Never Forget

 DEVOTION

JUDGES

NEVER FORGET

Judges 2:10-15

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. 11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. 12 They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger 13 because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. 14 In his anger against Israel the LORD handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. 15 Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.

NIV

The new generation was different from those who traveled with the LORD and remembered all the mighty works he did for them. When he brought that first generation of people out of Egypt they refused to go into the promised land and thus he turned them around and they wandered until they all died and it was their children who saw the Jordan River stopped up and the walls of Jericho tumbling down. But now they were all gone and this new generation either wasn’t interested in their forefathers' testimonies, and wanted to live their own paths, or never knew God, as the narrative tells us. How could they have not paid any attention to the stories their forefathers past down to them? It isn’t much different today, as many of the churches have nothing but old people while the younger ones may be drawn away to another form other than the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. Maybe they never knew any miracles or had any for themselves, and forgot about God and went to serve false gods. One denomination is focusing on the next-gen to revive or survive as a denomination, for if they are nothing but old people it will just die off and the new generation will not know God or what he has done and they will mingle with the people who live around them and serve other gods. This is what happened in Israel and it provoked the LORD, and we see what the result was. Yes, we live in the age of grace, which means the LORD has shown his love for all his creation by sending Jesus to redeem us, setting us free from the penalty of sin. However, at the same time each generation after Jesus saved us must make the choice to serve the Lord or serve a false god. We may not have seen the Red Sea parted or the Jordan stopped up. We may not have witnessed the water coming from the rock, or the manna coming out of heaven. We may not have experienced first-hand any of the mighty acts of God the Israelites had, but we have everything recorded for us so that we will never forget God and his mighty deeds, or his mighty hand at work for his people. Still, when we are convicted by the Spirit, or convinced the bible is the authentic word of God, we too can and have seen at least one miracle, our own salvation, but we can also see more through our faith, our belief that God still performs miracles, and his mighty hand is at work for us, within us, and through us. How can we even think of serving another god of this world, yet we see so many doing just that. Let us keep our eyes upon Jesus and look full into his wonderful face, and the things, gods, of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. We will never forget.