Judges 1:1-2:9, Luke 21:29-22:13, Psalms 90:1-91:16, Proverbs 13:24-25
Today is the 23rd day of April welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian, and it is a pleasure and a joy to come around the Global Campfire together and just find our place, do what we do, exhale, settle in to the safe oasis that we create for ourselves as God’s word comes washing into our lives. So, it is a pleasure and joy to be here with you today. And we’re turning the page. We’re actually moving into some new territory in the Old Testament. We conclude the book of Joshua yesterday which leads us to the…well….to the first chapter of the book of Judges.
Introduction to the book of Judges:
And judges is what comes next. We can think from the title of Judges that it’s a big book of judgment, right? Like, this is one of those books in the Bible where you don’t want to read it because it’s nothing but judgment. That's…that’s what’s going on here. Let’s, since we’re moving into new territory, let’s just really briefly look back at where we’ve been. We met Abram. We saw him become Abraham. Abraham’s story is essentially the origin story of the Hebrew people. So, Abraham and then the generation of Isaac and the generation of Jacob. Jacob being Abraham’s grandson. Jacob has a couple of wives and a couple of concubines thrown into the mix and there’s 12 children born. And we remember all that between Rachel and Leah, the battle of the sisters over the children. And these children, they’re going to grow up and become tribes. I mean they will…like they will start tribes. Jacob’s name is changed to Israel. And, so, his children are the children of Israel. One of those kids was named Joseph and we followed a long path with Joseph being trafficked into slavery and ending up in Egypt. And over the course of time ending up second-in-command in Egypt when a famine comes that reunites the family. They thought Joseph was dead. Jacob thought his son was long dead, but they are reunited in life, which is how the children of Israel made it to Egypt. And then after Joseph dies, they flourish in the land of Egypt and become a very populous mighty people, but they are enslaved by the Egyptians. So, four centuries later, so they’re in slavery for 400 years. That’s quite a long time to establish the status quo, this is when we meet the man, Moses. Moses, we met in a basket in the river and Pharaoh’s daughter raises him then he has to flee because he kills an Egyptian. He gets married in the wilderness then he sees a burning Bush that is not consumed, and he meets with God and God sends him back to set the people free. Moses wants nothing to do with it but in the end, he obeys, and Moses and his brother Aaron lead the people. And that’s when we go through all of the plagues and the Exodus from Egypt. And then they began their wilderness journey. And it was supposed to be a lot shorter than it ended up being. But they got to the very very precipice of entering into the promised land and the spies came back and said, “we can’t do it. There’s giants in the land. It's…it’s a great land but we can’t win”, which doomed an entire generation to continue to learn the message of the wilderness. And we spoke a lot about our own…our own wilderness journeys as we wandered in the wilderness with the children of Israel. Then they made it to the banks of the Jordan River. There’s all kinds of stuff that happened in between there, we remember, but then Moses got all the people together and he gave them three discourses, three speeches, that comprise the book of Deuteronomy, the things that Moses’s needs the people to know and that he needs to know that he said out loud before he dies. And, so, they listened to that and then Moses died, became a part of history. Joshua takes the leadership over Israel, leads the people across the Jordan River. The first city of conquest is Jericho. We remember all of this and then they are at war basically. All of the different tribes and kings of the land, they attack Israel, and Israel keeps winning and they begin to settle the land. Then Joshua brings everybody back together at Shechem and that’s where these famous words, “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” come from. And the people say they will serve the Lord. They…they renew the covenant and Joshua tells them, “you are a witness…your lives are…are a witness against you if you don’t obey this. That’s what brings us to judges. So, we will begin the book of Judges and realize that judges were what came next in the leadership of Israel. They had had a profit in Moses lead them. They had a profit and Joshua lead them. Once they’re gone and all of the generation that knew them died off, then there’s an emerging generation that doesn’t know exactly what to do. They are all tribes doing whatever seems right in their own eyes. And we will begin to see that some of the things that they’re doing that they think is right in their own eyes isn’t and will see a slide beginning to happen. And, as the people become oppressed, they cry out to God and a judge rises up to lead the people. And some of these judges are our pious and committed to God and some of these judges have some strange ways of doing things but God uses them in this time. So, as we read the book of Judges, we will be passing through several centuries of time. The book of Judges sort of covers an in between period. So, Moses and Joshua are gone, and then there’s the period of the judges, which will lead us to the period of the monarchy. Like, when the period of the judges reaches its end, the people are going to want a king. They don’t want a judge anymore, they don’t want a prophet, they want a king. So, it won’t be too long after we conclude the book of Judges that we will be entering into that, that time of the monarchy of ancient Israel. So, that’s kind of the lay of the land. That’s where we’ve come from, that’s how we got here to page 1 of the book of Judges. So, let’s dive in. We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. Judges chapter 1 verse 1 through 2 verse 9.
