05 Jan THE FOURTH TURNING
Simon Peter said to him: ‘Lord, where are you going?’ ‘Where I am going’, Jesus answered, ‘you cannot now follow; but afterwards you will follow.’ Peter said to him: ‘Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.’ Jesus answered: ‘Will you lay down your life for me? This is the truth I tell you– the cock will not crow until you will deny me three times.’ John 13:36–8
Jesus spoke these words to Peter in the last moments of calm before all hell broke loose. He knew the difference between Peter and Judas. Judas’ betrayal would be cold and calculated, but Peter’s would be the faltering of his loyalty when unexpected devastating chaos broke upon them. 1
We know that chaos is coming, it is just unclear what it will be. But, we also know that God is using it to drive His overarching eternal purposes forward.
I woke up a year and a half ago in the middle of the night, with this verse being spoken aloud in my mind, “Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night.” (2) And after that the Lord said, “Pray that the wind will blow.”
Ever since that night I have understood that a path is being prepared to take us through the sea, an exodus that will deliver us from seemingly impossible circumstances, and that the wind is decisive in dividing the waters. It seems right that my first message for this new year begins by unraveling what this might mean for us.
I am reading The Fourth Turning is Here by Neil Howe. It is a heady intellectual analysis of history describing the four phases that follow each other in repeating cycles. It predicts that we are about half way through the fourth turning, which brings an eruption of unexpected chaos, out of which a new order emerges. . . as has been previously manifested in American history in the Civil War and again in the great depression with the New Deal and World War II. Out of those fourth turnings a new, stronger America emerged. Neil Howe’s book has given me another way to understand what God is doing in history—strengthening me to walk in what He is working out.
The best way I know to interpret this—from a Scriptural perspective—is that a new order always emerges from chaos, because in God the future already exists, and He uses chaos to break down what is antithetical to its coming. In eternity, the past, the present, and the future are all one. “Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come.” (Revelation 1:4)
We have nothing to fear about God’s new order coming. But in the chaos of the fourth turning we need to understand that each of us will prove whose we are.
Jesus knew, not only what Peter was, but also what he could become. He knew that at the moment Peter could not follow him; but he was sure that the day would come when he, too, would take the same road to martyrdom. It is the greatness of Jesus that he sees the potential for greatness even in the coward; he sees not only what we are, but also what he can make us. He has the love to see what we can be and the power to make us attain it. (1)
It is night. The sea is at our backs. Pharaoh and his army are bearing down on us. To whom and to what does our ultimate loyalty lie? Every day, in subtle but meaningful ways, He will be at work in us to get us where we need to be. He will prove that we are His. . . working even in those who do not yet know it.
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1 The New Daily Study Bible, The Gospel of John, Volume 2, William Barclay, Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh, 2001. THE FALTERING LOYALTY
2 Exodus 14:21