July 21, 2026 - Deuteronomy 20 & Psalm 141

We read Deuteronomy 20 and Psalm 141.

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 Today’s Date

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Welcome to the Lamp and 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 lighting the way. I'm Josiah Smith, lead pastor of Compass South Valley. Today is Tuesday, July 21st, 2026. Listen intently to God's written

Deuteronomy 20 Read Aloud

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word. Deuteronomy 20. When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And when you draw near to the battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the people, and shall say to them, Hear, O Israel, today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies. Let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, for the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory. Then the officers shall speak to the people, saying, Is there any man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. And is there any man who has planted a vineyard and has not enjoyed its fruit? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man enjoy its fruit. And is there any man who has betrothed a wife and has not taken her? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her. And the officers shall speak further to the people and say, Is there any man who is fearful and faint hearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own. And when the officers have finished speaking to the people, then commanders shall be appointed at the head of the people. When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if and if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. And when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the livestock and everything else in the city, all its spoil you shall take as plunder for yourselves, and you shall enjoy the spoil spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you. Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here, but in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God has given you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breeds, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizites, the Hives and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God. When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human that they should be besieged by you? Only the trees that you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, that you may build siege works against the city that makes war with you until it falls.

Psalm 141 Read Aloud

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O Lord, I call upon you, hasten to me, give ear to my voice when I call to you, that my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips, do not let my heart incline to any evil, to busy myself with wicked deeds, in company with men who work iniquity, and let me not eat of their delicacies. Let a righteous man strike me, it is a kindness, let him rebuke me, it is oil for my head, let my head not refuse it. Yet my prayer is continually against their evil deeds. When their judges are thrown over the cliff, then they shall hear my words, for they are pleasant. As when one ploughs and breaks up the earth, so shall our bones be scattered as the mouth of Sheol. But my eyes are toward you, O God, my Lord. In you I seek refuge. Leave me not defenseless. Keep me from the trap that they have laid for me, and from the snares of evildoers. Let the wicked fall into their own nets, which I pass by safely.

A Prayer God Hears Quickly

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Now Psalm 141 is another psalm of David, where he is crying out to the Lord to be heard. Even the title of the psalm in the ESV is Give Ear to My Voice. So there's a request. God, would you please incline your ear to what I'm saying, to the request that I'm bringing you? Even verse one, O Lord, I call upon you. Hasten to me. Come quickly, Lord. Give ear to my voice when I call to you. Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, as something that's pleasing, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. So those are again the Levitical categories. If you're thinking about the inner place, the Holy of Holies, the tabernacle, the temple, they there uh incense was constantly burning, and the aroma of the sacrifices to the Lord is something that is being referenced here. So this is something that God is or David is requesting of God. Would you please be be honored with my request? Would you count my prayer as incense before you and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice, uh, a pleasing aroma to

