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Daily Transcripts

07/05/2015
1 Chronicles 1:1-2:17~ Acts 23:11-35 ~ Psalm 3:1-8 ~ Proverbs 18:14-15
Today is July 5th. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I'm Brian. It is a pleasure to be here with you today and looking forward to arriving home back in the rolling hills of Tennessee after a quick long trip way up to the northeast, to the great state of Maine where we had a wonderful time at the River Rock Festival. Great memories will always be in my mind of the time we had. It was good to see so many of you.

So we’ve got a brand a new week in front of us and on this brand new week we will, of course, read from a new translation. We’ll read from the English Standard Version this week. But we finished the books of Kings yesterday which brings us to the books of Chronicles, 1 and 2 Chronicles.

Introduction of a New Book:

We’re not absolutely sure who wrote the books of Chronicles, but Jewish tradition going way back has the author as Ezra. From a timeline perspective, Chronicles was penned between 450 and 425 BC which would definitely put Ezra within the running to be the author.

1 and 2 Chronicles will cover a lot of the same territory that we covered in 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings, but it is looking at it from a completely different perspective. We’ll be looking at the history through the eyes of the priests and their take on what happened.

So we just completed the book of 2 Kings and we see that the children of Israel are in exile. There is no northern kingdom. There is no southern kingdom. It all has been overrun. It is gone and all of the people that were there have been carried away into a land that they don’t know and into a culture that they are being assimilated into. They’ve been taken away by the Babylonians brutally.

The books of 1 and 2 Chronicles were written from exile, so from captivity or from a place that they are supposed to make a new home and become a new people. They were written down, these Chronicles were written down to remind the children of Israel of their heritage, who they are, who God is, how to worship him and with the hope that there will be instructions for them for what to do when they return.

So as we dive in, the first 9 chapters cover a lot of genealogy and although the genealogies can be tedious and we wonder why we’re reading these names, once we understand why they are there, they tell a moving story.

These people we’ve been traveling with this whole year, the children of Israel, are in exile. Jerusalem is gone. It has been destroyed. The northern kingdom of Israel and Samaria have been destroyed and repopulated. Everything is gone. Everything has been blown up. All that we’ve worked through, it is over. The way that the exile happened, people had just been herded out, many families had been split apart, a lot of people had died. They never saw each other again due to slavery, due to forced relocation, all of the things that you can only imagine, just the horror of it, kind of like some of the things we’ve been seeing with Christians running away in the Middle East like in Iraq. I mean, to just flee with whatever they can grab.

These names, these genealogies, they are knit together so the people can remember where they’ve come from and who they are. Each name has behind it a story. It's not just a name. It's a life and it's a loss. Of course, this won't be the last time that this happens to the Jewish people. Some of us still alive today can recall the hardship put on the Jewish people during World War II. So these genealogies matter. We can tune out but it is worth diving into and not just blowing through it.

As we go back through some of the territory we’ve already covered, once again we will see God's faithfulness, God's forgiveness, his mercy, but also his justice. The children of Israel learned firsthand what it looks like to serve God and the repercussions of their own actions as they turned their backs on him. None of this has changed. We all face the same things in our own lives. So as we read these stories, the echoes through history can remind us of who we are and encourage us deeply to follow God and walk in his will and walk in his ways.

So we begin today and as we begin, just put yourself in that position where you’ve just been herded to a place that you don’t know and instructed to assimilate into a culture you don’t understand. You’ve got a lot of people around you that are your own people, but you don’t necessarily know them. And you're looking all around for people that you may have lost or anyone that you might know and then over time people begin to get together to try to put together what they remember and this list of names is what comes out of that.

Commentary:

Okay, we’ve laid out where we are as we go into the Chronicles – exile, remembering, trying to piece the story back together so that it can’t be just forgotten, because that is the aim of the Babylonians, just to move people around and have this Babylonian Empire where over generations they are just Babylonians, they don’t really remember their heritage. And the people are trying to write down the things that are their heritage so they don’t forget who they are.

We move into the New Testament in the book of Acts and we see that Paul has gone to Jerusalem even though all of his friends and even prophecies told him what would happen there. In fact, the Holy Spirit had told Paul that captivity would be waiting for him there but that he should go. And so he did. This riot broke out and Paul was taken into custody and since he is a Roman citizen, he has certain rights as a citizen, but his own religious people are plotting to assassinate him. This gets uncovered and we see Paul then spirited out of Jerusalem on his way to Caesarea.

Jerusalem is in central Israel and it is a high point. Caesarea is to the west on the Mediterranean Coast, north of Jerusalem, a pretty good piece of land to get to, but Paul is under heavy guard and so they spirit him out of the city under heavy guard and get him all the way to Antipatris where this heavy guard is then released to come back to Jerusalem, and just a small contingent takes him on to Caesarea because it is much safer in the region.

