A Walk Through The Word

Ezekiel 24:1-26:21, Hebrews 11:1-16, Psalms 110:1-7, Proverbs 27:14

Today is the 12^th day of November welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is great to be here with you to take the next step forward. So, yeah, let’s just all fid our place around the Global Campfire, find a peaceful place within us, just kind of exhale the cares of life that would love…would love to interfere with this time. But this is the safe place. This is the oasis that we have together where we come together and just let God’s word speak however it speaks, just take a few minutes to catch our breath and allow God into the day. And, so, let’s get that. We’re reading from the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament right now. So, we’ll continue that. We’re reading from the God’s Word Translation this week. Ezekiel chapters 24, 25 and 26 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, yesterday we were talking about our reading from the book of Hebrews. We talked about being able to move into the holy place beyond the curtain, beyond the veil, so into the very presence of God. And again, like we’ve said so many times, this is all…this is all being fleshed out in a Hebrew context because Hebrews is written to Hebrews and if we don’t have the Hebrew context then none of its gonna make any sense much like the rest of the Bible. So, essentially what was being promised here is that we can go into the very presence of God as His children and that He will welcome us that way, that there is an intimacy, a relationship that is available with the most-high. Well, for the Hebrew people hearing this, the high priest could only go into the most holy place once a year. So, what was being described was something impossible. The impossible was possible which is…which is the good news, that there is no separation between us and God anymore. That’s the good news. So, as we turn the page and move into today’s reading what we’re seeing begin to be fleshed out is how to do it. Like, how it works. How might one begin that process of entering into some kind of personal interaction even relationship with the most-high God. How do you…how you start that journey. And the writer of Hebrews lays it out. Faith. And, of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard faith in the Bible this year. This isn’t the first time we’ve talked about faith since we started our journey so many months ago. We talked plenty about faith when we were working through Paul’s letters because it’s the centerpiece of the gospel that he was teaching but it’s Hebrews that gives us the famous definition, right? Faith is the substance of things hoped for, it is the evidence of things not seen. Or reading from the translation that we’re in now. “Faith assures us of things we expect and convinces us of the existence of things we cannot see.” So, I mean logic just dictate…dictates; if you don’t have faith in a God that you cannot see then how can you be in a relationship with that God? Faith is required unless we get bent out of shape, like, “well…I just don’t have that kind of faith …I don’t have enough faith…like I can’t get anything to get done because I have enough faith. And where do I go? Like, where is the well that I can get more faith? Where do I go to the store and buy more faith? Where’s the faith shop at? There isn’t one. You have what you need. We are all living by faith. As much as we are denying it, we are all living by faith. So you have faith in love? You can’t see it yet can’t really prove it other than its evidence and the fact that it’s ubiquitous everybody believes that there is love and we act in love, but you can’t see it. Do you believe in the wind? You can’t see it. It can blow down a tree, though. It can bring a flood. It can dry the earth. So, we have faith in its existence because we can see what it’s doing. Do you have faith in next Tuesday? Probably. Probably you’re expecting that next Tuesday will come. You may even have things planned for next Tuesday. Can you see it? Can you attain it? Can you grasp it? It’s yet to be. It hasn’t come into existence yet. But somehow our faith fleshes out and gives substance enough that we could write in a calendar what we planned to do at a time that does not exist yet. Do you believe that if you’re going to work today that you’re probably gonna get there, or if you’re on your lunch break do you believe that you’re probably gonna make it home tonight? Yeah, probably you have faith that that will happen. Do you know it will happen? You have no idea that it will happen other than that it keeps happening, and so would you believe that it will. And that’s just some random examples. If you just think about your life and the things that you have faith in that are not necessarily spiritual things but maybe spiritual things, we realize that we are operating in faith a lot because we’re made that way. And then we turn to spirituality and we turn to God and it all the sudden gets murky when we are made for this. Faith lets us see a reality and then begin to live into that reality like next Tuesday even though it’s not here, even though it hasn’t reached its fullness or its completion. It gives substance to what is not seen. So, there’s a bit of…just an argument, I guess, for the existence of faith, but we would have to acknowledge that it does exist because we employ it every day of our lives. The writer of Hebrews is simply trying to say, “this is the way forward. Your faith is the way forward. But don’t think that faith is a new invention. Faith has been the underpinning of…of everything all along. It’s the essential piece of the puzzle.” It preceded in the Hebrew story, any tradition any ritual any law, any culture any anything, it was the foundational piece of it all, which led us into a bunch of names. We started reviewing. Like we started at the book of Genesis and started forward, right? It’s by faith that Abel brought a more acceptable offering to God. It’s by faith that Enoch was taken without dying. He disappeared. It was my faith that Noah built a ship to save his family from the flood. It was by faith that Abraham obeyed God and left the land that he was in to a land that he would be shown. It was my faith that Sarah, even though she was too old to have children and they were both a Abram and Sarah, Sarai, were both too old to have children. They had a child. All those examples come from the book of Genesis, the beginning of the story that we read so long ago. And as we continue because we’re…we’re walking down a section of Scripture that’s famous, it’s famously called the hall of faith and the reason for this existing is…well…is for the author of Hebrews to show fellow Hebrews that faith was always the centerpiece of the story from the get go. It was always the essential piece. It’s a part of all of the stories. If faith gets removed from the stories than the stories…the stories don’t exist. So, the writer of Hebrews is essentially trying to say, “this has always been going on. It’s going on right now and for you to go forward, for you to go forward with God into an intimate relationship it is going to require faith. Faith is what will make you move fomrward. And what we should see from our reading today as we began the hall of faith and as we continue the hall of faith forward into tomorrow what we should see is that these were not superheroes. At the end of their story they did not get some kind of cape and some kind of special power. They were people, ordinary, normal people. We’re not reading the hall of faith as a list of names of people who were exceptions. We’re reading the story of people who serve as examples for us. And, so, we should consider then, what…what the readers of this letter would’ve had to consider - where is my faith then, what is my faith in then? If I’m struggling right now and it’s all falling apart my faith is in something somewhere. Where is my faith? And if our faith is…if it feels like it’s thin and frayed and ruffled and torn and…and God feels distant, if our faith toward God feels like it’s paper thin and we can see through it and somebody just poured water on it and it’s just starting to come apart maybe our faith isn’t in God. I mean I know that sounds kinda forward, but maybe it’s not. Maybe our faith is in what we thought He was going to do. Maybe we asked Him for something or expected things to go in a certain direction and we put our faith in that outcome and that outcome isn’t God. If our faith is in the expectation of what might happen then maybe it’s not in God. Because as we’ve seen from beginning the hall of faith so many of those people never saw the promise, so many of those people never saw the fulfillment but the story couldn’t have continued if they hadn’t taken their place and believed in faith. And, so, our stories aren’t only about us. Like, we’re one day gonna lay down in death and there will be generations that exist upon this earth because we were here. We carried the story forward, but can we believe for the future generations that are not future generations of the earth, but just future generations of our offspring, our family? Can we see beyond our own lives and believe that our faith is telling a story? And that story needs to continue forward because faith activates everything. And our faith has to have hope beyond us. And, so, let’s give that some thought today. Where is our faith? We need to locate it and know where it is because we’re going to need it.

Prayer:

Father, O we love You and we invite You into that. Where have we put our faith? Why are we so frustrated? Why are we spinning? Maybe we have put our faith and outcomes that continually leave us downtrodden and disheartened when our faith could have been and should have been in You wherever the road may lead. Because wherever the road may lead, if we are with You we are where we’re supposed to be and we are where we ultimately want to be. So, come Holy Spirit and lead us on the narrow path that leads to life, the path of faith. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base and it’s obviously a website and it’s…it’s our home. It’s home of the Global Campfire and everything that we are and all that we share together. So, check that out what’s going on around here.

