Defend The Home Front Series

1. Title: Defend The Home Front

2. Text: several

3. Audience: Villa Heights Christian Church, AM crowd, March 12, 2006, last (8) in the series “A Clear and Present Danger”

4. Objectives:

-for the people to understand the role of the family in withstanding the threats that endanger us; to identify specific threats that endanger their homes; to gather ideas that will assist them in confronting the threats to their homes

-for the people to feel convinced that the family plays a key role in standing up against the clear and present dangers of our age; to feel confident that careful attention to our families will help all of us in the fray

-for the people to take some practical steps to strengthen the family and to fortify it against the attacks that we know are going to happen

5. When I finish my sermon I want my audience to be aware of some specific fronts where Satan is trying to dismantle our homes and to take some measures to protect it and make it strong against him

6. Type: topical

7. Dominant Thought: Satan’s attack is largely aimed to damage the family structure so it makes sense to shore up our families against that attack

8. Outline:

Intro: Someone has defined insanity as doing the same actions and expecting different results. If that’s true, I’m thinking that a lot of us are acting rather insanely about our families this morning.

If you’re a coach, and you know that the other team is going to send a guy around the right end, and he’s going to come in and sack the quarterback, what will you do? Run the play and watch the quarterback get sacked? Or will change your game plan? Will you put another big guy on that end, or run the quarterback around the other end, or have him lateral the ball off before the rather large guy gets to him? You will if you’re trying to win! And I want to win at this thing we call family, don’t you?

Doesn’t it make sense, if we can already know ahead of time where Satan is going to launch his attack, to adjust our defenses and our offense so that there won’t be any damage?

2 Corinthians 2:11

in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.

Well, take a look. Satan is sending his big guy around the ends to tackle our families.

-Ill - Douglas MacArthur II, worked as Counselor of the State Department under John Foster Dulles. Both men were hard workers. One time Dulles phoned the MacArthur home and asked, “Where’s Douglas?” Mrs. MacArthur had answered, and she thought Dulles was an aid. She’d had enough, and she said, "MacArthur is where MacArthur always is, weekdays, Saturdays, Sundays, and nights - in that office!" It was just a few minutes later, MacArthur got a phone call in his office. It was John Dulles, "Go home at once, boy. Your home front is crumbling."

It’s a simple fact of the military. It’s reflected in the sentiment of the 1914 war song “Keep The Home Fires Burning.” It’s necessary for the homeland to be strong and secure for it’s armies to do their work. Remember the city of Ai? Remember how Israel first just ran up and attacked it and ended up running away? Then, they checked with God about what to do. They dealt with sin in the camp, and they used a different approach. One detachment attacked the city, and lured all the fighting men out. The Israelites made another retreat, so the army of Ai ran after them. What they didn’t notice was that after they were out of the city, a 2nd detachment of Israel had run into the city and was setting it on fire. Once the smoke was rising, the army of Ai found themselves ruined and trapped.

After the tragedy of Pearl Harbor, US officials were eager to retaliate in a way that would help the morale of the American people, and that would strike at the very heart of the Japanese. The answer was to bomb the capital city. So, on the morning of April 18th, 1942, B25 bombers lined up for takeoff from USS Hornet, flew over Tokyo, and dropped bombs on several targets. It wasn’t a militarily significant blow, but it was a strike against the home front of Japan.

Part of what makes September 11 stand out to us is that it was a strike against us on our own soil – an attack on the home front seems so much more significant than a war that’s fought someplace we’ve never even seen before. It makes sense to me that the place where Satan is going to do some of his worst work is against our families.