Month: December 2017

Zechariah 1:1-21, Revelations 12:1-13:1, Psalms 140:1-13, Proverbs 30:17

Today is the 21st day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It’s great to be here with you today for the next step forward through the Scriptures and the next step forward into Christmas week here. So, in the Old Testament, we read the book of Haggai in its entirety yesterday, which brings us today to the to the second to the last book in the Old Testament, the book of Zechariah. And we are already reading through the last book of the New Testament, the book of Revelation. So, we’ll be spending all the way through Christmas up to the last two days of the year here in the book of Zechariah and then moving to the final book, Malachi, in last couple of days of the year.

Zechariah:

Zechariah was written during the reign of the Persian King, Darius. And this falls within the same general time period that we were talking about when we read Haggai yesterday. Haggai and Zechariah, the book we’re about to read, they were contemporaries. And as we begin to read the book of Zechariah we will probably recognize pretty quick, right within the first few verses, one of the central themes of the Old Testament, one of the things that the prophetic voices were always saying, return to me and I will return to you. So, throughout this book of prophecy, God confirms His acceptance of authentic worship and it shows that God is indeed at work. It confirms God’s sovereignty and clarifies His control over the beginnings and endings of man, something that we’re also seeing in the book of Revelation. And this is not to say that God usurps a person’s free will. Everyone is responsible for their own choices. But God remains sovereign over all. And there are eight visions and two oracles that we will encounter in the book of Zechariah. And much of the imagery is a clear and beautiful foreshadowing of Jesus. And through that imagery we’re offered great hope and promise. And, so, we begin. Zechariah chapter 1 verses 1 through 21. And we’re reading from the Names of God Bible this week.

Commentary:

Okay, let’s go back into the book of Revelation for a minute. Yesterday we were talking about the book of Haggai, but up until that point we had been waiting for this seventh trumpet blow and that happened and we missed it. So, let’s go back and try to catch ourselves up. Because with the book of Revelation, like, if you blink you miss something and there’s just so much going on. So, six trumpets blew and then there was this, kind of, aside. There was sort of this side story going on in between the sixth and the seventh trumpets that we were working through. And we continued that yesterday where a temple being measured and two witnesses in sackcloth who are prophetic and speak on behalf of God being sent out for 260 days. And again, we have to pay attention to the way in which we’re reading this. We’ve looked at a lot of things through a literal perspective and understood, wow, this would be really hard to be literal. And then we’ve looked figuratively at a lot of things at what scholars have researched for centuries in order to understand the symbolism. But it’s interesting how we can move back and forth between literal and symbolic language. So, for the most part, we’ve agreed, like, a lot of this is symbolism and what does the symbolism mean, but then we move into other things and because of popular culture or novels or films or whatever, we moved back into literal. So, we have this temple being measured. We’ve seen this before in other prophetic books. And, so, from a little literal perspective, we’re imagining a third temple, another temple being built in Jerusalem. And some people are so deeply convinced that this will literally happen that preparations are being made. Like, all of the utensils that would be needed for the temple, according to the Torah, have been and are being made. And there’s even a museum in Jerusalem that you can go see some of these things. A figurative view of this would be that, what’s being measured here, is referring to this new world, this new thing that God is doing and perhaps can only be seen through spiritual eyes, while others would say this just the measure, this is the spiritual kingdom of God, the covenant being represented and this courtyard and everything around it is for God’s people. This represents the entire community of faith whose job is to be a prophetic witness in the world. And the we get to these messengers. Right? These guys in sackcloth who are profits and who are going to find themselves getting killed and then they’ll be resurrected. And we see this sometimes from a literal perspective and its zombielike and kind of scary stuff and we see it depicted in films, when all along we’ve been mostly looking allegorically. And, so, it’s funny how we’ll get pulled into literal versus allegorical symbolism and get confused. So, some people think that these two witnesses are literally a reincarnated Moses and Elijah or other prophets, while others would say, no, they’re just unnamed, we don’t know who they are. They’re like John the Baptist, who came in this spirit and power of Elijah. So, they’re just like that. While those who would look more symbolically would say, this simply represents the prophetic witness of what God is doing in the world while He’s doing what He’s doing in the world. And what He’s doing in the world is transforming it, making it new. And that transformation is causing a lot of unrest. But God will not allow His prophetic witness to be stamped out. And, so, there are two of these witnesses. And it would require two or more witnesses to testify to the truth of something, like that was a legal thing. Or the Bible tells us when there is two or more than the Lord is in the midst of them. So, these aren’t, like, real, actual prophets at all from that view, they represent the ongoing prophetic witness in the world. And if we continue to look at it through that lens, I mean, these guys end up getting killed. They’re causing a lot of unrest because of their prophetic witness. And because of what’s going on in the world everyone turns on them. They’re killed and their bodies are left to lay for three and half days. And Revelation says, those living on earth will gloat over the witness’s death, which has pulled many people more toward a literal view and let interpretations, like, oh, this must be television. Television must be being prophesied here in the book of Revelation, because that’s the only way that those living on earth could gloat over the witness’s death, because their physical bodies are laying in one place, but that can only be seen around the world. There some kind of Internet communication or television communication, which leads us back around to the problem of time that we talked about a couple days ago. Those who are more presentest or futurist in their view of the book of Revelation are looking for the signs. And, so, you have modern-day interpretations where World War II is one of the signs, the unrest in the Middle East is one of the signs, the country of Russia is one of the signs. And, so, we’re back to literal. And that’s fine, but has problems. And the top one for me, anyway, would be that this book was written nearly 2000 years ago. And the first readers of this book read it 2000 years ago. They could have not imagined television, satellite communication, Internet, or any of that stuff. They couldn’t have imagined it. So, if the book of Revelation is actually speaking about this time, now, they could have never found a way to understand it. There would be no context whatsoever. And it’s important to at least take into consideration how the first readers of this work would have understood it, because God chose to inspire it at a specific time. So, when that context is removed, well then, every generation thinks this is all going down in their time. So, for example, if we look at World War II and say, this has got to be one of the signs because nothing like that, that kind of mass destruction, that kind of loss and conflict had never happened in the world before. So, that’s got to be something. As true as that might be, humanity has been suffering through catastrophes all along. So, for example, if you’re living in the first century and your living in Israel and you’re people are warring with the Romans, but the Romans are taking victory, and they ultimately do become victorious and stamp out the rebellion and completely level the city of Jerusalem and destroy and burn the temple of God, ike, if that’s your time, you’re going, nothing worse in the world could happen than this. So, every generation has its own share of catastrophe and people look to those things for the signs. And, like I said, there’s nothing wrong with that except for context and except for the fact that everyone, everyone who has thought that to this point has been wrong. And, literally, to date, everyone who has made predictions about specific dates for specific things to happen has been wrong, which probably means that the allegorical view is the most comprehensive way of looking at most of this. And trying to understand how the first readers of this work understood it is also important. So, as I was saying, if we’re literally looking at this then there’s a couple witnesses in sackcloth that are like, they appear to be like Old Testament prophets. We don’t have them named. They prophesy, they give witness, which is the point. They give witness, prophetic witness, to what God is doing in the world, but they are opposed in dramatic fashion all the way until their deaths and their bodies lay for 3-½ days, and the whole world sees it because the Internet or television or something. But those who look at this more symbolically, allegorically, or figuratively, would say, no, these witnesses, there’s two or more, there’s two of them. They can witness to the truth of what they’re saying. They represent God’s people, his prophetic witness of what He’s doing, the good news, the gospel on this earth. They can be seen throughout the earth because they’re all over the earth and they will be dramatically opposed and it will look as if they have been killed. So, we’re not talking about people now, we’re talking about the witness of the gospel. It will look as if it has been completely stamped out and the any enemies of God will gloat the world over over this. And before all that happens they’re able to be a prophetic witness for 3-½ years, which has led to many people to make this correlation to Jesus because that’s about the length of his earthly ministry. And then when they are killed they lay for 3-½ days. And, so, there is a rough correlation there to Jesus in the tomb. And, unexpectedly, they are resurrected, following in line with Jesus. So, when this resurrection occurs a great fear falls upon all those who had seen this go down. Once the witnesses are resurrected from the dead and a great awe and fear surrounds the event a loud voice from heaven calls them back up and they go up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies watch them. So, from, you know, like if you’re looking at this literally, then that’s what happens. If you’re looking at a little bit more symbolically, then you can see the correlations to Jesus. And from allegorical interpretive perspective then this witness, this prophetic witness, that is been upon the earth right until the very, very end, it’s called up and immediately a giant earthquake happens, a powerful earthquake that kills many people and the people who had seen all this go down gave glory to God. So, some interpreters would say, this whole thing, like, the prophetic witness in the world and this seeming stamping out of God’s people, and then the unexpected resurrection causes a lot of people to turn their faith and put their hope in Christ.  Other people would say, no, that’s not what happens at all. They are in great fear, great fear falls upon these people in the same way that great fear fell upon Egypt when the great plaques and the Israelites deliverance was at hand. Either way, Revelations says once this happens, the second catastrophe is over and the third catastrophe will soon be here. And finally, the seventh angel blows the seventh trumpet. And it’s like we’re expecting, like, the world to blow up at this point because we’ve been told that the second catastrophe is over and the third will soon be here. But when the seventh angel blows his trumpet something completely different happens. It’s as if we’re seeing the inauguration of the kingdom of God right before our eyes. And it’s here that we kind of need to pause and look at how we’re viewing all of this. Usually, whether were trying to read this literally or figuratively or whether we’re trying to figure out the symbols, it brings this disruption to us because we’re focused on the difficulties that appear to be happening on earth, whether spiritually or physically. And we start thinking, why do things have to be so catastrophic? Why did they have to be so dramatic? Do I have to go through that? Will I have to experience any of this? Is this really going to happen or is it symbols? And it brings a great disruption. And we lose sight of the bigger picture of what’s actually happening. One kingdom does not overthrow another kingdom without a significant amount of unrest. And we have the accountings of several thousand years of human conflict to show us that. But when Jesus came and was seemingly defeated, only to be resurrected in victory, things changed dramatically in the world. And as believers we are engaged in the story that we are reading about. We are witnesses in the world for the good news, of the good news. And what we are watching play out in the book of Revelation is the good news being consummated, the kingdom of God that we hope for actually coming to be. So, when the seventh angel blows the seventh trumpet, we’re back in heaven. There are loud voices and they are saying, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah and he will rule as King forever and ever. Right? So, this transition is upon us the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah. And when that’s said the 24 elders on their thrones in God’s presence how and worship God, and they have something to say. We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was because You have taken Your great power and have begun ruling as King. So, we can say God is sovereign and He could have stepped in and done this at any point, but where getting a vision of when he does. He begins ruling as King. And when this happens Revelations says the temple in heaven was opened and the ark of God’s promise was seen inside his temple and there was lightning and noise and thunder and an earthquake and heavy hail. So, we ended our reading yesterday by getting this majestic picture of the transformation that is happening in heaven and on earth as the story continues forward.