I mentioned yesterday a Global Campfire initiative and we did this a couple years ago and just to…to be able to sow more deeply into app development for this community and…and to keep it free and to continue building it into the place that we call home. And, so, I shared the whole story yesterday of the converging lines that sort of made the Heart album that we released early in the…earlier this year into a deluxe beautiful keepsake vinyl addition. And anyone that is able to participate in the Global Campfire initiative, anyone who is able to give $100 or more, and as I said yesterday…even as I say it today…like I don’t know how to say it any other way but I’m trying very hard not to sound televangelist type, fundraiser type. Like that’s not who we are, that’s never been who we are, it never we will ever be. That’s not what we’re doing here. But we do have needs and it has been a heck of the year and we want to continue to grow at the pace that we’re growing in terms of developing the app and not slow anything down. So, yeah, anyone…anyone that can participate in this Global Campfire initiative with a hundred dollars or more, we’ll send you the…the Heart LP and what fun it is to say that. I’m a little bit…I don’t think I’m a junkie for albums…like I don't…I don’t have…I did for a minute there while I was collecting all the Christmas records and stuff but I’ve really, really enjoyed being back into vinyl because I like holding my music. Like that’s how I grew up, reading liner notes and just admiring the artwork and just wanting to be in that business whatever it took. And, so, here the other side of that have the Heart album be on vinyl is a wonderful joy. And that is just…it’s beautiful. All of the prayers that are included in the heart album, they are included in written form, in printed form for the first time. And, so, yeah it is a…it is a collectible. There are 500 of them in the world. Well…there were. I haven’t checked. I suppose we’re about half of that now. So, long and short of the story is, if…if Daily Audio Bible is a place that’s like a home base for you, a place that you consider yourself a part of the community, you’re going through the Scriptures and you can participate in this than thank you with all of my hear. And it’s going to be a joy to send Heart, the music, the album to you. So, basically you just need to go to dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you just need to push the little Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner and look for Initiatives and click the Initiatives, whether on the web or whether in the app, and you will find the Global Campfire banner. You will see it. Shows you the album packaging, etc. etc. Just press that link and it will take you where you need to go. And I thank you humbly and I mean that humbly, graciously that we can continue forward together. So, thank you.

As always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button that’s in the app that we’re talking about. And that’s one of the features that have come because we continue to build in and sow in and…and build up a home base where we can connect. So, just the Hotline button no matter where you are in the world and you can share from…well…wherever you are in the world or if you want to use the telephone you can call 877-942-4253.

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

Ezekiel 23:1-49, Hebrews 10:18-39, Psalms 109:1-31, Proverbs 27:13

Today is the 11^th day of November welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today as we move forward in our week and forward in our year for that matter. Step-by-step day by day we make the journey together. And, so, the next step leads us back into the book of Ezekiel. We’re reading from the God’s Word Translation this week. Ezekiel chapter 23.

Commentary:

Okay, So, as we continue our journey through the letter to the Hebrews…I mean we…we keep reminding ourselves of certain specific things almost every time we talk about Hebrews and the first one is that Hebrews is for Hebrews. Hebrews was written to Jewish people. And Hebrews does a really good…I mean…it’s not the you can’t see this in other letters in the New Testament but Hebrews does this really good job of really providing us the Hebrew backdrop, the Hebrew side of the argument for Jesus, that God was the God of the Hebrews, is the God of the Hebrews. Jesus is that God incarnated as a human being among His own people showing them the way forward. O that in and of itself, that could, you know, that that could turn off lots of people. Like, well, it’s like just another cult leader or this is just a dynamic person that people are following…are following around or whatever. But the point in Hebrews is Jesus was foretold, like this was always supposed to happen, this was always on the radar. That’s the argument. Like basically, open your eyes and see what is actually happening…happening here. God is doing a new thing, but hints of this have been foretold from long, long ago. It’s happening now. We’ve also talked as we’ve read through Hebrews, if we read it at face value, just to understand that you don’t have any of the Hebrew context and that Hebrew context is very much provided in what we know as the Old Testament, then the implications, because they are religious implications, they are…they are unpacked through the lens of Judaism then they don’t make a whole lot of sense if you have no background whatsoever if you just come…while you just come to the faith itself but you come to something like the letter to the Hebrews and you start reading it and it’s all kinds of things about high priests and temples and sacrifices and this and that and the other and it doesn't…like…like there’s no context for it. So, without the Hebrew context it’s hard to understand the implications of Jesus. And then the third thing is why this letter seems to have ever existed in the first place. And that was because Hebrew believers who were following Jesus and were in community with each other were being marginalized on a lot of levels. And we’ve spent a lot of time, so I don’t need like to retell the whole thing. We’ve talked about this several times throughout this year, especially while we were going through the letters of Paul. So, they were being marginalized, persecution was beginning. The Jewish people, they weren’t not buying into the Jesus story en masse. They were mostly rejecting this story. The Hebrew leaders were rejecting the story because. It was the Hebrew leaders who had plotted the killing of Jesus. And, so, they basically had a stick by their story. And, so, no one is accepting this. And, so, people who do are being marginalized by the Jewish people. Meanwhile the Jewish people were marginalized by the Roman empire that was in…in the region of Syria where…where the land is. So, people who were following the way of Jesus who were following His teachings, they were like double marginalized. They were being marginalized by the marginalized. So, kinda not a lot of places to maneuver then. And, so, they were shrinking back, falling away, turning away, basically going back into their Hebrew tradition and into Judaism and going back and following the Torah religiously or just walking away from the whole thing. So, the letter to Hebrews comes along to encourage them not to do that, not to walk away. And that’s precisely what we’re seeing in our reading today. So, I’m quoting just to bring this point home. “Remember the past when you first learned the truth. You endured a lot of hardship and pain. At times you were publicly insulted and mistreated. At times you associated with people who were treated this way. You suffered with prisoners. You were cheerful even though your possessions were stolen since you know that you have a better and more permanent possession”, right? So, these are words encouraging them, “don’t fade, don’t disappear, don’t hide, don’t walk away, don’t go backward. God is going forward. God has come and a new thing is happening, and the only way is forward. Don’t go backward.” And understanding the things that we just talked about, we can see why they were going backward and why this letter comes at the right time to say, “don’t forget what God has done for you and don’t forget what God is doing for you. And even that is unpacked in our reading today. “Brothers and sisters”, I’m quoting, “brothers and sisters, because of the blood of Jesus, we can now confidently go into the holy place. Jesus has opened to new and living way for us to go through the curtain.” Okay. So, we may all understand the Hebrew context because we’ve heard this kind of stuff before but the Hebrew context here is that the holy place, like the most holy place here is in the temple behind a curtain, behind a veil. The high priest can only go into the most holy place once a year. The writer of Hebrews is saying, “like…like there’s no veil anymore. It’s gone now. Why would you go back when you can confidently enter the holy place? Maybe you’re not gonna go up into the holy place in the temple in Jerusalem, but spiritually, you can enter into the very presence of the most-high God as His child, like confidently as a beloved child.” That is a drastic paradigm shift. And, so, the writer of Hebrews is saying, “don’t walk away from that. That’s all you ever wanted. That’s always been the goal, is to find righteousness so that we might enter God’s presence. It’s now possible. Don’t walk away from that.” And, so, we can see the context for the tension. But the mirror always goes up with the Bible. And we can look at ourselves. And maybe we’re not gonna be marginalized or persecuted, but we shrink back, we fade, we disappear all the time. And this ancient letter is speaking to us from thousands of years ago saying, “why would you do that? Why you fade when everything you’ve been after is before you? There’s only one way to go and that’s forward. God is doing a new thing. The veil has been removed. What could happen to the world if God’s people could experience God’s presence, knowing that there were no more hoops to jump through, that it’s a Father and His children not a veil and a chest with a covenant in it, and sacrifice? It’s like hearing about a relationship all your life as a kid. Like, one day…one day I’m gonna get married, one day I’m gonna have a spouse, someday I’m going to grow up and constantly thinking of the coming day when that will happen. It’s the difference between thinking about it and that day when your eyes locked with the one who would be your spouse and it started a brand-new story of actual intimate relationship. And, so, let’s ponder that today. What are the ways that we’ve just faded? What are the ways that we’re just kind of…we’re here but we’re just disappearing? It’s just happening. It’s like everything’s moving on and we’re standing still. And, so, before long, everything will have moved forward, and we’re just stuck here. Why would we do that when everything we’ve wanted, when the…the very intimacy that can make us whole, union with God is available.

