There is a passage of scripture in Proverbs that has
intrigued me for years. The truth of its meaning continues to unfold each time
I study from it. The depth of its inspiration takes us from one end of the Bible
to the other. The most stunning force radiating from this ancient revelation is
that it projects itself upon my time and our generation as if it were an
ancient mirror angled through the ages at us. The scriptures seem to be
reflecting the light, or darkness, of our generation back to us through the
pages of scriptures. It presents a true perspective of how great the depths a
culture can decline and at the same time present the ideal background for God’s
greatest demonstration of power and grace.
It is as if our generation is simply a stage with all
its props and lighting being well prepared and waiting for the show to begin.
Do not allow yourself to be distracted by the props or fixated on the stage
created by the last 120 years of history or else you may miss your part in this
production. Instead, be focused toward the stage because it is here the main
show is going to unfold.
Through out history Jesus Christ has always allowed
the stage to be prepared, the props positioned and the lighting set before he
came on the scene. All great actors know the importance of timing. Timing is
needed to receive the greatest response, to draw into the show the greatest
number of the audience, and to communicate the message most effectively. Do not
allow yourself to be disinterested by the style of lighting on the stage or
discouraged or alarmed by the props. The next great scene is about to begin.
The season of the harvest is upon us. Now that you know, begin to anticipate
the intervention of the Lord. With this book I hope to focus some members of
this generation toward the stage upon which a mighty demonstration of God is
about to begin.
In Proverbs 30:11-14 there are four sequential
generations listed. Each generation leads into the next generation. The NIV
reads like this:
“There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers;
those who are pure in their own eyes and yet are not
cleansed of their filth;
those whose eyes are ever so haughty, whose glances are so
disdainful;
those whose teeth are swords and whose jaws are set with
knives,
to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy
from among men.”
We need to look also at the King James Version.
Notice the different method of translation and notice the italics in the
King James:
“There is a generation that curseth
their father, and doth not bless their mother.
There is a generation that is pure in their own
eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.
There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! And their eyelids are
lifted up.
There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords,
and their jaw teeth as knives,
to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy
from among men.”
The italicized words in the KJ text are words that
are not in the original language but added in the English translations to make
reading easier. In 1872 Joseph Bryant Rotherham
captured the essence of these verses in his translation which reads:
“A generation! Its father it revileth,
And its mother it doth not bless.
A generation! Pure in its own eyes,
Yet from its filth hath it not been bathed.
A generation! How lofty are its eyes,
And its eyelashes uplifted
A generation! Swords are its teeth,
And knives its incisors,
To devour the humbled out of the earth,
And the needy from among men.”
The Word of God is setting forth four successive
generations. Each generation develops a life style and a worldview and then
raises the next generation. When the children begin to form their generation
they build on what their parents developed. The attitudes that the parents hold
tend to be viewed as absolutes by the children. Attitudes about money,
religion, family, society, politics, etc. are engrained into children by their
parents. There is very little chance of children having an opportunity to
decide if their parents are right or wrong because they must use their parent’s
views to make this decision. By the time they reach an age of critical thinking
they have been positioned to evaluate their parents
views from the same perspective as their parents. The children are trapped. It
is very difficult to overthrow their parent’s ideas, while at the same time it
is very natural to develop these same ideas to the next level during the next
generation.
Generation Number One:
“There is a generation that curseth
their father, and doth not bless their mother.” (Pr. 30:11 KJ)
How does this all begin? In Deuteronomy
11:18-21the Hebrew parents are told to:
“Fix these words of mine in
your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your
foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit
at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get
up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that
your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the Lord
swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are
above the earth.”
The command to continue a righteous line comes with
the promise that they would be enabled to stay in the land that God had given
to the generations before them “for as many as the days that the heavens are
above the earth.” This is similar to the promise of a thousand generations in
the second commandment that says, “I am the Lord your God.
. .showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my
commandments.” The righteous line has the potential to go on forever and never
be driven from their land. The parent’s responsibility was to introduce their
children to the Lord. The Lord was the living God that the parents had a
relationship with. In fact, everything they had and everything they were was
from the Lord.
