Joshua 5:1-7:15, Luke 15:1-32, Psalms 81:1-16, Proverbs 13:1
Today is the 12th day of April welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today and every day as we take the steps forward that lead us through the Scriptures. And our next step is in front of us. We’re moving into this brand-new book of Joshua and we’re moving into the promised land. We’re reading from the Good News Translation this week. Joshua chapter 5 verse 1 through 7 verse 15.
Commentary:
Okay. In gospel of Luke today Jesus is being questioned about why He is hanging out with sinners. He even eats with the outcasts. And, so, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law are grumbling, and Jesus responds with three examples about why He is doing what He is doing and these are famous passages. In the first one we have the shepherd leaving the 99 to find the one lost sheep and when he finds it he is so happy that he celebrates. And obviously in this example, the lost sheep, the one are the sinners. And, so, Jesus is basically saying through His life and through His actions that He is hanging out with the people that need to be found. And then He talks about a woman who's…who had 10 silver coins, but lost one of them. 10% of what she had she lost. And, so, she lights a lamp and sweeps her house and looks everywhere until she finds it, and when she does it’s such a relief that she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, “I’m happy I found the coin. Let’s celebrate.” And then Jesus says to those two examples, “in the same way I tell you the angels of God rejoice over one sinner who repents.” And then to drive this point home we come to the very very famous story of the prodigal son. And that is such a famous story that thousands of messages have been given over millennia and this has been looked at from every single angle. But in its context Jesus is responding to the religious leaders and the Pharisees about why He is associating himself with outcasts and sinners. In the story of the prodigal son we have the father, we have the son who does no depart, and we have the son who goes to his father and says give my give me my inheritance early I’m gonna go make my way in the world. And his father does give him what he has coming to him, and he goes and blows it on crazy living. Meanwhile, the father and his other son continue to run the family business while the other son is away doing what he’s doing. Eventually the son that has run off runs out of resources. Finds himself in foreign city in a foreign land and no money. Famine has come upon the land, and he’s got a job and the job is to feed the pigs. But he doesn’t even have enough to eat. And he comes to this awareness that he…he doesn’t deserve to be a son anymore. He can’t just go crawling back to his dad and have any kind of expectation that there’s anything there for him. He chose to leave but he knows his father’s an honorable person and his father has workers. And, so, maybe he could at least get a job with this dad. It would be better to work for his father than it would be to be in this foreign land with no money, and famine, and slopping the pigs. And, so, he heads home, and I quote from the gospel of Luke, “he was still a long way from home when his father saw him.” I’m a father and I have sons and when I think about this story, and I think about my own kids, like I can put myself in the story. The father’s heart was filled with pity, and he ran and threw his arms around his son and kissed him. So, we have the posture of heart of the runaway son, the prodigal son. He now believes and has come to the awareness that he doesn’t deserve anything. He doesn’t even deserve to be called the son. He’s just looking for a place to be near his father, and a place to work. He doesn’t deserve…like he’s come to that place in his life where he realizes he’s not as good as he thinks he is and he needs help, he needs his father. And, so, he says to his father, “I have sinned against God and against you, and I am no longer fit to be called your son.” In this story we put ourselves in this position understanding that we reach this point where we realize we don’t deserve anything from our father. We don’t deserve anything from God. He doesn’t owe us anything. We live our lives kind of entitled, like He does like he’s our squire, we’re gonna say the magic prayers, He’s gonna get right on it because He loves us. And He does. But we can’t fully appreciate the depth of that kind of love until we realize completely and wholeheartedly how much we do not deserve anything. Right? This prodigal son didn’t come back with his head held high, freshly washed, robe with a bunch of arrogance. He came back knowing exactly the truth, he deserves nothing. When a person reaches that point in their life compassion begins to flow, and we see that in this story from the father who saw him from a distance. His heart was filled with pity, and he ran and threw his arms around his son and kissed him. It’s as if his son has come back from the dead, has come back from far off. And the father is so overjoyed that’s a great feast happens, which is when we get to see the son that didn’t leave and his posture. And his posture is he doesn’t want anything to do with the party for the son who left. He doesn’t want anything to do with his brother. He’s mad at his father because he has stayed faithful. He has been faithful. He has obeyed his father. He has done what he’s supposed to do, and he feels like he never got rewarded. The brother who took off and blew his money and destroyed his life and has come back empty-handed with his hat in his hand gets a big feast. And in this story, this is an opportunity for us to examine our own selves. But in this story, these are the people that are like the scribes and the Pharisees and the teachers of religious law. They’ve been trying to do the right thing. And a sinner can come in and get a party when they worked their whole lives to not be a sinner. That doesn’t seem fair. I mean, doesn’t living a godly life and actually really devoting yourself to God count for something? Why is it that sinners get all the celebrations? These are the kinds of things that the son who didn’t leave confronts his father with. Or to just read it from the Scriptures, “the son said to his