Crossroads with Jeff Myers is the radio program with words of encouragement through the truth and teaching of God's Word. This full-length message by Jeff Myers will challenge your life and will minister to your heart in your daily walk with the Lord. Your support of Crossroads allows us to reach out to people literally all over the world. And now, let's get right to this message by our speaker, Jeff Myers. Three specific terms, the terms time, history, and generation. Time is linear. That's why they call the present a gift, because it is the present. You cannot get the past back. It is absolutely impossible. What took place last Friday, as far as time is concerned, you cannot get it back. Once you've experienced time, it is over. You cannot get it back. However, history is much different. History is cyclical. In fact, humanity has this awful problem of continually repeating the mistakes of the past. As many people have said, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it themselves. It's also been said this, that the one thing that men do not learn from history is to learn from it. So time is linear, but history is cyclical. Now one word we're going to specifically look at, particularly when we get to the biblical text, is the word generation. When we hear the term generation, most of us think of a chronos, or a time span from this year up until this year. It's a specific amount of quantifiable time. Actually, the Bible and Jesus himself used the word for generation in two different modes. The word for generation in the Greek, genea or genea, however you decide to pronounce it, means either chronological time period or it means a way of thinking. Let me demonstrate how Jesus did this. In Matthew chapter 24, he's on the Mount of Olives. He's giving that famous second coming sermon, that text that is so repeated then and also over in Luke chapter 21. And when he's on the Mount of Olives, he's telling the disciples about these horrible events that will take place in the quote-unquote end of days. And he says, when you see these things happen, it is the last generation. I.E., when you see these events take place, you can start your watch. Time is running out. A little bit earlier in Matthew chapter 12. There was a large group gathered, most likely several hundred, if not several thousand people, and they kept pressing for Jesus. They said, give us a sign, give us a sign of who you are. And it was in that passage that Jesus shared with them. There's only one sign I'm going to give you. As Jonah was in the belly of the well three days and three nights, I will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. And he said this, he said, an adulterous generation, which you are, seeks after a sign. What's interesting about that is this, there were senior citizens there, most likely because the quote-unquote upper crust of the Pharisees and Sadducees were who was preceding. Most likely we had children, teenagers, young adults, and every quote demographic in between. So when Jesus made this comment, what he was saying simply was this, that a generation can mean a specific group of people, but it can also mean a way of thinking. And whether you are five or 95 at this gathering, he said, your thinking is improper. Let me share with you how this works in the Old Testament. When you go into the Old Testament, oftentimes it talks about different generations, and one of the problems that some people have with the Bible is that they think that the timelines are off, when actually it's not the timelines that are off, it's our understanding of the word generation in the Bible that is off. Example, when you get over to Kings and Chronicles and all those lists of all those people that you just skip over in your daily Bible reading, what's interesting is it'll say, King number one followed the Lord. King number two followed the Lord. King number three departed from the ways of his father and his grandfather. Now, when you look at those three kingships, you have three chronological generations, but you have two philosophical generations. You had two chronological groups that thought the same, so that can be generation 1, and you have another one that came afterwards. Which leads me to Matthew chapter 1, verse 17. Probably one of the strangest verses in all of the Bible, tucked right in the middle of Jesus' lineage. It says this, so all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations. From David until the carrying away into Babylon are 14 generations. And from the carrying away into Babylon under Christ are 14 generations. Let me just be honest with you. This has been one of those verses throughout all my theological education that I have just looked at and looked at and looked at and said, I don't get it. You know, you go back and you try to do the chronological generational thing, and it all works out the way it's supposed to, but you're thinking, why did God make it a point to say 14 here, 14 here, and 14 here? You know, it's amazing, and I'm convinced of this, that we as humanity are spending a lot of our time, effort, and energy just trying to catch up with God. We're trying to catch up with what God's already showed us in His Word. You know, it's amazing. Today is the sanctity of life day. This is the day that we celebrate that. And what's amazing to me is the pictures that have come back from this joint space adventure with NASA and the European Federation and Italy and Spain, all these people are getting together and they're looking at one of the moons of Saturn. And they're in this great debate, is there life or has there ever been life there, when most of the people looking at the pictures can't even see the life in a woman's womb. It just amazes me how often we go out looking and searching for stuff when it's right in front of our face. Every now and then the scientists and the biologists and all these people get together and they discover something that is a tried and true fact that was actually told to us in the Bible long