THE LIVING WORD TRANSCRIPT

Program Air Date – 6-13-10

LESSON TITLE: "THIS IS THE DAY THAT THE LORD HAS MADE: IN THE DAYS OF..."

WELCOME

How wonderful it is to know God and to have the health, strength, and will-power to give this time to Him on this Lord’s Day morning. Thank you for putting God first today and choosing to commit this time of offering to His service.

Today, we will again be uplifted through our commitment to serving God as commanded, as we approach His almighty throne. How enjoyable it will be to worship our God through prayer, song and the study of His matchless Word. Won’t you do your part this morning to see that our worship together is acceptable so that our glorious creator may be glorified?

Now, as we begin our offering to God, will you bow with me in prayer!

(PRAYER)

Well, it’s time to join in our songs of praise. The first song of the morning is entitled, “An Empty Mansion.”

(SONG # 1)

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHTS

Think for a moment about all the songs we sing about Jesus. How wonderful it is to praise God by focusing on His Son, who was willing to give His very life for you and for me. Furthermore, how important it is that we understand just who He is and why he is worthy to be followed! I love the familiar verse which is found in John 3:16. We all know the truth which Jesus Himself proclaimed there, it reads, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Praise God! It is through this Jesus that we have the very opportunity for eternal life!

But look around the religious world today. Many reject Jesus as the only begotten Son and others go even further, rejecting the fact that He was a faithful follower of God at all. How sad, to realize that there are many different people and religions which reject not only Jesus, but as well they reject His true significance and that He bears any importance at all. With this is mind, we might want to consider what the inspired writer Luke records Peter as saying in Acts 4:10-12, there we read, “let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. This is the 'stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Here we learn just how important Jesus name is in our day. Peter goes so far as to confirm that “salvation” is only found in and through Jesus precious name! If you, I, or anyone else has a desire to be saved and to have eternal life there is only one “way” to find it. Again, salvation is only found in the perfect, precious and holy name of Jesus Christ our Lord!

With these thoughts fresh on our mind, we will be continuing our important series entitled, “This Is The Day That The Lord Has Made.” Our specific lesson of the day is, “In The Days Of.” So please stay with us and after our next song together, I will be leading us in the main thoughts of the day. But for now let’s join together in our second song of the morning. The name of this hymn, “Anywhere With Jesus.”



(SONG # 2)

LESSON

By Ray Sullins

In Joshua chapter 10 and verse 14 Joshua records these words. “There was no day like that before.” When you think about that it is certainly something that applies in all of our lives because we can all think of days that there has been no day like that. Sometimes maybe it has been a bad day or a tough day or maybe you haven’t felt well and so it has been really hard to make it through and you wonder, “Will this day ever be over?” But in relationship to what is being said here in Joshua chapter 10 is actually spoken in a positive sense where it says, “There is no day like that.” There has never been a day like it before and there will never be a day like it again. Even in the positive sense, there are many exciting things I can think of in my life and no doubt, you as well in your life that we think back with joy and happiness and excitement and we think, “Boy, there is never going to be another day like this or like that one.”

So as we consider that thought today, I would like us to think for a moment from a spiritual standpoint about days in the Bible once again that really stand out and say to us, “Wow! What a day! There will never be another day like that.” Because to me, in the Bible, those days are the days that the Lord has made that are real faith builders, that are real challenges to us that we might wake up and say, “We serve a great God, a mighty God, a wonderful God, a God who deserves every bit of honor and devotion that He has asked for.”

With that in mind, I want us to think for a moment beginning in 1 Peter chapter 3. We actually go back all the way to the start of the Bible in the book of Genesis and we see within the creation the great power and the great might of God. But I would like you to see with me what Peter says, again in 1 Peter 3 and verse 20, about someone and something that is about to happen.

There in verse 20 the Bible says, “Who formally were disobedient when once the divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah.” I want you to think about that just for a moment again. What was happening? Well in the days of Noah it was great wickedness and God was about to bring on them punishment. All of the earth were about to die because of their great wickedness. Genesis chapter 6 says, “Every thought and intent of their heart was evil continually.” They were sick and fed up in their lives with all the things that really were contrary to God.

If you’ll also look here in this text, he does say though in the days of Noah, where he was saved through what? Water! It takes us all the way back to perhaps the most significant Bible character after Adam and Eve. After we see God’s great creation and the love that they eventually have by having not only Seth but other sons and daughters who carry on the lineage unto Christ. We find Noah, in Genesis chapter 6, was a man who “was just, upright, devout, holy and righteous, a preacher of righteousness,” in fact. Certainly again showing us that he was worthy to be saved. And what did He do? He flooded the entire earth to destroy the wicked man. In fact, every high hill was covered with water over the entire earth. Can you believe that? Do you believe that that God has said here in the text? Peter did. Peter actually says that God warned them and that only eight souls were saved from the flood, the universal earthly flood that destroyed all of wicked mankind. There has been no day like that since, has there? Thankfully! And we hope there won’t be another one because of the promises of God, because God says, “I will no longer destroy the earth with water, but someday it will be destroyed by fire.”

Another day that would come up in our minds next would be a day when Moses was born. We won’t focus specifically on Moses, but what I would like to do is to go actually to Acts chapter 7. We think of a very righteous man here known as Stephen who was about to be stoned and give his life for his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. With that in mind, he begins preaching there in chapter 7 to the Jews, the very ones he says who crucified the Son of God. But guess what he begins to speak about. He begins to speak about days of old such as the days of Moses. But even before he gets to Moses in chapter 7, guess who he talks about. Abraham, and the days of Abraham when he left his country and when he was willing to do what it was that God asked no matter what that thing might be. You see, we see great faith in Abraham, but maybe not really a day that stands out.

