The Fourth Generation

The reason those songs stood out to me is because of my background study and just getting an overall picture of, it reminds me of Deuteronomy chapter, I believe it's chapter 20, I have it written down here, I'll have to check, but it's where God gives the commandments to the Israelites, and I'll speak on that some, but it went well with the songs, the Israelites, they have a meeting with God, a very, very strong meeting with God, and then God gives them the Ten Commandments, and it just reminds me of even our own thoughts, you know, we sing these songs of where we praise God, and as we were singing, it reminded me of that relationship connection, what if I would have been one of those in God's presence when God did this miracle and came before the people, and the answer of the people was, Moses, you talk to God, we can't, we don't want to, lest we be destroyed, their sins, their evil hearts, they were so weak, they realized that for God, and God being holy and just, for them to meet with God would destroy them, and God also says it to Moses, God says to Moses, the people are getting too close to the Mount, Mount Sinai, and the people will die if they come too close, for God is holy and the people's hearts were not clean. Before this morning, going to our message here this morning, we're going to do a, maybe a little bit of a circle in our message this morning. I want to start with what I have drawn up here and on the board, and I want to explain, and it will be like an introduction to other thoughts I have, and hopefully I can bring these things together.

We'll start with, I'd like to hear from you, and I want to see from those of us here, where there is the largest, or the most generations. So, in my family, my wife and I's, we would have, there's the children, then there is my wife and I as parents, then there is the grandparents, and we would have, so we would have one set of grandparents, great-grandparents, to the children. So, one set of great-grandparents that are alive in Mexico, and a grandma that is alive in Alberta.

Grandpa just passed away. That's four generations. So, how many, but we're not very connected, but is there someone here that does have that and is well-connected? So, I don't know if we can start with Dave and Crystal.

So, it's your children are here. That's down here. So, today for the children, you're going to be called the grandchild, just for this generation step that we're going to make.

So, Dave and Crystal's children are here. Dave and Crystal are the child. Do we have your parents? They were just here.

So, the children's grandparents, they were just here. Do you have grandparents that are alive? So, just one grandma, that would be blood-related, one grandma. Oh, okay, okay.

And then, okay, which is fine. Yep. James and Melody.

So, if Theodore is grandchild, and James and Melody, you're the child, both of your parents, so they would be like John and Sue, and then your parents for James. Do you have grandparents alive? Okay, okay, good. So, that would be the fourth generations for James and Melody.

So, for you, you would have, okay, Crystal, did you have, do you have a grandma? Nope. So, it's just you that has the step-grandma, okay. So, how about Ben and Samantha? Your children are grandchildren, so you'd have your parents, and you still have two sets of grandparents.

What are their ages? Okay, so four generations. Ben, do you have, so you're here, you have your parents, but you don't have grandparents, okay. Myron and Lily, you're the grandchildren, that's all right.

Okay, good. Helen, just, okay, so if you're, yeah, Elijah and the girls would be grandchildren. Helen, you have your parents, but no grandparents, okay.

So, yeah, something to just, it's a neat thought, but four, four generations. The Bible has, actually, there's quite a few verses that talked about third and fourth generation, which was neat. So, my text verse I'm going to read to start is out of Deuteronomy chapter 6, and maybe before we read, before we read, we're going to build a little case here.

So, we're going to start with this, then we're going to go into the story of some of the scriptures, and then we'll come back to this. The, I call this God's family design, that was here. God's family design, we are, there's some weaknesses in here, and I'll show you what those are.

You know, maybe we can strive that that's not continually so, but it is that way. So, this is God's family design, and on the top, I have Bible, God's Word is what it should be, and on the bottom, I've called this whole combination here, the church, and I do know, some of you would know the Steckleys. So, they are from Lakeview, built by Grand Ben, and if I'm not wrong, they have great grandparents, grandparents, I think it's five generations that are in the church, in the same church gathering.

Yeah, if I have it right, and so, that's where there is a weakness. God has a desire for us people, and we people struggle to bring about what God's desire is. Even as Christians, we really struggle to bring about what God desires for us, and so, let's say, let's mention the things that are broken.

Like I said, I think it's in Lakeview, whether it's four or five generations, I was always blessed by that. There is something about having seniors and definitely grandparents, great grandparents in a church setting. I think that's a real blessing.

There's, there is, yeah, there's a blessing there that that can't be, can't be received any other way. So, for the Steckleys, if that would be so, grandparents, parents, their child, or, you know, the children, and the grandchildren all together in one church, and our burden about why I've called this church is not that we have to all be in the same church, but it is that it should be that way. So, with that, I'm not, I highlight that they're in the same church, but I'm not saying, with that, I'm not trying to say some church, you know, yeah, whether someone does mission work, or someone moves away, and they're not in the same church, I'm not saying that's bad, but what I am saying is I think God's heart is that there would be one church, and that we would be together as a church, not divided.

So, it's a blessing for us to have four generations, but it's a challenge. Definitely, when we can be very divided, it's a blessing when, and this is ideal, I know, but the ideal thought this morning is, and this is where we cannot go, most of us, but let's just think about it, and allow our minds to, yeah, maybe just imagine what that would be like. Imagine for us this morning, here, for me, and my children, we're going to imagine, um, my children are here, and I would, I'd like you to imagine, for each of you, for the children, you place yourself here.