Prayer:

Father we enter into that. By the fact…the very fact that we are reading this letter to the Hebrews and by the very fact that we still have these struggles, it may look a little different, but the heart issues are the same. We can see that this has been a struggle all along and that brothers and sisters have been struggling with this for thousands of years. And, so, on the one hand it’s comforting to know that we’re not alone and we’re not messed up. On the other hand, the question still remains, Why would we disappear? Why would we fade into the woodwork when everything we have ever wanted is before us? So, Holy Spirit we need eyes to see it again. That’s the thing. The veil keeps falling before our eyes and we can’t see it because the world is swirling around us and discouraging us in every possible way. And, so, we reach for You Father. Remove the veil. Let us see the joy of our salvation again and let us bear witness so that others who are struggling too can see that we can move forward if we move forward together. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base. It is indeed the website it is where you find out what’s going on around here. And I promised yesterday that there was something to talk about today. And there is ad I’m just thinking. “how can I share this in five minutes? I think this is like the coming together of a couple of things that have joined themselves and made something. So, I guess…man…it’s been five years at least, maybe even longer that I started seeing vinyl records come back. And I come from the music industry so music packaging all the…just the entire apparatus of the music industry is something that I’ve spent a very very long time making a living doing. So, I get it. And, before all that I was younger and was a music fanatic. Like by the time I was 15, 16 years old it was like, “I’m gonna be in music business one way or another whatever it takes.” So, I was an avid music student, music business student, music listener. Like I was the guy reading every bit of the liner notes. So, when LPs faded away way back a long time ago I was kinda bummed because I kind of loved being able to hold my music in this kind of 12" x 12" square format where the…the artwork could be seen and appreciated and everything could be read. And we kind of migrated from there to CDs which was like a junior version of that and cassettes which were even a smaller version of that and then they faded. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. Music is pretty much in your pocket now, right? Anything you would want to listen to you can carry in your pocket. You remember when it used to be, we had…you maybe 2had 0 CDs in your car or whatever, and you know, those were your choices and now you have hundreds of thousands of choices. So, anyway, trying to consolidate a long story. It’s like a year and half ago I started collecting records like vinyl records. I bought a record player. I started listening to records. What I was specifically doing was re-accumulating all of the albums that were meaningful to me in my childhood in the format that I had them in and I just realized really interesting things listening to records again, like you can’t just get 15 or 20 seconds into a song and go, “nahhh I want the next song. You have to get up and go switch it. And, so, you…you find yourself appreciating the way records were laid out, how they were a journey and how you listened to a side of an album, you sit there and you’re participating with the artwork, etc. etc. I started doing that mostly trying to get vintage albums from my childhood and vintage Christmas music because that’s the sound of my…my childhood, like the crackle of the records at Christmas and just sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting for it to finally arrive. Okay, so that’s one part of the story. The second part of the story is that for the last several years I had been working on some music that we released in July, July 7^th in specific. That was the day of the Daily Audio Bible long walk. Doesn’t that sound like forever ago. And didn’t come at a time when we needed to get outside and out of quarantine and hear the birds again and feel the breeze on her face and go for a long walk with God. And, so, we released this music. It’s called Heart, a contemplative journey. And it's…it’s like a guided prayer journey with the intention of leading us into the emotions of our heart, the things that we’ve been dealing with in our lives but maybe don’t have language for. And, so, the prayers lead us to that place, and then the music does what music does. It speaks volumes with no words at all. And, so, we released that and it struck a nerve and ended up becoming the number one album…Christian album in the in the nation for a minute there, which was shocking and encouraging. And then the feedback started coming back in just letters and emails sent in about how it did what it was sent to do basically, how it did what I hoped it would do, lead us back to feeling again, to feeling our heart beat again, to not just closing down to all of the chaos going on around us. So, that was in July and it’s been available since then online at the iTunes Store or the Google play store. And then there’s one more component to this story. It’s been two and a half years I think about now that we were preparing to launch our own, very own Daily Audio Bible app. And for all of the years previous to that we had worked with technology partners and strategic alliances and the app was a paid app in the store and we had invested heavily in the building our own specific app because there was just no way to go forward where we were wanting to build the app to be a real community presence. There was no connection points. There’s no way to do it. We…for the things we were dreaming up it’s like we’re gonna have to build this from scratch. We’re gonna have to this. And, so, we…we did. And it was very time-consuming and very expensive. And, so, a couple years ago we did something called the Global Campfire initiative. Some of you…many many many of you will remember this and we printed up some hatch prints. That…that’s a Nashville, classic Nashville thing that just dates back pre-Elvis even. These hatch prints were all over…all over Nashville…Nashville and all over the world for that matter. There’s books on them. Anyway, I digress. We had this Global Campfire initiative and just invited people to so into the app. And as a way of being grateful we sent on these hatch prints. Here’s where the whole thing begins to converge into the story we’re trying to tell now. After it was apparent that the heart album was really striking a nerve, I thought, “let’s press up some vinyl of this, let’s press up 500 copies of this. This will be so interesting to do.” So, I set about the business of seeing what manufacturing…manufacturing was gonna look like and I realized “wow…there’s only a few places to do this and they are backed up months and months and months and months.” So, I was like, “well maybe that won’t work. But I was like why not?” And we pressed into it and made them and waited months and months and months and months to get them, and now we have them. And now is…is the right time. It’s been two and half years and it’s time for a Global Campfire initiative again where I’m just inviting anybody who can participate in this to sow into the development of the app that is more and more and more becoming home base for us. When we release the Daily Audio Bible app we released it as a free app. That was never the intention while we were developing. It was like, well, we’ll slowly over time be able to deal with this and I felt so strong the Lord that it’s supposed to be free. So, that was counterintuitive and that’s what we did. We released a brand-new app, it has been free, it will be free, it is free but it’s no less expensive to develop. So, here’s the long and short of the story. Some of the things that we’re trying to build into the app right now, some of the things we have underway are important pieces and we just need to sow into this. One of the important pieces that have been in develop…development all year, and that should hopefully see the light of day sometime next year is the multilingual nature of the app. Like there’s several languages and we have several teams reading the Bible in different languages. But the app is in English. And, so, if English is not even a second language. If English isn’t the language you speak, then it’s pretty hard to navigate, but to be able to build an onboarding process that just simply asks, what’s you’re primary language here and if it’s one of the languages that are…that…that we have the Bible in, to be able to switch to that language natively and then matter where you are if English isn’t your language to still be able to navigate and be involved, this is a missional effort to allow the spoken word of God to reach anyone who will listen anywhere on this planet any time of day or night. But we’ve also been working really, probably the dominant priority this year was to build in the badges. Remember when badges came online. And, so, every time we cross a threshold, a portion, a section of the Bible and we’ve completed it then we get to see that we’ve completed it. We get a little word of encouragement, a little badge that comes up and says we’ve completed this. And that was kind of phase 1. Phase 2 was a more robust view of where we are in the Bible, like…like what percentage are we completed in the Bible? What percentage are we completed in the New Testament? What percentage are we completed in the Old Testament? To give us a more robust view of the journey that we are on every year. And, so that is…well…that’s been being rolled out all year and that whole phase should be completed. In fact, the next major update that we do will have all of that technology baked into it. All of this development is to more completely to more robustly dial us in together and dial us into the fact that we are on a journey and there are indicators along the way they we’re making progress, that this is happening. And it’s all free for anybody to get involved and take the journey. So, here’s the deal. Anyone who is willing and is able to donate, to contribute to the Global Campfire initiative this year by giving $100 or more. And, gosh you guys, you have no idea how much like I squirm inside when I say those kinds of things because I kinda grew up watching televangelists and all that and I made it the mission of my life to not become that guy. And, so, I’m not but this is a need and we are a community and really do want to bring excellence into this community, but it just can’t happen if we don’t do it together. And this is a specific need. So, anybody who can, is willing to contribute $100 or more, if you’re one of the first 500 people than we want to send you the Heart, a contemplative journey album on vinyl, like on one hundred and eighty graham audio vinyl. Like this is not the kind of vinyl I used to buy when I grew up. It’s so thick and sounds so good. But one of the major reasons people collect vinyl these days is for the packaging, to be able to hold your music in your hand again, instead of it being like a virtual thing. So, we worked really hard to make it really, really beautiful. It has a gape…like it opens up like a double LP. It is beautifully packaged. It’s serene. And all of the prayers that are included in the Heart project for the first time that like they’re printed, they’re printed and included in the package. So, it’s the one place that you can get the prayers in a written form. It’s just really, really beautifully done. And if you are in a position, if you are able, if you have a desire to help in this way then we’d love to give this to you as a collector’s item, as a limited-edition that’s only available here and is only available until there gone. So, I can keep saying words but I think that’s the long and short of the story. And if you’re if you’re in a position, if you’re able you can check it out at dailyaudiobible.com. You can check it out in the Daily Audio Bible Shop or there’s an Initiatives section and that will just zoom you right there. Just click the Initiatives button and then look for the Global Campfire initiative and that’ll take you right there and you can look at it and see what I’m talking about. And I…I thank you I thank you humbly. I mean I thank you with all of my heart. What we’re doing is remarkable to me even though this has been like my everyday life for almost 15 full years, it’s still remarkable to me that we can do this, that I can be here speaking to you knowing that this will go out across the world and that we have the community here and our desire is to be together around the context of being together in the Scriptures each and every day. And, so, I am grateful beyond words. In Fact, that’s a frustrating thing in my life. I don’t know what other words to say. It’s just…you just keep saying bigger words. This is amazing, this is spectacular, this is miraculous. But it’s just special that we get to spend our lives together and that we get to grow together as God words…as God’s word speaks into our lives. So, that’s it, brand-new Global Campfire initiative supporting, specifically supporting app development and our development team. If you can partner with that than we want to send you the heart album and you can find it a dailyaudiobible.com.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, like in the app is where that hotline button lives and this is what we are sowing into, further developing this, this is home base for us., So, you can hit that hotline button in the app or you can dial 877-942-4253.

