What in the world is this generation coming to? Have you heard this troubling question before? I can remember back in my teenage years of the fifties hearing my parents make this same comment. I can also remember that I had the same concerns when our children were teenagers in the eighties. Now, I am troubled about our culture more than ever for my grandchildren. In fact, just the other day, my wife and I were talking and she made the comment if our parents could see what was going on in today's culture, they would die of shock.  

As we look forward into the future, what do we see happening in the generations that will come after us? The more important question is - what do we want to see happen? For what we want to see happen will depend on us taking a serious in depth look at who we are and how serious we are at passing on the right things. So, we must ask ourselves three basic questions: Who are we? What do we want to pass on? And, how do we pass this on to the next generation?. Who we are is what we will be passing on regardless of what we may desire. 

It is critical that we understand the magnitude of our responsibility and the affects we can have on the next generation. In the second chapter of Judges, we are given the example of three generations. The first generation, as told in verse seven, served the Lord through out their life time. We would call this generation the spiritual generation. In other words, they called on the name of the Lord, were obedient to His commands, and worshiped Him in their hearts. But, in the next verse comes another generation who, according to scripture, only saw the works of the Lord. This generation was not as committed as their fathers. They knew about the works of their fathers, but did not have the works. We might call this generation a mixed generation. They served God when it suited and served the world when that suited. They had a divided heart.

Because this second generation was not as committed to the Lord, their arose another generation in verse ten that knew neither the Lord, nor the works He had done in the previous generations. We could call this generation the absent generation. They never knew about God nor the miracles He had done. God was absent from their everyday lives. Can you imagine a generation not wanting to talk to their children about the Lord? Can you imagine a generation not knowing the stories in the Old Testament and the life of Jesus in the New Testament? This seems so strange to us until we look at what is happening today. All we have to do is to look at our culture today and we not only see it not being passed on by parents, but we are making and condoning laws that prohibit us from passing it on. The next verse tells us the result. " Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals (other gods). They forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers."    

This brings us back to the question - who are we? In which generation do we find ourselves? I don't know of a time in my life that I am more disappointed and angry at what is happening in our culture today. When looking at who we are today, we see a generation of leaders who are lifted up as our models to follow. Yet, in many cases, their lives represent an idolatry, impurity, immorality, and all sorts of godliness that today we call normal. Our children are told to worship the athletic heros of fame and fortune. Men are told to pattern their lives after business men whose gods are success, money, ego, and possessions. While the real heros, the men of God like Tim Tebow or Dan Cathy, are treated as outcast. 

As men, we have been given the responsibility by God to lead  our families and to love our wives in the ways of Christ (Ephesians 5). We are told to bring up our children in the instructions of the Lord (Ephesians 6).  The book of Proverbs is filled with passages on how we men are to teach our sons to seek the wisdom and understanding of the Lord.

But who are we? That is the fundamental question to answer. How can we carry forward  certain ideals to the next generation unless we know who and what we stand for in our generation? Finding the answer to who and what will propel us to seek the ways we can mentor the next generation in the things of God.