There Arose A Generation (Judges 2:10,11)

Introduction

We’re going to start at Judges chapter 2. And you’ve seen this one already, too. As we begin reading in verse 10 of Judges 2, and all that generation also were gathered to their fathers, and I’m reading it from the New American Standard. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord. Nor yet the work which he had done for Israel. Stay attuned, young people. There’s a message in this for you. And for your parents. Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. And served the Baals. Reading on. And they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods. From among the gods of the peoples who were around them, which they had not driven out of the previous chapter, and they should have.

So they forsook the Lord and served the Baal and the Ashgaroth. And the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he gave them into the hands of plunderers who plundered them. And he sold them into the hands of their enemies around them so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. Wherever they went hand of the Lord was against them for evil as the Lord had spoken, and as the Lord had sworn to them, so they were severely distressed. And everyone shall be who forsakes the Lord. That’s my editor. Then the Lord raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plunder. This section of verses and its preceding verses in chapter one represent a very dire forecast for the people of Israel in the period of the judges.

A cycle is now going to ensue where they will fall away, they will turn away from God and serve idols, and God will have to punish them with the enemies that he brings to threaten them. And then as they cry out to the Lord, God will send them a deliverer, a judge, and the land will have rest until the cycle is repeated and grows repeatedly worse. But I want to focus particularly on the seeds of this dire forecast, the seeds of the problem that plagues the nation. Over time, the realities of God’s greatness.

1. The Unique Impact on Firsthand Eyewitnesses

Him and serve him is lost on succeeding generations. They became less enamored with him and a lot more enamored with themselves. And the reason why I make this observation from the awful circumstances of the book of Judges and the situations in which God’s people find themselves in as they forsake the Lord and serve the Baals is this kind of thinking is what dominates our culture presently. That’s right. Several things flow out of this text. Number one, the unique impact the Lord’s doings had on firsthand eyewitnesses. And I thought about this as I was sitting there right before I got up, that is redundant. First hand and eyewitnesses is really the same thing. It’s an Aaronism. I’m correcting it before I have to correct it later, so that’s a new term now, Aaronism.

As there’s a difference between seeing things firsthand, being an eyewitness, and having those things told to you as a generation once removed or a generation several times removed. And there’s some inklings of this back in Joshua 24 in the text that Aaron alluded to this morning. They served the Lord all the days of Joshua and the elders that outlived Joshua, but now we’re going several generations down, and over time, over time, the telling of these stories. Maybe a little zest is lost in the way the story is told. Something is lost in translation over time, and there’s not as much excitement about what God had done. You know, when you have seen those things with your eyes, they are indelibly pressed or impressed upon your mind.

And you were affected by what you saw, the great things that God did. All that happened in the wilderness, the crossing of the Red Sea, deliverance from the Egyptians before that. I mean, all of that, if you saw that firsthand as an eyewitness, you would be moved and shaped by that. So that’s a challenge. And the challenge of imparting to following generations the great magnitude of those events. I think that’s one of the things that falls in the laps of each of us as we raise our children, as we teach others’ children, is to sufficiently impress upon their mind the great magnitude of the things that are revealed in this book and their meaning in our lives. We have to do an effective job, all that is within our ability to convey that to them.

And it’s a challenging prospect to do that job and to do it well. The ability to recall these events frequently and effectively is important because behavior is molded as a result. Over time, they lost the ability to be molded and affected and changed by these great events in their history. We need to impress upon the minds of our children and ourselves things about which they should have been impressed, and that is the reality, as I said in the very beginning of the presence of God. And we need to impress upon our children, as is impressed in Judges chapter 2, that it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. That is not an old testament verse, though illustrated many times therein.

That is a New Testament verse. That is still true. That is still real.

That sin is destructive. And that we should come to feel about it as God does. We should detest and hate it. And this story is emphasizing those realities to you and to me.

Present. I’m always thinking about what can I say that would help people, help our young people especially to be sufficiently impressed with the magnitude of God’s things. Because if we don’t get that job done, a generation will arise behind us who does not know the Lord, nor the great things that God has done for Israel. Contemplation and appreciation of these realities are extremely vital and critical to number one, the way we choose to live, the choices we make and what we strive to become to the character that we will either develop or not develop, and the affection and the zeal that we have for God’s things. That’s how important this is. I can’t frame it any more importantly than that. Our appreciation of God and the things that He has done is going to result in those three things that are critical.

2. The Problem of Idolatry

So what do we learn from the story of Judges chapter 2? We learn something very powerful about the problem of idolatry.

And that’s what happens in idolatry. We get impressed with things that seem to promise so very much.

How do they do that? When they look upon their rich history, well, they weren’t looking upon it frequently and effectively enough, as Judges 2 and verse 10 and 11 say. As they weren’t sufficiently contemplating the great things that God had done in their past, they started looking at these idols who had done so very much for them. No, I’m saying that facetiously, right? Sarcastically. They had done absolutely nothing. For anyone, ever. Gods made with hands or no gods at all. That’s what Paul was teaching in Ephesus and Acts chapter 19. That was bad for business for Demetrius at least. And so he created a big uproar about that. But Paul was right. God’s made with hands are no gods at all. And so they’re serving these Baals and all of these other gods of the Canaanites that had caused them to be dispossessed and punished and judged in the first place, and God giving them the land of Canaan as a result.

