God Is Still Working Miracles: A Testimony and a Call to Reach the Next Generation

I wanted to start off by sharing a testimony that I heard Sunday after Testimony Sunday—a testimony y’all did not get to hear.

By the way, what a blessing it was to have each of the three people that came up here last Sunday to share testimonies. Amen. Amen. What a blessing. Thank y’all for sharing. That was just awesome. It was awesome.

Well, some of y’all know Miss Joyce back there. Miss Joyce, just raise your hand. Okay. Miss Joyce has been coming with her sister and they are members, and with their friend who is also a member. We just love to have all three of y’all join our church.

And Miss Joyce’s sister came up to me after church Sunday to share a testimony. And the testimony is this:

Miss Joyce had not walked in about three years, and she had been praying and they had been praying about it. And one day she started walking. For the last three weeks, Miss Joyce has been walking. And I just want to give God the praise.

God is good. Amen. God is good. There are still miracles that happen today. We serve a wonder-working God. There is nothing impossible with God. And when God does a work, we should tell people about it.

And that is three weeks of walking after not walking for three years. Praise Jesus. Thank you, God, for that testimony. Thank you, God.

And God, I just pray You just keep working in our lives as we seek to follow You. God, help us today as we are in service. Let the Holy Spirit move in this place. God, I pray You just help all of us as believers to keep pursuing a closer relationship with You, Jesus, and to keep living more and more for You, Jesus.

Thank You for this testimony. And I know there are others. And I just pray as You keep working in our lives and in the life of our church family that we always give You all the praise, all the honor, and all the glory.

And God, thank You for the time of worship we have already had. And now as we go into the Word of God, I just pray You open our hearts. Help us to receive Your Word and God use it to stir inside of us to go to work for You and to live more and more for You.

God, we love You. It is in Jesus’ name we pray. All God’s people said, Amen.

Opening the Book of Judges

Today we are opening up to the book of Judges. If you have got your Bibles, open up there. If you prefer to open up on your phone, however it is—Judges 2 is where we are going to go.

We were in Judges last week for our “Through the Bible in a Year” study. That is kind of on our own time. And last Wednesday, we talked about the book of Judges. Again, this Wednesday, like Wayne said, we are going to First Samuel. But I wanted to go to the book of Judges, chapter 2.

You know, Judges—if you are looking for it, it is right after the book of Joshua. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, then Judges.

And in the book of Judges, we kind of see a cycle repeat itself many, many, many times. What we see is now Israel is in the Promised Land. It is a new generation and they start to sin and they are worshiping false gods and they are straying from God and they do evil in the sight of God. We read it over and over in the book of Judges.

And then there are consequences to their sin. So as Israel sins, God punishes them. And then as they get punished, they cry out to God. And then time and time again, God rescues them by sending a judge.

This is the period between Joshua and between the first king, King Saul—the period of Judges. And there are a number of judges that God raises up throughout the book that we read about throughout the book of Judges.

I want to read in Judges chapter 2 and begin there in verse 7 and just let those verses there springboard us into the message God has put on my heart.

I do invite you if you would like and you are able to stand with me in honor of the reading of the Word of God.

Judges chapter 2, beginning in verse 7. The Word of God says:

“So the people 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. Now Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died when he was one hundred and ten years old. And they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath Heres in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash.

When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel.”

Thank you. You may be seated.

A Generation That Did Not Know the Lord

Here we read about in the Bible about a generation that did not know God. We read about a generation that was raised up and raised up in the Promised Land that the Bible says they did not know the Lord.

And when we read this about “they did not know the Lord,” and we consider all the context of Judges, it is basically saying they did not know and follow and believe the Lord because we know they worshiped false gods.

Verse 7, the first verse we read there in Judges 2, it says, “So the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua.” In other words, Joshua and his generation—they were a people that followed God. They were a people that served God.

Did they sin? Yes, they sinned. Did they mess up? Yes, they messed up. But in general, the way they are described is a people that followed God.

But then it says something happened once Joshua and all the elders of his generation and all that generation died. It says another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel.

How did things change so quickly? You had the generation of Joshua—they knew the Lord. They loved the Lord. They obeyed the Lord. They followed the Lord.

And then all of a sudden, the next generation did not know the Lord. How did things change so quick? How did you go from this generation that knew the Lord, that followed the Lord, that obeyed the Lord, and all of a sudden the next generation did not know the Lord?

How does that happen? How did that happen?

