The Power of a Godly Father

We’ve been duped, distracted. It’s a ruse, ancillary and sensational window-dressing. The culture wars on gender and abortion, the militant LGBT lobby, drag-queen children, Disney, Christian bakers, free speech (religious and otherwise), gun control—mere skirmishes to a broader conflict. There is a full-scale assault upon the bastion of a righteous nation, the godly father.

These issues distract and divide while dismissing biblical masculinity as an archaic concept, symbolic of a by-gone patriarchy. Meanwhile, our nation systematically castrates our men. We demonize masculinity, suppressing the slightest hints of masculine aggression in young boys. With few godly examples to emulate, young men go one of two routes, submit to being neutered and become a hollowed-out shell of a man maybe immersed in pornography or video games, or lash out in the oppression of women. These days, the cultural ideal for manhood has become the homosexual man, one who possesses the capacity but not the propensity to reproduce, to father.

You see, Satan knows all too well the power of a godly father.

1. Father to the Church

God calls godly men to lead His church. (1 Timothy 3, Titus 1) He commissions elders to lead, guide, shepherd, and protect His people. The church elder must be the husband of one wife, literally a one-woman-man. He must be of reputable character, and he must manage and lead his household well, his wife and his children. (1 Timothy 3:5) He must be a godly father. (God nowhere restricts single or childless men from service.)

That he manages his home well indicates how he might manage the household of God. If he cannot manage his own home, how can he be trusted with such a responsibility? As God likens His church to a household, godly men are the fathers of the Church.

Yet, most men sit content in their excess, as idle and flaccid caricatures of what God has called them to be. They flee the feminized Church in droves, leaving any practice of spirituality to their wives, further emasculating the Church. Entire denominations ignore the authority of Scripture and ordain female clergy. Women are left holding the bag, so to speak.

     Sunday is my day to sleep in, or…

     The game’s on, or…

     I don’t really want to be preached at this morning…

This is not what God intended in His revealed will. God looks to godly men, to godly fathers, to lead His church in taking the Gospel to the nations. God dispatches godly fathers to lead the assault against the very gates of hell, to proclaim liberty to the captives, to set them free. (Matthew 16:18, Luke 4:18)

This is the power of a godly father.

2. Father to His Family

What a man does in his home is equally as important, if not more important than what he does in public, or in the church. The family is the building block of the church, the foundation of a godly nation. Few things indicate the condition of a nation more so than the state of its families.

And few things display the power of a godly father more than his role in the family. God entrusted the future of the Church to godly fathers, that they would minister to their families. This is a great Gospel issue and you may not evade this call.

Children inherit the faith of their parents. Really, they inherit the faith of their fathers. Dads, God is calling you to father. Men, God is calling you to father.

     Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them. (Psalm 127:4-5)

The Lord has equipped us with two great weapons for this cutthroat spiritual battle. He has given us the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Ephesians 6:17) The Word of God is a weapon in the hand of a warrior. But He has filled our quiver with arrows, our children. Our sons, our children, are like arrows in the hands of a warrior. The Bible and our children—the weapons of a godly father. Would you put the sword of the Spirit into the hands of your sons?

This is the power of a godly father.

Reality confronts as most fathers abdicate the responsibility to make disciples of their sons, either leaving it to the Church or neglecting it altogether. This is a great Gospel issue. Most Christians convert before the age of 18. There are very few adult converts. If a young man leaves home before conversion, chances are he will die one day in his sin.

The religious practices of the father, above everything else, determine the future religious practices of the child. From a 1994 Swiss study, if a father does not go to church, no matter how faithful the wife’s devotion, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshipper.

Secular psychology concurs. From Freud, a child’s psychological representation of his father is intimately connected to his understanding of God. Once a child is disappointed in or loses respect for his earthly father, belief in a heavenly father becomes impossible. The younger a man, the more likely he is to have a poor relationship with his father. Though the correlation is not firmly established, the younger man is also less likely to believe in God.

Here is the power of a godly father, the power to make disciples of all the nations…starting with his own sons.

3. Father to the Fatherless

Let us consider those who have no father?

It is a fact that orphans suffer. System kids who ‘graduate’ the system at 18 not having been adopted have only despair awaiting. Statistically, most of them will fail at life. Incarceration, addiction, homelessness, poverty, children out of wedlock: this is the likely future of those never adopted. Every year, our nation generates thousands of new adults who will always struggle.

Those raised by a single mother struggle nearly as much. A disproportionate number of prisoners in our nation’s penal system come from single–mother homes. The presence of an active father yields better students, higher achievement, college, higher income, fewer mental and social issues. Yet, the ranks of the fatherless grows daily as more and more men walk, abandoning their responsibility to father. It is the children who suffer.

However, as dire as the social consequences of fatherlessness are, there is a vastly more pressing issue. Who will teach them about Christ? Each year we populate the ranks of adulthood with thousands of those least likely to ever believe. This is a great Gospel issue and in this, we see the potential power of a godly man. Perhaps God knew what He was doing when He ordained that a man leave his mother and father and ‘cleave’ to the woman in the bonds of marriage.

The orphans, the fatherless, they live desperate for the love and commitment of a godly father. Selflessly, thousands of godly fathers nationwide answer the call to stand in the gap and say, “I will be that man.”

This is the power of a godly father.

4. Father to the Nation

Our nation yearns desperately for the leadership of strong and steady men, men of God, committed men, serious in their faith and with their families. Our nation desperately needs godly fathers to step forward and declare that which God has ordained.

The godly father would never stand by as our nation silently slaughters our babies in the womb.

The godly father would never stand silent as orphans languish in their affliction.

The godly father could not tolerate our collective national drift from godliness.

Perhaps you or I could be that man. I pray that God would raise up a generation of such men, that He would show His power in the commitment of a legion of godly fathers.