Proverbs 30:11 begins a spiritual and moral decline
that will span through four generations. The decline begins with a generation
that curses their righteous father and does not bless their righteous mother. A
brief word study for the Hebrew word for curse develops like this:
“Curse”
Hebrew Word:
qalal
Hebrew Pronunciation:
/kaw-lal/
Root Meaning:
“be light”
Literal Meaning:
“small”
Figurative Meaning:
“trifling, vile”
Translated Meaning:
“to bring contempt, to curse, to despise”[1]
The first generation curses their father who is to
instruct them in the ways of the Lord. Within the word “curse” we can see that
the first generation considered the things of God and the righteous heritage
inherited from their father to be small, trivial, insignificant, or
unimportant. This is what Esau did in when he considered a bowl of stew more
valuable than the blessing his father could give him.[2] Genesis 25:34
says, “So Esau despised his birthright.” The family line of Esau and their
nation never recovered and were obliterated as a people.[3]
This same generation is said to “not bless their
mothers.” A word study of “bless” reveals this:
“Bless”
Hebrew Word:
barak
Hebrew Pronunciation:
/baw-rak/
Root Meaning:
“to kneel”
The association between “to kneel” and “bless” is
seen in the custom of taking a child on one’s knee to pronounce a blessing on
it. The word is seen in a dual usage where “blessing” is said to be given and
received in 2 Chronicles 31:8 where it says, “When Hezekiah and his officials
came and saw the heaps [of offerings for worship], they praised (“barak”) the Lord and blessed (“barak”)
his people Israel.” “It seems that this dual usage of “barak”,
. . .is to be explained on the following grounds: God
blesses human beings by speaking well of them, thereby imparting “blessing”
(good things) to them, and so they are blessed”; human beings bless God by
speaking well of him, attributing “blessing” (good qualities) to him, and so he
is “blessed.”[4]
Since the mother was the instrumental source of
teaching in the Jewish culture[5] we can
conclude in this brief study that a generation that “does not bless their
mothers” is a generation that does not attribute good qualities to their
mother’s teaching.
“A generation: Who curse their fathers and do not
bless their mothers,” is a generation of people who do not consider their
righteous heritage worthy of recognition and adherence. This generation rejects
the truth of scripture and the standard of righteousness.
A generation is said to be a period of forty years.
“He made them wander in the desert forty years, until the whole generation of
those who had
done evil in his sight was
gone.”
Numbers 32:13
The Hebrew word for generation is “dor.” It means a revolution of time such as an age or
generation. “A dor is roughly the period of time from
one’s birth to one’s maturity, which in the Old Testament corresponds to a
period of about 40 years.”[6] When Moses was
eighty years old, Joshua was forty.[7] They
represented the leadership in the first and second generations.
The Bible describes both the building of successive
generations of righteousness and successive generations of wickedness. In
Exodus 20:5 the second commandment is recorded along with a promise that is
attached as a foot note to those who develop this command in righteous
generations or a curse to those who digress away from it through wicked
generations:
“You shall not make for
yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth
beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the
sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,
but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my
commandments.” (also, Exodus 34:6)
The word “punishing” (translated “visiting” in the
King James) has as its root meaning to visit with either friendly or hostile intent.
It carries the meaning of “overseeing, charging, care for”[8] and “looking
over, looking after, inspecting, examining.”[9] This means the
Lord, Yahweh, “oversees, cares for, looks after, inspects or examines” the sins
of the fathers (the first generation) into the third and fourth generation.
Notice that this statement has a beginning and an
end. The beginning is “the fathers.” The end is in the third and fourth
generations. This means there is not a fifth generation.
It is possible that the sin of the fathers in that
first generation is removed by the second, third or fourth generation by
repentance and through what Romans 12:21 calls the “renewing of your minds.”
This would require something, some event or someone being more influential in
that generation’s thinking than their parents who had committed or developed
“the sin of the fathers.” We are a generation that needs to individually repent
and renew our minds and then influence our generation towards righteousness.
One other thing needs to be noted here. The
declaration of God to watch the development of the father’s sin down to the
fourth generation is a footnote on the second of the Ten Commandments.
“You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven
above or on the
earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow
down to them or worship them.”
