“I wonder who’s going to fill their shoes”, George Jones crooned. He sang about the legends of country music that were his contemporaries who had carried the torch and advanced the influence of country music from a local or regional venue to a worldwide stage. Today country music, in many instances, does not sound that country any more. Even many current artists admit that what they sing does not sound that different from other contemporary music genres. Some sing about getting back to their roots. Country music has lost its distinctiveness. Some say country music is better than it ever has been; others would say it has lost sight of its mission and is not faithful to long-standing traditions that made it loved by many.
In the area of music, it matters little what genre one prefers. All genres have good music with good and Godly messages and likewise all have bad music with vulgar language and words meant to tear down and undermine the moral fabric of our society.
What is true of country music (losing its identity and slipping away) is also true of our society and particularly the church whose mission is to seek and save the lost. Sadly it is getting harder and harder to distinguish the “saved” from the lost. As country music sought to reach out to a wider audience and compromised some of the things that made it distinctive, the church has “softened” its position on many things including sin. Rest assured, God has not changed His position. Everything is not OK. Good is still good. Evil is still evil. Sin is still sin. Isa 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Everybody is not OK and it is our responsibility to warn those who are walking the wrong path. Eze 18:20a The soul that sinneth, it shall die. Eze. 3:18 When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. 19 Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. Jesus still demands repentance from sin, any and all. Luke 13: 3 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Jesus still demands obedience, not just lip service. Lu 6:46 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?
We are seeing a “progression” in the church in the wrong direction. It is not a progression (advancement) but a digression (departure). There are three generations in today’s church. The elderly generation I call the caring generation. They emulate God and adhere to the following resolution: “Follow God as closely as I can whatever the cost.” They follow God unconditionally as Isaiah did. Isa 6:8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. I wonder who’s going to fill their shoes because today’s other two generations are woefully lacking in a resolve to follow God and do right at all costs.
The second generation in today’s church is the “present” generation- the “me” generation. The “me” generation is enamored with itself. The world revolves around me. Everything is about me. Sadly the attitude of my generation (though many would not admit it), the “me” generation, is one of indifference or lackadaisicalness. We are the “I do not care” about God generation. I will attend when I feel like it. I will serve God when it is convenient which is seldom if ever. Given the mindset of this second generation, they are unconsciously and maybe unintentionally raising the next generation which is the “I do not know” generation.
I can list a dozen or more families that I will call “grandparents” who were/are faithful to God in every sense of the word, attendance, giving, outreach to the community’s physical and spiritual needs. The children, somewhere in the process have lost the zeal, lack the commitment and are halfhearted in the service of the Almighty. Enter the upcoming generation of grandchildren. Because of the indifference of the parents (children), the grandchildren do not even know the basic Bible stories of creation, Noah and the ark, Moses and the burning bush, Jesus walking on the water, the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord, etc. The grandchildren do not have the opportunities the children had to attend church, Sunday school and Vacation Bible School. They have no clue about God and what He expects and what they owe Him. They hardly know God at all. Ho 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. God has been good to us (US). I personally think it is because we as a nation have been a God- fearing, God- loving people who have been a light to the rest of the world. (Mt. 5:13-16). Over time, we have departed from God. I fear He will depart from us as He did Israel in the time of Hosea.
Today, attendance on Sunday night is half to a fourth of what it is on Sunday morning. Gone are the days when it was 80%-90% or more of the Sunday morning attendance less than a generation ago. What has happened? Many of the elderly generation (grandparents) have passed on to their rewards or are physically unable to attend, leaving only the children and the grandchildren. Many churches have given up on a Sunday night service altogether. Parents do not bother to get the children to Sunday school at 10 a.m. They are lucky to even make it to “worship” services on Sunday morning at 11 a.m.. They can get the children to school by 7-8 a.m. five days a week but they cannot get themselves and their children to Sunday school by 10 a.m. on the Lord’s Day. We live in a society acutely attuned to the physical abuse of children and I am certainly grateful for that. This society would cry out in horror if a child were allowed to be malnourished or starved physically, yet we care not that the same child is dying from spiritual starvation. Today’s generation completely ignores Solomon’s admonition. Pr 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. It is a given that such a generation who fails to bring their children to “church” is also neglecting their spiritual needs the rest of the time as well.
Our society worries and frets over the possible extinction of some animal species in some remote part of the world and how tragic such is to the world environment and the imbalance it will impose to the ecosystem of the world, yet we care not that the Lord’s church is on a collision course with extinction and oblivion. The champions of right, those who have good morals and Biblical values, those who are not ashamed of God and those who will stand against the moral decline of society are a vanishing breed. So I wonder who’s going to fill their shoes?
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