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Daily Transcripts
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08/11/2015
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Nehemiah 1-1-3:14 ~ 1 Corinthians 7:1-24 ~ Psalm 31:19-24 ~ Proverbs 21:4
Today is the 11th of August. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It's good to be here with you today and excited for today because we’re moving into some new territory. We completed the book of Ezra yesterday which brings us to the book of Nehemiah.
Introduction of a New Book:
Nehemiah is another of the books of history in the Bible. It is going to pick up pretty much where Ezra leaves off. In fact, there is Christian tradition that offers that Ezra is the author of Nehemiah because Ezra and Nehemiah were at one time a single text.
Nehemiah was a Jewish exile in Persia and we’ve read all about that. He hears of the rebuilding of the Temple that is going on in Jerusalem. He is a direct servant to the king of Persia and he has this passion to rebuild the wall in Jerusalem. He sees that the Temple is the heart of the Jewish culture, but he also sees that there is nothing to protect it, so he has this passion to rebuild the wall, which presents many metaphors for life itself, with our hearts being the temple of God now and how often we don’t protect it.
Nehemiah faces all kinds of opposition, but he is perseverant. Through it all he perseveres. He remains single-minded in his purpose. He remains committed. He remains tenacious, not to mention his utter dependence on God. These are all things required for any sort of successful life in faith.
The wall is rebuilt in record time and Nehemiah returns to Persia and is able to return a couple years later to Jerusalem only to find a strong wall and a very weak people, which has been the story all along. He sets about the task of restoring Israel to its glory before the Lord, bringing about repentance and revival through the reading of the Law.
This story we’re about to read isn’t just a great story or piece of history, it is a rich metaphor for life itself and we can absolutely find ourselves in its pages. We invite God to do exactly that as we begin Nehemiah, reading from the New American Bible this week.
Commentary:
Okay, you gotta watch Nehemiah. You gotta watch his story unfold. Watch the process. Watch the steps because they are going to overlay with your life in a lot of ways and they are not going to overlay in a lot of ways and they are going to show you a lot of things.
Nehemiah is cupbearer to the king, so he is educated. He is smart. He is wise. He has some stature. He is a servant but at the same time he has an audience with the king most every day. Very few people get that.
And here is what is going on in Jerusalem with this rebuilding of the Temple and just all of the mess that it is in trying to reconstruct what has been completely destroyed and to try to repurpose a people that have been completely exiled. So here is what is going and passion begins to build in his heart to protect it, to be a part of that story. Even though he has a very high position of stature, he has this passion to be a part of that story those many months’ journey away in Judah. He feels like he can bring something to that story, some leadership into that story.
He is just grieved. He is grieved that what once was can’t be again and it is not going really well. There is all of the unrest of the opposition around these exiles that have returned and all of the problems within in trying to find their way. So he prays. He is down before God asking forgiveness, asking for mercy, asking for wisdom and guidance. And the king picks up on this and asks him about it. It is kind of in that moment where he has to step out in a very courageous maneuver because if he ticks the king off, he is not going to be the king's cupbearer anymore. He may not be anybody anymore. He may be dead. He may be thrown out into some kind of horrible servitude. Who knows? But he takes a breath of prayer and dives in and just tells the king what is going on in his own heart.
The king and the queen, they have favor upon him and send him on the journey and give him the resources that his going to need. But he gets there and he doesn’t just march into Jerusalem, papers in hand. He doesn’t tell anybody what is going on other than that he has come from the king and he does have some authority. But he is not laying it out. He actually very privately walks all the way around the destroyed city of Jerusalem, examining very clearly what this task will be like. Before he says anything and gets anybody else's opinion, gets all that going on and the power grabs and all the politics, he goes out privately to examine the situation. Before he ever casts the vision, he knows clearly what the vision is going to take. And then he throws it out there, inspires the people to get involved, uses the authority that he has been given by the king and they begin.
That is where we leave off today, but that is absolutely not the end of the story. Watch this story. The reason that I recap the story is to go like, ‘look, this is an important one for your life.’ We can spend a lot of our lives just spinning in a fog, not really sure what is going on and why it is going on, right? We’ll get some sort of idea or some sort of vision or some sort of calling and just tear into it, not having walked around the walls, not having counted the cost, not really being able to cast a vision, not really even knowing how we’re going to do it. ‘Just feel like God said to do it, so I'm going to go do it.’ And then we crash and burn. Or, as we’ll see opposition in Nehemiah's life, how that is handled in the coming pages, we’ll get into something, maybe even having done the best we can to count the cost, only to realize it is going to be much harder than we thought as most things are. I mean, seriously.
When we’re moving into some new territory, we might do the best that we can to understand what we’re getting ourselves into and feel like the Lord is present in it and he is, but it is going to be harder than we think and then we get mad when all of a sudden we have opposition and challenge and obstacle and then we actually have to press through to complete something. Most people don’t make it through all that. Most people don’t get to the finish. Watch Nehemiah.
