04/21/2020 DAB Transcript

Joshua 22:21-23:16, Luke 20:27-47, Psalms 89:14-37, Proverbs 13:17-19

Today is the 21st day of April welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it’s great to be here with you for another day, another step forward in the adventure that we are on, the one that takes us all the way through the Bible in a year, day by day step-by-step together in community. And I’m glad that we can be together today. So, like every other day we’re picking up where we left off and where we left off yesterday in the Old Testament is in the book of Joshua and there’s some drama because there’s two and a half tribes that were given land on the west side of the Jordan River, provided that they would cross the Jordan River onto the east side into the Promised Land and help their fellow tribesmen settle the land, which they did. And then they were dismissed. So, they were headed back to the other side of the Jordan, and they built an altar that has caused a lot of confusion and that’s where we pick up the story. Joshua chapter 22 verse 21 through 23 verse 16.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we have almost completed the book of Joshua, which is the first book that tells kind of what happens after Moses becomes a part of history hen Joshua takes leadership. And, so, Joshua’s now telling us that he’s old and he’s about to die and we’re gonna be finishing the book of Joshua tomorrow, but this story that we’ve spent the last couple of days working our way through in the book of Joshua has some really, really important advice embedded in it for us now in the times that we’re facing, for that matter for times anybody’s ever facing but it’s appropriate for us now. So…so, we remember being on the other side of the Jordan River, right? We remember wandering around in the desert for all that time and finally getting to the Jordan and finally getting to crossover and we remember that the tribes of Ruben and Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh, they loved the land that was on the eastern side of the Jordan River. It was perfect for shepherding. It was perfect for what they did. And they went to this whole thing with Moses about, “could they have this land?” And Moses telling them, “you’re gonna…you’re gonna not cross over?” This whole negotiation happened, and it worked out that if they would cross over, fight with their brother tribes, settle the land, then they could come back and have the land that had been conquered on the east side of the Jordan. And that happened. They…they were faithful, and they were true to that. They did that and they were given their leave. Everything was good until they got back to the Jordan River and erected a replica of the altar of God. What it looked like was that the tribe of Gad and Ruben and half the tribe of Manasseh were going to go back over on the other side of the Jordan and that was gonna become a boundary and they were turning away, like they were rebelling. They were turning away from God. They had made their own altar, which got all the tribes in the Promised Land on the western side of the Jordan River together to go like, “if we let this happen then all of us are going to be destroyed.” So, they all got together and they’ve all been battle worn, like they have been fighting and are used to combat and they’re…they’re gonna go attack their brothers, their gonna go attack these two and half tribes because it appears the two and half tribes have rebelled against God, which will bring judgment upon them all and they’re ready to go. Thankfully they went, thankfully they sent somebody to find out the other side of the story, to find out why they would build this altar, why they would have rebelled against God. If they hadn’t done that they would’ve raced down, and the Jordan River would’ve run red with blood. It would’ve been awful Civil War. But they went down and asked and the two and half tribes were like, “absolutely! We would never turn away from God. We built this replica because we’re…were worried that the Jordan is gonna be a border and someday in the future the people on the east side of the Jordan are going to say to the people on the west side, “you have no place with God.” And, so, they built this this altar as a memorial, as a witness for future generations about who follows God. Here’s where this gets personal. The tribes on the east side of the Jordan River who were settling this newly conquered Promised Land, heard a rumor. They heard a story about an altar and about a rebellion and they took that bit of information, that rumor and started fabricating assumptions about what it meant, creating this plausible understanding, this plausible reality, and then began to live into that plausible reality created by a rumor to the point that, like the militaries being called out, to the point that the plan to attack their brothers who had fought alongside them was being hatched. That’s what can happen with a rumor and assumptions. That’s what can happen with disinformation and this kind of stuff happens personally individually, like we make up assumptions about things all of the time and…and we’re not very good at it. And, so, our assumptions invariably are flawed, but we’re making up realities about people that might have some truth in them but are not true. In the case of the story that we’re reading it was true, an altar had been erected. It was not true that it had been erected to rebel against God and offer sacrifices to false gods. The fill-in the blank part, the assumption part could’ve caused bloody Civil War. So, now you can see how we do this to each other and we suffer the consequences of doing it to each other, whether it’s just like a personal fracturing of a relationship are the disintegration of a friendship or whether it’s on national or even international levels. This stuff happens and these rumors and false assumptions, like the fabrications of reality that we then live into and believe can have us attacking our brothers and sisters for no reason. If we want to take the lesson from the Bible here, is that there was a moment of pause, right? Wisdom was at the crossroads. And they’re like, “yeah, before we go down there and start swinging swords, we should send an envoy to go find out what in the heck, like what’s happening? Why the altar? What is this about? Once the story was corrected, once the assumptions were exposed, once the rumor fell apart then things made sense. That is so often…so often the case in our personal interactions. So, let’s take a lesson from ancient Israel and apply it to modern life today.

