What a great way to approach God's Word today, just as I am. Asking God to, I think Craig's words, wreck us, to break us. I trust you've come prepared to hear a word from God today. Our text is going to be in Judges chapter 2. As we continue to consider the account of the children of Israel Their experiences and failures and sins as it relates to the conquest of the promised land, the land that God had given to them. I brought this morning a baton. One of the critical issues in a relay race is the baton pass. At the Beijing Olympics in 2008, both the men's and women's U.S. 4x100 relay teams botched the exchange and were disqualified. And so in approaching the London Games, of course, there was great emphasis on the exchange. What made it hard to swallow is that the American athletes were Right there in terms of stamina, strength and speed in many ways were considered to be the favorites. But the baton exchange requires a different set of skills and aptitudes, it requires touch. It requires sensitivity, it requires synergy. It requires an ability to adjust. To another runner. The Baton Pass, critical aspect of a relay race. And the Baton Pass is also a great way to think about our faith. It's critical as well in the spiritual realm and relates to our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and the overall task of the Great Commission. There are many godly men and women who have run a strong leg In the relay. But there's also been a lot of botched exchanges. We've not always done well when it comes to conveying a vital faith to the next generation. Part of our problem, I think, is that we've come to think of our faith in very individualistic terms. It's about me and my walk with Christ. And it certainly is about that, isn't it? It's about the glorious message of the gospel and Our response to that message by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But we don't always stop to consider the fact that we're involved in a relay that even if I run a really great leg. The race is going to be won or lost in the exchange of the baton. So I want us to look at. Judges chapter two here in the example of Israel, I think there's some things here to help us think about this concept and what it is to successfully pass the baton of faith. Judges chapter two, and we see here something very interesting, we come to verse six, which is where we're going to begin today. We're told when Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land. And right away, there's something kind of interesting here. If you haven't noted it already, Joshua chapter judges rather. Chapter one says after the death of Joshua, the people of Israel inquired of the Lord. So Joshua is gone. He's off the scene. And now it's interesting that we come to judge judges chapter two and verse six. And we see this reference now to Joshua dismissing the people. Joshua is alive. Joshua's is conveying something and passing off the scene, but he's still there. And so kind of an interesting chronology here. I would suggest to you that chapter two, in a sense, goes back and and provides a bit of a retrospective look back. Chapter two is is a prequel. Like Star Wars, right? Episodes four, five and six are released and then Later, they come out with episodes one, two and three. And of course, a prequel helps us to answer the question, what happened? We've been looking at Judges chapter one over the last couple of weeks and and noting the dysfunctional patterns and what took place and how they failed to take the land that God had given to them. They failed to really claim God's blessings. They lost out on so much and they endured so much hardship and it kind of leaves us with the question of what happened. And judges to help us to answer that question. We're going to look at it briefly here, and then I want to focus in on one part of it this morning, but just note the movement here of of what happened with the nation of Israel. First, in verses six to 10, we see what I'm going to call the root of sin. Judges 2, 6, When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went out or went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land. 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 that the Lord had done for Israel. 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 Hares 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. So there's the kind of the root issue, there's the real problem, isn't it? It's it's that knowledge of God and his works was lost. It faded off the scene. Somewhere there was a disconnect, right? There was a there was a botched exchange. There was a baton here, the tink, tink, tink of the baton hitting the the track. Something got lost here. Between the generations. And a new generation rose up that did not know the Lord. That's the root of the issue here. Then we see the progression of sin. In verses 11 to 13. 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 Asteroads. So here's the cycle. Once they lost knowledge of God or no longer lived with an awareness of God's existence and God's holiness and God's standards, that, of course, led them down a path of sin. In Hebrew poetry, you have some some genre issues there, some some literary features. And you have that here just a little bit. I've just depicted it's called a chiastic structure. It just it's a form of symmetry. So you see in verse 11 there that they served the Baals in the beginning of verse 12. They abandoned the Lord. And then they went after other gods and they bowed down to other gods. And then once again, we see the reference to the fact that they abandoned the Lord. And then once again, that they served the Baals and the Ashtoreth. So you see kind of a balance in that. That's characteristic of Hebrew poetry. And one of the things it's also meant to do is to point towards the center of that little structure. It