Well, I think when we think about this, you know, that generation that grew up after Joshua and his generation died and after all the elders of Joshua’s generation died—they did not grow up experiencing and seeing all that the nation of Israel saw, did they?

Joshua and his generation—where did they grow up as children? They grew up in slavery in Egypt, right? They experienced suffering. The first 40 years of Joshua’s life, he was in slavery. The next 40 years, he wandered in the wilderness. That is a tough 80 years.

But you know what else Joshua and his generation experienced? They saw the power of God. When they were in slavery in Egypt and they cried out, what did God do? God sent Moses and He delivered them. God sent miracle after miracle after miracle in the land of Egypt. We read about those 10 plagues that God sent and by the end of it, even though Pharaoh had been stubborn, by the end of it, he was sending them out. He was like, “Go, leave.”

So Joshua and his generation—they saw God work.

The generation after Joshua, after all the elders died, when they were already in the Promised Land, they did not see all that. I tell you what else—they did not experience wandering through the desert for 40 years. They did not see God provide manna and quail for 40 years and provide manna for 40 years and provide quail. They did not see God provide water in the desert from the rock.

You know what else they did not see and they did not experience? They did not experience when God stopped the Jordan upstream to allow them to cross this rushing river. And they did not experience—like Joshua and his generation did—the walls of Jericho coming down.

And the generation that died after all the elders of Joshua’s generation died—which would have been after they were in the Promised Land, after they had been living there for a while—they did not experience all that. And they did not experience going to battle and God doing victory after victory after victory.

Rather, you know what this generation—they experienced? The generation after Joshua and all the elders died, they experienced kind of having it pretty good. They were in the Promised Land, right? They had it pretty good.

But you know what else happened when they were in the Promised Land? When Israel came into the Promised Land, there were a lot of other people and there were a lot of other false gods.

And what we see is the generation after Joshua—when we read through the book of Judges, we see they started worshiping false gods.

I tell you, when you think about a generation—that generation that did not know the Lord—it is a scary thing to me, at least. I do not know about you—isn’t it scary to think about a generation of people, of young people that do not know God? Isn’t it scary to think about a generation that would have risen up that did not know the Lord?

I do not know about y’all, but when I say this, I am not just saying it to say it. I am saying it because I truly—I need God every single day. Like every day I have to start my day with God. When I got saved, God just put in my heart the want to draw closer.

And I will tell you what else. I know how helpless I am without God. Do you know what I mean? Like I need God every day.

That is a scary thing to think about when somebody thinks they do not need God. And then when you think about a generation and when I hear “does not know the Lord,” I hear “does not believe and follow the Lord.” I hear, you know, even the demons know about Jesus. Like they did not know and follow and believe in the Lord. They followed false gods.

That is a scary thing to think about a whole generation that does not know the Lord. Isn’t it? That is a scary thing to think about a generation that does not know the Lord.

But you know, I cannot help but think this when I read these verses. I cannot help but think about the fact that today we have got a generation all around us that does not know the Lord.

Now, I am not saying every single one coming up does not know the Lord, but have you noticed in your life—if you have been around some years—how many people have kind of turned from God or how many more people do not follow God? Have you noticed that in your lifetime if you have been around a while?

I mean, you can notice that just by the simple fact of how many people do not go to church now, right? And I know church does not save, but when we get saved, God wants us to be a part of His church. That is biblical.

Have you seen that in your life? Maybe you are older than me. I am 46. Maybe you are 50 or 60 or 70 or 80. I do not know. Have you seen kind of the downward spiral of more and more people that do not follow God? Do you remember when you grew up as a child? And do you remember what it was like growing up? Maybe you are 60 or 70. Raise your hand if you are in that age group—older than me—and you have seen yourself just people around you where less and less people follow God and less and less people are in church. Have you seen that?

It has happened.

And although—praise God—I tell you what, there are times when I see a young person, they are on fire for the Lord and I just praise God. And I think part of the reason I praise God so much is because it is so rare, right?

But I tell you, we have a generation all around us, many of whom do not know the Lord.

And I tell you, we should not be surprised. Why should not we be surprised? Well, I just think about people in my age group that maybe grew up going to church. And you know what? I look at a lot of them and they do not go to church. And you know who else does not go to church? Their kids.

We have got a lot of people unchurched. Even people that say they are Christians more and more do not—are not a part of worship regularly.

