Hey, welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hey. It's Monday spring break's over. Kids are back in school. Life is back to normal, at least until the next break. For most everybody. Some people had spring break earlier I was talking to, somebody this past week whose kids were already done with spring break and they were wrapped up and back in school and everything else, but yeah, Frisco's was a week before. Yeah, we didn't touch on it, but we had a great open house on Friday. Quite a few stopped by. So thank you guys for stopping by if you came by. We're grateful to have you here. And excited to. To continue to utilize the offices. Yeah. Thank you guys for showing up. That was really special and it was nice and even fun to have so much energy in the room and to have people laughing and celebrating with us. It was an office warming that I think was even better than what we thought. We had expectations and we had aspirations, but the actual experiencing of it was way cooler than what we anticipated. So thank you for making that special. For those of you who drop by. And if you miss out, don't worry. You could still drop by, there's just not gonna be any cookies or things like that. We'd love to have you show up and we'd show you around or you can wait until the next time we move, which will be about two years. So there's that too. That's true. That's true. We might have an energy drink or something like that in the fridge. We could give you. That's true. But, yeah, we do. Those people don't want those, though. Those are powerful. That's correct. Yeah. We do have some coffee. Yeah. Swing by them. It'd be great. And yeah we're done as of yesterday with the disciple series. We're getting ready to move into a new series called The Gathering Storm, which is on the, situation leading up to the cross, which again is a reminder of the Easter season that we find ourselves in right now. And so we're looking forward to some nicer weather with that as well, which is we're starting to experience this some highs in the eighties and seventies. It's nice out there. Super windy though. Super windy. It's been we've had some dust storms too recently, which have been. On our, I haven't experienced a dust storm in Texas before. Arizona for sure. Not out here though. Global warming. Yeah. Ponder said must be what it is. Ponder said that winter was over, so I'm taking that to the bank. He said springtime is in full effect. Did he see a shadow? I think he did. I. Yeah. All right. Hey, let's jump into our Bible reading today. We're continuing in Joshua five through eight. So 5, 6, 7, 8. That's yeah, four chapters. My, my brain works. That's yeah, four chapters today. We get into the promised land here and and this is a situation that would not have been fun to participate in as an Israelite male at this time. 'cause in this chapter, the men who hadn't been circumcised while in the wilderness were gonna be circumcised. They're in the Promised Land. And that's gonna take place. Israel's gonna celebrate her first Passover in the promised land and Joshua's gonna end up meeting the commander of the Lord's army, who I take to be Jesus. Because he worships him and he's not corrected. Anytime a, an angelic being is worshiped, then typically that angelic being says, Hey, what? What are you doing? You shouldn't be worshiping me. But this angelic being is actually the Lord I think is Christ and the pre-incarnate Christ at least, and I think that's who Joshua encounters here. But yeah, during the wilderness wanderings they didn't have I, maybe the means or the wherewithal to carry out the circumcisions in accordance with the law. And so that had to wait until the entrance to the promised land. What's really notable in verse 12 is that the manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land. And what's cool about this is that there's no gaps in God's provision. He gives them exactly what they need at exactly the right time. Say what you will. God is precise in the delivery of his resources. He's not before, and he is not after he. He's given them exactly what they need. In fact, even the idea of the manna, they couldn't collect more than they needed otherwise they went rotten. And if they collect a lesson they needed actually God provided for those, even those shortcomings. I think this is really cool. This is a really sweet view of how God interacts with his people. Yeah, it is. And and he still does that for us today. We're just probably not as, as mindful of it today as they would've been because they would've had the tangible expression of it there. Chapter six, then here is Joshua fitting the Battle of Jericho. And this is the story that you grew up with that you heard. Here it is, it's laid out for you in Joshua chapter six. That's where this comes from. Israel's gonna take Jericho and it's gonna be an act of God. And again why marching around the city? Why blowing on the trumpets? Why all of them shouting is there some tactic? Is there some tradition? Is there something else going on here? And I think at the end of the day, this was God making it abundantly clear to Israel that he was the one accomplishing this, that he was the one that was gonna do this for them because. If they were to go around and march around another city this is the only time he does this. To our knowledge, at least, this is not how he takes any other city in the promised land. And so if they were to go do this at the next town over, it wouldn't work. And the reason being is God was doing this to remind Israel from the very outset, the first battle they're gonna have, he's gonna do the victory. He's gonna do the heavy lifting for them. This is not gonna be based on their might and their power. I think it's fascinating that God utilizes different means to accomplish his purposes. And here he had the march and it is weird, but I think this is important for us to notice and it's that God uses means he decided to have them participate in what he would do with that city. So as you mentioned in the last podcast, he's just not saying, Hey, I'm gonna send, I'm gonna send a certain spiritual. Contingency to the people and have them destroy them for you. I'm gonna have you do something and I, and increasingly so this is gonna be the case for them. They're gonna have to go in and take the land. And this is an example of that. He's saying, I want you to go and do these certain things, and it's gonna be weird and unusual and perhaps a very strange military strategy. But the point is, God's the one who's doing it and he's commanding them to participate in it. That's not too different from what he has us do today. He. Commands us to do things, but we are definitely participating in the work that he calls us to do. It feels like that. Sure. Has that sense of, man, I, I'm working hard when I read my Bible and I pray, but God's the one who's empowering us, but he's calling us to join with him and participate in the work. That's a really a really important feature of our walk with Christ and it's that we. Play a role God uses means, and often we are those means. Yeah. And that's Philippians, right? That's says, Paul writes, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it's God who's at work within you, but the will to work for his good pleasure. Philippians two is is indicative of that same principle there, chapter seven. Then we get into the aftermath of this and this again, this would've been a huge victory. Everybody's excited. There's a spirit of. A palpable just fervor in the camp going, this is it, we're here, we're doing this. And yet part of the command of Israel with Jericho was everything was to be devoted to destruction. They weren't to keep anything for themselves. And in Joshua chapter seven, we find out that. Somebody. Somebody didn't go that way. Somebody didn't do the right thing. And the way they find that out is they go to battle against AI and ai. They think this is gonna be no big deal. They send a smaller force there, they're routed, and then God reveals that somebody has taken something out of Joshua or out of Jo, out of Jericho that was devoted to destruction. Find out that it's. Aiken who has stolen the thing. And I think what's, what jumped out to me this time is just noticing that this was, the sin was not just taking the thing the sin, the root of the sin was coveting. And it says that in the text there that he saw and he coveted it and he wanted it for himself. Something that wasn't his, something that didn't belong to him, that he said, man, that's what I want. And that's the evil. It's saying I'm gonna take these things because I want them and I think they're gonna make me happy, more happy than obeying the Lord. And that's the insidious nature of sin today too, is that it lies to us and says, this is gonna make you more happy to do this than to obey the Lord in this. And that's what. Ends up happening. It's called an outrageous thing. It literally, it's the word that means stupid. In verse 15, 7 15. There he says, he has done an outrageous thing, a stupid thing, a foolish thing in Israel there, and again, verse 21, there's the line. Then I coveted them and I took them, and so God punishes because of the sin of Aiken and they lose this battle in ai. Aiken has to be judged along with this whole family. We've made the point before pr, and it probably fits here too, that we don't know the ages of these children or his wife and whether or not they were complicit. In his actions here. We know that God is a God of justice, and we've talked about that lately on the podcast as well. So whatever was the circumstance here, this punishment may at its at first glance, seem harsh to us, but we also have to remember God is just, and we don't have all the details here. One thing to note too is that his wife actually isn't mentioned, which is why I suspect either A, she's not in the picture for whatever reason, she's not alive, or B, she wasn't complicit. Where I could suspect that her sons and daughters would perhaps be part of that because they're in this and everyone else, or at least his wife again, is not, which is a pretty glaring omission. So it doesn't tell us exactly that's what took place, but that, that reinforces my thinking that he and his kids were complicit. They worked together to do these things. I wanna make one more note here, and it's that there's a tainting effect of sin from even just one. Person or one family as the case may be. That affects the whole group, the whole people. And I think there is a similar kind of parallel to the church, although it's not a one-to-one or different, but there is something to be said about when someone is engaging in sin, secret sin, even if we think we're containing it, it has an impact and everybody else around there is a contaminating effect to sin within the camp. And you would do well. All of us would do well to guard our hearts against this kind of sin and to disallow that from our lives so that we're not bringing it into to, to contaminate other people around us. There is a kind of holiness that God calls us to and the church thrives when she's holy, chapter eight. Then after this is taken care of and the sin is put outta the camp, God is going to to the point that you were just making Pastor Rod honor the. Israelites at this point in their efforts, in their reversal of things, and now they're gonna obey. And he says to Joshua, right off the bat, there in eight one, do not fear. Do not be dismayed. Things have been taken care of. We've dealt with this. Now let's move forward. And so they go back after ai and this time they're gonna get victory here. And the Lord promises to give AI into the hand of Joshua, but Joshua still to plan and execute the military strategy. And that's worth noting too here. So God says you're gonna. I'm gonna give them into your hand, and yet Joshua still says, okay, here's what we're gonna do. Some of us are gonna go forward, we're gonna have the other lion weights, we're gonna lure them out, and then go in and take the city and just good leadership here from Joshua. Joshua puts himself on the front lines there. He doesn't put himself in the ambush. Squad. He doesn't put himself back in the camp with the women and children. He's out there leading his people and he's he's part of the ones that are the bait, so to speak, for the inhabitants of AI there. And they win a victory. But they have to, to what we were just talking about earlier, it's them working with the Lord in accomplishing this victory. I. Yeah, I love this manly tactic. Here he goes first, he's leading the way, and I love that the last words in Joshua chapter eight is that there was not a word of all that Moses commanded, that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel. Joshua is not only a man of bravery and strength as he was encouraged to be, but he's also a man of the word. He's reading it, he's doing his duty to read it. He's also attempting to fulfill it. So there's everything commendable about Joshua, at least in this particular chapter of his book. I, I love this because of. All the lessons that you can derive from his life. Yeah. Joshua's not a guy with a lot of faults that we find at least not written. Not written down. Yeah. Which is which is good. It's encouraging. Lemme pray and then we'll be done with another episode. Shorter episode. But hey, we'll be. We'll be brief when we can. God, we thank you for your word. We want to be men like Joshua. We wanna be a church that's faithful to you. We don't want sin in the camp, and so help us to have that mentality and that attitude We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Keep in your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you. Bye.

Thanks for listening to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about ourChurch@compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review to rate to share this podcast on whatever platform you happen to be listening on, and we will catch you against tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.