International Sunday School Lesson October 11, 2026
Welcome to another edition of the International Sunday school lesson. Today’s lesson is entitled A Faithless Generation and it’s taken from Judges the 2 chapter verses 6-15 and it’s for October the 11th 2026.
Before we go too far into the lesson, I want just stop and point out the different stages for each one of the episodes that happened in the book of Judges. We have a situation where the existing elders who are living godly, pass away. Then the next generation begins to be ignorant of the ways of God. Then they get tied up into false worship. They take up with idolatrous worship and it triggers divine anger toward the people. Then God puts them under subjection to one of the other countries around them. They invade the people of God and the people of God come under foreign subjugation. They begin to cry out to God after they have suffered under that subjugation. They cry out to God. Then God sends a judge to take care of things. Bring them back to God, overthrow the foreign oppressors, and restore the peace. Things go along for a while and the entire cycle starts over again. You read the book of Judges and see it over and over again.
Judges 2:6–7 (ESV)
6 When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land. 7 And 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 work that the LORD had done for Israel.
So we see the people that lived when all the great miracles took place lived for God after Joshua died. Now during this time period we want to break down the history of Israel into three separate groups. The first group had been in slavery in Egypt and had been in that pagan environment. Many of them didn’t have much faith. As for obedience, they had picked up a lot of bad habits while they were in Egypt. They were the group that was forced to wander around in the wilderness for 40 years because they didn’t have the faith to take God at his words. They were the ones that built the idol while Moses was away. They began to suffer the consequences of their actions and were in the wilderness for 40 years. The next generation grew up. They had been brought up right. They were going to do the right thing. This is the group that actually went into the promised land. They followed Joshua. They were conquering areas of the promised land. They were settling in those areas. They were living righteous lives. They were doing well. And then that generation began to die off. Then you have your the post Joshua era. This is the era of the judges. The people did not did not know God. They forgot God. They turned their back on God. They backslid. Then the surrounding people took over and dominated them. They treated them terrible. The Israelites would eventually repent and cry out to God. God would then raise up a judge. The judge would obediently work through God and throw off the oppressors. The judge would also lead the people into righteousness. Sadly, the whole cycle would start over again when that generation died off.
Judges 2:8–9 (ESV)
8 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of 110 years. 9 And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash.
So, we see Joshua had died and then his generation began to die.
Judges 2:10–11 (ESV)
10 And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel. 11 And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals.
Now we see here how that the falling away happened. There was spiritual amnesia. In other words, the people did not remember and did not take into account all the great things that God had done for them, the great miracles that God had done for them, and the great deliverance that God had done for them. Often times when you look at people when we backslide, that’s one of the things that happens. We begin to forget all the great times that the Lord saw us through and we get forgetful of the deliverances from different problems that we have faced. That’s what happened to the people of Israel. They began to assimilate the ungodly surrounding culture into their own culture. They had began to become more and more like the people around them. People, when we’re backsliding, that’s what oftentimes we end up doing. Next thing you know, you’re beginning to think like the world around you. You begin to think like the people of the world, and you begin to take on their thoughts. You begin to take on their habits. You begin to act more like them. Folks can’t tell the difference between the people of God and the people of the world. And that is right before full-blown backsliding happens.
Judges 2:12–13 (ESV)
12 And they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the LORD to anger. 13 They abandoned the LORD and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.
And these gods that are around them, the worship of these gods was horrible. They would do things. They had like temple prostitutes. They would sacrifice their children to these false gods. It was horrible. They were getting completely sucked into this. The consequences was devastating.
Judges 2:14–15 (ESV)
14 So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. 15 Whenever they marched out, the hand of the LORD was against them for harm, as the LORD had warned, and as the LORD had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress.
I can’t read these two verses without thinking of that old song, “God’s going to cut you down”. Think about that song. People go around thinking they can get away with all kinds of stuff. God wants us to tell people. “Go tell that long tongue liar, Go and tell that midnight rider, Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter, Tell ’em that God’s gonna cut ’em down.” I get emotional when I hear that song. I grieve at what I see today. The church needs to be proclaiming the truth. You cannot do wrong and everything go okay. There’s going to be a time of consequences if we turn our back on God. If we don’t listen to God. If we don’t obey God. There’s going to be consequences. If you think you’ve been saved and then you’ve went out and lived like the devil and there’s been no consequences come in your life — You are deceived. If somebody is truly saved and they turn their back on God and go back out in the world, they are going to get chastened and chastised. Things are going to start getting really hard in their life because God will bring you back. He will chasten you. There will be consequences. And that’s exactly what happened to the people of Israel. They would backslide and things would become horrible. They would see all kinds of consequences happen in their life.
And if you are in that kind of situation today, I am begging you to come back to God. I am pleading with you to come back to God. Turn your heart back to the Lord Jesus Christ and seek his face. Now, we can distill the stories down in the book of Judges to four basic steps. Step one, the people take on sin. They turn their back on God. Step two, they have a period of suffering where the people around them invade and dominate them. Then the people begin to start praying to God and seeking His face. And then the fourth step, they have a period of deliverance where God raises up a judge and gives them deliverance. Unfortunately, it starts all over again. You can read it over and over again in the book of Judges. God’s going to cut you down when you do that, just like the old song says.
We need to read the book of Judges and take it to heart. Well, friends, one big concluding thought that I want to leave you with. There’s going to be consequences if you turn your back on God. If I turn my back on God, there’s going to be consequences in my life. If we have turned our back on God and we’re facing those consequences, then we need to seek the face of God and repent. God will hear our prayer and He will forgive us of our sins. Well, friends, good Lord willing, I’ll be back with you next weekend.
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