2 Kings 8:1-9:13, Acts 16:16-40, Psalms 143:1-12, Proverbs 17:26
Today is the 25th day of June welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today as we continue the journey. Our journey at this point in the Old Testament has us in the book of Second Kings and we’re learning of those kings and interspersed with that is the story of the prophet Elisha. And, so, we’ll continue with that before getting into the book of Acts. Ae are reading from the Contemporary English Version this week. Second Kings chapter 8 verse 1 through 9 verse 13.
Commentary:
Okay. So, in the…in the Christian faith it’s not unusual to hear someone say something like, “yeah, we’ve gotta be ready in season and out of season.” And this comes from the Scriptures of course and it’s generally a sentiment that's…well…in part it means we should always be ready to offer and share the good news of the kingdom of heaven, and of Jesus our Savior, but it also kinda means we should be awake, alert, aware, always ready in season or out, always ready to do the work of the kingdom, to be aware of the kingdom. And that is what we are actually witnessing materialize in the book of Acts. That is what we are watching. That is one of the characteristics of the early church, that when they suffer persecution, they endure it but then maybe they move out, maybe they move somewhere else to find a more…more freedom of their religious expression but wherever they go they take the gospel with them and that’s how this kind of spreads. And what we see is that it’s under the pressure that it materializes. It’s like this ongoing pressure coming against the church and their willingness to endure it and be in season and out of season, like to be still in the moment or in the game or how…whatever kind of language we would use. Even as they had to endure hardship and challenge they were still able to be in the moment sharing the good news of the kingdom, not just with words but with their example in their very lives. And, so, we see a really good look at that idea in what we read in the book of Acts today. So, we’re now on Paul’s second missionary journey, right? He goes with Paul and Barnabas…Paul goes with Barnabas and they…they move around and then they get in a fight and Barnabas leaves off with John Mark who is the author of the gospel of Mark as we understand it, and Paul heads out with Silas. And, so, they’re in Philippi and they’re ministering and there’s this girl, right, who keeps saying, “these are the men who are showing the way to God and she’s like a fortuneteller. She has a spirit and she’s a slave. And, so, her ability to sort of tell people their future is how the slaveowners make money. And she’s been kind after Paul and Silas telling everybody, “they’re telling you the right thing.” And then Paul finally gets exasperated and commands the spirit to leave her alone which…which ends up getting Paul and Silas in court because now they’ve taken away the livelihood of these people. And, so, they want restitution, they want justice. A mob forms. I mean we see this so often. And then Paul and Silas end up getting beaten and thrown into jail. Everywhere we look in the book of Acts we see the light colliding with the darkness in very volatile ways. So, Paul and Silas are beaten, and they are in jail. The whole thing is an injustice. They were beaten unjustly. They were imprisoned unjustly. And in particular they’re Roman citizens. So, they’ve been…they’ve been imprisoned without a trial. That’s a big deal in the Roman Empire. It’s a big deal in most of our cultures. So, you know, if I’m putting myself…if I’m just being super honest in this moment and put myself in that position and then think, “okay. I just got beat up. So, I’m feeling sick, I’m feeling bruised, I’m feeling cut. I’m not feeling good in my body. And I’m chained to a block of wood that I can’t move. I’m trapped. I’m in this dank, stinky, awful prison with…I guess…with criminals but I haven’t done anything wrong. And, so, for me, yeah, I’m probably crying out to God in that moment, but more like the Psalms - take vengeance upon my enemies. This isn’t right. Get me out of this.” And I don’t know if I’d be able to sleep or not, but I would probably get angry, I would probably have fear. I’m after all chained up and anything could happen. It wouldn’t take long before I started thinking about the injustice of it all and I would probably get bitter and just sit with that while wondering what comes next. That's…that’s not the posture, though with Paul and Silas. They…they have given their lives. Like, they know that they could die at any moment, and they have accepted that. And, so, they have given their lives in their mission day or night in prison or not in prison, with plenty to eat or with nothing to eat is to continue to reveal God’s kingdom by sharing the story of Jesus. And, so, they’re beaten up, they’re bruised, they’re not feeling good in their body, they’re chained to a block of wood, they can’t escape. It’s unjust and so they decide that they’ll worship God instead. I mean…that’s in season and out of season. That’s in the moment going, “well…we’re beaten up and we’re in prison but that doesn’t mean that our mission has been thwarted because our mission is to be a light in the darkness wherever we are, however we are. That's…that’s beautiful, right? That’s beautiful, that’s faith. That's…that’s what it looks like. But it's…it’s just easier to conceptualize on paper and go, “Yep, Yep, Yep”, until we’re actually, you know, beaten and bruised and chained to a block of wood, that's…that’s when it actually gets lived out. It isn’t a