A GENERATION OF MEAN PEOPLE
Revelation 16:8-11
And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory. And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.I would like to begin by saying that my heart reaches out for the folks we are talking about. As you will see by the time we are finished here, there are reasons for their behavior. One thing we constantly need to keep in mind is that there is always a reason behind someone's behavior. Although we are born as individuals, we are very much a product of our environment. If you find someone who seems to be very kind and understanding it is typically because that person has lived and grown up within an environment of kindness and understanding. If you find someone who is just the opposite it is most often due to the experiences they have had while growing and living.
I'm very concerned about the generation of adults I meet on a daily basis. People have always been selfish and there has always been a small percentage of people who have been brought up to think only of themselves. But the generation of people I came from ( born in 1942 ) always seemed to be much more respectful of others than the current generation of adults who were born and raised over the past 30 to 40 years. And, I think you will find that most people in their sixties will agree that their peers were much more respectful than the younger generation of adults we find today.
I must make it clear at this point, again, that there are always exceptions and my generation had them. But the vast majority of this group was much more able to show respect and kindness to those around them than I see being shown by the younger generation of today's current culture. Why is this so? I think I know of one reason and I will share it with you now. In doing so I don't expect everyone to agree with me one-hundred percent. But I believe it to be true and will try to show you why.
I suppose the good news in what we are about to cover is how convincing it is becoming that we are living in the end times. The behavior of people, and the news from around the world is becoming more and more in line with what the Bible says about how it will be when our Lord and Savior returns to take us home. And what about the bad news? There is no bad news.
When I was a young preschool-aged child my father owned a little motor-bike called a Whizzer. He used it for traveling back and forth to work. One day when he had been out riding with a friend, they both rode into the driveway of our home and stopped to talk. I was only five or six years old and was fascinated by these machines. So I toddled over and began examining my father's bike.
I noticed that the exhaust pipe coming from the cylinder displayed the colors of the rainbow. This often occurs on chrome-plated exhausts because of the tempering effect of the hot gases inside the pipe. And as my father paused in his conversation I spoke up: “Look at the pretty colors.” As my father sat above me on his bike he said. “Feel it.”
I reached out with my little fingers and ignorantly touched the hot exhaust pipe. Naturally, my fingertips were burned and my father and his friend got a good chuckle out of the incident.
Fortunately, this is the only time I can ever recall where my father was deliberately unkind or mean to me, which is probably why it stands out so vividly in my memory. I consider myself blessed of God because of the parents I had and I thank the Lord for them on a daily basis. But, what if I had a father who thought it was alright and even clever to regularly treat me in that manner? Would I be able to recall every incident? No! In fact, I would most likely grow into adulthood never understanding why I had no genuine love for my father. I would not be able to pinpoint many specific reasons as to why he and I didn't enjoy each other's company.
It is a fact that the more often an incident occurs in our life, the more it blurs the memory of each and every similar individual incident. It also causes us to consider the relevance of the incident to be based on truth. That is to say, we begin to believe that this incident is the way life is and that everyone around us is experiencing the same events in their lives.
People who are raised in a loving atmosphere tend to believe that everyone else around them has been raised in the same manner as they. People who are raised in a dysfunctional atmosphere also tend to believe that everyone else around them have had similar circumstances. And one of the most saddening aspects of this dichotomy is that if you put these two people together for any length of time the kind person will absorb more of the bad habits from the unkind person than the unkind person will absorb from the kind person. So, once a trend toward unkindness begins to get a foot-hold within a society it grows like a cancer rather than fading into the background and dieing.
If you have ever noticed when two young children are placed together for any length of time; one being well-behaved and the other being just the opposite, the well-behaved child will pick up the undesirable traits of the ill-behaved child more readily than the ill-behaved child will pick up the desirable traits of the well-behaved child.
So, what is it that is causing our current crop of maturing adults to lack the respect and kindness that earlier generations demonstrated? I firmly believe it stems from the change in the method child discipline over the past thirty to forty years. Our society has become so over-concerned with protecting children from abuse that we have allowed the traditionally proven methods of discipline to become thought of as wrong. We have parents today who would never, ever lay a hand on their children as a means of behavior correction. Many of these parents even consider that form of discipline to be barbaric in nature.
