2 Kings 9:15b-10:31, Acts 17:1-34, Psalms 144:1-15, Proverbs 17:27-28
Today is the 26th day of June. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. And it’s a pleasure and an honor as it is every day to step in here around the global campfire and step in out of everything else that’s going on and allow God’s word to speak over us as we spend time taking the next step forward. So, we’re reading from the God’s Word translation this week. 2 Kings 9:14-10:31.
Commentary:
Alright. So, we can see quite a bit of chaos happening as we move through the generations of the kings in 2 Kings. And there’s always a lot of chaos every time there’s an overthrow of a kingdom. So, that’s essentially what we keep seeing happening. A king may be on a throne and he may have his progeny all set up to create a dynasty, but someone overthrows all of that and that’s what we saw happen today. And this is from Ahab’s line. And you remember this story. Ahab had this very, very tumultuous relationship with Elijah. And there was famine in the land and then there was a showdown on the top of Mount Carmel with the prophets of Baal, who Jezebel was loyal to and she was married to the king. But we’re a little bit further in the story. Ahab’s gone. Jezebel’s kind of the queen mother and Jehu shows up on the scene. And there was a prophecy after Jezebel had killed Naboth to get that vineyard for Ahab, right? We just read all this a few days ago. So, things were not going to end well for Ahab, for the house of Ahab, or for Jezebel. And we saw the completion of that today. And all of this took place in the city of Jezreel, which is a bit south east of Samaria, which was the capital city of Israel at that time. The ruins of Jezreel still exist today, although it’s not like a major excavation site, interpretive site. You can go there, but a lot of its still under the ground. We have filmed there. It’s kind of at the base of Mount Gilboa where King Saul was killed. Also in the region where Gideon choose his three hundred person army back in the book of Judges. So, these places are real and a lot of them can be seen in the Promised Land films that we talk about every time we come to one of these places, Jezreel being one of these places. And quite a grisly story we encountered today happened in Jezreel.
We get to the book of Acts and we are on a mission with the Apostle Paul and we’re moving from city to city to city. And again, it’s one of these situations where we look at the book of Acts often with rose colored glasses and say it was a harmonious, beautiful powerful time of the planting of the church, but as we read of this time, we see it’s got plenty of controversy, plenty of conflict and everywhere that the gospel goes it stirs up a ruckus. So, Paul is moving around. He comes to a city called Thessalonica today where a church is planted fairly quickly, but under persecution. And it remains under persecution and Paul has to be spirited out of town and goes to another town and eventually things get stirred up and then he goes to another town. He has to keep staying with people as long as he can until it gets too dangerous for him to stay alive and then he has to move on. And so that is how so many of these churches were planted. And this church that we saw planted in Thessalonica today, we’ll get to know them a little bit better because Paul will write a couple of letters to them that are also preserved in the New Testament. So, we’ll get to talk about some of these churches in more detail as we get to the letters of Paul. But we can see that Paul isn’t on an extended world tour holiday vacation. He’s not on the Pauline speaking tour where thousands of people are coming to hear what he has to say and paying good money for it. It’s not that. He’s going into a town, he’s from Jerusalem, he’s a Pharisee. So, he can go into a synagogue and get a voice and he begins to teach about Jesus. And some people freak out and get mad, some people wanna know more and some people believe and then it kind of goes from there until a church becomes established with whatever time that they have among the people. But had it not been for these pioneers like the Apostle Paul, like the early apostles, like the early church and then the next generation and the church fathers, we wouldn’t be here. This wouldn’t have been passed down. This is how it spread though. This is how it happened. We’re bearing witness to that in the book of Acts.
Prayer:
Father, we thank you for your word and how we can be enmeshed in stories that are a thousand years apart, that can be thousands of years old. And showing us relevant, needed things for our hearts and spirits and lives today. We thank you for this gift of your word. And we invite your Holy Spirit to continue to speak to us and to continue to plant the Scriptures in our hearts and lives. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Announcements:
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And it’s the Daily Audio Bible Long Walk that’s coming up next on the calendar. It’s a week from Saturday. The 7th of July. And this has become a tradition. We’ve been doing this for more than a decade now, every July 7. As a community, we circle it on the calendar, get as much of that day open as possible, go somewhere beautiful whether near or far to where we are and go for a long walk. Doesn’t have to be a power walk, doesn’t have to be fast. It can be a long stroll. It’s just a long walk. It’s a living metaphor for our lives and what every day should look like. This is just a time that we’ve consecrated, right? It’s just we’ve set it aside for this. And we just go out into nature, allow a change of scenery to be a positive disruption. To allow nature to be beautiful and observed and enjoyed. All of God’s creation that is so exquisite. And to walk. And to talk. Talk over what’s been going on. All those things that even if we talk to God about them, that they’re quick. It’s rushed. We’re too busy. We’re too over scheduled. And so we don’t really have time. Everything always feels frantic. What if we just set out a few hours to actually go for a walk and have that full talk where everything that keeps piling up we finally get to say? We finally get to talk over, think over, invite the Holy Spirit into, allow God to speak back. I mean, we’ve been so busy that maybe we can’t find as much time as we want to spend with God. Imagine how that is for him. There may be many things he’s wanted to say, we just don’t have time to listen. This is that time. Just go. There’s no rules about it. Just go somewhere beautiful and disrupt yourself enough to get out of the routine, go for a long walk. Say it all. Listen back. Review what you’ve learned in the Scriptures this year at the half way point and invite the Holy Spirit to aim you in the direction that you should go in the second half of this year. That’s what this is all about. And so it’s a solitary thing. You do it by yourself. But you won’t be doing it by yourself. They’ll be thousands of us around the world walking and doing the same thing. So, take a camera or something. Shoot a picture wherever you go. Take a little video. You can post that back to the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page facebook.com/dailyaudiobible. And then we get the beauty of enjoying each other’s long walks. We can just look for a quick moment at a picture or a little video and get a little window into each other’s lives and it’s a beautiful thing. So, make plans for that. That’s the Daily Audio Bible Long Walk. July 7th. A week from this Saturday.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There’s a link that’s on the homepage. I thank you profoundly and humbly 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 P.O Box 1996, Spring Hill, Tennessee, 37174. And as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, there are a number of numbers that you can use depending on where you are in the world. If you are in the Americas, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial. If you’re in the UK or Europe, 44-20-3608-8078 is the number. If you are in Australia or the lands down under, hopefully you’re keeping warm, as it’s in the wintertime, which is so weird cause it’s so hot here in the summertime. Anyway, if you are in Australia the number is 61-3-8820-545.
