Esther 1:1-3:15; 1 Corinthians 11:17-34; Psalms 35:17-28; Proverbs 21:19-20
Today is the 18th day of August. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and I am excited to be here with you today because even here at the end of the week we have a new beginning. We finished the book of Nehemiah yesterday, which brings us to the beautiful book of Esther. And its stunning. And I love when we get to this place each year. Esther’s short in length but it is not short on drama and intrigue. Esther is…this story of a beautiful…a stunningly beautiful girl who became Queen unsuspectingly and was subsequently able to save God’s people from annihilation. It’s one the most beautiful stories in the Bible and, allegorically, we can look at the book through the eyes of God and his love for us, just like we can allegorically the Song of Solomon. But Esther is also considered to be one of the books of history for the children of Israel. The book of Esther is the basis for one of the major Jewish festivals called Purim, which was established by Mordechai in this book. And the story takes place during the same period in history that we’ve been reading about as we read of the Babylonian exile. So, the children of Israel, being exiles, were allowed to return, which is what we read about in Ezra and Nehemiah, to their homeland, and Esther may have played a large role in this because she plays an important role in keeping her people from destruction. And as queen she has great favor from the king, which ultimately gave great favor to God’s people, to her people, to the Jewish people. When Esther reveals her heritage as a Jew the king shows kindness and consideration to God’s people. And there are many parallels in the book of Esther that we can apply to our lives - that God will always show up, that circumstances don’t always dictate the outcome of things, and that everyone has an important role to play because God brings people into the picture for specific times and specific missions to get major things done in his kingdom. This can be as large as queen Esther saving God’s people from destruction or God sending you next door to save the hope and heart of your neighbor. So, enjoy the book of Esther as we move into this new territory. We’re reading from the Holman Christian Standard Bible this week. And Esther chapter 1 verse 1 through 3 verse 15.
Prayer:
Thank You Father for Your word and as we move into this little oasis known as the book of Esther, we see Your hand moving in this time. We see that You were already working in this situation before the threat to Your people even materialized. And, so, Father we know that You are working in our lives and have been working in advance of things that we just don’t understand or know, but You do. And so often when we discover that we’re in a tailspin we’re mad at You and flailing around trying to figure it out when You already working on our behalf. And, so, we’re sorry. We repent of that and we turn toward You. You are our only hope. Our hope is in You. So, come, Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Announcements
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I’ve been mentioning that we have all of the all of the Sneezing Jesus stuff in the Daily Audio Bible shop now. And, so, we’re able to have it there. So, the Sneezing Jesus book is there. The sneezing Jesus 10 pack that we had while we were talking about this before it released, we’ve brought that back. That’s available in the shop. So, when you get 10 of and Sneezing Jesus you get all the stuff including the medallion and the small group films and all of that. So, you can check that out. We even have cases because some of you have let us not you’re giving them to visitors in your church or you’re going to give them to everybody you work with and that kind of stuff. So, we have that available at the lowest price possible. So, check that out. The Sneezing Jesus medallion is available if you just want that. The Sneezing Jesus films are available as a standalone as well. So, check that out. We even made a category for it in the shop called Sneezing Jesus. So, check that out.
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayers and Praise Reports:
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family. This is Wrapped in His Unfailing Love and I’m calling for Sharron. I just herd you on the community prayers for August 13th and you want to give up. And Sharron you said your family doesn’t care but we’re your family and we care and we love you and we don’t want you to give up. And God gave you your life. It’s not yours to take. And He’s going to be there and we’re here. Thank you for calling and asking for prayers. We’re praying for you. I’m praying for you. God is with you and he inhabits the praises of His people and I just want to ask you, look around and just think of…if you can just come up with…three things that God’s blessed you with…three things…and then make it five or ten and be grateful. He loves that and He is going to help you through this. I know that He will. And you have so many people praying for you Sharron. Consider us your family. I am your sister in Christ. I love you and I want you to hang on, hang onto Jesus. He’s never going to let you go. Lord, Jesus, bless Sharron. Thank you for my sister. Thank you for her reaching out. And Lord I pray that You would just help her see that her life is worthwhile. Help her to be grateful with certain things that You have blessed her with – her home, food, clothing. Whatever it is…start there Sharron. I love you. Amen. Bye.