And then we get into today’s reading and we got this crazy story about dragons and a pregnant woman and war in heaven. And many commentators draw attention to this story because it contains all of the mystical elements that we are drawn to even until today because we have extraterrestrial beings. Right? Strange beings coming to earth in a grand struggle between good and evil. And a lot of movies are made, they make a lot of money depicting this kind of thing, not the book of Revelation, but the mythical qualities. And some commentators would say that’s really how you need to read this, or to understand this whole book. And I’ve heard the Star Wars phenomenon used as an example of this. We’ve had these films around, what, for more than 30 years, and they touch us mythically because they speak of the cosmic struggle between good and evil. And, so, you have some people who have never seen any of the films. You have some people who maybe have seen some of them but it’s not super connected to them, but they understand the general idea of these movies. And then you have other people that are so into it that they have costumes for their favorite characters, the ones that they want to be, and they’ll go to conventions and walk around and try to impersonate these people and have these conversations. So, for example, if you are a Star Wars buff, you really, really like it a lot, you probably have a group of friends who also like it a lot. And at some point or another you may have had conversations that lasted maybe even hours as you try to understand the deeper meanings that may be hidden in the films so that you have an awareness of what is really being disclosed, what is really being revealed. And, so, people do this with, like, film trilogies like The Matrix or series like The Leftovers. You have these conversations trying to reveal the hidden meanings, trying to find the Revelation. So, I don’t know about all that, but I do know what we’re trying to do is walk into the territory of the book of Revelation and look around. Try to get our bearings for the way that this book is been understood and acknowledge that it’s been understood a lot of ways. And, so, the vision that we read today is definitely mythic and epic and has been interpreted in a number of diverse ways. So, we began our reading today in the 12^th chapter of Revelation by hearing a spectacular sign appeared in the sky. So, I guess we should we should say this is symbolic. It’s a sign. And the way that this plays out is that there’s a woman and she’s dressed with the sun and she’s got the moon under her feet and a crown of 12 stars on her head and she’s pregnant and she’s about to give birth. She’s in the agony and the labor pains of giving birth. And then another sign comes into the sky and this is a fiery red serpent with seven heads and 10 horns and seven crowns on its heads. And on its way down, it sweeps away one third of the stars in the sky and throws them down. And the serpent confronts, or is in front of, the woman who’s about to give birth. So, she can’t very well defend herself. She’s about to give birth. And what the serpent wants is to eat the infant the second it’s born. But the babies born and it’s a boy and he is to rule all nations with an iron scepter. And the child was snatched and taken to God, to the throne room, to the throne of God. And then the woman, after just having given birth, fled into the wilderness where God had prepared a place for her so that she could be safe for 1260 days. So, it’s hard to miss the parallels with the Christmas story. Right? With the birth of Jesus story here. Although it’s a very, very different story, leading some to believe that this isn’t about Jesus. This isn’t a picture of Jesus birth. While others would say, no, this woman is Mary and she’s having Jesus. And what we’re seeing here is simply the Christmas story from a heavenly or spiritual perspective. But these have problems. Another allegorical way of looking at this is that the woman represents God’s people on the earth, a form of true Israel. This is why she’s got a crown of 12 stars on her head and her travail in childbirth is simply the birth pains of the kingdom, to this new thing. So, after she has her baby and her baby is saved, she’s led into the wilderness, which would coincide with the story of the children of Israel and their deliverance from Egypt, from slavery, on their way to the promised land. And God prepared a place for her in the wilderness so that she would be protected for this 1260 days, which is the exact amount of time that the final witnesses, those two witnesses we just talked about from yesterday’s reading, were able to put be a prophetic voice. And by looking at it this way, we have to almost reconsider or reframe our idea of wilderness. We’ve talked a lot because a lot of the Bible happens in the wilderness or in wilderness experiences. And, so, we’ve talked a lot about the wilderness shaping and forming us. But in this picture, the wilderness is also a place of protection. And, so, where this meets with our lives is that when we find ourselves in a wilderness experience most of our prayers about our about how God can quickly deliver us from it. When actually, what God might be doing by leading us into wilderness experiences is protecting us. And then the next thing that we see in the story is that war breaks out in heaven. And Michael and his angels fight with the serpent and his minions and the serpent is defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven, the book of Revelation says. The huge serpent was thrown down, that ancient snake named devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world was thrown down to earth, its angels were thrown down with it. And this is where we get that imagery about how Satan fell. Normally, though, we think that that happened before there were any human beings created. And we think that because a serpent shows up in the garden of Eden. But let’s just talk this through for a second. We have examples in the Scriptures of what Satan or what the devil, what his work is about. And what he does is accuse in slander the true, he deceives. And we have pictures of Jesus being our advocate in heaven before the throne of God. In other words, Jesus shuts the accusations down. But it leads us to wonder if Satan is allowed to be in the presence of God in order to make these accusations. Is he allowed to move between heaven and earth, back and forth. And that kind of messes with our theology because if he’s the enemy of God, why would he be allowed in God’s presence and why would God listen anything he has to say? But there are many examples of this in the Bible. We could take the book of Job as a prime example of Satan being in the presence of God making accusations and God operating in his sovereignty over Satan. So, when we get to this war in heaven in today’s reading, it’s interesting because the battle happens and, of course, Satan is defeated along with all of his followers and they’re thrown out. But now they don’t get to come back. According to Revelation, after this happens, there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And, so, the great serpent was thrown down and his angels were thrown down with him and they were not allowed to go back. So, then, after that happens, a loud voice in heaven speaks these words, ‘now the salvation, power, kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah have come. The one accusing our brothers and sisters, the one accusing them day and night in the presence of our God has been thrown out’. Which would mean there’s no one to accuse God’s people anymore. So, that is beautiful and even exhilarating, but leaves us with a time problem. If what we’re seeing here is a vision of the very beginning of time, why are we finding that out in a book about the end of time? And what about all the subsequent references in the stories that came after the beginning of time about Satan accusing people before God and being able to move in and out of his presence? So, some would say, well, the crucifixion of Jesus, His resurrection, His work on the cross, that casts out Satan down for all time. And while others would say this is this is something that’s going to happen, but hasn’t yet happened. Which then leaves us with the same theological problems of, okay, so, Satan goes to the presence of God, he can move in and out of the presence of God and accuse us? So, I mean, you can do your own scholarship and come to your own conclusions because I don’t think it’s completely clear. Which is why I say often, in any given year of the Daily Audio Bible, we don’t know all we think we know. But I do think it’s somewhat compelling to think that this utter demise, this utter stamping out of evil in the world is something that is progressively happening. And we find out from the book of Revelation, in our reading today, that the ultimate victory here happens over Satan because of the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. And it makes us realize, we have been talking about the word of their testimony in literal terms and in figurative terms since the very beginning of this book. And whether it has already happened, whether it is progressively happening, or whether it is something that will happen, the day comes that there is no more accuser in the presence of God and evil is ultimately defeated because of the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. And, so, in the imagery Satan is cast down and he can’t go anywhere else. He’s cast down and he can’t get back to God to make accusation and he for reeks out. So, here’s how Revelation describes it. They won the victory over him because of the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. They didn’t love their life so much that they refused to give it up. Be glad for this reason, heavens, and those who live in them. So, it’s saying, be glad about this those of you who are heaven dwellers. But how horrible it is for the earth and the sea because the devil has come down to them with fierce anger, knowing that he has little time left. And, so, Satan, the serpent realizes he’s been thrown down to earth and freaks out. He goes after the woman who had given birth to the boy. So, like, depending on how you think this woman is, that will be your interpretation, but if the woman really does represent the people of God who are on the earth that would make sense. He has no one to accuse to anymore. And, so, he is just freaking out on God’s people, trying to destroy in rage and anger, which is where we ended our reading today. So, what’s challenging is piecing all this together in a linear fashion and then trying to date it and find all the signs that correspond to it and all this. This has been a problem all along. But the encouraging news is, in the end, there is no one to accuse us. In the end, the kingdom does come. In the end, yes, it causes a great unrest. But, in the end, we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word as we do every day and we thank You for all that You are speaking to us in spite of the complexities of the book of Revelation. And we thank You for everything You have spoken to us throughout this entire year. You are good. Your mercy endures forever. And in the end, there is no one to accuse us. And You have let us be a part of this story. So, we invite Your Holy Spirit to come continue to speak to us as we ponder and meditate on Your word. And come and guide us forward that our light might shine and our witness might overcome. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website…ah…should not be taking drink coffee when you trying to talk at the same time. Sorry about that, but I thought I deserved a little sip after all of that talking.

Okay. dailyaudiobible.com is the website and it is home base and it is way find what’s going on around here.

Yesterday, we told you that we have launched the new web player. And that is part of rolling out this whole new system that the Global Campfire Initiative was all about. So, that’s in place and you can see it and use it by going to dailyaudiobible.com and just scrolling down to the second little box that says, you know, there’ll be a little box that talks about the app and the web player, just click web player. Boom! You’re in. And, as I mentioned yesterday, and as I will continue to mention as we roll out the app, when you go to the new web player, you’re going to immediately be greeted with a login screen. Now, you don’t have to login. You can click continue as a guest. No problem. However, if you login, and you have to login with your Daily Audio Bible account. So, like, if you’ve ever gotten anything from the Daily Audio Bible store or done anything on the Daily Audio Bible website before, you have one. Use that email and password that you set up. When you login then you can use everything, things that can be attached to your account. For example, it will check off the days that you listen to. And, ultimately, when the app gets out, it won’t matter whether you’ve listened on the app or the web player, whatever. It will be all across the platform. It will remember that you’ve listened to this day so you can see the days that you may have missed if you want to go back. That can’t happen unless there’s an account that it’s attached to. Or there’s a journal built into the new platform so that you can just type out some notes, some little things. If something in the Scriptures stood out to you, that you want to remember, you can journal it right within the web player or the app, but has to be attached to an account or there’s no place to put it. Or there’s a star, you’ll see a star in the new app and the new web player, that you can star days that you don’t want to forget, that you may want to go back and listen to another time. Well, to remember what you’ve stared specifically, it’s got to be attached to an account. So, by logging in, you unlock everything that it can do. And I’ll keep reminding everybody of that for a little bit. But the new web player is up and live and in the wild. So, be sure to check out. And the app is close on its heels and will update you as soon as I know anything.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, here in the final days of the year of 2017, thank you, thank you, thank you. What we’ve done as you’ve heard me say before, we have done together. We are in this together. We are a community together. Thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

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

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports:

Good morning Daily Audio Bible people and community. This is Diane Olive B. calling from Newburg Indiana. And I’m speaking an praying over Lawrence. Shalom, Shalom Lawrence. I speak shalom shalom over you and over all of us who are dealing with sorrow and pain and suffering, even when things seem to be going good.  And know that, Lawrence, I speak 2 Corinthians 4:7, that we here are on this earth with a treasure within us only earthen vessels so that the excellency of the power of God may be shown and know to be of Him and not of us. So, I’m learning something, that no matter what we face, no matter what we are going through, that we have a savior. We must guard our hearts above all else. For out of our hearts shows the issues of life. Shalom, shalom. Nothing missing and nothing is broken. And you ae healed. Embrace your healing, embrace your Savior, embrace your suffering to make you pure and holy. That is wisdom. That is glorious love the Father has for us. The Lord’s my Sheppard I’ll not want. He makes me down to lie in pastures green. He leadith me the …

