I was having a discussion with a 20-something-year-old man the other day and we were discussing the attitude of the members of the Gen-Z, or Centennials, generation, specifically their sense of entitlement.
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He said something that made me realize there is an attitude that has been passed on, generation to generation, that is, sadly enough, true. That attitude is that the older generation has ruined the world that the younger generation is inheriting.
I thought first of air and water pollution, oil spills, the obesity epidemic in America, and other things that my generation, and those before me, caused. As far as the ecological destruction of our country’s natural resources, well heck! You can go all the way back to the Pilgrims to see where that started.
But are the older generations really to blame? To some degree, isn’t it unfair to blame the prior generation for the problems the younger generation has to deal with because the older generation, without the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, really had no idea of the long-term effects of what they were doing?
Oy, that’s a tough one, isn’t it?
Then I thought about the spiritual aspect of what he said.
In the Bible, how many times did the younger generation suffer for the sins of the older generation? It seems to me that it happened way too often. The Prophets often prayed for God to forgive the people for what they and their fathers did. But we know that the sins of the father are not to be held against the sins of the children: God, himself, said that in Ezekiel 18. Yet, the children of Jacob suffered slavery in Egypt for 400 years. Do any of us think Jacob went to Egypt, knowing that would happen?
Well, actually he should have, since in Genesis 15:13 God told his grandfather, Abraham, that his descendants would be foreigners in a foreign land for 400 years.
When we read the history of the Northern and Southern kingdoms in the two books of Kings and Chronicles, as well as the books of the Prophets, we see how the actions of the older generations did, indeed, cause the younger generations tremendous tsouris.
So maybe, just maybe, the feeling of entitlement we see in many of the Gen-Z/Centennial generation is the fault of their parents. Truth? It IS the fault of their parents, who they, themselves, are the Gen-Xers and Millennials who were brought up with participation trophies and parents who were brought up with Dr. Spock, TM, and who wanted to be their child’s friend instead of their parent.
And the spiritual abandonment we see in the youth of today is also the fault of the prior generations. It is found not just in the destruction of the nuclear family, thanks a lot to technology, but in the schools and courtrooms where God has been taken out of the picture. It’s also the fault of the entertainment world, where video games are making children totally inured to violence and crime. And TV, movies, and the media, in general, influencing everyone, of all generations, to not only accept sin and satanic events as normal but to adopt them.
The only way to stop this snowball effect of sin within the family and, consequently, within the society is to nip it in the bud, so to speak, and start with training up a new generation, one that is being taught the correct way to act and think. We must, essentially, take the children from their parents at the age when they can know right from wrong and place them in an environment that will teach them what they need to learn in order to defeat the racist attitude, sense of entitlement, and spiritual pollution and misguidance that is corrupting our society.
If you are thinking, “What are you saying, Steve? Are you nuts? You’re talking like a Communist, or like the Middle East terrorists who do that to their kids!”
And you know what? You’re absolutely correct! No way will what I just proposed ever happen in America, and thank God for that. We can’t do that, although it really is the best and only solution I can see. Maybe we can organize what they do in Israel and create Kibbutzim (plural for Kibbutz) here is America? That could work, but then we have the problem of who’s going to decide what is “proper”? The university professors who are teaching alternative history think they are right; the parents who are spoiling their children think they aren’t doing anything wrong; and the media that is creating their own version of the facts don’t think they are doing anything wrong (or, even if they do, they don’t care so long as they sell newspapers and get ratings.)
I don’t really have an answer, only a prayer that the Messiah returns soon because that, to me, seems to be the only way out of this mess. We have created our own “Frankenstein Monster”, and just like what happens in the Mary Shelly book, the monster we created from our own selfishness, pride and lack of foresight will eventually be our downfall.
The newer generations have always had to deal with the stupidity and ignorant actions of the older generation. There are many people today, of all ages, who are trying to consider the future results of our current actions, but there are too few of them, and (I fear) they are too late.
The events in the world today have been prophesied for millennia, and I believe that we are closer than ever to the return of the Messiah, maybe even within my lifetime. I don’t know, but it sure seems like we are past the point of no return: today we see the degradation of the American spirit, a society whose moral compass points wherever they want it to, and a world infested with a rising level of anti-Semitism and racial hatred.
Our leaders are not working together to make the world a better place, but instead are confirming the wicked and enabling the godless.
All of these events are just as described in the Bible as the signs of the Acharit haYamim, the End Days, so what do we have to look forward to?
Not much, except to provide whatever example we can of what is right, according to God, and to hope that either the example of a few good, godly people within the society will help or that the Tribulation will come and just get it over with.
Sorry to sound so dismal, but the light I see at the end of the tunnel is the Tribulation Express, coming right at us!
Thank you for being here, and please subscribe- most of my messages are much cheerier, really. And remember that I always welcome your comments.
Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