Hello. It’s Allison here from Scotland. I hope you are all well. I’ve just been listening to the community prayer and a lady phoned in. At least, she’d been convicted about not phoning in for prayer because she feels guilty because her life was ok and she’s not alone. I think I’ve been wanting to phone in for a while but I find it a little bit selfish because I am not struggling with the things that other people are struggling with and we pray for every day but it’s something very important to us as a family. My husband had a breakdown at the beginning of the year. We’ve not been happy where we’ve been living for a while and since we got new neighbors and we have been to a house that we would really, really like to buy and I would covet your prayers that the house sale goes through and we can move out into the county where there’s some space and some time just to be. And it would move my daughter to a school where there’s only thirty children and I think she would be happier there. I think we’d all be happier there. And I’ve asked God to show us clearly in every step of the way. Things are working out well. Things are working out well but I’m not very patient and I really…I’m starting to worry that it’s not going to work out. So, I really covet your prayers. Ok. I’m almost out of time. I love you family and I pray with you all every day. Lots of love. Allison in Scotland. Bye.
Hi. This is Deborah from Providence RI. I know about not making multiple calls on the same day but I just had to get this in. Brian, I am so grateful for you. Thank you for the book, Sneezing Jesus. I’ll be honest, when I first saw the title when you were talking about it before it came out…I was like…oh oh…what is this? Ya know…I just…it was weird…hahahaha. I didn’t understand how…ya know…what that would mean as a book. I did get Reframe, got it from my church. It was wonderful. It was excellent. So, I was looking forward to a new book…but brother…that name…just like…ughhh…it was so strange to me…but boy was I wrong. It’s amazing. It’s excellent. I got the audio, the Audible, and I’ve listened to it a few times. I got the book itself, which I’m reading. Brian, God has blessed you. I know you are aware of it. But I’m just going to say it…God has blessed you with a gift. It’s just amazing, reading the book that you’ve written and it’s like…this guy…he makes it…like…so simple…it’s great and deep but it’s also simple. When you read it you get it and I thank God for that and I look forward to sharing this with my church also. I have already…well…I’m sharing it with my sisters because I’m going to get it for them for Christmas because we do read as a sister group or we read books and we did reframe so we’re going to do this. I just wanted to say thank you so much Brian. Thank you. God bless you and your family. Continue to do what you’re doing even if people like me go…ughhh…because we don’t really understand in the beginning what you are doing. You are gifted. God bless. If anyone out there is wondering about the books with a weird title to them…get them. You will not be disappointed. God bless.
Hi I just really wanted to leave a quick message, a praise report. We heard a message at our church this weekend about how God is moving in the world right now and it just absolutely touched me right to the core. Especially in Muslim countries. Apparently there are literally like thousands and thousands of people that re coming to the Lord and it’s just…there’s these tender little new shoots of baby Christians all over the world…I mean…he just went on about India and…just so…Ethiopia…and it’s just amazing…like…so many, so many people. It’s like God…His Spirit is just really flowing. Especially as well…Israel. I think the tensions there in the middle east are such that a lot of the young people…this guy was saying…are just coming to Jesus. It’s like…they know that their world is on the edge and they’re just saying only the Messiah…only the Messiah can help us now and they’re just coming by the thousands to Christ. So, I just really encourage us all to really pray…pray, pray, pray, and do whatever we can to get bibles to those people because their tender new little Christians. They need the word of God. Anyways, please pray with me. Thank you.
Hey, good morning Daily Audio Bible DABbers. My first time calling in. I just really enjoy listening to the Daily Audio Bible with Brian and enjoy hearing all your prayers. I’ve been reluctant to call in but I’d really just love your prayers if God brings you to mind. My name is Jeff. I’m from Maine and my family…my wife and I…we’ve been going through a challenging few weeks. For the past year and a half almost we’ve been raising financial support to go to the mission field. We’re going to Montreal and Quebec to this unreached people group through evangelism and church planting but it’s been an amazing year relying on God. And then a few weeks ago were really at a point in our progress where we decided I would leave my work, my full time job, to continue to finish our fundraising but in doing that we realized just how far away our goal seems to be. And so, we’re still trusting God. It’s been amazing to go through Second Chronicles and Ezra and Nehemiah this past few weeks. We’re just gaining hope in God through that and we’ve never been more in prayer and more in His word. So, if you think to pray for my ministry, please do so, I’d love to hear that and just want to read something real quick about what Jesus does with our prayers. Charles Spurgeon says, this is just what the Lord Jesus Christ does with our poor prayers, He makes a fair copy of them, stamps them with a seal of His atoning blood, puts His own name at the foot, and thus they go up to God’s throne. It is your prayer but though it is His prayer too. ookin