2 Kings 23:31-25:30, Acts 22:17-23:10, Psalm 2:1-12, Proverbs 18:13
Today is July 4th, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is wonderful to be here with you. Happy Independence Day to those who live in the United States. This is a pretty large national holiday for us. in in this country, Independence Day. And so, we celebrate and at night people blow off the fireworks, all over the place and it's…it’s fun, but it’s even more special around here because today is my wife, Jill’s birthday. She’s a July 4th baby and so we always go out and sit outside and watch all the fireworks and celebrate her birthday like, it’s all about that, and so that’s fun. It’s great to be here with you today, just a couple of days before the Daily Audio Bible Long Walk. And so, it’s a special time in the year when we arrived at this place. So happy birthday Jill, who has along with our daughter China, been doing Daily Audio Bible Chronological this year, and what a beautiful, beautiful work that is, beautiful work that it is. It can make me misty eyed, just thinking about it, but it’s wonderful to be here, it’s wonderful to celebrate and it’s also wonderful to have the opportunity to take the next step forward on our journey through the Scriptures, and so let’s do that. We are still working our way through the book of second Kings and at this point we are only dealing with kings that were kings in Judah because there is no more Israel. And so, there are no more kings of Israel. Israel is gone and now that territory, that land, belongs to the Assyrian Empire and Assyria is bringing foreign people that have been conquered from other places, into the former land of Israel. And the people, the children of Israel, who were of those 10 tribes that were conquered, they have been exiled or deported to other regions of the Assyrian Empire. And so, all that’s left now, of what we know, what we, what we followed as it came about, what was the children of Israel, all that’s left is the kingdom of Judah. So those are the king’s that we are left with, as we continue this journey. We’re reading from the Common English Bible this week, second Kings chapter 23 verse 31 through 25 verse 30.
Commentary:
Okay, a couple of things. We, today with today’s reading, concluded the book of second Kings. So, we will be moving into some familiar but new territory tomorrow. We’ll talk about that then as we, as we begin the book of Chronicles. But what we bore witness to today, as we ended the books of the kings, was the, was the conquering and destruction of the kingdom of Judah. So, let’s just recap the times of the kings really quickly, so that this kinda lands, we’ve been through a lot of territory and a lot of stories. The first king of Israel, we remember, was named Saul, right. And then, there was a shepherd boy, very good-looking, well-built man named David and he killed the giant Goliath and became a national hero, which eventually made Saul go after David, with multiple assassination attempts. But in the end, Saul died in battle with his sons against the Philistines on Mount Gilboa. And finally, David wasn’t on the run anyone anymore, and eventually he became the King of Judah, right, Judah, the tribe of Judah. And then, shortly after that, he became the King of all of Israel. So, he was Israel’s second king. His son, Solomon followed him and was the third king of Israel and Solomon, with all of his wisdom was a massive developer and brought Israel to its finest hour, the United monarchy, the United tribes of Israel, the children of Israel. But Solomon, even though he was the wisest man, was seduced away, and in his later life, fell away from the Lord. And so, when he died, his son Rahaboehme became king. But that needed be ratified by all of the tribes. And when 10 of the tribes of the north, came before Rahaboehme, asking for him to be a little kinder on the labor force than his father had been, Rahaboehme, with arrogance and bluster, shot them down. There was a man who was kind of the spokesperson, kind of the leader, his name was Jeroboam and 10 of the tribes in the north, denounced the house of David. The 10 tribes came together as the kingdom of Israel. They anointed Jeroboam to be their king. And in