The Last Generation: in recent years we are hearing many different things about the idea of the last generation. Some see the idea as simply describing God’s gospel purpose for end-time Christians. Others attack it as an unchristian heresy.

It is fascinating that something so fundamental, something that should be clear and obvious, so indisputably true or false, could come to be so much in dispute. Is it really that difficult to understand the Bible? Are the inspired writings God has given us so plastic and malleable that they can easily be misunderstood? If the core of the message and mission of God’s church is so disputable, how can we anticipate uniting together in a faithful work and seeing Jesus win the great controversy between good and evil?

The Declaration of Independence reads in part,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

Imagine this scenario. Someone comes up to you on the street on a warm spring day a few months from now, and asks you, How do you know that Christianity is true? What would you say? What evidence would you refer to? And if this asking person rejects the “evidence” provided by you, in an apparently intelligent way, even logical way, would you be shaken? Would you walk away from the exchange with doubts maybe about the truth of Christianity?

Thinking about Risk

Turn to Luke 21, because we’ll be going there in just a few minutes. But for the moment, follow this line of reasoning with me.

1. Question: What is risk? Answer: The potential of something adverse happening

2. Question: Can risk be eliminated? Answer: Risk cannot be completely eliminated; there is always some risk.

Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said to them, Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God shall call (Acts 2:36-39).

Our passage is Acts 8:26-40. We are all familiar with the story of the meeting of the Ethiopian eunuch and Philip the evangelist.

So here is this important person, head over all the treasury of the queen of Ethiopia. He is returning to Ethiopia after worshiping God in Jerusalem. He is passing through a desert region. There is nothing but sand and sagebrush for miles. But he comes to a "T" in the road--a place where the the road he is on meets another road perpendicular to it. He has two choices. He has to decide.

This year (2020) has been jolting. The very ground has shifted under our feet. It is as though in each week decades of historical development are taking place. We are to be in this world but not of it. Unless we are awake, we will very soon find ourselves bowing down to the current idols side by side with other pagans. God’s law says “You shall have no other elohim [gods] before Me” (Exodus 20:3). Yet we are living in a time when, we have been told,