The iniquity of the Amorite had become full, and so here they follow these idols who have never done anything for them. How do you fall for that? How do you fall for that nonsense? Oh man, you’re being a little judgmental calling it nonsense. No, it’s nonsense. How do you fall for that? I’ll tell you how you fall for it. Because you see, serving these idols allowed them to do some things that they wanted to do, but they had the desire to do, that their God wouldn’t let them do. That’s really one of the big attractions to idolatry. If they saw people practicing idolatry, they say, hey, they get to do something that my God, who’s a little restrictive, won’t let me do.

Their God is going to provide something for me that I’m not sure my God’s going to provide. You know, and errors always work like this. And whether it’s bowing down to a material, physical object that’s empty and worthless, or a false doctrine. That is the spouse. You know what’s interesting about almost all false doctrines? It’s not true of all of them, but most of them. Most false doctrines allow things God forbids.

They permit things that are unrighteous, often calling them righteous. And that’s what people want. And that’s how it works. That’s why error is effective. If it didn’t give people what they wanted, people would add, oh so what? I don’t care about that. But because it’s permissive, and we’ll talk more about this tonight, that’s a teaser for tonight’s lesson. Because it’s more permissive, it tends to loosen restrictions, that’s the appeal. And this is the intriguing New Testament verse on idolatry. And I love what’s the last verse in 1 John say? It’s easy memory verse, kids. Easy. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. I bet you could memorize that as I’m speaking right now. Little children keep yourselves from idols. The real puzzling thing about that statement at first glance is that John has had nothing to say specifically about idolatry anywhere in 1 John.

And all of a sudden he pulls this word idolatry out of the hat at the very end of the epistle. So we learned something very interesting about this term. He wasn’t saying, now, the last thing you need to be doing is bowing down before an object like they did in the Old Testament. That’s not what John is dealing with. John is dealing with an ideology, a way of thinking, like Gnosticism, you’ve heard that term before. Any knowledge that causes us to set aside reality or truth. It is, if you will, a God substitute. And that’s where this message relates to us this morning. I don’t expect anybody to go out these doors this afternoon in the secrecy of their home to start worshiping Baal and the Astaroth.

I’m not expecting that. But you may well serve your idol. Whatever it is that’s more important to you than God. Whether it’s a thing or an idea. Whatever it is that supplants God and truth in your heart. And that’s really what John is saying in 1 John chapter 5 and verse 21, particularly in regard to these false notions related to the idea that I can do whatever I want to do in the flesh and that not affect my spirit. And again, that’s what? That’s permissive. That allows me to just let go and let the impulses run amok. And you can still be pleasing to God. That doctrine or something like it has always been really effective in swaying people. Why would anyone, oh, and by the way, before I move on from 1 John 5, he had said earlier, love not the world.

The world could be an idol. Neither the things that are in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. These things are passing away, but he who does the will of the Lord abides forever. That’s just the thing about idols. It all passes away. But he who does the will of the Lord abides forever. Why would anyone want to replace God with devotion to an inferior object? That’s actually non-existent in the case of these idols. Or some potentially destructive allegiance. And I’ll tell you why we do that, because we buy into the lies about that object. That object seems to be promising something that I consider to be good for me. Better for me than what God has provided.

Again, restrictions. It loosens restrictions, and therefore I want it because this seems to promise more.

Martha, you’re troubled about many things, caring, serving, taking care of this. But Mary’s chosen the good part. Well, what did she chose? What did she choose then? She chose to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to him. I’ll tell you, when the next meal is being served, and the meal after that, and the meal after that, and the meal after that, ad nauseum, none of that is to be compared with the time Mary sat and listened firsthand to God and human flesh. But what did Jesus say about them? Mary’s chosen the good part. And that tells us something about what is really good in our lives. And he says, then this is cool. Thou shall not be taken away from her. Remember what I just said?

Everything that is of the world, that’s going to be taken away. All. And no matter how much of it you embrace, how much of it you love, how much of it you relish, how much of it you invest yourself in, it shall be taken away from you. But when we choose good things, when we choose God’s things, when we choose to retain his deeds in our memory, that will not be taken away from you. Ever. If we choose him above everything else.

And so as I think about another generation that arises, our kids, our grandkids. Again, we want to sufficiently impress upon their mind this new generation that arises, the importance of the things that God has done. And I want to say to all of us, whether we are parents teaching our children, influencing our children, instructing our children, or whether we’re teaching in Bible classes other people’s children. Let us not grow weary in well doing. I know the expense that comes from teaching. And I know, especially, you know, I get the adults here, and they’re a pretty good lot overall. There’s a few tough apples to deal with. But I know what it must be like to wrestle the alligators. Especially 20 to 25 of them all at once.