ago. We just never noticed it. There was a book that came out 1997, actually January of 1997, entitled The Fourth Turning. I'll address this in more detail in just a moment. It was written by two men by the name of Strauss and Howe. They are not Christians. In fact, one of them is a historian and one of them is an economist. That's what they do for a living. And what they discovered was this. that all societies, whether they be free, whether they be communistic, it doesn't matter, all societies move in a cyclical history, in the stages of four generations, which we'll speak about in just a moment. But one of the things that they noticed that was so dramatic was, whether it was the Israelites, whether it was the Egyptians, whether it was the Chinese, whether it was the British, whether it was the Romans, you put anybody's name to it, one of the things that they discerned was this. that in the life of any group of people, the major influence by which that they have in life extends no more than 14 generations. Interesting. I was reading this book as a required reading for a class that I was taking. And when I read across that paragraph, the light bulb came on. And it's like Matthew 1, 17 came to light and I said, Aha! God's been trying to tell us this for a long time. And we just haven't clued in. I want to show you how this actually works in Jesus' lineage. How when it says from Abraham to David were 14, and from David to the carrying away were 14, from the carrying away to Christ were 14 generations. And Genesis 12 is the point at which Abraham was called out. Now the thing that's interesting is this. When you speak of a society or a group of people, there's an initiary point and there is a finalizing point. For example, the Roman Empire, we technically say started in 67 BC, but there were Romans a long time before then. The United States of America, we claim, began in 1776, but we were here two centuries before then. But there was an initial event that ignited us as a group of people, i.e., Americans. Hebrews chapter 12, God calls Abraham out. And when he calls him out, he tells him, Abraham, you're going to be a distinct person with a distinct future and a distinct lineage. There's something that you're going to do that makes you different than everybody else. You're going to circumcise yourself and all the men in your lineage. That is what made the Israelites at that time different than everybody else. It was a distinction about who they were. Well, from Abraham unto David, 14 generations, ways of thinking, you can do all the chronology if you want to in the Old Testament, just take my word for it. It works out. From Abraham unto David, in that period of 14 generations, the main premise or the main foundation of society of the Israelite nation was that of circumcision. That's how they knew who was on God's side and who wasn't on God's side. That's how they knew who was serious about this and who wasn't. It was the sociological foundation that governed them as a group of people following God. What is interesting is this, that when King David comes to reign and at the end of his life, there is something that he begs the Lord to do. He says, God, would you please let me build the temple? God tells him, nope, you're not allowed to build the temple. You're a man with blood on your hands, and there's a lot of other reasons. He says, that is not for you, but for succeeding generations. In fact, in 1 Chronicles chapter 12, he calls a group of people together known as the Issacharites, the men who had understandings of the times. He said, things are just changing. Things are different. Please explain to me what is going on. Little did David know at that time that he was on the tail end of a sociological phenomena. Because from Abraham unto David, the Bible records were 14 generations. Matthew 1, 17 then says, from David, which would mean Solomon, his son, his descendant, from Solomon until the carrying away into Babylon were 14 generations. The one thing that King Solomon did that distinguished him, not only from his dad David, but distinguished the lifestyle and the worship of the Israelite people at that point, then from times past, was what? He built a temple. In fact, he built a temple that was incredible in size, it was incredible in magnitude, and incredible in wealth. But that temple became the focal point of the people of God for their life. Yes, circumcision was important. It was still there and they still practice it. But as far as what made them distinct as people of God was the fact that they went to the temple, they worship the one true God at the temple, their life centered around the temple. In 586, a group of people known as the Babylonians ransacked Jerusalem and they tore down the temple. This is the book of Daniel, primarily the last half of the book of Daniel. They find themselves in captivity. They're out in Babylon and they're literally wandering around. Many of them have been circumcised, but there's no temple to worship in. And if you read the prophets of Jeremiah, and if you'll read in Ezra and in Nehemiah, these men in the Old Testament were longing for the days that they could go back and worship in the temple. They literally were in the deserts, so to speak. So from Abraham to David, you've got this generational, this 14 generation line where the foundation of who their identity is in God is through circumcision. From Solomon until 586, you've got this foundation of this temple. Then something happens. There's a man by the name of Cyrus, a Persian king, who actually comes out and says, all right, guys, You can go back to Jerusalem. Not only can you go back to Jerusalem, I will actually help fund you to rebuild the temple that is so important to you. So what is interesting is Matthew 117 records and from the carrying away, in other words, after the carrying away was over unto the time of Christ were 14 generations. What is interesting is that when Ezra and Nehemiah and all those guys came back to Jerusalem, they built a