“And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that He had done for Israel.”
– Judges 2:10
What a said verse and what a wake-up call to you and me today. Judges 2:10 tells us after all that God did among his people, really all throughout the first five books of the Old Testament. Through Abraham and then through Moses and then you get through Joshua and God gives His people the promised land, the land He promised to them centuries before. And then Judges 2:10 says, “There arose a generation after them,” an entire generation that did not know the Lord and didn’t know about all the work that He had done for His people. How is that possible?
Spreading the Gospel to Young Adults
God, we pray that the good news of who you are would spread through the next generation.
It’s only possible because the people of God failed to pass the knowledge of the Lord and the knowledge of what he has done to the generation that came after them. And I say this verse is a wake-up call because you look at all the trend lines today, particularly in a church in my country, in the United States. And you see that the number of people who know the Lord and all that He has done in succeeding generations is declining rapidly.
So, Judges 2:10 should be a wake-up call to every single one of us who knows the Lord and knows His grace and knows what He has done. We must be faithful to rise up today, right now, and pass the gospel on to the next generation, to tell the next generation who God is, how much God loves them, and what God has done in history that they might know God and might know His work on behalf of all who trust in Him.
Judges 2:10 Encourages Passing the Gospel to the Next Generation
So, can we just pray together for that now in and through our lives? God, we pray that you would help us, every single one of us who’s listening to this right now, to pass the knowledge of you and the knowledge of your works and your grace and your glory on to the next generation. Oh God, even as I pray that I know that there are some who are listening to this right, some kids who listen to this with their parents, some teenagers who are listening to this.
God, I pray specifically for them, that they would know you, they would know you, the Lord, and they would know your work throughout history. All who trust in you, that they would love you and they would trust you and they would follow you and they would share the good news of who you are with their friends and their schools and their neighborhoods and their sports teams. God, that the good news of who you are would spread through the next generation, and God, we pray for all of us that you would help us to be faithful to pass the knowledge of you on to the next generation.
Praying for the Next Generation
So God, we pray for our kids, for their kids and their kids, for grandkids and great-grandkids to come. God, may they know you. We pray, God, may they know you. May they know you and your love and your power and your might and your mercy and your majesty and your justice and your love. God, may they know you. May they know how you work. God, we pray that the knowledge of you would not stop with us but would spread through us to coming generations. So God, we pray in our churches, you would help us to be faithful, to engage the next generation with the gospel, to pass the gospel on to the next generation. God, we pray that you would help us to make disciples of all generations, you would help us to make generations of all the nations.
God, we pray for the next generation among the Cossack of China. Got two million Cossacks in China, very few followers of Jesus. God, we pray that would change. God. We pray the Cossack children of China would come to know your grace and your love and your mercy. Help us to make the gospel known among them.
Judges 2:10 Prays for Faithfulness when Sharing the Gospel
God, please help us to faithfully pass on the knowledge of you to all nations and to succeeding generations that they might know you and love you and enjoy you and they might do the same, that they might pass on the knowledge of you and the work you have done for them to the generation that comes after them. God, help us to be faithful in this line. We praise you for all those who’ve gone before us, who’ve been faithful to pass the gospel on to us. Help us, we pray, to do the same.
May it not be said in our day, Judges 2:10, there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that He had done for His people. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
