2 Kings 1:1-2:25, Acts 13:42-14:7, Psalms 139:1-24, Proverbs 17:19-21
Today is the 21st day of June welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is awesome to be here with you today as we gather around the Global Campfire together, take the next step forward together. That next step actually leads us into a brand-new book. We concluded the book of first Kings yesterday with the story of Ahab and Jehoshaphat and Micaiah the prophet and 400 other prophets who are hearing different things and a battle that took Ahab’s life. Now we begin second Kings, and there’s not a whole lot for us to discuss. Like these books - first Samuel, second Samuel, first Kings, second Kings - like these were all one text at one point. So, we’re moving into second Kings, but its delineation was made at a much later date. One thing that we will do is continue through the kings of Judah and the kings of Israel, but we will also get a good…we’ll get to know prophet Elisha, who will succeed Elijah who was sort of the profit that we dealt with in first Kings. But as we move into second Kings, we are essentially picking up right where we left off. And, so, let’s do that. We’re reading from the New International Version this week. Second Kings, chapters 1 and 2.
Commentary:
Okay. So, as we begin the book of second Kings, we were able to witness the departure of Elijah and sort of the transmission of his authority, his prophetic authority upon Elisha. And Elijah went up in a whirlwind, chariots of fire. And Elisha saw that and Elijah’s cloak foul from the chariot as he’s departing. And, so, Elisha has the cloak of Elijah. He goes back to the Jordan River, hits the water and it splits so that he’s able to walk over. Other prophets see this. And, so, Elisha has taken on the role of Elijah. And we will see Elisha often as we continue to move through second Kings.
In the book of Acts, we are journeying with the apostle Paul on his very first missionary journey. And, so, he is going to places where the gospel of Jesus has never been fully taught if it has ever even been heard of. And what we see is that the gospel of Jesus draws people to it. They want to hear about this, but not everybody is accepting of it, which is exactly how it was when Jesus Himself was walking the earth and conducting His ministry. And yet many do believe. But if we notice now that the gospel is spreading forth from Jerusalem throughout the Roman Empire and now Paul is traveling…like a traveling missionary throughout the Roman Empire things were not easy. In fact, it’s easy enough to say that what Paul is experiencing on his missionary journey is what he had intended to perpetrate upon people who believed in Jesus. He was on his way to Damascus to do the same kinds of things that are happening to him when he saw the bright light and met Jesus. Now he’s on the receiving end of this persecution and once again we see that persecution, pressure, stress on the situation is actually what was a catalyst to spread it out throughout the world. They didn’t have it easy. They walked a difficult road. If they hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here. And, so, when we consider the times of the early church or the times of the book of Acts let’s remember that. We often look through rose colored glasses like it was a utopian kind of time. But as we actually read the accounts of the time in the Bible, we see that God’s grace was sufficient and his Holy Spirit was indeed leading them, but it was not easy.
And then finally we read from Psalm 139 today which is…which is one of my favorite Psalms personally, find tremendous, tremendous comfort in it. And, so, let’s go back to some of the stanzas in that Psalm and absorb them very, very…let’s focus our attention for a second. “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens you’re there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me. Your right hand will hold me fast.” I love that passage, I love it so much because it in effect says, there is nowhere that I can go to be outside of your presence. Wherever I go, even if it’s in the depths, even if it’s on the other side of the world, wherever I go I cannot escape your presence. I find a tremendous amount of comfort in that. It helps me know that the feelings of God’s presence aren’t something that have to be conjured up. We don’t have to like whip ourselves into it so that we can become aware of it. It’s never taken from us. We are in God’s presence now, right now, and we will remain in his presence all day. Where can we go that He is not? What if we were aware of it all the time? What if we were perpetually aware that we are in God’s presence, and there is nowhere that we can go that He is not? What a comfort. What a relief. We spend so much of our lives trying to figure out where He is and what He is doing when we are in His presence if we would become aware of it.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit, come. Open our eyes. Give us eyes to see, give us ears to hear. Make us aware that You are everywhere. We are in Your presence and our request that You lead us deeper, deeper into Jesus, deeper so that we become more and more aware. Make us rooted in this. Make this a nonnegotiable in our lives and in our hearts and in our minds. You are here. You do not abandon us. We are in Your presence. Lead us we pray. In the mighty name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
Okay. So, well normally I would say dailyaudiobible.com and…and all of that but there is an important thing to announce and make us aware of. dailyaudiobible.com is the website by the way, and the app is available in the app store.
