Latest / Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan / August 31, 2026 - Joshua 21 & Proverbs 13:9-12

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August 31, 2026 - Joshua 21 & Proverbs 13:9-12 · Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Lamping 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 letting the way.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Josiah Smith, the pastor of Compass South Valley.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Today is Monday, August 31st, 2026.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a quick summary of Joshua 21.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'll just summarize the chapter by way of reading the first three verses.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: It says, Then the heads of the fathers' houses of the Levites came to Eliezer the priest, and to Joshua the son of Nun, and to the heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the people of Israel.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And they said to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, the Lord commanded through Moses that we be given cities to dwell in, along with their pasture lands for our livestock.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: So by command of the Lord of the people of Israel gave to the Levites the following cities and pasturelands out of their inheritance.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, the rest of the chapter details those different cities where they are located and how they are selected by lot.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs thirteen, nine through twelve.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: By insolence comes nothing but strife.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: But with those who take advice is wisdom.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we are beginning to wind down our time in the book of Joshua.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Just a few chapters left, and we are seeing the end of the tribal allotments that have been detailed over the last several chapters.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one thing that I want to point out here in Joshua 21 comes from the very end of the chapter.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So let me just read this for you, verses 41 through 45.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: The cities of the Levites, in the midst of the possession of the people of Israel, were in all forty-eight cities with their pasture lands.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: These cities each had its pasture lands around it, so it was with all these cities.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thus the Lord gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it, and they settled there, and the Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their fathers.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Not one word of all the good promises the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: All came to pass.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: What an incredible synopsis of the book of Joshua as a whole.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not one word.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, as you think about the book of Joshua, you know, we like to think of the battles, we like to think of the walls of Jericho, and those are important, those are certainly memorable in their own right.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I would just put before you, if you were going to summarize what the book of Joshua was about in a kind of pithy, memorable way.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: If someone was to ask you, hey, what's the book of Joshua about?
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: You should say, not one word failed.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you want to put it more positively, all came to pass.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's the summary of the book of Joshua.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not one word failed of all God's good promises, all came to pass.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's a four-word phrase, right?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's easy to remember.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: All came to pass.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua is about the promises of God coming to pass.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: They have faced enemy after enemy after enemy.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, what we see here is that they settled in the land that God promised to their forefathers, and the Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their fathers.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want you to remember that in the book of Hebrews that we were studying before the summer began, in Hebrews chapter 4, Joshua is mentioned as giving some kind of rest to the people of Israel.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's what we see here in Joshua 21.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: But remember, there is another day of rest spoken of later on by David.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, that day of rest is fulfilled and satisfied in Christ.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: So for more information about that, you can go on our YouTube channel, uh Compass Bible Church South Valley, and you can watch that whole series.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's called True Rest, where we try to unravel all the theology of rest that we see in the scriptures.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I just want to show you here that a piece of that theology and that framework that the author of Hebrews uses is found right here.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: That it is said that they are receiving and experiencing some kind of rest.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord gave them rest on every side.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, David later on, he looks forward to a kind of rest that Joshua did not provide.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's what Hebrews talks about.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: If Joshua had given them rest, David would not have spoken of another day later on.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, in this immediate context, God provides rest, as in the battles have been won, the promises have been fulfilled, and not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: All came to pass.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's God's character, that's who He is.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: God does not renege on His promises.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Not one word, every word of every promise will come to pass.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's part of what we'll be discussing in our equipping weekend coming up in September.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenward.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna focus on some of the words that God has promised that are in store for us.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that this story of Joshua, the reality of the faithfulness of God to keep his promises is an encouragement to you, and that you can say, not one word of all of God's good promises that he made to us in Christ failed.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: They will all come to pass.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here in Proverbs, we continue to see some similar themes.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: We see the juxtaposition of the righteous to the wicked, even in verse 9, the light of the righteous rejoices, but the lamp of the wicked will be put out.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, these are very common metaphors.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: We see metaphors for lights and lamps all throughout the book of Proverbs.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 623, for example, says, For the commandment is a lamp, and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Even Proverbs 20, verse 20, if one curses his father or his mother, his lamp will be put out in other utter darkness.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 21, verse 4: haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked are sin.