BiblicalInsights.net

     Have you stopped to consider the impact of fatherlessness on our country?  With the rise of single parent families in America and the absence of a father in the home, social ills have increased.  Six are noted here.
     —Poverty.  Children in fatherless homes are five times more likely to be poor.  In 2002, 7.8% of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared to 38.4% of children in female-householder families.  Almost 75% of American children living in single-parent families will experience poverty before they turn 11 years old.
     —Drugs and Alcohol Abuse.  The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services states, “Fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse.”  Children who live apart from their fathers are 4.3 times more likely to smoke cigarettes as teenagers than children growing up with their fathers in the home.
     —Physical and Emotional Health.  Children in single-parent families are two to three times as likely as children in two-parent families to have emotional and behavioral  problems.  A study on nearly 6,000 children found that children from single parent homes had more physical and mental health problems than children who lived with two married parents.  Additionally, boys in single parent homes were found to have more illnesses than girls in single parent homes.  Three out of four teenage suicides occur in households where a parent has been absent.
     —Educational Achievement.  In studies involving over 25,000 children using nationally representative data sets, children who lived with only one parent had lower grade point averages, lower college aspirations, poor attendance records, and higher drop out rates than students who lived with both parents.  Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school.  Even divorce has an impact on children.  School children from divorced families are absent more, are more anxious, hostile, and withdrawn, and are less popular with their peers than those from intact families.
     —Crime.  In a study using a national probability sample of 1,636 young men and women, it was found that older boys and girls from female headed households are more likely to commit criminal acts than their peers who lived with two parents.   A study in the state of Washington using statewide data found a male born to an unmarried teen mother was ten times more likely to become a chronic juvenile offender.
     —Sexual Activity and Teen Pregnancy.   A survey of 720 teenage girls found:  97% of the girls said that having parents they could talk to could help reduce teen pregnancy.  93% said having loving parents reduced the risk.  76% said that their fathers were very or somewhat influential on their decision to have sex.  Children in single parent families are more likely to get pregnant as teenagers than their peers who grow up with two parents.  (All of the above statistics are from: www.fathers.com).
     Fathers have a significant position and role to play in the home.  While all of the above information proves this point, consider also the spiritual leadership that fathers should provide for their children.  Paul writes, “And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4).  Fathers should nurture their children by spiritual instruction and training.  Children desperately need their fathers to be present in their lives, to love them, to be a role model for them, and to lead them spiritually to know and follow God.

     The British carried out the most famous of all paradummy missions during the early hours of D-Day, June 5/6th, 1944.  The paradummy operation was code-named “Titanic” and involved dropping hundreds of paradummies along the French coast to confuse and deceive the Germans as to where the actual Allied Airborne drops would occur.
     These dummies, which have come to be known as “Ruperts” (as opposed to the American “Oscars”) were made of simple stuffed burlap sack cloth.  They were filled with sand, straw, or wood shavings and were attached to small scale sized parachutes.  They were small, only about 3 feet tall and could be dressed in actual small uniforms.
     Six brave SAS men jumped along with the paradummies to make a lot of noise on the ground, play combat recordings, make small attacks on German troops (like couriers) and generally help make the landings appear real to the Germans.  Days after the operation, only two of these six men returned to friendly lines.
     Deception can be a tool in war.  It can also be a tool of Satan.  Paul writes, “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.  Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works” (2 Cor. 11:14).
     False teachers do not go around wearing a badge indicating that they are false teachers!  All teachers should be put to the test of truth and righteousness (I John 4:1).  Those who are teaching the truth do not fear such scrutiny.  Those who teach error avoid it.  Spiritual discernment based upon a righteous standard is sorely needed today.  The spiritually immature are easily duped by Satan’s disguises.  Beware the “Rupert.”  Beware of deception.

     Philosopher Peter Kreeft, commenting on Francis Bacon’s Man’s Conquest of Nature, had this to say, “The term in the phrase Man’s Conquest of Nature is a sexually chavinistic term, not because all use of the traditional generic “Man” is, but because we have a civilization that is in the midst of what Karl Stern called “the flight from woman.” We extol action over being, analysis over intuition, problems over mysteries, success over contentment, conquering over nurturing, the quick fix over life-long commitments, the prostitute over the mother” (Ravi Zacharias, I, Isaac, Take Thee Rebekah, 16). 
     This flight from womanhood is the costly price we have paid in our gender wars by making difference synonymous with hierarchy.  God made the differences, and those differences are purposeful.  There is also difference in the Trinity without inferiority” (Zacharias, 16-17).
     “The entire fury over gender warfare and sexuality is because the issues are positioned purely in pragmatic terms, forgetting that in the first created order there was specific design and intended purpose.  All the philosophizing and arguing by well-meaning people to the contrary will not explain why the biology is so distinctive, as is the chemistry that follows.  The differences between men and women are not perfunctory; they are essential.  The complementariness is not bestowed by society; it is God-given.  The purpose is not just love; it is procreation.  It is not merely a provision; it is a pattern.  Woman is not a fellow man; she is a unique entity, part of man but separate from him.  The difference matters and is sacred in purpose.  In violating this we violate a transcending intent” (Zacharias, 16). 
     Zacharias touches on an important aspect of human existence.  God created Adam and Eve.  In this creative act, He made them male and female.  He gave them each individual purpose.  He made them complementary.  Whenever equality is pushed to the point that God’s original design and purpose are distorted beyond recognition, then the consequence to human identity and meaningful purpose is destructive and great harm is done.  The evolutionary model of man destroys this sacred intent and attempts to blur the distinction between men and women that God has divinely purposed. This is just another example of the difference between the sacred and the profane.
     The Word of God upholds the value and preciousness of womanhood.  The virtuous woman of Proverbs 31:10-31 gains the respect of her husband, her household, and her God.  She does this by manifesting a “fear of the Lord.”  “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.  Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her in the gates” (Proverbs 31:30-31).