Joshua's Wisdom: Purify, Listen, and Apply

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways. Well, Kyle, here we are right, we're the

Bible Guys. I'm Jeff, he's Kyle. Chris is out of

town today, and we are wrapping up this week's episodes

with a really dynamic story. There's some big choices, the

big decisions that the people are gonna have to make

here because they've been at this moment before, yes, and

they made the wrong choice. So this time they're gonna

have to make a big choice. But before we jump

into that, speaking of choices, big choices, big choices, Speaking

of choices, I thought I would take you on a

journey of would you rather? Chris, and I always like these,

So would you rather do this? And so you have

to take these as like, would you rather have it

always be this way or always that's what we're doing? Okay,

right here we go. Would you rather have to always

speak in rhymes or always speak in riddles? Oh? Would

you rather have everything always rhyme? Or would you always

have to rather I always have to speak in riddles?

I think it'd be fun to always be able to

speak in rhymes, you'd be.

Like a rapper exactly.

Then maybe my, my, my, my wrap can finally flourish.

I've been waiting for that to finally take off. But yeah,

I'm gonna go with the rhymes. I like that one better. Okay, Okay,

that's good.

Would you rather have spaghetti for hair or maple syrup

for sweat? Oh, spaghetti for hair, Spaghetti for hair or

maybe for sweat? Dude? Oh, I like my hair.

It's gray a lot, but my hair is still pretty deep.

I'm gonna keep my hair and I'll take the maple

syrup for sweat.

Okay, So I just before you make that choice, Okay,

what about those hot nights okay, right where you just

kind of or when you're sick and you get a fever, right,

you just be all sticky?

Yeah, and I do play hockey, which is weird because

when it's a weird sports play because when you sweat

and then it gets cold, so it's a weird thing.

So maybe just be like sticky inside of your hockey.

I'm gonna I'm gonna stick with maple syrup.

So you'd rather still went out? Okay, nothing about spaghetta

would you rather always smell like cheese or always smell

like onions?

Oh my gosh, it's terrible. That is terrible. What's the

worst of two evils here? Smell like cheese or smell

like onions?

I gotta so.

Do you think onions smell bad? Personally old onions?

Yes?

I think when the onions are chopped up, like when

they're fresh like they oh, man, smell like onions versusmell

like cheese. I don't know, Man, this is tough. I'm

gonna go with smelling like.

Wait, before you have that question, always which which is

your wife repulsed most by? Yeah?

I know that's a tough one. So she does not

like cooked onions. I'm thinking like, can I say chopped

onions like fresh?

Yeah?

I'd like to smell like.

Fresh, fresh chopped onions over smell like cheese.

Okay, okay, although I'm not excited about that.

Okay, here's here's one that I've never I promise you

I have never contemplated this. Okay, I bet would you

rather have fingers as long as your legs or legs

as short as your fingers?

This is terrible. This is a great visual though, fingers

as long as your legs, fingers as long as your

legs or legs as long as your fingers. Oh my gosh, wow.

I'm gonna go.

I'm gonna go the first one. Imagine how sweet i'd

be like dunk in a basketball super long fingers. Yeah,

I think it's as long as your legs. Yeah, how heavy?

Would your hands be very heavy? But dude, imagine yeah

boo picking up a basketball. I think I could you

find some usefulness in that we're having finger length feet.

Yeah?

Okay, I'm also kind of impaid, like to move quickly.

You know, we like to go place as quickly, and

so I couldn't imagine that'd be a tough one.

Okay, let me see. Would you rather only be able

to whisper or be able to shout everything you say? Oh? Man?

I know people who are quiet talkers, yeah, and I

know people who are loud, which wanted to annoy you more.

The ones that make me mad are the loud.

I was just gonna say, I think i'd rather, if

I had to give get the option, I'd say I'd

rather always whisper be the person that's yeah, because it's

sometimes when there someone's just like not reading the room

and I can be that person's But I know people

like that where they're just so loud. They're on one

hundred all the time, and you're like, come on, turn

it down. Where's the whisperers? You know, sometimes whispers they

kind of like draw you in.