And you get tired and frustrated. Why am I doing this? Do not grow weary in well-doing. Here’s the real comforting thing about that. A lot of them will grow up and actually get better. As foolishness is removed from the heart of the child. You know, they’re actually going to get better, a lot of them. Hopefully, all of them. Don’t grow weary. Don’t grow weary in the task of lauding God’s good deeds. And the book of Deuteronomy has a lot to say about that. I’m not going to take the time to go through Deuteronomy 6, where we’re to bind them on our heads and talk about them along the way. And I would tell you, that’s the most thing, the most important thing you’re going to do with your kids is that it’s not just a Sunday thing or a Wednesday thing or when you sit down to study the Bible thing.

It is as we live our lives. It is communicating God’s values and how they are superior to absolutely everything else. Teaching our children about how to live, how to treat other people, and that God’s will matters in our lives day after day. Because if we’re not careful, like Israel.

We eat and we become satisfied, Deuteronomy chapter 8. And that’s what happens to the generation that now no longer knows the Lord. It’s not that they don’t know anything about the Lord. He’s just not supreme in importance in their lives anymore because they’re fat and happy.

Frequently meditated in our minds. And that’s why I had Aaron Lee to God be the glory. Great things he has done. So loved He the world. That He gave us His Son, who yielded his life and atonement for sin. And opened the life gate. I’ve sung that song many times, but I’ve never really stopped to think about the life gate. Very much. Oh, perfect redemption. The purchase of blood. To every believer, the promise of God, the vilest offender who truly believes when buried with Jesus. A pardon receives great things. He has taught us. Great things he has done. And great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son. Remember what I said last Sunday night for those 15 people who were here? No, we had a lot of people gone.

3. The Problem of Unperceived Alienation

I create Jerusalem for rejoicing. Pure and higher and greater will be our wonder, our transport. When Jesus we see. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Let the earth hear his voice. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Let the people rejoice. Oh, come to the Father through Jesus the Son and give him the glory. Great things. He has done. Pause and reflect. Be still, God says, and know that I am God. And the final point that I would make about the story of Judges chapter 2 the problem of idolatry, the problem of a shaky spiritual foundation, the problem of unperceived alienation. They struggle to see it. We have a great spiritual problem here with dire consequences. And so, right out of the chute, God sends them Kushan Rishathiam.

Say that over lunch. Whose name means extra wicked. Mr. Extra Wicked. Eight years of oppression. Wake up call. I’m not expecting a Kushan Rishithiah to show up at your door. I’m not expecting letters from Jesus like he sent to the seven churches where some of them got a big surprise in the mail. The things were not well with God, though they thought they were.

Who, and we’ve got to say this right now, right? Who grew up among the Lord’s people. We didn’t grow up in the church. We weren’t members of the church until we were baptized into Christ. But for those of us who grew up among the Lord’s people, there’s a peculiar thing that happens to the bunch like us.

We hear stories of that in the media all the time. This guy who worked so hard, built his business from scratch, had this idea, and he becomes a multi billionaire, and then he passes the fortune on down to his kids, and they squander it. They don’t know what to do with it. They don’t appreciate it because they didn’t do the hard work of a massing it for themselves. I somewhat feel like that. As a Christian, I didn’t have to search for this. I didn’t have to go through so many denominations that weren’t teaching truth and somehow find somebody who cared enough and had compassion to teach me and to get me out of the mess that I was involved in. I mean, this stuff was laid in my lap from the time I was itty bitty.

And what so often happens is, even though we know better, I mean I can’t tell you how many times I say, man, I should know better. We still tend to take things that were just handed to us for granted. And if for nothing else, if we’ve partaken in them for 20 years, there’s another whole aspect of that. Even if you’re not, quote, a second generation believer, again, there’s really no such thing. But even if you’ve just been a Christian for two or three decades, it is almost natural that we do not have as much zeal for it as we used to have. And I want you to look at yourself right now. Is that true? Did you once have a greater zeal and appreciation for what God has done than you do right now?

Not only not appreciating at what cost things were provided, but there may be conditions to continuing in the blessings of those things. And I say it that way because I think of our country.

More than ever, even though I sit in a lot of history classes, I was sitting in history classes for one purpose, trying to get at A and get out of there. And I heard all those stories about the wars of our past as a nation. And as each year goes on, I appreciate more and more the costs and the sacrifices that were made that we could revel in the kind of freedoms and prosperity that we enjoy in the greatest country on earth.

But that’s hard for us. Because we did not see those sacrifices firsthand. I’ll tell you something, the movies have helped me actually as they depict the cost at what men and women gave to give us this.

Some would forget the purification of their former sins. And when that happens, when a generation arises, or when we in our time forget what was done to set us free, we will leave off in the pursuit of faith and growing in every way that God wants us to grow. And we find ourselves alienated from God. And not even realizing it. May we never forget.

Conclusion

Open to me the gates of righteousness, and I shall enter through them. I shall give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord. The righteous will enter through it. Interesting has a counterpart at the very end of God’s story. In Revelation chapter 22, in Revelation chapter 22, when the city is described there where blessing knows no equal. Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter by the gates into the city. Entering God’s gates. That’s what it’s all about. Have you done that? Have you washed your robes? Have you turned from vanity, idle sin to serve a living and true God? We seem to encourage that response. Let’s say it’s it again.