We even have parents who are afraid to physically discipline their children in public because they know that if the right person sees it taking place they could lose custody of their child. And, this is not an unfounded fear. It has happened to many parents, some who deserved it in order to protect their child and some who have simply been caught in the trap of bureaucratic so-called justice that has prevailed in this country since the 1960's. Since then an increasing amount of parents are trying other methods of discipline which, over time, do more harm to a child than good.
When I think back to my school days I can recall many times when I was physically punished for mis-behaving in school. That was the standard in the old days. I can recall one time when my sister told on me for trying to sneak out of Sunday School during a prayer. I thought everyone had their eyes closed but I was wrong. One of the adults snagged my shoulder and returned me to my seat. But my father wanted to teach me a little respect for our Heavenly Father. Later that week he took me out to the shed, had me lower my breaches, and used his leather belt against my back side. To this day, when someone prays, including myself, I find it quite easy to bow my head, close my eyes and show due respect for the Hollowed God that created me.
In the process of growing up in this kind of atmosphere I have an almost innate respect for other people and beings. But, there are people today who look upon physical discipline as being unkind and cruel. They have come up with everything else they can imagine as an alternative to the good old paddle-to-the-behind. As it turns out, all of these alternatives end up being more unkind and cruel, and have little influence in teaching the concept of respect.
Let me explain! Whenever my parents would physically discipline me, whether it was in the privacy of our home or out in public, they were doing it out of the love for me which they felt in their heart. They didn't always explain that at the time of the discipline but it was something they relayed to me through our day-to-day interaction. I was old enough to know right from wrong and I had no trouble figuring out why I was being punished. And with each incident of punishment I became more and more respectful of the concept of doing what was right.
Being able to discern between right and wrong, I was able to respect my parents even more for their enforcement of that concept. As I grew up under their authority I also began to generalize that respect, and convey it toward other authority figures. Throughout my years of grade school and high school I effortlessly showed respect to my teachers. Even when I misbehaved, and that happened more often than I like to remember, I developed a greater respect for those teachers who punished me physically than I did for those who did not. When I was in junior high school I can recall having to do 100 push-ups for misbehaving. The next day my shop teacher asked me if my arms were sore. I asked why he wanted to know. He reminded me of the push-ups the day before. I had forgotten all about them because he held so much of my respect and I knew he had done what was to be expected.
I became a shop teacher later in life. Can you imagine this: If you were tardy to my electronics class you had the option of three different physical punishments. You could sit in my home-made electric chair, or you could do 40 push-ups, or you could take a hack. Now, there are some people who will think I'm about the worst of the worst teachers that ever existed. But my students respected and loved me. They would come in after school and on weekends if I would open the shop. Many of them followed my teaching and eventually earned a profitable living in the field of electronics and computers.
I should probably explain about the electric chair at this point. It ran off of two or three flashlight batteries connected to a vibrating coil. The coil generated a high voltage which was definitely shocking but could not generate enough electrical current harm a person. It was about the same kind of shock you receive from static electricity after walking across a carpet and touching a metal object. The students in my classes thought it was a very exciting little chair and they loved playing with it in their spare time. Also bear in mind that the old electric chair had been built by a student as a project and given to me as a gift.
To move on, let me make a statement of fact that I believe some folks have never considered: Physical punishment develops respect. I could restate it in this way: Physical discipline develops respect. But the first statement is a given fact of life. Punishment and discipline do not both have the same meaning but they both bring about the same basic results. Let's take a look at some real-life examples that help to confirm my statement about punishment.
The most common example is that of touching something hot. You can tell a child not to touch a hot stove. Some children will simply obey and never wonder about it. But, most children will either ask “Why?” or go about finding out WHY in their own exploratory way. If you have never touched a hot object you should try it some time. It will instantly teach you RESPECT for hot objects. It should also help you to generalize about all hot objects. For the rest of your life you will be much wiser and more careful around hot objects. Why? Because of the concept we call respect.
Now if you have already touched a hot object and developed that respect for all hot objects let me ask a favor of you. Try your best to think of anything in your life that has been negatively affected by getting burned when you touched that hot object. In other words, how are you worse off now than you were before learning that important lesson. Is your self-image damaged beyond repair? Do you harbor some sort of a psychological trauma that will cause you to inwardly despise hot objects? Will you never again associate with people who use hot objects?
