12.23.2008

The 4th generation

Will you be a part of the next great awakening? This is an important question, and you should give it due diligence. God is always in the process of raising up a people who will glorify His Name amongst the people. Are you one of the many He is raising up? If not, why not? If so, what evidence is there that you are one of them?

Maybe the end will come during this season of immorality, where everyone seems to do what is right in their own eyes. It is very possible that we are living in the last of the last days. At the same time there is evidence that we may be on the brink of the next great awakening, and with the nature of communication via internet, mp3s, video broadcasting and so on this great awakening may be much further reaching than any of the past. Wesley had to ride over 200,000 miles on horseback to preach the gospel to New England. Today he could preach to them all in one place, at one time. Communication technology amplifies everything, the good and the bad. Here is what I find interesting, at the time of the 1st great awakening there were a lot of big churches with big congregations that found it fashionable to be Church goers. People mentally ascended to the great doctrines of truth, but there was no reality. Along come the Wesley brothers, Jonathan Edwards, Whitefield, Brainerd, and many more... and God shook the church so much with them that they were in many cased kicked out, ridiculed, and scorned. At the same time, many long time church goers came to faith, and many lost were reached. Over time the next generation became used to religious life and embraced it, but saw it as the norm and failed to promote it, or teach the great cost which it came at. Soon the third generation forsook it all together, or only maintaining a form of Godliness which was void of its power. The key then became to get people into church by whatever means possible. What then happened? The Civil war with its tawdry crimes and filthy perversions of the Gospel by both the north and south was the result of the lack of spiritual fortitude from the 3rd generation after the great awakening. But what came next? After the Civil war there was a renewed interest in Christ, and a fresh moving of God amongst the 4th generation. Almost like clockwork the second generation of the second awakening became complacent, and then the third generation produced the Roar twenties which near their completion may have been the most morally decadent time this country has known. The swinging generation was in full swing. Then of course came catastrophe, the great depression, but in the midst of the great depression and world wars arose a generation that would be the men of World War II. These men brought America back to the place she should be. There was a renewal across the land that produced great men and women and a renewed interest in Christ and what His desires were. Of course this was followed by the Boomers who were complacent, and they eventually produced the sexual revolution of the late 60s and early 70s which eventually produce the 3rd generation of the Roaring 90s thru the turn of the century. Gen X would be the third generation and we can see today the results. At the same time, if history continues to repeat that would mean a new generation is rising up, and that we are on the brink of something, something big.
Now it is important to note, this post is not about bashing generations older than mine. There have always been strong men and women of the 2nd and 3rd generations that provide the direction to awakenings. Moreover many in the 2nd and 3rd generations are awakened by and with the next generation. It is a total cop out for people of my generation or any generation to blame the previous generation for their failures. I am simply saying that it appears we are in a cycle of history, and if we are, we may be at a very promising time.

Just as a side note, you can see this 3 generation cycle all the way back in exodus, and playing itself out throughout both ancient and modern history.

No comments: