Adrian Rogers - The Generation to Come and the America of Tomorrow
Lord, as we open Your Word, we pray, dear Lord, that we will find in Your Word those elements, those truths, those directions, those exhortations that will bring our repentance and our obedience that, Lord, You might feel free to come and bless America one more time. For we pray in the strong name of Jesus, O God, looking to You. Amen and Amen.
Find Psalm 78. Now, if you're new in the faith, the book of Psalms is the middle book in the Bible, and then it's just a matter of counting, you'll come right over to Psalm 78. I am concerned not only about the America of today, but I am concerned about the America of tomorrow. I am concerned about the generation to come. And what we're talking about today is, "The Generation to Come and the America of Tomorrow". What will America be like ten, fifteen, twenty years from now if the Almighty tarries? You know we've been reminded that today America is number one, but unfortunately, we're number one in homosexuality, radical feminism, divorce, abortion, political correctness, and the destruction of family values.
You say, "Yes, but we're also economically number one". I, for one, had rather leave to our children a legacy of great and godly principles than to leave to them a nation of great wealth to be squandered in a godless society. Now, here's what God's Word says, Psalm 78 verses 1 through 6, "Give ear, O my people, to my law; incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old," that is, truths from yesterday that your fathers have known, "which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come," please underscore that phrase, "showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength, and His wonderful works that He hath done. For He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children; That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their generation".
Now, we've seen some things happen today in our generation. But I want to ask you a question; do you feel more secure today than you did then? Very frankly, I don't, because when we've gotten rid of the demon of communism, seven more deadly demons have come to America. We are in great danger. Now, the American dream, I am convinced, was placed into the bosom of our founding fathers by Almighty God. America did not just happen. America was the gift of Almighty God. But that American dream is about to become a nightmare. I am wondering about the America of tomorrow. I am wondering about the generation to come. I am thinking not only about my children, but I'm thinking about my grandchildren, my children's' children. What legacy are we going to leave? What is the America of tomorrow?
I want to lay three thoughts on your heart this morning from this 78th Psalm, and I hope that you'll keep the Bible open in your lap and see that these thoughts will come from the Word of God. Now, God had blessed the nation Israel, and God had delivered them from the gnawing and tormenting chains of slavery, and God had brought them into a good land. And God gave them a law, God gave them a land, God gave them a Lord. But what they did was to defile the land, deny the Lord, disobey the law, and judgment came to them. Now, Asaph, the Psalmist, is giving some instruction to a nation like this, and I'm telling you there is a great parallel and there is ancient truth for today's world.
Three things I want to lay on your heart. Number one; we need to review our history, we need to review our history. Look, if you will, in Psalm 78 verses 4 through 6, "We will not hide them from their children, showing the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength, and His wonderful works that He hath done". That is, we need to show our children what God has done. "For He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children; that the generation to come might know them". What's he saying? "Israel, look back. See what God has done. Review your history".
Now, this passage of Scriptures says a word to all you dads. Alright, here's your assignment from Almighty God. You, sir, are to be a teacher of history. You have been appointed by God to be a teacher of history. A little boy came home from school and he looked sad. The father said, "Son, what's wrong"? He said, "I'm afraid I failed my history test". The dad said, "No". He said, "You're, you're thinking negatively. Be more positive". He said, "Okay. I am positive I failed my history test".
Now I don't want you dads to be positive failures. You are to teach history. Spiritually, it is vitally important, listen to me, it is vitally important that we know our roots. If we don't teach the generation to come, then we've been cut off from our roots. Have you ever thought about the fact that we're only one generation away from paganism? That's all. Just one generation. If we miss a generation, then we're gone. I hear parents say, "Well, I'm not going to force my views upon my children. I'm going to let my children make up their own mind. I'm going to let them decide for themselves". Frankly, you've got room to rent upstairs unfurnished. No! You need to put something in your children's minds. Listen to me; the world is going to teach them, their teachers are going to teach them, their companions are going to teach them, the media is going to teach them, cable TV is going to teach them, and you're going to say, "I'm just going to sit around and let them make up their minds".
The humanist educators have your children, the generation to come, in their minds. Let me quote from one of them. And, by the way, lest you think this is some yo-yo from off the wall, this man that I'm going to quote was a professor in Educational Psychiatry at Harvard University. Now, here's what he said, "Every child in America, entering school at the age of five is mentally ill". That ought to cause you just to get a whiff of coffee right there. Listen to it, "Every child in America entering school at the age of five is mentally ill because, because he comes to school with certain allegiances toward our founding fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, toward the sovereignty of his nation as a separate entity". That's, friend, is mental illness.