So, all the children, you, you think of yourself here, what would it be like, what would it be like to go to church, and your parents are at church, that's a blessing, your grandparents are at church, and your great-grandparents are at church, and when we think about, um, grandparents and parents, and everyone desiring and striving to serve God, there is a tremendous, I'm going to, I want to use the word this morning, there's a wonderful holiness in the church, there can be, okay, but again, there's a weakness, there can be, in a church setting where there's grandparents, which are very likely the seniors in the church, they are the wise men and women in the church, the grandparents are helping and teaching the parents, and the parents are teaching the younger, the children, like the child here in this case, which would be myself, and I am teaching my children. So, there's a lot of teaching that goes on, there's a lot of wisdom, and every single, uh, section, or every group here, the grandparents, and then the parents, and then the child, and the grandchild, every group has this desire, learn more about Jesus, how can we follow God, um, we all go through every group. Now, again, we think about this, so children, you that are down here, you think about your grandma and grandpa, and you're going to think about it in this way, that God is still taking them through sanctification, where they are learning to say no to themselves in different ways, they're learning to live holy lives, they're learning to surrender, so grandma and grandpa, they learn to surrender, can you imagine 75 years old telling a 55 year old, be strong, keep going, can you imagine a 75 year old telling brother Ben and sister Samantha, be strong, keep going, and it's always the consistent influence, the consistent teaching, encouraging us, keep going, grandparents telling parents, parents telling their children, and then the children teaching the grandchildren, that would be a tremendous blessing, but that's not how life is, life is a lot more where, in our situation, we have my children, and then we have us striving and trying to learn, but for us, we feel like it's this 14 year old driving a car at high speeds, you know what that would be like? Some of you would like to know, and I can picture for some of you, you know, there's something about not having experience and not seeing, you know, all the things that I should see, not having all the wisdom, I think it's for our children, great uncle John, so not all children have that, but our children have a great uncle John, he has a story of his young years, where they were driving, where they could barely look over the dashboard, and I think they took down a bunch of posts, not very good, so it's a challenge, so for my wife and I, we're here, and we have, both of us, we have parents that are really struggling, and as parents, they're separated, and so there's not a lot of good encouragement here, and then we hope to encourage our children, and then we're totally disconnected from our grandparents, so in our life today, in our life today, for my children, we could actually put a line through here, and say we're basically disconnected, I think that's sad, that's very sad, now in Matthew chapter 10, you don't have to turn there, I'm just going to quote something there, in Matthew chapter 10, there's something that came to me, and it stands out to me, and it says, Jesus says there, Matthew 10 34, and we might read it again, but that's okay, he says, Jesus says, think not that I am come to send peace on earth, I came not to send peace, but a sword, for I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and his daughter against her mother, okay, Jesus says, he has come to set the child against the parent, and the parent against the child, can you tell me why that is, why does Jesus say that, what's happening here, is it Christian parents, and a Christian child just don't get along, and God says, Jesus says, he came, and because he came, he kind of separates the two of them, no, it has to do with, there are many, and there will be, many parents, or whichever I, whichever group this will be in, there'll be many, right now we'll use the word parents, there's many times where parents are not walking with God, and a child, in my situation, a child gets born again, and wants to commit their life to God, and that causes trouble, that's what it's talking about, the trouble that's caused there is that someone gets born again, and there, maybe it's the son, maybe it's the father, they do not agree, and they, because they don't agree, now they become enemies, the one that loves the world, or is bound, cannot accept that, that someone else, you know, that they became a Christian, and so there's a battle, then Jesus says, he that loveth father or mother more than me, so if I were to say no to God, if I said no to Jesus, because I want to make sure I'm friends with all the ungodly, then Jesus says, I cannot be a Christian, and so for me to commit to God, I'm forced to separate, and that's what brings separation between father and son, son and father, and so on.

Okay, so, fourth generation, we should strive, we should strive in our lifetime, and yeah, we should strive to accomplish this, you know, each of us would probably think about it, and for me, I do, I take that very personal, where I want to have, you know, we want to walk with God, we don't want to be persuaded by the world to live in the world, we want to walk with God, and so we want to strive to accomplish that. Now, and to go into the rest of our message, and we'll come back to this, we're going to look at Abraham, so turn to Deuteronomy chapter 6, we're going to read verse 2, and then we'll read again verses 1 to 7. So, Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 2, and it says, this is God's command, oh, and I forgot one thing that I want to mention before I read that verse. Okay, there, so this is a real blessing to have this, children, young children, and then for the rest of us, middle-aged, and then if we had seniors, if brother Peter and sister Judy were here, we would have a bit more of an age here yet.

Here is the very important part of life. When we strive to serve God, we all face this battle of fighting with our flesh, we all know that, right? Grandparents, they fight the flesh, they do, we all will. When I'm grandpa, I will still be striving to serve the Lord, but if I don't strive to serve the Lord, then I will still be a slave to Satan, a slave to sin.

And then down the list to the little grandchildren, little Peter Joseph Gunther, born this morning at four, correct, four or five, little, little sweet boy, and he will grow older, learn to know what it's like to scream, be selfish, want what he wants, and on. So he will grow and hopefully grow up to be a wise, godly grandpa. There's two ways, that was my point, there's two ways.

