A Walk Through The Word

Daniel 11:36-12:13, 1 John 4:1-21, Psalms 123:1-4, Proverbs 29:2-4

Today is the 4^th day of December welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is a joy to be here with you today as we bring to a close another of the weeks that we have to spend together this year. Obviously, not too many more weeks to spend together this year before it comes to a conclusion and we reach the final paragraphs of the Bible. But we do have a lot of interesting territory to cover between now and then the way we cover it is step-by-step day by day together around the Global Campfire. And, so, we have been reading from the New Living Translation this week. That’s what we’ll do today. Daniel chapter 11 verse 36 through 12 verse 13.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for another week. Now we have concluded another one of our weeks with just a few remaining and we are so grateful. We are so thankful. All of the gifts that simply surround this…this simple exercise of daily being here. You have deeply touched places in our lives through the Scriptures. You have deeply spoken to us about our convictions and our behaviors and our words and everything. You’ve touched so much of our hearts. You’ve given us this gift of each other to take this journey on so that when something hits us between the eyes we’re quite sure that’s happening all over the world through the Scriptures because so many of the things that we face as humans are spoken of in the Scriptures. Thank You for this gift. It shows us how to live. It shows us how to be true and as we continue that path we invite Your Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base and that is where you find out what’s going on around here. If you’re using the app then that’s all available inside the app. There’s a little drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner that opens up a Drawer to the different categories. And, so, check that out.

Right now it’s Christmas time around the world. And, so, it’s Christmas time in our world here around the Global Campfire as well.

And, so, we have quite a Global Campfire Christmas. So, the Daily Audio Bible Christmas box, family Christmas 2021 is available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop in the Christmas category, and we packed it full of resources that maybe want to keep all of them maybe want to pick some to give away, some for you, some to give away. There’s a number of things in there. Like, the God of Your Story is in there, Daily Audio Bible Journal, our 3.0 version is in there, Global Campfire candle, your choice of coffee or tea fresh roasted sent to you from…from the Windfarm, from the Windfarm which is the Daily Audio Bible. Our Christmas ornament only available in the Christmas box is in the Christmas box and that is for 2021, and it’s got our word for the year which is “mend” and it says Daily Audio Bible, 2021 on it. I’ve got these from all of the years we’ve been doing this on my tree. Reminds me…well…reminds me lots of things. Reminds me of the community. It brings the community right into my home. But every single one of those that I look at reminds me of an entire journey through the Bible in the course of an entire year. And, so, I love it and that’s in the Christmas box as well as a number of other things. You can check that out in the Christmas section at dailyaudiobible.com in the Shop or using the app going into the Shop in the Christmas section.

Promised Land, photographs from the land of the Bible is also available now. Makes for a fantastic Christmas gift and allows us to peer into the different regions of the land of the Bible and…and actually into the locations where some of the most pivotal stories in the Bible happened. So, that is available as well as our brand-new Christmas album for this year. It’s called Christmas Time and this one was produced and arranged by my son Maxwell. So, if you search for Maxwell Hardin and find the Christmas Time album that has just been released this week. And, so, check that out.

And then lastly, we are preparing for our Global Campfire Christmas party, our virtual Christmas party that we hold each year that is all of the voices of the community wishing one another happy Christmas, happy holidays, Joy to the world. So, here’s how it works. We have the hotline button that we talk about most every day and then we have phone numbers that we talk about most every day as well. Those are the prayer and encouragement lines and that is what there for, but they have an additional purpose from one week out of the year. That’s now. And that is that we can use those numbers and that hotline to call in our holiday wishes to the community that we’ve been sharing all year as we’ve moved through the Bible together. The one trick is that you don’t combine a holiday wish and a prayer request in the same call. Make those separate. And we’ll go on until…until the 8^th and then we’ll stop doing that. We will have gathered what we’re going to use and pull it all together for the Christmas party. So, don’t delay or procrastinate if…if you want to call in.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible thank you, humbly. Thank you. There is a link on the homepage of 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, or a holiday greeting 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:

Father, we want to pray for Tyler I believe from Oregon called in on…on the podcast on the 1^st of December. Father we pray for Tyler. We just thank You that the beginnings of transformation are in his hands when You’ve given him a new heart to seek genuine forgiveness. And yeah we believe with him Lord that You are more than able to give us the strength to…to be able to forgive not just in…on a surface level Lord but in a way that, yeah, really changes our heart, makes us able to, yeah, move past the hurts of life. I pray a huge blessing on Tyler. I pray that, yeah, in his relationships and everything that he puts his hands to Lord that You just bless him and give him genuine joy from You and that, yes, in such a way that the enemy would have no power over him in the way that he perhaps has been trying to. And yeah, we just plead the blood of Jesus over his life and we just thank You that You’re able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask for or __ for. So, bless Tyler in Jesus’ name. And yeah, we…we give this to You Lord. Thank You for Your love and hope you all have an amazing day. Bye.

Good morning, everybody this is Susan from Canada God’s Yellow Flower calling and today is December 2^nd. And today is one of those days where I hear the prayer and praise reports and I’m sort of paralyzed. That’s the only way I can describe it. I wish I could pray for you all. I can’t even write down your names because I am legally blind, and it would be very difficult for me to read them back. So, I try and do it all by memory. But when I say I’m paralyzed I mean I listen to the request and then that little bit of music that is played at the end is such a beautiful thing to meditate with and pray for you all. And then there’s quiet, absolute quiet and that’s where we meet with God, and we sit with God. And my prayers for you go very deep. So, I just want you to know that even if your name isn’t mentioned the prayers are going up. I love you all so much. Take care and God bless.

I’m calling from my porch in Georgia with my dog. It’s not even 6:00 AM yet and I’m out here spending time with God and the Daily Audio Bible. And I just wanted to reach out today and ask as many of you as you to pray to pray for my son. Like many of us, we have children that grow into teenagers, they get to that senior year in high school, and your heart just really starts to break. You know that adulthood’s coming, they’re leaving your house, you’re praying for them to have wisdom, you’re praying for their safety, you’re praying for their relationship, and you’re praying for them to have favor and their life. And, so, I just wanted to reach out and remind us all to be praying for those parents and those seniors, those young adults and just asking God to continue to keep them close and may they continue to want to be close. I love the Psalm where it says created in me a new heart and renew a steadfast spirit within me. So, I just ask us to remember those kids, remember my son. We ask all these things in the powerful name of Jesus. Amen.

Hey Daily Audio Bible community it’s Eyes of Dove in rainy Snoqualmie Washington. So, I have a little funny story to share, maybe an encouragement to somebody. Anyways…you can hear that bag rumbling in the background. I just went to the local sub shop…jersey…jersey subs and got my family some sub sandwiches because we have a church meeting tonight. But anyways there’s this gal that does the sandwiches and we’re regulars and she always looks like she’s frowning and I’m always a little bit intimidated by her, you know. And, so, here’s the funny thing today. Tonight, so they’re making me my sandwiches for my kids and she's…she’s asking me questions. I keep saying I’m sorry, I’m sorry because I’m listening to the Daily Audio Bible community prayer line. I’m trying to get caught up, you know, after work. And she said something else. I said I’m so sorry it's…it’s not you, it’s me I’m distracted. She said, oh, you taking a phone call. And I said no, I’m just listening to my Bible. And she goes, no way. What…what church do you go to? and I said you know choose on the Ridge here in Snoqualmie. She said I’ve been trying to get connected with the church and…and I just don’t know anybody and I lived here all my life and I tried it once. And, so, because of that conversation I kind of gave her a plug on the DAB but she…she’s really wanting to come to a physical community of believers. And, so, yeah so Long story short, the lady that I was intimidated by, the grumpiest one at the sub turns out to be this…this gal with this lonely and truly just wants to connect with God and she’s coming to church on Sunday. Isn’t that cool guys? And, so, we just never judge a book by its cover you know what I mean. And share and be open with others and make those connections and draw them in. Like someone else said on here, the season is ripe for the picking. There’s a lot of desperate lonely people during the season and with all the COVID and stuff there’s a lot of people that are seeking connections and fellowship. And you just…you would never know who it is that is reaching out it will surprise you. Just be led by the Holy Spirit.

