Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
This verse talks about the importance of one generation passing on the truth of God's Word to the next generation. We've got lots of family recipes in my family. We are of Austrian descent and so my dad taught me how to make really good sauerkraut, really good wild rice, and really good knödels.
He didn't write down any recipes. He just taught me how to make them. What will happen if I do not write those recipes down? What will happen if I do not teach my kids how to make those foods? Well, then the next generation in my family line is not going to have any idea how to make these foods.
The Danger of Generational Drift
That's the very thing that the psalmist is talking about when it comes to doctrine, when it comes to theology, when it comes to the truth of God's Word. A professor named Don Carson talked about this years ago, and he talked about the phases of generations and how you end up with a generation that potentially doesn't know God.
What he said is, first, there is a generation that believes and defends the truth. That's good. But then there comes a next generation that merely assumes the truth, but they don't defend it. Then the next generation, historically, is a generation that rejects the truth. One defends, the next just assumes, and then the next rejects.
What Generation Are We?
I ask myself, which generation are we? Make that question more personal. What are you doing to make sure that the next generation knows who God is and what God has done in the world, in your life, among His people, and in His Word? What are we telling the next generation?
Are we telling the next generation of God's works? That's here in Psalm 145—of His mighty acts, of His wondrous works, of His awesome deeds. Are we doing what God told His people to do all the way back in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4, where He said:
Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. And then He said, you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
J.C. Ryle put it this way: "It is a solemn saying that there is only one generation between the church and heathenism. We have no lease of our present privileges. We have no entail of our spiritual blessings. If we would have our children be Christians, we must diligently teach them and lead them to Christ."
It's so important that we not only understand the Word of God, but we make sure that we teach the people in our lives, especially the next generation, to not only understand, but to defend God's truth as found in His Word.
