Category: DAB Transcripts

Habakkuk 1:1-3:19, Rev 9:1-21, Ps 137:1-9, Pr 30:10

Today is the 18^th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian and it is always a pleasure, always an honor, always a joy to be here with you in your presence, and us together in the Lord’s presence centered around the rhythm of the Scripture. It’s always a joy, always a pleasure. So, we read in its entirety the book of Nahum yesterday and I mentioned that we might be observing a rhythm and that is the fact, that we’re reading basically a book a day. And we’ve been doing this for a while. We’ were reading through the letters in the New Testament and some of those are short. And now that we are in the minor prophets in the Old Testament we’re kind of moving through those rapidly because there short and today is no different. We will read the 8^th of the minor prophets in its entirety today, the book of Habakkuk.

Introduction to the book of Habakkuk:

Habakkuk, like a lot of the other minor prophets, almost nothing is known about Habakkuk’s life and in this case maybe less than any other biblical writer. There is a Jewish tradition that speaks of him as the son of the Shunamite woman who was resurrected through the prophet Elisha back in the book of second Kings. There’s another tradition found in the apocryphal book Bell and the Dragon that depicts Habakkuk ministering to Daniel while he was in the Lions den. Of course, these are traditions and scholars find particularly the last one about Daniel to be the stuff of legend. But many verses in Habakkuk are very well known. One in particular, “but the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God.” That’s often repeated in the writings of the apostle Paul, right? “The righteous will live by faith but the just to live by faith.” And this is also expounded on in the book of Hebrews. So, this is a core doctrine of the Christian faith that finds some of its roots in the Old Testament book of Habakkuk. As far as the tone of this book, because it’s poetic, because it has kind of a lyrical form, especially as it closes, there’s like a closing Psalm or hymn, some have assumed that Habakkuk was possibly a temple musician. The book of Habakkuk is unique in that it contains a pointed conversation between the prophet Habakkuk and God, a conversation that moves from doubt all the way to worship. And we’ll see this in the second when we read it. Habakkuk begins by simply saying out loud what he was seeing in the world, “I’m surrounded by people who love to argue and fight. The laws become paralyzed. There is no justice in the courts. The wicked outnumber the righteous and justice has become perverted.” Habakkuk wanted to understand why God kept on allowing every evil imaginable almost as if he wasn’t paying attention at all. And then, God responded, but cryptically, that he would use the evil Babylonians to punish His own people, which left Habakkuk confused and perplexed. And, so, he’s crying out, God, rock You sent the Babylonians to correct us for our many sins but You’re pure, right? You can’t stand the sight of evil, are you gonna wink at what they’re doing to us? Are you gonna be silent while the wicked swallow up people who are more righteous? And then God responded that although the Babylonians would punish His people, they would not go unpunished in the end, they would be completely destroyed. And, so, this reveals that God wasn’t indifferent or that He wasn’t, like, you know, caught sleeping at the wheel, He wasn’t unaware at all, but that His sovereign plan was true and just. And, so, this ultimately led Habakkuk into worship. And, so, we begin and we’ll read to the end. Habakkuk chapter 1 verse 1 through 3 verse 19 today. And we’re reading from the new living translation this week.

Prayer:

We thank You Father, once again, for the community that You have established here that we call the Daily Audio Bible and we thank You for the image that we have in our minds of this global campfire, that we’re never alone, that whenever we push play we’re not alone, someone else somewhere is also listening. We’re coming around the global campfire for warmth and guidance and light but also for community and we thank You for this. And Father as we continue to move deeper into this holiday season, this being the last week of the Advent season, we continue to contemplate, we continue to embrace and acknowledge the longing in our souls that pulls us forward, the longing that tells us that there’s more to the story because there is. And as the children of Israel, as Your people of old were waiting for a savior to arrive, we are too, we’re waiting for Your second arrival, for Your return, for all things to be made new, for all things to be made right. And, so, as we continue to embrace this season, we invite Your Holy Spirit to come, lead us where our hearts need to go. There’s plenty of distraction, there’s all kinds of noise. Lead us where our hearts need ago. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

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

So, it’s Christmas time and we’re just days away from Christmas…I mean…look at the calendar. What is one week from today? Christmas day. So, we’re in the thick of Christmas and our Daily Audio bible family Christmas will be coming up later this week. And that is always a joyful time to spend around the global campfire with the Daily Audio bible community. And that just leads us right into all of the events of Christmas. So, yeah, let’s just breathe and enjoy these final days of the Advent season. Andyou know, for some people this is sort of the end of the flurry of activity, and all the gifts are kind of under the tree and everything is just settling in for the next few days and then other people are just getting started and it’s frantic. And whichever version of that or combination of that you are try, try to find some moments of just contemplation, slow the world down, this is a big deal that God came to rescue the earth. And this is why the earth celebrates in such a grand way, even though we’ve kind of forgotten the plot of the story. But let’s make sure that we stay connected to the plot of the story and the story of Christmas as we move into the season fully.

Remind you, if you are in the flurry of activity trying to figure what you’re gonna do for Christmas out for everybody, for the woman in your life, you may want to look at the More Gathering for women. And you get all the details at moregathering.com. So, check that out

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible here in these remaining days of the year, thank you profoundly for your partnership in the holiday season. There is a link on the homepage of 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.

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

Today is the 17^th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here with you today as we launch into our work week and march our way toward Christmas week, which is next week. So, today in the Old Testament, we are going to read, in its entirety, another book of prophecy, the book of Nahum, which is the seventh book in the minor prophets. And you’ll see a pattern emerging. We’re kind of moving through a book a day very often as we move through this part of the year and this part of the Scriptures.

Introduction to the book of Nahum:

Nahum, I mean just about nothing is known about Nahum’s life historically other than that his name means comfort and that he was from Elkosh, but whether that was a town or whether that was a village, like, where Elkosh actually is is unknown. Now, dating when Nahum might’ve lived or when he might’ve prophesied, this is a little bit easier because of the references within the prophetic book to specific historical events. So, for example, Nahum mentioned the Assyrian conquest of Thebes, which is in Egypt. Well this is historically known. So, this happened in 663 B.C. So, we know that Nahum was written after this date. And he also foretold the fall of Nineveh, which also is historically known and happened in 612 B.C. So, Nahum was likely fulfilling his prophetic calling within the years between those two events, right, between 663 B.C. and 612 B.C. And the reason for this prophecy was to foretell what we just talked about, the destruction of Nineveh, which was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire at that time. And if we’ll remember just a couple days ago we read the book of Jonah. And we have to remember like that harrowing journey to Ninevah to deliver a message of judgment and the Ninevites repented when Jonah prophesied. They repented for a time. Nahum’s prophecies against Nineveh happened almost a century and half after Jonah. And this Assyrian repentance didn’t last. And they were more brutal and evil than ever. And I mean, they're…just…contempt and mistreatment of people they had conquered was legendary, just their brutality. And by the time of Nahum’s prophecy they had destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and carried those 10 tribes of people into exile where they disappeared from history as like cohesive tribes. So, Nahum’s prophesying against the Ninevites the Assyrians and the city of Nineveh, but he wasn’t sent to the city as Jonah had been. Actually, many scholars believe Nahum prophesied from Jerusalem and that his prophetic work was actually intended for the inhabitants of Judah because a prophecy of the destruction of her enemies, especially after what Judah, which would been in the southern kingdom, especially after what they had just seen happen to their brothers and sisters in the northern kingdom. But then they would’ve received this prophecy as an encouragement and as words of comfort. So, Nahum reveals, and we’ll see this because we’ll read the whole thing here in a second, reveals that God is very merciful and patient but He is not a pushover any won’t stand for a nations sin forever. And, so, we begin and will read in its entirety Nahum. Chapter 1 verse 1 through 3:19 and we’re reading for the New Living Translation.

Prayer:

Thank You Father for Your word. Thank You for all that it brings into our lives and the way that it touches and move’s us forward. And we take to heart what was told to us over and over and over repeatedly in this ancient liturgical prayer in the Psalms, “Your faithful love endures forever”. 26 times in that Psalm alone, we were told this pounding and pounding and pounding into our hearts and against our doubts and against all the upheaval and chaos that the world can throw at us -  “Your faithful love endures forever.” There’s nothing we can do about that. We can stop it, we can’t increase it. It’s perfect, “Your faithful love endures forever.” So, yes, we indeed can ignore that fact, but it doesn’t change it. And, so, we don’t ignore it anymore, we embrace it fully, “Your faithful love endures forever”, and that means that Your faithful love for us endures forever, and that means that You love us each. That means that You love us each forever because Your faithful love will endure and it will endure whatever it has to endure so that it can love us forever. And, so, we see Father that not only are we being taught to endure in the Scriptures, but You are willing to endure with us. So, come Holy Spirit’s because we can endure anything if we’re inside Your faithful love. Come Jesus we pray. In Your precious name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

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

And it’s been kind of wall-to-wall Christmas time not only here but pretty much everywhere. For the last several weeks and so we’re no different, today is the shipping cut off date for the Daily Audio Bible family Christmas Box 2018 if you are in in the United States. So, yes, you can order tomorrow and yes, we will ship out to you right away and yes it may arrive for Christmas but we think today is safe. So, if you’ve been procrastinating or whatever, today would be the day to order your Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box and it will arrive in time for Christmas. So, if you are in the hustle and bustle of the last-minute gift giving flurry that happens this week for most people then take a look at what’s in the Christmas Box. There are resources that you’ll want to keep for yourself and there are resources that you’ll want to give away. And, yeah, we pray over these Christmas Boxes. This is our opportunity to pull together a lot of the resources that we have and make them as affordable as we can possibly…as we can possibly give them to you for in hopes that that’s what will happen, is that they will make their way into all kinds of lives and stories and that God will bless them and that they will do what they were intended to do, which is to serve the body of Christ and to be a companion on the walk. So, you can check that all out at dailyaudiobible.com in the Christmas section.

