Psalm 145 declares, “Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. One generation will commend your works to another; they will tell of your mighty acts.” Is that true of us? Are we commending the works of the LORD to the next generation? If not, then our children will not know or follow the LORD. If not, then we, as a church, will be diminished. If not, then our culture will sink to new depths of depravity. Am I putting it too strongly? I don’t think so. And I think history backs me up.Scripture reveals that the LORD is King over all the earth. Sometimes we lose sight of that. How does that happen and what happens when we do? Things become like the world William Butler Yeats describes in his poem “The Second Coming”:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Yeats poem describes fallen human existence – which we experience ourselves and which has characterized periods throughout history – especially the period of the Judges we read of in the Bible. And so, I want us to look at the beginning of the book of Judges, focusing on chapter 2.
The first chapter of Judges reveals an incomplete conquest. God had given them the land and promised to drive out the peoples before them, however the Israelites were unable to drive them out fully. But why? The reason is revealed in Judges 2:1-5.
The Israelites fail to conquer the Promised Land because they had broken their covenant with the LORD. The LORD had delivered them from Egypt, had brought them to their inheritance, therefore, when they entered into the Promised Land, they were not to make any covenants with the inhabitants of the Land nor have anything to do with their gods. But Israel disobeyed the LORD. They made agreements with the peoples and instead of breaking down their altars, they bowed before them.
But why did Israel disobey? Why did they break covenant with the LORD? We find out as we read Judges 2:6-23. The reason for their disobedience is given implicitly rather than explicitly and this implicit reason is found in v. 10, “After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel.” How quickly we forget! By the second generation, the memory of the LORD (that is knowledge of the LORD that would lead to love, worship and obedience) had faded away. A whole generation grew up who did not know the LORD.
It appears then that there had been failure on two fronts: a failure of both the priests and parents.
Priests were not simply supposed to work in the temple and offer sacrifices and perform ceremonial duties, they were also supposed to teach. In Leviticus 10:11, the LORD tells Aaron (the High Priest) and his sons, “you must teach the Israelites all the decrees the LORD has given them through Moses.” The priests were to know the Law and to live among their fellow Israelites teaching them how to follow the LORD. But evidently, that had not happened. The priests had failed to teach and train the next generation in the Way of the LORD.
But if priests were to blame, so were the parents. More than priests or anyone else, parents are responsible to teach their children how to follow the LORD. It’s still true. More than the church, Sunday School teachers, youth group leaders or Christian schools, parents are responsible for training their children. Read: Deuteronomy 6.
Parents are to impress the way of the LORD upon their children. They’re to teach them how to live for God by following Christ, but how? By personal example (v. 6), through teaching in daily living v. 7 - making it a part of your family’s life), and through commitment, visible reminders, repetition (vv. 8-9). And the text goes on to reveal why it is so crucial to do this. We are to teach our children so that in every circumstance they will remember and remain faithful and receive the LORD’s blessing. Parents were to tell the story of God’s salvation and weave it into the lives of their children. But evidently, this had not been happening. Parents had failed to teach and train the next generation in the Way of the LORD (which led to devastating results).
However, not all the blame can be placed on the parents or priests. The children had a responsibility as well. And these children – this new generation – were not kept in a complete vacuum. They had to know something about the LORD, for our text says that they “forsook the LORD” (they left, abandoned, turned away from the LORD). You can’t forsake something you know nothing about. That phrase implies a break in a relationship. The new generation did not know the LORD in that they did not choose to know Him – they rejected and turned away from Him. We see this in 2:16-17. The LORD raised up Judges, but they would not listen to them. Instead, it says, they “prostituted themselves to other gods and worshipped them.” The new generation were not simply victims of poor education, they consciously broke their relationship with the LORD. They intentionally walked away. We read, “they quickly turned from the way in which their fathers had walked, the way of obedience to the LORD's commands.” “They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.”