You probably can't think of anything unless the hot object and the experience was so traumatic that it caused you to become disfigured or if you lost a limb. I once had a very good friend who nearly died from burns as he learned why you don't use a cutting torch to remove a gas tank from under a car. That can be considered a negative result. But if you simply touched the hot burner of a stove and had a sore hand for a few days, that cannot be considered a negative result of the learning experience.
How about the experience of slipping on the ice on a cold winter day. That's an experience that seems to hurt more as you grow older. So, as a child you didn't care too much about it. But as an adult you are much more respectful of those icy stairs and inclined walkways. Remember the experience of the two thieves in the movie, Home Alone. But, if you have ever fallen on the ice and hurt yourself you now have a much greater respect for icy walkways and stairs.
How about the experience of cutting your finger on broken glass? It is not always painful but it is always frightening to see all that blood running from the cut and sometimes being able to get a glimpse of the flesh laying just below the surface. That experience will develop a definite respect for broken glass.
Have you ever gotten sunburned? What did you learn from that? Have you ever poked your finger with a needle? Have you ever bumped you head on a cupboard door or smashed your finger while closing a door?
All of these examples cause us some pain. But in the process they develop respect within those of us who have not yet learned the respect suitable to each. They will punish us through the use of pain until they have finally gained our respect.
Pain serves a very useful purpose. There are people who, because of an injury or other problem, cannot feel pain in some parts of their bodies. These people must be very careful because they can impose deadly harm to their bodies without any knowledge of it. We should be grateful for the presence of pain in our bodies. It is a gift from God, provided to us through His infinite wisdom. And that stinging sensation a child receives on his or her behind after misbehaving is also a part of God's provisions for us. It is intended to teach us the same kind of respect we gain from touching a hot stove or poking our fingers with a sharp object. It teaches respect.
Proverbs 13:24
He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.Proverbs 22:15
Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.Proverbs 29:15
The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.But our society has raised a generation of adults who, for the most part, have missed out on that kind of learning experience. They have not had the blessed opportunity to learn a lesson about life as the result of a fleeting, minor amount of pain applied to their behind. Instead, today we have a so-called punishment known as the TIME-OUT.
Time-out is just a simple form of incarceration. It is the process of removing the offending person from interaction with the general public. My folks sometimes used it on me. Although it didn't have the fancy name back then. Back then we called it “sitting on a chair.” If I did something very bad I could expect a spanking. If it was real bad I could expect a spanking from my father. But, if I did something that wasn't too bad I would be set on a chair for a given amount of time. Let's say I was mean to my younger brother, which was often the case. For treating him unkind I would be set down on a chair.
The problem with that, as I can recall, was, while sitting on the chair I had plenty of time to think. But my thoughts usually were not good thoughts. Instead, my thoughts were generally given to plotting how I would get even with my brother without my parents finding out next time.
Incarceration is not a very effective means of changing behavior. It is simply a temporary means of removing the problem. Today we have jails and prisons over-flowing with inmates, most of whom are what are known as repeat offenders. They have already spent time in jail or prison before but their behavior continues to be unchanged and unacceptable.
Take, for instance, Paul, the apostle. They placed him in prison for his preaching of the gospel to the Jews and gentiles. What did he do while in prison? He wrote most of the new testament. Incarceration didn't have much effect on Paul's behavior, goals or ambitions.
Another more recent example is Adolph Hitler. While he was in prison he wrote his famous book, The Third Reich. After spending time in prison he was released and went about his business doing more harm to the entire world than he did prior to his imprisonment.
There are far fewer cases where incarceration has changed an individual's behavior than there are cases where it has had either no effect or has resulted in an individual becoming more of a problem. But, if you take the time to check with many of today's parents you will find them using the time-out treatment on their children in place of physical punishment. The time-out solution is not a solution because it only temporarily removes the problem but has little effect on changing behavior.
