Leviticus 20:22-22:16, Mark 9:1-29, Psalms 43:1-5, Proverbs 10:18
Today is the 27th day of February. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here with you today and it’s a pleasure and honor to be coming to you from the holy city of Jerusalem today. We had a long day yesterday, a lot of travel and an early morning today to get right at it. So, thank you for your continued prayers over all of it. We are indeed drinking from a fire hose and there’s just a lot to take in and now we have reached the holy city of Jerusalem and the complexion of our time together changes because now we’re in an urban area, a lot more tension, a lot more population, and a lot more jostling around. So, thank you for your continued prayers. We’ll talk about the latest events and what we’ve seen and experienced here in a little bit, but let’s get to what we come here to do which is to allow God’s word to just come washing into our lives, washing us clean, letting us exhale and calm down and be present to what God will speak to us today. We’re picking up where we left off yesterday, of course, and that will bring us back into the book of Leviticus. We’re reading from the New International Version this week. Leviticus chapter 20 verse 22 through 22 verse 16.
Prayer:
Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for the way that it opens up our hearts and exposes all of the thoughts and intents of our hearts and invites us deeper into relationship with you. And even as we’re traveling the land of the Bible right now and the Bible is coming alive to us in ways that that are unique because we’re in the places where these events happened we also know that this is coming alive throughout the community. And I thank you Father, that through this journey to Israel every year this kind of cements the community in place and we begin to move through the year together. And, so father as we continue our journey we ask that you would indeed continue to quicken our hearts in and wake us up. We thank you for the way that you slowly, gently, lovingly father us and mature us and we welcome this. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
Okay. So, yesterday…boy…seems like longer than that because it was a long day. We left the Galilee region, beautiful morning, just the mustard flowers waving in the breeze to us and green in the lush, just a gorgeous morning. And we had been staying on the north eastern side of the lake and out our way out we went to the northwestern side of the lake to a little path. It’s called the valley of the doves and it’s an ancient path that led out of the Sea…away from the Sea of Galilee to cities like Cana and Nazareth. So, it’s an ancient path that you can walk on knowing that you’re walking in the footsteps of Jesus. The…I mean…the Scriptures put Jesus in Nazareth and they put them in Cana and they certainly put Him around the sea of Galilee and that was the path to get between these two places then, you know, you realize you’re walking an ancient path that Jesus walked. And its near Mount Arbel, which is a geographical landmark in the Galilee. It’s just gorgeous and just a few minutes to say goodbye, really, to the Galilee, just to exhale our time there and the serenity of it all in and breathe in and just kind of release that part of the trip because we had to move forward. And we did. Our next stop was atop Mount Caramel where the prophet Elijah had a showdown with the prophet of Baal and fire came from heaven. And we just opened the Scriptures and read the story and realized, okay, this is…this is Mount Caramel, this is where this happened. And then we finished the story because, you know, after this mighty outpouring of God’s Spirit and God’s power and drawing the people back to himself Queen Jezebel sent Elijah a note telling him that she gonna take his life and in right away. And, so, he fled all the way from Mount Carmel to Beersheba. And we started our journey in Beersheba. And, so, it was pretty clear how far that is. And then he went 40 more days back into the wilderness just on the run and we just kind of explored the ways that we go on the run because God came to Elijah on that mountain and said what are you doing here? And, so, we kind of let that sink in as we moved…well we actually moved into lunchtime after that. And after a bit of lunch back to the Mediterranean coast. So, we had begun our journey, what feels like, I don’t know three or four weeks ago, even though its only been days ago. We began our journey on the Mediterranean coast in Ashdod and we made our way in a full circle all the way around the country back to the Mediterranean Sea only hitting the Mediterranean coast a bit north at Caesarea Maritima, which in the in the Roman era was a gem of the area, a truly Romanized city where the Roman government largely took place for the region. And it is a bit famous from the Scriptures because it is where the apostle Paul was taken after he was arrested in Jerusalem. And this is a story that we’ll get to as we move out of the Gospels and into the book of Acts and forward but obviously we’re not there yet. But the apostle Paul was taken to Caesarea Meritima to be held under guard because there were assassination plots against him. And eventually after a couple of years, its where the apostle Paul appealed his case to the Emperor. And, so, it was from Caesarea Meritima that he sailed to Rome. So, that squarely put us in the New Testament while also enjoying and appreciating…it’s a spectacular archaeological site revealing just so much history, including ruins from the Crusader era. So, we spent some time there exploring, orienting, appreciating and just being on the ocean. The winds have picked up here and that began last evening on the Sea of Galilee. We could…I mean…the winds just really picked up. And, so, by the time we got to the coast it was windy and the surf was hi and the waves were capping and splashing up against the shore and spraying foam and beautiful but windy. So, a little chilly, but the sun was out and so it was very enjoyable. And then once we left there the next stop was Jerusalem. So, we began at sea level and began to climb our way to the center of the country and the holy city of Jerusalem, which is where we are now and where we ended the day. And got moved in. You know. It’s the last stop. Thankfully we don’t have to pack up and move again until were packing up to go back to our homes. So, we’ll be basing of Jerusalem as we explore some of the interior of the country as well as in and around Jerusalem over the coming days and we’ll be spending today in and around Jerusalem, but we haven’t done that yet, so we’ll talk about that tomorrow. Thank you for your continued prayers over health and stamina and safety and technology and travel and logistics and all that goes into a pilgrimage like this, lots of moving parts. But we feel your prayers and that’s not a joke. Like, believe it or not things are going very smoothly. And, so, thank you for your continued prayers.
As I’ve mentioned a number of times you can follow along with this trip just by going to one of the social media channels, Daily Audio Bible’s Facebook page or Daily Audio Bible’s Instagram page. So, Facebook.com/dailyaudiobible or just go to Facebook and search for Daily Audio Bible, same with Instagram, just search for Daily Audio Bible, all one word, and you’ll find what you’re looking for. And we’re posting pictures from the places that they happen and just kinda moving through this journey and tying us all together so that you can kinda look in and see some of the views that we’re seeing and visit some of the places that we’re visiting virtually.
And if coming here, if experiencing this for yourself for your own heart is something that’s percolating inside of you, registration is open for the pilgrimage that we’ll be taking in 2020, a year from now and you can get all of the details and read all about it at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section. Just look for Israel 2020. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can push the button in the upper left-hand corner, that little drawer button, and then go to the Initiatives section and you’ll find Israel 2020. So, hope to see you next year in Jerusalem as they say here.
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And that’s it for today and that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.