short order, Jeroboam, son of Nebat, led the 10 tribes in the north, the kingdom of Israel into idolatry. Which left Rahaboehme, in the south, the king of Judah, but he was reining in the holy city of Jerusalem. And then we began to move through the different kings of Israel and the kings of Judah and how they overlapped and the prophetic voices that were involved in the story, over those centuries. And then we saw the Assyrian Empire eventually, truly with all force, raid and surround the capital city in the north of Samaria, and the kingdom fell. And so, the 10 tribes of the north, the kingdom of Israel, were carried away into exile and assimilated into the Assyrian Empire, and those 10 tribes at that point, disappeared from history. Like, never again did they come back to the homeland and form cohesive tribes again, until today. So, after Israel fell and became a part of the Assyrian Empire, the kingdom of Judah still remained and had a little bit of a longer life and we went through those kings, and in today’s reading, we see the Babylonian Empire and King Nebuchadnezzar raiding the land of Judah and succeeding. Jerusalem fell and that kingdom of Judah, those people, the citizens of Judah, were carried away into exile, in the Babylonian Empire. And then, Jerusalem was demolished, destroyed, like, there’s is still archaeological evidence in Jerusalem to this very day, that just shows the burning of Jerusalem in the Babylonian conquest. And the temple of the most-high God was destroyed. The palace of the king, all the governmental buildings, all of the more wealthy affluent neighborhood like, the city was destroyed. And that’s kind of where we are, everything that we’ve gone through, since we met Abraham, kinda comes to an end here. This is certainly not the end of God’s people, but what they were going for, this Promised Land, that could be their ancestral homeland, that they could build up, that they could be a people set apart among all of the nations who worshiped God and could reveal God to the nations, through their adherence and obedience to Him, revealing a completely different culture and a completely different way of doing things. As we’ve witnessed that worked, but it worked in fits and starts. It worked for a while, and then rebellion set in and it didn’t work and it was this kind of ever downward spiral, which eventually led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. So, it’s pretty sad moment actually. And then we got to think about ourselves. We are also to be a set apart people, revealing God to the world. When we trust God, when we have learned the lesson of the wilderness, confess our utter dependence and live in that place and follow what we are being led to do with humility and just a sense of gratitude that we get to be involved at all, then things move in certain directions, that are ever upward leading. It’s kind of like what we’re reading yesterday, were the roots go down, so that the fruit can spring up. But then when…when we find ourselves seduced away, in some sort of way, it has a way of compounding itself, until we look up one day and realize we are one way off track. And so, we return. And then maybe we go off track. And then maybe return and maybe that’s the pattern and God is gracious and kind enough, and loving enough and shepherding us, and fathering us enough, that He has compassion on us. But what would it look like if we stayed going in a straight line? Why do we have to find ourselves feeling in spiritual exile? Why not be moving in a straight line, not deviating, what would that do to our lives? Because in this long story that we’ve been reading about this one family of people, Israel’s children, we’ve been able to witness what it looks like to cling to God and what it looks like to depart from Him. We’ve seen where those pathways lead, we know where those pathways lead. Why would we choose the wrong path, knowing where it goes? So, let’s consider that, as we sit here in the center of the year, just kind of moving through the middle of the year and a time to reflect back on the first half of the year and a time to consider the second half of the year. This is a good time to consider the road, the path that we are walking.
