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Daily Transcripts
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12/09/2015
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Joel 1:1-3:21 ~ Revelation 1:1-20 ~ Psalm 128:1-6 ~ Proverbs 29:18
Today is December 9th. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I'm Brian. It is a pleasure to be here with you back in the rolling hills of Tennessee and settling in for the rest of the year here in the rolling hills. It's looking more like Tennessee winter, which is not like fluffy, puffy snow like exists out in Colorado. It's more of a muted kind of complexion, grays and browns and deeper hues like that. They have their own beauty. It gets a little long. I’d ask you to pray that we have a white Christmas, but we’ve never had one that I can remember, and I’ve been here a long time and you’d be praying against a lot of people who are praying it away. So I guess in terms of that, we just say, “Lord, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. If you want us to have a white Christmas some people would be happy and some wouldn’t. How you navigate all of us and our preferences, well, that's what makes you the sovereign God.” So there is a little prayer as we begin today about Christmas and snow.
Introduction of a New Book (Old Testament)
So we’re beginning a new book today, the book of Joel. The prophet Joel wrote this book and it is a book of prophesy and more than likely comes from the mid 800s BC. He writes of this vast hoard of locusts that have invaded the land and obliterated the crops. Everything is eaten up and it is causing great famine. He uses this natural disaster as a backdrop to call the children of Israel to repentance. As is true with most of the Bible, this brings them to a fork in the road. If you notice this in the scripture, almost every day we’re brought to a fork in the road where we have to consider -- here's the truth. I can feel the pulling of the Holy Spirit revealing things in my life. I have to then choose which path I'm going to take. So this is true in this instance in the book of Joel. The choice must be made. They can return to God and enjoy all of his blessings and restoration or they can take their own path, reject God and face what Joel calls the day of the Lord, the day of God's judgment. Of course, it's never God's will that his people suffer any of the repercussions of their actions, so he is constantly, in his love and kindness, calling them back, even as he does today. We see this through some of the most beautiful promises of restoration and hope that the whole Bible contains and that is spoken through the prophet Joel.
So we begin Joel 1:1-3:21. We’re reading from the God's Word translation this week.
Introduction of a New Book (New Testament)
As we move into our New Testament reading today, we have reached the final book of the New Testament, the book of Revelation which is where we’ll spend the rest of our time this year in the New Testament. The book of Revelation isn’t really a book at all. It's a letter written by the apostle John while he was exiled on the island of Patmos. Patmos is an actual island southwest of Ephesus that the Romans used to banish people who committed crimes against Rome. They would just put all the criminals on this island and that is where they stayed. John would have been a very old man at this point. He wrote this letter to churches that had been established during the time of Paul's missionary journeys some 50 years earlier.
Revelation is one of the more controversial or misunderstood books of the Bible, but no matter which school of interpretation you adhere to, when you boil it all down, it is a call to repentance and spiritual renewal. It's a letter to encourage believers and bolster their faith in the face of tribulation and trial. It is a letter of great hope because once again it shows that Jesus is in fact all powerful and in the end he remains victorious, we are his and he is ours and this makes us victorious along with him.
So we begin Revelation 1.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for your Word. God, we love you. You are never not promising restoration. You are just never not coming for us. We’ve come so far in this journey through the scriptures and we see in the lives in our spiritual ancestors, those who have gone before us, that there was always a choice and you are always offering redemption. This offer of redemption is always there and it is there right now. We’ve so often chosen to try to create our own redemption, but even in all of those times you're still there offering true redemption, actual relationship, true intimacy and friendship. You're always offering your heart to us, not just something you can do for us or something you will do or something that will show your mighty power; you're always offering yourself, you're always offering your heart to us. We’ve mishandled your heart so many times, but you still come for us. All you seem to want in return is our hearts that we might be together intimately, close, creator and created in union with one another, in friendship, so we come again and say that is our hearts’ desire, that is what we want. We once again listen to the call of repentance – return to me, come back, come home, believe me, trust me. We do. So we ask that your Holy Spirit come because we’ll just be off into something else in five minutes from now without your Holy Spirit being there guiding us in our choices, in our thoughts, in our intents, in the conversations that we’re going to have, the choices that we’re going to make and the interactions that we’re going to have. May you be the guide of this day. May you be the Lord of every day. Come Holy Spirit and lead us deeper into this relationship with Jesus. We ask in Jesus’ name, at his invitation, come, we pray. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Announcements
Www.dailyaudiobible.com is the website. It’s home base. It's where you find out what’s going on. It's Christmastime and everything that we’re doing right now moves around that rhythm. We’ve been talking about the More Gathering for women. That is coming up this April 7-10 and the reason that we bring it up now is that early registration is open and it makes for a unique, one-of-a-kind, unforgettable gift. You can find out all the information that you would want to know about it at www.MoreGathering.com so check that out.
