Jan 21 Save yourself from this generation | TGC Resources

Jan 21 Save yourself from this generation | TGC Resources

Jan 21 Save yourself from this generation

Jan 21, 2012   //   by Don Fanning   //   Truths to Live By  //  No Comments

Acts 2: 40, “With many other words he testified and exhorted them saying, “Save yourselves*~ from this perverse generation!”

Peter knew that men must be told the truth about themselves, about God, and especially about the love of Christ; otherwise, they would destroy their lives and forever be separated from God because of their sins. Peter could not remain silent.

He “testified and exhorted” his audience. The imperfect tense of exhorted means that he never stopped telling them. The word exhorted means to “call upon, admonish, beg, instruct, encourage, or teach.” He was compelled to use every oral expression possible to persuade his audience to turn to Jesus. Paul wrote of his compelling urgency to speak: “Since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech” (2 Cor 3:12). Do we really believe that the hope of the gospel is the only hope for the lost?

Peter challenged his audience with an aorist command, meaning to “immediately decide to save yourself,” not in the sense that they could effect their own salvation, but in the sense that individually each one must decide whose side they are on: the side of their perverse generation, with all its customs, culture, vices, philosophy, and self-seeking sensualities, or the side of God in Jesus Christ.

People of all ages must decide whether to dance to the music of the perversity in their generation or to sing a new song. Long before Christ, Moses wrote of those who pretended to be Jews, but had yielded to the perversities of their generation: “They have acted corruptly toward [God]; To their shame they are no longer his children, But a warped and crooked generation” (Deut 32:5). Is this a fair description of the religious generations today?

Then, after Christ, Paul wrote to all who would follow Christ, “Be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked [the same Greek word as our text] and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life” (Phil 2:15–16a).

Being saved from a “perverse generation” does not mean we must be isolated, or pretend to be perfect. It means we should be strengthened internally so that the generation in which we live does not infect us; rather, we should affect it, pointing it to the Savior, who alone can change us now and for eternity. Vices of perversity are self-destructive. Flee to Jesus for His transforming power to make you free to walk with Him.

“My heart aches because of the disinterest in and rebellion against Your word in my generation. Why has no one learned Your commands? Keep me faithful to You today.”

Psalms 95:10 For forty years I was grieved with that generation, And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, And they do not know My ways.’