Plays On Word Radio
An in-depth look at the Word of God, the Plays On Word community, and the Plays - with original music - we perform, that are based on the Word of God. New episodes drop Fridays at 7AM EST! To find out how Plays On Word Theater can perform 'LIVE on YOUR STAGE' and to support this missionary & podcast visit: https://playsonword.org/
Plays On Word Radio
Ep 150: God With Us In A Broken World
"Today, we get urgent updates from Haiti along with requests for prayer leading into this Christmas season: How does Emmanuel’s promise of “God with us” shape the way we pray amid real-world fear and crisis?"
We rally prayer for Haiti’s spiraling crisis, name missionaries on the ground, and intercede together. We trace Emmanuel through Matthew, unpack Jesus’ “I am” claim in John 8, and find grace in the messy genealogy that leads to Christmas hope and courageous mission.
• updates from Haiti’s lawlessness and risk to missionaries
• corporate prayer for protection, boldness and deliverance
• praying for persecutors as an offensive act of faith
• Emmanuel as Matthew’s opening and closing promise
• “Before Abraham was, I am” and Jesus’ deity
• genealogy of Jesus and grace through broken stories
• Joseph’s royal line and the kingly claim to David’s throne
• call to ongoing intercession during the Christmas season
Shoot us a text or an email if you’ve answered the call to lift up our brothers and sisters and their persecutors!
(Please click on the underlined links below.)
Previous Podcast with Brian McDaniel
Previous Podcast with Bastia Part One & Part Two
Pam & Patrick Hess Podcast Part One & Part Two
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Lord, you know you're now listening to play is the best. Like, get him! He wasn't just saying something like I am, you know, like are you hungry? I am. No no no no no no no no no no no. That's not what he was saying. It was like before Abraham was born, I think exactly what he was saying. Claiming to be Yahweh. Oh my goodness. Well, look at that.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for joining us on the 630 today. Let's join Pastor Teddy, also known as David Kenny Jr., the founder of Plays on Word Theater, as he does a deep dive into the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01:Amen, amen, amen. Thank you very much, Mr. Josh Taylor and Katie Kenny, for that spectacular intro. Welcome to all of you listening to Plays on Word Radio. My name is Fred David Kenny Jr. And we are going to take a look at some scripture today. But before we do, we have some important things to take care of that I think this audience is perfectly designed for. Our dear brother, Brian McDaniel, who is who is a missionary to Haiti, and he's in Haiti. Many of you have heard the episode, the podcast episode that we did where we interviewed him. It's episode 124. If you want to go back and listen to it. In fact, I might even put it, I think I will. I'll put it in the show notes of this episode. So you can go back and listen and check out Brian's story. And we visited with him. Uh well, we're on episode 150, so uh a few back, few back, maybe 25 episodes back, 26 episodes. And um we visited with him. He sent well actually I I saw an article about Haiti. Haiti is off the charts right now, man. It's it's crazy. There's no government, there's there's no law, it's it's beyond the wild west. It's it's just it's chaos. Now, our dear brother and sister Pam and Patrick Hess are also missionaries to Haiti, and they are very well connected with people there on the ground. They say I reached out to them also, and they said, Yeah, it's bad. I reached out to our dear brother Bastia, who has also been on the podcast. He's on episode 126 and 127. Maybe I'll put those links in there for you, too. He's from Haiti, and he's there. And I reached out to all of them, and Brian got back and asked, and this was unnerving for me. Because you guys that have heard the episode with Brian, you know Brian's crazy, and not a lot of scares him. He's just, you know, he's he's rock steady. And he said, basically, he's like, please, we need prayer, please pray. It's bad. There's gangs everywhere. And so, yeah, and I do periodically check up on him. I say, Hey man, how you doing? What's going on? What can we pray for? And um, yeah, the tone has been in years past, it was like, praise the Lord, brother, everything's great. Now he's like, We need prayer. It's it's bad. Not only uh did I get confirmation about it being bad on the ground from Brian, uh, Bastia sent me an extremely disturbing video that was taken with smartphone uh just about uh people were like looked like they were rounded up and just gangs, thugs, man, beating people with bats. I was like, oh my goodness, man, this is craziness. So I tell you what, if you would please add um Brian and his family to your prayer list, um add uh Pam and Patrick, uh, Step of Faith Ministry, uh add their connections in Haiti. These are brothers and sisters in Christ right now that are there's nobody there to protect them