Prayer:
Father, we invite you into this story as important as it is to our lives today. We invite your Holy Spirit to come. We need your counsel. We need your wisdom. We need your vision. We need your command. We need your comfort. We need you. So we invite you in these coming chapters into the book of Nehemiah. Overlay it on our hearts and into our lives, Holy Spirit, we pray. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Announcements:
Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website. It is home base. It is, as I say most every day, where you find out what's going on around here, and plenty is going on around here. Looking forward to this weekend when I will be speaking at the Penn Theatre in Plymouth, MI at the Heartbeat of Plymouth and being able to talk about Reframe, something that has just recently come on our radar as a community, but something that has been being built for a couple of years, something that I am profoundly burning in heart and spirit with and excited to share, so I'm looking forward to that the 15th and 16th, Saturday and Sunday in Plymouth, MI. You can go to www.HeartbeatofPlymouth.com for more information.
And of course the Reframe book is coming. It is coming October 1st and it is available for pre-order now. We’ve been talking about that. Go to www.ReframeBook.com and you can get yourself a copy. Grab one for some friends as well and go through it together. It is important. I really truly believe that. And we have some nice things that in exchange for your pre-order we’ll give you right now. One of those is the You Film, one of the films in the Reframe Film Series, a couple of songs from my wife, Jill, her new project that she is heavily working on, and we have chapter 1 of the book, so the prologue and chapter 1 that you can dive into and kind of get going as we’re waiting for this book to launch.
I thank you. I thank you and I'm asking you. I'm asking you to support this book in part for what it will do and part because I think it is important. I know it is important. So thank you for your support in launching Reframe. Www.ReframeBook.com is the place to go to get more information.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at www.DailyAudioBible.com, the home page. There is a button in the upper right-hand corner. I profoundly thank you for your partnership here in the deep months of the summertime. If you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.
And, of course, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, (877) 942-4253 is the number to call.
That's all for today. I'm Brian. I love you. I will be waiting for you here, tomorrow.
Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports
Hey Dabbers, this is Slave of Jesus in North Carolina. Alright Holy Spirit, let's roll. First, today I was in tears driving into work. Someone was praying for me about protection in my car, the Holy Spirit in there, so thank you. Lord, I hope this Holy Spirit comes out in this call. I was also followed up by tears by having one of our great prayer warriors have her little baby sister calling in, getting on the line. That was just awesome. So today, talking about the one-second battle. It is awesome that people are getting some scriptures and even getting their kids a single scripture. You know, you may want to type that thing out and just put it on a mirror where they are in the morning just to give them because the cool thing about the battle is if you have the videogames and things like this, if they are buying into this, you got stuff and you're buying into this, you can attack with scripture like within one second of getting it in your head. When you have this stronghold of fear, anxiety, lust, whatever that comes into your head, if you can attack it in that first second, it is done. It is over with. The more you let it roll around, the harder the fight becomes. So if you can start teaching that. If you see someone getting really mad and they calm down, they talk about it, ‘hey, how quickly did you do that?’ A little game like that. I don’t know where that is coming from. Joe the Protector, that is the name I'm giving you for now until you tell us otherwise, but it is great to hear you call in. I'm glad you're doing that. But whatever name God gives you, just understand that you are a powerful prayer warrior of God and so we are so glad you are back and in the fight. Definitely strengthens all of us. And then my last 20 seconds, men out there, I'm just going to call us out. We’re struggling with lust and porn and all that stuff. Understand you were designed to be the protector of your spouses, the steed to bring them up in full faith and look at them the way God looks at them and when you look at this crap you are destroying their self-esteem and it will always come out. So even if you're young and you think this isn’t going to happen…boy, I'm running out of time, it's not. So you have to fight it now. Love you all. Have a great day.
This is Seth from Maine, Bangor, ME and I have been listening to Daily Audio Bible for the last couple of weeks and I'm just amazed at just the community that God has raised up around this podcast and very encouraged. Brian, you're amazing in your commentary. You just discern how much you really love God and love __________ because it comes through your Bible reading and it nourishes and edifies. I just want to give a praise report first. My church in Bangor just acquired some new property in Carmel, ME and we’re going to plant ourselves there. The church is on Damascus Road and I'm just believing God, that he will move in great power in that area to help us be a witness of the gospel in that area and see real transformation in families and in individual lives. And also I just wanted to lift up…I was just listening today and I heard Ann ask for prayer for her adult children. I just want to lift her up in prayer and lift her children up in prayer. So Father, we come before you. We lift up Ann and her adult children. Father, I pray, God, that what the enemy has used for harm, God, you will turn to good, God, because you care for Ann, you care for her family, God. You are the God of all comfort. You comfort those who are in need of comfort, Father, and I pray that even as Ann…
Hi, good morning. This is Abbie calling from New York. Thank you for all your prayers and also the Word of God. I would like to request prayer for me and helping asking God to intervene in my life. I’ve been asking for a life partner for the past 10 years. I really need God's intervention in my life. And also please pray for my parent’s health as well. Thank you very much. Bye.
