#exodus was basically ‘guys. what if we killed ourselves.’

[lesbianleonardo]

FINISHED SEASON 3 OF 2003!!!!! i am a changed man

#no fucking wonder people ship leo/usagi lmaoooo #could not believe those two #also shoutout to karai’s party outfit #i wish the show took more time to build chrell’s and karai’s relationship and expand upon it but i’ll take what i can get #especially for an early 2000s cartoon for boys 8-12 #i reallyyyy like how terrifying and terrible bishop is #exodus was basically ‘guys. what if we killed ourselves.’ #i’m so emotional over them #now it’s time for the leo emo (ptsd) arc woooooo #turtles watches tmnt 2003 #turtle talks

[dailyaudiobible]

01/28/2021 DAB Transcript

Exodus 5:22-7:25, Matthew 18:21-19:12, Psalms 23:1-6, Proverbs 5:22-23

Today is the 28th day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it is an honor to be here with you today as we just lock-in, come around the Global Campfire together and let it all go and let this center us where we belong and orient us to God. So, we are reading in the book of Exodus. We’re just getting started in the book of Exodus, the second book of the Bible and we've been introduced to Moses. Moses has been tasked to be the…the representative of God, basically, God's prophet and to go before the king of Egypt the Pharaoh and demand the release of the Hebrews who have grown to become strong and numerous as a nation themselves. But God is now wanting to set them free from their slavery and so far, that's not going well. And we’ll pick up the story. We’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. Exodus chapter 5 verse 22 through 7 verse 25.

Commentary:

Okay. So, let's catch ourselves up in Exodus in the lay of the land. the Hebrew people, remember Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, who became Israel and had children, the children of Israel. And then Joseph goes to Egypt and then famine comes and those people, 70 of them, go to Egypt and are saved. Those 70 people, we are 400 years in the future now, and those 70 people have become tens of thousands and tens of thousands of people. Moses is one of those people. He was supposed to be as an infant thrown into the Nile River to die, to drown, because Pharaoh was doing away from…well…he was trying to eradicate the male population because these people were becoming…were becoming too powerful. In the end it's Pharaoh's daughter who saves Moses and he's educated, and he kills an Egyptian while defending a Hebrew and he has to go on the run where God appears to him and says, basically we’re gonna go back and set the people free and you're gonna be my mouthpiece. So, he goes back and starts making these announcements and we’re just getting going in the very famous story of the plagues upon Egypt that will one day set the people free. So far not going so well. And this is an important thing for us to look at here because God tells Moses it's not gonna go well, that He’s gonna harden Pharaoh's heart and he's going to resist until he has to be broken essentially. That doesn't seem fair, though, right? That God is going to somehow against the will of Pharaoh make his heart hard so that he has to resist God in order to be broken and he doesn't…like he has no choice in the matter. That’s not what's going on here. What would it take to harden your heart? Maybe way less than we realize. Suppose that you have a bit of authority at your job. You have maybe a whole department under you, representing hundreds of people or maybe, you know, you've a couple of people who have to answer to you. Let's suppose that a subordinate guess an appointment with you and comes before you, demanding that you do something that doesn't make any sense to you and yet they are demanding it it's. And, so, because of the situation and your flummoxed and your like, “wait a minute. Like I’m your boss, not the other way around. And are you trying to take my job?” And then all this kind of pride kind of begins to emerge. And, so, we want to push that person back and put them in their place because they've hardened our hearts. Or they come in with a threat. “If you don't do what I'm telling you to do then bad things are going to happen to you.” And they say that God is going to do this, but they happen to be of a different religion than you and so you don't really respect any of their traditions. And, so, you're like, “I don't know who this is. I don't know what you’re…I don't know what you're trying to do here. Get out of here if you want to keep your job”, right? The heart gets hardened when we are pressed to do what we don't want to do. We don't want to submit anybody's authority. This is exponentially more difficult for Pharaoh because Pharaoh thinks he is a God. And, so, what we have going on here is that the most-high God is speaking through a Hebrew man demanding that the Hebrew people be let go. And Pharaoh is like, “I don't know you're God. Who cares what your God thinks? I am a more powerful God then you're God or you wouldn't be my slaves. Get back to your job. And I'm not supplying you anymore. Get back to your job and find your own supplies.” That is the long and short of what's happening here. And the Bible tells us that pride goes before a fall. And we might…might even know how this story ends. It's a famous Bible story. So, we could say that in the and Pharaoh does find that he is humbled, whether he likes it or not, but then we have to understand that these stories also become a mirror into our soul. What would it take for us to submit in this kind of scenario? And would it be our pride…like would we resist until we were completely broken? Because pride goes before the fall and God does not appreciate pride because pride exalts us. It exalts us above all things. And God in the Bible or in history does not suffer that for long. And, so, yeah, we’re in the middle of a pretty dramatic story but let's find ourselves in this story. And one way to begin to find ourselves in the story today is to observe the hardening of the heart and begin to observe ourselves when our hearts are being hardened because most of the time we’re gonna find pride is a part of that recipe.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit we invite You into that. It is not our desire to be arrogant and prideful people. And yet we’re encouraged to be just that all the time inside of our culture. We need to be dominant; we need to be powerful. And yet this is not the path that leads to life, this is not the way of the gospel. The way of the gospel is that strength is actually found in surrender and that strength is actually found in weakness. So counterintuitive to the way that life is been presented to us. And yet this is the way we were made. So come Holy Spirit and help us to interpret our own hearts by observing when they are becoming hard. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen

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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 DAB family this is Flourishing in the Desert and it's Sunday January 24th 2021. I just want to say thank you to all of you. Last year 2020 was a really hard year for me not because of Covid but because of oh the push from God to finally leave an abusive relationship. It was such a struggle. All of last year was such a struggle. And then a dear friend of mine, All the Treasures from Wyoming told me about DAB and I started to listen and I just want you guys to know that your faithful prayers for others for everyone in this community just encouraged me on so many levels and I am forever thankful for your love for the body of Christ, your willingness to put your issues out there, to seek prayer, and also your willingness to pray for others in need. God has blessed me abundantly through you and He continues to carry me through and to bring joy to my day. And I just want to let you guys know that, yeah, you're the best and I just so appreciate you. You touch the lives of others in so many ways, in ways you just don't understand. So, I tip my hat to each one of you and I thank you. Be encouraged today and to know that your blessing others even as you pray for those who are in need. God's blessings on you all. This is Flourishing in the Desert in Cheyenne WY.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family I'm a first-time caller I’ve been listening for about two years and I'm going on my third year and I've become a double DABber listening to the Chronological Bible as well. Thank you, Jill. I live in Texas and I'm calling myself Joyful Paradise in Texas. I chose that name not because my life has been easy, but because through everything I've been through the Lord has been the joy of my life and the one who's carried me through everything and sustained me. I met the Lord at a camp revival as a child and I've walked with Him and I've I've…I've…I've grown in the Lord over the years and this year I turned 70. So, it’s…I've had my share of ups and downs. A good friend of mine downloaded the app on the on…on the…of the Daily Audio Bible onto my phone and said, listen. So, I did, and it has been a blessing to me. It really has been a blessing and I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful to get to know each one of you, to hear your voices, to hear your prayer requests and my heart has been deeply touched many times by many of your requests and I…and I hope to hear more from each one of you. You…and we'll just keep praying for one another. Thank you for this podcast Brian and God bless.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is His Dearly Beloved in Minnesota. I've called in a couple of times recently asking for prayer for a pain I've been experiencing. I'm scheduled for a total hysterectomy on February 2nd so I very much would still love your prayers for that. But I'm calling today to encourage each one of you. Today is February 24th, it's a Sunday…January 24th, sorry. It's a Sunday and Brian has been talking about our hearts and how we need to guard our hearts because life springs forth from our hearts. And I'm nearing 60 years old right now. So, I have definitely had my fair share of pieces of my heart strewn along the way and have needed mending. And I'm here to tell you that God absolutely does mend our hearts. My…probably my biggest heartbreak was ten years ago when my husband of 25 years who had been my high school sweetheart. We dated 8 years before we were married at…I was about 21 at the time and he finally released me from our marriage because he had…was feeling that he missed out on a life of dating. And…and as you can imagine that was…that was pretty rough for me. But I'm here to tell you 10 years later God has completely…completely healed and mended my heart. And I wanted to share my intention for the year, which is to give my first…give my wholehearted best first and foremost to God loving and trusting the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, shining that love, joy, peace, hope, and light into the world each day. I love you take care.

Hello this is Rachel from Oregon just want to call in for the lady who asked for prayer whose husband of 46 years just left her. This prayer was posted on January 20th. Today I am praying for you on January 24th. And you just got out of the hospital recently from Covid and you have no one to help you at home. And I can't even imagine how hard it must be for you right now the things that are happening in your life and in your situation and feeling so alone. And I am so so sorry. My heart breaks for you. I really really wish that I could come help you. In a heartbeat I would. I would be over to help you at home, but I don't know where you live and chances are it's not nearby me. But Lord I come before You today to ask You to intervene in this lady's life. You know all her needs. You know the pain in her heart and the cry of her heart Lord. Will You please bring her the peace that passes all understanding and help her through this hard time that her husband has left her. And please convict him to repent of leaving her and this divorce and also please bring her in abundance of people in her life to love on her and to help her in any way that she needs. We are meant to serve each other as a body in Christ Lord and I ask that You will just show her Your love through other people and help her to find her hope in You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family members this is Abby calling from Maryland. I trust you are all doing well. My goal for this year is to call more often. So, here I am. And I have been so blessed listening to people calling in, you know, especially those who are joining us on board this year 2021. I've heard this lady who is so excited, you know, I believe she's blind and she's just been having a wonderful experience with this community. Welcome to every new member and for…I specifically want to pray for a young man or a man who had called I believe his name was Tilly from Florida who is currently in the hospital. He's scared and, you know, he has chest pains and he said that he's broken hearted because he had to make a confession to his wife. I lift you into the hands of the almighty God and I pray that God heals you. I pray that God wraps His love around you and God shows you how much He loves you and God just restores you, restores your health in Jesus’ name. I pray for each and every member who has called for one thing of the other. God meets each and every one of you at the point of your need. And yes, I am so excited to hear when China does deliver her child. I am looking forward to that. Thank you, Brian for always being awesome. Thank you, Jill for always being awesome. Thank you, this amazing community. You guys are…you are my community. I just look forward to getting into the word of God with you guys every day. You all have a blessed week. This is Abby from Maryland. Stay blessed.

