Marchers filed past the reviewing stand hour after hour. The day was Thursday June 6th, 1946; the place, Prospect Park, in Brooklyn, New York. Two years to the day when the Allies landed on the Normandy beaches, the nation now paused to give thanks and reflect on its collective heritage. But the marchers were not soldiers or war heroes. They were children: little girls in starched dresses, wearing white gloves and holding bouquets of spring flowers; little boys in their neatly ironed shirts with clip on bow-ties and paper hats.
Together they marched, accompanied by bass bands and floats, past rows of parents and grandparents. In the reviewing stand Brooklyn’s mayor, the Governor of New York, and a Supreme Court Justice smiled and nodded in approval. By public declaration all schools were closed for the day. In all, approximately 90,000 youngsters participated. The event was the 117th Annual Sunday School Union Parade. (Robert Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II, p.3)
Can you imagine that—90,000 children marching in a Sunday school parade? Little more than a generation later, the world of the Brooklyn Sunday school parade seems strangely out of place in America. More than the differences in dress, or even the location, the idea of multitudes of people turning out for a Sunday school parade boggles our modern minds. It is amazing that an event like this should garner the support of government officials and involve closing the public schools; especially when just sixty years later the little town of Franklin, Vermont isn’t even allowed to open its Town Meeting with a 30 second public prayer! What happened?
This little story illustrates how fast a culture can change! In the period of just one generation, a whole society can fall away from its spiritual foundation. In so many ways, America has slide down this slippery slope of secularization. In recent years, the Ten Commandments have been stripped off our courthouse walls; “Merry Christmas” has been replaced by “Happy Holidays”; and the words “under God” is even challenged in our Pledge of Allegiance. Many of us have watched these changes unfold before our very eyes.
The same thing happened to the nation of Israel over 3000 years ago during the period of the Judges. Within just one generation, the nation abandoned the worship of the Lord and adopted practices of idolatry. The first introduction to the Book of Judges (1:1-2:5), which we looked at last week, told the story of Israel’s disobedience to God and their subsequent settling with their Canaanite enemies. The second introduction (2:6-3:6), which we will encounter today, is a theological reflection on that story; it focuses on Israel’s spiritual decline rather than its political and military struggles. And so, let’s see how a whole generation became lost!
An Epitaph for the Faithful (2:6-9)
This second introduction to Judges begins with a flashback to the good old days when Joshua was leading Israel. Joshua, who became Moses’ successor, remained faithful to the Lord by marching into the Promised Land. He courageously followed the Lord’s instructions and the Lord blessed his campaign with spiritual, political, and military success. Under Joshua’s leadership, the Israelites and their elders witnessed all of the wonderful works that God had done for them, and they enjoyed a prolonged period of prosperity.
Verses 8-9 serve as a sort of obituary or epitaph of Joshua’s life. He was the son of Nun; he was the servant of the Lord; he died at the ripe old age of 110. And he was buried just north of the mountain of Gaash, in the hill country of Ephraim, in the land of his inheritance in Timath-heres. His burial in the land of his inheritance demonstrates that it belonged to him and his descendents as his God-given heritage. By mentioning these details, the author of Judges wants us to see how the Lord rewarded Joshua for his diligent obedience and faithful service.
Joshua’s epitaph reminds us that obedience to the Lord and service to his kingdom is rewarded by God’s rich blessing. Now God doesn’t necessarily guarantee good health to age of 110 or monetary wealth like the “prosperity preachers” on TV, but he does promise the blessing of a clear conscience, contentment in the midst of adversity, and the peace of knowing that God’s presence is with you all the time. What a joy it must be to look back at the end of your life and not have any regrets! What satisfaction comes along with being able to say things like, “I was faithful my Lord”, “I was faithful to my spouse”, and “My children and grandchildren have received a godly heritage.”
Consider the last words and legacy of these men: Henry David Thoreau, the writer who was known as a stubborn, arrogant individualist (who is said to have loved a snowstorm more than Christ and wanted nothing to do with the church) died on May 6, 1862. Shortly before his death, his aunt asked him if he’d made his peace with God. Thoreau responded to her with his final cynical words—“I didn’t know we’d ever quarreled.”
Contrast Thoreau’s legacy with the great evangelist, D.L. Moody’s deathbed words. He was reported to have turned to his boys who were at his bedside and said, “If God be your partner, make your plans large.”
Many are the rewards that are reaped by righteous life. Are you following Joshua’s lead? Live such a life of faithful obedience to God that your pastor won’t have to lie at your funeral!
A Lost Generation (2:10-15)
The finality of Joshua’s death marked the end of an era for Israel. Would the next generation rise to the occasion and complete what Joshua and his generation started? Sadly, verses 10-15 indicates that they did not—instead, they fell into spiritual apathy and a whole generation became lost. This new generation did not know the Lord personally nor did they know the things that he had done for Israel. And this lethargy would quickly degenerate into idolatry. Notice the rapid-fire verbal forms that describe Israel’s descent into debauchery. They “did evil in the eyes of the Lord”, “served the Baals”, “forsook the Lord”, “worshipped and served various gods”, and “aroused the Lord’s anger.”