But when we get to Moses, there are some real events. One event that stands out to me was the burning bush. There has been no day like that in my life. What a powerful confirmation of who God was.

Then what about the plagues of Egypt in Exodus chapter 14? Ten plagues that came upon them and that actually the Israelites were spared from showing the power of God, to in the same city evoke great harms or plagues upon one nation while in the same city sparing another nation. The power of God! Even to the point where God took the lives of all the firstborn of Egypt. There has been no day like that ever before or since!

Then we see finally Pharaoh letting them go and they come to what? The Red Sea. And when they arrive at the Red Sea, what takes place? You and I know the story well. God with His great might and power parts the waters. Some say, “Well it was just a breeze that blew the right way,” or this or that. What did the text say? The text says, “The water was held on either side as walls of water.” Then it says, “The dry ground appeared when the people of God went into the water, as Moses held up his staff, according to which God had commanded him.”

Now where do we tie all of these things in? We tie them all in and together at again the book of Joshua? Right where we started. That is really where we want to primarily focus the rest of our thoughts because there in Joshua chapter 4 we now come to the situation that is very similar to what took place at the Red Sea. The only difference is now they do have the law and, as we mentioned a moment ago, at this time finally the priest and also the Ark of the Covenant. When these things were about to transpire, guess what took place. Well you know whenever we talk about the walls of the water or the dry ground, we always think of the Red Sea. Here was the Jordan. They were about to cross over and conquer the Land of Canaan. They have a new leader, Joshua. Moses has just died. In all of these things that transpired, read with me in Joshua chapter 4 verse 21 beginning. “And then he spoke to the children of Israel saying, ‘When your children ask their fathers in times to come saying, What are these stones?’” If you read the text, some stones that had been set up now as a memorial. What do they mean? Verse 22 says, “Then you shall let your children know saying, ‘Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry land for the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you crossed over as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea which He dried up before us until we had crossed over.” What? The Jordan was made dry exactly like the Red Sea. And at this situation, it was then that the priest that they touched the water carrying the Ark of the Covenant that the land was dry that they might cross and eventually this memorial was set up to remind them of such a great day. There has been no day like that before. In fact, that is exactly what we continue to see here. No day before and no day in the future like it.

There’s another great day that is mentioned here and that is actually in our specific text of Joshua chapter 10. This is a day when now Joshua, after being successful against Jericho and Ai and some other great cities, we find that now he comes to the kingdoms of the Amorites. In fact, in chapter 10 we actually find a king there who is king of Jerusalem. He actually goes and gets some other kingdoms to ban together with him that they might actually fight Israel and stop them from taking the Land of Canaan. It was in that day that Joshua comes down. They begin to fight and there is something that happens. If you will read with me beginning in verse 12. “And then Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel and he said in the sight of Israel, ‘Sun, stand still over Gibeon; and moon in the valley of Aijalon.’ So the sun stood still and the moon stopped, till the people had revenge on their enemies.” Guess who was destroyed back in verse 8. It says, “Every one of them was destroyed.” Now what is so special about this day? Well the sun stopped. The moon stopped. In fact, the idea is clearly given to us here that it never happened before and it will never happen again. In fact, it was even recorded by some of the Hebrew nation also clarified in verse 13 as is written, it says, in the book of Jasher. “So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. And there has been no day like that before it or after it that the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel.” What did God do? Stopped the sun.

Well you know, we could go on and on and on about days of darkness, about days where those who were cast into the furnace and spared in a lion’s den and spared. What do all of these days do for us? These days where there has been no day like it either before or after. These days should be that which provoke or desire to serve God even more, believe in God even more, by faith accepting not only partially or those that we like or that we can fit into our understanding, but by faith accepting completely all of these things that God has done. If Peter can accept those things by the Holy Spirit, and if Paul can accept those things, if Luke, if Jesus throughout the gospels can confirm such things as we read and are speaking of even today, you and I must have the faith to do the same, to believe that there has been no day like these before, and there will be no day like them again, but they were real days by the power of Almighty God. That’s the God we serve. That’s how powerful He is. That’s the respect that He deserves and that’s what we should give Him in all aspects of our lives.

Again if we return to the thoughts there of Stephen, he reminded them about the days of their fathers, about the faith that their fathers had, and if you look around these great acts and powerful works of God, these were the days of faithfulness for Israel. It was in the days when they began to become weak and forget those things that they lost sight of God. May we never be guilty of that. May we never forget these special days, these days that are unique and wondrous and glorious and again, may we find then not only for ourselves as that which is a catalyst unto faithfulness, but also that we might proclaim it to others as well. These are great promoters to lead people to God, to keep people faithful, to encourage them to do what is right. Are we going to not only save ourselves, but those who need Christ? Will we give God the glory in all things?

(SONG # 3 - “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross!”)

CLOSING COMMENTS

What a blessing it has been to join together in the things of God this morning. Thank you for doing your part in making all these things to be according to His Will. As always, we invite you back every Lord’s Day morning at 7:30, as we commit ourselves to this offering for God!

But for now, let me ask if you have any questions or comments about today’s lesson? Maybe, you would like a free transcript or a cassette tape of this program? Possibly, we could assist you with free Bible materials or correspondence courses? No matter what your need is, please contact us at the following address:

The Living Word 2540 N. Kansas Expressway Springfield, Mo. 65803

Many of these items are available on our website: www.thelivingwordprogram.com

Or if you prefer, you may call us at: (417)869-2284

Do you believe in the Wonder, Power and Might of God’s Glory? Truly He is someone to put our trust and faith in! Have you given yourself fully to such a great God?

(Program closing)