The Next Generation

Scripture Reading: Judges 2:10

And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work he had done for Israel.

There is a difference between knowing about the Lord and His works and knowing the Lord and His works. I don’t think the writer of Judges meant that the next generation of which he writes didn’t know about the crossing of the Red Sea, the wilderness journey, or the conquest of Canaan. Surely they had heard the old folks' stories about those days when they marched around Jericho and got their hats handed to them by Ai. They knew about the Lord, but they had not come to know the Lord themselves.

Hypothetically, the church is always one generation from extinction. I say hypothetically because I believe in the promise of Jesus. He said, “the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” History has proven that to be true. The church lives in the world like the “Wack-a-Mole” game. The world and the devil beat it down in one local and it pops up in another.

Nevertheless, particular expressions of the church – whether denominationally or locally – are always on the verge of passing into history, forgotten by the next generation because the next generation has forgotten the Lord and His work.

Pray that the generation that follows you will know the Lord and His work. Pray and serve and give and witness toward that end.