THE KING’S BUSINESS
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Sam. 2:12; 1 Chron. 28:9; Jer. 22:16). v. 11. “And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim." This one terrible sentence sums up the history of Israel subsequent to the death of Joshua, and the elders that out lived him. It could not be put more ex pressively if whole chapters were written about it, The same sentence would sum up the life of most men on the earth today. They do what are called wise things and great things, but they are “evil in the sight of the Lord.” What the children of Israel did very likely was not evil in the sight of men. Men doubtless applauded their grow ing liberality of views. Neither was it evil in their own sight. They congratulated themselves that they were wiser and more progressive than their fathers. They served the horrid gods of the people round about them. Many 20th century Christians do the same. They serve Venus, the goddess of pleasure, and Plutus, the god of wealth, and many heathen gods. The cause of this awful apostasy on the part of God’s own people was that they mingled with the heathen and adopted their practices (vs. 2, 12; cf. Ps. 106:34-36). God’s people will never continue faithful unless they come out from the world and are separate (2 Cor. 6:14, 17, 18). It took strong faith in that day to believe that Jehovah was the true and only God when everybody around was worshipping Baalim, and it takes strong faith today to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one in whom God has revealed Himself and through whom alone there is approach to the Father (John 14:6), when so many are preaching a broad theol ogy that seeks to unify all religions, those which reject the Lord Jesus Christ with those that accept Him. v. 12. “They forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them up out of the land of Egypt, and, followed other gods." Doubtless they began by trying to combine the worship of Baalim with the worship of Jehovah, just as some today would combine Buddhism with Christianity! They were seeking a theosophical, compo-
that they will all “be gathered unto their fathers.” In this expression, “gathered unto their fathers,” we find a hint of life beyond the grave. In passing out of this world we do not go into nothingness, but are gath ered to those who have gone before and who now exist in a conscious state in an other world. "There arose another generation after them which knew not the Lord.” The fact that one generation of people is faithful to God is no proof whatever that the next generation will be. Puritan, God-fearing New England, is no longer Puritan or God fearing. We cannot depend upon the piety of our ancestors. Each generation must work out its own problems for itself. The generation which now arose was of an ut terly different character from the genera tion over which Joshua had exercised his mighty influence. They “knew not the LORD,” or to use our modern word, they were “agnostics,” for that is what “agnos tic” means. In all probability they consid ered themselves much superior in intelli gence to their ancestors, and doubtless thought the “new theology” which they had adopted was much more philosophical than the old. Very likely they had many a laugh over the archaiac superstition of their fathers; but the sequel proved that their fathers were wise and right, and that they were utterly foolish and wrong. There Is nothing else so important for any man to know as to know God (John 17:3), and however much of science and philosophy one may.know, if he does not know God he is in most helpless and hopeless case (2 Thess., 1:7-9). They not only did not know the LORD Himself, neither did they know the “works which He had done for Israel.” They probably had heard of tjiem, but they dismissed them from their thought as un worthy of the faith of a scientific age, re garding them as “myths” and “allegories” and “folk-lore.” When it is recorded that they did not know the LORD, it does not mean that they had never heard of Jehovah; it means they had rto experimental heart ac quaintance with Him (cf. Exod. 5:2; 1
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