This is true true true!

Protecting From Sin and Folly -Mark Driscoll

In addition to discipline for sin, a father is to provide protection from sin for his children. This is particularly true of sexual sin, from molestation when they are little to fornication and date rape when they are older. Deuteronomy 22 tells a particularly sobering story for fathers: a young woman is married to a man who claims that she was not a virgin on their wedding night, and so he wants a divorce. Basically a judicial court hearing is held, the woman and her husband are brought in, and they need someone to testify as to the condition of her sexual history. Her father is brought in as the expert witness because he knows her best, loves her most, and has protected her to the degree that he can ensure the court that she has not been with another man. Today that kind of father would be labeled as unloving and overly protective, because the fools are winning.

One of the dumbest conversations I've ever had on this topic was with a pastor. He asked me to pray for his teenage daughter, who claimed to be a Christian but was dating and having sex with a non-Christian teenage boy. I asked him what specifically I should pray for—that God would give him a steady trigger finger? He told me that he had never told her not to have sex because she was an adult, and he did not want to pry into her personal life. I told the man that I would not pray that God would give his daughter wisdom, because God had already given that wisdom to her father, who did not lovingly dispense it to his daughter, and that he was a wicked man who apparently hated his daughter and was a coward unfit for the pastorate. Any man who allows his daughter to sin and be sinned against in the name of loving her knows little of God's love.

Deuteronomy 22 also tells the story of a girl who commits adultery with a married man, and she is sentenced to death by stoning. They put her to death on the steps of her father's home, because she is his responsibility and he has failed in his duties to lovingly instruct, correct, and protect her. Dads are supposed to know that their blossoming daughters are often the objects of lust for sinful men, and unless they stand between their daughters and men, the men will use them for sexual sin, even telling these vulnerable young women that they love them if it helps soften them up for sin. Daddies with daughters who are boy crazy and flirtatious have to labor even more diligently to oversee the purity of their daughters.

I can still recall one occasion when I was doing a wedding in the California Napa Valley. Before the wedding, I took some time to take my daughter Ashley on a shoeless walk through the vineyards as I was dressed in my suit and she was looking cute in a dress. She was nearly three years old at the time and as we held hands and walked, she looked at me and said, "Daddy, some day I will be married." I said, "Yes, you will, sweetheart." I then asked her, "How will you know who you are supposed to marry?" She said, "You and mommy will help decide," and then she giggled. As her father, I am called by God to be the biggest man in her life until her husband earns her love and my approval. Every girl needs a Christian daddy who loves her, snuggles with her, encourages her, compliments her, protects her, and enjoys "daddy dates" with her where they go out to have fun together.