Good morning everyone this is Mary from the United States. As Brian talks about endurance, I just want to join with him and encourage you. Endurance sounds like a strong word of suffrage and drudgery, yet there's freedom in endurance. There's joy in endurance. There's confidence and grace in endurance. Their strength in endurance. There's wisdom in endurance. There's a vision and a sense of purpose in endurance. Endure in love, endure in joy, endure in the morning, endure in the evening, endure in the Lord to the very end. Endurance brings with it joy, peace, rhythm, meaning. Endurance is a gift we can choose or deny. Open the gift and discover its treasures in the box of endurance. Breathe in, breathe out the blessed joy that we can endure in love. Put on foot…put one foot in front of the other, breathe in breath out. The riches gain in endurance. The interest compile in endurance. A rich abundant life as we endure in love.

[patriotforthekingdom]

...Shall Not Be Infringed

The second amendment to the constitution is phrased in a way that shouldn’t lead to any questions about it. It reads “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Shall. Not. Be. Infringed. 

Our founding fathers knew a little bit about tyranny and oppression, and that is why the very first two amendments to the constitution specifically spell out arguably our two most important freedoms…first: our right to free speech and second: our right to bear arms. As the saying goes, “we have the second amendment so we can defend our first amendment.” 

So why is the left constantly trying to question and remove our right to bear arms? Or in other words, why is the left constantly trying to infringe? 

Control. 

It’t that simple. 

If we’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that politicians on the left (and a large handful on the right) will do whatever it takes to gain even just a little bit more control over you. And they won’t stop there. Once they get that little bit of control, they will keep pushing and pushing just to see how far they can go. You are simply a pawn of their agenda and a statistic ready to be manipulated. 

Under the Obama administration, mass shootings shot up 246.7% higher than previously under the Bush administration (thegatewaypundit.com). They spent those 8 years of shootings, alongside the MSM, laying the groundwork for disarming all Americans. They thought they were in for an easy transition from Obama to Clinton, and could simply finish the job over the next 8 years. Well, as we know, they faced an obstacle to that plan in Donald Trump. 

After 4 years of relatively no media coverage on mass shootings, outside of Las Vegas, Biden is now in… and they are right back at it. 

Last week alone was nonstop MSM coverage of a shooting in Atlanta simply because the timing was right, and it fit the narrative. Don’t get me wrong, this was a horrific act committed by someone who is absolutely insane or possessed, and I have been and will continue to be praying for the families of those who were unfairly taken far too soon. But I will also be praying for the families of the 15 people who were shot the same week in another mass shooting in Chicago that went completely unreported on. Unfortunately this shooting was chalked up to gang violence which we are programmed to think is normal, frequent and unpreventable. 

However, the first shooting was seemingly a perfect fit for the MSM narrative: a white male shoots 8 women, 6 of which happen to be an ethnic minority. The MSM didn’t waste any time pushing this as anti-asian violence and somehow blaming this and any other anti-asian violence on Trump. 

Check out a few of the quotes and headlines…

Apnews.com opening line: “A white gunman was charged Wednesday with killing eight people at three Atlanta-area massage parlors in an attack that sent terror through the Asian American community, which has increasingly been targeted during the coronavirus pandemic.” 

Nytimes.com headline: “8 Dead in Atlanta Spa Shootings, With Fears of Anti-Asian Bias”

Washingtonpost.com quote: “Six Asian women died in the attacks on Tuesday, prompting widespread concern that the killings could be the latest in a surge of hate crimes against Asian Americans.” 

In addition to these and many other MSM outlets covering this story nonstop, many politicians jumped into the conversation as well, including Crooked Hillary herself who tweeted, “I’m sending prayers today to the families of the people killed and those injured in Atlanta’s horrific attacks. The surge in violence against Asian Americans over the last year is a growing crisis. We need action from our leaders and within our communities to stop the hate.” Since the shooting, 4 of her 6 tweets have been pushing the #StopAsianHate narrative. 

Well, how are they going to #StopAsianHate? Control. And how are they going to take control? Disarming Americans. 

The shooter himself claimed that the shooting was not racially motivated, and the FBI, after investigating, determined the same exact thing. Oddly enough, this didn’t make any of the headlines, nor did it stop the MSM from writing about this being a racially motivated shooting. “Ironically,” the senate is due to vote on Joe Biden’s unconstitutional and far left gun control bill that he is persistent on passing. 

Is it making sense now? 

The politicians are trying to take away your freedoms. They don’t care who or what they use to do so. This time it’s guns. They are going to be voting shortly on taking away your guns, so before they do that, they have to remind you that guns are bad and scary. 

Well, Thomas Jefferson knew that the day would come when politicians would try to disarm Americans by convincing them that guns are bad and scary. He had this to say, “The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man” (buckeyefirearms.org). 

Strict gun laws don’t stop bad guys from getting guns. They stop the good guys from getting guns to defend themselves and others, leaving everyone in a far more susceptible position. 

What would’ve happened in Atlanta if one of those women shot were carrying a firearm? Could the first victim have defended herself and stopped hers and the other murders from even happening? Possibly. 

In Joe Biden’s America, we shouldn’t have the right to defend ourselves. These women who were murdered should not have had the right to defend themselves. The shooter should have known that he was not going to be able to be stopped until he decided to stop. The shooter should have known that whoever he wanted to shoot would not be able to defend themselves. 

Well, what does the Bible say about gun control? Not-so-surprisingly, nothing. However, the Bible does say that every man was assumed to have a personal sword, the gun-equivalent back in the day. Jesus himself said in Luke 22, “Let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one.” 

So, knowing Jesus supports ownership of weapons for self-defense, what about acts of self-defense? Well, Exodus 22:2 says, “If a thief is caught in the act of breaking into a house and is struck and killed in the process, the person who killed the thief is not guilty of murder.” It continues in verse 3 to say, “But if it happens in daylight, the one who killed the thief is guilty of murder.” This tells us that it is not ok to kill someone simply because they break into your house. Pastor Tom Tell says about this passage, “In the dark, it is impossible to see and know for certain what someone is up to; whether an intruder has come to steal, inflict harm, or to kill, is unknown at the time. In the daylight, things are clearer. We can see if a thief has come just to swipe a loaf of bread through an open window, or if an intruder has come with more violent intentions.” 

Ultimately, the Bible tells us that the right to bear arms is acceptable (if not suggested to do so), and the right to defend yourself is promoted. Deadly force should be the last resort for a christian (and also taught in basic gun training), but if necessary to do so in self-defense, it is permit-able. 

As a christian, the right to bear arms is a freedom granted to us by the Bible. And as an American, the right to bear arms is a freedom granted to us by the Constitution. 

The left is steadfast on removing this right from us, this is not a time to be silent. 

We must build up an army of patriots for the kingdom. 

BONUS BLOG!

I wrote “…Shall Not Be Infringed” (above) before the most recent shooting in Boulder, CO on Monday. I couldn’t post this without addressing a few quick thoughts that came to my mind…

You can see just how quickly the left is moving to infringe on your right to bear arms. They want complete and utter control. 

They want you afraid!

Afraid of guns. 

Afraid of terrorists. 

Afraid of white males. 

Afraid of Trump.

Afraid of conservatives. 

Afraid of anything that they feel is a threat to their control. 

And they are using the MSM propaganda to make you afraid. 

The MSM was eager to blame this shooting on a white male as the yahoo news story says, “a partially clothed white male was seen being led away from the scene.” When in reality, the shooter was identified later as Ahmad al-Issa…a devout, anti-Trump, Muslim. 

Joe Biden also wasted no time using this shooting as a way to blame guns by calling for an “assault weapons ban” and a “ban on high capacity magazines.” Want to know something funny? Colorado already has a high capacity magazine ban. So Joe, did it help? Did that stop the bad guy from getting a gun with a high capacity magazine? 

We as a people need to open our eyes to this madness the left is pushing us into. It is leading us into complete and utter destruction. 

#patriot #kingdom #christianity #politics

[pastorcowboy]

The Matthew series: the religious atmosphere Pt. 2

Matthew series: Ministry of Jesus:

Matthew 12:22-50 The religious atmosphere part 2

I had a fella spend time with me for three months building a new friendship. One day he questioned me on several things I believed about Christianity. I did not give the answers he wanted. The man closed his Bible and walked out: friendship over. With religion, there seems to be a really big line. You are either on one side or another. Matthew 12: 22-32 is a defining line between heaven and hell. You could also say between God’s kingdom and religion. The religious rulers have decided that Jesus is of the Devil. The response from Jesus on evil is brilliant.

They asked Jesus who he was. Actually, many people asked Jesus who he was. With so many traditions and scriptures, it was hard to know for sure. The religious rulers knew. Yet, they wanted to cast doubt on the people. The other two verses I quote ask the same of John the Baptist. Who is he to God? Can you tell evil intent or have you been fooled?

Matthew 12:24 “But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.”

Malachi 4:5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.”

Matthew 11:14 “and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.”

Hosea 9:10 says: “Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit on the fig tree, in its first season, I saw your ancestors. But they came to Baal-peor, and consecrated themselves to a thing of shame, and became detestable like the thing they loved.” Jesus is quoted several times in relation to the fig tree. It’s believed that the mention of the fig tree is in relation to Israel. There are many verses in the Old Testament in regards to the fig tree. Look at Micha 4:4 “but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.” Jesus mentions the fig tree in Matthew 12 because good and bad fruit are known to Jewish people as good and evil. Again, Jesus takes what the religious rulers throw at him and delivers it back to them on a Biblical platter. Have you ever been accused of being evil?

Matthew 12:30 “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”

Exodus 7:17 “This is what the Lord says: By this you will know that I am the Lord: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood.”

We tend to see the word Jonah and think of a fish story. What if evil was the real story. Nineveh was an evil place. I suspect in Jesus day it was considered the worst place like saying Go to hell, they would say go to Nineveh. The second half of this chapter is an understanding of what evil is and is not. Jesus of course takes it a step farther. He points out that looking clean only means you might be empty inside. It also means that empty spaces invite trouble like evil spirits. The last part of this chapter caps it off with a discussion about the true family. Family are those who share in the kingdom of God. There is a ton to unpack in the second part of this chapter.

