American Minute with Bill Federer

Jonathan Edwards

He entered Yale College at age 13 and graduated with honors. He became a pastor, and his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God,” started the Great Awakening, a revival involving numerous preachers which swept America, uniting the colonies prior to the Revolution.

[Jonathan Edwards, was a Puritan Preacher in the 1700s. He was one of the most respected preachers in his day. He attended Yale at the age of thirteen and later went on to become the president of Princeton college. He married his wife Sara in 1727 and they were blessed with eleven children. Every night when Mr. Edwards was home, he would spend an hour conversing with his family and then praying a blessing over each child. Jonathan and his wife Sarah passed on a great, godly legacy to their eleven children.] Source article.

His name was Jonathan Edwards and he was born OCTOBER 5, 1703.

Jonathan Edwards’ wife, Sarah Pierrepont Edwards, wrote to her brother in New Haven of the effect of Great Awakening preacher George Whitefield:

It is wonderful to see what a spell he casts over an audience by proclaiming the simplest truths of the Bible….Our mechanics shut up their shops, and the day laborers throw down their tools to go and hear him preach, and few return unaffected.

Jonathan Edwards became President of Princeton College.

In A History of the Work of Redemption, 1739, Jonathan Edwards wrote:

Those mighty kingdoms of Antichrist and Mohammed…have trampled the world under foot..(and) swallowed up the Ancient Roman Empire…Satan’s Mohometan kingdom swallowing up the Eastern Empire.

Jonathan Edwards resolved:

Never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.

Illustrating the priority Jonathan and Sarah Edwards placed on training their children, A.E. Winship’s A Study in Education and Heredity (1900), revealed the Edwards’ descendants included:

1 U.S. Vice-President,
3 U.S. Senators,
3 governors,
3 mayors,
13 college presidents,
30 judges,
65 professors,
80 public office holders,
100 lawyers and
100 missionaries.

[Summary: the influence and training of godly parents raising children in an godly environment–
Sets children up for success to receive blessings, favor, strength of character, faith in God, truth in relationships, powerful disciplines, endless rewards both in the natural, and in the supernatural; wisdom, integrity, trustworthiness, hard-working spirit, positive faith influence, vision, knowledge, strength under pressure, and ability to persevere under difficult situations, as well as to give life and speak life to those around them–even when facing difficult times. As they have freely been given, they shall freely give away. That’s just part of the new nature in God.]

 

Max Jukes

This same study examined a family known as “Jukes.”

In 1877, while visiting New York’s prisons, Richard Dugdale found inmates with 42 different last names all descending from one man, called “Max.” Born around 1720 of Dutch stock, Max was a hard drinker, idle, irreverent and uneducated.

Max’s descendants included:

7 murderers,
60 thieves,
50 women of debauchery,
130 other convicts.
310 paupers, who, combined spent 2,300 years in poorhouses, and
400 physically wrecked by indulgent living.

[Summary: the influence and training of ungodly parents raising children in an ungodly environment–
Sets children up for failure, to receive curses, disfavor, broken character, dissatisfaction with God, little faith in relationships, lack of personal discipline, endless and seemingly insurmountable problems: anxieties, confusions, depressions, frustrations and disillusionment, shame, guilt, regret, without the wisdom or mental or emotional stability to overcome personal Temptations. The lust of the flesh, the greed of materialism, the power of selfishness, the temptation to lie and steal, to get revenge, and even kill can easily overtake such a child raised in such an environment. The proof is in every generation of godless fatherless homes and families.]

The “Jukes” descendants cost the state more than $1,250,000.

• [It was estimated that Jukes’ descendants cost the state approximately $1.25 million in public welfare and other costs to society apart from incarceration fees and legal costs {1850 value.} Today’s adjustment—$42,149,679.49.

 

[Conclusion:
The price of sin and having a negative father influence is costly.]

Self-Educated American contributing editor, William J. Federer, is the bestselling author of “Backfired: A Nation Born for Religious Tolerance no Longer Tolerates Religion,” and numerous other books. A frequent radio and television guest, his daily American Minute is broadcast nationally via radio, television, and Internet. Check out all of Bill’s books here.