Deuteronomy 19:14 reads:  "You shall not move your neighbor's boundary mark, which the ancestors have set, in your inheritance which you shall inherit in the land that the Lord your God gives you to possess it."  This is the first of four times that this command appears in the Bible.  Boundary marks, like the ones mentioned here, exist to define the separation between properties.  To move my neighbor's mark, which our ancestors had set, would be to dispute the truth that has always defined what is mine and what is not.  God takes this literal law a step farther in Hosea 5:10 when He equates the perversion of God's moral law with moving these boundaries.  He says:  "The princes of Judah have become like those who move a boundary..."  In the verses leading up to verse 10, He mentions going "into deep depravity" (v. 2), playing "the harlot" and "defil[ing]" themselves (v. 3).  In making the comparison between those who pervert the truth and deny God's Word concerning morality and those who move the boundary, the Lord is letting us know that moving the boundary is much more than a law concerning honesty between neighbors.  It is a command for us to acknowledge His Word as absolute truth for all time, despite trends and currents (even those from within the church). As I have said before, throughout the Bible God holds men responsible for what goes on in our families.  He has called us to be the fence posts in the boundary between right and wrong.  Gentlemen, just like in Joshua 24:15, we have to decide today whether or not we will trust and serve the Lord.  Our families are dying for the absence of real men, who love God enough to believe that His Word is better than whatever philosophical current carries the day, who love their wives enough to give themselves for them and to show the world how he loves her, who love their kids enough to raise them in the way they should go.  And, yes, that means discipline, saying "no" when it's necessary, caring more about them than our career goals, loving them with our time, and loving them more than our own lives.

The Lord, Himself, establishes what is right and what is wrong, not you and not me.  He has driven us into the ground around our families to stand between them and their own destruction.  The world outside rages against us, because the truth of God's Word requires that we acknowledge Him, and to our rebellious nature, that is unacceptable.  But, as we stand, some of them will see and will trust Him, just like we once did (Matthew 5:16).  As a teacher, everyday I see children who have been left by fathers who checked out somewhere along the way, and their children have been raised by a million different alternatives.  The consequences are tragic.  In the strength of the the One God, I will never bow down to the gods of this world and abandon my family to live without a fence.