My wife and I were on a train from Vienna

to Venice. So it's like a seven and a half

hour train ride, and you come up along the edge

of the Dolomites. It's beautifully beautiful mountains, all this stuff,

and we were we were in first class, but this

guy comes in. These two guys come in. I think

they boarded with us, and the one guy talked so

loudly for seven he fell us sleep from like maybe

about thank you, but for five hours of the seven

hours he talked so loudly. I have noise canceling headphones.

And I wasn't feeling well, so I was feeling a

little sick on that On that that train ride, I'd

gotten an infection, so I had a little bit of

a fever. I wasn't feeling well, and I'm thinking, I

want to sleep so first class, I can leave my

seat way back all that kind of stuff. So I

have noise canceling headphones. I put those on. I can

still hear this guy talking, right, and you've got the

of the train. It should just put you to sleep.

It's great, right, Nope, this guy talking so loudly and

so the you couldn't miss anything you said, and it

was all inane, like none of it mattered. It felt

like you talked five hours of nothing, right, and so

it's just so I put on my noise canceling headphones.

I can still hear. It's the only thing I can hear.

It is so nauseating when you're like trying to block

a thing out you cannot.

So I got up and I got my ear plugs

out of my my thing out of my backpack, and

I put foam you're plugs in, and then my noise

kind of sending headphones on over top, and then I

couldn't hear him. Finally I was able to go to sleep.

So finally, after like an hour and a half, you know,

I took this little nap, I wake up. I take

it off, and he still so loud, and that his

companion was kind of like this where I'm talking, talking, talking,

and you just keep going. Yeah. Yeah, that was his

companion for seven hours was like uh huh, yeah, dude, think.

About how his companion felt though you were just ready

for him to shut up, but the companion actually had

to act engage in the conversation.

So hey, this is going to be a bonus segment

for our listeners because this is what made Jeff mad

this week. Right, So Chris always has a way so

on behalf of all of the people in the world.

I get mad about loud talker. Loud talkers in places

where they should have a little bit more of a

filter aware the fact that this is a quiet space,

not a loud space. So i'ld like to add on

to that. You want to pile on so you have

a what made Kyle mad this week so is because

it just reminded me.

I think the loud talkers where it's a little bit

of like low self awareness because I have a louder voice.

I think something, but like you know, you kind of

read the room once in a while and wife goes yeah.

But it's like an airplane as an example, either the

airplane or when you're waiting to get on the plane

and people will be watching like YouTube videos on full

blast or Instagram reels or TikTok or whatever, and it's

full blast, and you're like, I was so tempted. And

then you know, there's moments where you just kind of

feel like a jerk when you're on public and you're like,

but this person was I wanted so badly to offer

him my free uh headphones that they give you on

the airplane, and because I had one that I'd gotten

on a previous fight and it was still package. I

want to so badly to a guy who was just

for an hour or two straight, We're sitting there waiting

playing you know a lot of them inappropriate My kids

are sitting there very inappropriate videos. I wanted so bad

to be like, you might need these more than I do.

Oh my gosh, Yes, it's frustrating.

Come okay, well, hey there we go. We got two

We got two segments in there. Yeah, well I said two.

Fair. I'm all fired up though, yeah, sweat.

Well, as I mentioned before, we jumped in to this,

there's a big decision to be made because the people

of Israel have found themselves at this situation before, and

that's what this hole would you rather thing was about.

So in Joshua chapter What's the passage for reading Joshua

Chapter three one. Here's what it says. The Israelites are

up at the River Jordan. At this point they've already

spied out the land again. The report is, hey, we

can take them. Everybody's terrified of us. And so early

the next morning, Joshua and all the Israelites left to

Kesha Grove and arrived at the banks of the Jordan River,

where they camped before crossing. Three days later. The Israelite

officers went through the camp, saying, give these instructions to

the people. When you see the levitical priests carrying the

Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, move

out from your positions and follow them. Since you've never

traveled this way before, they will guide you. Stay about

a half mile behind them, keeping a clear distance between

you and the ark. Make sure you've not come any closer. Then,

Joshua told the people, fire yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord

will do great wonders among you. In the morning, Joshua

said to the priests, lift up the Ark of the

Covenant and lead the people across the river. And so

they started out and went ahead of the people. The

Lord told Joshua today, I will begin to make you

a great leader in the eyes of all the Israelites.

