Deuteronomy 34:1-Joshuah 2:24, Luke 13:23-14:6, Psalms 79:1-13, Proverbs 12:26
Today is the 10th day of the month of April. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It’s great to be here with you today. Briefly back in the rolling hills of Tennessee and then we’ll be heading for the rolling hills of Georgia and the beginning of the More Gathering for Women 2018. That begins this Thursday, day after tomorrow. So, it’s great to be here with you today. We will be concluding the book of Deuteronomy here just momentarily. Which means we will be concluding what is known as the Torah or the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible and then moving into what comes next, which is the book of Joshua. And we’ll talk about that when we get there. But let’s conclude. Reading from the Good News translation this week. The book of Deuteronomy, chapter 34.
Introduction to the book of Joshua:
And that concludes the book of Deuteronomy, which brings us to the book of Joshua, which is an exhilarating book to step into. Because we’ve been at this fourteen weeks since the beginning of the year, I have to count. But something like that. We’ve been at this day by day, moment by moment, moving through the stories here. And almost from the very beginning of the Bible we’ve been hearing about this thing called the promised land. So, by this time it’s almost mythic. It’s like a mythic land that was promised in advanced to Abraham and then Isaac and Jacob and Joseph. All of these people we met and followed their stories. And learned a lot about our own story in their stories. And throughout all of their stories, there’s this whisper of hope. All throughout the formation of the children of Israel and their captivity. And their exodus into freedom and the establishment of a new culture. Everything that we’ve gone through so far has been toward the promised land. And here we are. We’re about to cross over the Jordan River into the promised land. And this is the second time they’ve been right at the precipice. The first time they were thwarted. Forty more years were spent wandering in the desert. An entire generation was lost because of their disobedience, their fear, their lack of trust in God. And now as we just read in the conclusion of Deuteronomy, Moses has died having seen the promised land but not entering it. And that’s kind of where we are in the Scriptures. We hear of it. It’s mythic. We’ve kind of seen it but we haven’t gone into it. And now Joshua has stepped up as the leader of Israel. And Joshua translated to English means savior. If we go back to the original Hebrew, Joshua is Jesus. Yeshua. Joshua. So, I’m not saying this man Joshua that we’re about to read about is Jesus. I’m just saying the parallels of redemption are just so intertwined in the Scriptures. So, we’re gonna cross the Jordan and we’ll see that God has prepared this land for his people. He’s promised it for generations. But they’re not just march in and take it. They’re gonna have to fight. They’re gonna have to contend for it. They are on a great mission with God. And to accomplish it, they’ll have to partner with God against all odds to take the land. And in this conquest, we’ll notice God asking them to do very unconventional things. God continually confounds conventional wisdom with almost bizarre instructions that sometimes wouldn’t make logical sense to the human mind. This is no different for us today. This is why we must be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s guidance. This is why we must be a people of prayer. Otherwise we’re just sort of bulldozing our way through life, hoping for the best decisions when we actually have our creator to guide us. And his very kingdom to bring. So, in a very real way for all these years the children of Israel have been learning to obey the Lord. And now they must go into this land with full faith that God will show up. And full faith in the promise that he gave their ancestors that this land was the promised land. And we’re gonna see one of the most glorious moments in the Bible. One of the most glorious times in the lives of the children of Israel even though we’ll see stumbles along the way. Right now as we move into the book of Joshua the people are fully engaged. And it gives us a glimpse of what a unified church even could look like. Unfortunately, that’s not the end of the story. We’ll get to that soon enough because it’s not really that much of a spoiler. They do fall away and return and fall away and return for the next several hundred years, but right now we’re at this glorious time. A new generation, a new leader. And the entering of the promised land. So, as we go into Joshua right now, the first five chapters will document the preparation for crossing the Jordan for battle and even their first encounters, their first battles. And the next seven chapters will recount the main battles and the actual taking of the land. And then the last part of the book is the division and settling of the promised land. Everything in the story of the patriarchs comes to these great moments. This is the promised land. The giving, the taking, the settling of the promised land. Everything that has been promised is about to be fulfilled. And so we begin. Joshua chapter 1.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for Your word and we’ve turned the page and entered into a new era as we move through the Old Testament and into the book of Joshua. And, so, here we stand on the banks of the Jordan River with the children of Israel looking over into the promised land and we’re about to enter. And the story will take a completely new complexion as we move into this new generation and to this new era and a shift takes place. And we can feel this in our own hearts. There’s things that we have long, long desired, things that we have seen but not been able to experience. We ask, Holy Spirit, as we watch the children of Israel move into the promised land and all the things that they will have to face in it that, You will begin to speak to us about our own moving forward. Because so many times when we’re dreaming something we idealize it even when You are leading us and we forget to count the cost. We’re going to have to trust You to degrees that we didn’t even know about. Because You’re not leading us forward in life so that we can have new toys. You’re leading us forward in life so that we can discover new levels of intimacy with You. So, come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus name. Amen.