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

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello this is Daughter of the King from Tennessee. Lord I thank you for being our shepherd and as our shepherd you said that we would have no need or want because you promise to supply all our needs according to your riches and glory by Christ Jesus. And we thank you for your promise not only to supply all our needs but to supply them exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or think. And we thank you father. Mike, I want to thank you and take you up on that five minutes a day Proverb challenge. I will do that. Ms. Tyler you’re a first-time caller and you’re seeking a place to live. God will help you and we’re praying for you. Brian we just commend you for choosing to do the right thing in your marriage. Two wrongs don’t make a right. But we know God can make it right and we pray for healin’. Lisa the Encourager always, and we just thank you for the beautiful prayer, praying for our elderly parents. And yes, I can remember praying for Brian go through with his mother. Brian we just thank you and know that must’ve been hard too. Danny, we’re praying for Christopher your 15-year-old grandson, his friend Tony and Dustin. We know it was a horrible situation and we know God can still make that thing right. And Kathy your martial art test that you’re taking on, that’s important to you and we just commend you as a sister that wants to do this and that’s important to us as well. Jordan we’re praying that God will get you back on track and don’t surrender your joy. Peg where praying for your dead son and Jared where praying for your son and we hope things went well with you guys when you all met during his birthday. As well as running walking in the light we are praying for your son. As you say don’t surrender your joy. And that was so beautiful. And we won’t surrender our joy. Emberley…

This is Charlotte from Missouri and I want to share some testimony. Recently my partner of seven years abandon me for somebody else. The pain of this heartbreak has been hell and has been agony and the heartbreak I’ve experienced has been like…unlike any other. I’ve been asking God why and how to get through this. And today’s reading and it was Ezekiel and describing God’s heartbreak with us, how we…we have caused him the same heartbreak. It’s really just humbling and exactly what I need because this relationship I had this man on earth, you know, will never be able to be again. It will never be able to be restored but there is a man who will always restore me, who will always restore our love, who will always take me back, and that’s just exactly what I needed. Today I’m just asking for your prayer. I need to move out of the city and get a new job. So, I’m asking for prayer, direction, and wisdom. Thank you DAB family. Love you guys.

Good morning DABbers it’s November 6^th and am praising the Lord thanking Him. Oh, His love is so great. I knew this Ezekiel song would be just coming again. I just felt it was coming and today’s the day and oh my goodness that song, wow. It is so good. Thank you, Brian for playing it again. It totally wrecks me but in a good way because it just once again just reminds me to the full extent, it’s like nothing, nothing does God not know about heart and suffering and loss and pain and rejection and all those things. There’s nothing that we go through that he doesn’t totally understand. And the magnitude of his understanding is just so great. And, so, even though I cry, it’s tears of joy because we’re so loved by such a loving loving loving loving loving Father. We have everything to rejoice in every day no matter what. And, so, on this day I’m just thanking You Lord. I’m praising You. I’m rejoicing in You. Bless Your people Lord. May they just turn to You and just rest in You and be bathed in Your love. Thank You. Amen.

Hello this is Chile from Florida. I’m calling about that teacher on the 7^th of November your…your heartfelt request to be able to be in your classroom. I just want to speak a word of encouragement to you. That was a…that was a beautiful thing that you shared. Lord Jesus I pray for this teacher and I thank you Lord Jesus that the day will come sooner than she expects where she will be able be back in her classroom teaching her kids. And Lord I ask you bless not only her but all…all those out there who want to get back in the classroom and teach our kids one on one. We…we…we thank you for them in Jesus’ name.

Good afternoon DABbers this is Soaring on Eagles Wings from Canada. It’s with a heavy heart that I come to pray for Danny from Southern Oregon, her grandson, the family of the young man that was shot. One is in jail and then the other friend who was present during the shooting. This is a hard hard time. It’s so difficult. One doesn’t even know what to pray. But our Father knows everything. So, I am asking Father God that You would touch these boys Father. Chris’s best friend, that’s the grandson, was shot by Dustin and Tony is the other boy who was present. These boys are going to go through some awful times. But Father God You are there to protect them, their minds. I pray for all the families. And Lord I don’t know what happened, but You do. And in the midst of all of this please be real to these boys. I pray that their families will get together and try and get peace and harmony, that bitterness won’t overtake. But it’s difficult. And, so, we need intervention Father for grandma, Danny here, she’s worried about her grandson and the whole situation needs Your intervention.

Seeking your face at the start of my day
I found that for me there’s no better way
in fact you said to acknowledge you in all of my ways
and to bring all of my thoughts in subjection to you whenever my mind and heart strays
because trouble surrounds me wherever I go
health problems family problems bills a sack full of woe
should I try to work it all out with the strength of my own hands
or stand in faith and wait on you ignoring my hearts well thought out plans
because you said the wisdom of man is foolishness to you
and I know that all your words are faithful and true
so I’m gonna seek your face the start of my day
because I know that for me there is no better way

blindtony1016@gmail.com

I’d like to give a shout out to Sherlock Washington and Kim and also to Victoria soldier haven’t heard your voice in a while and I sure miss it. Know you’re all thought of pray for love daily and missed very much. And once again Brian and the Hardin family thank you for this wonderful podcast for God’s Holy Spirit to flow. Keep it flowin’ y’all. All right. Bye-bye.