Prayer:

Jesus, we invite you into that. We confess and it’s not like you don’t know, it’s not like you haven’t seen us take these missteps so often that it’s embarrassing. We have made assumptions. We have listened to rumors. We have listened to chatter. We have formulated plausible explanations. We have made up false realities and lived like they were true. We are all guilty of this. And if we would pause, if we would slow down and meditate upon us, just think back over our lives, we would see the chaos and destruction that it has caused in our rearview mirror, but our rearview mirror isn’t our windshield. What has happened does not have to continue happening. We don’t have to consume rumor and gossip and assumption like it’s some sort of delicious delicacy. We can see it for the putrid disease-ridden poison that it is. And, so, Holy Spirit we ask that you help us to stop making things up, to actually go find out what’s really going on in our relationships. We need you in this. Our default is usually to go to dark and negative places when we need the default to be light and life and good news and hope and charity. So, come Holy Spirit into all of this as we meditate upon it today, as we catch ourselves going into those dark places. Stop us. Give us the opportunity to go wait, wait, wait, wait, “I’m not going there. That doesn’t go anywhere good.” Help us Jesus we pray in your mighty name, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it is the website, its where you find out what’s going on around here and there’s, you know, usually something or another going on around here. We’ve been…I guess all of us in one way or another have been…well…we’ve been working on how to…how to work through this virus thing. And now the language is like, “how do we come out of this virus thing?” And I have had interactions with lots of people who have, you know, like introverts and extroverts have been dealing with this in very, very different ways. But introvert or extrovert I’ve talked to all kinds people who have this feeling like, “I want to get out of this, but I don’t want to be the same. Like I don’t want to go…I don’t want to just try to go right back to where I left off. I want to be…I want to be different. Like, this is shifting some things and giving me a chance kind of look at the disruption and see like that treadmill that I lived on was also not getting me anywhere. And I…I mean I don’t like going through this anymore than anybody else does, but I do like to hear those kinds of things because that’s really why we come to the Bible every day, right? Is to let God’s word wash over us, to sort of inform where we’re going, and even in the day that we’re gonna live, like how we’re gonna live this. That’s how change happens, little by little, day by day, step-by-step. So, in lots of ways we’re thinking about new normal. And that can sound ominous, like, you know, some…something really bad happened and now this is a new normal or we can just understand like, “I’ve been disrupted and it’s given me an opportunity to reset, to find new normals that are more healthy across the board.” So, I guess that’s some of what we’re all going through around here but around the Global Campfire, you know, we’re always here, we’re always talking about these kinds of things. This is the kinds of stuff that the Bible brings up in us. And, so, this is…yeah…stay connected to this rhythm as we continue our journey forward.

Check out the community section. That’s a great…there are great ways to stay connected there, including the Prayer Wall.

Check out the Daily Audio Bible Shop. There are resources there specifically for the journey that we’re on as we move through the Bible.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bile I don’t know what words I can use to express the gratitude other than awe and gratefulness that the Global Campfire burns, like that every day we’re throwing logs on it, every day it’s here. And that is because we’re in this together. So, thank you for your partnership. There’s a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app…and by the way if you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app…I mean you know that we released a very very massive update to the app last week. And as is normal, when somethings that big of…of an infrastructure shift happens then there’s gonna be little hiccups here and there. And, so, worked all last week to update the update, like you find out immediately certain things that you couldn’t know in any kind of other environment and update those things. So…so make sure you stay to the most recent update, which is now 1.1.60 that fixed pretty much all of the little issues that different people were experiencing. Actually, for the most part everybody was…everything worked perfect, but there’s always different phones and there’s always different environments and circumstances and settings and stuff like that. So, make sure your updated. Everything should work really great and the badges, the achievements, the progress that we’re making as we move through the Scriptures, as we check off the days that we’re listening to, that’s working great. But anyway, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner of the app screen 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, 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:

Alisha here from Pennsylvania just calling to pray for all of those healthcare workers out there, the doctors and people taking care of other people. And we just pray Lord that You keep them safe and help them find peace in this time where they’re witnessing so much Lord. We just want to lift them up to You. Lord I pray for all the college kids that are turning to online classes, just help them to hang in there and to continue to feel motivated and connected. Just help them to continue to learn Lord, to know that they can do this with You. Lord I want to reach out, pray for all the teachers out there that are…whether their teachers just learning how to move online or if they’re mothers and fathers teaching their children, just be with them, give them patients, give them understanding and give them the tools that they need Lord to make it a successful semester for everyone. Lord, I pray for those graduates or undergraduates that are working on different things like research and development or people that are trying to student teach online Lord. I just pray that You’ll keep them…that You’ll keep them in Your in Your hands Lord. Lord I just thank You so much for my family, I thank You for everybody that is healthy, and I thank You that this whole thing is not as blown out as it could have been. In Your name I pray Lord. Amen.