And there are some other Christmas resources available too, like the Daily Audio Bible family Christmas album. If you haven’t streamed that on Spotify or Aple Music or whatever or maybe you want a CD, you can get that from dailyaudiobible.com. It is a great companion into the Advent season and the Christmas season that we’re in. And it rose up from within this community. And so, it’s the kind of album that you want put on with a hot cup of cocoa or coffee or whatever and turn on the Christmas lights, maybe a candle, it is making the aroma just right and the lights are off and you just take, you know, a little time to breathe and drink in the wonder of the Christmas season. The music on family Christmas album is kinda made for that environment. So, check it out.

We’ve also been talking about the More Gathering for women get all of the details for that moregathering.com or in the Initiatives section of dailyaudiobible.com. And we do this because…I mean it’s quite an effort to put on the More Gathering every year. It takes a lot of people and a lot of sacrifice, but what we’ve seen over the years is so worth it because we’ve seen transformation and isn’t that what we’re after and isn’t that why we have the rhythm of the Scripture in our life every day, is that that we can be transformed, that we can be changed, not only that we can get more knowledge but that we can change from the inside out as we daily become more and more like Christ our Savior. The More Gathering for women is centered around that. That’s why we do the effort every year. And, so, so yeah, if that is something that’s calling to you then you can check it at moregathering.com.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link, it’s 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.

Micah 5:1-7:20, Rev 7:1-17, Ps 135:1-21, Pr 30:5-6

Today is the 16^th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is a pleasure to be here with you as we walk through the threshold of a brand-new, shiny week. This also happens to be the third Sunday in the season of Advent as we continue to move our way toward Christmas. And what a season it has been. And this week, if you were lighting your Advent candles, maybe that’s what’s happening in church, or that’s tradition you have in your own home, or maybe you have an Advent calendar or maybe you don’t even know what Advent is, but Advent is just a Christian tradition for Sunday’s leading up to Christmas, are meant to draw us into contemplation, and consideration. And this week we consider love, that love is shining in dark places and love shines into the darkness of our own soul and we found light and a Savior.

Song

Silent Night Holy Night

Silent night, holy night!

All is calm, all is bright

Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child

Holy Infant so tender and mild

Sleep in heavenly peace

Sleep in heavenly peace

Silent night, holy night!

Shepherds quake at the sight

Glories stream from heaven afar

Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!

Christ the Savior is born

Christ the Savior is born

Silent night, holy night!

Son of God, love’s pure light

Radiant beams from Thy holy face

With the dawn of redeeming grace

Jesus Lord, at Thy birth

Jesus Lord, at Thy birth

So, yesterday we began the book of Micah in our Old Testament reading. We talked about that. Today, we will conclude the book of Micah before moving further into the book of Revelation in our New Testament reading. So, we’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. Micah chapter 5 verse 1 through 7 verse 20 today.

Prayer:

Father, once again, we thank you for your word and as we enter this week we look forward to everything that you will speak to us through your word and as we bring our hearts to a place of contemplation during this Advent season, realizing that next week his Christmas. And yes, we’re longing for all of those festivities but in terms of this season of longing and of contemplation and waiting for a Savior, the wait is almost over. And, so, our hearts turn and begin to rejoice. Come Holy Spirit as we rejoice in your arrival. We pray these things 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 man, I mean one more week and we will be…we will be in the thick of Christmas. One week from today will be the last Sunday of Advent and then one week from tomorrow is Christmas Eve. So, like, it’s here. We’ve been talking about the Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box for a couple of weeks. The shipping cutoff for Christmas arrival is tomorrow. Make sure you get your order in my tomorrow. Even if it’s after that we’ll certainly still send the Christmas Boxes while we have them, but we think tomorrow’s the cutoff date for Christmas arrival because whew on week from Christmas Eve. So, make sure you check that out. Check out all the resources that are available in the Daily Audio Bible shop. There’s some fantastic gift ideas there that are not like cheesy or like, you know, highly Daily Audio Bible branded stuff. Like, really high quality things that over the years we’ve learned to use and do use on a daily basis like our journaling stuff. That’s stuff that we’re using around here every day or like our Windfarm coffee and tea. We drink it every day and so do most people. And we just determined, wow, if we could roast fresh the best coffee that we can source and it’s something that people are going to partake of every day and we can offer a quality product that’s as good as any product and use any margins that we have to sow into bringing the spoken word of God to anybody who will listen to it on this planet, then we should do that. And that’s what we’ve been doing all these years. And, so, there are resources that are high quality products that are very good to have or to give that just help us make another day possible and throw another log on the global campfire that is our community. So, be sure to check that all out at dailyaudiobible.com in the Christmas section and in the Lifestyle section of the shop.

Also, we’ve been talking about the More Gathering for women coming up this April. And you can get all of the details about that at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section or go to moregathering.com. Again, we talk about this at Christmas time because it’s a life changing gift that is given every year. And, we’re not making this up. Like, this came over time, all of this stuff on the Daily Audio Bible that we do, our rhythms that have come over time. And we’ve heard the feedback from so many wives and sisters and mothers that have come to the More Gathering because it was given to them as a gift. And they found…they found more. And that is what we believe that God wants for each of us. So, moregathering.com is where to find out all of those details.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible in the final days of the year 2018 then thank you, thank you. Your partnership is what keeps the fire burning and the words…the words fail…other than to be humble and to be grateful and to be amazed and in awe at the community that God has raised up out of the dust of the Internet to be a real thing, where real connection is made all over the world. If that has been life-giving to you, then thank you for being life-giving. There’s a link 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 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.

Micah 1:1-4:13, Revelation 6:1-17, Psalms 134:1-3, Proverbs 30:1-4

Today is the 15^th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian and it’s a pleasure, of course, and an honor. And here we are, closing the books on another week. And I think the same thing every time we get to the end of another week, like wow, we’re moving right through. It seems like it was just the heat of the summer and now here we are moving deeply into the Christmas season and into winter. Of course, those of you in the southern hemisphere are probably enjoying a nice summer day, which is…always…I think of that most at Christmas when it’s cold where I am and it’s warm where you are. Nevertheless, I will cease digressing and get to the matters at hand, which is the next step forward in the Scriptures as we move toward the end of the year. And today we will begin the book of Micah.

Introduction to Micha:

Micha is the sixth of the 12 minor prophets. And we won’t be reading Micah in one sitting. It’ll take us a whole two days to get through, but let’s consider what we’re about to read. Micah, as a person, we know almost nothing about outside of what’s in the book, but we do have a little information. Micha’s name means “who is like God” and he was from the town of Moresheth, which many scholars associate with Moresheth Gaff, which would place him in the low lands among the villages of southern Judah. And just for reference, this would be in the general vicinity of where David fought Goliath. It was kind of the bordering area between Philistia and Israel. And the book starts by telling us that the Lord gave the message to Micah of Moresheth during the years when Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings of Judah and the vision that the Lord had given him about Samaria and Jerusalem, so, both the northern and southern kingdoms, because Samaria was the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel and Jerusalem was the capital city of the southern kingdom of Judah. So, we understand who he was speaking about. And from the references to the specific kings we can likely date Micah’s prophetic ministry to the early decades of the eighth century B.C. Also, Micah is very briefly mentioned in the book of Jeremiah, which lets us see that his prophecies were being referenced over a century after the fact. Right? So, if Jeremiah comes 100 years later and they are still referring to the prophecies of Micah then we can see that they had taken hold, they were being revered. So, Micah follows the same pattern in this book 3 different times. First are utterances of doom and judgment and then they are followed by words of hope and restoration. And this is not unlike other prophetic works in the Bible but this is observable in Micah because it’s shorter and more compact and it appears that it was very intentional. So, within the prophecies of Micah are promises of a coming messianic deliverer. Micah 5:2, is quoted in Matthew 2:5 and 6 making reference to Jesus, “but you oh Bethlehem, Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah, yet a ruler of Israel, whose origins are in the distant past will come from you on my behalf.” In fact, Jesus himself quotes from Micah while explaining the disruption that His coming and that His message were bringing to the world system. So, this is Jesus speaking, being quoted from the gospel of Matthew, but Jesus is quoting Micah chapter 7 – “don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth. I came not to bring peace but a sword. I have come to set a man against his father, daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, your enemies will be right in your own household.” So, this is Jesus speaking about His own ministry, but in the process quoting the prophet Micah. One thing is certain about the book of Micah, God is absolutely, completely, utterly displeased with corruption, idolatry, rebellion and those who misuse their power to exploit the less fortunate. But He’s even more passionate about hope and restoration for those who keep His covenant. And, so, we begin. Micah chapter 1 verse 1 through 4 verse 13 today. And we’ve been reading from the new International version this week, which is what will do today as we close out our week.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word, we thank You for another week. And it becomes redundant because we recognize that we’re at the end of every week because it exposes the rhythm, the daily and weekly rhythm of the community that we have here but we acknowledge there are precious few weeks left in this year and it’s a reflective time. It’s a very, very busy time for us, but when we slow down and immerse ourselves in this Advent season and reflect back over the year, Your faithfulness abounds. And  its been a challenging year like they all are but we see Your faithfulness, we see the way that You’ve strengthened us, the way that You’ve built the fruit of the Spirit within us, that we are being changed. We have plenty a ways to go but we have been changed. And, so we are thankful. Come Holy Spirit as we release this week into our history and prepare to march forward into the remaining weeks of the year. We worship You Father, we love You and we pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

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

And this is kind of last call for your Christmas calls to come in for the Daily Audio Bible family Christmas that we do each year. So, if you haven’t taken the opportunity to call in your holiday greetings and just wish the community that you’ve journeyed with all the way to this point all the way through this year,  Merry Christmas, then make sure that you do. You can use any of the prayer line numbers, depending on where you are in the world to do that. The only rule is that you don’t combine a prayer request and a holiday greeting in the same call. Make them separate. Like, this is the one time of the year when can hang up and dial back. But if you have a prayer request certainly, don’t leave that unspoken. This is one of the distinctive shining bright lights of the Daily Audio Bible community, is that we are a very compassionate and prayerful group of people and we’re willing to shoulder one another’s burdens and be in each other’s stories even though we’re far flung all over the world. It makes us feel connected because we are connected in community. And, so, it’s, for me…for me it’s one of the richest things that we do each year. So, if you haven’t had a chance to call in your holiday greeting yet, be sure that you do that. In the Americas, you can dial 877-942-4253. If you’re in the UK or Europe you can dial 44-20-3608-8078. And if you are in Australia you can dial 61-3-8820-5459. So, be sure that you’re not left out and make sure that you get in today.