They will know that I am with you, just as

I am with Moses. Give this command of the priests

who carry the Ark of the Covenant. When you reach

the banks of the river Jordan River, take a few

steps into the river and stop there. So Joshua told

the Israelites, come and listen to what the Lord your

God says. Today. You will know that the Living God

is among you. He will surely drive out the Canaanites,

the Hittites, the high Bites, the Parizites, the Gurgashites, the Amorites,

and Jebusites. Ahead of you, look, the Ark of the Covenant,

which belongs to the Lord of the whole Earth, will

lead you across the Jordan River. Now, choose twelve men

from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. The

priests will carry the Ark of the Lord, the Lord

of all the Earth. As soon as their feet touched

the water, the flow of water will because off upstream,

and the river will stand up like a wall. So

the people left their camp to cross the Jordan and

the priests who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant

went ahead of them. It was the harvest season and

the Jordan was overflowing its banks. But as soon as

the feet of the priests who were carrying the arc

touched the water at the river's edge, the water above

that point began backing up a great distance away at

a town called Adam, which is near Zarathan, and the

water below that point float on to the dead sea

until the riverbed was dry. Then all the people crossed

over near the town of Jericho. Meanwhile, the priests who

were carrying the Ark of the Lord's Covenant stood on

the dry ground in the middle of the river bed

as the people passed by. They waited there until the

whole nation of Israel had crossed the Jordan on dry ground.

Yeah that's good. Yeah, that's a wild story. That's a

crazy story.

And then we talked about this before, but you said

that anywhere between one and three million people you know,

going through this, So think about that, like, because I think,

you know, when you don't take that into context, the

amount of people, you just think, oh, they just you.

Know, crossed over real quick.

Like how long would that have I mean, that would

have taken a very long time to hours, Yeah, to

get you know, one point five whatever, two million people

across that is, that's that's wild.

Yeah, So it was how many miles north? Did it

start to back up in that near that town called Adam?

Did it say how many miles? It was twelve minute?

Uh big? The arc of the Covenant began backing up

a great distance at the town called Adam, yep, which

is near Zarathan. So they're in a kasha grove. Do

we have a map, Yeah, there's a map here in

the in the thing. It looks like it was about

twenty miles north. Yeah, you see that, yep. So as

you if you ever get a chance, this is one

of the things, man, you should get yourself a good

study Bible. I love that life application study Bible. I

know a lot of times we talk about this chronological

life application study Bible. It's useful for what we're doing

where we're trying to go in the order of things.

For practical Bible study. Just get a regular life application

study Bible with a new living translation. That's what you use, right,

isn't that same way?

So?

But in it there's a map here, and then it

gives you scale, right, it shows you where the city

where the Acacia Grove was, and where the plains of

Moab are and then where Adam is about twenty miles north,

give or take. So it starts to back up there,

the water starts to stand up. Then the water runs

past down into the sea, the Dead Sea, and then

everything is dry. So they had miles and miles and

miles across. It wasn't like you had three million people

getting in line and we're going, you know, three hundred

people wide across the river. It was miles. God backed

up so much of the river and it's during flood season.

This miracle, quite honestly, some some archaeologists, some historians would

say this was a bigger miracle than God making the

Red Sea, dividing the Red Sea and drying that because

of the flowing water during flood stage of the Jordan

River and the amount of people.

I think the different to be with the Red Sea

would just be the adversary like with having faro. Oh

that probably sure, Yeah, yeah yeah. When you read this,

you's like, hold the what just happened?

Like this? Just say I'm talking about the sheer amount

of water. This is more water move incredible.

Yes, One of the things that stood out that I

think you know when you read over it. You know

Joshua telling the people purify yourselves for tomorrow the Lord

will do great wonders among you. Just to read this

note on here it says before entering the Promised Land,

the Israelites were to perform a purification ceremony. This was done, Uh,

this is often done before making a sacrifice, or is

in this case before witnessing a great act of God.

And said a person could become unclean for many reasons,

which we.

Know about that, right, we see that.

