Daniel 9:24-27
Ecclesiastes 3:9-18
Daniel 9:21-24
Ecclesiastes 3:16-18
John 16:31-33
Strauss and Howe in their book: THE FOURTH TURNING
“History is seasonal, and winter is coming. Like nature’s winter, the saecular winter can come early or late. The Fourth Turning can be long and difficult, brief but severe, or perhaps mild. But, like winter, it cannot be averted. It must come in its turn.
Here, in summary, is what the rhythms of modern history warn about America’s future.
The Next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millennium, midway through the Oh-Oh decade. Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood.
Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation, and empire. Yet this time of trouble will bring seeds of social rebirth.
Americans will share a regret about recent mistakes – and a resolute new consensus about what to do. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometimes before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II.
The risk of catastrophe will be very high.
The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and effort – in other words, A TOTAL WAR. Every Fourth Turning has registered an upward ratchet in the technology of destruction, and in mankind’s willingness to use it. In the Civil War, the two capital cities would surely have incinerated each other had the means been at hand. In World War II, America invented a new technology of annihilation, which the nation swiftly put to use. This time, America will enter a Fourth Turning with the means to inflict unimaginable horrors, and perhaps, will confront adversaries who possess the same.”
“We cannot stop the seasons of history, but we can prepare for them. Yes, winter is coming, but our path through that winter is up to us. History’s howling storms can bring out the worst and best in a society. The next Fourth Turning could literally destroy us as a nation and people, leaving us cursed in the histories of those who endure and remember. Alternatively, it could ennoble our lives, elevate us as a community, and inspire acts of consummate heroism – deeds that will grow into mythlike legends recited by our heirs far into the future.”
John Lennox “Against the Flow”
Daniel’s prophecies of the end times would appear to focus on what Paul describes as the rule of the MAN OF LAWLESSNESS. He will be an incredibly brutal leader, energized by devilish power, and will have the unbridled arrogance eventually to attempt to take the place of God. The length of time his cruel dominion lasts, therefore, will be of great concern to those who are caught up in it. We do not know when it will all occur; but even if we are not involved, it is still important for us to know about it.”
“The important thing about it is not the length of time involved but what happens during that time. Of course, the length of time is not unimportant. Indeed if, as it would seem, that period involves fierce persecution, it’s duration will be of great concern for those directly involved; just as the length of the Babylonian captivity was of concern to Daniel.”
Strauss and Howe in their book: THE FOURTH TURNING
“The reward of the historian is to locate patterns that recur over time and to discover the natural rhythms of social experiences.
In fact, at the core of modern history lies this remarkable pattern: Over the past five centuries, Anglo-American society has entered a new era – a new TURNING –every two decades or so. At the start of each turning, people change how they feel about themselves, the culture, the nation, and the future. Turnings come in cycles of four. Each cycle spans the length of a long human life, roughly eighty to one hundred years, a unit of time the ancients called the saeculum. Together, the four turnings of the saeculum comprise history’s seasonal rhythms of growth, maturation, entropy, and destruction:
• The First Turning is a HIGH, an upbeat era of strengthening institutions and weaking individualism, when a new civic order implants and the old values regime decays.
• The Second Turning is an AWAKENING, a passionate era of spiritual upheaval, when the civic order comes under attack from a new values regime.
• The Third Turning is an UNRAVELING, a downcast era of strengthening individualism and weakening institutions, when the old civic order decays and the new values regime implants.
• The Fourth Turning is a CRISIS, a decisive era of secular upheaval, when the values regime propels the replacement of the old civic order with a new one.”
John Lennox “Against the Flow”
“Those future events are but the harvest of seeds sown by the ideas, attitudes, movements of thought and ideologies that have permeated society throughout history, even from ancient times. In our own time secularist naturalism in particular, with it’s marginalization of God and devaluation of human life and dignity, is no innocent thing. We need to recognize it for what it is and spell out its implications for everyone who is prepared to listen.”
