06/28/2021 DAB Transcript

2 Kings 13:1-14:29, Acts 18:23-19:12, Psalm 146:1-10, Proverbs 18:2-3

Today is the 28th 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 work-week and, well, finish well and finish strong this 6th month of the year over the next couple of days. We have begun reading from the New International Version this week yesterday and continuing our journey in 2 Kings as well as the Book of Acts and that will carry us through into the next month. So, let’s pick-up where we left off, 2 Kings today, chapters 13 and 14.

Commentary:

Okay, let’s just keep ourselves caught up with the stories that we’re involved in the Old and New Testaments. In 2 Kings we moved through several different kings today and we can see there’s ya know battle, it’s not peace on every side and it’s not before Israel and Judah who are truly family, they were the tribes that all came out of Egypt together but now they’re two nations and their at war with each other too, so the back and forth and each time we are introduced to another king we find out whether they did evil in the Lord’s sight or whether they did good in the Lord’s sight. And we can see generation after generation of evil and then maybe 40 years of good or 20 years of good and then several more decades of evil. And so, there’s this slow, steady, decline taking place. They are being weakened by warfare with the nations around them and with warfare between themselves. Meanwhile, there are just kind of off the page, just out of sight, there are empires around them being formed and becoming very strong. And we’ll see that this eventually leads to the end. And speaking of endings, we said goodbye to the prophet Elisha today in our reading. And so, he becomes a piece of the story now, a piece of the history as we continue forward without him. And certainly, as we’ve moved through the times of the kings, Elijah and Elisha are major figures, major prophets during this time. And we’ve bid farewell to both of them now at this point. And so, that’s kind of where we are and we’ll continue that journey. In the Book of Acts we continue to travel along with the Apostle Paul. We are now on his 3rd recorded missionary journey and this will be the last recorded missionary journey. This one ends with Paul finally being captured and imprisoned and he won’t be free again. And yet we will watch that despite captivity, influence only increases which is really, really an interesting part of the early church story. We really do begin to see what it looks like for strength to be made perfect in weakness. So, we will certainly, most certainly continue to observe that. As we continue forward and then let’s take a peek at Proverbs today. Fools, fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions, right. So, it’s the fool who simply wants to hear themselves talk. It’s the fool who has something to say about everything even things they don’t know. It’s the fool who doesn’t take pleasure in understanding they just want to hear themselves. So, the kind of underlying lesson here then is that we should take pleasure in understanding and not in simply airing our own opinions. That is one sentence that could radically change humanity if everyone observed that, radically change the complexion of the way that we interact with each other if we heeded it. And so, we certainly can’t make everybody in the whole world heed anything but we can certainly heed this, we can make this a part of our lives. This can be one of our ways of being light in the darkness. May we find pleasure in understanding and not in airing our own opinions.

Prayer:

