Category: DAB Transcripts

2 Kings 20:1-22:2, Acts 21:18-36, Psalms 150:1-6, Proverbs 18:9-10

Today is the 2^nd day of July welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it’s great to be here with you today as we…well…we’re just kinda getting’ moved into this 7^th month and just settling into the second half of the year and getting’ ready for the long walk in a few days, but we are here and we are here now and the next step forward will lead us back into second Kings. We’ve been reading the story about King Hezekiah and we have a few more days before we will conclude the book of second Kings and move forward there. But like I said, we are here. So, let’s dive in. Second Kings chapter 20 verse 1 through 22 verse 2 today. And we’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of Acts we’ve been journeying with the apostle Paul for a while now, sailing around, watching churches form, watching antagonism grow, and watching Paul be thrown out of cities and move on to the next. And we’ve then seen him move toward Jerusalem and find that he’s being warned all along the way that nothing…nothing pleasant is waiting for him in Jerusalem anyway. And Paul has been instructed by the Holy Spirit to go to Jerusalem, even though he knows that affliction and chains are in his future. So, Paul sailed back to Caesarea yesterday, which is on the Mediterranean coast of Israel and then moved and inland, south east up to Jerusalem. So, he’s in Jerusalem today and he makes himself known to the Jerusalem church and they obviously know this is volatile situation and it’s here that we see Paul is the lightning rod because he’s been branded a heretic by some and is suspected of heresy by others among the Hebrew people and among the Hebrew people who believe in Jesus. So, it’s very easy for us to simply see Paul moving around and telling people about Jesus and people pushing back on that and the Jews being jealous of him and pushing back on that and just think, “well…this…this is what it took to bring the Good News. It was opposed and evil was set against it. And those things all can be true, but underneath all that is the story of what’s going on here in the early church. So, we had the Jerusalem Council which…which was a counsel that effectively attempted to answer the question, “who gets to be in? Who gets to be a disciple of Jesus? What do they have to do? What’s the criteria?” This is a big deal in the early church because you have one side of things, the Hebrew side of things, very resolutely defending their position that Jesus himself was Jewish, he was a Hebrew rabbi, he commented and taught on the Hebrew Scriptures, he lived in a Hebrew context. It’s just that he was the Messiah and fulfilled the law, which for them wasn’t to say that the law is abolished, and no one should live in that context. Nobody was being told to jettison their Hebrewness or even their Hebrew religiousness. Jesus was the continuation of that Hebrew story, a story that has had its ups and downs over thousands of years by that time. We’re reading that story. We know it has its ups and downs as we read through it, even thousands more years in the future. But for these Hebrew believers there’s no conversion. Their Messiah came. Like this is the fulfillment and they are going to continue to follow Jesus and continue to follow the law and revere it and live within its context, and that’s what they believe anyone who wants to follow Jesus should do. And fair enough. That is a valid argument. On the other side you have people like Paul and even the apostle Peter, although we’ll see later that the apostle Peter, kind of swayed back and forth…like was trying to live in both worlds and Paul confronts him about it and we’ll see this soon enough in the Scriptures. So, Paul has been ministering to the Gentiles. There has been a church council about this. Everyone has agreed, like nobody can obey the law perfectly. It’s been done by Jesus, but nobody has ever since its institution has ever been able to live up to it perfectly. And, so, the argument was, these Gentile people who are coming to faith in Christ, do they have to become Jewish to follow Jesus, or can they just follow Jesus since they don’t really know anything about Judaism? They haven’t been raised up in it. They’re not familiar with the culture at all. They are former pagans. That is a tough question to reason out if you are in this situation. And, so, what they did was take a cue from the Holy Spirit. In other words, it’s too difficult of a situation to actually make a decision. But the Holy Spirit has made this decision because the Holy Spirit is coming upon Gentile people who are confessing faith in Christ. So, God is making this decision, not us. The thing is, not everybody was on board with that and still isn’t on board with that. So, there is disagreement here at the very beginning. There’s disagreement about how things are supposed to work among the early church. So, Paul has his detractors who are believers in Jesus, but he has a vastly large amount of detractors among the Hebrew people because Paul is a trained Pharisee who has essentially, at least in their minds, turned his back on Moses, the Mosaic law with that God gave that has led this people and built their culture. He’s turned his back on this and is now claiming this Jesus guy and he’s out spreading this Jesus message all over the world to Jews and Gentiles alike so that this doesn’t really look like classical Judaism anymore. So, Paul is very easily branded a heretic in their minds they want to kill him. That’s what’s swirling around here. So, Paul coming back to Jerusalem where he was trained as a Pharisee, where he held the coats of people who work killing Stephen, the first Christian martyr, where he was getting letters from the high priest to travel around and round up these people, he shows back up in Jerusalem as an ambassador for this Jesus. So, the leaders of the church in Jerusalem are like, “this is a powder keg waiting to blow. Lots of people think they you are teaching things. You are…you are instructing Hebrew people to abandon the law and just follow Jesus. You’re saying all kinds of stuff and you are…you are in the heart of it all. So we gotta show the you know the culture, that they you understand and you observe the Mosaic law and that you are a Jew.” And, so, they come with this plan. There’s vows that are gonna be taken, there’s heads that are gonna be shaved, Paul’s gonna pay for it. It’s a very religious thing, that Hebrew people, very, very, very devout would do here. And, so, this is what Paul agrees to do and things are going well until he’s recognized. So, we leave today’s reading in the book of Acts and Paul is in chains, two of them to be specific, since the book of Acts gave us the detail. He’s chained with two chains. The people are swirling around this, like the mob mentality is in force and they’re trying to kill Paul and it’s the Roman soldiers that come in and pick Paul up and carry him out and we leave today’s reading trying to figure out what’s going on. That’s where the Roman soldiers are, “what is happening? who is this guy? What has he done?” And what we’re goona see, even though we’ve seen some pretty amazing things happen on the journeys of Paul and with the establishment of the churches, that Paul will never be free again for the rest of his life but his influence is only gonna grow.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for this look, this ability to look back and look objectively at the difficulties that were happening and the challenges that were being faced. And that…that helps us to interpret our own times, but it also helps us in our own hearts and lives as we follow the paths of those who have gone before us. And, so, come Holy Spirit and continue to lead and guide our steps as we continue to become more and more aware of Your presence in our lives. Come Jesus we pray. In Your mighty name, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, home base and indeed where you find out what’s going on around here.

And what is coming up and going on around here is preparations for the 7^th of July, which is our own little family Global Campfire holiday. It’s a day we set aside, go for a long walk with God. It’s called the long walk and that's…that’s it. Go somewhere beautiful. Go for a long walk with God understanding that this is the middle of the year and it’s time, right? We’ve been too busy we’ve been too frantic. It’s been too crazy out there and our fleeting prayers, yes, we are staying in touch with the Lord but we need a long walk and everything that we need to say needs to get said everything that we need to hear needs to get heard. It’s a re-group, a re-centering as we prepare for the second half of the year. So, that’s the long walk, that happens every July 7^th. It’s something that you do alone but it’s something that we do together. And, so, you know, I’ll be going for a long walk, knowing that I may be walking by myself, but I’m not alone. Brothers and sisters all over the world are doing the same thing and together we are listening for the voice of the Lord in our lives to give us direction in the…in the coming months. So, make plans for that. This year is a little special. We have a brand-new resource that’s gonna release because it’s so…it wasn’t made for the long walk but it’s perfect for the long walk, it’s called Hearts, a contemplative journey. And it’s a guided prayer and musical journey exploring the depths of the emotions of our lives that we’ve been experiencing and just inviting God fully into those specific things. Kind of a great way to begin a long walk, to just acknowledge some things, to invite God into those things and to find comfort in melody and music and harmony and nature and beauty and opening ourselves from the frantic chaos that has been swirling around us because it takes some time to quiet our soul to be still. As the Bible describes it like…like a weaned child at its mother’s asked. And that’s the place we’re looking for, is this place that transcends all of the anxieties and regrets that we’re facing, all of the prospects for where this is all going, all of our fears, all of our aspirations, to get behind all of that to where God is and to where we truly are. We live in these circumstances, but that’s not us. That’s just what we are conscious of and facing. But behind it all is place that knows that He is God and that we are in the palm of His hand and we just need to find that place and that place can be found like this, going for a long walk and pouring out our souls and being still and silent and drinking in the beauty of the day that He gives us each and every day. So, that resource is available on the 7^th of July. It is available for preorder now so that will just be waiting for you on the 7^th of July. Just look Heart, a contemplative journey or you can search for my name at the iTunes store or Google Play or whatever. You can preorder it now in time for the long walk.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link, it lives on the homepage. I am profoundly humbled, awed and ungrateful for your partnership, especially here as we move into and through the summer. 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, if that is your preference, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, of course, if you have a prayer request or encouragement you can just hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button at the top, 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.

2 Kings 18:13-19:37, Acts 21:1-17, Psalms 149:1-9, Proverbs 18:8

Today is the 1^st day of the month of July welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today as…as we move into the back half. Welcome to the back half of the year, month number seven. Man…I get to this point every year and think the same thing, probably similar things what you’re thinking, “where has the year gone? It was just January.” But new reflections too. Like, “what a strange first half of this year.” And nevertheless, here we are. We made it to this point, and we’ll keep making it to all of the points if we just keep taking steps forward, day by day step-by-step. So, our next step leads us back, even though we’re in a new month, back into the books that we were reading last month. We are continuing our journey through second Kings. And yesterday…yesterday we saw the end of Israel, the 10 tribes of the north, as the Assyrian empire conquered Samaria and then deported the tribes out and brought new people in and just try to kind of sit with the fact that we watched these people be formed and we watched them grow up and watched them be slaves and we watched them in the wilderness and now…now they’re not really a people anymore. They’ve been dispersed. They’re in the diaspora as it’s called. So, at this point, we have to turn to Judah and the kings that are in Judah. And we briefly were able to come to me it’s King, Hezekiah of Judah, and we were told that there was no king like him before or after, like he had a zeal for restoring the people to God. And, so, we’ll pick up with that story. Second Kings chapter 18 verse 13 through 19 verse 37. And we are reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of second Kings Today we see that the Assyrian Empire who had conquered Samaria and the 10 northern tribes of Israel and…and deported them, took them into exile and imported new people then set their sights on Judah. And, so, Assyria’s conquering and they’re in the city of Lachish and the ruins of Lachish or Lachish still exist today down in the low lands, but at the time Lachish was a walled city second only to Jerusalem. So, like it was this like the second most powerful city in the region as far as fortifications go and its conquered. And, so, from there king Sennacherib sends his envoys to Jerusalem basically to inform them that they are next and Judah’s goona fall and, you know, a lot of intimidation, right? You can…I mean you can just read in in the things that are being said in the letters that are being sent, a lot of intimidation tactics happening. But the pitch is basically surrender and you can live. You can even stay where you are right now. Like you can just chill out here until I can come get you and I’m gonna take you to another land that’s like this one. It’ll be awesome. That’s the pitch. But the king, Hezekiah, like we’re told is a reforming king, he’s in a bad situation and what he does is what we should pay attention to. He humbles himself. He’s the king, he doesn’t rise up in pride and arrogance. He humbles himself because this is a certain defeat. You know, if the Assyrians come and surround Jerusalem like they surrounded Samaria that may take a minute but they’re gonna starve everybody to death and there's…there’s no way out and they don’t have a force that can compete. And, so, Hezekiah, the king, humbles himself and goes into God’s presence with this letter and spreads it out before the Lord and basically says, “you are our only hope. May you hear what they’re saying about you and rescue us because it’s true, they have annihilated every kingdom that they have invaded and it’s true that those gods could not protect those people but you are the true God. And, so, we need you now.” And man…man…we can take a lesson from that because so often we’re challenged and then we try to either, in pride, rise up or in anger and rage try to dominate or whatever, but the posture here is that Hezekiah knows what he’s aware of the situation that he’s in. And, so, he fully humbles himself before God, essentially putting his life and the lives of his people in God’s hands saying, “we…we have no power in our own strength to do this and no one has been able to withstand them. You alone are God. You are our only hope.” I’m certain there are many of us within the sound of my voice now that can use that reminder.

