This Crooked Generation

And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. (Acts 2:40–42)

You are perhaps familiar with the English nursery rhyme by James Orchard Halliwell, one which was first published in 1842:

There was a crooked man, and he went a crooked mile,
He found a crooked six-pence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a crooked little house.

This quaint piece of doggerel describes a man about whom everything is warped. Nothing is straight up and down. His crookedness is self-perpetuating, so he attracts more crookedness like a magnet.

In the passage above as Peter concludes his sermon explaining the events of Pentecost, he acknowledges what is true of the world and the culture it produces: both are crooked. This truth reiterated in the Greek word Luke selects is “skolios,” which you might recognize. Someone with scoliosis has the physical condition of a twisted spine. The world, by contrast, suffers from a case of spiritual scoliosis. What exactly is twisted? Well, just about everything!

First, the world is crooked in its affections. Our loves, according to Augustine, are disordered. This is our primary problem. We love in the wrong order. We are spiritual “Doegs” who love evil more than we love good (Psalm 52: 3). We love ourselves, but we do not love God. We love the darkness instead of the light (John 3:18-23). Everything in this world is designed to help people hide from the light and to love the darkness. Just think about the advertisements that bombard us 24/7. They have one simple message: Nothing matters more than you - your satisfaction, your happiness, your fulfillment, your appearance, your success.

Secondly for this reason, the world is unavoidably crooked in the focus of its mind. Engaged in a passionate, purposeful, prioritized, and perennial search for treasure, our eyes follow our hearts. This is why our culture looks down when it ought to be looking up. The world focuses on man when it ought to be focusing upon God. We don’t look anywhere else because we don’t want to. Pride blinds us to the glory of God, and self reigns supreme on the horizon of our hearts.

Thirdly, the world is crooked in its desires. The world is driven by lust when it should be driven by love. We love what looks good to the eye and what feels good to the body more than what is good in reality (1 John 2:15-17). Filled as it is with so many competing desires, this explains why the world is such a violent place (James 4:1 ff). Desires morph into needs. Needs morph into demands. Demands morph into non-negotiables. Non-negotiables morph into reasons to go to war.

Peter warns us, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!” We cannot be saved in the world; we can only be saved from the world. We must come out; we must be different. There are two sides to that equation. Coming out, by itself, is not enough. Lot’s wife tried that, but her eyes followed her heart—they always do. “Remember Lot's wife,” Jesus says.

Our hearts must change or nothing will. We must be renewed in the spirit of our loves. We need a new heart— a new heart for God, or we will never be willing to leave the world without looking back. Calvin put it so very well:

I call “piety” that reverence joined with love of God which the knowledge of his benefits induces. For until men recognize that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by his fatherly care, that he is the Author of their every good, that they should seek nothing beyond him—they will never yield him willing service. Nay, unless they establish their complete happiness in him, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to him.

If God is not our complete happiness when we are with Him, we will always want to be off someplace else with our real treasure.

This week, I read with great delight some of Amy Carmichael’s poetry. One line in particular stood out. As you read her poem, may the Captain of your soul bless all who “would follow Him” so that you and I would not so easily choose the path of least resistance which often distracts us from the narrow road that leads to life:

Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher,
From silken self, O Captain, Free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.
From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakening,
(Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified,)
From all that dims Thy Calvary,
O Lamb of God, deliver me.
Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay
The hope no disappointments tire
The passion that will burn like fire,
Let me not sink to be a clod:
Make me Thy Fuel, Flame of God.