Daniel 11:2-35, 1 John 3:7-24, Psalm 122:1-9, Proverbs 29:1

Today is the third day of December, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible, I’m Brian. It’s a pleasure to be here with you today as we come in out of the cold, find ourselves around this Global Campfire together, release the tensions, exhale, unshackle ourselves from all kinds of things that can hijack us and just come here into this peaceful oasis that we create together, every single day, knowing that whatever’s going on out there it can wait a few minutes. It’s not all gonna fall apart in a few minutes. These few minutes may change the way that we handle any number of things. I love that, I love that there’s this place. There’s this place that we come together and each day we take the next step forward in that place together. So, this next step forward we’ll be leading us back into the book of Daniel today chapter 11 verse 2 through 35.

Commentary:

I’ll talk about I John again, but let’s first go back to John, the gospel of John, to hear Jesus words that pertain to what I John is telling us today. So, from John chapter 13 Jesus tells us your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples, so let’s, let’s use that as the backdrop for what is being said in I John today. We will be known as a disciple of Jesus by our love for one another. Now, we move to I John and our reading today and I quote “if someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need, but shows no compassion, how can God’s love be in that person.” What we might recognize is, is that we’re right back to this same point that keeps getting pounded and pounded and pounded, from James, from Peter now from John. You have to live what you say you believe; your actions actually matter in the equation. We can’t make a faith claim that has no action to back it up. We can’t claim to walk in the love of God if we don’t love and care for one another. Faith and love aren’t just topics for discussion, this is a way of life. In fact, the way of life because it is the way of Jesus. Here’s how John puts it and I quote “Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other. Let us show the truth by our actions, our actions will show that we belong to the truth so we will be confident when we stand before God.” So, our faith in God tells us that His love for us is to be received and given away, when we’re trying to hoard things so that God’s blessings remain in our hands, we are supremely limiting ourselves. If we understand that God’s love has not run dry for the world, for the people on the earth, even after all of these thousands and thousands of years, His compassion and mercy and kindness and love for humanity has not run dry and will not run dry for us than we realize that we can be like a reservoir, receiving and sending out, receiving and sending out, constantly as a way of life. The love that we receive is the love that we give, is the love that we receive, is the love that we give, and it just keeps repeating itself. The best analogy I have ever come up with in the and so I use it often enough is some geographical landmarks that are biblical. The first one being the Dead Sea. We’ve read of the Dead Sea in the Bible, but that there is a Dead Sea and it’s a large lake that collects the water that flows down to the lowest point on the planet. The Dead Sea being the lowest point on planet earth, below sea level. Because it’s at the bottom, like there’s no lower than the Dead Sea, everything that collects there has nowhere to go. It’s run all the way down to the bottom of…of the land on earth and its dead and lifeless. Super cool place to behold but you don’t go into the Dead Sea thinking that you might see the fins of a shark or fish swimming around you. They won’t be, they don’t live there. It’s dead. On the other hand, not that far to the north of the Dead Sea is another famous body of water called the Sea of Galilee. Jesus did a majority of his ministry around the shores of the Sea of Galilee and the Sea of Galilee is also a lake below sea level. It’s the lowest freshwater lake in the world below sea level. The Sea of Galilee feeds the Dead Sea. It receives water from the nearby mountains and all of the streams that feed into the Sea of Galilee, it’s a freshwater lake. It’s not dead. It’s alive. I don’t, we know that scientifically, but we know that from the Scriptures. What did Jesus disciples, mostly do? They finished in the Sea of Galilee. It’s alive. The reason is that it has water flowing into it and water flowing out of it, making its way down to the Dead Sea. The Sea of Galilee is not stagnant or dead because of the inflow and the outflow. By the time of the water gets to the Dead Sea, there’s nowhere for it to go. It’s hoarded there at the bottom of the earth, where everything is dead. What I John is essentially telling us is there is no shortage of God’s love. We are either going to be hoarding it and allowing it to become stagnated with in us or we’re going to be a reservoir of inflow and outflow as a way of life. Understanding that there is no shortage of God’s love. It won’t stop flowing so we can give away all of the love in our hearts with corresponding action to back it up, knowing that there is an endless eternal supply. So, as we continue our journey into the holiday season and toward the end of the year, there’s some bombs being dropped here out of the Bible that so affect the way that we live if we would listen to them. There is no shortage of God’s love. We can receive his love and close our hearts and become stagnant or we can have open hands and open hearts and allow ourselves to be a reservoir that love is flowing into and out of. I’ve been at the Sea of Galilee lots of times and it’s been around a long time because it’s mentioned so much in the Bible so that body of water has been there for thousands and thousands of years and it’s not empty. And yet it is sending out billions of gallons from itself. As water flows out of it and yet it’s still there, it’s not empty. It hasn’t run dry. If we envision our hearts after this fashion, we have a good chance of being a lot more clearheaded and open-minded and openhearted, knowing that that love that rains down upon us is there to be temporary and given away because a new supply is constantly flowing in, its extraordinarily idealistic to think about it, but imagine what the world would look like if that were our reality. And then let’s understand that that is where everything is headed. That’s where we’re going because that is what the kingdom of heaven is shaped like according to the Scriptures. So, the quicker that we can transition into living in the kingdom with open hearts and open hands, the quicker that we get to participate in God’s intentions. Nobody should be unloved right; nobody should be unloved and we carry within us an endless continually replenished supply.

Prayer:

Father, we’re really describing how you are as told in the Scriptures that You are love and we are collaborating with You as Your body has the hands and feet of Jesus in this world when love is the currency of our lives. If we are ridiculed or marginalized, or any negative thing, if we pay that back with love, we have removed the power of darkness from the situation and removed it from the world. Love conquers all we’re told by the Scriptures. Holy Spirit, we ask that You reveal to us what that means to us, to our lives, into our stories. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is a home base and that’s certainly where you find out what’s going on around here anytime. But this is Christmas time. So, there are some special things going on around here. First off, it’s time to get ready for our virtual family Christmas party that we have each year and that happens by us calling in our holiday greetings to the community here that we’ve been sharing a whole year together every day with. And it’s pretty simple. We have a Hotline in our app, and we also have 877-942-4253 as the number that you can call and those are typically for prayer requests and encouragements and that’s how it is always except for this one week of the year when you can also call in your holiday greeting to the Daily Audio Bible Community. So, you can use the same Hotline, you can use the same phone number that you would normally use to call in a prayer request, in fact maybe you have a prayer request and you can use the prayer line or the Hotline to call that in but if you also have a holiday greeting don’t combine it in the call that you’re calling your prayer request in, make those separate. It’s the one time a year where it’s okay to hang up and call right back. And we will take those calls all the way through December 8th and then we will get to the business of putting it all together. So, don’t delay, don’t procrastinate. If you want to participate.

