12/28/2018 DAB Transcript

Zechariah 12:1-13:9, Revelation 19:1-21, Psalms 147:1-20, Proverbs 31:1-7

Today is the 28th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It’s awesome to be here with you today in these final days of the year. We start every year with 365 steps out in front of us and we are down to the last four steps. What a journey it has been. And we can do this, four steps, we can do this and complete the entire Bible. So, let’s dive in. We’ve been reading through the book of Zechariah. So, it was like a blur there for a little while. We were moving through the shorter letters of the New Testament and then bam, we’re right into the minor prophets and we’re moving through one of those a day. And then finally we’ve reached Zechariah, which has slowed things down for the last week. And we’ll be in Zechariah today and tomorrow before moving into our final book in the Old Testament. But even though the end is in sight, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Today Zechariah chapter 12 verse 1 to 13 verse 9. And we’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week.

Commentary:

Okay. So, have you ever noticed that at this time of year, like, this point between the holidays, that it’s like the whole world starts to get reflective? In fact, if you’re like…if you’re brand-new…so many brand-new brothers and sisters come around the Daily Audio Bible between Christmas and New Year’s, in part because a lot of new technology gets given out for Christmas, but it’s a time where, like, the whole world gets reflective and we start to think about our spirituality and our goals. And, so, welcome but even for those of us who have taken this whole journey, like, we’re this far in the year and we started last year or maybe even years ago, this is still time where the world gets reflective. Like, there’s all kinds of TV shows, like hours and hours of programming that offer us the opportunity to look back, right, look back at all that has happened in the last 12 months. And, like, we can be in the grocery store and there’s magazines dedicated to the biographies of those that we’ve celebrated this year and lost, events that have happened this year. And we’ve been reflecting too over the past few days about what it is that’s gonna inform our choices, our decisions, our resolutions for what comes next in the new year. And the book of Psalms today offers us some insight, actually something powerful to contemplate as we do the kind of contemplation that we’re doing, the reflection, the look back, the look forward. So, the psalmist says, “the Lord’s delight is in those who fear Him, those who put their hope in His unfailing love.” And this whole year has been a year where we’ve kind of focused ourselves on that word, “hope”. And, so, here at the end of the year we see it showing up in crystal clarity. “The Lord’s delight is in those who fear Him, those who put their hope in His unfailing love. And, so, I mean, the obvious question is, okay, who are those who put their hope in his unfailing love? Like, how do I become one of those people? And why is that important as I consider my New Year’s resolutions and what that should look like? So, the word hope here in the Psalms is referring to an expectation, right? Like waiting expectantly for a specific desired outcome. So, if we think of it, like, with a modern analogy, if you put a little bit of money away every paycheck, if we can do that, if we invest a little bit of our income into maybe a retirement fund, then we will weight in expectation that it will grow over the years and produce the desired outcome that will offer us financial stability in our later years. So, the kind of person that’s being described in the Psalm is a person who has invested all of their hope in the unfailing love of God. And what was their desired outcome? That the Lord might delight in them. So, that contrasts with a lot of our normal New Year’s resolutions because a lot of our normal New Year’s resolutions are self-focused, right, whether they’re focused on our interior lives or exterior lives, they’re focused around ourselves. This is normal. I mean we’re resolving to make changes about ourselves for the better. So, yeah, this is the time we focus on ourselves and where were going. However, a wholly self-focused posture leaves little room for things that they may matter even more, things that may even matter most, things like becoming the delight of the Lord. So, as we’re thinking, you know, there’s only a couple days, the hours are winding down on this year and whether we like it or not, we will spring forward into a new year. And as we consider what that’s gonna look like, maybe we should consider investing all of our hope in God in this coming year, all of it, and fear Him with awe and respect and wait expectantly in His unfailing love because if we’ll do that, according to psalmist, the Lord will delight in us. And, I mean, if we boil it all down, what else is there? What, else is there? What else are we looking for? We can continue to try to create, you know, whatever kind of destiny we want, but it doesn’t matter. Whatever we achieve, we’re not contented for long. Like, we think we might think, if I can just get that job, if I can just get that promotion, if I can just get that weight off, if I could just, if I could just, if I could just…but then even if we discipline ourselves and achieve those things it only leads us to the next achievement, right? What if we invested all of our hope in God and let all that other stuff kind of diminish and fade away and find itself in our lives in its proper orientation and make the goal of our hearts to be delighted in by God. What would a year of that be like? Like if that was our goal and we set it now and we come to this day one year from today and that’s what we’d done, we’d invested all of our hope in God and we wait expectantly in His unfailing love, the Scriptures tell us that the Lord will delight in us. I would…I think I would like to sign up for that. What would a year of the Lord’s delight be like? Something to consider as we make our resolutions for the new year.

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into that here as we come to the final moments of this week and enter into a new week that will bring us into a new year. We thank You for all that You’ve brought us through this year, all that You have taught us, the ways in which You have transformed us, we thank You. And, so, now from this place of transformation after a year in Your word, we invite You to lead us forward into what the new year should look like. Last year we made resolutions and we followed through on some of them. And this coming through the entire Bible has been one of those. And, so, here we are, but here we are with a new perspective because coming all the way through the rhythm of this year has changed us. So, we invite You Lord. We want to be Your delight. And, so, we put our hope in You, all of it, and we wait expectantly in Your unfailing love. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

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If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible here in the waning moments of this year than thank you profoundly, humbly for your partnership. There is a link that is on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner. And of course, your contributions to the Daily Audio Bible and the mission that we share together as a community are tax-deductible. And, so, we will certainly send you a receipt for this year. If you prefer the mail, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174. And if you want that to be counted for this for this year, just make sure the postmark is by December 31st

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

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello to my Daily Audio Bible, this is Diana calling from Virginia and I feel so bad because I was meaning to call for the holiday greeting but, you know, I let the __  and everything take a hold of me and I missed that. So, I just wanted to give a shout out to all of you here and I wanted to say thank you for all the contributions, the prayers, and just making this Daily Audio Bible so meaningful. I adhere to the Daily Audio Bible every morning when I’m starting my day and it’s been so instrumental to my life. And since I cannot send a holiday or Christmas card to everybody I just wanted to call in and give a shout out to all of you and wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year. I did want to give a shout out to some people here like Asia from Munich, I haven’t heard from you in a while. Slave of Jesus, Viola from Maryland, and Pastor Gene in Florida. I wanted to give a shout out to Walda in North Carolina, Jay from New Jersey. There are so many of you here I cannot even remember to give a shout out by name but I wanted to just let you know I’m thinking about all of you and I hope that this holiday season is a time for you to just take a minute and be joyful. It may be sad. If you’re like me, I know some of us during December and it’s always hard, but I always take a minute to think about what my mom would say and she always wanted me to…she always loved to celebrate Christmas. So, I find joy in knowing that she would want me to take a moment and remember what Christmas is all about and hopefully that we can get some peace and some joy from that. Merry Christmas to all of you and a happy new year.

Hi beautiful family, this is Pastor Jenny from Bradenton Florida and I want to speak directly to any woman that is listening and I want to recommend the More Conference. I am praying. I really want to go. I’m not sure if I’m gonna be able to afford it to be completely honest but I want to tell you guys __ that I went to years ago. It was one of the best decisions I could’ve made. I’m 50 years old. I’ve been walking with Jesus since nine. So, I’ve walked with the Lord for 41 years and I still learn things in that conference and discover things about myself in that conference that I have not experienced before. I will tell you that the fellowship is fantastic, the preaching is fantastic, but most importantly it is __ at times. __ pray for Brian, pray for this conference because God is __. One of the most important things that I learned in that conference that has stayed with me and will probably stay with me __ is that sometimes the enemy speak lies into our life and we buy those lies and we believe those lies and we give them the category of truth in our lives. And when we do that, although they’re lies, they can control us, they can enslave us, they can bind us. And family, the Lord delivered me from some of those lies in that conference. And every time Satan would start to come and enslave me again I have been able to speak the things because I remember __. So, I want to encourage you to attend the conference. I want to encourage you, if you’re a man and you have someone to send, I want to encourage you __ . I love you family this is Pastor Gene from Bradenton Florida.

Hi this is Sherry from Kansas, I called in and you played my prayer request from December the 8th and I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who prayed for me and to Pamela for the Scripture from Isaiah. And it really helped and one of the things I said is I really needed to feel…know God’s love and I have seen God’s love in the outpouring of prayer. So, thank you all very much. While my situations are not yet remedied, I feel much stronger and much more able to stay connected with God in the process of all this and I love you all. Thank you so much again and I am now hooked on Daily Audio Bible. So, I’m sure that I’m going to been praying for others as well that call in. I hope you all have a blessed holiday, and may this new year see us all drawing closer to God, each other, and seeing our prayers answered for those around us. Thank you very much. Goodbye.

Greetings my beloved friends, this is Angel from California. It’s Friday, December 21st, 2019. I’m sorry, it’s 2018. I’m ahead of myself. Anyway, this year was a wonderful year for me, for my husband, my children, and I have three puppies, Murphy, Luna, and Lucky. I love them so much. I want to wish you all a blessed Christmas and a very prosperous new year, 2019. I want to say thank you Brian and Jill and your family. May the Lord bless you for everything that you do. I pray always for the people who call in . And recently, Kevin from rolling hills from Arkansas, he called in and I want to say that I’m praying for him and also a gentleman by the…he goes by the name of the Prodigal. And I want to say to you, thank you for calling and I know that God has wonderful things for you. I want to say that our words have creative power. Whenever we speak something either good or bad we give life to what we are saying. Too many people say negative things about themselves, about their families, and about their futures. They say things such as, I never will be successful, or that sickness will get the best of me, business is slow, I don’t think I can make it, Flu season is coming I’ll probably catch it. They don’t realize they are prophesying their futures. The Scripture says we will eat the fruit of our words. That means we will get exactly what we we’ve been saying. So….

Hey Daily Audio Bible friends, I’m calling from my brother in Christ, Prodigal. Thank you for reaching out to this community brother. I believe you just blessed yourself by engaging the community of thousands of believers all over this world that are now gonna be praying for you. Man, life all too often crashes down upon us and leaves us feeling like there’s just no way out. I’ve been there too brother and like you I found myself researching whether or not I be forgiven or end up in hell for my final sin. But either way we find ourselves face-to-face with our Creator who would then ask us, did you know that your life is not your own for I bought you for a price? But He did that because He loves us immensely no matter what we’ve done. I believe that He has much bigger plans for our lives than just the hundred or so years that we’re here on this planet. I mean, think about it. If we’re gonna live forever with Jesus then this life is just the blink of an eye no matter how terrible it gets. So, hold on brother. And God‘s surely gonna reward you for the suffering that you endure. And remember, there’s now literally of thousands us praying for you. Love you brother.

