Latest / Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan / August 3, 2026 - Deuteronomy 31 & Proverbs 2
Transcript
- 0:01SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bob Reading Plan.
- 0:04SPEAKER_00: We are seeking to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength with God's word lighting the way.
- 0:09SPEAKER_00: I'm Josiah Smith, lead pastor of Compass South Valley.
- 0:12SPEAKER_00: Today is Monday, august third, twenty twenty six.
- 0:26SPEAKER_00: Listen intently to God's written word.
- 0:28SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy thirty one.
- 0:30SPEAKER_00: So Moses continued to speak these words to all Israel, and he said to them, I am one hundred and twenty years old today.
- 0:37SPEAKER_00: I am no longer able to go out and come in.
- 0:40SPEAKER_00: The Lord has said to me, You shall not go over this Jordan.
- 0:44SPEAKER_00: The Lord your God himself will go over before you.
- 0:47SPEAKER_00: He will destroy these nations before you so that you shall dispossess them, and Joshua will go over at your head, as the Lord has spoken.
- 0:54SPEAKER_00: And the Lord will do to them as he did to Sion and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land when he destroyed them.
- 1:01SPEAKER_00: And the Lord will give them over to you, and you shall do to them according to the whole commandment that I have commanded you.
- 1:07SPEAKER_00: Be strong and courageous.
- 1:09SPEAKER_00: Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you.
- 1:14SPEAKER_00: He will not leave you or forsake you.
- 1:17SPEAKER_00: Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give to them, and you shall put them in possession of it.
- 1:30SPEAKER_00: It is the Lord who goes before you.
- 1:32SPEAKER_00: He will be with you, he will not leave you or forsake you.
- 1:36SPEAKER_00: Do not fear or be dismayed.
- 1:38SPEAKER_00: Then Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel.
- 1:46SPEAKER_00: And Moses commanded them, at the end of every seven years, at the set time in the year of release, at the feast of Booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing.
- 2:02SPEAKER_00: Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as you live in the land that you are going over to the Jordan to possess.
- 2:23SPEAKER_00: And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, the days approach when you must die.
- 2:27SPEAKER_00: Call Joshua and present yourselves in the tent of meeting, that I may commission him.
- 2:32SPEAKER_00: And Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves in the tent of meeting, and the Lord appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud, and the pillar of cloud stood over the entrance of the tent.
- 2:41SPEAKER_00: And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers.
- 2:46SPEAKER_00: Then this people will rise and hoar after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them.
- 2:56SPEAKER_00: Then my anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured, and many evils and troubles will come upon them, so that they will say in that day, have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?
- 3:12SPEAKER_00: And I will surely hide my face in that day because of all the evil that they have done, because they have turned to other gods.
- 3:19SPEAKER_00: Now therefore, write this song and teach it to the people of Israel.
- 3:23SPEAKER_00: Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel.
- 3:28SPEAKER_00: For when I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to give their fathers, and they have eaten and are full and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them, and despise me and break my covenant.
- 3:42SPEAKER_00: And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness, for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring, for I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give.
- 3:57SPEAKER_00: So Moses wrote this song the same day and taught it to the people of Israel.
- 4:01SPEAKER_00: And the Lord commissioned Joshua, the son of Nun, and said, Be strong and courageous, for you shall bring the people of Israel into the land that I swore to give them.
- 4:09SPEAKER_00: I will be with you.
- 4:11SPEAKER_00: When Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a book to the very end, Moses commanded the Levites who carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, take this book of the law and put it by the side of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against you.
- 4:26SPEAKER_00: For I know how rebellious and stubborn you are.
- 4:28SPEAKER_00: Behold, even today while I am yet alive with you, you have been rebellious against the Lord.
- 4:34SPEAKER_00: How much more after my death?
- 4:36SPEAKER_00: Assemble to me all the elders of your tribes and your offices, that I may speak these words in their ears and call heaven and earth to witness against them.
- 4:44SPEAKER_00: For I know that after my death you will surely act corruptly and turn aside from the way that I have commanded you, and in the days to come evil will befall you, because you will do what is evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger through the work of your hands.
- 4:59SPEAKER_00: Then Moses spoke the words of the song until they were finished, in the ears of all the assembly of Israel.
- 5:06SPEAKER_00: Proverbs two My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom, and inclining your heart to understanding.
- 5:16SPEAKER_00: Yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.
- 5:29SPEAKER_00: For the Lord gives wisdom, from his mouth come knowledge and understanding, he stores up sound wisdom for the upright, he is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice, and watching over the way of his saints.
- 5:42SPEAKER_00: Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity every good path.
- 5:48SPEAKER_00: For wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul, discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you, delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech, who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, men whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways, so you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God.
- 6:22SPEAKER_00: For her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed.
- 6:27SPEAKER_00: None who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.
- 6:31SPEAKER_00: So you will walk in the way of the good, and keep the paths of the righteous, for the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it.
- 6:40SPEAKER_00: But the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.
- 6:45SPEAKER_00: Now one thing that I want to just remind you of, specifically in Deuteronomy, this was uh I think a couple weeks ago, but I was just describing the mental image that I have, just to kind of help me get my arms around what's going on in the book of Deuteronomy.
- 6:59SPEAKER_00: So let me just remind you of that illustration to kind of help you see where we're at in Deuteronomy 31 and ultimately where we're headed.
- 7:06SPEAKER_00: Of course, the last chapter, Deuteronomy 34, just details the death of Moses, and then we pick up a story in the book of Joshua with him leading the nation of Israel into the promised land, uh, Canaan, the land flowing with milk and honey.
- 7:19SPEAKER_00: But it made me think of my football coach uh in Georgia.
- 7:24SPEAKER_00: Now, many of you know that I was kind of born and raised in the greater Atlanta, Georgia area, and so I played high school football.
- 7:31SPEAKER_00: It was a big thing there in the South.
- 7:33SPEAKER_00: And there was a lot of these traditions.
- 7:35SPEAKER_00: We used to say the Lord's Prayer before uh every game.
- 7:38SPEAKER_00: Uh, but certainly one of the things that we did, kind of as a pregame ritual, if you will, is we'd circle up, we'd all take a knee around the coach, and he would talk about the keys to the game.
- 7:50SPEAKER_00: So he would remind us of the film that we watched.
- 7:52SPEAKER_00: He would remind us of the assignments that we went over and practiced, whether we were on defense or offense.
- 7:58SPEAKER_00: He reminded us, he reminded us of our game plan.
- 8:01SPEAKER_00: Here's the keys to the game.
- 8:02SPEAKER_00: We need to focus on these things.
- 8:04SPEAKER_00: And if you focus on them and you remember them and you do them, we will succeed.
- 8:09SPEAKER_00: That was kind of the whole idea.
- 8:10SPEAKER_00: So we had a coach who was telling us, reminding us, coaching us, kind of compelling us to do what we knew to do.
- 8:18SPEAKER_00: And uh hopefully, obviously, that the end result would be victory.
- 8:22SPEAKER_00: I'll think of that in a similar way.
- 8:23SPEAKER_00: It's obviously not a perfect analogy, no analogy is, but Moses is the head coach.
- 8:29SPEAKER_00: And in Deuteronomy, the nation of Israel is circled around, all taken a knee, and they're taking instructions from Coach Moses.
- 8:37SPEAKER_00: He's reminding them of the keys to the game, so to speak.
- 8:40SPEAKER_00: He's telling them what they need to do, what their assignments are.
- 8:43SPEAKER_00: Of course, he's walked back through the law, he's renewed the covenant.
- 8:47SPEAKER_00: That was what we just read about a few chapters.
- 8:50SPEAKER_00: And so he's telling them do this, do this, remember this, that hold fast to these things that we've talked about, that you know to be true, that you know to be right, so that when you enter into the promised land, things will go well with you.
- 9:06SPEAKER_00: Or to put it in the analogy, you will have victory.
- 9:09SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, they're going to have victory because God has said over and over and over again, and even here in Deuteronomy 31, that the Lord is with them, the Lord is with the nation of Israel, that the Lord will give their enemies into their hand.
- 9:21SPEAKER_00: But that's just a mental analogy, a picture, to help you kind of think through what's happening.
- 9:27SPEAKER_00: Because it's been kind of a slow progressing story in the book of Deuteronomy, where it started with those speeches of Moses, then it was the law, the book of the law, or really the Levitical law, kind of reiterated in the central section of Deuteronomy, which is why even here in Deuteronomy 31, it talks about the law being written and uh placed into the Ark of the Covenant.