Hello Daily Audio Bible family, this is Jay calling from New Jersey. Calling to pray for Greenwood Christian academy and all Christian academy’s that are out there that are struggling. Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, God we just praise You this morning, we lift You up, we magnify Your name, we bless the name of God this morning. And Father, we thank You for another day to just start or enjoy or end our day with the Daily Audio Bible, absorbing Your word into our hearts and our minds. And father, as we do this we just confess now before you and our family of any sins that we’ve committed knowingly or unknowingly. And Father, we pray and know of Your forgiveness in the name of Jesus Christ. And Lord, we lift up Greenwood Christian Academy that is just struggling right now Father as they teach the next generation of believers of potential believers and they stand as a shining light of your grace and mercy in this world full of public schools and private schools that really want nothing to do with you Jesus. And Father we pray for Greenwood Christian Academy and we pray for financial blessing. Father we pray for longevity. We pray for Your will to be done for this school. We pray God that each and every teacher will have a job, each and every administrator and staff member will have a job Father. And we pray God for every other Christian Academy that is teaching children about Jesus Christ. We pray Father that You will continue to provide them what they needs financially and administratively and human capital. In the name of Jesus, Christ we pray. Amen.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family and campfire tenders. This is Nathan from Bloomington Illinois. I hope that everyone is having a joyous holiday. I know that some us don’t during this time because of certain things. But that’s just for another phone call. So, we’ve been dealing with Revelations and so many people get wrapped up in what’s this mean, what’s that mean, where am I at, where am I heading. You know, my church went through a revelation study and our senior pastor said, you know, there are several different ways we can look at revelation but the bottom line is, so what. So, I want you to reflect on where your heart is, not where Revelations is. Because we may never understand that. And Brian is doing and awesome job spelling it out for us. But the bottom line is, where’s our heart?  Are we focused on what Jesus wants? Are we focused on the Christ, Jesus the Christ, who came to save us? And, if our heart is there, then it doesn’t matter were everything else lays because we are responsible for our own salvation and our, own destiny, and that’s for another call too, but, let’s not get wrapped up on what everything means. Although, focus on what Brian is telling us because there’s still a message there for us. Alright. So, I just want us to ponder this today. Hope everyone is having a great day. Have a great day. Make it a great day.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family. This is Jackie in St. Louis. I’m also known as __. I called a few weeks ago to ask for prayers for my sister Valerie. And I think all of those who did say hello to her __ listener and pray for her depression. I’d like to ask for prayers for her again. She is, besides being depressed, she is diabetic. And this week she developed a sore on one of her toes. And now that she’s been in the hospital a day or two they did a biopsy and they think there’s infection in the bone of this toe and that’s very serious. I would like everyone to pray for her. Again, her name is Valerie. I don’t know for sure yet what the plan of action is for her other than antibiotics for right now, but Please pray for her that she doesn’t have to have like an amputation or disabled from this. I’d also like to pray just for a minute for…I heard a mom…or the sister of a mom called in that wanted prayer for her autistic or Asperger’s son. I think they said that his name was Togo. I’m sorry if I don’t remember it clearly. I totally understand what you are going through there because I have a Asperger’s son as well. So, let’s pray for these moms as well. Dear heavenly Father, thank you for blessing us with the gift of children. I ask that You especially touch moms in our DAB family that have special needs children. Help the ones that have Asperger’s know that they would be able to know what to do and what is best for their children. We ask this in Your name. Amen.

This is my holiday greeting DAB family. I hope I didn’t procrastinate too long on this. Hey Brian and Jill and family, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you guys. Love you guys. I love this forum. It is so awesome. You are doing such a great thing here Brian. Words cannot express how I feel about this family and to everybody who calls in it feels like they’re brothers and sisters and you hear them calling in their requests and you pray with them and pray for them. It’s so awesome. Love you guys. Again, it’s Michael from Texas, Fort Worth Texas. Love you guys. Hope you guys have a great Christmas and happy birthday Jesus. Love you. Talk to you again. Bye.

Haggai 1:1-19, Revelations 11:1-19, Psalms 139:1-24, Proverbs 30:15-16

Today is the 20^th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is great to be here with you in this middle of Christmas week. So, it’s good to be taking the next step forward toward Christmas, but it’s also good to be here together as a community taking the next step forward through the Scriptures. And, in the Old Testament, we have one more book that we will read in one day. And this will be the last time we read a book in a single day for this year. And this is the book of Haggai. So, let’s get our bearings as we move into this last book that will read in one day.

Haggai:

Israel was carried away in exile by the Babylonians, which we looked at extensively as we went through that territory in the Old Testament earlier. It was a terrible time for them, great sorrow, perhaps the lowest moment for the children of Israel in all of the Bible. About 540 BC, Cyrus, the king of Persia, then invaded and conquered Babylon. And in 538 BC or thereabouts, a couple of years later, he issued a decree allowing native Israelites to return to their homeland and rebuild their temple and worship their God and rebuild their culture. This was, obviously, a great day of liberation for God’s people. And the book of Haggai comes about 18 years into that process. So, they’re set free, they’re able to go home, they’re able to rebuild, and now we’re 18 years later. And it’s a snapshot that’s immensely relevant to us today because it takes a hard look at motivations. And through the prophetic words of Haggai, God challenges his people about what matters most to them. And God also offers hopeful promises to those who will take courage even though they’ve grown weary because of the realization that Jerusalem and the Temple, for all of their building, it may never be rebuilt to the splendor that Solomon had built it. And Haggai invites us all to turn the spotlight on ourselves and see whether it’s God’s work or our own satisfaction that we hold highest in our lives. And it invites us to put on our big boy pants or our big girl pants in the face of discouragement, knowing that God is supremely faithful and sovereign. Once the light of truth comes crashing into our lives it invites us to repent and live pure lives and it shows us that we can live courageously for God, building his kingdom because He’s always with us. He is ever present, regardless of circumstance. Circumstance has nothing to do with His presence. We are secure. And as we’re faithful to God, He is faithful to us. And, so, we begin. Haggai chapter 1 verse 1 through 2 verse 23. And we’re reading from the Names of God Bible this week.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we need to talk about the book of Haggai for a second because we only have one day with his book and there’s so much for us to consider. This parallels our lives in so many ways. So, what we’ve got going on here is that the children of Israel had been taken into exile. And we read through all of this in great detail, all the warnings and prophecies coming up to it and then the happening of it. And there were two exiles. Right? So, we had the splitting of the kingdoms immediately following Solomon’s reign -  the northern and the southern kingdom. The northern kingdom was carried into exile by the Assyrians and the southern kingdom was carried into exile and conquest by the Babylonians. And that was not a good time for any of them. The northern tribes, the 10 tribes of the north, disappeared and the remaining tribes carried into Babylon, well, they were Babylonian exiles. But then Babylon was conquered by the Persians and the Hebrews were allowed to leave exile and return to their homeland and try to reestablish themselves and their worship. So, I mean, what joy in that. And we read of what joy in that, that this could happen, but it was problematic. There were all kinds of issues. And we read a lot about that when reading through Ezra and Nehemiah. And now we’re 18 years into this thing and people are spending their time and their focus and their energy on building their life while the temple remains incomplete. And they’re experiencing hardship in drought and in lack. So, they’re working so hard to survive and all of their energy is being put into their own well-being and their own lives while the temple remains incomplete. So, basically, the people have gone through a long stretch, over 100 year stretch, well over 100 year stretch, of this kind of devastation in the northern and southern kingdoms. And then they’re liberated. Their prayers are answered. God lets them go back home. God lets them start over. And what they start over on is what’s going to make them the most fulfilled, they think. Their focus has moved from rebuilding the temple and the walls to their own life. And the parallels to our own life just become immediately apparent. We go through our own seasons that feel like exile. We’re constantly in lockstep with God praying for deliverance. Then it comes and what do we do? Usually, we, briefly, are very, very grateful and continue on in that blessing, but things start going pretty good and we start focusing on our own lives, forgetting that we were liberated for a reason and there is unfinished work, unfinished inside ourselves and unfinished in the world. But we’re so busy and so overcommitted to our own lives that we forget all about it. We forget all about the kingdom that’s happening in and among us and focus solely on ourselves. We forget that we are the temple and we ignore what’s going on inside of us because we’re too busy trying to order our exterior world and it leads us back into drought and lack. And then we’re working so very, very hard to maintain the status quo that all we’re doing is surviving. In the story told in the book of Haggai, the people that lost their center and we see where it led them to. We also see that as they regained their equilibrium the promises of restoration abound. So, we are ultimately invited to consider where we have truly placed our faith, where our hope truly lies.

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into those contemplations, because the truth is that we find ourselves in this book. This looks more like us more than we would care to admit. And we see very clearly that when You are no longer the object of our devotion and affection, we’re leading ourselves into drought and lack and confusion. And, so, we turn our heart, our devotion, our affection upon You. Right now, we reach to You like children and invite Your Holy Spirit to show us the ways that we’re doing this. Come, Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website. It’s home base. It’s where you find out what’s going on around here. And obviously we’re in Christmas week. I mean, I guess that’s not technically true, because Christmas is technically next week, but we’re sort of in the countdown for the final days and during Christmas week and have had some announcements to make.

So, China came on yesterday and we announced Daily Audio Bible Chronological, that we’re so excited about. That will begin on January 1^st. China is about to finish her ninth year, seven days a week reading the Bible out loud. She began with Daily Audio Bible Kids and then moved to Daily Audio Bible Teen and is now not a teen and is moving into Daily Audio Bible Chronological, where a community will form around the chronological reading of the Bible. And I mentioned that that will be in the new app and the new web player. So, I have a couple more announcements for today.

Tonight, we will be launching the new Daily Audio Bible web player. And the web player and the new app, they are linked together on the same system. So, they do all the same things. For example, once you are logged in and, logging into the web app or the web player is just your…if you’ve ever done anything on the Daily Audio Bible website you have an account and so you just login. And if you’ve never been on the Daily Audio Bible website, you just make an account. And the reason for the account is so that the system could do with the system does, which is, when you listen to a day it just makes a checkbox for you, automatically. This is a day you’ve listened to. Or, if you want to create a journal entry, because you can journal on the web player and the app. If you want to write down some thoughts from any given day or every day, then it saves it to your own unique account. Or if you star something, you’re like, I don’t want to forget this day, this day meant something to me, and you put a star on it, and you go back through the year and look at the places that you’ve stared. It can remember that. It can remember that it’s you. So, those of you who listen on the web player every day, it’s going to be all new tomorrow. And those of you who are kind of wanting a sneak peek to see what the new app is going to be like, you’ll be able to do that tomorrow. You just go to dailyaudiobible.com and scroll down just a tiny bit, just to like the little second module and you’ll see ‘web player’.  And you click that and it launches the web player. So, we will be rolling that out and getting it into place tonight. And, so, tomorrow it’ll be the new web player. And we’ll get that in place. The new Daily Audio Bible apps for Android and Apple are submitted. And, so, we’re just waiting. It’s especially more stringent process to move through the Apple approval process for apps. And we’re just praying for that to go through smoothly. They will be shutting down for the holidays too. So, we’re just kind of praying that maybe this could get through the approval process before the weekend. If not, then probably sometime next week unless we were run into some issues that we’re not aware of. So, let’s be praying about that. There’s just a number of things that are happening right now that as a community we need to remember in our thoughts and prayers. And that is the covering over the launch of Daily Audio Bible Chronological, the rollout of the new web player, and then the rollout of the new Daily Audio Bible app. So, thank you for your prayers over all of these things.

The other thing that we have to announce today is, Daily Audio Bible family Christmas will show up right along with your Daily Audio Bible tomorrow. And the Daily Audio Bible family Christmas is kind of our annual, virtual, Christmas party, our opportunity to get together and just talk about the year and move through the Christmas story while hearing all of the voices of the community and all of the wishes from around the world for the new year for the joy of the season that we’re in. And it’s always a beautiful thing and it’s always a time that we reveal and we talk about the word, the word that comes over each year. It  becomes kind of the NorthStar and the focus in the Scriptures. And, so, we’ll be talking about that on Daily Audio Bible family Christmas. So, that will show up along with the Daily Audio Bible tomorrow.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible as we move into the last days of the year, then we all thank you profoundly and humbly for your partnership. There is a link. It’s on the homepage of dailyaudiobible.com. If you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

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

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports:

Hi friends. This is Gloria in New York City. It is Saturday, December 16^th. I just listened to the podcast and the message afterwards. I wanted to encourage us all to or wanted to all join together to pray for, as Brian said at the end there, may we all stand with a cloud of witnesses that we brought. May God use us all to reach other people, to bring, that when we stand at the throne, that we’ll be standing there with witness for the people that we did. Some maybe we hope we affected and influenced for Christ…with Christ message…with his love, and some of them that we didn’t even know, that we just came across and influenced. So, my prayer and wish her Christmas for always is that we would just be seeing…I’m praying that we see in the new year our loved ones coming to the Lord. We have so many. We all have loved ones who don’t want to hear anything about it. Then around now…especially Christmas time…it’s hard because you just want to celebrate Jesus and it becomes about so many other things. So, I’m lifting up my own family members, my brothers, my mother, my daughter, her boyfriend, as well as your family members, loved ones, children, siblings, and…I don’t know if I’m out of time…I didn’t time this one, but I also want to specifically pray for Eunice from Jersey, just overwhelmed with this discovery of cancer. And Eunice, your very special in my prayers today. Alright…and I will speak to you all soon. God bless you.

Hello saints. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy New Years. I’m calling today…and I hope I’m not stepping over bounds here…but I’m calling for a dear sister of our Daily Audio Bible group. Her name is Tony and she’s from Toledo. And this week she got a call that no mother should get. Her youngest, who just turned 21, overdosed and we’re having the funeral on Tuesday. Saints, I would just really appreciate you covering this whole family. Tony is real solid in her faith, but this can rock you. And her kids are struggling with it. And it’s just such a sad thing. My heart is broken for her. So, I would ask right now that you would just, please, continue to pray for her through the year, through the years, and join me in prayer right now. Heavenly Father, I just come to You right now, Lord, I ask You give her strength, I ask Lord that you give her peace, I ask that You comfort her Lord, and I ask that You just lift her up Lord, high above this, Lord, and I ask that You cover her family Lord and show them that this was not You, it was the enemy, and he is a defeated soul…even though it doesn’t look like it right now. We ask it all in Jesus’ name. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you Daily Audio Bible. You mean the world to me. God bless you. Bye.

Hey this call is for…I think you said brother your name was Keith…it might have been Pete, I’m not sure. I didn’t here you say where you were from but you are having a super hard time and really stressing and said that you were trapped in your own mind. I just want you to know brother, you’re not alone, we’re praying for you and we love you and just hold close to God man. He’s there and He’s got you. And keep us updated and just let it all out. Alright? I love all you guys and I’m praying for you and I’m also praying for that Christian Academy that needs $100,000 and a new place to go. I’m praying for that. I love you guys. I’m praying for everyone and I’ll talk to you later. Oh…and…the wifey and I are doing great. Thanks for your prayers and thanks for praying for my family. All is going great. So, praise God. Thank you.

A Christmas Poem
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house
Praises were coming out of everyone’s mouth
Our faith had been built up step by step with great care
Because every step along the way God’s grace and mercy were there
Moms no longer here and neither is dad
But both of them were responsible for the great faith that I’ve had
Looking intently to the father above
Who gave his only begotten son as the ultimate act of unmerited love
And now here I sit in eager anticipation
Of the upcoming Christmas day with great expectation
Eager and ready to lift up my voice
With the voices of all men let the whole world rejoice
Peace on the earth to all men of good will
Our savior has come all prophesy to fulfill
Giving us the victory, the power to win
Over Satan, the world, and the darkness of sin
Things are not great but thanks to Jesus our future is bright
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night

blindtony1016@gmail.com. I’d like to give a shout out to Victoria S. and Viola. Haven’t heard from you lately either. Miss the sound of your voices. And Pelham, hang in there brother. You can make it if you try. __ family stone that one. It’s true. Yup. If you don’t give out and you don’t give up, and you don’t give in God will strengthen you.  Okay, and once again, my love to the Hardin family for this wonderful podcast for God’s Holy Spirit to flow. Keep it flowin’ y’all. Merry Christmas.

Zephaniah 1:1-3:20, Revelations 10:1-11, Psalms 138:1-8, Proverbs 30:11-1

Today is the 19^th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It’s wonderful to be here with you today in this most wonderful time of the year. And even as we count down the days until Christmas, we’re counting down the books that remain in the Bible to read this year. And we’ll move through one of those books in its entirety today as we get to our Old Testament reading. We’ll read the book of Zephaniah.

Zephaniah

Zephaniah is another of the books of minor prophecy, obviously, contained in the Old Testament. It’s written in full in three chapters. And, although Zephaniah’s prophetic words are for the children of Israel, they’re also a call to repentance for all of the surrounding nations and, for that matter, even the whole world. Zephaniah’s prophecy contains similar themes to some of the other books of prophecy. It announces the onset of judgment, the judgment of God. It’s a call to repentance and a declaration of restoration. God always restores. And we find that theme throughout the entire Bible. And even though these words were written, probably, in the seventh century BC, we can look at them through the lens of the 21st-century and find dramatic relevance there. The heart of man, the drive and passions of mankind are remarkably similar, and if we change the names and places, things look remarkably now as they did then. And, so, we begin reading from the Names of God Bible. Zephaniah, chapter 1 verse 1 through 3 verse 20.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of Revelation we’ve been moving through trumpet blasts and there are supposed to be seven trumpet blasts and we’ve gotten through six of them and were expecting the seventh one, but in today’s reading we kind of encounter another aside. A similar thing happened were going through the scrolls just before this. Six scrolls were opened and there was kind of like an aside before the seventh seal. So, what we encounter in chapter 10 of the book of Revelation is a powerful angel coming down from heaven and several things have been noted about this. First of all, it seems like a change of location for John, because previous to this he had been kind of caught up into the presence of the Lord in heaven, but now he appears to be back on earth because he sees this angel coming down from heaven. And this isn’t an angel being cast down, like a star falling from the sky kind of imagery. And it’s been observed that this angel is unlike any other angel, at least in description. He was dressed in a cloud. And there was a rainbow over his head and his face was like the sun and his feet were like columns of fire and he must’ve been awesome in appearance to be able to stand on the sea and stand on the land at the at the same time. And he shouted with a voice like a lion. And as with just about every other word in this book, you know, it’s been examined from every conceivable angle and there are various interpretations. Obviously, from a literal perspective, this is an angel. And then we describe what this angel looked like. But a good many interpreters would say this imagery, of a being with the face like the sun, coming in the clouds with a voice like the roar of a lion, this is more than an angel, this is a divine being. And some would say, for sure, this is Jesus, while others would say this is the angel of God, or God himself. So, coming in the cloud, voice of a lion, rainbow, face like the sun, standing on the land and the sea, this is a picture of ultimate sovereignty, complete control. Which is fascinating to think about because it’s coming between trumpet blasts, it’s coming between the sixth and the seventh trumpet blasts that this happens, where Jesus or a spectacular divine representative comes down in the midst of this showing complete dominance and control and authority and sovereignty and when he speaks the thunders respond. So, it seems like kind of a big deal. And the seven thunders speak and John was going to write down what they had to say, but then he was told not to, to seal it up, and not write it down. Which has caused many, obviously, to wonder, okay, what was said? What was it that wasn’t written down? But, I mean, it wasn’t written down. John was told not to write it down. So, I guess, at the end of the day, it wasn’t written down. So, we don’t know for sure and this has puzzled many a scholar. Some say that God was making a point, that He was withholding, that He was demonstrating that He was sovereign and in complete control by not revealing all the future judgments. And, so, everyone not knowing all of the judgments forced those who believe to be more dependent, press in deeper. Others have drawn parallels with the apostle Paul, who claimed to be caught up into the third heaven and heard things that he couldn’t retell, that he couldn’t write down. Others have speculated that God had disclosed many things about the transformation of the apocalypse and the judgments and what would come from them, but He’s unwilling to totally reveal his complete plans. They will be hidden from humanity until they happen, until the end of history. Others argue, convincingly, that this is a pause, that God isn’t going to do whatever those things being spoken were, that he’s relenting, that he’s pulling back, which is true in many prophetic instances in the Bible. But the fact still remains that whatever was spoken that John was going to write down, he was told not to write down, so he didn’t write it down, so we don’t know what it was. Immediately after this exchange, the angel who’s standing on the sea and on the land, raises his hand and swears an oath to heaven, ‘by the one who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and everything in it, the earth and everything in it, and the sea and everything in it. So, the oath is being sworn in the name of the Almighty Sovereign God. And the oath is, there will be no more delay. In the days when the seventh angel was ready to blow his trumpet, the mystery of God will be completed as he had made this good news known to his servants the prophets. So, whenever this seventh trumpet does blow, the mystery of God will be completed as God had spoken through the prophets. So, in other words, the long overarching plan of God’s redemption is completed, as had been foretold by the prophets. And there’s been plenty of conjecture on exactly what this mystery of God is, but most will land somewhere around the fact that this is God’s plan all along, this is his plan of redemption all along. And, basically, Jesus arrival signifies the beginning of the end. And the end is the beginning of the New World. So, God’s plan of redemption had been foretold all along through the Scriptures. But the mystery of God’s plan began when Jesus was revealed in his first coming. And this idea comes from Paul’s letter to the Romans, from the 16^th chapter of Romans, where it says, ‘now to him who is able to establish you according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested. And by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God has been made known to the nations.’ So, that’s pretty compelling evidence that the mystery of God spoken of here in the book of Revelation is exactly that. So, the idea here is that the mystery of God is the way that he brought about redemption. He came in the flesh, and by human standards, by cultural standards, he was utterly defeated. So, he came into the world and he was light in the world, but the world didn’t see the light and instead tried to stamp the light out. And, so, Jesus was crucified and died in what looked like absolute complete defeat. But the mystery is that this was God’s plan. And Jesus was resurrected as the firstborn of essentially a new species, the family of God. And, essentially, that was the beginning of the end. And, so, as we read through the book of Revelation, then, the troubling things that are happening on earth are part of that plan. The hardships catalyze who is with God, and who is against God, who is God’s enemy. And as the enemies of God persecute the people of God, it could look like utter and complete defeat. It could look like the faith is being stamped out, like the light is being extinguished, God’s enemies triumphing over God’s people. But following along with the mystery of God’s plan as played out in the life of Jesus, you find your life by losing it. And, so, what looks like utter defeat and humiliation is actually complete and total victory. The next thing John is told to do is go and take this small scroll from the angel and eat it. And it will be sweet in his mouth but bitter in his stomach. And that’s exactly what happened. John eats the little book or scroll and its sweet in his mouth and bitter in his stomach. And we end today’s reading with John being instructed, after he has eaten this, that he must continue to speak what God is revealed. So, a literal reading here, I guess, is theoretically possible. He could have somehow eaten a parchment that, somehow, tasted sweet to him, but soured his stomach, but most think this is symbolic. Some would say that this is a commissioning or a recommissioning of John himself as a prophet, like he’s taking these words and putting them inside himself, and this is a symbol that he is being set aside as a prophetic voice. And the reason for this is because the prophet Ezekiel was told to do something very similar, and that’s pretty compelling. But what’s also interesting is that John eats the words and they’re sweet and then they become bitter and his stomach. So, we have a bittersweet thing going on here. So, on the one hand, John is experiencing sustenance and sweetness in the words of God, but what he has to prophesy is also difficult. So, it’s bittersweet. Another way of looking at this would be that, the word of God as its ingested is a sweet sustaining thing, but when it goes inside of us it disrupts, it brings up all kinds of things that have to be dealt with. And that could be what this imagery is representing. Others have looked at this imagery and concluded that the sweetness is a reference to the overall plan, God’s redemptive grace, long-suffering, and kindness in his plan of salvation. But the reality that exists throughout the entire New Testament is that perseverance, endurance in the face of suffering, is part of the story. Grace is experienced in hardship. So, no matter how we look at this, we can say that the bitter and the sweet are intermingled and that John is instructed, in spite of the bitter and the sweet, to continue to speak what God has revealed. And that’s where we end up in our reading from the book of Revelation today.

Prayer:

Father, as we contemplate these things that we have read from Your word, not just from the book of Revelation, but also from the book of Zephaniah, and the Psalms, and the Proverbs, we invite Your Holy Spirit to continue to churn and grow our faith. We see clearly in the Scriptures our utter dependence on You for life itself and we see the ways in which we turn to other things to sustain us. But we also see clearly that, in the end, there is nothing but You, there is no other place to put our hope. And, so, we take this moment to turn our hearts toward our utter dependence on You and You alone. Come, Holy Spirit. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Daily Audio Bible Chronological – Interview with Brian Hardin and China Hardin

Brian: dailyaudiobible.com is the website. It’s home base. And, so, I have a big surprise for you today. I am sitting next to my daughter, China. Hi China.

China: Hi.

Brian: How are you?

China: I’m good. How are you?

Brian: I’m good. And we have a bit of an announcement to make today. There’s so many things that you and I could talk about right now that I don’t know that everybody knows. You have been reading the Bible every day almost as long as me.

China: Almost.

Brian: Almost. I think 2010. Right? 2010 was the first year.

China: Ah, yea.

Brian: I think that’s right. I’d have to look at some old calendars or something to figure that out, but I think that’s about right. And you were 10 years old. Right?

China: Yea. So, this is finishing my 9^th year.

Brian: Yea, every day, seven days a week since you were 10 years old and you’re just finishing your ninth year. And you’ve just turned 20. So, it was really your vision to launch Daily Audio Bible Kids back in those days.

China: Way back when.

Brian: Way back when, in another life, when you were half your age. And, so, we did that together and then you went on to do that by yourself for many, many years. And then the day came when you’re like I’m not a kid anymore.

China: As all kids do.

Brian: As all kids do. And, so, Daily Audio Bible Teen grew out of that. But now you’re not a teen anymore.

China: I know.

Brian: And, so, but your desire for reading the Bible and having that as the rhythm of your life and continuing what you’ve been doing for, you know, for nine years was still your desire. And, so, we were talking about that during the summer and even during the spring. And, so, now we’re about to launch something brand-new in the Daily Audio Bible family of programs called Daily Audio Bible Chronological. And you had that idea, actually, for this year, 2017. And that’s kind of how you’ve read through the Bible on DAB Teen this year. And you found some love for that. What is attracting you to the chronological reading?

China: I think, ultimately, starting in the New Testament with the kids for a long time definitely gets you interested in the character of Jesus. But then, moving forward in teens, then having the desire to read all of Gods word and doing just the old testament for a year and then doing both. I was like, I think it would be cool to switch it up, to read it, like, in order. And I honestly didn’t even know that chronological was a word or, like, what it was. And, so, I remember coming to you and praying for what 2017 was supposed to look like and saying that I just wanted to read the bible in order, in sequence of events, and I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense in terms of, like, the books of the Bible as being a little bit interrupted with each other. And I really didn’t understand what that would look like. And you were like, okay, chronological. And I was like, ah, sure. I don’t know what that word is. But then understanding that people had even, like, asked for it, or had a desire for it was really just confirmation that the Lord had spoken and said I want you to read this. And not only just that but placed that desire in my heart. And, so, I just was like, well, I’m going to do it this year and commit to it. I can’t really back out half way through and we’ll see how far we go into this before I’m like either totally in love with it or totally, like, never doing that again. But I think, honestly, it was the second week that I was, like, ready to, like, fully commit to this. And you were like, well, we’ve got to wait until next year. And I remember thinking, okay, like, I’ll give this a full year. I’m going to devote a year to this and see where this goes. And I think, like, more than half way through the year we were still in the old testament and I was like man, like, this is going to go on forever, like, is there, where does Jesus come into this? But then going into the New Testament and having those same stories of the gospels being read, like maybe the same story three times within a day, helps you retain the information better. And just understanding the sequence of events, like, it makes it feel a little bit more real to me because the story keeps going. And, so, I personally, I just loved it as a person who really likes order and things to make sense. It really did for me. And, so, we haven’t finished the year yet. Still, I think we’re entering into the last couple of books of the New Testament, but I’m already kind of like, man, this year really flew by just with reading in a year, going through. I mean, we’ve done this forever, it feels like, but to have the same story but reading it in order brings a different perspective to things.

Brian: Yea, it does. It does. And, so, I mean, I’ve been excited to do this all year long. I’ve been excited for…literally…I’ve been looking forward to the time that we could have this conversation most of the year… just to announce this because we’ve been planning on it for most of this year. You know, since, like you said, you found a love for it.

China: Right.

Brian: And, so, I’m excited that we can offer this new rhythm of a way to go through the Scriptures, and now that you’re all grown up, I’m excited to see a community grow up around the chronological rhythm of the Bible as well. And, so, we’re super excited to launch Daily Audio Bible Chronological. That will begin on the 1^st of January. And China will begin leading a community through the chronological Bible while I continue to move through the one year plan that we use at Daily Audio Bible. And I think it’s can be fantastic and the communities will be united, we’re the same community, this is the Daily Audio Bible. And, so, you know, all of the things that are going on in the Daily Audio Bible community will be in both of these programs, including, you know, a number to call, and the prayer calls, and the community, and all of the things that go along with the Daily Audio Bible will be in Daily Audio Bible Chronological. So, I couldn’t be more proud of you. I told you, we had a meeting about this a few days ago, that I don’t know anyone, like I’ve literally never met anyone in the world that’s your age that has been, you know, reading the Bible every single day, hasn’t missed day in this many years, and has done it just like I have. So, you’re my hero. And I’m excited to see all that God is going to do through DAB Chronological through you. So, you’ve been reading the Bible every day since you were 10 years old. We started talking about this when you were 9. I think some of what inspired this was that you and I went to India together back then.

China: Right.

Brian: And that was like a huge disruption for you.

China: Yea.

Brian: It took you way, way, way out of your comfort zone. And…but it was also…just…I think…a real formative thing that happened and Daily Audio Bible Kids grew out of out of that. What happened? I mean, for you as a person, who’s done this, you know, between the ages of 10 and 20, what has having the Bible in your life everyday been like for you.

China: I think it’s meant different things at different times. I think as a kid you’re not super aware of, like, everything that you’re reading. And I think that’s ultimately why we chose the New Testament, because it is a little bit easier for a kid’s mindset to understand. And, so, growing up with that. But honestly, I think at some point it started becoming like muscle memory and just was becoming like a reading thing. And that’s ultimately when I was like, okay, I’ve got to either just stop this because this isn’t really sticking with me, it doesn’t mean anything to me. Like, I want this to become real. And I think that’s ultimately when I wanted it to be Daily Audio Bible Teens, because I wanted it to be like, you know, I’m going to make sure like, through my teenage years this is what is the foundation of it and this is what’s going hold me accountable to everything and really stay into it. But, I mean, it wasn’t always easy. It’s a sacrifice you have to create how you do it. And it’s not this really quick thing. And it’s an everyday thing. It’s not really like you can do like 5 or 6 and then be done. It’s like you need to stay freshly in it. And I think, ultimately, I became really challenged with, you know, what are you reading, and how are you applying that to your life? And that’s, ultimately, really been cool to go back and listen to some of the commentaries and listening and like this is totally Holy Spirit lead because 1) I don’t super remember this, but 2) just to hear your own voice in different places of your life and how different things stood out. And. so, I think it’s very cool that that followed me my whole life. And I think that is a really cool thing that the Lord instilled in me. And I’m really thankful that He chose to do that, like, He chose me at such a young age. And that I’m almost…not almost 21…but next year it’ll be 10 years and that’s just insane to me. But I think, ultimately, this year reading it chronologically, I was like, wow, okay, this really feels real. And especially after going to Israel and putting physical places with the words is when it really started making sense. And it was like, this is not just words. This is real life. This is a story. And, so, I think through all of that it’s been really helpful and it’s created a lot of healthy discipline that can only set one up for success. So, I think I owe a lot to the Daily Audio Bible for that.

Brian: Could not agree with you more. And I am so proud of you. So, we just wanted to get on the mic at Daily Audio Bible and just tell everybody in the community, hey, let’s all, as a community, be in prayer over this. Let’s cover China and cover this new channel in our prayers. And if you’ve wanted to go to the Bible chronologically, that can happen beginning January 1^st on Daily Audio Bible Chronological. And China will be there to lead you through.

China: I think it’s always weird, like, ending a year because it makes it sound like, I’ll see you next year, but it’s like, there’s no breaks. It’s like, literally tomorrow. It’s the next day. So, it’s only a couple of weeks away, which is really exciting to finally talk about it and to announce it because now it’s not like a super secret. Like, it’s actually happening.

Brian: Yes. And the new Daily Audio Bible Chronological will be in the new Daily Audio Bible app. And we are preparing that now. A little Daily Audio Bible app update is that we’ve been beta testing this since the global campfire initiative. And a shout out to the 500 of you that have participated in that, you have been an immeasurable help to us in uncovering things that we had no way to find out without putting it out there. So, we’ve been working feverishly and uncovering things that we just didn’t know about. We’ve had some great victories and run into a couple of snags. I think we’re just running a few days behind where we wanted to be. We’ll probably end up being about a week, a week and half, behind where we wanted to be. I was hoping that the new Daily Audio Bible app would be out now but we’re not far. And it’s just the Christmas holidays have hit. And, so, we’re kind of moving through the process of moving the apps into the stores and stuff like that. So, I’ll keep you posted. But Daily Audio Bible Chronological will be in the new player, in the new app. Of course, it’ll be in the old player and the old app as well. But the day will come when that will be retired and will be all on the new system. So, continue prayers over the app and its launch and prayers over to the launch of Daily Audio Bible Chronological and over China will be so much appreciated. We’re so excited to step into this next season. So, let’s pray about that together as a community.

