This is the day the Lord has many things for us, and we shouldn’t think about them in terms of the distant future. A few generations ago people were absorbed morbidly with the idea of death. England in those days was engrossed with this idea. There was great oppression. They didn’t have to be certain of a man’s guilt. The accused were sent to Newgate Prison in London and from there a prisoner was either hanged or sent to the colonies. If there was enough circumstantial evidence against him, he was hanged. It was a painful way to die. A hanging always attracted a crowd because people were absorbed with death; they had so little in their lives that was meaningful.
This generation presents a completely different picture. There is a mixture of ideas. In their thinking some young people are still absorbed with violence and death. The Bible says that before Christ comes it will be like the days of Noah when the earth was filled with violence. This is happening everywhere. People enjoy killing someone and then watching sadistically, just to see how he dies. There is something basic in that enjoyment. One popular singer even has a song telling how he killed a man just to watch him die.
That is one trend of thinking in the world, but we’re turning to an opposite kind of thought. Although death, destruction, and failure are in the earth we’re becoming absorbed with life. It becomes a fascinating thing to watch sons of God come to birth. It’s a new level of spiritual life the world has not seen before—resurrection life. It isn’t in empty words now, but it’s something we’re absorbed with. We watch young folks really come alive in God and start a new life. We must believe in the life of Christ, because we are going to become acquainted with resurrection life more in the next five years than the Christian Church has known in all the previous centuries combined. We will see real resurrection life come forth. We may be very close to the coming of the Lord and the first resurrection. It’s a strange thing to watch one age die, and see God bring forth something that is ready to spring forth in the fullness of life.
Think about it. It is life. Do you realize that over a period of time (until dueling was outlawed), there were more men killed by dueling in one of the United States armed services than we lost in all the early wars? It was a time in which people didn’t care if they lived or died. Dueling was a dare-devil sport, and the men didn’t care whether they won or lost.
Instead of us being dare-devils about death, we’re hazarding our lives to bring men into life, the life of Jesus Christ. And we’re going to do it. Thousands of people will be brought to know the Lord. We are going to become the adventurers of a new age, thinking much differently from men in the past. We will be willing to lay our lives down to watch other young people come alive in the things of God. This age will see a complete reversal of everything we have ever seen in the thinking of the world. We are the ones who will do the thinking. We’re going to open our hearts toward that new level of thought in the Lord.