Joshua 21:1-22:20, Luke 20:1-26, Psalms 89:1-13, Proverbs 13:15-16
Today is the 20th day of April welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today as we continue our journey through life and through the Scriptures together. And it’s a joy, as always to come around the Global Campfire and be together and know that we’re not alone and know that we’re stepping forward together. So, we’ve been reading from the Amplified Bible starting yesterday and that’s what we’ll read from you in the days ahead here and throughout…throughout this week. And today we’ll pick up where we left off yesterday. Joshua chapter 21 verse 1 through 22 verse 20.
Commentary:
Okay. So in the book of Joshua basically we remember being on the other side of the Jordan River and the two and a half tribes saying, “this is perfect for us, can we have this?” And ultimately, they were told, “if you’ll go with your brothers across the Jordan and help them win the land for themselves then yes you can.” And, so, that time has come and these two and a half tribes now who have been across the Jordan helping the other tribes settle the land have been given leave to go home. So, they are on their way and they’ve gone all the way back to the Jordan River and then erected an altar to God before crossing over the river. That seems to be patently against what Moses said to do. And, so…and the children of Israel have learned the lesson like, “yes if God goes before you who can stand against you but if God doesn’t how can you stand at all?” So, they’ve gotten together now because they’ve heard about this alter that’s been erected and they’re trying to figure out what to do because their brothers have just helped them kind of clear the land and settle and now they’re going back home, but it seems like they’re going back home in rebellion, which should cause the other tribes to rise up and go to war with them and like it’s looking like a bad situation. And we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to continue that story and see how things play out.
Then, in the New Testament we also kinda got a bad situation. I mean have…like we all probably know, like, what a mouse trap is, right? You set a mouse trap to get a mouse or whatever it is you trying to trap or catch or get rid of, whatever rodent, whatever. But have you ever stepped into a word trap, right? Something you’re supposed to step into because it’s supposed to get you to say something that maybe don’t even mean, but to trap you, to ensnare you so that it can be used against you. That is basically what it has happened to Jesus and the reason that it’s happened to Him is that He continues to call into the light what is in the darkness. And this is making the religious leaders, because He’s mostly focusing His attention on them because they are continually questioning Him. So, it creates a lot of tension. They’re asking Jesus, “who gave you the authority to do what you’re doing?” He knows what they’re trying to do so He asks them a question about John the Baptist, basically “was he from God or not?” An that is pulling into the light what is in the darkness. So, they have to get together and go like, “if we say he’s from heaven then Jesus is just gonna go like, ‘why don't…why didn’t and why do you not believe in him? Like why don’t you believe that God sent him?’” But if they were to say like, “you know, he was just from…he made all this up in his head” then they’re going to be in trouble with the people because the people believe fully that John was a prophet. So, all they can do is say, “I don’t know.” And, so, Jesus turns the whole thing back on them and is like, “then I don’t know. I’m not telling you who gives me the authority to do what I do.” He’s basically exposing that they’ll do the same thing to him that they’ve been doing to John. And he illustrates how this has been an ongoing systemic thing by using this parable of the vineyard owner. So, this person who owns a vineyard leases his land to tenant farmers and then goes away in at harvest he sends somebody to get his…his share, but they beat this person and send them away. And, so, the master then sends another servant to get his share and they beat that one too and send him away. And then he sends a third one and they do the same thing again. What Jesus is showing in this parable is the prophetic voices that God has sent all along to the people and how the religious leaders have ignored these things, that this is an ongoing thing. So then, in Jesus story the master sends his own son to be his representative to get what is deserving of the master because there is no higher representative. And they decide this is…this is the heir so let’s kill him, which they do in Jesus story. Then they realize He’s telling the parable about them. And, so, they’re just…they’re just trying to find a way to silence Jesus. Thus, the word traps. And, you know, if Jesus were to say something that was against the religious order or whatever, that could be called blasphemy, that could be called any number of things but that isn’t going to be able to get Jesus killed. Like that’s not good to be able to get him executed. The Romans don’t really care about that unless it’s causing unrest. To get Jesus actually in trouble He’s gonna have to do something against Rome, which is why they set this word trap - “Should we pay taxes”, basically. What we should notice is that Jesus, He…He kept His cool. Like He slowed things down enough to see what was actually going on and then responded appropriately. He wasn’t aggressive toward them or anything. He used wisdom to drag into the light what was in the darkness. He didn’t get into a debate, He didn’t get into a yelling match, there wasn’t arguing, there wasn’t a big fight. He…He just drug into the light what was in the dark and after that nobody had anything more to say about it. They just privately went and continued to plot against Jesus. And, so, let’s remember that. Let’s remember that posture. We have seen it over and over and over since the beginning of the year since we’ve been traveling with Jesus. We watch him calmly move into these situations. He’s not intimidated, which would be normal. He’s just there calling into the light what is in the dark. He’s not trying to prove anything. He’s certainly not trying to draw attention to Himself. Like we don’t have any examples of these exchanges where Jesus then, you know, leaves the situation and goes into a private place and self congratulates or gets His disciples together and says, “look at how awesome I was in that situation.” He’s just moving through life being light in the darkness.
Prayer:
Jesus, there is never a shortage of darkness but there’s no shortage of light either if we have eyes to see it. And this is what we’ve been focusing on, how we see things, our vision in this year. And, so, again, You know, we’ve seen this story before as we cross through this territory again, we are reminded. So, come Holy Spirit, help us to slow down and know that at every crossroad wisdom will be there and if we will walk in wisdom then we will walk in the light and that may disrupt the darkness, or even get the darkness to plot against us but what we’re seeing when we watch You is someone simply being completely true. And this drags into the light what is in the dark. So, in imitating You we’re gonna be walking that same path. So, our prayer today Lord is that You would come with Your light and expose what is dark within us, that we might first to deal with our own issues before…well…before trying to pull the speck out of somebody else’s eye, that we pull the beam out of our own. So, come, Holy Spirit, thank You for these words of correction today. Thank You for this example, once again of what the narrow path actually looks like. We invite Your Holy Spirit to cause us to meditate upon this today. We ask in Your holy name. Amen.