It is the season where we’re assembling the Christmas calls for our Daily Audio Bible Annual Family Christmas, so you can call in your Christmas greetings still for the next few days. Just use the prayer line – (877) 942-4253. Let me grab this little piece of paper here. I don’t have all the numbers memorized. You think I would as many times as I’ve said them. We have other numbers so depending on where you are in the world, you can still call in your holiday greeting or prayer request. So if you're in the UK, you can call 44, 20-3608-8078. If you’re in Australia, 61, 3-8820-5459. And if you're in Africa, 27, 21-300-2728. So be sure to call in your holiday greeting. The only rule about it, since it is the prayer line, is that you don’t mix a holiday greeting and a prayer request at the same time in the same call. Make them separate calls.
The Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box is available chockfull, absolutely chockfull of the best of the best that we have to offer. Certainly check that out at the Daily Audio Bible Shop. It's got the Promised Land – Essential Pilgrim's Edition, the 2-DVD set, 4 hours of content just diving you into the land of the Bible and the places where the Bible happened, so check that out. There is your choice of our Windfarm brand coffee that is roasted fresh at altitude in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. I was just there checking on all that. It is fresh. You can smell that aroma of those beans being roasted and packaged just to arrive at your door. So you can choose that or our Windfarm brand tea that is also amazing, so check that out. There is the Daily Audio Bible Christmas bulb for 2015. You can only get that in the Christmas Box. We started this 3 years ago so I’ve got 3 of those on my tree and it reminds me of you. Every day I see them sitting there on my tree and they remind me of you. It is like that represents the community. I can’t bring hundreds of thousands of people into my house, but that is my little icon that is you in my house sharing Christmas. They also remind me that we did this another year through the scriptures. That is in the box. Reframe, all thing Reframe are in the box, so you can have the Reframe book or you can choose the audio edition if you prefer and have that inserted into the box. The Reframe Films DVD is in the box. A pack of the Daily Audio Bible Christmas cards is in the box. And then, while supplies last, we’re throwing in the blu-ray of Promised Land. We released the first edition of Promised Land a little over a year ago and we created blu-rays out of that and so we’re throwing, while we still have them, a blu-ray in. So you see, it's full. It's full of stuff and when you open it up it is like, “Wow! What am I going to keep and what am I going to give away?” I love that. So check out the Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box 2015 at the Daily Audio Bible Shop. You can get there by going to www.DailyAudioBible.com.
The Daily Audio Bible Christmas cards are available standalone. You’ll get a pack of them in the Box, but if you need more, you can get them at www.DailyAudioBible.com.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible here in this season of giving, then thank you. When I say that the Daily Audio Bible is a community affair, that is true. We are what we are and we are what we are together. So thank you for your partnership. If Daily Audio Bible is a life-giving source for you, then thank you for being a life-giving source for it so that we can move forward into another year together. There is a link on the home page of www.DailyAudioBible.com in the upper right-hand corner. If you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.
And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment or holiday greeting, (877) 942-4253 is the number to call.
And that’s it for today. I’m Brian. I love you. I’ll be waiting for you here, tomorrow.
Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports
Good morning DAB family. This is Nana Jones from Spring Hill, TN. I just had to call in today with words of thanksgiving. Brian, your explanation at the end of the teaching with little Zekey was so cute, but I really was touched by your explanation of God and how we sometimes see him and how he really is. Thank you so much for expounding on that. I have to say thank you to Richard C. from Albury-Wodonga. Your call encouraged me so much about anxiety and depression. I have struggled with that my whole life and continue to, but I want to thank you for sharing the scriptures. That brought great encouragement and comfort to me this morning. Also, Intercessor in Delaware, thank you for calling in. Your words on shalom, all the list of…wow! That was like so encouraging to my spirit to hear what the world shalom means. I'm sure it blessed many others. Thank you so much for sharing that and God bless you and your family. Jacob J. from Waco, TX, thank you for calling in, honey. Eleven years old and you are so grateful to the DAB and we are grateful that you are listening with us and you are part of our community. So please keep calling in from time to time. We would love to hear back from you. God bless you and your family, honey. Also, I have a quick… Millie, you’re a new listener and you need a job and you were discouraged and you called in the other day so I want you to know that you're being prayed for by the DAB family. So let's pray for Millie, everybody. She needs a job and she needs encouragement. Mark S., you're a blessing to us. We’re praying for you. God bless you, family. I gotta go! Love you all.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family. I'm Sheila from Massachusetts. Calling in this morning, want to say a prayer for all marriages that are struggling. God, please lift up couples who are trying to come to a life centered around you. We know Satan hates nothing more than a Christ-centered marriage, so Lord, I pray, pray, pray in Jesus’ name, cast out any evil spirits that are preying on marriages, that are trying to come to a marriage centered on you, Christ. I want to shout out there and say I haven’t heard from Pelham in a long time. Pelham, how are you doing? How are you and Molly? How is the marriage going? And Sinner Redeemed, I think of you quite often and I haven’t heard your voice in a while. So brother, we’re lifting you up in prayers and just hoping all is well with you and praying that you're finding peace in God's will, whether it is walking through the wilderness right now or enjoying all the fruits that God has to offer us. I miss hearing your voice. Have a great day Daily Audio Bible family. Bye.