Guarding Speech And Accepting Rebuke

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the Lord? Um even goes on in verse three and says, Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips. What a what a great prayer. Uh, in the midst of persecution, in the midst of wicked men, uh, in the midst of those who are seeking to harm uh and commit evil acts against David, he is praying, set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips. Uh, what a great prayer for us to just kind of carry with us throughout the week. Uh as I think of even the words of James that talk about how the tongue being the smallest member of the body creates such chaos, wreaks such havoc, sets uh a wildfire ablaze, as James says. And so this is a great prayer for us. Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth, even recognizing we've been in the proverbs for the last couple of weeks. Uh, one of my favorite proverbs is where words are many, transgression is not lacking. That's just such a poignant way of saying the more we talk, the more we tend to sin. And so we need Psalm 141, verse 3 set a guard, oh Lord, over my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips. God, would you give me a self-control? Would you help me to do what is right and to speak words that are seasoned with salt and that are used for edification and the building up? Uh, even in verse 5, listen to this: let a righteous man strike me. It is a kindness. Let him rebuke me. It is oil for my head, let my head not refuse it. Yet my prayers continually against their evil deeds. Let a righteous man strike me. Again, this is reminiscent of the proverbs uh that faithful are the wounds of a friend. And that's David's request here. Let a righteous man strike me. It's a kindness for him to do so. Let him rebuke me. It's oil, it's something that's good, it's worthy of celebration. We've talked about oil before, that's connected to offices of consecration in the Old Testament. There are three prophets, priests, and king who would be anointed with oil. It was a time for celebration. And so David is saying, Let a righteous man rebuke, strike. Um that's a friend. That's uh someone who cares. That's someone who's speaking the truth in love. It is oil for my head. Let my head not refuse it. I mean, even just the humility of this. There's uh enemies that are going to be talked about later on in this psalm, but right now he's talking about the righteous man, and he's desiring for the humility to receive correction. Uh, so many themes in this psalm, particularly, overlap really well with the book of Proverbs. Proverbs chapter one. Uh, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction. We talked about even the role of listening and hearing in Proverbs to increase in wisdom. And that's exactly what David is praying. Uh, help me to listen, Lord. Help me to heed, help my head not refuse counsel and rebuke and uh someone who's striking him. Uh, what a great prayer for us uh to uh pray. And so just some really uh great nuggets of truth here in Psalm 141, great things to just hopefully uh pad your prayer life, so to speak, give you, give you just something from the scriptures to actually bring to the Lord with just a sincere heart, uh seeking to honor him uh with your uh life, with your words, with even the way that you receive correction. Uh, then David later on talks about uh those who are seeking to commit evil and and do wickedness, and um even recognizes and well is asking in verse eight that God not leave him defenseless. He's talking about those who are against him. Keep me from the trap that they have laid for me and from the snares of evildoers. This is reminiscent of what Jesus teaches us to pray, deliver us from evil. Verse 10, let the wicked fall into their own nets while I pass by safely. Again, that's that's another proverb. Uh, what is it? The fool falls in the pit after he he digs it. I'm grossly summarizing that. Uh, but that's a proverb where it talks about a fool digs a pit and then falls into it. And that's what David here is praying. Let the wicked fall into their own nets while I pass by safely. Let them be entangled by their own foolishness, by their own actions that are that are wicked and unrighteous uh while I pass by safely. Um so I just I love the way that David prays. I love even you can tell that his prayers are saturated with scripture. There's so many themes overlapping with Proverbs expressly here, and so many things uh that are uh just generally taught in Scripture for believers that we are to be mindful of our speech, that even Jesus talks about we will be judged for every careless word. And so David's praying. He's recognizing that he needs rebuke, he needs to be humble, he needs to have uh a guard over his mouth and his tongue, and and he needs these things, and so he's asking the Lord that he's going to the right place, seeking help, where ultimately he can

Deuteronomy 20 Courage And Purity

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find it. Now, just a brief word on Deuteronomy 20. These are some specific instructions for Israel that are more on the side of battle, they are about to engage in some literal physical warfare as they take these cities that God has promised them in order to inherit and to receive the possession of the land that God has promised them. And so God is giving some very specific instructions on how they are to do this, even starting at the beginning of chapter 20, saying that they are to have confidence, they are not to be given over to anxiety or fear. Why? There's a repeated refrain of the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory. So they were not to be afraid, they were to do it in a certain way, uh, they were they were to do it uh again with just great confidence. And uh there all of this uh is commanded by the Lord. And even in verse 17, you shall devote them, these specific cities, these godless pagan cities, to destruction the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebizites, as the Lord your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices. So there's a very serious tone, very serious urging here by God to Israel not to fall into idolatry, not to adopt the pagan practices of these specific nations mentioned here, that are worshiping their false gods, that are sacrificing their children to Moloch, that are doing these things that are wicked. And so God is saying, You're gonna go in there, you're gonna conquer these cities. Uh, if they surrender, then there's a certain way that you're to respond. If they don't, there's another way you're to respond. Uh, but uh even uh this driving this point home, the Lord is with you, he'll give you the victory. Don't adopt their pagan worship, don't adopt their false gods. Go in there, believe in the one true God, remember his promises, remember his protection, remember that he'll give you the victory, and uh stay far away from their false worship. Uh so just remember the three sort of movements in Deuteronomy. We started with the the speeches of Moses, and now we're kind of in some of the specific laws, and we're kind of transitioning back into uh more speeches of Moses, not here, um, but uh we'll we'll get there just in a few chapters and then we'll see ultimately uh how all this kind of wraps up at the end of the Pentateuch, the last uh book here at Deuteronomy of the first five books of the Bible.

Closing And Where To Learn More

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Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bob 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.