Good morning DABbers this is Still Waters calling in from the Netherlands. I’m a new DABber I started back in January. I found the Daily Audio Bible in December last year and I thought, “okay. Let me have a look at this.” But then when I started, I couldn’t stop I kept being drawn back to it. So, thank you very much Brian. And I just want to encourage everyone because today on the 18th of April we read from Luke 19 and the story of the __ just reading __. The __ was a chief, a chief tax collector which meant he was very rich. And look at him, he had no reputation to keep anymore, he was short, he was a tax collector, a chief tax collector __. And he wanted to experience Jesus, so he had to climb a tree. And when Jesus called out his name, my goodness, I can only imagine how he felt. The great joy, excitement that he was filled with, I felt it, that excitement, that every human being, every believer should feel once they say yes to Jesus Christ. And salvation my friends, I like to encourage everyone that salvation is a life lived with great joy and excitement. And let us all just enjoy…enjoy the love of Jesus Christ with great excitement, with great joy and share His love for the world. Thank you, Brian for Sneezing Jesus it was lovely to listen to. Thank you. Bye-bye. Have a lovely day.

I just want to give a shot out to Scott who just accepted the Lord, that You just accepted the Lord and I just praise God for the wonderful way He has brought You before the throne of grace. Lord God I just thank You for Scott and for his willingness to…to accept You as Lord and Savior and I pray Lord that You would help him to grow and mature as he reads Your word and that he would keep his eyes focused on You and through all things and all things and because of all things. We just praise You Lord and thank You for Scott once again in Jesus’ name I pray. Way to go Scott. I’m so proud of You. This is Susan from Canada. Just praising God.

Hi this is Helen in Durham North Carolina I would like to share a personal lesson I received from today’s reading, a rebuke from a friend, from Jesus. In the passage in Luke about the 10 minas, the one servant buried his mina because he was afraid. He said you take what you did not deposit and reap what you did not sow. Well that hit me. I recalled elsewhere in Scripture we read that God makes a way in the wilderness, streams in the desert, He makes something out of nothing. As I heard Brian read this parable the Lord told me a woman who has named herself in the past as miss much afraid that I am guilty of often hiding what he’s given me to invest in the world. My testimony, what I know about Him, just speaking up because I’m simple afraid I’ll say it all wrong. I might be inept, but He can take what I do have and say and use it for His glory for his purposes and the other person’s lives. So, the sweet Lord spoke to me this morning, gave me a rebuke and also encouragement. I said thank you, I hear you and I’ve asked Him to sink this deep into my soul so that I can share whatever I have with others and let Him take care of the results. I’m praying for my two sons to find Jesus, one with emotional issues of anger depression and selfishness. He has a four-year-old son that is suffering from his dysfunction. Please pray. And the other is chasing the world of financial gain and sensuality. I love them both so much. Please pray. Thank you, Brian for being faithful for so many years to walk this calling of reading the Bible to us. God does speak through you.

Val from Vegas I’m so excited for you. Thank you for calling in and sharing your praise report on what’s happened with you. Like, what a quick turnaround. It seems like just a week ago when I heard you call in like super sick, destitute, ready to give up and look at you now. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with us and all of you out there that are feeling like that, hang in there. God’s got something for you.

Shabbat shalom, today is Saturday, April 18th and I had very good holy week and I pray that you had a holy week that was very special to you. During this time, I have been battling and trying to understand what am I supposed to do with this time. So, I do pray, and the Holy Spirit does help me pray for others and the Holy Spirit is sent out to help others in need just as I am in need. My name is Danielle I am in Maryland and at this time I do a little bit of checking myself to see what is it that I’m supposed to do, what do I need to do and I’m left but one thing at this time, I have an addiction. And, you know, I am honored by God that God had taken another addiction away from me and I’m praying for the Spirit of God to break and break and break the chains of addiction in my life and for others who have been struggling with addiction and to be set free, to be set free and to just enjoy each day without curdling back to what feels comfortable. I’m asking the Daily Audio Bible family to pray with me and to pray for others who have addictions…addictions and ask for those things be broken by the blood of Jesus. Thank you for your prayers and thank you for praying together and the family and by the campfire because God hears us, and God sees…