Perverse generation = simple fools

Paul admonishes in Romans 6:16: [16] Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

Jordan explains, “Notice the terminology there. That word servant means a slave. A slave is someone who gives himself up to the will of another. When you see that word servant in your Bible, it’s the term slavery. They’ve become the servant, but notice to whom. ‘His servants ye are.’ Who is the 'whom' and the 'his'?

“If you yield yourself to sin, who is the author of sin? Satan. You’re not just going after some activity. Yielding yourself to sin is really yielding yourself to a person. When you participate and yield ‘your members as instruments of unrighteousness,’ you’re really giving place in your life for Satan to run your life because you’re yielding yourself to the author of sin.

“That’s why we’re to 'be angry and sin not.' We’re not to allow Satan to have that kind of access, power in our life. We’re not to be in that servile condition where we’ve given ourselves over to the will of another.

“Ephesians 4:19 says they’re ‘past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.’

“You’re literally surrendering yourself to slavery. Paul’s talking about, 'Don’t become a slave to Satan’s power by becoming tolerant of sin; becoming passive, becoming accepting.'

*****

“Proverbs 8:13 says, [13] The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.

“By the way, the Book of Proverbs is a book of prophecy. It’s not just a book in the prophetic program; it is a book of prophecy; a book that speaks to Israel about some things coming in her future.

“Proverbs 31:1 says, [1] The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him.

If you go back to the very first verse in Proverbs, the first thing you come in contact with is the last days of Israel, what we call the tribulation, the 70^th week of Daniel. It’s in the very first chapter.

“There are three kinds of people in the book who are designed to rebel against the idea of, ‘The fear of the Lord is to hate evil.’ If you want to get the big picture of how Satan gets a place to work in your life or the life of a nation, Proverbs lays it out in these three people: the simple, the scorner and the fool.

“By the way, those three people match Job’s three friends. They match the leaven of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians that Jesus fought against.

“Here’s what Proverbs prophesies for the future of Israel. Proverbs 30 says, [11] There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother.
[12] There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.
[13] There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up.
[14] 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.

“He writes, ‘There is a generation.’ Think about that. He’s not talking about an individual. You hear people talk about the Greatest Generation, the Baby Boomer generation, Generation X, the Millennials. Historians William Strauss and Neil Howe are the people who wrote the books that popularized that terminology.

“I read their book, The Fourth Turning, in the ’90s and thought, ‘Wow, these guys don’t know anything about the Bible but, boy, they’re sure teaching about what the Bible tells is going to happen to the nation.’

“They’re not Believers; they’re just historians, but they knew history and how to interpret it based on what they were seeing, and when you interpret history based upon what’s really there, you wind up interpreting the way the Bible says it’s going to happen because that’s how it’s happened.

“But that idea goes way back; they didn’t invent it, they just, in modern times, discovered it. Isaac Newton discovered the Law of Gravity but he didn’t invent it and he’s not the only person who ever knew about it.

“There’s a generation coming in Israel’s future. Look at who they are that curseth their father and do not bless their mother.

“The father and mother are people God places in life to guide and guard their children and teach them about the evil in the world. They are to teach them the path of righteousness so they can grow up and be normal human beings.

*****

“There’s a standard for normality among human beings and God set the standard. He established four institutions: volition, marriage, family and nationalism (government). They were placed in your life by God.

“This generation is going to curse the very people God put in their life to do them good. ‘There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.’

"They think that what they’re doing is right and all the strictures that mom and dad gave them from the past are to be done away with.

"They’ll look at immorality and say it’s okay; it’s the right way to go. ‘There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up.’

“They say, ‘Why, we’re the greatest that ever lived!’ ‘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.’

“They’re hateful, stubborn, self-willed, totally deceived, self-promoting, narcissistic, brain-washed, they’re always right.

“You say, ‘Well, where did they come from?! How did Israel get that way?!’ By the way, that’s the crowd that’s going to welcome the Antichrist. How do you get a nation that had the truth of God to embrace the Antichrist? The antithesis of everything God’s Word says? You create this generation.

“When Jesus said, ‘This generation shall not pass until all be fulfilled,’ He’s talking about this generation. That wicked, perverse generation that nailed Him to the Cross who will be that ‘perverse generation’ that accepts the Antichrist.

“That generation got that way by these three people. First, they start out with the simple. How did the devil get room to work in Israel’s life, where he took them from being God’s nation with God’s truth to the place where they are that generation that accepts the Antichrist? He convinced them not to be prudent but simple.

“Proverbs 7:7 says, [7] And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding.

“The simple are people who don’t have any understanding. They never investigate anything, they believe anything that comes along, they’re careless, ignorant, they have no understanding. Now you notice he talks about them being youths?”

(to be continued tomorrow)