Joshua 24:1-33 ~ Luke 21:1-28 ~ Psalm 89:38-52 ~ Proverbs 13:20-23
Today is April 22nd . Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. Great to be here with you for another step forward and to be here together to close another week in this rhythm that we call life and in the rhythm of the scriptures in our lives. So we’ll dive in, back out in the book of Joshua. Joshua has gotten very old. The people have kind of settled in and we’re approaching the end of Joshua’s story. So, from the English Standard Version, Joshua chapter 24, verses 1 through 33 today.
Commentary
We said goodbye to Joshua, the leader of Israel after Moses, the one that brought the children of Israel into the land of their inheritance, the promised land, and, as with Moses, Joshua brought the people together and retold the story and reaffirmed the covenant and then he said something so penetrating that the reverberations are all the way with us today and if we would pay attention it is a game-changer: “You are witnesses against yourselves.”
So the converse would be true – you are witnesses for yourselves in the matters of your faith journey with God, your relationship and intimacy with God. You are witnesses against yourselves. We can dress ourselves up and make ourselves look pretty, say all the right things, look the right part, even do good things, but in the end it is the mirror before us that is telling the truth. We are witnesses against ourselves in these things.
The people in Joshua’s time agreed. Yes, we agree with this, we are witnesses. They are essentially affirming yes, what we do matters. What we say matters. How we conduct ourselves matters. The thoughts of our hearts, they matter. The words out of our mouths, they matter. The conduct, the way that we behave, that matters. It all matters. It is all a witness of who we really are and our true covenant with God. We are witnesses. And so Joshua says, “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you and incline your heart to the Lord.”
May we listen to those words. May we enter into that because it forces us to face the truth about who we really are and what is really going on between us and God. This is fundamental. This is baseline. This is the only bedrock we have. If we do not have this bedrock, we have nothing. I mean, Joshua boiled it down by saying you have to pick. You have to choose. If you want to serve the gods of old, then go do that. If you want to serve the gods of Egypt, then go do that. If you want to serve the gods of the Amorites, then go do that. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. So what is embedded in here is don’t pretend that you are going to serve the Lord. Go serve something with all your heart, but I am serving God, the God who set us free, the God who set the story in motion, the God who created all things. I’m holding onto that and I am a witness against myself in this.
That is pretty serious stuff. So may we take this sobering moment and the seriousness of it to look in the mirror and stare squarely in the face.
Prayer
Holy Spirit, as we take this to heart, as we do look in the mirror and look ourselves in the face and understand that our lives are witnesses against ourselves or for ourselves and that everything does matter, help us because without the power of your Holy Spirit, without your presence in our lives, there is nothing. There is nothing. We can look like something, but we can’t be anything without you, nor would we want to. But we are drawn astray so easily. We are distracted so easily. We step off the path so easily. Without your presence to guide and correct, rebuke, instruct, comfort, and lead, it is an impossible thing. So come Holy Spirit and let us understand the gravity, that it all matters, that it really does. It matters that we walk in collaboration and in intimacy with you. Come, come Holy Spirit into everything that we’re going to do and say today, everything that we’re going to think and act on. Come Jesus, we pray. In your mighty name, amen.
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Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports
Hi, this is Kim from Kentucky and I’m just calling in. It’s Tuesday, April the 18th, and I’ve just been listening to the prayer requests and I just heard Mark from Australia call in asking for prayer, admitting that he had fallen yesterday into a sin that he has battled with. Right before Mark called, a lady had called in and she was reading scripture. One of the first ones she read was James 5:16: Confess your sins, your faults to one another and pray for one another that you may be made well. So Mark, you did that. So now just know you are forgiven. It is as simple as that. The enemy wants to keep condemning us and I have felt that condemnation for failures to God, but remember just like a child that is learning to walk, they walk and then they stumble and fall, but they get back up and they start walking again. That is what we have to have with our relationship with our Lord, is that same determination that we’ll get back up and start walking again and then he’s that good, good father there with the open arms to welcome us in. I just pray you have the strength of the Holy Spirit inside of you to resist all temptations. I just pray that will grow ever stronger and this will be passed. So just know that I am praying for you. I appreciate your honesty. I appreciate everyone that calls in. I don’t call in a lot but I listen and I just appreciate all of your prayers and comments, family. God bless you all today.