In this striving, there's two ways, and Jesus said he has come and he has brought a sword, and it separates, and it does, and it gets separated in a very harsh way. It gets separated anytime in relationships where you have a decision between good and evil, light and darkness, and it's living for God or living for self. So for us to accomplish what we have there, to have a godly family design, we want to be, and we all strive to be, committed to God and serving God together.

That will bring harmony. If our hearts are where we would not want to be committed to God's ways, and that has a whole other story that's not there. Okay, so Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 2, and the most important part is the top word up top, it's the Bible, it's God's word, that's where everything starts.

I might repeat this in a church setting, in our church here or in Comber, whichever, I mean here I'm just thinking because we relate to Comber in the church there, okay, in no church, and again for the children, but for all of us, in no church does grandpa have full say, right? We would understand that. The preacher in the church is not the boss. I do not decide what the Bible says.

Me and Ben don't decide what the Bible says, and me and brother Henry and the rest of us. When we preach, when I go and pray to God and I say, Lord, what would you have me preach? I am asking God, and then I look at God's word, and then we say, even like we will be now, everything I share this morning, it will come from God's word. Somebody might say, well Cornelius, you're picky.

Why do you have all those ideas from? And I just want to show here this morning in church life, in church life, this is the wonderful beautiful thing about church life. The child here goes to God's word. The grandchild goes to God's word.

I go to God's word. The parents go to God's word. The 50-year-olds, the 75-year-olds, they go to God's word.

Church life should always be any argument, any persuasion should always point us to God's word. So what we would call it is the God's word has all the authority. I could come in here this morning, and I could say, you know what? It doesn't matter how you live.

You'll still go to heaven, and here's the truth of the matter. I don't decide that. No matter what I say, no matter what anyone else says, it doesn't work that way.

You have to go through God's word to see if that's So we all turn to God's word for the way of life. Here's the second part. Each grouping here is at a different stage in life, and how wonderful it is that my children can look to us and to the rest of you that are my age as well.

We labor together. So the grandchildren can look to the child for wisdom and for what God says. The teaching that we do with Sunday school children's lesson and day-to-day.

The grandchildren can look to us. We can look to our parents if they were serving God, and our parents could look to their parents, and it would all flow. It's like putting up blocks.

Maybe that would have a hole in the center when they do concrete blocks. Maybe you're stacking these blocks, and when you look from the top, you look down, and you can see right straight through the bottom. Simply, I want to say is there's a perfect harmony that comes through this scenario here where we're all focused on God's word.

Okay, here's what God says. God has the authority. It comes to us in the Bible.

Let's look at Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 2. That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God. I want to give a little explanation here. That you would respect that I, you and I, that we would respect God for who he is.

Just, holy, and he will judge, which will automatically put us at, Lord, what would you have me to do? That's where we want to be. That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God. Lord, what would you have me to do? Then it says, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I commanded thee, thou and thy son.

Here's that generation. Today, it would be me, speaking directly to me, that I would keep his statutes and his commandments, which he has told me. So he says thou, which is to me, thou and thy son, my children, and thy sons' sons, all the days of thy life, and that thy days may be prolonged.

That's what it says. Isn't that wonderful? My mind wants to run ahead of me and I really want to tackle what happens if we don't, but we won't go there yet. Now, we could look at brother Peter and sister Judy.

To them, this would work, where it would say to Peter, brother Peter and sister Judy, to thee, thou, keep my commandments, and then they have grandchildren, so that's why I'm using them as an example. It would be to you, to your children, Josh and Sharon, and then to their children, Kedron, Liam, and so on. God says, this is what I want you to do.

So this is what God wants us to do. I know that we know this. I would like for us to consider this again, and I would like for us to be encouraged and blessed to have a long view sight in this whole matter.

To me, this excites me, but I will say I'm in grade one, so you will have to excuse me. I'm just learning. I'm in grade one with these things.

Now, I'm going to read from verses one to seven. Now, these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord your God commanded to teach you that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it. Key note, they're going to leave the place of bondage.

God will rescue them. God will save them. They will understand that God saved them.

They will look to God and say, God, thank you for saving us. Then God says, after I've done all this for you, you're going to this land of Canaan. Here's your instructions.

We'll read verse two again. That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God to keep all his statutes and his commandments which I command thee, thou and thy son, and thy son's son, in all the days of thy life, and that thy days may be prolonged. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it, that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thine soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently. Okay, here's where I'm not so good at this.

That's how I feel sometimes, but this is what it's saying to us. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Maybe we would say we're going to have a lot of devotions.

When you're sitting, when you are going for a walk, when you lie down for the night, and when you wake up, talk about God. Teach the children of God. What happens when we do a lot of teaching on God? Well, what happens is it really brings us together to having a strong value of God, where we are persuaded.

Yeah, persuade. I hope you all, for the younger children, I hope you know what I mean when I say that we are persuaded. It's hearing God's Word frequently.

It helps us so that we don't doubt. Is it true? Is it not? Is it real? It is real. So God says be diligent and teach your children.

Now from here, we're not going to read the scriptures, but we're going to go over a few things here. So we know from Adam and Eve and what happened there with the fall of man. So we have Adam and then we have Cain and Abel.

