How to Win the Battle for the Family

Well, good morning.

Thank you so much for coming today. Last week we spoke about the battles in life and how we should fight those. And today we want to talk specifically about the battle for the family, how we should fight that fight, and really how can we do that and win.

I don't know about you, but the institution of the family is very important to me. What some of you might not know about my life is that I was raised in a broken home. I was raised by a single mother, three kids, three different men, tricked three times. Life was difficult growing up. I had some experiences that no child should have gone through.

It could have been totally different if things were done the way God had ordained them to have been. So I don't know where you will find yourself in the Word this morning. Perhaps there will be some amens, maybe there will be some ouches. Whatever it will be, my prayer is that we will all see ourselves in the pages of God's Word. Perhaps you are here and you are half a foot out of your house, your home, your family.

It's about to be destroyed. And you have bought into the lie of the devil that you ought not to care about that woman or that man or those kids, that you should live your best life now. I want you to know that that's a lie from the pit of hell. And God has a plan for you, for me. God has a plan for our family, for our children. God has a plan to impact our church through our family.

God has a plan to impact our city, to impact our state, our country, our world through not just other families, but through your family, through mine. This is not just about the other people around you. This is not just about other families.

This is not just about other husbands and other wives or other children. This is about me and this is about you. May God help us to hear with open hearts and apply His Word. Father, speak your Word into our hearts. Trouble us, Lord, with the truth from your Word. May we never leave here the way we came. May we leave with a greater commitment, one perhaps like never before, to walk in the light of your Word and to keep our families together. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Ephesians chapter 6, yes. We know this institution of the family was created by God.

It was also ordained by Him. God has some purposes for this institution, but also for our individual families. The question that I ask myself, which I hope you are also asking yourself, is how can we learn to fight this battle for our family even through this primary text here of putting on the whole armor of God? Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, in light of this, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having done all to stand firm, stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, your shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness of the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, take up, not some, but in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all saints.

And also for me, that words may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. What would be a few of God's purposes or plans for the family? Well, we know that was for the creation and the maintenance of a human society. The family came into being. It would also constitute marriage, which was intended to be, among other things, but certainly a picture of Christ's relationship with the church. That family would be the gateway for the entry and the maturation and discipleship also of children. Yes, the family. The parent-child relationship, that it would display God's relationship with us.

But that it would also be the foundation, the bedrock, if you may, Pastor Pyle mentioned this in his prayer, the bedrock of the church and our community, and certainly to bring the light of the gospel to the world. These are just some of the purposes, God's purposes for the family. Well, we know the family is on the attack today.

What are some signs of this? How do we see this attack on the family today? It's quite clear, and we know it began in the Garden of Eden as the devil inserted himself and disrupted the marriage, the very first marriage between Adam and Eve there. But think of this, that the percentage of adults living with a spouse decreased to 50% in 2021. That single-person household in America grew from 13% in 1960, 13% in 1960 to 28% in 2021.

You can do the math on that. But in 1950, 23% of adults did not marry, but in 2021, that number grew to 34%. Who needs to be married? Who needs to be interested in that? Especially when you can just live with someone, they say just move in, and for 10 years, he or she is your fiancé.

What garbage is that? It's a sin, shacking up. There ain't no fiancé all that time, but just moving in and enjoying everything that should come only in marriage makes it definitely a sin. The Heritage Foundation attributed violent crime that is just rampantly taking over our country today to the absence of fathers in the home, because so many fathers more and more are deserting their homes, abandoning their families, and the poor kids are left to experience the consequences of that.

Shortly thereafter, they begin acting up in school. You wonder why, but there are a few other signs of this beyond just the violence in the home, but consider the fact that 48% of people who got married even under 18 end in divorce. Currently, more marriages end in divorce than the death of a spouse. Do you really think that the institution of family is not under attack? Perhaps your views might be changed even now.

Finally, consider that in less than 40 years, cohabitation among unmarried, that's what we call shacking up, in 40 years, it increased 1,000% over a 40-year period of time. Don't you suppose that the devil is cheering for that? He's excited when he sees those things happening. He's not threatened when that's happening.

In fact, he's excited. And we know ultimately the devil does not want us to fulfill God's purposes for our lives, for the church, for the community, for our country, and for the world. He does not want that to happen. And that's ultimately why he's attacking the church, the family. Chuck Lawless provides 10 reasons why the devil attacks families, and I'll probably just give us a few of those at this point. He wants to destroy the witness of the family.