theory or a concept. Most of us don’t get beaten up and thrown into prison. Some maybe in this community, I mean this is a large community all over the world, so some probably have experienced this. If you have experienced this then you can think about what that was like and where you were in your life at that point in time, but most of us aren’t likely to get beaten up and thrown into prison for, you know, for casting a demon, an evil spirit out of a fortune-telling slave girl. Like we’re not probably gonna repeat that cycle but we do face hardship and trial. There are things that we must endure. And the further we go on this journey into the New Testament the further we’re going to see just how much our brothers and sisters did have to endure and how much they had to encourage each other in that endurance because it’s so discouraging. But we have this example the book of Acts today. It gives us a really, really good luck what it means to endure, what it means to be really, deeply sold out and committed to a mission in season and out of season wherever they are, however they are, and that’s an example for us brothers and sisters. That’s an example for us in our own endurance.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit we invite You into that. We hate challenge and endurance. I mean we can grow familiar with it and even accept but it’s always challenging because it’s always hard. And in that hardship, the longer that it goes on, so the longer that we have to embrace endurance it’s so easy to get bitter, it’s so easy to get discouraged, it’s so easy to throw up our hands in the air and say, “I quit.” But this is the…this is the point at which we are actually growing. When it’s challenging and difficult, this is when we are actually growing. And You give us seasons of growth and You give us seasons of rest. You are a good Father. We trust You. And, so, come Holy Spirit and help us to properly interpret the days of our lives. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Announcements:
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And I’ve been talking about it during this week. We have something coming up, and on the calendar…on the calendar. And that is the 7th of July. That is our own little holiday here around the Global Campfire. It’s a day that we call the Long Walk and it’s something we’ve been doing well over a decade now and it’s every 7th of July. As many of us can, we take the day, draw a circle around it and carve it out basically, push everything else away from that day, so that that day can’t get hijacked, so that that day is clear and then we go for a long walk. So, maybe we drive a couple hours to a beautiful place that has meaning to us or maybe we go to the nearest park, somewhere beautiful wherever that might be, somewhere beautiful where there is nature, and, yeah, go for a long walk with God. And it might sound like, “well…what’s that all about. It’s kinda self-explanatory. Really, that’s really what it is. Go somewhere beautiful where the majesty of what God has created reveals itself, things that we take for granted, like the beauty of nature or the birds or the babbling brook or the animals that just scurry around. And they’re having life and they’re living their lives uninterrupted moving through their day, day after day. It’s beautiful to witness that. It’s amazing how healing it is when we’re just out among it with no agenda, we don’t hurry back to anything, we have this day, pour out our hearts to God, say everything that we just haven’t had the time to say and just realize, “oh…my conversations with God are just like text messages…like it’s so quick and now I have some space.” And God has been waiting for that space and in that space to commune with you. And, so, yeah in part it is saying everything that needs to be said but it’s conversational, it’s intimate, it’s love. And, so, communication and beauty happens in the spaces where nothing is being said, in the silence. In fact, the silence is more profoundly meaningful than anything we’ll say. And it’s important just to listen. So, that’s kind of the long and short of it. That’s the Long Walk and no doubt you’ll have a tablet or a phone or some type of device in your pocket or in your backpack or whatever with you. And I’ve mentioned this the last…I mean I’ll mention it right up until we do this, the trick is to keep it in your pocket, right, or keep it in your backpack and not be checking it every five minutes because it will be apparent pretty quickly how addicted we are to these devices and we’ll see just how often we naturally turn toward them for comfort and just a distraction when there’s another move. There’s another move besides reaching for the phone. We can reach for the Spirit of God instead. And, so, we just learn a lot about ourselves taking a day with God. But there will be some point in that day where you want to grab that device and snap a picture or take a video just to remember, to remember that you went on this long walk and what that meant to you, but also you can share that. So, we’ll have a post at the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page for the long walk and you can comment in there with your pictures and your videos and your stories. And then as we all kinda come in, because this will happen all over the world, so it’ll happen in waves all around the world. We come back and just glimpse at the beauty of God’s creation all over the world that happened that day like on that day and have this little mini vacation as we just connect for the Long Walk. So, put that on your calendar. It’s the seventh day of July.