We get into the book of Acts today and Paul is determined to go to Jerusalem, and he’s been warned everywhere he goes not to do that. And the book of Acts is essentially saying the Holy Spirit is speaking to other people to warn Paul about going. Now Paul has also said his piece, which is, “but the Holy Spirit has told me I have to go to Jerusalem and has told me that affliction and bondage are in my future.” So, we’ve got an interesting situation here. What do you do when you’ve heard from God, but then other people tell you that they’ve heard from God as well and it’s different than what you heard from God? This isn’t the first time we’ve encountered this kind of territory. You remember the story back when Israel and Judah…like when the kingdoms were dividing and Jeroboam the son of Nebat caused Israel to go into sin by idolatry by worshiping these golden calves. And remember the story, God told a prophet to come curse the altar and then go home a different way. Don’t eat or drink anything. And then there was this other prophet who found that guy and said God told me to tell you you don’t have to go back. You can come to my house and stay.” And that man lost his life. So, we have this situation here with Paul and other people telling Paul don’t go and Paul feeling God’s telling him to go. So, what do you do? Do you just ignore all of the council and the wisdom of the people that are around you? No. But in the case of Paul, Paul feels very clearly that God has told him what to do. In that case then we obey God. Like we obey God no matter what, which is what Paul’s gonna do. And the wisdom of Paul’s friends as far as it’s a bad idea, that's…that’s absolutely the truth, it’s a bad idea and bad things are gonna happen to Paul, but good things are going to happen in the kingdom and we will watch that play out in the coming days.

And then finally in the book of Proverbs…man. “A gossips words are like choice food that goes down to one’s innermost being.” That is a proverb that snags me every year because, you know, gossip is prevalent. Everybody talks about everybody. But it’s not right. That’s the thing. It’s not. I mean, the Scriptures on a continual regular basis point back to the fact that this isn’t right. Gossip isn’t healthy. It doesn’t do anything good. It only breeds dissension. So, here we have ancient wisdom screaming out of the Bible at us, telling us gossip is like delicious choice exotic food that goes down into one’s innermost being. So, in other words, it’s tasty to hear that story, right? It’s intriguing and exotic to hear that bit of information that’s secret passed around. And it’s also the same to be the deliverer, right? To hear something and then pass it around. Even though it’s gossip and unhealthy, it’s delicious. But if you’re gonna eat it it’s not gonna go into your stomach it’s gonna go into your innermost being. It’s gonna become a part of the fabric of who you really are. Do we want that kind of stuff in our innermost being? Is that what we want to be true of us, that we are full of gossip and dissension? Definitely something to think about today. We have heard the phrase probably most of our lives, “you are what you eat.” Yeah, that might apply to gossip to. Let’s think about it.

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into all of this. We see the humility of King Hezekiah and…and…and we look at our own lives when we’re in strange situations. And we can say we’ve responded with full humility in the past, but we’ve also responded in rage and arrogance and all the other things too. We see a clear path here and I want to follow that path by humbling ourselves under Your mighty hand. And we also see in the book of Acts is really really difficult journey that Paul is on back to Jerusalem and You told him to go and he’s gonna obey You regardless and that is something for us to observe and watch as well. Father we pray that we might hear Your voice and be confident in what we’ve heard, regardless of what the report is, that we must obey You above all. And then we are also thankful for the challenge that our words, the things we spread around, they matter, they stick with us, they become a part of our innermost being. And, so, Holy Spirit come and give us the discipline over our mouths that we won’t spread these things around, and give us the discipline over our ears that…that we won’t participate allowing these things to go into our innermost being. Come Holy Spirit because what we want is You and Your light and life in our innermost being, spilling out from us words of encouragement and comfort. So, come Holy Spirit we pray and lead us into all truth in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the web site, home base, where you find out what’s going on around here. So, certainly stay tuned and stay connected in any way that you can.

And I know what’s going on around here. The next thing up on the calendar is a week from yesterday, the 7^th of July and that is the day of our own little holiday, the Daily Audio Bible long walk. And it’s a day that we set aside and do that, go for a long walk with God understanding that we’re in the middle of the year and this has been an exceptional year, said that a lot, but it doesn't…I mean every year we get to the middle of the year and realize, “I could really regroup. I could really consider what the next half year, what the next six months is gonna look like.” We kind of do this sort of thing when we’re reaching the end of year, right? When we’re moving beyond the Christmas holiday and toward New Year’s we start thinking about, “what’s the new year gonna be like?” And then we get into the new year and we have all of our goals and plans and dreams and hopes and by the time we get to the center point of the year, you know, some of that’s going strong, some of that’s achieved, some of its fallen by the wayside. It’s time to regroup and consider what the second half this year is gonna look like and take a day, go out in the beauty enjoy it, drink it in, allow it to rejuvenate us, spend the day with God. Whether were talking or whether we’re not talking. And you might be thinking, “I can’t go for a long walk with God and talk all day long. I…I can barely pray for five minutes, 10 at the outstretch if I’m bringing in everybody that I love.” Like that’s not exactly how it works. Like, when you have fallen in love with someone and you are committed to that person and you’ve been together for a while and you’ve kind of…some of the rough edges that happen are kind of whittled down into some understandings then you can be with that person just presently, right? Like, you don’t have to be flooding the room with words and everybody’s talking all like…you can be silent together and still be in each other’s presence and it still be life giving beyond words because your offering your presence to each other. Go for a long walk. Say what you need to say be quiet when you want to be quiet listen when you want to listen. Allow the day to be what the day becomes, a great adventure with the lover of your soul. So, that’s the 7^th of July. That’s coming up and this year we have a brand-new resource that’s becoming available on the 7^th of July. It’s called Heart, a contemplative journey. And I guess I’ve talked about that for a week so I kind of we what it is but it’s just my own musical explorations about the emotions, the things I’ve been going through over the last to stretch of road in my own life, things that I spoke about using the language of music, beyond towards, right? Not filling the world with all the words about how I feel. Rather, speaking beyond words, allowing music to do what music does - engage with our emotional lives and open us up. And over several years of just doing this slowly, if something would become overwhelming, I would just really ask, “what is this feeling…like what is going on here?” And then display it into music. This is how it feels. And then from there, arrange, compose, create. And these were very, very personal things and I just began to walk and pray through the things and collect a bunch of emotions together and you move through them and it just felt so cleansing and cleaning and clarifying. And I realized I’m not the only one that feels these things. These are common to people. This is not like some kind of special “me” thing. This could be good for all of us and in the…in the community. And, so, that’s available on the 7^th of July and it’s really meant to be a conversation starter. Like, it…you go for a long walk and just go through the process of just opening yourselves up…opening yourself up to the emotions that are apparent in life, open it up to God and allow Him to speak through music and nature and…and His Holy Spirit’s guidance in our lives. So, that’s available now for preorder and it’ll be all nice and downloaded and ready for you to go on the 7^th of July. So, you can get it at the iTunes store, the Google Play store. Just search for Heart, a contemplative journey or search for my name and you should be able to find it. And I actually am very, very much looking forward to how that…how that goes…how that goes for you all around the world as we walk together, as we walk together alone, right? It’s an individual…it’s an individual thing, but we’ll be doing it together. And the other thing about it that makes it a community experience is that wherever you go, whether you’re just, you now, going for a walk around the block or a walk around the parking lot or whether you’re getting in your car and you’re driving somewhere far away that’s really beautiful and meaning to you…meaningful to you, take a picture, take a little video and post that as a comment to the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page and then we’ll post it up on the page and we have all of these little windows into each other’s lives. People that we know by voice. People who are on this journey with us through this year. And it’s really lovely and wonderful. So, that’s less than a week away on the 7^th of July. So, make plans for that.

If you want to partner with  Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage, and I thank you humbly and profoundly for your partnership. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you’ve a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in app, the little red button at the top 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.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hey, this is Melody from Canada this is my third take. I’m just…It’s hard finding the words but Pelham your prayer really moved me. It reminded me of when I was in the hospital after swallowing a whole bottle of Tylenol with codeine. And I had such a powerful encounter with Jesus there. I had a vision of him crying tears of love over me and His call for a full life for me and He said that your story will be powerful, that you will share a people…with people and bring them freedom. And, at the moment I had so much joy. The psychiatrist was kind of bewildered and I was gonna be homeless and I ended up being able to move back to the family I was living with because of my encounter with Jesus. And it wasn’t an overnight change. I still went back to self-harm a little bit. I never swallowed Tylenol again, but it was still a really uphill battle for a while, and I have an experienced addiction in the way that you’re struggling with. I don’t know the details, but I just want to encourage you that God is with you and that you have a story and that there is a reason that you’re alive, a very good reason and that He has saved you and, yeah, I’m really excited to hear what he does in your life. So, hold on, keep pressing in, trust in His grace it is there, and we love you. And also, just want to quickly say thanks for those who pray for me. It’s been really great listening every day and engaging with the prayers and I’ve had a real change of heart. And, yeah, I’m really bonding with you all. So, thanks. Blessings.

Hello Daily Audio Bible my name is Regis I’m calling from Kenya Nairobi in Africa. Thank you, Brian and Jill and China and everyone involved in audio making. Thank you so much. I am a longtime listener and here to ask for prayer before my pastor’s daughter, her name is Linda. She has gone missing since the 23^rd of June and we have no news. We don’t know what has happened to her. Please, family pray for her, play for Linda. Call her back home. We need her back. We pray together with our pastor. Please family I just wanted to reach out to you for this prayer. May God bless you, bless each and every one of you. I listen to you every day, pray with you every day even if I don’t call but I always pray and hear you. I know most of you for many years. May God bless you, bless you so much. Bye-bye. This is Regis calling from Nairobi Kenya in Africa. Bye-bye I love you. Bye.

Greetings Daily Audio Bible family this is Egbert by the way of California living here in the country of Belize __ for the last four years. I called in a couple times. I greet you in the precious name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I want to say thank you to the Hardin family for those behind the scenes. I want to say thank you for the prayer warriors, too numerous to mention but to mention a few, Biola, Asia from Munich, Tony, Delta Trot Fox, the many others, you know you are. I want to thank you. The actual new DABbers that do call-in, I want to encourage you to continue to call in and to submit your requests. No matter how small it may be or seems, know that there are prayer warriors. I myself listen to the Daily Audio Bible every day. I hear your requests and I do pray for you and I can say with confidence that the many others pray for you as well. So, I want to thank you for being a part of this great community and to continue to be encouraged. I want to extend a invitation to support this ministry as much as you can and to know that we shall reap the harvest of our labor if we faint not. So, continue to be encouraged and to know that God is on His throne and the challenging time that we do face we know that He’s coming back for those who believe and trust in Him. Bless you. May God keep you and cause His face to shine upon you.

Hello this is Alan from Australia it has been of about a year since I called and asked for prayer as we were preparing to come to this country. It’s so cool because as I’m listening to the July 20^th or the June 25^th it’s actually the 26^th here and I’m listening to seagulls on the background sounds while Brian’s reading and I’m actually, today, watching whales. You guys, God is awesome! He is mightier than the waves crashing here in front of me and He is more majestic than the whales that are swimming out in front of me. It’s just amazing. And I just want to thank you for praying and thank you for those that did lift us up. We got here just before the virus shut down the world and travel and we have been working here in this community. We’ve had two Uni students come to Christ and be baptized and we’ve met several international families that are also here from their home countries. And it’s just amazing how God’s working and we get the juts be a part of God’s plan. And He is awesome, and He is sovereign, and I just want to encourage you guys to continue to lift each other up. Your prayers do help, and they do make things happen. God is working and He is moving. This is Alan from Australia and I love you and I appreciate all your comments and I love you Brian and thank you for this ministry…

Hello, my name is Brian I am a college student and I am just now getting back into Christ. I’m going through a lot of hardship; a lot of my relationships are starting to crumble apart and it’s starting to get harder and harder by the minute. I am always tired. I’m completely drained. I just need the time. And I know that the Lord will do anything that is for His children and I just ask that I start a new life and that I give everything to Him. I give Him my life, I give Him all of my worries, all of my pain, all to Him. I don’t know what God is trying to show me but I’m hoping that at the end it was worth all the pain and all the suffering that I went through. And just pray for me for a good life. And I pray that whatever it is that I go through, I do it through Him and not by sight, I do it by the walk of faith.

Hi DAB family this is Will from beautiful Bozeman Montana, and I have not weighed in on this racial thing that’s going on. I’ve had many a conversations with my white friends, brothers and sisters in Christ and every time I’ve spoken I’ve spoken from Scripture because that’s all I know. And I know that many of us have been hurt and are carrying that pain and that hurt but my challenge is, what does God’s word say? And I always focus on and have been focusing on Jeremiah 29. And everybody skips to that verse, “for I knows the plans I have for you,” but they don’t read the stuff before that and Brian’s talked about it. And, as matter of fact, he was my influence with this Scripture verse. But verse seven he says, “pray for the peace and prosperity of the place to which I have sent you captive. Pray to the Lord for it for when it experiences peace and prosperity so will you.” And the challenge is to pray to the Lord for it. He realizes that where you’ve been sent, no matter where you are, you’ve been sent to a place captive to do a job. He said to live. If you read before that he said have babies, build families, get your kids married, do all that stuff. God said breathe, live life. But not only that, pray. And if it hasn’t experienced peace and prosperity continue to pray. But give all the hurt and everything to God. And we need to just, you know, love everybody the way we need to. I love you DAB family and I’m continually praying through this thing and I, yeah, I have experiences to as a black man, but I don’t call anybody else but the Lord to deal with those things. And, so, hang in there everyone, keep praying …

Hey, my incredible DAB fam this is Kingdom Seeker Daniel from Chicago. To my dearly beloved brother in the Lord and officer Dennis from LA. My brother, my brother, my brother, as a black man I want to let you know, first of all, I salute you as a man of God first and foremost but then as law enforcement, thank you for everything you do. For 31 years you have put it on the line and I want to let you know as a proud black man, I give God glory for you and I am one that was taught by my dad who came up in the civil rights era who taught us that. He was a Navy man. So, he understood what it meant to be on the…on the front line with men of all backgrounds. But he taught us, a family of 13 children, how to love every man despite their color, see their color but honor them for who they are, and my dad was not a believer. But that is why there is no struggle whatsoever in my heart concerning race and this whole outrage of what’s happening. It’s a sad time that we’re living in, but I struggle not about my white brothers and others of various ethnicities. And, so, I want to…I want to let you know my dear brother I…I stand with you and I am praying that the peace of God will be with you, protect you and all your fellow law enforcement and that God would watch over our nation and cause us to realize, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. God bless you brother Dennis, officer Dennis…

2 Kings 8:1-9:13, Acts 16:16-40, Psalms 143:1-12, Proverbs 17:26

Today’s the 25^th day of June welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today as…as we move in and take the next step forward. And we’ve been working our way into and through the book of second Kings. And largely for the last couple of days dealing with the story of the prophet Elisha, which we will continue to do today, but we’ll also get back to kind of the Kings and the different generations of kings as we go forward. So, we’re reading from the New International Version this week. Second Kings chapter 8 verse 1 through 9:13.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for all of the examples. And that’s one thing that we need to understand, and we invite Your Holy Spirit to help us understand, that we’re not just reading all of the exceptional people, like all the exceptions that ever lived. We’re reading stories of people who are examples to us of where roads lead and what it looks like to walk with You. And, so, even as we see Paul and Silas in jail we also see that at every opportunity that they have, no matter where they’re at, including in prison they’re worshiping, they’re sharing, they’re being light in the darkness and You are present with them. And, so, it's…it’s easy for us because we usually…we isolate ourselves when we are challenged, but we see this example of reaching outward and being open. And, so, Holy Spirit come and show us what that might look like in our own situations. We ask this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website and home base and where you find out what’s going on around here.

And our annual…our annual holiday…sort of our own little personal Daily Audio Bible holiday is coming up on the 7^th of July and it’s known as the long walk. We’ve been talking about it for a couple of days because this is a special long walk. We’ve got a special resource that we’re releasing, not only for the long walk, like for life, but that…that will pair so perfectly with a day that we go and walk with God. So, if you…if you haven’t been here for the last couple of days, the long walk occurs on the 7^th of July each year and we’ve been doing this for well over a decade and it’s an individual thing to be sure. It…it is what it sounds like. Just choose somewhere near you, wherever you are in the world, somewhere that’s beautiful or that’s serene, that brings a sense of calm and allows you to experience the beauty of nature. And whether you drive for hours, or whether you just go down to the corner and…and go to a park or something, it doesn’t matter, just a place that brings peace to you and go for a long walk with God and actually carve space out, like take a day, carve it out realizing that we have been through a heck of the first part of the year, a lot has been going on that’s been really disruptive and here we are in the center of the year and it’s time to regroup. It’s time to take some time and really speak our hearts in prayer, sharing our souls with God, but also to understand that a relationship is conversational and we need to take time to listen so that we can come out of a time like that with some direction, sort of how we’re aiming our lives as we move into the second half of the year. That’s the long walk and it’s a beautiful thing and it’s a…it’s an individual thing. It’s just that we as a community are all over the world and so we’re doing it together alone. It’s perfect for social distancing, but it always has been, like we’re not changing anything. It’s just how it’s always been all these years. So, that’s the long walk on the 7^th of July. So, mark that on your calendar and…and begin to make your plans, just start anticipating that, even in your prayer time, just telling the Lord, “I’m really looking forward…I’m really looking forward to this time where we can just kinda set everything else aside and just be together. I’m looking forward to that and just anticipate it.” And…and then when you go wherever you go just snap a picture of where you went or take a little video of where you are and you can post as a comment back to the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page and then we’ll post it up on the page and all of the sudden…it’s one of my favorite things in this year…is to scroll through all of the different long walks and just have windows into each other’s lives, but also just windows into the beauty of the earth that God has given us to enjoy. And, so, that’s the long walk.

This year is special because were releasing a brand-new resource that is really perfect for the long walk. It’s called Heart, a contemplative journey. And it's…it’s a musical journey and a guided prayer journey that allows us to embrace, acknowledge and experience the emotions of the heart that we’ve been experiencing throughout our lives, but in particular throughout these last months. And, so, this resource will become available at midnight, like the beginning of the day on the 7^th of July but you can preorder it and purchase it now at iTunes or Apple Music, Google Play, wherever it is that you get your music you can find it. Just look for my name, Brian Hardin or Heart is the name of the project. And it’s available now and you can preorder it now and it will just download and show up in your device on the 7^th in anticipation for the long walk this year. I have been…I mean I kind of shared this story a couple days ago of how this project came to be over the course of several years just trying to speak to my own heart about the things that I was feeling. But, you know, sometimes you’re trying to describe how you’re feeling, and words fail. But there is language beyond words and music is one of those languages. And, so, just trying to compose and arrange. This is one of the most like visual projects I've…I’ve ever made. I tried to pour as much life and atmosphere into it as…as possible. It's…it’s beautiful and I’ve taken many, many, many long walks for that project just praying the prayers. And, so, basically, yeah, it's…it’s, you know, there’s a prayer that leads us into the music and then we just open ourselves to allow the music to speak and God to be present in that emotion and then we move to another emotion. So, like we deal with forgiveness, we deal with hope, we deal with bittersweet…the bittersweet nature of life, we deal with moving forward, we deal with finding a sense of home in our heart or with God or comfort…comfort that we so deeply need sometimes and life just feels so frantic that comfort is hard to find. But if we slow down it’s there and available to us. So, this is what Heart is. It’s available now. Go check it out. I thank you for that. And in anticipation of the long walk, I think this is gonna be a really special long walk because I know that we have a lot to say. I sense that we have a lot to say as we spend time with God but we also need direction. It’s been a disruptive year like I said, and we do need direction and God is not withholding it from us. We’re just too busy. So, let’s slow down on the 7^th and explore the terrain of our hearts as we open our hearts to God and His leadership in our lives.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There’s a link on the homepage. I thank you profoundly for your partnership. If you’re using the app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO 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.

2 Kings 6:1-7:20, Acts 15:36-16:15, Psalms 142:1-7, Proverbs 17:24-25

Today is the 24^th day of June welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it’s wonderful to be here with you today as we move through the center of another week and just keep one foot in front of the other taking step-by-step day by day and continuing our journey in community through the Bible. I mentioned yesterday to mark your calendars for the 7^th of July which is the long walk and I have some things to share about that at the end, a brand-new resource coming on the 7^th of July tailored for some of the time that we spend on the long walk. So, we’ll talk about that in a little bit. But let’s do what we come here to do. Let’s get into the Scriptures. We will pick up where we left off yesterday, which is what we do every day. We’re ion the book of second Kings in the Old Testament and we are journeying alongside the prophet Elisha, which is what we will continue to do today. Second Kings, chapters 6 and 7. And we’re reading from the New International Version this week.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of second Kings we are a kind of traveling the journey of the prophet Elisha. And, so, some pretty significant, amazing, miraculous things happen in today’s reading like an axe head floating or Elisha informing the king of Israel that the king of Aram was attempting to…like what kind of traps he was setting. And…and the entire city, like trying to find Elisha and surrounding the entire city of Dothan only for Elisha to say there’s more with us than are with them and asking the Lord to strike the Army blind, which was not…obviously was not like blindness that they couldn’t see. It was like a…a cloud. They were blinded so that Elisha could go like, “hey, he’s not here, the one you’re looking for, but like, let me take you to him” and their just following along right into the capital city of Israel, which is Samaria and just turning them loose after feeding them. So, significant things today but…but then Samaria, the city is again surrounded and besieged by Ben-Hadad king of Aram again and this lasts. So, they surround Samaria and…and basically cut it off and then begin to starve the people. And that’s kind of one of the war tactics of walled cities at this time, just wait it out. Basically, nobody can get out and no supplies can get in. So, open the gates and let us in and nobody has to get hurt or keep your gates closed and we’ll just wait until you’re all dead and then we’ll come in. This goes on so long that Samaria really is starving. Like it’s gotten to the point that people are eating each other. So, that’s pretty bad starvation indeed. And, so, the king, he’s just had it with this prophet Elisha and he’s goona kill him because this famine is from the Lord. That’s what he believes. And, so, “I’m gonna…like, we’re not waiting anymore.” And, so, he’s gonna just be done with the Lord by killing the Lord’s prophet. And Elisha’s like, “you know, tomorrow…by this time tomorrow, every…like everything will change. There will be an abundance of resources to feed us. And, of course, that’s pretty hard to believe. And people say that’s pretty hard to believe, but in the end there’s some leprous people outside the city that go to the army camp thinking like, “we’re dead no matter what”. Like their, “the best option to live is to go surrender to the enemy because of we’re dead…I mean…we’re dead no matter what. And they find that the camp is empty, and supplies are plentiful. And, so, the heat and they start hiding things and it’s just this crazy scene. And you have to imagine, like put yourself in this position. You have been surrounded by the enemy for a very, very long time so that you are starving. And, so, you…you realize you’re gonna perish no matter what you do, but if you would go over to the enemy camp, maybe…I mean, like maybe they would actually feed you but what you find is there’s an abundance waiting. Like there is no enemy surrounding the city anymore. Well, after a while of them going…going in the tents and getting stuff they want and eating whatever they want they realize it’s not right that we do this. In fact, I’m quoting from second Kings here. This is what they said, “what we’re doing is not right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves.” Are you starting to track with me here? Like, we can look at this story and go, “these are…this this is the life and times of the prophet Elisha”, but then we look behind the story we find a mirror because weren’t we trapped, weren’t we surrounded spiritually as it were? Weren’t we starving to death, weren’t we willing to feed on whatever was around before freedom came into our lives? And then at…at some point the lights went on. We met Jesus and looked about us and realized that the reality we thought we were living in is different. We weren’t surrounded. The enemy had fled, and we were unaware, and we feasted on the good things of the Lord. But we do have to reach a point where we realize it’s not right to hoard this. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. We’re not the only ones free here. Victory over the darkness is available to anyone now. And maybe these leprous men who went into the Aramaean cam teach us a significant lesson about our own lives. Maybe there are people still starving, feeling surrounded and trapped, feeding on each other when freedom is completely available if someone would tell them.

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into that. Yes, yes we’re talking about sharing the good news and we go to all kinds of places and all kinds of methods and everything but that’s really not the point. The…the point is that we are supposed to be living in this freedom and when we see people surrounded and in bondage and dying spiritually, we should have the same awareness that these leprous men had. We’re not doing the right thing by hording everything. This is a day of freedom. This is a day of good news. We can’t just keep this to ourselves. So, come Holy Spirit. Show us how to live in the light so that everything that we do is light and life and good news. And sometimes we say it with words and sometimes it’s with a smile to a stranger whose having an awful time of things and just a moment of kindness brought the kingdom to them. And we…we didn’t even know it. We were just aware. We were just kind. We were just Christ like. Come Holy Spirit and show us how to live like this in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website and home base and where you find out what’s going on around here.

And what’s coming up is July 7^th, which is our own little community celebration or our own little holiday that we have for ourselves. And we call it the long walk and it happens every July 7^th and it is exactly what it sounds like. We…of course…we can’t all gather together and go for a long walk. We’re all over the world, but we can all do it on the same day and it’s the center of the year and it’s, like I said yesterday, been a heck of a year so far. So, this is more necessary than ever that we carve out some time, that we carve out a day and try to disrupt the routines that are dragging us and go somewhere beautiful and drink in the life that is happening all around us that God is giving us moment by moment just to become aware of His presence through the beauty of nature and to go for a long walk and finally have the time to not be rushed, to not be rushed with God or anything else, to just be able to say everything that needs to be said and to listen because the Lord has so much. You…He’s…He’s been trying to say, has been waiting to say. And this is a time to just devote ourselves to listening to what He has to say about the second half of our year. Like how should we point ourselves? Where should we go? How should we head? And listen for his direction. So, that’s the long walk and that is that two weeks from yesterday. So, the 7^th of July.

But I’m I mentioned yesterday, and I mentioned at the beginning today, there’s a new resource that’s coming. This resource is called “Heart”. And the…well…I’ll tell you why it matters to the long walk in a minute, but first let me just tell you the story. I mean so many of the resources that…that we create and develop here, they…they take a long time. So, like I’ve written several books but you don’t just sit down one day in front of a word processer…processor and go like, “alright…I’m ready to go. I’m gonna write …write a book.” You might do that, but if you get past the first page…yeah…you…it's…it’s a process of contemplation of research of thinking of living into of understanding of trying to get clarity on what you’re trying to say it. It’s…it’s a long process that takes years sometimes. So, like in the case of the God of Your Story, which is the latest resource that we’ve…we released…yeah…that took several years to write but it took 12 years of Daily Audio Bible to sort of like live into So, some of these resources take a very long time. And this one took several years. It was four years ago this month I was traveling around speaking about Sneezing Jesus and my mom had not been well but she became quite ill and this had been coming on to the point that it was really necessary for my brother and I to be involved and that very, very quickly became a seven day a week involvement and she was kind of sliding. I mean she had a lot of things going on, congestive heart failure and diabetes, and some incontinence issues that were…that were bringing on kind of repetitive UTIs. And those of you who have kind of been with…been with, especially people who are beginning to age and UTIs…I didn’t know anything about this, but…yeah…you can just really start…becoming incoherent with that infection. And, so, these things are going on and then finally just understanding that dementia, actually really fast-moving dementia was setting in. So, a super, super trying time that ended with her passing away on the 13^th January of the next year, which was 2017. And those of you who have been around for a few years, you were there. And I thank you for walking through that with me. That was really, really hard. I mean still hard to this very day. And, so…so, that’s kind of the beginning of the story and then after she passed away it took some time to just…grief…get some counseling, get some…some voices in my life and walk through…because it…it rocked me. I’m like I’m still rocked because it was a situation where was really trying to do everything right and it still didn’t end up well, you know. And, so, just kind of questioning a lot of things that I…you know…I’m still working through with the Lord, not in a bad way. Like it’s catapulted me, to opened my eyes to see in a lot of ways but not to just kind of relive that story, that was just sort of the beginning of things and a couple months later, I guess is when I began this project, Heart. And many…many of you…many of you know I have a music industry background and that’s where I come from, and that I migrated from there into ministry here. And, so, you know, I kind of speak that language, I speak the language of music. It’s what I did for a living. And sometimes those of you who are musicians you will understand very…very well what I’m saying. Sometimes words can’t say what needs to be said. Sometimes…sometimes it’s just silence because there isn’t anything to say. And then…but for me anyway, sometimes I can sit down in front of piano and I can say what I need to say without words by just…by just playing. And that’s just what I started doing and that often is the beginning of something. And, so, I just began to compose how I was feeling, and I began to explore specific things. Like if I’m dealing with the loss or if I’m dealing with having to persevere or if I’m dealing with my hope being deferred and…and feeling sick inside and wondering where my hope has gone or wondering how to move forward or just contemplating the bittersweet nature of things. How that, you know, for every wonderful thing that we are given we also need to release something, like it just kind of moves through our hands and that’s the nature of things and how to live with that. I just began speaking in music to myself. Like, I would ask myself, “okay this is what I’m feeling right now. And what does that sound like? What is…how can I play this and experience that emotion through melody?” And, so, over the course of the next couple of years very, very slowly I composed pieces that were speaking to exactly the kinds of things that I was going through. And I thought, “you know, well, I’ll get these songs done and then we’ll use them in the Daily Audio Bible. I mean, like what's…what’s in the background right now, like this music that’s playing in the background right now comes from the Promised Land films and it came the same way. That whole project started because I got dust really really bad dust in my eyes in the desert in Jordan when we were in Israel many years ago. And by the time I got back to the United States I had an eye infection. I couldn’t see very well. And, so, I just began to play, you know, just began to speak how I…I could. And that became the same…same kind of story here. And I thought I would get several compositions done and just make them available and we would use them. But I began, like it was my custom of the time to go for a nightly walk and walk for an hour or an hour and a half maybe even two hours sometimes and just try to find a serene place in my life. A lot was going on - trying to write the God of your story, trying to do develop a farm that we have and just a lot of work. And I began it to walk but I would walk with these compositions in my earphones. And I began to pray. I began to pray about those specific emotions that I was feeling and that became kind of a nightly thing. And I realized this is really helping me. Like, I am praying what I feel, I am opening myself to God and then I am allowing the melodies to wash over me so that I could just, in silence, experience the emotion and experience the presence of God in it all. So, then I took a step back and I thought, “well…it’s a very, very personal thing, but I don’t think that these things that I’ve been experiencing in my life are solitary to me. I think these are things that we all experience.” And, so, I started thinking, “maybe this is more than just music. Maybe this is something that is like guided prayer, like we would pray together and then do exactly that. Let the music wash in and speak to the things that are beyond words and be silent as the melodies wash over us so that we’re not just filling the room. We’re filling the atmosphere with our own words but we’re being silent and becoming aware with the presence of God.” That is Heart. Heart, a contemplative journey. And that is finally gonna see the light of day and it will become available on the 7^th of July. And that’s why it makes so much sense for the long walk. It's…I mean just to go into that journey and being able to just open up our hearts to God for a little while in a…in a guided way and just allowing music to speak to us and open us up as we’re walking with God and then to just listen…just to listen to Him. So, that's…that’s what’s coming - this brand-new resource, Heart, a contemplative journey. And it’s available for preorder now. So, you can get it on iTunes or Apple music, or you can get it on Google Play or wherever it is that you get your music. One little thing about this particular project is that it's…at this point it’s not on streaming services. You can purchase it. And kind here’s why. These prayers, like if it…if it’s streamable then these prayers can be disembodied from, you know, from their associated compositions and music and stuff and so they’re just they’re just like random. And I thought that would be just such a strange thing in a streaming environment. So, you can buy Heart, just look for Heart, H E A R T or look for my name, Brian Hardin, and look for the album Heart and you can preorder it now in preparation for the seventh of July. And, of course, the resources that…that come into the Daily Audio Bible because of…of this recording…they…they throw logs on the Global Campfire. And that's…that’s what it’s for. And, so, it’s available for preorder now and I…I appreciate your partnership and support in this project. When we release a resource and it becomes visible then it just draws more and more people into our community here around the Global Campfire. So, heart is available for preorder now and will become available for full release on the 7^th of July just in time for the long walk.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage, and I thank you humbly, gratefully your partnership as we move through summertime. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO 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, which is the little red button at the top 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.

2 Kings 4:18-5:27, Acts 15:1-35, Psalms 141:1-10, Proverbs 17:23

Today is the 23^rd day of June welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is awesome to be here with you today around the Global Campfire as we just kind of exhale, release the stresses and all of the stuff that just builds up and it’s just chaos sometimes…we just release all that for a few minutes and just come into this oasis around the Global campfire and…ahh…exhale and allow God’s word to speak to us today. So, in the Old Testament we’re in the book of second Kings and we will spend our time alongside the prophet Elisha and then we will flip over into the New Testament and in the book of Acts today we will be encountering the…the most poignant foundational impactful decision that the early church really needed to face and come to terms with. And the implications are far reaching but we’ll get to that soon enough. First, we’re reading from the New International Version this week. Second Kings 4:18 through 5:27.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we kinda mentioned at the beginning that…that…that what was happening in the book of Acts today was really big, monumental pivotal shift. And this is known as the Council at Jerusalem or the Jerusalem Council or the first church council, like where…where church leaders had to come together and actually consider and even debate and wrestle with and invite God into a decision because they had reached a…a point where they needed the guidance of the Holy Spirit because things were not adding up. Basically, what was happening is what we’ve alluded to in the past, Jesus the Savior was a Hebrew human being. Although God made flesh, He was a Jew and He grew up Jewish. And, so, when he began His ministry the context for this ministry was Jewish and it was centered around the Hebrew Scriptures and the Hebrew prophets. Like the whole thing was based on the Hebrew story. And, so, that’s how He did His ministry and that’s mostly who He did His ministry among. So, Hebrew people who had put their faith in Jesus as the Messiah, the Hebrew Messiah, they…it was not in their mind that they were converting to a different religion or like that they were leaving the traditions of their lives that they had grown up immersed in and needed to find completely different ways of doing things. It was just assumed that Jesus is a Hebrew rabbi, He’s commenting on the Hebrew Scriptures, He’s attending the Hebrew festivals, He’s doing things in synagogues. Like this is…is a Hebrew context. Nothing’s changing here. Then Gentiles began to believe, and God began to affirm the Gentiles belief through the affirmation of the Holy Spirit. I mean we can be like 2000 years in the future right here in 2020 and go like, “man, what does that got to do with me? And why? You know, like, it just doesn’t make sense that they would be arguing about this.” But this is huge. Like what we’re seeing today changed the complexion of the faith. So, some Hebrew believers that gone to Antioch and they were teaching about Jesus, but the message of conversion or like the good news message was, “convert to Judaism. Follow the Hebrew customs. Be circumcised. And then you can follow Jesus. But until you come in through that gate…like until you come in and are circumcised and the whole thing, you can’t follow Christ.” That was very troubling to the Gentile people that wanted to follow Jesus and it was very troubling to Paul and Barnabas to the point that this Jerusalem Council came to be. And the central question was, “are Gentiles permitted to be in this faith in Christ, or is this a Hebrew only thing?” In other words, who gets to be in? So, Peter weighs in and talks about the vision that he had about clean and unclean. He talks about going to Cornelius’s house, a Gentile military man of Rome, and how the Holy Spirit fell upon the entire family and affirmed that He was accepting them in the same way that the Holy Spirit moved upon the Hebrew believers while at the same time, there were others in the church, church leaders, arguing, “no. This is a Hebrew thing. Jesus was a Hebrew person and His own commentary was in a Hebrew context. So, that…that’s how people have to understand Him. That’s how they have to…that’s how they have to come in. That’s how they get in.” And you see why it would need to be a counsel because these are valid things to consider on both sides. And in the end as they come together, hear all of the different testimony, including the testimony of Paul and Barnabas, it becomes apparent. The decision is made because they can see or sense that it’s not them that are making a decision, it’s God who has already chosen to accept Gentiles. And why heap upon them the Mosaic law when the Hebrew people have not even been…not been able to figure out or adhere to it pretty much ever. So, then the thought is like, you know, “to a person who hasn’t grown up in this or has no understanding of this, why do they need to be saddled with this when Christ has come to make them free?” And, so, they give them a very few basic things that they need to adhere to, like don’t eat the meat of sacrificed animals to idols and stay away from blood and…and…and stay away from sexual immorality. But…but other than that, “welcome to the family”, basically. “Welcome. And God is doing a new thing and we…we have to acknowledge and see it. So, welcome.” And they sent two people back to affirm this in word and they sent a letter back which we read today. This shifts things dramatically in the church because now everyone…everyone is welcome, all who call upon the name of the Lord. Everyone can be saved no matter who they are, no matter where they are, no matter how they are. It’s a big deal. It’s a big deal that’s called good news. But this good news, like we’ll see this the rest of the year as we continue through the New Testament, especially as we get into the letters. This decision right here causes monumental problems on a lot of different levels. For starters, just the Roman empire itself. The Roman Empire itself let you at the time worship whatever God you wanted or whatever gods you wanted. Like you had the religious freedom to worship whatever gods you wanted to honor however you wanted to. But you had to revere the gods of Rome, the gods of the Empire. You had to revere the gods who made Rome great. And, you know, especially like observe the national festivals and stuff like this. And if you didn’t do that that’s gonna be a problem because the people that you live among, your own nation, your own people would see you unwilling to participate in national celebrations and there's…like this time there’s not something called the separation of church and state. Like sacred and secular weren’t compartmentalized. So, if you’re not involved in what’s national and even honoring the national well then, it’s very easy to think that you are anti-Empire you are anti-Roman. And I think we’ve…I think we’ve experienced enough in the Scriptures to get the sense that that’s probably not a good idea if you want to stay well and alive. So, the interesting thing is that the Hebrew people were part of the Roman Empire as well, but their worship of the one true God, right, the God of Israel, the one who had chosen them and set them apart, that predated Rome vastly. They were a very, very ancient people with a very ancient religion. And, so they kinda had…they kinda had a pass. Like it was understood what they were doing and why they were doing it even though it was marginalizing them in the Empire. But for the most part they didn’t care about that because they were separatists, they were exclusive other than the fact that the marginalization was oppressing them. So, they were being oppressed by the Romans and that’s the environment that Jesus came into. But they didn’t have to do all this Roman God worship and stuff. Up until this point, the Christians, because they…they weren’t really called that, they were followers of Jesus or followers of The Way of Jesus the Hebrew teacher. Up until this point kind of the assumption was, “well…He…Jesus was a Hebrew and He was a rabbi. And, so, like this is part of the Hebrew religion.” And, so, they, the early believers, gotta pass as well. They didn’t have to do any of the other worship. But then this decision gets made at the Jerusalem Council, where now Gentiles have completely different rules about coming into the faith and now all the sudden the law of Moses doesn’t have to be adhered to in the way that is traditional and the teachings of Paul are kind of contrary and he’s being labeled a heretic. And, so, now all the sudden this isn’t under the protection of the Jewish religion anymore. The Jews are rejecting it and are being vocal about it saying they have nothing to do with us. So, now believers in Jesus are kind of out there because it’s like this is a new religion. And you gotta be on board with the gods that made the Empire great. You gotta be on board with being Roman if you’re gonna be here. If you’re gonna be here you gotta be here and do what we do. So, that makes things difficult because now the Jewish people want to oppress the…the believers in Jesus, the Christians as well as the Empire. So, there’s like no place to go. And over time this gets really really difficult and we will read through some of those difficulties as we go through the rest of the New Testament, but because of all of this climate that’s being formed here we’re gonna see a theme. And there’s one word that defines this theme, “endure.” It’s not particularly our favorite word. It’s probably not particularly our favorite action or posture, but we will see the church to survive, like to survive had to learn to endure. And we will see that that has a role to play in our lives as well.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for all that…all that you teach, all that you reveal, all that you snap into place for us as we move through the Scriptures. And as we continue to learn both in our minds and our brains but also as we continue to grow in our hearts, we invite your Holy Spirit to be ever present and lead us into all truth. This is our kind of perpetual request. We…we ask it a lot but it…it’s necessary. We want to walk in the truth, and you are the truth. And, so, we want to walk with you and we are like sheep and we do go astray and we need a shepherd and you have come to comfort and guide us. And, so, we surrender to that. We rest in the flow of that. We allow you to lead us forward. Come Holy Spirit into all of this we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, it’s you know, home base, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here. There are some things coming up that are going on around here. So, talk a little bit today and…and even more tomorrow about it.