(Exodus
20:4)
The emphasis is apparently on idol worship. The
ancient people had a strong tendency to look to idols to explain their origins,
to identify their purpose, to develop their ethics, and to determine their
future. It would be difficult to find an idol in our modern world if we were to
identity it as a statue representing a deity that we bow down to in worship.
But, what would you label as an idol if we took the ancient use of an idol and
used that as a definition to identify modern idols. What is used to identify
modern man’s origins? Modern science and its theory or evolution would be an
idol. What does the Western mind use to identity their purpose for existence? Materialism and pleasure. These would be an idol. What
establishes our code of right and wrong in the
The second commandment tells us not to make any idol
from the created world that replaces the Creator of the world. The impression
is that if a generation were to turn from God to some form of idolatry they
would unknowingly begin a fall that ends with the overthrow of their grand
children and their great-grand children. This principal has been repeated for
hundreds of years and through multitudes of generations. Rarely, if ever, is
this process identified because it is almost impossible to connect the
elimination of a family, a culture or a nation to a process that began four
generations, or 160 years, earlier. Within the pages of scripture this
principle of God has been recorded clearly for all to see.
1880-1920: The Generation that
Cursed Their Parent’s
It was during this generation in the
This first generation knew Robert G. Ingersoll as the “the great agnostic.” According to the
Chicago Tribune in 1899, Ingersoll could have become
great in the political arena, but instead choose to enlighten the world
concerning the “Mistakes of Moses.” His completed twelve volumes of writings
were published in 1902. In this collection was this quote from his article “The
Absurdity of Religion written in 1890:
“Has a man the right to examine, to investigate the religion of his own country
– the religion of
his father and mother?”[10]
Here is a statement of an individual whose attitude
of cursing his mother and father’s religion was embraced by a generation. He
goes on to violate then the second commandment in a classical textbook example:
“We find now that the
prosperity of nations has depended, not upon their religion, not upon the
goodness or providence of some god, but on soil and climate and
commerce, upon the ingenuity, industry, and courage of the people, upon the
development of the mind, on the spread of education, on the liberty of thought
and action; and that in this mighty panorama of national life, reason has built
and superstition has destroyed.”[11]
It is fairly easy to see the violation of the second
commandment:
“You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of
anything in heaven above. .
.
(Ingersoll lcalls this
“climate” )
or on the earth beneath. .
.
(“soil”)
or in the waters
below.”
(“commerce,” they traded with ships in the seas)
The first generation of Proverbs 30:11-14 appears to
have unfolded within the years of 1880-1920. Through the documents that time
has preserved for us we see this generation questioning or rejecting the
validity of Christianity. This criticism grows during these years in several
areas including science, education, industry, and philosophy and even with the
church itself.
Charles Darwin, the founder of the modern theory of evolution died in 1882. His
teachings had captured the academic world and had flooded the “logic” of
evolution into every area.
Karl Marx,
implemented the concept of evolution into human society, died in 1883. Marx’s
influence in
Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) brought the principals of evolution to
the interpretation of the Bible. He abandoned the view that the Bible had been
divinely inspired. His views were published and consumed by the academic world.
Seminaries through out
Sigmund Freud, (presented his pioneering work on psychoanalytic method of free
association in 1895. Freud explained the phenomena of religion through
psychoanalysis. “Freud, an atheist, gave every successive detractor of the
value of religion a set of clever, psychological remarks through which to
express contempt for God and His work.” To Freud religion was a pointless
delusion. It is clear that Freud believed society would be more productive and
more pleasant if Christianity was abandoned and in its place Freud’s theories
were embraced.
These preceding men spoke about many things and
represent several fields of study. They consistently spoke in unison against
God and exalted man. If we desired, we could follow this investigation into
business, politics, medicine, and many other areas. Here we would also find the
key leaders speaking against God. Remember though, these men are leaders not
because they were right, but because this first generation (1880-1920) followed
them. These men are not influencing society because they are presenting correct
information; instead, the general population is hearing what they can accept to
be correct information. A leader of this caliber is only a leader because he is
in the front of the line that is going where everybody is already going. These
men did not cause the change; they were the voice of the change.
Human reason had laid the foundation of liberalism
that not only saw man evolving physically, mentally and socially, but also saw
the scriptures and the concept of God evolving through time. The application of
this false truth is to say that if Christianity is to be relevant today it must
lay down the old ways, the old truths and the old doctrines and change with the
new growth that is being formed as we continue to evolve physically, mentally,
socially, and religiously.
