Latest / Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan / September 4, 2026 - Judges 1 & Proverbs 14:1-4

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September 4, 2026 - Judges 1 & Proverbs 14:1-4 · Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bob Reading Plan, where you are seeking to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength with God's word letting away.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Josiah Smith, joined by Tyler Sanborn.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Today is Friday, September 4th, 2026.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Here's a quick summary of Judges 1.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Judges 1 details the events that are directly after the death of Joshua.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: So beginning here in verse 1, after the death of Joshua, the people of Israel inquired of the Lord who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites to fight against them.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord said, Judah shall go up.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: And basically it details the nations that they go and push out of the land, like God commands them to, and the nations that they do not push out of the land.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: So it begins by kind of talking about different ways that the Israelites allowed certain nations to stay and live among them versus some nations that were pushed out again as the Lord commanded.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Listen intently to God's written word.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 14, verses one through four.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Whoever walks in uprightness fears the Lord, but he who is devious in his ways despises him.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: By the mouth of a fool comes a rod for his back, but the lips of the wise will preserve them.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we are beginning a new book today, Mr.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Tyler, the Book of Judges, a really dark, really difficult book.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: It is, as I've described it in the past, a stain on Israel's history, and certainly something that I'm sure that Israel moving forward were not proud of.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: As we get into the book of Judges, that'll make more and more sense.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: But as we jump into this book, I wanted to give you just a brief outline, something that you can kind of hopefully sink your teeth into and make sense of the whole as we get into the individual parts.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: So Judges covers roughly about 200 years of Israel's history.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it covers the time span roughly between 1250 and 1050 BC before Christ.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the book divides into three major sections that you'll see very naturally.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: The first is the spiritual disobedience that we're seeing in the land, even starting here in chapter one, where they don't do what God commands.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get to that more in a second, but the spiritual disobedience that's chapter one through kind of uh partially through chapter three.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then we have political destruction in the land.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: The book of judges, of course, details the different judges, the leaders, the rulers that God raises up to rescue Israel out of their disobedience and out of their folly and foolishness.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we have this kind of political destruction that happens through this cycle, this continuing cycle of Israel failing, God raising up a judge, Israel failing, God raising up a judge.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: You could see how that pattern that is repeated would lead to a kind of political destruction.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that's detailed in chapter three through chapter seven, and uh rather chapter three, verse seven through chapter sixteen.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a big kind of section there.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then starting in chapter 17, we have the the details of the you could call it the moral depravity uh in the land.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that's chapter 17 through the end of the book, and that's where we get to just see uh, unfortunately, the spiraling effect of sin in the life uh of Israel and in their nation as a whole.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: So think of those three major sections: spiritual disobedience, chapter one through three, uh, political destruction, chapter three, verse seven through chapter 16, and then the moral depravity in the land, chapter 17, all the way through the end of the book.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as we start here in chapter one, we are actually going to see Israel disobey because Israel fails to drive the surrounding nations out of the land that God had promised, even though God commanded them to.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is the first signs of spiritual compromise and disobedience that's going to kick off the rest of the book of Judges as a whole.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now remember the pattern that we've already seen.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: We saw it in Exodus, we saw it in Numbers, we saw it in Deuteronomy, we saw it in Joshua.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's this pattern of obedience, covenant renewal, followed by unfaithfulness and disobedience, followed by obedience, covenant renewal, followed by disobedience and unfaithfulness.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna see that in a more pronounced way, even in a greater zoomed-in way here in the book of Judges.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so expect to read some difficult chapters ahead, some difficult stories.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's some graphic stories that will read about some different wars, different things that happen.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but just recognize that it's all kind of in that same larger pattern that we've already seen uh in the life of Israel, and even as a nation as a whole, they just they continue to fall in the same sort of pattern.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: And here in Judges, uh, we're gonna see that on full display.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we think about the the wisdom that the the people of Israel would have if they would have followed after the Lord and obeyed him and driven out all the peoples.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: We look to individual wisdom and wisdom that can be applied to uh to women specifically here um in Proverbs 14.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, PJ, this is not endorsing uh women just widespread to become carpenters or or masons of any kind, but this is this is uh an encouragement for our for women to be diligent, to be wise, to uh to invest in in around the home, uh whether that's in in management or or raising up children or in the ways that she would uh compliment and uh encourage uh a husband or a family if she's if not married.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there's ways that women are um play a unique role uh in the home.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I would I'd love to hear what you would have to say uh to encourage women or encourage uh people not to be foolish and not to tear down their homes, maybe ways that that could look practically uh today, but also how can women be building up their homes today?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think just having a kind of a servant attitude, of course, both the the husband and the wife are to be servants.