except for the Lord, and we need the Lord to step in and protect them because many of them are getting beat down because it's lawlessness right now. And uh and pray for Bastia and his people, pray for the Lord's people there on the ground, pray for everybody there on the ground. Pray that the Lord would bring a great revival or uh just a move of his spirit, save people's souls and bring people into the kingdom of God. In fact, while we, you know, while we're all together right now, why don't we just lift it up? I'll pray. You guys uh pray together where two or more gathered, the Lord's there in our midst. We can pray, and you you guys give the amen in your spirit and continue this prayer as we move forward, okay? So I'll just lift it up. Heavenly Father, Lord God, we come before you in the name of Christ Jesus right now, and we want to lift up dear brother Brian and his wife and his kids and his family and all the people, the church there, Lord, that is going, the people that are trusting and learning about you, Lord God, our brothers and sisters in Christ that need you so bad right now, Lord. We need you to step in. We pray for all Pam and Patrick's connections and the people they have down there on the ground, Lord, in Haiti, that you would protect them, Lord, and you'd provide deliverance for them. And and we pray for Bastia and his family and and the people that he's connected with there on the ground, Lord. And we lift them all up in the name of Christ Jesus and ask you to put a physical wall of protection around them, that you would deliver them from the evil that is seeking them out right now. Lord, we pray just in the name of Christ Jesus that you would surround them as with a shield, that you would dispatch multitudes of your messengers, your angels, Lord, and just supernaturally protect your people. But Lord, we also ask that you would give them boldness to stand for you and give them courage and strength and words, Lord, what to say and help them to not speak when you don't, when they shouldn't speak, Lord. We pray for their persecutors, Lord God, that you would save those that are persecuting your people supernaturally, Lord, speak to their hearts, soften their hearts, speak to them, Lord, break them in half, bring them to repentance, bring them to a saving knowledge of you, Lord, and then use them to create a domino effect, Lord, that you would be glorified from the midst of this disaster, Lord, that multitudes of people would come to Christ, come to know you, enter the kingdom of God, Lord, from the work you do right now. So we as believers in Christ intercede right now, Lord, with your spirit. And we lift up those people right now in Haiti. While we're at it, there's also my my dear brothers Stephen and Angela Lewis told us about a missionary that they um they're they're friends with that got kicked out of Turkey. Like it's it just up and said they you have to get out. And uh there's there's persecution going on all over the place. Um, Aunt Bev sent a request for a missionary, a pastor in um Zimbabwe. So please, if you could just lift up those, all those requests. I don't have it in front of me. I can't I can't find, I thought I had it in front of me. Um, but if you could lift up those requests, lift up those people. Listen, let me tell you something, man. This is our work, people, those of us in Christ. If you're not in Christ right now, you don't, then you know, this doesn't matter. This this is not to you. This is a this is a call going out to all those that are redeemed of the Lord. And if you are redeemed of the Lord, say so. And one of the things we are to do is to pray for one another. Absolutely. Be part of the artillery, be part of the move of God, be part of what God is doing. Let him direct your prayer, let him help you to pray for people you don't even know. I'm telling you, people are going to come up to you in glory and say, Yo, man, thank you for praying for me. The Lord used you and your prayer and answered it. If you're not in Christ, then this is just an academic exercise and futility. God's not hearing nothing, nothing, nothing you say. Nothing. The only thing he's but the only thing he'll hear is if you repent and come to him, say, Lord, I want to be on your team, then your prayers will get through. But until then, it's junk mail. It's just junk mail, man. You might think it's going through. You ever send somebody an email with with like a photo or an attachment or something? They're like, I never got it, I never got it, because it went straight to junk. It went right to junk mail. So, anyway, this this is absolutely important for us to be in prayer. And I wanted to encourage and use this platform that we have, plays on word, this plays on word family of believers. Because it goes beyond just singing songs and watching a play, watching a madman on stage, and okay, that was that was fun and all. That was nice. Um, and they just go let me go back to my regular routine. Listen, the call's going out. I'm officially putting y'all on blast. The call is going out. Please don't let the prayer I just prayed be the only prayer. Okay. Please continue. Please lift up Brian and um Bastia and Pam and Patrick's people over there in Haiti. And while you're at it, lift up the rest of our brothers and sisters right now. Some of them are running for their lives right now, man. It's Christmas time, and they're Christians are being persecuted. While we're sipping eggnog and chilling with our feet up. But hey, you know, reality check for real. For real, man. This is like first century early church type stuff. And I'm telling you right now, if Paul had the internet, he would have sent out a call. He would have absolutely sent out a call. At the end of the book of Colossians, he's like, hey, and pray for us. You know, in the beginning of Colossians, he's like, you know, we never cease to pray for you. We pray for you. At the end of the book, he's like, hey, and while you're praying and lifting stuff, remember us. Pray for us. And what does he pray? He prays that oh, that a door, that the Lord would open a door so that he could do, continue doing the things that got him landed in jail in the first place. He didn't say, get me out of this mess, Lord. Oh, just get me out of this so I can go back and chill. He said, Pray that a door will be open. So that's why it's important to pray for deliverance and pray for people to uh you know be set free from people that are persecuting them, but also pray for their persecutors. That's an opportunity. Drop the bomb on them, Lord. Bring them into the kingdom, bring them into repentance, save their souls. Oh, hallelujah. Well, stuff starts happening when you did you start interceding like that. Heaven doesn't, uh heaven doesn't. They're like, whoa, look at this, man. The heavenlies don't know what to do with that. Okay. The the forces of darkness don't know what to do with that. You know, we pray defensive prayers. That's cool, that's important. Pray defensive prayer. But I tell you what, come back with a left hook of offensive prayer. Come back with a left hook, a right hook, an uppercut. That's right. Come back. So you pray for people to be protected and delivered, but come back with a, and guess what? I'm praying for the people that are persecuting them, the enemies of us. While while we were God's enemy, Christ died for us. So let's pray for our enemies as well. And I'm not gonna, I'm I don't wanna, that's not, it's not, I didn't mean to make the whole podcast about that, but it is absolutely important. Somebody, somebody needed to hear that. Maybe it was just me, but somebody needed to hear and be encouraged to pray for these folks and be involved in what God is doing. Maybe you feel like you know you're not really connected with God. Maybe you feel like, you know, it's uh uh you're missing out, you know, the Lord is, you know, you just don't have that connection. I tell you what, you start interceding for somebody you don't know. Huh. You start interceding, interceding like they're chasing. You're you're the one being chased with a baseball bat. Huh. You'll start feeling a little closer to the Lord. Amen. Amen. And like I said, and this is this is the Christmas season. My plan was to come here, and we were gonna uh you know, we're we're going to be on kicking off our northeast tour of Christmas Joe. And you know, celebrating the fact that the Messiah came into the world, that the word became flesh and dwelt among us, that this word that was with God, that was God, came and uh lived and was born in the town of Bethlehem, fulfilling the prophecy of Micah in chapter 5, that this Messiah, this one that would be ruler over all God's people, who would come from Judah, the tribe of Judah, come from the line of David and be born in Bethlehem, would be from eternity. Yes, the word. In the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and the word was was God, he was God, yeah. He was with God in the beginning, through him all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. This same one, yeah, he came to Bethlehem and was born. And he fulfilled so many prophecies. He filled, he fulfilled uh Isaiah 7, 14, for the virgin will be with child and she'll give birth to a son and she'll she will call him Emmanuel, which means what what does it mean? Some of y'all know, some of y'all just I just heard it come right digitally, right across the the uh the wires. That's right. It means God with us. Yeah. And you know, this whole God with us thing is the the thing that is uh is fascinating to me that the book of Matthew talks about uh Matthew, he's the one who points it out in verse 23 of chapter one. He says, he basically he's let me go to 20, verse 22, not 23. Verse 22, he says, All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. He's talking about Isaiah. He said, uh, and then he quotes Isaiah: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. And that's at the beginning of the book of Matthew, and at the end of the book of Matthew, you guys know I love chiastic structures and all that parallelism stuff, and the actual construction of of the text. Well, at the end of the book of Matthew, we know it because in verse 20 it says, you know, Jesus the well, let me let me back up. Jesus came, verse 18. Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Verse 19, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Verse 20, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. Now here's the real trick here. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. I was reading from the ESV, but it's basically the same in all your translations there. Behold, I am with you. In the Greek, it's a little heavier than you really know. The Greek is amazing. In that section. Just remember, back in chapter one, they will call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. And here at the end of this gospel, the Greek construction of what Jesus says is basically this Behold, I with you am. Yeah. Emmanuel. And he says at the end, I with you am God with us. And he puts us in the middle there of his the same name he gave to Moses when Moses was like, we saw the burning bush, and Moses was like, Lord, well, who uh who when I go to talk to the Israelites, who am I supposed to say is sending me? And the Lord says, Tell them I am. I am that I am. That's where we get the tetragrammaton, the the the name Yahweh or or Jehovah. It is the name, the name. And in the Greek of Matthew, it's amazing how Jesus says that. He also, if you go to the Gospel of John and look in chapter 8, man, he has there's seven I am statements that are absolutely incredible, you know, that he he makes. No, he's like the bread of the bread of life, the true vine, the way, the truth, and the life, uh, the door for the sheep. Uh, you know, all those different I am statements that the gospel's built around. Well, in chapter eight, he's going back and forth with the Pharisees. And he was like, Abraham rejoiced in seeing my day, and he was glad. And they were like, wait a minute, man. Abraham, you're not even 50 years old, and you've seen Abraham and Jesus. I I just imagine it, you know, me being theatrical. I just imagine him stopping and the music going, dun, dun, dun. And he looks at them, pauses for a second, and says, I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am. And you know how we know that they knew what he was saying. Well, that's a pretty confusing way of me putting it there, but you know how we know? Because they picked up stones to get him. They were like, get him. He wasn't just saying something like, I am, uh, you know, like, are you hungry? I am. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what he was saying, man. He was like, before Abraham was born, I am, and they knew exactly what he was saying, claiming to be Yahweh. Oh my goodness. And you, how do you how do you know, Pastor? How do you know that's true? Well, look at their response. They picked up stones to stone him because they knew exactly what he was saying. Yeah, man. Absolutely amazing. And the the Matthew ends with that I with you you're sandwiched in there. I with you. M. God with us. And then we have God saying it to us at the end there. Oh, help me, Holy Ghost. That let's let's go back to Matthew while we're in Matthew. Do I have time? Let's see. Do I have time? Am I over the line? No, I have a little bit of time. Uh, Christy Ackerman will be happy. Yeah. I got I got a little bit of time left. Listen, listen to this. Now, the book of Matthew opens up with this long genealogy starting from Abraham, talking about Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah, and his brothers. He's giving this, he's giving the the connectors from Abraham all the way to Jesus to show that Jesus is the son of Abraham. Really showing the son of David, but from that line from Abraham, it's a straight line to Jesus. It goes to Jesus. Now, Luke gives us um a genealogy. Most commentators believe that's the genealogy of Mary, that goes back through the um the non-kingly line, but still the family of David. David had a bunch of sons, and this one goes back through Nathan, and then from it lines back up. Once it gets to David, it lines right back up and goes all the way back to Judah, back to Jacob, back to Isaac, back to Abraham, and then Luke takes it even farther, takes it all the way back to Adam, the son of God. And so in Matthew, here he's given this list, man, and he and he goes, he gets to David, and then he goes, it says uh in verse 6, Jesse, the father of David, who's the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. Oh boy. It's amazing. It's amazing. Amazing that God put this Jerry Springer type of episode or this stuff right here in the genealogy of Christ Jesus, the Messiah himself. You talk about dysfunctional family members, and some you know, people in your line that maybe were a little cuckoo. Maybe some folks in your family. Look at this, man. Look at what David did. Ay, ay, yay. That's all he had to say. David, the father of Solomon, by the wife of Uriah. Uriah was one of his commandos, man, his um, his mighty men. And David did him dirty. That was terrible what David did. David used, you know, you hear people say, well, David was a murderer. Absolutely. Well, did he actually murder Uriah? He absolutely did. The tool that he used or the weapon he used was the military that he was in command of. So whether it was a sword, an M16, a bomb, or the military itself, David's the one who pulled the trigger. He set everything into motion. And he had Uriah killed, man. And even worse, in my view, well, not even worse, that that's about as bad as it gets. But to compound his sin, he after he kills Uriah, the Hittite, one of his mighty men, after he has him killed, then he marries Uriah's wife, Bathsheba, and walks around. And all the people are like, oh, isn't David so isn't he so great? He married the poor widow. Look at how but I'm telling you, I bet you there was, I think there was some people, especially the servants. I think the servants knew. The servants, amen. Any of y'all ever watched Downton Abbey or Upstairs, Downstairs, any of that stuff? The servants, downstairs, servants, they always know what's happening upstairs. They always know. They're the greatest intelligence network going. And the servants saw all of it. They were there when David said, Who's that lady taking a bath on the roof over there? And the servants were the ones who said, That's um Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. And David was like, Oh, get her. The servants ran on it. You think they didn't say anything to each other? I got a bridge to sell you if you think that. Anyway, continuing in Matthew chapter 1, verse 7, Solomon, the father of Rehaboam, and the Rehaboam Obijah, uh, and then Asaph, and it move it goes down this list. And then in verse 18 is where we get to what we're about to kick off. It says, Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place this way, when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. This is amazing. Verse 19, and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. Verse 20. But as you consider these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. Verse 21, she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. And that's where we come up on this quote of the prophet Isaiah. But the amazing the genealogies aren't there just for no reason or just uh they absolutely serve a purpose. The genealogies serve a purpose showing that Jesus goes back to Abraham and he is the fulfillment, and here it goes all the way to him and Joseph. In fact, if Joseph, we say this in the Christmas Joe play, if if the if Joseph, if the Romans weren't ruling over Israel at the time when Jesus was born, if the Roman Empire wasn't ruling over them, and things were the way they used to be way back in in the time of David, if things were still going on like that, Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus, would be the king of Israel. Yeah, he'd be the king. He's in the line of David. The direct, he's a direct descendant of the line of David through the kingly line, from Solomon down through Rehoboam and going all the way down to Jehoshaphat and Uzziah and Josiah and all those kings, boom, boom, boom, the kingly line, it ends up with Joseph, the stepdad of Jesus. Therefore, the kingly right to the throne of David goes back that way. We'll talk about the Jeremiah curse on another on another podcast. Yeah, we'll talk because we don't have time for that. Sorry, Christy. We're running out of time now. Anyway, we will we'll talk about that as we continue. Uh, and we'll be on our Christmas Joe tour. Thank you for letting us come spend some time with you and just give you a hard time about praying. I want one of sometimes I have to exhort. I do encourage you, please pray at this time of Christmas. Some of our brothers and sisters are terrified right now because their circumstances are very precarious right now. And so we just want to pray for peace, the peace that surpasses all understanding. We want to pray for protection, supernatural protection. We want to pray for deliverance, supernatural deliverance that is just amazing. We want to pray for faith for them to stand strong, to have courage, to have wisdom. We want to pray for the Lord's presence in the midst of this difficult situation. Whether they're in Haiti, whether they're in uh Zimbabwe, whether they're it got kicked out of Turkey, whether they're in China, who knows? I mean, Russia, wherever. Uh Los Angeles, who knows? Canada. Our brothers and sisters need us to step up. And I'm sending out the call. Shoot me a text. Shoot me a text or an email. If you've answered the call to lift, lift up our brothers and sisters and their persecutors. Amen. Amen. Amen. That's all the time we have for today. God willing, we'll be back together again next week. We'll be on our tour. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you. And give all of them.
SPEAKER_00:This program was made possible by the Plays One Word family of supporters. To find out more, check out our website at playsOneWord.org.