12/27/2018 DAB Transcript

Zechariah 10:1-11:17, Revelation 18:1-24, Psalms 146:1-10, Proverbs 30:33

Today is the 27th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is a pleasure, it is a joy, and an honor to be here with you now, two day’s removed dry from Christmas, right? And we’re marching towards the end of this year and the beginning of the new year as fast as we possibly can and as slow as we possibly can because we have no control over it. It’s coming towards us but we do have control over how we finish this year and we have had a rhythm all year long, of allowing the Scriptures to speak into our lives in community among friends knowing that we’re not on this journey alone, not in the Scriptures, and not in life. And, so, that’s what we will continue to do, and we will finish this year strong. And, so, the next step forward leads us back into the book of Zechariah and today we will read chapters 10 and 11 of the book of Zechariah before moving back into the book of Revelation in the New Testament. And we’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Zechariah 10:1 through 11:17.

Commentary:

Okay, so, how, fast Christmas comes and goes, right? A couple days removed and it’s like, you know, maybe you leave your Christmas lights up all the way through the new year, maybe you leave them up all the way through January, I don’t know, but a lot of us are thinking, “I just want to get thus stuff down, I want to get myself prepared, I want to get everything clean, you know, I want to go to the new yeur right.” And, so, how quickly it comes and goes, but just like we mentioned yesterday, there’s one thing that’s unique during the weeks between Christmas and New Year’s. It’s that our hearts naturally sense that a new beginning is coming. And that’s partly brought about because of the Advent season, because of the waiting and the longing for Christmas to arrive and for joy to be felt and for goodwill toward men to be felt all around the world as we rejoice together. And then we naturally sense that something new is coming. And, so, we start to consider the trajectory of our lives more than any other time of the year and that’s partly because our pace is disrupted. And, so, you know, this is the time we renew the gym memberships, this is the time we start to contemplate spirituality, this is the time we start thinking the deeper things, like, you know, we need to work harder at our marriage it. It's…that…we start thinking about what we’re gonna do next year and what we’re gonna become and achieve, what we’re gonna withdraw from. And one thing that we really should have noticed all year long, but one thing that we can deeply notice right now is that the book of Proverbs can be invaluable as a resource in figuring that out, in figuring out where we’re gonna go and what we’re gonna do, like what comes next with this next season that is upon us is going to look like, because Proverbs leads us deeper. Like, it leads us down toward the essence and the source of our desire for change. Because a lot of times, you know, like our New Year’s resolutions are balanced into our exterior lives. We want to lose some weight because we want to look better, right? And it’s less about, we want to lose weight because we want our organs to function more properly so that we can live longer. So, it’s like this balance where things are skewed to the exterior. We want a promotion at work or want to de-clutter our houses. But, Proverbs…Proverbs speaks to the deeper matters of the soul and it’s like the age worn wisdom of all time. And, so, it helps us to expose the motives of for why it is we want to make some sort of change, why we want to do something to improve ourselves. And the fact is that the wisdom of Proverbs has stood the test of time through lots and lots and lots of New Year’s days, way more New Year’s days then we get to experience upon this earth. And it stood the test of time. So, like, for example, what we read in Proverbs today is, you know, is short and compact but it’s direct and full of truth in the way that it tells us what’s obvious, but we usually ignore it. So, we were told the beating of cream will yield butter and striking the nose is gonna can cause bleeding, and so stirring up anger will cause quarrels. So, yeah, it’s like dah, if we churn cream butter will happen it. It’s true. Like, I can remember doing that as a kid once. And, yeah, you stir it and you stir it and you stir it and you stir it and it starts to get thicker and thicker and thicker and pretty soon you have butter. And, so, yeah, and also if you get punched in the nose you’re probably gonna get a bloody nose and it’s not gonna be a good scene. So, we would agree, like, yeah, that what happens. But we usually aren’t considering that the proverb has attached something else that is supposed to be obvious, like just as obvious as if you churn cream it will make butter or, if you punch someone in the nose it’s gonna bleed. Stirring up anger causes quarrels. So, let’s think about it. What do we want in the new year, more conflict or less conflict? Because Proverbs is telling us how to achieve either one of those goals. So, like, if we just thrive on turmoil and chaos well then, we should stir up more anger because that will get us where we want to go. But if we’d like to kind of reduce the chaos and the quarreling and the strife and the tension that just lingers like a cloud in  tumultuous relational times, then we need to stir up less anger, right? Proverbs is just telling us what is obvious and true without any prejudice or any nuance, just the truth. We usually hear the stark truth and will start formulating why it has to be the way that it has to be. Proverbs just like cuts through the crap and says, this is your choice, right? So, you want more conflict and strife, then stir up more anger and you will get it. But if you’re trying to reduce those things in your life, those stresses, and actually find something more harmonious then you gotta stir up less anger. And, so, to be clear, like, there are times we have to step into critical situations that may be confrontational, right? So, like, eliminating all anger isn’t gonna eliminate all conflict, but Proverbs is talking about our intentionality. So, like, churning cream is an intentional act and the outcome is butter. A punch in the nose is an intentional act. And deliberately stirring up anger by provoking somebody, whether your spouse or your child or your coworker or the by the person that might cut in front of you at the 75% off sale today, right? That’s an intentional thing and it’s nothing more than picking a fight. And if we’re gonna instigate a quarrel then, I mean, then we’re gonna get a quarrel. But we’re gonna get…we’re gonna get what we want. So, if we’ll incorporate this wisdom into our lives, this can become a rescue from so much unnecessary conflict as we move into the new year. And so, if we would achieve this, then we’re gonna have a lot more peace in our lives in the coming year, right? There’s gonna be a lot more harmony and continuity in our relationships, which is gonna allow us to pursue more meaningful and fruitful goals, which means that our New Year’s resolutions can be bigger than what….like…we can raise the bar…we can look higher…we can go farther. So, let’s remember, let’s remember Proverbs as a guide toward the changes that we want to shift into in the new year.

Prayer:

So, Holy Spirit, we invite You into that. What’s next Lord? What You seem to be speaking through Your word is that…that’s it’s deeper…it’s deeper than just what we can rearrange. Like, we can rearrange the furniture in our lives, but that’s all we’ve done is just move things around to make them look different when You are inviting us to do the deep work of the soul that will fundamentally shift us because we are then collaborating and cooperating with the work of sanctification. We are being transformed into Your likeness, we’re becoming Christlike, we’re becoming like You. And, so, when we do this work inside all these other things, this furniture moving around in our lives becomes unnecessary or we’re just moving things around naturally to accommodate a bigger life. So, come Holy Spirit as we contemplate what comes next, we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website and it’s we’re you find out what’s going on around here.

And I have something to tell you that’s going on around here. And I did really good. Like, I didn’t cry during any readings or anything today. And I didn't…like…I kept the main thing the main thing, which is the Bible, but I am giddy to tell you this…and I would’ve told you yesterday, but everybody that needed to be told hadn’t been told and I’m not driving this ship, but now I’m told that I can tell. So, in a very, very well executed plan our daughter China’s boyfriend Ben, yeah, the boy did everything right and he completely kept his girlfriend off from…and she can figure out just about anything. It’s like really, really hard to surprise me and it’s really, really hard to surprise my daughter, but he did. And, so, on the evening of Christmas after everything was over and everyone was gone a little story was told in our living room and it ended up with…it ended up with Ben on his knees asking for China’s hand and her acceptance of his proposal. And, so we announce the engagement of our daughter China who has been a voice around here for the last decade, reading Daily Audio Bible kids and Daily Audio Bible teens and now Daily Audio Bible Chronological. And, so, new seasons are upon us and we couldn't…we couldn’t be more happy. She’s found her match and he’s found his match. And we think they’re a good match. And you can be a good match if you’re willing to put the work in and they seem to be willing to do that. you  So, Jill and I are, of course, you know, bringing up all the memories of her entire life that we can think of that…I mean…I don’t know…we look at a flower outside and it’s a memory of China, we look up at the sky and it’s a memory of China, we look at our car and it’s a memory of China or we look at the pavement and its memory of China or the sidewalk or…because everything right now is just reminding us…all those memories are flooding. Like, wow, how did it happen that this girl grew? She was…she was just little…how did this happen? Which is kind of how it works. Here we are at the end of the year. How did this happen? It seems we just started this journey and we’re like, right at the end of this journey as we’re going through the Bible. It just happens. And it happens pretty quick if you’re not paying attention. And, so, here we are, but we are very, very excited and truly overjoyed for what the future will bring. And, yeah, we always wondered, you know, what kind of man will capture this woman’s heart. And she found, you know, she’s been wise. She’s been a wise young lady her whole life and she’s done well. And we’re very, very excited about this coming year and what it holds and all that is out in front of us. So, together we [clapping]. I should get like some sort of…some sound effect. Hold on. [applause sound effect]. It’s always nice to…I should have let that play for a while. It’s always nice to share good news and we’ve shared all the news. You know, our families been in this Daily Audio Bible and committed to it for…well…we’re in the 14th year. And it’s been a seven day a week thing. And, so, that has profound effects over time. When you’re doing something every single day it becomes part of the rhythm of life. And, so, we’ve shared hard news among this community and difficulties along the way, but it’s always a joy to share welcome news, happy news and this is truly happy news. So, we congratulate China and Ben on their engagement. And, so, what do you say after that other than to say, you know, I love you and thank you…and thank you for sharing in this joyful moment with us as a part of this community as we move into the final days of this year.

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 and Praise:

Love never fails. Father, thank You for Your mercy this day. Father, thank You for our sister in Christ, Janelle, a warrior of God, a blessing to her family, the loved ones You gifted her with. We are all a witnesses to Your glory as she demonstrates the power of the living word of God in her life and this prayer wall. Father, I stand ready with them, fully armored, learning, listening, loving, growing together, connected in the body forever, here, right now, today, this day You have made in love. Indeed Father, love  is the greatest of all, Your love, breathing the breath of life in her for all those You bring into her path today, truly a light, bright and clear in awe of You, Your power, the fear of God. Father, You are pure love that is more that we can think or imagine good, yet we are given each moment we choose to receive, a growing understanding. Each moment we seek You finding You the love that You’ve made in us in Your image from the beginning. Love is who we are, seeking You, finding You as You said in Your word, finding light everlasting You gave us through Your son, Your only child, Your love to believe, to become whose we are, children of the most high God, royalty of the King of Kings, whose blood covers us, whose DNA is inside us, and the Holy Spirit given to us the moment we choose to believe the living word. Father, thank You for Your love that cannot fail. Father You said You will not will not will not fail us three times most high God, three times. In the name of the Father the son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Hi Daily Audio Bible this is Eben in Tallahassee. I’m calling for the first time today. I’ve been listening all year and I’m in the October month right now but it’s December and I’ve been listening because I’m trying to become a minister and part of my process includes taking exams and one of them is what is in the Bible. And, so, I found you and I discovered a brand-new universe of connected Christians. And, so, I’m so thankful for all of you and for your prayers and for the Scripture and for the daily activity. And I just wanted to share that with you today. I’m on my way to a meeting that is part of my process and takes me to a next level to become a candidate and that from the is a game changer. And following this, I take the Bible content exam. So, I have you guys in my mind and in my heart and my soul as I take a step forward and I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for being there and thank you for listening to me and to each other and for having an open heart to God. Blessings to all of you. Amen.

