Deut No.9 Religious Education of Children

This evening I want us to read from the sixth chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy. Still in this rather wonderful Old Testament book, which, like those mines outside Johannesburg, which I so often refer to, have great wealth buried deep within. But to get the wealth out, you've got to use effort.

And in Bible study, well, the analogy holds true. Here in these Old Testament books, there's veritable gold to be excavated and to be claimed as your own. Well, I'll read to you tonight from the New International Version of the Bible, and it's Deuteronomy chapter 6. These are the commands, decrees, and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you, to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children, and their children after them, may fear the Lord your God as long as you live, by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life here, O Israel.

And be careful to obey, so that it may go well with you, and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, promised you. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home, and when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up.

Tie them as symbols on your hands, and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses, and on your gates. When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you a land with large flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant, then, when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

Fear the Lord your God, serve him only, and take your oath in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you, for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God, and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. Do not test the Lord your God as you did at Massa.

Be sure to keep the commands of the Lord your God, and the stipulations and decrees he has given you. Do what is right and good in the Lord's sight, so that it may go well with you, and you may go in and take over the good land that the Lord promised on oath to your forefathers, thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the Lord said. In the future, when your son asks you what is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees, and laws the Lord our God has commanded you, tell him, we were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

Before our eyes, the Lord sent miraculous signs and wonders, great and terrible, upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. But he brought us out from there to bring us in, and give us the land that he promised on oath to our forefathers. The Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees, and to fear the Lord our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as in the case today.

And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness. You might care to have your Bibles open at the book of Deuteronomy and the sixth chapter. And from time to time, we'll be looking at other parallel scriptures from this book.

Let me also remind you of two or three verses. You don't need to turn to them, though you can make a mental note from the sixth chapter of Ephesians. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you, and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. Fathers, do not exasperate your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Well, you might think that one of the most unlikely books in the Old Testament to look for a doctrine of the Christian family and pointers for the training of children would be the book of Deuteronomy. Indeed, there would be a lot of people, a lot of educationalists, if they had been present here this evening, who would perhaps think that this whole concept of education and the training of boys and girls could in no way find any help at all from the study of Scripture. Well, those of us who are a little more informed, and we say that not piously, we say that in gratitude to God, know full well that in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, there is a doctrine of the bringing up of a family.

There is a doctrine of parental responsibility. Indeed, there's a doctrine of the responsibility of children to parents. There is nothing, I am persuaded, even in the complexities of the 20th century, that crosses our lives.

Nothing that affects our lifestyle, which cannot find help and pointers in the study of the Word of God. Indeed, I would put this out to you for your consideration, that a great deal of the Bible is nothing more than a rehearsal of what happens in family units, a rehearsal of what happens in family units. Take, for instance, if you think that I'm perhaps exaggerating, the opening book of the Bible, which of course bears the name of Genesis.

How would you describe it? What would you say the contents of the book of Genesis are? Well, as I read the book of Genesis, I find on the opening pages the story of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel. And one hears and listens and sees something of that family environment. You push on a little bit and you come across the story of Noah and his sons and the great flood and all that happened prior to and consequent on that flood.

And how could you summarize those chapters that deal with this particular event? Well, you could say this is what affected the family of Noah. Right, go through. Again, continuing in the book of Genesis, who do you come to next? Who's the most important person after Noah? Well, of course, it's Abraham.

And what do you read of Abraham? Well, he's taken out of the land of Canaan. He's taken out of the land of Mesopotamia and he's brought to the promised land to Canaan. He comes with his wife.

What's one of the great problems in the matrimonial relationship between Sarah and Abraham? Well, they're childless. And what has a great deal of the Bible to deal with when it is taken up with the story of Abraham and Sarah? Well, it's the advent of Isaac, their son. And what happens as a result of that? Continue to read.

And what do you find? Well, you're given an insight into the home of Isaac when he's mature and when he's married and the birth of the twins, Jacob and Esau. And then you go on further in case I haven't convinced you. And what are you confronted with now? Well, it's the story of Jacob and his lads and the problems that there are in this family circle and the enslavement of Joseph and eventually the creation of a home for Joseph in Egypt and so on.

