1 Chronicles 4-6 -- What They'd Been Missing

It’s so stunning to think that God had directed all of this genealogical and geographical information to be written down because the people had been in captivity for so long that so much of it had been forgotten.  Just imagine a county courthouse and all its records utterly destroyed.  Questions would pop up after 40 years:  Who owns this valley?  Who lived there?  Were you really a descendant of ____?  It’s hard to know whether the original records were lost during the Babylonian siege or whether so many of the older people who would have known this stuff had died during the trek to Babylon or shortly thereafter.  But it seems that somewhere along the way, a generation must have decided for themselves that it just wasn’t important.

This touched on something we discussed as youth was starting last night – the constant shaving at the edges of our morality, allowing or tolerating what once would have been unthinkable, to the point that we see nothing wrong with what we’re doing.  This moral erosion was deadly for Israel and Judah, destroying their nations and leading them into captivity.  Likewise, today in America this very same problem is causing internal moral decay that threatens our nation far more than terrorists or rogue states, for we fail to see it coming.

Father, please shake us and wake us up to the fact that we’ve allowed ourselves to be moved farther than we’ve ever intended from You.  Call a spade a spade.  Tell us we’re wrong, and put us back on the right path.  How we need You now!

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford