Daniel 4:1-37, 2 Peter 1:1-21, Psalms 119:97-112, Proverbs 28:17-18
Today’s the 27th day of November welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is wonderful to be here like I tell you every day because I’m telling you the truth. Every day it’s wonderful, wonderful to come and take a place at the Global Campfire and be together and take the next step forward. And there are some days that just being able to come here and take the next step forward and saying I’m not not doing that, I’ve never not, I’ve never stopped doing that. That is the one thing I will do every day that makes a difference. So, it is a joy. It’s wonderful to be here with you today. And we are continuing our journey to the book of Daniel in the Old Testament. When we get to the New Testament today, we will begin another letter, second Peter. We concluded first Peter yesterday and just a heads up, like I now it’s the day after Thanksgiving here and this is Black Friday and this is traditionally like the beginning of the holiday season and things just kinda ramp up and get at warp speed by the time it’s over. As we continue and push toward the end of the Bible the Bible’s gonna kind of do that too and we’re going to be moving through a number of smaller writings, not just in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament as well. And, so, we’re gonna be changing books often throughout the rest of this year. But we’ll talk about them like we’ve talked about everything else and we’ll talk about second Peter when we get to second Peter. But first we need to read from the book of Daniel. We’re reading from the New International Version this week. Daniel chapter 4. And we will remember that we had the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace yesterday. And, so, as we move into the territory today, we begin reading a letter from King Nebuchadnezzar.
Introduction to Second Peter:
Okay. So, we find ourselves at the…at the threshold of the New Testament reading for today, which as I said at the beginning brings us into some new territory, what is thought to be the final writing of the apostle Peter as he’s elderly and…and execution is before him, but it’s worth noting…and I mean the Bible…there’s not a book that every word hasn’t been poured over for thousands of years. And, so, like many other portions of Scripture whether or not this is the apostle Peter’s writing or not has been questioned and that dates well back into antiquity. It’s actually, that this letter became accepted as an authentic letter of Peter over time. And by the time we reach the fourth century then this letter…this letter had found its place in the canon of the New Testament. But even still today the things that were suspect, if you want to call it that, in antiquity have carried forward. And scholars today observed that there is a vast difference stylistically between first and second Peter. And, so, on the one hand, those defending the authorship of Peter would say that the stylistic differences arise because Peter more than likely was illiterate and was dictating his letters to a secretary, to someone who wrote them down. And it just happens that one person wrote down what Peter dictated in first Peter and a different person wrote down what Peter dictated in…in second Peter. Then, on the flipside of that, there would be other scholars that would argue against that theory put forth other theories about what could be. And all in all, we kind of come to a similar place that we would…we would with the book of Hebrews. We’re not exactly hundred percent sure. What we are sure of is that this letter mattered and was preserved and was copied and was carried forward and over time became part of the New Testament. If Peter wrote this letter then it’s the last thing, it’s like the last leaving words of the apostle Peter, probably somewhere in the late 60s, A.D., and then he would have been martyred, but shortly thereafter. Church tradition holds that Peter was crucified upside down in…in Rome and also that Paul was, martyred, executed by beheading in Rome and that these things happened close together. So, that would make second Peter and second Timothy, the last writings of Paul and Peter, somewhat contemporary with each other. So, second Peter doesn’t explicit…explicitly say who…who…who the recipients are to be. He says, “I’m writing to you who share the same precious faith that we have.” And we can assume that that is to the same people that received the first letter. But what hopeful words, “he’s writing to you who share the same precious faith we have.” That’s us brothers and sisters. So, this letter has spanned thousands of years and been read by probably billions of brothers and sisters over the years but now we’re gonna read it because we hold that…share that same precious faith they did. So, Peter wrote the first letter just to encourage people who were being marginalized, people who were being pushed to the side and suppressed and were not sure when Jesus was gonna come back, and how this was all gonna work. And it’s just the culture was crushing them, and they were moving around. So, he’s encouraging them to endure and he’s encouraging them to stay true when and continue to walk forward. Second Peter, what we’re about to read warns more about false teachings and…and the behaviors that can erode a community from within. And as we do with second Timothy, when we consider what’s in that letter and instructions to bring a coat, because Paul’s in a dungeon and his parchments and….it’s just such a melancholy scene, we should understand then that this could very likely be the last things that Peter wrote down and the last words that we would hear from Peter in the Bible. And we got to know Peter. He walked with Jesus. I’ve been to Israel so many times now that I can just picture the Sea of Galilee in my mind and just picture Jesus with the…with the boats, with the fishermen and Him meeting Peter and calling Peter and knowing that Peter walked with Jesus around the Sea of Galilee, and saw His ministry, and saw the miracles, and laughed with Him and…and had all kinds of conversations with Him over the course of three years that…that aren’t in the Bible, all kinds of a relationship that was there, this disciple that denied Jesus and that Jesus restored and that stood up on the day of Pentecost and preached the gospel with boldness and 3000 people came to follow the Savior. This is the person that was in the garden of Gethsemane with Him. This is the person that watched Him die. But this is also the person that saw Him raised back to life again. So, we’re…we’re basically saying goodbye to Peter for this year anyway. And, so, let’s give this letter it’s honor. Second Peter, chapter 1.