Hello Daily Audio Bible. My name is Rhett calling from Illinois. I am a longtime listener. I finished Reframe and I am going to read it again so that I have a full understanding of reframe and what it will mean to my life. I have changed my posture of heart. I am constantly in recovery. My request today is to ask this community to fast and pray for Rockford, IL. It seems like every day in this community, you pick up a newspaper and there is hatred and killing. It seems we have lost our way and forgot to teach people how to love one another. Crime is high. Please pray and put this at the foot of God's throne. Psalm 55:22 today – leave your troubles with the Lord and he will defend you. He never lets honest people be defeated. Pray for our church family, missionaries, that they go out and teach the glory of God's kingdom and pray that they are covered in his blood as they do so. Pray that Jesus be manifest among his followers. Pray for Rockford, IL. We need you. Thank you Brian and Jill and Blind Tony and Sinner Redeemed and everyone else who is so faithful in standing firm in God's Word in spite of this troubled land, chaos and confusion. And pray for me, Rhett, as I continue to recover and reframe in the name of Jesus. Thank you so much. I love you all.
Hey DAB family. This is Byron out in Florida. I wanted to call in a prayer for __________ and her daughter Rachel and for Stephanie in Carolina's son. Both of them are going to be taking the Japanese fluency test in about a month's time and I’ve just been bathing them in prayer to get them ready for that. So Lord, please watch over these children as they seek to better themselves. They have put themselves hard to study, Heavenly Father, to embrace another culture's language, Heavenly Father, and I pray that you give them utterance, Lord, to ace that, passing that exam. __________ for them, for all of the people that have been praying for them thus far, Lord. Relieve anxieties and cause information to come to their minds that they need, Lord, in order to pass that test and succeed as persons, Heavenly Father. So build their testimony and their faith in you through what they are able to accomplish here, Lord, and give strength to their parents as they encourage them __________. We thank you for your love and for your provision, Lord. We give you praise no matter the outcome, in Jesus’ name. Love you guys. Talk to you later.
Hi DAB family. This is Asia calling from Munich. Cherry C. like the pie, girlfriend, I have called in on I think it was Monday and you called in on Tuesday asking for me to call in with an update and I thought isn’t this amazing how God works? Praise God for the blessings of you seeing your grandbaby. Raphael in Maryland, your messages are just so wonderful. I love hearing your voice. I love the word that you give. I pray blessings over you, my brother, and just thank you so much for continuing to lift this community up. The caller who called in from Maryland regarding the word shalom, thank you so much for that. Brian has often used the word shalom and I honestly didn’t know what it really meant so thank you for clarifying. I do plan to start using that in my daily prayer. For all you DAB listeners that may be behind, I just want to say this now, to download all of the podcasts because as of December 31st everything resets, so you don’t want to make the mistake of not being able to catch up. So you need to start downloading all the back podcasts now. I love you family, Brian Hardin and family and the people behind the scenes. SarahJane, God has put it on my heart to pray for you. I pray that everything is well. I pray you're enjoying your baby. I pray your husband's health is in recovery. There are so many of you who are on my mind, that I'm thinking of and I just want to say thank you family. As we move into Christmas, let's all continue to lift all of our families up in prayer. God knows what we need. I love you guys. I miss you. Aiden is just growing and we’re bringing him up in the Word of God. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen. Cheers! Asia from Munich. Shalom, my brothers and sisters.
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Tamarie 12/09/2015 14:18 |
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