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Daily Transcripts
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09/20/2015
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Isaiah 33:10-36:22 ~ Galatians 5:13-26 ~ Psalm 64:1-10 ~ Proverbs 23:23
Today is the 20th of September. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I'm Brian. It is wonderful to be here with you today. Thanks to my precious wife, Jill, and even Ezekiel for sitting in yesterday. I was under the weather a little bit, so appreciate that.
So here we are, a brand new week again, a restart again, a reset and looking forward to seeing all that God will speak to us through his Word this week. We’ll spend our time reading from the New International version this week.
Commentary
Okay, we’ve got a lot going on here. Isaiah is speaking of the invasion of the King of Assyria during Hezekiah's reign and it is fascinating because all that we’re talking about here, all that is being described, these are real locations.
Assyria invades and they are knocking down the walled cities, so the strongest cities in all of Israel and Judah are being destroyed, with Jerusalem being the crown jewel, the capital city, the city of cities, the city of God. That is the one that has to fall in order for everything to fall, but they are in Lachish which is the second most strong, powerful city.
We read of Lachish in the Bible as a strong, powerful, walled fortress city, but we don’t ever really dive into any story, so it is easy to forget Lachish existed when it is as walled and as secure and as strong as Jerusalem. It doesn’t have the Temple of God there, but it is a strong city.
So here we have the King of Assyria, Sennacherib, who has taken Lachish, within the walls, inside the palace. He's sending his field commanders on to Jerusalem. They’ve conquered everything and now they’re planning to take Jerusalem.
We were in Lachish just this past year, filmed it. Lachish is in the new Promised Land – The Essential Pilgrim's Edition. It is this high mound up on a hill with some remarkable remnants of the walls and the system, the foundation of the palace. So we just stood up there, thinking of Assyria's King Sennacherib and his army spreading out after having defeated this city and sending his field commander on to Jerusalem to make these threats and intimidate and use psychological warfare against Jerusalem. That's what happened but we haven’t reached the end of this story. That is not how this is going to go down. But these places that we read about today are rooted in physical locations. This isn’t just like a mythic story of a long lost city that no one even knows if it is was real. Nope, this whole campaign went down through all of the fortified cities to Lachish and it exists. The story is rooted in actual locations and it is fascinating to be in those locations, opening the scriptures, understanding where you are and how this fits into the biblical historical narrative.
Then we get to Galatians and Paul is just laying out some very, very fundamental but very serious counsel: Walk by the Spirit. That is what you're here to do.
That is what he is saying. You can’t just devour each other. You can’t just be pitted against each other. You’ve got to walk by the Spirit and not gratify the desires of the flesh.
As soon as that is said, just about in any context in the scripture, as soon as that is said, we’re immediately thinking of some sort of lust, some sort of sexual sin. We immediately go there and stay there, but that is only a part of it. Paul lays out a list of things that he is describing when he says the desires of the flesh.
Culturally it's easy for us to go, ‘well, lust and all kinds of sexual sins, that is obvious. We know that. We fight against that,’ but we ignore the other things that Paul is articulating, the things that will get inside and eat from within and destroy. So we think that the acts of the flesh are obvious, but we only pay attention to certain ones. Paul says the acts of the flesh are obvious: Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft.
We could stop there and go some of this applies, some of it doesn’t, we kind of know this, but then he moves deeper. Hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, so uncontrollable anger, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like. “I warn you as I did before,” Paul says, “that those who live like this will not inherit the Kingdom of God.”
So it is easy for us to zone out on lust and say, yeah, okay, that is obvious. Those are the struggles there, but what about jealousy, because that is in the same list? What about breeding discord, just stirring things up? That is in the same list. Hatred, uncontrollable anger, selfish ambition, that is in the same list. Factions, envy, that is in the same list. May we consider the things that are eating us like cancer from within our spirits.
It's easy to take that and recognize some of those characteristics in ourselves and be condemned, but if that is not unto something, then all we are is condemned. Then all we feel is like we have to do better when the point isn’t condemnation. The point is freedom from that is available.
We already know the repercussions. Short term we can see how some of these things affect our lives and destroy relationships within our lives. Long term, we see that there is no good outcome and we can just sit in there and just think this is a life long struggle and just feel bad about ourselves all time, feel like we’re failing all the time or we can understand we’re indentifying what is going on and acknowledging we do not have to live this way.