So, two weeks from today is kind of our own Daily Audio Bible family holiday, I guess. It’s a tradition that we have had for well over a decade now and we call it “the long walk” and that takes place every 7^th of July. And it’s something that we do together as a community, even though we’re…we’re doing it alone. And it’s designed to be that way. So, we’re kind of alone together which is so strange because this has been a tradition we’ve had for well over a decade like I said, but in this kind of era of social distancing, yeah, we have this event that is…that fits perfectly. Like we don’t have to modify anything. So, the long walk is self-explanatory, a long walk. Every July 7^th we…we try to take the day off if we can and just go somewhere beautiful, whether near or far. Just kind of pick a park or a place or a trail or a region or just wherever, whether you drive for several hours which some people do, or whether you just go down the street. Find somewhere beautiful. Find a place to find stillness and go for a long walk with God. And it’s remarkable what that can do to change the entire complexion of the week and really the trajectory of the year. We find ourselves approaching the center of the year in the middle of our journey through the Bible and if you haven’t been under a rock, which I assume none of you have, the first half of this year has been exciting and unusual. It’s been very very different. And we’ve had to think about, contemplate and endure things that we never really…that were never categories per se, some of them of long-running things…but there’s been unrest, there’s been disruption. This is a time to re-center ourselves to actually take a day and say, “I need to get alone with God. Whatever it takes I need to get quiet and still before God. There’s a lot I need to say that I haven’t had time to say. And, frankly, I haven’t even been listening that well. And the Lord has a lot to say that I haven’t been listening for.” And, so, we just take a day out of the year in the middle of the year to restart the second half of the year and just go for a long walk with God. And just knowing that even though we’re doing it alone, we’re not doing it alone. Our brothers and sisters all over the world are doing it as well. And then we make it kind of a community event by just saying, “wherever you go, whatever you do, wherever you go on your long walk, take a picture.” I mean you’re probably gonna carry your phone with you. Maybe you could put it on do not disturb for a few hours or whatever but take a picture of where you go or take a little video of where you are and what you’re doing and then you can kind of post that as a comment to the Daily Audio Bible and then we’ll post it up on the Daily Audio Bible page and all the sudden these windows start opening up. Like we get these glimpses into the beauty of the world all over the world, but also glimpses of the beauty of each other in community just knowing that we’re really doing this and we’re really doing this together. And, so, that’s the long walk and that is coming up two weeks from today. So, I mention it now just so we can begin to make preparations and plans because…well…those of you have been on long walks in the past because we’ve been doing this for…I don’t know…I think this is thirteen years, I think. So, many of you have been on…on long walks before and could say, “yeah that is a re-centering, a necessary re-centering of the year. That does make a difference.” In fact, most people I talk with are like, “this needs… you know…this needs to be once a month. Like this needs to be something that we do often.” But here at the Daily Audio Bible we do this together each July 7^th. So, make plans for that. And then tomorrow I’m gonna tell you about a new resource that is releasing and coming…becoming available on the 7^th of July, tailor made for part of the long walk journey. And I’ll explain that tomorrow. We’ve been kind of talking for a long time about the Jerusalem Council and stuff. So, I’ll wait and share that more tomorrow. But make plans for the long walk July 7^th, two weeks from today.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage. I am profoundly humbled and in awe of the community that we have. And we have it because we’re in it together. And, so, thank you for your partnership. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement you can dial 877-942-4253 or you can just hit the Hotline button in the app and begin to share from there, the little red button up at the top.

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:

Hi everybody this is Lawrence in California it is June 17^th. I just heard Adrian’s call from June 12^th. Adrian is having a hard time focusing on things that she has to study to advance in her work and it’s really driven her downwards is wat it sounds like. Adrian, you said that you were happy that everybody would just listen to you prattle or you hoped that people would be okay with your prattling on. Adrian, it’s fine. I was happy to hear you prattle. These are hard times and I admire your courage. I admire that you have called in to join in with us and I will pray for you that things take a better turn. And don’t think of yourself as an idiot. Okay? Take care. Bye-bye for now.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is Denise and this is Ephesians chapter 2 starting with verse 14. Gracious heavenly father I pray over the Daily Audio Bible family. I pray over Asia from Chicago. I pray over Virginia from Dallas. I pray over Kingdom Seeker Daniel and Vincent and Lady a Victory and Father everyone whose voice whether prayed on the prayer line or prayed in silence who is grappling with racism in their heart and their place of being a solution here in Your world Father. I affirm that You are a peace, I affirm that You have made all groups one and that You have torn down the dividing wall of hostility between us for in Your son’s flesh Father He has made no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations that would divide us. Father, I ask that You might create one new people from the dividing parts two resulting in peace Father. And I know that You will do this so that You might reconcile us to You as in one body through the cross that Your son hung on by which He put hostility to death Father. And I ask in this prayer that we are able to proclaim the good news of peace to those who are near and to those who are far. For Father through Jesus we want everyone to know that we have both access in one Spirit to You and that we are no longer foreigners and strangers but brothers and sisters who are in love with each other who pray for each other who respect each other who can hear each other honestly and still love through whatever would make us different Father because difference is beauty. You’ve made us all different. We celebrate that Father. We are citizens with the saints and members of Your household built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets with Jesus Christ himself as the cornerstone Father. And, so, I ask in this prayer that the whole building being put together be larger grow through this strife and grow into a holy temple for You Father. And I ask this in Your Son’s matchless in mighty name. Amen.

Hi this is Rachel from Pennsylvania. I ask that you guys just lift up my brother and sister Laura and Stephen. I’m praying for their salvation just praying that they find God and that they find a personal relationship with Him. I had some time to talk with them today and I just…I was praying for God to…to help lead me and guide my words but I just felt attacked and I just…they said a lot of things that were hard to hear about religion. And I tried to explain to them that this is not about religion, but they don’t understand because they’re…they haven’t listen to the DAB and they’re not part of the community and they just don’t get it yet. I just pray that they get it one day. So, if you would keep them in prayer I appreciate it. Thanks.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible listeners this is a Elisa Marie from Dinuba. I just finished listening to the podcast for the 16^th and I heard Victoria Soldier call in and I love what she said that no matter what they tell us in about what’s going on in our country and in our nation it is righteousness that exalts a nation. And, so, upon that I come in agreement with my sister and everyone else who is praying. We put on father God…we put on the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. We take up the shield of faith where we can quench all the fiery darts of the evil one and above all we take up the sword of the spirit which is your word. Father your word says in Isaiah 54:15 that whoever comes against us it will not be you’re doing father. Whoever comes against us will surrender to us. And right now, we see the spirit of division, we see the spirit of murder, of gang mentality of mob mentality. We see the spirit of the enemy of hatred of dissension, contention and strife and division. We see you and in the blood of Jesus we say no. You stop. You take your dirty hands off of America right now in the mighty name of Jesus. We plead the blood of Jesus over the doorways of America. The entryways of America and the north and the south of the east and the west and we say no. We take authority over you by the mighty name of Jesus and with the spirit of the living God we say you take your dirty hands off of America right now. We speak peace over America. We speak peace we speak truth. May the truth of the living God came forth each and every every believer and we stand together united in the mighty name of Jesus and we say no more, enough is enough. So, you get your dirty hands off of us and we stand for truth for God’s righteousness and we ask that the peace that passes all understanding will come in and govern our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord. In the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Hi DAB family this is Nate from Washington. I need your prayers. I’ve been struggling with addiction to pornography for the last 15 years. I got to a point 3 years ago where I was faced with the decision to choose my addiction or my wife and three kids. I chose my family thank God. I believe I got the courage to make the right decision because I prayed about it for the first time. For so long I’d been trying to change on my own. I’ve made some great progress since then, but I still keep falling on my face a lot. I started listening to the DAB in January and I get so encouraged by Brian’s passion and everyone’s prayers and voices. I keep telling everybody all about it. I know that putting this out there would be accepting life on God’s terms and not mine. And your prayers help me learn how to talk to God and the DAB has been a lifeline for me ever since I found it. Thank you everyone.

Hello, my dear Daily Audio Bible family. I love you. We are one in Christ. A shout out to Tony the Narrator that what you said so encouraged me about there being only two races and we get to be family. It’s so awesome. We are not just that counterfeit that the world has for unity, which is uniformity, you know everybody being a whole bunch of clones that trying to force everyone to think a certain way and somehow that’s going to cause us to be one. Even Peter and Paul disagreed on things and in the New Testament we’ll see about John Mark that they had their disagreements the early church you know and the rockiness that…that Brian will point out later on and ask like how much more will we have trouble now. But those very diversities are what brings such glory to God when we all come together in unity in Christ and in love and I love it. It’s one of things I treasure about the Daily Audio Bible. I come here and I’m challenged. I’m not in my little echo chamber because of my background or the church I go to or whatever. I come here and I hear differences of opinion because of denomination because of race because of culture because of all these backgrounds and I go, “oh well maybe I should look at that scripture again. Maybe I haven’t been understanding or right. Maybe it’s just my tradition that has made me look at it that way.” And I love that. I love being a missionary through these almost 15 years that we have here serving in Mexico a lot of co-laborers in the gospel, English, Irish, Mexican and Colombian, Canadian, Venezuelan, Navaho, Guatemala, __, Glax, Australians, Asians, I can’t…there’s too many to name all of the different people that we have been working with and we are one in Christ.

