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The generation that lived through the Great Depression and fought in World War II was also deeply affected by the Pentecostal revivals that swept through the United States from the 1920’s. It was this generation, whom I will call the first generation, which sent its young men to defeat Nazi Germany and the Imperial Empire of Japan. A mighty move of the Holy Spirit was active when some 12 million American soldiers returned from the war and millions of them came to Christ through the Billy Graham crusades, the tent revivals of Oral Roberts and A.A. Allen, the healing meetings of Kathryn Kuhlman, the conventions by Demos Shakarian’s Full Gospel Businessmen International Fellowship, thousands of Baptist and Pentecostal evangelists, and on the college campuses by Youth For Christ and Bill Bright’s Campus Crusades. THE BABY BOOMERSWhen the American soldiers returned from war, millions of them married, some of them had to postpone being married. Something unusual takes place after a major war; more babies are born than normal. If we look through history it is a phenomenon that has been repeated for thousands of years and it is an act of God, when He replaces soldiers and civilians who have died in war. Thus the children born after 1945 and up to 1960 became known as the “baby boomers.”
The baby boomers were the second generation and led a completely different life than their parents. The economy was in high gear after the war and millions of couples purchased homes in the sprawling suburbs that sprouted up all over the United States. The first generation could afford to purchase automobiles, and in the early 1950’s, television became a staple in every home in America. As the second generation became teenagers, Hollywood and the music industry took advantage of the fact that they had money to spend. Drive-in movie theaters became popular and rock-n-roll swept the nation. This second generation was raised on television and became bored with church; the result was a rash of teenage pregnancies, increased use of alcohol and nicotine, and the beginning of the drug epidemic. Then came the Vietnam War (1962-1975) which affected 2.7 million men and their families when they came home traumatized from the horrors of war, drug addicts and strung out on sexual perversions since the government entertained them during the breaks in fighting at the whorehouses of Vietnam, Japan, Hong Kong and Thailand. Nearly 10% of the baby boomers spent at least a year in the meat grinder war in Vietnam. More than 50,000 were killed and the suicide rate among the survivors from the war was higher than those who had been killed on the battlefield. In the late 1950’s the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) introduced LSD to young people around the United States. LSD was the drug of choice when the hippie movement began in the late 1960’s. It seemed like most of the young people were going to be destroyed, but God intervened with a mighty awakening that became known as the Jesus Movement. Hundreds of thousands of hippies were saved, baptized in water and filled with the Holy Spirit. Los Angeles was the point of origin and Chuck Smith was the pastor who had the vision and wisdom to reach out to these young Christians. The Calvary Chapel denomination came out of this great move of God. As the Jesus movement crested, another Holy Spirit movement started which became known as the Charismatic Movement. One of the principle persons in this move of God was an Episcopal priest named Dennis Bennett. He announced in 1960 that he had been baptized in the Holy Spirit and consequently was asked to resign from the 2,500 member church in Van Nuys, California that he pastored. After exposure from television and newspapers, he relocated to Seattle, where he became the pastor for yet another Episcopal church. Harold Bredesen was an American Lutheran priest. He was baptized in the Holy Spirit in 1946, and when the Charismatic movement took off in the 1970s’, he became one of its leaders and introduced Pat Robertson and Pat Boone to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Charismatic movement had become infiltrated by the Roman Catholic Church in the 1980’s. A number of television evangelists took advantage of the charismatic movement and started to fleece the flock. The television evangelists during this golden age were Pat Robertson, Paul & Jan Crouch, Jim & Tammy Bakker, Robert Tilton, Kenneth Copeland, W.V. Grant, Larry Lea, Jimmy Swaggart and many others. Americans were turned off from Christianity because of these evangelists and turned their attention to New Age gurus. Paul Crouch was disgraced as a homosexual and paid out millions to silence his sex partner, Jim Bakker committed adultery with Jessica Hahn; he had also homosexual encounters and was sent to prison for financial wrong doings. W.V. Grant was sent to prison because of financial mishandling and the rest were disgraced because of sexual immorality and financial misconduct. The Charismatic movement was over by the end of the 1980’s. Despite the abuse of trust and power by the prominent televangelists, millions of baby boomers from the second generation were saved and joined churches across America and kept the faith going. However, the third generation of children did not fare well. During my years as a pastor, I worked with the second generation and sadly many of them started out strong when they embraced the Gospel and witnessed to people around them with enthusiasm. Only a few had lasting power and one of the saddest cases was that of a man named Stuart who came to be set free from horrible demonic oppression. THE GRAVEDIGGERSJesus spelled it out clearly that the Devil hates the church of Jesus Christ and will do anything to destroy it. Revelation 12:7-17 The Devil has been spewing out his filth like a flood for centuries and the destruction of seminaries had its beginning in Germany during the 18th century, when ungodly men began to teach in the theological faculties at German universities. Men like Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Schleiermacher attacked the Christian faith and spiritual death had spread to the churches in Germany by the 19th century. American theologians were taken in by this new teaching of higher criticism, and by the end of the 19th century, all American theological faculties at places like Yale, Harvard, Princeton, etc. had become graveyards for future pastors in the mainline denominations of the United States. If you’re not familiar with higher criticism, it is a highly critical view of the Bible that questions the authenticity of Scripture. The Baptist denomination grew rapidly in the 1950s and they were no longer poor storefront churches. The men teaching in the Baptist seminaries received their doctorates in theology from the prestigious universities, and as a result, the higher criticism poison spread into Baptist and evangelical seminaries. Pastors like Rick Warren and Bill Hybels are the by-products of this poison and both men built mega churches during the latter part of the 20th century. Warren and Hybels started training sessions for pastors on the internet and every week hundreds of thousands of pastors are fed by these men who will copy their