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.
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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
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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:
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…