second temple. Now, it was on the same lane and it had basically the same schematics, but it was not the same temple that Solomon had built. It was different. And that temple stood up until the time of Christ. But Jesus Christ walked this earth, and as he stood on the Mount of Olives, he made this statement. He said, if you tear down the temple, I will rebuild it in three days. The Gospels record that he was not speaking about the actual physical building of the temple, but that he was replacing the temple. What the focus of their worship, the focus of them as a Jewish people, which was that building, was now to be transferred from a building into a relationship with the Messiah, Jesus Christ. What is interesting here is this is, in essence, all of the Old Testament history wrapped up in one single verse. God says that from Abraham to David are 14 generations. From David to the carrying away are 14 generations. From the carrying away unto the time of Christ were 14 generations. God specifically marked out history of the Old Testament in three distinct areas of, quote, 14 generations. You say, well, Jeff, what does that have to do with 2005 living in America? Let me show you. What Strauss and Howell found out in their sociological historical studies was this. Not only do societies work in schemes of 14 generations, but at any given time within a society or a group of people, there are four generations that are alive and active and at work. My dad has a picture in his office. It's a pretty rare picture, and some of you may have access to one. It's a five-generation picture. It's a picture of he as an infant, his mom, his grandmother, his great-grandmother, and his great-great-grandmother. It is very rare for someone to grow up knowing and experiencing five generations. Most of us are fortunate if we experience three, but four is the general rule of thumb. And what Strauss and Howe and some of these other sociologists and people have discovered is this, that in the process of these generations turning over, generation 1, 2, 3, 4, and then repeat 1, 2, 3, 4, is that they all do the same thing and they all make the same mistakes. They just do it with a different set of technology and a different set of rules. What they determined was this, that when an entity, when a group of people initiates themselves, such as Abraham being called out and being circumcised, such as the United States becoming what we know as the United States, they call that the quote-unquote fourth turning. Now, that's a term I want you to think about and have kind of in the back of your mind, the fourth turning. And what happens here is that fourth turning is a generational time period where a group of people have to make a decision. Do we continue with what we think is important or do we cease? In other words, it's a time of crisis. so to speak. Strauss and Howell figured out that within the United States of America, in our history, and this just will help us allow it to make sense, that we have undergone four, quote, fourth turnings in America. Generational time periods that we as a group of people, as a nation, have had to make the decision, do we continue with what we had or do we change and go an alternate direction? Case in point, the first fourth turning we know is the American Revolution. In 1775, young people, if you didn't know it, we were British, okay? By 1776, July the 4th, we had declared ourselves Americans. There was a point, and what took place was this. There was an actual physical war, but there was more than a war with guns. There was also a war with words, and with rules, and with laws, where we determined what we came over here for. We are determined to see it through. We're not going to allow anybody or anything change our mind, and we are willing to die for the cause by which we came. That was the initial fourth turning of our American society. Three generations pass, and then another crisis occurs. We know it as the Civil War. Obviously, a time period where a lot of activity took place in this part of the world. But when you look back at the history of the Civil War, that was a time period in American history where we had to make a decision. Do we fight for what we believe in, or do we just give up? Unfortunately, it was a very bloody time and a very, it was a time where actually families unfortunately fought families. But nonetheless, it was a point in time, there was a generation that had to make a decision, either fight or flee. The third, fourth turning in American history is a time period from the Great Depression up until World War II. See, the thing about a fourth turning is this. It doesn't just take place with one event, such as the Declaration of Independence. It doesn't just take place with the signing of the Gettysburg Address. A fourth turning actually is initiated by an event, and oftentimes it's five, even ten years after that event when you realize what has taken place. Those who signed the Declaration of Independence, they knew that they were doing something risky. They knew that they were going out on a limb. But do you think that they realized that the overwhelming majority would literally have their houses and their families burned at the stake because of what they were doing? Most likely not. The magnitude of the fourth turning never really settles in until you're October of 1929, what we know is Black Tuesday. The day the stock market crashed. Worldwide ripple effects went over and what we know is the Great Depression sunk in. Young people, the book Grapes of Wrath is about this event. It was a horrific time period for our country, financially and the whole world. But what most people didn't realize what this event did, not only chronologically, it kicked in the quote third, fourth turning of American history because it was a time period of a generation and it worked out just like the sociologists figured it, that at this point we were going to have to make a decision. Do we fight for the values by which we were founded in or