- 9:50SPEAKER_00: Now, if you weren't with us, we read about that in Leviticus and all the specific dimensions that were included in that, all the specific uh elements that were to be, you know, the acacia wood, the gold, uh, how it was to be put together and assembled, even down to who was supposed to be carrying it and how they were supposed to be carrying it.
- 10:09SPEAKER_00: They weren't supposed to touch it, they were supposed to place these acacia wood poles that were ultimately plated in gold into these rings that were on the corners uh of the Ark of the Covenant, and they were to carry it around.
- 10:23SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so that's all mentioned here in Deuteronomy 31.
- 10:25SPEAKER_00: So the book of the law is going in there.
- 10:27SPEAKER_00: Uh, of course, uh, we know uh the the staff uh that budded Aaron's staff uh is in there as well, uh, and it becomes this really key piece of you could call it furniture.
- 10:40SPEAKER_00: I don't mean that in an irreverent way, but piece of furniture uh that is very pivotal to the nation of Israel.
- 10:46SPEAKER_00: We can talk later about uh why that is, but just so that you know, uh that's kind of all the background.
- 10:51SPEAKER_00: So the Levitical laws woven in there, of course, the numbers with the census and uh kind of seeing who are the warriors of the nation of Israel, and we see all those names and all those genealogies, and even some reiteration of the roles of the priests and the sacrifices in the book of Numbers and in Deuteronomy.
- 11:08SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like up until this point, specifically in numbers, they've been gathering supplies, they've been doing a headcount, they have all been, I don't know, gearing up, putting on their armor, so to speak.
- 11:18SPEAKER_00: Uh, and now Coach Moses has circled them around, and certainly here at the end of the book of Deuteronomy is giving them their final instructions, the keys to the game.
- 11:28SPEAKER_00: And so here in Deuteronomy 31, we see the promise that God made actually quite a while ago at this point in Deuteronomy, at least in terms of chapters, uh, that Moses would not enter into, I think this was actually this took place in Numbers because of Moses' disobedience.
- 11:42SPEAKER_00: Um, God told him to speak to the rock, but he out of anger struck the rock.
- 11:48SPEAKER_00: Um, and so he was barred from entering into the promised land.
- 11:52SPEAKER_00: And so we see the fulfillment of that reality here in Deuteronomy 31.
- 11:55SPEAKER_00: It's reiterated.
- 11:56SPEAKER_00: Uh, and Moses is drawing near to the end of his life.
- 12:00SPEAKER_00: That's kind of how it that begins.
- 12:01SPEAKER_00: So Moses continued to speak these words, and he said to them, I am 120 years old, I am no longer able to go out and come in.
- 12:08SPEAKER_00: So there's a sense of even some of his physical ability is waning.
- 12:13SPEAKER_00: He's drawing close to the end of his life, and so he's giving them these final keys to the game as they're about to enter into the promised land.
- 12:20SPEAKER_00: They're gonna fight with all these nations very uh very similarly to how they've already kind of fought different nations, different kings are even mentioned here in this chapter.
- 12:28SPEAKER_00: Uh, but the promise all along the way uh is actually a guaranteed victory.
- 12:33SPEAKER_00: And this is where the analogy that I gave broke down because my football coach could prepare us all day long.
- 12:40SPEAKER_00: We could watch all kinds of film, we could uh memorize the keys to the game, we could have had a flawless week of practice, but there was never a guarantee that we would win.
- 12:50SPEAKER_00: Uh no matter how much we thought we would win, no matter how hard we tried, no matter uh how many chants we would say.
- 12:57SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh certainly uh those things would increase maybe the likelihood or the percentage outcome or the likelihood I should I should say of the reality of winning, but it was never a guarantee.
- 13:08SPEAKER_00: But here in Deuteronomy 31, we see it it is a guarantee.
- 13:12SPEAKER_00: Even verse 6 be strong and courageous, do not fear or be in dread of them.
- 13:16SPEAKER_00: Hey, don't worry about it.
- 13:17SPEAKER_00: For it is the Lord your God who goes with you, he will not leave you or forsake you.
- 13:22SPEAKER_00: So this is the kind of the um initial acts of the passing of the baton from Moses to Joshua, and of course, there's a whole book of the Bible, the next book called Joshua, where we'll read about just a lot of stories with him and and his leadership as Moses passes away.