Now, again, this is a professor at Harvard speaking. And then, here's what he said, and listen to it. This is a direct quote, "It is up to you teachers," now he's talking to educators now, "it's up to you teachers to make all these sick children well by creating the international child of the future". And you say, "Well, I'm not going to influence my children. I'm just going to let them make up their own mind". There is a systematic seduction of children today. Here's what the humanist educators are planning for your children, and the quotation I'm going to give you now is coming from the humanist magazine, A Religion for a New Age, January/February 1983, page 26. Listen to it, "The battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith".
That is, the public schools, according to humanists, have become the Sunday school classes for the children of tomorrow, "The proselytizers of a new faith". And then, listen to this quote, "The classroom must, and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new, the rotting corpse of Christianity and the faith of humanism. The old; the rotting corpse of Christianity. The new; the faith of humanism. Now, humanism sounds so good because it sounds so much like humanitarianism doesn't it? But, the name has been disguised to protect the guilty. The truth is, sirs, fathers, God holds you responsible to be a teacher of history, and our faith is to go from father to son to grandson".
That's exactly what the Word of God says, again, listen, look in Psalm 78 verses 5 and 6, "For He hath established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children; that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children". We are passing off the baton. There is a legacy that is to be left. It is to go from father to son to grandson, and on and on and on, in a spiritual chain reaction. A child came in and said, "Mother, you remember that vase that we used to have, the one that was handed down from generation to generation? Well, this generation just dropped it".
And I'm afraid that we have a generation that is in danger of dropping the faith that has gone from generation to generation. Fathers are to teach spiritual and national history. What is the history of America? The revisionists have tried to take it away from us. On July the 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed. And remember, that it was a declaration of independence from earthly powers, despotic powers, but it was also a declaration of dependence upon Almighty God. Now the ACLU, the humanists, and the antigodists, they don't want us to recognize that. Remember how that declaration began, "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are endowed by their Creator".
Underscore that. By their Creator! They believed in creation. You can't even teach creation in public schools today. "Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights". Right off to begin with, we want our Constitution to be written in the light of this, a declaration. And notice how the Declaration of Independence closes. Sometimes we don't get to the close of it. But it says, "With a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence". What is divine providence? That's just a synonym for Almighty God. "We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor". It was a Declaration of Independence from Great Britain; it was a declaration of dependence upon Almighty God.
Now, in 1778 James Madison, who is the architect of our federal Constitution, the fourth president, said this. And we've heard this quotation many times, I want to give it to you again. "We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God". That's the architect of the Constitution who said that. Now you can't even post the Ten Commandments on classroom walls.
On April the 30th, George Washington, in his inaugural address, said this, quote "My fervent supplication's to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the council of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction," that means His blessing, "may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States, a government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes". What he's saying is, "Look, we can't do it without God". And then he went on to say, "We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smile of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained". George Washington said, "Without God it won't be done".
We need God in America again. In December 1820 Daniel Webster said, and I quote, "Let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers brought hither their veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate and to infuse its influence through all their institutions: civil, political, and literary". They never thought of saying that we don't want God in our government; we don't want God in our education, not according to Daniel Webster. On July the 4th, 1821, John Quincy Adams said, "The highest glory of this American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principle of Christianity".
Now, the revisionists of history don't want you to hear that. Our children are not being taught that in the public schools. Dads, you are to be teachers of history. President Andrew Jackson said, "The Bible is the rock upon which our republic rests". That's what he said. And early Americans knew this. March, 1931, the United States Congress adopted the Star Spangled Banner as our National Anthem. You know what the fourth stanza says, "Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just. And this be our motto, in God is our trust". That, friend, is our National Anthem. If we tried that today, the ACLU would have a spasm. They'd have a spasm.
In 1952, the Supreme Court Justice, William O. Douglas, said, "We are a religious people, and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being". That is built in. "We hold these truths to be self-evident". Therefore, in June 1954, Congress adopted the phrase, "Under God," to be added to the Pledge of Allegiance. "One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all". And then, in July 1956, by joint resolution, Congress adopted the bill providing that the national motto of the United States is, "In God we trust". You can see this spiritual heritage that we have in our anthem, in our national hymn. The anthem says, "Bless with victory and peace, may the Heaven rescued land, praise the Power that has made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just. And this be our motto; 'In God is our trust!'"
