The Bible has many wonderful verses and some devastatingly sad verses. Today’s chapter has one of the devastatingly sad verses. After recording Joshua’s death, the author notes, After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel (10).
I find this verse terribly sad. After all Israel has seen and experienced –the deliverance from Egypt and conquest of the Promised Land –this next generation neither knew the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. As bad as it is to not know the Lord, this generation apparently had not even been told and taught the stories of the Lord! This means that Israel wasn’t truly celebrating the various feasts of the Lord, since the feasts, particularly Passover, tell the story of God’s miraculous deliverance from Egypt. And the Passover tells the story in the first person, not as a past event but as a present ongoing event, so every Israelite ‘experiences’ God’s deliverance!
So sad… the adults who witnessed the great works of God didn’t tell their children and grandchildren!
This is a warning to me and believers everywhere. We are always only one generation away from extinction. Those of us who know the Lord and have seen His works are obligated to tell the next generations. Whether they believe and come to know the Lord is on them, but we must tell them… in the most compelling ways we can.
Am I, are we… telling the young ones about what God has done?!
Oh, God, forgive me if I have neglected the younger generations…. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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