On New Year’s Day, I heard one of the hosts of Fox News say that her New Year’s resolution was to fortify her family. She said that there is little she can do personally to change the climate in our nation, but she will do what she can with her family.
I often think how helpless I feel about the evil things that are happening in our country. As one person with no political influence, I feel like my hands are tied behind my back. There is little I can do to make my voice heard. This seems like the perfect way to feel like I can be heard, and just maybe someone is listening.
My son recently said something that hit me hard. He said that the issues are no longer political party against political party. It is good against evil. He is exactly right; and Christians had better see the decisions that are being made as just that—good against evil.
So, how do we go about fortifying our families? Fortify means to provide defensive works as protection against attack; to strengthen mentally or physically. So, what this news host was saying is that she is going to provide protection against the attacks being wielded against her family. She is going to fight evil!
How do we do that? There is only one way, to truly fight evil, and that is through God’s Word. When God spoke to the Children of Israel, He told them something that is as applicable today as it was then. He says, “…keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life” (Deuteronomy 4:9). Parents can’t fortify anyone if they aren’t conscientious and have a knowledge of God’s Word themselves. God is talking to parents who needed to remember the way God had blessed them and cared for them while they were in captivity. They needed to remember the miracles they had seen, how God had protected them and delivered them from bondage, and how all of this had changed their lives.
Although we haven’t been in captivity like the Jews or seen miracles, we have experienced God’s bountiful blessings over and over again. We need to remember that when we want to fortify our families.
In the remainder of verse 9 and following in verse 10, God tells the Jews to teach their sons and daughters so they can teach their children. This is a long-term commitment. We teach, so they can teach. If we don’t teach, they may not teach.
In Deuteronomy 6:6-7, God tells His people to keep His words in their heart. They are to teach them diligently to their children and talk about God’s commands in their homes, when they are walking together, when they are lying down, and when they get up. In other words, God’s commands have to be constantly taught in order for them to provide the fortification they need to live godly lives.
God’s teachings in the New Testament echo these instructions. Fathers are to bring up their children in “the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).
God also told the Jews, “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 14:2). This is repeated in the New Testament by Peter in First Peter 9-10. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
In this passage, Peter is speaking to both Jewish and Gentile Christians. He speaks of their royalty, the promised reign with Christ in heaven. The faithful are all one in Christ through obedience in baptism. Having been taught, having obeyed, and having lived a life pleasing to God, we are fortified against the devil. These are the things we need to teach our children and grandchildren.
The idea of fortifying our families is not to be taken lightly. It won’t happen if we don’t continue the teaching day and night, in good times and in bad, when they want to hear it and when they don’t, when they are listening and when they aren’t. God’s Word has to be the center of everything we do to strengthen us and generations to come.
Remember Paul’s admonition to the church at Rome. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:15).
Sandra Oliver