June 24, 2026 - Numbers 33 & Psalm 119:161-168

We trace Israel’s journey in Numbers 33 and hear God’s hard-edged warning about leaving any trace of idolatry in the land. Then we connect Psalm 119:161-168's love for God’s law to Camp Compass lessons on creation’s obedience and the peace that comes from trusting God’s commands.

For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compassbiblesv.org. Keep reading. Keep growing. God’s Word is a lamp to your feet, and a light to your path. 

Transcript

Welcome And Numbers 33 Overview

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bybreoding 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. I'm Josiah Smith, joined by Tyler Sanborn. Today is Wednesday, June 24th, 2026. Here's a quick summary of Numbers 33. Numbers 33 details the journey that Israel made from Egypt all the way until Jordan, right before they cross into the promised land. So it recounts just all the different places that they stayed in and camped at along the way. And then at the end of the chapter, it talks about this command that God has given to the nation of Israel to drive out all of the inhabitants of Canaan to possess the land that God had promised them. And really, there's uh both an encouragement to do that, but also a warning that if they don't do that, if they don't tear down the high places, if they don't get rid of the false idols, then there's going to be some consequences. So even verse 55, if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell. So Numbers 33 shows just the journey from Israel to the Jordan as they prepare to cross into uh the promised land, and it's just a last warning and a last encouragement to drive out all of the inhabitants lest they be continually bothered and pestered by those uh inhabitants.

Psalm 119 Reading And Peace

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Listen intently to God's written word. Psalm one nineteen, verses one sixty one through one sixty-eight. Princes persecute me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words. I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil. I hate and abore falsehood, but I love your law. Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules. Great peace have those who love your law. Nothing can make them stumble. I hope for your salvation, O Lord, and I do your commandments. My soul keeps your testimonies, I love them exceedingly. I keep your precepts and testimonies, for all my ways are before you.

Camp Compass Highlights And Creation

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At the time of recording this, we just finished earlier today the second day of our very first Camp Compass. Now, if you're listening to this, the day is released. It is now the third day of Camp Compass, but we are recording this on the second day of Camp Compass. So, Tyler, let's just talk about some highlights from today. Now, you specifically taught the Bible time lesson today of Camp Compass. Tell us, what did you teach about? What were you really trying to drive home to the kids?

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Uh, those who are listening, all the young ones at Camp Compass, we're learning about what creation says. We look to the heavens, we look to the sky above, we look to the handiwork of God in Psalm 19:1 and all these things that we see, creation is proclaiming God's greatness, his glory. And that was my heart behind the message today. We have creation revealing the applause and obedience of the creator. And not only do we have creation, we have the very word of God right in our own hands. And I was trying to help them understand obedience that we see in creation, all the structure, the orbits of the planets and the stars and their places, those things that are created by the word of God are obeying him. They're doing what he says. And we have an opportunity as well to look to the law of God, the written word of God, and obey him to glorify him. We have the ability in our own lives, if we're following and trusting in God's perfect, righteous, pure, and right law, we have an opportunity to follow after him. And there was a time in my lesson that I was sharing, not all laws are good, not all laws are right. I told them, what if there was a hypothetical law where from now on you have to take off your shoes and use your shoes as utensils to eat any food that you put in your mouth? I told them that would be a bad law. And I had no one refuting that. And that was um just uh to underscore that the Bible is God's law, it's his very words for us, and we can look to the skies, the heavens above, and stand in wonder, but also we can look to God's written word and do the same.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Yeah, so it was a great day of Camp Compass, a great second day. We're continuing to study the theme of God's glory, or as we're just simply defining it this week, God's greatness. He is great because he is the creator of all things, Genesis 1:1, the heavens and the earth. He is great because not only did he create the heavens and the earth, but they shout with praise. The heavens declare the glory of God. And the sky above proclaims his handiwork. And so we are to join in with creation in our worship. And I know that's something that you talked about today, Tyler. So I would just ask if you're listening, continue to pray. Pray for the Bible teachers. We've got Pastor John up um on Wednesday. So the day you're listening to this, the day it's released, he's gonna be teaching another lesson on the glory of God. And then we've got two uh people that came with the short-term missions team from Melissa Viejo on Thursday and Friday that are going to be teaching the kids as well. So God has been doing some incredible, encouraging things already this week, and we just ask that you would continue to pray and that we would, as a church, be genuinely reliant on