Prayer:
Father once again, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for the daily interaction that we’re able to have with it and the change that that makes. That rhythm changes so much. We look back over a year that is unforgettable, although in some respects we might like to forget it. It’s been quite an interesting year. How would we have navigated without this rhythm without coming together in community and letting Your word speak to us. It has rescued us on so many occasions and corrected us, just taken the wind out of all kinds of situations that we would’ve wandered into and caused mayhem. Thank You for Your kindness. Thank You for the Scriptures to guide our lives. And as this year accelerates and as each day when we’re moving through the Scriptures as that accelerates and we encounter new territory more often, come Holy Spirit, lead us into all truth, illuminate Your word. Make it a lamp for our feet and a light for our path as…as we read in the Psalms today. We need You. We can’t do this by ourselves. We can certainly read a book over and over and over, but it’s Holy Spirit that comes and illuminates and makes things alive to us, shifts things, shifts our thoughts, words and deeds and we are grateful and we humble ourselves before You. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s the website, its where you find out what’s going on around here. This is…this is Black Friday. I think it’s Black Friday no matter where you are in the world pretty much. This is the day that although all of these kind of advance Black Friday marketing things have been going on for a long time, it’s kind of like the official day, it’s always been the tradition of, “this is…this is when you start shopping for Christmas. And, so, each year…well…not every year, but for less…more…more than a decade we’ve kind of participated in Black Friday. Usually we have a Christmas box, actually for years and years and years and years we’ve had a Christmas box stuffed full of all kinds of goodies, stuff that you’re gonna want to keep, stuff that you’re gonna want to give away. We don’t have that this year. We determined a few months ago with just…I mean COVID…just I mean the whole…everything being so disruptive…disrupted and the ability to actually do that with excellence, just knowing what it takes to do it this season in the weeks of December, just determined that it is near impossible to…to…to achieve a high level of excellence. And, so, I just decided, “you know what? This has been a really, really strange year. And a lot of things…and a lot of places around the world…like a lot of things have had to change and find new rhythms.” And, so, this is one of the ways in which we’ve had to kind of adjust as well; however, that doesn’t mean you can’t make up your own Christmas box by going to the shop dailyaudiobible.com and looking through the resources there that…well like I…like I said a second ago, some things, you may just want for yourself, you may want to carry with you into the future commemorating the year in the Bible that we’ve had together. And there may be many, many things that are worth looking at and giving as gifts. For example, the God of Your Story is a resource that we brought out last year around this time and it is really…it’s a 365 day, dated companion along with the Daily Audio Bible or if you’re ever disconnected from the Internet or traveling or whatever it…it brings the essence of the journey that we’re on. It brings daily commentary. It’s basically, the kinds of stuff we talk about on the Daily Audio Bible, it’s written down and organized in a daily fashion. And if you don’t have the God of Your Story, and it…it really is a…it was written…it was birthed out of this community, created for this community, its heartbeat is this community. It’s the gold of the things, the commentary, the things we talk about as we move through the Bible in written form. It’s just one resource that’s there and available. And what we’re doing this year is putting most everything on sale, as much as we possibly can. And one of the fun unique things about the Daily Audio Bible Christmas box that’s been true, every year we’ve created a Christmas ornament for each year. I think we began it in 2013. So, when Ezekiel was one, the year after his birth. And we’ve carried that forward. We have them this year. Any order of $40 or more when we’re gonna send you the Christmas ornament in your order for free. So, check out the Daily Audio Bible shop for all of your Black Friday needs. I don’t even know. I have had like every conceivable Black Friday marketing push pushed my way. I even got one add for a bleak Friday sale since it’s been kind of a quote unquote bleak year. And I’m trying not to look at it like that. It’s been a hard year, but it’s been a year of incredible eye-opening. But I don’t know the right words to tell you that we have this Black Friday sale other than to tell you we have this Black Friday sale. This what happens around this time year. We have a lot of really really good resources that make really great gifts and fantastic invitations, direct invitations to take the journey. But like this isn’t the big gift around here the Scriptures? And Isn’t the big gift around here each other? So, anyway, it’s Black Friday and we have a big sale going on in the Daily Audio Bible Shop, which you can find at dailyaudioobible.com then just click Shop up at the top or if you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, just push the Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner and push Shop and it’ll take you there.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, I thank you humbly, humbly thank you for your partnership as we make our last push toward the end of the year. There is a link on the homepage. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address, if you prefer, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.
