 Well, the title of our sermon this evening is the Consequences of Compromise. If you remember a couple of weeks ago, we looked at the conquest of compromise and the experience of the children of Israel as they go in to possess the land that was given to them by the Lord. And so to now, now as we come to Judges chapter two and specifically verses six through fifteen, we're looking at the consequences of that tragic compromise as the Lord pours out those consequences on the next generation. We see that for us, listed for us, accounted for us in Judges chapter two verses six through fifteen. As we look at the opening chapters of Judges together, particularly chapter one and the record of Israel's attempt at occupying the land, taking the land that the Lord has given them, there to do that by faith, there to go in and take the land that the Lord is giving them. We see there an account of the nation's continued conquest of Canaan. As the text records the nation's physical conquest of Canaan, we also see in the text a record of the nation's spiritual failure against an encroaching moral compromise, a failure to meticulously obey, faithfully obey the word of God. As the Israelites fail to trust the Lord, as they fail to obey His word, the conquest of Canaan becomes a tragic record of the conquest of compromise. So last week we saw the angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Christ in chapter two beginning in verse one, then came up from Gilgal where God's covenant with the people had been renewed, where there had been such hope, such joy in the Lord's covenant faithfulness and the angel of the Lord comes up from Gilgal to Bochim. He meets them in Bochim, a place of weeping, a place of wailing, mourning and sorrow. It's called the weepers. That's what Bochim means. The people now face the covenant consequence of their own faithlessness. In the same text we see the great faithfulness of God and the faithlessness of the people, and now we see the consequences of their faithlessness. There in chapter two, beginning in verse one, the Lord reminded them what He had said to them under the law, and He challenges them with their own disobedience. Look at chapter two, verse two, the Lord said, you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall tear down their altars. You have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? Now, reminding them of their disobedience, He also reminds them of the covenant curse that they'll face as a consequence of their disobedience. Look at verse three, therefore I also said, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall be thorns in your side, and their God shall be a snare to you. So it was, verse four, when the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voices and wept. That's where the city gets its name, the weepers, bokeh. Now, rightfully so, it was right that they should mourn. It was right that they lifted up their voices and wept, wailed aloud at the calamity that they'd befalling them. The mothers and fathers of this generation, if you remember, had died in the wilderness due to their own faithlessness at Kadesh Barnea, on the cusp of going into the promised land. They send out the spies to spy out the land. The spies, all of them, but two, came back with a bad report, and the generation there, the emancipation generation, failed to go in and take the land that the Lord had promised them. This generation now, the inheritance generation, their children, grew up wandering in the wilderness themselves. They'd heard the stories of all that God had done for that first generation, the signs, the wonders, the mighty deeds. They'd heard all those stories. They had seen those wonders themselves, also hearing how that first generation had sinned miserably forfeiting the promises and how the sin of that generation led to the judgment of God. We see that in the pages of Scripture. They had the pages of Scripture. They had the stories of their fathers to rely on. Their children, the inheritance generation, had set out with such hope at Gilgal. The Lord was with them, the Lord was fulfilling His promises to them, and by faith they were taking the land that the Lord was giving them. But once in the land, they failed to maintain basic faithfulness to the covenant. They failed to obey God's word, they failed to trust in His promises. In short, they compromise. They find themselves in compromise, and so they find themselves in mourning at Bochim, the place of weeping. Yet again, yet again, a generation of the children of Israel, the covenant people of God have forfeited the hope, the glorious promise of generational blessing, and they incur the righteous wrath of Almighty God. The same principle holds true in our generation. The same principle holds true. One commentator said this. He said, God's people in our day have no revealed mandate to swing the actual sword of God's justice at contemporary pagans. We have no mandate from the Lord to swing the Lord of God's judgment against the pagans in our own culture. We are, however, commanded to come out from among them and be separate in the same way that Israel was to remain separate and distinct from the pagan cultures that surrounded them. We ourselves, brothers and sisters, aren't we, commanded to come out from among them and be separate. We're to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness rather to expose them. Right? We're not to blend with the culture. We're not to cater to the culture, but we're to stand distinct from the culture. You could say the Christian is supposed to be distinguishable from the culture. It should be clear, right? The lines should be clearly drawn between the culture and Christ. Between this world and Christians. It should be plainly evident. Problem is today those lines are becoming blurred. More and more it seems every day that goes by. More and more the professing church looks like the world rather than looking distinct from it, being distinguished from it. We're to stand distinct