And so, Father, we invite You into that. We can be people of many words sometimes. We can find ourselves ah, in conversations and in debates that we have no business being in at all, they’re not helpful and they’re not fruitful about any number of things, like any of the issues of life. And so, we are counseled today to pay attention to our hearts posture. Are we, are we in this to hear ourselves talk or are we in this to gain understanding. Come Holy Spirit into that question as we navigate this day. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it is the website, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here, and we have, we have something coming up on our calendar, it’s just a bit over a week away. It’s the 7th day of July and that is a bit of a Daily Audio Bible holiday. It’s a Global Campfire event, sort of, it’s called the Long Walk. And it’s something that we do individually, it’s actually a kind of a private thing but we also are doing it at the same time together all around the world. And it’s a bit self-explanatory, I’ve been talking about it last week but its name says what it is. It’s a Long Walk. So, we take the 7th day of July, whatever that day falls on, we give ourselves permission, if possible, to take that day off and away. We prepare and get all of the obligations and all the stuff that could take that day away from us and guard it and then we get up and go somewhere beautiful. Whether that’s get up and go for a couple of hours or to somewhere that you love that bears meaning in your life or whether you just look on your local map and find the nearest park. The trick is to go somewhere beautiful, somewhere that you wouldn’t normally necessarily go, somewhere you can go and spend some time drinking in the life that is happening all around you in nature. The kind of stuff that we take for granted, the kind of stuff that we don’t even pay attention to it’s just the background of our life. But we focus upon it, we allow it to speak to us as we walk in nature drinking it in and going for a long walk with God. Right as we move through the center of the year, we certainly contemplate our New Year’s resolutions and this is an opportunity to kind of reflect on them and reprioritize and reorient ourselves for the second half of the year, just walk with God and speak our hearts, say everything that we need to say that we just haven’t had time, we’re just too busy, we’re too running and it’s too chaotic. But we guarded this whole day so there is no rush. There is no interruption. It’s a time where we walk as if we were walking with somebody that we love and that time is standing still because we’d rather not be anywhere else at all then where we are in nature walking with God. And allowing the silence to speak, allowing it to heal us listening. Allowing God to speak back to us. That’s the Long Walk and that’s coming up on the 7th of July and I’m counting down the days looking forward to it myself. I treasure that day and the thousands and thousands over the years that have participated, that’s what we hear every year, is, “I didn’t know, I didn’t know what this all was gonna be but boy was it meaningful”. And the trick is to yeah, take your phone, take a tablet, whatever but don’t let it distract you, don’t let it become the idol that you worship at every 5 minutes. But at some point, you might want to take a picture or a little video, something that reminds you of the day that you spent walking with God. But also, something that you can share, we’ll put a post on the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page and you could comment in that post with your pictures or your videos or comments. And that becomes a little window for each of us to look into, well, actually to look at what happened this day all over the world and enjoy the beauty of God’s creation all over the world but also a connection point for we who have been out hiking or walking with God. So, put that on your calendar that is the 7th of July.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if the mission that we share in common to bring the spoken word of God to whoever will listen to it, wherever they might be on this planet, whatever time of day or night it might be and offer it freely to the world and build community around that rhythm, if that has made a difference in your life, than thank you for your partnership. We wouldn’t be here if we were not in this together and so thank you. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Spring Hill, Tennessee 37174.

And as always if you have a prayer request or encouragement you can hit the Hotline button in the app, or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that’s it for today, I’m Brian, I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.  

Prayers and Encouragements:

Hi Daily Audio Bible Family, I’m calling in for prayer for a couple, a brother and a sister, Jerry and Salso. Salso is a man who has a great testimony of God’s faithfulness, he has received a new liver a new kidney and a new knee in the last two years. He is a picture of God’s strength when we’re weak and he is back in the hospital, the knee is being rejected and he has an infection. So, Lord, Daily Audio Bible family please pray with me. Lord, thank You for Salso’s life. Thank You for Jerry, his loving wife who is his caregiver and friend. Your words in Psalms 71:14-18 is a great testimony. And I will speak on behalf of Salso right now by Your word Lord. But I will hope continually and I will praise You, yet more and more. My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness and of Your salvation all the day for I do not know their limits. I will go in the strength of the Lord God. I will make mention of Your righteousness and of Yours only. Oh God, You have taught me from my youth and to this day I declare Your wonderous works. Now also, even if I become old and grey headed, Oh God do not forsake me until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to everyone is to come who is to come. Lord, thank You for Salso, give him strength, give the doctors wisdom, put Your Spirit on their hands and do Your will in Salso’s life. Comfort his wife Jerry as we continually pray for them.

