|
|
Daily Transcripts
|
06/29/2015
|
|
2 Kings 15:1-16:20 ~ Acts 19:13-41 ~ Psalm 147:1-20 ~ Proverbs 18:4-5
Today is June 29th. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I'm Brian. It is great to be here with you from the rolling hills of Tennessee, the lush, fertile, green, lovely, humid, hot rolling hills of Tennessee. Wherever you are, I hope it is a beautiful, beautiful day for you.
We’re reading from the Common English Bible this week, working our way through the second book of Kings and we will take over at chapter 15:1 and read through 16:20 today.
Commentary:
Yesterday we were just kind of talking about how we’re moving through the quick, fast-paced stories of the kings and how we can press into this and see kind of the whole thing disintegrating from the inside out. We see some moves in the right direction, but we see this continual spiral downward, right? And now we’re seeing these alliances with empires that are ultimately going to come and take over.
Down in Judah we come to King Ahaz. Just as an illustration of how low things have gotten, King Ahaz, the king of Judah, David's ancestor, right? So David, a man after God's own heart, his ancestor, we see him sacrificing his own child, a human sacrifice to a false deity, an idol made by human hands. That is how far we’ve come.
This human sacrifice happens in the Hinnom Valley just off of Mount Zion. This won't be the only one. So lest we think this is in some dark, distant cave somewhere where some crazy ritual is going on, this is happening in Jerusalem. The king in Jerusalem is sacrificing his child in the Hinnom Valley in Jerusalem. Later, much later from where we are in the Old Testament, in the time of Jesus in the first century this valley would be known as Gehinnom, Gehenna. It became the dump, trashy, very, very dark past. A place where they would bring the trash and burn it and it would be always burning. A place where they would bury the bodies of outlaws, people who had been executed, they would throw the bodies. A place where Judas would hang himself. A place that Jesus would refer to when he spoke of spiritual punishment.
This is how far we’ve come. This is how it has spiraled. This is how the erosion has happened. This is what we’re seeing happen in the stories of the kings. It can be discouraging in a way because we’re just watching it all come apart and we could easily apply it to our own culture and go yeah, the whole thing is eroding and falling apart and this is where everything is headed, but that is not exactly right because we flip over into the book of Acts and what we’re seeing is the first couple concussion blasts or reverberations from this resurrected Savior. I mean, if we think things got so bad that the king of Israel was sacrificing his son in the Hinnom Valley and that is as far as it got, oh no. That is not as bad as things got. Things didn’t get to their absolute epicenter of evil until Jesus came because we have the sacrifice of the Living God happening Jerusalem, this man being nailed to a cross who is God incarnated into flesh, God allowing himself to be executed by his creation that he might save his creation from utter and total destruction. That is how low things went.
But then life come blasting through and we’re at like the inner circle of that in the book of Acts. It is blasting outward. The kingdom is invading outward and we see the power of the Holy Spirit in the world. Certainly it is opposed. Of course, it is opposed. The kingdom of darkness isn’t just surrendering. It is being overwhelmed by the kingdom of God. So yes, in the Old Testament we are watching things spiral down and we see things spiral down all the way until Jesus, but now in the book of Acts we are seeing things spiral out, life overwhelming darkness. O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?
So lest we get a defeatist attitude in our own lives and begin to go well, society is just going to hell in a hand basket, we’re just watching this whole thing fall apart, Jesus come quickly, establish your kingdom, we need to understand that we have a part to play in that. This same Holy Spirit that we are watching in the book of Acts overwhelmingly bring life into this world, that is what we are a part of. It has been blasting out since then and we are a part of that story. Life is bursting out. Life is breaking out. We’ve got to fight for this. We’ve got to have this life in our lives, the kingdom bursting out from our lives and overwhelming the darkness around us.
We have these examples of people like the apostle Paul or the apostle Peter or any of the people around them and we could just look at them mythically and think they are like superheroes but they’re not. They are literally mostly less educated than you are. This is just the power of the Holy Spirit to a person ruined for anything less than all of God. That is every bit as available to you and me as it was to them. Life is breaking out. It is all around us. We can look at the darkness and focus on the darkness and forget that light exists, but life is breaking out all around us. The power of the resurrection is all around us. We must remember this because this is the jet fuel that will propel us forward in our lives. It is something to live for. It is something to fight for. It is something to press on for. May we all today bring the kingdom and allow it to overwhelm everything around us.
"Let There Be"
Darkness hovering
Grasping everything it sees
void empty
Absent life and absent dream
Let there be
Angels toil and crack open scrolls of ancient dreams
Countless worlds of his
Brilliant stars and breath and stream
Let there be (light)
Where there is darkness
Let there be light
Where there is nothing
Let there be light
|
|
Tamarie 06/29/2015 10:28 |
|
|