Matthew 12:43 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it.”

1 Samuel 15:16 “And Saul’s servants said to him, “Behold now, a harmful spirit from God is tormenting you.”

Read Matthew 12:22-50, Jerimiah 24 for next week.

1.       It’s so easy to read the Bible and see what we want to see. Jesus is being attacked by the religious rulers here in Matthew 12. Don’t you find it interesting that Satan never attacks him? Yet Jesus is being accused of being of the Devil. Who is offending who? The crowd wonders who this Jesus is. Is he the Son of David? That Guy was to rescue them all from the Romans. He was the Messiah, Christ, and God’s deliverer. Can you see that the religious rulers are not asking those questions? I want you to think about the theme of evil in this study today. The question should be what is evil? I think Matthew is telling the Jewish readers that evil is not where they thought it was. Religion can go to seed. That seems a tough pill to swallow when it comes to church things. Verse 22 begins with evil spirits. Jesus ends with a claim in verse 32 that the good holy Spirit should not be dished.

Matthew 12:32 “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”

 Nehemiah 9:20 “you gave Your good Spirit to instruct them, Your manna You did not withhold from their mouth, And You gave them water for their thirst.

 2.       This section of Matthew is so cool. I love fig talk. So many times, Jesus goes off and begins to talk about crazy stuff. He asks people to tear out their eyes. Jesus says we can’t strain a Nat or put a camel through the eye of a needle. His parables are legendary for being hard to understand. So, what is all this fig talk beginning in verse 33. Well Jesus calls the religious rulers a brood of vipers. John the Baptist called them that too. The fig tree has traditionally been attributed to Israel as a nation. Read Jeremiah 24 and you will begin to get it. Jesus is telling these men that the fig tree is producing bad fruit. I think that is why throughout the gospels Jesus talks about vines, trimming, and fig trees. I feel that Jesus is intentionally enticing them to kill him. Jesus was insinuating the religion of his day needed to be pruned.

 Matthew 12:33 “Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.”

 Jerimiah 24:3 “Then the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” “Figs,” I answered. “The good ones are very good, but the bad ones are so bad they cannot be eaten.”

 3.       Section 38-42 is a crazy section of the Bible. Imagine religious leaders being blind to God. It’s by no mistake that Jesus heals the demonic man who was blind and could not talk. The religious rulers do a lot of talking yet they are spiritually blind. Jesus calls them an adulteress generation and brood of vipers. He mentions that the evil Nineveh is more honorable than this generation. The Queen of the south crushed Israel years after Solomon showed her the kingdom. Jesus says that same thing will happen again. This section of written is by no mistake. The ears of Israel knew exactly what Jesus was driving at. Adulteress means they were in bed with the wrong crowd. Check out 1 Kings 10 for more insight. What is clear is that Jesus uses Jonah because people use that story so often to disregard the Bibles validity. Jesus is challenging them on the validity of their beliefs.

Matthew 12:41 “The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!”

 Jerimiah 50:17 “"Israel is a scattered flock that lions have chased away. The first to devour them was the king of Assyria; the last to crush their bones was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon."

 4.       Verses 43 -50 wrap up the problem with this generation. It’s the same in our times too. We want to look clean. In many ways, we try and be clean. There are programs and pills to feel better. We frown on unhappiness. Yet, in the kingdom of God unhappiness is the right pill. To be unsettled means we need help. People usually don’t need God during good times. That is too bad. Troubles comes because we don’t invite God in the good times as we should. The religious rulers tried hard to sweep their homes clean in their hearts. Jesus said they opened the door for Satan to come back with friends. The last part is the tricky part. Who are your friends and family? Who do you trust and rely on? I get it that family is not a choice. However, a family of godly people is a good thing. It might be easier to know who is evil and what shape your house is in when you surround yourself with God.

Matthew 12:50 “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Genesis 50:20 “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

What it all means?

I split this chapter in two because I saw Jesus set the climate in the first part. He then points to our hearts. We can come to God for various reasons. We can take this word and twist it to mean anything we want. Is this chapter all about bad religion? No, the Bible can be called Basic Instructions, before, leaving Earth. I know it’s cheesy but cute. Yet, that is it in a nut shell. Matthew 12 is asking us to beware of ourselves in religion. Through the actions of the religious rulers we could see our future. A future where we fold up our Bible and walk out. That fella I mentioned at the beginning was more interested in religion than friendship.

Is it so hard to believe in Jonah and a whale? Is it so hard to believe in the Genesis version of creation? Why must we make rules to make us comfortable in our understanding. In Jesus day, one group believed in resurrection. Another in miracles. Each group rejected the other. We have God’s word today. Yet, here we stand with several hundred different denominations and cults. Why? Because Matthew 12 was a warning we refused to believe. That man will try to place himself as God.

Since the beginning, Adam and Eve were trying to be God. So, did the people of Babel. So, did the religious rulers in Jesus time. Today we have men who claim to be God or at-least Gods prophet. Men and women cannot submit to the Lord without conditions. Jesus points out that coming to God unconditionally is the only way like a child. We are not spiritually blind by force. One step at a time we build walls to God. Soon enough we can’t see Eden or heaven. This Chapter is a warning to us all. Let God create our Christianity. Otherwise we will repeat the sins of the past religious rulers.

Matthew 12:50 “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Exodus 19:8 “The people all responded together, "We will do everything the LORD has said." So Moses brought their answer back to the LORD.”

#Matthew #jesus #god #bible

[jameshboyd]

Humor in the Bible

"Are Christians allowed to laugh, have fun and enjoy life?"

When discussing my faith with others, this issue comes up frequently from Christians and non-Christians alike. When I was first introduced to the Gospel as a teenager, I asked it myself, and with good reason. To be sure, the call to follow Jesus is a very serious and sober one, commanding us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him, even if it means laying down our very lives (Matthew 10:39; John 12:25). But the next question deals with how we apply this commitment to our lives on a day-to-day basis. Does Jesus' call to self-denial and holiness mean that we cannot enjoy even the legitimate pleasures of life? I don't think so. Laughter is one of the most primal responses human beings are capable of experiencing. Philosophers and psychologists have long sought to understand its complexities on emotional and physical levels. Journalist Norman Cousins credited the healing power of laughter to his recovery from a fatal illness. Jane Wollman points out that "(Laughter) excercises the diaphram and stomach muscles, in addition to massaging the internal organs. Moreover, by stirring up the endocrine system, it triggers the release of hormones that boost metabolism...Sigmund Freud thought laughter originated from the smile of an infant falling asleep at the breast-the emotional expression of pleasurable satiety (2)." Of course, for those who love the Bible, these healthy effects of laughter should come as no surprise. Thousands of years earlier, Proverbs 17:22 told us how "...a merry heart does good like a medicine." We read in Psalm 24:1 that "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof (King James Translation)." 1 Timothy 6:17 further tells us that God gives it all to us for our enjoyment. and that "the joy of the Lord is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10)." It even states that God Himself sits in Heaven and laughs at human foolishness (Psalm 2:4). The Bible uses words such as “laugh,” “laughter,“ or other variations of those words over 200 times. The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery tells us that “The Bible is predominantly a serious rather than a funny book. Yet it would distort the Bible to suppress the humor that is present (3).” As with all of life, the key is balance. As Ecclesiastes tells us, there is both a time to weep and a time to laugh (Ecclesiastes 3:4). Mark Pinski, former religion writer for the Orlando Sentinel, rightly observes that:

(T)he ability to laugh at one’s faith is a sign of growth and theological maturity... humor is a way of explaining religion — to its adherents and to others. Increasingly, believing members of orthodox faith traditions are able to joke about their foibles and shortcomings before an audience of their community (4).

With these facts established, we will now look at a few specific examples of humor in the Bible. First let’s look at the Book of Exodus, chapter 32. Moses has been on Mount Sinai communing with God and receiving the Ten Commandments. While he was gone, he leaves his brother Aaron in charge. Unfortunately, though, we know what happens. The people’s commitment to God and to Moses turns out to be very fickle, and they have Aaron melt down their gold and make a golden calf idol for them to worship. Obviously, when Moses returns, he is not happy! He burns the idol, grinds it to powder, mixes it with water, and makes the people drink it. Is this funny? No, except for one place. When Moses confronts Aaron in verse 21, look at Aaron’s response in verses 22-24: "Don’t get so upset, my lord, … You yourself know how evil these people are. They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will lead us. We don’t know what happened to this fellow Moses, who brought us here from the land of Egypt.’ So I told them, ‘Whoever has gold jewelry, take it off.’ When they brought it to me, I simply threw it into the fire—and out came this calf!” We may laugh at that, but in reality, haven’t we all given God those kind of excuses at some point? Next let’s look at 1 Kings chapter 18. This is the familiar story of Elijah and his showdown with the prophets of Baal. As most of you will recall, they had both built their altars and were engaged in a contest to determine who was serving the true God. The challenge was that both would call down fire from Heaven to consume their respective sacrifices and the one who answered was the one to be worshipped. The prophets of Baal went first, but they had a problem: Their god, Baal was only a statue. He could not hear them, let alone answer them. So when they called on him to send down the fire, obviously, they got nothing. Now the funny part: We see Elijah respond with a little sanctified “trash talking” in verse 27. The King James words it "And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked." In that day, "on a journey" was a Hebrew euphamism for going to the bathroom! This is reflected in many modern translations. In other words, “Where is you god, sitting on the toilet?” So ladies, cut your husbands some slack: "Potty humor" is biblical! Next, let’s look at that venerable guide for practical wisdom, the Book of Proverbs. Millions of believers, myself included, look to it regularly for important life lessons. But what we often miss is that they are often cloaked in very funny terms. Here are some examples:

Proverbs 11:22 A beautiful woman who lacks discretion is like a gold ring in a pig’s snout.

Proverbs 19:24 Lazy people take food in their hand but don’t even lift it to their mouth.

Proverbs 21:9 It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house.

Proverbs 22:13 The lazy person claims, “There’s a lion out there! If I go outside, I might be killed!”

