Latest / Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan / July 29, 2026 - Deuteronomy 27 & Psalm 148
Transcript
- 0:01SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan, where 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_01: I'm Josiah Smith, joined by Tyler Sanborn.
- 0:12SPEAKER_01: Today is Wednesday, July 29th, 2026.
- 0:25SPEAKER_01: Listen intently to God's written word.
- 0:27SPEAKER_01: Deuteronomy 27.
- 0:29SPEAKER_01: Now Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, Keep the whole commandment that I command you today, and on the day you cross over the Jordan to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall set up large stones and plaster them with plaster, and you shall write on them all the words of this law, when you cross over to enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your fathers has promised you.
- 0:55SPEAKER_01: And when you have crossed over the Jordan, you shall set up these stones, concerning which I command you today, on Mount Ebal, and you shall plaster them with plaster, and there you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones.
- 1:07SPEAKER_01: You shall wield no iron tool on them, you shall build an altar to the Lord your God of uncut stones, and you shall offer burnt offering on it to the Lord your God, and you shall sacrifice peace offerings, and shall eat there, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, and you shall write on the stones all the words of this law very plainly.
- 1:26SPEAKER_01: Then Moses and the Litical priests said to all Israel, Keep silence and hear, O Israel, this day you have become the people of the Lord your God.
- 1:34SPEAKER_01: You shall therefore obey the voice of the Lord your God, keeping his commandments and his statutes which I command you today.
- 1:41SPEAKER_01: That day Moses charged the people, saying, When you have crossed over the Jordan, thee shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin, and these shall stand on Mount Ebal for the curse, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulin, Dan, and Naphtali, and the Levite shall declare to all the men of Israel in a loud voice, Cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image, an abomination to the Lord, a thing made by the hands of a craftsman, and sets it up in secret, and all the people shall answer and say, Amen.
- 2:17SPEAKER_01: Cursed be anyone who dishonors his father or his mother, and all the people shall say, Amen.
- 2:22SPEAKER_01: Cursed be anyone who moves his neighbor's landmark, and all the people shall say, Amen.
- 2:27SPEAKER_01: Cursed be anyone who misleads a blind man on the road, and all the people shall say, Amen.
- 2:33SPEAKER_01: Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, and all the people shall say, Amen.
- 2:41SPEAKER_01: Cursed be anyone who lies with his father's wife, because he has uncovered his father's nakedness, and all the people shall say, Amen.
- 2:49SPEAKER_01: Cursed be anyone who lies with any kind of animal, and all the people shall say, Amen.
- 2:54SPEAKER_01: Cursed be anyone who lies with his sister, whether the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother, and all the people shall say, Amen.
- 3:03SPEAKER_01: Cursed be anyone who lies with his mother in law, and all the people shall say, Amen.
- 3:08SPEAKER_01: Cursed be anyone who strikes down his neighbor in secret, and all the people shall say, Amen.
- 3:13SPEAKER_01: Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood, and all the people shall say, Amen.
- 3:19SPEAKER_01: Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them, and all the people shall say Amen.
- 3:26SPEAKER_00: Psalm one forty eight.
- 3:53SPEAKER_00: Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created, and he established them for ever and ever.
- 4:02SPEAKER_00: He gave a decree, and it shall not pass away.
- 4:07SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word, mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds, kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth, young men and maidens together, old men and children, let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted.
- 4:44SPEAKER_00: His majesty is above earth and heaven.
- 4:47SPEAKER_00: He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his saints, for the people of Israel who are near to him, praise the Lord.
- 4:57SPEAKER_01: You know what this chapter in Deuteronomy reminds me of, Tyler, Deuteronomy twenty-seven?
- 5:02SPEAKER_01: Any guesses?
- 5:10SPEAKER_00: Uncut stones, people on two sides of a valley.
- 5:14SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm blanking.
- 5:16SPEAKER_00: What do you got?