Father, we thank You for every single day that we’ve been able to be together over all of these years centered around the rhythm of Your word in our lives. And we thank You for the spoken word of God going out every single day for all of these years. It’s humbling that You would let us be here. And we thank You for the community that surrounds this rhythm. And, so, as we step into some new things - new app, new Daily Audio Bible Chronological - we ask Your blessing, Your direction, Your clarity, Your wisdom, in all of it. And we pray for your anointing to be on China as she begins this new quest and this new season. And we acknowledge her faithfulness throughout her childhood to Your word. And, so, we can’t wait to see what You will do with Daily Audio Bible Chronological. As we pray nearly every day, come, Holy Spirit, in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

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

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible as we get here into the final days of the year, then we thank you profoundly and humbly. As I say so many times in a year, everything that we’ve ever done we’ve done together as a community and it can’t be done if we don’t do it together. So, thank you for your partnership. There’s a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com or if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

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

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports:

Hi friends. My name is Beth B. I’m in South Carolina. I’ve been listening for a long time. I think it’s been about 4 years since I called in. I found the Daily Audio Bible when I was looking for an audible bible. I have a visual disability and my vision, you know, God healed me about 25 years ago and it was amazing because I was able to drive and watch my kids grow up and really __ in a lot of ways. My vision started to tank several years ago, maybe 6, 7 years ago. I had to stop driving. I can’t see my families faces. I cannot read. But God’s provided for me in amazing ways. However, I’m calling because He has prompted me to call you and asked you pray for healing for me. And I understand that healing comes in many forms and many ways because I’ve experienced all of them in my life as I’ve moved from brokenness to healing of my soul and my relationships and my heart and my vision. But…so…I don’t know what He has in mind now, but He definitely wanted me to call and ask y’all to pray. And our prayers are powerful. I know that and I love you all. I am so grateful for the steadfastness of this family and of Brian and your family. I wouldn’t trade much for the sweetness of the scriptures and it gets sweeter and sweeter every year. And your commentary is so important to me. So, thanks to everybody and I promise to let you know how I am healed because I know He has something in mind for me. Thank you. Merry Christmas.

Good afternoon. Good evening Daily Audio Bible family. This is Lee from New Jersey. Merry Christmas to you all and God bless you. So, I just wanted to leave out there for present family listening to the DAB I’ve ordered my Box set for the first time. So, I am really excited to receive it…and I think I ordered a few other things as well from the DAB gift shop. So, I’m really excited about that. So, if you guys are going to do it, get it done. You know how it is. Times going by fast. We’re already on the 14^th day of this month. Wow! So, the rest of this call is dedicated to my sister from New Jersey, Unis. Unis, it’s your whacky brother, Lee from New Jersey. Yes, I call myself wacky because I’m always on the run, always rambling when I call. But I get it done. One way or another I pray for my brothers and sisters. And I just love you all and thank you for being so patient. So, let’s get it started. Unis, we pray in our Lord and Savior’s name for you on your behalf. We agree with you. We agree with our sister Unis Lord. We agree with her that, yes, let it be Your will, may Your will be done. Lord, I’m __ happy. I want to pray for a miracle Lord. You are the king of miracles. You are in the business of miracles. You have made miracles happen from the beginning of time and we can’t forget that You are miracle maker Lord. We ask that if it is in Your will, Lord, that You will create a miracle here so our sister Unis can give testimony to Your miracle Lord. And if not that she can give testimony to your unfailing love. Regardless of what it is, she’s willing to go all the way through and trust You all the way through with this situation Lord. And as for my sister, I am praying on her behalf that she loves You, no matter what. She’s going to love You to the end just as Job loved You no matter what he was going through, no matter what the devil…

Hey DAB family, this is Byron out in Florida. Real quick, I was at the gas station filling up my tires with air and there was this gentleman standing beside the pump with a bicycle just kind of being friendly to people. It was sort of weird. And he started talking to me. I was filling up my tires and said that someone had just given him the bike that he was standing next to. And he was very thankful for it. Just thanking God for the bike and I said okay. So, I went, and I got a track out of my car and I went to go talk to him about the Lord. And come to find out, he knew the Lord pretty well. He was homeless. He’d lost his home through an eviction and he is out in the street. And I just talked to him for a while. His name was Marvin and you could just tell he really knew the lord. He knew the Lord in a way that people who go to church all their life don’t know the Lord. It was very, very interesting. But, anyway, Marvin is diabetic and he showed me his foot. His toe has been amputated but he’s got a wound right in that area. A diabetics wound don’t really heal. So, imagine having a nasty infected wound on your foot and you being homeless and walking around everywhere. So, I want you guys to pray for Marvin for healing for his foot. He’s talking to people about Jesus. I didn’t just give him a track. I gave him dozens because he’s going to turn around and hand those things out. He’s walking for Jesus, so I want you guys to pray for Marvin for healing on his foot. I know you guys will do that and I thank you for it. Love you all. Bye.

Hi this is lance in San Diego. Hey, I was just listening to the prayer requests and Casandra it was from Arizona called in for her twin children are going to go…undergo an in-utero procedure for an issue they’re having. And I just wanted to let you to know that my heart just beat in my chest when I heard your prayer request. And I can feel the pain and anguish. And one of our children had a thing in utero also. So, I felt then…a connection there…the unknown. And, I just wanted to pray with you and lift up God’s mighty hand upon this procedure now. Lord, Jesus, Lord I just as ask in Your mighty name Lord, that You would be with those doctors, Lord, that You would guide them through this procedure, and that You would bless Casandra’s children, Lord that Your will would wrap that family in love, and community, Lord, and we, Daily Audio Bible, we just want to wish her all the love and warmth Lord, that we are there for her and we would just pray God that You would bless these little babies God. Get them through this procedure Lord and that they might come to term and be mighty women of God in the future. We just pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Habakkuk 1:1-3:19, Revelations 9:1-21, Psalms 137:1-9, Proverbs 30:10

Today is the 18^th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you today. One week, one week from today is Christmas day and we are in the thick of this Advent and Christmas season. And today we will read, at least from our Old Testament reading, we will read the entirety of the book of Habakkuk.

Habakkuk:

And this book is the eighth one, eighth of the minor prophets in the Old Testament. And we don’t know a whole lot about Habakkuk, but Jewish rabbinical tradition would tell us that Habakkuk was the son of the Shunamite woman that Elisha raised from the dead in the book of second Kings. So, we don’t know that, but that is definitely the tradition. And because of the way the narrative is written, many scholars believe that Habakkuk may have been a Temple profit. In most cases, this would mean that he was a prophetic musician, gifted in the instruments of the time, like the liar, the harp, or the cymbals. And some scholars believe that Habakkuk’s lyrical and poetic nature indicates that he was probably a Levite working in the temple as a Temple profit. Habakkuk wonders aloud in this prophetic book what God is doing in his time. Right? So, we often wonder the same things. Habakkuk sees injustice. He sees misfortune around him. And he has what seems to be doubt. He dares question. Something that we frown upon in this day in age for some reason. But he dares question and God dares answer. And, once again, we’re shown in Scripture that don’t know all that we think we know. In fact, we know very little of what is really going on. And Habakkuk presses into that. And we see in this book one of the most beautiful pictures of the story of our lives, a story of doubt and questions that are then transformed into absolute trust in the sovereign Lord. So, we’re reading from the names of God Bible this week. Habakkuk 1:1 through 3:19.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we read from the ninth chapter of Revelation today. So, let’s just remember, we started Revelation with this image of Jesus, seven golden lampstands that represented seven churches, seven letters were written, one to each of these churches, and then a scroll was revealed that no one could open and it had seven seals on it. And the lamb steps forward, and he is the only one, Jesus is the only one that can open the seals. So, he breaks the seals and what is held by those seals is then revealed. Then we have seven angels before the throne of God who are given trumpets and they’re each now blowing their trumpets. And we went to the first four trumpets yesterday. And the fifth and sixth angels blow their trumpets today. And, so, we begin when the fifth angel blew his trumpet, I saw a star that had fallen to earth from the sky and the star was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. Okay, so we have to kind of go back into the different ways that this can be read. So, you read this literally, because we’ve seen a bunch of stuff falling from the sky. And, so, a star falls from the sky and then the star, the rock, this star somehow is given a key and opens up a shaft it’s on earth, but it’s a bottomless pit. And, so, you can see how, like, from a literal perspective, it would be kind of hard for a star to hold a key and turn a key lock. It would be hard to find something bottomless on earth. Like, if you started digging now, right, if it was even possible, we’d go through the center of the earth and out the other side and that would then end up in space on the other side of the world. How could that be bottomless? So, a completely literal reading of the book of Revelation…I mean…would be very challenging. The star falling from the sky, has been interpreted a number of ways, mostly dealing with that the star is actually an angel. But then the question becomes, is this a good angel or is this a bad angel. And it’s been noted by scholars that the star falling from the sky imagery usually refers to a judgment of some kind. And that there is no other reference in the Scriptures to, like, a good, a godly angel falling from the sky, like a star. That only happens when an angel is judged and cast down. So, for example, in the gospel of Luke, Jesus said, I saw Satan fall like a star from the heavens. So, many commentators, not all, but many commentators would say, this has to be the judgment of an angel that is being cast down. This may be Satan himself being cast down to do this task because he is under the sovereignty of God or one of his minions. So, this entity is given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. It opens the bottomless pit, and of course, the bottomless pit is probably a metaphor for the realm of the judged. And when this pit is opened smoke comes out of the shaft like the smoke from a large furnace and the smoke darkens the sun and the air. So, there’s a number of interpretations around this. I mean, so, if you’re reading literally, then its smoke, like there’s a lot of smoke, enough to darken the sun and the air. So, a serious amount of pollution. If we’re from looking a little more allegorically, then darkness is usually the metaphor for like a spiritual darkness, a blindness. And, so, this comes pouring out of the bottomless pit and darkens the world. And immediately following the smoke and the darkness, locusts come flying out of the bottomless pit, out of the smoke, onto the earth and that they’re given power, like that of the scorpion. And they’re not allowed to harm nature, like they cannot harm the grass or green plants or the trees. They can only torment the people. And they can only bring this judgment on those who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. So, obviously from a literal perspective we’re talking about insect like creatures that look like locusts, but have stingers like scorpions, and they plague the earth. If you’re looking allegorically, then, I mean, when you look at something allegorically you can interpret it however you interpret it, which is why this is such diversity and interpretations that are everything from rational to far-fetched, and many in conflict with each other because you don’t know exactly what the symbolism means. But if we’re taking a pragmatic scholarship perspective, trying to draw comparisons with similar visions that happen in other places in the Bible, then these locusts can represent those beings that have been held in the bottomless pit. And a good many scholars would say that that’s associated with the fallen angels, demonic forces that have been held there and they are loosed upon the earth, but they can’t hurt the earth’s nature and they can’t hurt those who have been sealed with the seal of God on their foreheads. And, so, God allows the trumpet blast to happen. This star, this angel falls and is sent down to earth with the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit, it’s opened, and all kinds of things come spilling out on the earth, things that can’t harm those with God’s seal on their foreheads, but those who don’t, they’re definitely receiving judgment. And that judgment will either harden their hearts and lead them toward their ultimate destruction or soften their hearts and they turn to God. And for a lot of scholars this whole picture, this whole scene, reveals that the judgment that was formerly limited to those demonic forces who are in this pit is now extending all across the earthly realm. Because of Christ’s victory through his death and resurrection, judgment has begun. Not only in the bottomless pit, but also upon the earth, and that is happening through the darkness coming out of the pit. People are being blinded in the darkness and tormented and oppressed, but this isn’t happening to those who have been sealed by God. And there is a bit of a parallel here in Jesus words from the Gospel of Luke, ‘I was watching Satan fall from heaven like a lightning. Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall harm you. Your names are recorded in heaven.’ So, if this parallel is correct, then those sealed by God, have authority over these things that are coming up out of the abyss. They have authority over them and can’t be harmed by them, which would lead us to believe that this is allegorical. The imagery is symbolic. And then the sixth angel blows his trumpet and the sixth angel was instructed to release the four angels who are held at the great Euphrates River. Some would say these are like dark ark angels. So, like very, very powerful demonic forces. Some draw parallels with the four angels that were from the four corners of the earth and the four winds, but most translators and commentators would say these are evil, they’re being held against their will for a specific time for a specific task and their loosed. And, whereas in the fifth trumpet, everything coming up out of the abyss wasn’t allowed to kill anyone, wasn’t allowed to harm nature, wasn’t allowed to touch anyone with the seal of God on their forehead, and wasn’t allowed to kill anybody. It was just tormenting and oppressing people. Whereas in the sixth trumpet, when these four angels are loosed, they’re loosed, they’re loosed to kill one third of humanity. And John says that the number of those forces were 20,000×10,000. So, that’s 200 million. So, if you’re reading literally, then four actual angels have been being held at the great Euphrates River for a time period that we don’t have any way of knowing, but they’ve been held for a specific hour and day and month and year. And they’re released and there’s 200 million soldiers on horses that are loosed to do this task of killing one third of humanity. If we’re looking at this a little more allegorically, let’s remember, if we’re looking at things allegorically, then everything can have a meaning. So, if we’re looking at this allegorically, but with a pragmatic view, then powerful dark forces are released. They have been held for an indefinite period of time, but held for this time, this time of judgment that were reading about. And there’s a vast horde involved. And they unleashed three plagues: fire, smoke and sulfur. And these come out of their mouth’s. So, allegorically, what’s coming out of their mouths is bringing darkness, blindness, the inability to see clear. The power of these forces is in their mouths and in their tails. So, like, in their words and in their deeds. They are bringing such spiritual darkness and chaos and torment and depression that the result is death, and this affects a third of the earth’s population. Or if we’re not taking that number literally, a lot of people are affected by this darkness and death that spreads because of this. And then as we end our reading for today, with the sixth trumpet there’s kind of an aside, God’s commentary here. The people who survived these plagues still did not turn to me and change the way they were thinking and acting. If they had, they would’ve stopped worshiping demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood, which cannot see, hear, or walk. They did not turn away from committing murder, practicing witchcraft, sinning sexually, or stealing. So, using the formula that the Bible gives us for judgment, that it can have a refining and perfecting and purifying outcome or it can have a hardening outcome that leads a person who rejects it to their own destruction, we can see that, in spite of all that is going on, there are still those who have not died, but who are still rejecting God.