He wants to certainly harm our witness and destroy the witness, but he also wants to remove people from ministry. So if he can get into our heads and into our hearts and destroy our family, he destroys our home, it does impact the church. But Satan hates our children, and he also wants to destroy our children, hence he's attacking the home. And so when a man or a woman decides that he or she wants to leave the home, yes, they're fulfilling something that the devil wants, but also, dually, he now has free reigns, as it were, to get to those poor, vulnerable children.

He delights in the scars that he creates, scars that he can revisit later on, and scars that reverberate into bigger things into our lives as we continue to live. Yes, the devil hates you. He hates me. He hates the institution of marriage. He hates the institution of family.

He wants to destroy it. So I want to provide us six ways that we can fight this fight and win this battle, as it were. The first three we will see from our main text here in Ephesians chapter 6, and the second three will come from a few other passages of Scripture. So if we're going to fight this fight, if we're going to win this battle for the family, there are some things we need to do. First of all, we need to fight in the strength of the Lord. Not in our own strength, but in the strength of the Lord. It's for that reason why we're told to be strong, not in our own strength, not in our own ability, but to be strong in the Lord. Not just to be strong in the Lord, but to be strong in the strength of His might. Not our own power, not our own strength, not our own ability, but in Him. So as believers, we need to understand that if we are going to win, if we are going to fight effectively for the family, we cannot approach this struggle, we cannot approach this battle on our own, on with our own strength, our own abilities, our own direction, as it were. We must fight in the Lord.

In fact, the very idea here of the strength and might, it suggests His own ability, God's own ability. We will lose this battle if we attempt to fight on our own. So we must stand strong. Stand strong. The verb here is used three times in the entire book of Ephesians. And all three times it occurs right here in chapter six.

All three times it occurs right here in verses 10 through 20. So we understand that it's important then that we stand, and how we stand is very important. That we would stand, it means to be strong, it means to be set, it means to be established as we stand.

And again, we know we cannot do this in and of our own strength. The Apostle Paul, I think, demonstrates how this works for us. In Philippians 4 verse 13 he says, listen, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Not in His own strength, not in His own ability, but only in the ability that God provides. It's not only that we are standing, but we will also see here, and later as well, that He also causes us to stand. So as we stand in Him, He supports us, He holds us in this fight. Because ultimately, the battle belongs to the Lord. So He's going to fight this with us. Why then, do we think that we can fight on our own? Certainly, we cannot fight on our own. So first of all, we fight in the strength of the Lord, and secondly, we must fight the right enemy. We must fight the right enemy.

Look at verse 12, I haven't forgotten 11, we'll come back to it. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, know your enemy, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness. If we don't know the enemy, we begin to fight ourselves and fight others.

We fight those within our homes, we fight those within the church, we try to destroy in each other as it were. So if we expect to be victorious over this battle, it is imperative that we know the enemy. What do we need to know about the enemy? We need to know where the enemy is, we need to know what the enemy looks like, we need to know how the enemy attacks us so that we can be prepared as we fight. Know the enemy.

Where do we find? Where's the enemy? We're told that our fight again is not against flesh and blood, it's against the rulers, against the authorities, against cosmic powers of this present darkness. In essence, the devil really is the enemy. Can you imagine if you convince yourself that your husband or your wife or your child or your parent is your enemy, you don't want to be around that person. You don't want to be near that person. You try to stay far from that person, you fight that person, and as Galatians 5 verse 15 tells us, we may even bite and devour each other.

And again, who stands back and laughs when that happens? Turn with me to Galatians chapter 5. Verse 13, for we were called to freedom, brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Now verse 15, but if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consuming one another.

And that's exactly what happens in some relationships. We turn our attention away from the real enemy and we make the person next to us in our home our enemy so we begin to bite and devour and we destroy ourselves and we destroy our home. So sometimes that battle is within and we need to know how to fight that battle.

We can't do it on our own, but we can do it with him. We need to know the real enemy. So we fight in the strength of the Lord, but we must also fight the right enemy. Don't forget, the devil is crafty. We're told in Genesis 3, 1, he was the most crafty beast of the field that God had made.

He was very smart and still is. And we know then that the weapon in order not to implode as we fight and devour one another, again we fight with the right weapon, we fight the right enemy, and we do so with the Lord and in the strength of the Lord. So again, we fight in the strength of the Lord, we fight the right enemy, but number three, we must fight with the right weapon.