Next we will look at the life of Jesus. Did He have a sense of humor? Now it is true that Isaiah 53:3 describes Him as a “man of sorrows,” but does that describe the whole of His human experience? I don't believe it does. Always keep in mind that Jesus was both fully God and fully human, and a part of being fully human is experiencing the full range of human emotion, both the joys and the sorrows. Jesus was not the dour, gloomy person that popular religious tradition has often painted Him as being. He "rejoiced (Luke 10:21)," which is the Greek word agalliaô which means "to exult, rejoice exceedingly, be exceeding glad." He was not a far-off ascetic who simply sat on a mountain at spouted platitudes. He met people where they were. He attended weddings and other social functions (John 2:1-11), even to the extent that He was (falsely) accused of being a glutton and a drunkard (Matthew 11:19). People from all walks of life actively sought out His company. Did you ever wonder why this was? While the spiritual aspects of His presence are obvious, could it have also been that He was (gasp) a fun guy to be around? Unfortunately, though, this side of Jesus is a much-neglected course of study in the theological world. However, a notable exception is the popular book called “The Humor of Christ” by a Quaker author named Elton Trueblood. Mr. Trueblood tells us of his inspiration for writing the book:

We were reading to our eldest son from the seventh chapter of Matthew' Gospel, feeling very serious, when suddenly the little boy began to laugh. He laughed because he saw how preposterous it would be for a man to be so deeply concerned about a speck in another person's eye, that he was unconscious of the fact that his own eye had a beam in it...His laughter was a rebuke to his parents for their failure to respond to humor in an unexpected place. (5)

Here Mr. Trueblood brings up a vitally important point: Many of Jesus' parables and illustrations had humorous overtones in the vernacular of that day. A common form of communication for Jews in that day was called hyperbole, or exaggeration to emphasize a point. A modern example would be “I haven’t seen you in a million years!” Here, Jesus uses it in a very funny way. Being a carpenter, He used the tools of His trade to make a stinging point about religious hypocrisy. “Why are you worried about a speck in your brother’s eye when you have a two-by-four in your own eye?” Another example: Matthew 15, starting with verse 21. A gentile woman comes to Jesus asking Him to heal her demon possessed daughter. But Jesus reply is shocking: “I was sent only to help God’s lost sheep—the people of Israel…It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.” I have to admit that Jesus' response here always bothered me a little. At first glance, it seems that Jesus is being very cruel and insulting to this woman. That is, until you consider the humor element. Look at her response in verse 27: “That’s true, Lord, but even dogs are allowed to eat the scraps that fall beneath their masters’ table.” Basically, she had just “one-upped” the Lord, and He commends her great faith and sets her daughter free. Elton Trueblood also reminds us that “Often a smile comes because Jesus reveals to us some of the absurdity of our own lives, where we need help to recognize it (6).” I can certainly say "amen" to that, can't you? Now I would like to address a topic that will no doubt prove to be a bit controversial: Exactly what kind of humor is appropriate for Christians? More specifically, I want to spend a little time talking about profanity, crude language and "off-color" humor. Our movies are rated primarily in three areas: Sexual content, violence and language. While we certainly do need to use discernment in how we address and evaluate these topics, many well-meaning believers say that we need to avoid any and all references to them. Of course, if we take this to its logical conclusion, then the first book we will have to throw away is the Bible itself! Lets face it: The Bible is, in places, a very violent book! Yes, it is God's Word, and as such, it does not ignore the darker aspects of life. The Bible describes a man getting a tent peg hammered through his skull (Judges 5:23-27). It tells us how King David paid his wife's dowry with 100 Philistine Foreskins (2 Samuel 3:14). It even describes, in very graphic detail, an overweight king named Eglon who was assassinated with a sword, soiling himself in the process (Judges 3:21-22)! And as for sexuality, have you read the Song of Solomon lately? Of course, the context is always the key. By including these stories, the Bible is not encouraging gratuitous violence. It is simply acknowledging that it does exist in the fallen world we live in. Furthermore, the Song of Solomon is not condoning perverse or promiscuous sexual conduct. Rather, it is a liberating celebration of sexuality between a man and his wife. I personally am glad that many Christian leaders are more willing to discuss these topics in an honest and frank manner (7). Locking away any topic as being "taboo" will ultimately do more harm than good. This is why much of what is offered as "wholesome" entertainment is often a shallow, unrealistic characature of life. I enjoy "Leave it to Beaver" reruns as much as anyone, but that is definitely not the world I live in! But the question still remains: When, if ever, is it appropriate for Christians to use "off-color" language? A certain well-known minister once shocked his audience by stating that "...millions of people are starving to death, and most of you don't give a ----!" He went on to rebuke them by saying that "The sad thing is, most of you are more upset at my using that word than you are about people starving!" Was this the best way to make his point? That is open to debate, but it does call challenge us in how we are going to define "bad words." Often, the word "profanity" is used to describe any and all forms of off-color language, but that goes beyond its actual meaning. The word "profanity" means "outside the Temple" and refers specifically to blasphemous or sacriligious terms. Of course, this should not be part of any Christians vocabulary (Exodus 20:7). Nor should immoral sexual talk (Ephesians 5:4) or racist or otherwise degrading language (Matthew 5:22). These principles are summed up in the following Biblical guidelines:

"No foul language should come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for needed edification, that it may impart grace to those who hear.”- Ephesians 5:4

"But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips."-Colossians 3:8, NIV

"Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone."-Colossians 4:6, NIV

Yet outside of these common-sense perimeters, the Bible simply does not give us an explicit list of "forbidden" words that we are never allowed to utter under any circumstances. More often than not, the definition of "bad words" is culturally determined rather than biblically mandated, and is therefore subject to change over time. For example, the word "gay" is now almost universally recognized as referring to homosexuality. Yet originally, it meant to be happy or light hearted. Similarly, to "have an affair" once meant to throw a dinner party or other social gathering. Now it means to commit adultery. "Grass" used to be something people mowed, now it is something people smoke! This is noteworthy because the Bible itself even uses rather crude language on occasion. Although it is sometimes obscured by our flowery King James English, there is an inherant "earthiness" to the Scriptures that is often overlooked.

Isaiah 64:6 states that man's righteousness is as "filthy rags." Literally translated, this is referring to a bloody menstruel cloth.

Matthew 15:17- Jesus illustrates a point by referring to a bowel movement.

Matthew 23:33- Jesus calls the religious leaders a "generation of vipers," or "sons of snakes." Referring to someone as the offspring of an animal remains a common and forceful means of denunciation. The modern equivilent would be "son of a (not-nice word for a female dog)."

Galatians 5:11-12- Paul wishes that the false teachers in the church would castrate themselves.

Phillipians 3:8- Paul compares his pre-Christian life to fesces.

So am I trying to justify bad language? Not at all. I am simply saying that we should define our terminology by the Bible itself, not simply letting cultural norms dictate to us what does and does not constitute improper language. God is not as prudish as we may have been led to believe! God gave us life to be enjoyed. Jesus said "I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows)" (John 10:10, Amplified Bible). This is why Christians should be having more fun than anyone on earth! It only makes sense that people who are going to Heaven would be happier than people who are going to Hell! Not only that, this joy gives us a very powerful tool with which we can communicate both our faith and our humanity. In the words of Joel Hunter, Pastor of Northland Church in Orlando, Florida:

"The more seriously we take God, the less seriously we need to take ourselves. Self-deprecating humor not only reduces the intimidation factor, it personifies the possibility of success of people with flaws. Pastors who can joke about their own shortcomings are paradoxically making the ideals of religion seem more possible by putting them in a common human experience (8)."

It is sometimes said that "The medium is the message." While that may be true to some degree, we must also make sure that the medium does not obscure or compromise the message. As we have seen, there is certainly a place for humor in communicating spiritual truth, we must never let that distract from the seriousness of our message. The minister's chief role is to be a messenger of God, not simply an entertainer. The Bible says that walking with God is a life of pleasure (Psalm 16:11), delight (Psalm 37:4), sweetness (Psalm 119:103), joy (John 15:11) and freedom (John 8:32). Yet this relationship is built on very somber realities. In short, God is holy, man is sinful, but God loves us in spite of that. In His death on the cross, Jesus paid our sin debt so that we could receive God's forgiveness and experience this joy both here and forever! If you have never entered into this relationship, why not open you heart to Him now? © 2011 JHB NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture referances are from the New Living Translation.

1-Quoted in Allen, Steve. How To Be Funny: Discovering the Comic You. 1987. Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY. p 7. 2-Dictionary of Biblical Imagery: An Encyclopedia Exploration of the Images, Symbols, Motifs, Metaphors, Figures of Speech, Literary Patterns and Universal Master Images of the Bible By Leland Ryken, Jim Wilhoit, James C. Wilhoit, Tremper Longman, Colin Duriez, Douglas Penney, Daniel G. Reid Published by InterVarsity Press, 1998 p. 407 3-Pinski, Mark I. "On Religion" column." Putting the 'Fun' in Fundamentalism." USA Today. December 08, 2008. 4-Trueblood, Elton. The Humor of Christ. 1964. Harper & Row Publishers. New York, Evanston and London. P 9 5-Ibid. p 50 5-Altough he is a controversial figure,. I gratefully acknowledge various teachings from Pastor Mark Driscoll as a source and inspiration for portions of this message. 8-Quoted in Pinski,"Putting the 'fun' in fundamentalism" cited above.

#jameshboyd #keepitreal #yourfriendjames

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[dmmowers]

While we were God’s enemies A sermon for Trinity Episcopal Church, Baraboo, Wis. II Sunday after Pentecost | Year A, Track 2 | June 18, 2017 Exodus 19:2-8a | Psalm 100 | Romans 5:1-11** | Matthew 9:35-10:8 **expanded from RCL reading A short time ago in a place not so far away, the Internet hadn’t been invented yet and people actually read newspapers. Actually, the Internet had been invented, but other than the almost weekly America Online CD arriving in our mail promising 12 free hours of internet, I had limited contact with the Internet. I was in middle school. My family had finally gotten a ten year old computer a couple years before, but it wasn’t really fast enough to do anything other than type homework. Those of you who are younger than I am must be thinking, "What did you do? How did life have any meaning?"

So I spent a lot of time reading the newspaper. I grew up in a town several times smaller than Baraboo, a place called Kirkland, Illinois. At that time there was a daily newspaper that covered my town and the next two towns over. The Genoa-Kingston-Kirkland News. We didn't take the GKK News because my mom said there was nothing interesting in it. But there was something interesting in it. The police blotter. Anyone who had been arrested in the previous couple of days, or anytime the police did something interesting, a paragraph's worth of the police report would be listed in the paper. When I was maybe a freshman in high school, I saw that high school senior I looked up to was arrested for going more than 100mph on a country road near our town. My dad didn’t like one of our neighbors much, a plumber whose primary hobbies were raising Great Danes and getting really drunk and bellowing in his yard. When he got a DWI, I read about it in the police blotter. Most scandalously of all, I clearly remember seeing not only the police blotter but front page headlines when the mother of one of my classmates was found dead in a field not far from her home. Shortly thereafter, her husband was charged with her murder. It took nearly two full years before the case went to trial and the husband was found not guilty by a jury.

I was not someone who was likely to land in the police blotter. And yet the police blotter gave me endless hours of fascination, mostly, I think, because it helped me to feel like I was better than the people who were listed there. The guy speeding down a country road? What an idiot. I'm so much smarter than that. The rude neighbor who got a DWI? He had it coming to him. How could he act like that in front of his own children? The dad who got indicted for murder in the death of his wife? Well, he might have literally gotten away with murder. Sure, I might have disobeyed my parents or been churlish or gotten a minor speeding ticket, but I wasn't going around actually killing people. I was a better person than those people. I was superior to those people. Wasn't I?

I. 

Starting with this Sunday, we begin the Season after Pentecost. The altar hangings and my vestments change to green, and our observance of Eastertide and Trinity Sunday are over, and the Scripture readings give us major stories from the New Testament, stories about Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew, and, this year, the reading of the majority of Paul's letter to the Romans in the New Testament reading. So, for today and for the next 13 weeks, the sermons you'll hear from this pulpit will focus on the reading from Romans, including one next week while I am away from Deacon Paul Trigleth, and also hopefully one in that time from Bishop Miller if we can get on his schedule. 

Because of where Easter fell this year, we pick up the readings in Romans chapter 5, which is in the middle of Paul's argument. In most Episcopal Churches, you don’t hear as much preaching from Paul as from the gospels, and sometimes that is because people find Paul difficult to understand. Because we’re starting in the middle of his argument, I want to lay the groundwork of what’s come before our reading in Romans so that we can get a better sense of what we’ve heard read this morning. Paul begins his letter to these Christians in Rome by pointing out wicked people in the world, who by their actions reject faith in Jesus Christ. These are the people you find in the police blotter. They are the murderers, the evil, the inventors of evil, the foolish, heartless and ruthless. They are people we compare ourselves to because we know that we are superior to them. 

But just as quickly as we might get ready to say such a thing, Paul turns the tables on those of us who think that we’re basically good people. "You have no excuse, whoever you are, when you pass judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the same thing." Those of us who think of ourselves as superior to those wicked people over there are actually, Paul says, in need of our own column in the police blotter. He goes on to say that we are all bound by the power of sin. 

Sin is a loaded word because it has lost all meaning in our culture today. When people today say that something is sinful, that either means that it's an unbelievably delicious dessert or else it's something sexual. This doesn't get at what Paul means at all. Paul also doesn’t primarily mean individual sins, the ones that you and I commit. Paul describes sin as an active force at work in our world to destroy the creatures of God. Every person, Jew or Gentile, righteous or unrighteous, is bound to the force of Sin -- we are slaves to this power. Sin causes us to commit individual sins which bring destruction. Because every person is bound to the power of sin – not only those who get indicted for murder or who do heinous evil – every person is subject to the judgment of God. God doesn't judge sin because he's an angry God, far removed from us and sitting on a cloud, just waiting for us to not put enough money in the collection plate so he can zap us. God judges Sin because Sin is out to destroy the creatures he loves. His anger towards sin is motivated by his love for us and for this world. God judges sin because Sin’s destruction robs people of their lives and their hopes, and God’s judgment lifts up those who sin has struck down. We cannot free ourselves from the power of Sin, and so we all stand under God’s good judgment.

II. 

What Paul tells us in the first part of the book of Romans is not what we Americans like to tell ourselves. We like to believe that we have freedom, that there is no such thing as sin - or if there is, it's something that isn't relevant to real life. But actually, the power of sin is the subject of most of the stories we read in the newspaper. When we see the cruelty that exists in our world, the way that people can treat each other, there is something deep within us that cries out that a wrong has been done and we must receive justice. That is the way we respond when we see sin. 

Last week, the Facebook page Baraboo Scanner reported that someone had called for an ambulance for a young woman in Columbia County who was overdosing on heroin. A woman, made in the image of God, someone's daughter, someone's sister, trapped by the power of Sin in an addiction she can no longer control. Because that's what the power of Sin does: we think we are making the choice to commit individual sins, but we are in fact trapped by the power of Sin, made a slave to the power of Sin. The story of this woman was briefly shared by a media outlet on Facebook, and commenters there showed that they, too, are bound by the power of sin. One said that this was simply natural selection at work; another said that they hoped that the authorities would take their time in getting there. The superiority that the Roman Christians felt towards the wicked people around them, transported 21 centuries later and on display for all of Baraboo to see. 

I was disturbed, as were many of you, by the shooting at the Republican congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, VA early this week. Not only did you have a deranged man totally given over to the destructive forces of Sin and Death, you also had the aftermath, where a handful of politicians tried to pin the shooting on the rhetoric of the other party. Thankfully, most chose the high road, but there were more than a couple who said that this was all Donald Trump's fault, or that this was what you get from supporters of Bernie Sanders. The shooting itself was clearly and obviously a sinful act. But when we take sides and try to pin blame on the other people, you can bet that the power of sin is at work. Whereever people justify their own actions by judging the wrong actions of other people, you can bet that the power of sin is at work.

III. 

And so we come to the reading this morning. What is to be done about this human tendency to lash out at others, this Christian tendency to think of ourselves as morally superior to those people in the police blotter? What is to be done is the gospel. "While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly." For the ungodly. Paul says that Jesus came to die not for the Pharisees, not for the buttoned up, put-together Jewish leadership. He came to die for the folks in the police blotter. He came to be crucified, to undergo a method of execution invented specifically to be degrading. In so doing, he conquered the power of Sin in our world. Sin is still fighting in the world, but it has lost the war. "[Jesus' death] is an invasion from on high. The landing troops have arrived. Neutrality is no longer possible. Satan is slashing and burning, but he is in retreat. His time will come. There is no longer any room for self-deception, excuses, denial or evasion, for as C.S. Lewis puts it, 'Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement; he is a rebel who must lay down his arms.' It is the Lord Jesus Christ who disarms us."[Rutledge, Not Ashamed of the Gospel, 69]. The Lord Jesus Christ disarms us by dying for us when we were still his enemies.

Much was rightly made this week of the self-sacrifice of the two Capitol Police officers, Crystal Griner and David Bailey, who were wounded in the attack at the congressional baseball practice. In moments like this shooting, we are used to stories of heroism from first responders and bystanders. It makes sense to us that Agents Griner and Bailey might be called to put themselves in harm's way for the people they were to protect. That is not what happened with Jesus at all. Instead of dying for the people he was supposed to protect, Jesus Christ died for his enemies. Instead of the Capitol Police putting themselves on the line for congressmen and their families, Jesus' death is like the Capitol Police putting themselves in harm's way in order to save Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. Not only that, but Jesus died not just so that his enemies would go on living, but so that his enemies would be reconciled to God. That word reconciled means that those enemies would have their relationship with God healed. It also means that God would make them reconciled within themselves. God would fix everything that was broken about them. The gospel is that Jesus Christ died for the enemies of God, so that those enemies would become children of God, and that those enemies would be justified -- that everything about them that had been affected by the power of sin would be rebuilt. In so doing, Jesus broke the power of Sin - he won the war against Sin and stripped it of its power, and began the invasion that will result one day in the end of all cruelty in our world. 

IV. 

As we learn about Jesus and about the world that he rules over, we find our that we are in fact participants in a war that Jesus has already won. The war is over, but the battle with Sin is ongoing. The beaches of Normandy have been stormed, the invasion is underway, the victory is in sight - and yet the power of Sin and Death still works in our world. Every time we look around us and see terrible things happening in the world, we have the opportunity to look ahead with hope, to say that yes, we are at war and yes, there have been casualties. Yes, Sin is still at work in our world to destroy us and everyone we love. And yet, we put our trust in a God who came to rescue his enemies, who came to win over all of the unwitting participants from the other side into his glorious Kingdom of Peace.

This is not the way our world thinks, and, I have to confess to you, all too often not the way that I think. Several days each week, I go to a workout here in town that begins at 5am. We get done by 6, and as I came out of the workout huffing and puffing and feeling great because I had finished the workout even though it was difficult, I looked across the street. There was a house in disrepair, and three adults, a man and two women, were in the front yard of the house setting up a net. As I watched for a moment, I could tell by the way they looked that they had all lived hard lives, that they all looked much older than were. They finished setting up their net and they began to play badminton at 6am. That was the moment when I realized that they were high. 

I wish I could tell you that my first thought was that those people are made in God's image, and I should walk over and say hello. I wish I could tell you that I didn't think about my hard workout and sweaty clothes and compare them to their shabby clothes and their cigarettes and their off-kilter laughter. I wish my first thought was something other than, “Someone should do something about these people and their drugs.” But I didn't, because I am a broken human being, just like them. In that moment, I was an enemy of God, I was the most wanted poster in the post office, I was the entry in the police blotter. 

But despite that there is one thing I know. Because Jesus Christ came and died for me, his enemy, my baptism began a new story. A story where I don't assume that the names in the police blotter come from the drug house with the badminton net. A story where I don't divide "good neighborhoods" from "bad neighborhoods." A story where I don't assume that Christians are morally superior to other people, because I know that without Jesus, we all would have remained enemies of God. A story that allows me to make mistakes, to confess my sins and receive forgiveness, and live life in a different way.

Notice one final thing: Jesus Christ dies for his enemies with no conditions. Jesus doesn't insist that they get themselves off heroin first. He doesn't tell them that they've got to clean up their act to make themselves good before he will die for them. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," Paul says. While we were a mess, while the world was cruel, while we were cruel, Christ died for us. May God give each of us the grace this day to lay down our arms, to place our trust in his cause and to carry this scandalous gospel to all of His enemies who will hear it.

Amen. 

[operationdisciple-blog]

DAY 1 OPERATION DISCIPLE

Part I: Living as a Disciple Maker

1: What Is a Disciple?