Ezekiel 21:1-22:31, Hebrews 10:1-17, Psalms 108:1-13, Proverbs 27:12

Today is November 10^th welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you for another day, another opportunity to come in out of the cold and warm ourselves around this Global Campfire together where we have…well…we’ve created a safe place, a safe place for our souls, a safe place to just come in out of it, lout of the chaos of it all, out of the frustration of it all, out of the tensions of life, all the things that are pulling us in so many directions and just be…just be here together letting God’s word, letting the Scriptures speak. So, let's…let’s do that. We’re reading from the God’s Word Translation this week. Ezekiel chapters 21 and 22 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, yesterday we were talking about…well…we were talking about how an early first century Hebrew person, a devout Jewish person hearing the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time, like, how…what challenges they would’ve had to have overcome through faith in order to enter into a relationship with Jesus because so many things flew in the face of their tradition, a tradition given to them by God through Moses and the writing of the Torah, the Bible that they read and read today. And we just did a little exercise, like trying to put…trying to put ourselves in that position because it does offer us glimpses of how we kind of do get enmeshed in those traditions. And then when God comes and does a new thing then it becomes very, very difficult to move with that or to move into that. And, so, let’s just explore that a little further. I…I’m gonna read again from the beginning of what we read today and we kinda need to go back to that place where we are, you know, we haven’t really heard the story of Jesus. We don’t have thousands of years of tradition behind us. We’re first generation to hear this. We’re some of the first people to hear this. And, so, here’s what the writer of Hebrews says. “Moses teachings with their yearly cycle of sacrifices are only a shadow of the good things in the future. They aren’t an exact likeness of those things. They can never make those who worship perfect. If these sacrifices could have made the worshipers perfect the sacrifices would’ve stopped long ago. Those who worship would’ve been cleansed once and for all. Their consciences would’ve been free from sin. Instead, this yearly cycle of sacrifices reminded people of their sins.” So, reading this now 2000 years in the future with 2000 years of tradition behind us and a faith passed down throughout those centuries, we can just read this and go, “yup. That’s right. Amen! That’s the truth. Thank God. No more sacrifices.” But if we put ourselves back in the first century, first generation to hear this what’s being said here sounds quite offensive because it sounds quite heretical. So, this is controversial at best. Hebrew people already…like it had been ingrained in them from the get go, they already considered themselves to be the chosen people of God. So, they….it wasn’t as if somebody was showing them a way to come to God. They had been coming to God all along - God, like the most-high God. So, this announcement, this proclamation comes along to try to explain how things have shifted, and to tie those things historically to the prophets and show a path forward that essentially said this has been foretold, like we’ve known this was coming. Then to tie this to Jesus and say like, “the whole…it has happened” caused an incredible amount of controversy. So, like just try to put ourselves in the position as believers. What…what…what person…I’m trying to think like…whoever is the most famous pastor or television person…whoever has the most…has the most influence, let’s say that that person came onto television or on podcast or whatever, and said, “a new revelation from the Lord that the time of no sacrifices has come to an end. That was a grace for the last couple of thousand years. Now God would like us to return to the sacrificial system because at our time now it’s gonna make more sense and it’s gonna be more valuable. And, so, beginning on the day of atonement, on Yom Kippur we’re gonna start this back up among evangelical Christians around the world. And, so, you got a little bit of time to prepare. You need to go raise a sheep or goat or a bull or whatever. Like you need to start with the livestock preparing for sacrifice because we’re going to start this again, thus saith the Lord.” Are you gonna do it? Like what’s it gonna take for you to kinda get your mind around that…that that could even happen? And then over the course of months and months and all kinds of social media flaming arrows and arguments and insults and all the stuff that would go on with something like this. Camps would be formed, people…some people would be early adopters. Other people would say, “this is heresy” and “that person is a heretic and they…nobody needs to listen to them anymore.” And other people would be in between. It would be disruptive to say the very, very least. We would have theologians arguing both sides of the coin. Like it would be…I was gonna say incredible, but that denotes…that it would… denotes that it would be like a good thing. It would just…it would be a spectacular thing to observe and because it would cause unbelievable divisiveness, which is what the gospel did. And that’s what we’re getting at here. Not…I’m not saying we’re going back to the sacrificial system and nobody’s gonna say that. It’s an example. It’s just like if something like that were to happen, we can see how difficult it would be to get our minds around. And this is what that first generation would’ve been dealing with. And, so, although Hebrews is…the writer of Hebrews is saying the things that we’re reading, the argument, what like…what’s trying to be peeled back here is that this was always going to be the way things went. This was coming. This was foretold. The good news of the gospel wasn’t inviting them to change into a new religion or to worship a different God, of course. It seems that God was trying to…to reshape, to pull forward, to expand the people’s understanding of His heart and who He is and so He came in person. This is what is so compelling to us, that we can enter into a relationship with God, that we can know Him, that we can be known by Him. This is the good news. But this also was God doing a new thing. And as we’re reading this, I mean, as we read the New Testament itself we can see that…well…I mean, we can read the Old Testament for that matter and see that God is not afraid of shattering the paradigms because the paradigms are things that we made to explain things. And we make a paradigm and live into that paradigm and its passed down from generation to generation and it’s not right and it’s actually leading people into bondage or away from God then if it's…then He will…He shatters it. He comes and makes things right. And that requires certain elements that shake us. They…they make us feel uncomfortable like the ground we’re standing on isn’t solid. It disrupts and reshapes our understandings and ironically, this is what we are asking him to do. Like, when we go to church and sing worship songs, listen to what you are singing. This is the kind of stuff we are asking for. We are asking for revival, to be awakened, to be resurrected, to wake up and receive new life, to collaborate with Him and His work in the world. This is the stuff we are asking from God. But we think it’s just kinda…kinda gonna come all nice like a big bow on top and it’s just gonna happen that we just wake up and see things differently, when if we look at our heritage, if we look at our history, if we look at our own cultural history, but if we look back into church history we see that, no, the way things move forward usually happens in tremendous disruption and discomfort and a reshaping of a lot of things. The writer of Hebrews today said, and I quote, “Moses teachings”, right? So, this would be like Torah “with their yearly cycle of sacrifices are only a shadow of the good things in the future.” Obviously, that would’ve been a disruptive thing to say because they’re believing that what they have is the perfect law of God given through Moses. And yet the writer of Hebrews is saying, “that was a shadow of the good things to come in the future. God is doing a new thing now and those good things won’t be shadows anymore. We’re moving forward.” And now we find ourselves in this time a couple thousand years in the future, crying out to God to remove the veil, no more shadows, let’s do the good new thing in this world, let me be a part of it, send down your fire, send revival, awaken us O Lord. Like, we’re having prayer gatherings all over the place and repenting. We’re asking God to do something new without understanding that He probably is because we are in a tremendously disrupted time. And if we just relax and allow the Spirit, God’s Spirit within us to continue doing the reshaping we might see what we’re praying for.

Prayer:

Father once again we invite You into this. It would be so much easier if You would just…if You would just ride in on a white horse and everybody could see You and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess, but we are here right now and we see how much we don’t see. And yet in our hearts as Your people, as Your children we are crying out collectively. Like we sense the necessary need, our utter dependence upon You and we want, we cry out for Your movement and for us to be able to see what You are doing. And we don’t always get that because sometimes we miss it because sometimes the first thing that we should be noticing is the disruption and the shaking and the unsettling that a new thing brings. Holy Spirit we need You. We need You always of course but we need You now. We need You in this time as we move forward as we sense You moving us forward. We don’t want to go kicking and screaming because we’re so disruptive and we’re just really asking You to take away everything that we’ve asked You to do. We want to grow up. We want eyes to see and ears to hear and we’ve been asking for this all year, and You have been giving it to us all year. We’ve seen more this year than…than I can remember any year. So, we are awake and eyes open in ways that we haven’t been before. And, so, You are doing this. Help us Father to see You in it and relax instead of fighting You in it. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

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

Tomorrow I’ll be sharing some news. Something new coming. And, yeah, so stay tuned for that tomorrow. But as I say most every day, stay connected in any way that you can, in any way that you want to.

