The Cause of Family Breakups

First of all, individual lives can be shaken.

In the ministry, I’ve dealt with hundreds of people over the years whose lives have been totally shaken by sickness, by poverty, by a broken marriage, in various ways. People who say, “I give up. I can’t go any further. Nothing helps. Nothing works. I might as well be dead.” They were people whose lives were not built on the teaching of Jesus.

It doesn’t mean that if we build on the teaching of Jesus, we’ll have no problems, but we’ll have the strength to withstand the problems.

And then Jesus said in Matthew 12, verse 25,

“Every house or household that is divided against itself cannot stand.”

So any household that is divided, in which there is not unity and love and peace, can be shaken and will be shaken. And we see every day reports in the papers of households that are being shaken.

In fact, I think it’s probably the main cause of the problems that confront us in society today. It’s the breakup of the family. And what it has resulted in is hordes of unparented children. Parents can run away from their responsibilities for their children, but they’ll catch up. Maybe not in that generation, but in the next. And one of the major social features of the world today is the activities of unparented children.

Now, I mention just three areas. One is South Africa, in the black townships, where there are hordes of children who owe no allegiance to anybody, have no respect for anything, have no concern for human life. They have just abandoned themselves because they’ve been abandoned.

I’ve said many times, there’s no such thing as a juvenile delinquent. The delinquents are the adults. And there’s no one really that can control them.

See, police can keep order in a society if the majority of the society are on the side of the police and in favor of law and order. But when the majority of a society turns the other way, the police cannot possibly maintain order. It’s not their job.

Another place where this is true is in Israel, amongst the younger Arabs growing up as a result of the so-called Intifada. Now, I’m familiar with the Arab culture. I lived amongst them. And normally, the young have great respect for the old, and children have great respect for their parents. But the Intifada has broken all that down. And now society is being taken over by teenagers who have no loyalty, no commitment, no respect whatever.

And in a sense, their society is no longer manageable. Then a third place, which is an example of that, is Los Angeles. Again, the root problem is children who have grown up without the love, the discipline, and the care of parents.

And there is no social answer to this problem. I personally believe it will multiply and increase. I can believe that here in Britain, there will be whole areas which will be taken over by young rebels, and the police will simply stay clear of those areas. In fact, there are some areas in the country now. But we need to come to the root of the problem, which is the parents who failed to train their children.