So what caused them to forsake the LORD? I think three things played a role.
The first is Prosperity. Now prosperity (wealth, comfort, security) is not a bad thing in itself, but it can easily cause people to become complacent, self-satisfied and off-guard. READ: Deuteronomy 8:10-20. Prosperity is the blessing of God, not the work of our hands. But often we are so focused on the blessing, we lose sight of the Giver and become complacent.
The second thing is Pragmatism. I think the Israelites just found it easier and more practical to compromise and capitulate (If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em). They found it easier to make exceptions to the rule. Israel often struggled with wanting to be like the other nations. We too struggle with wanting to fit in and blend in. We often choose the way of pragmatism and expediency (what is ‘effective’ and ‘succesful’) over the way of Christ.
The third thing was Peccability (to be ‘peccable’ is to be liable to sin or error. It is the opposite of ‘impeccable’, meaning to be free from sin). The Israelites played with sin. By compromising with the other peoples, they opened themselves up to temptation. They played with sin and when you play with sin, like fire, you get burned. And so, Israel left themselves vulnerable to what the apostle John called, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
What’s the lust of the flesh? Everything that panders to our appetites. This usually involves sensuality whether for food or drink or sexual gratification. But those things are not bad in appropriate amounts, in the right context and when seen as a gift of God. So what is meant here is the abuse of those things – used out of context and separated from God. The lust of the flesh is the selfish, self-sufficient approach to life that pursues its own ends independent and irrespective of God.
What’s he lust of the eyes? Greed, jealousy, covetousness and vanity – desiring things and more things and more things than the other guy. Our consumer and pornographic culture thrives on this. In fact, the lust of the eyes is the backbone of all our marketing and advertising. But it’s nothing new, the Israelites suffered from it as well. Idolatry was visual, tangible and often overtly sexual. For us Americans, image is everything. We have as many idols as Canaan.
And what’s the pride of life? Boasting, arrogance and self-congratulation. It’s showing off for others – boasting of what one has or does. The Israelites opened themselves up to this three-fold temptation and gave into it.
So, that’s how the Israelites lost sight of who their King was. But what were the results of that? I think our text reveals two results: they failed to receive all that God had for them and they made themselves vulnerable to the enemies around them. God had promised them a land of plenty – blessings, abundance, prosperity, protection, victory and the privilege of being a blessing to others. But Israel failed to receive all that God had for them. They turned away and so God handed them over and sold them to their enemies. It’s ironic that those they wanted to imitate and be like became their cruel oppressors. Isn’t that like sin? That which we desire turns out to be our destruction.
And so, here we find a people who had lost sight of who their King was. It is no wonder that the writer of this book chose as his refrain this statement: “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.”
Are we deserving of a similar epithet? Have we as God’s people lost sight of who our King truly is? The danger in that is that like the Israelites we will miss out on the blessings God has for us and we will open ourselves up to the enemies which surround us.
That is why the greatest commandment is one we must never forget: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” That commandment (as well as the one to love our neighbors as ourselves) is to be upon our hearts. We are to impress them upon our children. We are to talk about them (teach them) when we sit at home and when we walk along the road, when we lie down and when we get up. We are to tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads (remember them). And we are to write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates (have them in the framework of our familes).
If we, as a church and as parents, don’t train our children to follow the Way of Christ, the fallen world will be happy to train them to follow its way. Our culture is NOT neutral. It is antagonistic to the Gospel. And so, we cannot cop out and say, “leave them alone and they’ll come home wagging their tails behind them.” They won’t. Our children will be devoured by the fallen world and the evil one who is controlling it unless we take our responsibility seriously and train them to know, love and serve the Lord. And we cannot do that unless we know, love and serve the Lord.
One generation will commend your works to another. Brothers and sisters may we do that – intentionally, creatively, passionately, persistently so that we can receive all that God has for us; so that the next generation will know and serve the Lord; so that all the world will know that the LORD is King!
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