Let’s see, the Daily Audio Bible family Christmas box for 2021 is available now while supplies last. And it is, it is full of resources from Daily Audio Bible, some that you may want to keep, some that you may consider giving away or maybe you just want it all for yourself, but there are a number of items in there from the Daily Audio Bible resources that we’ve handpicked that we think will bring the joy of Christmas into your life as well as a connection to the Global Campfire that we have shared all year long. So, you can check that out, see the contents, look it over in the Daily Audio Bible Shop, in the Christmas section.

We have released Promised Land, Photographs from the Land of the Bible which makes a really fantastic gift. We decided that if we were going to do this, we were going to do it right and it is right. It is beautiful. It will last, it is made of very, very high-quality materials and I think does an honor to the effort that was put into it over many, many, many years. And so, it is a book of photography, obviously. But there are plenty of words in there describing the different regions of the Bible that the photographs are inviting us to look at. And so, it is, it is a wonderful piece. You can check that out at dailyaudiobible.com in the Shop as well.

And then, our brand-new Christmas album for 2021. It’s called Christmas Time and this resource was produced and arranged by my son Maxwell. So, if you search Maxwell Hardin or Christmas Time, you should be able to find it, that is out now.

And if you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, thank you from the bottom of all of our hearts. Thank you for your partnership, we wouldn’t be here without it and we wouldn’t be here if you weren’t in this together. So, thank you. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

And as always if you have a prayer request or encouragement or right now a holiday greeting you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button up at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that’s it for today, I’m Brian, I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Prayer and Encouragements:

Hey family, it’s Tony the Truck Driver calling in. I’m calling today for my brother Renzo. I heard his prayer request for his father looking for a job and his mother healing of her ear. And Renzo, I just said a prayer for you, we just lift you up as a family. Lord, we just ask that you bless Renzo’s mother. Lord, that healing would come to her ear in the name of Jesus, that she would come out better then she was before. Father, we pray for Renzo’s father as well that he would find a job better than the one that he had before. Lord God, that he would be able provide for his family. And we praying for you Renzo as well with your ministry, brother, it just helps me cause I wanna get a ministry going since my prison ministry, we can’t go into the prisons right now. So, I’m just trying to find my way and do some street evangelism or something. I know God is with you and the Holy Spirit is with you. So, I just bless you brother and also playing for Crystal and her family, her situation with her husband. I just ask Lord God that You would touch Crystal, her children, mend the relationship between her and her husband if that is Your will Father. And that You would just give her strength and faith in You. She’s waiting on You to move in this situation Father. God, we are praying healing for her and her family. In Jesus name. Amen. Thank you, family. Love you guys. Still listen every day. God Bless you. Tony the Truck Driver.  

Good morning, everyone, it’s Susan from Canada, God’s Yellow Flower calling and I would like to pray for Daniel Johnson Junior. Lord God, just be with him as he is exhausted, and he is wanting to have rest in this Christmas season. I pray Lord God, that he would sit with You, that he would find rest in You, that he would find peace in You. I pray dear God that he would be still with You. And when he needs the energy, I pray that You would give him everything he needs to be Your faithful and good servant. I’d also like to pray for Tyler. I loved that phrase that you used Tyler, plastic forgiveness, that is so descriptive, but I pray dear God that Tyler would receive relief from You from this depression, that it would be lifted up, and that the forgiveness that he needs, would be real. Lord God, forgiveness is an action verb, and we have to decide to forgive, before we can feel forgiveness. So, I pray this on Tyler and that You would watch over him and just lift him out of this fog of gloom and raise him up, Lord God. In Jesus name I pray.

Hi DABers this is Ms. Sandra Florida, prayer going out for Taylor who’s struggling from depression and unforgiveness. Father God, we lift up Taylor to you in the name of Jesus. We plead the blood of Jesus over him Father. We pray that You empower him with Your strength. We come against the enemies, attacks on his thought-life, his imagination life, giving him bitterness and awful thoughts of unforgiveness Lord God. We know that’s not from You. And Father God, we know Your word says if you from your heart don’t forgive your brother, his trespasses, that You won’t forgive ours, Lord. And I know Father God, Your word says our healing begins, it begins with forgiving others. So, Taylor, I pray that you would take one step at a time, journal, write down the things that’s bothering you. Turn them over to the Lord. How big is it? Turn it over to the Lord. Forgive your brother or your sister those wounds that Satan keeps reminding you of, they are not worth carrying around. And after you do that, tell her, you make a journal about forgiving yourself. That’s the beauty, forgive yourself, forgive others. And I pray that God will set you free from bitterness, rage, anger, self-hatred and guilt. And I pray this in Jesus’ name. I will be praying for you; we’ll all be praying for you. We come against this depression and we pray God would just give you a joy that just is incredibly huge in your heart right now. That you wouldn’t be able to stop dancing. I pray that you turn on the radio, the Christian radio and that you start singing and praising and worshiping God. In Jesus name I pray. Keep praying brother.

Hello, Daily Audio Bible family. This is LaChula from Los Angeles. I heard a beautiful prayer request over the man in our families, particularly a husband and I just want to take the time to thank the Lord for my husband. In 2018, we went through a really rough season, particularly me, you know, trying to peel back the layers of my heart, my soul, my thoughts and really let the Lord penetrate into my heart and find the worthiness that I thought I didn’t have and peel away shame and guilt. Everything that, that made me come to just kind of like a breakdown at that time and my husband and I got separated at that time, but he never stopped praying over me. He continued to believe and through that he got closer to the Lord and you know, we did manage to go to counseling and hold onto our faith and rebuild. And so, although we’ve been together for 21 years, it feels like just two years of getting to know each other again. And I just want to say that God restores and God reveals and God is good. And my husband introduced me to the Daily Audio Bible and my life has been so much better for that. Thank you Brian and Jill and China and all your children for pouring into lives daily. I don’t know what my life would be like without the word. The truth the light God’s presence and I just want to say thank you and have a beautiful December, may it bring abundance.

Good evening family, I was recently diagnosed with COVID19 and I’m needing your help and prayer. I have a toddler that was just diagnosed as well, she’s not been feeling good tonight, she’s already thrown up twice. I’m asking for your prayers. My wife is currently pregnant with our newborn and I’m concerned that she might get it too. Calling on your prayers tonight.

Daniel 9:1-11:1, 1 John 2:18-3:6, Psalms 121:1-8, Proverbs 28:27-28

Today is the 2^nd day of December welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is a joy, it is really a joy to come around this Global Campfire together, warm ourselves, be together, feel like we’re not alone. I love that so much. I love that on days like today. Today would’ve been my father’s birthday. Today would’ve been his 79^th birthday. He passed away at 58 years old and I have missed him for a couple of decades now. And when his birthday comes up I…well…I think about him the time but his birthday comes and I think about him a lot and I think about all that’s happened in those years since he passed because I wasn't…I wasn’t in ministry…I mean, I’ve been around ministry my whole life. My dad was a pastor. I grew up in the church, but I was in the music industry. That was decades ago with no desire whatsoever and no plan whatsoever to end up in ministry. Was trying to kind of avoid that. And then there was the fateful day that I decided I should read the whole Bible and that decision led to me, thinking maybe I could say the whole Bible, maybe I could read it out loud. And that was 16 years ago around this time thinking. we’ll start at the first of the year, we could do this. Nobody will listen. Maybe a few people, but we could do this. And, so, I just did and haven’t missed a day, like haven’t stopped. And all of that was after my dad passed away and so I really…really would’ve loved…really, really would’ve loved for him to see that…that transformation in my own life. I am thankful that my mom, she was a part of the Daily Audio Bible community for a lot of years. She of course is…is going as well, but when their birthdays come up I feel a swell of gratitude because those are a couple of people that I love her very much and who I owe my very life to. So, I’m grateful today on this second day of December, and I’m really grateful to be around the Global Campfire together with you as we take the next step forward. And the next step will lead us…well…it will lead us to the very point that we left off yesterday, which will lead us back into the book of Daniel. Today chapter 9 verse 1 through 11 verse 1.

