“Getting Back to
Basics”
Attack on the Family
Jeremiah 29:4-6
4 “Thus says the Lord of
hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile
from Jerusalem to Babylon, 5 ‘Build
houses and live in them;
and plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and become the fathers of sons
and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to
husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply there and do not
decrease.
In Jeremiah 29, God instructed His people
to marry and to reproduce while in captivity.
He also instructed them to find wives for their sons and to give their
daughters away in marriage. He gave this
instruction to ensure that their numbers would not diminish while in
captivity. God wanted to make certain
that there would be people to recoup when He came to set them free from their
captors. Marriage and reproduction would
be the main component to ensure Israel’s success. Today, however, the value of marriage and
producing children has been devalued by many.
As our nation continues to lower its
standards, people increasingly place more value on careers, positions, wealth,
and possessions rather than creating a family.
We are warned in 1 Timothy 4 that in the last days, many would be
deceived and discourage others from getting married. Unfortunately, as society is abandoning the
institution of marriage, the church is slowly being indoctrinated to adopt this
mindset as well. However, God is still
looking for His people to marry and create families because He does not expect
our numbers to diminish.
God’s expectation for fathers is to
be a tangible representation of God in the home. When fathers discipline their children, it
develops structure in them and provides an understanding that God has also
created a standard for us to live by. When
fathers provide for the family, it illustrates that God is not only able to
provide but He WILL provide for His children.
As a father protects his family, it establishes the foundation for the
trust that is needed to rely on God to protect his own.
When the family is in order, the
church will return to order. When the
church returns to order, it has enough power and influence to cause society to
function in an orderly manner. The devil
has attacked the family relentlessly because he understands that if the
structure of the family is unstable, everything else will become unstable. God has created husbands, wives and children
as a symbol of strength and in order to create destruction in society, the
enemy of humanity must destroy the family.
Getting back to basics is essential to restoring order to society.
