Deuteronomy 6:1-25

Christianity is always only one generation away from extinction.  Man’s tendency from one generation to the next is to forget what the Lord has done and to forget what the Lord has commanded.  We must become intentional about passing on God’s truth from one generation to the next.  His blessings must always be remembered and the stories of His provision must always be rehearsed so that those who come behind us will know who God is, what God has done and how God expects us to live.  It is important that we realize that this will not happen naturally.  If we are not purposefully and systematically talking about God’s work and will they will be forgotten by the generations to come.

REPEAT GOD’S LAW: The laws of God must be constantly on our lips.  We must teach these laws to our children and our grand children, generation after generation so that they will hear and know what God expects from them.  When God reveals His will to His people, they are then responsible to maintain that message before the eyes of their children so that God’s truth will not be lost.  We must never be silent about what God has taught us.  It should be a normal part of our everyday lives to speak about the law of the Lord.  Just as we are constantly repeating instructions about what we expect our children to do; like make their bed and brush their teeth, we must constantly repeat the Law of the Lord to our children.  When we fail to do this, we are dooming our children to live short and miserable lives.  The repletion of God’s Law is key to the quantity and the quality of the lives our children and grandchildren will live.

RECOGNIZE GOD’S LOVE: Prosperity is one the most dangerous conditions a man can face.  We are for more likely to remember and fear the Lord in the midst of adversity than we are in times of prosperity.  The key to being faithful in times of prosperity is to recognize that it is a demonstration of the love of God for us.  Israel was about to go into a land and live in cities that they did not build and eat food from fields that they did not plant.  They were about to experience a peace and prosperity like they had never seen before.  God knew that this was a very dangerous thing in their lives.  God insists that we do not forget Him as the source of all that we have.  It is easy for us to fall into the trap of worshiping our possessions instead of the God who has made provision for us.  God’s love for us should be a constant call for us to live in fear of and in love with Him.

REMEMBER GOD’S LIBERATION: Children love to ask “why?”  They always want to know the reasons behind our beliefs.  Our standard answer of: “because I said so” is not sufficient.  God knew that the future generations of Israel would want to know why they were different from the other nations.  They would want to know why they were not allowed do the things that all of the other kids did.  God wanted to make sure that His work in the nation of Egypt was never forgotten.  God wanted every generation to know that the children of Israel were slaves in Egypt with no hope of freedom until God stepped in and set them free.  Those who have never known anything but freedom have a hard time appreciating the horrors of slavery.  We must always remember that we have been set free from our slavery to sin through Christ.  When our children ask us why we obey the Word of God, we must be quick to respond: “because Christ has set us free from our slavery to sin.”  We were all bound to an eternity apart from Christ in condemnation and torment, but in Christ we have been set free.  This is why we love to obey.