Men, Stand Guard

Now more than ever, men need to keep watch over what’s been entrusted to their care and protection, especially the eternal souls that fall under their headship and households.

Husbands and fathers have a God-given responsibility to guard their families (Gen. 2:15), like a shepherd watching over his sheep (Ex. 22:10), like a watchman over a city (Isa. 62:6). Not only from physical threats that may enter the home through an unlocked window or door, but also from spiritual threats that enter into the hearts and minds through screens and entertainment.

The world has a pulpit in every home with the permission of every husband and father. Every movie, every show, every song, and every game has a worldview that is preached, and every sermon endorses a particular view of God, sin, and humanity.

More often than not, the message proclaimed is one we wouldn’t tolerate from any church pulpit. And yet, when it comes to entertainment, how often do we let it slide because the kids are quiet, the wife enjoys it, or because we too find it amusing?

Men, guard the windows and doors, but also guard the screens.

The Apostle Peter exhorts us to, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).

And not only like a roaring lion, but like the Serpent in the garden. The enemy will not show us the courtesy of going through us, the family head, to get his fangs into our wives and children. In fact, we invite him whenever our guard is down.

Men, we will be held accountable, even for what slips passed unnoticed due to our own negligence and apathy. Eve may have sinned first, but it was Adam that God called to account first (Gen. 3:9).

As George Whitefield warned in his work, The Great Duty of Family Religion: “For if, as the Apostle argues, ‘He that does not provide for his own house,’ in temporal things, ‘has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel;’ to what greater degree of apostasy must he have arrived, who takes no thought to provide for the spiritual welfare of his family!”

Men, stand guard!