Zechariah 14:1-21, Revelation 20:1-15, Psalm 148:1-14, Proverbs 31:8-9
Today is the 29th day of December, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it is a great to be here with you around the Global Campfire for these last couple of days of this year as we move to the end of our journey and…and the launch of a brand-new one. And we have been reading our way through the book of Zechariah, I guess for the last week or so. Today we will conclude the book of Zechariah, which means that tomorrow we will enter the last book that we are going to encounter this year. The book of Malachi. And we’ll talk about that then but we’re here now and we have one more step to take in the book of Zechariah, we’re reading from the English Standard Version this week, Zechariah chapter 14.
Commentary:
Okay, so during this in between week, between Christmas and New Year’s, as we’ve been talking about for the last several days, this is the time when we think about where we’re going and in every sort of way it sort of touches us, whether that be where we’re going spiritually or where we’re going in relationship or where we’re going in our vocation, we start thinking about these things and we’ve just spent the last couple of days kind of looking at the Proverbs, looking from the Psalms yesterday, just looking for advice in this in between week from the Scriptures that can inform the choices, that can give us advice for where we should go. And even as we’re talking about this yesterday, we just kind of noticed that a lot of…a lot of those New Year’s resolutions are aimed at improving ourselves and that’s fine and that’s good. We should do that. But if that’s all were doing then we’re pretty self-absorbed and pretty self-focused, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. When you’re thinking about New Year’s resolutions because you’re thinking about how to be better, how to be a better person, how to be a better disciple of Jesus, how to walk this faith out in a better way. But if we’re really thinking in those terms than it won’t take long before we realize some of the things that we desire to do, that need to be resolutions, need to be outward focused toward others and not just inward focused toward our own comfort or pleasure or achievements. Proverbs today gives us such advice once again. And before you get to that though, I want to mention the Proverbs again. Yes, when we’re doing the Daily Audio Bible we’re moving through the book of Proverbs, a little bit at a time. And there’s plenty for us in those morsel, kind of, bite sized portions because the Proverbs is so densely packed with wisdom that that works but there is the Daily Audio Proverb and that is a chapter of Proverbs a day, moving through the entire book of Proverbs each month, pouring this wisdom that is so densely packed into our souls on a daily basis, over and over and over and it makes a difference because about the time that we’re faced with something where we need wisdom, well than it pays off because we have wisdom, it’s in our heart, it’s in our soul. So, if we’re gonna get off this…this ship in a couple of days and end our year together, but if you’re gonna board the new journey, into the new year and set sail once again and cross through another year together in community, Daily Audio Proverb is something really valuable to incorporate. It adds like two minutes, two minutes a day-ish to your listening experience and it is a good couple of minutes to invest in wisdom in the new year. So, speaking of wisdom and speaking of New Year’s resolutions let’s look at the Proverb that we read today. Open your mouth for the mute for the rights of all who are destitute, open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy. It’s interesting how…how those words can so easily be run through some sort of political filter because of such divisiveness that exists in the world. It’s so easy to read that and go, uh, this is a political statement, I’m just waiting for it. When…when the Proverbs, when this, what we just read was written before any of the climate that were in now by thousands of years. It wasn’t written thousands of years ago to cause political drama now. Injustice has been a part of the story all along and we can read the Proverb at face value and most of us would agree, yeah, the rights of the destitute should be protected. Yes, there should be justice and righteous judges and the rights of the poor and the needy should be defended, we would agree with those things, they would indeed mimic the posture of Jesus our Savior. So, we can agree with them unless we run them through this political filter. But even if we don’t, we can agree with them and go, there, I agree with what the Scripture says yes, and feel as if we’re absolved because we agree, when what the Proverb is instructing isn’t like passive agreement, it’s actually active wisdom. Open your mouth right, that’s in action. Open your mouth for the mute right, for the people who can’t speak up for themselves. Open your mouth for the people who can’t speak for themselves. Open your mouth for the rights of all who are destitute. Let’s just notice there’s not like, this isn’t about how you vote or who you put into office. It doesn’t absolve you, we’re not absolved just because were like, yeah my candidate won, this person is running things and they’re gonna, they’re gonna do God’s work in and speak up for the unfortunate and my vote is my participation. That stuff’s not in here in the Proverbs it’s an instruction to individuals. This is the posture of your life. This is how you think about things. You speak up and defend those who can’t speak and defend themselves, my goodness, we can find so many examples but let’s just think of Jesus with the woman caught in the act of adultery, he defended her. He spoke up for her when she could not speak up for herself when she was going to be