And speaking of kind of deadlines. We’ve been talking about the Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box for a couple weeks now, but this coming Monday, so that will be the 17^th, that will be our cut off for the United States. After that, like we will still absolutely be shipping all the way through. And, yeah, probably, probably even if you order after that it’ll arrive, but that’s the day that we think is safe. And, so, be sure to get your Christmas Box orders in or anything that you’re ordering in by then and we’ll get it out to you.

Also want take the time to mention the More Gathering for women, which is also something we’ve been mentioning here for a couple of weeks because it makes for a life changing Christmas gift. So, check that out. We’re really, really excited, super excited and super encouraged by the energy that’s around the More Gathering for this year. So, it’s gonna be special. We’re gonna end the season together and we’re gonna end it strong and end it well. And looking forward to you being a part of that. So, you can get all the information about the more gathering at moregathering.com or just look at the Initiatives section at dailyaudiobible.com.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage. I thank you, I thank you, I thank you for your partnership. We wouldn’t be what we are, we wouldn’t even be a community, we would never hear each other’s voices, we would never have the word of God spoken over…like if we didn’t do this together none of this would be happening. And, so, I thank you that it is happening and I’m grateful to the Lord that we’ve done it together in community. So, thank you for your partnership. There is a link. It’s 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 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 or holiday greeting today, you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that is it for today. I’m Brian. Wow. That’s not only it for today, that’s it for this week and we’re running out of those in this year. So, let’s continue to take steps forward as we continue to journey toward the conclusion of the Scriptures this year. I’m Brian I love you and I will be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello Daily Audio Bible family, this is Jay from New Jersey. Oh man, wow, I haven’t been in New Jersey for a while. This is Jay from Tennessee, Nashville specifically. I’m calling to pray for Dr. John’s mother. Dr. John, I’ve listened to you over the years and just amazed at your story and the things that you’ve gone through and how you’ve dealt with them with your faith. So, I want to join the family today in praying for you. Jesus, we come before You, recognizing that You are holy, Your God, You are the magnificent, the one who we come to with all of our aches and pains and needs. Father, we come to You now confessing any of our sins that we’ve committed knowingly or unknowingly, releasing them and trying to commit to a life free from those binding desires. Lord, we pray for Dr. John, his father, his mother, his daughter, his family. We pray that her passing will be peaceful, that it will be peaceful for the family, it will be peaceful for her, that You will welcome her with open arms into Your Kingdom Lord. Father, we thank You for the time that she’s been able to spend with the family. Now Lord we just pray that Your will would be done in this next phase of her spiritual journey. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray.

Hi this is Terry from southern Virginia, I’m calling on behalf of prayers for Melody Faith of Canada who called in about her son and his girlfriend and they are expected baby and the fact of her son and his girlfriend are suffering from addiction. So, Melody, I heard your prayer today, today’s December the 10^th. I just want to lift you up and join you in prayer and lift up your son and his unborn child and girlfriend. So, dear God in the name of our Lord, our savior Jesus Christ, I just bring before Your throne today, Melody Faith Father God and that her request on behalf of her son and his girlfriend and unborn child. She’s asking for clarity for them that they will draw close to You and that we will see, You know, what the addiction has done in their lives and that You will give them the strength dear God to just not live a life of addiction but live a life through You because greater is he that lives in the than he that is in this world. So, Father God let them see You moving in the midst of their lives Father. And I pray for Melody and her husband Lord God, that You would give them wisdom Lord Jesus and how to deal with this situation, and that You would will make provisions for them as well to meet the needs ahead. And Father, I pray that they will stay the course and keep their hands clasped in Yours trusting You, allowing You to guide then and that none of us will lead to our understanding but acknowledge You in all of our ways and You will direct our paths. Melody Faith, just know that the DAB family is praying for you. We’ve heard your prayer request, but more importantly, God has heard. So, God bless you, God keep you, and have a blessed day everyone. And family, thank you for praying for my son, always, Joshua. He’s still struggling but I know that God’s got him. And I thank you for your continual prayers. Bye everybody.

Hi this is Gloria in New York City. I’ve been meaning to call for a couple of weeks, specifically for Sharon, Sharon in California. I don’t know if I can even express to you how much my heart hurts with you, with your heart. And I just want you to know that I’m another person who’s out here praying for you and hurting with you on the loss of your daughter. I…I feel like all I can pray is for you for your comfort somehow, that God would show you through, through us. I know we’re far away, but our spirits and our hearts are connected with you. I don’t even know what else…I can’t even imagine the pain that you’re in. I’m just…I just want you to know that…that we’re gonna just keep praying for you and keep praying for you and your family and praying also that other people will come alongside just to give you…I think the physical hugs that you need while we send you…while we’re sending you just emotional, spiritual hugs from our heart. Oh, Sharon I’m just so, so brokenhearted with you for your pain. I’m so, so sorry and I will continue to pray for you.

Good Morning Daily Audio Bible community. This is Diane Olive Brown from Newburgh Indiana, it is 2:10 in the on December the 12^th, 2018 and I’m calling for a prayer request for my prayer partner and best friend __. She’s in the hospital. She had a heart attack and we have always said that we wanted to go to heaven with each other. You know, the Scripture says that when the final trumpet is sounded the __ in Christ will rise first and then we who are alive __ . We have been prayer partners. She’s been a spiritual mother to me. She’s 96. And we’ve always said that…that we will go to heaven together but she’s in the hospital right now and she had a heart attack and I can’t stop crying. And I don’t know if maybe her work is done on this earth. And I just want to be with her when she makes her ascension into heaven if that’s God’s will for her. And I’m going to see her this morning, Wednesday, December 12^th at 10 in the morning. And I just…I just would love to be with her when she does…if she does go to heaven. And…and just let God give her an abundance of __. Pray for me. I can’t stop crying. She’s just been my best friend and prayer partner and such a….

Jonah 1:1-4:11, Revelation 5:1-14, Psalms 133:1-3, Proverbs 29:26-27

Today is the 14^th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here with you. 10 days and it will be Christmas Eve and I pray that you are immersing yourself in this Advent season, this season of longing, this season of waiting and watching for the arrival of the Savior. And as we move through this season of Advent we’re moving rapidly through a lot of territory in the Scriptures. As we’ve mentioned several times. We’ve kind of reached our destination in the New Testament. We’re in the book of Revelation and that will carry us into the end of the year, but the Old Testament, we are moving rapidly and we read the book of Obadiah in its entirety yesterday. We’re gonna read another book in its entirety today and this one is called the book of Jonah.

Introduction to the book of Jonah:

Jonah, this one is one of the minor prophets and it’s a book of prophecy that has a twist. Jonah was a prophet and he lived in the northern kingdom of Israel. And where he lived was basically due west of the southern portion of the Sea of Galilee and he lived during the reign of King Jeroboam the second, who continue to lead the people into idolatry. Now, whereas most of the prophets of the Bible called their own people to repentance, Jonah’s mission was to go to the city of Nineveh, which was one of the largest cities in the world at that time. And the ruins of ancient Nineveh are located near the modern city of Mosul in Iraq. And unfortunately, many of those ancient ruins were damaged or destroyed in recent years by Isis. So, you can imagine…you can imagine that Jonah was not pleased. And the thing is Jonah, the story we’re about to read is…you know…it’s a famous story, so we probably know the lay of the land and he was not pleased. God commanded him to go to a people who were considered enemies, I mean mortal enemies of Israel and for that matter enemies of God’s. So, to Jonah’s way of thinking, God was sending him to God’s enemies. As the story goes, rather than obeying, Jonah fled in the opposite direction and got himself to the Mediterranean coast at Joppa, which is now kind of a coastal suburb of Tel Aviv. And as we probably are all aware, Jonah ended up in the belly of a great fish. And after three days of repentance he was spewed out on the shore alive. And, so, for Christians there are obviously foreshadowing’s of Jesus in this story. But Jonah also contains parallels with our own lives. When we allow fear and pride to lead us into disobedience we will certainly find ourselves just like Jonah, we will be on the run from God. And the thing that we need to learn from Jonah and from our own stories is that running from God is not possible. And even though Jonah was swallowed in the open sea by a great fish, that great fish ended up being his salvation, right? He would have drowned in that storm. Even though being inside the belly of a great fish would have been terrifying and probably terribly uncomfortable and all kinds of things, God used the fish to deliver Jonah alive and well back on dry land. And we’ve all run from God at times, and we may find that life has swallowed us alive because of it, but we may also find that what engulfed us was actually transporting us in the end, back to firm footing, we can walk with God in obedience once again. So, we’ll read the entirety of Jonah today from the New International version, which is what we’re reading from this week. Jonah 1:1 through 4:11.

Commentary:

Brian: Okay. So, we usually read the proverb right here, but I’ve got a little friend standing next to me. Hey buddy. How are you right now?

Ezekiel: Good

Brian: Want to help read some of the Daily Audio Bible today?

Ezekiel: Yeah

Brian: Want to do the proverb?

Ezekiel: Yeah

Brian: Okay

Ezekiel: Many seek an audience with a ruler, but it is from the Lord that one gets justice. The righteous detest the dishonest; the wicked detest the upright.

Brian: Yes. Out of the mouth of babes.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for another day in Your word and surprises even. You’ve instructed us to have the faith of a child. And, so, when You here the Scriptures from the mouth of a child it is a special indeed. So, we thank You Father. We thank You for all that You have done and all that You have yet to do in this year and in our lives. We ask that You plant the Scriptures deep within, that they might yield the fruit of the spirit in our lives. Come Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

Brian: Thank you for reading with us today buddy.

