As I said last week, the first two chapters of Judges are written to explain the dark age that Israel was about to descend into. What led to this was not initially anything that Israel did but things that they should have done that they didn’t do. They should have driven out all the Canaanites as God commanded but they didn’t. In chapter 2 the narrator explains that, after Joshua and his generation died out, “another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what He had done for Israel”. How is this possible? It was only possible because Israel failed to pass on their faith to the next generation as God had instructed them to do (see Deuteronomy 6:6-8). We can be lured into thinking that if we avoid all the obvious ‘cardinal sins’ that we are on the right track. But the biblical faith is not a system of prohibitions. It is not simply about what we shouldn’t do, but about who we must be and what we must do as a result. We are called to run the race of God’s mission on earth and that takes positive steps forward. You have been entrusted with something to pass on to others. You have a commission to fulfil. What are you doing toward this? Your failure to fulfil this commission for your part will have a significant negative effect on posterity. As it was with Israel then, so it is for us now.
Think about how you can get more involved in God’s mission.
Read Judges 2