Announcements:
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And so right around the corner here is the beginning of the More Gathering for Women, which is the day after tomorrow. So, between now and then a lot of orchestration has to happen. A lot of moving parts, a lot of technology, a lot of travel, a lot of all kinds of stuff. And, so, this is the time where we really do join together, lock arms, lock hearts as a community, the tens of thousands strong and raise this canopy over this event and intercede over every aspect of it. So as a community, every time the Holy Spirit might bring the More Gathering to mind, just say a prayer. Ask for God’s blessing and wisdom and instruction and protection over the hearts of everyone involved as we move into the latter parts of this week and through the weekend. And I’ll be down there and doing the Daily Audio Bible from the top of Sharp Top mountain and keeping us all informed. So, thank you for your prayers.
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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:
Hello Daily Audio Bible community my name is Robert. I live in Canada in the province of Ontario and I’m a new listener and I’m really trying to listen the right way. And, of course, there’s nothing that I did…nothing that I did to get here. I always understood that the blessings that God showered upon me are new every morning but I just took it for granted, I just took it for granted. And I really feel like there is a period of darkness in my life just really lifted. And I feel like…Gods…I’ve battled some dark stuff in my life. And I’m sorry that I’m so emotional but I don’t really know how to process this all too well. And here I am, I’m calling in, with some prayers for me, please. Please guys, my wife, Shiloh, isn’t a believer and we’ve been fighting about this kind of stuff. And I’m trying to just release my marriage into God’s hands so I can do. Thanks for hearing my prayer. Her name is Shiloh. Shiloh __ pray for you __. Thank you. Okay. I love all of you guys so much. I love all of you guys so much. Bye.
Hello DAB family this is Linda from Alberta calling. I was just listening to some of the prayers and I heard Sharon call in, that she called in for her daughter and her husband and she herself has some health concerns right now. But Sharon I just wanted to try to encourage you right now. I really can say I know exactly how you feel and I have my own struggles and challenges with my daughter, who also has an addiction and mental health problem. She, right now, we are in a crisis in our family but that’s, you know, not what I wanted to call in for right now. But Sharon, often I go to my closet door and I open it up and I have a paper taped and there. And this is the prayer that I pray when I’m feeling really, really uptight about things and worried about my daughter. So, I’m going to read you the prayer and I hope that ministers to you and it is actually from the reading I did once. It’s A Child’s Window. So, God, You are at work and You are in control and Lord God You know this is happening. You are at the beginning and You will bring it everything that occurs to a conclusion that results in Your greater glory in the end. Sharon, I hope that this will minister to you as well as anyone else that needed to hear that today. God bless every one of you. Bye-bye.
