Latest / Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan / September 5, 2026 - Judges 2 & Proverbs 14:5-8

Transcript

September 5, 2026 - Judges 2 & Proverbs 14:5-8 · Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bibleing 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.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Josiah Smith, joined by Tyler Sanborn.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Today is Saturday, September 5th, 2026.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Listen intently to God's written word.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Judges 2.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bachim, and he said, I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: You shall break down their altars, but you have not obeyed my voice.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: What is this you have done?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept, and they called the name of that place Bokim, and they sacrificed there to the Lord.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land, and the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred and ten years, and they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath Hares, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals, and they abandoned the Lord, the god of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: They went after other gods, from among the gods the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them, and they provoked the Lord to anger.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashroth.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them, and he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them, and they were in terrible distress.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they hoard after other gods and bowed down to them.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he said, Because this people have transgressed my covenant that I commanded their fathers, and have not obeyed my voice, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died, in order to test Israel by them whether they will take care to walk in the way of the Lord as their fathers did or not.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: So the Lord left those nations, not driving them out quickly, and he did not give them into the hand of Joshua.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Proverbs 14, verses five through eight.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: A faithful witness does not lie, but a false witness breathes out lies.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain, but knowledge is easy for a man of understanding.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Leave the presence of a fool, for there you do not meet words of knowledge.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: The wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way, but the folly of fools is deceiving.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, things are starting to pick up pretty quickly here in the book of Judges, but one thing I want to point out as we begin is right here in verse one.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: It says, Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim, and he said, I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's important because it goes to the theological category of Christophany.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Christophany is a pre-incarnate appearance of the eternal son of God, the second person of the Trinity.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: So uh in other words, a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so, of course, we have the incarnation in the New Testament, in the gospels, the the birth of Jesus through the Virgin Mary.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: We see that, we we read about that, we know that to be true.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but there are instances in the Old Testament where there is talk of the angel of the Lord, and those are believed to be instances of Christophanes or pre-incarnate appearances of Christ.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the reasons for that, I think, is pretty plain here in Judges 2.1, because of what's attributed to the angel of the Lord.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: An angel is not God, an angel is a created being, an angel is a ministering spirit, as Hebrews tells us.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: They are for the sake of serving, they do the bidding of God, they serve at his pleasure and command.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, here in Judges, what does it say about the angel of the Lord?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: That he was the one that brought them up from Egypt and brought them into the land.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in Exodus, when we actually read that account, we see first in Exodus 3, the God of Israel, he names himself I Am, or later on we refer to that as Yahweh, uh the covenant-keeping God of Israel.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we have that the great I am in Yahweh, and he says he's going to deliver them.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he takes credit throughout Exodus for delivering them.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yahweh, or the great I am, is the one that delivers them from uh slavery to the Egyptians.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And yet here we see the angel of the Lord saying, I uh delivered you.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: I delivered them uh from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then it even talks about the covenant.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land, you shall break down their altars, but you have not obeyed my voice.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what's significant about that is only God had the right and the authority to make a covenant with the nation of Israel in the way that he did.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, here in Judges 2, verses 1 and 2, that the covenant, and even the covenant agreement and the binding nature of the covenant is attributed to the angel of the Lord.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have certain things that are said about Yahweh, the great I am, that he delivers them from Egypt, he makes a covenant.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about that many times throughout the the first five books of the Old Testament, and even here in uh in in Judges, but also in Joshua.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we also see that attributed here directly to the angel of the Lord.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so just to give you a little bit more theological background on that category of Christophany, uh, the preincarnate appearance of Christ, this would be one of a one of the clear examples, I think, uh, where it showcases that there is um something attributed only to God.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, that's attributed to the angel of the Lord.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's not a category for saying that angels are somehow God or or anything like that.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's uh showing us that the second person of the Trinity, the eternal Son of God, has these, as they're called, pre-incarnate appearances in the Old Testament.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe this to be one of them.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, all of that aside, Judges 2 just is uh it's a black diamond ski slope into sin.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just quickly descending and spiraling.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's if you want to think of just one word for the for the book of Judges, I would say spiral.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a spiral of sin, it's a spiral of disobedience, it's a spiral of just the corrupt nature of the human heart as shown through Israel's disobedience.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And what do we see here in Judges chapter two?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're two chapters in, and they're going after other gods, they're disobeying God.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it even talks about there was this generation with Joshua and the elders that outlived Joshua, that were faithful, that loved the Lord, and then just the very next generation, uh, and even subsequent generations after that, they are referred to as worse than their fathers, and it gets worse and worse and worse.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a it's a spiraling descent into greater sin, greater unfaithfulness.