Ezekiel: Your welcome.

Brian: You excited for Christmas to be here.

Ezekiel: Yeah.

Brian: Its coming very soon, ha?

Ezekiel: Yeah.

Brian: We’re counting down the days.

Ezekiel: Yeah.

Brian: I think you just brought some Christmas cheer into a lot of people’s lives who are listening to you today.

Ezekiel: [yawns]

Brian: You tired? You want to go back to sleep?

Ezekiel: [giggling]

Brian: You just want to hang out here some more?

Okay. Okay….so…we’ll just hang out here. dailyaudiobible.com…hold on….let me just get everything situated. Okay. So, dailyaudiobible.com is the website and its home base and it’s all things Christmas right now around here.

And, so, we’ve been talking about the family Christmas Box. Those are available. The family Christmas album, that’s available. The Daily Audio Bible Christmas cards with our word for the year, “Hope” on the front of them and they’re beautiful. That’s available. All this is available in the Daily Audio Bible shop in the Christmas section. So, certainly check that out while supplies last.

There are other resources that we have in the Daily Audio Bible Shop that make for really wonderful Christmas presents. Check out the Lifestyle section in the Shop where all of our writing instruments and our Daily Audio Bible journal, those all live in the Lifestyle section. And just some wonderful stuff, great gift giving ideas.

We’ve also been talking about the More Gathering for women that’s coming up this April. That is a fantastic gift idea and you can find out all of the details. I mean, we’ve been talking about it for a couple weeks, so, you kind of probably know some of the details but you can get more details at moregathering.com or at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section.

We’re also taking the Christmas calls for this year and that runs through the end of the week, which is tomorrow. So, if you’ve been kind of procrastinating now would be the time to pick up that phone and wish your Daily Audio Bible family holiday cheer, merry Christmas and whatever it is the that you have to say about your journey. This is always a beautiful beautiful time in this community. Christmas time is a beautiful time around the world, but it is a beautiful time in this community because we’ve been journeying together the whole year. So, you can use any of the prayer request lines to also call in your holiday greeting. 877-942-4253 if you are in the Americas. If you’re in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078 is the number to dial. If you are in Australia 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to dial. And like I’ve been saying, just the only thing is don’t call in with a prayer request and then tag on like a holiday greeting at the end or vice versa. Make them separate and then we’ll be able to get everything to where it goes. But every year those are there. There are those that hear this every day and then wait and then miss out. And, so, don’t do that. Make sure you call in one of those numbers and be a part of the family Christmas for this year.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There’s a link on the homepage. I thank you. Thank you. We would not be here doing what we are doing if we didn’t do it together. And, so, thank you. So, 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 of the app 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 or a holiday greeting you can use any of those numbers that we named a little bit ago.

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:

You are everything that’s anything
and everything that’s anything is nothing without you
Giving tender mercies every day made new
mold and shape this broken vessel according to your will
speak to my inner restlessness tell it peace be still
hide me under the shadow of your wing while you mend my broken heart
fill me with your word and son while your spirit leads me to a brand-new start
thank you father for not throwing me away for that’s truly what I deserve
but I’m fully committed 100% and it’s only you that I’ll serve
I will lift my little light way up high and let the whole world know
that for me there is no other way and I’m glad it is so
for you are everything that’s anything
and everything that’s anything is nothing without you
full of tender mercies every day made new
mold and shape this broken vessel according to your will
speak to my inner restlessness tell it peace be still
praises glory and honor forever to you are due
for giving us tender mercies every day made new

blindtony1016@gmail.com. Happy holidays everybody. And once again, I want to give a shout out to Asia and Matthias and baby G and mom and I hope that you’re keeping the faith and you’re hanging in there and know that the best is still yet to come. Anyway, know you’re loved, thought of and prayer for every day. And once again, thank you Brian and the Hardin family. Thank you for this wonderful podcast for God’s Holy Spirit to flow throughout the earth. Keep it flowin’ y’all. Alright. Bye-bye.

Hi this is Deb, the Faithful Wandering Widow of the Word. This message goes out to Dr. John. My heart goes out to you as your mother is in hospice. My prayer for you is that the Holy Spirit would be encamped around her, that God’s peace would be around her, that comfort would be within her body. Lord, I just ask that you would be with John’s mom and just be with her son supernaturally during his last moments. And I pray that you’d be with the entire family, that she would give them comfort, that you would be with them, that you would just love on them Lord and be with them. In Jesus’ name.

Hello DAB family, this is Linda from Alberta calling today. I just…I was driving along and felt compelled to call in. I wanted to call and talk specifically to the mothers of children who are deep in their addictions right now. And I know how very difficult it is and especially at this holiday season. There so many celebrations going on. And maybe you live somewhere where it’s cold like I do. And if your child is active, my heart really goes out to you and I want you to know that I am, every single day, praying for your child. And often the Lord just prompts me to pray for you. We have had recovery in our family for a while now and this Christmas isn’t as difficult as it has been in the past. And I just want to tell you that to give you some hope and also to let you know that I will be praying for you and I’m very very sad that you are experiencing what you are experiencing. Okay? I love you all and if I don’t call in again, Merry Christmas to everybody. God bless you. Bye-bye.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family, this is Sheila from Massachusetts. I just wanted to share a quick story about the way that God works and how important this community is. The other day I said to my husband, I can’t imagine what it would be like if the Daily Audio Bible didn’t exist. My husband and I both started following Brian the first year that this started. Gosh, I’m not even sure how many years that is now, but the thought of it not being there…it just…I don’t know what I would do without it. I don’t always call in but I am always listening and always praying. I feel like this is my family and I know everybody here. That was just verified for me. I was listening. James from Southern California, you called in and prayed for me and lifted one of my prayer requests just this week. And your analogy with the generals in the Army and the promotions in the Army, it just…it resonated with me and it gave me what I needed at that time. To know that I’m being prayed for during this time of spiritual warfare and it just hit home to me how important our connections are to the Daily Audio Bible family and Brian and Jill and China. I’ve done China’s Chronological Bible with her and, gosh, I just want to thank you for the time that you guys give to this, the dedication that your family has, and every one of my brothers and sisters in the Daily Audio Bible family. You’re so important to me. We’re so important to each other. And God bless all of you in this holiday season. I love each and every one of you. Thank you so much for what you give to me and I’m sure praying for you all as well. Have a great day.

Obadiah 1:1-21, Revelation 4:1-11, Psalms 132:1-18, Proverbs 29:24-25

Today is the 13^th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is a pleasure to be here with you today, taking another step forward as we continue the journey through the Scriptures. And…well…the journey never ends but years do and we are winding our way toward the end of the year, If you weren’t aware, like if you’ve been sleeping for the last couple months. And we’ve been moving rather rapidly Old and New Testaments through short letters in the New Testament and we’ve finally landed ourselves in the final book of the New Testament, Revelation, but we are continuing to kind of…I don’t want to say we’re speeding our way through the minor prophets because we’re not rushing, it’s just each day’s reading is leading us through the minor prophets, which are shorter and today’s no different. We will read in its entirety the book of Obadiah.

Introduction to Obadiah:

Obadiah happens to be the shortest book in the Old Testament. And even though within the text Obadiah identifies himself as the author almost nothing is known about him other than that his name means servants of Yahweh. And this name, Obadiah, this wasn’t an uncommon name. So, dating the prophecy is hard. The general consensus among biblical scholars is that Obadiah was probably contemporary with Jeremiah and that his prophetic work using Babylon’s conquest of Jerusalem as its context. And if this is right it would date Obadiah to the late 500’s B.C. As far as content the book of Obadiah contains 21 versus and yet it deals with a much longer running family issue and it heralds the doom and destruction for the Edomites. And we might be like, the Edomites, who are they, what’s the point? But if we’ll go back now, if we’ll reflect back to the beginning of the year, back to where we started on our journey through the Bible we’ll have to remember the story of Jacob and Esau, right? And Jacob’s name was changed to Israel. And, so, his descendants became, obviously, the children of Israel because that’s who they were. Esau’s descendants, they flourished and prospered as well, and they became known as the Edomites. So, when God delivered the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt the Edomites, their kin, wouldn’t allow their relatives to past through their land as they travelled toward their own land of promise. And at other points in history while Israel was being attacked the Edomites, they just stood by with hands in their pockets and watched it happen. And this wasn’t always like a silent kind of hostility, passive hostility. The Edomites, they had been willing to pillage their own kin while they were suffering, and God was less than pleased and ultimately the complete destruction of Edom was announced in Obadiah. But we have good enough application for this message in our own time. I mean, as believers, we each have been redeemed through Christ and therefore we each have become children of God. We are family. All too often we witness our brothers and sisters at war with each other or standing by silently, right, hands in your pockets as brothers and sisters suffer. And we might even smugly believe they are getting what they deserve. And the book of Obadiah rejects this posture outright and it gives us a picture of God’s displeasure with that kind of arrogance. And, so, we begin and will read it in its entirety the book of Obadiah. And we’re reading from the New International Version this week.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word, we thank you for another step forward in it, we thank you for community as we take this journey through it, we thank you for the book of Obadiah and what it represents. Yes, we have judged our brothers and sisters plenty and we see that that’s not helpful in any way. We thank you for the book of Proverbs that tells us, fear of man will prove to be a snare and this is probably our biggest snare, to be in comparison with and in fear of our fellow brothers and sisters in the world but we’re told that whoever trusts in you, whoever receives their identity from you and not by the fear of man or the comparison to each other, that person is kept safe. So come Holy Spirit because these are some of the biggest strongholds of our faith journey, judging and being in fear and in comparison with each other. So, you’ve touched on some of the A-list of things that we struggle with on this day alone. And, so, we invite you into this. Come Holy Spirit, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

