Summary of sermon by Rev Stegen, 4 July 2005, 10:00
Wherever one goes in the world, there is a visible difference
between those who are Christians and those who are not.
God blesses those families that honour Him and preach His word in
truth.
A study was done in America in the 1870s on the life and
descendents of two families - the godless, notorius Juke family, and the family of the
godly man, Jonathan Edwards.
In 1900, A. E. Winship studied what happened to 1,400 descendants
of Jonathan and Sarah by the year 1900. He found they included 13 college presidents, 65
professors, 100 lawyers and a dean of a law school, 30 judges, 66 physicians and a dean of
a medical school, and 80 holders of public office, including three US Senators, mayors of
three large cities, governors of three states, a Vice-President of the United States, and
a controller of the United States Treasury. They had written over 135 books and edited
eighteen journals and periodicals. Many had entered the ministry. Over 100 were
missionaries and others were on mission boards. Winship wrote:
"Many large banks, banking houses, and insurance companies have been directed by
them. They have been owners or superintendents of large coal mines… of large iron
plants and vast oil interests… and silver mines…. There is scarcely any great
American industry that has not had one of this family among its chief
promoters…."
In contrast, Dugdale studied the notorious Juke family, and wrote
a book in 1877, "The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease and Heredity". Dugdale studied a total of 709 individuals along the Juke lineage.
There he records how an unusually high persentage of the Juke family died as paupers, were
criminals, murderers, drunkards, and more than half the women were harlots.
See the following sources:
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