2 Kings 17:1-18:12, Acts 20:1-38, Psalm 148:1-14, Proverbs 18:6-7
Today is the 30th day of June, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it’s great to be here with you today as a come around this Global Campfire and recognize that we are at the final day of the 6th month of the year. So, with this reading when we conclude today, we will have reached the halfway point on our journey together. So, I just want to say up top right here the front, well done, well done we’ll spend a few minutes here reading and then we will reach that halfway point and sail into the second half of the year together. So, let’s let’s dive in we’re reading from the new international version this week working our way to the book of 2nd Kings today will read chapter 17 verse one through 18 verse 12.
Commentary:
Okay so as we reach well, we have reached it friends we have reached the halfway point in the Scriptures so as we reach this halfway points, today’s reading gives us a bit of sadness, to be honest in both Old and New Testaments. As we leave this first six months of the year, we’re leaving it without 10 of the tribes of Israel. In today’s reading. The Assyrian Empire attacked the kingdom of Israel and its capital, Samaria, and defeated them and exported them exiled them. So, these 10 tribes of the north are taken from this land that took century after century to make happen. Well, I mean, there were 4 centuries alone where they were slaves in Egypt so it’s been centuries that it took them to get there and then they were there for centuries, but it’s over. They they were taken away. They were assimilated and they disappeared and those 10 tribes of never been cohesive tribes ever again until this very day. The land is still there, where they were but once they were sent into exile they were gone. And we saw how exile works how Empire building it at this time works you defeat a nation you exile, its people to another defeated nation and then you move other defeated people in and out over time then, it’s just the Empire left. Over time, the generations go by nobody remembers who they were. Their ancestral homeland and yeah, generation after generation, when kids grow up in one place this is their homeland, this is all they know and so they don’t necessarily want to go back to an ancestral place and so they assimilate and that is what happened. And so, we will turn the page and going to the second half of the year and certainly will have references to Israel, the kingdom of Israel, those tribes but they’re gone, we won’t accompany them anymore, they are history. And then of course in the New Testament in the Book of Acts, Paul has determined to go to Jerusalem wants to get there for Pentecost. Jerusalem is a very very unsafe place for Paul to be. He was educated there. He was known there. He was a rising star, a rising Pharisee there. He was zealous for the things of God there. He was persecuting the followers of Jesus there; he was there when Stephen was stoned. Like Jerusalem is not a foreign place to Paul, he’s known there. But when he had that Damascus Road experience and met Jesus, he came back to Jerusalem and started teaching the good news of the gospel of Jesus, and he has mortal enemies in Jerusalem. He has had mortal enemies everywhere he’s gone among the Hebrew people, but he’s saying that the Holy Spirit is instructed to go to Jerusalem. He’s saying that the Spirit has told him that yeah, captivity in chains are in his future hardship is before him. And so, they sail and he sends for the leaders of the church in Ephesus and that’s where we have that sad scene where he knows he’s not going to see them again. He knows they’re not going to see him again so he’s trying to make statements and give them opportunity like if there’s anything between us, essentially, if there’s anything then we need to make it right now. This is kind of the language and this is kind of the meeting and he’s telling them I haven’t held back anything from you. Your blood is not on my hands. I did not withhold anything that the Spirit told me to teach you. I spent and invested all of the time and so I’m asking you to honor that and shepherd God’s people because none of us are going to be able to see each other anymore. And that’s sad. And Paul will sail to Jerusalem, we’ll see this in the coming days. It’s going to be difficult. It’s actually going to be some of the most difficult things that Paul has to face that’s recorded in the Bible and he’s never going to be free again. So, as we passed this six-month mark. We pass it soberly. We pass it giving honor to the first half of this year, everything, every story, every person that we met, every scenario that we’ve encountered all of the things that have been spoken into our hearts and lives through the Scriptures we honor that we honor the territory that we’re in. There is no more kingdom of Israel, there is the kingdom of Judah. Jerusalem is still intact. There is no more kingdom of Israel and the Apostle Paul is on his way to that very city Jerusalem, where nothing will ever be the same for him again either.