The process had begun. These teachings of the first
generation were going to be engrained into their children as absolutes. The second
generation would not even have the challenge of making a decision. The “sin of
the fathers” was handed to them and they would develop it into a worldview.
Generation Number Two:
“There is a generation that are
pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.” (Pr.30:12 KJ)
Since this generation does not have in their thinking
the truth of a perfect, holy and righteous God to compare themselves to they
“are pure in their own eyes” even though they are utterly sinful. This
generation does not have the true teachings of the Christian doctrines
established from the scriptures to identify sin or be delivered from sin.
This generation will have to form their
own rules. They will have to establish their own values of right and
wrong since they have none being handed down to them. The source of their
values will be the human mind. So their standards will be the standards of a
fallen man. Whatever they developo will be as distant
from God’s ways as the heavens are above the earth.[13]
They will face problems in the world and problems
within themselves. These are the same problems that every generation faces. The
problems do not change from generation to generation, but what does change is
the source that a generation resorts to in search of answers. This generation
will develop theories and potential answers that are logical to their human
minds but they will not have theoption of the divine
viewpoint. This generation will be ready to accept and put into practice
anything that makes sense after it has been evaluated by the judgment system
that is based on human reasoning.
1920-1960: The Generation That Was
Pure in Their Own Eyes
During this time span a generation began to fill the
void left to them by the first generation. They began to redefine sin and to
drift further away from the means of temporal and eternal salvation. This was
keenly observed and pinpointed by a great man of God to this generation on
November 3, 1921. J. Gresham Machen, a New Testament
professor at Westminster Theological Seminary in
“Modern liberalism has lost
all sense of the gulf that separates the creature from the Creator.
. .According to the Bible, man is a sinner under the just condemnation of God;
according to modern liberalism, there is really no such thing as sin. At the
very root of the modern liberal movement is the loss of the consciousness of
sin.”[14]
Of course, a generation that had been raised to
question, doubt and consider traditional Christianity’s doctrines as ancient
myths and pre-scientific thinking would have no trouble rejecting the
sinfulness of man, the most sacred and basic truths of the scriptures. In their
darkness the concept of a God that would judge the world could only have been
an ancient human ploy used to intimidate others into acceptable social
behavior. They assumed that the outdated teaching of the sinfulness of man
would only prove to be a damnable stumbling block to their human potential. The
cross of Jesus was explained as a barbaric form of escapism from the reality
that modern man was ready to face and conquer through knowledge and human
cooperation. By the 1920’s the Federal Council of Churches had adopted “The
Social Creed of the Churches” to promote this liberal social gospel to the
second generation.
The 1920’s began with an American culture in turmoil
as it tried to implement the new “user friendly faith.”
= The divorce rate in the
= Authors attacked religion and mocked the revivals in
books like Sinclair Lewis’s Elemer Gantry in 1927.
= The false hope that had disillusioned this generation
was expressed in books like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and
Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.
= 250 people died in
= Modern woman known as “flappers” smoked, danced, wore
short skirts, drank, and bobbed their hair.
=
= 40,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan marched down
The flash point came in 1925 in
This second generatioin was
the first to listen to a trial on radio. The results were a classic example of
winning the battle but losing the war. As
Scopes was slapped with a $100 fine but with it the
open minds of the public were purchased. The public mentally accepted the
concept of teaching evolution. This set the stage for an immediate reversal of
the law in the third generation.
While the church was succumbing to modern liberalism
and the public was embrac ing
freedom from their responsibility to a God formerly known as their creator, a
religion entirely knew to
“The time has come for widespread recognition of the
radical changes in religious beliefs throughout the modern world. The time is
past for mere revision of traditional attitudes. Science and economic change
have disrupted the old beliefs. . .In every field of
human activity, the vital movement is now in the direction of a candid and
explicit humanism. In order that religious humanism may be better understood
we, the undersigned, desire to make certain
affirmations which we believe the facts of our contemporary life demonstrate.