- 5:17SPEAKER_01: It reminds me of the covenant that God made with Abraham in Genesis 15.
- 5:24SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 5:24SPEAKER_01: When he cut the animal in half and walks through it in the middle.
- 5:28SPEAKER_01: Because in the center of the valley, what's there?
- 5:32SPEAKER_01: The uncut stones that are built into an altar, a sacrifice to the Lord, an offering to the Lord.
- 5:39SPEAKER_01: And then on either side, you've got people who represent the blessings.
- 5:42SPEAKER_01: You've got people that represent the curses, and they are shouting all of these different commands that they are to do, or rather, I should say, these things that will happen to them, these curses that won't take place if they violate commands, and they all affirm it by saying amen.
- 5:57SPEAKER_01: So it feels very similar to that kind of covenant that we see with the pieces.
- 6:38SPEAKER_01: So similar again to what happens to the animal, there's something negative, there's a consequence.
- 6:42SPEAKER_01: The same thing here, the curses from Mount Ebal.
- 6:45SPEAKER_01: And so curse be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image.
- 6:48SPEAKER_01: So there's some things, of course, that are echoed from the Ten Commandments or the Ten Words.
- 6:52SPEAKER_01: Cursed be anyone who dishonors his father or his mother, uh, all these different specific curses.
- 6:57SPEAKER_01: Now, I love how it ends in verse 26, because it says, Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.
- 7:07SPEAKER_01: Now, here at Compass, we like to talk about a lot because it, I think in scripture it's talked about a lot and very plain that we are to be doers of the word and not hearers only.
- 7:17SPEAKER_01: And we see that all throughout the scriptures.
- 7:20SPEAKER_01: I mean, we even see it here.
- 7:21SPEAKER_01: Cursed be anyone who does not confirm, who does not uphold, who does not showcase uh their commitment to the words of this law.
- 7:29SPEAKER_01: How do you do that?
- 7:30SPEAKER_01: By doing them, it says, and all the people shall say, Amen.
- 7:34SPEAKER_01: So there was a sense in which from the very beginning, God's word was not something to merely affirm.
- 7:40SPEAKER_01: God's word was not something to merely believe.
- 7:42SPEAKER_01: God's word was something to showcase belief in by doing, by obeying, by pursuing.
- 7:49SPEAKER_01: And in fact, here it says, if you don't do that, you'll be cursed.
- 7:52SPEAKER_01: Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.
- 7:56SPEAKER_01: And so often as Christians today, we can associate doing uh with legalism, right?
- 8:02SPEAKER_01: We love that word, legalism.
- 8:03SPEAKER_01: Uh, and of course, there's a there's a sense in which uh, you know, we can ignore the commandments of God to establish the traditions of men.
- 8:11SPEAKER_01: Uh Jesus has much to say about that in Mark chapter 7 to the Pharisees uh who are complaining that the disciples are not washing their hands according to the traditions of the elders.
- 8:20SPEAKER_01: And Jesus himself says, You honor me with your lips, but your heart is far from me.
- 8:25SPEAKER_01: Uh so we don't want to be that.
- 8:26SPEAKER_01: We don't want to just say, hey, do this, don't do that, and make it just a list of rules.
- 8:30SPEAKER_01: But certainly we don't want to blend that reality, that seems very clear, uh, with obedience to what God has commanded, to what he actually has commanded.
- 8:39SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 8:39SPEAKER_01: Uh so we, you know, if we're if I'm going to put it in the words of Jesus and slightly uh, you know, contextualize it to what we're saying here, we don't want to uh ignore the commandments of God because we're afraid of establishing the traditions of men, if that makes sense.
- 8:54SPEAKER_01: So Jesus says you have a fine way of ignoring the commandments of God to establish the traditions of men.
- 9:00SPEAKER_01: And I would say we don't want to ignore the commandments of God because we're afraid of establishing the traditions of men.
- 9:06SPEAKER_01: We're afraid of illegalism.