This is Bobby It Is Well. I’m calling actually for confession. I know that the Lord…if I want to work on a weakness…I need to confess it, and this is one of the best places I know to do that. My confession is of fear of what others think of me. I know that this is a fear that we all struggle with. What do I say to people? How do I look? Do I look okay? Do they like me? And this is a weakness because I need to trust in God because it doesn’t matter. I need to trust in God that He is the only one who can help me. So, dear heavenly father, please help me as I repent of this sin of fear, a fear that led Peter into trouble into denying Christ three times, a fear that led Saul into no longer being your anointed. Dear heavenly father, help me let go of this fear, that you are the one who needs to know what I am doing and how I am. And if I am pleasing you than I am pleasing anyone else. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Hi, my name is Angelique and I am from the Pacific Northwest, Washington state and I am calling in regard to a prayer request I heard from Sharon from Southern California over a week ago or so. I have been praying for you, Sharon, and I just wanted to share that my mom, who’s now with Jesus, she passed away a year ago, she suffered from manic-depression. And, so I am familiar with the highs and lows and the pain that’s caused from that chemical in balance. But I’m just praying for you that her meanness will be turned to kindness, and anger will be turned to love, and her heart for you so that you’ll be able to see your grandkids again. I’ll also be praying for your relationship with her to be whole and healed, restored. That happened for me with my mom. And the last 14, 15 years of her life she didn’t want to hurt me anymore. She __ and she told me she was going to take her medicine consistently, which she did. And she was open to…just my comments when I noticed her behavior…her personality was changing she would go get checked out at the doctor and get her medicine adjusted. And, so, I’m hopeful and I saw God do amazing things in her life, actually all throughout her life. Her life is a testimony to God and I am so grateful that God gave me…

Hey, this is PG from NC, I’m calling, literally, I had to pull over the car and stop. I just heard Brian share the word of the year being “Maintain.” And I think it’s easy to think, maintain, that’s kind of a bland kind of blah kind of word, but when you said it Brian, I mean I literally had to stop the podcast of listening to the Christmas party because it exploded in me. And I’m not one who get alliteration. Like I don’t hear…I don’t think that way. And, so, I just want to really quickly tell you what I really believe I heard the Lord say. If we we’ll maintain our path He will our place. If we will maintain our pace He’ll maintain our priorities. It we’ll maintain our perspective He’ll maintain our purpose. If we’ll maintain our purity He’ll maintain our progress. And if we’ll maintain our prayer He’ll maintain our power. I don’t know about you but I’m really excited about 2019.

12/26/2018 DAB Transcript

Zechariah 9:1-17, Revelation 17:1-18, Psalms 145:1-21, Proverbs 30:32

Today is the 26th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is awesome to be here with you today, the day after Christmas. So, how are you how holding up? I feel like I’m gonna be full for days. So, are you guys going out shopping and doing the exchange thing, the after Christmas 50% off 75% off sales? Oh, we do that sometimes. I’m not sure I’m up for it. But what I am sure that I am up for is the next step forward in the Scriptures, as we literally count the days down, right? The days left in this year are few and it’s now we start turning our attention toward finishing strong and well and begin to think about what next year’s gonna look like, but that’s the beauty of the week between the holidays, we have some time to contemplate. And, so, bringing the Scriptures into that contemplation is the right thing to do. We’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Zechariah chapter 9 verses one through 17 today.

Commentary:

okay. So, the last couple of days no doubt have been busy ones, right, with Christmas just yesterday. And probably the truth is, it’s been an exhausting month. So, we’ll probably be eating leftovers from yesterday’s feast. That is usually what happens in my family and maybe, you know, maybe some shopping, maybe some exchanges, maybe you’ve had family in and they’re starting to leave and migrate back to their houses or their towns or maybe they’re hanging out and will spend the next week with you and that’ll fun, but today, you know is the day where, you know, Christmas is now be behind us, which is so weird. It just comes and goes like that, all this anticipation, pushing us toward the end of the year and this holiday season, like, just like that it’s over. And, so, we slowly start moving away from the Christmas season and s our focus starts to shift toward what the New Year might look like. And our reading from Proverbs today gave us some incredibly wise advice that can help us as we’re thinking of these things. So, the proverb said, if you have been a fool by being proud or plotting evil, cover your mouth in shame. So, no matter how we’ve been behaving over the last couple days, it’s unlikely that we haven’t exhibited ourselves or, at minimum encountered pride. And this is…around this kind of…around this season we notice this in the over inflation of people, right, an over inflating version of ourselves that we portray, especially when we’re around loved ones that we only see once or twice a year and this kind of thing. In fact, I mean, over the last couple of days we may have endured hours of conversation with people that we love, but people that like to compare everything from their gifts to their careers to their spouses to their houses to their children. And maybe even worse yet, maybe we’re the ones, right? Maybe we’ve made others endure hours of our posturing. And so, what the Proverbs has to tell us today now that we’re through this season is to cover our mouths. And, so, this little piece of ancient wisdom, it can seem harsh at first blush because it’s basically telling us to shut up. But ,I mean, it’s actually freeing because what we’re being given permission to refrain from is the game of one-upmanship, right? We don’t have to one-up each other. We have permission to not have to do that. According to Proverbs, this makes us look like a fool anyway and we don’t have to do it. So, yeah, so going forward into this new year we can give that, you know, pour that into our cup and stir it around and sip it down because if we chomp down on our prideful words then we will not be saying things that do not need to be said and instead we can just simply be who we are, who we actually are, honestly. Like, we don’t have to step into the new year with this falseness about us that is something that we have to keep blowing up right? Like, the air keeps spilling out and then we keep inflating it and it’s a false version and we don’t have to do it. And maybe as we go into the new year we can just lose it altogether, right? We’re planning to shed some pounds so we could lose this too while we’re losing those pounds because we’ve learned this year in Scripture that our identity is…the only way we’ll have a true identity is found in embracing God’s mercy, His long-suffering kindness towards us. Like, we’re not gonna pose our way into His good graces, we’re not gonna over inflate ourselves and create a false version that’s gonna impress him. We do this will each other. What we’re saying is our identity comes from each other when it doesn’t. So, we don’t have to do this. We’re not required to pose and posture and over inflate and over exaggerate and hide, because that’s what we’re doing. We don’t have to create an image of ourselves that imagines what we would hope to be but isn’t anything like what we really are. It’s false, like, it’s a lie, we’re living a lie, it’s foolish, it’s gonna get us nowhere in the coming year. And according to Proverbs, like we said, we look like a fool. So, instead, as we contemplate the coming year over these next few days, we can contemplate what it might look like to just walk into freedom as we are because the apostle Paul told us back when we were reading second Corinthians that we’re invited to reflect the glory of the Lord upon the earth. That’s a pretty tough thing to do when you are over inflating a false reality that can’t be achieved from within our insecurities. All we’re doing then is trying to reflect a false glory upon the earth, a false glory that is aimed at us, and that is rooted in pride, and insecurity, and fear. So, think about it. Think about it in these next couple of days. You are invited by the Scriptures to be yourself, who you really are. And when you are that then you can truly reflect God’s glory upon the earth. So, if there were a worthy New Year’s resolution to think about, becoming ourselves, that would be worth it.

Prayer:

Father, we invite you into that because you have created us unique, individual, and you love us as you created us to be. And, yeah, we’ve made all kinds of missteps and inserted all kinds of things that didn’t belong in our story and they affect us and they pull us in all kinds of directions, but usually those are the things that are pulling us into what’s false, those are the things that compel us to over inflate, to posture, to pose, to hide, to be insecure. And, so, we’re inviting you into all of those places. Fill us in all of those places so that all we see of ourselves is what you see. And then we will actually be looking at ourselves as we really are, not through lenses of wounds, and woundings, and missteps, and mistakes. We’ll see ourselves as you do and if we can see ourselves as you do, then we are seeing ourselves as we really are. So, come Holy Spirit and help us to live into this in these coming days and in this coming year. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, its where you find was going on around here. So, be sure to stay connected as we move through these last days of the year and prepare ourselves to launch ourselves into the brand-new coming year.

Stay connected at the Prayer Wall at dailyaudiobible.com where people are praying for each other all the time. You can get to the Prayer Wall using the Daily Audio Bible app as well. So, stay connected.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible in these remaining days of this year, obviously your contributions are tax-deductible, and we’ll certainly send you a receipt and we thank you beyond words. But as I say most every day, the reality is this doesn’t happen if we don’t do this together. So, thank you, thank you for your partnership. There’s a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, 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.

12/25/2018 DAB Transcript

Zechariah 8:1-23, Revelation 16:1-21, Psalms 144:1-15, Proverbs 30:29-31

Today is December 25th. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian and it is a pleasure and an honor as it is every day to be in your presence, but this is obviously a very special day. Today is Christmas day. And, so, all over the world billions and billions of people are celebrating the arrival of the Savior, the baby born to take away the sins of the world, the baby born to grow up to become the king of kings and Lord of lords, the baby boy that we are reading about in the book of Revelation who will utterly and completely annihilate wickedness from existence, and that story…that story began long ago and it became a part of the human story on the day that Jesus was born, the day we are celebrating now. So, may joy flood our hearts Merry Christmas.

Song:

Joy to the World


Joy to the world

Joy to the world, the Lord is come

Let earth receive her King

Let every heart prepare Him room

And Heaven and nature sing

And Heaven and nature sing

And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing

Joy to the world

Joy to the world

Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!