Another common form of punishment is the removal of privileges. It is similar to incarceration because it is more likely to cause resentment than to change behavior. But, parents ignorantly use it on a regular basis. For instance, consider this situation which once took place: A child was so anxious for his eighth birthday to arrive and he expected to get a new bicycle. The birthday arrived and a party was given. After the presents were presented, including the new bicycle, the boy wanted to go ride his new bicycle, and ignored the others at the party. I can understand this and it makes good sense to an eight-year-old on his birthday. But, the parents wanted to teach him a lesson so they punished him by not permitting him to ride his new bicycle until the next day.
Now, instead of a happy child with a new bicycle you have a resentful child who had a bicycle for a few minutes only to see it taken away. Over the next twenty-four hours the little guy dealt with a broken heart, and instead of developing a grateful attitude toward his parents for a gift, he spent the time developing an attitude of cruelty and resentment toward those around him. Taking the bicycle away after giving it to him had a saddening effect on his heart. When you do something that hurts a person's heart you build a wall and cause resentment. As that resentment grows it is projected toward, not only his parents, but all who cross his path as time goes by.
Suppose you wake up tomorrow morning to find that someone has vandalized one of the belongings you cherish. It will hurt you intensely. If you are like most folks it will upset your body and you will feel the results deep inside your inner-most being. And it will take some amount of time before you can function normally again. What kind of thoughts will you hold toward that person who did this to you? You can be sure that your natural man will want to find a way to even the score. But if you are a rational-thinking Christian you will most likely try your best to forgive.
It's too bad that young children aren't born into this world as rational-thinking Christians. Because that's not how young children react to the punishment of removing privileges. They are not rational and they are not forgiving. Young children are much more likely to react than to respond. A reaction is something that occurs in nature. Our natural man is the part of us that reacts to an incident. A response is something that is learned. It is what a responsible person will do when confronted. A young child has not lived long enough to learn how to respond and therefore only knows how to react for the most part. That is why it does very little good to try to reason with a young child. They just don't understand because they haven't learned all there is to know at this point.
The more often a parent uses the removal of privileges as their young child grows, the more they can expect that child to develop a sense of resentment toward them, just as you would if a vandal continued to destroy your belongings over and over again.
The attitudes a child develops toward his or her parents are eventually transferred and directed toward everyone else who interacts with that child. If the child has been subjected to hurtful situations he will typically become hurtful toward others. If the child is subjected to loving kindness he will generally show kindness toward others.
One last thing I would like to address while covering the raising and training of children: When your two-year-old is misbehaving and will not comply with your instructions it is very easy to simply pick him or her up and place them where you want them. Maybe it is a time-out on a chair. Maybe they are arguing about going to bed. Whatever it may be, instead of picking them up and carrying them, take the time to apply a bit of physical pain to their behind. This will change their thinking much quicker and for a longer period of time than if you pick them up and place them where you want them.
And, think about this: When that child reaches twelve-years-old what will you do? You may be able to drag them at that point - and maybe not. Wouldn't it just be better to change their thinking pattern when they are two or three years old? Then, when they become a teenager they will respect your wishes and be more willing to respond to your instructions.
So, what are we going to do about this generation of mean, resentful adults that have grown up around us? As a whole, I'm afraid there isn't much that can be done. As Revelation 16 points out, although men and women will experience the power of God first-hand, they will not repent. Instead, they will continue to resent His existence and His power. Are we getting close to the time when men and women will react in such a way to God's power? I believe we are.
On an individual basis I believe there is hope. We may not be able to change the world and persuade men and women to respect the power of God and His influence on our lives but we can try to influence the lives of one or two people at a time. We can live in such a way that the folks who see us and work with us sense the difference and become curious about our way of thinking. And, if you are a parent raising young children you can prevent them from becoming resentful toward authority by using Bible principles to train your child and mold his or her behavior.
I understand that everything I have covered here is very much out of line with political correctness. Such is the case with God's judgment also. But I am more concerned with presenting the truth than I am with trying to sway the opinions and attitudes of a generation of people by saying what they want to hear. It is simply my hope and prayer that at least a few will listen and heed these words of truth.
Matthew 7:13-14
. . .for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.Just remember, above all, that the book of Revelation clearly describes a generation of un-respectful, selfish people who will be in this world during the last days. If you are not ready for the return of Jesus it is time you consider trusting Him as your savior because we know not the day nor the hour. But we do know the signs of His coming.