And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathheres, 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 2:8-10)
As parents, we all want what is best for our children. We do our best to provide food. clothing, and shelter for them. We get up at all hours of the night when they are sick to care for them and we comfort them when they get hurt. We hold them when they are afraid and we celebrate with them when they have victories. Likewise, as parents we hope that when our children have children, they are able to be better parents and provide a better life for their children.
Unfortunately, for many parents things do not turn out as well as they plan for their children. While they provide for their physical and emotional needs, they neglect to provide for their spiritual needs. Today’s Scripture verses are the result of many years of parental neglect when it comes to preparing their children of Israel spiritually for the day that they ruled the nation. In Joshua 24:14-15, Joshua gathered the Israelites together to challenge them to make a choice in who they were going to serve when they lived in the promised land. He told them that they will encounter people that worship strange gods and live ungodly lives. He added that if they are serious about serving the Lord, then they must put away the strange gods from among them and serve the Lord from their hearts. The people adamantly responded that they chose to serve the Lord. Joshua literally set up a memorial and recorded their words as a testimony of their decision.
If you follow the story into the book of Judges 1-2, you find that the Israelites did exactly what they said the would not do. Instead of driving away the ungodly people and remaining faithful to the Lord, they formed relationships, intermarried, and adopted their idolatrous worship practices. By Judges chapter two, an angel of the Lord rebuked the Israelites for what they had done. The rebuke grieved the Israelites so much that they turned from their sin with weeping and continued to live out their days. However, as that generation died out along with Joshua, their children grew up without the conviction to serve the Lord that their parents had. We find that this lack of conviction was because their parents never taught their children the history of all that God had done for them. That, along with the poor example their parents set for them when they moved into the area, set their children up for failure because their children were never taught to love God from their hearts.
We find that when that generation grew up, they did not know the Lord and they rejected Him from ruling their lives. The result was the destruction of their culture along with the loss of God’s blessings and protection. Before long, they found themselves the object of God’s anger and without His protection. The Lord raised up judges to judge the Israelites, but before long they would not listen to them either. Therefore, the Lord allowed them to be defeated by their enemies and sold into bondage. With time, they cried out to God and He delivered them, but they suffered many cycles of the same over time.
Sadly, history is full of examples of cultures that have been destroyed within three generations after they rejected sound principles that are in keeping with what is taught in the Bible. When we fail to take the spiritual education of our children seriously, we set them up for failure as adults too and it can adversely affect their children for many generations. It is important as parents that we educate our children in God’s Word and teach them to love Jesus long before they even discover there is a devil. That, along with proper discipline and discipleship will not guarantee that they grow up to be godly, God fearing people, but our prisons are full of people who ended up in bondage because they were never taught to love the Lord. Many of them might have stood a chance against the world if their parents would have devoted the time and the effort to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Proverbs 22:6; Ephesians 6:4; 2 Timothy 3:10-17). May God give us the desire and strength to teach our children to Love the Lord and that they would grow up teach their children the same.