Two thousand years ago, Jesus walked up to a handful of men and said, “Follow me.”

Imagine being one of those original disciples. They were ordinary people like you and me. They had jobs, families, hobbies, and social lives. As they went about their business on the day Jesus called them, none of them would have expected his life to change so quickly and completely.

The disciples could not have fully understood what they were getting into when they responded to Jesus’s call. Whatever expectations or doubts, whatever curiosity, excitement, or uncertainty they felt, nothing could have prepared them for what lay ahead. Everything about Jesus—His teaching, compassion, and wisdom; His life, death, and resurrection; His power, authority, and calling—would shape every aspect of the rest of their lives.

In only a few years, these simple men were standing before some of the most powerful rulers on earth and being accused of “turn[ing] the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). What began as simple obedience to the call of Jesus ended up changing their lives, and ultimately, the world.

What Is a Disciple?

What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? As you will discover, the answer is fairly simple, but it changes your life completely.

The word disciple refers to a student or apprentice. Disciples in Jesus’s day would follow their rabbi (which means teacher) wherever he went, learning from the rabbi’s teaching and being trained to do as the rabbi did. Basically, a disciple is a follower, but only if we take the term follower literally. Becoming a disciple of Jesus is as simple as obeying His call to follow.

When Jesus called His first disciples, they may not have understood where Jesus would take them or the impact it would have on their lives, but they knew what it meant to follow. They took Jesus’s call literally and began going everywhere He went and doing everything He did.

It’s impossible to be a disciple or a follower of someone and not end up like that person. Jesus said, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). That’s the whole point of being a disciple of Jesus: we imitate Him, carry on His ministry, and become like Him in the process.

Yet somehow many have come to believe that a person can be a “Christian” without being like Christ. A “follower” who doesn’t follow. How does that make any sense? Many people in the church have decided to take on the name of Christ and nothing else. This would be like Jesus walking up to those first disciples and saying, “Hey, would you guys mind identifying yourselves with Me in some way? Don’t worry, I don’t actually care if you do anything I do or change your lifestyle at all. I’m just looking for people who are willing to say they believe in Me and call themselves Christians.” Seriously?

No one can really believe that this is all it means to be a Christian. But then why do so many people live this way? It appears that we’ve lost sight of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. The concept of being a disciple isn’t difficult to understand, but it affects everything.

1. Up to this point in your life, would you call yourself a follower of Jesus Christ? Why do you say that? Do you see evidence of your faith as described in Luke 6:40?

How Do I Become a Disciple?

To understand how to become a disciple of Jesus Christ, it makes most sense to start where Jesus started. While it is true that He said to the disciples, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19), the Bible records one message He proclaimed before that. In Matthew 4:17, Jesus said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Try taking this phrase literally. If someone warned you to be prepared because a king and his army were coming, what would you do? You would make sure you were ready to face him. If you weren’t prepared to fight this king, then you would do whatever it took to make peace with him.

The word repent means “to turn.” It has the idea of changing directions and heading the opposite way. It involves action. In this context, Jesus was telling people to prepare themselves—to change whatever needed to be changed— because God’s kingdom (the kingdom of heaven) was approaching.

So how do we prepare to face this heavenly kingdom? How do we make sure we are at peace with this coming King?

Jesus says we need to repent. This implies that we all need to turn from the way we are currently thinking and living. Romans 3:23 explains that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Every person reading this sentence has done things that are evil and offensive to this King. Romans later explains that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Because of our sin, which is an offense to God, we should expect death. But then comes an amazing truth.

“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). The death penalty we should have faced from this King was actually paid for by someone else. The King’s Son, Jesus Christ!1

The Scriptures then say, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). We are saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. It is all about who Jesus is and what He has done. Part of our repentance is to turn from believing that there’s anything we can do to save ourselves—for everything was accomplished by Jesus Christ.

The thought that someone else has paid for our crimes is strange to most of us because it defies our natural way of thinking. And the idea that we need to trust in another person’s sacrifice on our behalf is even more foreign. But understand that while it is strange to us, it is consistent with God’s actions throughout the Scriptures.

We get a picture of this when we read the book of Exodus. In this story, Moses warned Pharaoh repeatedly about what God would do if he did not repent. It climaxed when God said He would bring death to the firstborn of every household if they did not repent. Meanwhile, He told His people that if they put the blood of a lamb over their doorposts, His angel would pass over their homes and not kill the firstborn of that house. So even in the story of the exodus, we see that people had to trust in the blood of a lamb to save them— and this was the only way they could be saved.

2. Read Ephesians 2 carefully and take some time to consider the truths it presents. Do you trust in the death of Christ for your salvation? Do you ever struggle with believing you need to do something to save yourself?

The Lord of Grace

Salvation is all about the grace of God. There is absolutely nothing that you can do to save yourself or earn God’s favor. Paul said, “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8–9). No one can brag about his or her good deeds because our works cannot save us. Salvation comes through the grace of God as we place our faith in Jesus Christ. All salvation requires is faith: Do you believe that Jesus is who He says He is?

But keep in mind that while this is simple, it’s not easy. Faith in Jesus Christ means believing that He is Lord (according to Rom. 10:9). Have you ever thought about what that word Lord means? We sometimes think of it as another name for God, but it’s actually a title. It refers to a master, owner, or a person who is in a position of authority. So take a minute to think this through: Do you really believe that Jesus is your master? Do you believe that He is your owner—that you actually belong to Him?

Paul is so bold as to tell us: “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19–20). The same Lord who by His grace set us free from sin and death now owns us. We belong to Him, and He calls us to live in obedience to His rule.

The problem is, many in the church want to “confess that Jesus is Lord,” yet they don’t believe that He is their master. Do you see the obvious contradiction in this? The call to be a disciple of Jesus Christ is open to everyone, but we don’t get to write our own job description. If Jesus is Lord, then He sets the agenda. If Jesus Christ is Lord, then your life belongs to Him. He has a plan, agenda, and calling for you. You don’t get to tell Him what you’ll be doing today or for the rest of your life.

3. Evaluate your approach to following Jesus. Would you say that you view Jesus as your Lord, Master, and Owner? Why or why not?

It All Comes Down to Love

But don’t get the impression that following Jesus is all about joyless sacrifice. More than anything else, following Jesus boils down to two commands, which He said were the most important commandments in the Old Testament Law:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. (Matt. 22:37–40)

It all comes down to love. Peter expressed it well for people like us, who didn’t see Jesus on earth but follow Him nonetheless: “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Pet. 1:8).

Following Jesus is not about diligently keeping a set of rules or conjuring up the moral fortitude to lead good lives. It’s about loving God and enjoying Him.

But lest we think that we can love God and live any way we want to, Jesus told us very clearly, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). The love for God in the first commandment is made practical in the love for our neighbors in the second commandment. John actually told us that if we don’t love the people that we can see around us, then we don’t love God, whom we can’t see (1 John 4:20).

True love is all about sacrifice for the sake of the ones you love: “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” (1 John 3:16). When we understand love in this light, it’s not difficult to understand that love for God and obedience to Jesus Christ cannot be separated. God’s love changes us from the inside out and redefines every aspect of our lives.

4.         As you look at your life, how would you say that your love for God is shown in your actions? (If you’re having trouble coming up with an answer, take some time to think through some changes you may need to make in your lifestyle.)

Count the Cost

As you work your way through this material, you will be challenged to consider what it means to be a follower of Jesus. You will think through what the Bible teaches and its implications for the way you live your life today. Everything you study will be for the purpose of applying it to your life and teaching other people to do the same. But before you set out to teach other people to be disciples of Jesus, you need to examine your heart and make sure you are a disciple.

Read the following words from Jesus slowly and carefully. Understand that Jesus is speaking these words to you. Think about what Jesus is saying and how it should affect the way you approach this material and your relationship with Him. After you have read this section, use the questions below to help you count the cost of following Jesus.

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:25–33)

5.       If you choose to obey Jesus’s call to follow, what might it cost you? (Avoid being vague. If following Jesus would cost you specific possessions, comforts, or relationships, list them below.)

6.       What might hold you back from following Jesus at this point? Are you willing to let go of these things if necessary?

7.       Before you end this session, spend some time in prayer. Ask God to work in your heart and prepare you for what is ahead. You don’t need to have all the answers or know specifically how God will use you. He simply calls you to follow wherever He might lead. As you pray, be honest about your doubts, hesitations, and fears. Ask Him to give you the strength to proceed and follow Him no matter what the cost. In other words, place your faith in Him.

   Watch the video for this session.

1                            These simple truths will be unpacked in far greater detail in Parts III and IV: “Understanding the Old Testament” and “Understanding the New Testament.” The full significance of these truths will be explained then, but the truths themselves are important to understand from the outset.

[hollowedknight]

Jesus is pretty crazy

“I tell you, there is one here who is even greater than the Temple! But you would not have condemned my innocent disciples if you knew the meaning of this Scripture: ‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.’” Matthew 12:6-7 NLT There's a lot of things I don't know, but what I do know, and maybe for the first time in my life, how crazy Jesus is for making this statement. "Why?", you say? Jesus is making a statement that could easily get anyone killed in this time period, and it ultimately ends up with the Pharisees looking to kill him several verses later, "“Then the Pharisees called a meeting to plot how to kill Jesus.” Matthew 12:14 NLT Why is this crazy? Why do they want to kill him? Welp, He basically just told them that I am greater than your system of sacrifice that has been established by God, and if He weren't God, especially in this time period, their desire to kill him is pretty rational. Especially considering that most sins of blasphemy or making yourself God or putting yourself on his level was punishable by death. Moreover, before all of this, the Pharisees are already accusing Jesus and his disciples of breaking the sabbath, one of the Ten Commandments, which, is punishable by death, "Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it is to be put to death; those who do any work on that day must be cut off from their people." Exodus 31:14 NIV So if the Pharisees are legalistic hypocrites that are looking to enforce each and every law as they see fit, according to the Torah at this point, they would actually be in the right for wanting to kill not only Jesus, but His disciples. They broke the sabbath by eating grain in the field, something the Pharisees considered work and punishable by death, and Jesus just healed a man with a withered hand, “Then he said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” So the man held out his hand, and it was restored, just like the other one!” Matthew 12:13 NLT Another thing the Pharisees considered work, and one they were hoping to trap him into admitting that it was, so that they might say he admitted to sinning, to not only discredit him, but kill him. Ironically, even though Jesus doesn't admit to sinning, because He isn't, He does something He knows will make them mad and plot to kill Him, and they do minus his confession of sin. The part that really blows my mind though, is that Jesus isn't necessarily challenging to the Pharisees as a people, but their interpretation of scripture. They believe he is guilt of sin and deserves to die because they don't understand the meaning of scripture, they think he deserves to die for breaking the sabbath, but in actuality he hasn't broken the sabbath, Jesus tells them if they understood the scripture they wouldn't be saying his disciples were guilt, because they're not, because it's lawful to do good on the sabbath, but more importantly, God requires mercy, not sacrifice. Jesus is telling them, I want you to show love, not make sacrifices, He wants them to be like him, and not sacrifice. Jesus is beyond profound, and to a bunch of guys misinterpreting the Bible, a heretic lol. Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath, and the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, the Sabbath was meant to bless man, not entrap him and legalistically lead to death. The Sabbath gives an otherwise overworking, overworked, workaholic humanity a much needed rest. It is also not prohibiting doing good, but labor, work, not saving a dying stranded animal or healing a withered man, but choosing your profession or your labor over worship of God, something we have definitely all been guilty for. So, if the Pharisees weren't wrong, they would've been right, and in the eyes of the people, at least those that God predetermined to kill the Christ, they were incredibly right. Let us find ourselves siding with you oh Lord these times, and not with those Pharisees that surround us that sound so right, Amen.