Paul says since we live by the Spirit, in other words, since it is the Spirit that is propelling our lives, that is fueling our lives, that is keeping us alive, let us keep in step with the Spirit. That is fundamental and basic, but we don’t pay attention to it that way very often.
The fruit of the Spirit, we know that term. Paul says this is the evidence that you are walking in step with the Spirit, that it is the Spirit within, the Holy Spirit that is propelling, fueling, keeping you alive – the fruit of the Spirit: Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. There is no law against any of those things, Paul says. Feast on those things. Do that as much as you want. The other stuff, not so much. If you belong to Christ, then that has been crucified. It is dead. Don’t resurrect it. Stay in step with the Spirit. Live by the Spirit. Feast upon the fruit of the Spirit. It's fundamental. It's basic. It's obvious. It’s hard.
There is not ‘here's your five tips and tricks for actually making this a part of your life.” The only thing I’ve found is realizing you cannot do this on your own terms. It is not sustainable in your own strength. We cannot achieve it in and of ourselves. The only way is to walk with God. The only way is to surrender to this Spirit’s life within us. The only way is to say I cannot possibly do this on my own.
So we’ll find ourselves in a fit of rage or selfish ambition or sexual immorality or factions or envy, in one of those things and feel bad about it and feel like we are just losers, we can’t this and we can’t that, when the point is that no, you can’t, not without the Spirit, without the Holy Spirit in you. This means that it is an always on, never off, holistically integrated, life-giving collaboration with the Spirit of God in us that makes this possible. This is only possible if we are actually within a relationship with God, one that is constant, one that is always, one that invites him into everything about us. This is why we pray the way that we do, often inviting him into all of everything, that nothing be off-limits. It's the only way this works.
Prayer
Father, once again we come into your presence, as we have so many times, saying exactly that. And it is more than saying, we say it as an act of doing. We open ourselves to you completely, fully. We invite you into all of the things that are leading us nowhere. We invite you into the acts of the flesh, the sexual immorality, the impurity, the debauchery, the idolatry and witchcraft, the hatred, the discord, the jealousy, the fits of rage, the selfish ambition, the dissentions, the factions, the envy, the drunkenness, everything like this. We invite you into that. Not so that we can just be participants together in all of those things but because your life, your Spirit, your righteousness, your holiness, your goodness, they overwhelm those things, exposing them for what they are, dead ends, dead things that have been crucified, corpses that we are trying to prop up in our lives and pretend they are still alive when they have been crucified. Bring by the power of your Holy Spirit the fruit of the Spirit into our lives, love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Flood us with these things. May we feast upon these things as we walk every moment out with you, nothing withheld from you, everything with you, not a moment that goes by that you are not present and that we are not present to you. Come Holy Spirit, we pray. Transform us. Renew us. Sanctify us. Change us, we pray. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Announcements
Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website. It is home. It's where you find out what is going on around here. Man, all of that is available, all of that is why we’ve been talking about reframing the way we’re looking at things all year. May we dive in deep, not with just two feet but all of who we are. May we dive in deep and live as we were created to live.
So, looking at the calendar, let's see. Tomorrow I could use your prayers. I’ll be speaking to a group of independent Christian bookstore owners from around the country about Reframe and it is early in the morning, so I'm not usually an early in the morning kind of person. Pray for me there.
This coming weekend, this coming Sunday, a week from today (I'm sorry, I was looking at the calendar), I’ll be in Fort Smith, AR at First Presbyterian Church, so I’d love to see you. If you're in the area please come, say hello. You can get more information at www.1pres.org and I'm sure there are phone numbers and information there. So check that out. Looking forward to seeing you.
I’ll be speaking at the Story Conference later in the week next week. It's all kind of starting to move as Reframe launches. So thank you for your prayers over all of this.
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And that is all for today. I'm Brian. I love you. I’ll be waiting for you here, tomorrow.
Community Praise Reports and Prayer Requests
Hi DAB family. My wife, Sarah, has been listening for two years and she has recently been sick. She was bit by a tick and has Lyme disease. It started out with blisters and then she lost the use of both arms. A hospital stay, ICU, and four months on pain killers and she is back to being able to use her arms and things, but I’d like you to pray for her. She is having some rehab at home, but she is on pain meds and something is causing her judgment not to be quite right. She has had a number of falls. She was on the third step from the bottom in our basement with a concrete floor and my sister-in-law said her leg went out like she was a tin soldier and she went down those three steps. Fortunately did not get hurt, but if you could pray that she could get away from the medications and God would eradicate that pain in her back, we would appreciate that. Praying for everybody that prays and I'm a trucker and I'm praying for the people that call in. I covet your prayers. Thank you. Bye.