Check out the Community section. Be aware of that. That’s where the Prayer Wall lives. And just knowing that it’s there makes a world of difference. And, so, be aware of that.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link and it lives on the homepage and I thank you with all of my heart sincerely, with all my heart for your partnership. We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t together in this. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address if you prefer, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement you can hit the Hotline button in the app, that would be the little red button up at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

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

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is Dion calling from sunny Southern California and I have to tell you I am so excited today. First of all, I wanted to just thank God for this ministry. It has been absolutely life-changing for me. I started listening in January. I’ve been behind for a little over a month and I’ve been wanting to call in, but I told myself that I could not call in until I caught up. So, here I am it’s November 4^th I am finally caught up in calling. Today on the prayer line I heard Desperately Running…Running Desperately to Jesus call in and she also calls herself Staying Desperately Connected to Jesus. My sister I just wanted to let you know that I heard you I feel you and I am standing in the gap for you. I have been there I know that darkness. I know what it’s like to be there and not know how to pull yourself out but I’m letting you know that I am praying for you my sister. The Lord will pull you through because He has pulled me through. So, I just wanted to let you know that. And Amy from Illinois I heard you as well. I understand that loneliness. I have felt that loneliness. I…I am actually still feeling that loneliness. So, I get it, I understand, and I am just sending you a hug to this phone and letting you know that I love you too my sister. It will be okay. You are not by yourself. So, again thank you Daily Audio Bible family. I am so excited that I am finally caught up. I love you all and I want you all know that I am praying for you, each and every day.

Hi this is Victoria Soldier just calling to pray for some of the DABbers. I want to pray for Jared from Duluth on his son coming home. I’ll be praying that…that you’ll come together in in a wonderful way. Running Desperately for Jesus. I’m calling in to pray for you my sister. Don’t…I want to pray for you. I want to pray for John from Bristol and the separation between is his…his mother and his father. I want to pray for D who’s going through with her marriage and the loneliness. Lord I ask you to have your way in her life. Oh, Father the names I’ve called Lord, they need You Father in the name of Jesus You Have Your Way, Lor in the name of Jesus. You touch Lord You deliver there is nothing impossible for You. Oh Lord in that marriage Lord You bring them together. You Show Your Way, Lord. You have Your way. In the name of Jesus that son let him see what a wonderful Father he has. Lord and learn…and learn to say like and learn as Solomon say that we being obedient to his more better than sacrifice. Oh Lord I just ask You to touch. Oh, Lord touch the mothers and the Fathers. Touch the families Lord. O Lord touch us through this pandemic. Oh, Lord touch us through all of the challenges Lord. You are not an author of confusion but You’re God of peace, power, love, and a sound mind. Lord my sisters in darkness. Lord You turn on the light for her. You turn on the light Lord and let her see that You are able. That You are able to do exceedingly abundantly. Give her the mind of Christ Lord. Let her not be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of Your mind. Giver her joy unspeakable and full of glory. You have Your way in Your people’s life. And Lord I give You the glory. Oh, Lord and the honor and the praise in the name of Jesus…

It is bedtime and I have a little friend with me tonight my daughter Imber and we’re going to do a little bedtime prayer. Hi. Go ahead Imber go. Go ahead and pray. Dear God make sure everybody is safe today and all the children if their mom and dad are divorced make sure they don’t be sad anymore. Make sure they’re in a safe place and…and everybody around the world is safe and that if anybody gets in danger everybody would be okay. And make sure that all the schools be fine for their schoolwork. Yes, Lord and I pray for Amber’s friend that doesn’t know You, Tinguin . We ask that Imber can continue to just be Jesus to her and thank You so much Father that You’ve encouraged Imber to invite Tinguan to church with us and hope that she is a special time with her family and just pray protection for us because Billy is not here and he’s hunting. So, we’re all just the kids and me tonight. Father we pray for protection for all of us in our whole world and we ask that You just protect and comfort all those mommies and kids out there. And just all the crazy stuff. We know everything has to go through the throne room God. Everything has to be approved through You before it happens. Amen. Amen. This is Eyes of a Dove and Baby Eyes of a Dove Imber. Bi. Signing out. We love you. Bye.

Shalom shalom this is Diane Olive Brown calling from Newburgh Indiana it is Friday, November 6^th, 2020 at 1:33 AM central time. And I just listened to this daily reading and I kind of feel like Job just put my hand in front of my mouth but I just wanted to say how grateful and thankful I am for this community to put my log on the fire and sit around with all of you in the Global Campfire. And I realized something that I didn’t realize before, that I have a choice and nobody is going to take that gift away from me, that I have to make a choice. I have to choose every minute of every day and nobody is responsible for the choice I make, not all the things that happened to me. I can’t blame any person, thing or anything. It’s just me making a choice. I’m that little girl but I ran away from the one person, God the Father who could help me through Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit. It’s my choice, no one to blame. God is just. Shalom shalom.

Good morning DAB family this is Walking in the Light in Tennessee. I was just blown away when I listened to the recording from November the 6^th. It was just…well…actually…not November the 6^th  August 25^th  because I’ve been playing catch-up all year long so I’m listening to August and November. But Rosie, I believe it was Rosie made a recording, she said it was the second time she had done at and it was about being set free from the problems that your children…your children have. And she said that God had told her that, “look at me I’m the perfect Father.” And I still have problems with my children and that was so freeing for me because I’ve been going through it with my son so much and beating myself up about it. So, thank you Rosie for that recording. I’m listening again to August and November and so it just happened that I heard it this morning. God is so good and He’s such an on-time God. Thank you, Rosie. I am praying for you as I know you are praying for me. Walking in the Light in Tennessee. Thank you, my sister.

Hi DAB family. I love thinking of you all is my brothers and sisters. I’m calling today to ask for prayer for my sister. I remember about a year ago or so there seemed to be a lot of people asking for this kind of prayer for an adult sibling or an adult child who had gone back into a life of drugs. And at that time my adult sister was out of that or so we thought. She wasn’t. She’s had a very rough year and half or two and her son has taken her out of a really bad situation and brought her to his house but it didn’t last long and she’s gone back to drugs and I just found out that she’s also selling her body for money for drugs. She might be an adult but she is still 13 years old and at 11 years old she was raped, molested by our dad and she’s never been the same and she’s never really grown up from 12 years old or 13 years old. She’s still in that mindset. It’s heartbreaking to see her go down this rabbit hole again and I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I don’t know how to help her. She’s not reachable. Not by any of us. So, I’m asking you to pray for her. She’s reachable by God. And she needs Him. She loves Him, she knows Him but she can’t help herself. Thank you, family for praying for her. Her name is Andrea, and this is Kari, overcomer Kari from Ontario Canada.

Ezekiel 20:1-49, Hebrew 9:11-28, Psalms 107:1-43, Proverbs 27:11

Today is the 9^th day of November welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s wonderful to be here with you today as we launch into another workday, another work week and just continue the rhythm day by day step-by-step through the Scriptures. So, we’re reading from the God’s Word Translation this week. And, of course, what we do every day is pick up where we left off yesterday. And, so, that will lead us back into the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament and Hebrews, of course, in the New Testament. Bit first, Ezekiel chapter 20.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we look to the Bible, like as…as followers, as disciples of Jesus Christ, we look to the Bible…well…for lots of things, but one primary thing that we look to the Bible for is to explain and express the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s what informs our faith. And we who are following Jesus, we bring into that…I mean we learn a bunch of stuff along the way that we may not even know what the symbolism means or where it came from, it’s just…this is what we do and this is kind of what it means. And, so, we follow the rituals and traditions. And I guess that would be true of any generational religion. Like you pass your faith onto your children, your children pass it on to their children and so on and so forth. And, so, maybe you’ve gone to the same kind of church for the last 150 years in your family or 200 years in your family for all you know, or maybe even longer but so much is passed down that’s just kind of tilled into the soil of our lives and under…understanding. But let’s for a moment just become aware of the fact that there was a moment in time, like in time as we understand time, that Jesus came into this world and began to speak of the kingdom of God and did His earthly ministry and lived His earthly life, and then died in Jerusalem on a cross. And then as the Scriptures tell us three days later was resurrected and then another 40 days go by and then He’s ascended to the Father and He’s gone, at least in terms of like an earthly view. Certainly, we understand that God is everywhere, that He is all in all, that there is nowhere we can run from His Spirit…like we understand these things. We look to the Scriptures to remind us of these promises and of these realities that we are supposed to live. But that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is there was a period of earth time that Jesus was here and then he ascended to the Father and then wasn’t. And we know from the book of Acts kind of the lay of the land and the coming of the Holy Spirit and the beginning of the spread of the good news of the gospel. At that point there was no like generational passing down of the Christian faith. This was like first generation believers, right? Are you with me so far? So, with these first-generation believers, they had nothing to precede them in telling them that this good news that was being preached to them was rooted in anything. They had to take this giant leap of faith that in some ways flew in the face of their own traditions that they had been raised in. And in this case, this is the chosen people of God, the Hebrew people, the Jewish people. This is who Jesus was. This was the context that he ministered in. Okay. So, let’s pause here for a second and try…not to forget…but just to kinda set aside for a second everything that we think we know about our faith. And I’m not saying like we’re discarding it, of course. I’m saying we’re push…pushing it over here to the side for second just to try to remember what it was like before we knew anything about the good news or anything about Jesus at all. That’s really difficult for me because Jesus is like woven into my life for as long as I can possibly remember. And many of you are like that too, but let’s just set aside what we think that we know for one second. And the exercise here isn’t like to challenge our faith. It’s simply to put ourselves in the position of people, the first generation of people to believe that Jesus was the son of God, the Messiah who died to take away the sins of the world. Okay, are you pretending? So, we’re pretending we don’t know anything about anything. Now I’m gonna read from Hebrews just a couple of sentences from the beginning of our reading today. “But Christ came as a chief priest of the good things that are now here. Christ went through a better more perfect tent that was not made by human hands and that is not part of this created world. He used His own blood, not the blood of goats and bulls for the sacrifice. He went into the most holy place and offered this sacrifice once and for all to free us forever.” Okay. That is a couple of sentences that explain the good news. But if you set aside what you think that you know and this is the first time you’re hearing this, wouldn’t you be saying, “what exactly are we talking about? Chief priest? Better, more perfect tent that wasn’t humanly made and isn’t a part of the created world? His own blood, not blood of bulls and goats? Sacrifice? Most holy place? What are we talking about?” And I’m gonna try to…I mean we could spend an hour talking about this and I wanna try to move us through but there are kind of two points to make here. Point number one is, the Christian faith that we share doesn’t make any sense divorced from its Jewish heritage. All of the things that we just talked about: chief priests, better perfect tent , not created by human hands, blood of bulls and goats, all of this stuff is rooted in Judaism, in the religion of the Jewish people begun with Abraham, then Isaac and Jacob and so on and so forth. The entire narrative of the Old Testament that we’ve been reading all year is what provides context for the things that are being said in Hebrews because Hebrews was written to Hebrews and without that context we have no rootedness in anything about why any of this symbolism represents anything that’s like earth changing in any way. So, if we’re reading through the Old Testament and you’re just like, “I don’t…man…can’t we get to the Jesus part? Like, can’t we get to some letters or something? Can’t we get to something that’s telling me more about how to live into my faith now instead of reading these 4000-year-old, 3000-year-old stories about an ancient people and a culture that apparently God was deeply involved in. He chose these people but doesn’t really seem to have anything to do with my life now as a believer. Yeah, I mean the thing is, the Old Testament as we know it, and we know it that way as Christian people, but if you were like a practicing jew you would…it’s the Torah, it is the Scriptures. It is the law and the prophets and the writings. It’s the Bible. But the thing is, if we skip that portion of the Scriptures than the New Testament, like it’s really murky. Like divorced from a Jewish heritage and a Hebrew con…context these things don’t make sense as to why they are important. So, point number one is, Hebrews was written for Hebrews. But as Gentiles reading Hebrews what we are seeing is an attempt to connect the dots, to take the ancient and evolving Jewish heritage over thousands of years and connect Jesus to the story -  why He is the fulfillment of a major part of that story. Point number two is to try to put ourselves in the position of a Hebrew who was devout, maybe not like Pharisee devout or Sadducees devout, or rabbinical, but a person who loves the Lord, followed the rituals of the culture and the law that is best as they could, and began to hear the story about Jesus. If we can under…if we can put ourselves in that position and understand that then we can see how the gospel was offensive and the challenges that it faced as it emerged. As we’ve read through the Old Testament, we’ve encountered sacrifices, lots and lots and lots of times. Sacrifices in the morning, sacrifices in the evening, sacrifices for fellowship, sacrifices for the atonement of sin, like lots of sacrifice, lots of spilling of blood, lots of an animal life exchanging…being exchanged for a human one. So, for thousands of years, this had been going on in the Hebrew culture. People would sacrifice animals to God as well as other things - drink offerings, grain offerings, like all of this stuff - continually sacrificing to God. And in this time, this tribal time in the world, and I think we could safely say this was a tribal time in the world since we’re talking about the 12 tribes of Israel. So, it was a tribal time. This sort of sacrifice, this was happening all over the known world among all of the people. Sacrifices were being sacrificed to idols, to god’s, to the local and national gods of the time. The way that it was set up in the Hebrew culture and the law was this continual reminder, this continual reminder that we…that…that God is there providing, and we must keep Him first, our first fruits. We must remember that everything has come from Him. This went on for millennia. Okay. So, like in the first century when Jesus was upon the earth this had been going on for thousands of years. It had been disrupted along the way by war and exile and all kinds of dispersion, had gone through all kinds of transformation, but the principal, the idea, the concept, the understanding was deeply rooted in the Mosaic law and therefore was deeply rooted into the culture. And that sacrificial system included things like a chief priest, like a tent, or a tabernacle or a temple. And the blood of bulls and goats were a part of the sacrificial system. And what the writer of Hebrews, actually what all of the people who were trying to share the good news to Hebrew people would’ve been saying is, “even though this has been going on for thousands of years, even though to remember the beginning of this is to remember the oral traditions passed down and the writings in the Torah to inform us of this, nobody was there at the beginning of this system. This is just been how it’s been for as long as we can remember, like for thousands of years.” What the good news of the gospel was saying is that, “the sacrificial system that has been going on for thousands of years has come to an end. The final sacrifice has been made. A new covenant has begun because of this final sacrifice and once and for all redemption from sin has been secured through Jesus Christ. The law, the Mosaic law has been fulfilled. It has been accomplished. It is finished”, as Jesus said moments before He died. If you put yourself in the position of a person who has been following a tradition and has followed  God and tried to do it devoutly throughout their lives in transmitted to their…their children because it had been transmitted to them, then even though you may be able to open up the Scriptures and show prophetic utterances that this would one day happen you might have expected it to be with a little bit more fanfare and this would seem hard to swallow. On the one hand, what great news would it be that the Messiah did come. On the other hand what awful news would it be to know that you totally missed that when God was doing a new thing and you didn’t see it coming at all? And on the one hand, what incredible news it would be. Like, sin isn’t a category now. It’s not the thing we’re…we’re battling. We don’t have to keep sacrificing animals to wash ourselves clean. We don’t have to have a most…a chief priest or a high priest who can once a year ago before God on our behalf…like we are allowed to go to God directly. He’s inviting us to have a direct experience with Him. The veil that separated us has been born. We are welcome in an we can approach him boldly as if we were actually a child of the most-high God because that’s what the gospel says that we are. So, if you’re hearing this for the first time and it begins to ignite something in you and you’re a first century Hebrew then he got dissonance going on. You got a conflict going on. You’re being pulled forward to believe that God is doing something remarkable, earth changing, certainly religion changing. But then you have millennia of tradition behind you and you’ve never known it any other way. And what kind of disruption would it cause if you didn’t follow the Mosaic law anymore since that was the way of the culture. Like your people had been marginalized for millennia among all the empires that had conquered them because you are an exclusive people. And now all the sudden the goals have been accomplished. Atonement is taken care of. The veil is torn. There is no separation from God anymore. Everyone is welcome. Like, this is a big shift. But it was a hoped-for shift. So, this at least allows us to enter into the tension that existed as the gospel was being born, as it was beginning to flourish in the world, but it also gives us insight into our own hearts because now we have thousands of years of tradition passed down. And I was talking to a pastor friend of mine I guess it was like a month ago about God doing a new thing and what these new things look like and how their disruptive to the old things and they don’t always makes sense and they’re often not fully perceived until after the fact until later. And this allows us to kinda zoom in into our own lives. We…we keep holding onto the traditions of our faith expecting certain things to work certain ways and we’re locked in when God may be wanting to do something new in us. And if He is that’s gonna be uncomfortable and its gonna be disruptive because it’s going to interrupt the status quo and we don’t like that. We don’t like that at all about anything usually. We certainly don’t like spiritual disruption. And, so, let’s just examine ourselves today. And, as we continue through the book of Hebrews let’s just examine ourselves and our faith. What are we holding onto because that’s what we’ve always held onto, that’s tradition? Those are the rituals; these are the things that we do. It doesn’t mean any of those things are wrong or should be discarded. It begins to peel us back like an onion and so we can see in our faith, are we holding on to God and the movements of His Spirit within us and in this world or have we built the cage of tradition that we will never leave and so nothing new can ever happen?