Let men their songs employ

While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains

Repeat the sounding joy

Repeat the sounding joy

Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy

Joy to the world, now we sing

Let the earth receive her king

Joy to the world, now we sing

Let the angel voices ring

Joy to the world, now we sing

Let men their songs employ

Joy to the world, now we sing

Repeat the sounding joy

Oh oh

He rules the world with truth and grace

And makes the nations prove

The light of His righteousness

And wonders of His love

And wonders of His love

And wonders of His love

And wonders, wonders, of His love

And wonders, wonders, of His love

Joy to the world, now we sing

Let the earth receive her king

Joy to the world, now we sing

Let the angel voices ring

So, on this Christmas day we will continue to take the next step forward because our relationship with the Scriptures, this is something that is an ongoing every day, always on, never off thing because it transforms us from within, and leads us to God. And the intertwined relationship that we have with God is an always on and never off thing. So, we’ve been reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week which is, of course, will do even on Christmas day. Zechariah…Zechariah chapter 8. Zechariah? That’s the first time I’ve ever said that that I can remember in all of these years. So, let’s stick with it. Zechariah 8:1 through 23 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, today is Christmas and Merry Christmas everyone and we’re celebrating with billions of people all over the world the arrival of the baby Jesus lying in a manger. And, so, we probably have warm hearts and depending on what time we’re listening, maybe full bellies. Around my house we have a big breakfast. So, that kind of starts early. And, you know, there’s probably garbage bags full of crinkled wrapping paper and, I don’t know, maybe…maybe we’ve got the nativity scene in our house or out on our lawn and it’s joyful and we feel full and it’s wonderful but…if I’m letting you in a little secret…usually…usually for me at some point in the day on Christmas I’m gonna feel the Christmas blues. And it’s hard to put my finger one. Like, it’s not…I’m not depressed. I’m happy. And I used to think well, maybe it’s the disruption of this kind of a day, it’s just a unique day among all days and so it’s just different. And, so, maybe I can’t find my moorings. But over the years, the more that I’ve thought about it, what I’m experiencing is like some sort of deep longing within. And it’s strange in the midst of the merriment that we actually really feel happy because of Christmas. And, so, it would confuse me for years and maybe you’re the same because this is a day where everything feels full and joyful. And, so, why is it is that something still feels missing when everything else is great and lovely and rejoicing. And then we can turn to the to the Scriptures, right? Like our reading from Revelation. Our reading from Revelation today discussed seven angels pouring out seven bowls of God’s wrath. And the destruction that’s described this is staggering. So, it’s hard to even fathom. So, its not exactly Christmas material, but maybe…maybe it gives us an explanation for this…this sense of longing…this sense that something still missing, because before the arrival Jesus, people had been anticipating a Savior, a deliverer. It was actually woven into the fabric of their culture. They had a deep sense that something was missing, that things were not exactly as they should be and that was part of their apocalyptic worldview, that the world was heading in a direction and a deliverer would come and make all things new. And we’ve discussed this lots of times and we’re seeing it clearly in Revelation. And we’ve been talking about the season of Advent. Some of us observe the season of Advent and that’s intended to help us embrace that longing because we find ourselves still with the same longing that they had. They were longing for a deliverer to come and the deliverer came. And, so we rejoice in the fact that Jesus came for us and we have that part of the story, but we still find ourselves with the same longing, waiting for his second arrival. And what we’re reading in Revelation is chilling, but what we’re reading is the ultimate destruction of every evil force set against Jesus, this is baby who came for us, this King of Kings came as a child. And, so, it’s not something that we should be chilled by or shudder in fear about. In order for this longing that kind of never really goes away and can find itself in our hearts in the most strange…strangest of times or places, like, even on Christmas day. In order for things to be made new as they should be, evil must be utterly destroyed and that is what we’re reading about in the book of Revelation. We’re reading about the fulfillment of this longing inside, right, the return of perfect shalom. So, if you find yourself like me at some point just kind of staring off and you’re surrounded by joy and loved ones but you’re staring off because something still feels like it’s missing, that’s, I think, normal. Things aren’t perfectly as they should be. But what we celebrate today is the only way they ever will be. And, so, with that light in our hearts, may we carry forward the spirit of Christmas bringing light and life and good news to all, and ultimately, my friends, my brothers and sisters to all things being made new.

Prayer:

Father, we come into Your presence with great humility, with hearts that are full, and yet hearts that are longing for all things to be made new. Oh, what a Christmas celebration that will be when we celebrate with You in Your presence when a new heaven and new earth have been born. And we are participating in the restoration of all things. So, we thank You Jesus for coming. We thank You God for rescuing us, Your children who were hopelessly lost and floundering and it’s not like we don’t still flounder, but You have given us a way, a North star, a way to be restored, a way to participate in the restoration of all things and the healing of our broken hearts. And, so, we rejoice this Christmas acknowledging that we’re longing for all things to be made new and they are, and they will. So, come Holy Spirit we pray as we continue to rejoice at Your arrival. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

Announcements:

Alright friends, I’ll let you get back to what you were doing. I love you. I love you and having this moment to spend a part of Christmas with you is one of the great joys of life. I wish you the merriest of Christmases. I wish you nothing but joy and hope, which has been our word for this year and I wish this upon your entire families. Have a wonderful day.

I’m Brian. Merry Christmas. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

12/24/2018 DAB Transcript

Zechariah 6:1-7:14, Revelation 15:1-8, Psalms 143:1-12, Proverbs 30:24-28

Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. Today is Christmas Eve and even though this is another step forward in our journey through the Scriptures this is a very, very special day. Today is the last day of Advent, the season of Advent, which means that the long wait for the arrival of the Savior is almost over.

So, it’s Christmas Eve and, yeah, there’s a lot of activity, a flurry of activity that happens on most Christmas Eve’s and maybe this evening will include a candlelight service or maybe even a midnight service. And the joy, the joy of Christmas finally arriving is upon us. And even in the midst of all of that we have taken time to step away for second surround ourselves with some serenity and allow God’s word to speak. And, so, this week we’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible. Today, Zechariah chapter 6 verse 1 through 7:14.

Commentary:

Okay. So, like we talked about at the beginning of our time together today, this Christmas Eve and it’s the final day of the Advent season. And, so, we probably have this sort of sense of anticipation, and even some joy in our hearts, and probably a pretty long to do list, right, in preparation for tomorrow. And, so, we might think, okay, how is today’s reading supposed to have anything to do with Christmas? Well, in our reading from Zechariah we continue to hear of the visionary experiences that Zechariah was having, but within that we were reminded of the fundamental postures God requires of us. So, in Zechariah we heard today, “this is what the Lord of Heaven’s armies says. Judge fairly and show mercy and kindness to one another. Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners and the poor, and do not scheme against each other.” So, this command doesn’t have any blackout dates. So, this command is something that’s to be lived into today and if there were a season to live into this it would be Christmas. So, let’s make sure that we plant this in our hearts as we move forward into the festivities ahead of us. Let’s make sure that we do that. Let’s make sure that we show mercy and kindness to one another. And then we’re reading the book of Revelation and so we could also think, like, well this is the furthest thing from the nice cozy Christmas Spirit that I want to experience. I mean, John saw what seemed to be a sea made out of glass that was on fire. And upon this sea were those who endured. And we’ve been talking a lot about endurance lately, right, because the Bible keeps talking about. And to those who had endured and were on this glassy sea that was on fire, God gave these…those who endured…harps and they were singing the song of Moses and the song of the lamb. We may not think of their song as a Christmas Carol but think of it. “Great and marvelous are your works oh Lord, God the Almighty. Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations. Who will not fear you Lord and glorify your name for you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you for your righteous deeds have been revealed.” Well, that might not be a Christmas Carol about baby Jesus lying in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes, but this is a song coming from those who had endured who are singing the song of the Lamb and the song of Moses from a glassy sea. And who are they singing about? They’re singing about this baby born in a manger, the King of Kings and Lord of lords. So, this is a time to remember. We’re celebrating the first Advent right. Advent means arrival. And, so, that’s what Christmas is. We’re celebrating the advent of the Savior, the arrival of the Savior but we’re longing for His return. And as we read what we’ve read in Revelation today, we are prophetically hearing worship in advance from the time that we’re longing to see when everything will be made new. So yes, this is a Christmas gift to us. We’re hearing worship in advance from a time when all is as it should be.

Prayer:

Father, we dwell on that. We take a moment to realize how big of a deal this is and that all that we long for will happen. And, so, as we complete the Advent season for this year and move toward Christmas day You have given us a song or a Carol as it were from a time when all is restored. And we long for this. And, so, we invite you, come Holy Spirit and allow us to truly meditate on your first arrival and our longing for your second arrival as we immerse ourselves for the final hours of this season and prepare to move into Christmas. Come Holy Spirit we pray. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, its the website, its where you find out what’s going on around here. So certainly stay tuned.

It’s such a lovely time to get to this day, and just really, really consider that here we are. Not only have we reached Christmas time but really are only a few steps away from completing our year together. And, so, yeah, tomorrow’s gonna hit and it’s gonna be a busy day and its gonna be full of activity and joy and wonder and it will be wonderful, but we’re here. We’re here right now in these moments. And, so, let’s commit ourselves to having a contemplative day that we don’t get just washed away by activity and forget what’s really going on here and the reason for all of this celebration. So, I’m gonna go out to a candlelight service myself, my family tonight, probably drive around, look at Christmas lights. It’s usually our tradition to get together and we have some soup or just kind of have a low-key evening just with each other in anticipation for out tomorrow. Whatever your tradition is, I hope that it’s a wonderful, wonderful experience. And just know that you’re in our hearts. Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing you’re not alone. You are, for sure, in our hearts. I wish we could all just have a Christmas together, but I don’t know what stadium would do that and I don’t know where it would be in the world. It wouldn’t be cozy. And, so, we have to do this virtually but you are in our hearts and I pray that we are all in each other’s hearts and that we are moving as a community into this Christmas season. So, Merry Christmas. I’ll be saying that again tomorrow, but bless you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And may this Christmas season be the most meaningful of your life. May you feel intertwined with Spirit of God and may that spirit give you joy knowing that this is all headed somewhere and where we are headed is unspeakably good because we are headed into the restoration of all things. All things are being made new and this is a reason to rejoice. So, Merry Christmas. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello Daily Audio Bible family, this is John Corrado calling from the Christmas city, Bethlehem Pennsylvania. I hope you’re doing well. I’m so pumped up guys. I’m pumped up for Jesus arrival, can’t wait for that. But I’m pumped up more than anything just to give you guys a couple of quick updates and ask for your continued prayer, of course. So, first of all, love you guys. Thank you so much, every single one of you out there. Love you and I couldn’t live life without you. I apologize for any background noise here I’m on my cell phone in the car on my way to pick up my daughter Kelsey who is coming home from Los Angeles for Christmas from the airport. So, first of all, wow, I am pumped up and just a praise report there is like, Kelsey is coming home. She is living life, she’s going through life, she’s learning lessons and struggles. Life is a struggle. You know, we are promised that it’s gonna be hard, especially as Christians. And so, living up to its name. But she’s coming home and we’re so excited to have her home. And then thank you all so much for praying for my wife Andrea over the past really month and ½. You know, she’s doing really well, she is feeling well. We’re waiting for some results to hear back from the doctor but, like I said and posted on the DAB Friends page, God’s already got the victory in this and we believe truly in His healing power and strength. And no matter what, no matter what, we love God. We love our life and we’re so blessed and so thankful. I love you family. Merry Christmas and I’ll be back in touch again soon. God bless you.

Hi this is Will from Stroudsburg, formerly Will from Waynesborrow. I’ve been a listener since 2012. So, this will be completing my, I guess, seventh revolution around the sun listening to the Daily Audio Bible this year. I called in a few years ago when I was going through a really hard time. My ex-wife now basically just turned her whole personality around and we ended up getting divorced and it’s still a very strange situation with her with her, you know, alienating my children against me and everything else. But that’s not why I called. I called because I just heard Prodigal on the 21st reach out about how this is the worst year of his life, he’s thinking of committing suicide. And I just want to tell you man, when I was going through what I was going through, I literally spent 11 days in jail because I told my daughter that I loved her. That was the individual that I was dealing with and I lost everything. I lost my wife, I lost my house, I lost my vehicles, my job, I lost everything and had nothing. And I’m telling you, until you don’t have anything, until Jesus is all you have, you don’t realize that Jesus is all you need. So please, do not take what is God’s decision, the length of your life into your own hands. You must lean on Him and He will help you endure. So, I just wanted to call you with that encouragement. This is Will from Stroudsburg. Please Prodigal, reach back out and let me know that everything is going better for you. I’m praying for you. Love you brother. Bye.