Prayer:
And so, Father, we indeed do that, we invite Your Holy Spirit into it, as we even look back over the first half of this year and consider the path that we’ve been walking. As we look back over the rhythms of our lives, we look at the paths that we have chosen, we could see where they lead. And then as we look into the Scriptures, we see this is true of all people, the road that we are on and the path that we have chose, are made by the words that we speak, and the choices that we make and they are leading somewhere. And so often we’re just not paying attention to where they’re leading. And so, we’re taking this time to reflect upon the story that we’ve read so far, all the way until, well, until the children of Israel are no longer in the Promised Land. And we see the metaphors for our own lives, and so, it gives us pause to consider, to consider the welfare of our own spirit, our own heart and the condition of the spirit of our family and our children, our spouses and our communities. And it’s easy to be discouraged because it feels like it’s an ever spiral downward and yet Your mercies are new every morning and the story can change at any point. And so, we humble ourselves before You, recommitting ourselves as we saw the children of Israel do so many times. As we move into this second half of the year, we invite Your Holy Spirit to awaken us and root us in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudioible.com is home base and it is where you find out what’s going on around here. We get a couple of things going on. The Daily Audio Bible Long Walk, our own little Global Campfire holiday is coming up this Thursday, so just a couple of days from now. We’ve been talking about it for week and ½ or so, and so we could probably have the lay of the land but if you’re just kinda going what? Long Walk, what’s that? It’s in the center of the year, the 7th of July, not the exact center, but we’re passing through the center of the year. And every July 7th for the last, I believe, 14 maybe this is 15 years, we’ve done this. It’s a day, in the middle of the year, that we carve out and set aside for God, for a Long Walk, to go somewhere beautiful and to not feel guilty about it and to not be bogged down by all the obligations and responsibilities. But to say, no, like actually one day out of the year, I can take a day out of the year and consecrated to God and go enjoy everything that He has worked so hard on to make beautiful for me to enjoy. And all of the life that is happening in nature all around me, to re-connect and all of these obligations and responsibilities that crush me, they can be put in their proper perspective. You simply need to be out in beauty and so that’s what we do, go somewhere beautiful, near or far, down the street, or a couple hours away, wherever you find beauty and a place of meaning. Go and take a Long Walk, walk for hours if you want. Walk for a few minutes and sit down and enjoy hours with God, just watching the life that is around you. People walk 20 or more miles on the Long Walk. Some people walk ½ a mile and sit all day, just mesmerized by the presence of the Lord and all that He is created for us to enjoy. So, it’s that time, that we never have sure, we may pray every day, we may talk to the Lord every day, we may be very, very real religious about it, very regular about it, but there’s never enough time. It seems like there’s never enough time for anything. So, what if we had a day and it was like, I can say all that I need to say, even the things that I keep forgetting to say. I can talk about whatever we need to talk about because we’re unhurried. When does that ever after happen, unless we arrange for it and that’s what we’re doing here, arranging for unhurried time with God and imagine that the Lord has some things that He would love You to know or direction that He would like to aim you in and He just keeps waiting because you’re so busy? He’s patient, He’s kind and He’s waiting, He needs to tell this to you, just waiting for your schedule to clear up, but it never does. Imagine that the Lord has things to say to you, that you haven’t had time to hear, this is that time and it makes a huge difference in the second half of the year. So, make plans for that coming up this Thursday, take the day and go enjoy and those of you have to have like a 10…10-page plan, a minute-by-minute, yeah, that’s not really what this is like, this is where you don’t have to do that. Your unhurried, there is no agenda, other than to simply enjoy the time and the passage of time with God. A very beautiful, solitary thing to do. What makes it a community experience, what makes it like, the Global Campfire holiday is that, even though we’re doing it alone, we’re not doing it alone. We’re doing it with other brothers and sisters, all over the world, all at the same time. So, take a picture wherever you go, maybe shoot a little video, wherever you go and post it to the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page. We put a post on the page for the Long Walk and you can post as a comment, in that post and all of a sudden, we throw open the windows to the world, we get to see what the day look liked all over the world, and just really feel kind of, knit together. Like, this is really happening, we’re really doing this, we’re really doing this all over the world. We really are brothers and sisters. It’s a beautiful thing, that really ties the community together, for the second half of the year. So, really, really looking forward to that myself and I hope you are as well. That’s the 7th of July, just a couple days from now.