Commentary:

Alright. So, in our reading from first John today, in a nutshell we’re talking about the repercussions of unmet expectations. These early believers in Jesus had the apocalyptic worldview that everything is coming to an end and the arrival of Jesus is eminent. Those who believe will be the first in this new kingdom, this kingdom of God that would be established, and they would be the first in it and in so many ways, their fortunes will be reversed and no longer will they be trampled on and marginalized and pressed down, rather they will be members of the kingdom of God and Jesus will return and beat up the bad guys, basically. Those were the expectations. And what happens when you have an expectation that then goes unmet. We can say things like sadness or frustration or something like that. But in terms of our faith, if we’re believing God for something and it’s not happening then often we will endure and we will be patient but eventually we will begin to question and doubt and that is a really really pivotal moment in our faith journey because we start to doubt God as opposed to examining our expectations. And maybe rather than doubting God we should doubt the expectation. The early believers that John is writing to had expectations about the arrival of Jesus and that the whole…the whole script would get flipped, everything would change for them. What they got instead of that expectation was to be ridiculed and marginalized and persecuted. So, that’s not what they were expecting. They got what they were not expecting. And, so, John speaks to that. And I quote. “Dear children, the last hour is here. You have heard that the antichrist is coming, and already many such antichrists have appeared. From this we know that the last hour has come. These people left our churches, but they never really belonged with us otherwise they would’ve stayed with us. When they left it proved that they did not belong with us.” So, what would make them leave the fellowship and become anti-Christ? Unmet expectations. It is a little more even complex than that because when we read this letter, we’re reading it as part of the New Testament but as we’ve mentioned many times the people who read this letter in the first place weren’t reading it as the New Testament. They were reading a letter. There was no New Testament, although this letter was very important and passed around and preserved and captain studied and pondered upon it wasn’t really considered Scripture. That happened over time and was eventually canonized hundreds of years later. So, there were all kinds of things being said and taught about Jesus through people who believed just various beliefs, very diverse beliefs. And, so, there were plenty of alternatives, even if you wanted to remain Christian as it were. What we now consider orthodox Christianity, that was in formation. So, some of these people who are hearing what the apostles are saying and to endure and to embrace what’s going on and to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and then these unmet expectations happen because Jesus doesn’t come back when they thought he was going to come back, then they would either slink back into Judaism or…or move into another set of teachings. And we can see the apostle John’s frustration. They were never really part of us, or they wouldn’t have left and some of them wouldn’t have become anti-Christs, anti-Jesus, anti-God. And, so, into that swirl, into that unmet expectation and doubt and fading away and backsliding and returning and going away and going over here and learning this teaching, all of this stuff going on. John kind of cuts right through all of it very very simply and very precisely in a way that is still as precise now and can also serve us now. And, so, I quote, and we should hang onto this. “Anyone who denies the Father and the Son is an antichrist. Anyone who denies the Son doesn’t have the Father either.” And this is precisely what was going on as people debated and try to figure out the nature of Jesus and what he actually represented to the people of the earth. John simply responds. Anyone who denies the Father and the Son is an antichrist. So, look everybody experiences times where they’re not sure. We might call that doubt, but when we are not sure about what you think about something and that you need to maybe press into it deeper understand it better or move away from it because it’s taking you to bad places, but everybody, and it’s not only in spiritual terms, everybody doubts something sometime. If doubt leads us into a place where we deny the Father, and we deny Jesus, then we understand that that is anti-Christ. If that’s not happening but we are pressing into things that we do not understand then we are simply walking in faith. So, asking questions of our faith even when it unsettles us, this is how we grow. And John is basically saying, no matter where you go, and no matter what you think, and no matter what you explore what you’ve heard from the beginning hasn’t changed. The good news hasn’t changed. It’s still the same. If you want to go so far as to deny God and deny Jesus, then that is antichrist, but if in your exploration you understand that things haven’t changed, your changing, but the message the truth hasn’t changed it’s still the same then you always know where your anchor is and would always know that the spirit of truth is here to lead you. And I quote again from John. “I am writing these things to warn you about those who want to lead you astray, but you have received the Holy Spirit and He lives within you. So, you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true for the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know and what He teaches is true, it is not a lie. So, just as He taught you remain in fellowship with Christ. So, basically if we’re summing this up, unmet expectations can lead us into all kinds of trouble. It can eventually lead us to the point where we become antichrist if we want to follow down that path. But what we’ve been told about the good news hasn’t changed and that is home base. And no matter what we’re thinking and no matter what we’re hearing and no matter what people are saying we have that anchor. It hasn’t changed and we have the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit within us who will not lie to us, who will teach us the truth. And, so, we can be led into doubt by other people’s doubt. We can be led into doubt by all kinds of other people’s musings and assumptions but we can return to home base and understand that the Spirit of truth will guide us and we have to trust that even in the face of our unmet expectations.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit come into that. This is another really, really big deep thing. This is touching deep things within us and yet we thank You for simplicity, the simplicity of knowing if it denies You, then it is antichrist. If we deny You then that’s what we’re involving ourselves in. And yet the story hasn’t changed. We have a home base to return to. The good news of the gospel is the good news. It hasn’t changed. And, so, we can return to this place, knowing that the Spirit, Your spirit, the Holy Spirit of God will lead us into all truth. And, so, that is our prayer, and it feels like we’ve prayed it a 100 times this year. Holy Spirit come and lead us into all truth. That’s where we’re wanting to be. That’s what we’re wanting to live within, that You are within us and You are speaking truth to us and You will continue to do that if we will continue to pay attention to You and not get sidetracked by our unmet…unmet expectations and doubt and enter into this swirl that could eventually make us become antichrist. Holy Spirit come into all of this we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base and that is where you find out what’s going on around. If you’re using the appl you can find out as well. There’s a little Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner of the app screen and that opens up a Drawer. And, so, you can get to things like the Daily Audio Bible Shop from the web or from the app.

And in the Daily Audio Bible Shop is a Christmas category. And, so, the…the Daily Audio Bible family Christmas box for 2021 is in that category. And you can go there and see the contents. The God of Your Story is in there. The Daily Audio Bible Journal, 3.0 is in there. Your choice of Windfarm, coffee, fresh roasted and sent to you or our Windfarm boutique tea sourced and sent to you. The Daily Audio Bible Christmas ornament for 2021, which is only available in the box is in the box as well as a Global Campfire candle and it smells beautiful, like a…like a campfire. It brings the atmosphere, brings the aroma that we are connected around this Global Campfire each and every day. That’s in the box. A Global Campfire pop socket, a couple of Global Campfire stickers and a series of five Global Campfire postcards and a mystery item from the vault will be included in the Christmas box this year. So, you can see all that in the Shop at dailyaudiobible.com.

We have been talking about the new Christmas album, the new Christmas music release for this year that is released and fully available and rolling out, but you can for sure get it at the iTunes store or the Amazon music store. So, check that out. The entire album is now available.

And then there’s also Promised Land, photographs from the land of the Bible, which is a beautiful coffee table book, the kind of book that you would put on a coffee table or an end table and it’s beautiful in its craftsmanship. It looks beautiful on a coffee table, but it’s what’s inside - beautiful panoramas of the land of the Bible and where these story, some of these pivotal stories that we’ve read actually happened in all of the different regions of the land. It is a beautiful thing to immerse ourselves in the land of the Bible and realize this happened and it happened somewhere and here is the somewhere. This is what it looks like there. That story that I’ve known since Sunday school or that have imagined in my mind from going to the Scriptures, this is what it looks like and it kinda connects the dots in so many ways. So, check that out. It’s available as well for this holiday season - Promised Land, photographs from the land of the Bible. That can be found in the Daily Audio Bible Shop.

And then lastly, it is time to prepare for our Global Campfire Christmas party all around the world, our virtual Christmas party where we get to hear holiday wishes from all over the world, one of the most enriching things I look forward to all year long. And, so, if you want to participate, what we do…here…here’s how it works. We have a Hotline in the app that we talk about just about every day and we have phone numbers that we talk about that you can call in an encouragement or a prayer request and that’s what those lines are for. That’s all that, there for, except for one week out of the year we also open up and say you can call in your holiday wishes to the Daily Audio Bible community here, all of us who have been traveling through the year together. The only trick is that you don’t combine a prayer request and the holiday greeting in the same call. This is the one time of the year where it’s okay to hang up and call back and lets us keep things separate and put them where they need to go so that we can prepare. But we will be taking calls through next Wednesday. And, so, you can think, okay, yeah, I’m gonna think about that and procrastinate, but that happens every year. Don’t procrastinate. And I’m looking forward…I’m looking forward… every year I…we…when I hear the Christmas calls coming in it warms my heart so much. And, so, don’t leave your voice out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if what we do when we come around the Global Campfire every day, if that is life-giving to you than thank you humbly for being life-giving back. We wouldn’t be able to do this if we didn’t do this together. And, so, thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com in the app or 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 or right now a holiday greeting 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 Daily Audio Bible this is Irene calling in. I wanted to say thank you to the lady who called in saying she was praying for me and gave me that Psalm. It just really encouraged me. And I am actively every day coming back to the Lord and trusting Him. So, thank you for praying for me. And for those who didn’t call in and are praying, thank you. Today I ask that you would continue to pray that I would not fear man, just that I wouldn’t fear what man can do to me. I think it’s easier said than done. But Lord…just help me…help me to trust the Lord. But I also have another prayer request. I have this friend her name is Sophia. She’s a very sweet person. She is someone who I feel like is very…I don’t feel like…I know…she’s very confused. You know, she has encouraged me to stay pure. You know, as a woman in high school she’s always told me, you know Irene you’re doing the right thing by not putting yourself with other guys, you’re doing the right thing by staying a virgin and I encourage you on that path. And this girl is not a Christian herself. She is not a virgin herself; however, you know, today I had a conversation with her, and I just realized that she was actively, you know, sleeping with different guys. She’s been making really poor decisions and she still encourages me not to do it. She says you’re right and she knows what the right path is, that she keeps choosing the wrong path. She seems open to the gospel. She has been open to wanting to come to youth groups but hasn’t come. So, I just ask that you pray for her that maybe this year I could open up Christ or her. She wants to go into the military and I just I really want to be a light to her in this short period of time. So, please pray for Sophia. Love you guys. Bye.

Hi DAB family this is your sister Ashley from California. I’m coming on here to ask for prayer for a friend of mine. It’s a very interesting stroke of providence. God has blessed me with an opportunity to speak life into a relationship I thought I didn’t have with this friend, someone I thought hated me years ago. But I’m coming on here to ask you all to join me in prayer. This friend doesn’t know Jesus and God is allowing me to plant seeds in our conversations. She’s allowing me into pray for her. My friend is sharing her hurts in her heart. She says she doesn’t feel God or that He isn’t listening, but I see her seeking, knocking, and crying out. I want to ask my DAB family to join me in prayer for my friend, that she would have eyes to see Him working, ears to hear Him speaking and a heart softened to receive the truth. Her name is Abby. Thank you DAB family. Love your sister Ashley from California.

Hi, my DAB family this is Tammy from the Adirondacks and I just…I call often asking for myself and I thank you all. I guess this community…I’m so grateful to my aunt for showing me this app and…and giving me this this entire community of brothers and sisters to carry me and my husband and be there for us and pray for us. And I just…I guess instead of asking for prayer I just wanted to tell you all that I love you and that I thank you and this is a new…his journey…I’ve been on this journey with the Lord for a year now I’ve been saved and I’m learning and I’m growing and it all takes time and I’m learning how to process, sometimes not a comfortable one, but it’s a process. But He’s healed me and He’s showed me so many miracles and so many blessings in so many ways and I just wanted to all to know that you and Brian and Jill and China and I’ve listened to Ezekiel one time, but the entire Hardin family you are such a blessing in my life and I thank you that every day because I question whether I read the word enough and but every day I…or every evening my husband and I listen to the word. We listen to Brian and we listen to Jill and I have it every day and I have you all and I pray for you all and I love you all and I hope God blesses each and every one of you. I love you.

Hi Daily Audio Bible this is Carla from east Texas and I thought I would call in to ask for prayer. I’m a single mom and loneliness makes my heart heavy often. Doing the best I can though. Take care of my daughter. Her dad is pretty…he's…he’s in our life. I’m just lonely and it hurts sometimes. So, yeah, if you could just lift me up in prayer. I don't…not…I’m not typically vulnerable about myself. I’ve taken in my great niece and she’s going back with her dad and I'm…I’m sad about that but their lives have been updated and changed. Things are looking good for them right now. So, prayers for Chloe. And my daughter’s doing great. I’m just having a hard time. Maybe it’s the season of holidays. But anyway, love you guys and thank you so much for the prayers. Thank you so much for this podcast. I love you all and God loves you more.

Hello, I am calling from Ohio and I have never called in to the Daily Audio Bible before. I’ve just recently become a listener and I am asking for prayer request for myself and my family. I have a very big decision that needs to be made by December 6^th and I really just don’t know what to do. I feel completely cornered and defeated I’m not sure where God is leading and what’s gonna happen next. I just need His guidance and His will to know what to do come Friday. Thank you so much for listening and for your prayers. They are very much needed. God bless everyone. Thank you. Bye.

Daniel 8:1-27, 1 John 2:1-17, Psalms 120:1-7, Proverbs 28:25-26

Today is the 1^st day of December, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is great to be here with you today as we reach…well…for this year anyway, the final threshold of a new month, this being the 12^th month of the year. And today is the 335^th day of the year. So, once we read today we will have completed 335 days consecutively in a row making our way here to this point. And it feels like the days are shorter because they are. It feels like it’s more busy because it is. We are all thinking about the Christmas holiday that it approaches here in just a couple of weeks. And we can see that there’s only a handful of weeks left in this year. And, so, it would be easy enough to go, well…we’re pretty close, what’s left. I get the…I get that point, I get the gist of the Bible, but there’s so much ground for us to cover yet, important ground as we make this push toward the end of the year. We have been reading from the New Living Translation this week and we will pick up where we left off in the book of Daniel. Today Daniel chapter 8.