Antipatris is very interesting because it exists, but it had existed and has existed for a very, very long time, way back into the Old Testament. There was a city called Aphek and a great battle was staged there. In fact, it was between the Philistines and the Israelites. The Philistines assembled their army at Aphek and then went into battle with Israel and it was in that battle that they captured the Ark of the Covenant. Later in the Roman Empire, Aphek would be renamed Antipatris, so a region with tremendous and long biblical history. It exists to this day. Aphek, the ruins of ancient Aphek are in a mound. They haven’t been fully excavated, but the Roman period, Antipatris, does have ruins and you can see the Roman roads leading into a giant fortress that exists there, walk along that road coming from the south, knowing that it is the road that the apostle Paul came in on.

It is striking. It is just one of the reasons that we’ve continued this effort with the Promised Land films to connect the stories of the Bible with the archeologically proven places that they happened. So Aphek is one of the places we visited this last time, Antipatris, and it is our goal to have some of this ready within the next couple of months. But even as I read that, I found myself going back in my memory, walking down that road, thinking ‘this is really the Roman road, the ruins of the road, the way that they placed the bricks down at an angle so chariots wouldn’t get stuck and carts wouldn’t get stuck and even some grooves from chariots of the time.’ It is all there. It is fascinating.

So we find the apostle Paul now on his way to Caesarea where he will spend some time in captivity, a much nicer captivity than it would have been or was in Jerusalem. Caesarea is just a lovely place even today. The ruins of the Roman Empire of that time are just really, really spectacular in Caesarea. So we’ll enter into this story more as we go forward.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you again for another day in your Word, moving into another week in your Word and inviting your Holy Spirit to plant seeds that yield life and the Fruit of the Spirit in our lives. We thank you for all that you have done and all that you are continuing to do in our hearts and our minds and our spirits as we are transformed by orienting ourselves to you daily. Come Holy Spirit into this day, we pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Announcements:

Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website and it is certainly where you find out what is going on around here, what is on the itinerary. The Daily Audio Bible Shop is there. Check that out. What is on the itinerary right now, I guess, for this week is it is somewhat of a busy week.

Two days, Tuesday, a couple days from now, the 7th is the Daily Audio Bible Long Walk, a day that we set aside as a community here to do something together, even though we’re doing it individually since we’re spread out all over the world. It is a day that we set aside and just say look, we’re in the middle of the year. We’ve walked this far. We’re in the center of the scriptures. Let's live this out. If we are claiming to have a relationship with God, then let's go do what a relationship requires: Some time, some communication, some just beautiful, relaxing time together.

So we just say go wherever it is that you find beautiful, whether it is near or far away from you. Take some time and go for a walk, a long one, a long walk with God, one that you give yourself the space to say all that has been cooped up in your heart that you're just too busy to let out. Just say it all, but one that gives space for response, so the Holy Spirit can come and speak back, maybe shape what the rest of this year is supposed to look like.

The way that this becomes a beautiful piece of the community is that we just say when you're out there, wherever you go, whether it is a small walk at a nearby park or whether you’ve driven somewhere that you find beautiful, snap a picture, grab your phone and snap a picture and then send it in on our Facebook page: Www.Facebook.com/DailyAudioBible. It is amazing what happens as we get these little windows, these little snapshots, these little moments in time. It can be more than a picture. You can shoot a little video if you want and all of a sudden we have this mosaic, little windows into each other's lives. It has always been beautiful. I expect it will be beautiful this time too, so plan for that on Tuesday.

Then this weekend coming up, we’ll be back on the road at the Ichthus Festival near Lexington, KY, so thankfully not quite as much travel as I’ve had the last couple of weeks, not quite as far to go, but it is just good and looking forward to being there at the festival and seeing some of you.

The weekend after that, the weekend of the 17th of July, we will be near Minneapolis at the Sonshine Festival, so looking forward to seeing you there as well.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, then I can’t thank you enough. Your partnership in the summertime is so needed and we’re humbled. So thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the home page of www.DailyAudioBible.com in the upper right-hand corner. Or, if you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.

As always, if you have a prayer request or comment, (877) 942-4253 is the number to call.

That is it for today. I'm Brian. I love you. I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayers and Praise Reports:

G’day Dabbers. Richard C., the radio station manager in Albury-Wodonga. How are you all? Jason, my friend, my brother in arms, you rang up. In fact, I didn’t hear your call, but I heard Garth praying for you from England and leading us in prayer for you because of the anxiety you have in your life and the thought process that the anxiety has taken you to is that you need to leave your wife and your kids. I have struggled with anxiety myself on and off for my 40+ years I’ve been on this planet and recently, recently being the past 3 or 4 years, God has led me on a journey. I’ve always thought God's Word, it is like a sword. It is to do battle with and whenever we come up against these sorts of negative emotions, because anxiety is actually an emotion that God has put in there, but when it becomes overwhelming and constant, then it becomes a battle and it is not the way that anxiety should work. Anxiety is meant to make us think ‘oh, wait a minute, we’re uneasy and we need to either work through this or get out of this.’ My suggestion to you is speak with your wife. Speak with your kids. And then read Philippians 4:6-7 which says do not be anxious in anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God and then (and this is a promise from God) the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Jesus Christ. And supplication is a particular type of prayer, one that is asking for something, that is a connotation of being a humble request. I have found I couldn’t do anything but ask humbly of God to take this anxiety away from me and I'm certain that is where you’ll be. Also, there are other verses in scripture. 2 Samuel 7…

Hi DAB friends. This is Bonnie from Saskatchewan. I need your prayers. My heart is broken and I'm finding myself hashing and rehashing again. If you could uplift me as you pray in the Spirit. There is a lot of forgiveness that has to be taking place and I know it is a process and I know I’ve got to go through the pain for healing to take place, but if you could just keep me in your prayers, family, I would really appreciate that. I love you. Bye-bye.