And, as always, if you have prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button up at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.
And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is Victory Michelle from New York I’m calling because I want to encourage Sheer Joy. I think you said you’re from Alabama. I’m calling on November 17th…November 22nd, sorry. Just want to let you know I know how you feel about going through all the sheer panic and anxiety and fear because I’ve been through it myself and am getting help to. Sometimes that help is prayer, sometimes that help is my family, sometimes that help comes from the form of medication and that’s okay to because God made medication, doctors as well. Just praying that you get the help you need. If you pray this prayer with me, I think it will help. Just repeat after me. Dear God, I loose from my soul right now as an act of my will all my fears and anxieties. I rebuke the spirit of fear in Jesus name and I bind to my soul love, faith, peace, and the sheer joy of God in Jesus name. I’ll be praying for you and don’t stay away from the Daily Audio Bible. That’s one thing that’s been an anchor to me. It’s really the enemies thought that you stay away from the Bible and that God is gonna condemn you or something. He’s not. He’s not gonna condemn you or come after you just because you’ve been away from Him. That’s really from the enemy. So, don’t believe the lie. Listen to Daily Audio Bible every day. It will be a great anchor to you. Okay. Thank you and goodbye.
Good evening Daily Audio Bible family this is Rhonda the Prayer Warrior from Chicago and I am calling to say hello. This is the first time I’m calling in. I’m also calling to say, to ask for prayer because I have been having a situation in my body called Demetra myositis which has kept me from having strong muscle movement in my entire body and I am looking for a solution to this situation. I’m praying that all is well with you all. Pray for me as I have been praying for you all throughout this year of 2020. God bless you all. Bye for now.
[singing starts] May your name be praised in all the earth. May your name be praised in all the earth hallelujah, hallelujah. In all the earth may your name be praised. Glory glory to you alone for you are God the only one. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. In all the earth may your name be praised [singing stops]. Oh Lord may your people bless your holy name. May your name be lifted up and may people who are about to come into your kingdom Lord be protected and introduced to you clearly and I pray Lord that your good news of the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior will spread throughout the earth at this time. In Jesus’ name and for His sake. Candace from Oregon.
Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is Pamela from Pennsylvania and I am just getting caught up, I’m on October 9th. I’m really enjoying listening to one after the other after the other just seamlessly. It’s really very uplifting and blessing my spirit. I’m responding to the call from Sonia from Austin Texas. It really resonated with me. My father was schizophrenic, and my father committed suicide when I was 16 years old. I’ve been haunted much of my life from the events of my childhood and visiting him in a mental institution where he was locked down. It was like a prison. I don’t think my mother should’ve taken us there. But anyway, God has finally healed all of that pain. My father’s suicide haunted me for 3 years or 15 years sorry but God has healed that and God has also allowed me to minister to my son who has been through so much trauma in his 22 years and has been suicidal most of his life. I’ve been sick, very very sick for 20 years of his life and that was part of it. I could not protect him. But up to recently he has…he still feels he wants to be with God not here, but he has agreed not to do anything to harm himself while I am still walking on this earth. So, that’s a blessing to me. God bless everyone. I love you all. Thank you. Bye-bye.
Hello this is RY calling from California, first-time caller
but I’ve been listening to the Daily Audio Bible for about 10 years now. I just
wanted to say…oh…I’m responding to the November 24th podcast talking
about living above the stereotype. I am a black American. So, it definitely hit
home, your message resonated with me Brian. I agree, not only as a black
American but then also being a Christian. You see, you know, where our
countries in a post-Christian society, Christians are more and more being
stereotyped in a negative way and what resonated to me was when you said the
example starts at home. When you live amongst nonbelievers you have to live
above the stereotype, so they have something to aspire to mentally in terms of
how they view Christians. And I just want to say thank you, I appreciate your
message. Thank you for your words on that and it’s a good reminder for me to
live above the stereotype, not only with within my own racial group but also as
a disciple and really give people some hope that there is a better way and a
different way to live, that they don’t have to live according to the lowest
common denominator.