And I tell you what, for the most part, most young people are not—most young people are not often hearing about the Lord in school. Now, there are exceptions to that. We have got a Christian school where they are hearing about the Lord. And even in a public school, people can hear about the Lord. I mean, praise God, there are groups that go into the school and share about the Lord. There is FCA. Praise God. There are teachers that still share about the Lord in school.

But in the grand scheme of things, I think we all know when prayer was taken out of school and there was an assault on Christianity in the school, there is a lot of fear for a lot of people in church that are Christians to even talk about the Lord in school.

You know, and the thing is this—we are to be Christians 24/7, right? And no matter where we are at, we should share about the Lord and love the Lord.

But if we are being honest, kids do not grow up hearing about the Lord the same way in school like they used to, do they? I mean, raise your hand if when you were in school, you prayed at school a lot often. Did you pray every day? Raise your hand if you prayed every day and had chapel and this was in public school.

A lot has changed. Amen.

And then if we have got more and more kids that are not churched, what do we expect? Obviously, we are going to have a fall off of more and more of a generation that does not know the Lord.

Hey, I want to say this. When a generation does not know the Lord, it is going to lead to sin and ungodliness. When somebody does not know the Lord and does not believe in the Lord, does not follow the Lord, it is going to lead to sin and ungodliness.

And man, when a whole generation does not, it is going to lead to sin and ungodliness.

And that is what we see in Judges. In Judges chapter 2, the next verses after where we read from—verse 11—it says they did not know the Lord. Then Judges 2:11 says, “Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals; and 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.”

Basically, Israel—they did not follow God. They did not know the Lord. They did not believe the Lord. They did not follow the Lord. They followed other gods. And it led to sin. It led to evil.

And when you go into Judges 3, you see the same thing. Judges 3:5 and 6: “Thus the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And they took their daughters to be their wives and gave their daughters to their sons; and they served their gods.”

This next generation after Joshua and all the elders died—they did not know the Lord. And what we see happens is they did evil. Verse 7 of Judges 3 says, “So the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord.”

When a generation does not know the Lord, it is going to lead to sin. It is going to lead to evil.

Just in our own lives, if we stray from God, what does it lead to? It leads to sin, does it not? When you start straying from God, you are going to give into sin more.

And straying from God might be getting out of church. Straying from God might be getting out of taking time with God in the Word and in prayer. Straying from God might be saying, “Yeah, it is okay to do this and do that” when you know it is not.

And if a whole generation is doing that, there is going to be some sin and there is going to be some ungodliness.

And I tell you what else—there are consequences for sin. When a person or a generation does not live for God, there are consequences. Amen.

God is God and God reserves the right to give consequences for sin. If we never get right with God and never give our life to Jesus, we will have eternal consequences. Praise God—He makes a way for us to be forgiven and to spend eternity in heaven when we truly believe in the Lord.

But also on this earth, there can be consequences.

In the book of Judges, when we continue to read, that is what we see. Israel turned from God. There was a generation that did not know God. They sinned. They did evil in the sight of God. And there were consequences.

Judges 3:8 says, “Therefore the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and He sold them into the hand of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Mesopotamia; and the children of Israel served him eight years.”

In Judges 2 where we read—verse 14: “And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. So He delivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. Wherever they went out, 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.”

There are consequences when we turn from God, right?

And what we see is this generation that did not know God and they sinned and they did evil in the sight of God. What we see over and over in the book of Judges is as they sinned and as they did evil, they were punished. God allowed somebody to conquer them and they were punished. There are consequences for their sin.

And you know when we look at our world today—and I know for me what I have witnessed even in 46 years—I can see more and more people turning from God as I have lived.

Praise God—God still does revival and God still does a work and God can do anything. And praise God we see—I see glimmers even now of awesome things.

But it should not surprise us that if more and more people are turning from God that there is more and more sin and more and more ungodliness and more and more consequences.

Have you noticed how in the world there have been times when there are consequences for our own nation when more and more people sin? I mean, you think about how families have broken down. You think about how there is indoctrination, social indoctrination going on for things that go against God and God’s Word. You think about how there is sin and how there is evil.

You read 2 Timothy 3 and all those ungodly characteristics that are in 2 Timothy 3. I think about 18 or 19 ungodly things in about two or three or four verses. And you see 2 Timothy 3 more and more playing out in the world today as people turn from God.

But you know what is so awesome about God? And we see this in the book of Judges and we know this in our life. We serve a God who is full of grace and full of mercy.

