not that far actually from experiencing this for the first time in the gospel of Matthew. And it’s Passover time. And through the death of Jesus, all are led into freedom.

And then we turn over into the book of Matthew and it was a couple of days ago where a question was posed to Jesus about who is the greatest in the kingdom. The GOAT; who’s the GOAT in the kingdom of God. And then, Jesus uses a series of teachings and examples that lead us all the way today, to where He explicitly answers the question, but He uses children as the example, the innocence, the humility, the wonder of a child. And He warns very gravely against anyone who would steal that innocence away, not only from a child, we would all agree that stealing the innocence from a child is a horrible thing, a horribly abusive thing to do. But what, by way of expanding that Jesus expands it to those who believe in Him. Anyone who steals the innocence and wonder and awe away from a believer, woe to that person. But in today’s reading the issue kinda comes up again, like who is aware in the hierarchy of authority and closeness to God. Jesus takes His disciples societies on his way to Jerusalem. And He lets them know what can be expected to happen in Jerusalem and what can ultimately be expected is that Jesus will be killed, but He is promising to rise again. So, that is a weighty conversation to have, whether your Jesus and you have to go through death by being brutally executed or whether you’re one of the disciples who has left everything to follow Jesus. That’s a weighty conversation for your rabbi to say we’re…we’re on our way to Jerusalem, and when we get there, I will be taken from you and killed. It seems like that would be a somber kind of thing that would leave everybody sort of walk…at some point walking in silence, really, contemplating what’s gonna happen. But as the story reads, Jesus gets done saying this is gonna happen and then the mother of the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus with her sons and knelt down and asked Jesus to make her two sons in the hierarchy of things to be seated one on his left and one on his right when he enters this kingdom. And the funny thing is, He’s been teaching about the kingdom, He’s been telling parables about the kingdom, He’s been describing the kingdom and they’re still expecting a different kind of kingdom. They have this inherent understanding of what the Messiah is gonna look like and Jesus looks like that person, except for, except for the uprising part. Like, go get your knives and daggers and hatchets and plows and let’s go to war part. Jesus is describing a kingdom that doesn’t do that. But they still expect the Messiah to rise up and defeat their enemies, which in this case is the Roman empire. So, if Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem for a showdown, then this is about happen and everybody better jockey for position because once He gets going, it’s not going to stop. So, when the other disciples come to the understanding about what’s happened with the sons of Zebedee and their mom, they get angry about it. And then Jesus simply lays out who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven, as He responds to this tiff that’s going on, this jockeying for position and the anger among the disciples. And Jesus says and so, certainly we need to take it to heart because Jesus is saying it, but Jesus is saying it to explain the hierarchy of God’s kingdom and we…we don’t live into this. Like, for some reason we still think the opposite is true. But let’s look at what Jesus says, I quote, “you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions use their authority over them. It must not be this way among you. Instead, whoever wants to be great among you, must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you, must be your slave. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.” Our cultures do not operate this way. Most of us live in cultures were trying to make distinctions about how we are superior, in some sort of way, a master at something in some sort of way. In order to climb up ladders and gain notoriety and increase wealth and increase influence, are like Paramount, like this is even dominant in church culture. Like the goal is to be a celebrity pastor or the goal is to attend the biggest church in town. And I’m not saying you’re in any of that is wrong. I’m saying that’s not the characteristics for greatness in God’s kingdom, according to the King of the kingdom. The criteria for greatness in God’s kingdom is available to anyone. It doesn’t require a person with money or a person with power, or a person with influence or connections or whatever. It requires understanding that how we take care of each other is what matters in God’s kingdom. Anybody can participate in that. When we’re flipped over and trying to climb ladders for us to win, somebody has to lose. We may have to step on some heads as rungs to the latter that were climbing up to get there. But when we get there, we’ll sure do an awful lot of good. That’s not how God’s kingdom works, according to the King of God’s kingdom. How we take care of each other is how it works in God’s kingdom. I quote again, “it must not be this way among you. Instead, whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Let’s give it some thought today, as we observe ourselves and not just our actions, not just after we’ve done something and go, why did I do that. But the motives of the heart. Are we here to serve one another, are we, or are we here trying to get ourselves in a position that we can be served. Things to think about.

Prayer:

And Jesus, we invite You into those things because they are paramount things. You came to earth and began to reveal that life is from within and this exterior life can’t work without the interior one and putting them back together so that a person can live true from within and without and be true, that this is possible. This is what You’ve come to do that. This is what You are offering to us. And when we participate in such a way that we have to arrange for everything and we have to climb ladders and we have to have certain levels of visibility, these things are fine, they can be achievements, they can be goals, but if we’ve lost the plot of the story that this is all boiling down to how we take care of each other in Your kingdom, then we’re missing the point. Help us retrieve the point and move in the direction that is what Your kingdom is like, and Your kingdom is like You. May we be more like You today, than we were yesterday. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudioible.com is home base, unless of course you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, which you can download free from the App Store that is connected to your device and then that’s home base as well. And so, come to home base, check it out, check out the Community Section. This is where you can find links to the different social media channels that we participate in and it is good to find that platform and follow along. That way messages of encouragement and messages of the community will maybe…maybe show up in your feed. But it’s a good way to stay connected. But there in the Community Section is also the Prayer Wall and the Prayer Wall is a resource here that has been always on, never off for over a decade. It’s always available to us. We can always go and pray for each other. We can always go and ask for prayer and share our stories, write them down and watch as brothers and sisters come alongside of us to pray for us and encourage us. So, that is the Prayer Wall, that is in the Community Section, so check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible. If the mission here to bring the spoken word of God read fresh every day and offered freely to anyone, anytime, anywhere and to build community around that rhythm, as we navigate our days and weeks and months and stitch them all together and make a year of it in community, if that is life-giving than thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

And as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app 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.

Prayer and Encouragements:

Good morning family. This is Bridgette from New York City. Today is January 26th. I’m just excited to share just what I am just sensing the Lord say to my spirit after Brian read Exodus. I love the Old Testament. It just shows you the heart of man and a lot of the heart of God. And I’m just blown away that when Moses approached the bush, right, God didn’t say to him you know, hey, I saw you and what you did to that guy in Egypt. You know, I…I…I saw what happened. He didn’t bring up anything from the past. He just brought up that He is aware of you know, his people and the cry of his people. And how oppressed they are and wow. I’m just blessed this morning because while we sometimes sit just focused on you know, the past of ourselves or the past of other people. God does not even look at that, He just looks at the cry, the oppression, the cry of His people. So, I just wanna encourage you guys that God hears our cry. He hears us even when we don’t know what to say, even when we don’t know Him, when we don’t follow Him the right way, when we don’t seek Him. It’s not gonna be perfect but He knows. He’s called us and He knows His people’s cry. Hallelujah! I pray that blesses this morning. Love you guys. Bye.

Good morning DABers, King Richard aka Strong In His Grace. I was just gonna reach out. I heard on, I was listening to some music on January 21st, wanted to reach out. There was a man, I didn’t catch his name, but he was separated, going through a divorce and wasn’t able to see his kids. I just wanted to reach out to him. And reach out to all men that are going through separations right now. All men that are going through divorces and are not able to see their kids. Father God, I just ask You to touch them in Your mercy Father God. Father God, all those whom all the sores, those hurts, You would heal them. If you mend them, Father God, with Your grace and Your mercy. And that that Your Holy Spirit would take control and give us, those men hope, through this prayer. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. God bless you DABers, have a great day.

Good morning DABers, this is Duncan Holmes, The Piano Man, on the road in Glovingsdale, New York, where we’re getting a lot of snow. I’m on the road to play an engagement soon but I’m finishing up on Saturday and this is the 27th, 26th. Pray for us. It’s been a great tour but we’re heading home, Saturday. And just pray that I can safely get home without any weather hazards or anything. I’ve done some nursing homes and I’ve done other; I’ve done some, played two churches and a couple other places that I’ve played. I’m a pianist and it’s mostly. My prayers go out for all of those broken-hearted people who have been cheated on. I’m especially praying for, my heart goes out to the lady who’s wrestling with God and dealing with a lot of issues right now. And my heart’s with you. I’ve been involved there, been there, did that, whether we want to admit it or not. Lord Jesus, this is very gentle. Take care, heal these broken hearts. Move them Father, towards forgiveness. It’s gonna take time and a lifetime maybe. We, Lord Jesus, be very, very present with them. Lord, those who have all these illnesses they’re battling with. I don’t mean to be so general, but we have very little time. You know my heart, Lord. My heart, Your heart goes out much even more. Thank You Jesus. In your blessed sweet name, we pray. God bless you. I’ll talk to you again when I get home.