The other thing that we’re talking about is the pilgrimage that we are intending to take, to the Land of the Bible and that is to take place, February 6th through the 19th 2023. We had been annually, taking pilgrimage to the Land of the Bible, with the Daily Audio Bible Community for a decade, then COVID hit and changed a lot of things and we’re not really completely sure about the future or ongoing plans but we do have plans for this. Take a journey to the Land of the Bible to root ourselves in the soil and in the text and to see the Bible, where it happened and that is a remarkable thing to do. It’s a life-changing thing to do, actually. We end up not looking at the Bible the same, after that. It’s really interesting how we have read the Bible, maybe you’ve read the Bible many, many times, but we read the Bible, read the stories in the Bible, we see those stories occurring in our imagination, they kind of get fleshed out inside of our imagination and so they look a certain way to us. But it’s sort of murky, right, you can only see so much. But what if you’re standing in a place and your eyes are open and you can turn in a circle and see a 360° view of…of that place, wherever it is that we are, and you can hear the crunch of the soil beneath your feet, and you can smell the breeze in your face and you realize I am, like, this is where David slew Goliath. Or this is where Jesus made his adult hometown, I’m standing in it. I’m standing where Jesus stood. And on and on it goes and it just changes the way we see and read the Bible because we’ve seen things that are no longer in our imagination but we’ve seen them. And so, if that awakens something in you. And it’s something that’s on your bucket list then check it out. We’d love to spend time with you in February, touring the Land of the Bible, North, South, East, West and all of the central regions. We cover every region in the Land of the Bible, we see all of the major bodies of water the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Dead Sea, the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River. You can be baptized in the Jordan River. So much and it’s so worthwhile to take a spiritual pilgrimage and root yourself in the Land of the Bible, where the Bible happened. So that’s coming up. You can check it out. There’s a few places to check it out. dailyaudiobible.com, if you’re at the website, there’s a navigation at the top, that’s normal for websites. One of those buttons is called initiatives, if you hit the initiatives button, you’ll see Israel 2023 in there. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can push the drawer icon, in the upper left-hand corner and that’ll open up a drawer, and inside that drawer, you’ll find initiatives and if you push the button, you’ll find Israel 2023 there. Or, go to dailyaudiobibleIsrael.com, that will get you there as well, give you the details that you would want to know, so check it out. Look forward to seeing you.
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And that’s it for today, other than to say Happy, Happy Fourth of July everybody and happy birthday Jill. I’m Brian, I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here, tomorrow.
Prayer and Encouragements:
Hi Daily Audio Bible family. Happy 1st of July, happy new month. It’s so amazing to be going into the second half of the year. And I just want to pray over this month with all of us, that July would be a month of supernatural blessing, trust in God for us. It will come to pass, manifestations, in Jesus name. I just want to encourage everybody. I know that when we come to these milestones, it can be kind of challenging to look back and see, maybe I haven’t reached my goals and things like that. But people you have six months ahead of you and so it’s, you can do anything. God has blessed us with so much to be able to do anything. And if you can’t do anything on your own there’s a community to support you. So, I just pray that you know, God would give us all the courage and the patience and the you know, the tenacity, the hope to go after the things we want with our hearts, that He has placed in our heart and have a good July everybody. Have a good week. We can, have a good weekend, take care. Bye.
Hey guys, it’s Beloved in Boston. How ya doing? It’s July 1st the start of a fresh new month. Yeah. And I wanted to pop on here and kind of give a praise report, followed by a prayer request for my friend named Sam. My 11-year-old daughter, Olivia and I, took her to a prayer night at our church on Tuesday night. And at the end, she accepting Jesus into her heart, which was so amazing, right? And then, long story short, you know, half-hour to an hour later, we were in the ocean, baptizing her and it was just an amazing night. And Jesus is so good. But of course, the enemy does not like this, at all. You know, he’s fuming, as we all know. He attacked, he attacked in her relationship with her boyfriend and some legal things and really just truly enemy attacks. And so, I am heading out, my family and I, to go camping for the 4th of July holiday. And we won’t have cell service and so I just really want an army of people to be praying for her, as the enemy is just gonna keep coming at her to distract and to destroy any steps forward, she’s making in this new wonderful journey and the kingdom, right guys? So, please just keep Sam and her boyfriend Josh in your prayers, Lord. Pray that she can continue to stay sober and praise Jesus that’s she’s been sober for over 90 days now. And just look at how good our God is. Love you all and I know and feel so safe and secure that while I don’t have access to her that you guys will be there carrying her, in spirit and in prayer. Thank you so much. Happy 4th of July.