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

And it’s Christmas time. And, so, like yeah, in like two weeks. We’ve been talking about the annual Daily Audio Bible family Christmas Box for 2018. And that is available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop. And if you’re in the United States, we can still ship them to you to arrive in time for Christmas. So be sure to check it out. Its full of goodies and there’ll be things in there that you’ll want for your own personal library, resources that you will want to use as you continue your relationship with the Scriptures and then they’ll be things in there that you feel like you know exactly who needs to receive it. And, so, the Promised Land DVD set, the Essential Pilgrim’s edition, which is two DVDs, four hours of content allowing you to see for yourself with your own eyes the places where so many of the stories that we’ve spent so much time in in the Scriptures this year, where they actually happened, what it actually looks like. So, that’s in the box as well as two of my books, Reframe and Sneezing Jesus. And these are books that take a really hard look at some of the things that we say and some of the things that we believe as Christians. But what do we mean when we say them? And what is this faith of ours supposed to actually do beyond saving our souls for eternity? Like what is it supposed to do while we’re here, while we’re now? And, man it’s my best shot and I can’t think of a better way to approach the new year than to consider the conversations that are in those books. Also, my friend Robert has written a book called Going Solo and I’ve talked about that a number of times. I wrote the forward to that book because it is such an important topic. The book is called Going Solo and it’s about being a single parent, which is all…which are thousands of us here in this community. But it’s very unlikely that none of us, you know, like, aren’t touched by this. We all know someone that is that is wading through and trying to navigate that new normal. And this book does a good job of being a friend and a comforter and a counselor. It does a lot more than just give a pat on the back, it gives some practical advice and some practical tools for the way forward. And, so, you know, I mean, we put this resource in the Christmas box this year because it’s just an under supported topic and it needs to be supported. And, so, if you are a solo parent then this is for you. And if you know a solo parent in your life, then this could really help. So, that’s included in the box this year. The Daily Audio Bible Christmas bulb for 2018 with our word for the year which was “Hope” is in the Christmas box. And the Christmas Box is the only place to get this for your tree. It’s…what what we do in my family anyways…we certainly have them on our tree because it’s our way of welcoming the whole community into Christmas time around our Christmas tree. And I just look at those every year from the years gone by and just think of all of the different words the Lord is spoken, all of the different voices that we’ve encountered…just…they represent a whole year in the Bible so they represent a lot. So, those are available in the Christmas Box. You have your choice of our Windfarm coffee or tea as well a pack of the Christmas cards for the year, which have our word for the year, “Hope”, on the front of them and they’re beautiful ,beautiful cards and great for sending to your friends and family. And then the Black Wing. We have a Black Wing pencil, which we love around here. They’re great for journaling. They go so well with all of our writing instruments that we have in the Shop. So…but this year the Black Wing pencil is stamped with Daily Audio Bible on it and the folks at Black Wing were kind enough to do this for us. We can’t sell them but we can put them in the Christmas Box. So, there’s a Black Wing Daily Audio Bible pencil in the Christmas Box. You can check all this out at dailyaudiobible.com in the in the Shop in the Christmas section.

And you can get the Christmas cards separate. Also, the family Christmas music project that kind of grew up out of our community, just a lovely contemplative Christmas album. It’ the of record that you’ll wan to turn your Christmas lights on, shut every other light off, maybe get some hot cocoa or whatever and, you know, at the end of a long day just sit down and breathe and allow the music to set an atmosphere and just relax and contemplate the season of Advent and all of the festivities of Christmas and, of course, the arrival of the Savior and what it means to the world. It’s perfect for that, So, check that out. You can get the Christmas project wherever you can get music, Spotify, Apple music, iTunes, wherever, but you can also get it from Daily Audio Bible, if you want in physical form, at dailyaudiobible.com in the in the Christmas section.

We’re also talking about More Gathering for women, the final time that this gathering that was birthed in the mountains of North Georgia, thus will be the last time that it’s held in the mountains of North Georgia. And, so, it’s the end of an era. There’s a lot of energy around it this year. We’re really looking forward to it. And, so, it makes for a very unique and life-changing Christmas gift, which is why we usually bring it out around Christmas time. So, you can check that all out at moregathering.com or at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section.

I mentioned that there’s coffee and tea in the Christmas Box and there is but we have several different varieties of both coffee and tea and we roast fresh at altitude in the mountains of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and send it right to you. And, so, that makes for a great Christmas gift.

And also, you know, like I said a little bit ago about the journaling. Yeah, check out the Lifestyle section in the Shop and set yourself up for the new year. If God’s gonna speak to you through His word one way or the other best not to forget what was said. And the best way to do that is to journal your way through the Bible and through your life in a year and its amazing. It’s amazing the relationship that you get with a nice pencil and some good paper and what flows through you onto that page and what can be memorialized and remembered for years and years and years into the future, even into the future generations. And who knows what you write down, who that might help in future generations. So, we definitely encourage that. So, check it out at dailyaudiobible.com, there’s a whole set of writing things that make for fantastic gifts.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible here in the final days of the year then thank you humbly, profoundly, gratefully. Truly, thank you for your partnership. There’s a link 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 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 I almost forgot…I almost forgot…the other thing that’s going on this week is your Christmas calls for our upcoming Daily Audio Bible family Christmas party, which will be hopefully next week. So, all this week, yeah, we’re taking your calls. You can call in using any of the prayer lines and wish your Daily Audio Bible family happy holidays, Merry Christmas. We’ve shared quite a journey together and so this is one way to come in kind of come and memorialize our trip through the Scriptures as we approach Christmas time. So, be sure to do that. If you…well…you can use any of the prayer lines. So, in the Americas, 877-942-4253. In the UK 44-20-3608-8078. And in Australia 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to dial. Of course, that’s the prayer line. So, the only rule about this particular time of year is, like, don’t call in a prayer request and then a happy holiday, like a Merry Christmas greeting in the same call because neither one of them will get to where they’re going. Like, so make those separate. This is the one time you can hang up and make a separate call because they’re for different reasons. So, yeah, call in your Christmas greetings this week and, of course, if you have a prayer request or comment, those numbers work. That’s what they’re for.

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

Amos 7:1-9:15, Revelation 3:7-22, Psalms 131:1-3, Proverbs 29:23

Today is the 12^th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is a pleasure, a joy, an honor to be here with you as we take our next step forward. And, obviously, this will be our 12^th step forward in this month and our 347^th step this year. And, so, this week we’re taking our steps using the New International Version, which is, of course, what we’re gonna do today. And we’ll go back to the book of Amos chapter 7 verse 1 through 9:15 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, as per usual we’re following a number of threads as we work our way through the Scriptures. And in the Old Testament, so, in the book of Amos, God gave the prophet visions of His plans and those plans were to send locusts and fire upon the land. And Amos interceded before the Lord – like, Lord, forgive us, like, if You do this we won’t survive, we’re too small. And this touches on some of the other times that we’ve talked about this angry God phenomenon, right? So, there’s this prediction of all of these bad things - locusts and fire upon the land - that are going to come, and we read them as if it did happen, but this is a prophetic word. This is what is coming. Amos interceded before the Lord, saying, like, we wouldn’t survive this, have mercy on us and God did and gave instead a third vision. And the third vision was of a plumb line and God revealed to Amos, I’m relenting from what was coming, but I’m going to test my people with this plumb line. I am not gonna ignore…I’m not gonna ignore the flagrant breaking of the covenant anymore.

And then we moved into the New Testament, to the book of Revelation where we have kind of concluded the first act or the first movement. I don’t think scholars would call it that but this first section of Revelation is interesting because we have been reading short letters for a while. And what we’ve just done in the first few chapters of the book of Revelation is read seven brief letters from Jesus, but to different churches, the churches of Ephesus, Smirnoff, Pergamum, fire Tyra, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Now, all those churches were in the province of Asia and these letters were offered to the churches to encourage them and to warn them and to give them a message from Jesus about endurance. So, like we said, lots of times this theme becomes really important in the New Testament and carries us into the end of the Bible.

And then in Psalms, King David offered us language for what a humble heart looks like. And we have to remember, David was a king, right? So, he had enormous power over pretty much everything and you can only imagine the pull toward pride and arrogance. And we understand from the Scriptures that David didn’t always win the battles but the pull toward pride would’ve been huge for someone in his position. And yet he writes, “my heart is not proud, my eyes aren’t haughty, I don’t concern myself with things that are too great r awesome for me to grasp.” “Instead”…and we should remember this image as we move through the rest of this holiday season, “Instead I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk. Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within.” And, so, these words from the poet, King David, offer the sense, the feeling of inner contentment that humility brings instead of the way of pride and pridefulness. So, David gives us up a poetic picture, a feeling.

Proverbs, on the other hand, gives us the facts. “Pride brings a person low but the lowly and spirit gain honor.” Right? So, the irony is that pride will eventually humble you, but if you will humble yourself you actually legitimately get the honor that your pride was after. So, let’s take the ancient wisdom to heart. It’s God’s word to us. And arrogance and pride, they will not bring us to a place like a weaned child, a content place of humility. Rather, it will lead us on a path that will humiliate us in the end. And if we want a life of honor then humility is the path that we have to walk.

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into that because our culture invites us to pride continually. It pits us against each other and makes everything a competition. And, so, everything is about comparison and it pulls us to pride, it pulls us to arrogance, it pulls us to envy, it pulls us to jealousy. And yet that is nothing like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk. And the truth is we want to live a contented life. And the only way that this will happen is if we live a humble life. So, come Holy Spirit, show us how to do that in this season and in the cultures that we live in. Show us how to live as You did in this world. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudibible.com is the website and that’s home base. Of course, its where you certainly find out what’s happening around here.

And its Christmas time and I’ve been talking this week about the Daily Audio Bible family Christmas party that we have every year where we just really get together and spend some time hearing from each other and it’s such a heartwarming experience. So, don’t be left out of that. All you have to do is just call in. Call in your holiday greetings. And the rule about that is, just don’t call in a prayer request and a holiday greeting in the same call. Make them separate and keep them separate so that we can get them where they need to go. But, yeah, any of the prayer request lines that can be used and you can call in your holiday greeting, you can do it today, you can do it all the way through the end of this week. And then we’ll start about the process, and it’s a pretty hefty process of pulling it all together. But, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial if you’re in the Americas. If you’re in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078 is the number to call. And if you are in Australia or that part of the world 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to dial. So, yeah, there’s a two-minute limit on all calls. Of course, it’s that’s how it’s been for a long, long, long time. But the only other rule is just make sure you’re not combining prayer requests and holiday greetings. And we’ll look forward to it.