But we are at the time just preceding our own little Global Campfire Daily Audio Bible holiday that takes place every year on the seventh day of July. And I think this will be the 14th seventh day of July that we’ve observed this. And those of you who have been around for more than here already know it’s the Daily Audio Bible Long Walk.
And, so, let me tell just an abbreviated story. Daily Audio Bible began on the first day of January 2006. And, so, every day, seven days a week since then this is where we’ve been, around the Global Campfire moving through the Bible together each year. It was the seventh day of July 2007, so like a year and a half after the Daily Audio Bible began that there was a big prayer gathering here in Nashville in the rolling hills of Tennessee at our football stadium. And proceeding that there was like a walk through the Nashville area. Tens of thousands of people, like the streets are closed down. And people are walking through. Not randomly like it was chaos. It was planned. But tens of thousands of people kinda walking through the streets and it was silent because that was the point was to kinda silently prayer…pray and walk into the stadium. So, there’s tens of thousands of people walking through the streets of Nashville in silence before the Lord, interceding, and praying on the way to going into the stadium. And Jill and I, our family, we participated in that. And if we remember, like if we go back to that point in time all of these little things that we do right in the palm of our hand like broadcasting live from wherever we are to Facebook or to YouTube or to Instagram or anything, this stuff hasn’t been fully invented yet. It is definitely not available in the palm of our hands. But this day of prayer that happened in Nashville was televised in certain areas. And, so, it was one of these times where we’re physically in this location and praying but other listeners to the Daily Audio Bible are throughout the earth being able to watch and participate. And, so, we’re able to kinda like create posts. And not in real time, interact in any sort of way that we could today. But at the time it felt like, wow, we’re really doing this and we’re really doing this together. And, so, the next year which would’ve been 2008 we just commemorated that beginning moment of really feeling connected in real time, and again not like what we can do today but at the time this was really really cool, and we began the Daily Audio Bible long walk. And it’s really simple. We have reached the halfway point through our year, the seventh day of July is close to the middle of the year. It’s like here we are halfway through our journey through a year, halfway through our journey through the Scriptures and the halfway point is a really good time to take a moment to reflect, to look back at the first half of the year and to look forward to the second half of the year. And what better way to do that than to take one day out of the year and give it to God. And that’s not to say that we’re not giving ourselves to God in every moment of every day. But to take a day and go for a long walk with the Lover of our souls, our Creator, the One who knows every hair on our head, the One who has hopes and dreams for us, the one who is Fathering us, our Lord. We certainly talk to God every day. But to take a day to go out into the beauty of creation to find somewhere beautiful whether it’s right down the street from us set up park or whether it’s several hours away, a meaningful place to us that we find beautiful, we take this day and we go there and we take a long walk because it’s so rare to have unhurried time with anybody but we so rarely have unhurried time with God. We always may be worshiping or asking for help, but it’s always on the go it feels like. We never have a day where we can just go and enjoy everything that the Lord has made and enjoy just being together with God, enjoying His creation and actually having the time to say whatever we need to say and actually having the time in silence to listen and hear God’s response to us. We just so rarely if ever have that opportunity. And it’s not because we can’t have the opportunity it’s because we don’t take the opportunity, we don’t prepare for the opportunity. And, so, the seventh day of July has been that for us all of these years, a special little Global Campfire holiday where we give ourselves permission to take a day. And the seventh day of July is two weeks from this Thursday. And, so, we take this day and do just that, have the time, a day away with God, a long walk, an unhurried walk. I’ve often over the years invited us just to kinda look back to the time where maybe we fell in love and how time wasn’t really a thing in that zone. When you fall in love it doesn’t matter you do the craziest things, like go for walks in the rain and find it to be romantic. Like later on you’re like, I’m not going out in the rain, I don’t wanna get wet. But when we fall in love it just doesn’t matter what we’re doing. Just us being together, our souls being knit together, it just…time stands still as it were. July 7th is about remembering falling in love with the Lord, remembering what that’s like, rekindling that, our first love to go and enjoy what God has made, enjoy the day and just be able to verbalize everything that’s going on, not just a quick immediate spur of the moment anxiety inducing kinds of things that we need God to do for us, but just to let time stand still and enjoy fellowship with God. And it’s remarkable when we go out into beauty how restorative nature can be. Like, a long walk in a park in silence is really remarkable, at least it has been for me. Like just how much life is happening that I’m not aware of and that I’m not paying any attention to. A