daily java

Daily Java:

After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel. (Judges 2:10-3:31)

Someone once said “God has no grandchildren.” That statement has been attributed to Billy Graham. Whether he said it first or not, it is absolutely true. Just because you are a godly man or woman doesn’t mean your children are going to be worth anything.

The Israelites saw great and marvelous miracles directly from the hand of God. They knew his power. but then they got old and died and their kids grew up. The kids had heard of God’s power, but had never really seen it, not like their parents and grandparents. To them it was all second hand stories, “how were things when you were young, grandpa?”

When the Israelite kids grew up, they grew up with a second hand faith. And it did not impact them like it did their parents. So they started looking around, seeing what other options they had in life.

Canaan, the land in which they lived, was full of interesting stuff. And a lot of it was very attractive to the kids. So they began to buy into it. They began marrying outside the nation of Israel, they began to forget God completely. After all, the things he had done were, so they thought anyway, irrelevant to their lives. This was the modern world. After all, dad, this is the13th century BC. We are not living in the old days now.

And when they did, when they began going to alternative ways of life, they left God. The faith that their parents had, no matter how great, as not their faith. They really didn’t have a faith as such. They had a tradition. There is a fat lot of difference between a tradition and a faith.

Before long, they had totally left God. And when they did, they got in trouble and knew of no where else to turn. Someone came in and began to oppress them, rule over them/ they became someone’s slaves.

Then they remembered the stories. Were they true? Their parents thought so. So they called on God for help and he delivered them. Now their faith was real and persona. But they had kids and it started all over again.

It amazes me at the number of hedonistic young female singers whose daddies were pastors. They grew up in church, singing in the choir and singing specials. The church loved them and they loved the church. But then they got older and somehow, their lifestyle changed. They no longer had the relationship with their church they used to. And that was because they had never really gotten any kind of relationship with God. It had all been superficial.

When the relationship with God isn’t real, they fall away. There is no real underpinning, no foundation, no belief. Someone hears them sing and they go to a studio, others like them and before long, they are swallowed up in the entertainment industry. The were not children of God, but rather tried to be grandchildren.

Lots of people who were great in the Bible had sorry kids. The kids never got the relationship down. Eli the prophet had lousy kids, as did his protégé, Samuel. King David had bad children. Even God himself had one son who turned from him (Luke 3:38).

There is no way to live a godly life without a godly relationship. You cannot be saved on the coattails of a relative, no matter how great they were.