THE GATEKEEPER!
I want to believe God has set the husband and father in the home as the foremost gatekeeper. That'll be in accordance with the Bible and God's plan to regulate his wife and children and help put in perspectives things that they need answers to as their first go person ( Eph.5:23, I Tim. 2:12).
A gatekeeper has invested authority from God to allow or disallow certain things. He has the power of permission. He can grant or withdraw it over matters as God would desire He does. May God help him to use this well.
[Image Credit: Google]
Sometime recently, my younger sibling who lives with me dressed to check out. As I gazed in her direction to respond to her, "goodbye sir", I observed her top was somehow skimpy. I didn't banter with her but only released an executive order. "Check in and change that. Didn't you see that it is skimpy and would jump up further if you need to bend down?"
She changed into a better top after raising her opinion which reasoning subdued.
How does this relate to being a gatekeeper? It does very well. Thank God I was there. That could have gone out just like that but my presence arrested it and sent it back for realignment. I never tallied with it or consented to her dressing like that though the top wasn't obviously skimpy.
However, skimpy is skimpy! For Satan to enter, he doesn't need too wide a crack but the one you'll call harmless and insufficient for him to act on.
If you're a husband and father or even a mother, it's your responsibility to ensure things are very proper with your family. Speaking of the virtuous woman, the Bible says, "she looks well to the ways of her family."
Proverbs 31:27, KJV
"She looketh well to the ways of her household..."
NLT says, "She carefully watches everything in her household..."
If you like, call her the eagle woman! She sees even from afar. Even when it hasn't reached or neared her, she could discern and pick it out. It is not this type of mother that her son would bring home a gun from where God knows and eventually use it to blow his own head up under her roof. God forbid! She's a watcher and always on her tower.
You must be a careful observer and carer of your family in like manner. You must look well to the ways or operations of your family. You must know how your family members fare both when under your roof in the same house or outside and far away. You must keep looking unto the ways of your household. Nothing should be hidden from you. Rather, you must know who's who and ensure nothing bypasses you unarrested or unjudged. You must have an active oversight over your family.
This same responsibility extends to your wife. It's your responsibility to caution and call to appropriation your wife when an odd fashion or ways of life begins to appeal to her. I found out that most females who dress to kill and to reveal do so because it's also permitted by certain macho authorities in their lives. It could be father, husband or brother (as is my case).
Once something is destroyed or perverted in you, if your wife dresses up and the cleavage is open or the dress gums too much to her body, you wouldn't see that something is wrong. As such, you can't call for a disbanding and a realignment.
That's why the man must not be sick as the head and the final authority in the home. He must be sound from head to toe to mark perversion and subtle destruction that is ready to be smuggled into his family for what they are. He shouldn't tolerate them but rather throw them out.
But if the light that's in you is darkness, then I wonder o!
Remember that what you have a weakness for is what you'll eventually allow. Don't let weakness lead to tolerance.
Many times when we see such women or ladies outside, we may solely blame them not knowing that it isn't all their handiwork. What you must know is that the gatekeeper who allows or consents to their dressing that way is no different from them. And as far as I know, ladies often want to dress to impress or draw affirmation, not only to look good.
As a man who gives affirmation to my wife and somebody like my younger sister and in no years my daughter, it's my responsibility to affirm what is moral so they'll do more of that and denounce the amoral so that they'll give that up.
Where there'll be a real problem is if I'm saying A and one colleague at work is saying B or affirming her in the wrong direction. If the woman involved isn't wise to know that the husband for instance is the one who has her best in mind, she might criticize the husband and say a thing like, "why is yours different? Everybody always commends my dressing except you." Why won't they commend you since you offer them something to latch and feast their eyes on? They're grateful there's someone around feeding their lustful desires. Only God knows how many times such guys would have naked and slept with such ladies in their minds. If opportunity situates itself for their good, they won't hesitate to carry out the physical act on her - even if it'll be rape that might land them in jail.
Why would that happen?
The Bible says:
James 1:14-15, KJV
"14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death."
What you've been looking at and thinking about for long is something you can act out when opportune. Your having thought about it for long and savoured it is a preparatory ground to be tempted into the real act.
For this reason, resist the temptation of thinking on the canal and the debased. Also, let females take heed to what and how they dress. You won't be blameless if you cause any to fall or sin (even when it's just mind sex). Don't dress to distract attention to yourself. Dress to cover your nakedness - what was shameful to behold by the public that even Adam and Eve had to cut fig leaves to cover upon their discovery of their own nakedness (Gen.3:7).
So, if you're an authority figure somewhere, allowing what should be arrested or reprimanded at the gate means you're an accomplice who will receive just punishment for the same. You won't go blameless. You're no different in person to the actor. Regarding you as someone invested with the office of the overseer who should know better and guide in the right path (as a teacher), you'll be judged with a stricter measure (James 3:1). In addition, every lady should know God's permitted will to them on how they should dress though there are general instructions in the Bible. Assignments can further give each of us certain dressings though must not be amoral.
I think a story illustrates this in the Bible. Look at Rebekah who laid out plans of supplanting Esau for Jacob. Don't you think if Jacob were to be judged, she won't escape?
Genesis 27:11-14, KJV
"11 And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man: 12 My father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver; and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing. 13 And his mother said unto him, Upon me be thy curse, my son: only obey my voice, and go fetch me them. 14 And he went, and fetched, and brought them to his mother: and his mother made savoury meat, such as his father loved."
In this story, a mother facilitated the evil that her son did. We are very familiar with how Jacob supplanted Esau and received his blessings instead though in line with a prediction of Jacob being greater than Esau (Gen.25:23). It's also an affirmation of the previous act of nonchalance that Esau cultivated towards what is sacred and important to God and men (Gen.25:32-34). For his nonchalance, he lost the blessing to he who could custody it better. Better things are kept and retained by the faithful. In like manner, you must cherish the anointing. Don't be like Esau who lacks estimation for the holy. Never be a despiser or a profane!
Hebrews 12:16-17, KJV
"16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. 17 For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears."
While there are many justifications for this yet we can't deny that Jacob is a supplanter and was aided in his crime by the mother. As a matter of fact, it was the mother who rolled out this plan and urged Jacob on when he shivered. When Jacob developed cold feet and thought of consequences, Rebecca gave him confidence saying "may the curse be upon me."
This is a typology of Christ taking our place, bearing our grief, carrying our shame and enduring the burden of our sins (Isa. 53:3-11).
So, if we were to hold Jacob responsible for this heinous act, Rebekah wouldn't have been blameless as well. "Both are thieves who steal and who hide it" says a Yoruba proverb. None shall be spared according to any good justice system.
Summarily, Rebecca facilitated an evil though one that served the overall will of God.
So, as gatekeepers, we cannot turn a blind sight to what's happening in our homes, classrooms, offices, churches when we have the staff of office to rule or checkmate certain individuals.
Gatekeepers are called to sieve and prevent the unauthorized from entering. Are you really discharging this job as one?
Olusola ADEJUMO,
M'Wings.
Morning Wings Ministry,
Nigeria.
morningwingsministryplus@gmail.com
21/08/25
