Leviticus 25:47-27:13, Mark 10:32-52, Psalms 45:1-17, Proverbs 10:22
Announcements:
Today is the 2nd day of March. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here with you today once again, from the holy city of Jerusalem, where we are about to embark on our final day together. And, of course, we’ll be talking about that in a little while. As we get to the end I’ll share kind of what our day looked like yesterday. Can’t share what our day looked like today because we haven’t lived into that day yet. But this is our final day. And, so, thank you for your prayers as we move into this day where we will be exploring the final days of Jesus. But let’s go ahead and dive in and take that next step forward in the Scriptures. We’ve been reading from the New International Version this week, which is what we will do today. And, of course, we’re picking up where we left off yesterday, and that takes us back into the book of Leviticus. Today, chapter 25 verse 47 through 27 verse 13.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for bringing us through another week in Your word and what a week it’s been…what a week it’s been all around the land where these stories we are immersing ourselves in took place. And Lord is even as we have reached the conclusion, the final day where we walk in Your footsteps on Your last visit to Jerusalem, we invite Your Holy Spirit to lead us, speak to us, and for those of us who will be flying all night back to all of the different destinations that we call home we pray for safety and stamina. We pray for the jetlag that comes along with the re-immersing ourselves into the lives that are normal for us. And for all of us who have been on this trip virtually Lord we ask that You plant what we’ve heard, what we’ve read in the Scriptures into our lives, into the soil of our hearts so that Your word becomes more and more alive to us and within us. We love You Father and we thank You for all that You’ve done and will continue to do. We pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Announcements:
So, yesterday was our final day outside of Jerusalem and we spent the day mostly outside of the city getting back in time for the Sabbath day to start. And a lot of people went over to pray at the Wailing Wall and be in the Jerusalem markets, but we left in the morning and went to Emmaus and Decapolis which is one of the locations associated with the road to Emmaus. And, of course, that story is certainly found in the New Testament when Jesus rises from the dead and he’s walking along the road to Emmaus. And at dinner he breaks bead and vanishes. And those in attendance who had been walking along with Jesus, who had been unpacking the Scriptures and explaining what needed to happen in Jerusalem around the death of Jesus, they were like, “wasn’t our heart burning within us when He was talking to us, when He was opening the Scriptures.” And, so, we centered ourself in that and then took, you know, about 15 - 20 minutes just to breathe, to be silent, to pray, to center ourselves for the day. And that’s a hard thing to do once you’re in an urban area, once you’re in Jerusalem and the jostling around and the moving around. We’ve been battling the weather looking at it as the Israelis do, a true blessing. They’re getting so much rain it’s bringing the Sea of Galilee back up. It has been down so far. And, so, this is a good thing but it’s hard to be in it. And having that few minutes to walk around, have a bit of serenity as we move into the day, and to see the sunshine again, it was really nice. We went from there to Beth Shamash for just a small stop because, again, it’s been raining so much that it’s very, very muddy. And some of these locations, they’re not, I mean, they are active archaeological places. Beth Shamash is certainly an active archaeological place. So, there’s trails and stuff to walk around but there muddy. I was just shocked at how much the last archaeological season at Bet Shamash had revealed. I mean, it was remarkable. I saw some of the trenches, some of the little squares they were digging, preparing for that last year, but wow, that was something to see, just driving by. And, of course, Beth Shamash is important in the Scriptures because, as the story is told, the Philistines and the Israelites were in reasonably continual conflict and at one point the Philistines captured the ark of the covenant they kept taking it around to their Philistine cities and putting it in their temples before their gods and the statues would fall down and the people would get sick with boils. And, so, they move it to another city and the same thing would happen. And, so, they finally decided to send the ark of the covenant back with a gift to Yahweh and they determined that they would put the ark on a cart and load it up and hitch it to some cows and if the cows knew where to go, like if they went back into the Israelite territory then they would assume that the God of Israel had been the one that was causing the plague and the trouble but if the cows didn’t know where to go, then they wouldn’t know. But the cows did know where to go and they came straight back to into Israelite territory to Beth Shamash. So, it’s a place where you can say, you know, the ark of the covenant was here. And from there we went to Bet Goovreem, which is biblical Merisha and that is in the Scriptures as a city conquered by Joshua. But the archaeology there, it’s all over the place from the Roman era all the way back into biblical times. But what is so spectacular about it is the caves and the olive trade and it’s centered around the time between the Testaments, so the time kind of the Maccabees, but it gives us an opportunity to actually participate and observe and see the science of archaeology, like see how it is that the places that we’ve been visiting and centering ourselves in, how it is that those are preserved and identified and to even participate in that and find things and as just clearing out little sections, being a part of that. And that’s always fun and, yeah, it’s quite a beautiful place. It’s in the Judean Hills. So, it would’ve been in the land of Judah, the southern kingdom, and the hills are a really beautiful there. So, just to get out of the