from the culture. We're to oppose it. Those things that the culture loves and esteems as wisdom or esteems as virtuous. They call good evil and evil good. We're to oppose that. Testifying like the Lord said, right? Testifying to the world that its deeds are evil and then preaching to it the gospel of grace. We're to be distinguished from the culture. Distinct from the culture. How else are we going to preach to the culture, right? If we stand as one of them or if we look like one of them, we're to stand separate from them and to preach the gospel to them. We're to separate from this world, clean to Christ by faith, trusting him and trusting ourselves to him as we live for him and obey his word. That's true. That's true of our generation. That's true of our generation. What about the next generation? What about our kids? We have kids running around all over this church. What about that generation, right? Don't we have a stewardship given to us by God of that generation? What's our responsibility to them? Well, that's the point of the text. That's the point of our text. It's the cry, isn't it? If you've got kids, you know, you understand exactly what I'm saying. It's the cry of every Christian parent's heart that their children would be saved, amen? We want to see our kids love the Lord, serve the Lord. We want them to be heirs with us of eternal life, right? Joint heirs with Christ and we would gladly, gladly give our lives to see that happen, amen? We want to see our kids saved. What's our responsibility? We have a stewardship to them. We have a stewardship given to us by God. That stewardship is the point of our text and that stewardship came to that inheritance generation in the wilderness as well. Look with me at Deuteronomy chapter 4 and let's see that. Deuteronomy chapter 4, that stewardship came to that inheritance generation in the wilderness under the law. Deuteronomy chapter 4, look there beginning in verse 1, listen to the word of God now. Verse 1, now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe that you may live and that you may go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you, okay? God's going to give statutes, judgments, commandments that he expects them to abide by so that they may live and so that they may go in and possess the land. That's what we're talking about, right? Now the inheritance generation has gone in, they've broken the Canaanite stronghold on the land of Canaan. They've conquered those pagan kings but now they've got to go in and possess their allotted territories. They've got to go in and possess their inheritance and the Lord promises them that if they'll obey his word, he'll give them the land that he's promised to give to their fathers. He says in verse 2, you shall not add to the word which I command you nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. Your eyes, now the Lord brings up an example in verse 3. Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal Pior, for the Lord your God has destroyed from among you all the men who followed Baal of Pior, but you who held fast to the Lord your God are alive today, every one of you. We should learn, shouldn't we, from the failures of the first generation. Should learn from our parents' failures. We pray that our kids will learn from our failures. Well how did this generation of the nation of Israel fare? Remember what happened to that first generation, the Exodus generation or the Emancipation generation at Baal Pior. What happened to them? Well exactly what the Lord had warned would happen to their children in the Promised Land. In Numbers chapter 25, if you remember the story, Balaam taught Balaak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel. And the Israelites, not being faithful to the Lord, not being obedient to the covenant, committed spiritual and physical adultery with the women of Moab, if you remember that story, they were led astray by the daughters of Moab. The people worshiped their gods and worshiped Baal, sacrificed to Baal, and the elders of Israel are commanded by God to drag all those who sinned outside the camp and hang them in the sun. And then the Lord sent a plague among the people, and 24,000 people in the nation of Israel died in the plague. That's the incident at Baal Pior, okay? From verse 4. Now not learning the lesson, we even see that in the New Testament, don't we? The church at Pergamus earns a sharp rebuke from the Lord Jesus Christ in Revelation chapter 2 for tolerating people in the church who held to the doctrine of Balaam, in other words, participating in idolatrous practices and being sexually immoral. Balaam put a stumbling block before the children of Israel. Take it verse 5 with me. Surely, the Lord says, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God commanded me that you should act according to them in the land which you go in to possess. Therefore be careful to observe them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there that has God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us? For whatever reason we may call upon him. What great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day? This is the inheritance generation. Who is this great generation? The inheritance generation. Those now who are going in to possess the land of Canaan. But what would prevent the nation from falling into idolatry again? What would be that which would protect the inheritance generation from going back into the land of Canaan now to possess their inheritance? What would prevent them from falling into idolatry again like the first generation did? How were they to maintain covenant faithfulness to the Lord? There to do that through two means. Look at verse 9. By two means they were to do that. Verse 9. Only one, take heed to yourself, diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, unless they depart from your heart all the days of your life and secondly teach them to your children and your grandchildren. That's pretty simple, right? Verse 9. We're