- 9:08SPEAKER_01: So there's a there's a danger there on both sides.
- 9:10SPEAKER_01: Of course, we don't want to just ignore God's commands and then make it all about these external sort of rules as if that was meaningful.
- 9:17SPEAKER_01: No, change comes from the inside out, brought about from the yeah, brought about from the spirit working on the hearts of men.
- 9:23SPEAKER_01: Um, but at the same time, we don't we don't want to we don't want to just say uh that a sincere devotion to doing the word, to obeying what God has said, to pursuing an active life of worshipful obedience is somehow traditions of men.
- 9:37SPEAKER_01: No, that's just not what we see.
- 9:39SPEAKER_01: Uh, from the very first books of the Bible uh to the New Testament, uh, what is referred to as the Proverbs of the New Testament, the book of James, we see a consistent theme.
- 9:49SPEAKER_01: Even Jesus, I've talked about it.
- 9:49SPEAKER_01: What does Jesus say?
- 9:50SPEAKER_01: If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
- 9:53SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 9:53SPEAKER_01: Uh, Matthew 7, those who hear these words of mine and do them will be like the wise men, which by the way, you you can hear, hopefully, Deuteronomy or themes of Deuteronomy echoed in the Sermon on the Mount.
- 10:05SPEAKER_01: Um, we we've talked about that before, but some of the things that he says with the law, uh, some of the things that he he talks about with adultery and uh with murder and things like that that are specifically addressed in the Ten Commandments, then how he ends in Matthew 7, those who hear these words and do them will be like the wise man who builds his house on the rock.
- 10:23SPEAKER_01: Uh, you can see all of that sort of echoed from Deuteronomy, because that's exactly what's saying, what's said here.
- 10:28SPEAKER_01: Cursed, cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.
- 10:32SPEAKER_01: Uh so to put it in the words of Jesus, you know, he says, if you don't do what I have said, you'll be like the man who builds his house on the on the sand.
- 10:39SPEAKER_01: And the when the wind comes and the rain comes, like it's got to fall, and great will be the fall of it.
- 10:44SPEAKER_01: So hopefully you can see some connections there.
- 10:46SPEAKER_01: But my point in saying all that is that the scriptures are clear.
- 10:49SPEAKER_01: God expects uh conformity to his word.
- 10:52SPEAKER_01: God expects conformity to his son, of course.
- 10:54SPEAKER_01: And by the Spirit, we are being conformed greater into the image of Christ.
- 10:58SPEAKER_01: Uh, but never make the mistake of thinking that pursuing vigilant obedience to Christ is somehow stifling to the Christian life or somehow legalism.
- 11:08SPEAKER_01: Now, of course, there's ways to do that in the flesh that I would counsel against, that the Bible would counsel against.
- 11:14SPEAKER_01: We don't, we can't really do anything in the flesh apart from Christ, we can do nothing.
- 11:18SPEAKER_01: So if we're not abiding in the vine, all of that is, in a sense, legalism and just sort of stapling fruit on the trees that it's not ever actually going to yield any sort of meaningful uh fruit and growth.
- 11:29SPEAKER_01: But nevertheless, uh, doing, obeying, pursuing is such a key aspect of uh what we see in the scriptures, not as a means to earn salvation, uh, because the covenant status of God's people is already established, right?
- 11:43SPEAKER_01: He's already said I will keep my covenant, he's already declared them as his.
- 11:47SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 11:48SPEAKER_01: And out of that reality, he's saying, Do what I've said, live according to my rules, as it were.
- 11:54SPEAKER_01: We don't like that word as Christians, but God has rules.
- 11:57SPEAKER_01: Uh and so it says here, curse be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.
- 12:02SPEAKER_01: So I just want to encourage you to think clearly, think biblically about the role of being doers of the word and not hearers only.
- 12:08SPEAKER_01: So often Christians are content to affirm God's word, but never to obey it.
