TEXT: Judges 2:10
TITLE: THE JUDGES 10 GENERATION
It is evident from this passage of Scripture that true faith in God cannot be transmitted from one generation to another, unless there are new manifestations of God’s power. One of the things we seem to be missing today are the manifestations of God’s power as it was in days past. But these great manifestations of the past will never transpire until we have a hunger for them.
Each generation must fervently pray and believe that God will reveal Himself and His power anew.
All went well as long as Joshua lived and as long as the elders lived who had crossed the Jordan and had seen the glory and power of God.
With the Israelites new prosperity came spiritual decline. The older generation was so taken up with their own pleasures that worship became formal. The training of the young was either neglected or the bad example of the parents made their words meaningless. As a result, a new generation arose “which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works he had done for Israel.”
This does not mean these young people had never heard about the Lord or miracles. They knew about the deliverance from Egypt. Undoubtedly, they had heard the story of the fall of Jericho again and again. But the word “know” means more than know about. The tragic fact is that though they had heard of these things they did not know the Lord themselves. They had never seen any of His miracle-working power in their own experience. It is one thing to hear people preach and teach about what God can do and another thing to actually see it done. We preach and teach about miracles but don’t see them; we preach and teach healing but don’t see healings; we preach and teach that blind eyes can be opened but we don’t see it; we preach and teach salvation but nobody gets saved, etc.
Because this generation had not witnessed the power of God they were guilty of doing “that which was right in [their] own eyes.” This young generation was attracted to the feasting, drunkenness, and lax morals of the Canaanite culture as well as to the prestige of their ancient temples and high places. When this happened, God withdrew His blessing and sent armies to bring His judgment on the various tribes.
It is easier to say that the days of miracles are past, or at least that miracles have been restricted, than to pay the price to resurrect them. That was the issue Gideon would have to face a few chapters later in the Book of Judges: {Read Judges 6:12, 13.}
Gideon wanted to know, “If God is for us, where are the miracles we have heard about all our lives, and why have all these bad things happened to us?”
We could easily ask ourselves the same questions. Isaiah 5:12 – “They have harps and lyres at their banquets, tambourines and flutes and wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the LORD, no respect for the work of his hands” (NIV).
The Judges 2:10 generation did not have a fresh experience with God or His power and as a result they grew confused and lethargic.
How important it is that we have a revival of the miraculous in our generation and in our children’s generation. Miracles are important.
Acts 2:22 - "O men of Israel, listen! God publicly endorsed Jesus of Nazareth by doing tremendous miracles through him, as you well know” (TLB).
Acts 8:6 – “And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.”
Acts 15:12 – “Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles.”
Acts 19:11 – “Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul.”
1 Corinthians 12:28 – “And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues.”
Hebrews 2:4 – “God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will?”
In order to receive this miraculous power we need a real outpouring of the Holy Spirit and fire. So many times the baptism with the Holy Spirit has been reduced to speaking in tongues. Tongues are important and tongues have their place. But the baptism with the Holy Spirit is much more than that. It is the explosion of power in a believer’s life – power for miracles and conviction.
We need an outpouring of fire to purge us from anything that would block our way to the power, the miraculous, power of God.
We need a real touch from God to understand that it is not a matter of talent or mental prowess but a submission to God that will transcend our meager attempts and loose the power of heaven.
To have that power where miracles will one day return to the Judges 2:10 generation we must die to self. We must crucify the flesh. Kathryn Kuhlman gives the following description of her relationship with the Holy Spirit:
“Four o’clock that Saturday afternoon, having come to the place in my life where I surrendered everything, I knew nothing about the fullness of the Holy Spirit. I knew nothing about speaking in an unknown tongue. I knew nothing about the deeper truths of the Word…”
“That afternoon Kathryn Kuhlman died…If you’ve never had that death to the flesh, you don’t know what I’m talking about…when you’re completely filled with the Holy Spirit, when you’ve had that experience as they had in the upper room…there will be a death to the flesh, believe me…there are a lot of professing Christians, professing to have been filled with the Holy Spirit, who have never died to the flesh.”
“…All He needs is somebody who will die, and when I died He came in. I was baptized. I was filled with the Spirit. I spoke in an unknown tongue as He took every part of me.”
This is what John the Baptist meant in Matthew 3:11, 12. In the gathering of wheat, a “winnowing fork” was used to toss the stalks up into the air to separate the true wheat from the chaff, which was the refuse and useless part. The chaff was to be burned up to leave that which was pure grain.
More of God means less of self. A person cannot be totally yielded to the Holy Spirit until nothing is left of self. This is how to have miracle power with God and not raise up a Judges 2:10 generation.
