The upheaval is evident everywhere in our culture.  Babies have babies.  Kids refuse to grow up and leave home.  Affluent yuppies prize their BMWs more than their children.  Rich and poor children alike blot their minds with drugs.  People casually move in with and then move out with each other.  The divorce rate is around 41 percent – too many marriages are collapsing under the strain of many different factors. One fourth of all children born in the past decade will probably live in a stepfamily before they are 18.  One out of every five children today is being raised by a single parent.  About 22% of children today were born out of wedlock and of those about a third were born to a teenage mother.  One out of every five children lives in poverty and the rate is twice as high among blacks and Hispanics.

Some years ago there was a very interesting study made between two families in the state of NY. One of the families was the family of a man by the name of Max Jukes and the other was the family of a very well known minister by the name of Jonathan Edwards.  Max Jukes lived in the state of NY.  He did not believe in God.  He did not believe in Christian training and he sought out and married a woman who had the same patterns as his life.  From the union between Max Jukes and his wife they were able to trace down through their heritage some 1,026 descendants of that original union.  300 of them died prematurely, 100 were sent to the penitentiary, 90 were public prostitutes.  There were 100 drunkards and the family cost the state of NY 1 million two hundred thousand dollars.  They made no contribution whatsoever to society.  During that same period of time they studied the family of Jonathan Edwards who lived in the state of NY.  He believed in Christian training.  He married a girl who was devout and had Christian beliefs and character such as his.  From this union they were able to trace 729 descendants and out of this family have come 300 preachers, 65 college professors, 13 university presidents, 60 authors of good books, 3 U. S. Congressmen and 1 Vice President of the United States; outside of Aaron Burr, a grandson of Jonathan Edwards, the family has not caused the state of NY a bit of trouble nor cost the state of NY a single dollar.  The difference in the two families was simply that there were two who began making a positive investment in the lives of their children and that investment reaped dividends that kept on going and going and perhaps are still bearing fruit to this very day.

Pray that families look to God’s methods and are strengthened, Pastor Larry