TOPIC:“Let's Save the American Home”
“But as for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord”
A number of years ago when Arnold Bennett, famous British novelist, was traveling throughout America, someone asked him what he was most impressed with in this country. His prompt reply was: “the absence of home life.” Then he went on to say this: “I have traveled all over this country, from east to west and north to south; I was entertained in all kinds of homes, but never in any one did I see the sweet home life, I expected.”
Now I wonder why he was left with this impression of home life in this country. Perhaps it was because we Americans, on the most part, are more interested in constructing houses than creating homes. More interested in making money than molding man. If this be true, may God forgive us.
In Heaven's name, when are we in America ever going to get worked up over the thousands of homes that are breaking up right before our eyes? When are we ever going to get disturbed over the one great sound that rings again and again in our ears - the pounding of the judge's gavel over one million times in each year with this declaration - “Divorce granted?” When are we ever going to get fed up over the thousands of children being left as orphans by those parents who put their own interest ahead of that of their children?
Our society is sick with divorce. The divorce rate has risen 700 percent in this country and continues to rise. Now one divorce for every 1.8 marriages. One divorce in every fifty-nine seconds. Fifth percent of all teenage marriages end in divorce within five years. Now only one household in three has a family - mother, father and children. One-parent families are on the increase about twenty times faster than two-parent families. And what troubles me in all of this is that there is presently a steady rise in divorce among the people of God.
Without question the family is disintegrating before our eyes. We might well see the death of the family during our lifetime. But if it happens, it will bring about the downfall of America as it has all the great countries of the past.
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