We must fight with the right weapon. Here we are told in verse 13 that we are to take up the whole armor of God. In verse 11 we are told that we are to put on the whole armor of God. We are to take it up and we are to put it on. The idea of putting it on is like we put on clothing to cover our bodies and when people look at us, exception for parts of our hands and our face, generally they're just seeing us in clothing and we know someone is in it, or at least we hope we're not seeing a spirit, but the person is there, they're clothed in such a way that we see their outer appearance. So anyone who ventures into this battle, again we must know the enemy, we must have the right weapon that we're going to use in our fight against this enemy as we approach the battle.

Take it up, put it on, not just the part, but the whole armor of God. That we are able to stand against the schemes, the schema. The word here is the method, the methodology of the devil, his approach, his desire to destroy. Have we forgotten the threefold ministry of the devil seen in John 10. He came to steal, to kill, to destroy, that's what he is all about, that's who he is. Don't fool yourself, the devil doesn't like you, the devil doesn't love you, he doesn't love us, he doesn't love our family, he wants to destroy us.

That's it. So if we are going to stand against the trickery of the devil, the lies of the devil, the idea here is that he intentionally lies in wait for you and for me to trip us up. So we see here in verse 14 that God will cause us to stand, to be established in him. As we do this then, we need to consider the whole armor of God, again we pick it up, we put it on. So what are we talking about here? These six parts, the belt of truth which we use to gird up our loins for battle and we want to be known as people who live in truth and our lives are permeated by truth.

We see it here in the ancient world of the Roman soldiers fighting and they may have what may appear to you and to me to be a robe of some sort and it may be long going all the way down to their ankles and when it's time for fighting they would just gird that thing up and tie up the excess material so that they can fight the battle. We must pursue peace, truth. We must be sanctified in his truth, John 17, 17. Truth must permeate our homes, permeate our relationships, fight with truth, put on the belt of truth. Secondly, the breastplate of righteousness.

What does that cover? Again, you see the image of the armory, the breastplate of righteousness covers that important organ of the heart. So then you and I in this battle, in this fight, we must guard our hearts. We looked at that last week in Proverbs 4 verse 23 and Pastor Tim also read earlier from Colossians chapter 3, if and since we've been risen in Christ we are to set our hearts, set our minds as it were on things above.

We must take action. We must be intentional in protecting our hearts. Yes, not just a physical heart, but we're talking spiritually guarding our hearts and our minds, we were told. Again, Proverbs 4 23 tells us that we must be diligent in the guarding of our hearts.

So if you are going to go to battle and you're in a sphere where someone may come with a sword or a spear, you definitely want your heart protected. But also the gospel of peace. We're saved by the grace of Christ. This brings us into peace through relationship with Jesus Christ. What difference would it make in our homes, in our relationships, if it was just characterized by the gospel? We're having these gospel centered conversations. When we're with family, when we're with friends, when we're with neighbors, we're just characterized by the gospel. We're finding ways to insert the gospel, to preach the gospel, to share the gospel so that others who are not having the kind of a joy that we have can come to experience this peace through relationship with Jesus Christ.

Put it on. How about the shield of faith? We are to take it up and not just to take it up, we are to take it up, we are to hold it up that we are able to extinguish the fiery darts of the devil. Again in the ancient world where the armory was used a little bit more than we do to the end, perhaps even some parts of the world we might see this still. But the Romans, they would have their shield made a very special way. And their shield, we're told, would be covered with thick animal skin. And when they're going out to battle, they would dip that shield in water because the enemy often fire these darts over at them. And so, not only to have the shield to ward that off, but to have the shield dip in water so it can extinguish the fiery darts that the devil will shoot at us. What is our water into which we need to be dipped regularly to be replenished so that we also can use the shield?

It is the word of God. The Psalm 1 tells us that we should live very close to the water, the springs of water. When we live there, we yield our fruit in its right season, but of course also we're able to extinguish the fiery darts of the evil one. How about the helmet of salvation? The helmet very close to the breastplate, the helmet protects the head. We also need to protect our head as it were. Yes, we know we're saved by grace through faith in Christ alone, so as we put on this helmet of salvation, we remind ourselves that our salvation comes from the Lord. But there's something else we need to do, having been saved by grace through faith in Christ alone, we must work, we must serve. And so, yes we are His workmanship, verse 10 of Ephesians 2, created in Christ Jesus for good works. So we put on the helmet, we're guarding our heads, we're guarding our minds as it were, hiding God's word in our hearts as we see in Psalm 119 that we may not sin against Him. And as we do so, He keeps us, doesn't He?