Hi DAB family. This is Felicia from Morrisville, GA. It's been a minute since I called in, but I miss you guys so much. I haven’t listened in a while and I just started listening again and it's just like a breath of fresh air to hear everybody's voice, Brian and Jill and Blind Tony, everyone. I just called in today to kind of just say thank you so much to the lady. I'm not sure she gave her name. She called today. It's September 16th. It was played today. She was singing the Holy Spirit song and kind of asking God for what to do and I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you so much for singing that song. It really touched my heart. It really blessed my heart. So I just want to say thank you and for everybody who calls in, please keep calling in and God will bless you. Thank you so much Dabbers.
Good morning DABers. This is Bill B., missionary to Uganda, East Africa. Thank you so much for your prayers. Please pray for my boys. I’ve got 21 of them now and for my five-member team. This morning I am going to Northeast Baptist Hospital to have an operation on my right shoulder, arthroscopic surgery. I pray that you lift me up in prayer. I appreciate that so very much. The Lord bless each and every one of you.
Hello, Daily Audio Bible. This is Mark S. from Castle Hill, Sydney Australia. This is my first time calling in. I’ve been listening since August 2014, so a bit over a year. I was going to call in for a praise report for myself and also some prayers for myself, but today I don’t want to do that. I’ve got a friend who is in urgent need of prayer. His wife, Jenny her name is, has been diagnosed with a brain tumor and she had a seizure last night on Thursday, the 17th of September. I would really like everybody if they could please pray for Jenny in Australia. She is not well and she deserves better and I know God loves her and I want her to be healed. So could you please pray for Jenny, that the doctors will be able to remove this tumor through the skill of God and heal her back to full health? I will call in another time about myself. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for this forum, Brian and everybody __________ is a wonderful __________. Thank you. Bye.
Hey, this is Nathan, Gift of God from Illinois. Hey, I was listening to Daily Audio Bible this morning. Excuse me, good morning, good afternoon, goodnight Daily Audio Bible family and friends. Anyway, I was listening to the podcast this morning and something had occurred to me that Rumbii was saying, that she discovered how fear runs her life. I’ve got a little prayer app that I use and I was typing in ‘fear runs her life’ and funny how typos change themselves in spell checks from what your really intended and it came up ‘fear ruins her life.’ I'm thinking how interesting is that? We all fear things and probably in a very unhealthy way, but we don’t realize how much that robs us from the joy that we can have with God. It ruins situations. It destroys. It is from Satan. It is from the devil and it is no good. Now, it doesn’t mean that ‘hey, now that we’ve realized this, I'm so much better’, but it's learning how to trust God and learning how to put our faith in him, that he will lead us down a path that he has intended for us as opposed to us trying to lead ourselves down a path which we know only leads to destruction and despair and ruination. So thank you for calling that in, Rumbii. I appreciate hearing that. And thank you to my phone for giving me the lesson that I needed. So make it a great day.
Hello family. This is Barb from Minnesota and I’ve had… There was a woman that called in about having a phobia or fear of snakes. I know there are a lot of people that struggle with that sort of thing. I’ve been thinking about that call and that woman. I went through a time where I had a phobia and still kind of deal with it and at the time when it was really bad I would memorize scripture. Psalm 34 is the passage that I memorized and when those thoughts, those fearful thoughts would come, I would try to just say this scripture. So I just want you to know that I'm thinking of you and praying for you and I encourage you to get into the Word and memorize scripture. And also I want to tell Kat and Caroline that I'm thinking and praying for you and your sons and the situations that you're in and hope to hear how you are doing. Shelia, I'm praying for you and your daughters and the situations with college. If you could just pray for my son in college, I know there are many out there, a new adventure for him and that he would focus on studying and that he would focus on God and get into some good groups there. Another reason I'm calling is for my daughter Caitlin. She is in high school and sometimes she just struggles with feeling like she fits in somewhere. It really hurts me as a mom to listen to it. So if you could pray for her. Pray that she could just rely on God, to rely on God and ask him to help her to be the person she needs to be in him and that he would just bless her this year.
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Tamarie 09/20/2015 10:46 |
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