#Jesusiscrazy Jesus is lord #the book of matthew #thecalled #thegospels #godcaresforyou #praise the lord #praise god #the sabbath was made for man #Matthew #harvest #profound moments #profound #Matthew 12:6-7 #Matthew 12:14 #Exodus 31:14 #Matthew 12:13

[dailyaudiobible]

04/23/2021 DAB Transcript

Judges 1:1-2:9, Luke 21:29-22:13, Psalms 90:1-91:16, Proverbs 13:24-25

Today is the 23rd day of April welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian, and it is a pleasure and a joy to come around the Global Campfire together and just find our place, do what we do, exhale, settle in to the safe oasis that we create for ourselves as God's word comes washing into our lives. So, it is a pleasure and joy to be here with you today. And we’re turning the page. We’re actually moving into some new territory in the Old Testament. We conclude the book of Joshua yesterday which leads us to the…well….to the first chapter of the book of Judges.

Introduction to the book of Judges:

And judges is what comes next. We can think from the title of Judges that it's a big book of judgment, right? Like, this is one of those books in the Bible where you don’t want to read it because it’s nothing but judgment. That's…that's what's going on here. Let's, since we’re moving into new territory, let’s just really briefly look back at where we've been. We met Abram. We saw him become Abraham. Abraham's story is essentially the origin story of the Hebrew people. So, Abraham and then the generation of Isaac and the generation of Jacob. Jacob being Abraham's grandson. Jacob has a couple of wives and a couple of concubines thrown into the mix and there's 12 children born. And we remember all that between Rachel and Leah, the battle of the sisters over the children. And these children, they're going to grow up and become tribes. I mean they will…like they will start tribes. Jacob's name is changed to Israel. And, so, his children are the children of Israel. One of those kids was named Joseph and we followed a long path with Joseph being trafficked into slavery and ending up in Egypt. And over the course of time ending up second-in-command in Egypt when a famine comes that reunites the family. They thought Joseph was dead. Jacob thought his son was long dead, but they are reunited in life, which is how the children of Israel made it to Egypt. And then after Joseph dies, they flourish in the land of Egypt and become a very populous mighty people, but they are enslaved by the Egyptians. So, four centuries later, so they’re in slavery for 400 years. That's quite a long time to establish the status quo, this is when we meet the man, Moses. Moses, we met in a basket in the river and Pharaoh's daughter raises him then he has to flee because he kills an Egyptian. He gets married in the wilderness then he sees a burning Bush that is not consumed, and he meets with God and God sends him back to set the people free. Moses wants nothing to do with it but in the end, he obeys, and Moses and his brother Aaron lead the people. And that's when we go through all of the plagues and the Exodus from Egypt. And then they began their wilderness journey. And it was supposed to be a lot shorter than it ended up being. But they got to the very very precipice of entering into the promised land and the spies came back and said, “we can’t do it. There's giants in the land. It's…it's a great land but we can't win”, which doomed an entire generation to continue to learn the message of the wilderness. And we spoke a lot about our own…our own wilderness journeys as we wandered in the wilderness with the children of Israel. Then they made it to the banks of the Jordan River. There's all kinds of stuff that happened in between there, we remember, but then Moses got all the people together and he gave them three discourses, three speeches, that comprise the book of Deuteronomy, the things that Moses's needs the people to know and that he needs to know that he said out loud before he dies. And, so, they listened to that and then Moses died, became a part of history. Joshua takes the leadership over Israel, leads the people across the Jordan River. The first city of conquest is Jericho. We remember all of this and then they are at war basically. All of the different tribes and kings of the land, they attack Israel, and Israel keeps winning and they begin to settle the land. Then Joshua brings everybody back together at Shechem and that's where these famous words, “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” come from. And the people say they will serve the Lord. They…they renew the covenant and Joshua tells them, “you are a witness…your lives are…are a witness against you if you don't obey this. That's what brings us to judges. So, we will begin the book of Judges and realize that judges were what came next in the leadership of Israel. They had had a profit in Moses lead them. They had a profit and Joshua lead them. Once they're gone and all of the generation that knew them died off, then there's an emerging generation that doesn't know exactly what to do. They are all tribes doing whatever seems right in their own eyes. And we will begin to see that some of the things that they're doing that they think is right in their own eyes isn't and will see a slide beginning to happen. And, as the people become oppressed, they cry out to God and a judge rises up to lead the people. And some of these judges are our pious and committed to God and some of these judges have some strange ways of doing things but God uses them in this time. So, as we read the book of Judges, we will be passing through several centuries of time. The book of Judges sort of covers an in between period. So, Moses and Joshua are gone, and then there's the period of the judges, which will lead us to the period of the monarchy. Like, when the period of the judges reaches its end, the people are going to want a king. They don’t want a judge anymore, they don’t want a prophet, they want a king. So, it won’t be too long after we conclude the book of Judges that we will be entering into that, that time of the monarchy of ancient Israel. So, that's kind of the lay of the land. That's where we've come from, that's how we got here to page 1 of the book of Judges. So, let's dive in. We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. Judges chapter 1 verse 1 through 2 verse 9.

Prayer:

Father we thank You for Your word. We thank You bringing us into this new territory in the book of Judges. Holy Spirit come. Plant the words of the Scriptures into our lives. Allow them to till the soil and plant good fruit, that the harvest may be bountiful, the fruit of the spirit in our lives may be bountiful. Help us to see ourselves in these stories. Help them to be mirrors into our own souls into the motives and the brokenness in our own lives. And even as we begin to turn into the passion narrative in the gospel of Luke, even as we've read of the preparations for this last meal before suffering and the plot to betray You, our Lord, we enter the story once again, the story of a love so profound that it has no equal, a love that is drawn us to it like a moth to a flame. And, so, as we watch this story unfold again Holy Spirit come and help us to enter into it with a profound amount of gratitude. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, it is home, its home base for us. Of course, everything that's at the website can be accessed using the Daily Audio Bible app as well by using the Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner. So, yeah, stay tuned stay connected in any way that you can. This journey that we are on…I mean I say that every day almost because it's important to remember it every day. This is a year-long journey that we’re on step-by-step day by day. And a year in our lives brings all kinds of triumphs and challenges. And, so, what we’re connected to, what we’re tethered to, what is our anchor is the thing that moors us, or if gives us foundation when winds are blowing pretty strong. And, so, staying connected to the journey day by day step-by-step in the Scriptures brings foundation. And knowing that were not in this alone, that it's not this solitary endeavor, that thousands, tens of thousands of us, all over the world are on the same page moving through this together it makes the difference. And, so, stay connected in any way that you can.

Check out the Community section either in the app or on the web.

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If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, I can't possibly thank you enough. I can't possibly like…I’ve tried so many times, the vocabulary fails, the gratefulness, the awe that all of these years all of these days, day by day, step-by-step we’ve been not just doing this for a year, but this is the 16th year every single day, seven days a week without missing a single day. So, I'm in awe that…that we’re in this together because we wouldn't be here if we weren’t. So, if that is life-giving to you than thank you for your partnership. There’s a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you're using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address 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, the little red button 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:

My name is Darla from Pennsylvania this is my first time calling. I just wanted to reach out to the man. I was listening on April 16th and the man said that he felt like he wasn't even worthy or able to be helpful or something along those lines and my heart just kind of sank because I know…I know how that feels and I just wanted to let you know that I'm praying for you in Jesus’ name.

Hi Daily Audio Bible this is Alobia from New Mexico this is my first time ever reading with you guys and so far, it has been a fantastic time. I'm really happy that I'm here. I'm happy that I found you guys. But this is my first time ever doing this kind of thing, but I do want to ask for some prayers if it's not too much. I am struggling with my relationship. He's not equally yoked with me and I recently got back into my religion and I stopped doing the things that I wasn't supposed to be doing and our relationship changed a lot and we got through it a little bit but now he proposed, and I'm just confused. I don't know where to go. I don't know what to do anymore. I…I wanna be with this person but I know I shouldn't be with him when we're not equally yoked. But at the same time, I can't bring myself to like break-up with him. This might seem like something that's not really important, but I've been dating this person for three years and I'm confused and I'm not sure what to do. I've been praying about it, but I would like to hear from other people too. But I also want to give thanks for this community. I'm not sure if a lot of people will hear it. Well, we'll see, but I hope that you guys can pray for me and pray for my situation. But thank you. I'm sending my love out to all of you and have a good rest of your day.