kind of gives some focus. And here we see that again, they ultimately progressed to the fact that they began to worship and bow down to these gods. It wasn't how it started. That wasn't the first step, but that's where ultimately led them. So we see the extent and the progression of their sin when they cast off the knowledge of God and lived apart from God. It took them down a very bad and destructive path. We might wonder how they would serve these gods, how do you go in just a very short period of time from from worshiping the one true God and having experienced such great deliverance to to worshiping other gods. And part of it, I think, is found in us understanding the nature of of Old Testament idols or idols in the ancient world. You have reference here to the Baals right at the beginning and then to the Baals and the Ashtoreth. We have some specific gods or groups of gods that are that are referenced there. And Baal, of course, was the god of storm, the Canaanite god of storm or rain. He was often depicted with a thunderbolt in his hand. He was the god who who watered the crops in an agrarian culture. That was kind of important that you had water. Otherwise, you died. If you had a drought in one part of the country, you just didn't import food from from from China or from from Russia or something. If you had a drought or a famine, it was people died. And so that was certainly part of the the appeal. It's an appeal to to prosperity and success that was really the God Astro wrote the goddess of love often seem to be the counterpart of Baal depicted with figures, exaggerated sexual features dressed nakedly. And and this is the goddess of fertility and love. And in a culture where where children died in infancy and where you depended on children to to care for you in your old age. That was a very important issue and Ashtorette promised fertility and health and life. And so. We can see why Paul, when he comes into the New Testament, he says greed, he warns people against greed, which is. Idolatry, thank you. I knew somebody would have it for me there. Yeah, greed, which is idolatry, the equivalent of greed in in a in a civilized culture is just is idolatry. So. It's our pursuit of money, it's a desire to have more than God has entrusted to us, it's envy, it's putting our possessions and our hobbies, our. Our jobs are our career track ahead of God. That's idolatry, plain and simple. So so we can understand this. If we're honest, we can understand what's happening here. It's this gradual slip from revering God and allowing God to be first to allowing other things, personal gain, personal satisfaction, personal. Progression to take first place in our lives. So the progression of sin and the result of sin versus 14 and 15. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them and he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they marched out the hand of the Lord was against them for harm as the Lord had warned and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress. So God allowed them every he said, we looked at this last week. I'm not going to remove these people out of the land anymore. I'm not going to I'm not going to help you to conquer the land. You want these people. You wanted them to remain. You chose not to drive them out. I'm going to give you your wish and I'm going to make sure that you can't drive them out and you're going to be sorry that you made that decision. They're going to be thorns in your side. It's going to be like a snare. You thought it was really good, but it's like a trap. There's bait and you reached for the bait and you found out that it wasn't at all what you had hoped. But there's consequences to your decisions and they were allowed to come into great distress, a word that's often used for siege. If you think in the ancient world of your city being surrounded and there's no food, there's no ingress or egress. Supplies are running short, people are dying, there's sickness and disease. It's a very bad place to be. And Israel came to that place where they felt under siege, they were in great distress. Don't miss the connection here that sin brings suffering. What we think is going to bring us pleasure does not. Doesn't pay what it promises. You see here, God's discipline of his children, not only are there the natural consequences of of their actions, but there's also the sense in which God disciplines them. He removes and allows them to to experience pain and hardship. God is not a permissive parent. I'll often hear that, that here we're in small group season, you know, so. I just don't think, Pastor, God would want me to stay in this small group. It's not going to be a good experience. And heaven forbid that God would have you endure something that was challenging. Right? Now, why has God allowed me to be the only girl in my Sunday school class? There's just no one else there. Well, maybe why would God want me to have this teacher this year? This? Well, I hope for any other teacher other than this teacher. Why did I have to get this one? Maybe we should go and complain to the school and. Never think that maybe God would allow us to experience. Something that was difficult. Because God is not just concerned about our happiness, he's concerned about What is truly best for us, he's about us growing. In conformity to Christ, but we see here the the outgrowth of of sin, so I just a very quick overview of the chapter there, I want us to focus here for a few moments on. Versus six to 10, specifically verse 10 and what I've kind of referred to as this botched exchange, I want to go back to this root issue here and just think through this a little bit. First of all, we have to see here that there's three generations that are described. And just for our purposes, we've been talking about racing analogies and the baton. I've just put up here three