In perfect peace. How about the sword of the Spirit, don't we need that? It's that weapon, it's the only part of the armor that is both for defense but also for offense. So what happens if we're not using it in a defensive manner? What happens if we're not using it in an offensive manner? Well then, we allow ourselves to be penetrated.

We put ourselves in danger. We use the Word. We use the Spirit. We use the sword of the Spirit in this regard. Remember the Lord when He was tempted by the devil in Matthew chapter 4? For each temptation, three times, what was the Lord's response?

He used the Word. He said, it is written, verse 4, verse 6, verse 7. If Christ Himself, God Himself used the Word of God, how much more should we use the sword of the Spirit? And we should support all of this through prayer.

Right? And we must be vigilant in our prayer. We must be, we must persevere in our prayers.

We're supporting it all in the fight for the family as it were. And we do so to the very end as we keep alert. So, we want to fight with the strength of the Lord. We want to fight the right enemy.

And we want to fight with the right weapon. But number four, we want to pursue peace within our homes. Pursue peace within our homes. If peace permeates our homes, then all would be well.

But if it does not, we've got lots of problems, don't we? Again, we turn inward. We begin to destroy each other. Our passions are at war within us and we're constantly at fight. But if we live in the peace of the Spirit of God that we're called to in Galatians 5, verse 22, what if our lifestyle was known to be that of peace? We're called to it. How about if we allow the peace of Christ to rule in our hearts as we see in Colossians 3 and verse 15?

How does it make things different in our home? Well then if there's peace, well then there's no war. Then we're not fighting. We're not devouring each other.

Right? We have the peace of God. And this is the way we are called to live. We ought not to live like those in the world.

Look at James chapter 4, 1 and 2. What causes quarrels? What causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? You desire to the end and you do not have, so you murder, you covet, you cannot obtain, so you fight and you quarrel? You do not have because you do not ask. Watch our passions.

We are sinners. You've got a problem in your home and the husband you think I'm just going to leave and go somewhere else because the grass is always green on the other side. The wife may think so as well. It always looks greener from afar.

Maybe it's the same with the child. I'm going to leave because it's much better over there. The problem is as you get closer to where this grass is supposed to be greener, you begin to see those brown patches. You realize after all it's not as green as you thought it looked from afar. Now you're close. You're seeing well I've left one sinner to be with another sinner, so sooner or later we're going to have problems as well. There's Jamaican paralons for that. Be careful, I'll say it in English for you, be careful not to jump out of the frying pan and find yourself in the fire.

Still it's going to be hot there. Work things out. Pursue righteousness.

Don't devour each other. Number five, commit to the process of reconciliation. Commit to the process of reconciliation. We've been called to this ministry of reconciliation we see in 2 Corinthians 5.

And so this process is very, very important to every relationship. It does involve at times confrontation. We confront sin. It involves confession of sin. It involves forgiveness and reconciliation.

But we've been called to this. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 18. All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

That is in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting it to us, the message of reconciliation. So if we're going to win this battle for the family, yes because we are sinners together living in a home, in a marriage with children, children with parents. Things are going to happen. We're going to get on each other's nerves at times. Sooner or later I'm going to sin against her.

She's going to sin against me. And what we do is we should not just turn and run and destroy the home and the family. We ought to pursue the process or be committed to the process of reconciliation.

What does this look like? In Matthew 18 we see if someone sins against you, you the offended go to the offender and tell him or her his fault. Give that brother, that sister the opportunity to repent, to say oh I'm sorry. Oh I didn't realize this had happened. Please forgive me.

But if not, now you bring one or two more. Very often it's so painful what happens. Something happens in the home. And what we do is instead of pursuing reconciliation, we turn, we run and we tell it to others. We begin to gossip.

We're not trying to solve the problem. We just want others to know so that they can look upon him or her with a sense of disdain, to shame them as it were. But then when you've been confronted, we need to be quick to confess our sins one to the other. And when that confession has taken place, when that brother or sister confess the sin and say I'm sorry, please forgive me, you and I then must forgive. Colossians 3, 13 is clear on that. We must be quick to forgive even as we bear one another's burdens.