sermons, the way they dress and their delivery style. SATANIC SEWERAs the Devil spewed his poison into the theological training centers, he also made sure that the people on the outside would be made spiritually filthy. Elvis Presley was followed by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and this in turn led to heavy metal rock like AC/DC, Alice Cooper, Iron Maiden, KISS and Black Sabbath. The lyrics in these songs glorified Satan, invited drugs and sexual perversion and made hell sound like a nice place to live. THE THIRD GENERATIONThe baby boomers had started to marry by the 1970’s and their children are what I call the third generation. Television was now the authority instead of the Bible for the second generation parents. They had been educated not to correct their children by Dr. Benjamin Spock, but rather talk to them according to this “expert” on child rearing, who had come up with a new way of raising children in 1946. The result was a third generation of adults, who were raised without any moral values. There is a new wave of preachers (Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar and many others) to whom the third generation are drawn by the millions. There is no preaching on sin, repentance, salvation, hell and the Lake of Fire; instead, it’s all love and more love and how no one is responsible for anything. The most flagrant changes are the way Christians look at sex before marriage. Today there are couples living together and engaging in premarital sex; there is wide acceptance of social drinking and deep inroads to accepting homosexuality. Pornography is widespread in all denominations among men and women and the hippie generation has brought in the use of drugs for recreational purposes. A number of Christian denominations have voted to allow pastors to practice homosexuality and these same denominations are also performing same sex marriages. The spiritual carnage we see today is the direct result of the seminaries and Bible colleges which have turned out a new generation of pastors who do not believe in the virgin birth of Jesus and use terrible Bible translations which distort the truth and omit verses. They have been taught that Jesus was a child of His day and did not have any knowledge of His previous eternal existence. So when He cast out demons, He was just doing it to go along with the superstition of the people. Demons do not exist to these third generation preachers. The Devil is just an imaginary figure made up to scare people and there is no hell or eternal punishment. Sin is not preached in the pulpits since the preachers’ view on sin do not line up with what the Bible teaches. The result is that the third generation is drifting without a moral and biblical anchor. HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
As long as Joshua lived and ruled over the nation of Israel, the people served the Lord and observed the laws given to Moses. This was the first generation that started to live in the Promised Land. All of them had emerged out of the 40 year punishment in the wilderness; they had seen the miracles of God as He fed them and cared for them. Judges 2:6-7 The second generation children were born in the Promised Land. As they grew up, they were taught and trained by the first generation to serve the Lord and observe His laws. verses 8-9 One thing was lacking for the second generation in that they had not seen the great miracles of God; they had only heard of them and thus their devotion and fear of God was weaker than the first generation. When the second generation began to marry and have children, they did not raise the third generation in the knowledge of the Lord, nor did they teach their children to read and observe what was written in the five books of Moses. Thus, the third generation had very little Bible knowledge and were attracted to the idol worship of the Canaanites. The heathens had another type of worship that involved music accented with drums that appealed to the flesh. With the music came alcohol and naked dancing, climaxing with sexual intercourse. It was more or less a mass orgy where there was no restraint and anything was acceptable. The heathens would take captive men and women from other cities and torture them before they were slaughtered and burned on the altars. Drinking their blood brought another thrill to the worshipers of the demon gods. There was no pornography like it exists in print, video and internet today, but attending a heathen worship was like a live pornographic show in which the participants could watch and participate in heterosexual intercourse as well as homosexual acts. God was repulsed by this behavior; in fact, He was furious and His wrath fell on the disobedient third generation. verses 10-15 SUMMARYThe third generation leading the United States today is a mirror image of the third generation after Joshua and the elders passed away. The Devil does not have new programs; it is just the same old hash repackaged in a different way. There are no modern day altars out in the open where children are sacrificed but the sacrifices still continue in closed rooms of abortion clinics and hospitals. The worship of demon gods is carried out in casinos, bars and night clubs where men and women drink alcohol, take drugs, dance in a sexual manner and then retire someplace to have sexual intercourse. The homosexuals have exclusive bars, night clubs and bathhouses. The music of today has the same demonic rhythm that was played 3,500 years ago. Nothing has really changed except that the dancing takes place in rooms lit by electricity, the sex acts take place in hotel and motel rooms, cars, or in homes where there is running water, heating and air conditioning. Nothing has changed when it comes to fornication and adultery; the destruction of human souls is still the same as it was thousands of years ago. The wrath of God has not changed and His judgment will continue to increase until the sinners come to a place of repentance or death. Who are you worshiping? Are you worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the name of Jesus or are you a demon worshiper dancing, whoring, drinking and using drugs to please your god, the Devil? One day your physical body will die. Where will your soul go? Will your destination be heaven or to hell?
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The
story of the third generation after the death of Joshua goes back some 3,500
years. Their lifestyle was primitive compared to the way people live in the
United States today. Electricity would not be discovered for another 3,200
years. Making glass windows was unknown since half the population lived in
tents, and for the rest that lived in houses, the house usually consisted of
four walls, a roof and a dirt floor. A fire in the middle of the house was where
all cooking was done and this also provided heat in the winter. Personal hygiene
did not exist and taking a bath was a luxury reserved for the rich people. There
were no newspapers or books, flushing toilets or running water. Refrigerators
did not exist and food supplies had to be purchased on a daily basis.
Nevertheless, people living in such a primitive society still had emotions when
it came to sexual activities, drunkenness and the worship of demon gods.