city, you see green again, to see rolling hills again is always rejuvenating. So, couple hours there, a quick bite of lunch, just…it’s been cold and overcast but we had a picnic anyway. And it was nice before heading back toward Jerusalem. We made a quick stop at Apish or Lachish. We weren’t even able to get out…even in the parking lot…we weren’t even able to get out in the parking lot, but we were able to see, at least, the city gates and what’s there. And what’s important about Lachish is that it was the second most powerful city behind Jerusalem. And there’s a story of King Senacharib. We’ll get to this story soon enough where the Babylonians are invading and just taking down every city. And, so they’ve taken Lachish, which is the second most powerful city and Arab Shikha is sent, an envoy is sent to Jerusalem with a message from the king, you know, what God in any country has ever been able to withstand my power? And as that story goes, the God of Israel, Yahweh was certainly able to withstand his power. So, just a quick drive by there, and then one final stop, the valley of Elah, which is associated with the story of David and Goliath. And, so, we walked out into the Valley of Elah and situated ourselves and pointed out a few things. This is ancient borderlands between Philistia and Israel. So, a lot of ancient cities along the border to protect the border etc. etc. And, so, just kind of pointed out, understood what was happening there. And there’s been so much rain that the brook was running with water, which is something I have never seen because it’s always been a dry creek bed for as long as I’ve been coming here. I was talking to one of our drivers whose been driving for decades and he said this is the first time he’s seen water in it himself. So, even though we’ve been kind of battling some rain we’re seeing some things that don’t get be seen very often and the water running through the valley of Elah was one of them. So, we situated ourselves in the David and Goliath story and were able to kind of stoop down and reach into that brook and get some rocks and to take them with us to remember the battle is the Lord’s. And then coming back to Jerusalem for the rest of the day. So, we spent our last day out and about and one more day out in front of us and we will be completing this tour. We thank you for your continued prayers as we each begin to disperse and get on long flights to faraway destinations that will eventually bring us back to our homes and our own beds and our own families and our own communities where we are asking God to help us to live into the change that has taken place in our hearts as we’ve spent this really blessed time on a pilgrimage through the land of the Bible.
I’ll remind you that we are planning to take another pilgrimage to this land a year from now in 2020 and registration for that event is now open. You can get all the details at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section. Just look for Israel 2020 and you’ll find what you’re looking for, all the questions that you might be asking, all the kind of details that you would want to know, you can find it there. Looks like that trip is nearing half full. So, definately check it out. I’d love to spend this time with you next year in Jerusalem.
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And that’s’ it for today. I am Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Hi, I’m calling for the very first time for a prayer request. And I’ve listened to the Daily Audio Bible for years. Today was the story about the man whose son was possessed by an evil spirit and no one could draw it out. And I think that I need to give my daughter in the same way. She’s 26. Last night I took her again to a mental health hospital for her third admission for depression and anxiety. She was abused by her father unbeknown to me. He was a pastor. And as a result she can’t trust any man or God and she’s really in desperate…in desperate need of your prayers and so is everyone who loves her because it breaks all of our hearts. Thank you.
Good morning friends, my name is Vivian and I live in the front range of Northern Colorado. I’m calling today to ask for prayer for our pastors, little boy named Noah who is dealing with seizures. And this is not something that just happens a couple times a day but a couple times every hour. These seizures started about two years ago with meds they were able to control them for about a year and now the seizures are back with a vengeance and meds just aren’t doing the job anymore. He is now looking at possible surgery. His parents are exhausted and frightened yet looking to God for help. Noah loves Jesus and knows Jesus can heal him. Today as we read Mark 9, the healing of the little boy from an evil spirit when Jesus told the disciples this kind of spirit and only come out by prayer. So, this has moved me to call and ask our prayer warriors to please pray for little Noah and the removal of this evils spirit of seizures. Please pray that no matter how these seizures are removed for him that he is healed so he can enjoy being just a little boy again and so that his parents will have comfort and rest and peace. Love you guys. God, bless.
Hi, my name is Tracy I’m calling from Vancouver Washington. This morning I was touched by Tim from Tampa. The last thing you said was I need to get my stuff together and I thought to myself, oh, that was me for years and years/ But Tim, what you need to know is none of us have our stuff together and Jesus loves us no matter what. So, my prayer for you is that you will rest in who you are in Christ, that you will rest in who Christ says you are. It’s not about what we do, it’s not about waiting to go to Jesus until we get our stuff together. Just go to Him, just rest in Him, spend time with Him, spend time studying who He is and the getting your stuff together will come naturally because He will change your heart. So, Father, I just pray for Tim today. I just pray that You would show him in an abundant way today that he is loved by You whether he has his stuff together or not and Father that You would just changes his heart so that he naturally would come to You and You could get his stuff together for him. Have a great day.