It’s Joyful J from the Everglades. I hope everyone is doing well. I have discovered that my rhythm in life can become a rut. And I’ve, I’ve been in a rut. A rut of disconnect, a rut of isolation, a rut of, I don’t know, just not being connected. And I’m way, way behind in my DAB daily listening’s and incredibly behind in the community prayers. But I can’t let that be a reason for me to not reach out. So, this morning I said “I got to do it.” I’m listening to Brian, can’t even tell you what day, I’m about a week behind, but he talked about, he’s been talking about eyes to see and ears to hear and when life becomes challenging, seek Jesus. So, when the challenges are greater than I can bare, seek Jesus. When my strength is gone, seek Jesus. When my mind is overwhelmed with the concerns of this life, seek Jesus. When I feel all alone in this world, seek Jesus. When I want to change, seek Jesus. When I feel silent, seek Jesus. When I feel valueless, seek Jesus. When my confidence is low, seek Jesus. Oh Holy Spirit I just thank You so much that You use this platform.

Good morning everybody it’s Susan from Canada, God’s Yellow Flower calling. And today I’d like pray for Robert whose 39 and addicted to alcohol and I hear his mother’s broken, broken heart. And I can relate to that with my son being so ill with cancer so we’re about the same age and I can feel the brokenness in your heart cause mine is the same. So, there is hope for you and your son, there’s hope through Jesus Christ. And Lord God, I just pray Lord, Heavenly Father that Robert will be released from the chains that bind him from this addiction to alcohol and he will throw it away as far as he can. He will flee from it dear God so that he will not turn back again. And I think of all the other people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol and sex and even the cell phones and gaming and all this stuff. God, all this takes us away from You, it turns us away from You, that’s where our help comes from. Truth and purity, help comes from You and You alone and none of these addictions that we turn to. And Lord God I just ask that these people represented here would just be released from the grip of addiction. In Jesus precious and Holy name, I pray. Amen.

Hello DAB family this is Joyful Noise from Southern California and I am calling in because I want you to know that you have changed my life family and community. The Global Campfire that we gather around each day has absolutely changed my life and certainly the word of God read by Brian every single day and his insights and I just so appreciate you Brian and your family, China and Jill and Ezekiel and everyone and I’m just grateful for your, basically your contribution to the family of God and everything that you all do. I also am grateful, and I just was just thinking about this this morning, I’m just so grateful for just normal life. And as the world returns to normal and the world opens up, that’s part of our nomenclature the worlds opening up, our communities opening up, and just doing the mundane things, like I don’t know, going to the a movie theater or maybe in your community it’s just being able to go outside and leave your home. Maybe it’s whatever but as I was thinking about that, I thought “how long will I be grateful that I can go to a movie theater, how long..” I just want to perhaps, encourage all of us, all of us, including myself it’s starts with me, to be just that person that says thank You God, thank You for this day, thank You that I get to wake up, thank You for this breath, thank You that I get to go to a park today, thank You that there’s toilet paper that we took for granted before and I’m just grateful for you and my family. And I just wanted to encourage you and this way. And if you’re grateful for this community, perhaps you might consider giving. Perhaps if that has moved your heart, maybe consider giving to this fabulous community and to Brian Hardin and his ministry. Thank you DAB family, I’m praying for you.

Hi Daily Audio Bible family this is Renzo in Florida and I just want to pray for Duane in Wisconsin. That Father God, just please pray for Duane in Wisconsin, please pray for his family, his daughter his son, that his son that’s homeless right now and his daughter that he hasn’t speak to in a very long time. Please pray for restoration and let him, let his family to come back to him just like the prodigal son came back to his father God. And we just thank you for the hope and the joy that You give to us as believers and even when we’re struggling to grasp that God, You just comfort us, You give us peace, You’re our refuge. And Father God, I just wanna pray for Danny in Oregon and want to please pray for the wildfires that are happening in California, I mean in Oregon, sorry. I just wanna please pray for that and just I pray for her 96-year-old friend that is evacuated and I please pray for her son that’s evacuated and I pray for her father that has been looking, that has very sick. I just pray that he’s completely healed in the name of Jesus. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Bye guys, have a blessed rest of your day. God Bless you. Love you guys and Jesus loves you too.