But but here it says God used these various outwards

signs of uncleanliness to illustrate a person's inward uncleanliness that

comes as a result of sin. So this purification ceremony

pictured the importance of approaching God with a pure heart.

So like the Israelites, we need God forgiveness before we

approach him.

Wow.

So it's important right that that was step one purification.

This is a part of the communion act that we

should have you know in the in First Gritians chapter eleven. Listen,

you should go and read First Corinthians chapter eleven again.

One you have to remember communion in their day, the

Lord's supper was a meal. It was the Passover meal, right,

and so it was like Thanksgiving dinner, and everybody'd rush in.

It was a huge party. You drink all the wine,

you gobble up all the food, you eat until you

can't hardly move. That was the idea. It wasn't supposed

to be that way, but that's what it had become.

And especially among the gentiles who didn't understand the passover,

so they just come in and just eat, you know,

And so Paul is having to remind them, Hey, the

Lord gave me this, you know, don't do that. And

then he talks about, as a matter of fact, you

should check yourself. You should consider whether or not in

this moment, you're worthy of receiving communion. Right. It's because

some people are sick, some people even die because of

the fact that they're receiving communion unworthily. And not that

you and I are ever totally worthy, but Jesus makes

us worthy. But the idea here is that we should

consider where are we at with God. It's almost a

purification moment. It's a moment of confessing sin, purging this sin,

of saying, God, I recognize that I've allowed these things

to creep back in my life. I'm asking you to

forgive me, purify me, make me worthy to receive this

moment of communion where I'm remembering Jesus' death right, his sacrifice,

the punishment he took in his body, and the payment

that he paid with his blood. And so even in

modern Christianity, we should still have this purification moment, this

moment of re engaging with God in a serious way

before we just run off and take the thing we want. Yes,

because what they want is the Promised Land. Yes, we've

been wandering around for a generation, and now we're going

to get it. Let's just run across the river and

go and celebrate. Joshua goes hey, calm down, purify.

Well, that's all I was going to say. I think

you've already mentioned a couple of times. But the fact

that they've been here before, right, But is this.

What they did before? No?

No, So it's so interesting that they actually took a

different The story changed and the outcome, the result changed

when they did it God's way.

Right before you enter.

Here's we're we're going to go through this cleanliness ceremony

and remember you know what God has done or and

and and pure or sorry pure fa purification ceremony. And

I think it's really awesome to see that, Like literally

before Josh was ready to do that. He said, Hey,

we're gonna we're starting new here, and this is what

we're gonna do. We're gonna, you know, purify ourselves before

the Lord.

I think it's really you haven't been here before. He

literally says that you haven't been here before. Anytime you

come up to a new thing, a new moment, it's

worth recognizing, Hey, this is a holy moment. I haven't

been here before. God. You're getting ready to be a

new parent, you're getting ready to go into you know,

you're getting ready to get married. You're getting ready to

be a new parent, You're you're you're raising teenagers. Suddenly

you've never done this before. You have an opportunity for

a new job or a new career. Those are all

holy moments. Right. You didn't you didn't create that, God

gave you that. This is a this is a new

season of life that God has giving you. Now you're

you're an empty nester for the first time. What do

I do with retirement in the future? Right, these are

all holy moments. Holy seasons, and you haven't been here before.

When you get to a moment where you say, okay,

I haven't been here before. Pause, cleanse yourself, surrender to

God again. And then do you know what else he did?

And I was going to comment on the other side

of this. In verse nine, Joshua tells the Israelites come

and listen to what the Lord your God says, and

he sits down. They want to rush across the river,

and he goes, hey, hey, before we run, let's not

get out ahead of ourselves. Let's remember again what God said.

This isn't what we want to do. This is what

God is telling us to do. And so the note here,

which I just love in life, have kiss said Bibes says.

Just before crossing over into the Promised Land, Joshua gathered

the people to hear the words of the Lord. Remember,

they just purified themselves. They confess their sin, they get clean,

they get right with God, and then they sit down

with God's word. That's what they're doing back to back

before they go rushing in. And it says no doubt

their excitement was high. They wanted to rush on, but

Joshua made them stop and listen. We live in a

fast paced age where everyone rushes just to keep up.