Good morning everyone this is Helen in Durham North Carolina. In today’s reading of Psalm 136 I did what you suggested Brian and joined in saying the response “his faithful love endures forever.” And as I did that I thought throughout the earth thousands of voices are saying, “his faithful love endures forever.” It was a powerful thought to me. It is a powerful action against the forces raging against God and His authority. So, I say yes and Amen to this.

2 Kings 3:1-4:17, Acts 14:8-28, Psalms 140:1-13, Proverbs 17:22

Today is the 22^nd 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.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base and its…it’s a website on the Internet. It’s the…its home base. It’s where you find out what’s going on around here. And, so, stay tuned and stay connected.

Check out the Initiatives section for…for things that are going on around here.

Check out the Community section. That’s where the Prayer Wall lives. It’s always happening. It’s always on. You can always reach out for prayer. You can always reach out in prayer there at the Prayer Wall. And there’s different links there to get connected on the different social media channels that we’re involved in. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. There’s a link on the homepage. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your partnership as we move into the summertime. 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, if you prefer, is PO 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 which is little red button at the top 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.

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 12^th of June or probably even before that. His message was there on the 12^th 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.

2 Kings 1:1-2:25, Acts 13:42-14:7, Psalms 139:1-24, Proverbs 17:19-21

Today is the 21^st day of June welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it’s great to be here with you as we collectively twist the knob and throw open the gateway and step into a brand-new week. It is all out there in front of us. Let’s live into it with all of our hearts as we stay in close step fellowship with Jesus, the power of the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us into all truth. And that will make for…that will make for a good week. So, let’s step into this week doing that and doing what we do every day, taking the next step forward as we continue the journey through the Bible. And today…I mean it’s a special day because we’re beginning a new book in the Old Testament the book of second Kings. But there’s not really a lot to talk about second Kings that we haven’t already talked about, even all the way back to first Samuel, second Samuel and first Kings. These were all one…one scroll. They were…they were all one book at one time. And, so, things have been broken up into chapters and verses over time for ease of reference, etc. etc. And this has happened over many centuries that have preceded us. So, we will be picking up where we left off. Of course, the book…the books of Kings are telling us the stories of who reigned in the kingdom of Israel, which is the 10 tribes in the North and the kingdom of Judah which is the king…which is the tribe of Judah and Benjamin in the South. So, let’s pick up the story. Second Kings, chapters 1 and 2 today. And we’ll read from the New International Version this week.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this new week that we have walked into and we thank you for what we were greeted with as we come into this new week from the Psalms, that there is nowhere that we can go that you are not, that there is no where we can be to flee from your spirit - up, down, left or right - does not matter which direction we go or how far we go we cannot escape your spirit, which means that your presence is perpetually available to us, which means that you are present to us right this moment if we would simply have eyes to see and open those eyes and become aware. So, come Holy Spirit as we move into this new week. Lead us deeper into Jesus. Lead us on the narrow path that leads to life. Lead us into all truth we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, and that’s where you find out what’s going on around here.

Today in the United States it’s Father’s Day. And, you know, fathers as with mothers are celebrated at different points of the year in different regions and different countries, but today is Father’s Day. And, so, happy Father’s Day all of you fathers out there. I’m a father as well. And, so, you know, I think of the great privilege that it has been to be a father to my children and I think of the profound impact that they have had on my life and…and just showing me the heart of God by forcing me…by forcing me to…to not only receive His fathering but to give…to give it back to my children the best flawed, stumbling way that I can. And, so, yeah…as we remember our fathers today let’s remember them in prayer. Let’s lift them before the Lord. It’s a difficult job to be a parent but it is…it is how the gospel advances forward from generation to generation. And, so, happy Father’s Day. All of you men out there, happy Father’s Day.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you do that at dailyaudiobible.com. That’s the website like I mentioned a second ago and I thank you…thank you for your partnership. 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, if you prefer, is PO 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, which is the little Hotline button up at the top…top right…top right-ish part of 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.

Community Prayer and Praise:

My Abba you have called me. I hear you - to listen, to absorb, to feel, to understand, to reach back, to pray. Please give me the discernment, the wisdom, the words, the energy to answer your call. My 21-year relationship with multiple sclerosis will do its best to get in the way but you have called me to pray and to call the DAB, the DABC and to write on Facebook. Thank you I love you so much my Abba. This is Adrian from Maryland and I love my DAB family.

Hello, my name is Javier I am 26 years old and I live in Florida first time caller. I’ve been listening almost a month now and I just wanted to thank everybody for…for…for…for this application. It has changed my life most definitely. I just love listening to…to every word that comes from the Bible and to be a part of a community of love and peace. I…I battle with my…with guilt and…and…and just a lot of sorrow and I know I’m going…well I am going through some warfare and I…I just feel guilt over my pats sin. And I just ask everyone to pray for me to have strength and that I can trust and continue to fight this war in Jesus’ name. I thank you and love everybody so much. This honestly has changed my life so so much.

Hi DAB family this is Julie I’ve been listening since January and I’ve called in a few times. I took care of my mom for six years in my home. She had stage IV colon cancer and then she died in March and I thank everybody for the prayers at that time. God has placed it on my heart to pray for and ask for prayer for kids in the United States, kids in my area and your area who are in foster care or kids who need to be in foster care or kids who are still in a bad situation in their home or a relative’s home. These kids are often so scared and sad and angry and afraid. They don’t know if they’re gonna be able to stay in a foster home, if they’re gonna to a bad situation at home. And there’s so many kids and not enough people to take care of them. Help me in praying for these children for their safety. And pray that there’ll be more people willing to help these kids, foster families or mentors or whatever we can do to help them. Thanks DAB family.

Good morning DAB community my name is Nyia and I’m a black woman in America with a 26-year-old son and a husband and I am gripped with fear. I cannot sleep. I love God, I know I trust Him, and I know He has not given me the spirit of fear. But in these times, I have become so fearful. I do not want my family out there. When my son is a car I cannot think, I cannot breathe. When my husband leaves the house to go to the grocery store, I am paralyzed with fear. This is not healthy for me. I have prayed and prayed, and I cannot get fear away from my heart. And I’m asking for your prayers. I am praying with all of you guys that the Holy Spirit will come and bring peace in America and bring justice for African Americans all around the world. And I’m asking you to just pray for me and my family and I will continue to pray for you as well. May God bless us all during these trying times. I thank you so much.

Good morning this is Sonia in Austin Texas and I am calling for a sister that called back a couple months ago and she was very sad because she’s a single woman, she’s never been married, she has no children and it was coming up on Valentine’s Day and she wasn’t able to celebrate that with a significant other and Mother’s Day would be coming up and she said that there’s just all these reminders at her job and everything else that, you know, she just didn’t fit in these categories and there just was a lot to celebrate. But she did say on June 16^th 1989 and today is June 16^th 2020 that she gave her life to the Lord and she can celebrate that. And sister I want you to know that I am celebrating with you today the most important decision that you have ever made and will ever make in your lifetime and that is to become a follower of Christ. In we here at your family, the DAB family, we rejoice with you, we love you, you are not alone. God is with you every day. And I just want you to know that I have been thinking about you and praying for you and I will continue to do so. If you want to reach out to me, I have a funny email is called bugtickle@gmail.com. And sister, I’d love to become a partner with you and just know that…that you’ve been on my heart. And congratulations! Today is your day. What a beautiful day. Heaven is rejoicing remembering the decision that you made. Well, my time is up, and I want you to know that we love you and your so in our thoughts. Congratulations again.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible this is Cheryl in southeastern Washington. Got through…got through listening to the Daily Audio Bible with Brian. Thank you, Brian and Jill for this ministry, this podcast that we can come together and listen to the word and…and to hear what God has to say and to also listen to the prayer requests. Right now I want to…I heard a prayer request from Patricia in New Orleans just asking that God take her pain away. And I’m just letting you know Patricia, I’m gonna be praying for you that God will completely heal you and that he would just bless your socks off Patricia and thank you so much for calling in. And just know that Cheryl in southeastern Washington is praying for you. God bless you, God be with you, God heal you. And thank you Daily Audio Bible family. Love you all. Bye.

I can’t believe. These words have been, a cry for help and a battle cry as our world gets swept up in the spirit of baseless hate that’s overtaking us, hate for those who don’t follow COVID rules, hate for those who do follow the rules, hate for mask wearers and non-wearers, for Chinese people where a virus began, for foreign people after we closed our borders and now again for our black people. I can’t breathe. Why? Is this hate infiltrating me and changing the into a hateful person? God forbid it. Our world is changing but God You aren’t changing. We again find ourselves in a desert. We walk towards it originally to escape persecution fear and yet we became fearful and we began to persecute each other. God help us to overcome the fear of being unable to breathe because the desert temperatures have become too hot, to overcome the fear of dying from thirst because we forget that You are our living water, to overcome the fear of dying from hunger because we forget that You’re very word is enough to sustain us, to overcome the fear of abandonment because we can no longer see the one who leads us who is up on that mountain. Help us to overcome the temptation to build up golden idols because we forget Your promises to return to us, because we forget that the mountaintop is not really that far. It is and has always been within reach. It has been within reach through the grace of Your cross and Your Holy Spirit but even if we…if we still feel that if we can’t climb because we can no longer breathe, Lord You have promised to climb down to us again and You have sent us Your breath of life to help us to hold on until You get here. Help us to breathe Lord, help us to hold on. In the name of the Father in the son of the Holy Spirit be blessed family and be a blessing.

1 Kings 22:1-53, Acts 13:16-41, Psalms 138:1-8, Proverbs 17:17-18

Today is the 20^th day of June welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a great to be here with you for the next step forward in our journey through the Scriptures as we bring to the close another one of our…our weeks together. We’re working our way through the book of first Kings right now and we are dealing with the king of Israel in the North, Ahab, and his story. And, so, we’ll pick up where we left off yesterday. We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. First Kings 22.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. And again, we thank You for another week. And they…they go by. It seems like we wink, and they go by, but they don’t. They go by day by day, second by second, minute by minute, that’s how they go by and Your presence in our lives is a constant. And often we’re…we’re not  paying attention to that but it’s a constant. You will never leave us or forsake us. So, for all of the moments of this past week whether we acknowledge them or not, You’re present to us and we thank You for that and we have the assurance that that will continue, actually that that will continue forever and ever and ever and ever. And, so, may we rest in that. As we move into the end of this week and prepare to embark on another week, we rest in the fact that You are present. And, so, often the things we get ourselves into that are difficult and hard and challenging, we got ourselves there and we blamed You for it because You were present to us. But Your presence doesn’t mean that we can’t act on our own. You have given us this kind of permission to have a will of our own and we can go Your way or we can go whatever way we want to and…and we will reap the repercussions of that. And, so, we want to walk with the You in this coming week. Come Holy Spirit and lead us into all truth we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base that is…that is our home base on the Internet. So, if you have an Internet browser and you point it to www…that’s how we used to have to describe things before the Internet became like…I don’t know…juts a part of the fabric of our culture. But anyway, dailyaudiobible.com is home base. That’s where the Global Campfire burns. And, so, stay tuned and stay connected in any way that you can.

Check out the resources in the Shop.

Check out the connection points on…in the Community section.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible then I thank you humbly, deeply, with a heart of gratitude that…that we are here day by day because we are here together. And, so, thank you for your partnership. There’s a link on the homepage. If you’re using the app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address, if you prefer, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, of course, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement you can dial 877-942-4253 or you can just hit the Hotline button, the little red button at the top in the app.