long silent walk and the little critters of the earth and birds and the wind in the trees and the swaying of the flowers, it’s all happening. We’re just so busy we rarely take the time to notice, but on the 7th of July we take the time to notice and not only say everything that we need to say and hear everything that we need to hear but also re-group reset and launch into the second half of the year feeling like we’ve found right side up again, like we’re not just swirling around trying to figure it out. Like our feet are on the ground again, we are rooted again. And it’s a beautiful thing. We as a community moving through the Scriptures together, we are all over the world in every time zone on every continent. And, so, it’s not like we can all gather together and take this gigantic, tens of thousands of people walk. But we still can. It’s an individual, thing. It’s a time that we spend with God. But it’s also a time that where aware that our brothers and sisters all over the world are doing the same thing. And then we do a post on Facebook on the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page and invite everybody to post their pictures from their long walk into that post. And, so, over the course of a couple of days they all…all come in as they’re happenings. And we’re all over the world so it’s happening in different time zones. It is like little windows are opening up into each other’s lives and we get to look through those windows and kinda see what it looks like where you are, what it looks like where I am. Maybe some of the things that you were impressed by or that the Lord revealed to you or showed you during your long walk had become such an encouraging kind of reset and restart as we move through the second half of the year that we’ve just always continued to do it. And, so, that is coming up on the seventh day of July. And, so, make preparations for that. Give yourself permission maybe to take a day off. Give yourself permission to go on a long walk with God. And, so, we’ll continue to talk about that as we get nearer and nearer and then the day will arrive. It’s one of my favorite Daily Audio Bible days. I love watching pictures come in from all over the world, some remarkable…I mean…the beauty of God’s creation is staggering. And to be able to get glimpses into places we may never be able to visit or go. Just know we have brothers and sisters everywhere, and just to see the beauty of God’s creation all over the earth on a single day is awesome. So, plan for that. The seventh day of July, the Daily Audio Bible Long Walk. It’s our own little holiday here. And we’ll continue to talk about that as we continue day by day toward that day. So, make some plans for that.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if the mission here to bring the spoken word of God to whoever might be able to listen wherever they may be on this planet no matter what time of day or night that it is and to build community around the rhythm of showing up around the Global Campfire every day, if that is meaningful and life-giving then thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you are 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. That’s the little red button up 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 DAB family this is steadfast Stacy in Arizona. First a quiet thank you too Blind Tony for his faithful poetry ministry and to the Hardin’s for their faithful work with DAB. Such a blessing to me and my family. This prayer is for K J in Southeast Asia. Thank you for calling again and helping us know about your prayer needs for Mackenzie and her nut allergy. Thank you for the miracle of being able to connect with us. We were missionaries in that part of the world and understand the darkness and I’m just honored to pray for you. Father in heaven please take care of Mackenzie and her team and K J and help with that situation Lord to Your glory to make that team healthy and cohesive and deal with their physical spiritual and medical needs. Lord, give them unity with each other and clear direction as a team as they minister to the local church and try to be Your hands and feet in a dark place. Thank You that Your light shines so bright in dark places. And thank You for the opportunity to pray for them in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Hi Daily Audio Bible family my name is Christina I’m a first-time caller I’ve been listening since the 1st of January, and it’s been such a moving journey from me. I was listening to today’s Bible reading and I heard a gentleman caller who needed prayer because he is having a hard time in the last few years and he’s listening to a lot of fellow believers around him telling him certain things about salvation that I’m feeling is really just affecting him. And Lord I just pray for this gentleman. I just ask that You give him the words that he needs to hear. And a lot of people around us, a lot of other humans will say things and they have a lot of things to say sometimes but is that really what You have to say Lord? And I ask that You heal his heart and give him the support that he needs during this time Lord and that he knows it’s what You say that really matters. Doesn’t matter what other people say. He needs to listen to Your word and listen to what his word says to You. Lord, I’m just new myself to this community. I’m a recent Christian about a year ago and I was just asked to serve as a worship leader and begin training on that and I’m just so excited. I’ve been singing my whole life and I feel that the Lord has set me up for this moment and I just ask for prayer during this time that I am a good steward of…of this position. And I’m just so thankful for Brian and his whole family and for this whole community. God bless you all.