sentenced to death. He opened his mouth even as he wrote in the sand. The Proverb goes on, open your mouth, judge righteously defend the rights of the poor and needy. So, that would mean a lot of things to each one of us in our own nations, in our own cultures and in our own contexts. So, for some that might mean getting involved in politics in some sort of way, for others it means paying attention to what is going on around you. Our culture is trying to move so fast that we can’t pay attention to anything but ourselves. And the marketing machines are telling us all the stuff we need to make our lives better so that we can just be insulated and people are falling through the cracks spiritually and physically. Proverbs says we should open our mouth about that, that we shouldn’t be passive about that. So, we have another piece of ancient wisdom dealing with issues that have been part of the human condition for thousands of years. If this weren’t going on there’s no purpose for this Proverb. It’s not wisdom, it’s not speaking to something that’s happening, but it is happening and it’s has always been happening. Therefore, the ancient wisdom of thousands of years ago is still relevant today. It’s almost as if the Proverb just leaves it lingering there because the question after reading this is what are you going to do about it. Where will wisdom take you because we are the hands and feet of Jesus. Like, we are, we are days from ending this journey. And if we look back, we’ve been told some pretty monumental things about who we are. We’ve been told that we’ve been rescued by God. We’ve been told that there is no separation between us and God anymore. We’ve been told that the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is living within us. We’ve been told that we’ve been given a Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit to guide and direct us and to rebuke and correct us. We’ve been told that every single part of this body is necessary and no one can say to any other one, I don’t need you because that is not true. We are all needed in this work, and part of this work, I mean James tells us that true religion is to care for the orphans and the widows, does that not equate to the poor and the needy and the destitute and their rights and their voicelessness. So, part of this work of being the body is to try to put in end to any form of injustice. But let’s just zoom out, our role is to replace darkness with light, not to add to the darkness. And sometimes that means we have to open our mouth and be involved. And again, when we talked about if were not absolved based on the vote that we cast, we are not absolved on the meme that we post to social media either. This is about getting involved in the kinds of things that Jesus involved himself in and so, as we spend these last days making our resolutions and considering what the new year might look like this is a good thing to consider.
Prayer:
So, Holy Spirit, we ask that You help us to be considerate and to consider these things and to consider what You might be saying and how You might be leading and how we need to be paying attention in this new year so that at any point we can be Your hands and feet in any way that You make available to us. So, come Spirit of Truth, come Holy Spirit of God, and lead us into all truth. We pray in the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
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Here we are, middle of the last week of the year. Stepping forward because there is no backward like we can’t turn around and go through the year in reverse, there is only forward and so let’s continue as we’re contemplating all of the things that we believe the Lord might be inviting us into or the things that we really actually need to get a handle on or things that we need to change. Let’s just remember the Bible touches all of those things and we have all kinds of opportunities for change. If we look back over the year, we’ve changed so much and yeah, we got a ways to go, don’t we all. We just keep moving forward in this process of sanctification, moving forward day-by-day, step-by-step catching ourselves finding that we can make wise decisions if we just slow down enough. That we can have the heart of God for people if we slow down enough and consider them less of a nuisance and something in our way and more fellow brothers and sisters, human beings created in the image of God and the Bible certainly teaches us all about that and the heart of God for us. So, even as we look back over the year, even as we consider what the new year might look like, let’s remember and we can walk hand-in-hand with the father, with our Creator, with the lover of our soul, with the most high God. And what a difference it makes. So, let’s stay here around the Global Campfire and finish well and begin well.
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And that’s all for today, I’m Brian, I love you and I will be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Prayer and Encouragements:
Good morning, DAB family. I’m Leading, calling from Manchester, United Kingdom. It’s my first time calling, I’ve been a listener for the past two years. I sat into participate and pray for prayer request that are sent through after each reading. Today, my heart is heavy. I just want you to pray for me. I’m struggling to cope with the news. My sister, who lives in Malow, has been diagnosed with colon cancer. It’s a blow to our family. I don’t know how to cope, especially being far away from everyone and also being six months pregnant. Please pray for my sister. Pray for her that God would be with her and touch her in her pain that she’s going through right now. And to pray that as she goes through treatment of course, it go well. It’s may prayer that I will be able to see my sister when I’m around to travel. Thank you for listening.