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: So a light and a lamp, they're very common metaphors, but here they are referring to physical light.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you can kind of imagine in this culture when they didn't have street lights, it would get very dark at night.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And if their lamp went out, they wouldn't be able to see uh whether it was an attacker or an animal coming, and it would be difficult.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so this represented some level of a life being put short.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the light of the righteous rejoices, it continues to shine.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know the way.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path, but the lamp of the wicked will be put out.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the way that it's said here is kind of even that it will be put out, it will lose its light even before its time.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not ultimately, of course, God numbers all of our days, he's in control of that.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: But but from our vantage point as humans, there's a sense in which the wicked, uh, their life dwindles, that their life is cut short because of their wickedness and because of their folly.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, verse 10 says, by insolence comes nothing but strife.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: But with those who take advice is wisdom.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, insolence is not necessarily something that we say often, it's not a word that we use often, but it's just another word for pride.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the same category as pride, which we just talked about yesterday in the sermon where we focused on pride and seeking to uproot pride by God's grace and focusing on the fear of the Lord that's the beginning of wisdom.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: But pride is a kind of an unyielding arrogance.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's what insolence is.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's this sort of know-it-all spirit.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's this, it's all about me, it's all about my knowledge.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And what does that create in your relationships around you?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: It creates strife.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: By insolence comes nothing but strife.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: A proud and haughty and arrogant heart creates conflict.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we see.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: But with those who take advice is wisdom.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now notice the juxtaposition there.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Again and again and again in Proverbs those who are humble are those who receive advice.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: They listen to correction.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's even something that we try to draw out on Sunday, as one of the ways that you could identify if pride is in your heart, if you reject counsel, if you reject correction.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: According to the scriptures, it says that you are a fool.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: But with those who take advice is wisdom.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have uh uh proverb on wealth, wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what's interesting about this is uh hastily is actually it's it's not just speedily.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we think about the get rich quick schemes that people can get can get really uh caught up in and uh they can fantasize about, but this actually has more of a connotation of dishonest gain.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just that you do it quickly, but there's a kind of dishonesty to it, it's gained illegitimately, and so that there's other translations that will say ill-gotten treasures.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and those types of gains they do not last.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: But what we do see is that money that's gained with diligence, little by little, with uh the done in the right way, uh, with the the right uh morals behind it, you could even say will increase.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just something uh, of course, to note here that wealth gained hastily or uh for the wrong reasons, in the wrong way, uh, even with some shady things happening, it's gonna dwindle.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, you're gonna lose it.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: But whoever gathers little by little will increase it.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And our last proverb for today, verse 12 hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what's fascinating about this proverb is that it it there's not really a solution uh that's offered.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of proverbs have the solution uh to the folly that's listed, uh, even here in verse 11 wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a kind of recommendation, so to speak, or an instruction for how to not lose what you gain.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: But here in verse 12, it's more of just a statement of fact.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've ever been in a situation where you're hoping for something and just time continues to pass without receiving that thing, you know all too well what the Proverbs are talking about.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hope deferred makes the heart sick, makes the heart sad.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: But a desired fulfilled is a tree of life.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: So again, that's not really an instructive way to pursue the solution.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: It just is the reality that when something that you've been hoping for, when you finally receive it, that what's the response?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: So not only does the Proverbs uh instruct us on how to live in a way skillfully in God's created in order, it also just kind of levels with us and tells us uh this is the way it is.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: We recognize that, we understand that, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life, and of course, all of our desires ultimately and fully will find their fulfillment in Christ.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what I mean by desires, I'm talking in ultimate categories.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about our frivolous desires or our desire for this or that.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about our most basic, true, meaningful desires will find their fulfillment in Christ.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: It makes me think of even all of your promises, all of God's promises are yes and amen in Christ.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think of the Psalms.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: So ultimately, our greatest desires are the desires that will bring us the most satisfaction, will find their fulfillment in Christ.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: He is our tree of life, even pulling from some revelation imagery there.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the Proverbs continue to encourage, they continue to instruct.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And my hope for you is that you are praying through the Proverbs, that you're seeking to practically apply the Proverbs because you recognize that the rich wisdom in the book of Proverbs that's all rooted in the central command to fear the Lord and to keep his commandments.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Podcast.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compass bible sv.org.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Keep reading, keep growing.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.