Sins to the 3rd & 4th; Mercy to the 1000's

Do you really believe the commandments when God says that the Lord will visit the iniquity of the father's on the 3rd & 4th generation, but show mercy unto the 1000's of them that love Him and keep His commandments?

Well, remember this interesting little factoid:

"In 1900 A. E. Winship traced the descendants of 2 families that lived in the 1700's in order to compare and contrast them. On the one side you had the descendants of Jonathan Edwards, the early American puritan preacher/theologian. The other patriarch was the Jukes family, a notorious clan who cost NY State a total of $1,250,000 in welfare and custodial charges...They all originated with one immigrant who settled in upstate NY in 1720 and produced a tribe of 'idleness, ignorance and vulgarity.'

"Only 20 of the 1,200 Jukes ever had gainful employment (the others were either criminals or lived on state aid), whereas the Edwards family had contributed astonishing riches to the American scene.
"By 1900 the marriage of Jonathan and Sara Edwards had produced
13 college presidents
65 professors
100 lawyers & a dean of a law school
30 judges
66 physicians & a dean of a medical school
80 holders of public office, including 3 US senators; mayors of 3 large cities; governors of 3 states; a VP of the US; & a controller of the US Treasury.

"Almost all the men had college degrees and many completed graduate work in a time when this was unusual. The women were repeatedly described as "great readers" or "highly intelligent," although girls were not sent to college then. Members of the family wrote 135 books. They edited 18 journals/periodicals. They entered the ministry in platoons and sent a hundred missionaries overseas, as well as stocking many mission boards with lay trustees. And the list goes on...."

-From Marriage to a Difficult Man: The Uncommon Union of Jonathan & Sarah Edwards, by Elisabeth D. Dodds.