And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for here tomorrow.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family. Let’s pray. Father, you are holy, holy, holy. We pray you keep guard over our lips so that we may not fail in keeping your name holy. Your kingdom come is our hearts desire. Your will be done in our lives is the reason we live. I ponder heaven and long for it here. Thank you for the word for it guides us how to pray not our will but yours. Thank you Jesus for your work on the cross granting everyone who trusts in you for forgiveness of sins before a holy and just judge. We live in your grace to abide in you by your word. Protect us from the evil one and help us stay clear of temptations. Holy Spirit, empower us to be bold witnesses for you just for today, the power to be bold and love like Jesus never shrinking back from your truth for your word is truth. Blessed be the name of our God forever and ever. The wisdom and might are His and He changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and raises up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things. He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with Him for His dominion is an everlasting dominion and His kingdom is from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are repeated as nothing. He does according to His will in the Army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth no one can restrain His hand for sake of him. What have you done? Empower us today. Holy Spirit come. Thank you Jesus. Amen.
Hi DAB family. I’m just calling today with a praise report and a prayer request. I’m standing right now in the same spot that a year ago my son was driving a vehicle that flipped over and was crushed and he and his two…people that were in the car with him, they were unscathed. They got out with just a few scratches to the amazement of everyone including the police and the first responders. Everyone said that the hand of God was with them. As I stand in this area, I see where there are still pieces of glass from the windshield when it crushed. I can still find that here in this area on this corner. And, so, I just want to give praise to God that he miraculously saved my son and his two companions. He was 18 at the time he’s 19 now. And my prayer request is that God would reveal himself to him as to what He’s got in store for him and why he was saved from such tremendous harm or most likely death that day. Thank you all. I love you.
Hi family. This is Shannon from Salem Oregon. I would love for you to be praying for my husband Brett and me this week. We leave on Sunday, June 24th and we’ll be flying to Chicago. We’ll be there for a couple days for a conference. And this is a chance for my husband to network with people in evangelistic ministry and share with them the software that he’s been helping develop these last couple years to help them follow up with new believers that come to Christ at these evangelistic events. It’s really important that he’s able to make good connections and that people can start using this software. So, I’d appreciate your prayers for that, for God’s favor and for His open doors. After that conference Brett and I will be flying to Pennsylvania where Brett will be a speaker and I will be a music artist for big festival there. And that’s the first time we’ve ever been on the lineup for the festival. So, it’s a really exciting time for us and I would just so appreciate it if you would pray for God’s favor and His protection and His power on us, that the things that we say, the connections we make with people, the things that I sing and play, that the Lord would be in all of that and would use us as His mouth pieces to touch hearts and draw people to Himself. I’d also appreciate your continued prayers for my family members who are not yet walking with the Lord. And I just so appreciate you, family and am so thankful to have you praying and giving us extra support this week as we are excited and nervous and knowing that where walking into some big opportunities. And just pray that…
[singing] I need you, you need me, where all a part of God’s body. Stand with me. Agree with me. Agree with me. We are all a part of God’s body. It is His will that every need to be supplied. You are important to me. I need you to survive. You are important to me. I need you to survive. I pray for you. You pray for me. I love you. I need you to survive. I won’t harm you with words from my mouth. I love you. I need you to survive. It is His will that every need be supplied. You are important to me. I need you to survive. You are important to me. I need you to survive. [singing ends]. __ up in prayers. I love you guys. Jenny from Arizona.
Hi. My name is Melissa from Texas and I want to thank Brian, Jill, and the Hardin family and the DAB team for building this community. I want to call for prayer and to repent of my sins. I’m 26 and am very blessed and although I did not grow up with my father in my life, I have a wonderful family and life. And I know the promises that God has for me and I want to be a good and faithful and obedient servant. And God has blessed me tremendously. And sometimes my actions and thoughts seem to scoff at the sacrifice that Jesus made in dying the cross for my sins. And I have a bad habit of promiscuous behavior and I struggle with sobriety and self-worth and loving myself and depression sometimes and anxiety. And I know that God can and will heal me, but my actions and behavior and thoughts have to change. So, I wanted to ask for you to pray for me to have the courage to quit the destructive behaviors in my life and fully let God into every part of my world, even the things I’m afraid of letting go of. Thank you. I love you all. And I pray for you every day.