The other cool thing that is so cool about the book of Judges as we read it is although there is this generation that does not know God and although there is this generation that since they do not believe in the Lord and they do not follow God, they stray and when they stray, they sin. They worship false gods. They do evil in the sight of God. They arouse the anger of God.

Although they do all that and God punishes them, when they cry out—over and over in the book of Judges—what do we see? God has mercy.

When you read the book of Judges, what do you see God do as the people cry out for the punishment of their sin? He raises up a judge, right? He raises up a judge to deliver them.

And we think about some of the more well-known judges. You think about Deborah, you know, you think about Gideon, you think about Samson. But there are a number of judges God raises up.

And to me, something it points to is how we serve a God who is full of mercy and full of grace. And ultimately what it points to for me is it points to Jesus. It points to the fact that man, I am a sinner and I am flawed, but God is so good. He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for me and to die for you so that anybody who calls on Him and believes in Him will be forgiven.

Is not that incredible to think about—your sins being blotted out as far as the east is from the west?

Close your eyes for a minute. Close your eyes. I want you to take a second and I want you to think about some sin you have committed in your life.

God, thank You for being so good, for forgiving me, forgiving us, for being so full of grace and mercy to forgive sinners like us when we believe in You, Jesus, as Lord and Savior. Thank You, Lord.

Is not God awesome? God is so full of grace and mercy.

And please listen if you have never given your life to Jesus. He is ready for you to give your life to Him. Please, if you never have placed your full faith, your full trust in Jesus today.

But when I think about and I want to wrap up with this—when I think about this passage in Judges and I think about this generation that did not know God, I cannot help but think about we have a generation all around us, many of whom do not know God.

Praise God—we have got some young people in our church that do know the Lord, that are in that young generation. And God can really use y’all. God can use y’all.

But when I think about that, you know, I think about what can we do to reach the next generation.

You know, I believe with all my heart as a church, we need to—when we are saved and we are believers—we need to have worshiping the Lord at the forefront. We got to be worshiping the Lord at the forefront.

But I also think as a church family, we have got to have—we got to have the priority of reaching the next generation and really reaching all people. I am not just—anybody that needs Jesus.

But when we think about the context of this and this passage, and there arose a generation after Joshua and the elders of Joshua that did not know God, and we think about the fact that we have got a young generation, many of whom do not know God, we have got to have as our number one priority to reach that next generation and everybody that needs Jesus.

Is that our priority in our lives? Is reaching people our priority?

Because why does that need to be our priority? Because the Lord says it.

You know what God said in the Great Commission right before He ascended to heaven? “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe the things I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

And another version of the Great Commission says, “Preach the gospel to every creature.”

What is making disciples? Making disciples is everything from preaching the gospel, sharing the gospel, people coming to faith, and discipling one another all the way to eternity until we die.

Making disciples includes the “go” part, the sharing the gospel, and making disciples includes helping one another grow in our walk and live more and more for Jesus.

But we got to have it. And you know what? In Acts 1:8—and I apologize, Acts 1:8 is where I think about right before Jesus ascended to heaven. Watch what it says: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Do not we see how the Lord—His priority for us—He wants us to be witnesses for Him, right? That God—that is the mission He gives us—to make disciples.

And a big part of making disciples is to be His witnesses.

That is why we want to make reaching people our priority—because that is what the Lord said to do. Be—when the Lord was in His resurrection ministry, He could have said all kinds of things, but notice how the thing He really hones in on is the main thing. Be My witnesses.

As a church family and as believers in our own life, we got to make that our number one priority. I mean, we got to worship Jesus and grow closer to Jesus and live for Jesus. But we got to have a priority to reach people with Jesus.

And man, when I think about a large group of people to reach, I cannot help but think about a generation coming up. Many of them did not have people getting them in church. Many of them did not have people tell them about the Lord. Many of them did not grow up in school like you did if you are older, hearing prayer and having Bible study and having chapel.

How can we reach this world with Jesus? And how can we reach the next generation?

I know more than anything we got to rely on God. We need help from God. We have prayer every Monday, but we need to have all kinds of times we are praying and we are praying kingdom prayers. Praying for God to work in our lives. God, give us opportunities to share the gospel today and give us awareness when they come and give me boldness to share.

When is the last time—did anybody share the gospel with somebody this weekend? Praise God. Thank you. That is not—but I mean, we want to be a people sharing about Jesus every day.

How else can we reach that next generation and for that matter anybody that needs Jesus? We can pray, but we got to go, right? We have got to go. And by “go,” I mean share the gospel.

