1 Kings 20:1-21:29, Acts 12:24-13:15, Psalms 137:1-9, Proverbs 17:16
Today is the 19th day of June. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here with you today as we step in out of whatever is going on and just let it go. We’re about to let God speak to us through his Word and let it wash over us and so we center ourselves in that and invite the Holy Spirit. So, we step away from everything and just allow God’s Word to speak. We’re reading from the Contemporary English Version this week. And we’re working our way through the chronicles of the kings. 1 Kings chapters 20 and 21 today.
Commentary:
Okay. So in the book of 1 Kings, we’re following the path of the prophet Elijah. We’re getting to know him. There are other prophets involved at this time and we’re situated in Ahab’s reign. Ahab was the king of the northern kingdom of Israel, the ten northern tribes. And he is in a list of a lot of kings that led people away from God, did everything that inflamed God’s passions against him. And yet God still protected the people from the king Benhadad. But I want us to note we’ve traveled many generations since the apex with King David and then King Solomon’s reign. And so as we’re reading through these kings, like we read of King Ahab and just following the story we can see this is a completely different kind of thing than was happening under King Solomon’s reign and King David’s reign. This is a totally different thing. But because we’re moving rapidly through a number of generations, we’re quickly watching a transformation. I mean, these people, by the time they get invaded and eventually conquered, they don’t really look anything like they once did. So like in the same way that we watched a transformation happen when the people came from slavery in Egypt and how the desert formed them and the entire story that we walked through, we’re kind of watching that in reverse. They’re kind of regressing. They’re going their own way and they will become captives again. I say that simply to locate us in the story and show us where we’ve come from and where we’re going. But we also have to consider this in our own lives. We can come out of complete bondage, find an incredible amount of restoration in our lives, walk with God and move through that. And then slowly, over time, enslave ourselves again. We’re watching the Hebrew people do this, but we can watch ourselves do this. And if we’ll pay attention to it in that context, we have a map. We’re going to continue with this story and we will see where it leads. And then we can understand if we choose the same path, we’re going to end up in the same place.
Prayer:
So, Father, we submit that to You. We know that’s true. We know what You have delivered us from. We know what walking with You feels like. We also know what the drift and falling away is like. And we just never quantify it as bondage, that we are stepping back into slavery when You have made us free. And so we invite You. Come Holy Spirit. Show us the ways that we are wandering back on a path that we should not take. Come Holy Spirit we ask. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for here is tomorrow.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Hi family. This is I Can See in North Carolina. First time calling. I’ve been listening for about one and a half years. We could use your prayers. My husband and I are leaving on Sunday to take our six-year-old daughter across the country to get some treatment for sensory processing disorder. She has this because she was deprived of oxygen at birth. And, actually, we were worried that she wouldn’t survive. So, she’s doing really well, but it can be really hard to travel because if she gets scared or overwhelmed __ a lot of screaming, thrashing, and crying for, potentially a long time. You can imagine how much people appreciate that on a plane. It just kills me that things are so hard for her sometimes. Please pray for unity and resilience for our marriage, especially since my husband just returned from deployment. Pray for protection as we travel and for God work to heal our daughter. Also, pray for the connection between my daughter and my husband to be strengthened, especially since my husband just returned from deployment. We are so worn out from six years of our precious child having so much trouble with feeling safe and sleeping and lots of other things. Also, from battling the judgment of people who think this is due to poor parenting. Thank you so much for praying.
Hi DAB family this is Joel C. from Oregon. Hey, just wanted to do a shout out to Brian and the DAB family and all the DAB teams. You do a wonderful thing. I’ve been listening for about three years and it’s always learning something new. I request your prayers for my wife as she’s been recently diagnosed and with __. We’re going to a second treatment today and we are just hoping and praying dear Lord that this would be something that would be…give her back some of the joy and normalcy in her life because she’s really struggling right now. So, just if you pray along with me for that, I just really appreciated. Thanks everybody.
Hey what’s up everybody. It’s Miguel from Santa Rosa. By the way if you want to reach me, you can get me at miguelfromsantarosa@gmail.com. Today, I just needed to call in and give a shout out to Steve from New Hampshire and to shut out an Amen to the word that he gave to Jim from New Hampshire about as well. And wow, I was just like, man, there’s no prayer too big or too small for God. And I just think about my own budgeting for my own life. Man, and I just think about how, like, I can’t go to Taco Bell all the time and get these small meals because I’m not going to be able to afford groceries. And hey, I can’t have that many internet streaming services because I’m not going to be able to afford rent. And there’s this budgeting in there because I have limited resources, but man, we worship a God that has unlimited resources, unlimited glory, He is all-powerful and all-knowing and all loving. And it’s just amazing that we can go to Him for anything. So, so we can pray for that, that stubbed toe, and we can pray for our family member that are struggling in their faith and in their health. And what an amazing God that we serve that we worship. So, this may even be an invitation for anybody out there that has something, like, man this just feels like too small of a prayer request to bring to my family. And, can we be the church that comforts? Can we just do that? I just think about it, like, the church is here to comfort those around us. We are the church. We are to cover each other. We are to pray for each other and take each other to our heavenly Father that loves us and will care for us and will be there for us and protect us. Thank God for who He is. Praise God. So, thank you, Steve for that word. And may that resonate with more people here in this community. Amen.
Hey DAB family. This is Byron Florida. I just wanted to give a shout out to God because He is good and He is awesome and He is worthy of our praise and He has provided for us in the Lord Jesus Christ for __ for our sins. He’s taken our filthy rags and washed them in His blood and they’ve come out perfectly clean __ in His righteousness. God gave us His best. He didn’t hold back a single thing. The entire kingdom has been laid open to us and He is worthy of our praise forever and always and in everything that we do. And on top of that, we have our friends, we have our family, we have our churches, we have His word, we have Brian and the Daily Audio Bible community, every day, faithfully putting out the word that we can receive it and we can hear it while we drive, while we walk, what we talk, and while we do stuff and we have a printed all over the place. There are churches that don’t have that where it is illegal and a lot of countries where it is illegal to just go out and worship God. And He is just worth it. He is absolutely worth everything that we have. And so, we can give Him glory, we can give Him praise. We just thank Him for word, how it instructs us. We just thank You for the Holy Spirit, how it indwells in us. We thank you for everlasting forgiveness, how time and time again, no matter how much we’ve messed up, He washes those clothes clean again and dresses us again in His righteousness and He doesn’t even remember His righteousness. I was listening to the Audio Bible today and they were talking about, one of the new Kings that took place after David and they were saying how they didn’t walk in the way that David did, who was righteous and never failed. And I was like, wait a minute, David failed, David made mistakes. And then I realized, oh, God forgave him of that failure. In God’s mind, it was like it didn’t happen, like, David was righteous, even besides his mishaps. And he does the same things for us in Christ Jesus. And he’s just worthy of our glorious praise, even on our worst day physically in our mental muddle days, He’s still worthy…
Hello. My name is Joseph. This is my first post to the prayer wall. I listen to the DAB every night. Thank you, Brian. So, the reason I’m calling because a family member very close to me is experiencing bone cancer. It’s my dog, his name is blue. And he’s helped me through so much through the years. I believe that he’s, you know, a gift from God. So much that he’s helped me through. And I would just like prayer for Blue, for his bone cancer, his right shoulder. And it looks like it’s progressing quickly but I know that we have an all-powerful God who is capable of anything…His infinite power and infinite resources. So, I request, you know, for listeners of the Daily Audio Bible to please, please submit your prayers to him. Thank you.