2 Kings 3:1-4:17, Acts 14:8-28, Psalms 140:1-13, Proverbs 17:22
Today is the 22nd the day of June welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today as we move into our time together around the Global Campfire and around the Scriptures. We’re in the book of second Kings. We haven’t been there long but we’re moving into the book of second Kings. And we spent a good…good-ish amount of time in the northern kingdom of Israel and their kings as well as the prophet…prophets Elijah and Elisha and we’ll continue with that. We’ll continue in the north and we’ll continue with the prophetic voice of Elisha today. Second Kings chapter 3 verse 1 through 4 verse 17.
Commentary:
Okay. So, we are on mission with the apostle Paul at this point in the book of Acts and they move through a city called Lystra and they preach and there is a healing. People witness this. They start freaking out and they decide that Paul and his companion Barnabas at this point, that they are gods that have come down in human form and they need to be worshiped. And, so, they’re doing everything that they can, and they decide that Barnabas is actually Zeus and Paul is Hermes. And, so, there…there happens to be a temple to Zeus. So, they’re like going to the priest and…and saying “hey. Zeus is in town. Like he’s showed up in town in human form.” And, so, they’re bringing bulls out. They’re gonna do these sacrifices to the…to Paul and Barnabas. And, of course, Paul and Barnabas are like trying to stop everybody and are like, “hang on a second. We’re just humans like you. We’ve come here to tell you about the living God.” And, so, they begin to share the gospel, but the people still are convinced that they’re Zeus and Hermes. And, so, there like still trying to do the sacrifices until…until some Jewish people from nearby cities come in and they know who Paul is. And. so, they start to turn the crowd. And the next thing we know, Paul is stoned and left for dead. That…that’s the story of the early church. Like these are the stories of the early church. This is how things came to be. And, so, Paul went from being a God to being stoned to death and left for dead, as it appears, on the same day, which shows you a bit of the mob mentality at work, like how quickly people can be pulled together in one direction, even with a complete false word, a false story or declaration. People come around the stores. And, so, that’s what happened. At first, they are absolutely convinced that the gods are among them, until the seeds of this story from the Jewish people spread through the crowd which turns the crowd murderous. That’s not a new concept. Obviously, it’s an old concept because we’re reading it out of the Bible. So, we’re reading a story that’s a couple thousand years old. But this kind of behavior has always been going on. And it’s interesting. On the one level it’s interesting how compelling a narrative can be, like how concrete some sort of narrative can be when it pulls people together and ushers them to move in the same direction for a period of time. That can be for great good and for great evil. Often, it’s for great evil, especially when there’s a mob involved like this. And we’ve seen these kinds of things in our lifetimes, but that…it’s not new. Like this has always been happening. We have to admit that this is not unlike the mob mentality that ultimately condemned Jesus to the cross. So, we can see some pretty significantly negative things can happen when people are swept together without the whole story. And we have to look into our own lives at the way that we get swept into things the same way. And at times we get swept into things against our brothers and sisters in the Lord and people’s lives get damaged or destroyed in the process.
This is essentially the words coming out of the Psalms today. So, going back even further, way further than the book of Acts. “Those who surround me proudly rear their heads. May the mischief of their lips engulf them. May burning coals fall on the. May they be thrown into the fire into miry pits never to rise. May slanderers not be established in the land. May disaster hunt down the violent. I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy. Surely the righteous will praise your name and the upright live in your presence.” It’s like this kind of thing has always been going on, causing at minimum mischief and maximum total destruction to the lives of people in their path. It’s part of the Old Testament story. It’s part of the New Testament story. It’s part of the early church story. It’s still part of the church story. And we have to watch ourselves because it’s really, really easy to get swept up into worshiping God for what He’s doing through someone and then trying to destroy that someone because it turns out they’re a human being after all and not God. So there are times that we just…we need to keep our eyes on our own lives and the path that we are walking, and not get swept into someone else’s story that’s getting stirred up. Sometimes we need to ask ourselves, “yeah, that might be tasty to get into, but is that my battle? Is that even something I have anything to do with whatsoever? Am I getting involved to be seen here? Like, what’s going on? Am I being invited to be an agent of the good to be Jesus in this situation or is it that I simply want my opinion expressed? What good can come from my involvement? These are good questions for the times that we are in and the times that we are going into. And as we navigate, may we remember the proverb today; “a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” Let’s not be agents dispensing crushing blows to people’s lives. Instead, let’s hear the first part of the proverb; “a cheerful heart is good medicine.” So, we can take that on board in our own lives and say, “okay. Whatever it takes I’ve got to find a way to maintain a cheerful heart. That’s medicine for me. But I also need to spread, like in every way that I can I need to promote a cheerful heart so that we all might experience this good medicine instead of being swept up into things that will only crush people and eventually crush us.