Commentary:

Okay. So, when we read the book of James one of the themes that emerged from that letter is that talk is cheap. And then we read Peter’s letters, especially first Peter and we learned that talk is cheap. And now here we are in first John learning again talk is cheap. Anybody can say anything. If we have not learned that by now we have been probably under a rock somewhere. If social media doesn’t show us that anybody can say anything then I guess nothing…nothing really can. And in terms of faith talk can be cheap. If…if our lives are not in alignment with what we are saying then talk is cheap, we’re just talking. And John is essentially giving us a chance to examine ourselves, look at what our claims are and see if our actions actually match with our claims, if there’s harmony between what we say and what we do. and so quoting John. “If someone claims I know God but doesn’t obey God’s commandments that person is a liar and is not living in the truth, but those who obey God’s word truly show how they completely love Him. That is how we know we are living in Him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.” So, if we have to boil this down, John is ready direct here. If you claim that you know God and you don’t obey God’s commandments then you’re a liar. Yikes. I mean, how much more direct did the Scriptures need to be for us to finally get this? Because it’s like we have been in this territory in these letters with James and Peter and John telling us you have to live out what you claim or it’s not real and you’re a liar. And if we just kind of zoom out and go, “well…what…what is…what is the primary goal of the reason that I believe?” Well, maybe it’s eternal life or just fellowship with God. But ultimately, as Christian people following Jesus Christ as disciples on this earth than one of the primary functions of our faith is that we become like Christ – Christlike, like Jesus. Not as a metaphor but as an actual goal that we actually live into. And this would be called sanctification, that we are being actually transformed into the likeness of Jesus, that our lives look like the life of Christ, which is not just something that can be said. Anyone on this journey of faith actually intentionally trying to live Christlike then you know that this isn’t just what you post, or this isn’t just what you say. It may be those things, but it is also everything about you. It’s the way you live. Let’s go back to John. Let me just quote John because it’s speaking as clear as day. John says, “if anyone claims I am living in the light but hates a fellow believer that person is still living in darkness. Anyone who loves a fellow believer is living in the light and does not cause others to stumble, but anyone who hates a fellow believer is still living and walking in darkness. Such a person does not know the way to go having been blinded by the darkness.” If we’re boiling that down to an essential core than he’s saying you can say you’re living in the light and still be in the darkness. Just because you say it doesn’t make it so. If you live it then you make it so. This is really a timely message being given to us on this first day of the last month of the year. We are definitely walking through the final weeks of our journey through the Bible this year. We are right at the front end of a very busy season that culminates with a lot of joy but also can provide an enormous amount of attention and interpersonal conflict with people that we actually love but we all get together and get forced into…into roles that we’ve played in our families are whole lives and the tensions arise and then we’re feeling like a kid again inside, and it’s easy for our actions and our words to not be in alignment with…with each other and neither one of them being in alignment with Jesus. And if we’re reading the Scriptures right today that is generally called darkness. We are moving through the season of Advent, a season of waiting for the arrival of the Savior, the light of the world. May our actions and our words demonstrate how profoundly we have been changed because God came to rescue us, may we perpetuate light and life and good news, and hope and joy in this season, rather than just fooling ourselves and living in the darkness.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit we invite You into that very direct message. Very, very clear, offering us much opportunity to examine and reflect on the ways in which our words and our lives are not in alignment with each other. And just recognizing some of those areas, that is the first step to repentance and change, going in a different direction. It’s just difficult in this world full of masks, not masks about viruses, but masks of pretense about who we really are because we live in comparison to one another and this brings up all kinds of stuff as we participate in the system of the world. When we have been freed from that and have been given permission to live true. Help us Holy Spirit to actually shine the light of truth and light and good news, the message of the gospel into this world into the lives of those that we love during this season we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base and it’s where we stay connected to what’s happening. And it’s Christmas time and that is certainly happening around here.

And it’s time to get ready for our annual Global Campfire Christmas party that we virtually have each year. And, so, it’s time to call in your holiday greetings to the community here that has been sharing this space and time with you as we have navigated the Scriptures all year long. And we do this each and every year, and it is one of the most moving things to me. It’s something that I look forward to all year, sitting back and listening to all the different calls from all the different people, brothers and sisters from all over the world sharing holiday greetings and seasons wishes to the community here. So, here’s how it works. We have a Hotline button in the app that I talk about most every day as well as 877-942-4253. That is the prayer line, prayer and encouragement line. And, so, once a year it also becomes the holiday greeting line. The trick is, don’t call in a prayer request and a holiday greeting in the same call. There’s no place to put that. So, if you have a prayer request go ahead and call that in as normal and then call in your holiday greeting if you want to. Or maybe you don’t have a prayer request right now, you just want to call in your holiday greeting. That’s fine. Just call that in. And we will be taking calls for the next week. So, a week from today we’ll close that down and get to the work of putting it all together so we can have our annual Christmas party.

Also, today is the release today of the brand-new Christmas album that we have for the community here. It’s called Christmas Time and it was arranged and produced by my son Maxwell and it is available in the iTunes store and is available in the Amazon music store and over the course of the next week, it should begin to roll out into all of the stores. But the fall album is available today and you get it at the iTunes store. So, check it out. We’re very proud of it, love it very very much. It sets an atmosphere, the exact atmosphere that we were trying to set, which is not the bombastic kind of really overjoyed Christmas music but the kind of music you want to listen to when you’re winding down, when the Christmas lights are on and you’re winding down after a long day. This is a beautiful album for that. So, check that out.

The Daily Bible Christmas box, our family Christmas 2021 is available, and you can see all the contents there in the Daily Audio Bible Shop. In the Daily Audio Bible Shop there’s a Christmas section, and if you click that category then you’ll find the Christmas box in there. So, check that out.

And then Promised Land, photographs from the land of the Bible our brand-new book chock-full of pictures from all the different regions of the land of the Bible in the places where the Bible happened. It is beautiful. It is beautiful in craftsmanship and should be a long-lasting heirloom where you can always refer back and go back and look at the different regions. See kind of what it looked like where the Bible happened. That can be found in Promised Land, photographs from the land of the Bible. And that is available in the Daily Audio Bible shop as well.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com also. There is a link on the homepage. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner of the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, of course, as always if you have a prayer request or encouragement, or a holiday greeting 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:

Hello from beautiful Cincinnati OH this is Daniel Johnson Junior God bless you all. It’s been a little while since I’ve reached out and I wanted to say how awesome it is that we’ve come to the last month of this year. And it’s been an amazing journey so far. None of us knows what is going to exactly happen during this last month but one of the things that I realized for myself when I went through my DAB long walk back in July is that there’s no way I’m gonna be able to go through and be successful at this year unless I rely on the strength that God gives me because I don’t have it on my own. I literally do not have the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual energy to do what I need to do for God without relying on God completely. And, so, that’s my prayer request because I have felt exhausted, literally exhausted over the last several weeks and months. There’s a lot that is going on. And then now we just have the holiday season on top of it all. So, please pray for me and as I pray for you let’s finish this year strong because we can do it because He can do it. And with Him all things are possible. God bless you all from beautiful Cincinnati OH it’s Daniel Johnson junior.

Hey guys this is Tyler from Oregon. I have been recently struggling with, I would say, depression kind of masked a gigantic stronghold. And it’s almost as if I didn’t realize it was there and in a way it’s like claiming that I have light but how dark is that darkness. So, I guess that prayer would be for confronting the hurts to be able to move on a little more so that I can properly forgive and not have plastic forgiveness.

Good morning DAB family I’m calling in…I heard Diane Olive Braun. I heard your…your request this morning this is November 29^th, and my heart just broke for you as I listened to your heartbreak. And I just want you to know that I am praying for you. I don’t really know how things will work out. I know your heart is to go and see your aunt and to give her a hug and yet other family members are…are just not making…not making a way for you to do that. And I know that that hurts your heart. And…and I just want you to know that however this turns out that we are praying for you and that you will know that we are all reaching out to hug you and that God is hugging you too. And He sees your heart. He sees your desire and He will honor that. And no matter the distance God’s arms can reach you and can reach your…your aunt. And so we are praying for you today Diane that you will feel God’s comfort in God’s peace. And as you always say to each one of us at the end of your calls, Shalom Shalom. And we say that back to you this morning. Shalom Shalom Diane. God give you peace.