And the national hymn, "Our fathers' God to Thee, Author of liberty, to Thee we sing. Long may our land be bright with freedom's holy light; protect us by Thy might," listen to this, "Great God, our King"! Never say America doesn't have a king. We have a president we can vote in and out, but we have a King we can't vote in and can't vote out. Now we can deny Him and turn our back on Him if we are foolish enough to do this. Our fathers rightly believed, rightly understood in the separation of church and state. That is, to have no national denomination, but they never believed in the separation of God and government, to the contrary. Now, I'm saying this, that how many of our children today know the things that I've just given? Many of them are abysmally ignorant of these things. And so, fathers, according to this Psalm, you are to teach those things to your children.
You say, "I don't know how to teach them". Go to the library. Go to the bookstore. There's plenty of material there. You need to take time, turn off that television. Kids are watching television. They've gone to computer, you're still watching the television, and your eyes are getting big as coconuts and your brain the size of a pea. Go to the bookstore and learn some things about our history. Listen, not only do we need to teach America's spiritual history, every family needs to write down its own spiritual history. Let me give you a project for families today. Write your family history, your spiritual history. Get the members of that family to write their testimony and put them in a book.
When I was preparing this message, I thought to myself I've not done that. And I'm going to take that for a project. I'm going to write my testimony, put it in a book, have Joyce to write hers, put it in a book, to have my children to write their testimony, my in-laws to write their testimony, and, and my children, my grandchildren; all of them to write it and put it in a book and look back and see what God has done for our families. What a blessing it would be to have our own family history so we could teach that. Imagine a family reunion. And let's say that the mother and the father are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. Those who've been married for 50 years are there and they're in the place of honor, and the children and the grandchildren are there to honor these who've been married for 50 years. And they love one another more devotedly now than they did when they got married, and so they're laughing and teasing and flirting one another.
Now, the next generation is there, the children of these, and that next generation is between 40 and 50. Some of them, they're facing now their 50th year, and they're joking about it a little bit. And their children are there. These are those who are teens and early 20s. They're there at this family reunion. When those who are celebrating their golden wedding anniversary, their 50th wedding anniversary were born, there were no televisions at all. Few people, if any, traveled on an airplane. Not all of them had automobiles. And many of them never thought about taking some of the trips that people will take today. About the way they got their information was the newspapers, the library, and an occasional book. Your generation, now, there were some changes that came along.
Now, you were not raised with the shopping malls. You were not raised with the computers. You were not raised with cell phones. However, the television came along. However, college degrees came along. However, the space race did come along and it gave you a sense of euphoria, that we are entering into a bold new era. But what did you watch on television? You watched, "I Love Lucy," "Father Knows Best," and these kind of things. What were your little goodies, the things that you enjoyed as a child? A transistor radio. Well, if you just had a transistor radio, you were something. But now what about your kids? What do they watch? They, they watch cable TV. They watch HBO, Hell's Box Office, where nudity, profanity, vanity comes right, piped right into the living room.
Your children, they sit around and talk with total strangers on computers about all kinds of subjects. They have been immersed in rock and roll. They have been quote, "sexually liberated". There is a drug culture and a weak commitment to Jesus Christ. God is laughed and mocked and called out of bounds for this generation. Now, I want to ask you a question; what about the generation to come? What about their children? What is happening in America? I'm not against progress, but much that we call progress is not progress. I'm saying that we need to study the history of our nation. I'm saying you need to remember the history of your family. I am saying, ladies and gentlemen, also that we need to remember our church history.
Bellevue Baptist Church is a wonderful church. Thank God for it. Thank God for this church. Do you know what makes Bellevue Baptist Church the church that it is? Bellevue, from its inception, has known that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. That Jesus Christ, and Jesus only is the Lord of His church, and that we need to preach the old-fashioned Gospel, hell hot, Heaven sweet, sin black, judgment sure, and Jesus saves. And this church has been built on that. But I'm amazed sometimes at what can happen to some Bible believing churches, that somehow they just begin to get more program oriented. They begin to get more oriented in methods. And they begin to get more oriented in the people in the pew rather than the Word of God in the pulpit, and they get away.
And the first thing you know, they will call some good speaking, personable man to be the pastor, who does not believe the faith that the church was founded on. And once-great churches and denominations are taken away. Churches need to remember their history. Churches need to remember their roots, because, friend, if you get away from the roots, before long the fruit will wither and die. We're to teach the generation to come. I'll tell you something else. Individuals need to study their history. They need to understand what God has done. When your little children come to Jesus Christ, and they ought to. Don't think that a child has to have a Ph.D. in sin before he or she can get saved. It's normal; it's natural for little children to come to Christ when they're raised in a Christian home.
Now, when they come to Christ, however, help them to understand their history. Write it down. Rejoice over it. And every year not only let them have a natural birthday, but a supernatural birthday. "Honey, this was the day when you got saved. Let's talk about it. Let's thank God". Write it in a book. Let that child remember that he has a history. The devil wants to get us away from our heritage. And so I'm saying the first point, which is certainly going to be longer than the next two, but the first point is we need to review our history. That's what he's saying. Look at it again. The Bible says in Psalm 78 verse 4, "And we will not hide them from our children, showing to the generation to come the praises of our Lord, and His strength, and His wonderful works which He hath done".
Number two; not only do we need to review our history, but, my brothers and sisters, we need to renew our memory. It is so easy to forget. Now begin reading in verse 7. Why do we do this? Look if you will in Psalm 78 verse 7 through verse 11, "That they might set their hope in God, and not forget," underscore that, "not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments; and might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God. The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in His way". Now underscore this phrase, "And forgot His works, and His wonders that He had shown them". Now, here God is saying, "Don't forget".
Review your history. Renew your memory, renew your memory. Don't forget how easy it is to forget the blessings of Almighty God. The Bible says here that, "The children of Ephraim, being armed," look in Psalm 78 verse 9, "and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle". Now, Ephraim was the dominant tribe. It may have been the strongest, the most numerous, but they were defeated. They had excellent military equipment. They were carrying bows, but they were defeated. Why? They forgot. And America today is suffering from spiritual amnesia. We have failed in history. We have those today who want to rewrite our history. There are three memory killers. Ephraim suffered from all three and America is suffering from all three. First of all, the lust of the flesh. Fast forward to Psalm 78 verse 17 in this Psalm and look at it, "And they sinned yet more and more against Him, provoking the Most High in the wilderness".
Do you know America is provoking God? America is sticking its finger in the eye of God. "And they tempted God," that is, they tested God in their heart by asking meat, or food for their lust. Psalm 78 verses 19 and 20, "Yea, they spake against God; and they said, 'Can God furnish a table in the wilderness? Behold, He smote the rock, that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can He give bread also? Can He provide flesh for His people?'" Now, rather than thanking God for His blessings, they're mourning more and more; the lust of the flesh. America is suffering today from an erosion of spiritual virtues and values. Sexual permissiveness, the blatant parading of perversion, the continual and casual disposal of the unborn and unwanted, the breakup of the family, the obsession with self and pleasure and drugs and sex. America is rolling in luxuries, but we're reveling in excesses, reeling in drunkenness, rotting in morals and in sin.
Now, there was the lust of the flesh that caused Ephraim to forget. Number two; there was the lure of the world. Look in Psalm 78 verses 40 to 42, "How oft did they provoke Him in the wilderness, and grieve Him in the desert"! Not only do we break God's law by provoking Him, we break God's heart by forgetting Him. "Grieve Him in the desert. Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. They remembered not His hand, nor the day He delivered them from the enemy". How quickly we forget. They remembered not. We need to renew our memory. Now this verse says, "They limited the Holy God of Israel". Now wait a minute; God is God. How can anyone put a governor on God? How can anyone limit God? This word, "They limited," is the word we get our word horizon from. They horizoned God.
Now, if you go to a high place and look around you'll see a circle, and a circle is the horizon. And what they have said to God, "Now, this is Your limit. You stay in here. Don't get beyond the horizon. Don't get beyond what we can see". What we've done in America is we have horizoned God. We have limited God. We've made no room for God. We've said, "God, stay inside that circle". So, in our government, the Ten Commandments are out, sex education's in. In our government, chastity is out; birth control for teens is in. In our schools, the Ten Commandments are out but metal detectors and policeman are in. We need to renew our memory. Now, not only did they forget because of the lust of the flesh, and not only the lure of the world, but the lies of the devil.
Look in Psalm 78 verse 58, "They provoked Him to anger with their high places, and moved Him to jealousy by their graven images". They forgot the one true God who founded them as a nation and now they're worshipping false gods. Peter Jones has written a book. The title of the book is this, "The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back". I want to give a quotation from that book.
