The Grandchildren of God

It is spring.  A new season.  One that is brought to the forefront of our awareness by the colors and smells and vibrant signs of new life.  The old season has passed, that is clear.  Lilacs, magnolias, and dandelions have spread their colors across the landscape.  Dogwoods, cherries, and crabs show us a new time and season has arrived.  Spring is upon us.  A new bloom is in full swing.  Sorry winter lovers, a new season has taken the baton.  There is no looking back. I even recently noticed an entire field that once was crop stubbles from last season bloom into bright yellow flowers of a new.

Makes me think.

This week I had my Bible open at the supper table.  

Though it is increasingly difficult to have these moments, I try to be intentional on making them happen.  Racing schedules, practice, friends, social events, the older boy’s jobs, and church alike, there are plenty of things that try to distract us from the good old fashioned supper time family conversation.  Supper talks are precious to me.  I can’t stress how important they are to the life and health of a family.  This one did not disappoint.

It has been increasingly aware to me that the moral and ethical decline we are experiencing as a nation living in 2021 has gone beyond haywire.  I’ve had conversations with people (no doubt you have as well) in coffee shops, restaurants, parking lots, and also the great outdoors in which other people expressed noticing the same thing.  Lately, it’s not even so much that Christians are realizing the state of our nation and surrounding world nearby, it’s bigger than that.  Even unbelievers are becoming shocked at how fast things have gone from “the way things were when we were kids” to the unbelievable way our world spins today.  God help us, things look bad.  

Take me seriously for a minute.  

Regardless of your age, I’m sure you can see a difference.  I challenge you to look down the porthole of memory lane and think a little of what life was like when you were younger.  I’m not a youngin’ by any means, but I am old enough to be able to dwell on the good things that we used to embrace and enjoy. . . things we no longer have readily available to us.  Who remembers not locking your car doors?  When was the last time you left your house doors unlocked at night?  Do you remember watching things like TGIF family programming each week as you had to wait seven whole days to sit with your family to have TV night?  Did you ever have to worry about language, sex, violence during any of those shows?  

Any of that still exist?

Now contrast that to today.  Everybody has their own account so you can watch your own thing.  We don’t know what programs each other is viewing, and if we did, we most likely would see that it is garbage anyhow.  Families don’t watch TV together, and when people do watch movies or shows, all the wrong messages hit you like a freight train heading right for your core values.  Porn is easier to get than what penny candy used to be when we begged mom to buy us Sweedish Fish down the street at the local grocery store. . . of which I can still remember being able to pick things up on your tab!  Think about your parents.  Do you think they had to battle the “sex sells” mentality like people do today? Womanizing is at its all-time highest, while at the same time relationship satisfaction seems to be dipping into the gutter.  We are being told what to value, when to value it, and how to value it. . . all by sources who are plunging into moral depravity just as fast as their followers.  Christianity has taken a black eye in 2021.  Those believing in Jesus are deemed as extremists.  Things in this country and others have gone so far as to actually call what is good evil and what is evil good.  It is clear shocking. . . and it has happened IN OUR LIFETIME.  

During my quiet time with the Lord this week it dawned on me that we are on an exponential curve towards collision. . . unless things change, and I took it to heart, bringing it up to our kids.

Judges 2:8-13

And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years. And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash. 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 that he had done for Israel.

And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.

This, perhaps, is one of the saddest portions of scripture written.  The brand-new nation of Israel, the very nation that God brought up with His very own hand out of Egypt, didn’t even last one generation after the death of Joshua.

Terribly sad.

Almost as clear cut as the changing of seasons in the western hills of Pennsylvania, one generation handed things off to the next. . . all, with the exception of the knowledge of a God who loved them.

How, you might ask, is that even possible?  How could a nation that had witnessed so many miracles, so many good things, so much love and compassion from the Lord slip away in such a short time?  One generation?  Well. . . I think we can look into verse 10 to gain clarity.

And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.

How did they not know?

So many times, in the 2021 culture we live in, everybody is quick to point a finger at the blame.  I’m sure we all could put the blame on one thing or another.  Today though, I want to bypass all the talk of fault and blame and just propose there is something we can actually do about it.  

Rather than point the finger, let’s fix the problem.

Yes, being a dad in 2021 is hard.  It is an ever increasingly difficult challenge.  There are constantly new and different obstacles to hurdle, always new pitfalls to help your children avoid.  One such hurdle is how the advancement of technology has made moral decay that much more accessible.  I always thought I was techno savvy growing up, but now that the turnover time for electronics is quicker than ever, my kids think I’m an outdated dinosaur.  Just this week, our one teenager educated me on what Tiktok was.  It was pretty humorous.  I came away with a great skepticism of the platform’s relevance to real life lol.  Justin only laughed.  He actually agreed how much time could be wasted by flipping through the reel.  Prehistoric or not, there is some credibility to being alive when things weren’t so electronic, and that is what I tried to instill into our boys.

“God does not have grandchildren,” I explained.  And in that moment, I shared my heart to them.  “I want you to know that my greatest desire is that you are all in heaven with me someday, and that God does even greater things with you than he has done with me.  I want you to know him even more, be even closer to him, and be even stronger in your relationship.”  I explained how I wanted them to be close to the Lord, that it wasn’t my faith that I wanted them to grab hold of, but their own.  Regardless of what God has done or is doing in my life, every man, woman, boy, and girl is accountable for their own decisions, and my prayer is that they make good ones.

I sit at a table, hot tea resting patiently beside me, contemplating these verses.

Did we expect that the lost generation of Judges chapter 2 to have known the Lord without someone telling them?  Moses clearly warned the people about this in vivid ways.  He instructed them all to make sure the next gen knew the adventures and journey that God had taken the nation on.  To pass things down was key.  To pass things on was paramount.

Deut 4:9 “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children—

Deut 6:6-9 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

So let’s draw a line in the sand.  Let’s start over.  No blame.  No finger pointing.  Suppose for one moment that we aren’t going to pass the buck but try to take action and fix it.

Let me ask a solid question?  What would telling our testimonies, our journey, the things that God has taught us and brought us through. . . what would telling these things to the next generation do for them?

It might just reverse the slant of depravity in our society.

It might just bring a new wave through the world.

It might just save them.

Make no mistake about it.  God has no grandchildren.  What the Lord has done in your life starts and ends there.  The next gen has their own accountability.  Your faith, values, and beliefs won’t make a hill of beans difference to them unless they choose to accept them on their own.

But my challenge to you today, one spoken loud and clear, is to simply tell them.  They won’t hear unless you say it.  Trust me, there are plenty of other voices out there.  If you don’t speak your testimony of faith. . . someone else will speak their testimony of garbage for you.  And garbage is what they will hear.  The next generation is hearing the voices surrounding them.  There are so many voices it has all become noise.  Their phones.  The television.  The influence of superstars and sports athletes and political leaders.  

But what if the most important voice is the exact one Moses told us of?

What if the most important voice. . . was yours?

Make supper.  Pull out your Bible.  Let the next generation know what God has done in you.  Don’t let the seasons change without the new one knowing the truth.  Let the new season be even more beautiful.  God’s knowledge can do that.

Do your part.

Answer the call.

Share your voice.

By Chuck Carr