Hello DAB family this is Babba D in Tennessee. I wanted to pray for Crystal today. This is the 29^th of November. Heard the prayer request at the end of the program. Lord God we lift up Crystal to You Lord. We ask that You would bless her heart, her soul. Thank You Lord for her willingness to stick it out and put her life on the line for the sake of someone who betrayed her, her husband. She’s willing to wait and forgive. Father I ask that You would silence every voice of the demonic forces trying to influence her mind right now to believe that she is less of a person or she has failed. Lord we ask for Your spirit of restoration from Crystal, bless her Father, give her the desire to seek You, continue seeking You Lord in Jesus’ name. Lord I ask that You would her children the grace to go through this difficult time Lord. Pray for Your mercy on their hearts Lord, that they would not feel it’s their fault. We silence in Jesus’ name every thought every fiery dart of the enemy that’s trying to convince them otherwise and crystal. And in the Father’s name Jesus bless Crystal, the perseverance Crystal, bless her Father in every way possible through Your Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless…

Father God in heaven thank You for this time and I pray that Your words would be with my mouth as I…as I speak. Today is the 29^th of November. Thanksgiving has since passed and I’m just listening to the DAB today and I just wanted to talk about it. It was regarding the ending of second Peter. And what I got from it, what I took away from it was that all we have to do is live. The Bible doesn’t tell us to live to the extreme perfection of God nor does it tell us to live with any hopes desires or dreams to get better, but it tells us simply live well. Live a godly life. That maybe because you can’t reach your brother or sister through the word that your traits, God gave us a awesome gift as we are the gifted to share the gospel. Now whether you do that reading word for word or whether you do that by your actions, whether you do that in both, God I pray for our family, the church. Show us what we have right now. Let us know that we have been taught that we have been gifted and it is about our patients in your promise. God there’s no one like You here amongst the earth. Help us to show Your light. It’s in Jesus’ name I pray, and I ask. Amen.

Daniel 7:1-28, 1 John 1:1-10, Psalm 119:153-176, Proverbs 28:23-24

Today is the 30th day of November, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It’s great to be here with you and this is it, this is the last day of the 11th month of the year. So, when we conclude today’s reading, we will have concluded 11 consecutive months, every single day with only one month remaining. And what we’ll notice with the Bible, as with our lives in the final month of the year because such, so much changes in the last month of the year as we move toward the holiday season, we’ll also see that the Bible seems to be speeding up too because we will be encountering a number of smaller books. For example, in the Old Testament we’ll be moving through the minor prophets, and some of them we’ll read in one day. Many of them we’ll read in one day. And the letters in the New Testament we’ll run out of those and end up in the final book of the Bible, known as the Apocalypse of John or the book of Revelation and we will be reunited with that voice of John today in the New Testament. We concluded second Peter yesterday, which brings us to first John. And we’ll talk about that when we get there. But before we get there, we need to take the next step forward in the book of Daniel and today that step will be chapter 7.

Introduction to the Book of 1 John:

Okay, as we mentioned at the beginning, we’re moving into first John today and first John is the first of three letters: I John, II John and III John, that will bring us back together with the apostle John, a disciple of Jesus the beloved apostle. Interestingly, though, I John doesn’t mention who it’s from, doesn’t say who it was written to, so easy enough to go this is like Hebrews as well, like this is an anonymous letter we’re not exactly sure, for sure because there aren’t these identifying characteristics that we can kind of pinpoint down. One thing we can say is that the church fathers in the mid-second century, so, this is like, this is like 50 years-ish from when this particular letter was written. So, it obviously was passed around and existing 50 years later, and at this time it was thought, and attributed to John the evangelist. And John being the author of…of these letters weren’t disputed when the New Testament was being canonized. It’s, this is more recent where textual criticism and linguistic criticism were…were comparisons between writings purported to be from the same person are examined and the writing style and the use of specific words and the way things are communicated is different, so it’s thought that this is a different author. We’ve talked about that when we were talking about Peter though, could be a different secretary, could be at a different person who’s actually writing down what’s being dictated. These are just some of things biblical scholars and biblical historians’ study and examine and pour over in their study of the Scriptures. So, I said, there is no indication of who this letter was written by and there’s no indication of this letter was written to and so that presents a problem if you’re trying to figure out the origin and so that’s how different theories come forth, like maybe John was writing to people who already knew John, that he had written to many times, that he had visited many times, that were part of churches that were under his care. They already knew John; he didn’t need to say that this is from John or maybe it wasn’t addressed to a specific group of people because the people that were originally receiving this were in danger of persecution in some sort of way. So, anything that would identify them like to the church in Corinth or if that, if persecution is hard-core in Corinth and I’m just using that as an example, then maybe you don’t want to say to the people of Jesus in Corinth. We just don’t know for sure. I John was probably written from Ephesus, probably as the apostle John was late in his life. The letter is usually dated in the mid-90s, maybe the early 100s A.D. and from the contents of the letter we know that the primary purpose was to make a statement against a specific kind of false teaching and it’s here that we see some of the earliest forms of Gnosticism, which may or may not be a term that you’ve ever heard, but what we have to understand is that as we read these letters they are part of what we know as the New Testament, but when these letters were written they were not known as letters or books of the New Testament, there wasn’t a New Testament, there were these letters being circulated around and there were others as well being circulated around and there were other forms of conviction around what Jesus did and what he represented, going around. There wasn’t this definitive canon to sort of establish Christian doctrine. So, there were different ways of looking at what Jesus represented and what His mission to earth was and what ultimately, He represented and how it was that He was bringing salvation and light and good news into the world. Eventually, the particular persuasion that we adhere to today began to form. This was very necessary once the Roman Empire was essentially converting to Christianity. You have to have, you have to have some sort of clear standardized way of conducting things if you’re going to transform an empire to a specific religious persuasion, but before all that lots of people were saying lots of things and John, in this letter, is specifically speaking against what we, what we would now call Docetism, which was an early belief that Jesus wasn’t an actual human being, He was more like an apparition, like He appeared to be a human being, but he wasn’t a human being. He was divine, he was a God. There is also another view of Sorenthis, that taught that Jesus was a human being and He actually became divine like intertwined with God at his baptism, when the skies opened and the voice said this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, this is the moment when the human and the divine are intertwined in Jesus and then when Jesus is hanging on the cross and he cries out, why have you forsaken me, this is the moment that the divinity, the God, that was in Jesus left, departed and then Jesus body died. So, John writing these letters would have a unique perspective to speak on them because he was with Jesus. He had walked with Jesus. He was the beloved disciple of Jesus. He…he had seen Jesus from the beginning of his ministry, so he would be able to give an eyewitness account that could dispel some of these thoughts, which is what he does. So, with that we begin I John chapter 1.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for 11 months consecutively, day by day step-by-step in the Scriptures. We thank You for all that You have shown us, all that You have taught us, all that You have transformed within us, all that You continue to do by the council of the Scriptures and by the leading of Your Holy Spirit. And so, as we release this 11th month and prepare ourselves for the final month of the year, we do it with gratitude and thankfulness. We are grateful for Your kindness toward us, Your patience with us. We thank You for Fathering us and we ask Holy Spirit, that You continue to lead us into all truth as we continue this journey forward. We pray this in the name of the risen Savior Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base and that is of course the website, that’s where you find out what’s going on around here and it’s been Christmas time and it’s Christmas time around the whole world right now. So, it’s kind of Christmas time stuff that’s going on around here as well. We’ve been talking about the new Christmas album Christmas Time and this record will become fully available, it releases fully tomorrow. So, you can take advantage of pre-release pricing today and you can find it by going to the iTunes store or the Amazon music store. Just look for Maxwell Hardin or Christmas Time and can find it there and the album will show up tomorrow. Well, you’ll get three of the songs now and then the full album will show up tomorrow.