Hey, this is KV from Miami. I’m calling to ask for prayer cause I need it right now, more than ever. The last week I’ve moved out of my family home cause they’ve been stealing from me for some time now. I found out and nobody wants to take responsibility. And honestly, they were stealing from me before I gave them and then it happened again. Even worse this time around. Even after they knew I had nothing, and I don’t have a job. But I luckily, thanks to the Lord, got a little part-time three-day thing that, it’s gonna be able to get me to eat and find some places to stay for, for some time. But I’m still need God’s guidance, your guy’s prayers to help me through this, part of my life. I’m not gonna blame anybody for where I am because I did, have my own living arrangements but I did. I’m on my own power to lose from enemy. Making me do things that are not me. They’re not Godly, they’re not something that God would want me to do. So, because of those things, I lost. But I pray for guidance to, to just make the smart decisions. And not to be proud. Cause I found myself with lots of money that I could have been a good steward of, and I wasted it on things that weren’t important. And now I find myself in a situation. I’m blaming myself. So, I just ask you guys to pray for me and give me some extra prayers. Thank you DAB.

Good morning DAB family. I love you guys so much. I appreciate hearing God’s word read fresh every day; I appreciate listening to your voices at the end of each podcast. You guys are my family. I love you. I just want to put a word out there for anyone feeling discouragement due to self-condemnation and addiction, mental illness. You know, perhaps you’ve heard my story, but I’ve listened to Daily Audio Bible, I’m on year 17 now. And my life has been a rollercoaster. I struggled with addiction and compulsive disorders before Daily Audio Bible and searched for healing. Begged, bargained, pleaded for healing and deliverance. I went to churches, seminars, people who I thought maybe would say the magic prayer. I just want you to know that I don’t know how because it’s a miracle. But listening to God’s word everyday transformed me, healed me, delivered me. I can’t explain it. I listened to God’s word in terrible states of mind, but I knew it was alive. I knew to keep listening. And all of the struggles and trying to find a key to my prison door, to find deliverance, all of that work just, it just went away. The struggle went away and pouring God’s word into my life every day, totally healed me. You guys, stay in God’s word. I can’t explain it and you can’t explain it but it is God’s word, and it is alive. So, hang in ..

Hey family, this is Eyes of a Dove. So, I’m having a hard time. I’ve lost about 25lbs or so, just to get down to a healthy weight. Anyways, it’s caused a hard time with coffee. Coffee is making me more anxious and stressful, and the Lord’s been talking to me about maybe switching off of coffee to green tea. It’s hard, I’m really addicted to coffee. But it makes me stressful. On top of that, I don’t know if you guys know but my mom has, was diagnosed with bipolar/schizophrenia, when I was very young. There was an incident involving me when I was little, and her, where she attempted to take my life and hers. I love my mom, she’s been medicated all these years, but in the last couple months, she all of a sudden had a revelation that God healed her from the medication and she’s seeing her doctor said she could get off it. Which none of us really believe. And she’s starting to get very manic and went to church with me and it was just very triggering. And I had a really hard time with it because I love my mom but it’s hard to be around her without triggering. And then this morning, she sent me a six page message on revelation about dragons and how my daughter wears dragons on her shirt and mini me. And that mini me will go to hell if she continues to wear these dragons on her shirt. Cause it’s my only daughter it reminds me of me being that little girl. And then my mom brought up revelation and tried to take my life. So, this morning, I’m just really spinning. My brothers are stressed, cause their helping to care for my dad who’s got late-term Alzheimer’s. And my mom and my dad live together with a walk-in nurse. And then this will all be worked out in the Lord’s hands. I just need peace in my heart to get through my workday. So, I’m starting off my work feeling emotional, and I need Shalom. I need Shalom.  