Prayer:

Father, Father, we don’t want any part of that. We don’t want any part of rejecting You. And yet, we confess that we have done exactly that in our thoughts, words and deeds, by what we’ve done and by what we’ve left undone. And, so, we invite Your Holy Spirit to continue to refine and purify us. And we reframe the suffering that we’ve endured in this world. We hate it. We don’t want to go through it. We want You to take it away. These are so much of the content of our prayers. And, although we will continue to ask You for Your counsel on how to navigate through things that are very difficult and unexpected, we choose to also look at what You are doing in these things, that You’ve got us, and these things refine and purify us. And truly, we want to be pure before You, true before You. We want to be sealed in You for all of eternity. Come, Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

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

And, so, it’s Christmas time, obviously. We’re one week away from Christmas. And the Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box for 2017 is still available. Today is the cut off day for arrival for Christmas and that’s if you are in the United States. If you are outside the United States that date is past. Certainly, we can still send them to you. They just won’t arrive for Christmas. Today is kind of the last day inside the United States that we think is safe for arrival for Christmas. And there’s all kinds of goodies in the box, things that you will want for your own life, things you will want to invest in another’s life by giving it as a gift, and you get to choose. So, check out the Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box at dailyaudiobible.com in the Christmas section.

While you’re there, you may want to check out the Lifestyle section. There’s a number of wonderful journaling ideas and bundles in that section that we think are fantastic, just to get ready for next year or for that that person, that journaler, that writer, in your life. So, check that out.

Early registration for the More Gathering is also available. And you can find out all about that moregathering.com.

But most importantly, this is kind of the cutoff date for Christmas arrival for the Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box 2017.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible here in the last days of the year, thank you profoundly for your partnership. There’s a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

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

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports:

Hi. This is Victoria S. I just wanted to call and say something to my sister Joyce. I wanted to say to her that God knew that you were such a special baby, that even though your mother and dad didn’t see it in you, God saw it in you and stopped them. And God wanted me to tell you, before you get ready to take that test, you do the studying you do, but before you get ready to take that test, to pray about it and let the Holy Ghost bring all things to your remembrance and you __ that test because we need doctors with hearts like yours. And I want to pray for the DABbers that have been going through, those that have been going through in their marriages, those that have been having anxieties and things that the enemies been attacking. And we know why he’s attacking, because we’ve got something. The devil isn’t going to attack us if we don’t have nothing. So, let’s give Him the praise and let God have His way. God wants to show us that He is God and above Him there is no other. Continue, my brothers and sisters, to be strong in the Lord and to look to Him. Don’t let anything between you __. I don’t mind waiting, because remember, when we wait on the Lord He will renew our strength and we shall mount up with wings as eagles. We shall run and not be weary. So, continue to be blessed. I wanted to bless to Brian and Jill, and to little Ezekiel. I wanted to say hi to Blind Tony and Pastor Gene and Viola and all the people of God and my sister in New York, who she’s trying to get her mother. I wanted to say, be strong my sister, it’s alright. You can make it. In Jesus name. Have a blessed day. Bye-bye.

Hey Unis from New Jersey. I’m here to pray for you. Lord God I just lift up Unis, Father, in her diagnosis of cancer. Lord God, I hear her brokenness in her heart and I just pray right now for her to have strength. Lord, I pray that your spirit would come and rest on her in the name of Jesus. And that there would be peace that wraps her heart and that she would have strength unlike any other day, Lord God, so that no second is wasted. Father, that You will put Your hand on her, You will give her just the amount of energy and strength. Father, I pray that You would just make her bold. Father, these days are not here to show her numbers of the end, Lord God, they’re here to give her life right now, and that You intend for her to have life right now, abundantly, right now. So, I just pray that You would strengthen her for this last bit that she has…her leg of the race, I pray for healing over her body. I pray for her to have wisdom and boldness. I pray for her family to stand strong with her Lord God. I pray that You would give wisdom to the doctors overseeing her. And Lord, just give her joy. Pour out Your joy upon her that she will walk in a manner worthy of You, fully pleasing, that everyone she contacts and walks around in these days, her friends, her doctors, her nurses, Lord God, that they will be impacted and changed because Unis from New Jersey relies on You and that she trusts the Lord with all of her heart and with all of her mind and all of her strength. Sister, I’m praying for you. And I know it hurts and I know it’s hard to walk in, but you’re not alone and I love you.

Hi fellow DABbers. It’s Joe the Protector from Georgia. It’s December 13^th I believe, 14^th sorry. And it’s about 8 o’clock in the morning. I just got finished listening to the 14^th podcast and just calling in over a couple of the prayer requests that came through on…in the end. The first one was the lady, not sure where you’re from, I forgot, or your name, but you said you were having twins and there’s some complications going on, and you’re just concerned about that, which is a natural thing to be concerned about. But just remember to keep trusting God and don’t doubt His promises and what He has in store for you and the children. The second one was the lady in New Jersey who has just received word that she’s got stage 4 cancer. And, first of all, I am sorry to hear that, but it sounded like you’re fairly rooted and strong Christian. And just remember to stay grounded, to stay deeply rooted in His word. And just ask His will, just allow His will in your life to reign over you. And the third one was Pelham in Birmingham. Pelham, sorry to hear about the loss of your job or business or…and you know…but Gods got another door to open up for you somewhere. He knows His children that are faithful…

Good morning my DAB family. It’s December 14^th. This is Lawrence, the Yahweh’s Warning Sign on the Narrow Path. I have a special request to Diane Olive B. If you could call in please and pronounce your Shalom, Shalom, nothing is missing nothing is broken. I don’t know why…everything is going my way. Everything going my way right now in my divorce proceedings. And yet, I’m overwhelmingly sad. I don’t know why. So, if you could please, Diane call in. I need to hear you say those words. Thank you.

Hello, this message is for Unis on the Daily Audio Bible of the 14^th off December this year. And Unis, bless you, disclosing your stage 4 cancer. I was very touched by your prayer…or by your prayer request. I’ve never rung in before. I don’t normally do this kind of stuff. And when I hear people opening up I think they’re mad. I felt moved to pray for you Unis. And I’m going to try to pray every day for you. And I recorded a song and I joined a nutter club. I mean that in the nicest way. I really felt the need to sing my prayer to God but I haven’t found a way to be able to share it. So, my name doesn’t matter, it’s not about me. Sister, it’s about you. I’m Walter in a different country. I will be praying for you every day. We are around the campfire. And I pray to, that if it’s God will, you be healed as he did for my son three years ago. Have faith sister. Keep on going and thank you for moving this hard heart to actually do something. Bless you. Bye-bye.

Nahum 1:1-3:19, Revelations 8:1-13, Psalms 136:1-26, Proverbs 30:7-9

Today is the 17^th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It’s great to be here with you at the cusp, at the threshold, of a shiny, sparkly new week. And this is a big week. I mean, one week from today is Christmas Eve, which makes today the third Sunday in the season of Advent. And that distant day, that distant beacon, that’s on every calendar, December 25^th, Christmas Day, that we see all year long, that’s been so far off in the distance is upon us now. And we’ll be making final transitions during this week. We’ll touch eight different books of the Bible. And by the time we get to the end of this week we will be settled into the final books of the Old and New Testaments as we press forward to the to the new year. So, let’s jump in. We’re going to read from the Old Testament, the entirety of the book of Nahum.

