Of this
verse, Bible scholar C.R. Stam once wrote, “While there are some in our day who
are very proud of their ancestry, and have coats of arms displayed in their
homes, the average Christian probably has never had his family tree traced back
very far.
"But in Paul’s day genealogies were very important, even among believers. One’s family relationships meant a great deal. If you were a second cousin to Christ or even a third cousin to Peter you ‘had it made.’ You might be crude, or stupid, or even wicked, but all this was overlooked: you were closely related to Christ Himself or to the Apostle Peter and all were ready to give you audience.”
*****
Regarding the
current national debate over the very definition of marriage and parents,
Jordan reminded:
“The problem is
the role of fathers has just been totally decimated, and the war on fatherhood
has been waged with such devastating force that, I tell you, our culture has
sentenced the next three to four generations to a disastrous tragedy upon
tragedy. The Bible talks about the sins of the fathers being visited on the
third and fourth generations. When you raise a wicked generation of fathers, it
takes 3-4 generations to root out the evil that’s produced in a culture, and
you’re going to have generation upon generation of tragedy.”
Jewish historian Josephus observes, “Now it was Nimrod who excited them to
such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of
Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to
ascribe it to God, as if it was through His means they were happy, but to
believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He
also gradually changed the government into tyranny seeing no other way of
turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence
on his power…”
*****
“You know the
nature of adolescents—‘If mom and dad do it this way, I’m going to do it that
way,’ so they produce this tremendous cultural revolution,” explains Jordan. “And
though the children have grown up, they still have the taste of children
because the whole of society has been changed and picked up like a rising tide
from its moorings and set adrift.”
Isaiah 3 documents
a time in Israel’s history when the Jews were in a similar kind of situation we
are today, culturally, and there’s a strong statement by Isaiah about what
happens to a people in that situation:
[1] For,
behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from
Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of
water,
[2] The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,
[3] The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counseller, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.
[4] And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
[5] And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.
[2] The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,
[3] The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counseller, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.
[4] And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
[5] And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.
*****
Jordan explains, "God is directly intervening in the life of this nation to
bring about disaster that they had contracted to receive if they rebelled
against--morally and spiritually--His (Mosaic) covenant. So He’s sending
it to them.
“Notice what he says.
The first thing they lose is prosperity. They’re going to lose the store that
they have--the bread, the water, the basic elements of life. They’re going to
lose their economic prosperity. They’re going to begin to be in want.
“God is going to take the blessing away from
them and their enemies are going to surround them and take them captive and
they’re going to go up into that 5th course of captivity in
Leviticus 6 and they’re going to be taken away.
“Famine is going
to come on them. Economic disaster is going to befall them. They’re going to
lose their leaders. The mighty men, the leaders of the nation. They’re going to
look around and there aren’t going to be any statesmen to lead them in the
political and economic realm and in their institutions. They’re going to be
adrift.
“Their military is
going to be decimated. Disarmament is going to be the idea of the day. The
judges are going to be so corrupt that they’re going to corrupt the law to the
point that when you need them you’re not going to be able to depend on the
legal system of the day.
*****
“The prophet and
the preachers are going to be prophesying lies. Jeremiah said the ‘people
prophesy lies and the people love it so.’
“You see, the
basic institutions of their society are just going to be decimated. ‘The
prudent and the ancient.’ Prudence is the ability to make good decisions and
their government is going to be in a situation where there aren’t going to be
men and women in government who have the capacity to make good judgments and
decisions about things.
“The ‘captain of
fifty’ is going to go right down through the structure. It’s not just going to
be the people at the top; it’s going to be the people that come down through
the structure of government in society. The honorable men.
“They go out in
their culture and they look for somebody that they can trust. Somebody in
government, somebody in leadership; somebody in public position in the church
and in education and in the government that they can say, ‘There’s somebody who
can tell me the truth. There’s somebody who’s decent and honorable that I can
trust what they say.’ Those people are going to be gone!
“The counselor.
That’s somebody who gives you good advice. You’re not going to get good advice.
Not just bad decisions but there’s nobody there to tell you what you ought to
do! That’s not going to be found anywhere in their institutions and government
society anymore!
*****
“ ‘A cunning
artificer.’ That’s the artist. And the oracle. The real true artist, whether
it’s with painting or music or words, the real true artists are going to be
gone! And all that’s going to be left is the filth. When I read down through
that I think, ‘You read that and you say Wow, somebody’s been reading the
Chicago Tribune, the Sun-Times and the US News and World Report! Somebody’s
been listening to NBC, CBS, CNN, ABC!’
“But this is Isaiah,
750 years before Christ. It really sounds similar! ‘And I will give children to
be their princes and babies shall rule over them.’ That’s what Robert Bork
called those ‘wave of savages who must be civilized’ by their parents and by
their schools and churches.
“What’s happening
are the people who have been charged with civilizing the children and the
babies, and bringing them in and teaching them the traditions of the culture
they’re in so they would know how to live, and teaching them in their history
of who they were as a nation and what God’s purpose for them was, in Israel’s
case.
“Those people have
lost their moorings and there’s no one there to do that. And the impact of that
absence is when, every year, this new generation of kids that come on the scene,
there’s no one there to give it to them! So they’re set adrift and they’re left
to their own devises.
"The adults have lost the strength of character, the will,
the backbone. There’s no one there to tell the child, ‘NO! You can’t do that!
NO, this is wrong!’ There’s no one left to give them the directions and teach
them what’s right and wrong.”
(new article tomorrow)
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