Don't Make the Same Mistakes

Rom. 15:4
    
    Seeing that the New Testament Church is the spiritual Israel of God (Ga. 3:7&28-29; 6:16), there are many lessons we can learn from Israel. When I take a cursory view of the history of Israel, I see two consistent factors to them abandoning God repetitively. 1) “There arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10). Because they were not taught of God or what he did for Israel, they fell away into idol worship and forsook the Lord (Judges 2:11-12). We can not allow this to happen to the Lord’s church. While they did not follow the biblical command to teach their children throughout every aspect of their life (Deut. 6:4-7), we must be sure that our children are brought “up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). 2) Over and over, the kings of Israel & Judah are described as “evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of his father and in his sin which he made Israel sin” (1 Kings 15:26). Of the 38 kings in the history of Israel and Judah, only 4 were good. We must have strong leadership that loves the Lord, and hold true to His word. Both Timothy and Titus were tasked with helping establish elderships in the Lord’s church, and they both received a similar task, “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2, see also Titus 1:9). Strong leadership, by men who were taught the word is essential to not making the same mistakes as Israel. We need to be actively training young men to be future preachers, elders, and deacons (1 Tim. 3 & 4). We need to be actively training young women to serve the Lord and bring people to Christ (1 Tim. 5:9-10; John 4:28-30). We need to bring up a generation that loves the Lord, and by necessity, loves His word (John 14:15). If we do not make this a priority in the Lord’s church, we can run into the same problems that Israel had where and entire generation was brought up “who did not know the Lord.” I love you all!


In His service,
Steven Hugley