- 13:39SPEAKER_00: Now, one thing that I want to point out that I think is uh what I've called in other parts of the Old Testament so far, a gospel glimmer.
- 13:48SPEAKER_00: So here in Deuteronomy 31, a gospel glimmer, a gospel shadow, whatever you want to call it, one of the things that we see is God, of course, who knows all things, he towels in no uncertain terms to Moses, and then of course Moses uh reiterates this to the nation as a whole, uh, that God knows that he's gonna take them into this promised land, he's gonna give them this land that's flowing with milk and honey, that picture of vibrancy and life and vitality.
- 14:15SPEAKER_00: They're gonna have everything that they need, even an overabundance of what they need.
- 14:19SPEAKER_00: He's gonna take them into this land, and what are they going to do?
- 14:23SPEAKER_00: It says that they are going to whore after other gods.
- 14:28SPEAKER_00: Even verse 20 for when I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to give to their fathers, and they have eaten and are full and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them and despise me and break my covenant.
- 14:46SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is exactly what God says.
- 14:48SPEAKER_00: So God tells, He tells Moses, Hey, you've done all this sort of covenant renewal, you've been reminding them, you've been telling them the keys of the game.
- 14:55SPEAKER_00: They're gonna go in there, they're gonna have victory, I'm gonna be true to my promises, God says.
- 15:00SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna deliver their enemies into their hand, and yet when they have eaten, when they have grown fat because they've been feasting sumptuously, they are going to rebel, they are going to forget.
- 15:14SPEAKER_00: Now, why do I say that's a gospel glimmer?
- 15:16SPEAKER_00: Because even though their sin, of course, here is being identified, the the reality is that God graciously leads them into the promised land.
- 15:29SPEAKER_00: And this is reminiscent for me of what Paul says in Romans 5.
- 15:34SPEAKER_00: That God demonstrated his love for us.
- 15:37SPEAKER_00: At what point?
- 15:39SPEAKER_00: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
- 15:46SPEAKER_00: Not when we had it all figured out, not when we were doing all the right things, not when we were striving under our own effort, not when we were trying to do good things or make it up to God.
- 15:57SPEAKER_00: No, it says, while we were still sinners, God showed his grace by sending his son to die on the cross.
- 16:06SPEAKER_00: So I see that baked into this reality here in Deuteronomy 31.
- 16:11SPEAKER_00: While the nation of Israel was still sinners, God graciously continues to provide and he gives them exactly what he promised.
- 16:21SPEAKER_00: They were so undeserving.
- 16:22SPEAKER_00: Of course, he knowing all things, he knows the future, he knows what they're gonna do, he knows that they're gonna rebel, he knows that they're gonna break the covenant, that they they just uh spent time renewing as a nation, as a whole.
- 16:34SPEAKER_00: Moses is just again and again, even towards the end of his life, saying, Remember, remember, remember.
- 16:38SPEAKER_00: And God himself says they're not gonna remember.
- 16:41SPEAKER_00: They're gonna forget.
- 16:42SPEAKER_00: And yet, while they were still sinners, God graciously continued to provide, and he continued to preserve his promise.
- 16:52SPEAKER_00: And so, what a great gospel glimmer that we see here in Deuteronomy 31 that that points forward to the ultimate reality of God dying for sinners who were dead in their trespasses and sins.
- 17:07SPEAKER_00: Again, not not when they were figuring it out, not when they were cleaning up their acts, not when they were getting it together.
- 17:14SPEAKER_00: While we were still sitting, that's the gospel that we have been saved by grace through faith, and not of yourselves.
- 17:21SPEAKER_00: It is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one may boast.
- 17:26SPEAKER_00: Even the reality that we're gonna read about when Joshua leads them across the Jordan into the promised land, all of these victories, all of this provision, it is an act of God.
- 17:34SPEAKER_00: It's the grace of God being lavished upon the people of God, and not because they deserved it, even up until this point, we've seen them rebelling.
- 17:42SPEAKER_00: That's what even Moses says.
- 17:44SPEAKER_00: I'm alive and you've been rebelling, how much more after I die?
- 17:48SPEAKER_00: And yet God continues to be gracious, he continues to show grace, even in the midst of a sinful, twisted at times nation.
- 17:58SPEAKER_00: Of course, that is a gospel glimmer, it's a gospel shadow that points us forward to the ultimate reality of Christ and the and the forgiveness that we are offered.