Hey DAB family, this is Byron out in Florida. I hope you guys are doing well. I’ve got good news for you all. A lot of you all have been praying for my son, Caleb. He is 8 years old and some of the difficulties we’ve been having with him. And I just wanted to say that God is faithful. The other night he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and believed God raised him from the dead, that he is saved. I am truly ecstatic and my wife is truly ecstatic and we just thank you guys for your continued prayers because it has been a difficulty with him, getting him to understand what Jesus has done for him. So often he would just be plagued with a sort of sadness, thinking about how bad he was and how evil he was and how he would never go to heaven. And over and over we tried to explain to him what Jesus has done. Over and over and he just wasn’t getting it. To be honest, sometimes it was difficult to just go through the same thing over and over. I thank you for your guys’ prayers. They gave me the patience and the wisdom to be able to continue at it and say the things that he needed to hear and to wait on the Lord to do his work. The other night it was the same sort of deal, but it was a little different. He just looked over at me and he said, ‘Daddy, I'm not sure that I'm saved.’ Everything just felt different. We walked down that Roman road and at the end of it he had the biggest smile on his face after we prayed. I know that he knows that he knows that he knows. Thank you guys so much for your prayers. Just keep on in this journey. God is so faithful and wonderful. Love you guys.

Hi, this is Cheryl from Ohio. I want to respond to the mom calling for her son, Jake, who has epilepsy. I suffer from a chronic illness that keeps me from making plans for my life, never knowing if I will physically be able to follow through with them. Satan has often attacked me, making me think I want to give up the struggle, but today I was reminded how I am able to bless others who are struggling by walking alongside them in compassion, encouraging them and offering them hope. Without my illness, I don’t know that I would be able to do that. Jake may not be able to make plans in his life, but God has a plan for his life that is far better than Jake could ever imagine. May God plant a vision in Jake that will give him hope and a purpose that far exceeds the struggles he has to face. I pray that Jake will learn to find joy in the midst of his suffering. God, give him a life verse that will sustain him and hold him through the storms. Surround the family with your love and your support. I pray this in God's Holy Name, amen. Jake's mom, I encourage you to speak God's Word over your son. You may already be doing this, but God's spoken Word can never return void. It will always go out to accomplish what it was sent for. Just as God's spoken Word created the world, his spoken Word continues to create life where there is darkness.

We can go to God Most High to __________. We can go to God All-Powerful for protection. We say to the Lord you are our safety, our fortress, our God. We trust in you. God will save us from hidden dangers and from deadly diseases. We can go to him for protection. He will cover us like a bird spreading its wings over its baby. We can trust in him to surround and protect us like a shield. We will have nothing to fear at night and no need to be afraid of any arrows during the day. We will have no fear of diseases that come in the dark or terrible suffering that comes at noon. A thousand people may fall dead at our side or 10,000 right beside us and nothing bad will happen to us. All we have to do is watch and we will see that the wicked are punished. We are trusting the Lord for protection. We make God Most High our place of safety. So nothing bad will happen to us. No diseases will come near our home. He will command his angels to protect us wherever we go. Their hands will catch us so that we will not hit our foot on the rock. We will have power to trample on lions and poisonous snakes. The Lord says if someone trusts me, I will save them. I will protect my followers who call to me for help. When my followers call to me, I will answer them and I will be with them when they are in trouble and I will rescue them and honor them and I will give my followers a long, long life and show them my power to save. Love you, Daily Audio Bible family, Johnny from South Alabama.

Yeah, hi, it's Kat M., Toowoomba, Queensland Australia. Brian, Jill, community, bless you all and thank you. Love you all. __________ to ring up for one of my faithful friends, Beth O., __________. Oh my goodness, may I ask you dear people to pray for me? I am having pain in my lower back and it has been so painful. She mentioned it to her husband's doctor and she says ‘I had to do a lot of heavy lifting helping my husband get to of the car, into the chair, to the doctor's office. I just pray that it isn’t anything like that.’ The doctor says it might be arthritis closing up on her lower disk in her back. She looks like she is only about 45. ‘I'm claiming my healing and thank you all so much for prayers. I'm claiming my healing. He paid for my healing by his stripes that he took upon his back.’ ‘The pain runs down my leg and it is hard for me to sit. And my job at work demands that I sit a lot.’ God bless you all. Love you. Thank you, Daily Audio Bible people for praying for Beth O. and I'm standing in agreement that she is healed and this back pain is going to go away and she is going to be set free. I think she gets migraines from it too, if I remember correctly. I'm looking forward to seeing the posts on the Long Walk and I'm looking forward to the Long Walk. Bye. Bye.

Tamarie 07/05/2015 10:41

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