Your Elders Were Often Correct
By Tom Gilbreath
It’s a question that eventually rings forth from every generation. “What’s the world coming to?” More specifically they ask, “What’s wrong with these kids today?” Many deride all such concerns because they are common to all generations. But is that a reason to dismiss such worries? Look at the history of the world and of humanity. You see an almost continuous story of war, subjugation, and pain. Maybe each generation of elders had good reason for concern.
The “last days” generation will be a mess. Here are a few of the many descriptions found in 2 Timothy 3:2-3. They will be selfish, materialistic, pretentious, and proud. They will speak evil of sacred things. They will not appreciate the gifts they have received. Lacking self-control, they will be brutal. They will embrace evil and despise good.
According to the Bible, all generations sin. But that does not mean all generations are the same. Things can get better, and they can get worse. The morals of individuals and of societies can improve or deteriorate. Choices have meaning and consequences.
We may be seeing the 2 Timothy 3 generation right now. That makes it ironic when older people of our time question the validity of their own concerns. They think it may mean little or nothing, like their memories of adults worrying about Elvis, the Beatles, and other early rock stars. “We turned out okay,” they say. “Maybe our concerns are an overreaction.”
They push aside apprehensions about obscene and destructive song lyrics because they eventually learned that “Puff the Magic Dragon” was not about marijuana. They give all musicians a pass because Elvis’s swiveling hips did not bring down the nation. In fact, he turned out to be a nice person. Rock music has not destroyed America. The flag still waves, the crops grow, and the Washington Monument shows no cracks.
Still, all is not as it should be. Cracks in monuments can be repaired, but the restoration of broken moral foundations can be difficult, especially when moral blindness keeps them from being seen. I’m not criticizing Elvis Presley. I was a fan, too. But his critics were not fools. Maybe they were wrong about Elvis as a person, but they saw a sexual revolution coming — one that would cause terrible pain for millions. And they were right. The sexual morals of the nation fell apart in the years that followed. And, as his defenders point out, what Elvis did was mild compared to what was coming.
In another example, Americans 70 years ago were deeply concerned about communist ideology infiltrating government, institutions of higher learning, and the media. In the decades that followed, their worries became the butt of thousands of jokes. But today, communist ideology has gone beyond secretly infiltrating government. It is openly espoused in various forms by high-ranking politicians and other officials. It has taken over the thinking in institutions of higher learning. And it lives openly in the media. They may not always call it communism, but that’s what it is. And it’s here now. Our elders’ concerns were valid.
Communism has always followed certain patterns. And those patterns fit the biblical end-time scenario of central control of human lives. But now that control can happen at a level that was unimaginable until the advent of artificial intelligence. Communist revolutions also fit with the end-times pattern of scaring people in ways that will make them malleable, then providing what will seem to be the only way to peace and safety.
We live in dangerous times, but Jesus is still “the good Shepherd.” Stay close to Him. And have confidence in what you know to be true. Speak out in love.
Where does the thinking come from that there is one Special Race of People on the face of the Earth?! We have The Koran, the Book of Mormon, The Urantia Book & all the Ancient Writings from India & other cultures. Who & upon what authority does one person have to say that one book is correct & all the others wrong?! 