father, look, all these years I have worked for you like a slave, and I have never disobeyed your orders. What have you given me? Not even a goat for me to have a feast with my friends. But this son of yours wasted all your property on prostitutes and when he comes back home, you kill the prize calf for him.” So, he’s basically saying, look, I have been loyal. I have been faithful. I have been a good son. I have stayed here with you. I have worked for you, and you have given me nothing. And this person who has taken advantage of you comes back and we throw a big party? And it really exposes the rub, doesn’t it? We can see why the son would be mad. He’s been faithful. He’s been loyal. He’s obeyed. He’s done the right thing. And it can be easy for us to put ourselves in a position. Like I’ve been trying to walk with God by faith for so long. And yes, the Lord is with me. And yes, the Lord comes through, but I will look out in the world, and I see the sinners just having a heyday and I’m trying to just be faithful and survive when everybody around me who doesn’t care anything about the Lord seems to be having a far greater life. It’s here that the father brings perspective. “My son, the father answered. You are always here with me and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be happy because your brother was dead, but now he’s alive. He was lost but now he has been found.” So, the perspective for the one, the faithful son, the one who obeyed, the one who didn’t leave is the reminder that he never left his father’s presence and everything his father has belongs to him. The beauty and the brilliance of a parable like this one is there are three characters in this story and any one of those characters we can put ourselves in that position and look at this story from that position and understand perspective all the way around. We can understand the person who leaves his father and takes his inheritance and blows it and ruins his life and becomes broken and then returns. We can understand the position of the father who loves both of his children and can be nothing but overjoyed at the return of his child who was lost to him. All of that without losing any love for the faithful son who never left. The faithful son who never left has always been with them. They are close. They are working together. He will receive his inheritance. Everything that the father owns will belong to that son. But we can also see the perspective of the son who’s like, I’m trying to do the right thing here. I’m trying to walk the narrow path, and everything that I see around me shows me that everyone else is prosperous. What am I doing this for? Of course, the answer to that comes from the father. You are always here with me, right? You are here in my presence and everything I have is yours. So, let’s spend some time today just rethinking this story. It’s very famous. We probably already know it very well. But If we consider the different facets, if we consider the different characters in the story we find out a lot about ourselves because the perspective of each person in this story is something that we can reflect upon and even identify with.
Prayer:
Father, we invite You into this. All that we’re reading today is an answer to the question about why You would hang out with people that seem to be the riffraff of the world, that seem to be the outcasts of the world, the sinners of the world, the people that aren’t doing the right thing. And we realize that that has been each one of us and we can grow incredibly arrogant as we walk with You and look down upon other people that You love deeply and are awaiting their return. May we share in that joy with You when another one who was lost is found. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the mighty name of Jesus, we ask. 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:
Dear Lord, we lift up Liz from Louisiana to You. She has a medical school board exam on April 30th and I…I just lift her up to You and I ask for You to free her mind, give her peace and confidence so that the answers that she already knows flow to her freely and easily as she ponders each question. Make her brain work the way it’s supposed to work chemically electrically and spiritually so that there’s no blocking and no anxiety during this test Lord. And Liz, I ask you to pray this same thing. Pray for God to give you the peace and the confidence and to show you the answers while you’re taking this test and even while you’re studying for it so that the anxiety melts away. It is in Jesus’ name that I do pray this. Amen. It’s your brother Bart from Kentucky and I’m walking in the light.
Hey DAB family this is I Lean on the Lord from San Angelo TX and I am calling in for Liz from Louisiana. Sweet girl you have worked so hard to this point and boards are intimidating. You will do fine. You have committed yourself to an education. You have dedicated yourself in studies and have taken examinations along the way to show that you are competent. That information is in your mind. Ask the Lord continuously for His peace and that you are able to recall the information that you do know and that you have committed to memory. You are going to be a fabulous doctor. You are compassionate and kind and your love the Lord and he has great plans for you. So, Father I come before You and I ask that You do give Your peace, Your wisdom to Liz as she studies for her board, Father that in the midst of the peace that You bless her with she is able to recall the information that she knows. Father, we thank You for the calling You have placed on her life to be able to heal people, help people, love on people and share You through the profession that You have called her to. And it’s in Jesus name that I pray. Liz you’ve put a lot of work into this and you will do well. Finally, I want to thank the DAB family for being there, praying, sending encouragement, joys that you share. Brian and the Hardin family thank you so much. I’ve been a part of this community as a result of a dear friend Kathy Brown introducing me to this, I don’t know four or five years ago and it is it’s a blessing between the reading of the scripture, the commentary, and then getting to know the family around the campfire. So, love you DAB family. I lean on the Lord from Texas.