“There is great danger of a
final, and we believe fatal, identification of the word religion with doctrines and methods which have lost their
significance and which are powerless to solve the problem of human living in
the Twentieth Century. . .Today man’s larger understanding of the universe, his
scientific achievements, and his deeper appreciation of brotherhood, have
created a situation which requires a new statement of the means and purposes of
religion. . .To establish such a religion is a major necessity of the
present. It is a responsibility which rests upon this generation. (bold and underline mine).”[16]
The Humanist Manifesto then lists fifteen
affirmations. Here are just a few of the affirmations:
1) “Religios humanists regard
the universe as self-existing and not created.”
3) “Holding an organic view of life, humanist find that
the traditional dualism of mind and
body must be rejected.”
8) “Religious humanism considers the complete
realization of human personality to be the end
of man’s life and seeks its development and fulfillment
in the here and how. This is the explanation of the humanist’s social passion.”
9) “In place of the old
attitudes involved in worship and prayer the humanist finds his
religious emotions expressed in a heightened
sense of personal life and in a cooperative effort to
promote social well-being.”[17]
Number eleven is the clear introduction that man’s
problem is not the sin nature but the lack of knowledge.
11) Man will learn to face the crises of life in terms of his knowledge of
their naturalness and probability.. .We assume that humanism will take the path of social and mental
hygiene and discourage sentimental and unreal hopes and wishful thinking.”[18]
The application of affirmation number eleven is going
to result in an emphasis on the attainment of knowledge. The humanist believes
that their salvation rests in the area of education and the attainment of
knowledge to solve and control life’s problems. The humanist reference to
“social and mental hygiene” is obtained by discouraging “sentimental and unreal
hopes and wishful thinking.” What are these “unreal hopes and wishful thinking”
that need to be discouraged so modern man can “face the crises of life?” The humanist are referring to traditional Christianity as
“unreal hopes and wishful thinking.”
Obviously knowledge is considered a very good and
necessary thing in the scriptures. The lack of it is presented as a sure path
to destruction. The contrast between humanist knowledge and Christian knowledge
is more clearly seen when we identify the difference between knowledge and
information. Can you see the difference when we put the word knowledge into a
group of words? The Bible lists knowledge with wisdom and understanding. The
humanist lists knowledge with experience, expermentation
and probability. Would you rather have insight or information? Would you rather
have truth or an experience? Would you rather have wisdom or probability?
Beware of knowledge that men call good.
The humanist believe man is
pure and good within himself. They are not talking about controlling or
changing his sin nature. They do not believe the sin nature
exist. This is prophesied in Proverbs 30:12 as “pure in their own eyes”
and stated in their affirmation number three as “traditional dualism of mind
and body must be rejected.” Their answer is more knowledge or education. More
information and more experience.
The third and fourth generations will prove that the
second generation’s theory had no power to overcome the sin nature. The
Christian Liberalism and Humanism of the second generation was a philosophical
abomination. The third and fourth generations are going to live such lives of
abomination and sin that the Christian Liberals and Secular Humanist should
easily have recognized their theology and affirmations are a powerless disaster
in the face of a sin nature they desperately denied.
The Humanist Manifesto I ends
like this:
“So stand the theses of religious humanism. Though we consider the religious
forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate, (bold and underline mine) the
quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is at last
becoming aware that he alone is
responsible for the realization of the world of
his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its
achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task.”[19]
Thirty-four people signed the Humanist Manifesto I
after these closing comments were written. Most of the names are unfamiliar to
the average person, but one name stands out as familiar, even famous. Listed
ninth on the list of signers of this Humanist Manifesto I from 1933 is
John Dewey.
John Dewey is described “by biographers and
commentators as ‘
“refashioned the educational system I America, moving
it from the so-called static concepts of the past into
a wholly new era in education. In the
process, he redefined almost everything
from the nature of truth to the responsibilities of the teacher and the capacity of the human personality.
. .That the ‘new thinking’ at the turn of the twentieth century became ‘the way
the world thinks’ can be
laid at the feet of this man who more than all others made education in
America what it is today.”[21]
John Dewey said:
The educational system must
move one way or another, either backward to the intellectual and moral
standards of a pre-scientific age or forward to ever greater utilization of
scientific method in the development of the possibilities of growing, expanding
experience.”[22]
Dewey speaks as if threatening society with a return
to a hopeless and barbaric past if they do not embrace the modern wave of the
second generation. The past included the recognition of a creator, or his
revealed Word and his Son, our savior, Jesus Christ. According to Dewey, these
things must be abandoned to enter through Dewey’s door into a society with ever
increasing use of scientific thinking.
