TOPIC: A GENERATION HAS ARISEN THAT DOES NOT KNOW GOD.(PART ONE)

-THE WRITTEN WORD OF GOD-
“And when Joshua had let the people go, the children of Israel went every man unto his inheritance to possess the land. And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord, that He did for Israel.

And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died being a hundred and ten years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gaash.

And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which He had done for Israel”…JUDGES 2:6-10.


-WHAT I RECEIVED OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST CONCERNING THIS MATTER-
Men and brethren, those of us that are conversant with the Bible, would easily recall what transpired between God and Abraham, the first man to walk extensively with God – and out of whom the Lord birthed the nation of Israel. Time and space will not permit me to go into much details: suffice to reinstate that the descendants of Abraham, before they fully became the nation of Israel, sojourned in Egypt for Four Hundred And thirty Years, as slaves – even as ordained by God Himself, at the end of which He brought them with a great hand, and established them as one of the strongest nations of the earth. And we are living witnesses to this very thing.

The series of events that led to the birth of that nation are found in the biblical books of Genesis even to Judges. In establishing that nation, God showcased His power and might. He led Abraham out of his father’s heritage. He took him from place to place, with a firm promise to establish him a nation – and He did. And between Abraham and that nation, our God wrought signs and wonders in the midst of His people: to the comfort and preservation of His people, but to the amazement and terror of those who hated Him. He loved His people, fed them, clothed them, healed them, and gave them laws that no nation of the earth could ever boast of.

In the making of this great and mighty nation, God raised a prophet in the name of Moses, who rose to lead God’s people out of slavery, to take them to the land which God had promised them through their Father Abraham. Eventually, Moses did not make it into the Promised Land, but he established a record in his work with God that no living has ever or will ever attain.

Even though Moses never made it into the Promised Land, yet he did prophesy what the Lord was out to do in order to establish His people as a nation. Here are his very words:

 “For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness: He led Him about, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him and there was no strange god with him.

….He made him to ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; He made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock: butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape” See the Book of DEUTERONOMY 32:9-14. And all came to pass – none of those words failed.

Men and brethren, this Jacob was the son of Isaac, who was also the son of Abraham. And through this Jacob, who was later named Israel, God began the making of Israel even as a nation. This Jacob also had twelve children, who were to become the twelve tribes of Israel. These twelve children, with their father, wives and children were the ones who went into Egypt, and later became slaves to the Egyptians.

But having spent four hundred and thirty years under slavery, God delivered them, even with a very strong and mighty hand. And having delivered them from the evil hands of Pharaoh of Egypt, He led them through the mountains and wilderness to the Promised Land – guiding them with the pillar of cloud by the day and with the pillar of fire by night. He fought their adversaries and turned curses meant for them into blessings. We can’t recount all that God did for this people in a single message such as this. To do so would certainly require writing a book and a very voluminous one indeed.

In recounting what the Lord did for His people, from Abraham to the Promised Land, we cannot overlook the closing remarks of Joshua. Joshua was about to be called home. But before he went to be with the Lord, among many other notable testimonies of our Lord, he also had this to add:

 “And, behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth. And ye know in all your heart and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you: all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof”…JOSHUA 23:14.

Yes, indeed, the Lord fulfilled ALL that He ever promised the people, all things – none failed to come to pass. What a faithful God we serve! God kept faith with every word He uttered on His people – He watched over them: from second to second, from hour to hour, from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, even from year to year – He never relented. He performed all at the due time and season. For our God is not a man that He will tell a lie, neither the son of man that He would relent on His words!

But after the death of Joshua, whom God appointed to lead His people after the death of Moses, a generation arose in Israel that did not know this God or of the wonders and signs He wrought amongst their fathers, right from the very day He called Abraham their father out of the land of the Chaldeans in Mesopotamia, to the days of their conquests in the Promised land.

And I strongly perceive that it was not necessarily because that erring generation did not hear about God or, about all His wonders and dealings with their fathers. They heard about Him, they also knew of His workings with their fathers. They knew it all. Yet, they chose to forsake the Lord, and followed the ungodly customs of their neighbors - to serve other gods: man made gods, gods with ears but hear not, with mouths but speak not – the works of their own hands.

They felt that it was better for them to live as their ungodly neighbors, who had no such laws to obey and no such customs to observe: such laws and customs as the Lord had ordained for His people. To that unfaithful generation, it was better and easier to serve idols than to serve God, Who would forever hold those who disobey Him to account. They preferred the pleasures of sin to the joy and beauty of serving the Lord in truth and in spirit.

That generation of Israelis were averse to “negative words” - an expression common to those who loathe the instructions of the Lord. That was that generation. But the terrible and woeful visitations that came upon them from God are not part of this message. They paid dearly for their wayward ways. Yet more terrifying and more fearful experiences eagerly await the present generation whose sinful and adulterous ways surpass all precedents.

Tomorrow, God willing, we shall try to see how our present generation has fared before the Lord and what awaits them. Till then keep believing and keep trusting in the Lord.