Judges 2:10 – “When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel.”
This verse is tragic more than it is sad. The verse that follows shows us what happens when a generation doesn’t know the Lord and His power: “Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord…”
What happened that caused all of this? Verses 7 and 8 tells us, “So the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which He had done for Israel. 8 Now Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died when he was one hundred and ten years old.”
These verses show us the power of leadership to influence behavior. There are several times in scripture where this scenario plays out. As long as a godly leader is on the scene people live right. When that person of influence is no longer around, individuals revert to their base nature. I’ve witnessed the same thing happen with marriages and families in my lifetime.
The tragedy of our story is how this absence affects the next generation. Our text gives us a key to prevent this from happening. The next generation must experience the Lord for themselves and it needs to be on two levels: 1) They must know Him personally; 2) They must know His works. A personal relationship and a personal encounter with His power can be vital to the next generation following in their parent’s footsteps. Therefore it is critical that we disciple them in knowing Him and that we make sure they see and experience His power. When we only present a God of the past, He is not perceived as relevant to the present nor a compass for the future. After all, Jesus said that God was the God of the living in Mark 12:27. Let’s not pass down to the next generation a watered-down, powerless, dead, dry, lifeless, empty, unattractive and impotent version of Christianity that resembles nothing of the New Testament Christianity that we were meant to embody and demonstrate. Paul said in Philippians 3:10 – “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” There it is—coupled together again…knowing Him and knowing His power. Let’s make sure those coming behind us get both.