So Adam and Eve, parents, Cain and Abel, sons, and then there's sin. There's murder. We are not told of any other sin that took place in those days other than Adam and Eve sinned against God.

That's one that's mentioned. The next sin that's mentioned in the Bible is the murder that Cain committed against Abel. What happened? How sad? To imagine that you're not influenced by all the evil and all we would have is parent and child.

What happened? What happened? Goes along with the children's lesson. An evil heart that wanted evil and Cain kills Abel. So then we have time goes by up to the flood, Noah's time, and God destroys mankind.

He judges them and they are killed by the flood and there's eight souls that are on the ark and they survive. Now we can picture that God has started over. God has started over and he said there was so much sin in the world.

They're so wicked. We need to do away with them and we're going to start fresh and they do. Now I don't know if you've read recently.

If you read what happens from when Noah gets out of the ark, there's like two chapters, I think, two or three chapters, and it tells us the descendants of his sons and then is the story of the tower of Babel. Again, I'm not sure how much time went by. Could be many years, but it is a sad thing to have that story that way.

It tells us the descendants and how they have planned to act like God in God's face and God has to bring, God gives them all a different language so that they cannot be together. There is no good testimony following Noah that tells us of a people that were godly. Picture this again.

Everything gets wiped out in this world. Noah has a very serious meeting with God and God says, you and your sons, you only are alive. Should that not be a very powerful warning? But not only is it a good warning, but it's a powerful testimony.

The people that would have, you know, Noah communicating with God, Noah would have had no doubts, no doubts at all, and he would know God is serious. But the second thing he would have had is had a good experience. Now the thieves are gone, the mockers are gone, and all those other bad things, they're gone.

Start all over. You know, sometimes we live life like that. We think of all the bad people in my life, make life hard for me.

Well, Noah had a complete new fresh start and it does not give us the testimony that there was men of God in that season from Noah, his sons, to the point of the tower of Babel. And God brings them to confusion to separate them. Okay, time goes by.

There's again, there's not much written there. And then it starts with, it starts with Abraham. And there is where new light seems to shine.

Noah, the world's destroyed. Noah's descendants, very quickly, they're evil. God separates them.

And then God takes, as the mankind is still evil, God takes one man, Abraham. And God calls Abraham and says, and makes a promise with Abraham under certain conditions. And from there, we're going to turn to Genesis chapter 12.

We're going to read the meeting here. Genesis chapter 12. Abraham was well aware of all the wicked sins.

And he is serious about God. And it doesn't tell us the details. But somewhere he learned of God and he has a desire.

He wants to do right. He wants to serve God. And God meets with Abraham.

So Genesis chapter 12 verses 1 to 3. Now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country from and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee. That Matthew chapter 10 is happening. There's a sword.

God is saying, Abram, I'm going to make a promise with you or to you. But God says, I want you to leave all of your family behind. They are in wickedness.

And I want you to be righteous. So here, verse 2. And I will make of thee a great nation. And I will bless thee and make thy name great.

And thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee. And I will incurs them that curseth thee.

And in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. A quick picture here. God did not say to Abram, listen, there's a lot of big kingdoms out there.

And they're rich and powerful. God did not say, you know what, Abram, I don't like them. I want you to be rich and powerful.

That was not God's burden. God's burden was there's a lot of nations there, which all stem from Noah. And God says they're wicked.

And so God says to Abram, Abram, you have a heart that desires right. And God says to him, I want to bless you so that he would be what? Not a wealthy nation, but that he would be a righteous, wealthy nation. He will still be wealthy.

God will prosper him. But God wasn't after finding someone he could make wealthy. Who do I, which poor guy can I find? I want to make him rich.

No. God said, Abram, you are having a relationship with me and I will bless you. And part of that blessing will be that you will be prosperous.

Okay. So God calls Abram. Now, Abram, though he's surrounded by people that are godless, that do not want God, you have one person among many people.

And God says, Abram, follow me. God calls Abraham out. God is starting again.

Abraham gets also a new fresh start communing with God. God is calling him, drawing him, and he is heeding God's call. And God is giving him a new opportunity.

And it's to bring forth godly seed that will love and worship God for who he is. Malachi 2.15, in the middle of the verse, it says there, God seeks a godly seed. Right here, I want to just throw in the comment.

Brothers and sisters and children, what would you and I choose? What would you choose today? Would you be part of the blessed story of us serving the Lord? Or would we be part of the story that's cursed, where we have chosen sin rather than God? I trust it would be that we'd be part of the blessed story, being God's children. There is something unique that happens with Abraham. And here I'm going to just give us an overview of these things.

Genesis chapter 15, so next chapter, we'll read a promise that God makes to Abraham. So Genesis chapter 15, verses 12 to 15. God has made a promise to Abraham.

God has told him that your descendants, now watch this, we can't do it here, but this is God's promise to Abraham. If this was Abraham, old man, at 75 years old is how old he was, I believe, when God called him and made the promise with him, Abraham was 75 years old. And God says to Abraham, come outside, look up, you see the stars? And God says, your descendants will be that many, the amount of the stars.