Exodus 8:1-9:35, Matthew 19:13-30, Psalms 24:1-10, Proverbs 6:1-5

Today is the 29^th day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian and it is fantastic to be here with you today and to be here together to greet a brand-new sparkly week together and step into it together. It’s all out there friends, the whole week. We’re gonna live into it and it’s gonna tell a story and whatever story it tells us where we are or what we’re doing. And, so, may we choose the path of wisdom as we navigate this week. And a wise move is to be around the Global Campfire taking the next step forward together and just allowing the Scriptures to speak for themselves and wash their way into our lives and seep into our hearts. And, so, let’s dive in. We will read from the New English Translation this week, picking up the story where we left off yesterday in the book of Exodus, where it seems as if quite a confrontation is brewing. Moses and Aaron are telling Pharaoh, the Pharaoh of Egypt, the supreme power of Egypt, the one who believes he’s descended from deity to let his people go. And Pharaoh’s like, I don’t know who this God is, I don’t care who this God is, I don’t know this God and I’m not letting these people go. And there’s been some little skirmishes, some little dialogue back and forth and some signs and wonders that have been replicated by the…by the Egyptian magicians, but things are moving to a whole new level. And, so, let’s pick up that story. Exodus, chapters 8 and 9 today.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for a brand-new shiny sparkly week out in front of us to engage with the Scriptures. We thank you for life itself, moment by moment, a gift given from you. Each inhale an inspiration, a gift of life. Each exhale trust knowing that the next breath will be given to us. We love you. We thank you for your love and involvement in our lives and we thank you for the power of the Scriptures in our hearts to transform us. And, so, as we begin this week we look to the Psalms and we see characteristics of those who dwell in your presence, those whose deeds are blameless, whose motives are pure, who do not lie, who do not make promises and have no intention of keeping them. Such people are rewarded by the Lord and vindicated by the God who delivers them we are told. Make us these people. Make us like this. Make us blameless and pure and true and honest, we pray. In the mighty name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hey DAB family this is Jonathan from Denver it is 5:43 on Tuesday January 24^th 24and today I’m actually calling in to ask for some prayer for myself. I am a student. I’m a college getting a music education degree and this semester. I am student teaching in a choir classroom, a high school choir classroom which is fantastic, and I really am enjoying it but I am just so tired and I have so much stuff I need to do and so many things that are pulling and vying for my attention and it’s just…oh…I feel like I can’t even think straight right now. So, I’m just asking please that you would send up your prayers for focus, for energy, for good priorities and smart time management just so that I can do all the things that I need to do, that I can do them well, and that I can make a difference in the classroom and in all the places I find myself. Thank you, family. Thank you for your support and your prayer. I’m praying for all of you along with you. Yeah. Thank you all very much. I love you. Hope you have a great day. See you next time.

Hey fam it’s Sparky. I just wanted to give some encouragement. Anybody who’s struggling. Lord, I ask that you help me to guide this. You’re looking at a kid that was troubled all the way through his childhood who never had a sense of who he was or we were he was gonna be. You’re looking at somebody that was having a baby at 20 who had the girlfriend at 18 who was about to graduate high school. She already had one which is now my oldest. You’re looking at somebody that was in and out of jail constantly. And Bruce, Clarence, Sampson I pray for you because I should have been there. You’re…you’re looking at somebody who just constantly seemed to fall and mud every turn he took, but you’re also looking at somebody that has defeated all of the negative thoughts of people that they thought of them or thought in God. There’s people that I meet every day that think I’m a really good person and then there’s people that I run into that they new me what I really wasn’t. No matter what you’re going through God is right there. He just wants you to talk to Him no matter what you’re going through. It’s not all daisies and roses when you invite God into your life but there is a Father that you get to lay with and He helps you make your decisions. I just want you to know it gets better with God and I love you and I’m thinking about all of y'all tonight.

Hey DAB brothers and sisters this is Byron out in Florida. I am calling for my beloved daughter Ashley. Ashley I heard your call and you’re asking to be called what Naomi wanted herself to be called when she came back from being away and she wanted to call herself Mara which means bitter because she had lost so much and it hurt so much. And it seems you too have lost a lot and have hurt a lot in your 51 years and my heart just goes out to you. I know you already know this because you know Naomi, but her story doesn’t end with her being called bitter. It ends with her being called blessed. We know her in the Bible because her story ends with blessing and not just blessing for her but blessing for all of us who through her line comes our savior the Lord Jesus. And the reason Naomi in the end was able to call herself blessed was because she did not lose faith in her kinsman redeemer, that she knew that he was going to do the right thing once he saw what the problem was. And, so, my prayer for you is that your ending is as Naomi, that while you may be called bitter now you’ll be called blessed in the end because your kinsman Redeemer sees you and will take care of you, will finish what he started in you. Blessings over you sister.

