“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” is only nine years old, but is already showing up on 3rd and 4th level movie channels as our culture moves on from the bleak dystopian view portrayed in the book and movie series. But has the fire of revolution gone out in the heart of the Millennials and Generation Z? No, it has been absorbed into the greater culture at large and is waiting for the right sparks to fan the flames again. The real question is will those flames bring something constructive and prevent the feared dystopian future, or just create chaos that brings it instead. After all, the heart burning for revolution seldom thinks about the lives it destroys along the way, or how the end is seldom what they envisioned. Especially if they’re willing to consider violence as a tool for social change.

Yesterday’s Morning Minutes in the Bible on An American Missionary saw how the Israelite’s of Hosea’s day did not consider in their heart where their sin was taking them (Hosea 7:1-2). They foolishly believed God either did not know or care about what they did, or, worse, thought He was pleased with them since their prosperity and privilege continued to flourish. They did not care about the people they harmed to maintain their prosperity, or think it possible their fall into destruction was just around the corner.

Beginning in verse 3, Hosea describes Israel as an oven in which the fire has been started and is burning on its own. Like the revolution in The Hunger Games their sin has become a fire that burns without thought because no one thinks about the ultimate result of what they are doing.

“With their wickedness they make the king glad, and the princes with their lies. They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker who ceases to stir the fire from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened. On the day of our king, the princes become sick with the heat of wine; he stretched out his hand with scoffers, for their hearts are like an oven as they approach their plotting; their anger smolders all night, in the morning it burns like a flaming fire. All of them are hot like an oven, and they consume their ruler; all their kings have fallen. None of them calls on Me.” Hosea 7:3-7

While the passion for causes found in Millennials and Generation Z can be encouraging, and catching, we must seek to lead it in the right direction – toward God. Otherwise it just consumes lives. My generation (I’m a Baby Boomer) must not ignore their passion and fire, or try to put it out. Rather we need to harness it for the cause of Christ, and take it into our own heart even. But we must make sure we use God’s word as the oven controls so it doesn’t explode into a destructive force. We must not be like Israel who failed to call on God. His word tells us what to do with the fire burning in our hearts. The question is, will we listen?