Hey everybody, this is Addicted to Christ or Pellom in Birmingham, not in Birmingham, from Birmingham. I’m in Alabama though, so I’m calling in today because I just wanted to say a little something to everybody out there. So, life and who we are in the world as believers and people who have a relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, different than the people around us in the world that we move in. We’re called to spread the news; we’re called to tell others about it. And that, right there, is one of life’s most difficult missions. Especially, with the climate that we’re in now in the United States. To even talk about Jesus is…is trouble, it’s extremely difficult in the workplace or in society, even to bring Him up. And I wonder why that is? Could that be because there’s something out there, that’s the opposite of Jesus, there’s something out there that wants us to stay quiet. And it’s created this machine that we’re in that’s made it, where you virtually get your head chopped off to even mention the name, metaphorically speaking. Yeah, that’s the enemy. That’s what he’s done. So, it’s an art form to bring Him up. In fact, at this point, we have to bring Him up without saying His name. So, you bring up Jesus by being Jesus, not by speaking Jesus. And know that life is like a great movie and every great movie has a crisis and seems like the good guy could not possibly win. But we’re on the underdog side. All you gonna do is hold on tight, let Him do the hard work
Hello, this is Five on the Farm and I’m calling for Katie, who called on, I believe, June 22nd. Who, is an attorney in Boston and you have panic attacks. Katie, I’m also an attorney. I want you to know that you will not be alone. I am putting you on my calendar, you are in my prayers, you will stay in my prayers. When a panic attack comes, just remember you are not alone. There is nothing to fear because you are not alone. And the Holy Spirit is there with you and I am praying for you. Take care and I know you will have success in your career. One attorney’s work to do the right thing and help bring order and understanding into the world. Whether it’s business contracts or working with the courts for children. There is so many ways that you, as an attorney can bring better into the world and help end discord. Take care, and you’re in my prayers Katie. Good bye.
Good morning my beautiful brother from California, I believe your name was Alfie. I heard this prayerful joy emanating from your being, in your voice this morning, oh my. You praised God for what He has done and your testimony was just stirring the joy in my heart and I wanted to share that with you. I just think that is absolutely wonderful. I add my prayers with yours in God answering your prayer and celebrate that we overcome by the blood of the lamb, our Lord Jesus, our brother Jesus and the word of our testimony. Abide us everything will align with God’s perfect plan for you because you are His and you are His blessed son that He perfectly loves. So, anyhow, this is Abundantly Blessed, Tanya from Massachusetts. Enjoy this day and thank you so much for sharing, Alfie from California.
Hey guys, this is The Single-Minded Plumber calling. I wanted to call and thank all you guys and tell you, I love you, God Bless you and have a great day. My mind just goes blank. I got a little social anxiety and every time I call in, it’s like, have you ever based jumped, or jumped from a high place like a cliff or high-diving board into water? I get that feeling every time I call in. But I call myself The Single-Minded Plumber because at the beginning of the year, everyone was talking about words, words of the year, words to focus on. And to me, single mindedness was really coming to mind because I hold a lot of reservations for kind of, excuses to do things, that are probably not good for me. And not follow what the Lord is telling me. And so, it’s kind of like a ribbon around my finger to remind me to not turn my eyes away from the Lord. And that pretty much anything, anything else, is gonna get me in trouble. You can’t serve two masters. And plumber, obviously, cause I’m a plumber. I make piping systems to deliver fresh water and take out waste. And, Brian, thank you, and all of you guys who call in and pray for other people, thank you as well. You guys have really changed my life. There hasn’t been a single thing I’ve called in for that the Lord hasn’t blessed me with. God Bless all you guys, I love you. Have a great day.