Good morning. This is Sheila calling from Texas. This message is for Mark from Sydney, Australia who called in to make a confession on a sin that he had committed. The call was April the 12th. I want to let you know that God is well pleased with you. You have done what so many fail to do and by you confessing your sin not only to God, but your brothers and sisters in Christ, know that the enemy Satan cannot condemn you. His demons cannot by any chance come at you and the blood of Jesus is able to redeem you and make you clean just as though you had never sinned before. David was called a man after God’s own heart and many can ask how can he be a man after God’s own heart yet he sinned with Bathsheba and even had Uriah killed? But I tell you the truth. It was the condition of David’s heart that makes him a man after God’s own heart. David confessed before God and ___. Read Psalm 51. Know that God loves you, Mark. He already has forgiven you and hence you are not condemned. I pray that many among us will be like you and listen to God when he asks them to repent. Many in the church are still sinning but even after God had begged them to repent, they have so much pride that will not allow them to repent like you have. So Mark, hold your head up. Your sin has been forgiven and you’re not condemned and just as Jesus said to the woman who had been caught in the act of adultery, Jesus said, “Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?” “None, Lord,” she answered. “Neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Now go and sin no more” So Mark, God has forgiven you. Hold your head up. God bless you. Bye.
Hey everybody. This is Annette A. Well, here it goes. I’m trusting in God’s plan for everything. My son just called me from the hospital in Colorado and somehow broke his ankle and he is on his way to jail. So I’m going to trust that God is going to work this out and I’m just trusting that he told me that he had a plan for my son and that is the way it is going to be. I’m not going to let anything else get in that way. So anyway, just pray for my son, Alex. I would sure appreciate it. I love you guys. Bye.
Hey DAB. This is Jeff from Virginia Tech. Today I’m calling out today for some prayer just for myself. It’s hard. I think being a college student and a Christian at the same time is actually really hard. I love Jesus. I love serving him and it is just there are so many souls that need to be reached. I ask you brothers and sisters, pray for me for a spirit of evangelization, a spirit to move in the hearts of the other 30,000 students on this campus. I pray that the fire of the Spirit would just move through campus and light up the whole campus, in Jesus’ name. Yeah, and I just ask that my own faith be ever kindled in the heart of Jesus and yeah, I’m also looking for a job this summer. I’m hopefully looking for a job where I can be a caddy on the golf course. This summer I’ll also be walking 200 miles in Spain on the Camino de Santiago, the Way of St. James. I also need prayers for that, for getting the financial support to go. So yeah, I just reach out to you guys today. I’m praying for you always. God bless. Bye.
This is Miguel from California calling for Alex. He called into the prayer line stating that you were not going to give up on your wife. A little while later we hard another message saying that she had approached you and said she wanted a divorce, but Alex, cling to that first call and say that you will not give up. Please allow me to even add to that. Don’t not give up for your sake. Don’t even not give up for the sake of your marriage. Don’t give up for your wife’s sake. As husbands, we’re called to love our wives as Christ loves the church, so I would encourage you to ask yourself how would Christ love the church in this situation? Love your wife. Serve your wife. Let’s pray. Father God, Lord Jesus, I ask for you to enter into this situation, Lord. And I ask for your Holy Spirit, I appeal for your Holy Spirit to enter into Alex and the bride of his youth, Lord. I ask for a new reconciliation between them, Lord. That their relationship will be made new and I know that you can do this. We know that you have the authority to do it, the power to do it, so we ask it in Jesus’ name that you would do it, Lord. And not for the sake of Alex or his wife, but for the sake of the glory of your name, Jesus. May you be glorified in their marriage, that we see, Jesus, as you love the church, may Alex love his wife and as the church loves you, may his wife find that love for him again. I pray this simple prayer in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Hey DAB. This is Tom. I’ve been a listener for a number of years. I call in very seldomly, but I wanted to say a couple things. The first thing was for a long time for whatever reason I was not listening to the prayer portion of the podcast. Since I’ve made the choice to pay attention to that, God has shown me so much more about his family, who they are, and how he is working in the world. So for those that are I totally understand for time or whatever I really encourage you to at least a few times a week listen to that portion of the podcast because it really reveals God’s glory through the DAB family. The second thing I wanted to ask was just ask for your prayers for my family, in particular my marriage. We’re going through a very hard time. We’ve never really had a super easy time, but there is a lot of brokenness in our marriage. I don’t know what I can attribute it to particularly. I know that one of the issues is that for whatever reason I have a hard time remembering things. My wife tells me it hurts her deeply and ripples through other parts of our marriage and I think there are some other things in the background going on in the world or in the spiritual world, I don’t know and I’m not going to speculate, but I just would ask for your prayers. You guys are the first place I would turn. Amen.