to take heed to ourselves and we're to pass that along to the next generation. We're to take heed to ourselves. If we don't take heed to ourselves, we ourselves will fall into compromise. We ourselves may fall into idolatry as they did, right? Their corpses line strewn in the wilderness. But also, if they don't take care to pass that torch of faith to the next generation and teach their children to take heed, then the nation may plunge themselves into idolatry yet again. Look at verse 10. Listen. Take heed to yourself, teach your children, verse 10, especially concerning the day you stood before the Lord your God in horrib. When the Lord said to me, gather the people to me and I will let them hear my words. They may learn to fear me all the days they live on the earth and that they may teach their children. There it is again, right? Horrib was Sinai. It's where Sinai was located. This was the point when the nation of Israel, who had come out of Egypt, gathered around Mount Sinai before the Lord their God and God, they heard his audible voice from the mountain. They saw the smoke of the furnace rising up out of Sinai. It was a fearful sight and the Lord says there, they brought them to that place that they might learn to fear him. They need to pass the fear of God, that fear, onto the next generation. They need to teach their children. The Lord was clear. The nation constantly faced the danger of an insidious idolatry and the nation would certainly fall if they failed to do two things. One, to take heed to themselves, diligently keeping themselves, remembering the Lord and two, failing to teach these things to their children. Our own failures, we know this, the consequences of our own sin may stretch well beyond the border of our own heart and life. The consequences of our own compromise, the consequences of our own sin can have devastating consequences on those around us. We have a responsibility to pass the content of our faith onto the next generation. That comes through teaching, that comes through your example, we're to pass on that example, that faith. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 6. Just flip a couple of pages to the right. Deuteronomy chapter 6. Look at verse 1. In other words, this teaching, what the Lord is saying here was given to this inheritance generation that we see now going in to possess the land in Judges chapter 2. This is the generation that received the second giving of the law, Deuteronomy, right? They received the law. They received this instruction and now they're in the land and they're being conquered by compromise. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 1. The Lord says, now this is the commandment and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson. Do you see? They're to teach their sons and their grandsons all the days of your life and that your days may be prolonged. Therefore hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you, a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your children, do you see? You shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up, 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. They're to be continuously on our lips, continuously in our hearts, on our minds, to be continuously in our conversation, it's to be all over the place, evident, observant to our kids. This is the failure. This is the failure of Israel in our text in Judges chapter two. Not only do they not take heed to themselves to be faithful to God's word, they failed the next generation and we see an indictment of the first generation in Judges chapter two. We see in our text back in Judges chapter two. We see in our text two generations of the nation of Israel. We see the inheritance generation, those that took the land under Joshua and the generation that arose after that one, the next generation. That generation is described in verse 10 as those who did not know the Lord nor the work which he had done for Israel. It's the inheritance generation and the next generation. At the beginning of Judges chapter two verse six in the first half of this passage, we see the inheritance generation. Look at verse six with me. Let's look at the inheritance generation. Verse six, when Joshua had dismissed the people, the children of Israel went each to his own inheritance to possess the land. Remember in Judges as we study verse by verse of the book, there's some overlap here in chapter two with what we read, what we know in Joshua. This is a reference to Joshua at the end of the conquest, gathering people together at Shechem. This is in Joshua 24. In Shechem, they renew the covenant. They renew their commitment to the Lord. And Joshua reminds them at Shechem of the covenant curses there. And he reminds them of what happened at Baal Pior. The very same situation, right? They'd gotten that warning under the law. Now Joshua stands with them at Shechem as he's about to dismiss the people into the land. They're about to go in by faith and take their inheritance. And what does Joshua remind them of? The incident at Baal Pior. Don't forget, right? Take heed to yourselves and teach your children. He reminds them what happened at Baal Pior and how Baalem put a stumbling block before the people. How foreign wives became a snare to the idolatry-prone Israelites in the wilderness. Don't let it happen again. Essentially, Joshua is saying them, right? He reminds them of that incident at Baal Pior. Then he reminds them of all that the Lord has done for them, taking Jericho, right? Very important time there with Joshua and the people before they crossed over. Then he says this, and this is in Joshua. He says, now therefore, fear the Lord, serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the river and in Egypt. Serve the Lord. And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, then choose for yourselves this day whom you'll serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Well, how do the people respond to Joshua's exhortation in Joshua 24? They