Good morning DAB family this is Bridget from New York City today is new January 25^th and I wanna pray for some of the DABbers that have lost children that shared yesterday on just their brokenness, your brokenness. My God Lord I just lift up every person Lord that hears my voice God that has lost a loved one that has lost a child. My God those that You have blessed us with Lord whether it was to drugs to alcohol to disease to trauma to, you know, whatever method my God. Lord, I know that You are greater God than these situations, great enough to help us carry these burdens Lord So, Father as I think about Jesus. I think about how He walked wounded in His heart knowing that the very creation that loved Him would be…I mean the very creation that He created that instead of loving Him would crucify Him God. And yet, you know. He still walked in a love that was beyond our understanding. And I just pray that these people that are hurting because of loss from their children God that Lord, You will fill them up with love, with a love that is deeper than the love for their own children God, with Your love Jesus, the love that You have for us my God. I just ask You to overwhelm them with comfort and to give them the exact words and the scriptures that they need that will help them to continue to walk this path my God. And bless them all I pray in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. I love you guys. God bless you.

Hello DAB family this is Texas Grandma calling to encourage you. I’ve been part of this family since 2010 and you’ve encouraged me so much every year. And, so, I’m here today because the beginning of this year I just realized this heavy spirit of sadness was settling over me and I hear that from so many of you. Now family, we know that’s not from our loving Father. So, let’s say no to the enemy who came to steal and kill our joy and cover up our light. And every day let’s read some scriptures out loud. Even though we love to hear Brian read them, say them out loud. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. And then sings praise songs because the enemy scatters when we sing praises to our God. Why don’t you…why don’t you just sing along with me right now some little praise songs. [singing starts] Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong we are weak, but he is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so. This little light of mine I’m gonna let it shine. This light of mine I’m gonna let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine [singing stops]. I love you family. Now have a blessed day and let’s claim victory over this enemy. We have that victory. Thank you Jesus.

Exodus 5:22-7:25, Matthew 18:21-19:12, Psalm 23:1-6, Proverbs 5:22-23

Today is the 28th day of the month of January, the 1st month of the year, which means that as we move through today’s reading, we will have completed four complete weeks together, few days left in this month. It’s a little longer than four complete weeks but this marks our fourth week consecutively together, gathering around the Global Campfire and moving in. And so, we should be pretty well moved in on the year, well underway, our rhythms established. Now we’re at the end of this month. I’m looking at the calendar going wow, just a handful of days, another week and ½, or so and we’ll be getting on the big plane and going to the land of the Bible, and I moving through the land of the Bible with a group of people and broadcasting from the land of the Bible. So, some of the things that we are encountering in the Bible are things that we’ll be able to see in person and we’ll stock up on social media and stuff but, we’ll talk about that as we get closer. I’m just noticing the calendar, like wow, I didn’t realize until I just started that this was the end of the fourth full week of the year. So, we are moving right along and let’s move right along, one step forward. And our next step leads us back into the story of Moses, we’re just getting going back into the book of Exodus, and today chapter 5 verse 22 through 7 verse 25.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word, we thank You for Your word in community, we thank You for allowing us to have the Global Campfire and the ability to come together, no matter where we are in the world and be connected. And to literally spend a year on the same page with each other, as we move through the Scriptures page-by-page, paragraph-by-paragraph, sentence-by-sentence, and verse-by-verse. We invite Your Holy Spirit into all of it. May we be aware of Your leading and Your guidance, we are grateful, Lord, that You have brought us four weeks, four full weeks successfully into this new year and we thank You that day-by-day, You have spoken to us through Your word and that You will continue to do just that, for the other 48 weeks I think, that are left in this year. Come, Holy Spirit, into all of it, lead us into the truth and may we see it when You reveal it and may we live in it, as we become more and more aware of it. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it is the website, it’s where you find out what’s happening around here, and so, check it out. You check all this out using the Daily Audio Bible app as well. That is free from the App Store that is connected to your device, just search for Daily Audio Bible and you should be able to find that, so check it out. Check out the…the Daily Audio Bible Shop. There are resources there that are here for the journey that we are on. Check out the Community Section. This is where to get connected on social media, it’s also where the Prayer Wall is, check out the Initiatives Section, find out what’s going on. So, yeah, just check it out if you haven’t had a chance to do that lately.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if you find that being around the Global Campfire is a life-giving thing than thank you, humbly for your partnership in giving life back, we wouldn’t be able to be here if we weren’t here together and so thank you, humbly. 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 P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, 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.