The family is under attack today. A divorce in our nation is occurring every twenty-seven seconds. We face a
growing drug problem and a rise in both pregnancies and AIDS among the teen population. A child runs away from
home at the rate of nearly 1.3 million children a year. Even though many leaders give lip service to “family values”
and the need to have strong families, the attack continues. To a great extent, the family is the number-one target
of Satan.
Why is your family a target? Because your family is important to God. Your family is the primary environment
in which we each learn spiritual lessons; what we hear taught at church—in Sunday school classes, sermons from
the pulpit, Bible study groups—or in the Christ-centered media is what we are to apply at home. It is in
the application of Bible-based principles that we truly learn how to live a godly life and to do what it
is that is pleasing to the Lord. It is in applying God's wisdom that we grow in faith and in our desire for greater
intimacy with our Creator. Perhaps nothing on this earth regarding you—apart from your own personal salvation—is
as important to God as your family ties.
There is a second and more global reason your family is important to God. If the family is weak, the church
is weak. And if the church is weak, our nation becomes weak. There is no way that any person can be isolated unto
himself or herself. In the same way, no family can be isolated from the greater community—church, neighborhood,
city, state, and nation. What happens to us in our families happens to others around us to a greater or lesser
degree. Your family is part of God's greater plan for the extension of His kingdom throughout the earth.
These two great reasons—your family as the place where spiritual principles are learned through application,
and your family as the beginning point for all evangelism—make your family a prime target of the enemy of your
soul, Satan.
Recognizing the Source of Attack
Satan uses many vehicles and methods to attack the family. Drugs and alcohol; rock music and its influence toward
violence and suicide; peer pressure from ungodly children, teens, and young adults; excessive materialism; the
breakdown of family togetherness; the cultural questioning of all values—each of these may be considered a source
of “assault” against the family. Behind the obvious reality of these dangers, however, lies the silent, invisible,
and insidious source of the attack: Satan. Regardless of what we are confronting in our families today, we must
never lose sight of the fact that Satan is the source of all attacks against the family. He is the one who
is plotting and scheming for the demise of your family, using whatever methods seem most readily available
and effective for the individual weaknesses of your family members.
Never lose sight of your enemy as you seek to protect your family. Satan is the source of all evil.
It would be bad enough if Satan were attacking only the families of the unbelievers in our nation, but he has
launched a major offensive against the homes of God's people. People who have been saved for years are feeling
under attack. Couples who have been married ten, twenty, thirty, and more years are finding their marriages under
attack.
What can we do to strengthen the home? Does the Bible have an answer for the protection and strengthening of
family ties?
First, we must recognize that this is a spiritual battle. The weapons with which we defend our families
against the assault of Satan are spiritual weapons. We must become not only experts in spiritual warfare, but experienced
in spiritual warfare. We must not only know what to do in prayer, but we must actually intercede for our families.
We must fight the good fight, knowing with the confidence of a firm faith that, as we do, we will win. As we act,
Christ enables. As we engage in spiritual battle, Christ provides the victory.
Second, we must engage in active, positive measures that will strengthen the family against attack. Spiritual
warfare is our ultimate defense against assault from Satan. But every person who has ever played any kind of sport
knows that a good defense is not enough. One must also have a strong and positive offense. In the protection of
our homes, that offense comes in the form of doing the “right things” to protect the family in a preventive, positive
way.
The Spiritual Purpose for Protecting the Family
This study booklet deals with both a good offense and a good defense for the protection of the family. Keep
in mind always, however, that the ultimate protection for your family is a spiritual matter.
The Goal
Your goal in protecting the family is spiritual—that your sons and daughters might be active, positive, strong
Christians in this life and that in eternity you might stand with your sons and daughters before the throne of
God and hear the Lord say to you as a family, “Well done, good and faithful servants.” Nothing you do as a parent
is as important as helping your children secure their spiritual and eternal future.
The Methods
Your methods for protecting the family begin in the spirit realm. It is in the teaching and applying of spiritual
principles within the home that family members become strong in Christ. It is in developing spiritual warfare skills
that your family members are defended against spiritual attack. It is in offering praise and thanksgiving to God
that the family is encouraged during difficult times. As much as you may desire to protect your family physically,
naturally, materially, financially, and relationally—all of which are necessary types of protection—the foremost
protection you can supply to your family members is spiritual protection.
God Will Help You!
Keep in mind continually as you engage in this study that what God calls us to do, God equips us to do.
Many people feel inadequate and even fearful at the thought of engaging in spiritual battle for their family members.
Others feel inept and overwhelmed at the thought of being responsible for the spiritual education and enrichment
of their children. Certainly, parenting is not for the faint of heart! Even so, what God has challenged us to do,
He also will enable us to do by the power of His Holy Spirit.
You can be obedient in doing all that the Lord reveals to you to do. And then, you must trust God to
do what only God can do. Only God can redeem, save, and fill your children with His Holy Spirit. Only God can deliver
from the enemy. Only God can heal, reconcile, and make whole. We do everything we know to do, and then we must
use our faith to believe that God will be faithful to His Word and work all things together for our good and the
good of those we love (Rom. 8:28).
Protecting your family, in the end, is a matter of entrusting your family completely to God. You can be assured
of this: God loves you and your family members even more than you do! His love is never-ending, His power is beyond
measure, His wisdom is infinite. And He will respond to your faithful obedience.
From Protecting Your Family by Charles
Stanley. Copyright 1998 by Charles Stanley.
