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. And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of 110 years. 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. 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. —Judges 2:7-10
One of the great tragedies in the Word of God is the story that unfolds in the book of Judges. God fulfilled His promise to take the children of Israel to the land He had given to Abraham. They saw miracle after miracle as God did the impossible to free them from Egypt and give them the victory over more powerful foes.
Moses trained Joshua to take his place and lead the people. As long as Joshua and the people who served with him lived, the Israelites followed God. But then a new generation came on the scene. No one had passed on the knowledge of God to them. And the people quickly turned away from God as a new group of leaders came on the scene.
The young people of today are the leaders of tomorrow. If we want the to continue to stand with and for God’s Chosen People as those who came before us and those of our generation have done, we must reach them while there is still time. That’s why the Ambassador Program is so important. It is impossible to overstate the importance of passing the torch to the next generation. And though this generation is young now, we must not underestimate what God is able to do through them as they learn to obey, trust, and follow Him.
The destiny of the nation of Israel—the things that are happening right now—can be traced back to my obedience when I was young. God told me to go to Israel and meet with the Prime Minister. There was no reason to think he would see me, but he did. And it was on that trip that I met Benjamin Netanyahu, then a young man who had nothing to do with politics.
When I prayed over him and told him he would be the prime minister one day, he thought I was crazy. His father called me a “moron” in Hebrew, not knowing that my mother was Jewish and I understood him.
Now we must reach the next generation. When I was in Jerusalem with my friend Prime Minister Netanyahu recently, he gave the Ambassador Program his wholehearted endorsement. We will be inviting young evangelical leaders from many nations to join us in Israel. We are going to extend to them the call God gave to Abraham—to leave behind the ungodly world, adopt a biblical worldview and take a stand for Israel now and in the future…and to use their influence to encourage the next generation to join them in that stand.
This will be followed by online training, social media outreach, threat identification, and so much more. The Ambassador Program will be the launch of the most important wave of support for Israel…a wave that will still be there long after you and I are gone. It can be our eternal legacy.