Obedience And Zero Tolerance For Idols

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prayer. Now, as we turn to Numbers 34, one of the things that we really need to drill in on briefly here is obedience, like you were just talking about, Tyler, that there's an expectation that because God is our creator, because he created all things and he created you, he created me. Uh, the only proper response is to view God, to not just view him, but to submit to him as the creator, meaning he gets to set the rules, he gets to have commands and laws, like you were saying, that are good and proper. And what do we see here in numbers 33 is God giving a command that they were to go into the land that they were to inherit. I'm looking at verse 52. You shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you and destroy all their figured stones and destroy all their metal images and demolish all their high places. So God's can command, his instructions are very clear. When you go into this land, I want no remnant of the false worship, the idolatry, their graven images to be left. I want you to destroy them. I want you to tear down the high places. And of course, a high place was typically some sort of altar that they would construct and erect that would be a place of worship and honor for a false deity, a false god, an idol. And so God's commands and his instructions to his people is I don't want these left. They need to be torn down, they need to be um we need to get rid of them, is the instructions. Zero tolerance, zero tolerance in verse 54, you shall inherit the land uh by lot according to your clans. And you know, there's of course the warning if they don't do this, like I mentioned in the brief summary, uh, that they will be a thorn. He says, uh, if you don't do this, if you don't drive them out, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. It's the whole idea of being a consistent pest, a consistent pain, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell. And I will do to you, God says, as I thought to do to them. So God's commands uh are to be taken seriously. And the expectation of his people as they were about to enter into the promised land was that they would obey, that they would listen to him as their God, that they would submit to him all of his commands, all of his instructions, his precepts, and that they would drive out just all the remnants of false idol worship that we see uh that you know of the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. And so that was the expectation that God had for his

Loving God’s Law And Next Steps

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people.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Yeah, I'm tying what you just said there, Pastor Josiah, to uh verse 163. The psalmist says, I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law. And these false gods and this false worship were or encouraging uh the people that bowed down and submitted their lives to these false gods, this uh evilness and wickedness, it's falsehood. It's these gods that they're worshiping were not real, they're man-made. And maybe the psalmist is is speaking to in that direction of there's people that are not falling after Yahweh and not submitting to him, they're going in different directions in directions that would be falsehood. But the psalmist loves the law of the Lord, and he rejoices in it and at it, like one who finds great spoil. And that is something that we can we can reflect on and think we're not we're not a people that are are taking spoils after defeating uh a people or or a an opponent or an enemy, but um, in the times of of King Dave and the times of God's people as they're um in the in the old testament, they are they're consistently conquering other nations and other cities, and these are commands given by the Lord in times that God would say, The spoil is yours, and at times the spoil would not be for God's people. But um, we see that God has clear directions for his people. There's there's no blurriness, there's no gray areas, it's take down all the high places.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

And look what happens when you submit to God's rules, his commandments, his precepts, if when you live life uh the way that God intended. I'm thinking about what Proverbs talks about, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, walking a straight and narrow path rather than a crooked, jagged line. What happens in verse 165? Great peace have those who love your law. Nothing can make them stumble. Now, of course, uh, this is talking in a very specific kind of way. It's not saying that nothing as in temptation will never befall you or anything like that, but there's a stability, there's a peace really that is that that can be unshakable, that you can have access to by the Spirit of God through the Word of God, if you believe in the command of God that He records for us in His Word, if you believe in the promises of God, if you believe in the character of God, if you believe in the goodness of God. And so that's just a great encouragement to take seriously the word of God and to uh even verse 1 uh 66 I hope for your salvation, O Lord, and I do your commandments. My soul keeps your testimonies, I love them exceedingly. I keep your precepts and testimonies, for all my ways are before you. So, one of the big themes here in Psalm 119 that we have seen repeatedly is this idea of keeping God's commandments, of doing what God has said. Now, we're not legalists here, we're not simply saying that we need to do that for some sort of external holiness. No, we want to be changed from the inside out. We want to be holy as God is holy, and we want to pursue just a deeper obedience as our affection for God grows, as our love for God grows in Christ. Uh, we we want to be serious about doing what God has commanded us to do and trusting that in doing so, there's great joy uh in that, and not to see the commandments of God as burdensome. Now, we've got one more day left in Psalm 119, Tyler, uh, which is a little bit sad. We've been in it now for a couple weeks. Uh so we've got one more day. Now, I do want to tell you, if you're listening to this, that if you received a printed card uh a while ago with our Bible reading plan on it, it is not accurate. So it after Psalm 119, I don't know what happened that day. I must have had too much coffee, but there is no other psalms, even though there's about 31 more after Psalm 119. Uh, they're not listed on that card. So we have printed new ones. If you actually, even if you go to our website, you can download the updated PDF version of that card, but you should be able to pick one up on a Sunday morning at our connect table, or you can go online. Uh, but we will be after Psalm 119, we will be going to Psalm 120. We will not be going to Proverbs 1 as it says in the card. So just make note of that and don't be confused. Uh, when you cross off the last section here of Psalm 119 and we don't go to Proverbs, that's intentional. I don't know how that happened, but it did. We fixed it. And we're moving on to Psalm 120 and just a little bit, and we'll continue. We'll work all the way through the Psalms until we make our way to the Proverbs. Well, continue to pray for us as we seek to expend of ourselves for the sake of uh just our community, for the sake of these families, for the sake of these kids. And I would even say, pray for us, particularly if you're listening to this on Wednesday. Tonight is our community cookout night. And so we want to have just a great um event that we can put on for families in our community. And we want to be very intentional to have gospel conversations, invite people to church, and to seek to serve them and love them well. Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Podcast. For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compass bible sv.org. Keep reading, keep growing. God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.