We are called to this. Ephesians 4 and verse 32 as well. And then finally, how do we know reconciliation has been completed, this process? So I have sinned. I turned and I asked for forgiveness or have been confronted and I asked for forgiveness. Now the offended, it is his or her responsibility to forgive as Christ has called us to. And when that forgiveness has been granted, then we can hug each other. We can come and sit again. We can sit at a table and we can have sweet fellowship and we can dine together.

Why? Because reconciliation has taken place. But the devil does not want us to forgive because why? As long as this wall of sin is there, we stay apart from each other. We consider the other person our enemy and we do not pursue reconciliation.

We don't pursue a relationship with that person. And so then it affects our worship. It affects our growth in Christ. Can you imagine you're coming to church realizing that there's a problem with a brother or a sister that hasn't been fixed? Matthew says if you come and you realize that, leave your gift at the altar, go and make it right with your brother and sister, then return and offer your gift.

I have news for you. If you're harboring sin in your life and you think you're coming and getting your praise on, God ain't interested in that. First go and deal with it with the brother or sister and then come and offer your offering. Forgiveness, very, very important. It is through forgiveness that we begin to move towards reconciliation. And yes, then we can worship. Yes, then we can testify of the goodness of Christ and share the gospel, live the gospel, reach the world around us through forgiveness as our relationships come back together. And then finally, we must fulfill your God-given roles as an act of worship. What is our God-given role, particularly as husbands and wives? We see in Ephesians chapter 5, just for the sake of time, I'll read just a few verses here. Husbands loved your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water of the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. That's a part of the husband's responsibility. So this institution of marriage we know was established by God. He called them both to leave their mother and their father and to cleave together and to become one flesh.

We see in Genesis chapter 2. So then if the husband is fulfilling his role, his role as the lover in the home, his role as the leader in the home, his role as the protector, as the provider, as the one who comforts, as the one who teaches, as the one who is like the shepherd and the pastor of your home, I guarantee you your home will be different. But unfortunately, what we hear ever so often is a man who comes and say, well, my wife is not cleaning the house good enough, so I'm out of here. Or my wife has put on a few extra ounces around her waist so that I'm out of here. I'm thinking, dude, when last you looked down on your stomach, you can't even see your feet, yet you're talking about her, right? It's interesting when the devil gets us to look at someone else. As long as I'm looking at you and your fault, I don't see myself.

Again, that's exactly where he wants us to be. I'm not going to love her because, no, Dodo, God calls us to love as an act of worship to him. I like to express it like this. My love for my wife is ultimately a love for God, and my wife is just the conduit of that love. My wife's love is going through her to God. Ain't going to let her rob me of my blessing.

I love you, dear. I'm going to forgive. I'm going to love, even when it hurts because it shouldn't be about me, but the devil said, no, it's me time.

Take out that phone and take them snaps and put it out there and let others comment about it, and if they don't, you can get all angry and all this sort of stuff. Or a man who goes out, he says, I've been working all day. I deserve to come home and just sit there on my blessed assurance and do nothing and complain about everything.

Well, she's been working at home too. How about just love, selflessly, love biblically? Notice what the Scripture says, men, brothers, as we love our wives like this. Like the church, she can be presented without spot or wrinkle, holy without blemish. So when we cherish our wives, we are getting something that we ourselves get to love and to enjoy.

Fulfill our God-given roles as an act of worship. And then the wives are called also to fulfill their roles as a companion, one who goes alongside, one who follows. In some cultures, the woman follows way behind but knows one who goes alongside.

She's the nurturer. She supports, she respects, she honors her husband. Yes, I know some women don't like to hear the word submit, but that's what it is. Verse 22, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church.

So again, wives, I have news for you. Your submission is not just to him. Your submission is through him to the Lord. He's the head that God has given in the home. Now, what does a home look like when we live like this?

A home where a husband is loving and cherishing the wife, living for her. She in return, she cherishes him. She honors him.

She follows him. She fulfills her role as God has called her to. They consider each other's needs as more important than their individual need. Again, in the Lord. So, if we are to win the battle for the family, yes, we know there are some external darts that are coming, but there are also these internal challenges that we have. And these are some of the ways we can deal with those in order to win the battle, to fight for the family, to keep your family where it needs to be in a God-honoring relationship.

My prayer and my hope is that we'll be able to do just this as we live for him. Would you say, I've blown it. My kids are older, out of the home.

What can I do? Well, how about the grandkids? So, well, we don't have kids. God didn't bless us with kids. Well, I have two you can adopt.