And so God makes a promise with Abraham. And you can just picture if Abraham, being a strong servant of the Lord, could continue down that path, if the rest of his descendants could follow God, soon you could have had the amount of, the same amount as there is stars, of people that are descendants of Abraham. Now through time, we do have that.

Today we would say as a Christian, I'm a descendant of Abraham. But in his day, physically, he would have had Abraham, then there was a very big struggle with Ishmael, that was outside of God's will, that brought him a curse. But then there is his son Isaac, and through Isaac again comes the promise.

So verses 12 to 15. And when the sun was going down, so he's in the middle of making this promise, he's bringing forth this sacrifice, that's where we jump into verse 12. So he's preparing these, the beast that he's cut in half, and this whole scene here of where he's going to make a covenant with God.

And then it says there, the birds came in to, you know, try to grab the meat, and Abraham shows, verse 11, I'll read it here. And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abraham drove them away. Then verse 12.

And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abraham, and low and horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto Abraham, this is God's promise here, know of a surety that thy seed will be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years. And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge, and afterward shall they come out with great substance.

And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation, they shall come hither again, for the inequity of the Amorites is not yet full. So these verses are a bit ahead of where I was going.

God has made this promise with Abraham, and Abraham struggles to see how this will come about. And it does tell us that Abraham believed God, and then God is making this covenant, and then God shows him how this is going to work. So Abram is in the land of Canaan.

And so he's in the land of Canaan, the descendants from Noah. So Noah's son Ham, his descendants were the Amorites, okay. And these are the people that are in Canaan.

So one of the verses there would have told us that the Amorites, the inequity of the Amorites is not yet full. And I just want to make a connection here. We're talking about generation to generation.

So we have Noah, so we have the flood, Noah and his sons, they full well understand what's taking place. They have a close relationship with God. So you have Noah, you have Ham, then you have many other generations in between there.

And then here it is, God is working with Abram, and now God is telling Abram that the descendants of Ham, the Amorites, their inequity is not yet full. So God says you cannot have this promised land yet. You're going to wait until their inequity is full and then they will be destroyed.

So he has to wait. And then it says that Abram, he's going to die in peace at an old age, but then in the fourth generation, they shall come hither again. They'll come back to Canaan.

And I want to reveal that a little bit to us. Just it's unique, but just show us a little bit of that. So we have Abram in the land of Canaan, and he is waiting for the promise of God.

And so after Abram, we have Isaac. After Isaac, we have Jacob. And then we know the story, Jacob's sons, they sell Joseph.

Now the promise of God was going to go through Levi, the brother to Joseph. But we're more familiar with the story of Joseph. So we have Abram and his meeting with God.

And we have four generations. So let's picture that. So the clearest picture I have right now is Samantha has parents on both sides.

So Samantha's grandparents, that would be Abraham. Then her parents would be Isaac. And then she would be Jacob.

And then Benji here, we'll call Benji Joseph. Four generations, all living at the same time. Okay, so we have four generations.

And to me, as I viewed this, it seems very short in time. Abraham lived to be 175 years old. Isaac, 180.

Jacob, 147. Levi, 137. But we're going to get this picture.

Four generations. So Abram, it could have been in a lifespan. So we have Abram, and he's 75 years old when God makes this promise.

He's 100 years old when Isaac is born. And then you have four generations, Abram, Isaac, Jacob. And now I'm going to use the word Levi.

Levi moves to Egypt after their whole story of meeting Joseph. Joseph being second in charge of Egypt. And there's a famine, a great famine.

And so Jacob and his family move to Joseph into Egypt. And this is where Levi is also moving. So Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Levi.

Four generations. There's going to be an overlap in our generations story here, but we have four generations. It's about 215 years.

So from when Abram was given the call, when God called Abram, to when they came to Egypt, when Jacob moved to Egypt, would have been 200, about 215 years. Then we have, we're going to start a new four generations, and it's from Levi. So Levi is, we'll call him the youngest one, not the youngest brother, but the young in age, the younger generation.

Jacob's son, Levi. So Levi comes to Egypt, and from Levi, four more generations brings us to Moses. So, but I want us to picture that though.

It goes back to, if we were to picture it realistically, we would have Levi arrive in Egypt, and he lives 137 years old. And I'm not exactly sure of the time of overlap that's there, but here we have, maybe it's the grandparents. Levi is an old man, and he will live there for another, maybe 60 years.

So Levi, then he has a son, Kohath, then he has a son, Amram, and Amram is the father of Moses. Four generations, not very long. And a unique thing to notice here, the overlap from Levi to Kohath is 80 to 90 years.

So we could start at Abraham. The overlap years from Abraham to Isaac is 75 years. So Abram has 75 years to talk and teach his son, Isaac.

From Isaac to Jacob, the time spent together is 120 years, as father and son. Can you imagine? So they got to know each other very well, 120 years. So from Jacob to Levi, 50 to 60 years.

Now there's one highlight to all of this. Why do I want to highlight the overlap in years? Having that much time to communicate explains to us why there is such a strong teaching of God's Word. God said, teach to you or to me that I should teach.

He gives me the commandment that I should teach my children, and they will teach their children, and on that goes. And so a lot of the information that they were taught was very much firsthand, very well rehearsed. They know these stories.

It's not secondhand. It's not somebody that they didn't know, but they know these stories. They know God's work very well, very clearly.

There's a lot of time that they spent together. It's not like where Abraham had a son, and just a few years later Abraham died, and there was no space there, no time for teaching. We have the same thing with, so Levi to Kohath was 80 to 90 years.

Kohath to Amram is 60 to 70 years, and then from Amram to Moses is 40 to 60 years. But again, it just goes to show I didn't look up this timeline exactly how much it was, but the idea could be Moses could have spent good time with Kohath, or yeah, there's a lot of time spent together. So, but between those generations from when Levi, so from when Jacob, when Jacob comes to Egypt to Moses is 400 years, and there's a lot of numbers here right now.

There's a lot of time that is in this story, but from when Jacob comes to Egypt to Moses is 400 years, and we're going to note one more thing here. That is, but a lot of experience that has taken place in Egypt is all, they've all been part of this experience, which it's different than if I were to say when we look, we relate to the hardship in Russia. I don't know.

The only story that I know of Russia is somebody writing a book. I have no direct connection, but imagine that my great-grandpa lived long enough that when he was called to go to war, and they, I think they had this thing where if they had X amount of sons, I think it was if they had five children, the father did not need to go to war. So, if my great-grandpa was alive long enough to tell me the story of how he was faithful to God, and he didn't have to go to war because they had five children, and he was able to teach me the different situations that took place, I could be well versed, well taught in God's ways.

So, the idea being that we're serving God and much time overlaps. So, they are in Egypt for 430 years, then we have Moses in the exodus, when Moses is 80 years old, he brings the people out of Egypt. Generations.

Then we have God doing it again. God does all the mighty miracles, we know the story, and God shows himself true and strong, and God shows the Egyptians that you will be judged for enslaving my people, you will be judged for all your wickedness, which again, I'm not sure which descendant the Egyptians were, they too would have been descendants of Noah. And God judges the Egyptians, and the people leave, and they go back to the land of Canaan, and at this time God judges the Canaanites, and there too, the children of Israel inherit Canaan.

In this process, God reveals himself to Moses and the Israelites, and God makes a new, a refreshed agreement with them, that they should serve him. Genesis 20, I wrote the wrong verse down, but that's okay. Okay, so it is quarter to 12.

I'm going to bring this together here then. So, we could read, I want to do a quick overview, I think it's Exodus, I'll just make sure, yes it is, it's Exodus. So we have this, I'll just paraphrase it here and tell you, so we have this experience in Exodus chapter 19, it's Mount Sinai, God meets with them, and God shows himself, and again we have this clear picture.

And here's what I want us to see. Over and over again, there is a fresh start of coming to grips with God's will, God's way. You take a nation, you take Noah, and God says to Noah, live righteously.

What does it mean when God says live righteously? Well let's put some practical things together, maybe even for the children to understand. When God says live righteously, number one, God says to Noah, Noah, you need to acknowledge that I'm God. I spared you, I spared you from all the wickedness, I gave you wisdom, and I told you to build an ark, I sent a flood, and everyone was destroyed, and you were not destroyed.

Noah, I need you to acknowledge and to remember I am God. In other words, Noah, don't live your life in such a way that you think you are God. That's the only two options we have, even in this life.

The only two options we have, we either acknowledge God, or we do what Satan does. We do what Satan wants to convince us of. Satan says, oh you don't have to listen.

Oh no, you do whatever you want. In other words, God says to Noah, Noah, I want you to acknowledge I've created the world, I spared your life, you're a righteous man. And then God says, continue to walk by faith, believing that I created everything, believing that I'm your, accepting that I'm your God, and he would continue to prosper.

What happens? Now just as an example, we're going to use a different example here, what Noah could have done. Okay, God takes Noah through the flood, does all these miracles, and Noah could have done what the rest of humanity tends to do. Go get a tree, cut it up, put all kinds of carvings into the branch, and say, oh here's my God, this branch brought me out of Egypt, this branch saved me from the flood.

And God is angry. God says, no, no, I have saved you. That same thing happens here with Moses.

God comes to the people, and to Moses, and God says, all right, do you understand? I am God. I have a will, and what I want is what I want you to learn. So God says, I am your creator.

I want you to worship me. And we know the story of Aaron, right? The golden calf. A certain amount of time goes by, they make a golden calf, and they say, oh this calf, this calf brought us out from Egypt.

And God is angry. Our hearts have a tendency of one of two things. We have to work hard to stay focused.

God is my God. I will deny my flesh. I will worship him.

That's God's heart for us. And that is a struggle for mankind. Then we have the Mount Sinai experience.

There is thunders. There is a great terrifying day. People are terrified.

God is there. But rather than the people saying, God, we surrender. We want to serve you.

They are afraid, and they say, Moses, you go talk to God. We don't want to talk to him. And God makes a new covenant with them, that gives them the Ten Commandments, and says, people, this is how you should live, so that they could obey God.

Okay, so God has a fresh start with Moses. Now, to bring this together, we see this, we see this struggle from one generation to another. They come to God.

They experience God, and it doesn't take long, and they won't, they refuse to walk with God. I would like for us, at some time, Lord willing, if the Lord directs this way, what I would like for us to actually do, is to build on this in the future here. So, this is a lot of history.

We've looked at history. We looked at the Old Testament with Abraham, and what took place there. And then we have, you know, God sending his son, so that we, if we believe in him, we can be saved.

And we're going to fast forward, and what I would like to do in the near future is, I think it would be a blessing to actually now go and observe the grandparents. I think it'd be a blessing for us to observe God's will for grandparents. And I say that to create, it would be a blessing for us to observe the whole line here, and be able to see God's heart in it, and the blessing that comes with it.

So, one thing that comes to mind, I wrote down here, in all of what we've heard this morning, we would probably remember mostly that, wow, nobody made it. Everyone failed. The story of Eli, his sons.

How'd that happen? If I'm not wrong, even Samuel. Samuel's sons did not serve the Lord. The truth is, the flesh was more important to them.

And there could very likely be a lot of teaching that did not take place. And we could fall into similar struggles. So, here's the beauty of this.

Okay. I'm going to give a little, maybe it's a bit humorous, but I'm going to say it anyway. In Low German, we have the term, ye, right? And everyone barks at, don't call me that.

And when we grew up, they would use that term to acknowledge someone's age. It would be a form of respect. And I wonder, I'm not sure, for the younger generations, I think it's just, they're trying to be respectful and say, oh, you don't have to call me that.

But when it first started, I wonder not if it was the sin of disrespect that made it awkward to be respected. So, people said, don't call me that. I remember calling a much older man than I, I was 17, and I called him ye.

And for the rest of the time I was with him, he called me ye. Anyway, here's what I want to point out. I believe in our generations today, we're missing a very, very big blessing.

And that is this. There's so much brokenness in the Christians' lives. And I believe that's going to be a curse to humanity.

So, I would like to build on together, what's the role of a grandparent? And what does it look like? And here's how it looks to us. And again, we'll use practical thoughts. Brother Peter and Sister Judy.

The idea that young boys, Brother Peter and Sister Judy, they're much older, they have a lot of wisdom. Do we enjoy their teaching and their wisdom? My heart for going through this would be to paint a picture of what's God's will for us. It's God's will that young men and young ladies respect older men and women.

But there's a brokenness here. This is difficult. We would observe the ideal grandparents.

Many of us are struggling. You know, there's many grandparents that are struggling here. We would look at the ideal 50-year-olds.

But again, many of them are struggling. We would look at my own life, this group, and we are struggling. So, what it would do is hopefully paint a picture of what God's will is and something we can work towards.

So, in short, children, as you were already told today, children, it's God's will that you learn of God and that you learn it from others and your mom and dad. And it's God's will that I would learn from others and my brothers and sisters. And so, it would step up.

So, I think of, let's use the mid-range for children here, not five-year-olds, but let's go 14-year-olds. If you're 14 years old, maybe 12 to 15, what's God's will for you? Now, here we want to, I want to create a bit of a picture here. Where's my markers? The picture I'd like us to think about a little bit is this.

We are all laboring together. We are all laboring together to serve the Lord. What about if we were to picture, and we're going to just say the words, but God forbid this takes place.

This happens a lot in life. And say we can't find our way. We can't find our way.

What if there was a 27 to 35 year old couple? They have three, four children. And for whatever reason, they would just separate themselves. So, you know, we could draw out here.

They would just separate themselves. Like the stories that we would read in the Old Testament, where someone would say, you know what, because we're going to remember. Now, here's a lot of information.

We're going to remember grandparents love God's word, parents love God's word, children, a child loves God's word, grandchildren loves God's word. So, here we have a 50 year old brother. He goes to the 27 year old young man and says, young man, you need to serve God faithfully.

And whatever discussion could take place, and the young man says, you know what, I'm tired of church. I just, I'm tired of church. My, oh my, if I could just do, and you could name it, if I could do all those things.

That can happen. And there can be a struggle in knowing what's God's will for you. Going back to the age of 14, I was pondering, what's God's will for you? And it'd be neat to write it down in a workbook.

What's God's will for you? And the aspect being, when you're 16 and even younger, we can really battle with, well, I have to back up now. God's will, God's will is that grandparents, they're surrendered. They're surrendered to God's will.

And they're learning. God's will is that the 50 year olds, the parents, which would be like my parents, they are laboring. They're laboring in church life.

They're busy like we are. They're very busy, but they're surrendered to God's word. God's word is the authority.

And then we have the children, the younger generation here. And maybe we would use them as an example saying, maybe they're the 23 year olds, 24 year olds. They have two small children and they're busy.

They're busy doing what? They're busy, they're training these children. In our life today, there's a huge tendency, the 23 year old that should have a humble heart to train his young children to love the Lord. He's got a haughty attitude.

This one here. I don't need to listen to them. I know this is my way.

This is how I understand the Bible. That's how it's going to be. So why do I bring this up? I want us to see a bit of the hurts or the troubles that arise in our own hearts in this scenario.

And so you could have the young man, this is God's will. I'm going to go back to that. God's will is you have a young man who's struggling and God's will is that he would be humble and he would let him know.

He would let the 50 year old man know, hey, you know brother, I'm struggling. I'm struggling with this. And on that story would go.

There is a flow here. The children, they trust their parents. And then these, the child here, me, I trust those older than I and these parents, they trust the grandparents and all of us are committed to God's word.

