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 had Moses and prophets speak God's word to them, and they often did not obey.  Now, God sent an angel from heaven to speak to them.  The angel, speaking for God, reminded them that God had brought them out of Egypt, gave them the Promised Land, and never failed to keep His part of the covenant He made with them.  We as followers of Christ enter into a covenant relationship with Him and He will never fail to keep His part of the covenant.  Verse two adds, 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 said that their part of the covenant was to make no leagues with the inhabitants of the land and to tear down their idols, but that they had not done this.  He then asked them why.  As Christians, we are to make no compromises with the world and are to tear down all the idols in our life, but too often God has to ask us why we haven't done this.  Verse three continues, 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 told them that because of their disobedience, God was not going to drive the people of the land out, but was going to leave them as thorns in their sides.  God does not drive out all the idols in the world once we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and Lord, but they are there for us to choose whether or not we will allow them to become a temptation.  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.  We are told that when the angel spoke these words that the people lifted up their voices and wept.  We have One greater than an angel, the Holy Spirit, to point out our sins when we allow them back into our lives, but instead of lifting up our voices in repentance and weeping, we often just ignore Him.  Verse five adds, And they called the name of that place Bochim: and they sacrificed there unto the LORD.  They called the place Bochim, which Matthew Henry says means Weepers, and they sacrificed to God there.  We need to come to God weeping and offering ourselves as sacrifices when we know that we have been unfaithful to Him.  Verse six says, And when Joshua had let the people go, the children of Israel went every man unto his inheritance to possess the land.  After Joshua, who was still alive to lead them when this happened, let the people go and they returned to claim their inheritance.  We need to repent when we sin today, and then go out and follow Christ once more.  We cannot allow the sin to go unchecked, nor can we allow it to keep us from going out and declaring God's word once we do overcome it.  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.  We are then told that the people served God as long as Joshua and the elders who had seen the great works that God did in deliver them from Egypt lived.  We have no living witnesses to the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ today, but we must accept it by faith and then allow the Holy Spirit to guide our life.  Verse eight states, And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old.  Verse nine continues, 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.  Now,both Moses and his successor were dead.  We may have been led to Christ by a particular person today, and they may die, but the Lord of our salvation never will.  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 the generation that had witnessed God's deliverance of them from Egypt died, a new generation arose that did not know God.  The people of Israel who had witnessed it must not have effectively taught the next generation about God and all that He had done.  As Christians today, we cannot afford to do the same thing.  We must reach the next generation, or they will grow up not knowing about Jesus Christ, the Savior and the only way to salvation.