Hello Daily Audio Bible this is Nathan from Bloomington Illinois calling for thoughts for the day, that this is thoughts for the day. I’m suggesting that you go back and listen to the last two days, April 4th and April 5th commentary because Brian ties it together and nails the head right there. So, he said what do we see with? What if you were to look around and all you see is the glory of God? Now, we know God created everything that is around but sometimes we do sit in the darkness. Sometimes our life is stuck. And then he talked about ask, seek, knock. Ask, seek knock. It begins with asking. So, a lot of times we ask for prayer and we ask others to pray for us and that’s important, but we’re also asked to seek. Not just seeking the answer but seeking help from others like the DAB prayer line or from a counselor. And then not. When I think of knocking, I want to suggest that that tells us to do something other than just asking and seeking, seeking for answers, that it suggests not sitting and doing nothing or doing very little. So, just something…something to think about. My wife says, you can’t do the same thing and expect a different result. So, I’m expecting different results when I do something different other than just asking, seeking, and knocking sometimes. So anyway. Just some thoughts for the day. Have a great day. Make it a great day.
Your heart my home. I live and breathe and have my being in Your heart. Your heart my home. I live and breathe in Your heart. Your love is gracious, deep, wide, and true. You have forgiven me. In You I’m free. Oh Lord, restore me to who You really made me to be. Your heart my home. I live and breathe in Your loving heart. I can’t be good unless You free me to. You release me, the real me. I want to be real. Only You can take me there. Every hour, every moment, Your heart my home. [singing] Let’s pray always, worry never and love deeply. Pray always, worry never and love deeply. I can’t be good unless You free me to. You release me. The real me. I want to be real. Only You can take me there. Every hour, every moment, Your heart my home [sing ends].
Good afternoon Daily Audio Bible. This is Prosperous Pam from the San Francisco Bay Area. I just gave myself that name. Praise God. I wanted to hear a couple of things. Brian, that message that you gave today. Today’s date is, I believe it’s April the 5th, is it Wednesday, Thursday, apologize. That was such a blessing. I’m going to listen to it over and over again, how you were speaking about, help me to see better, praying that the Lord allows me to see, you know, the light. You know, a lot of times we do get stuck in some different ways and we just, you know, focus more on the darkness but there’s magnificent things all around us. So, thank you for that. Also, you can probably tell, I’m very uncomfortable speaking in front of a group. So, He’s working on me on that too. This is actually a praise report because I’ve been out of work for year. I called about a year ago in March when I didn’t have a job and I was like really having a hard time. And I still am going through my different stages, but God has just given me such power. He’s strengthening me during this time. I am still unemployed and looking for work, but I’m still praying according to His will, not my will. And I’ve never been out of work this long but He’s strengthening me, He’s maturing me, He’s loving me more. I’m so closer to Him. I’m getting so connected with the body of Christ like the Daily Audio Bible. And I have a family here that I just love so much. Declare victory in the bay area. The overseer is Pastor Dion. I’m just being so blessed. And I just wanted to share that. Praying just lives someone up who’s listening, who’s going through something, who’s waiting for that job. God has just done so many things. He’s purged so many things out of me throughout this year that I haven’t been working. So, I just hope that lifts someone up. And I still ask you to keep me in prayer. I am looking forward to going back to work when God has willed for me, the place that he has for me. My flesh has been wanted to but…
He DAB family today is April 5th and just catching up and just listening to the Easter April 1st podcast or I think it was the April 2nd one. Yeah that was funny, that April fool’s joke that you guys played. Anyways, so, I just wanted to call in and let you guys know that, Michaela from the UK, and Lisa the Victorious, I heard your prayers, I heard your prayer requests. And I want you to know that I just spent, probably, the last 20 minutes praying for you both. So, just calling because I find that just knowing that somebody’s thinking about you helps. And, of course, I don’t have to tell you, God doesn’t forget you, He doesn’t leave you, He doesn’t forsake you. He hears you even when nobody else does. And Lisa I also prayed for your daughter. I hope that you understand, I’m sure you do, that you don’t have to give up your life for her. Jesus already did that. He’s got her. So, I hope you take that. Hope you hold onto that and rest secure in His victory because he is victorious. Hey, have a great day DAB. Thanks, so much Brian again.