Prayer:
Father we thank You for Your word. We thank You bringing us into this new territory in the book of Judges. Holy Spirit come. Plant the words of the Scriptures into our lives. Allow them to till the soil and plant good fruit, that the harvest may be bountiful, the fruit of the spirit in our lives may be bountiful. Help us to see ourselves in these stories. Help them to be mirrors into our own souls into the motives and the brokenness in our own lives. And even as we begin to turn into the passion narrative in the gospel of Luke, even as we’ve read of the preparations for this last meal before suffering and the plot to betray You, our Lord, we enter the story once again, the story of a love so profound that it has no equal, a love that is drawn us to it like a moth to a flame. And, so, as we watch this story unfold again Holy Spirit come and help us to enter into it with a profound amount of gratitude. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. 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:
My name is Darla from Pennsylvania this is my first time calling. I just wanted to reach out to the man. I was listening on April 16th and the man said that he felt like he wasn’t even worthy or able to be helpful or something along those lines and my heart just kind of sank because I know…I know how that feels and I just wanted to let you know that I’m praying for you in Jesus’ name.
Hi Daily Audio Bible this is Alobia from New Mexico this is my first time ever reading with you guys and so far, it has been a fantastic time. I’m really happy that I’m here. I’m happy that I found you guys. But this is my first time ever doing this kind of thing, but I do want to ask for some prayers if it’s not too much. I am struggling with my relationship. He’s not equally yoked with me and I recently got back into my religion and I stopped doing the things that I wasn’t supposed to be doing and our relationship changed a lot and we got through it a little bit but now he proposed, and I’m just confused. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what to do anymore. I…I wanna be with this person but I know I shouldn’t be with him when we’re not equally yoked. But at the same time, I can’t bring myself to like break-up with him. This might seem like something that’s not really important, but I’ve been dating this person for three years and I’m confused and I’m not sure what to do. I’ve been praying about it, but I would like to hear from other people too. But I also want to give thanks for this community. I’m not sure if a lot of people will hear it. Well, we’ll see, but I hope that you guys can pray for me and pray for my situation. But thank you. I’m sending my love out to all of you and have a good rest of your day.
Good afternoon DAB family God bless you all. I don’t know your name I think you said Ramona or Mona from South Cali. You’re 32 years old single mom of an 8-year-old boy with stage four kidney failure. You are on dialysis three times a week; 31 surgeries now has cancer. You called in praying for an encouraging because of James from Fort Worth TX who lost his daughter last year January 27th of 2020 and you’re asking for prayer so that you may have God’s peace, God’s joy, God’s healing because your 8-year-old son told you it’s OK for you to go to heaven so that you don’t suffer anymore. My dear sister I cannot imagine that and I’m standing alongside you in your tears. I’m praying for you and I’m believing that there’s nothing that God cannot do. There is nothing that God cannot do. God can turn this around in the name of Jesus. I am declaring healing over your body inside out I am declaring totally healing in your body. I am declaring functioning kidneys in the name of Jesus. I am binding those cancer cells to be done to be eradicated from your body in its entirety in the name of Jesus. I am declaring you healed by the blood of Christ. I’m loosening the healing powers of Jesus over you from the crown of your head to the soul of your feet in Jesus’ name. Amen. Esther from Orlando.
Hi, I’m calling in to pray for Lacey, Lacey, I believe and the Lilies. Lacey I just listened to the broadcast on the 17th, and I heard your prayer. I too suffer from a disease that won’t let me fully extend some of my body and I also took hope in that same reading that you did. Keep reaching sister. God will straighten you up. I know that it doesn’t seem possible right now but just keep reaching for heaven and you will reach it. We love you.
Good morning DAB family this is Doctor John from Illinois listening this morning at 4:18. Just wanna pray this morning for Chad who’s suffering depression, anxiety, and fear but he knows enough to call, he knows enough to ask for help. And I listened to this brother pray for his nephew Jeff, the firefighter who’s sick with covid still experiencing troubles with it. And I guess my one encouragement the one…makes my heart just overwhelmed with I believe it’s Ramona from Southern California she’s a 32-year-old woman 8-year-old son, she’s experiencing kidney failure, having some other diagnostic problems. And I’m just overwhelmed at her heart toward other people though. And she said something really sparked my heart. And she said even in the midst of this affliction God is still God. He’s still righteous and He’s still holy and He’s still just. And she’s in desperate straits and yet she cries for help for other people and lifting up other people encouraging other people, that’s her faith. Her joy is in the Lord. So, let’s take a note from this. Family let’s pray for others. Let’s put others above ourselves. God hears every single prayer, and he knows our hearts before we even ask. So, thank you Brian and Jill again for this wonderful place that we can come together, this wonderful family that we share each other’s hearts and needs. This is the love of God acted out.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family this is Stan from Maryland. My heart was impressed to pray for Trent. I believe he was on the August 18th prayer request. Dear father lift up Trent. He…he said is in a dark abyss of depression and despair and fear. Father God I pray that You would put a hedge of thorns all around Trent so that the influences of the evil one causing him to despair and to be fearful and to be depressed would lose interest and leave him. And Father, You know Trent’s heart. He’s trying to draw near to You. So, I pray Father that You were drawing near to him. When You’re in that dark place it’s hard to see any light. So, I pray Father that You would illuminate Your presence in Trent’s deep soul s0peaking to him as he needs to hear so that he knows that You love him deeply, that You will lift him up and that You…that he can rely on You. As a matter of fact, Father relying on You is the only way because we are all confused Father God about what our future is and about what our perception of reality is. So, I pray these things for Trent in the name of Jesus. Amen.