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: The greatest among you is your servant and to have a humility and considering the other more significant than themselves, uh, but having that sense of selfless service, caring deeply about the orderliness of the home, of certainly the care for the children and the even uh centering the scriptures in the home, typically, not always, but typically the the mom is at home oftentimes with the kids while dad is away at work.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so just some great opportunity uh for uh different moms to build into their kids or um just women in general to have a kind of um a selflessness and a service that is honoring to the Lord and that builds up their house.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh now, one thing just to continue to kind of let you know about the the app that we are going to be releasing here pretty soon that couples with our reading plan.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: One of the features that is built into it that I've been utilizing that I think is really helpful is essentially turning a verse into a prayer.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so you can select a verse in the reading plan and then a little uh screen comes up where you can select prayer and you can turn a verse into a prayer and have it remind you and send you a notification on your phone or on your device at your set interval.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I turned uh Proverbs 14:1 uh into a prayer request for my wife that the Lord would continue to help her uh to be the wisest of women that builds her house, and that he would help protect her from foolishness and folly and things like that.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I also did that for verse three for myself.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right by the mouth of a fool comes a rod for his back, but the lips of the wise will preserve them.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I converted that uh into a prayer request that my phone now is going to remind me of on a on a schedule of my choosing where that verse is put before me and I'm seeking the Lord in prayer, uh, that I would not bring reproach upon myself by the way that I speak and the words that I use.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: So just a great feature that I am excited about and uh just wanted to put that in the podcast today so that you know there's some really intentional things that we're trying to do with this companion app that is hopefully to help you stay more organized and even do some of the things that we talk about.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we talk about different verses or different chapters that uh would be worthwhile praying through.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's just a really practical way for you to pray through the scriptures.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what I've been using it for.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: I select a verse, I convert it into a prayer, and of course, you can write different notes uh that are associated with the verse that maybe clarify or uh structure your prayer uh in whatever way that you would feel is helpful and beneficial.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: So just wanted to tell you that that's coming, that that's gonna be available soon.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope it's a it's a blessing uh to you as you work through the lamp and light Bible reading plan.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what an encouragement and thank you for uh for creating that and building that app out for our church body.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm going to be utilizing it um to kind of organize and categorize um notes and prayers uh as we read the scriptures together.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um and as we look to our next verse, Proverbs 14, verse 2 whoever walks in uprightness fears the Lord, but he who is devious in his ways despises him.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this this reminds me uh of in the Gospel of John where we see that a servant is not greater than his master.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if um if if God is going to be uh despised, or if if God's ways are going to be despised, there's gonna be a splash effect.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, uh we're going to um to be uh criticized as as Christians because the world is uh the broad path that leads to destruction.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And uh those who are seeking to please the Lord, walking in uprightness, trying to live a life that is uh holy and set apart for the Lord, that's gonna go against the culture, that's gonna go against those who would be uh looking at the looking at God and his law, his plans, his commands, and saying, I want nothing to do with that.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that that person will naturally be uh be despised, be criticized, be mocked, uh be slandered, and a wide host of other things.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so just an encouragement.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you're if you're someone who's in the in the heat of a trial where you're you're catching some flack um because of your convictions, because of your desire to please the Lord, just keep going, keep striving to uh uh to shine bright for for Christ, to be the salt and the light in this dark world, because uh we only have a short time to uh to live for Christ in in front of uh those who do not know him, for we will live and dwell with Christ forever, face to face.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: But for now we have an opportunity to encourage others and plead with others to turn from their ways.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and one of the ways that you can point people to Christ, to the gospel, is by living a way that is pleasing to him.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And our last proverb here, Proverbs 14, verse 4, is an interesting one.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: It says, Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you can picture it, there's no oxen that typically they would plow the fields, they would attach the equipment and they would pull the plow behind them.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's no oxen, there's no plowing, there's no cultivating the land.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so, in that sense, what would we put in a manger?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, hey, and so there's this sense of the manger is clean.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's things that are not uh being done, there's resources that you don't have because uh you don't have the proper things that you need, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so it just again, an interesting uh proverb that speaks to, I think, diligence, it speaks to I think even caring for your animals, certainly caring for your land.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, there are other proverbs that talk about caring for your beasts.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's laws and the and uh the law of Moses that that reference that.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so here we have that reality.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, if you've got oxen, if you're taking care of them, if they're strong and healthy, then there's going to be a sense in which they can work and they can do what they were uh, in a sense, designed to do in this kind of context, which was to help plow and cultivate the land in a very agriculturally driven and really dependent society.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so some great wisdom, very practical wisdom on caring for everything in your household, including the animals that would help you uh to be diligent in farming, to feed your family, and uh to of course uh cultivate the land that God has perhaps given you in this context.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Podcast.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compass Bible SV dot org.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Keep reading, keep growing.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.