Prayer:
Father, we come into that and consider that. And it brings up all kinds of different scenarios and situations that we’ve experienced in our lives, times that we’ve hurt people, times that we’ve been crushed, times that even with our own brothers and sisters we’ve been at odds and swept into things we had no business being involved in and people got hurt. And this was…this was never Your way for us. So, Holy Spirit come and show us what it looks like to maintain a cheerful heart and made it become good medicine in our souls. And as we are transformed may that spill out into the world so that we aren’t being swept into anything, we aren’t crushing anybody. Rather, we are about the business of restoring things. 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 everybody. For as high as the heavens are above the earth so is His steadfast love towards those who fear Him. Yesterday was a very upsetting day for us. Some of you will know from the Friend’s page. Our little ginger cat Loki went missing. He’d been __ too so where really concerned as the day and night was ticking on. He’d been gone nearly 20 hours and is very unlike Loki. I cried out to the Lord as we do, and I was listening to worship and they were singing about trust. And I said to the Lord, “I trust you Lord.” I didn’t have an outcome in my mind or in my heart, but I simply said I will trust you. It wasn’t long after that declaration that Peter went out searching again and little Loki appeared very thin, quite unwell. He’s just gone to the vet. But he was home. I’m so thankful to God. What’s precious to us is precious to Him. His love is…it just melts me. His care for us. The little things in life with all that’s going on in the world He was concerned enough about my heartbreaking over the…the gift of a pet he gave to me. And His love abounded towards us. Thank you so much. This is God’s Smile here sending my love and drying my eyes. Bye-bye everybody.
Hello this is Gloria from Uganda here in __. I’m really really very grateful for this Daily Audio Bible app and __ podcast. And I’m really really really very grateful because I had desire to study a Bible plan at the start of the year but I couldn’t go with the flow but I’m very excited and I’m really enjoying hope to review all the previous messages. I’m really really blessed thank you very much Brian. Thank you very much China. We…we love you. We…we ask you to pray for us. The situation and the pandemic with most of the people all around. And the closest family to me and all unemployed right now and it puts me in a state whereby I have to look after my family of 12 people. My mom and my dad are not working, and I really really puts me in a very very very difficult position right now. But I trust God and with your messages I believe my faith is going to rise higher and I’m gonna…I’m gonna…I’m gonna go through this __ first and with your messages I believe I will…I will move forward I will believe and I will grow. Thank you very much. We do really really appreciate it and ask you to pray for us. My job __ business is really slow, and I pray that our business visions and people came back __ because many of our staff were laid off because of the pandemic. And I also pray to get an increase in salary because I got a promotion, but __ an increase in salary. I need to have a family of 12 people behind me. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot.
Hey Daily Audio Bible family this is Pam from Shasta County California and I am calling in for Patricia in New Orleans. And Patricia, I just want to pray for you. Heavenly Father thank You so much for Your goodness and Your mercy and Your love and thank You for how much You love Patricia. Thank You for her heart, thank You for her passion, thank You for her strength. Father I just pray in Jesus name right now that You would ease her pain Father. I pray for relief. I pray for healing in Jesus’ name that You would just pour Your healing out over her and that she would get immediate relief from this pain. Father, thank You for who she is Lord and who You are in her life. Father thank You that You are so close to her. I pray that she has people around her that are loving her and are helping her Father and are praying for her. And help us all to remember pray for her and everyone here and we thank You for Your goodness. We thank You for Your mercy. And thank You for Your healing in Jesus’ name.
[singing starts] Lord bless you and keep you make his face shine upon you be gracious to you. Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. May his favor be upon you for a thousand generations your family your children their children their children. May His presence come before you and behind you and beside you all around you and within you he is with you he is with you. In the morning in the evening in the coming and the going in your weeping and rejoicing he is for you he is for you. He’s for you he is for you he is for you he is for you he is for you he is for you he is. [singing ends] Just a sweet reminder DAB family. This is Abba’s Grace and He shines. Amen. Amen!
This is Vickie calling from Southern Oregon and I have been listening now for a few months and really enjoying reading Brian and I’m also enjoying the prayer community. Thank you so much. I’ve been struggling trying to call and not having the courage to do that. My son is an adult and having problems. He’s severely mentally ill and he’s also strung out on drugs. And I recently moved him out to Oregon trying to save his life and now I’m feeling overwhelmed and not really knowing how to help and it’s disrupting my life and, you know, risking my career and my home. So, I could use some prayer. His name is Eddie. Thank you.
Hi this is Brooke Right from Omaha Nebraska. I just want to pray for my mom because my grandma who came to take care of everybody, she…I don’t remember how long ago…is leaving tomorrow afternoon and my mom just had a major surgery taking out her…in which she had to take out her womb. A womb is a place with the babies come. So, it was very painful. She has a lot ohwees. She has to go on a walk twice a day which is kinda good for my dog Ella which I would show you but this is a recording not a video. And, well, just want to pray for my mom, my brothers and my dad because he’s in masters. Probably have a lot of more….no… wait…just quite a few maybe five which is…we count it quite a few…more…like five more chores a day because we have a garden that has like snow peas and tons of other things. So, yeah, alright I don’t have much longer on this call so I’m just gonna leave. Bye. Brooke Right.
Hi Daily
Audio Bible this is God’s Light out in Portland Oregon, and it’s been some
time. I’m responding from Ben in Columbus who called back in…maybe the 12th
of June or probably even before that. His message was there on the 12th
of June and I…I believe he was speaking to me and I was so taken aback that I
needed to allow a couple callers in and hear a couple more prayer request just
to confirm that he was speaking to me. I have tried to submit prayer requests
and haven’t…and having…and fallen short and felt silly for doing it. I’ve
really…I’m in a bad spot right now financially, physically, mentally, spiritually.
Everything’s under attack and I have lost everything. I’ve lost my home, my
children, my ex-wife. I’m soon to have another child, which I’m ecstatic about.
So, the grieving process comes and goes with excitement but…but for the most
part this grief and humiliation is following me. And if you could pray for me and
I would…I would greatly appreciate it. I’ve been following the Daily Audio
Bible since 2011 pretty much every day and I’m just so thankful for this
community and thankful for you as my family. I’m very thankful to have you. Please
stay strong and I pray for all of you.