Prayer:
And so, Father, thank You for bringing us this far. This halfway point. Thank You for bringing us this far. We honor You and we worship You and we are grateful for use for Your sustaining us and bringing us here, and it gives us confidence and faith that You will continue step-by-step day by day to lead us forward. And so, as we acknowledge this first half of the year, we thank You and we invite You with all of our hearts to continue to transform us as we move into the second half of the year. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com is home base. Gosh can you believe it guys that would that’s the end of June. I guess it’s just it has been on the calendar and I’ve seen it coming. But it’s just like hitting me now that we’re halfway through our journey of this year and we do have something that comes up in the middle of the year each year that is just our own little holiday inside the Daily Audio Bible around the Global Campfire and it’s a week from today which will be the 7th day of July, and every seventh day of July, that’s the Daily Audio Bible Long Walk. And it’s pretty self-explanatory, but explaining it but it’s it is exactly what it sounds like a Long Walk just go somewhere beautiful wherever we are in the world. Whether it’s just a little walk down the street to a park or whether we get in our car and drive for a few hours or whatever, where, wherever is beautiful, wherever you think is as lovely and allows you to get out into nature into the beauty of what God has created and go for a Long Walk with God where there is no hurry where the pace, where there’s nothing else to do that. That’s the beauty of that day where if we’re taking the day off to do something we’re taking off day to do something to catch up on something to get ahead on something that we can’t get to. But the purpose here is not to do nothing but to be instead of do, to walk with God and have no no reason to hurry to say everything that needs to be said, but to give silence voice and hear how nature is worshiping how nature is crying, how beautiful things are, or how much life is actually happening around us that we mostly ignore because were too busy doing other things. This is a day in the middle of the year to regroup and reset and just reprioritize and set the path forward with God as we move into the second half of the year and drink in the healing beauty of nature. And maybe take a picture wherever you go, or make take a video wherever you go. We’ll have a post at the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page for this event. You can post your pictures or videos into that post and then we have this one post full of all these different long walks and we get another little minivacation by just looking into each other’s part of the world and seeing the beauty of God’s creation all over the world on the same day. That’s coming up a week from today. So, plan that, it’s already circled on my calendar. I love this day. That, just to have permission, like I’m not gonna be fallen further behind. I am doing what I need to do. I’m actually going to be surging forward by resting, drinking in the beauty of God’s creation, walking with God, challenging what the trajectory is, reprioritizing and realigning and that’s gonna save way more than a day in the second half of the year. It’s gonna set things a right. So, I’m looking forward to it. I hope you are too. There is a resource available for the Long Walk, it’s called Heart: A Contemplative Journey. You can go to the iTunes store or Google play wherever you get your music and search for my name and Heart, and you’ll find it and it is a really good conversation starter. If you go for a Long Walk and if you feel like you’ve said everything you need to say in five minutes that’s fine. You’ll be surprised how much more you have, say, as time goes by but the Heart album is really good at starting that conversation and opening our hearts to the different things that we’ve been feeling whether whether that be sadness or confusion or transition or comfort or just worship. It is there for the journey of the Long Walk. So, check that out.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that @dailyaudiobible.com as well. There is a link on the homepage. I thank you humbly for your partnership. We wouldn’t be a Global Campfire community or anything if we weren’t in this together. And so, thank you for your partnership during the summertime. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner. Or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill Tennessee 37174.
And as always if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the hotline button in the app or there are a number of numbers that you can call: in the Americas 877-942-4253, if you are in the UK or Europe 44 2036 088078 is the number to call and if you are in Australia or the lands down under 61 3 8820 5459 is the number to call.
And that’s it for today, I’m Brian, I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Prayers and Encouragement:
Good day Daily Audio Bible family. This is Ekberg from California by the way of Belize City Kurdish, Honduras, Belize. I am calling for your prayer concerning a job that I applied for here in the country of Belize. I pray that you would pray with me concerning securing that job. I want to thank the Hardin family for all they’ve done throughout the years and for the many prayer warriors: Blind Tony, Biola, Delta Alpha Foxtrot, Slave of Jesus, Prodigal Son, Joe the Protector, Tony the Truck Driver, All Seeing Tony, so many to number and to say I pray that God would be with you all the new members watch over you, protect you all the prayers that has been submitted. I pray that God would blanket His love and His protection over you. Your concerns and that you would continue to trust Him and believe that He will never leave us nor for sake us. I thank you for all that you do encouraging each other. I pray for the persecuted saints throughout the world that are being persecuted for the name of Jesus that you would pray for them continually as they confess our prayers. So, thank you again God bless you today is the 27th love you.
