“And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work which the Lord had done for Israel.” Judges 2:7
Who will be left to pass the mantle when all of those that know and serve the Lord pass away? When all the Joshuas that know the glory of God and lead others to obey His commands are gone, what will become of those that remain?
As we behold the days of Noah, the wheat is pressed as the tares choke out the righteous and pull the veil of darkness over the field. The evil one is worshipped in the eyes of the heathen because it takes no discipline to serve him. He says, “you can have all of this, just bow down to me,” and they do. They love him because his reward is immediate, and we followers of Jesus know our reward is yet to come. Our world is in heaven and their world is here and they rise up and call evil good and good evil. Killing is no longer rare or wrong, sodomy is normal and accepted everywhere, even in the church. You can lead the flock of God in the church while residing in Sodom, while the people in the church are told it’s okay to not follow the word of God because they are the example to them all. No one calls them out for hypocrisy, no one gets up and leaves the church; they stay in agreement of sin. How close they are to the fire, as if sitting inside hell and watching it burn. How long until they catch fire and burn in agreement instead of coming out from them to be separate? To speak of Jesus is offensive, and to pray silently outside a facility that kills the unborn can put you in jail. The youth are killing their parents and anyone that stands in the way of what they want. If they want it, they take it. Jesus died to free us of sin, not to enable us to sin. "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sin is left, but only a fearful expectation of the judgement and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God." Hebrews 10:26-27 It is important to remember that Jesus is coming for a pure church, not a sinful church.
As the Joshuas die off, so does the generation of people that know the Lord. They take their worship, praise, reverence, and fear of God with them. Without laying the mantle of Jesus over them at a young age, they will never know Him, they will never worship Him, and they will never fear Him, and without the knowledge of what our God can do, why do good? Why follow rules? They know Him not, so they fear Him not. “And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred and ten years.” Judges 2:8 “And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them, who did not know the Lord or the work which he had done for Israel.” Judges 2:10
After Joshua died, and all the elders that knew and worshipped God died, the next generation to follow were godless. When there is no one left to stand in the gap of wrongdoing, to fight for what is righteous and holy, and speak the word of God out against evil, then there is no longer anyone to call them out for the wrong they do. Without the rebuke and chastening of the truth that is the living word, evil is at home. “And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals; and they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt; and they went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were round about them, and bowed down to them; and they provoked the Lord to anger.” Judges 2:11-12
The word of God has reached the ends of the earth. His mighty works have been recorded for the ages, and even now there are still followers of The Way that witness to whoever will listen of the things they have seen Him do. He has been made known to all, but not all choose to believe in Him. “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.” John 15:22
As followers of Jesus, it is our mantle of faith in His word that we must lay upon others in spirit and truth. We must not withhold the truth of Jesus to those who are being lost. If we are to lose our life standing in between light and darkness, rebuking evil out loud then so be it. If we will be hated for His sake, then so be it. He said we would, and you can't be hated for His sake unless you uphold His word. If it is wrong, call it wrong so that others who also know it is wrong don’t shrink back fearing to speak, but boldly stand up to be a light in the darkness. It wasn’t David’s strength that took down Goliath. He had God on his side, and when we fight with His strength in holy obedience to Him, we don’t fight alone.
We may be surrounded by the tares, but it is the hand of God that holds the wheat upright as we faithfully await the harvest. “He said to them, ‘an enemy has done this.’ ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them but gather the wheat into my barn.” Matthew 13:28-30
If we don’t teach our youth to pray to God, how will they converse with Him? How will they find fellowship with the Creator? The Lord placed an order of teaching and worship on His people that they were to obey and teach to their children, and to their children’s children. He ordained the passing down of His laws and ways throughout the generations, and if the parents fall away from the original teaching, then what is to become of their children? They will learn from the world and aren’t they already learning what is acceptable behavior now by witnessing it for themselves. The son can only do what he sees the father doing, and if the father is lost then what will become of the son? I have heard it said that the teachers at school should teach the students, it’s their job. This is true if you desire to limit your child’s teaching to the education system which is now a system that has abandoned its original ways and gone the way of the world. We must feel the obligation to teach our children outside of school and outside of church. They shall be taught in our homes, and we shall be teachers of The Way, and examples of a disciple for Christ. “You shall therefore love the Lord your God, and keep his charge, his statutes, his ordinances, and his commandments always. And consider this day (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, his signs and his deeds…” Deuteronomy 11:1-3 If they are too young, they have not seen the glory of the Lord and all He has done, therefore it is our mantle to lay upon them to tell of the goodness of our God and all He has done for us, and how we are to serve Him, and love Him, and worship Him. This He commands of the parents to His children. “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied…” Deuteronomy 11:18-21 This was the command the Lord gave His people as a responsibility to teach their children of Him. The Israelites took everything in this command to be literal, and they made a box with these words in it and strapped it to their head (tefillin) to be frontlets between their eyes. They wrap strips around their arms with this command so that it will be a sign upon their hand. They missed the meaning completely, but it was said that they would. What the Lord desires is that your love and worship for Him should be so important that it is your focus. That His words and commands are to be such a part of our lives that they are like our very skin, a part of our body. He was emphasizing the magnitude of His words, and the importance of His commands.
We need more Joshuas. We need more people of God to speak forth the truth of God so that the generations to come are not lost without Him. We need people to be fearless and obedient, fearing God and not man. We need people to open the bible and point to the parts that clearly tell you that what you’re doing is sinful and that you cannot expect to walk through the gates of heaven while clinging to your sinful nature. We need to be holy, for He is holy, and we need more Joshuas to teach the way of holiness. God's teachings were not a suggestion, they are a command. "“For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:18-19
“But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Joshua 24:15
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