Hi family. I'm really missing you guys. I'm a few weeks behind. I’ve been traveling. I'm staying at my brother's house. He declined to tell me that when I came to stay here that he had what he calls a ghost in his house and I'm finding out that it is actually a lot more than that, as crazy as it sounds. I’ve been kind of praying about it, not really wanting to, but it is actually more something demonic and I'm feeling like it is maybe something generational. It is very heavy, very deep, so please help me pray. I’ve been praying today. I feel like the Lord is showing me what it is, so just please pray with me about this, to break this thing, whatever it is. And also I went to the doctor and I should not have gone. I knew it was going to be expensive. I ended up walking out because I didn’t have enough money to pay for it when I got to the desk to pay for it. I just went to the car and left. I just checked my voicemail and there was a detective on the phone saying that he was writing a felony warrant for my arrest. So I don’t know if they can do that, but evidently they can and I'm really, really stressing because obviously it is a lot more than I can deal with right now, that anybody can deal with, and it kind of goes along with, as stupid as this sounds, like the demonic thing that I'm dealing with because the Lord is showing me it is like a generational, like a financial curse and I need it to stop and I really need a miracle because the last thing I need to do is devastate my family with obviously a warrant. That's just insane and just more than I need to deal with. So I really, really, REALLY need a miracle.
Hi Dabbers. Calling for Alex. Alex, I love you so much even though I don’t know you. I know that the love that I have for you is just the reflection of God's love for you. The Word of God tells us that while we were yet sinners, which we all are, while we were not knowing who he is, while we didn’t even know who he was, he died for us. He sacrificed for us. And so I just want to encourage you that don’t feel pressured. I believe that you are called to an act of faith and God said if you have faith as big as a mustard seed, you can move mountains. So God believes in you and he has called you for his own purpose. So I'm praying blessings upon you and upon your wife right now. I'm praying for your family. I pray that God would continue to keep you just close and safe in him. Ann from North Carolina, praying for your adult children. I'm just praying that you’ll be reunited in heart and in spirit, that they will come back to you. Mary from Missouri, I pray for Tony. I pray that he will also get to hold his baby again. __________, I'm praying with you for your boyfriend __________. And Jim from Daytona, it is always good to hear your voice and we’re praying for Rebecca, that God will give her strength and God will give you strength to keep moving on. In Jesus’ name. I love you all. This is Walta from North Carolina. I am a burning bush that will not be consumed for the glory of our God and King.
Hi DAB family. This is Kay from the UK. Thank God for Brian and Jill, the DAB for it is an amazing __________. I’ve been listening to the DAB for about a year and the past few days I felt led to call in, but I’ve been too shy. And then I heard Jason's call and then I heard Germaine's call for Jason and I felt led even more to call in. So Jason and Germaine, I understand the thoughts and feelings that you have. I get them too sometimes when I get too stressed. You have to remember that Jesus loves you and when things get too hard to bear, please look at where God has brought you from and the blessings he has given you and be thankful. And if you're struggling to think of what blessings he has given you, well you can actually look at the fact that you woke up this morning and you're breathing. Praise God. Also, I'm sure you both said that you had wives and children. They need you. Germaine, you're blessed with a wife who knows exactly what to do when you get those feelings. And Jason, you said that you sometimes feel anxious, but in 2 Timothy 1:7-8 it says for God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Also Hebrews 13:5 came to mind for both of you. For he, God himself has said I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. I will not, I will not, I will not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake you nor let you down, relax my hold on you. Will surely not. And Jason and Germaine, God's Word cannot go back to him void, so what he says he means. DAB family, please, please, please pray for me. I'm getting married in a couple of weeks and I'm waiting for a notice of marriage, still waiting, so please pray for me and my fiancé, that we find favor and that God makes a way for us, in Jesus’ name. Thanks. In Hezekiah Walker’s song it says I need you and I need you to survive. Because I pray for you, you pray for me. I love you. I need you to survive. I won’t harm you with words from my mouth. I love you. I need you to survive. If it is his will, then every need he will supply. I love you. I need you to survive. Thank you DAB family. Have a blessed day. Bye.
Hi Daily Audio Bible family. It is Olympia calling again. First of all, I wanted to say thank you to I think Pastor Gene who responded to my prayer request and shared that she was praying for me regarding relationships and the whole concept of dating and courtship and all of that. I appreciate it. The enemy has really been attacking my mind with the idea that my voice isn’t being heard and I know that is not true, but I’ve been trying to figure out why he would do that. It just hit me this morning actually that, oh yeah! I'm a teacher. My job is to speak with a voice of confidence and reason and wisdom and comfort and all of these things to young minds on a daily basis. Why not attack my voice and my mental state and confidence before I go in to influence these young people? So I also wanted to call to pray for all of the young people who are going back to school and the educators. So thank you, Heavenly Father, for your voice that caused all creation to come into existence. Thank you for speaking love over us and singing songs of deliverance and your __________ that you bestowed upon us as heirs to your throne. Thank you, Jesus, for everything that is accepted in the Father's sight and welcome in his presence. I pray that the young people who are connected to Daily Audio Bible as well as the teachers who are connected to this family will all be empowered with your authority and with your arm…
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Tamarie 08/11/2015 21:05 |
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