10-12-2016 – A Word to the Wise: Waite another researcher in the field says; “The evidence is overwhelming: marriage is beneficial to individuals and society, on balance (Waite 1995). Married people have better emotional and physical health. They live longer. The children raised by a loving married couple have well-documented advantages, both emotionally and economically, over children living in single-parent families.”

10-6-2016 – A Word to the Wise: This trend is causing considerable concern in the government, which is the topic of the following article: “The Retreat from Marriage and the Rise in Nonmarital Fertility,” by Daniel Lichter. 15 He states in his introduction: The new “individualism” in America, the quest for personal fulfillment, and the decline in moral or religious values have gone hand-in-hand with declining marriage rates. Marriage is often seen as restricting personal freedom and growth, as well as potentially handicapping work careers (e.g., tied migration). According to this argument, marriage and traditional family life are increasingly incompatible with the demands of a modern industrial economy. The overwhelming evidence is that declines in marriage have occurred for virtually every segment of American society—the young and the old; employed and unemployed; affluent and poor; highly educated and less educated; urban and rural residents; African American, White, and Hispanic. Current marriage trends are ubiquitous and have affected virtually all social, economic, and demographic groups.

10-4-2016 – A Word to the Wise: Looking at this trend over a 30-year period, we can see the huge increase in births to unmarried women. As seen in the chart below, the percentage of these births rose from 10 percent in 1969 to 33 percent in 1999. In 1960, births to unmarried women accounted for only 5 percent of total births.

10-3-2016 – A Word to the Wise: I have seen numerous young women of marital age in the past few years. It is astounding how strongly they set their face against marriage. U.S. population studies tract the rise in both sexual activity and pregnancy among nonmarried women. “Trends in non-marital pregnancy rates reflect, in part, trends in sexual activity among unmarried women. Among unmarried adult women of childbearing age, levels of sexual activity remained stable or even increased slightly between 1988 and 1995. The proportion of unmarried women in their twenties who were sexually active in the previous year increased slightly, from 72.6 to 76.8 percent).”

9-30-2016 – A Word to the Wise: V. Heritage – Proverbs 5:15-17. “Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.” The innocent are those who pay the highest price for immorality. Solomon warns that the results of immorality are an increase in illegitimate children. At one time, illegitimacy was considered a disgrace, which followed the person throughout their life. Now it has become almost a badge of honor. Women in larger and larger numbers seek children without marriage, without husbands.

9-27-2016 – A Word to the Wise: Thus, immorality leads to emotional and erratic behavior, which perverts one’s sense of reason and often disrupts the life of the family. Thus, the sins are visited not only on the offender.

9-26-2016 – A Word to the Wise: This is why Solomon in Proverbs 4:25 says: “Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you.” Again he warns in Proverbs 6:25 “… do not let her capture you with her eyelashes.” The eyes play the most important role in the initial invitation. It is the eyes that reveal the sad state of the soul. Literally, the eyes are darkened. There is no other way to describe this phenomenon. The eyes no longer “sparkle”; they lose their ability to reflect light.

9-24-2016 – A Word to the Wise: The immoral person’s eyes are constantly looking for some new object to lust after. The object is scanned for dress, which indicates tendencies toward immorality and rebellion, and then an open invitation is transmitted to the other person for sex through the eyes.

9-22-2016 – A Word to the Wise: What is this darkening process? Normally, when we speak of light and darkness, it implies something about the eyes. Have you ever looked closely at the eyes of an immoral person? Let me tell you what I see.