do we leave? You know, it's interesting that Tom Brokaw wrote a book about you guys who fought World War Two. What did he call you? The greatest generation. In other words, the generation that was willing to lay down their life so that we could still partake in the values by which we were founded on. When the stock market crashed in 1929 and it sent that economic ripple throughout the whole world, nobody understood the significance of a man by the name of Adolf Hitler, who only got 33% of the popular vote, but because of the rules was elected as the head of the German state. When Adolf Hitler got in under the premises of economic reform, nobody had a clue that some ten years later we would find the entire world at odds with each other in what we know as World War II. So in other words, when a fourth turning initiates, you may not know it started until five, maybe even ten years down the line. But once you're in the middle of it, there is no debating the fact that we have come to a point in our life where we've got to either fight or we have got. to flee. Now since that third turning, there has been another cycle of generations. You may laugh at yourself, but you're fixing to find out why that when you get together at Thanksgiving, all the different age groups don't get along real well. Everybody wants to watch different programming on television and discuss different topics. And by the way, for those of you who've been Baptist long enough, this is why business meetings can get really interesting, okay? You're about to find out why. What happens is this, that when a generation goes through one of these four turnings, this crisis event, they produce a generation, the following generation, which is known as the high. The high generation comes on the tail end of this, and they're just grateful to be alive. They're just grateful to have, in America, the freedoms that they possessed earlier. A roof over their head, a job to go to, and food on the table is good enough for them. To give you an illustration of pop culture, this is Leave it to Beaver. Okay? Think about Leave it to Beaver. Everything's nice and neat, and just the way it's supposed to be. Golly, weren't you tough on the beef? You know, everything's just kind of simple, and everything's kind of nice, and just peaceful. It's a time of prosperity, economically. It's a time of prosperity, relationship-wise. It's a high. It's Sunday, Monday, happy days. Tuesday, Wednesday, happy days. Thursday, Friday, happy days, as the song said. But what happens is this generation that follows the crisis has children. And when they have children, they ultimately produce a generation that is known as the Awakeners. The Awakeners in American history, coming in the 50s and the 60s, are best typified in what we know as the hippie movement. These are the people who look at their parents who are just happy with security. They are happy with a solid foundation. And they say, I want something more. I want to experience something more. I want to stretch the bounds of my culture. So they did stuff like Woodstock in 1968. And they said, hey, let's go get absolutely crazy. Let's take everything that we have on off and let's just do stuff our parents told us never to do. Some of you are laughing because that is your generation and you know exactly how you think. Now, there's a little different tune when it comes to you, particularly with music. See, the high generation, it's Sunday, Monday, happy days, Tuesday, Wednesday, happy days. We're all just happy. But when it comes to the awakeners, it's more the rolling stones. I can't get no satisfaction. It doesn't matter what I try. It doesn't give me a good enough high. It doesn't matter where I go. I want to go further. I just want to go, go, go, go, go. I want to experiment here. I want to experiment here. And I want to experiment here. This is my parents' generation. Then what happens is they produce My Generation, which is known as the Unravelers. The Unravelers look at their parents and say, y'all are nuts. They look at their grandparents and they go, woo-hoo, y'all are naive and in left field. And they say, hey, the world has got some problems. The sky is falling. Let's duck. If you don't believe me, do a historical check on the music that My Generation produced. It all came from Seattle, Washington. Now, folks, if I lived in Seattle where it rained 250 days a year, I'd get depressed, too. I'm telling you. But here is the basic tone of the music that my generation produced. Life is bad. It's going to get worse. Let's just go kill ourselves. And most of them did. That is the tone of my generation. You get a group of X generation around, which is what we're called, and you'll get depressed real quick because they'll tell you how bad it is. They'll tell you how awful it is and how everybody's just crazy. That is the unravelers. What happens is this. The unravelers produce a generation. By the way, this cycle has gone on in America four times, and it continues to go on. And the generation by which my children are a part of, and if you want to do a strict chronology here, those in America who are 20 years and younger technically fall into this next generation that I'm going to speak about, what we know as the Mosaics, or the Millennials, or whatever you want to call them. And the name that they are typically given is this, Hero. The generation that my children are is the same mentality of the generation of Simpson Street. The generation that said, I'll go across the sea and I'll fight something that's important. If you don't believe me, talk to them. Here's what happens. The young people today look at their parents and say, man, y'all are depressive. They look at their grandparents, they say, y'all are nuts. And they look at the great-grandparents and say, y'all are just in left field. But here's the thing. What happens is this, that the generation that we have today that is 20 years of age and younger is now faced with the sociological historical phenomena that we