Hey everyone, it’s Margo in Liberia. I just wanted to ring in with a little testimony, well heartwarming story. Even though we’ve been in Liberia a few years we actually haven’t had a Christmas year cause the last couple of years our home assignment has actually coincided with Christmas, which has been lovely. And this year, I’m looking forward to Christmas with our team here. But also, there’s certain bitter sweetness that comes with it because of course we really miss our family and our children at Christmas. But something so lovely happened that reminded me of the Lord’s goodness. As part of what I do here, I do fundraising for various small projects. And we recently helped a man named Harris who broke his leg a few years ago and it never healed properly. He’s essentially semi-disabled. And his job requires him to walk many kilometers every day. And he needs to keep going because he has a wife and four children he’s trying to support. So, we did a project where we just raised a few hundred dollars for him so that he could get a more appropriate job for a disabled man. He could start a little business maybe where he could sit selling things or something where customers could come to him. And the funded, the project was funded and we phoned him this morning and said come and see us and we’ll give you the money and we’ll do a little thank you video. And when he came in, he was so grateful. There always grateful but he was just extra grateful. And he said that yesterday his good leg started really hurting and he felt so discouraged and so down. And last night he sat with his wife and they prayed Lord, please help us, please help us. And this morning he got the phone call from us to say we have some money so you can start a better business. And I just found that just such a reminder of the Lord’s goodness. Nobody is forgotten on this planet. So, it’s Christmas Eve so that’s my little Christmas miracle. Bye.
Hello family, this is Demetri calling from Portland. I just wanted to call and thank everybody for this amazing opportunity. Thank Brian for his time for his faith in hearing God’s word that the this is something that he has to do and obviously and blessed myself and so many more people. So, so thank you Brian for…for hearing God’s voice and staying strong and having faith that the He’s good. So, thank you for that Brian and just want to also encourage everybody who’s listening to this and might be thinking about just giving up are not continuing this year. I encourage, even though you completed your one year and you might think that that’s enough I suggest that you continue listening to this that’s how I started, just to listen to one year in and check…check that off that I’ve read through the Bible, but as I continue listening year-over-year it’s been an incredible experience and life-changing so I do encourage everybody to continue listening to this, but I also wanted to share you know, it’s been a hard year for myself as well, as it’s been almost a year now. It’s been over a year now since my separation with my wife and the divorce and as I continue to pray and believe that God believe, God has room for restoration, I pray for next year that, that’s the same spirit that I go in and if it’s God’s will for our family to be restored and our marriage to be put back together that that happens. So, but thank you very much everybody. I pray for all of you and I listen every day and I hope everybody has an amazing end of the year. Amazing next year. And I will do my best to call more often next year, that’s one of my plans for next year but anyway, thank everybody, thank you Brian. God Bless. And I’ll see you guys all on next year, 2022.
Dear God, I lift up Emanual. I pray that You will be with him as is his name is God with us and I thank You for his life. I thank You for his walk. I thank You for his mom. I thank You for his family, Lord. And I am just lifting him up through this season as I hear his name spoken. I just pray that You will give him strength and wisdom and direction and hope and that You will bless him and his life. In Jesus’ name. It’s Radiant Rachel, have a great day guys.
Dear DAB family, this is your sister Ashley from California and I just want to say a belated Merry Christmas and have a soon to be Happy New Year. And I want to say thank You Lord for Christmas 2021 with the craziness of this year we got to celebrate our first Christmas in a new home and also my dad is here and he is recovering and it was a blessed time with our family. And I also want to come on here and praise God for my friend Abbie and thank you all for your prayers. She is growing a hunger for the Lord. Her brokenness is leading her to a place of humility where she sees she needs him. She’s even recognizing that God has provided people in her life that are showing her his love and his character, hallelujah. Thank you Lord for that. But I wanna come on here DAB family and ask for prayer for me and for all the others out there who have a desire to finish this year strong. I am behind on reading due to the shuffle of the holidays but I want to finish the race of this year strong. I also know that I can be a perfectionist and so I can beat myself up but I don’t want to live in that spirit of fear and anxiety so if ya’ll could pray for me to be able to finish this and finish strong but also to give myself grace and that would be wonderful. So, family, I praise our Lord for you and I covet your prayers. So, if you’re like me everybody, let’s do this, let’s finish this year strong. I love you DAB family.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible community. This is Diane Olive Brown from Newberg, Indiana. I am an encourager one of very very many. And I’m responding to the prayer of encouragement and for Dec 25th and it is now December 26th at 1140 in the morning. Shalom, shalom everybody, nothing is missing and nothing is broken. Ozzy Bear, I’m praying for your son and all the children of our Daily Audio Bible community, all of our children, no matter how young, no matter how old. As the prodigal son came back to his father, as Proverbs 10:21 says, the seed of the righteous shall be delivered. As Eyes of a Dove has said that they be until they be in the arms of the Father and His eyes be upon them in deliverance. I pray for them to be sealed in the Holy Spirit, with the Holy Spirit by the blood of Jesus, in the name of Jesus. I pray for our children no matter how old, no matter how young. Father, You send Your angel armies, Jesus, you are the King of the angel armies and I send them forth from the North, from the South and the East and the West.