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we see that really clearly here in Judges chapter two.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it says even in verse 10, and all that generation also were gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: So they continued to reject him, they continued to disobey, and that's what we're reading about here in Judges chapter two.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, something that I found um encouraging as I see uh the wickedness and the tailspin, the spiraling of Israel in the book of Judges already within the first two chapters.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um Pastor Josiah, I just see uh God's God's kindness and the grace not to give them completely over in into their sinfulness, their waywardness.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, God has given them judges of people that would uh would fight back the peoples that would um that would work on behalf of the Lord, and uh instead of just complete, um ple complete commitment over into um the people of the land, uh that the judges stood as a mark of God's kindness and his grace uh to them, uh, all the while their their disobedience is still on full display here.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: So um something that uh I was just encouraged by.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um we live in a wicked world, and um our world is pretty relatable to the world of uh Judges chapter two, um, people whoring after different gods, pursuing sins of various kinds uh wholeheartedly, and and God's uh patience, his delay uh of his return is a kindness um to our world who uh this there's still opportunity to turn.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's still an opportunity um while while the Lord um is at hand to seek him and to determine from uh from sin.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as we uh turn over to the Proverbs section this morning, uh we see um verse five speaking about witnesses and and truth telling.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I find that verse being so straightforward, but um it's it's important to know that we we have a faithful witness that would speak on our behalf.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: We have the Lord, uh the Lord Jesus that will one day declare with complete truth innocent, forgiven, not guilty.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's something that comes to mind as I look at uh verse five.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: A faithful witness does not lie.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And the the truth of the matter is if we have been um forgiven by Christ, we don't have to fear condemnation.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have to fear uh death and a second death because uh Christ did uh a great work on our behalf.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: However, uh, if we look to the false witness on the other side of this verse, uh breathes out lies.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, and and we have a great tempter, a great deceiver in this world that that roams around like a lion seeking uh who he may destroy, this this enemy, Satan, the deceiver, would be the one who would be breathing out uh like the chief or the king of the false witnesses.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: He is one who is uh seeking to uh to manipulate, to tell half-truths, tell lies uh in order to to destroy, uh, to divide, and uh unsuccessfully ultimately to undo the plan of God.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And even here in uh Proverbs 14, verse 6, it continues kind of the same thought of uh a scoffer.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're of course we're contrasting the wise and the foolish.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so the foolish, the the foolish person in verse five is someone that bears false witness.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And even folly as a category is not just, you know, oops, we didn't know the right thing to do or the right thing to say.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Folly in the Proverbs really is much more do you submit to God or not?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Do you obey what God has commanded or not?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do you live in God's world in God's way or not?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see a false witness, of course, breathing out lies.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: They're rejecting the wisdom of God, the commandments and instructions of God.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And here in verse six, it says, A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: But knowledge is easy for a man of understanding.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: So a scoffer, of course, someone who's mocking, who taunts, who uh wants nothing to do with the instructions of the Lord or the precepts of the Lord.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so they seek wisdom in vain because they're ignoring and rejecting that God is the fount of all wisdom, that he is the source of all wisdom.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: But knowledge, on the other hand, is easy for a man of understanding.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: A man of understanding in this context is the wise who is trusting in the Lord, who is not seeking to lean on their own understanding, but in all of their ways, they're seeking to acknowledge God and trusting that he will direct their steps.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we see this juxtaposition of a scoffer, someone who's rejecting the instructions of the Lord.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna seek wisdom in vain.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're not gonna find it in themselves, they're not gonna find it in the world.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but uh knowledge, on the other hand, is easy for a man of understanding.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Someone who submits to God, who is growing in the fear of the Lord, of course, is going to see their knowledge increase and their understanding increase as a result of their submission to God and his word.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: What better place to go uh away from uh the to God is from the fool, from the one who lacks knowledge.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we look at verse 7 and see uh a command or a strong charge to leave the presence uh of a fool, for there you do not meet words of knowledge.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna find anything that's going to um be building you up in in any way uh in light of eternity.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: There the fool lives for today, the the fool um has no has no regard for uh for for the future, and the the fool seeks to uh to to be enthralled in the pleasures of this world, to gratify uh the desires of the flesh.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: And uh there's no place for uh there's no place for uh for company for for the Christian in the presence of fools, other than to call them to repentance, to call them to turn from their foolish ways and to see that God's way is better.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: God's way is the way that leads to life, and and the way of the fool or the the broad path leads uh to destruction.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: And as we conclude our verses in the the Proverbs today, uh we see verse 8 the wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way, but the folly of fools is deceiving.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the wisdom that we glean from the scriptures is is that which makes us um makes us wise.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: It makes us uh wise unto salvation, it gives us uh meaningful understanding as to how to navigate uh this world and uh seeking ways to to lead our our families, um lead in our in our communities and and serve in meaningful ways um in God's house.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: So how are we to discern or to understand?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's it's looking to the scriptures, looking to the words of of God as we seek to to please and obey Him.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bible reading podcast.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: For more information about Compass Bible Church, South Valley, visit compass Bible SV.org.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Keep reading, keep growing.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.