There is a safety bubble. There's a safety net. We influence each other and we create like a pressure zone of let's serve the Lord.

Let's serve the Lord. You know, again, children's lesson, maybe brother Ben could come up here and have a children's lesson and just say, what would you want to do? Do whatever you feel like doing. That's what Phineas and that's what they were doing.

Whatever they wanted. What happened to them? They were destroyed. They were sinful, sinful men.

And so we create an environment and we say, come serve, serve the Lord. I was saying, what's God's will for young boys and young girls. As you dream about life and all the big things you would like to do.

One most important part in that. Learn of God. Learn who your creator is.

Remember how God could have spoken to Noah. Noah, don't forget who is God or should Noah, Noah should have said one day I'm going to be an astronaut. God wanted Noah to surrender to God.

So children, that's what we will do. The younger children and then how it goes in age. So Lord willing, I would like for us to have a very transparent and conversation about what's our role? What's my role? So in our setting here to this morning, brother Dave is the oldest, but we're very much in a similar age.

Our roles are similar. What is my role? What's your role? And then there's another graph that we could put up and it goes into a family unit. It's father, mother, and children, and in the same way.

What does God desire? God desires from youngest to the oldest that we would fellowship together, learn of God so we could be faithful. That from one generation to another generation that we would learn to serve God. That we would not allow pressures.

This young man here, young, maybe young family. The young family that says you know I'm sick of church. I'm sick of being told what to do and how to dress and all these things.

What he's really saying is I can't put my heart to God. I can't surrender to God. So all the things that people are doing really bug me.

So he walks out of that little of that protection zone and he walks straight into the real force of satanic power and we all know they cannot handle that. I read a little description of the, I might not say it well now, the children of Israel leaving Egypt. They were considered warriors.

I found that unique. The children of Israel, the men specifically, when they left Egypt they were considered warriors. Why? In their early walk out of Egypt they never fought anywhere but they're considered warriors.

We are in a warrior battle. For us, nice, healthy, safe. For us it's a struggle to sometimes want to care, want to know what does God want and I will surrender to that.

And the other side is it's a war in the world. A very difficult battle. Okay, from generation to generation.

The grandparents desire to love the Lord and they have a hope of eternity with God. The parents, they too, they're learning from the grandparents and they too are, and this is where I was going to define it, which we'll maybe do later, there is a way of defining the roles. The grandparents, they receive the honor.

They have labored. They are, they're well experienced. We need to honor them.

We could read Timothy, Paul gives it to us there. And then I've used a different term for the parents which would be the mid-range, 50-year-olds. Often they're the ones that are the pillars of the church when the groups are larger.

It's the 50-year-olds that would be just entering John Melody's parents. You know, they're entering the grandparent stage. They are solid pillars in the church.

They are wise. And so there's, they've labored and they're still in the laboring part of life. So the term I would use here is respect.

Okay, and then we have me. I'm grateful. I'm also very busy.

Young family. I'm laboring away. Busy season in life, but I'm grateful.

What am I grateful for? I'm grateful for the help that I'm getting from Melody's parents. Those that are a bit older than I, they're laboring. I respect John and Sue because of their labors.

And then we have the younger children and children anticipate. You need to want to. You need to acknowledge that God is calling you to learn of him.

You need to want to learn of God. So your term in life is you're learning life, social skills. You're doing a lot of schoolwork, but you're learning of God.

And when God calls, like Samuel, where you can say, here I am. And so the young children, they look to us parents and they say, teach us. We want to learn of God.

We look to the group, one older, the mid-range group there, and we respect them. We learn from them because they help us teaching our younger ones. And we honor the seniors, the older ones, because they have gone through the battle.

They are seniors. We respect them and they have good wisdom and advice for us so that we too can live for the Lord. When we get done this combination, I hope that we have a beautiful picture of a very strong, committed togetherness and the respect levels.

The idea being Elijah. Elijah could go to Brother Jake Friesen in Comber and have a serious respect for Brother Jake. Why? Because Jake could tell Elijah things that could help Elijah make sure that he will be with the Lord in eternity.

Jake has gone through much, and then there's John Wolfe and his other older brothers. We would have a sense, I respect Brother John. The idea, I've seen it being done by some of you children.

The idea being your dad comes and there's only six chairs and seven brothers. You're in one of the chairs. Your dad comes, you get out of the chair, you give it to your dad.

It's an honor. It's respect. Very good.

I need to do the same thing for Brother John and that mid-range family. And so the story continues. Okay, I will close there.

Ponder it. Think about it. Think about the roles, even the practical sides, the practical parts.

What should it look like? And hopefully we can build it like a puzzle where we can build those roles. Nowhere in any time, none of us. Okay, that's going to be my closing remark.

Not at any time, children and all the rest of us, would to God, not anyone at any time, would say, I'm here. Nope, I'm doing my own thing. That would be for us to make that choice of going lost, being that lost sheep.

And there's much that could be explained there. But as you think about life, may we not at any time allow our flesh to feed us to think, my oh my, if I could just do what I want. May that not be in our hearts.

But rather, Lord, help me to be not in grandparents. It's not Grandpa's decision how we live. It's not the parents' decision how we live.

It's the word of God and down, all the way down to the children and how we should live. Blessings.