Hello DAB family today is Wednesday June 15th my name is Tiffany and I’m from South Central Ohio. This is my first-time calling in. And while listening to the prayers and the requests after today’s reading I heard the heart cry of a young man who did not give his name and the Lord really touched my heart for him. Whoever you are Sir I want you to know that I’m praying for you and to remind you that you are so precious to our Lord. There’s not one thing about who you are or what you’re going through that he is not intimately aware of. And it is by his love and grace that he will keep you and continue to work deeply in your heart and life. He’s not a God who abandons his beloved. So, stay the course young man and know that you are not alone in your journey. You are in good company and our loved dearly by your fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord. And I pray that the Lord encourages your heart and gives you the strength to continue after Him. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Hi DAB family this is Tammy from the Adirondacks. I just got done listening to the June 15th podcast and there was a young man who called in. You…you were saying that the past couple of years have just nearly killed you and people are telling you that you have to be strong. And I don’t know…I…what I do know is…I am…I’m a new Christian, saved myself. And what I do know is what I have read in what the word has told us is when we are weak, He is strong. You asked the Lord into your heart, you asked for forgiveness, you repented for your sins. And you're…if you’re living a life that is pleasing doing the best that you can, you’re going to mess up, you’re going to make mistakes. But the Lord knows that. He knows that. You’re…He’s not expecting perfection. He’s just expecting you to come to Him. He is expecting you to come to Him when you’re weak. He’s expecting you to come to Him when you’re having a hard time. He’s expecting you to come to Him when you’re lost or broken. That’s what He wants to do is help you. He will restore your heart and your mind and your soul. That is what He wants. He wants the broken ones. So, don’t get discouraged brother. Don’t get discouraged. It took me…it’s taken…and I’m still figuring out…but don’t get discouraged. You are on the right walk. You are walking with the Lord and that’s all He, that He asks of us. Love you. Be blessed.
Greetings from Springfield MO from the Midwest Soul Sister. I am praying this morning for the gentleman, the godly man calling up for prayer for his family and his marriage in Dubai. God I just pray that You would come alongside this gentleman God and remind him that You see him, that he is on Your radar, God that You would come and minister to him. God, I pray unity over his family. I command in the name of Jesus that order would be brought out of this chaos God, that You will help him Lord and lift his eyes towards You. God that he would be brave and courageous and remind him that Your favor rest on him. So, God I just pray that he would turn his eyes to You, and he would find refuge in Your promises in the name of Jesus.
Hello this is Jennifer calling from the Seattle area and I’m calling in regards to a per request sent out by Patrick, a retired police officer in the Seattle area. He said he has retired and is now going to work helping with wellness for police officers. And I’m so happy to hear that. My ex-husband is a police officer and has struggled so much with PTSD and trauma from the things that he’s witnessed on the Police Department over the years. So, I would just love to sing a prayer right now for Patrick and for all law enforcement servants. So, heavenly Father I pray for Patrick. Thank You for giving him this opportunity to work with police officers. He’s been in the trenches. He knows what it’s like and he’s a believer. So not only can he offer them ways to cope but perhaps Lord he can offer them the hope of Jesus. And, so, Lord may Your light shine brightly through him as he has this opportunity. May Your Holy Spirit work through him. I thank You that he’s excited to get started and pray for every officer that he’s going to touch, that they would be blessed and that You would give them hope. And Lord I just pray for all law enforcement around our country and even around the world. It is a hard job, and it hardens hearts. Oh God I pray that You would work in the hearts of the police officers, that You would protect their lives, that You would keep them safe, that You would bless their families, that You would protect their families, and Lord that You would point them to You. I pray for even a revival in the police offices around the country Lord, that strong Christians would stand up for what they believe in and be willing to share You with others. So, we pray this all name Jesus. Amen.