adults have got to help them address. They are knocking on the doors of history because according to the way history works and it works in cycles, we are either about to enter or have already entered in what we know as the fourth turning. In other words, a time period in American history where the young people of today will have to come to a point, it may be with guns, it may not be with guns, where they have to decide, are the values and the premises by which the society that I was born into, are they worth dying for? Now, folks, I'm going to give you something that most of you believe, but the mainstream world does not. The values and the premises by which The country that we live in was founded on was no more and no less than the principles found in the Word of God. And I don't care who those people are that will argue about that, send them to my office. I'll take care of that real quick and real easy. But what I want to show you is simply this. I want to show you what the history books will not teach you and they will not teach your children. See, there have been three major, quote, fourth turnings that we know of. What we know is the Revolution, what we know is the Civil War, what we know is the Great Depression, World War II, and ultimately impending is an event sometime in this young person's generation. We don't know what it is. It may have already been kicked off. We don't know. We'll talk about that in just a moment. Here's what the history books will not tell you. 1776, July the 4th, we signed the Declaration of Independence. It was some 13 years later in 1789 that we inaugurated our first president. But nonetheless, within that period of that fourth turning, we established ourselves as a nation, a distinct group of people based on values and concepts distinct from other places. What the history books will not tell you. is that for a period of some 45 years, from 1726 into 1770, there was an event known as the First Great Awakening. This was an event that took place, it began in the Middle Colonies, then it went up into the Northern Colonies, then it came down to the Southern Colonies. This event was such a dramatic spiritual revival that literally the entire nation, from coast to coast of what we had at that time, saw incredible transformation of God in their lives. This was the day of Jonathan Edwards. Some of your English books, young people, you have the sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. That was actually written and spoken by Jonathan Edwards in 1741. It's kind of the tone of the First Great Awakening. The great evangelist George Whitefield was preaching without microphones to crowds of 30,000 and 40,000 people in open fields in snowstorms at this time. It was an incredible time period in American history. And what most people don't understand is this. Outside of Yale and Harvard, Every other Ivy League school that you know today, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, fill in the blank, was started during the First Great Awakening as a seminary to train preachers because there were so many men getting saved and being called to the ministry. Isn't that interesting that the organizations that are so bent on lambasting and tearing up the foundations of America today were actually started for preparing men to preach the gospel? How far we have come. You say, well, people tell me that's not the way they started. Go back and read their charter and it'll frighten you. It sounds just like a Sunday school lesson, to be honest with you. But the first great awakening took place. What it did was this. It set a foundation. It set a spiritual foundation so that when we as a country started that fourth turning, the foundation of our lives was not one of guns and it was not one of other things, but it seriously was one of one's relationship with Jesus Christ. You fast forward in history when you get to that, quote, second, fourth turning, the Civil War. You have an event that took place in 1857 and 1858 known as the Layman's Prayer Revival. A man by the name of Jeremiah Lamphere, a layman much like you, went to the top, the third floor of a church in New York City, and he started a prayer meeting that spread like wildfire all over our country. Within a time period of 12 months, over 1 million Americans got saved. Folks, you say, how did we as a country get through the Civil War? I'll tell you how we got through the Civil War. We got through the Civil War because of the Layman's Prayer Revival. We got through the Civil War because on both sides of the lines, when the battle was over at night, there was Bible study by the campfire. That's what was taking place. If you read the annals of D.L. Moody and Sam Jones and some of these great evangelists that were alive in those days, they will tell you that there was revival meeting every night after dark. In fact, many people don't know this, but the chaplains of D.L. Moody and some of these men who were ministering to the soldiers during the Civil War actually were allowed to cross lines and go back and forth. Because when the sun set, the men in charge realized that one's soul was more important than one's flesh. How did we get through that horrific battle that took place known as the Civil War? We got through it as a country because prior to it there was a spiritual foundation laid where most of the men who were on the battlefield and the people supporting it back home had a relationship with Jesus Christ and their spiritual life was at the forefront of their life. Which leads us to the next great forth turning, the Great Depression through World War II. There was actually a revival movement that took place in America at this time period that few people know. It's called the Global Revival. But in the United States of America, it primarily picked up about 1901. And yes, through 1910 is probably the primary date. I tend to date it almost 1928 with the death of Billy Sunday. But it was in this time period where all the great evangelists, the D.L. Moody's, the