- 18:08SPEAKER_00: Again, not when we were figuring it out, not when we were cleaning up our act, but while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
- 18:16SPEAKER_00: So hopefully that's an encouragement to think about from this chapter in Deuteronomy 31.
- 18:22SPEAKER_00: Now, Proverbs 2.
- 18:23SPEAKER_00: There's a lot going on here in Proverbs 2, and I don't want to say too much because actually this coming Sunday, we have a missionary friend of mine from Albania.
- 18:33SPEAKER_00: He is uh doing a lot of great work planting local churches in Albania and some other things as well.
- 18:40SPEAKER_00: But he'll be with us this coming Sunday, and he's gonna preach from Proverbs 2.
- 18:46SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna actually have a more robust sermon, an exposition of Proverbs 2, um, in just about a week.
- 18:54SPEAKER_00: And so uh don't want to say too much here, but what I want you to notice is so in chapter one, we have the definition of wisdom and really the sort of purpose statement of the book of Proverbs as a whole, uh kind of culminating there in verse 7 of chapter 1.
- 19:09SPEAKER_00: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction.
- 19:13SPEAKER_00: And then it goes on that excursions that I talked about, where it's essentially this this is the reality of people who reject wisdom.
- 19:20SPEAKER_00: This is the reality of people uh who are just enticed and ensnared by sin.
- 19:25SPEAKER_00: Now, Proverbs 2 is kind of the the opposite path.
- 19:29SPEAKER_00: Remember that the the two paths that we talked about, life or death.
- 19:32SPEAKER_00: Uh we talked about uh kind of even paralleling what we saw in uh Deuteronomy.
- 19:37SPEAKER_00: So here in Proverbs 2, we see that the path of life, the path of wisdom, and it's even that title in in my Bible as the value of wisdom.
- 19:46SPEAKER_00: So it's a father speaking to his son, and and one of the things that he really harps on is listening and pursuing.
- 19:53SPEAKER_00: My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandment, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding, yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, if you recognize its worth, if you actively pursue it, if you uh humbly accept instruction as it comes, uh if you fear the Lord, kind of that's the of course the undergirding principle of all of this, that's even verse five, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
- 20:32SPEAKER_00: For the Lord, verse six gives wisdom.
- 20:35SPEAKER_00: From his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
- 20:38SPEAKER_00: He stores up sound wisdom for the upright.
- 20:40SPEAKER_00: And he goes on to kind of talk about some of the practical benefits of wisdom.
- 20:45SPEAKER_00: But this chapter is all about the value of wisdom and the value of receiving it through listening, through humbly, accepting instruction, correction, growing in our fear of the Lord, and showing us that definition of wisdom that I've talked about before, skilled living in God's created order.
- 21:02SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of what we even begin to see here in chapter two, uh, where it talks about some practical things that are gonna that are gonna work their way out in your life as a result of fearing the Lord.
- 21:15SPEAKER_00: Even verse nine, you will understand the righteousness and justice and equity and every good path.
- 21:21SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have some level of skill, and increasingly so, in understanding righteousness, what is pleasing to the Lord, and and justice and equity, what is good and fair.
- 21:31SPEAKER_00: Every good path for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
- 21:37SPEAKER_00: So, in this pursuit of wisdom, there's this promise that God will give it.
- 21:40SPEAKER_00: Of course, it's all rooted in the fear of the Lord.
- 21:43SPEAKER_00: Uh if you don't know what the fear of the Lord is, I would just encourage you to go on to our YouTube channel to look at the very first sermon that we did in the Proverbs series.
- 21:52SPEAKER_00: Um, it's titled Wisdom, What It Is and Where to Find It.
- 21:56SPEAKER_00: So it's more of a deep dive there because fear of the Lord is one of the just anchoring truths in the book of Proverbs as a whole.
- 22:04SPEAKER_00: So uh that's all I'll say about this for now.
- 22:06SPEAKER_00: Just know that on Sunday we're gonna have the missionary from Albania.
- 22:10SPEAKER_00: His name is Eddie, and he'll work through Proverbs 2 expositionally, and hopefully that will be an encouragement to you.
- 22:16SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Podcast.
- 22:19SPEAKER_00: For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compassbiblesv.org.
- 22:24SPEAKER_00: Keep reading, keep growing.
- 22:27SPEAKER_00: God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.