Also, of the Daily Audio Bible Christmas box for 2018 is available, chock-full of fantastic resources for the journey, some things that you will want to keep, some things that you will want to give away. And you can see all of that at dailyaudiobible.com in the Shop.

And also, the More Gathering for women. Early registration is ongoing and it’s open right now. And there’s a lot of energy around this one. We’re really, really excited for it. So, hopefully you can be there. We announce the More Gathering each Christmas because it makes for really, truly a unique gift, but also a gift that really does keep on giving. Yeah, it’s in April but it comes as the seasons are changing and new life is coming to the earth at least here in the northern hemisphere and things are beginning to blossom and the hope for something more begins to abound inside. And, so, it’s the perfect time for this, but it’s the perfect gift that just keeps on giving throughout the rest of the year. Add friendships are formed that will last a lifetime there. So, you can find out all the details about the More Gathering at moregathering.com or at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section and we will certainly look forward to seeing you there.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible in the remaining days that we have in this in this year, thank you profoundly, humbly, with an open heart, thank you for your partnership. There’s a link on the homepage of 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. Of course, that goes for holiday greetings this week.

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

Amos 4:1-6:14, Rev 2:18-3:6, Ps 130:1-8, Pr 29:21-22

Today is the 11^th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is a pleasure and it’s a joy, one of the greatest joys of life to come together with you in community around this global campfire and take the next step forward. And that next step forward will take us back into the book of Amos, which we began yesterday. So, we’re reading from the New International Version this week. Amos chapter 4 verse 1 through 6 verse 14.

Prayer:

Thank you, Father for your word. Thank you for the beauty of your word and the way that it just touches so many different places that in the span of a year everything about us is touched and we are invited to be made new, we are invited to move forward. And so, in the Psalms today you gave us such a beautiful posture of repentance, language that allows us to confess and seek forgiveness. And sometimes this is because we feel like we’ve done something really really bad and sometimes it’s just we feel that, you now, that we feel like something’s between us. And, so, Father, we use the words of this Psalm to become the heart cry of our lives and our own prayer, “we cry to you, Lord. Lord, hear our voice. Let your ears be attentive to our cry for mercy. If you Lord kept a record of sins could stand, but with you there is forgiveness so that we can with reverence serve you. We wait for you Lord. Our whole being weights and in your word we put our hope.” Come Holy Spirit, forgive us of our sins, forgive us of our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Help us to remember what we’ve learned father. Yes, we can cry out a prayer for mercy, a prayer for forgiveness, but if we are not willing to forgive then we will not be forgiven. And in this season that is so joyful and so disruptive at the same time there’s all kinds of stuff that gets kicked up, all kinds of things gets churned up to the surface of our lives, things that have been buried. So, we invite your Holy Spirit into that. Show us the ways that we need to offer forgiveness because we are under no illusion about how often and how much mercy and forgiveness we need each and every day. So, come Holy Spirit we thank you for the words of repentance in Psalm 130 and, in turn, we offer forgiveness as we ask for it. Come Jesus. We pray in your mighty name. Amen.

Announcements:

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

And, you know, certainly hard to miss the fact that itow,’s Christmas time the world over. And, so, that certainly comes into this community around this global campfire. And in my mind, you know, the global campfire is burning and we’re in the woods, but all of the nice trees that are all around us have lights on them because we’ve put all the lights up there and we just have…it’s beautiful….the global campfire around the world. And it’s time for our annual Christmas party. And that happens, of course, virtually every year and what you do is you call in your Christmas greeting to your Daily Audio Bible community from wherever you are in the world and just whatever it is the you have to say about Christmas time and about the journey that we’ve been on together. And we compile those all and we get together and have a Christmas party as you’ll see. And if you’ve been here for years you know that this is one of the wonderful, heartwarming things that we do. I am just always speechless over the Christmas party. I have never gotten through one of us Christmas parties without tears coming to my eyes. And, so, looking forward to this one. So, you can call in your Christmas greeting at any point during this week. And we’re kind of getting ourselves into the center of the week. So, don’t delay. You can use any of the prayer line numbers. 877-942-4253 if you are in the Americas. If you’re in Europe or the UK 44-20-3608-8078 is the number. And if you are in the lands down under in Australia, 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to call. And only a couple of rules. You know, all of the calls are two minutes. So, get it in in two minutes but don’t combine a prayer request and holiday greeting in the same call. This is like the one rare time of the year that you can hang up and call again. If you’ve got a prayer request, then certainly leave that. But if you are calling in for holiday greeting then make sure that’s a separate call. And I will get these altogether and get ready for the Daily Audio Bible family Christmas for 2018.

And speaking of family Christmas 2018, the Daily Audio Bible family Christmas Box that is chock full of resources, some things that you’ll want keep for yourself and other things that you’ll want to give away, that is available. And just a heads up, like the deadline for international shipping has passed. We’re still shipping them international because you’re still ordering them internationally, but the deadline for the United States is coming up next week on Monday the 17^th. We, obviously, we’ll still keep shipping until they’re gone, but that’s when we feel like we’re pretty safe to get everything to you in time for Christmas if that’s what you want this for. And, so, you can check out all of that at dailyaudiobible.com in the Daily Audio Bible shop. And grab them while they’re available.

And also, the early registration for the More Gathering for women that’s coming up this April, and this will be our last one in the mountains of Georgia. And Jill’s already come on and talked about. Yeah, we feel like that’s what God has told us and that’s pretty much it. Like, we don’t know what comes next. And, so, although we’re not antsy about it. God will lead the way. He has since we started all of this. And, so, don’t think He was planning to stop leading His children like on New Year’s Eve at midnight we’ll be on our own next year. I’m sure He will lead us, but we do know that this is it those mountains of North Georgia. So, come and not be a part of something. This was the birthplace of the More Gathering. And, so, come and be a part of that. You can find all of the details at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section or just go to moregathering.com and it will take you to the same place.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link. It’s on the homepage and I thank you profoundly, profoundly for your partnership here at the end of the year. And if you are trying to look at your charitable giving for tax purposes for the end of the year, then make sure that you do that before the end of the year and, yes, the Daily Audio Bible is a nonprofit 501©(3). And, yes, we will certainly be sending you a receipt for your partnership. So, thank you so much.

And if you have a prayer request or comment or holiday greeting, 877-942-4253 is the number.

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

Amos 1:1-3:15, Revelation 2:1-17, Psalms 129:1-8, Proverbs 29:19-20

Today is the 10^th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you today as we dive into our work week and just keep taking these steps forward. Yesterday we began books in the old and New Testament. So, the book of Joel and the book of Revelation, which happens to be the final book of the Bible and, obviously, the final book of the New Testament. So, we talked about both of those as we got going and obviously we’ll be spending the rest of our time in the New Testament in the book of Revelation. But we read Joel all the way through yesterday, which brings us to another book of minor prophecy in the Old Testament, the book of Amos.

Introduction to the Book of Amos:

Interestingly enough, Amos is probably the earliest collection of written prophetic utterances found in all of the Bible. Amos prophesied in the mid eighth century BC at a time when the northern and the southern kingdoms were both intact, like neither one of them had been attacked and carried into exile and they were experiencing widespread peace and prosperity. And ironically, Amos wasn’t a person trained for religious orders. Like, he wasn’t a priest or scribe or anything like that. It seems like…it seems he was an ordinary person, living the ordinary life of a shepherd and farmer. What’s not known is whether he was like a common laborer, like he just cared for someone else’s sheep or something like or   whether he actually own flocks and groves but it’s certain that he was educated and it’s certain that he was aware of the times, aware of his culture, aware of what was happening in the world. Amos lived in a city called Toccoa, which is about 10 miles south of Jerusalem, placing his home in the southern kingdom of Judah but oddly his mission was to prophesy in the northern kingdom of Israel. And that was probably just across the border in Bethel because Bethel was the border and there was a golden calf set up in Bethel and profits were sent into Bethel to prophesy against it. So, that’s not too far of a stretch. He probably went into the northern kingdom prophesying in Bethel because it was a hub for idol worship and commerce. As we just talked about, the northern and southern kingdoms were experiencing a kind of peace and prosperity that they hadn’t seen since the days of Solomon. So, I mean, it could seem odd that God would send an ordinary person to deliver such a severe message of impending judgment. In such a time of peace and prosperity it would have been undoubtedly a difficult message to deliver but this is what Amos was instructed to do. And, so, peace and prosperity had open the door for corruption which was running rampant and the poor were being misused out, marginalized, and oppressed, and greed ruled the hearts of the nation’s leaders. So, Amos comes along at with a word from the Lord that effectively communicated that praying upon the less fortunate was at absolutely unacceptable, which makes social justice a major theme in the book of Amos. And it would seem like after these many thousands of years, like we would understand the cycle, but it seems like we’re still grappling with the same kinds of issues. Amos vividly reveals that we’re nowhere near as powerful as we think we are and God is a much more powerful than we could possibly even understand. And we have no right to mistreat or misuse any of his creation whether that be a people created in His image or the world that He created for the people He created in His image to live on because, as Amos reveals, the world belongs to God and He is indeed sovereign over it all, including all people and all things. So, as we read the book of Amos, let’s consider our own path and choose to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. So, reading from the New International Version this week. Amos chapter 1 verse 1 through 3 verse 15 today.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. It’s a common prayer in our community to thank You for Your word because the community is centered around Your word and centered around the rhythm of being in Your word. And, so, we love Your word and we thank You for Your word and we thank You for the way that it transforms us from within even when we don’t know it. It is just in our lives, in our hearts, and our minds continually speaking truth. And when truth is spoken over and over and over it has a cumulative effect and we thank You for that because You are changing us and ridding us of what is false within us, so that all that remains is true. All that can shake will shake and what remains will be unshakable and will be true. Come, Holy Spirit into what we’ve read today and into all that we will read and consider and meditate upon this week. We love You Lord and thank You for Your guidance, the guidance of Your Holy Spirit, the guidance of the Scriptures. We love You Jesus. We pray these things in Your name. Amen. 