Billy Sundays, the J. Wilbert Chapman's, the guys, if you go back and you study the great tent revivalists of America, this was the time period. In the book, The Grapes of Wrath, that I alluded to, young people, the first scene opens up with this rackety old car going across the dust bowls. And every city that they stop in, there's a tent up with an evangelist preaching. That was the culture of the day. I spent eight years of my life living in Waco, Texas. And the historic First Baptist Church of Waco there started like 1840, 1850. I don't know exactly when it was founded, but it is very, very, very old. And you go back and you look at the history and you open up those scrapbooks that they've got from years gone by, and you get to this time period. The First Baptist Church of Waco, Texas, actually set up a tent outside on one of the dirt lots out beside them. And every night for several years, 365 days a year, Christmas included, they were, quote unquote, having a revival meeting. And anybody who passed by, stopped by, could come in and hear about Jesus. In fact, there's a legend in Waco, Texas, that in the mid-19, like 10, 11, and 12s, I don't have an exact date, that there was an event that took place that shocked everybody. That because of what happened at First Baptist Church of Waco and what happened at these other churches, they actually came to a point, listen to this, where every prostitute in Waco got saved. Now think about that. When every prostitute in a town gets saved, the town has changed. And see, the definitions of revival that I'm discussing are a lot different than the definitions that we've given it today. I remember one time I was driving home from seminary. I commuted from Waco to Fort Worth for three years, 92 miles, one way, three days a week. And I go up and down, back and forth. There was this one church that was there on I-35 in the middle of nowhere, Texas. And on the sign, I'll never forget the semester, the big sign said, seventh week of revival. I come through the next week, eighth week of revival, ninth week of revival. Finally, I got to the point it said we are now in the 18th week of revival. Now, that's one long evangelistic stay. But I thought to myself, 18 weeks of revival. I pulled off the road. I decided to do an experiment. There happens to be a Texaco station that is next door to this church. I walked into the Texaco station. You know what I found? They were selling alcohol, cigarettes, and they were selling pornography. Folks, how can you have a revival for 18 weeks and not affect the Texaco next door to you? That wasn't revival. That was a bunch of people who came into a sheltered building every night and felt good about themselves and then took off in their cars and went back home. When history speaks of revival, we're talking about movements that don't just happen inside the church building. In fact, most of the events take place outside of the church building. In fact, it was said of Billy Sunday that when Billy Sunday left your town, all the bars were closed. That was Billy Sunday's ministry. It went on beyond just the trail. They had the sawdust trail that you came and you walked on in that tent, but it extended further and further and further. Which leads me to this. We have a group of young people today, 20 years of age and younger. They are, according to history and sociology, they are about to embark on an event known as a fourth turning. We don't know how it's going to take place, and I guess that we could speculate and have a lot of discussion, but within the next 10 to 15 or 20 years, The events that will take place in the world will put the young people that we're raising in our homes and in our church to a test. Are the values and the premises by which we know as a nation and a culture founded on, are they worth dying for? Or are we willing to sell out and go and do something different? By the way, for a biblical reference point, Isaiah chapter 39, the king of Israel, the, quote, 14th generation, right prior to the carrying away to Babylon, brought the Egyptians and the Babylonians in and they said, look at all the things that God has given us. Now, who goes into Fort Knox, opens it up and shows your enemies what you've got? In other words, they'd become so numb to what they had, they actually gave up on it and they found themselves in captivity in a foreign land. Let me say this, the generation that my children are growing up in, the generation of the young people here, the fourth turning is going to happen. The one thing that men don't learn from history is to learn from it. Look at the facts, folks. History works in cycles. It's coming. It's going to take place and you can argue and go find a hole and dig yourself in it, but it's going to occur on top of the hole that you dig yourself in. It is going to happen. Here's the problem. The generation of young people that we have in America today will be the first generation to go through a fourth turning without a major revival movement preceding it. Not only do they have history going against them, not only do they have sociology going against them, that we, their parents and grandparents, didn't establish a spiritual foundation for them. Let me give you some shocking, shocking statistics. In America today, if a person is ages 13 and under, the chances that they will get saved is 33%. Not bad, huh? 1 in 3. Pretty good odds. However, if you're ages 14 to 18, do you know how many 14 to 18 year olds will get saved this year? 4%. High school gets kind of tough, doesn't it? Only 4% of what we know as high school students will get saved this year. And by the time someone turns 19 years of age in America today, The chances they'll ever get saved before they go to the grave is only 6%. Folks, we have got to turn the light bulb on and we have got to get a clue. You know, they say this, that Christianity is only one generation from dying away. And that's true. If we don't tell the generation behind us about our faith in Christ, it will die