We have been doing the Campaign for Christ. We kicked it off a while back. And I want to tell y’all, we are doing the Campaign for Christ because that is what the Lord said to do—to be witnesses. The Lord said to share the gospel.

So that whole idea of a Campaign for Christ—all it is about is about doing what Jesus said to do—to share the gospel. Okay?

And by the way, we had to reschedule our meeting in a couple of Sundays after church. Anybody that is already a part of the Campaign for Christ or anybody that wants to be—stick around. We are going to have lunch. We are going to feed you and we are going to have a little report meeting where we just talk about what God has done as we have been sharing the gospel.

We made some challenges with the Campaign for Christ. Like, who does God have in your life? We even challenged ourselves to have a top 10. Who does God have in your life that you can pray for their salvation? And who does God have in your life that you believe needs a relationship with Jesus that you could share with them about Jesus?

And if you were not at that kickoff, it is okay. You can start sharing the gospel right now today.

But I want anybody that wants—the whole point of having that report meeting is to keep us excited about what the Lord said to do—to be witnesses.

I hope everybody comes out to that—that is in two Sundays.

You know, we have a thing called Go Time at our church. And I will tell you the reason God put that on my heart to do was because I want to make sure I go and I share the gospel and I just want to give anybody else the chance to go out.

We had—we knocked on doors around Echo Farms maybe a few—three or four Saturdays ago and we had myself and Wayne Peters and Jerry Wade and Terry Wade and it was pretty awesome. We had a lot of good conversations and we shared the gospel with a lot of people.

But you know what I thought would be so cool? What if instead of four people we had 30 people? And I know things are busy, but I and I know we got a lot going on in our church, but I want to tell you in my heart for our church, what I want us and myself to be about is helping each other more than anything do what the Lord said to do—to be witnesses for Him, to share the gospel.

When we go out and we knock on doors, we are going out to love on our community, get to know them, but more than anything, we want to find out if they need the Lord and pray for them and see if they want to trust the Lord.

When we do random acts of kindness in a couple of Saturdays on April 5th, that is to share the love of Jesus. And we will have some fellowship, too. But more than anything, it is to do what the Lord said to do—to be His witnesses.

When we get in those conversations, when we have an Easter egg hunt the day before Easter on Saturday, April 19th, we are going to have fun. Scott has got a good plan that day. He has got—we are going to have a lot of eggs. Kids are going to have a good time. But we are not just doing it to give out eggs and candy, are we? I mean, what? Right. We want to in our conversations as we converse with people, pray with people, minister to people, and find out—get in conversations with people and ask them if they know the Lord, if they have ever trusted in the Lord.

How do we reach the next generation? We have got to pray for God to help. We got to live it out in our own lives. And we got to go.

Faith comes through hearing, hearing through the Word of God.

And I do believe with all my heart, if we are faithful to proclaim the gospel in our own lives with who people God has got us in our lives, with ministries we do as a church—if we are faithful to proclaim Jesus, we will see God work.

Would you pray with me?

God, I just want to ask You right now just today to just work in our hearts to be more and more faithful witnesses for You.

I do want to pray if there is somebody in need of salvation. I pray today is the day that they make it public and they pray to trust in You.

And God, I just pray You help us as a people in our own lives and as a church to be more and more and more faithful to be Your witnesses. We do have people all around us and even a generation all around us that does not know the Lord.

I pray You will put a fire inside of us to love those people around us, to share the love of Jesus with them. And the best way we can share that love is by telling them about Jesus.

And God, right now as we have a time of invitation, I pray You work—I pray You work in hearts. I pray it all in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Right now, we are going to just have a time to sing, a time of invitation. We do invite you to sing with us. And if God is dealing with your heart about salvation, about baptism, about rededication. Maybe you need prayer on some other area. Maybe you want to make Longleaf your church home. Maybe God is calling you to something. I do not know what it is. Whatever way God is working, I invite you to come forward publicly.

If I can pray for you, I invite you to come around the altar if you would like to lay something down. Stand with us and sing with us. And you come forward as God leads. You respond as God leads.

And if you need Jesus and you have never given your life to Jesus, please give your life to Jesus today. We are all sinners. We are all flawed. We all fall short of the glory of God. But God made a way you and I could be forgiven by sending His Son Jesus Christ to suffer for us and to die for us. And when He died, He rose on the third day.

And the Bible says, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

So if you need to give your life to Jesus, I pray you will do that today. You respond as God leads.