Warning For Each Generation!

"Don't touch! It's hot!" "Look both ways before crossing the street!" Don't wander off or you'll get lost!" How many generations have heard the warnings? Still, fingers get burned, children get hit by cars, and they get lost in the woods.

In Deuteronomy chapters 8-9, Moses urged Israel to remember God, not forgetting -- once they had settled in the promised land -- that it was He who blessed them. (note Deuteronomy 8:11-17) On this occasion Moses REMINDED that generation of the previous generation's lack of trust in God, their stubbornness, and rebellion. This REMINDER took place prior to this next generation's entering into the promised land. Still, how soon the lessons of history can be forgotten. Joshua REMINDED the next generation of this history as he urged faithfulness to God prior to his death. ( Joshua 24) Later, one of the psalmists REMINDED of this history, warning his generation to not commit the same error of hardening the heart and missing out on the blessing of God. ( Psalm 95:7-11) Many generations later the writer of Hebrews cited this psalm in warning another generation against committing the same sin. ( Hebrews 3:7-19)

Everything doesn't have to be learned from the "School of Hard Knocks"; the school of personal life experience. The past has been recorded so we can learn from it and be spared the same mistakes and fate. My generation and your generation and subsequent generations need to REMEMBER and take to heart the same warnings because it is too easy to settle into life and all its activities and begin to forget God.

The Hebrew writer exhorted. . .
"(12) TAKE CARE, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. (13) But EXHORT ONE ANOTHER EVERY DAY, as long as it is called 'today,' that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (14) For we share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence FIRM TO THE END." ( Hebrews 3:12-14 ESV)

The result of not heeding the warning is to begin falling and wandering away from God! To do so destines us -- like a disobedient or impetuous child -- to get burned, experience the painful consequences of having not watched what we're walking into, and find ourselves lost. Thus the need for the continual REMINDER so that hardness of heart will be avoided and faithfulness to God and REMEMBRANCE of He being the provider of our life and all its blessings (and the holder of it for eternity) continues. Let us take care to REMEMBER the warnings so we can be spared the pain and reap the gain!

Have a great day EXPERIENCING THE BLESSING OF A BELIEVING HEART!
Carl

See other teEn-MAIL on Remembrance