out. But let me share with you this. Not only is Christianity one generation from dying out, the most important generation to ever hear may be living in our homes. See, there's never been a generation like this in America. There's never been a group of young people that's had to go through the events that they're about to go through without a spiritual foundation laid, which tells me this, folks, it is time to get serious. If we don't get serious about our faith now, we might as well give up. We've either got to fight or we've got to flee because not only the fact of our, quote, country and society as a whole, but the eternal state of our young people is at stake. The time has come. We have got to do something, and that something is simply this. We have got to come to an understanding that the Bible laid out in Matthew 1, 17, that society's work in groups of 14. Oh, I forgot to mention one very important fact. The generation that's sitting here to my right, the generation that is going to sleep in my home tonight, is the 14th American generation. Isn't that interesting? The 14th American generation is growing up before our very eyes. There's never been another culture that stayed to the extent of which they were beyond 14 generations. We're entering the time of the fourth turning. We have not established a spiritual foundation. How much more evidence do you need? Folks, if there's ever, ever, ever been a time to set aside our personal agendas and get serious for Jesus, this is it. Because folks, not only is there a generation at stake, there's an entire society that is at stake. Because last time I checked, when those boys go across seas and they fight, they fight for all of us, not just the ones that are their age. And the war that the young people of today may have to fight may have nothing to do with guns and may have to do with speeches in courtrooms. I don't know. But what I know is this, the battle will have to be fought and we have not laid for them the foundation. So it is time to do something about it. Which leads me to Deuteronomy chapter 6. Deuteronomy chapter 6 is, for a lack of better terms, the John 3, 16 of the Old Testament. What is it that makes Christianity distinct from every other faith? For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4 was the John 3, 16 of the Old Testament. In fact, if you were to go back in the Old Testament, look at it in Hebrew. Hebrew does not have capital letters, by the way, doesn't have vowels either. Makes it very difficult to read. But Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4 is the only verse in the Hebrew scriptures that possesses capital letters. In other words, it's like God was trying to get their attention. If you pay attention to nothing else, listen to this verse. Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. In a world of polytheism, in a world of mythology, what distinctly made the Israelites different, beyond the circumcision, was that the circumcision was based on a belief in one God. That's what made them different. What makes us different as Christians? We believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven. That makes you distinct and that makes you different. But listen to what Deuteronomy 6, verses 4-9 says, Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. These commandments that I give to you today are to be upon your hearts and press them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down, when you get up, tie them as symbols on your hands and by them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. In other words, Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four is not the end of the road. It's the beginning. John 3.16 is not the end of the road. It is the beginning. And what God told the Israelites to do was this. This belief system that you possess, talk about it in your homes, talk about it when you get up, talk about it when you go down, talk about it when you get together for dinner. And then I want you to go out and talk about it when you're at school. I want you to talk about it when you go to work. And I want you to put it on the doorframe of your house. I want you to put big neon signs up. I want the whole world to know that you are distinctly different than everybody else. Now, we kind of have to look at this backwards, because the last thing it says is to write it on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. That's the final extension, the end of one's property writing. But you'll notice if you go backwards from verse 9 up to verse 4, there's this progression, the doors, the gates, the lifestyle, it goes bump, bump, bump, bump, bump. But look where it ends in verse 5 and 6. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. These commandments I give you today are to be upon your hearts. This one, impress them on your children. Notice that before you can write them on the doorframes, you've got to pass it to your children. You've got to pass it to the generation by which you have the responsibility of raising up. If you don't start with your children, you'll never get it on the doorframes. If you don't start with your children, you'll never get it on the house stops. If you don't start with your children, you'll never have it passed into whatever you want it to take place. Notice that God says this. If we're going to do this, you have to start with the family. Have you noticed in our culture we have decided to degrade the family? We've decided to take the family and twist it and tear it apart and mock it, so to speak. And anything that is adverse to the Word of God we highlight is great. And anything that is the Word of God we make fun of and we mock. But the Bible says very clearly, teach it to your children. Folks, let me just be honest with you. The time has come, not only for young people to get serious about their faith, because if you don't, you can go out and get an education. But I'm telling you, during the fourth turning, it's not going to help you a hill of beans. Because