 Announcements:

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

And what’s going on around here is it’s time to get ready for our annual family Christmas party and that’s just a beautiful tradition that we’ve had for many many years where we’ll read the Christmas story and Jill and I will kind of talk about…just look back at the year and look forward together and then we hear from each other, our holiday wishes, our Christmas wishes from all over the world. And, so, it’s your time to participate and every year…every year after…as we’re putting it together…there’s people still calling in. Don’t wait. Just go ahead and call in and say whatever it is that you want to say to wish your Daily Audio Bible family a Merry Christmas. The number that you can use is the prayer line number and there’s only really one rule for the most part and that is, don’t call in a prayer request and a Christmas greeting in the same call or neither one of those things will get to where they need to go. So, if you have a prayer request, certainly call that in. If you want to call a Merry Christmas call in, then call that in separate. So, you can use any of the prayer lines. If you are in the Americas, 877-942-4253 is the number. If you are in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078 is the number. If you are in Australia or the lands down under 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to dial. So, yeah, we’ll do that all this week and then we’ll start putting that together so we can enjoy a family Christmas party this year.

Also, the More Gathering for women, registration is open for that, and we’ve been talking about that for a week. And don’t miss this opportunity for the end of an era up in the mountains of Georgia. This is gonna be fantastic and the enthusiasm…Jill and I were talking about this the other day because so many of you that haven’t come before are coming…and so the enthusiasm around this…we’re just really looking forward to it. So, you can find out all the details for the More Gathering for women at moregathering.com or dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section.

And then, of course, we still have some Daily Audio Bible family Christmas Boxes for 2018 available as well in the Daily Audio Bible Shop.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link, it is 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:

Hi this is Lisa in Capistrano Beach. Family I love you all and I just want to let everyone know that as I’m listening, and I hear your prayer requests I’m praying for you right then and there. I pray for you throughout the day in the beginning and at the end and I just ask that the Lord will bless you and that His will will be done in your lives. Today I heard Margaret May out of New York and Margaret your call just stopped me in my tracks. I was cooking, and I just stopped. Tears came to my eyes as I listened to your plea for prayer. And I want you to know that I am praying for you. I know you feel alone and that you don’t have any friends, but we will pray for you. I know that so many others will pray for you as well Margaret. And then I believe the young girls name…I’m gonna say is Jordan…but you’ll know who you are. Your sister left home, and your horse died, and you felt that we might think that’s trivial but some of us don’t. I can appreciate the love that you have for a companion animal that God gave us. And, so, my heart goes out to you and I’m praying for you as well. Dear family I pray for all of you even if I’m not mentioning you by name. I hear your requests and I’m praying and I love you all. Thank you, Brian and the rest of the Daily Audio Bible ministry. I just love these podcasts every day and I listen to you…it’s been 12 years. Love you all. Take care. God bless you, bye bye.

Margaret May you have been prayed for. What you have said is not unique to you. I have struggled with much of what you have said. Do not let Satan this deceive you further. You are a child of God most high. Ask the Father to fill you and cover you with the Holy Spirit. Say out loud, I am a child of God, what He says about me is true. And remember that God does not give us the Spirit of fear. That’s in Timothy 1 and 7 - greater is he that is in me. You are of God’s little children and have overcome. First John 4. Fear started in the garden and has been with us since. God tells us to fear not many times in the Bible. Seek God’s word and speak it aloud so your own ears can hear it and take it in. Show me God’s love.

Hi, my name is Julia I’m calling from Los Angeles. I’ve been listening since July of this year. I listen every day and I just…I love the family and I’m praying for every prayer request that comes in daily but I was really moved by one of the women that called in today. She called in from Syracuse New York and I’m sorry that I missed your name when you were calling about the spirit of fear and thoughtfulness and that you had been in the room. It just like you thought it was getting worse and I just wanted to call and pray for you. So, Lord I just come before You thanking You for today, thanking You for this community that we get to be so close together even though we’re physical so far apart. And Lord I just…I come before You interceding for this woman, this daughter of Yours Lord. I pray Holy Spirit that You would come in and that You would swallow up that loneliness, and that You would swallow up that fear, I come against every demonic attack of the enemy right now and I command You to stand down and stay down by the blood of Jesus. I pray the Lord You would loosen peace in her mind and in her heart Lord. I pray that You and give her the strength Lord to come out of that room and to seek help Lord. I pray Lord a Psalms 91 covering over her that You would give her refuge under the shadow of Your wings Lord, that You would cover her with Your feathers. I pray for a dispatching of angels right now Lord to be at every doorpost and at every window Lord, covering her Lord and protecting her so that they would lift her up in their hands tonight and __ her fall on a stone Lord. Father, You say that You are the King of glory, the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. So, I pray that You would be her defender in this battle Lord, that the weapons that the enemy has used against us will not prevail. I pray the armor of Lord to be over her, the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit, the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, the sandals of…

Hello this is Carrie from China and now from Australia. Today’s 7^th of December. I’ve been meaning to call in for quite a while with a praise report but that’s going to have to wait now because I was galvanized into action by a call from Margaret May from New York this morning. Margaret May, what a brave girl you are. You’ve being tormented with fears and yet you dialed in to call for help. I’m so proud of you. That was the very best thing you could do and now you have a worldwide prayer team behind you. In the name of Jesus, I command those tormenting spirits to cease their activity and come out of Margaret now. Loose her and set her free. I plead the blood of Jesus over you in the name of Jesus. Nothing but the blood of Jesus can wash away our sin and make us whole again. I command your digestive system to work normally and except food again in Jesus’ name. And now let the peace of God guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Margaret May, if you are able fill your room with praise and worship all day, radio, tapes, whatever it takes. It will create an atmosphere that the demons will hate and finally, know that I am praying for you along with all your brothers and sisters from the DAB. Many blessings.

Joel 1:1-3:21, Revelation 1:1-20, Psalms 128:1-6, Proverbs 29:18

Today is the 9^th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you, of course, at the threshold of a shiny, sparkly, new week, but this also happens to be the second Sunday in the season of Advent. Of course, Advent is the season that leads us into Christmas but gives us the opportunity to contemplate the implications of God…God…our God…the Almighty Creator of all things seen and unseen, right, the Creator of the universe condescending himself and becoming a human being to rescue humanity. That is something to contemplate. And on this second Sunday of Advent, and if you’re lighting the Advent wreath at your church or at home, lighting the second candle, the Bethlehem candle and this week we contemplate the faith that it took this couple, Mary and Joseph to become a part of the story, and we contemplate how it requires faith on our part to enter this story.

Song:

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Phil Keaggy

God rest ye merry, gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan’s power
When we were gone astray

Oh, whoa
Tidings of comfort and joy

From God our heavenly Father
A blessed angel came
And unto certain shepherds
Brought tidings to the same
How that in Bethlehem was born
The Son of God by name

Whoa, tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Whoa, tidings of comfort and joy

Remember Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas Day

Whoa, tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Whoa, tidings of comfort and joy

God rest ye merry, gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas Day

God rest ye merry, gentlemen
(Comfort and joy)
Let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas Day 

So, we’ve got a brand-new week out in front of us as we move forward in this month, as we move toward the end of this year, as we move deeper into the Christmas season. And in terms of being shiny and sparkly and new we’re beginning new books in the Old and in the new Testaments today. So, we’ll talk about that as we as we get there, but we are there in terms of the Old Testament. As we continue through our journey that is the final push through the minor prophets in the Old Testament we’ll read the entire book of Joel in its entirety today. This will become a theme. We will be reading books in their entirety often as we continue the journey in the steps forward each day into the end of the year.

Introduction to the book of Joel:

The irony about Joel is that nobody really knows who Joel was. I mean there are other people in the Bible with the same name, but biblical scholars don’t believe any of those people are the author of this prophetic book and the text itself doesn’t help. There are no historical clues within the text, which makes dating Joel very difficult for biblical scholars and biblical historians, which has led many to come to different conclusions over the centuries. But in very general terms, Joel is probably dated somewhere between 500 and 800 B.C., you know, but dating the book, although it’s helpful for context, it’s not unnecessary for the text to retain its impact. And it’s been observed that Joel shares a similar language style with some of the other prophets like Ezekiel or Jeremiah our Amos or Micah or Zephaniah and that’s led some scholars to argue that Joel may be the work of more than one prophet. But on the other hand, others consider that the similarities are a byproduct of the shared culture and tradition of the prophets, that they knew each other and they kind of spoke a common language or had a vocabulary that was understood to be prophetic in nature. Joel wrote of a vast horde of locusts that invaded the land and obliterated everything that was living, every green thing, including the crops and a great famine followed the plague of locusts. And Joel uses natural disasters as a backdrop to call the children of Israel to repentance. And most biblical scholars consider the event, the locust invasion, to be to be an actual event, not an allegory or a symbol, even though Joel used the event to speak an apocalyptic message of judgment. That as it is the case with so much of the Bible, Joel’s words were intended to reveal that a fork in the road had been reached where a choice must be made and the path of repentance, if they were to take that fork, that would lead to blessing and restoration. Continuing to reject God and take the other fork would lead to, what Joel calls, the great and terrible day of the Lord. And even though the judgment that’s described in Joel would certainly be great, the path of repentance would lead to an even greater restoration. Some of the most well-known and beautiful passages of restoration are found in the book of Joel. So, for example, Joel tells us, “I will pour out my spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.” So, obviously very, very famous portions of Scripture. So, let’s dive in and embrace the message of the book of Joel and consider how we are invariably and continually brought to forks in the road where a decision has to be made. And let’s remember from the book of Joel that, no matter what the locusts have eaten in the past, there is always a path to restoration. And, so, we begin. We’re reading from the new International version this week. Joel chapter 1 verse 1 through 3 verse 21 today.

