Judges 2:1

Judges 2:1 says,  And an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.  The people of Israel still had Joshua as their earthly leader, but God was still their real leader.  God sent an angel to speak to them and remind them of all that God had done for them.  Even if we have an earthly leader in our local congregation, God is still in charge, just as He always should be.  The angel said that God would never break His covenant with them.  Verse two states, And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars: but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this?  The angel then reminded the people that they had also made promises to God to not make any covenants with the people of the land and to destroy all their altars, and that they had not done this.  The angel then asked them why they had not done so.  We make a promise to God when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord thst we will remove all other gods from our lives, yet I believe that He too often has to ask us why we haven't done this.  Verse three declares, Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you.  The angel then said that God was not going to drive the people out of the land for them, but that the people would be a thorn in their sides and that their gods would be a snare to the people of Israel.  God could have done this, just as He could force everyone to follow Christ today, but He gave them a choice to do what He commanded, and He does the same for everyone today.  God does not remove all temptation from us, but He gives us the power to overcome all temptation.  The question then is whether we want to obey God or chase after the things of this world.  Verse four states, And it came to pass, when the angel of the LORD spake these words unto all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice, and wept.  After the angel finished speaking, all the people wept.  If we realize that we have not been obedient to God, we should weep tears of sorrow before the Lord.  Verse five adds, And they called the name of that place Bochim: and they sacrificed there unto the LORD.  They then named the place and offered a sacrifice to God.  When we find ourselves disobedient to God and repent of our sins, then we need to once again offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God.  Verse six declares, And when Joshua had let the people go, the children of Israel went every man unto his inheritance to possess the land.  This is still speaking of the time before the death of Joshua, and states that the he let all the people go to their inheritance.  Verse seven adds, And the people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the LORD, that he did for Israel.  Though they had not been totally obedient in driving out all the people of the land, the people of Israel served the LORD until Joshua and all the elders of that day died.  These people had seen the great works of God.  We today as followers of Christ have seen an even greater work of God, and that is salvation through Christ.  As long as we reach the next generation there will never be a time when there are not people who have seen the great work of God.  Verse eight declares, And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old.  Then verse nine adds, And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathheres, in the mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gaash.  Joshua died and was buried, as was stated at the end of the book of Joshua.  Then verse ten continues, And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.  After all the elders died, there arose a generation that did not know God and all that He had done for the people of Israel.  We have to conclude that the elders had not done a good job of teaching their children about God, and the children had no personal knowledge of Him.  If we today do not each our children about God, then the next generation will not know the gospel.