Hi DAB family, this is Diane calling from Iowa and I’m calling in response to Duane from Wisconsin and his request for prayer. Duane you’ve been so faithful to pray for so many of us. So, I’m happy to pray for you. Sear family let’s pray. Dear God, we come before your throne of grace to lift up our brother Duane and his request for prayer. Lord he’s you requested prayer for visit that he’ll be having with his son who is currently incarcerated. And the Lord we pray for this visit. We pray for sweet fellowship between the two of them. We pray for your peace to fill the rooms and for love to abound between the two of them Lord. And we pray for healing and reconciliation for anything…anything that needs to be healed within the relationship. Lord, I also lift up Duane’s brother who is having hernia surgery and Lord I pray that you would guide the surgeon’s hands, that you would heal and restore his brother’s body from the surgery and that he would have a quick and speedy recovery. I pray all these things in Jesus’ holy name. Amen.

Hi, this is Melissa from Houston and I just wanted to call because I just finished listening to the broadcast and I heard Prodigal call in and I wanted to say that, please don’t consider suicide. I understand that it’s hard to not consider it when things are so difficult, and I know __situation but it’s hard what you going through has been hard and it’s heartbreaking and it feels like loss. But I’m so certain in God and I know that God loves you and he still has something for you in spite of what you’re feeling. And I wanted to tell you that…I wanted to ask you not to make the decision that you can’t come back from and to let you know that people love you and that I heard your call. So, I wanted to tell you that I love you and there’s so much you more for you on the other side of this that I want to be able to see and I want you to be able to come from the other side of this and say, yeah, I thought about it. God is so good and everything that’s come out of this has been better for me not having done that. So, I know that this time is hard for a lot of people, but I want to just tell you that I love you, I love all of you. I didn’t get a chance to say Merry Christmas this year, but Merry Christmas and I hope you all have a very happy new year. And Prodigal, I hope I get to hear from you a lot more about good and sometimes the bad things, but I want to keep hearing from you. I love you. Merry Christmas and have a happy new year.

12/23/2018 DAB Transcript

Zechariah 4:1-5:11, Revelation 14:1-20, Psalms 142:1-7, Proverbs 30:21-23

Today is the 23rd day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and there’s a lot going on around here, right? This is the threshold of a shiny, sparkly, new week. This is Christmas Eve Eve and it also happens to be the last Sunday in the season of Advent. And, of course, the season of Advent ends tomorrow with Christmas Eve and the bells toll at midnight. And, at least according to the tradition, we greet the Savior at Christmas. So, if you’ve got the Advent wreath going in your house or, you know, the candles are being lit at church or whatever, today is the Joy candle, representing the joy comes after a long wait for the Savior to arrive.

Song:

Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emanuel,

and ransom captive Israel

that mourns in lonely exile here

until the Son of God appear.

Refrain:

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

shall come to you, O Israel.

O come, O Wisdom from on high,

who ordered all things mightily;

to us the path of knowledge show

and teach us in its ways to go. Refrain

O come, O come, great Lord of might,

who to your tribes on Sinai’s height

in ancient times did give the law

in cloud and majesty and awe. Refrain

O come, O Branch of Jesse’s stem,

unto your own and rescue them!

From depths of hell your people save,

and give them victory o'er the grave. Refrain

O come, O Key of David, come

and open wide our heavenly home.

Make safe for us the heavenward road

and bar the way to death’s abode. Refrain

O come, O Bright and Morning Star,

and bring us comfort from afar!

Dispel the shadows of the night

and turn our darkness into light. Refrain

O come, O King of nations, bind

in one the hearts of all mankind.

Bid all our sad divisions cease

and be yourself our King of Peace. Refrain

So, we have this brand-new shiny week out in front of us. And this week will certainly encompass the Christmas holiday. So, it’s a unique week that’s in front of us, but one thing is constant, and that is that we take the next step forward every day no matter what the day is. No matter what’s going on we center ourselves in the Scriptures. And this week we’ll read from the Christian Standard Bible. Of course, we’ll pick up where we left off yesterday in the book of Zechariah. Today chapter 4 verse 1 through 5 verse 11.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for bringing us to this point in the year. And it’s shocking sometimes to look forward and realize we’re days away from a brand-new start, a brand-new year, because it seems like we just began this journey not too long ago. And yet You have brought us day by day, step-by-step to this point where we are at one of the most important days of the year that we celebrate and commemorate the world over. But this day, Christmas, represents one of the most profound and impactful things that have ever happened in human history. And, so, we prepare our hearts as we move into this new week with Christmas Eve upon us tomorrow and Christmas Day. There’s  a lot of festivities, so there’s a lot going on, there’s a lot of running around, there’s a lot of last-minute preparations, there’s all kinds of ways to be completely and utterly distracted from what is really going on here. And what is really going on here is a mystery. And, so, Holy Spirit, come and allow us to have space in our hearts to contemplate the longing for a Savior, and the arrival of a Savior. And we thank You, Jesus, for that very thing, for Your arrival and for Your life and for Your redemption. The world has never been the same and we certainly aren’t the same because of it. So, come Holy Spirit as we enter into these next few days. Keep us rooted in and what these days represent, not only to our lives and our families but to humanity. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, and, of course, where you find out what’s going on around here.

This is the beginning of the final full week of the year 2018, right? And that obviously includes, you know, everything that’s going on today, it includes Christmas Eve tomorrow, and Christmas Day, Tuesday. So, those days are kinda spoken for. So, we’re like running out of days. We’re moving our way rapidly toward the end of the year and in the end of our time spending this year in the Bible. One week from tomorrow will be the last day that we have to read from the Scriptures in 2018. So, yes, right now everything is all Christmas as it should be. And, yes, let’s immerse our self in everything that the wonder of the season can bring. And I wish…hope, hope, hope, hope for you and your family and everyone that you love…and may you enjoy this final Sunday of Advent and moving us into Christmas Eve.

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

And, as always, no matter the season and no matter what’s going on we are a community and we are here for each other. If you’ve 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 and Praise:

Hi Daily Audio Bible family, this is Anna from Los Angeles California and I wanted to give a praise report. There have been people paying and I’ve felt your prayers for my health, for my hair to grow back, for my skin to clear, for my digestive problems to go away. And I have to say, praise Jesus, I am experiencing healing. My hair is growing back. In fact, it’s growing close to an inch a month and I’m just so excited to have this restored. Also, I’ve been asking everyone to pray that my female relationships have been restored. I lost three female friendships this year and every single one of those relationships is starting to be restored. Specifically, two of the women reached out to me without me contacting them and asked for forgiveness. And praise the Lord that He’s the God of restoration. Please continue to pray for Cameron. He’s the young man that I was involved with and because we’re in different places with Christ we cannot be together but continue to pray. I have so much hope for him. Pray that God would set him free and bring him into the family of God, bring him home, and bring us back together in restoration and wholeness. Lord God, I thank You that You are the God who heels and You are the God that answers and I’m claiming Psalms 65:5, it says that God is faithful to answer our prayers. So, thank you for praying in Jesus’ name. Lord we bless you.

Hey everyone, it’s Margo from Australia and I just heard the message left by the Prodigal and I just want to say to you, I’ve been in a similar place. I have been wanting to suicide quite a number of times and God has brought me to that in the most miraculous…well…in the most amazing way. It didn’t happen overnight supernaturally, but if God can do that for me He can do it for you. He doesn’t love me anymore than he loves you. I didn’t deserve His help and neither do you but God does it because He loves us. There is hope for you prodigal. There is hope because there is always hope with God. You may have hit rock bottom, but you know what that means? That means the only way to go now is up. I am going to be praying for you because my heart breaks for you. It’s clear you’ve had a terrible year. Can I encourage you to absolutely immerse yourself in the word of God? I’m talking burying yourself in the Bible every chance you get because that is where your hope and your joy will come from and the Lord will speak to you. He did it for me and He’ll do it for you. Every chance you get, read the Psalms, say them out loud, it’s a form of spiritual warfare, throwing in Satan’s face. Read the Psalms, the Psalms of David. David was where you are right now. King David has been in that place. Did you know the story of what happened with King David? I encourage you to read it. He did terrible things and got himself into a terrible situation and yet the Lord brought him out and he did it, I think, largely through praise. So, not only bury yourself in the word of God but also pray with Him daily even when you don’t feel like it. I will be praying…

Hello from beautiful Cincinnati Ohio, it is Daniel Johnson Junior and I am calling, it is today the 21st of December and I was listening to the prayer requests and I heard the message from the Prodigal and I just stopped the program and called in here. I just want to pray for you and also to encourage you. First of all, you know that you need help. You know that there is hope because you’ve reached out to this community. And you know that you really do not want to take your own life. And I am just begging you, I’m begging you to see through the lies that are being told to you by the enemy so that you can live and thrive. We were made more than just to survive we were made to thrive. And I think that’s my word for next year for myself. Yes, I have been down, and I have had times of…myself…some of what your experiencing. I can’t even imagine what you’re feeling…it’s just…but I know that you have to believe that there is just hope because you would not have reached out to this community. In the Scriptures, anytime that someone has taken a life it has always been looked at is not a good thing. Judas, King Saul, his armor bearer. Those types of things, all those were not looked at as a good thing. And if you decided to, you know, take your own life, it is more…you’re going to hurt more people then you really realize. You are so much worth…you are worth so much more than you realize, and I just want to encourage you and I pray for you. God, please help, reach out right now into this brother’s life and encourage him Lord. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family, this is Dave from Southwest Florida. I called in a while back just about financial problems with the business and my wife’s father. Every time it seems that I call in there are breakthroughs, almost instantly. And I don’t mean to treat this like a drive-through but it seems like your prayers are very, very effective. Thank you. I’ve been involved in a program here in Southwest Florida for several years called Gator Wilderness Boys Camp that works with troubled youth. They had a counselor tragically killed Sunday night. We had just spent several hours with him and after we left he got on his motorcycle and was hit head-on by a truck that came over into his lane. He was taking care of 8 boys 24 hours a day. He was a parent basically to them. Also, there have been other staff members who have been coming under attack. One has a brain tumor, had a brain tumor, he just had surgery. Another has testicular cancer that spread to liver and lungs. And then there’s also a young lady who works there in her early 20s that developed heart problems. It just really seems like the place is coming under spiritual attack. But please, please pray for them. Again, the name is Gator Wilderness Boys Camp. Thanks.

12/22/2018 DAB Transcript

Zechariah 1:1-2:21, Revelation 12:1-17, Psalms 140:1-13, Proverbs 30:17

Today is the 22nd day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is a joy to be here with you on Christmas Eve Eve Eve but we’re or headed right into it. We’re ending another of our weeks together and turning the corner into a new weekend. We’ll be greeted by a shiny, sparkly, brand-new blinking Christmas and I’m looking forward to that and I hope you are too. So, we’ve been reading from the New Living Translation this week and that’s how we will finish our week off. And we’ll read from Zechariah chapter 2 verse 1 through 3 verse 10 today.

Commentary:

Alright. So, we’re only days away from Christmas and, you know, if you’ve got kids then they’re probably counting down the hours at this point. And some of us are preparing to travel and we’re packing and getting ready for that and others are making preparations to receive those who are traveling in and that can be across town, that could be from across the ocean, but we’re preparing to you to be together. This coming back together is the joy…one of the joys of Christmas and it should be. And those that have been around us our whole lives, right, maybe as siblings or parents, uncles, aunts, cousins will be reunited. But even though those childhood days may be gone, we’re adults now, maybe even have families of our own or maybe we’re in another city and we’ve built our own life there. When we all get back together it doesn’t take long to fall back into the role we played when we were younger. So, those young, soft places inside, they start getting touched and maybe old words of teasing or scorn, they start to creep in and then the strangeness between generations and, you know, maybe different people in our family hold different convictions than we do. And, so, all these things start rubbing against each other and then before we know it something volatile gets said, and they’re words that kind of just hang out there just waiting to explode and create a bad day and maybe even a bad holiday experience. So, the book of Psalms today gave us some sage advice for navigating the next few days that we’re heading into. The psalmist says, “take control of what I say oh Lord and guard my lips. Don’t let me drift toward evil or take part in acts of wickedness. Don’t let me share in the delicacies of those who do wrong. Let the godly strike me. It will be a kindness. If they correct me it is soothing medicine. Don’t let me refuse it.” So, we should take that Psalm to heart and let it discipline us in advance so that we don’t find ourselves being the one who says the volatile thing, the thing that’s going to blow everything else up and the dominoes fall and the holiday’s…well…then they get a black mark over them and there are tears and there are apologies and it’s it doesn’t have to happen. So, king David, he’s the one who gave us the words to this prayer but the prayer itself, it forces us to make choices now, right, before the first gift gets unwrapped because in the heat of the moment that’s not the time to start making decisions about how you’re gonna handle your words, right? In the heat of the moment words form and they get spat into the world and they can’t be taken back. So, we have to remember that we were…when we were a kid…you know all these old things start to seep into the family dynamic. That is not who we are. Like, we’re not who we were when we began this journey this year. We spent almost a whole year in the Bible together. We are not the same as we were when we started. And, so, rather than, you know, diving into that haze of conflict that can erupt we can choose to bring light and life and good news where we would have once maybe brought darkness. But if we’re going to do that we have to choose in advance. Like we have to choose now how we’re going to handle ourselves so that in the heat of the moment we can remember, I’ve already made my decision how I’m gonna deal with this. So, let’s remember. I mean, tomorrow is the is the last Sunday of Advent and then it’s Christmas Eve and then it’s Christmas. And this season is the season that reveals that God is not willing to withdraw from our story and its the season that shows us how deeply He’s desiring to be a part of our lives and how intensely He wants to be with us no matter who we are. And that includes those that we find ourselves in conflict with all of the time. So, this is our opportunity to give the joy of Christmas or we can withhold it and see what happens. But whatever we’re gonna do, if we choose in advance we have such a better chance of actually seeing it through.

Prayer:

Father, we pray along with the psalmist. Take control of what I say Lord. Guard my lips. Don’t let me drift toward evil or take part in acts of wickedness during this holiday season when I am observing the fact that You came to rescue me from all of that. Don’t let me share in the delicacies of those who do wrong. Come Holy Spirit and flow through me. Let me be an agent of light and life and good news to my family and my loved ones. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, its where you find out what’s happening.

And it’s Christmas time and that’s what’s happening. I went to a Christmas program last night. I go to one tomorrow. So, these kinds of things are happening right? And then Christmas Eve we normally do a candlelight service. And, so, it is certainly Christmas time and I doubt anyone of you are surprised by that. Tomorrow is the last Sunday in the season of Advent. And the Christmas Eve on Monday will be the last day of Advent. And, of course, Advent is a means arrival. So, it’s a season to contemplate the arrival of what God did by sending His Son to earth to become one of us and all that the work of Christ represents, not only in our own hearts, but to humanity. So, try to stay in the rhythm, try to find some time to contemplate that. Just sit with that, enjoy some rest, and some silence, and some quiet.

I’ve talked to you about the family Christmas album that we have. You can listen to that, like, wherever you get your music. Like, if you have Apple music or wherever you stream music or get music, you can get the family Christmas album, just search for my name. It’s kinda made for exactly what we’re talking about. It’s the kind of record that you want turn the Christmas lights on and everything else off and just kind of immerse yourself in the season. So, this is something that we have to fight for the closer that we get to Christmas because it’s so busy and yet we can be so busy that we miss what’s actually happening and what this season represents. And, so, try to find some time one way or the other, even if it’s just a few minutes even if it’s to still than the noise that’s going on and just have some inner serenity as we contemplate that God came for us in person. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible in these remaining days of the year than thank you profoundly and humbly for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner 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 and Praise:

Hi, this is a message for the Prodigal. I just wanted to say that your one of the people whose voices I always recognize the moment you start calling. And your calls are always very insightful and always make a real impact on me. And we really don’t want you to go. You’re needed in this community and no matter how you may feel bad about yourself we love you and God loves you and you’re needed. And I’m calling from Australia. You’re making an impact all around the world and we just don’t want you to go. We need you. So, we hope to continue to hear from you. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Wes, and I’m actually a first-time caller here and I just wanted to start out by saying a huge thanks to Brian and Jill for this amazing podcast. I try to listen to it every day when I can and I’m really just calling in for a person called Prodigal. It just sounds like he’s going through really dark times right now and I can’t imagine what that’s like. And I just have a Bible verse for you, it’s Psalm 23:4 and its, “even though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me.” And this verse has helped me get through dark times as well. And just know that God really loves you and I don’t think he created…I know he didn’t create a single human being with the intention to commit suicide. So, we are all praying for you here at the Daily Audio Bible and we want what’s best for you and hopefully you can reach out to other people like maybe in your area as well and hopefully you guys can talk and stuff like. But we’re praying for you and hope for the best.

Hey DAB family, this is Byron out in Florida calling for John, calls himself the Prodigal. Amen, thanks so much for your call on the 21st. I’m sorry you’ve been going through such a rough time having lost so much. I’m thankful that you did call, I’m thankful as always, your honesty. I just want to encourage you that God isn’t done with you yet, not by a long shot. And I don’t know if you heard it but on the same day the first call that aired was from Walta and her encouragement I think was very important for you. And that fact that you wake up every morning with your eyes open is hard and fast proof that God isn’t finished with you yet and He still is more for you to do. Walta doesn’t call herself the burning bush for no reason. She’s been through it and back again and still going through it. So, for her to find that insight is tremendously encouraging not only for me but for you. God is not done with you. You’re searching the Scriptures to find validation for suicide. Search the Scriptures for validations for reasons still being here, that He who began a good work in you will see it to completion. He’ll give wisdom to anyone who asks for it. And our Lord is the Lord who wept when He saw the pain and loss that His children endured. God knows how you feel He’s not far from you, He’s right beside you. So, wait on Him and He will bring it all back. We’re praying for your brother. I love you. Call in again, even if you don’t know what you’re gonna say, we want to hear from you. Bye.

Hi this is Toni from Germany and this call is specifically for the Prodigal. I am grateful that you listened to the priest and I would like you to go back to him. He asked you to come to us. I ask you to go back to him. And then the other thing is, I’m not gonna tell you to do this though I would love to, go get another dog. Alright? I want to as does everyone else on Daily Audio Bible listening to hear your victory story. So, I thank you for hanging in there, for giving thanks to the Lord even in your suffering. And then let’s watch and see how the Lord will help you come to victory in 2019. I’m looking forward to your victory story and that you will be able to bless many others as a result. God bless you. I’ll be praying.

This is for Prodigal. I was in the dollar store last night and there was a lady and two kids behind me in a long line. There was one big kid and then the smaller kid. The bigger kid had a pack of glow sticks and the toddler was screaming for them. The mom opened the pack and gave him one which stopped the tears. He walked around with it smiling and the bigger boy took it and the toddler started screaming again. Just as the mom was about to do something the older child took bent the glow stick and handed it back to the toddler. As we walked outside the store at the same time the toddler noticed that the stick was now glowing, and his brother said, “I had to break it so that you could get the full effect from it.” I could hear that saying to me, “I had to break you to show you why I created you. You had to go through it so that you can fulfill your purpose.” The precious child was happy just swinging that unbroken glow stick around in the air because he didn’t understand what it was created to do, which was to glow. There’s some people who will be contentious being but some of us that God has chosen, we have to be broken, we have to get sick, we have to lose a job, we have to we go through divorce, we have to burry our spouse, our parents, our best friend and / or our child. In those moments of desperation God is breaking us but when the breaking is done then we’ll be able to see the reason for which we were created. So, when you see us glowing just know that we have been broken but healed by His grace and His mercy. You can keep going the way you’ve been going Prodigal, knowing where that may lead, or you can give yourself a real chance for a better life. The fact that you’re listening to this shows that you want another option. There’s only one real source of hope for a life that possesses meaning, fulfillment and joy and that source is Jesus Christ as you know. Speaking about his followers Jesus said in John 10:10, I have come that they may have life and to have it to the full. Through your personal relationship with Jesus Christ, Prodigal, you can experience overflowing love and forgiveness and peace and joy in your…

Good morning daily audio Bible family, this is Dorothy from Dustin. And I just heard Prodigal call and my heart is breaking for you. Please, please don’t take your life because God gave it to you and he has a purpose for you and a plan for you and He is the great Redeemer, He is the God of second chances. Please don’t do this. I know it’s hard. It’s hard for me it’s hard for so many people at this time of year but your God is a great God and He loves you so very much. He has a plan for you. Don’t take His plan. This time next year will be a faint memory and He’s gonna do something wonderful for you and let that take place. I’m praying for you and I know so many others are. Lord Jesus, we lift Prodigal up to you right now. We thank You for his life. We know how much You love him. Please show him Your love, reveal it to him through people and through situations Lord. At this time of year Lord, we thank You for Your birth, we thank You for coming for us and we thank You for Your son prodigal. Bless him Lord Jesus. Merry Christmas my family. Thank you for this Brian. Thank you for this outreach it’s so precious to me and Sue so many. Merry Christmas.

Hey, my brother Prodigal, I heard you loud and clear today. Man, I balled my eyes out for a second. I am so encouraged that you called. God Almighty is answering your prayers. I too have been there. This is Alex from San Diego, Friday the 21st. My friend, I hope you have ears to hear right now. It’s to all the prodigal’s out there who have had those thoughts, who have not yet been transformed by the renewing of their mind. My answer is a revelation to me where Jesus told me, yes you must die, you must pick up your cross and follow me. We’re gonna go die. Where gonna go die that old man, that old way of thinking. That arrogant, prideful, selfish jerk that I once was had to die, and I needed to be made new and I found my answers in Romans chapter 8. My plan sat there in plain sight. In order to lose my life, I needed to find it. No, I needed to lose my life completely to find it. In the name of Jesus I pray that you hear these words. Romans 8:13 told me finally one day and I got it. It says if you, Alex, if you, Prodigal, if you put to death the deed of the flesh you will live. And I started to get a deeper understanding that I had a job to do. I had to put down that arrogance, I had to put down that anger. I had to stop pointing and picking on things on my computer that I did not need to point and click on. I needed to stop listening to that music that didn’t give me anything but in my old thoughts. I had to transfer my whole way of doing things so that I could find a new life and I pray that this message goes out and that its put on the air and that you hear it my friend, that you stop doing what you’ve been doing and become that born-again spirit, man that can find the abundant life. You cannot have a victory in those old thoughts that you’re thinking right now. They don’t belong. That’s the adversary. He wants to take you out. In God Almighty reaching through these airwaves.

12/21/2018 DAB Transcript

Zechariah 1:1-2:21, Revelation 12:1-17, Psalms 140:1-13, Proverbs 30:17

Today is the 21st day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. And, of course, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today as it is every day as we come in out of the weather and warm ourselves around this global campfire that is our community. So, I’m thrilled that we can have this next few minutes together as we immerse ourselves in the Scriptures and step away from whatever’s going on and just center ourselves in God’s word. So, we’ve been reading a book a day for a while now, right, as we’re moving to the minor prophets and as we were moving us through some of the shorter letters in the New Testament. So, today’s kind of no different, but it is. We are beginning a new book of minor prophecy in the Old Testament but we’re not gonna finish it today. In fact, this book is going to bring us a right up to the last two days of the year and this book is called Zechariah.

Introduction to the book of Zechariah:

So, yesterday, we read in its entirety the book of Haggai. Zechariah and Haggai were contemporaries even though Zechariah continued his ministry long after Haggai and then they were prophesying at the same place and at the same time and for the same reason, the rebuilding of the temple. So, Zechariah’s grandfather, Iddo, that was named among the first leaders of the priestly families to return from exile  was Zerubbabel. So, this tells us that Zechariah was probably a priest, or at least of a priestly family. His name means God remembers and this covenantal remembering and the resulting restoration from it is a central theme of Zechariah. Now, since we’re not reading Zechariah in one sitting, like today, we know that, obviously, Zechariah is much longer than Haggai and it’s far broader in scope and style. For example, Zechariah tells of a night visions that he experienced that are apocalyptic in nature and highly symbolic much like what we’re reading in the book of Revelation. So, in light of rebuilding the temple God was initiating a far broader plan of sweeping restoration but the people were going to have to respond and how would they respond? They would respond the same way that we have to respond, with one of the central themes that runs its way all the way through the Bible, “return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. Don’t be like your ancestors, who wouldn’t listen or pay attention when the earlier prophets told them this is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says. Turn from your evil ways and stop all your evil practices. Where are your ancestors now?” So, obviously, come back, come home, return to me. This is such a central theme in the prophet’s and we it, here in the book of Zechariah. But that’s not all there is in Zechariah. Zechariah also foretells a coming Messiah with verses that we should be able to instantly recognize. For example, “rejoice oh people of Zion. Shout in triumph oh people of Jerusalem. Look, your kind is coming to you. He is a righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey, riding on a donkey’s colt.” So, because of these utterances Zechariah is quoted in Matthew, in Mark, in John, and in Revelation in reference to Jesus. And ultimately Zechariah is supposed to be received as prophetic encouragement and to serve as a reminder that God is absolutely sovereign in all things at all times and in all places. An, so, let’s take that encouragement and lean into that encouragement and lean into the sovereignty of our Father as we learn to endure, which is also such a central theme of apocalyptic literature like book of Revelation. So, what we can see in Zechariah is that our endurance is not purposeless, that all of this is headed somewhere, and all that we go through is headed somewhere good if we will return to God. And, so, we begin. Zechariah chapter 1 verse 1 through verse 21 today. And we’re reading from the New Living Translation this week.

Prayer:

Once again Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for the way that it speaks every day. For example, in the Psalms today, we can very easily pray along with the ancient warrior poet King David. You are our God. Listen Lord to our cries for mercy. Lord, Sovereign God, the strong one who rescues us. You protected us on the day of battle. Lord, do not let evil people have their way. Do not let their evil schemes succeed. We know that You will help those who are persecuted. We know that You will give justice to the poor. We will praise Your name because You have allowed us to live in Your presence. And yes, oh sovereign Lord, we agree, we pray, let it be so, You are the sovereign God, You are the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, You are just and true. And, so, we pray Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven and may this begin in our own hearts. Come Holy Spirit we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

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

And, you know, it’s Christmas. So, happy merry Christmas as we move into the weekend and…well…you know what happens at the other side of this weekend, right? I mean Christmas Eve is Monday and Christmas Day is Tuesday. So, we’re there and let’s enjoy it. Like we were talking about yesterday, let’s make sure that we find some time to just contemplate and enjoy and relax and appreciate what this whole season represents to the world and what it has meant to our lives.

All the Christmas stuff we’ve been talking about for the last month, that’s all available in the Shop at the Daily Audio Bible Shop and you can check that out.

The More Gathering, if you’re like, looking for the unique, last-minute gift that you can give, check out moregathering.com. That’s a gift that’s gonna last a lot longer than a few days or even a few weeks or even a few months. So, definitely check into that.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner 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 and Praise:

Good morning DABbers, I am a Burning Bush that will not be Devoured for the Glory of Our God and King. There’s a song, I’m not going to sing it, I’m going to share in the lyrics for you guys. It has been blessing my heart lately. It is a Liberian song and in Liberian __ the song says __. And what he’s basically saying to God, God why should I ruin your reputation? Some people go to bed at night and may never wake up. I went to sleep at night and I woke up. So, why should I ruin your reputation God? You’ve blessing me. And, so, this morning I’m sitting here in my heart is a little heavy because I’ve been having some issues at work and I ask you guys to pray for me at this new job, that God will use me as a light and bless me, give me favor and wisdom. And as I was tempted to feel down about it I realized that the fact that I woke up this morning means that God still has an assignment for me. That is my mission. I wake up in the morning, open my eyes, and I can see. That is evidence of…even if I could see, I wake up and I breathe air. That is evidence that God has a plan for me today. And why should I ruin His reputation? Why should I say, oh woe is me? No. I am blessed. I am blessed. I am blessed, highly favored, and I have been sent out on a mission. So, I’m sharing this with you guys. I hope that it’s life to somebody and I‘m heading out to Liberia tomorrow to bury my aunt. Please pray for me for God to go ahead of me. I love you guys so much. Hope you have a wonderful week.

Hey, this is Kevin from the rolling hills of Arkansas. I have really never called in for a prayer request but today I was listening to the 16th when Dash called in and he’s struggling with anxiety and sitting in his car and it’s exactly what my son Benjamin is going through. And, so, I just really needed to call. It confirmed to me that there’s a lot of people out there that struggle with some type of mental illness or just tormenting things in their mind. So, I just want to play for Dash and Benji and I hope you all can keep all those others in prayer that need it. Dear Lord, be with Dash today and be with Benji. Just clear their minds from this anxiety. Help them to get the care they need. Help all those in the DAB land that suffer with the same. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Love you guys. Thanks. Keep it up Brian and family. God bless. Bye-bye.

Hi everyone it’s Nicholai in California and I’m calling in regards to a call I heard on the community prayer, I think Laura the conqueror from Colorado, she’s the one who is going through a divorce from an abusive relationship, but she said she’s just been having a lot of difficulties of having a dream where she can’t, you know, get anywhere forward and her seat is taken. I just want to say congratulations, the fact that you are leaving this relationship. It is more difficult than people know to leave an abusive relationship and you are doing it and that is a huge deal. And yes, are you going to have to overcome a lot of difficult things in the process of getting away from this, but you are a warrior and you’re going to make it and you going to find your seat. There is a seat for you and the space for you. And God is going to reward you for all of this. He has so much in store for you that you can’t even imagine. I think it’s just the enemy trying to scare you and trying to stop you from moving forward and from getting away from this relationship but there is a safe haven for you and there is a glorious throne, not just a seat, there’s a throne waiting for you. So, just want you to know that I’m praying for you and that you’re not alone and that you’re supported all the way out you’re in California and you’re going to make it and you’re going to find your throne. Hope you have a great day. Bye.

Hey guys, how you doing? It’s the prodigal. First of all, let me say that I feel all you all’s pain and I really do pray for you. And times are tough for a lot of people especially this time of year, it’s really bad. The main reason for my call is I told my priest, I promised my priest I’d reach out to someone. I am overwhelmed with the thought of committing suicide. I’ve thought about it before, but this year’s been the worst year of my life. I lost everything, I mean absolutely frigging everything. And it’s all because of my pride and because myself hatred. And I’m just figuring that out now. So, the message said His love endures forever today, but I’m not sure I can anymore. I’m so beaten down and I’ve got nothing to look forward to. This year’s word was Hope. My word this year’s loss. It’s bad enough I drove off my best friend, my wife of 23 years. She was everything to me except I drove her away, but she took my dog and the only dog I’ve ever owned in my life and my dog died. So, it’s just a year of total loss. My house, my money, my business going bankrupt. It’s on and on and on and on and on. I just don’t have any more gas in the tank. So, just reaching out asking your prayers. I don’t know how much longer I can stand this. I fight the good fight, which I’ve already fought and been doing research whether suicide is a mortal sin or not. I can’t find that answer either. So, __ I’m lost. And family I pray for you all. God, bless. Maybe I’ll talk to you in the future. We’ll see. God bless and have a Merry Christmas.

12/20/2018 DAB Transcript

Haggai 1:1-2:23, Revelation 11:1-19, Psalms 139:1-24, Proverbs 30:15-16

Today is the 20th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it’s fantastic to be here with you today, taking the next step forward toward the end of this week, towards Christmas, which is just around the corner and eventually toward the end of this year, which is right upon us in the conclusion of our journey this year through the entire Bible. So, as we enter into our reading today we are following the tradition that seems to happen at the end of the year. We’re moving through books rapidly and I we have a brand-new book today that we’ll read in its entirety, the book of Haggai, which is the 10th of the 12 books known as the minor prophets.

Introduction to the book of Haggai:

And like so many of the authors of the minor prophets, we don’t we don’t know much that could give us a biographical sketch of Haggai. We know that he was among those living in Jerusalem who had returned from the Babylonian exile. He was probably one of the first waves of the exiles to return. We also know that he had access to people who were in power because the opening verse indicates that his message was delivered to Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah. And we certainly learned Zerubbabel’s story in the book of Ezra and Nehemiah, but also Joshua, the high priest, is mentioned in Haggai. So, he had access to the to those who were in power and who can make decisions. And Haggai’s message was largely motivational, but for us to understand why we need a very short timeline, which happens to be a review of the territory we’ve covered. So, Babylon conquered Jerusalem as we know and lead her people into exile and this happened around 586 B.C. And then Babylon was conquered by the Persian Empire in 539 B.C. And it was the Persian king Cyrus that allowed the first of the exiles to come back to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel’s leadership and this was around 538 B.C. So, Haggai’s message came 18 years after that in 520 B.C. In fact, Haggai’s prophecies are some of the most precisely dated utterances in the whole Bible because the dates are contained in the book and they run between August 29th and December 18th 520 B.C. And, so, during the 18 years that the exiles had been coming back, the temple remained incomplete and there was political opposition and intimidation that was coming in from the surrounding peoples, and these had kind of stalled things out as it relates to the temple, but the people were building their own houses and rebuilding their own lives without the temple as the centerpiece, which had traditionally been the identity of the people. So, through the prophet Haggai, God voiced His displeasure at this. “Why are you living in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins” He asks. And then God revealed that there were repercussions whether they realized what they were doing or not, that since their return they had worked hard and toiled and attempted to rebuild but that had been thwarted all along the way and their crops had yielded their intended yield because they’d become self-absorbed and left God’s temple neglected and they needed to change their priorities and get busy because God had future plans of judgment. So, God commanded them, go up into the hills, bring down timber, rebuild my house and then I’ll take pleasure in it and be honored. So, according to Haggai, construction started again September 21st, 520 B.C. and less than a month later, on October 17th of the same year God spoke again and He basically said, you know, does anybody remember what the temple used to be like? And now that you can look at what you’re rebuilding you can see that it’s nothing like that in terms of its splendor. But God encouraged the leaders to be strong, to keep going, and not be afraid. And, so, obviously God wanted to restore the temple. It was the central thing that represented covenantal life in the community of God’s people. But God had specific plans for the work and he wanted no more delay because, actually, the people had been working their butt off, right? They’d been working to rebuild a life and a country but they had been thwarted at every turn, even with the weather when what God had intended was that the Temple be rebuilt, reassert itself as the centerpiece of covenantal life, and then God would draw the riches from the surrounding nations into the temple and back into the land. In other words, if they had put God first their toll hill would’ve been more fruitful, which is a lesson every one of us can at least be reminded of often. And, so, with that we begin. We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. Haggai, chapter 1 verse 1 through 2:23

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word, we thank you for the message in the prophet Haggai that essentially tells us, seek you first, then all these things will be added unto us. And we thank you for this reminder in this season, not only in this season of commercialism and giving but also as we come to the close of the year. One of the ways that we will begin the new year strong is to finish this one well. And, so, we thank you for these reminders every step of the way. We thank you for what you’ve reminded us of in Proverbs, that there are four things never say enough. And, yeah, we can say the grave and the barren womb and the thirsty desert and the blazing fire for sure, but it is our desire that another be added to that list, that our longing for you, that we would never be able to say enough, that we would never be satisfied, that our lives would hunger and thirst for your righteousness all of our days because that is not only how we will finish a year strong and begin a new one well, it is how we will survive and navigate in this world. So, come Holy Spirit and lead us forward into all truth we ask in the mighty name of Jesus as we hunger and thirst after you. Come Holy Spirit we pray. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, it’s, of course, home base, and, of course, where you find out what’s going on around here.

And it’s Christmas time and the next few days it will get more and more increasingly all things Christmas. And this is the time to just immerse ourselves, slow things down to the best of our ability, at least on the inside, take a breath and enjoy what is happening and the wonder of the Lord coming for us. And, so, be sure to do that all the Christmas stuff that we’ve been talking about, you know, since the beginning of this month, all that is available in the shop.

The More Gathering. You can find out about that at moregathering.com.

Don’t forget the family Christmas album that we released that is really…I guess…the best way that I’ve said it is the…it’s the way that I feel about it. It’s the perfect companion to just turning off the lights, turning the Christmas lights on, maybe lighting a fire, I don’t know, maybe having some hot cocoa and just doing exactly what we just talked about - slowing things down for a few minutes to just immerse ourselves in the wonder of what Christmas represents to humanity. So, I mean you can find that music, of course at dailyaudiobible.com but you can find it wherever you get your music. So, just search for my name and family Christmas and you’ll find it like if…iTunes or Apple Music or Google Play or Amazon Prime or wherever it is you listen to your music you can find it. So, bring that in as a part of your rhythm of trying to make some space to let the wonder of Christmas be a part of the celebration as opposed to just the bombastic, overwhelming festivity of it, which is important. But it’s equally important that weat least carve out a little space to be in awe and wonder, right? Joy to the world the Lord has come, let Earth receive her King! This is big stuff we’re talking about. So, take some time to contemplate that.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is, of course, a link that lives on the homepage. If you are using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner 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.

12/19/2018 DAB Transcript

Zephaniah 1:1-3:20, Revelation 10:1-11, Psalms 138:1-8, Proverbs 30:11-14

Today is the 19th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is great to be here with you on hump day, and we’re inside of a week for Christmas now. So, my son, Ezekiel, he’s starting to count down the days, probably your kids are too. And I don’t know if its busy around your neck of the woods but it’s definitely busy around ours. So, having this rhythm, this space, this sacred space that we create each day together around this global campfire for the Scriptures to be poured into our lives is an anchor. So, let’s get to that. So, it’s no surprise that we we’ve been moving rapidly through the minor prophets in the Old Testament and previous to that we had moved rapidly through a number of letters in the New Testament. So, we’ve been encountering new books of the Bible regularly as the end of the year approaches. Today is no different. Today we’ll read another short but complete prophetic book. And this is the ninth of the minor prophets the book of Zephaniah.

Introduction to the book of Zephaniah:

Zephaniah, as with so many of the other minor prophets, we know very little about who Zephaniah was. The only substantial information we have is found in the first verse of the book, which reads the Lord gave this message to Zephaniah when Josiah son of Amon was king of Judah. Zephaniah was the son of Koshy, son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah. So, I mean, we could go, well that’s all I really need to know about Zephaniah other than the fact that whatever it was that he wrote down ended up in the Bible. So, I know what I need to know. But what’s interesting about the way this description of Zephaniah is given is that four generations are listed. Usually in the Bible if you’re trying to identify a person they will be identified by their father and maybe the grandfather, but in this case,  we’re going back for four generations. And even though it’s not certain, this is might be because Zephaniah was a descendent of the good and reforming King, Hezekiah, which would explain Zephaniah’s awareness of the world surrounding him. And we’ll see that he’s aware as we read the book. And this would also of likely lend credibility to his prophetic work. Like if he was a direct descendent of the good King Hezekiah not only would it have given his voice some standing in the culture it would’ve also given credibility to the prophecy. So, Zephaniah’s name means God has hidden and he states that his message was given during the reign of Josiah. So, this would place him in the early to mid-600s B.C. and make him a contemporary with other prophets like Jeremiah. And, so, many scholars believe that Zephaniah was familiar with the writings of prophets like Isaiah because of the similarities in language and tone. Another thing that’s unique is that a lot of the works of prophecy, whether major or longer works of prophecy or the minor prophets, they’re specifically targeted to a specific group of people, but Zephaniah actually concerns his prophetic work basically with the judgment of the known world, and that included Judah. And according to Zephaniah, this judgment of evil was eminent. And, so, to that end the day of the Lord is a central theme throughout Zephaniah. And with the day of the Lord in view Zephaniah encourages his readers towards repentance before it’s too late. In fact, he says as much, “seek the Lord all who are humble and follow his commands. Seek to do what is right and to live humbly, perhaps even yet the Lord will protect you, protect you from His anger on that day of destruction.” So, the day of the Lord and, I mean, we’re kind of in some of this territory in the book of Revelation as well. This can evoke ominous imagery of terrible devastation and it can certainly give fear and dread, but we have to remember that it was evil that God wanted to eradicate, it wasn’t people, it was evil, it was deception. But those who were unwilling to rid themselves of evil would indeed be swept away no matter or where they were from according to Zephaniah. But to those who would move through this great day of the Lord would move through with a specific posture and they would survive and, quoting Zephaniah, “those who are left will be the lowly and humble, for it is they who trust in the name of the Lord.” And, as is typical as in the prophetic works, the conclusion of judgment then brings the heralding of a new and pure beginning and Zephaniah is no different, although judgment is foretold and its widespread judgment, so also is restoration. According to Zephaniah, “the Lord will remove His hand of judgment and will disperse the armies of your enemy and the Lord himself, the King of Israel, will live among you, and at last your troubles will be over and you will never again fear disaster.” So, we have certainly end in a tremendously encouraging place. So, with all of this being said, let’s read the book of Zephaniah. We’re reading from the new living translation this week. Zephaniah 1:1 through 3:20.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word, we thank you for all that you speak to us each day through your word and the way that your word really does go deep within us and begin to subtly and slowly but methodically and surely change our perspective on nearly everything. And, so, we really have reached a point in the year that we can look back to the beginning of this year and realize we’re not the same person we were. It’s not that everything about us has changed, it’s not that we are struggle free, it’s not that we still don’t have challenges, and that we still don’t have to face hardships, but the way that we’re approaching things is being transformed, and we can look back through this period of time where we’ve invested every single day into your word and we can see that the process of sanctification is in fact real,  it really is happening within us. You truly are making us holy, you truly are changing the way that we see and do everything. And, yes, we acknowledge we have so far to go. But father, we worship you for how far you have brought us. Thank you. We know that this will continue as we continue to apply your word into our lives. So, come Holy Spirit, lead us forward, lead us into all truth, lead us on the narrow path that leads to life, we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

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

And, you know, how many more ways are there to say it’s Christmas time around here. But the Daily Audio Bible family Christmas is coming up, hopefully tomorrow. And, so, we have this annual Christmas party that we share together and that will be fun. It will just show up as an extra episode. And, so excited about that and that you are probably well…I don’t know…everybody has their own traditions. And even in the United States we have our own traditions about Christmas. So, traditions are different all over the world but the they might include special church, you know, presentations, plays, musicals, these kinds of things. That usually happens over the next few days and into the weekend and then obviously Monday’s gonna be Christmas eve and I just can't…it’s here. Like…I so deeply remember, like it was yesterday, this point in the year last year and it’s hard to believe a year has gone by and here we are about to, you know, look into Christmas and then into the eyes of a brand-new, sparkly, shiny new year. So, let’s drink it in and enjoy it for all that it brings to us because it really is a unique time of year. Truly, we the way that we feel during this time of year and believe it or not, that’s not always a positive thing. So, for some people it’s a deep time of reflection and remembrance. It’s not necessarily even a happy time, but what comes up around this time, no matter what’s coming up inside of us, it kind of only comes up this way, this time of year. So, whatever is coming up, whether feelings of home, whether feelings of loneliness, whether feeling grief for someone that you’ve lost, or whether feeling overjoyed that there will be a reuniting of your family, feel it is the point, like, rather than going one set of feelings is a good and these other experiences need to be suppressed. We suppress them all the time. And then something happens around this time of year and things begin to come up and their invitation to invite Jesus, this Christmas child, into these situations, allowing Him to speak into them, allowing Him to grieve with us allowing Him to heal broken places, allowing Him to wide eyed laugh and rejoice with us, and maybe even lead us into a place of peace that we thought that we wouldn’t be able to experience all because we just started paying attention that He is near. So, embrace that as we move into these next couple of days.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if the mail is your preference, 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.