chairs to kind of depict these three generations. And just to help us kind of visualize a little bit, each one of these represents a leg of the race, as it were. And of course, you have Joshua, who was what we're going to call a first chair, first leg. Joshua had grown up as a boy in Egypt. He would have witnessed God bringing the plagues on the Egyptians. He knew what it was to be a slave. He knew what it was to be broken and in bondage. He saw God open up the Red Sea and he saw the Red Sea close again on the mighty armies of Pharaoh. And he saw God provide manna in the wilderness. Amazing. Joshua saw all these great works of the Lord. And then there was another generation after Joshua who were told the elders that outlived Joshua. You remember that Joshua and Caleb were the only two of their generation that were still alive. To enter into the land, they were the only ones that were faithful, you remember there, they came back with a good report. The other said, oh, we can't we can't defeat those enemies are too big and they didn't trust the Lord. And and God allowed them to die during the 40 years of wilderness wanderings. Only Joshua and Caleb came in. So they were older than anyone else. But then there was this other generation who who they, too, had at least seen some of the great works of the Lord. Right. They they had seen the Jordan River held back as the priest stood with the Ark of the Covenant and God held back the waters of the river as they piled up. And the people were able to cross over on dry land and and they stood and watched the Lord bring down the walls of Jericho without even raising a weapon. They saw some pretty amazing things as well. And then there was this this this third generation or third chair, third leg that that didn't see any of that. They didn't experience the manna or the Jordan or the Red Sea. They heard the stories. It wasn't that they didn't know it all, but. They didn't acknowledge they didn't live in light of that, they they didn't fully embrace it, they. Turned their back on it. You have these three generations that are depicted here, and, you know, we might think of this in other terms and other ways. Think about a family business. How often do you hear the story, right? Grandpa started this business. He was really poor. He had nothing. Didn't have two nickels to rub together. You know, walk uphill to school six miles each way. You know the story. Right. And and finally, he works really hard and builds this business from the ground up. And his blood and sweat are in this business. And he is based on principles. And there's a pride there that that is bound up in the whole thing, a healthy pride and hard work and achievement. And then the next generation comes along who didn't work for it, who isn't vested, doesn't appreciate it. And, you know, you know, the story often goes and it goes downhill. Alexander McLaren commented on the dynamic. Among believers, this is a contemporary of Spurgeon, he writes, it is hard to keep a community even of professing Christians on the high level. No, no great cause is ever launched, which does not lose way as it continues. There's this natural tendency to. I heard the term this week of mission creep. Have clear mission, clear purpose, clear focus. But over time, there tends to be creep. It tends to be shift. And no great cause is ever launched, which does not lose way as it continues, the original impulses wane, friction begins to tell. I love this custom. Clogs the wheels. The fiery lava stream cools and slackens, so it always has been. Therefore, God has to change his instruments and churches need to be shaken up and sometimes broken up, lest one good, when it has degenerated into custom, should corrupt the world. So this progression. I read an article of Christianity today, not. Very long ago, that suggested that local churches run a life cycle, they are born, they experience rapid growth, they tend to plateau and die unless there is some mechanism or opportunity for renewal. For rebirth. It's necessary. The life of the church. And so these three chairs just kind of help us think a little bit about that. I think we have another chart here, Quentin, to just just helps us to trace through some of the things that be characteristic of of the different generations and just natural patterns. Again, Joshua, who is who is highly committed, who is devoted to the Lord. It was all about God. Only in a secondary sense was it about Joshua. And then you have the elders, that second generation, second chair. Some measure of compromise, still outward conformity, but oftentimes not with the same level of urgency. You don't remember what Egypt was like. I don't remember what bondage was like. I grew up in a Christian home and and I don't have a good grasp on the seriousness of sin and how bad it is and how destructive it is. And so not necessarily the same degree of urgency and awareness that's represented by that. first chair and maybe in some cases where self begins to to be the predominant focus instead of God. And then the third chair, you have a chair of unbelief. You have a chair where God isn't in the picture at all. Not in first place, he's not in second place, he's he's he's out of the picture, he's out of mind. It doesn't impact my decisions. I don't live in light of his existence and his authority and his sovereignty. Chair of unbelief. I asked you this morning, which chair are you sitting in? I shouldn't take you too much mental energy to maybe begin to at least formulate some notions. It's not as easy as that, but maybe you can see or think about certain patterns in your life, family history. Are you the first person in your family to have come to Christ? Has nothing to do with chronological age, necessarily. Person could be. Older and they could be in a first chair as one who came to Christ, first one in