Why can’t scientific thinking co-exist with the
creator? Dewey is convincing a generation that they will never be able to enjoy
the advances of modern man while crippled by the bondage of Christianity.
Dewey reveals how he used the public school system to
promote his self-proclaimed humanistic religion when he said:
“Schools do have a role – and an important one – in production of social
change.”
The second generation developed the philosophy and
the thinking that the third generation is going to commit to live by and put
into action.
Generation Number Three:
“There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes!
And their eyelids are lifted up.”
(Pr.30:13 KJ)
The NIV says “There are. .
.those whose eyes are ever so haughty, whose glances are so disdainful.” (Pr.
30:13 NIV). This is the title of the third generation that follows the first
and second generation, that has rejected the God of
creation and pursued idols.
The reference to “eyes are so haughty”
speaks of a people who are filled with pride and arrogance. This is a symbolic
gesture describing the attitude of the heart. This generation has been raised
by parents who failed to acknowledge the sin nature in them selves or in their
children. This generation has an over-rated evaluation of themselves
and believes they should get what they want. They are self-absorbed. Their
thoughts are always about themselves and about fulfilling their desires. They
control whatever they can for their own advantage.
The description “glances are disdainful”
refers to their outward view of the world and of others. They rationalize,
“Nothing and no one on the outside can be as important as ‘me.’ ” They could be
called the “Me Generation.”
The third generation has been influenced by the
second generation who believed man had the answers. They have developed an over
inflated view of man kind and of themselves, but have failed to acknowledge
man’s sinful state. They have a concept of self-perfection and are in pursuit
of an utopia. Since neither of these concepts are a reality this third generation is destined to live in
disappointment and in the end fail to understand why it didn’t work out.
1960-2000: The Haughty and
Disdainful: The ‘Me’ Generation
The third generation came into influence in the
1960’s. They made decisions and demonstrated behaviors that our culture had
never seen before. In fact, it was not even anticipated. According to John
Dewey and the Humanist this generation should have been within reaching
distance of a utopia. The last forty years has been far from utopia. We have
continued to make scientific advances and introduced unimagined technology and
medicine. What has failed to be productive in the third generation has been the
wholesale trade of morals and Christian truth made by the second generation for
self expression and information.
This third generation has pursued every dream and
desire they can imagine and they did it often at the cost of other people.
Those that appear to have suffered the most were the children or the spouses.
In a “good” home the children became instruments to bring credibility and
recognition to the parents by being loaded down with non-stop performance based
activities like music, sports, education. In “good” homes the parents stole the
childhood from the child. In “bad” homes children and spouses were ignored and
left to themselves. Their value being lost due to the
inability of a “haughty and disdainful” parent or spouse to evaluate the value
of another person. The landscape of our society would seem to be a
landfill of broken marriages and broken homes. We do not yet know or understand
the affect this is going to have on the coming fourth generation that grew up
rummaging through this social landfill for truth and guidance. It will horrify
us when we understand the results it will produce in the next generation.
Generation Number Four:
“There is a generation whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives,
to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy
from among men.” (Proverbs 30:14 KJ)
In the sequence of four generations the fourth is the
most self willed and violent. They become oppressive and abusive to anyone they
can get the advantage on. Their insatiable desire makes them as cruel and
remorseless in destroying, as is the cold steel with which they work.
This generation’s attitude and behavior is the fruit
of the sin of the fathers that God has been watching into the fourth
generation. This fourth generation must turn back from the sin of their fathers
and of the corrupt fruit it has produced in their own character.
Teeth are instruments of eating. Eating is symbolic
of meeting the needs of the individual doing the eating. To have teeth that are
swords is to say these people use weapons to meet their basic needs. People in
a normal society would use trade, commerce, labor, industry, etc to meet their
basic needs. This is a generation that “devour my
people as men eat bread.”[23] It will be a
time of escalating violence and oppression. It will manifest in a variety of
ways. It will be seen in the streets, in the schools, in the corporate office,
in government, in legislation, and on and on where ever the people of this
fourth generation decide to engage themselves, their time and their effort.