Good afternoon DAB family God bless you all. I don't know your name I think you said Ramona or Mona from South Cali. You're 32 years old single mom of an 8-year-old boy with stage four kidney failure. You are on dialysis three times a week; 31 surgeries now has cancer. You called in praying for an encouraging because of James from Fort Worth TX who lost his daughter last year January 27th of 2020 and you're asking for prayer so that you may have God's peace, God's joy, God's healing because your 8-year-old son told you it's OK for you to go to heaven so that you don't suffer anymore. My dear sister I cannot imagine that and I'm standing alongside you in your tears. I'm praying for you and I'm believing that there’s nothing that God cannot do. There is nothing that God cannot do. God can turn this around in the name of Jesus. I am declaring healing over your body inside out I am declaring totally healing in your body. I am declaring functioning kidneys in the name of Jesus. I am binding those cancer cells to be done to be eradicated from your body in its entirety in the name of Jesus. I am declaring you healed by the blood of Christ. I'm loosening the healing powers of Jesus over you from the crown of your head to the soul of your feet in Jesus’ name. Amen. Esther from Orlando.

Hi, I'm calling in to pray for Lacey, Lacey, I believe and the Lilies. Lacey I just listened to the broadcast on the 17th, and I heard your prayer. I too suffer from a disease that won't let me fully extend some of my body and I also took hope in that same reading that you did. Keep reaching sister. God will straighten you up. I know that it doesn't seem possible right now but just keep reaching for heaven and you will reach it. We love you.

Good morning DAB family this is Doctor John from Illinois listening this morning at 4:18. Just wanna pray this morning for Chad who's suffering depression, anxiety, and fear but he knows enough to call, he knows enough to ask for help. And I listened to this brother pray for his nephew Jeff, the firefighter who’s sick with covid still experiencing troubles with it. And I guess my one encouragement the one…makes my heart just overwhelmed with I believe it's Ramona from Southern California she's a 32-year-old woman 8-year-old son, she's experiencing kidney failure, having some other diagnostic problems. And I'm just overwhelmed at her heart toward other people though. And she said something really sparked my heart. And she said even in the midst of this affliction God is still God. He’s still righteous and He’s still holy and He’s still just. And she's in desperate straits and yet she cries for help for other people and lifting up other people encouraging other people, that's her faith. Her joy is in the Lord. So, let's take a note from this. Family let's pray for others. Let's put others above ourselves. God hears every single prayer, and he knows our hearts before we even ask. So, thank you Brian and Jill again for this wonderful place that we can come together, this wonderful family that we share each other’s hearts and needs. This is the love of God acted out.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family this is Stan from Maryland. My heart was impressed to pray for Trent. I believe he was on the August 18th prayer request. Dear father lift up Trent. He…he said is in a dark abyss of depression and despair and fear. Father God I pray that You would put a hedge of thorns all around Trent so that the influences of the evil one causing him to despair and to be fearful and to be depressed would lose interest and leave him. And Father, You know Trent’s heart. He's trying to draw near to You. So, I pray Father that You were drawing near to him. When You're in that dark place it's hard to see any light. So, I pray Father that You would illuminate Your presence in Trent’s deep soul s0peaking to him as he needs to hear so that he knows that You love him deeply, that You will lift him up and that You…that he can rely on You. As a matter of fact, Father relying on You is the only way because we are all confused Father God about what our future is and about what our perception of reality is. So, I pray these things for Trent in the name of Jesus. Amen.

[dailyaudiobible]

02/09/2019 DAB Transcript

Exodus 29:1-30:10, Matthew 26:14-46, Psalms 31:19-24, Proverbs 8:14-26

Today is February 9th. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it is great to be here with you for sure as we end another week. And yeah, they just…they just don't slow down…they just kind of keep coming day after day and we have accumulated another week together. So, well done! We've been reading from the Amplified Bible this week and we’ll continue to do that today since this is still this week and then we’ll switch to something else tomorrow. We are gonna go back out to Mount Sinai where God is speaking to Moses and establishing the ground rules for a new culture that is being formed in the wilderness. Today, Exodus chapter 29 verse 1 through 30 verse 10.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. Every day we basically thank You for Your word because it is a gift and we are grateful and we thank You for bringing us through another week and we thank You for all that You have spoken to us through Your word during this week. And today the voice of wisdom told us that she loves those who love her and those who seek her early and diligently will find her. Holy Spirit lead us on the paths of wisdom, that we might seek it early before there’s a problem and diligently so that we are living wise lives. We don't propose that we can do this on our own. We need Your Holy Spirit's guidance. So, come, we open ourselves to You. Lead us into all truth. Lead us into wisdom. Lead us on the narrow path that leads to life we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here. So, of course, stay tuned and stay connected.

I've mentioned, yeah, just a little over a week and we’ll be heading towards the land of the Bible. So, continue to pray over that. I mean when we do these kinds of trips I wouldn't dare get on a plane without knowing…without knowing that we were surrounded by this community because this journey is for this community, it's about this community. And, so, raising up a canopy of prayer and intercession over all that goes on in this kind of travel is so deeply appreciated and so comforting, it's like a blanket around us when we’re so far in distant. And, so, thank you for your prayers for this upcoming journey.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link, it is on the homepage and I thank you humbly and profoundly for your partnership. If you're using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, of course, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today and that’s it for this week. I'm Brian I love you very much and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Good morning DAB family this is Walta the Burning Bush that will not be Devoured for the Glory of our God and King. I’m  __ this morning…that’s my 11-year-old knocking on the door. Anyway, I’m back. We’re getting ready for school…and…I’m here family. I’m gonna pray. __ I heard your prayer on the program a while ago and wrote them down, he’s sick and this is impacting his marriage. Father God I pray for his salvation and I’m praying for him. I pray oh God that you will give him a Job like restoration in the name of Jesus. Pray for Jackie from St. Louis. Jackie I heard your request, your prayer and I wrote it down as a person problem with financial __. And Father God I pray that You will restore what the __ has __ . I pray oh God that You will hold Jackie’s hand and guide her through this valley of the shadow of death Lord and take her to the other side in the name of Jesus. Protect You as His Name called praying for her dad’s salvation and restoration and relationship with her Father. Father God we know You are the ultimate Father and a relationship between a Father and a child is precious to Father. So, whatever’s causing the separation between the two Lord, I pray that You will remove it in the name of Jesus and restore it and God I pray that You will bind them together in Your love Father. God, I pray for the salvation of all our family members __ that don’t know God. Lord, we pray that You will reach out and call them by their name. So, Holy Spirit, call them to Yourself. In Jesus name. Amen.

Hi family, this is Kim from Kentucky and it’s Tuesday, February the 5th and I just listened and I’ve been wanting to call and several times over the past several weeks with people’s prayer requests and things and I’ve just not done it, but jazz, I just listened to your praise report passing your boards. I’m a pediatrician and when you called a while back asking for prayer, I mean, I know how hard that is and how much worry and ache there can be while waiting for those test results. And, so, I just praise God for that. And I thought about calling in because I have a son that is just out of PA school last month and I thank you for praying for those that are facing challenges because he failed his first test in physiology but I’m praying for a turnaround that he just rises up and continues to excel from here. And my daughter is studying for the MCATs, to take it in April to apply to med school. So, you know all about that. And a couple of days ago Brian talked about Moses and the battle and sitting on the rock and Aaron and Herr and just reminded me of this community. Jesus is our rock. Brian, reading out the word every day is what we sit on, it’s our foundation, it’s what we stand on. And we and Aaron and Herr __ and sometimes we’re the Moses in the battle and we need others to be our Aaron and Herr. And we’re a good community for that. Everybody that feels hopeless, listen to those Christmas program. Love you all. Bye.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family or whatever time of the day it is where you’re at. This is Andrea Delane from Kentucky. Just wanted to say it’s so good to hear from you. I’ve been listening to your prayer requests and I just wanted to encourage you today if you’re lonely or if feel socially isolated. I read something the other day on Facebook from a neuroscientist, a __ neuroscientist and she wrote, “did you know that loneliness is one of the leading causes of death in our world today. Isolation is no joke. Loneliness actually increases the risk for premature mortality amongst all ages while one recent study indicates that social isolation and loneliness kill more people than obesity.” So, I just wanted to come on here because I know that this is definitely something that I have struggled with through the years and as I’m listening to a lot of the prayer requests I really feel the root of it is feeling alone, is feeling isolated. So, I just want to pray for you today, right now. I’ll just go ahead and pray for you. So, Father I just ask You right now…I just want to thank You, first of all, for Your friendship, that we can run to You, that You are closer than a brother, that You will never leave us or forsake us. That’s Your promise to those who believe and trust in You. And, so, Father I ask right now that the Holy Spirit would remind Your people that You are with them, but secondly that You would also like for us to reach out to one another and to visit the widows in their affliction, to visit the orphans. And Lord that the timing, time is so important even more important than money. And Father I ask that we would be able to have wisdom in knowing how to increase our relationship skills, being able to increase in developing deeper meaningful relationships so that we are not suffering in the needless thing of loneliness or isolation that affects our brains, that causes our mental health to decline. Father I pray a release of Your spirit and a release of Your wisdom in building new relationships all around us in Jesus name. Amen.

Hey everybody, this is Pelham from Birmingham apparently. So, now I’m looking for a place in Birmingham. Real quick getting that out there, that I need prayer for that. I’m calling because of you Prodigal. I’m calling cause your call played today. I couldn’t even get through your entire call in. I gotta go back and finish it. Dude! High-fives from Birmingham comin’ at you bro. You’re at war man. You’re at war man. He’s liftin’ you up though, he’s liftin’ us all up and the wheel turns. Man and we forget where we are often, don’t we? Woo. This last weekend I was in darker place than I thought I could go, more lonely, more afraid, more separated from my family, and isolated from my friends than I’d ever been, like out on a branch. And that’s all he wants to do is isolate us so he can get us alone with our thoughts and get us to turn against ourselves. We start agreeing to things that would never agree with if Jesus was standing right there next to us. And sometimes we forget that He’s always standing there. Sometimes we need an actual person to stand there. Prodigal, good job man. I’m salutin’ you over here. Guys pray for Italian ice because I’m gonna be the Italian Ice man apparently. __ Italian Ice wants to hire me full-time to run his truck in Birmingham, which is really good timing. I don’t know how that’s gonna work. Help! I’m calling out. I need help. Pelham needs help. I need prayer. Thank you.

Hey family this is Josh from Indiana a.k.a. Employed by God. I just want to call in and give a quick encouragement. One of the things that God’s been dealing with me on is sometimes having the feeling that I’ve missed my calling but that I’m reminded that we’re not bigger than God. He knew when he called you exactly the path that you would take. He knows how he will fulfill your calling. So, remember that promise and begin working towards your calling today.