their family. Or a person of the same age could be in the second chair, maybe their parents or their grandparents were also believers and they grew up in a In a home where God's Word was taught and where there were standards, biblical standards that came to bear in that home. And so it's not chronological age, but more your position as it relates to the faith. So I want to just. Think for a few moments here about what types of. Counsel. We would give to persons in each of these chairs. Again, if you think about the theme of what it is to to convey a vital faith, to to ensure that there's not the tink, tink, tink of the dropped baton on the track. And I begin to think of where I'm at in this whole process and what it demands of me to to make sure that I do everything I can. To convey that vital faith. So let's talk about first chair. Again, here's a person who may be the first one in their family to become a Christian. And you know what it's like to live outside of the realm of God's blessing and God's grace. You know the destructive effects of sin. You've lived it. You still have the consequences of those sins in your life. Let me just extend a couple words of advice if you find yourself in that particular position, first, don't underestimate the ability to influence a life. It's true that every individual is responsible. For their own response to God. But the scriptures do give a great emphasis on the importance of conveying. Or passing the baton. Of faith. Timothy was told to trust the truths of the faith to faithful men who would be able to teach others. Also, Timothy felt very incapable. Timothy felt like he was he was too young for the task. We might all have our excuses, right? I don't have any Bible training. I didn't I don't have the ability necessarily to speak about biblical truth with with with younger people or with my own kids. And Timothy could have had those excuses as well. But he was entrusted with this task. Paul spoke often of his children in the faith. They're not just talking about biological children, but we're talking about a task that goes beyond that. Paul conceived of it even in his relationships with with young apprentices. He knew that one day he was going to be gone if the Romans had their way. It was going to be sooner rather than later. And Paul was concerned about making sure that he passed the baton. How important this process is, you need to get a handle on this if you're in that first chair, embrace. That mission scripture, of course, is full of exhortations to parents to raise their children and to nurture and the admonition of the Lord. Secondly, embrace the responsibility to make disciples. I might sound like I'm saying the same thing. I want to go one step further here, challenge those that might be in that first chair who have a vibrant, authentic faith, who have an awareness of sin, have seen the great works of God. To embrace the responsibility to make disciples. I'm afraid that too often we we settle for converts. And certainly we might see this best in the realm of parenting. I think too many parents settle. They settle for successful. Educated, well adjusted children. They stay out of jail. We're doing great. Several years ago, a mother approached me about a concern she had with her daughter's class at school. Her daughter was an honor student and they were going to be transitioning a special needs child into her daughter's class. And she's very concerned about this. She held very high standards for her daughter. She knew that this meant that the teacher was going to have less time to spend with her daughter. And so she said, Pastor, what do you think I should do? And I said, well, it depends on. Whether you want your child to excel. In academics. or in godliness. If your main concern is academics, then you better go do something. If your main concern is godliness and that your child would learn to love other people and have a heart for people. And it sounds like it's a pretty good thing to me. What's your goal? You've got to answer that question. What is my goal for my kids? What's my goal for the kids in my Sunday school class? My goal for the kids on the youth soccer team that I coach or whatever that context is, what is what is the goal? You have to be clear about that. I think for a first chair believer, I got to be very clear about that. My goal to raise somebody who conforms, who fits a certain mold. There's my goal to raise a child who has a heart for God and a heart for people. We talk to the second chair, people for a few moments here. I tend to think there might be quite a few that would see themselves in this particular chair. Grew up in a home where the word of God was taught, they grew up being taken to church, grew up being shielded in a lot of ways from many of the harsh realities and repercussions of sin. But certainly there's some dangers and subtle dangers there in that chair as well. We put out the little thing last week of obviously it's a great blessing to read it. I think I've got the cards here. Here's my question from the card last week, obviously growing up in a Christian home is a great blessing, but what are the subtle dangers? For the second generation Christian, that's a great responses here. We can take our salvation for granted. Salvation cannot be inherited as a decision for each individual to make on their own. A second generation Christian has spent their entire life in church, even joining the church. But if they've never given their life to the Lord, they will never know fellowship with God. Here's a great one. Failure to fully comprehend sin. The first generation Christian is very likely broken at the time they accepted Christ. They truly understood how destructive it was in their life. A second generation Christian is more likely to view salvation as fire insurance than they might think of their