The covenant youth of today sees quite a different world from yesterday. Mothers, who formerly concentrated all their efforts to be homemakers and to raise a family, now go out to work, in order to obtain extra luxuries not available to them from one income. All around us the Scriptural idea of holy marriage is laughed to scorn. Ridiculous! Marriage is for this life’s enjoyment and that is all. The vows “Until death us do part” are made with tongue in cheek, as is evident from the ever increasing number of divorces and remarriages. Living together as unmarried individuals is condoned by the excuse, “Everybody does it”. Rather than considering it a privilege to have children, they are considered to be a nuisance and therefore unwanted or kept to a minimum.
What results will this have on the future generations? What can the young people of the church expect for their future surrounding?
A thought provoking article appeared in the May 9, 1983 issue of the U.S. News under the heading, “When ‘Family’ Will Have A New Definition”.
The article starts out by saying. “On a spring afternoon half a century from today, the Joneses are gathering to sing “Happy Birthday” to Junior. There’s Dad and his third wife, Mom and her second husband, Junior’s two half brothers and from his father’s first marriage, his six stepsisters from his mother’s spouse’s previous unions, 100 year old Great Grandpa, all eight of Junior’s current ‘grandparents,’ assorted aunts, uncles-in law and step-cousins. While one robot scoops up the gifts and another blows out the candles, Junior makes a wish . . . that he didn’t have so many relatives.”
The writer assumes that “different demands on the young and the old will create a generation gap the likes of which civilization has never known …. We’ll continue to look for something better. If the marriage does not measure up, it will be ended. . . . Many more people in the future will live together before marriage, or not get married at all.”
Experts look for “a double set of grandparents, aunts, uncles and brothers and sisters, as well as former in-laws and ex-spouses all of them making up the new divorce extended family. – . . Couples will decide to have fewer and fewer children – or no children at all … . Already it is predicted that by 1990 up to 50 percent of all children will have experienced divorce and remarriage in their families. . . . What once was thought of as distasteful or unfortunate – the step family – will become very normal.”
Sociologists see “the growth of nonfamily households – group marriages, gay parents, unmarried couples, com¬munes of close friends, and a growing number of single parents. . . . Racial intermarriage is expected to become increasingly common.”
What about bringing up children in a broken home?
‘‘Friends and neighbors as well as kinfolk and the government are likely to have a greater role in rearing children 50 years from now – necessary outgrowth of more family break-ups and more mothers working outside the home. By the turn of the century, two thirds of American wives and most female single parents will hold full time jobs.”
What part will the government continue to play in all this?
‘‘Pressure will increase on govern¬ment to provide or finance more day care and after school programs. . . . While not expected to take a Big Brother role in home life, the government will also oversee the use of genetic-engineering techniques that hold the potential for altering the characteristics of babies. It may even fall to Uncle Sam to help increase the number of children in future generations. . . . The government will not only offer financial rewards for newborns but also encourage more births through greater use of test-tube baby techniques and surrogate mothers. Families used to be responsible for the education of children and the care of the aged; the government does both now.”
What will be the anticipated advantage?
According to the writer, there will be many advantages of this new “family” situation. To mention a few? “The children of these (inter-racial) marriages will have greater ability to mix across racial and cultural lines than past generations. . . . They may be our hope for the future. Me-ism will soften or be replaced by we-ism. Boys will do house¬work and will be educated to realize that they are no longer to be sole providers. Girls will be raised to be breadwinners, too. . . . The notion of the husband being the only breadwinner and the wife being the homemaker will become irrelevant – an historical curiosity.”
One wonders in how far the church members will continue to go along with these departures. For one thing is evident, the departures from the Word of God and the imitating of the world today will bear their bitter consequences in the generations to come.
The signs of the times must be evident to anyone who wants to see them. The ungodly are lovers of self rather than lovers of God. Every commandment of God they defiantly trample under foot. The institution of holy marriage becomes worse than legalized prostitution. As a result, the family, which is the very foundation for true fellowship in the world, will completely disappear. Man will play god by determining the size of the family, by attempting to make test-tube babies and by seeking out surrogate mothers to produce a super-race. The wicked do what is right in their own eyes with every effort to wipe out God’s Name, God’s cause and God’s church from the earth.
Will this world last another fifty years for the rise of this fuller manifestation of the anti-christian world power? Or will this happen sooner than we expect?
There is good reason for the church to heed the call of God’s Holy Word, “Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.” II Corinthians 6:17.
Well may we pray with ever increasing fervor, “Come, Lord Jesus, yea, come quickly.”