Protecting Your Family

By Charles F. Stanley

Gain a Biblical Perspective on Family.

Even though many leaders give lip service to "family values" and the need to have strong families, it's clear that the family unit is under attack today. To a great extent, the family is a high priority target of Satan's. Why? Because the family is important to God. The strong family is the perfect setting to learn godly living and wisdom and to apply Bible-based principles that are pleasing to the Lord.

In Protecting Your Family, Dr. Charles Stanley teaches readers how to recognize the attacks of the enemy on their family and how to combat them with the truths and principles of Scripture. He focuses on the foundations of a godly home, such as love, stewardship, and prayer.

Each study draws on Dr. Stanley's many years of teaching the guiding principles found in God's Word, showing how we can apply them in practical ways to every situation we face.

Each of the ten lessons includes:

• A brief look at what is covered in the lesson.
• A teaching from Dr. Stanley that unpacks the topic of the lesson.
• Application and Bible study questions based on the key points.
• Key takeaways to put into practice today and tomorrow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Feb 17, 2008
• ISBN: 9781418536879

Charles F. Stanley

Dr. Charles F. Stanley was the founder of In Touch Ministries and pastor emeritus of First Baptist Church Atlanta, Georgia, where he served more than fifty years. He was also a New York Times bestselling author of more than seventy books. Until his death in 2023, Dr. Stanley’s mission was to get the gospel to “as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, as clearly as possible, as irresistibly as possible, through the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of God.” This is a calling that In Touch Ministries continues to pursue by transmitting his teachings as widely and effectively as possible. Dr. Stanley’s messages can be heard daily on In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley broadcasts on television, radio, and satellite networks and stations around the world; on the internet at intouch.org and through In Touch+; and via the In Touch Messenger Lab. Excerpts from Dr. Stanley’s inspiring messages are also published in the award-winning In Touch devotional magazine.

Book preview

PROTECTING

YOUR

FAMILY

PROTECTING

YOUR

FAMILY

CHARLES

STANLEY

ITSG_11_Protecting_Your_Family_final_0003_001

Copyright © 1998 by Charles Stanley

All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

The Bible version used in this publication is THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.

ISBN 0-7852-7614-9

Printed in the United States of America

1 2 3 4 5 6 QPK 03 02 01 00 99 98

CONTENTS

Introduction: The Challenge of Protecting Your Family

1. Gaining a Bible Perspective on Your Family

2. Foundational Principles for a Godly Home

3. Stewardship of the Family

4. Loving Your Family Unconditionally

5. Keeping the Family from Spiritual Bondage:

Part 1

6. Keeping the Family from Spiritual Bondage:

Part 2

7. Laying a Firm Foundation

8. Pulling Down Strongholds

9. Binding Satan

10. Praying for and with Your Family

Conclusion: Trust God to Do What Only God Can Do

INTRODUCTION

THE CHALLENGE OF PROTECTING YOUR FAMILY

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 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.

LESSON 1

GAINING A BIBLE PERSPECTIVE ON YOUR FAMILY

The bookshelves of countless bookstores are lined with books on family dynamics and the training of children. Many of those that are rooted in sound Christian doctrine offer good advice. Other books offer direction in spiritual warfare. Ultimately, however, the Bible is going to give every parent and spouse the best advice on how to protect the family against spiritual attack, and therefore, how best to protect the family.

All family problems ultimately have a spiritual root, and the Bible is the only book that gives God’s wisdom on how to address spiritual matters. The Bible’s advice regarding families is not theory— it is truth. Truth can and must be applied; it must be lived out. The Bible not only tells us what is true and valuable, but it tells us how to live.

There are those who may say, "But today’s world isn’t like