Also, the Daily Audio Bible Christmas box, family Christmas 2021 is underway. And included in the Christmas box this year is the God of Your Story the sort of a written version of the Daily Audio Bible if such a thing could be done and this was quite an adventure to accomplish but that will be in the Christmas box this year. Daily Audio Bible Journal 3.0 is in the Christmas box this year. Your choice of coffee or tea, whichever you prefer, is in the box. The Global Campfire candle which smells like a campfire is in the box this year. The Daily Audio Bible Christmas ornament for 2021, which is only available in the Christmas box, is in the Christmas box. A Global Campfire pop socket, two Global Campfire stickers and a series of five Global campfire postcards as well as a mystery item. And you can find that, look at all that in the Daily Audio Bible Shop in the Christmas category.

And then also, our brand-new book Promised Land, Photographs from the Land of the Bible. A beautiful coffee table addition, allowing us to kind of peer into the different regions of the land and be able to look at what it looks like where so many of the stories that we have encountered actually happened and that can be found in the Daily Audio Bible Shop as well. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if the mission here to bring spoken Scriptures 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 so that we are in this together and no one is left alone, if that is life-giving and has mattered in your life then thank you 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 of course, 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:

Family, it’s MaryBeth in New Brunswick and I’m calling to kind of practice some obedience. So, the Lord has been pressing on my heart to call in and speak what he wants me to believe. And I was kind of procrastinating as you guys know I like to do. And of course, my DAB app stopped, and I couldn’t get it started again so I said “okay, okay, I get it.” So, this is what I am to call in and say and believe me it’s hard. Father, I know Shelley is a seed of your righteous. I acknowledge that Heather is the seed of one of Your righteous. I acknowledge that April is the seed of one of your righteous. And as such I claim, along with their mothers’ prayers, that they will be delivered. In Jesus name, Amen. Now, if you guys could all, kind of pick-up there and believe with real faith and real belief, I would really appreciate it. The Lord is working on me, He’s getting me there. But I’m not there yet but I have noticed over the months that I’ve been with you guys that when He convicts me to do something, particularly to call in and pray for someone and I don’t, immediately I hear someone else pray exactly what He told me to pray. And He’s showing me that I am not going to stop His will but I am gonna stop my blessing. So, keep me up, keep me lifted up folks and get me through this cause this one’s rough, this one’s really rough. Thanks, remember it’s God’s love in us to the world. Because love truly does change everything. I believe it, I believe it, I believe it, I believe it, I believe it, I really believe it, I’m trying to believe it, I believe it.

This is Susan from Bryton in England. I recently attended the funeral of my father and at the end of the reception that we had for him, somebody approached me and said, “do you remember me” and I didn’t. And it turned out to be somebody I had known 40 years ago, a man called Johnny. And Johnny was a very troubled boy when I knew him as a teenager. He was always in trouble with the police and to be honest most people avoided him because he was just bad news. He did spend some time in a youth offenders’ institution as well. And then, later on he settled down a bit and seemed to be on the straight and narrow for a while but then tragically lost his partner very young, she died very suddenly. Anyway, he introduced himself, I didn’t recognize him at first. And then we sat down and had a chat during the reception of my father’s funeral. So, we had lots of interruptions and things, but he told me that he was still very lost and all over the place, that, those were his words not mine. And he told me he was developing an interest in Wicca, which I understand a form of witchcraft. Anyway, it was a marvelous opportunity to very quickly try and point the way to Jesus. And I did my best in the short time that I had to share my testimony and how my life had been changed by following Christ. I just wondered if the Daily Audio Bible community could stand with me and reach out to Johnny and see if we could bring him back from the brink. Thank you.

Hi everyone, it’s Lisa the Encourager, I hope you all are having a beautiful day. I’m calling today to pray for those that suffer from anxiety. And I’m just praying that God will help you through this season of the holidays. So, let’s all pray together for our friends that suffer from anxiety or depression. Dear God, I pray for these people, these loved ones of ours that are suffering Lord. I’m so sorry for their pain God, I’m so sorry for what they go through. I just pray God that you would help those, that You put people in their lives that can come alongside them and support them and love them and hug them and people that aren’t necessarily there to fix the issues or the anxiety but just someone that is there to support them and love them and give them the resources that you God, can help them with. Lord, and we just pray that You will just bless them during the holidays that we know that sometimes it can be very numbing or very difficult to want to get out of bed or difficult to want to get out of the house and see everyone else is happiness when their struggling deep inside, God. So, I just pray that You God will help them with those struggles that You God will help the people in our Daily Audio Bible community. And the ones that are around this campfire right now listening to me God, I pray that You will help them. That You will just be there for them and put people in their lives again Lord, that can support them and love them. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. I love you.

Hi DAB family this is Simple and Still and I’m calling in my November thanks. Thank you, Brian and Jill, for this ministry. Thank you for hearing and listening and obeying God’s voice in your life and following the leadings of the Holy Spirit. So many lives are touched daily, and I can say for my it’s been transformative in my faith. Listening daily and so thank you. And with that I want to ask for prayer for my ex-husband’s uncle passed away a couple weeks ago and so for his family, he has a wife and two children that are teenagers or young adults and so please pray for them as they mourn the loss of their husband, father, uncle, and we just got word two days ago on Thanksgiving that one of my boyfriend’s cousins had passed away in his sleep, a young man, only 18 turning 19 years old. So, there’s just a lot of grief and I pray that God comfort and that He work through these most sad scenarios and…and that family would be drawn close to God through these times, close to one another, but mostly close to Him and that our families would be saved. And so, I thank you for your prayers. I thank you for the word and the encouragement that is shared, and I praise God for each of you, those that call in, those that don’t. I just covet your prayers and I’m so grateful for you all. God Bless you.  

Good morning, this is Jeannie from Virginia. I’m calling with a story and a request. I’m a physical therapist, I’ve worked for 37 years now with older people that’s been the bulk of my career. I currently work for a program that we seek to help seniors age in place at home. They qualify for nursing home admission, but they and their families want to keep them at home. So, we provide support in the way of transportation, healthcare therapy, homecare support, etc. Yesterday, one of our patients, towards the end of the day, when it was time to get on the bus to start heading towards home began to cry out in pain, her knew hurt, her ankle hurt. I’m pretty sure I’ve broken it. I hope I don’t have to be in a wheelchair. And as I went over to her and started questioning her and assessing her, I helped her to her feet. We started walking together with me supporting her and I questioned her about the day before which was Thanksgiving Day. She shared that she had spent it alone, that she had made some deli turkey and opened a can of sweet potatoes to try to make a Thanksgiving meal. But as she continued to share her walking normalized. In other words, there was no visible pain. She was walking perfectly fine, but it was a physical manifestation of emotional pain. She also shared that a local church had told her they were gonna bring her Thanksgiving feast and they didn’t. So, my challenge and my request is, please reach out to the least of these that are in your community or in your circle of friends. Please reach out and be sure that they are having their needs met. Whether it’s conversation whether it’s food. And please, I beg you, if you’re part of a church that reaches out with programs like this, please don’t make a promise and then fail to keep that promise. Love your neighbor love the least of these. Thank you.