"Have you asked yourself any of the following questions: Why is homosexuality on the rise? Why is it endorsed by Time Magazine, promoted on publicly funded radio, and featured in children's comic strips with great moral fervor and in the name of democracy? Why is feminism such a powerful force today? Why is this movement developing its own goddess spirituality? Why is witchcraft taught in certain California school districts? Why is feminist spirituality making enormous inroads into Christianity? Why is abortion a vitally important part of the Feminist Manifesto? Is ecology just a natural concern about the survival of the planet, or does it too have a religious agenda? Why is American-Indian nature religion being actively promoted? Why is the work ethic no longer working? Why is multi-culturalism and political correctness so important on many college campuses? Are these seemingly disconnected issues related in any way to the so-called New Age movement? Why are numerous New Age spiritual techniques for healing, peace of mind, and self-knowledge being publicized so vigorously in the media, and more and more utilized in the business world and the armed forces? The real question is this; are these apparent disconnected issues really a part of a coherent, pagan ideology, poised to impose its religious belief system on the new world order, the Age of Aquarius, in the 21st Century"?
Now, we need to wake up. We need to review our history. We need to review our memory. My heart breaks that the Supreme Court of the United States of America says it is legal to take a little baby, almost completely born, just its head in the birth canal, a baby that could be viable, living, and for a medical doctor, who is supposed to preserve life, to take a surgical instrument and put that in the base, the skull of that little baby just about to come from its mother's birth canal, collapse the head, and bring out a corpse rather than a baby. That is wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong; it is wrong. I am convinced that much of what goes under the guise of abortion today is a blood sacrifice to the demon gods of lust and sex. That's what it is; a blood sacrifice to demon gods.
We need, ladies and gentlemen, to review our history. We need to renew our memory. And then, we must reclaim our legacy, we must reclaim our legacy. Look in Psalm 78 verses 59 through 61, if you will, "When God heard this, He was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel," now, remember, Israel, His chosen people, "so that He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which He placed among men, and delivered His strength into captivity, and His glory into the enemy's hand". America may become a molded crust in history's garbage can. Not only is God our only hope, God is our biggest threat. And the nation that was born in 1776 must be born again or we will join the graveyard of the nations. Now ask ourselves this question; what about the generation to come? What about America of tomorrow? What will it be like if we fail to turn to God? What will it be like if this generation does not say, "Enough is enough"?
I read a story, it deeply moved me. Back in World War II, there were some French who were taken captive by the Germans. The Germans took these French and made them work in a munitions factory, building bombs. And they knew the bombs that they were building would be dropped on their own French brothers and sisters, on their own soil. They were building bombs to drop on their own people. But when the German Luftwaffe would fly over and drop those bombs, the bombs that were meant to explode on impact, would just bloop, fall there and not explode. Another bomb, bloop, wouldn't explode. Another, bloop, wouldn't explode. After a while, they said, "There can't be that many duds".
And some of the experts got one of these bombs and began to dismantle it to find out why they were not exploding. And inside they found a note in every one of them. The French had built in a malfunction in these bombs, and here's what the note said, "We are doing the best we can, with what we've got, where we are, every chance we get". I love it, I love it. Listen to it again, "We're doing the best we can, with what we've got, where we are, every chance we get". I want to tell you this, friend. I am only one man, but I want to do the best I can, where I am, with what I have, with every chance I get. If we do that, we can change this city. I tell you, we can change this nation. There're enough Christians in America, if they will wake up and do right, if they will review their history, if they will renew their memory, they can reclaim their legacy.
Now, America won't save you. America won't get you to Heaven. It would be a terrible thing for you to live in a God-blessed land and then die and go to hell. You need Jesus Christ. You need to be saved. If we need God in America, how much more do you need God in your heart? You need to be born again. Bow your heads in prayer. And if you're not saved, let me lead you in a prayer. And today, in this prayer, you can pray and receive Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord. And I promise you that if you will receive Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord, I promise you on the authority of the Word of God, He will forgive every sin, He will cleanse your heart, He will give you new power, and when you die, He will take you immediately, directly to Heaven. But the minute you trust Jesus, you will be instantaneously saved and eternally secure, if you really, truly receive Him as your personal Lord and Savior. Would you pray this prayer? Pray it from your heart.
Dear God, I am a sinner. My sin deserves judgment and I face judgment, but I need mercy. Jesus, I believe You're the Son of God. I believe You paid my sin debt with Your blood on the cross. Thank You for dying for me. I believe You were raised from the dead by the power of God. You promised to save me if I would trust You. I do trust You today, now, with my heart forever. Come into my heart. Forgive my sin. Save me, Lord Jesus.
Pray it from your heart. Pray it and mean it. "Save me, Lord Jesus". Did you ask Him, did you? Then, by childlike faith, pray this way.
Thank You for doing it. I believe You've done it and that settles it. I'm not looking for a sign. I'm not asking for a feeling. I stand on Your Word. Now, Lord Jesus, give me the strength to make it public. Don't let me be ashamed of You. I'll make this public because I'm sincere. In Your name I pray. Amen.