- 12:12SPEAKER_01: Uh so let's let's not do that and let's not ignore the commandments of God because we're afraid of somehow establishing the traditions of men.
- 12:19SPEAKER_01: Neither of those are good things.
- 12:21SPEAKER_01: Uh, we we don't want to uh, you know, the pendulum to swing too far in the other direction, right?
- 12:26SPEAKER_01: We don't want to establish the truth the traditions of men and ignore God's commands in the process, but we certainly don't want to ignore God's commands because we're so fearful of establishing the traditions of men.
- 12:37SPEAKER_01: Hopefully that makes sense.
- 12:38SPEAKER_01: But that's what I see here in uh Deuteronomy 27.
- 12:41SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what a great encouragement, Pastor Josiah.
- 12:43SPEAKER_00: And yeah, this is uh an ongoing process of just addressing the heart of the matter and and really thinking about how we can honor the Lord with our with our lives.
- 12:53SPEAKER_00: And something that stood out to me as we look over to our psalm for today, Psalm 148.
- 12:59SPEAKER_00: I I'm thinking of people um that would look at God's beautiful creation and decide, I'm gonna worship it rather than its creator.
- 13:11SPEAKER_00: And we see in this psalm all the wonderful and majestic things that that God has created, that God orchestrates and controls.
- 13:22SPEAKER_00: And the psalmist is calling the creation to give due worship to their creator.
- 13:28SPEAKER_00: Praise him, all angels, praise him, uh, sun, moon, and stars, praise him, highest heavens and the waters and uh and the earth and the deeps and the creatures on the earth and the mountains and the cedars and the livestock, all creation.
- 13:45SPEAKER_00: Look to your creator and and worship and worship him.
- 13:50SPEAKER_00: And what a strong reminder as we see all these these uh the the hail, how does hail uh honor the Lord?
- 13:59SPEAKER_00: If if you were here in the valley over the past week or so, there was a hail storm that came through, and your car may have been dinged indented.
- 14:07SPEAKER_00: And we look to God's creation, and the creation is to give honor, to give praise, to worship God.
- 14:15SPEAKER_00: And how does creation do that?
- 14:17SPEAKER_00: By falling uh into line, into order with its design.
- 14:21SPEAKER_00: Uh we we see the the winds, they they help uh change the the weather patterns as God uh intends them to.
- 14:29SPEAKER_00: We look at the snow that in their season uh rests on on the highest of hills and the mountains, and in their season uh over time melts and and fills the uh the streams and the the reservoirs and the aquifers as they should.
- 14:45SPEAKER_00: This is God's design.
- 14:46SPEAKER_00: Every every piece of God's creation has a purpose, and God's uh intellect and his mind for his creation um is worthy to be praised.
- 14:56SPEAKER_00: So we see an encouragement and a reminder for us as people created in God's image, uh, us also to who are who are near to God, made in his image to also praise the Lord.
- 15:08SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love there, even in verse 12, young men and maidens together, old men and children, let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted, his majesty is above heaven and earth.
- 15:21SPEAKER_01: So there's a sense in which the psalmist, of course, here is saying that God alone is worthy of this kind of worship.
- 15:29SPEAKER_01: His name alone is exalted, his majesty is above heaven and earth, and he's worthy of our praise.
- 15:35SPEAKER_01: So the creation cries out creation, the sun, the moon, and the stars testify to his majesty, to his glory.
- 15:42SPEAKER_01: We are to join in with him, living lives of praise and worship.
- 15:47SPEAKER_01: And I would even say, lives of obedience, that we take seriously the commands that he has said in his word, that we recognize that they are not burdensome, but his yoke is easy, his burden is light, and we follow God with great joy and trust his promises.
- 16:03SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Podcast.
- 16:06SPEAKER_01: For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compass Bible SV.org.
- 16:11SPEAKER_01: Keep reading, keep growing.
- 16:13SPEAKER_01: God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.