It's easy to get caught up in our task asks,

becoming too busy for what God says is most important.

Listening to his words before making your schedule. Take time

to focus on what God wants from all of your activities.

Knowing what God has said before you rush into your

day can help you avoid foolish mistake preaching. Right, isn't

this fantastic? Good? Yeah? And so I want to commend

our listeners and our viewers. Right, this is what you're doing.

You're taking twenty minutes many of you. I know, based

on the fact that I look at all the demographics

and the metrics behind the scenes on YouTube and on

Spotify and all those things. Most of our listeners listen

before noon. Yeah, right, that's how they're starting their day,

or they're ending their day this way. They're coming in

just before they go to sleep at night. Then there's

another big russia people who listen in the evenings at

nighttime before the go to bed. But there's something about

that saying, Hey, I'm going to bracket my day with

God's word. I'm going to hear what God has to say,

you know. So, for if you're a morning person, you

get up an extra thirty minutes early and listen to

Chris and Jeff for Kyle and Jeff talking about the Bible.

That's what you're doing, is you're taking God's words and

you're getting some of God God's thoughts in your head.

Not that my words or your words are God's thoughts,

but we're using God's word yep, right, yep ye, And

so you're experiencing those things. Or if you're not a

morning person, finishing your day before you go to sleep,

your brain tends to work through the last few things

you put in your head. Most people are putting politics

and Facebook in their head right right before they go

to sleep, and wonder why they're miserable on that word.

Maybe if they'd spend more time taking God's word into

their minds and in there they sleep better too. But

then what happens is you tend to wake up with

whatever you were thinking last is the beginning of has

an effect on your day the next day. So there's

something to that, you know. I think the best thing

my mom and dad did for me and my three

brothers was every morning and every evening we had devotions

in the morning, my dad would leave whatever he was

reading in the Bible because he'd always leave for work

at four thirty in the morning, so he would leave

a note, Hey, read this passage and here's a big

idea every day for us. And so at breakfast we're all,

you know, shoving raising brand in our mouth. Well, my

mom reads the verse and then we all have to

kind of give an idea. What do we think that

passage means? So my mom and dad were not content

to read a verse. They always wanted us to sort

out what does it mean?

Right?

So what does this mean to us? What do you

think your dad was trying to tell us by reading

this verse today? Whatever? And then in the evening I

would say, six out of seven nights, from the time

I was twelve years old to the time well eight

years old, probably until the time I was I graduated

high school, six out of eight nights a week, or

six out of seven nights a week, we would read

whatever the current proverb was. So today is what's the day?

Today the twenty eight four fourth, No, today's the seventeenth,

today's the twenty fifth, Yeah, twenty July twenty fifth, Yeah,

July twenty fifth. So we would read Proverbs twenty five cool,

and then my dad would always make we couldn't finish

devotions until we go all the way are on the

room and everybody, Mom, dad, me, my brothers. We would

have to share. This verse jumped off the page. And

this is what I think it means in how to

ply my life. So Proverbs is just a book of wisdom. Yeah, right,

So I think there's a level of wisdom you get

on how to live life just by spending every single

day taking in God. Say, this is how life works.

Live this way, right, So those two elements doctrinally in

the morning wisdom. At night, we meditated on the word

of God to the point that there's an advantage I

think that God gave me through my parents that I've

got fifteen hundred verses that I memorized in my lifetime.

This that meditating on God's word. And I think if

you have it in you and then you pause to

think about it, then you're going to be well. You

might go, I don't have fifteen Bible verse fifteen hundred

Bible verses, memorize, Okay, learn five right, spend spend thirty

minutes in God's word today, and all you're looking for

is guidance today. So in this moment, he says, you

haven't been here before. Get right with God, spend some

time in his word, then we'll go in. But don't

just go rushing. A lot of people rush into new careers,

rush into relationships, rush into new families, rush into whatever

without purifying themselves spending time with God getting holy again,

and then spend a time in his word and getting direction.

Yeah, I think it's a proverbats that says that man

makes his plans, but the Lord establishes his step steps.