2000-2040: The Last Generation?
In the late 1800’s our culture replaced God with some
new ideas, and in the early 1900’s we developed those ideas into a philosophy
to live by. During the second half of the 1900’s we have applied this new
philosophy to life in our homes, schools, churches, governments, businesses,
etc. We are now able to test the results of the past 120 years of development.
Are they good or bad? Are they productive or destructive on society? It is now
time for our culture to quickly evaluate ourselves and the society we have
created. Do we see benefits of evolution, or even the reality of evolution, in
all the areas of life it has been given responsibility for? Are we getting
better? Has the humanist advice to abandoned the
morals of traditional Christianity made our children better? Has John Dewey’s
“knowledge” solved your problems that he said could not be solved with the
outdated “knowledge” of scripture?
You yourself have lived through at least part of the
third generation and have moved into the fourth generation. Are you satisfied
with your life? Has this culture’s philosophy met all the expectations you have
for yourself? For others? For your
nation? Can someone show me now why we needed to abandon traditional
Christianity??? Can some one explain to me in what way is our nation better now
as a result of having shaken off the shackles of a Creator and of a Savior???
Let me know when you are ready and I’ll listen, but before you speak, you may
want to know what is in store for us in the next forty years if you still think
we are on the right path.
The fourth generation is coming out
of their high school years and have began to take positions in our adult
society. They will remove the needy people from the earth. Life and death are
not a factor in their thinking. They were raised by parents who, over a period
of forty years, had themselves been taught by schools and bombarded by media
that there is no creator, sin nature, judgment day, or after life. The fourth
generation, the children of the third generation, do not even wonder about God.
The concept of God and the traditional Christian values are no where in their
humanly developed conscious.
Yet, they are faced with a world that does have a
Creator and is deeply interwoven with spiritual realities. This generation is
left to face a real world, that includes a real Creator, that
they cannot even begin to understand. In other words, they do not have true
answers for the real problems. They can only implement inadequate responses to
situations in a world they even realize can not be explained by Darwin and
Dewey. The Truth has been lost and the “knowledge” isn’t working.
What will be the basis of their problem solving
methods? The answer is in the description: “to devour the poor from the earth
and the needy from among mankind.” When faced with a problem kill it, remove
it, or destroy it. They cannot cope with realities such as life, people, circumstances. It makes complete sense to them that since
there is no God then they have to take matters into our own hands. The Humanist
Manifesto I says, “Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is
responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within
himself the power for its achievement.”[24]
In the next few years anyone and anything that is not
productive will be removed. Abortion is just the beginning. Euthanasia has not
even become a reality. Assisted suicide will become assisted death, not
suicide. There will be nothing voluntary about it. It will become mandatory. It
will not stop there. At this time in our history the fourth generation holds no
political offices. This will change in the next ten, fifteen, and twenty years.
What is prevented today because it is illegal will be done in the fourth
generation when the laws are changed. We live in a democracy where the voice of
the people governs the land. How will the land be governed when that voice is
the voice of a fourth generation saying, “devour the poor from the earth and
the needy from among mankind?”
There are several parallels of this in the scriptures
to re-enforce and clarify this information. This is available in other notes,
tapes and booklets. At this time we must concern ourselves with what can we do?
The time will come in the fourth generation that the Humanist Manifesto’s
advice will be followed:
“Certainly religious
institutions, their ritualistic forms, ecclesiastical methods, and communal
activities must be reconstituted as rapidly as experience allows, in order to
function effectively in the modern world. . .Though we
consider the religious forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate, the
quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind.”[25]
The window of opportunity to reach this fourth
generation with the truth of the Word of God is gradually closing and will
eventually be slammed shut. The logic of the fourth generation will not allow
what they consider to be divisive and unproductive views and information to be
presented. They are in “quest for the good life” and it will be their responsibility
to stop any interference. The presentation of God and his Word will be a form
of interference. We must move while there is time. We must go while the fields
are “ripe for the harvest.”[26] (Jesus said
this to his disciples while they ministered to a culture that was leaving the
third and beginning the fourth generation. In 30 AD Jesus spoke of the end of
that fourth generation on the way to the cross.[27] In forty
years, 70 AD, his words where fulfilled when
Jonah went to a nation and its capital city that was
only forty days away from the end of the fourth generation.[28] His message
was simple but the response was great. In fact, an entire civilization was
saved. God did not send Jonah and his message alone. God had prepared the
people’s hearts in a variety of ways. The people of that fourth generation in Ninevah were ready to hear, repent and change their ways.