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 evening DAB this is Blessings Flow in Pennsylvania. First, I wanted to greet everyone in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and especially thank my brother Stanley in Maryland. Thank you so much for putting my prayer song to music. I was shocked and deeply, deeply encouraged and blessed for reasons there’s no time to share, but I just wanted to thank you for that. Thank you for sharing your gift. And I wanted to pray for our brother whose wife on May 19^th they lost their little baby girl when she was 36 weeks pregnant. I have just been sighing and praying and sighing and praying in the Spirit for you because there are no words and I just want you to know that we’re praying for you, that we love you, that we’re surrounding you, that we’re holding you up, we’re remembering you right now. And Lord together as a family we pray for our brother and our sister in this time of loss, in this time of grief. Lord that You would be near the broken hearted to bind up their wounds, that they would know Your nearness, Your closeness, Your strength. Lord strengthen them with might in their inner man. Be with them as they cry, be with them as they ask questions, be with them as they sit in silence. Just be with them Lord and let them feel the love that surrounds them with this community and I’m sure their church and family as well. We ask this in Jesus…

Hi family this is Salvation is Mine in San Angelo California I hope everybody is doing well in self and in place. I do apologize that it’s been months since I have called in. I want to shout out for people here. Pelham I was listening to June 3^rd and heard that you finished your program. Congratulations on that and that you actually have other people in the program want to go with you. So, that’s a great accomplishment in itself, that you have such an influence over people, other people in such a good way in such a positive way because they want to follow you and I pray that all of that works out for you. I want to also send out prayers for Terry…Terry or Jerry, I’m not sure, I apologize, who called in in regards to his addiction to porn. That was very brave. I really do applaud you, brother. Also, let’s not be fooled, women have an addiction to porn as well. I think sometimes we are just left likely to ask for help with that. So, I’m praying for men and women and children who are showing signs of being addicted to those types of things as well, that the Holy Spirit will come upon them and release them from that. I want to pray for the gentleman who called in said his mom is sick and he lost his marriage. I want you to know brother that you have people on this DAB line that are praying for you and praying for your mother. Excuse me…and praying for your marriage if that’s what God wants. This is salvation is Mine in San Angelo California. I hope everybody’s doing well. Bye-bye.

Good morning this is Trusting Father in South Carolina it’s Monday, June 15^th and I just want to first of all tell you I love you. I’m reaching out because I am up super early, and my heart is heavy, and I know yours must be to. We…we know that there’s of course with all that’s going on right now in our country and really all around the world with the…the fight against racism and injustice. Christ in us helps us to understand that there is something seriously wrong and we need to make things right and I am all about that, but I also recognize that the enemy is really just having it…I don’t even know how to put it into words but…he is having his way. And y’all we’ve gotta be really really careful. There’s so many voices screaming and the enemy are using…the enemy is using those voices and we need to be mindful that there’s that one still voice that we are to stay very in tune with and that’s Father’s voice. And the only way to do that is to get up early in the morning and…and spend that time alone with him and just meditate upon his truth so that when He speaks to us we can be quick to hear His voice above all the other voices. And Father we know that there is so many…so many souls that are crying out. They need Jesus and that’s the bottom line. And, so, holy Father please help us not to miss those opportunities to love on those who are screaming out for You and You hear their cry and know…

Good morning DAB family this is Donald __. And anyway I called from South Sudan in East Africa. I…I did not want to make this recording. I didn’t know what to say but I as I took my walk this morning, I heard God say make it a praise report. I want to praise the Lord because my younger brother went home to be with the Lord. On Friday night he was murdered. He had somebody went to his house. An assassin killed him gruesomely because he was a believer. He’s a medical doctor in the northern state of __ in Nigeria and we are from the Eastern part of Nigeria and we are all Christians and my brother is a strong believer. So, the praise report is that in Enook, Dr. Enook Ophara is now before the most high God. Those who thought they have harmed the family did not know they have sent him home. I would have preferred that he went home in a very respectful manner but God __ this, I trust him. May His name be praised. May His name be glorified in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible listeners this is Alisa Marie from Dinuba California. I’m calling today’s 15^th of June and I’m calling in regards to my brother in Christ that called on the 12^th, I believe he called himself Wisdom Calls My Name from Northern California. Brother when I heard your call I was just drawn to…to your…to your request. So, I’m going to say a prayer. Dear heavenly Father we come before You and we bring our brother in Christ, Your son before You Lord. You know he’s been battling with his diabetes for the past 20 years and O Father God we can hear it in his voice and in his heart. The decisions he has made and some wise and some not so wise but Father God we know You still love him and now he’s reaching out to You and he’s asking for healing. So, I ask You that by the mighty name of Jesus that You would touch his body. We call his body into alignment with the word of God, everything in his blood system come into alignment with the word of God. Father You say in Your that You send forth Your word which is Jesus and You healed His body and You delivered His body from all destruction. So, I stand in agreement with our brother, deliver his body from the destruction of his diabetes in the name of Jesus. There is nothing impossible for You Father God. So, we call upon Your name and Your mercy and we ask You to bring healing and wholeness from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. In the mighty name of Jesus. And these next results Father God I pray that they would be good results Father God. I ask You in the mighty name of Jesus. And we’re gonna give You praise, honor and glory ahead of time for healing our brothers body and bringing him to wholeness. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Be blessed.

Hello beautiful DAB family this is God’s grace for Japan which is my prayer for Japan. I’m calling in, what’s today? The 15^th. I’m a little bit behind and I was listening to the 12^th’s prayers for the broadcast and I’m calling to speak and say thank you to I believe John. I hope I got that right that your name is John from South Sudan. Sir, thank you so much for your words. I needed them today. I needed them this week. I live in Japan as an American and I’m…as we’re all dealing worldwide with this intense conversation about racism and the dehumanizing of people from other ethnicities and other races and I’ve been having conversations with friends in America who try to insist it’s distinctly an American problem…this is an American thing. And, so, the way that we deal with it doesn’t have to apply to the rest of the world and I’m trying to have this conversation to tell them that, no we’re actually dealing with it here too. And the reason it’s a worldwide thing is because we are all made in the image of God. And to dehumanize a person based on race or ethnicity is to commit a sin against their humanity and the image of God in them. And, so, I just needed your words because you reminded me that…because I’ve been exhausted, I’m so exhausted and I know we’re all exhausted having these conversations and trying to do what we can do. I had almost forgotten that this is a spiritual war we’re fighting as well, that there are forces trying to destroy the human race. And thank you for your words, thank you for your encouragement. Please pray for us here in Japan. It’s hard here too. But thank you so much brother in South Sudan and my whole DAB family. Your voices are what’s keeping me going. Bye-bye.

I’m actually on the phone with my son. I’m currently incarcerated and I’m looking at a lot of time and I was looking for some prayers so I could get a second chance at being a father the way that I should have been. And my child’s mother it is currently staying in a shelter, so I also need some prayer to maybe…I don’t know…help her get herself situated and have that figured out while I’m not out there to help. You want to ask for anything son? No, I’m good. Alright. Well that’s all I’ve got thank you and have a blessed day. Can you hang up for me Robert?

1 Kings 20:1-21:29, Acts 12:24-13:15, Psalms 137:1-9, Proverbs 17:16

Today is the 19^th day of June welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today as we approach the close of another work week and head into the weekend. And we’re continuing to cover ground together. So, let's…let’s continue to cover ground together and take the next step forward. We’ve been working our way through the book of first Kings and we’ve spent some time the last couple of days in the northern kingdom, the kingdom of Israel, the 10 tribes in the north and that’s where we’ll be spending our time today. We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. First Kings chapters 20 and 21.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of first Kings today we see that Samaria the…the northern capital, the capital of Israel, of the…of the nation of Israel, whereas Jerusalem is the capital city of Judah at this point. Anyway, Samaria is under siege from Ben-hadad and they are able to repel those attacks through the providence of God, but this is gonna kinda keep happening and eventually…eventually Israel is going to get conquered by these people, the Assyrians. But we’re far enough into the story of Israel, the northern kingdom at this point. We can see it’s…it’s a pretty tumultuous time with a lot of transfer of power happening through political maneuvering and assassinations. So, that’s kind of where we find ourselves as we’re moving to the territory of first Kings for now,

In the book of Acts, we see Saul who is also known as Paul also known as the apostle Paul going on a missionary journey, on his first missionary journey, and we notice that someone named John Mark is accompanying him. John Mark is somebody that we’ve met. John Mark is thought to be the author, the writer of the gospel of Mark, which is the first of the Gospels ever written.

Now when we look at the Psalm today, Psalm 137, this is Psalm written from exile and this can get a little confusing because this comes from the Babylonian exile. So, this kind of…as we’re…we’re going into a weekend here and going to be moving into some of the territory next week and in the coming weeks, this is a good time to just keep our bearings because it’s really easy to get to the books of Kings, and we’re moving through so much territory and covering so many decades so quickly that it’s similar to the book of Judges. It’s easy enough to get lost. So, we know there’s a northern kingdom. We’ve been talking about it. We know that there’s a southern kingdom of Judah, that this unified 12 tribes of Israel has become two different nations. And, so, now the northern kingdom of Israel is under attack. They will eventually be conquered by the Assyrian Empire and those 10 tribes will be taken into exile and we’ll talk about exile when we get to these battles and stuff, but they are basically going to disappear after that. Meanwhile, there is the kingdom of Judah in the south where Jerusalem is and their going to last longer. They will outlast the kingdom of Israel, but they too eventually will be conquered by the Babylonians and also taken into exile and being taken into exile means you’re being forcibly removed from your homeland and resettled somewhere else. And, so, that’s where this Psalm comes from today. That’s where these words leap off the page, “beside the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept as we thought of Jerusalem”, right? And the Psalm goes on to say how the people there were saying, “sing us songs of Jerusalem” and they just…they’re not able to do that…like, they’re not able to be entertainment for their captors or…or other people who have been conquered and exiled. They’re broken hearted over the loss of their city and of their temple. And, so, that is the heart cry of Psalm 137. And, so, that kinda gives us the lay of the land. That’s how we’re landing things as we prepare for the weekend and…and this week. This the territory that we’re in. These are the stories that we’re…we’re moving through and are contemplating and considering.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you. We thank you for all of the people that we get to meet in the Bible, all of the stories of all of the lives, of the way that we get the look back at what people were thinking and how they were living and see that the heart remains largely unchanged even though we’re looking back thousands of years. And as we back…look back over these thousands of years we see your faithfulness. Your unwillingness to abandon the human story lets us know that you are unwilling to abandon our story. And…O Lord it is our deepest desire to tell a love story with our lives, one in which we were on an adventure together through these human years, one that we will make memories together and remember them a million years from now. And, so, we thank you for the stories in the Bible and we thank you for the story of our lives and we invite you Holy Spirit to write the story of our lives as we follow you. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen,

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, its where you find out what’s going on around here, it’s how you get connected. It’s how you resource yourself for the journey. So…so, stay tuned and stay connected.

The Community section is where to get connected, including the Daily Audio Bible women’s group that my wife leads. So, check that out. Different…different links to the different social media channels that were on our in the Community section as well as the Prayer Wall where we are continually praying for one another. Just one of the beautiful beautiful, beautiful distinctions of this community. It’s amazing. It’s amazing how it wouldn’t work on paper, but it works in the Spirit, that we reach out. Even though we may have all kinds of disagreements and diversities we just reach out in prayer for one another knowing that we’re brothers and sisters all over the world. So, stay connected there.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There’s a link on the homepage. I thank you with all my heart for your partnership. If you’re using the app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is PO 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, which is the little red button at the top, 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.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi this is Susie from Colorado I just heard with great sadness the man who called in that he and his wife had lost their child and I just…he was…he was so grateful to God that they got to actually see the baby and hold the baby before the funeral and I…I just I…I love your faith in God and I appreciate it. It just really is amazing, and I am praying for you and your wife. You said that you’d really really appreciate those prayers from all of us and I just want you to know that you are being pray for. God bless you.

Hello this is Lorrie from Ohio it’s been a little while since I have called in and I’ve been feeling stirred to call for those but have been sharing about not having the strength to…to shower and do work at their home and then again when Jill posted about the letter she receives from those who are incarcerated. To each of you, you are loved, you are a child of God. Then today I heard this prayer of St. Francis and wanted to share. Lord make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is discord, union. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. And where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood, as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen. Thinking of you all and praying for you. In God’s love and peace. Amen.

Hi this is Galena from Atlanta I wanted to thank Elayna for welcoming me to DABbers community. I really am grateful, and I just want you to know that I’m praying for you too. Going through a divorce is a really hard time and you’re in my prayers. I just wanted to say that there’s a lot of things that happened in my life since I’ve called and left my first message or prayer. I actually found a job and I was without a job for two or three months. And the day when I left a prayer was the day when I had an interview and two days later when my prayer was played the same company gave me a job offer. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I think God really truly saw into my heart what I needed and wanted, and He chose to shower me with his blessing. So, I just want to say thank you so much for accepting me into your community and I want to continue praying for Elayna and the young man who is going through a hard time with marriage and his mother who is very bad condition. I just want to pray over all of you who have marital problems right now, that God will deliver you through it and will make you stronger and your relationship with Him will be better than it ever was. Thank you.