Introduction to the book of Revelation:

Okay. So, that concludes the book of Joel in its entirety, which brings us now to, obviously, our New Testament portion, which brings us also into new territory, the final book of the Bible, the final book of the New Testament, the book of Revelation. And Revelation…oh…come on…the book of Revelation has captured the fascination of readers in ways that really no other book has and it’s been interpreted through many lenses over thousands of years, some of them fantastic, and some of them pragmatic. The book of revelations self identifies the author as John and, unfortunately, which John isn’t clearly specified. So, traditionally the accepted author’s been the apostle John who obviously wrote the gospel of John as well as some of the territory we just walked through, first, second and third John. But the reality is that this has been questioned since at least the third century and it continues all the way until today, but there is no clear evidence in any other direction. So, based on the evidence, most hold to the tradition of the apostle John was probably the author. If this is the case, then the apostle John had been banished to the island of Patmos where Revelation was written. And it’s believed that Patmos was…I’ve got to learn how to talk…Patmos was a Roman…like a prison colony…like an island where you would be dropped off to do your time and criminals and political prisoners were exiled there. And the island exists. It sits out in the ocean between modern-day Greece and Turkey in the Aegean Sea and it’s not that far from Ephesus where it’s thought that John spent his elderly years. So, here’s the deal about Revelation. Revelation is considered a work of a specific literary genre called apocalyptic literature. And this is one of the reasons for such intrigue because that genre is highly symbolic. So, fantastic things. If we think of Ezekiel with the wheel within the wheel and the spirits moving back and forth, forward and backward, up and down, with…you know…like remember that story…or some of the things that we saw and in the book of Daniel. This is apocalyptic literature, highly symbolic. And, so, the reader has to discern what it is that is to be taken literally and at what is to be considered allegoric or symbolic. So, what makes Revelation is so intriguing in this regard is because of the subject matter, right? It appears that the subject matter is the end of the world as we know it and the beginning of a new era for humanity. So, intriguing to say the least and yet highly symbolic apocalyptic literature. So, interpreting Revelation can lead to widely diverse conclusions and this has literally been the case for the last couple thousand years. Some view the work from an entirely first century perspective, from the time that it was written and conclude that the events spoken of in Revelation are events that have already taken place while others see the book outlining the chain of events beginning in the first century and lasting all the way until the end of the world. And then still others believe that the symbolism found in Revelation is timeless, it describes the cosmic struggle between good and evil. And the truth is, any of these views are legitimate but getting overly intrigued by the details and then then trying to overlay them with the current time, trying to smash them in and make them all fit, that might prove unfulfilling because that’s been the custom of nearly every generation since this was written and everybody’s been incorrect up until now. One thing is certain though, the theme that we have been working toward that we have been noticing, as we moved into the autumn, as the seasons changed, the theme of endurance that has followed us through the New Testament is a fundamental, primary theme in the book of Revelation. It’s really almost as if we we’ve been following the theme all the way to Revelation so that we can see that endurance is irreplaceable in the ultimate battle between darkness and light. And Revelation ultimately tells us that those who stay faithful to the testimony of Jesus and endure until the end, right, “by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony”, those people will be eternally victorious. And one of the things, if we’re looking for it, we’ll find in Revelation is that endurance, it’s not a passive thing. Like, we think of it that way, “I’m can just enduring”, which means I’m putting up with something. So, “I’m passively just stuffing it inside and in dealing with it.” Or we treat it like a defensive posture, like, “I just gotta get through this.” But endurance isn’t passive or defensive. To remain true in the context we’re talking about here, when the entire world is against you, if you’re staying true, if you’re standing true when everything is against you, then you are absolutely making a defining, powerful statement. And in this case, those who endure are making a statement against deception. And deception has always been the greatest force set against mankind and Revelation will show us that. We are to remain true and be a witness to the truth and a light in the darkness until the very end. And that very end, according to the book of Revelation, is a new beginning. And, so, we begin the final book of the Bible, Revelation, chapter 1.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for this brand-new week out in front of us. We think You for this season of contemplation and the true rejoicing in Your arrival to rescue and save us. So, come Holy Spirit into this week and everything that we do and everything that we hear and everything that we say. Plant Your word deep in our lives, transforming us from within. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

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

And there’s something new going on around here starting right now. So, here we are its December 9^th, the second Sunday in the season of Advent and we have another tradition here in the Daily Audio Bible family and that is our family Christmas episode. And that happens every year. We do a reading of the entire Christmas story, my family. We read the Christmas story together, but this is your opportunity to call in your holiday greetings to your brothers and sisters all over the world, those who have traveled with you, whether silently or whether you’ve met in person at an event or whether you just know them by voice. This is the opportunity to send your holiday greetings to the Daily Audio Bible family and the way that you do that is that you call into the prayer line and wish everybody a happy holiday, whatever it is that you want to say. There’s only really…there’s two rules about this. One, I mean all the calls have a two-minute limit, but the other rule is, if you have a prayer request don’t call that in combined with a holiday greeting. Like, it’s one time that you can actually make two calls back to back if that’s what you need to do. Just make sure that your holiday greetings are all on their own call and your prayer requests are all on their own call otherwise neither one of them are going to get where they need to go because there’s just too many and there’s no way chop that all up and put it where it needs to go. So, that’s the rule for this week. So, from today all the way until Saturday we’ll be taking those calls, your Daily Audio Bible family…it’s like our Christmas party, like our community Christmas party that happens here every year and I love it since we’ve done it and we’ve been doing it a long time, over a decade. I never…I’m always in tears…I’m note an outwardly emotional person. I have deep feelings but I’m an introvert but these…this just brings me to tears because just to hear the stories coming together…the journey and holiday wishes and all of the familiar voices and just centered around this beautiful season of Christmas is a wonderful thing. So, call in your Christmas greetings this week. The numbers to use are 877-942-4253 if you’re if you’re in the United States. In the UK or Europe, 44-20-3608-8078 or if you’re in Australia, 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to call. So, do and don’t procrastinate. I know there’s procrastinators out there because your calls over the years have kind of come in late and that’s sad because they don’t get included in the family Christmas. But…well…don’t procrastinate. Pick up that line, dial it, and off you go. And we’ll look forward to our Daily Audio Bible family Christmas coming up a little later in the month.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link. It’s on the homepage. Thank you profoundly and humbly for your partnership. That’s no joke. It’s no joke. This would all be gone. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t do this together. So, thank you. There’s a link 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 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, I’m calling for Margaret May from Syracuse. My name is Carla and I just wanted to say that your call touched me very deeply and I know what it’s like to feel like I don’t know how to pray. And I’m like I’m overcome by fear and loss and sorrow. And I’ve also felt just such a deep agony in my spirit that at times I didn’t even want to live. And I know how horrible loneliness can be and it can feel like you’re dead inside. And I’d actually discovered that my pain was not just a spiritual attack from demons but also mental health issues. And I’m not saying demonic spirits and principalities don’t move in this world but also as easily as Satan may afflict a man with arthritis or a woman with kidney stones, he can afflict our minds and our brains with deep depression and anxiety, which is my story. And your fears sound like they might be as well. And God in my life has used good Christian therapists and psychiatrists blessed with skills to help me heal and it’s improve my relationship with Him and improved my life all around. And I just encourage you to open your mind and your heart to the possibility that God may be leading you to seek healing for the mind and brain as well as for the spirit. And God I just thank You so much for Margaret May and just surround her with Your love and with our love from the DAB and with the love people in her community. Please build her with community and friends and family with a church because we aren’t meant to be alone. And also, help her with her pain and healing. Lead her down that path and remind her that You look on her with only love and no anger at all. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Hi, good morning, I’m Denise from Canada and this is my first time calling for prayer. So, I wrote it out so that I don’t ramble. I would like to thank you for being willing to pray and especially for those for people you don’t know. I’m asking for prayer this morning for my sister and her daughter, my niece. They’re in great need. There’s trauma, anxiety, depression, isolation, hopelessness and fear. Mostly they need Jesus. Trying to make it in this life without Him is ludicrous. So, I’m asking you if you’d please pray for them. I really appreciated and thank you so so much. And I hope you have a wonderful day and thank you again. Bye.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family, Happy December. I hope you are having a good day. I was just listening to the Daily Audio Bible this morning and I just heard the call from Margaret May in Syracuse New York. And I heard her fear, her isolation, her loneliness and I am so thankful that she reached out, that she called us to let us know that she needs us to pray for her. And Margaret, I wanted you to know that I am praying for the Holy Spirit to comfort you, to fill you, to give you peace, to give you a sound mind and to give you the strength that you need to return to living, to reach out, to expect friendship, and to be able to eat, and to drink, and to go about your daily life. I would love to hear from you. I will leave my email, but I just want you to know that I understand. I understand that loneliness, that fear, that deep dark hole that you’re in. And I am praying for you. I’m praying that you, that will be healed. Please contact me and we can be friends even though I live in Illinois. My name is Nancy and my email addresses nancygolian@gmail.com. I love you Margaret. You take care. Have a good day. Bye.

Good morning all my Daily Audio Bible friends, this is Diane Olive Brown calling you from Newburgh Indiana. It is 9:14 in the morning on December the 6^th, Thursday. And I got my Christmas Box and I sent when I was a gift and I love it, love it, love it. I love being in this community. I love feeling like I just put a great big log on the campfire and gathered around together with the Scriptures and I love the Scriptures, the reading today. Today’ December the 6^th was just really amazing and the Lord is just warming of my heart, warming my heart. I had some pretty big disappointments this year, but it was all good because, you know, where most disappointments come and you just got set back and you feel like the rug got pulled right out from under you then…boom…you get back with the Lord and you start all over again. It doesn’t matter if you start all over again. Shalom, shalom. Nothing is missing, nothing is broken. And I want to first call out to a girl who called. I don’t know your name, but you called and you’re a first-time caller and you’re in desperate desperate, desperate need of a friend, you don’t have a friend, you don’t have a church. You’ve been in a room, it seems like a room, just by yourself and when you got so desperate and I just want to let you know that I’m praying for you. You have a friend in me…and I’m your friend…