it's not your education that's going to get you through it. It's your foundation in Jesus. Plain and simple. But for us as adults, let me tell you what the time has come to do. The time is this. Particularly in light of the historical information that I've given you, it is time for the next 10, 15 years or whatever this generation, the time period that it exists, it is time for us to lay aside our personal desires and to sacrifice. Now, folks, that's the one word none of us want to hear. Sacrifice. Give up what I want to do for the betterment of somebody else. In fact, Jesus said there is no greater sacrifice than to lay your life down. for a friend. There's some of us adults in here. We need to lay our lives down. We need to lay aside our ambitions. We need to lay aside our goals. We need to lay aside our desires, because there is an entire generation by which some of them are living in our homes that are at stake. Now, when you sacrifice, it's going to call for something radical in your life. It's going to alter your life in such a manner that you're going to end up doing things differently. Just in brief, before we close, let me share with you how this information changed my wife and I's life. I said this from the very beginning, I would never ask you to do anything we haven't done ourselves. About four years ago, when God showed us this information, he showed us the way that history was going and how it tied in with the Bible. We prayed together. We talked about it. We did something absolutely radical. You know what it was? We decided that the children that grew up in our home and that the generation of which would be their friends were more important than ourselves. And my wife went and resigned her job. You know what that meant? That meant we lost half our income. You say, that's nuts. No, we did it because God called us to do it. Now, if God didn't call you to do it, you better not do it. But God called us to do it. I'm going to tell you something. We never missed a payment. Now, folks, we lived in Dallas-Fort Worth, which, by the way, if you're not included, the taxes there are at least eight times what yours are. Eight times what yours are. We dropped half our income because we felt that God called us to make a special interest in young people. And guess what? He took care of us. But I'm here to tell you where God guides, God provides. And if you make a decision in your life to begin investing in people of this generation, whatever that means, whatever sacrifice that means, whether it's your time, whether it's your talents, whether it's the finances you have, God will provide for you. You don't believe me, just come talk to Tracy and I and we will testify and give you a testimony about that. I'm going to tell you, though, the scariest thing in the world is sacrifice. The scariest thing is looking at what you think you want to do and what you desire and the way you've worked everything out and you say, all right, God, you've called me to do this. I will do it. Where God guides, God does provide. And folks, we have got a group of adults, unravelers, awakeners and the highs who have a really bad history of not sacrificing. We've got a really bad history of selfishness. We've got a really bad history of being me-oriented and centered upon ourselves. Guess what, folks? The clock is ticking. Time is running out. History is knocking on our door. Culture is knocking on our door. And the Bible even verifies it. If there's ever been a time to sacrifice for the sake of the good, this is the time. So I'm going to ask you a real simple question. What are you willing and prepared to do? The time has come. For some of you, that may mean altering how you live your family life. I don't know what that may mean. For some of you who are empty nesters, that may mean spiritually adopting those who don't have biological parents or parents that have an interest in them as far as their spiritual life is concerned. You might be surprised what an hour to a week would do for a young person, by the way. By the way, did you know most teenagers today have a conversation with their parents no more than 10 minutes a day? Some of you go give a teenager an hour, you've given them a week, just in an hour. Folks, there's never been a more important time. There's never been a greater cause. The time has come. Are we going to allow what we know is our foundation of Jesus Christ and His Word? Are we going to let it go by the wayside? Or are we going to finally sacrifice and say, you know what? We didn't prepare properly for this generation, but because we got them into this mess, we'll help get them out. Let me boil it down to one simple thing. If we don't do something now, we might not have a chance in the near future. If we don't do something now, we might not have a chance in the near future. And here's what I'm calling you to do. Nothing less and nothing more than a radical restructuring of your life. How's that for a gauntlet? A radical restructuring of your life to realize that the truth and the propagation of Jesus Christ, the relationship with Him and His Word to the generation that is growing up today is the most important thing we can do. It is the most important thing we can do. And to make anything else more important is to miss and to skip the issue. All I know is this. History is knocking at the door. Culture is knocking at the door. Sociology is knocking at the door. Matthew 1.17 is knocking at the door. I don't need much more to convince me the situation that we're in. It's time for a radical transformation. Thank you for listening to this message by Jeff Myers, and we trust it has encouraged and challenged you today. For more information on other messages in this series or other audio series, to get on our mailing list, speaking events, or more, call toll-free 1-866-JEFF-MYERS. Again, that's 866-JEFF-MYERS. Keep us in your prayers and know that we'll be praying for you. On behalf of Crossroads Ministries and Jeff Myers, have a wonderful day in the Lord.