Heavenly Father I pray for Alicia from Pennsylvania. I thank You Lord that You moved in the heart of Your child to speak out against racism. Lord that You would move in the heart of all Your people called by Your name to realize that there is something that they can do no matter their station to speak against injustice and offer comfort, compassion and even confrontation where necessary. Lord I pray You bless Alicia with the words that she needs just as You blessed Stephen and he spoke before the Pharisees Lord, for her to keep her eyes on You at all times and to speak in truth and in love. I pray Your protection over her, I pray Your wisdom for her Lord. If there are any others Lord that would be so bold as to hear Your call to their heart to stand up in this time of deep, deep division and to offer comfort. We move away from fear and move towards love Lord. I pray Your blessings on all those Lord that will speak truth and power no matter where they are no matter what the situation Lord. May Your people heavenly Father that are called by Your name bring healing to this land and bring it to the place where it’s supposed to be, that we can live up to the truth that is self-evident and all Your children are created equal. I pray Your blessings in Jesus name.

Hey, everyone it’s Margo in Liberia. I’ve got to be quick. I need prayer for a lady that we’ve been trying to help at the hospital her name is Patience. Her husband died last August leaving her destitute basically with two young children. She moved in with a male friend who promised that he would support her and her children. He got her pregnant. He then demanded in abortion. She attempted the abortion which failed. The man kicked them out. She was staying with friends, but a young man attempted to rape her young daughter. She caught him in the act in they all fled. She ended up on the streets. She was selling cookies that she made over a coal fire so that she could survive. That all ended with the coronavirus lockdowns here. She ended up taking her two children to an orphanage because there was no other way they would survive, and she ended up in our hospital. She is due to give birth any time. We’ve been trying to help her as best we can. She’s so depressed. This week an ultrasound has just shown that the baby she’s carrying has no limbs and we are…we are at a loss. We haven’t even told her this yet. She is already in such a bad way. She will probably refuse to keep the baby. That’s very common here. In a culture like this people will think that she has sinned in some way and this is her punishment. And we don’t know what to do. We don’t know what to do with her or the baby if it even survives once it’s born. There’s no…there’s no infrastructure here to care for babies like this. Can you pray for myself and Annette the social worker, that God will show us how we can help in this situation? Maybe we can help this mother to be able to raise this child and help the mother to be able to live with the guilt of the attempted abortion. Please just pray for the situation, that God would come through and provide a solution. Thank you.

Hi DAB family this is Elizabeth from Detroit I’m a first-time caller I’ve been listening for a few months and I wanted to thank Brian and everyone behind the scenes. This is an amazing podcast and outreach. I was not planning on calling in anytime soon since I’m a new listener, but I heard an urgent prayer request on June 10^th from Marla in Albuquerque who suffers from depression. I’ve been praying for you. Then a few days later on June 14^th I heard your praise report about the medication being…arriving safely at your doctor’s office. That’s such good news. I wanted to say that you’re not alone in the struggle of having bipolar. I have bipolar too and I know how debilitating it can be. I want to pray over you. Dear heavenly Father You know Marla from the inside out. You created her in her image. She’s precious in Your sight. I praise You Father for the Latuda shipment coming in. I praise You Father because I know You’re with Marla in the waiting. You are beside her, You’re behind her, You are before her. Lord I pray that Marla will sense Your presence and her perspective will shift. I pray that she’s alleviated from all bipolar depression so she can get back to…into the daily rhythms and activities of her life. Father renew her strength, surround her with people who will support and encourage her. I pray all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This is for the man who lost his baby daughter on May 19^th. I can’t imagine the pain that you two must be going through and I’m so sorry that you’re having to deal with or endure it. But I just want you to know that I am so lifted up by the way that you…you perceived it in that God is good and that you’re not blaming him and that you had the honor of holding your baby daughter before she died. And, so, Lord just…just bless this family. I just ask that I know they are going to speak to those who have gone through this same thing. But yet Lord I ask for a miraculous blessing on them of children. I think it’s in Isaiah 54 about the tents being enlarged. And I just ask for that for them in Jesus’ name. Amen.

1 Kings 19:1-21, Acts 12:1-23, Psalms 136:1-26, Proverbs 17:14-15

Today is the 18^th day of June welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a joy and an honor to be here with you today around the Global Campfire as we just kind of step away for second. There’s always plenty of distraction and there’s always swirling thoughts that can kind of pull us away and lead us down paths that lead us in a funky mood or whatever. There’s always something, but this little space that we’ve created each day is an oasis. We just kind of step away from it all. It’s not going anywhere. We…we might change in the process and approach it differently when we return, but this is just permission to allow God’s word to speak into our lives and just rest in that knowing that we’re not alone. If you’re listening to this right now, you’re not listening alone. Nobody ever is. Ever. So, we just ease back, relax, and let God’s word speak. And that will take us back into the book of first Kings. Yesterday we had a showdown in a place called Mount Caramel which still exists until this very day. It’s a mountain. And there’s a king in the North, his name is Ahab and there’s a prophet in the North and his name is Elijah. And there was a showdown between the God of Israel and the prophets of Baal. The prophets of Baal are no longer with us, but Elijah is. God showed up with fire from heaven, loosed the skies so that rain, which had been absent for three years is coming upon the land. Ahab the king is in his chariot racing back to Jezreel. Elijah’s running and running faster than the chariot to outrun this storm. Meanwhile, Ahab’s wife, her name is Jezebel, is about to find out that all her prophets are dead. She doesn’t know it yet. And that’s where we pick up the story. We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. First Kings chapter 19 today.

Commentary:

Okay, so we can’t skip by first Kings because this is such an amazing story, it’s such an interesting turn. So, Elijah has prophesied to the King of Israel Ahab that there’s going to be no rain. Ahab searches for Elijah for three years all over the known world trying to find him because there isn’t any rain. Elijah shows back up on the scene and confronts the king, summons the prophets of Baal to mount caramel and essentially throws down a challenge that the God who answers from heaven by fire is the true God. Of course, the people were like, “yeah that sounds like a good deal. The God who answers by fire from heaven, that would be the most powerful God. That’s a good deal.” And, so, this all happens, the prophets of Baal spent all day cutting themselves and the whole thing. And then God answers by fire. The prophets of Baal are killed. Rain comes back to the land. Ahab the king is racing back in his chariot to his wife Jezebel who’s in the city of Jezreel. Jezebel finds out that her prophets are dead even though fire came from heaven and the people’s hearts are returning to the God of Israel. She’s not Hebrew. She…she…she married the king for an alliance. So, the Hebrew God and the Hebrew traditions and the Hebrew way of things, this isn’t so important to her. She’s very upset and she sends a note to Elijah that says, “may God punish me very severely, even kill me, if I don’t kill you by tomorrow, basically, “if your heads on your shoulders tomorrow then may God judge me.” And it’s really interesting what happens there because Elijah had just…I mean…the miraculous was all around him. The things that God had just done to affirm him as His prophet, the power that had just been displayed, like he should be walking, you know, a foot off the ground in confidence and the people’s hearts are returning to God. Like he should be…like, this is…this is a big thing. But he gets this is note and he freaks out and he runs away. The prophet who had just called down fire from heaven runs away out of fear from Jezebel. And he doesn’t like just run and hide, he seriously actually flees, he runs far. So, he is in the northern kingdom of Israel near Mount Carmel, which is kind of somewhat of a coastal mountain. It’s not right on the ocean but it’s not that far from the Mediterranean coast. This is…this is the Jezreel Valley. This is fertile territory. He runs south all the way to Beersheba, which is in the transition zone of the desert, the southernmost border city of ancient Israel, now Judah. So, Elijah crosses an international border from Israel into Judah, keeps fleeing south to Beersheba, leaves his servant and then goes into the no man’s land of the desert, not just camping out and hiding in the desert but continuing in the desert all the way into Egypt. All the way to Mount Sinai where we spent so much of our time earlier in the year where the law was given. I’ve never…I never measured. Like I’m guessing here, but I’m thinking that to drive from Mount Caramel all the way to Mount Sinai, even with like with no delays whatsoever at all, that’s gotta be like 10 hours just moving steadily in a car. And that’s if there’s like interstate. Like we’re talking about barren wilderness, empty desert here. And he’s on foot. So, this is a very long way that he’s running. And he gets back to this mountain and it’s beautiful that he would go. Like he…he really feels alone here. And, so, he’s making this journey. It’s just interesting. He gets to Mount Sinai and he’s in a cave and he’s waiting, and God shows up and God says, “what are you doing here, Elijah?” That is so interesting. Elijah, of course, pours out his heart. Like he’s the only one. There’s nobody left, He’s the only one that’s true, everybody’s trying to kill him. He's…he’s at the bottom, right? He’s really, really low and he’s kind of gone on almost a pilgrimage to make some sense of all of this and God tells him to come out to meet him on the mountain. And that’s when it’s really really fascinating because all the power is displayed on the mountain. I mean the same kind of power that was shown up at Mont Carmel - fire from heaven and everything. So, there’s a windstorm and rocks are falling off the side of the mountain and God’s not in that. And there’s an earthquake and that shakes the whole land and God’s not in it. And there’s fire and God’s not in it. Like it’s not in all these fantastic displays of power that you would expect. That’s what we’re looking for, the signs and the wonders. Instead it’s just in the whisper. Elijah knows that God’s out there waiting now in the still small voice. And he goes out and God asks him again, “what are you doing here?” And Elijah then pours out his heart. Like I’m the only one. There’s nobody left. This…this is why I’m here. Like everybody has abandoned you and everyone is trying to kill me. And that’s when God tells him, “it’s not true. Go back the way you came. You have to appoint a new king. Like my plan isn’t finished. What’s happening here isn’t over. Your job isn’t done. You have to appoint your successor as well, a new prophet in Israel. Your work isn’t finished.” Man, I…I love the story because it's…you know…we have a very, very good narrative. It’s a very well reading story. It’s a beautiful story to behold. But once it becomes a mirror it’s a pretty serious story to penetrate deep into our own hearts because how many times have we been this character in this story? How many times have we heard from God, obeyed God, walked in the confidence of the Lord, seen God move in our lives until somebody is offended and we get a text, we get a nasty note, and then we run, run, run, run, run until we’re out in the wilderness again, wandering again, alone again. And it’s like God comes to us in His kindness and mercy and says, “what are you doing here?” And maybe that’s the question for the day. Maybe that’s the question for this season. Maybe that’s the question that needs to be asked. What are you doing here? And maybe you got here because you were looking for God chasing signs and wonders looking for him to show up in his power and majesty when He never left you, he never forsook you. He was always there, the still small voice. He was never absent from you. And maybe He’s saying, “go back the way you came. Your work is not accomplished yet.” It’s funny, no matter how many times I think about that story there’s never a time that I can’t think of some area in my life that that does not apply to. And I think of lots of times in my lives…life in years well gone by where clearly…where looking for God in the wilderness was sort of the way I lived, wandering around in the barrenness looking for something. And I am so grateful that…that God comes to each one of us at one point or another with the same question, “what are you doing here?” And, so, may we stir some of that into our cup today and sip on it as we ponder.

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into that. I mean it’s true. We’ve spent plenty of our lives wandering in the wilderness. We’ve spent plenty of our lives on the run from things. We don’t often slow down enough to search for You in…in all of this. We’re usually waiting for You to move things out of our way so that we can just walk on…on a path. We’re just waiting for…for You to show up and do things for us, not expecting that You might show up and say, “what are You doing here?” So, we invite You into that. We need Your leadership, we need Your counsel, we need Your correction, we need Your rebuke, we need Your kindness, we need You. And, so, we open ourselves to You so that You might lead us in the steps forward from here. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Song:

Sanctuary - Chris Rodriguez

Seems I left the innocence of Eden long ago
Tempted by my heart to go it on my own
Beyond the garden, somehow through the desert
Of my wanderings alone, You have never let me go

I turn from You and still You cover me
I fall so far, You find me in the deep
Anywhere I am, anywhere I am
You sanctuary me

I have felt the separation deep within my bones
Brought me to my knees, crying out for hope
Beyond the garden, somehow through my tears
You heard the words I could not speak, You were there to rescue me

I turn from You and still You cover me
I fall so far, You find me in the deep
I lose my way, You’re reaching out to me
Anywhere I am, anywhere I am, You sanctuary me

I turn from You and still You cover me

I fall so far, You find me in the deep

I lose my way, You’re reaching out to me

Anywhere I am, anywhere I am, You sanctuary me