22Your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it. 23The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, which the Lord overthrew in fierce anger. 24All the nations will ask: “Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why this fierce, burning anger?”
25And the answer will be: “It is because this people abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the covenant he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt. 26They went off and worshiped other gods and bowed down to them, gods they did not know, gods he had not given them.27Therefore the Lord’s anger burned against this land, so that he brought on it all the curses written in this book. 28In furious anger and in great wrath the Lord uprooted them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now.” (Dt. 29)
Thoughts: We think of positive legacies, and positive things we can hand the next generation. However, there are also negative lessons learned. If we reject God- His promises, His love, His covenant with us, then we become a lesson learned. If we abandon God- He abandons us, and that is a lesson learned for future generations.
One of the great poems is Shelley's Ozymandias. He says,
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."[4]
Greatness can turn to nothingness. Empires can turn to desert without God's blessing and restraining. The warning of history is a warning to all generations to listen to God and not to spurn Him.
Prayer: May the generations behind me see your blessing and help in my life. May I set a good, not bad example.
One of the great poems is Shelley's Ozymandias. He says,
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."[4]
Greatness can turn to nothingness. Empires can turn to desert without God's blessing and restraining. The warning of history is a warning to all generations to listen to God and not to spurn Him.
Prayer: May the generations behind me see your blessing and help in my life. May I set a good, not bad example.
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