Hi, this message is for Aaron who called in for April 8th. You had recently been diagnosed with AML and then on top of that had been diagnosed with fungal lesions in your brain both of which are putting you in a pretty dire state. And you said you were…you were like I’m not sure how God’s gonna pull this off. And, so, I just want to encourage you. My mother-in-law was diagnosed with AML about 20 years ago and about a few days into her treatment for AML she was also diagnosed with a rare blood disorder of TPT. And the treatment for the TPT aggravated the AML and the treatment for the AML aggravated the… We were in dire straits. We threw ourselves at the mercy seat of God. And I want you to know that she was healed of both of those diseases. And the doctors could not explain it, they were like we don’t know how you survived all that. But we knew that it was the grace of God and His healing hand upon her. So, she lived an additional 15 years past all of that and then she had another round of AML which unfortunately took her life in February 2020. But I just want to encourage you that I have seen God heal people from two different diseases that should have taken them out. And, so, brother I’m praying for you. I…I just know that God can touch you and he can bring about something that we cannot even ask for or imagine in this natural life. But his supernatural power goes beyond all those things to do what He does. And, so, I’ll be praying for you. This is Iva from Ohio.
Hi this is Victoria Soldier calling to pray for some of the DABbers. I wanted to pray for the daughter Genesis who is cutting herself and she’s going through things and trying to…suicidal thoughts. I want to pray for my precious baby and I want to pray for Susan who’s calling from Mississippi about her son and his wife who are on drugs and how she’s taking care of the child and praying that the children that are there will get with the child and realize it’s not the child’s fault and give her love because she really needs love and pray that that the son and his wife will lose their desire for drugs and God will heal them. Want to pray for Dana also. She called for prayer for her brother…Annie who called for prayer for her brother and I want to pray for Ben and Sarah who’s trying to adopt their child in Liberia and pray that everything goes fine. Gracious Father You have Your way. In the name of Jesus, You have Your way with that precious girl that’s cutting herself, that precious girl that doesn’t know with the confusion. Lord, I rebuke the enemy on every hand that is trying to take that child’s life and trying to do evil things to her life. Lord, You deliver her with Your mighty hand. Lord, You have Your way in the lives of those precious mother and Father that are both on drugs. Lord, You just…You curse the…You curse the desire of the drug Lord and give them…give them…clean…clean out the cobwebs of their lives and give them the strength to get over it Lord and to move on, Lord to be delivered from it with Your mighty hand and bless that precious little girl to give those others so much love that they can never resist even if they try. Father, You have Your way. You bless that mother for being the mother that You’re calling for, a mother that can take in her grandchildren and wants to do it with all her heart. Lord, I ask You to bless that house tremendously in the name of Jesus…
Just before Covid started I was on one of my walks which
takes me through a little park area with an old mill and I saw this little squirrel.
He would be running back and forth. And I thought, you know what, I’ll take him
some peanuts next time. So, I did. And I put the peanuts all over and watched
as he ran around and got them but. Be wouldn’t do it when I was near him. So…but
I gradually started to get closer to him and closer to him. Well, within a
couple years this…this…this squirrel knows me so well he would come running
when the car drives up and the car isn’t close to…to where he is. As I step out,
I’d see him running and I’d say, how did he know hits me? And I read up about
the squirrel and apparently squirrels are able to…to discern your footsteps. I
said oh, that’s why he knows them coming. So, we gradually got to the place
where I could hold the peanuts in my hand, and he would come and take them out,
put them in my purse and he’d come and take them out. I named him Zoomer
because we were in the age of zooming. But they found later on that it was a
girl because it had babies. So, the name has changed to Zuma. So, as I’m
thinking about that, that squirrel knows my footsteps. God knows everything
about us. The little hair on our heads He has numbered. And, so, I know that He’s
watching over us and trying to gather us in His arms as we’re going through
such difficult moments. So, I just want to remind you all, God sees our tears. He
hears every prayer, and He answers. Maybe it’s not the way we want but He does.
I love you all. Have a wonderful weekend. Soaring on Eagles wings.