God moved in a mighty way.
Our lesson is not how bad the people of Ninevah were. Nor is our lesson about the big, bad
Humanist. Our lesson is about Jonah; it is about you and me. Our lesson is
about what Jesus told his disciples when they returned from saying nothing and
doing nothing in the city of
“I sent you to reap what you
have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the
benefits of their labor.”[29]
The disciples had gone to a city, ignored the people,
and bought themselves some food. Then they went back to Jesus having ignored
the purpose of the mission for going into the city. They bought food to meet
their basic needs and were ignorant of why they were even there in the first
place. Are we ignorant of the reason we are here in this generation? Have we
become so influenced by our culture that we can not even offer a helpful word
of instruction or a word of hope? Are we like the disciples, just here to get
our bread and assume the “Samaritans” or the “Humanist” or the people of Ninevah are worthless and beyond hope? When the disciples
wanted to offer Jesus some of their bread from the city he said:
“My food is to do the will of
him who sent me and to finish his work. . . I tell you, open your eyes and look
at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.”[30]
The people of Sychar did
hear the message and did respond. But, they did not hear it from the disciples
of Jesus. They heard it from one of their own woman who had met Jesus herself.
Do you know what her message was? Do you know how ready the people between the
third and fourth generation were to listen and respond? This is what she said
that brought the whole city running to meet Jesus:
“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.
Could this be the Christ?”[31]
Pretty simple. It was
simple like Jonah’s message.
We are living at a time when God is not going to
reveal something to us so we can go “watch Ninevah
burn.” That is what Jonah wanted to do and was rebuked by God for not
understanding the purpose of his mission. [32] This
information is not for believers to pronounce judgment on our nation, but
instead, to do something for our nation. The scriptures reveal where we are at
in time as a nation. The purpose for knowing is so that we will be able to
appropriately respond to the people from the third generation and in the fourth
generation. Jonah’s response was perfect and a whole nation turned around. The
woman from Sychar had a very appropriate response. If
we do not try the window will be closed. We will not have another opportunity
like we have today. You have with in you the appropriate response to the people
of this generation. That is why you are here. That is why you are reading this
book.
[1] Smith, Jerome H., The New Treasury of Scripture
Knowledge, Thomas Nelson Publisher, Nashville, TN, 1992, p. 106.
[2] Hebrews 12:16-17
[3] Obadiah 1-21; Jeremiah 49:4-22.
[4] Van Gemeren, Willem A.,
Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, p. Zondervan
Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1997, vol. 1, p. 755-764,
[5] Proverbs 1:8; 6:20; 15:20; 20:20
[6] Strong, James, The New Strong’s Expanded Dictionary
of Bible Words, Nelson Publishers, 2000, p. 413.
[7] Joshua 14:7
[8] Strong, The New Strong’s Expanded
Dictionary, p. 750.
[9] Smith, The New Treasury of
Scripture Knowledge, p. 106.
[10] Ingersoll, Robert G., The Absurdity of Religion, vol. 11, The Annals of
[11] Ibid., p. 270.
[12] Breese, David, Seven Men Who Rule
the World from the Grave, Moody Press, Chicago, 1990, p. 63-64.
[13] Isaiah 55:9
[14] Machen, J. Gresham,
Christianity and Liberalism, Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company,
[15] Christian History, Issue 55, p. 10-18, “The Monkey
Trial”
[16] Humanist Manifesto I from The
Hew Humanist, May/June 1933, Vol. VI, No. 3
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Breese, David, p. 155.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ibid. p. 162.
[23] Psalm 14:4
[24] Humanist Manifesto I from The
New Humanist, May/June 1933, Vol. VI, No. 3
[25] Ibid.
[26] John 4:35
[27] Luke 23:28-31
[28] Jonah 3:4
[29] John 4:38
[30] John 4:34,35
[31] John 4:29
[32] Jonah 3:10-4:11