Morning family, this is Pete from Salt Lake City again, I just wanted to really quick thank everybody who prayed for me regarding my distance from the Lord when I was just feeling that absence. I am getting back on the path somewhat, you know, and I just want to thank everybody for that. Really quick, I just heard Tim from Tampa’s prayer today. __ probably felt a lot like I felt and have felt quite a few times. But Tim I just want you to know that I’m praying for you here brother. I just pray that God will reach out to you in a way that makes sense, that you will know that it’s Him and that you’ll know that He’s there, because He is there. So, I just had to remind myself over and over, but I am praying for you Tim. And I do want to reach out real quick with an additional prayer request for my son Isaac. He is 13 years old and he recently confided in his mother and I that he’s been hearing voices. He’s named this voice and it’s been telling him to __. It has hurt him in the past apparently. I’m just…at a loss. I know this is obviously the enemy…just an evil spirit. I know…I think back to the verse about, you know, our battles are not flesh and blood, you know, they’re spiritual battles, there dark forces. And I know that’s what this is. And, so, I would just ask the community to cover my son Isaac in prayer that he would be protected and that we could drive this demon out of him, that he would return to being a happy normal kid. Thank you so much everybody. I love you all. Safe travels Brian and everybody in Jerusalem. __ I know you well. Thanks again for the app. I love you guys. Bye.
Hi, this is Cindy from Tampa. Would you please pray for Pam and Tom Wolf, they’re in Tampa Florida and they’re Daily Audio Bible listeners and they lost their daughter Amanda to cancer yesterday, and Amanda has two little girls, six and eight, and a husband. So, please pray that God will comfort them and fill the void and just get them through this difficult time. I just thank you so much. Thank you.
Hi family, this is his little Cherry in Canada and I wanted to thank everyone who has prayed for my mother-in-law Roberta. We got the call last night that Roberta has passed away. A couple of weeks ago the doctors gave her only a few days to live. And, so, it is a miracle that God gave her two weeks. And most of that time she was alert, she was at peace, she was comfortable and not in pain, and she was able to say goodbye to her children, her grandchildren and pray a blessing over them. She was able to speak to many of her friends and family members and she was able to pray, and her faith was a beacon of light for those who are not following the Lord. We’re waiting to hear when her services will be. My husband who’s a pretty emotional guy is grieving but he is holding onto his faith and to the faith of Roberta. He wrote a beautiful tribute to her last night and he read it me with many tears. It was very moving, and he wants to read it at her memorial service. And, so, would you please say a prayer with him. He feels that God really wants him to read this tribute to his mom and to her faith and he wants to be able to get through it without completely breaking down. Would you pray for strength for him and that God would kiss that tribute that my husband has written and when it’s read it would pierce the heart of everyone who hears it and many would be drawn to Christ. That is Roberta’s prayer I know. She is rejoicing in heaven. Thank you so much for your prayers for her. Thanks family. Bye-bye.
Hey family, this is Viola from Maryland I hope you’re all doing well. Brian I’m praying for your trip. I pray that you will be protected, you and everyone that’s on that trip in the name of Jesus and that the Scriptures would come alive to all of you more in Jesus’ name. So, God boss you. Jill, I’m praying for the More Conference. Ladies, I want to encourage you, sign up for the Moore Conference it’s awesome, phenomenal. I’ve been three times and each time was even better than the first. So, ladies, go on that trip. Brother __ I’m sorry, I don’t recall your name, but I’ve been praying for you and I hope that everything is okay now. I’m praying that the Lord will touch you __ once again __ your situation. Please call back to let us know how everything went and I pray healing over you in the name of Jesus. __ brother __ I pray that __ step into your situation in the name of Jesus, that the Lord will touch your wife’s heart and make it tender towards you in Jesus’ name and the Lord will restore your marriage. I __ every work of the devil in that marriage in name of Jesus. I bind every __ spirit that has been assigned against both of you and I decree and declare that you guys are reconciled in the name of Jesus and I pray that you will see your son soon. Brother I’m praying for you. __ brother that also called, you were calling about more business in the fact that things are not…things are not working out as well as you would like it to work. And, Father Lord, I just pray that You would touch Your son in the name of Jesus, That you would provide for __ oh God in Jesus’ name. Family, God bless you. Keep praying for my son, Daniel because he’s still looking for a permanent job but we trust in God for the best. God bless you.