said, they make a covenant. They renew the covenant. They're covenant with the Lord. And they says, yes, amen, we'll serve the Lord, right? So they go out from there, they go out from Shechem to possess the land the Lord was giving them. And we see the record of that then in Judges chapter one. This inheritance generation sets out well in Judges chapter one, but we also see there a record of compromise. They take the land, they break the iron grip of the Canaanite kings over the land of Canaan, but they cannot then possess the land. They fail to drive out the inhabitants of the land. Look at verse seven then. So the people then served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which he had done for Israel. They served the Lord. They start out well. They start out with such hope, such promise. And think with me about this generation referenced in verse seven. This generation, the inheritance generation were the children of the emancipation generation. Okay, now think with me about the context here. When the Israelites came to Kadesh, Barnea, they sent spies out to spy out the promised land. These would have been the children of that generation. And we know that that generation that sent out the spies, all of them but two died in the wilderness. Right, who were the two that lived? Joshua and Caleb. All of the generation of those that, because of their unbelief, failed to trust the Lord, failed to go in and take the land, that generation died in the wilderness. Their children now are these. It's the inheritance generation. These would have been under the age of 20, under the age of making war. Their parents, all of them but Joshua and Caleb, died in the wilderness and don't enter in the land because of unbelief. But these children, the children of that emancipation, exodus generation, would have seen the wonders that the Lord did before their eyes in Egypt. They would have seen the exodus. They would have seen the plagues poured out on Pharaoh and on the Egyptians. They would have been at Sinai. They would have heard the very words of God from the mountain. It was this generation, right? This generation, the inheritance generation, who is now charged just like the first generation, this generation is now charged with trusting the Lord and obeying the Lord and driving out the Canaanites. They have every reason to do so. They've seen mighty wonders, mighty deeds from the hand of the Lord himself. This was the generation that was going in to possess the land. Look at verse eight. They do this to their death. This generation serves the Lord to their own death on verse eight. In Joshua, the son of none, the servant of the Lord, died when he was 110 years old. They buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath Harris in the mountains of Ephraim on the north side of Mount Gash. But Joshua dies. What you find here in the death of Joshua, just like in the death of Moses, is that men are expendable. Even the leaders of the nation are entirely expendable. You could almost say, with anyone like that who dies, next batter up, right? The Lord is gonna put someone in charge. The Lord is gonna continue to do his work. But it's interesting here that Joshua, unlike Moses, Joshua dies without appointing a successor, right? And this sets up the period of the judges. He dies without appointing a successor. And then we have the judges. So is that the end of the story then? That generation serves the Lord. They go in and they take their inheritance. Joshua dies. We now have the period of the judges. Sadly, no, it's not the end of the story. Now we will see the impact of a critical and costly failure on the part of that first generation. And we'll spend a couple of sermons talking about that. A critical and costly failure on the part of that inheritance generation. Look at verse 10. When all that generation, when all of the inheritance generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them. This is the next generation, right? This generation did not know the Lord nor the work which he had done for Israel. Now this generation, the next generation, notoriously distinguished by its faithlessness, by its unbelief. And as much as this is an indictment of this next generation, it's also in part, isn't it, an indictment of their fathers in the inheritance generation. And we'll see that explained more fully in the text. It's an indictment on both. Certainly an indictment on the next generation, also an indictment on the inheritance generation. This generation did not know the Lord. And we have explained in the text why that is. They did not know the Lord. Now the word therefore know communicates more than mere knowledge. Certainly as knowledge, but it communicates more than mere knowledge. It's not as if they had never heard of him. They'd never heard of Yahweh. Of course they had heard of Yahweh. But it also communicates, that word communicates acknowledgement. Not just knowledge, but acknowledgement. In other words, they're not only guilty of stubborn rebellion against God, but they're also guilty of unbelief, unbelief. They knew about him. They just didn't know him. You see the difference? It's like the two sons of Eli in 1 Samuel chapter two, verse 12. The two sons of Eli didn't know the Lord. Well, of course they knew who he was. They grew up under Eli's headship. They grew up as sons of Eli. Eli was a priest in Israel. They weren't the temple supposing to do the work of God there. They were causing the people to abhor the worship of God. The two sons of Eli certainly knew about him, but they did not regard him. They did not acknowledge him. In that sense, they did not know him. It's in that sense that this next generation coming along in verse 10 does not know the Lord. They knew about him. They'd heard the stories. They did not regard the work that he had done for Israel. It was to them a common thing. It was to them nothing to be regarded. It was counted by them as nothing. They didn't acknowledge him. The inheritance generation