Hi neighbors it’s Lisa the Encourager. Tonight, I just wanted to give us an opportunity together to be encouraged and praising our Father together. And the reason I just really want to give him praise is the simple things. The simple things that we take advantage of or take for granted every day and that is, I’m thinking about our hearts. Our hearts beat approximately a hundred thousand times a day and we never even have to give it a thought, we never have to turn it on, it’s just there beating, beating, a hundred thousand times a day. Running the blood throughout our body to our brains and functioning for us without us even giving it a thought. And I just want to give God the praise, I want to give Him the praise because that same heart beats approximately 35 million times a year. And that same heart in an average lifetime of a person is 2.5 billion times, your heart is gonna beat. So, I’m just so encouraged in that God has blessed me with a heart and I want to do something with it that’s going to bring Him happiness and joy and that He can be proud of me. So, I hope that this blesses you, this encourages you. I hope that you will give your Father praise for the heart beat that’s gonna beat a hundred thousand times today. So, I love you all. Thank you for letting me share this with you.
Blessings to all my brothers and sisters in Christ. This is His Child from Canada. And I will lead us pray in a general prayer for all the DABers out there. Heavenly Father God, we just want to thank you today for Your love, we thank You for Your forgiveness. Oh God, we thank You for your mercy and your grace. Where would any of us be today Lord without any of those attributes of Yours? Father God, You are the God that holds the whole world in Your hands. You are the God that have all the DABers in Your hands today Lord. And You know what each and every person is experiencing at this time. So, Lord, I pray and ask You, that You will bind up their wounds Lord. That You would heal the broken-hearted Lord. I pray for peace for the weary, comfort to the lonely, strength for the weak today Lord. Heavenly Father, each of us may have the same experience in life Lord, but none of us truly know how the person is feeling because we are all unique and all deal with situations differently but You are God and You see all things, You know all things, You see each tear, and You know each pain Oh God. So, I call upon you today Lord to help and comfort each person in every situation that experiencing today. Heavenly Father, we pray and ask that we continue to look to you for our strength Lord. Look to You Lord and seek Your face in everything. And I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
Good morning DAB. This is Ben Little, I’m calling from Pennsylvania. Today is June 28th. Now, I’m headed to class right now. You can pray for that, it’s very important that I do well on this final for my career. But that’s not why I’m calling today, I’m actually calling for my wife. We’ve been married for almost 6 years now. And we have 3 children, 3 daughters, our oldest is 4, our middle is 2 and our youngest is about almost 4 months. And my wife feels like she’s drowning. And if anyone who has young kids or you know have experience with a number of them or even one knows that when you’re home each and every day with your own children it can be hard. Especially when you want to do well. So just lift her up cause she’s having a hard time. She feels like no matter what she does that she just can’t do the right thing. And she gets frustrated and it’s obvious to anyone that she loves her children so much and that she wants to do really well. She just gets discouraged and is worried that because of her actions our children are going to turn out to be delinquents or something. If you could lift her up and pray just that she wouldn’t listen to what the devil has to say, she’ll listen to what God’s word says. And pray for me that I will be able to encourage her. Amen. Thank you very much. Have a good day.
Hey Daily Audio Bible Family, this is Billy from Montgomery with The Trinity Stone. I’ve been working with our Kiros Group, we’ve been doing through the fence meetings here lately. Before that we were doing videos, they shut us down due to COVID. But July 1st there gonna start opening up the facilities again, there gonna send one person inside to do a reunion. And so, that person is gonna be me, I need to be covered up in prayer. I’ve got to do a talk with the guys, I need to be covered up in prayer to make sure I give a good message to these guys inside for our first reunion group that’s going to be actually July 7th, I know it’s on our Long Walk Day but I’m gonna have to take a break from doing my Long Walk and go inside prison. But anyway I just wanted to cover myself up in prayer and keep covered up in prayer because I’ve got to be a leader that night. So, anyway, I will talk to you guys later. Love ya’ll, talk to ya’ll later. Bye for now.