In contrast to Joshua and his generation, this generation served the Canaanite fertility god Baal and the war/love goddess Astarte in their various local forms. These deities were especially attractive to the Israelites, for they promised their worshippers agricultural prosperity, abundant offspring, and national security. By rejecting the God of their ancestors who had delivered them from slavery in Egypt and by worshipping the false pagan gods of the surrounding people, Israel provoked the Lord’s anger.
The Lord showed his anger by removing the prosperity and security Israel hoped their pagan gods would provide. He removed his divine presence from them and gave them into the hands of the plundering raiders and hostile nations around them. This punishment was perfectly appropriate. God gave them exactly what they asked for. He basically said, “You want to serve other gods; go ahead! Let’s see how that goes for you. If you want to worship them, don’t expect any help from me.” Their sinful actions compelled their divine advocate to become their divine adversary. By this, a whole generation was lost! (Robert Chisholm, A Commentary on Judges and Ruth, p.157)
This tragic tale of a lost generation in Israel should cause us to deeply reflect on our own spiritual lives and the spiritual lives of our families and nation. We should constantly be asking ourselves: “Have I done evil in the eyes of the Lord? Have I embraced any of the gods of the surrounding culture? Have I forsaken the Lord in any way?” Allow me to press these questions a little further. We should also ask: “Have I adopted any moral, political, or social positions that displease the Lord? Are my theological beliefs, financial principles, and sexual ethics defined by God’s Word or by what is popular in the surrounding culture? Have I exchanged the worship of the one true God for any of the modern American idols—money, materialism, work, sports, power, popularity, or entertainment? Have I provoked the anger of the Lord?”
How about our families and our nation? Do you see a generational departure from God in your family or our nation? I talk to a lot of grandparents who say, “I don’t know why my kids don’t go to church anymore? My poor grandchildren have hardly ever been to church.” Without any grounding in the Holy Scriptures, is it any wonder that kids don’t know the difference between right and wrong and they feel entitled to everything?
In America today, we have a whole generation of young people who don’t know the Lord or what the Lord has done. It should not surprise us that our rates of societal poverty, substance abuse, drug addiction, violence, depression, and crime are off the charts? (But hey, at least we have iPads.)
Cycles of Sin (2:16-3:6)
Even though the Lord removed his presence from Israel in his anger, he did not completely abandon them. Verse 16 tells us that the Lord shed his grace on them by raising up judges (divinely appointed military leaders) to deliver the people. When they groaned in their distress, God took pity on them and rescued them from the hands of their oppressive enemies. And as long as the judge lived, the people remained faithful to the Lord and the Lord blessed them with a period of peace and prosperity. But as soon as the judge died, the people prostituted themselves to other gods and worshipped them. They turned away from faithful obedience to the Lord’s commands and gave themselves to even more evil practices than their ancestors.
This section establishes the cycles of sin and the pattern that we will see throughout the Book of Judges: Israel forsakes the Lord for idolatry—God disciplines Israel by allowing them to suffer oppression by other nations—Israel cries out to God for deliverance—God raises up a judge to liberate them—Israel experiences peace and prosperity until the judge dies—Israel forsakes the Lord again. These cycles get progressively worse until the nation completely falls apart. This section concludes with the dreadful detail that the Israelites intermarried with the Canaanites and worshipped their gods (3:6), which was the ultimate expression of Israel abandoning the Lord and adopting Canaanite culture and religious practices.
Do these cycles of sin sound familiar? Is this not the same pattern that we have experienced in our own lives? We get serious about serving God and following Jesus for a while but then we fall away because of spiritual laziness or by embracing some sin, we experience the pain of God’s discipline, we cry out to him in our distress, and then God rescues us!
Have you ever sinned and then said, “I swear I will never do that again!”—just to turn around and do the same thing. And then we say, “O well, Jesus will forgive me!” Yes, Jesus does forgive us through his death on the cross, but how often do we abuse his grace by falling into cycles of sin? If you are wrapped up in some cycle of sin right now, repent before it completely overtakes you. There is forgiveness and redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ. If you have children or grand-children enveloped in cycles of sin, talk to them before it is too late!
If you ever ask a cattle rancher about how cows wondering off and getting lost, he will most likely explain, “Well, the cow starts nibbling on a tuft of green grass, and when it finishes, it looks ahead to the next tuft of green grass and starts nibbling on that one, and then it nibbles on a tuft of grass right next to a hole in the fence. It then sees another tuft of green grass on the other side of the fence, so it nibbles on that one and then goes on to the next tuft. The next thing you know, the cow has nibbled itself into being lost.” (Mike Yaconelli, The Wittenburg Door)
Sadly, this generation of Americans is in the process of nibbling their way to being lost. We keep moving from one tuft of activity to another, never noticing how far we have gone from home or how far away from the truth we have managed to end up. May we model our lives after the generation of Joshua instead of getting caught in the cycles of sin that led Israel to become a generation lost!