I’ve just finished reading through the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua. If you haven’t read these books before, they tell us of the journey of the Israelites, starting from slavery in Egypt to the claiming of the Promised Land in Canaan.

Much of these books is made up of instruction and teaching from the Lord through Moses and Joshua, the leaders of the people. The goal of this instruction was to build a culture in them that would mean they devoted themselves to God for generations and generations. While there had been bumps along the way the hope and desire was to see generations rooted in the love for the Lord.

However when we turn to the books of Judges, after the death of the Joshua generation we read one of the most heartbreaking verses in the Bible.

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. Judges 2:10

I honestly nearly felt like weeping when I read this….and I’ve read the Bible many times, it’s not like I didn’t know that it went badly for the children of Israel in the Promised Land. But how quickly it seemed to happen seemed so sad to me.

One generation.

For whatever reason the Joshua generation hadn’t passed on their knowledge of the Lord like they had been instructed to. They didn’t retell the stories of His breakthrough and His goodness like they were meant to.

The next two verses show the consequences of their failure.

Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. They forsook the LORD, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the LORD’s anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. Judges 2:11-13

I’ve always been passionate about passing on the knowledge of the Lord to the next generations, something as a church we are actively trying to explore, but verses like this multiply the seriousness of this for me. If we don’t tell the stories and pass it on to the next generation they will have no choice but to worship whatever else the world places in front of them.

Let’s ensure that this isn’t the case, let’s ensure that this isn’t what is written about our generation.