raised the next generation in the midst of an idolatrous pagan worshiping culture. And they failed to pass the faith on to the next generation. It's an indictment of both, isn't it? Next week we'll look at the consequences of their sin. Look with me at beginning at verse 11 at what happens here then as a result of this failure. Verse 11, the children of Israel did evil on the side of the Lord and serve the bails. Listen, it's important to understand that the sins of the children can't be blamed on the failures of their fathers. That makes sense? In other words, the fathers aren't held entirely responsible. They're not, they don't incur guilt for the actual sins of their children, but they bear responsibility if they fail in their stewardship to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We can't blame entirely the sins of our children on parents. They bear responsibility for their own sin. That's the way it works. But there is responsibility for parents to be faithful to the Lord and bringing up their kids. If we're faithful to the Lord and bringing up, we can have a clear conscience before God. Amen. That we loved them as the Lord would have us love them. And that is the way the Lord would have it. Tremendously loving to them to bring them up in that kind of a household, amen. Now what they do from there is between them and the Lord. The children of Israel did evil on the side of the Lord and serve the bails. What happened, verse 12? They forsook the Lord, God of their fathers. They actively forsook him. And notice how it says there in verse 12, it's not the Lord God. They forsook the Lord God of their fathers. There's even a separation now between this generation and the gods that they serve, the gods of the peoples of the land that they were in and a distinction between them and the God that their fathers served, Yahweh, right? They forsook the Lord God of their fathers who had brought them out of the land of Egypt and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them and they bowed down to them and they provoked the Lord to anger. They forsook the Lord and served bale, served the asterisks. The anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. And so he delivered them into the hands of the plunderers who despoiled them, he judged them, didn't he? He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. They face the consequences for their sin. Wherever they went out in verse 15, the hand of the Lord was against them for calamity as the Lord had said and as the Lord had sworn to them and they were greatly distressed. One commentator, it was Dale Ralph Davis who said of this that amnesia produces apostasy. Amnesia produces apostasy. When you forget the Lord, you're a God. You become an apostate, amnesia, forgetting, disregarding, ignoring, rejecting what the Lord has done. What the Lord has said produces apostasy. Two errors, two errors on the part of this inheritance generation. One, we saw in chapter two verses one through five, they failed to drive out pagan influences. Mom, dad, listen, we have got to be diligent, vigilant in driving away pagan influences from our households, from our families, from our kids. We've got to drive out pagan influences. Be careful, be diligent, be faithful. They didn't drive out pagan influences. Secondly, they didn't teach the next generation to know the Lord. They didn't teach the next generation to know the Lord. We'll look at that more next week. We can't always not able to attribute faithlessness and unbelief to the parents, but there are consequences associated with the faithlessness and compromise of the parents. Does that make sense? Parents have a profound responsibility and an untold immeasurable influence on the next generation. There are ways in which our sin, ways in which our neglect, our faithlessness, our disobedience can have a terrible, terrible influence. Think about it in reverse right now in the land of Canaan, in Judges chapter two. The law of harem meant that the Israelites were to go into the land of Canaan and destroy, put to the sword every man, every woman, and every child. That sin, the sins of Canaanite parents, did that have an impact on their children? Absolutely had a devastating impact on their children. Maybe more profoundly so in the second generation of Israel, those that arose after the death of Joshua and the elders who served under him, that generation served Baal, served the ashtarists. We must love the Lord. We must teach our children to love the Lord, amen. Lord, help us to be faithful to you in this stewardship of our next generation. Let's pray. My father in heaven, Lord, it is a sober responsibility, a very solemn responsibility, but Lord, a joy, a great and joyful responsibility that you've given us to be good stewards of the next generation. Thank you, Lord, for the blessing of children. Thank you, Lord, for the blessing of following you. Thank you, Lord, for the blessing of knowing you. And I pray, God, please help us to be faithful to you in teaching the next generation to know you. Help us, Lord, to follow after you, diligently taking heed to ourselves and diligently and faithfully teaching these things to our children. And Lord, I pray that in great grace and mercy to us that you would make us fruitful in that endeavor. Help our words, your words spoken by us to them, allow them, Lord, to sink into deep and fertile soil in their hearts. And may they grow up, Lord, loving you, following you, serving you. We long, Lord, to see our children saved. Thank you, Lord, for all that you do for us. Thank you, Lord, that we can trust in you, knowing that you, the Lord of all the earth, will certainly do right. We're grateful to you, Lord, that we can trust in you for these things. Be with us now, Lord, as we spend this week doing just that, preaching the gospel, teaching our kids, following after you, studying your word, and Lord, bear fruit on us for your glory for our good. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.