Nahum:

Nahum is another of the books of minor prophecy, which has nothing to do with significance and more to do with length. And, in some ways, we get a peek into the into the continuation of the story of Jonah. Right? So, Jonah was sent to Nineveh, we don’t have to retell that story. He was sent to Nineveh and they repent. Nahum is another book of prophecy written to the city of Nineveh. So, it’s 150 years later. So, a century and half earlier, God sent Jonah to the city and when he delivered God’s message Nineveh fell on its face and repented and were spared. Now, 150 years later, they’ve returned to their wicked ways and are as bad, if not worse, than they ever were. Nineveh was the capital city of the great Assyrian Empire and its conquests were known to be very brutal. And again, God sends a profit to Nineveh, Nahum, preaching repentance and a return to God. But this time the Ninevites did not listen and the prophecy of judgment came true in 625 BC with the destruction of Nineveh and the fall of the Assyrian Empire. This prophecy shows that God is merciful and patient, but He is not a pushover, and He will not stand for a nation’s sin forever, which should spur us all on to be agents of change in the countries that we live, to be the catalyst for light and for repentance and a return to our God. So, we’ll be reading from the Names of God Bible this week. Nahum chapter 1 verse 1 through 3 verse 19.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of Revelation, you know, we began with seven golden lampstands, and then seven letters to seven churches, and then seven seals that no one but the lamb could open. And he opened six of them and we went through that and then today we get to the seventh seal. And, so as we begin our reading today, when he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And that’s a pretty dramatic scene, to think about silence in heaven for half an hour. And that silence has been contemplated for a long time, as has every other word in this book. Some scholars think that the silence has to do with the fact that  as the seventh seal is broken and opened, there’s no content, there’s nothing to be revealed, and the content of the seventh scroll is contained in the actions that happen next. Some have said that because it’s the seventh seal, there was a pause and God rested, in sort of Sabbath imagery. Some connect the silence to do a suspension of divine revealing or disclosure, or revelation. So, then you’ve got to try figure out how long half an hour in heaven, what that represents to time on earth, which is a tricky thing to do. Some would say it’s just a moment of silence because of what’s coming next. And others would say everyone is just simply struck to complete silence as the complete plan is finally revealed. And that’s just a few thoughts. Either way, there was silence in heaven for a half an hour as the seventh seal is opened. And then seven angels who stand in God’s presence were given seven trumpets. And a lot of times these seven angels are associated with the seven archangels that are found in Jewish apocalyptic literature. For example, we talked about them when we talked about the book of Enoch. So, a lot of interpreters think these are the seven archangels. These the main angels in God’s presence. And then another angel comes with a gold incense burner and stands at the altar, and he has incense to offer before the throne. And, so, he’s offering incense and also at the same time, the prayers of God’s people are being offered. And, so, the smoke from the incense goes up before God, along with the prayers of God’s people to God. And this imagery is ancient. And it’s still being used in the world today. So, depending on what kind of church that you go to, you may experience this every week, but no matter what kind of church you go to, you’ve probably seen it before, where, you know, a church service is starting, priests come in, they’re carrying certain things, like, they’re processing the cross, and maybe they have candles, and somebody has an incense burner and they’re swinging it. Right? And, so, the smoke is flowing out over the people as they process in. That’s what this represents, a pleasing aroma intermingled with the prayers of God’s people. That’s what it symbolizes. So, whether or not you like smells and bells in your worship experience, this is happening in heaven before the throne of God in the book of Revelation, which is not to say, this needs to happen in your church on Sunday. It’s just to say, this is how these traditions are born. They’re aren’t these weirdo things usually. They have a rootedness in something ancient and when you understand them they bring meaning. And, so, after this after these prayers are offered to God along with the incense, the angel then takes the incense burner and fills it with fire from the altar and hurls it down upon the earth. And, yea, then things get a little crazy - thunder noise, lightning, an earthquake, and then the seven angels who have the seven trumpets get ready to blow them. And we don’t get through all seven trumpet blasts in our reading today. We get through the first four. And many scholars and interpreters of the book of Revelation associate the things that happen after the trumpets are blown. So, for example, the first trumpet’s blown and hail and fire mixed with blood are thrown down on the earth. The second one blows his trumpet and a huge, something like a huge, mountain is thrown into the sea and one of the one third of the seas turn into blood. The third angel blows his trumpet, a huge star flaming like a torch falls from the sky and one third of the rivers and the springs, the waters turn bad. And the fourth trumpet blows and a third of the sun, a the third of the moon, and a the third of the stars are struck, so everything is darkened. Many scholars and interpreters find the pattern here to be very reminiscent of the plagues that were sent in the book of Exodus upon the Egyptians to set God’s people free, and that this, in fact, is the point of how God’s judgment works. Some people will receive the freedom brought from the refinement of judgment. Some people’s hearts will be hardened to it and they will subsequently be destroyed by it. And that holds a lot of water because that’s thematic in the Bible and helps us have a better understanding of God’s judgment and what it does. Those who are righteous, those who are true, those who are pure, who have to endure suffering and hardship are refined by it and we find that all throughout the New Testament writings. And, so, the way we have to look at that is that our endurance is bringing about in us something far more mature and strong and loyal and faithful, within us. It is sanctifying us. It is re-creating us in the image of the Savior, and is a necessary part of our transformation, our being reborn. So, a person who looks at what they’re facing from this perspective understands that all things are being worked together for our good, even if we lose our life in the process because we’ve learned to not hold onto it. We know that losing it is actually gaining it and nothing can take us from the presence of God. Nothing can steal us away. And we begin to realize that the presence of God is the one and only thing we can’t live without. So, when judgment and hardship are on the earth and we encounter it, it is doing something completely different in us than those whose hearts are being hardened by it and to it and who are rejecting God. They will ultimately find justice in their own destruction, in their own hard heartedness, in what they bring down upon themselves, whereas those who are being true are being refined, purified. And because we’re kind of moving into this territory. You know, the argument of, well, what about the rapture? Who’s going to go through this stuff? Won’t we be long gone and not have to experience in any or will we actually have to experience some or all of this? How is that going to work? Well, let’s wait and see how this whole story unfolds before us. So far, and were eight chapters into the book of Revelation, so far we could say, okay, we’re not trying to do a bunch of interpretation here, we’re just trying to move through this territory and point out things and understand what the Revelation is saying and how it has been interpreted in widely diverse ways. So far, we haven’t encountered anything like what we would call the rapture. We have encountered that yet. And we’ll see if we do or where we do as we move forward. But one thing that we can say for certain that were seeing is that, as believers, our lampstand, our light has to be burning, and we have to stay true. Those are both necessary. And we looked, pretty extensively, at what that actually looks like when we were looking at the seven short letters to the seven churches. And we can also say that remaining true in spite of hardship or tribulation is imperative because what we might be going through is doing something completely different in us than those who are hardhearted and rejecting it. When we stay true, when our light is burning, when we are faithful to the message of Jesus we are changing things around us. And as we change things around us it is changing us to the point that, in the end, even if we have to die, even if we have to lose our lives, we haven’t lost our life, it can’t be taken from us. These things we can say that we are, for sure, learning in the book of Revelation.

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into that because so much…anytime we talk about suffering…anytime we talk about tribulation it freaks us out. In part, because of this book of Revelation, and part because it has pictures in it of things that we would rather not see. And yet You are showing us this is how the new thing that You are doing is born and You have personally invited us to be a part of the story by continuing to bring light and life and good news into this world as we lose ourselves further and further in our relationship with You, as we lose our grip on what we think we can control and find ourselves in You. So, come Holy Spirit. Continue the work that You have begun in us. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website. It’s home base. It’s where you find out what’s going on around here. So, this is the third Sunday in the season of Advent. One week from today is Christmas eve. One week from tomorrow is Christmas day. So, we’re fast approaching the end of our Christmas season.

The Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box for 2017 is still available. This is getting right down to last call for delivery for Christmas. Tomorrow is the cutoff date for that. So, if you are in the United States and want to get a Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box in time for Christmas, now would be the time. If you’re outside the United States, you can certainly still order a Christmas Box and we will still ship them out, but it’s very unlikely that they’ll arrive for Christmas, but you can still get them. But if you’re inside the United States you have until tomorrow. So, check that out.

Reminding you that early registration for the More Gathering, our women’s gathering that we do annually, that will take place this April in the lovely mountains of Georgia, you can find out all about that and get early registration pricing right now. It makes for a great gift. So, check it out. You can go to moregathering.com for all of those details.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, as we fast approach the end of the year 2017 -  man…man… it’s  really like we’re almost there…it’s crazy. If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible in the waning days of the year 2017 then thank you. It has been quite a year indeed. And I’m looking forward, very much, to the new year and all that God will speak to us in His word in community. Thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

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

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports:

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family. This is my first time to call. I’m calling from Nebraska. And I’m calling because I just heard the prayer request from the woman in Wisconsin who is upset about her cousin getting married and I just want to encourage you, I’m sorry I don’t remember your name, but God knows, that His love for you has nothing to do with the actions of your cousin. When you were a child and now, your love and your relationship with God is completely separate. And I just pray that God would reveal himself to you in a completely new way, that you would come to understand His love in such a fresh way that your life would no longer be mixed up with your cousins actions or your actions as a child, that you’d be able to step into your future in a new relationship with the Lord. I pray this for you in Jesus name. Amen.

Good morning guys. This is Jenn in SoCal, AKA Prayer Warrior Princess. Joyce, in California, I hear so many people calling who love and support you, who are rooting for you. I understand that none of us can replace and heal the wounded soul areas that were created by what happened with your family, but we are all intimately connected with the one who can. You struck a chord with all of us and it’s evident you can count on us to intercede with Him for your victory. I’m going to remember you each year on December 20^th because you share your birthday with my dad. Long after the echoes of your prayer request cease to ring in our ears from your call, they’re going to resonate in my heart each year. I bless you with quiet confidence, with securely anchored hope in Christ, with satiety, with the mind of Christ, and the power to think differently, according to His direction. May your soul tell your thought that I have enough, I am enough, I give and receive enough. May contentment flood your bones and refresh your parched cleff. May you consistently awaken with a strong sense of the Holy Spirit befriending you, seeing over you, delighting in you, encouraging you, upholding you, and propelling you forward, forgetting what lies behind and running your race with endurance as this great cloud of witnesses cheers for you. We love you Joyce. Victory in Jesus for you. Amen.

This is Claudia from Oroville, California. I want to pray that Christmas blessings of reconciliation for families that are difficult take place. Thank you, Daily Audio Bible.

Hi family. It’s Shannon from Texas again. And I called earlier today about my friend Sonya’s mom Rosie G. Rosie did not make it. It was unexpected. She went into septic shock. Sonya was forced to…not forced…but…she had to make a choice to take her mother off of life support because as she wasn’t going to make it…and it was awful. But just please lift her up. She lived with her mom and they came…fled to Texas together…and Sonja had her daughter removed by CPS after reporting some sexual abuse and her daughter’s for now in California and Sonja is left by herself. And I just can’t fathom the thought of her going back home. I’ve invited her to stay with me, but I don’t know if she’s going to do it. And she’s in the house by herself, doesn’t really have friends or family in Texas. And not even going to have anybody to put together a funeral for her mom. She needs it…she’s kind of…just now getting off of some prescription medication that she’s been addicted to and she’s gotten really close with the Lord, but, amen, she really, really needs the prayers because this is…this is hard on her. So, please lift her up. We know where her mother is. Rosie was an amazing lady, but she had a tough, tough life. She almost stressed herself to death, if she didn’t stress herself to death. She trusted the Lord. But she spent the last few weeks of her life worrying about Sonja and those kids. So, please lift them up. Lift Sonja up in her family situation. I don’t want her to be by herself right now. I will she’s not, but I love you and appreciate your prayers.

Hello DAB family. My name is Darren. This is my first year in sitting by the campfire with you guys and my first time calling. I honestly thought I was going to be able to ease through the end of the year without calling in and sharing my heart, but this morning my heart was just broken by a message that I heard from Marked as His, I believe, was her name, from Baltimore, Wisconsin. I wanted to let you know three things. The first thing is is that I thought you were so brave to share your story. And the second is that we are your family. We do love you. I don’t know you but my heart broke so I know that we are connected and God has connected us through the power of his Holy Spirit and through this ministry. So, we are your family. You know, as Jesus said in Matthew 12:49. But you said a couple of things and I wanted to share part of my story. You were saying that you were dealing with some anxiety and self-doubt and what I’ve learned is is that to find the underlying emotion underneath that. And mine was anger. I was so angry that I felt that I had been robbed of something and that no one understood, but then God showed me in Proverbs 18:21 that there is life and death in the power of the tongue. And what you were saying, you know, that you wanted to be married, certainly, but that God was playing a joke on you and that you got the raw end of the deal. Certainly, I know sister, that was just your heart speaking and that I could tell that you don’t truly believe that, but we have to speak it as we know that it is and that it is only a trial and a test and something to get you off the path that God has called you for. And believe me, if the devil messed with you so…