Latest / Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan / September 18, 2026 - Judges 13 & Proverbs 15:13-16

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September 18, 2026 - Judges 13 & Proverbs 15:13-16 · Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bob 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.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Josiah Smith, joined by Tyler Sanborn.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Today is Friday, September 18th, 2026.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Listen intently to God's written word.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Judges 13.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: There was a certain man of Zora, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah, and his wife was barren and had no children.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, Behold, you are barren and have not borne children, but you shall conceive and bear a son.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, be careful and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb, and you shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Then the woman came and told her husband, A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like the appearance of the angel of God, very awesome.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I did not ask him where he was from, and he did not tell me his name, but he said to me, Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: So then drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then Manoah prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord, please let the man of God whom you sent come again to us, and teach us what we are to do with the child who will be born.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: But Manoah, her husband, was not with her.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: So the woman ran quickly and told her husband, Behold, the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And Manoah arose and went after his wife, and came to the man and said to him, Are you the man who spoke to this woman?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I am.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And Manoah said, Now when your words come true, what is to be the child's manner of life?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what is his mission?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, Of all that I said to the woman, let her be careful.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, or eat any unclean thing.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: All that I commanded her, let her observe.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, Please, let us detain you and prepare a young goat for you.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, If you detain me, I will not eat of your food.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: But if you prepare a burnt offering, then offer it to the Lord.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, What is your name, so that when your words come true, we may honor you?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the angel of the Lord said to him, Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering, and offered on the rock to the Lord, so the one who works wonders, and Manoah and his wife were watching.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now Manoah and his wife were watching, and they fell on their faces to the ground.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: The angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and to his wife.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then Manoah knew that it he was the angel of the Lord, and Manoah said to his wife, We shall surely die, for we have seen God.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: But his wife said to him, If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the woman bore a son and called his name Samson, and the young man grew, and the Lord blessed him, and the spirit of the Lord began to stir him in Mahana Dan between Zarah and Ashtel.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Proverbs fifteen, verses thirteen through sixteen.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouths of fools feed on folly.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want you to notice the literary pattern in judges so far.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's been kind of one thing after another, one judge after another doing something foolish, doing something wicked, ultimately doing something sinful or even idolatrous.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: In that downward spiral that we've talked about has kind of been the recurring theme and somewhat paced up until this point.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is this the judge?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is this the the ruler?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Is this the deliverer that's gonna stop this downward spiral?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna put an end to the sinful cycle.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's a slower-paced chapter.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's intentionally kind of zoomed in on one circumstance: Manoah and his wife, and the angel of the Lord appearing to Manoah's wife to talk about the birth of their son, who, of course, now we know at the end of the chapter is Samson.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And Samson, I am confident that most, if not all of you listening to this, know something of Samson, something of his hair, something of his wife, something of his victories in battle or lack thereof.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know something about Samson, but here, before we get to that, we'll get to that in later on in Judges.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: But now we just see his birth foretold and really proclaimed by the angel of the Lord to Manoah and his wife.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I think that's kind of a narrative feature where we're slowing down and we're starting to wonder is this Samson guy, this one that's told to make a Nazirite vow?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's uh something that we talked about a long time ago in Leviticus, specifically in the law.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was detailed there as to what that is.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: It represented a deeper level of devotion to the Lord kind of being set apart for a specific purpose and a specific task, which is why Manoah asks, What is his mission?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want him to do?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: What will his purpose be?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but again, this is kind of a pause and we're holding our breath.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way that this chapter is written.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And we're wondering: is this Samson guy who the angel of the Lord appeared to talk up to Manoah and his wife about and to tell them, hey, you haven't had a child yet, but you're gonna have a son.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, make him have the Nazarite vow that he's going to make.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Don't eat and drink, drink the things that are forbidden for those who uh are uh making that vow, even don't put a razor to his head, those kinds of things that will become important to Samson and his story later on.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but that's what this chapter really serves as.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Again, from a literary perspective, it's creating tension, it's creating this sense of we're holding our breath.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: What's gonna happen?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and Tyler and I, you, you, you and I were just talking before the podcast.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's so many overlaps that we can see between the angel appearing to Manoah and his wife and the angel appearing to Mary.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think this is a foreshadowing ultimately of the uh the angel that does appear to Mary to tell her that she's gonna bear a son.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: His name will be Emmanuel, and he's gonna obviously God with us, he's gonna be the savior, he's gonna uh be the one who forgives the sin of the world and things like that.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So just a lot of parallels.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: The angel of the Lord, of course, is talking, and and there's questions about his identity, and it becomes clear uh that they even respond, they ultimately come to understand that they were talking with God.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why Manoa's like, we're dead, we we're not gonna survive this.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of things happening there, even from a theological perspective.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's a Christophany.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about that before, don't need to get back into that today.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: But uh just think of this chapter as a pause, a slowdown, and creating tension and anticipation for Samson.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Who's he gonna be?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: What's he gonna do?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Is this going to be the solution to the the downward spiral that we've seen so far in the life of Israel?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And something that I've I've pulled out of this chapter, uh, Pastor Josiah, is is the response of Manoah and his wife.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: They fall on their face, similar to that to that of uh of Moses or other other uh individuals in the scriptures that have an encounter with God, they fall on their face.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's a reverence and awe and wonder.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you and I were talking about um the name, the name wonderful.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you ask my name?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's wonderful.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that points us to uh forward and thinking of of the wonderful Savior who would who would be called Jesus, whose name is wonderful, um, wonderful counselor, mighty God, prince of of peace.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: So some exciting things as we as we look forward, as we look anticipation now with the full canon of scripture to the hope for these people, to the to the hope of of anyone who would believe in the name of Jesus.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: That that's that's the target of uh the lens of our chapter today.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: And as we shift over to Proverbs chapter 15, verses 13 through 16, um, I was pulling some things out here and reflecting on on the fear uh of the Lord, uh, the fear of the Lord and the treasure that comes with uh with drawing near to God and knowing God.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um we we see that those who practice the fear of the Lord in the scriptures, they have good understanding, they they they have a peace about them.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's a satisfaction to be found um in the fear of the Lord.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and those that those that have great treasure, we see the the final verse of our Proverb section today.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's better to be to have little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and a trouble uh with it.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I was thinking about that today and and reflecting on what it is to just to remind myself, what it is that to fear the Lord, what does that look like in my mind, in my heart?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there's a a satisfaction and a contentment with the pursuit of God as we we pursue the fear of the Lord and draw near to him, and drawing near to God is is the path that leads to life, and we have great, great satisfaction as we rest uh in him.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and as we we bounce up to the top here.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'll start at the end of the four verses.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: We'll go to the top, verse 13.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: A glad heart makes uh a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit uh is crushed.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I was thinking about the the heart and the face and just the the things that we can look at in scripture, the face and and words that we use have a reflection of what's going on deeper within us.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: So out of the abundant uh abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, but also out of the abundance of of the inside of us, our there's a reflection.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's a way that we we show the world and we we show other people, maybe intentionally or uh subconsciously, what's going on inside.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and our face is often the way that we uh we express that.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um if we're cast down, we might have a long face or a face that's that's postured down, or if we have a um a heart that's hopeful, or a face that's reflecting a hopeful heart, we can endure different trials, different tribulations, and have a have a face that says, My rest and my hope isn't in my circumstances.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: My hope and my rest is in the Lord.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's paralleled there in verse 15.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: All the days of the afflicted are evil.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you can think of when you're feeling that sensitive affliction inside when your heart is heavy, the way that you view the world and even interact with the world is as if every day is evil.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that happens is is dark and heavy.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the cheerful of heart has a continual feast.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, someone who's cheerful, someone who has a delight in the Lord, or maybe is rejoicing in the salvation, they have the joy of their salvation.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's a sense in which every day provides feast-like experiences because there's much to be thankful for, there's much to experience that is a gift from the Lord.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's what we're seeing here.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: That certainly connects there to verse 13 that a glad heart makes a cheerful face.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see some of that parallel there.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, verse 14, we've seen this several times already in Proverbs, but the heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouth of fools feed on folly.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: So there's this sense of again, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: The heart of him who has understanding, who's granted to him, that's granted to him by the fear of the Lord, seeks knowledge.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: But the mouths of fools feed on folly.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're feasting on things that are contrary to God and his word and his character and his commands.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's reiterated here again in Proverbs 15, 14.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bob Reading Podcast.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compass Bible SV.org.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Keep reading, keep growing.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.