sins as little sins but may not have been completely broken. I heard a speaker, this individual says, who was a third generation preacher himself being saved as an adult. He says, my grandpa knew the Lord. My dad learned about the Lord, but I learned about going to church. So we can begin to just think of some of the different dynamics that are involved in that, and I guess I'll be one of my first things for that second generation person, if that's you this morning, to to be able to identify the pitfalls or the dynamics that come to play with having been raised in the church. And I'll just give you a few of these are just. Just to get you thinking a little bit compulsory Christianity. Since that many young people grow up in the church, apart from any conscious desire to necessarily be in the church. By the way, I think you should make your kids go to church. I don't give my kids a choice whether they want to eat their vegetables or whether they want to clean their room or whether they want to stay up all night or whether they want to go to bed or I'm the parent. So I structure those things and I pray that they'll develop a heart for those things and they'll understand and appreciate and develop and own those disciplines. But but compulsory Christianity certainly that's that's something we have to be aware of a cliche Christianity. Sometimes churches is hesitant to address difficult and controversial topics. And it's possible for young people to come to see the church as irrelevant. Comfortable Christianity. Here's a big one. We take the gospel for granted. We become somewhat desensitized, we've heard messages, we've heard the things that ought to shock us don't shock us anymore. We maybe have a bit of a seared conscience at times if we've resisted the Lord's conviction. And cocoon Christianity. That sense of being isolated from the culture and then when kids do enter the culture, there's oftentimes a struggle there. So we just have to be aware of those dynamics. Maybe that's been you. Maybe you've been impressed by those those things. That's been part of what has shaped you as you've grown up. And you have to you have to own that. You have to identify that. Here's your other counsel, cultivate an authentic faith. Deuteronomy six talks a little bit about this challenges parents specifically to talk about your faith as you sit in your house and as you walk in the way and when you lie down and when you rise that Faith ought to be a very vital part and it ought to saturate our lives. And so I think for those in this second chair, you need to be very conscious of this. You need to not just ask your kids whether they did their devotionals or what God has been teaching them, but you need to be talking about what God has taught you. You need to be willing to confess. To your kids. Your kids need to see that you have a vital walk with the Lord and that you're still learning and growing. You don't have to have it all together, but you better be willing to be humble. We're told that fathers in particular must be careful not to embitter their children or provoke them to wrath. Paul brings this up in both Ephesians and Colossians. There is this real danger that we can drive kids away from the faith, and I think sometimes that's by our own duplicity or our own hypocrisy, or we we say one thing, but our life pattern indicates another. We want to say that the church is priority, but really sports is priority. Kids see through that the church spread, but no, actually, money is the real priority of my life. Kids can see that. So we have to be careful that we live a very authentic faith, and that's a challenge. You have to be honest about that if we're in that second chair. And then the third chair. Understand that salvation is not inherited. I think you have to be honest to say that the way it's described, this is the chair again of unbelief. These were kids that were raised in a godly home. These were kids that were taught the Scriptures, but they were in unbelief. I think you just have to be honest about it. The fact that you were raised in the church or that your parents are believers or that you went through a certain process, maybe a baptism as a child or some type of dedication or whatever it might be, that that does not give you a pass. No one is born a Christian. Scriptures indicate that those who believe are given the right to be called the children of God. Each individual has to make their own decision about their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then also to pursue the knowledge of the Lord. I've got a quote I've included there for you from J.I. Packer in Knowing God. Again, how to counter this lack of knowledge of God or living apart from the knowledge of God or trying to live as if God didn't exist. This third chair is a call to come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to acknowledge God in your life. That's where some of you are today as well. You need to turn to Christ. The opening of the Lord of the Rings. Some of you have read the books or seen the movies. I don't think this comes through in the books, but it's part of the interpretive license that the movie makers instilled. In the opening of The Lord of the Rings, where they're kind of setting the stage, they talk about the ring of power and they talk about how it was lost. And there's a great line there that the narrator gives that kind of has this chilling sense. It says this. Some things that should not have been forgotten. We're lost. And of course, the great tragedy that unfolds from that, because somewhere along the line, they lost track of. The ring. And that ting ting ting of the baton hitting the track. It's a cautionary tale for the church. Success isn't just how well we run as individuals, but how well we pass the baton. I just ask you this morning, how are you doing with the exchange?