Prayer:

Father…O…we invite You into that. It’s so difficult because we would be willing to be disruptive and move…move from one certainty to another certainty if we could be certain that we’re moving in the certainly right direction. And yet that requires no faith at all. Faith requires us to reach beyond…beyond what we feel like we’re in control of and beyond what we feel like we have a grasp of. Faith is always beyond that. And, so, every time that we grow in faith, we’ve grown into it through these kinds of disruptions until we become aware of Your presence and what You’re doing and then it’s faith that pulls us forward. So, what are You doing in us or what would You like to be doing in us that we are preventing because we don’t want the status quo to be interrupted? Holy Spirit, this is kind of a testy thing. These are the kinds of things we just really don’t want to think about a lot of the time. And yet we’re being invited. We’re putting ourselves in the position of the people who first heard the good news and we’re seeing that they were supremely disrupted in order to take the leap of faith. And, so, why would it be any different in our lives? How else is it that we grow? Holy Spirit come. Lead us into all truth. This is a promise that we are holding onto. Lead us into all truth we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

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And, of course, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, there are number of ways to reach out. Probably the easiest and primary way would be to hit the Hotline button in the app. So, at the top of the app screen no matter where you are in the app, there’s a little red button, looks kinda like a Hotline button because that’s what it’s supposed to look like because that’s what it is, and then press that button and share from wherever you are in the world or if you prefer to use the telephone there are a number of numbers that you can use. In the Americas 877-942-4253 would be the number to call. If you are in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078 is the number to dial. And if you are in Australia or that part of the world 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to call.

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

Community Prayer and Praise:

Good morning family, hey it’s Drew from the Bay Area. I’m calling in today and I want to thank you for your prayers. Young Drew is doing much better and I have a grandson named Kayden but pray that I get to see him. Pray for me too. I’m really going through it. I want to thank Kitty…Kitty from Kentucky for…for your heartfelt message. And I want to say thank you for Faithful Hope who called in a message about Psalm 56. But I’m calling in for others and wanted to say a prayer for Mason who’s going through depression right now. Comfort Mason, lift him up Lord. Let him see the light of your love and let his mother be okay with what you’re going…with what Mason’s going through. Lord and we pray for Danny and Danny’s grandson Christopher. What a terrible thing that they are going through now but we know that your love and all things work together for good for those who love you and are called according to your purpose. Yes, Lord and we ask you to raise a Christopher that he may be a mighty warrior in your army. Yes, and we ask you to comfort Tony, Lord to cleanse his mind that give him hope. Let Christopher and Danny be an encouragement to Tony and Lord we pray for Dustin, whatever he may have to go through Lord that he would come to you and come to forgiveness. Lord what…what a terrible thing but we know your grace is greater and we thank you for Julie from Cali, a new listener and what she’s done for her…her in-laws and what she’s done for her mother and Lord we ask you to restore everything that she’s lost tenfold.

This is Cheryl from Ontario Looking Unto Jesus. I was so glad to hear from John today from South Sudan who just returned from Nigeria. I remember when he said he was leaving. I have been praying for him. So, it was good to hear of his safe return, especially in light of the turmoil in Nigeria which our sister from there has informed us often as to pray. Lord I pray for Nigeria. There are problems in so many places around the world and many places in Africa and we know that you are in control and will work out your purposes in the midst and in spite of these things. I pray for protection upon your people and that they would indeed tear down the idols and be yielding allegiance to you alone and that you would open the hearts and minds of many who don’t know you to turn to you. I pray for peace and stability for Nigeria and I pray that you would bless John and his family and the work that you have given him that the many seeds planted would sprout up to bring eternal benefits. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Hi this is Audrey from Minnesota and I’m a first-time caller, but I am in my second year of listening to the Daily Audio Bible. So, today when Brian was reading out of Hebrews I looked up into the sky and I said God I am so confused about all this Melchizedek stuff and then in his expository afterwards he so clearly defined who Melchizedek was, who David was, and who Jesus is in that lineage. It just absolutely amazed me and once again made me so incredibly grateful for this format and for this family. I’ve thought about calling in so many times and I’ve had these imaginary ideas and thoughts of what I would say and maybe you guys have thought the same things too, but one thing that I’ve always wanted to say is that, I used to listen to this other podcast every morning, it was a news podcast. And one day it just didn’t work. And, so, I thought, “you know what? I used to read the Bible every day. I don’t know how I started listening to this news podcast every day.” But, somehow just this slippery slope. I stopped reading the Bible. So, I just happened along this podcast and it has completely changed my life. So, I’m back in the world again every single day and growing as a Christian. And it just goes to show the power of the word and what it does for…for you personally and for your whole life. So, I just want to say thank you to Brian and his team for all of the work that you do to just dig into the Bible and explain it to all of us so that we can learn and grow. It is just such a powerful tool and I’m so incredibly grateful.

Hey Daily Audio Bible family this is Preston from Sunnyvale California I just want to pray for…in response to John from South Sudan. He left a…a message today. You are back in South Sudan after a month in Nigeria. I just want to lift up the country of Nigeria to the Lord. Here we go. Dear Father, dear Lord Jesus we thank You for Your sovereignty. We thank You that it is You in Your goodness who is the ruler of this world. We thank You that You have put Your son as the king and ruler of our lives and the ruler of our hearts Father. We thank You for the ability to give our hearts to You, that You and Your goodness allow us to connect directly to You through Your son Jesus Christ. Father, we lift up the country of Nigeria that has fallen away from You that denies Your sovereignty. Father, we ask that Your Holy Spirit would occupy the hearts of the Nigerian people and lead them back to recognizing Your…Your sovereignty as king over our souls Father. We ask the destruction, as John mentioned, the destruction of the altars to other gods Father, that in their place would be put altars to You Father. Jesus…in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

This is Gloria here calling in from Kampala here in Uganda East Africa and I’d like to pray for Running Desperately to Jesus. Father thank You for Your love that never fails. I thank You that Your mercies and graces are new every morning and that she…our beloved sister __ towards those graces that are new every morning. I thank You that there always enough and even when they’re not enough You did not leave us but facilitate us with the Holy Spirit and I thank You Holy Spirit that You’re going to fill her today. You’re going to pour out Your Spirit on her Lord. She’s going to feel Your eminent power. Your praises, Your mighty, mighty praises. And that she’s going to feel love. She’s going to feel worthy. She’s going to feel like Your child. So, Jesus I ask You to make a way where there seems to be no way. Father, whoever is feeling lonely, whoever’s feeling desperate I surrender them to You. I surrender them to Your loving loving loving loving hands. And I thank You Jesus that You’re doing a new thing in their lives. That You’re instilling life into their lives. Worthiness, wholeness and it’s only You who gives us all these beauties. So, thank You Jesus that You’re doing it again. May Your children testify of Your goodness Lord. Give them the new life. Give them the breath to desire You, desire, that passion. Reignite it again Lord. I ask You to send revival right now Lord into their life into every DAB listener right now who’s going through any situation. Jesus You’ve done it before, and I believe that You can do it again. Sister, you’re not alone. I was also on…on medication for depression but I’m now doing better and it’s because of this family of DAB family. I ask you to lean into it and you will be blessed. You will no longer feel lonely because we have your back. Trust me when I say that. God bless you. Bye-bye.