And there are others around here that you can adopt as well. And you can live these principles. I mean, as a young man who didn't grow up in a structured family, I am telling you the family of God, the church, was everything to me. I looked at men loving their wives and learned what it meant to love my wife, because I did not see this in my home.

So, as we live it, there are others, younger ones, that are looking on us, and we can be that living example for them. And for those outside of Christ, yes, begin with that relationship with Christ, remembering how much he loves you, how he died for you, how he's offering salvation to you. And then I have a few practical suggestions for us that can walk us even through the very inception of some of these relationships as they would then form into marriages and family. First of all, develop a biblical appreciation for marriage and family. And I would say, you're dating a young man or young woman, get to know his or her values on family. And if it's not where you are because you've already developed that, you have predetermined that, bye.

Sometimes we think we can convert them. Well, a lot of people will pretend, and later on, the truth that's always been there will reveal itself anyhow. Number two, do not date just because others are doing it. Oh, there's so many scars.

There's so much pain to come off that. I want to date just because others are doing it. Today, you're with this young man or this young woman.

Tomorrow, you're with someone else. I'm telling you, as a young man with my own brokenness, the young ladies I stayed away from were the ones who were running around with all the dudes in community or in my school. Oh, I wouldn't give them a second thought, but then one day, the Lord sent me to this church in Old Harbor, and as I got early, and I'm trying to keep my gaze on the Lord in what this young lady, beautiful as she still is. A fraction of a second later, I saw about three to five kids behind her, and I said, oh, no, Lord. I later realized she just picked the kids up in the community and brought them to church. I said, oh, yeah, Lord.

She had her mind where it needed to be. Number three, be more focused on being a godly man or woman, not just to look for him or her, for if you don't focus on the being, you won't know him or her when they walk past you anyhow. And by the way, if you're not being a godly young man or a godly young woman, a godly young man or woman will not waste time with you.

They walk by. I've been praying for godly young men for my daughters, and I'm living my life to help them. Sometimes they don't understand it.

Sometimes they don't agree with it. Sometimes they vehemently disagree with it, but it's to help them to be godly young women so that God can bring into their lives the godly young men of his choosing, not just a Christian man. I want godly young men for my daughters, and I trust you fathers and mothers are praying the same. Number four, only settle for the man or woman of God's choosing for you. Don't settle for anything less, because if you do later on, you're going to have problems in your marriage, in your family, in your home, because those values are going to come back if they're not biblical, and they will cause storms in your home and in your life. Number five, do not get married without serious, notice, serious premarital counseling. And I would even say, young man, young woman, you are with this person and you think this is God's person for you, and you guys begin to settle in to talking about dates and perhaps there's a proposal. And if he or she would be ready to walk to the altar without premarital counseling, take him off the list, take her off the list, and wait a little while longer. Oh no, that sounds, Pastor Pierce, you're crazy, aren't you?

Just my nature as a Jamaican. Do you know how often myself and other pastors have people come for counseling? We begin to tell very early in the relationship, and you ask, well guys, did you pursue premarital counseling? Very often, no.

Very often, no. Number six, strive to keep your spouse and family as your second highest priority. Strive to do that.

Man, it's not about the career, it's not about the job, it shouldn't be primarily about all the traveling that you can do. Your second priority, second to your relationship with God, needs to be that man, that woman that God has given you, that spouse that God has given you. And then the children and ladies, God blesses you with children. They shouldn't take greater priority over the man that God has given you, but again, strive to keep the family unit as a whole, as that second greatest priority.

This will help us in our fight for the family. And finally, address sin and conflicts biblically as they happen. Address sin and conflicts biblically.

Don't wait till the sun goes down ten different days or weeks or months. Deal with these conflicts as they happen because conflicts will divide us. And again, the devil wants us to be divided. There's a problem, deal with it. Don't run away from it.

You go to another relationship, you will take it with you. Deal with the problem right here. Pursue and be committed to the process of sanctification. This is not all that we can do in our battle for the family to win this battle.

These are just six principles that we can put in place. And it's my prayer and hope that you will do just this and experience God's blessings in your life and in your family. Let's pray.

Father, we are so thankful for your word. We are absolutely nothing without you and nothing without it. We wouldn't know how to stand. We wouldn't know how to walk. We wouldn't know how to fight these battles. We would continue to devour each other. Help us, Lord, to look to you. Follow the principles of your word and to understand the fight that we are in and how weak we are so that we would fight with you knowing that the battle belongs to you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.