Decades - Pt. 4 - The 90's Series

The 90’s

I. Introduction

Time is flying. We have already visited 3 decades. Decades when viewed in reverse seem to be an immense amount of time. But it goes so quickly. We have looked at 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Now we find ourselves in the 90’s! Each week I have been playing snippets of the music of the decade. Play 90’s soundtrack.

On TV you would have watched Saved By The Bell, Frazier, Friends, Seinfeld. You would have seen Carson hand off to Leno. Survivor and South Park. MacGyver. Cheers. Will and Grace. You would have shoppde for Phones, computers, Game Boy, Beannie Babies, POGS, Nintendo 64 and Pokemon Cards. In the theater ... A Few Good Men, Titanic grosses 1 Billion. Pulp Fiction, Terminator, The Matrix and Jurassic Park. Major League Baseball goes on strike. Michael Jordan rules the hardwood and the Bulls win 6 Championships. The rap wars begin. Tupac and Notorious BIG are gunned down due to the East Coast vs. West Coast feud. Dominating the airwaves would be Vanilla Ice, Garth Brooks, Janet Jackson. Nirvana and Pearl Jam would usher in the Grunge Scene and sound. Those bands would give way to Boy Bands and Mousekateers who had suddenly grown up. Major world events took place that many of you will remember watching live on TV . . . The World Trade Center Bombing. The Oklahoma City Bombing. The Gulf War. LA Riots and Rodney King. David Koresch and Waco. OJ was acquitted because . . . "if it doesn’t fit you must acquit." Scandal returns to the White House with Bill Clinton’s issues. Nelson Mandela is released from prison in South Africa. Rwanda sees 500,000 dies in Civil War. In 1990, a new house cost $123,000.00 and by 1999 the same house was $131,700.00. In 1990 the average income per year was $28,970.00 and by 1999 it was $40,810.00.

The success and mad dash for more in the 80’s gives way to the technology explosion in the 1990’s. Cloning and stem cell research take the headlines.The internet becomes available for general use. Napster is launched so that music is shared via internet. Ebay is launched.

In 1994, 3 million people had internet access; by 1998, 100 million were online; by the end of 1999 the number was nearly a billion. We moved from In God We Trust to In Google We Trust. Google launched in a garage in 1998 and now has 60,000 employees in 50 countries. The Information Age put Information at your finger tips.

There has been a mantra or governing message for each decade from the 60s “if it feels good do it” which led to the 70s “the devil made me do it” Thee 80’s was the Decade of Excess. Bigger is better. More! The 90’s taught us that technology would solve all of our problems. We are smart enough and wise enough to figure all out ourselves. “Knowledge is power!” The 90’s is the Decade of Information.

I have been referring to the Garden of Eden account each week in passing because it shows the decades at work. However, today I want us to go back to that account a little more in depth because you don’t just see the 60s, 70s and 80s at work. You can see the result which is the 90s.

Genesis 2:8-9, 15-17, 25; 3:6-10

Then God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. He put the Man he had just made in it. God made all kinds of trees grow from the ground, trees beautiful to look at and good to eat. The Tree-of-Life was in the middle of the garden, also the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil.

God took the Man and set him down in the Garden of Eden to work the ground and keep it in order. God commanded the Man, “You can eat from any tree in the garden, except from the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil. Don’t eat from it. The moment you eat from that tree, you’re dead.” The two of them, the Man and his Wife, were naked, but they felt no shame.

6 When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it—she’d know everything!—she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate. Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on”—saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves. When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God. God called to the Man: “Where are you?” He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.”

Again we see the decades played out in the Garden of Eden - 60s feels good, 70s blame, 80s more. Then we find the 90s. The account shows us that Adam and Even have a daily routine. They meet God and walk and talk. They are naked but they have no shame. However, in the pursuit of knowledge they eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and then the next thing we discover is they are hiding from God and they “enlightened” to their own nakedness.