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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 family this is Dimitri from Portland Oregon calling back. Just wanted to thank you all for praying for me. Just wanted to give you an update. My wife and I are still struggling in our marriage. Like I said last time, she is ready to get divorced and move on with her life. And I know that’s not God’s will and I’ve been praying about it. I let it…I let God take over the entire situation and I received peace in my heart that now God is in control and I rely on Him to do the rest. So, I pray you guys that you guys can pray for me to continue with this, to continue being strong and for my wife to do the right decision. And pray for me guys. And it’s going to be alone hard road but I’ll…I’ll be thinking about you guys and I wanted to thank Brian for this amazing platform for always reading the Bible every day. It’s what’s keeping me alive in this struggle, keeping me alive the past five years that I’ve been listening this…to this platform and I thank you all again. Stay blessed and I’ll see you guys next time.
Hi everyone at the DAB family I’d like to ask everybody to please pray for me. For the last five months or more…I don’t know…I don’t even…I stopped counting I’ve been dealing with pain, but it hasn’t been physical pain. I’m not sick or anything. I’m not sick or anything. It’s just been emotional turmoil. It’s just been…I’ve just been in…in emotional turmoil and I’ve never felt like this before. It’s…it’s the most pain…emotional pain I’ve ever experienced before and I’ve been praying to God every day and I have been trying to be hopeful and I’ve been trying to be just seek God and trust in Him and believe in Him and know that it’ll eventually end, but I’m in so much pain every day and I can’t continue being in so much pain…
Hi this is Kim from recovery I just wanted to pray and lift up the lady on Friday that called in and said she just lost her dad. Let’s go to prayer. Jesus, I know in the word You say that You’re always close to the brokenhearted and You save those that are crushed in the spirit. Lord I just want to lift this lady that has lost her dad and kept from California. Lord just have her feel Your comfort, have her understand how close You are with this Lord. And sometimes that when we get in those moments that we feel so alone in that…that loss. Lord just have people come around her. Give her the peace that You…You give us so greatly Lord. Give her comfort, give her Your arms around her, surround her with Your love and thank You for Your willingness to take every part of this life with us Lord. And we just want to thank You and we pray that You’ll be with all the people that are going through this grief, that they know You are close. And we pray this in Jesus name.
Hi this is Andy from Birmingham I’d like to leave a prayer for Susie from Colorado who runs an orphanage for a child named Junior who called on the 17th of April. __ I prayed, and I could see this tear in her eye and remembered Psalm 56:8 says, “He collects tears and hurt.” So, my first prayer is that our Lord will be so close to Junior that he see this…see the compassion and I pray that he would not be consumed by what’s happened in his life. Lamentations 2:22 says, “because of His great love we’re not consumed for His compassions never fail.” And finally, Jeremiah 8:10 says, “don’t grieve for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” So, my final prayer will be that Junior would learn to draw his strength from God, not rely on his on strength. And I’ll keep praying for Junior. God bless you.
Hello DAB family this is Greg and Beketa from Sweden. On behalf of both myself and my wife Begeta this is to say a big thank you for your prayers which sustained us during our move to our new country. My wife, she is Swedish. We had heard Jesus days before moving assuring us before everything will be fine. He prompted me to put our flight forward when we realized that we could still be in the UK because of lockdown. On the day we moved standing in line and just about to board our flight an official came up to us informing each British person that only Swedes their immediate families and medical personnel will be allowed to fly. I was informed that I could not fly but my wife was allowed to go. All our belongings had been advanced to Sweden ahead of us. The Lord’s necessary reassurance enabled us to not to give up upon receiving this downer. It took the airport several calls to Sweden and us producing evidence of a tenancy agreement before we both were fortunately allowed on board. So, we thank Jesus that we’re now in Sweden. We ask him to detail His plans for us going forward. I now need to quickly learn Swedish and start earning since my wife is caring for her elderly health challenged mother full-time. We do thank you for and we appreciate your prayers. Our abundant Christ can assure that no prayer goes or went unanswered by the Lord. Thank you, Father in Jesus’ precious name. May we blessedly and joyfully hear and obey you when you speak, after all we’ve just been answered by our creator the God of heaven. We’re really grateful to Jesus and everyone here at Daily Audio Bible. Goodbye for now and thank you. Greg from South Sweden.
Hey Daily Audio family this is Becky in Orlando. I just wanted to call and let you know that I just listened to today’s podcast, it the 17th of April and my heart goes out to the mom whose daughter wrote the letter about how…what it was like…how the gentleman with COVID-19 died under her hands as she was giving him compressions. I feel so sad for you and for your family and all the doctors and the nurses and for all the family members that have lost somebody due to cCOVID-19. And, so, I am glad that you shared that with us and the importance of social distancing and those poor young girls who are not going to get to see their father again. So, my heart goes out to everyone in…in the world who is dealing with this. And thank you so much Daniel from Singapore for calling us and letting us know how you’re doing. I do remember praying for you and for everybody in Singapore. And at that time, I did not ever expect it was gonna be like this in the United States. So, I’m just gonna continue praying for our world and I love all of you so much. So, thank you. Thank you for being my family and being there for me every day. Thank you, Brian for reading the Daily Audio Bible. So, alright guys. I love you. Bye.