And I look at that and I think that in

this day and age and even myself sometimes it's like

oftentimes it's like Kyle makes his plans and then Kyle

makes creates the steps right, and the Bible is that

like following God is the opposite what we see Joshua

doing here with all these people as the opposite that

it's like no, no, no, Before we even step forward, we

consult him, We go to him for id like you're saying,

meditate on him. And then even your the fifteen hundred verses,

I'm close to you, very close, probably like but it's

something I try to work on because even when I

talk to my kids even about this, and we try,

we do daily devotionals and all that, and I'm like,

you know what you want is you know, the Bible

talks about having the Word written on your heart, and

it's the sight of it just being like it's a

part of who you are. And the cool thing is

about the fact that the Bible is alive, it's God breathed.

It works.

So a verse that may may have been written on

my heart and spoke to me in a certain way

years ago is different today. And it's not that the verse.

It's not that the God's Word has changed at all.

It's just that it's alive and it's active, and all

of a sudden, I see things right, And I'm sure

you're the same way. Without fifteen hundred verses, there's probably

certain verses now that you're like, oh my gosh, it's

it shows you how alive it is. It's a living

organism that's changing the way you process it.

So yeah, I think that there's in not just listening

to the word or just hearing the word. Faith comes

by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Bible

says that there's a great value in listening. But a

lot of the power that my mom and dad had

behind that family devotion was making us contemplate. So how

does that apply being the doer? Not just reading the word,

but what should I do as a result of it?

And so let's say that you don't have a family.

You know, you're not sitting down having devotions with a

whole group of people right now, You're just having faith.

So I have a friend that he says he has

the exact same discipline in his life, but it's through journaling.

So every day he reads, he writes out at the

top of his page in the little journal I'm reading,

you know, Joshua, chapter two or chapter three, one through seventeen,

and then he'll write down three or four of these

little nuggets like we just talked about that we saw

and say, I think God is saying this today to me.

That's good, right, this is what it means to me

and what I should do about it? It's the so what, Yeah,

that's what you say? Why to God? Have me read

this today? And I think this might be it? And

then all throughout the whole world to the Timothy initiative,

we train all of our young Timothy's to have this.

When you're done reading the word of God, articulate because

of this I will. That's good. That's it. And that's

what my mom and dad used to push us to

do too. Not just read these words and say this

is what it must mean, but this is what I

will do because of it. So if you're going to

be disciplined like him, like Joshua, God had said, listen,

be strong and courageous, meditate on my word, Obey everything

I have to say, and I will make you wildly successful.

So this is exactly what he's saying. This is exactly

what he's leading people do. Get right with God. We're

going to go hear from him. Then we're going to

go do what he tells us to do. And they

were wildly successful. Yeah, right in this, in this moment.

So having this I will moment is the most important thing.

When you go into a church service, walk out and go, Okay,

because of what I heard today, I'm going to do this. Yeah,

let's every time, and then execute on that and you

begin applying God's word, not just knowing God's word. When

you apply God's word, that's where the success comes from.

And I would also remember reading something a few years

ago where it said that it was it was some

sociologists was saying that you can only really apply one

lesson like life less at a time, which is interesting.

I don't know how how long that lasts for a

but people, every single person, you know, we think we

can just learn a bunch of lessons and apply them.

But I like your idea there, or your friend's idea

of taking the journaling and saying today, I'll do this

because we think about how so often we start our

day right with news and constant consumption of media and

thoughts and opinions or whatever, but then really we don't

apply any of it. We don't just it's just information

overload or whatever. So to go to scripture, to go

to the truth and actually say here's the thing I'm

going to do with that, I think that changes everything.

And I remember that lesson throughout the day.

It's so good. Yeah, So for this lesson today, maybe

your I will is because of what I read today,

I'm going to remember every time I come up to

a new big opportunity, I'm going to have a purification

moment where I confess my sin, I get right with

God and then I'm going to lean into what his

words say. That's where I go running into the odds.

Great.

Yeah, that's great that I will. Yeah, that's great. So anyways, Hey,

this is a good conversation man. Thanks for joining me

this week, but I really enjoyed it. Yeah. Tons of

fun and we look forward to seeing you again in

the next time on the Bible. Guys, see you