I have mentioned, there is a resource that is tailor-made for the Long Walk. It is called Hearts, a Contemplative Journey. You can download that onto your device from…well…wherever you…wherever you get your music. So, like the iTunes Store or the Google Play Store. The thing is you have to…it’s not stream-able. You have to download it, purchase the album and download the album. So, not Apple music, but the iTunes Store for example. And that so everybody has to by records. It’s because there’s a lot…it’s a prayer and contemplation contemplative journey that includes music and includes prayers that are really aimed at the emotions of our heart that we all feel and that we all sense and that we’re all going through. And there’s no way. Stream-able you have to have all the prayers disembodied from everything else and it’s just, as I’ve mentioned, kinda weird. So…but if Hearts, a Contemplative Journey is something you want to incorporate into your long walk. I recommend it for sure. It is a wonderful, wonderful way to get the conversation started. And you can get that from wherever you get your music.
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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:
Yes, this is Patrice from Norcross GA I was calling for the gentleman James the Teacher in Los Angeles with regard to receiving God’s joy. And when I was going through a very difficult time in my life, suffering abuse in my marriage for years, one of my coworkers while I was a teacher, he…he taught taught me that joy was going to be a decision. He was a former Vietnam vet and he had explained to me all the things that he had gone through in life. And when he elucidated those things, I was wondering why he was so joyful, and he said that every day he wakes up he’s grateful and he continues to proclaim that today is going to be the greatest day of my life and I’ll never be broke again. And…and I realized that joy was going to be a decision that regardless of what you may be going through on a regular basis every day is a new opportunity to take hold of God’s promise for that day because the devil’s always going to fight you to take away God’s promises. So, be really encouraged. Find whatever encourages you and know that you’re in complete control of your day. So, speak it according to God’s word, that today is going to be the best day of your life. And just be blessed…
Hey everyone, this is Michael from California just wanted to share a praise report. I listened to this app roughly 10 or 11 years ago when God first called me to start following Him and I took a long break, a long hiatus about nine years and just started up again this year. And wow…I mean it's…it’s encouraging to hear everybody praying and yeah, just to support the Holy Spirit and how God is using this ministry. So, just keep praying for the…the impact left here. It’s a very…very huge blessing. So, God I just thank you for this community and I pray that you would set us all ablaze for you…
Hi DAB family this is Dorothy out in California. I miss you and I love you and I wanted to ask for your prayers. My friend Nikki she just…I…how do I describe this? She’s really sad to where she wanted to take her life and she…she reached out to me. I think she’s a new ager for…she believes in everything including Jesus and she reached out to me because she knows God…I hear from God, so she was like reaching out and life circumstances and we prayed the prayer of, you know, giving your life to God and she just…she needs God to rescue her. Well…if you could pray with me. Please Abba, please rescue her from her circumstances and talk to her. Give her direction but let…please talk to her. Talk to her like you talk to me, draw her close. Please. Thank you, God. She needs your comfort. Please in Jesus’ name. Amen. Thank you, DAB family. I love you guys. Bye.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family it’s Lorelei and Boynton Beach I am calling for prayer on behalf of Eric Lucas who I’ve called in over the years. He’s a man who has been in prison for 13 years now and the Lord saved him in prison. I’ve talked that he is provided a wife and a daughter, and he has continued to faithfully disciple them over the phone for the last three years. His last appeal did not get a response, a good response although he did get moved to a different facility as the church was praying. It was a beautiful moment. We were all praying for him, and he got move the next day to a closer facility. And we know that God is on the move. His ways are not our ways His thoughts are not our thoughts. Mr Lucas has provided a letter for the Supreme Court, and it just reminds me when Paul said oh, I appeal to Caesar and to Caesar you will go. And sometimes we have to go to the highest court, but we know that we have then justified in the highest court in heaven, and we are saved washed clean of our sins. So, we pray that God opens the door for Eric Lucas. I know many people have children coming out of prison, Daniel junior has gone into prison, and I’ll testify that God had to take me to jail to woo me and break me and call me into his glorious light. So, Lord please family pray with me.
Hi this is Nannie Always Praying. I’m asking for prayer for my son today. My son is a young man who has gone through life and hasn’t really embraced the goodness of it. He’s a child of God although he was pulled himself away from it for a while. He now has a serious alcohol problem. He wakes up with a drink all through the day. I don’t know how he functions at work. I’m just so concerned for him, and I just spent a weekend watching him looking at him and I know that his body has experienced some grief with the amount of alcohol that he puts in his system. I pray for him daily. I just ask this community to please send up some special prayers for my son. His name is Robert and he's…he’s a young man. He’s 39 years old. He just seems to be wasting his life away in the bottle on a daily basis. And I’ve tried to encourage him. I pray for him, and I just ask you that the community would pray for me. I would be so grateful thank you all Hardin family for all that you do and for just being there giving me the strength in the word on a daily basis. Bless you all. Thank you.