I hope I've convinced you. The book of Genesis itself is more or less a statement of one family circle and its story after another. And I say that you could go, albeit to some extent piecemeal, but you could make your way across the Old Testament in particular and your study of the Bible would largely follow the events around family circles.

And of course, when you come into the New Testament, you're confronted with a magnificent story, the story of the holy family, of Mary, of Joseph, and of the infant maturing to boyhood and on to manhood, the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, wherever you get history, wherever you get the record of narrative in the Old Testament and the New Testament, you get general deductions, general principles which are drawn. For what reason? Well, for this reason.

So that the likes of you and I who live centuries after this biblical record may come to this book and say, yes, I can identify myself with that story. I see that principle. I lift out that lesson.

I apply it to myself. I believe that God has encapsulated these narratives in his book so that I might be a better father, so that I might be a better mother, so that I might be a better husband, a better wife, and so on. So that I may fulfill my role within the kingdom of God to a degree of excellence.

This is the reason, says one of the writers of the New Testament books, why all these stories were recorded, and he's referring specifically to the Old, that we might have instruction, that we might learn from what these men and women had to cope with and from what the biblical writers have to teach. Now, when you take such a book as a Proverbs, how would you define Proverbs? Well, I would say that within Proverbs you have got precepts. You have got Old Testament doctrines, which will help you to control your life if you'd submitted to the authority of God, yes.

And particularly, you've got doctrines that will help a parent, and you've got doctrines which will help a child. The Hebrew philosophy, or rather theology, of education is encapsuled in the book of Proverbs. But alas, the majority of people, if they know anything about Proverbs at all, could possibly in this area only quote you that one about sparing the rod and spoiling the child, as though you've got the whole of God's revelation and God's principles in dealing with the family circle in that one maxim.

And of course, the proposition, the whole idea is just preposterous. But if you look into the book of Proverbs, you will find there some basic rules and help for parents and for children, for young people, and how to conduct and control their family lives and their personal lives. Well then, so much for this.

I could continue for a great deal of time just in the area of pure generalities, trying to show you how the Bible itself has a great deal to do with modern life, and how the thing that is threatened most, as I understand it, in 1979, the family unit can be rescued, can remain intact by an application of biblical principles to the present situation. Now, I suppose in a very general sense, you could say that the whole book of Deuteronomy is given to the children of Israel by their father Moses, and because it was very much a father figure that Moses adopted during the whole course of his lengthy life of 120-odd years. You remember, he was the one who brought them out of Egypt.

He was the one who disciplined them in the name of God. He led them, he encouraged them, he corrected them, and so on. And in the opening chapters or the opening verses of Deuteronomy, you've got the idea of this aged Moses, this father of the nation, teaching his children, the children of Israel, these things which he had learned himself from God.

But it's not in that general sense that I want us to look into the doctrine of the godly family from the book of Deuteronomy this evening. Rather, it's in the literal sense, where the Lord God causes Moses to put down certain principles and propositions to literal mothers and fathers in the bringing up of their offspring. So, what I have sought to do, and obviously this is no exhaustive treatment of the subject at all, what I have sought to do is to place alongside one scripture and another scripture, which directly or indirectly has to deal with this idea of parental responsibility.

So, we turn to the first declaration that you find Moses, in the name of God, making to parents in his day. The ninth verse of the fourth chapter. Only be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live.

Teach them to your children and to their children after them. Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God. What is Moses here saying? Well, he's saying this, and it's very simple.

You children of Israel have received a tremendous inheritance. It is something that makes you outstanding amongst the nations of the world. Indeed, he actually uses more or less that language in the seventh verse.

What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him. Now, these things that you have received from the Lord, not only does he say in the second verse of this chapter are you not to add to them or subtract from them, you are to preserve them and you are to pass them on to your children. Moses is not so much concerned about the literal will that the Hebrews might write so that their children benefit when they pass on, but he is concerned about spiritual riches which belongs to the Hebrew community as a whole, which have enriched them during their wilderness wanderings and which will greatly benefit the generations that are to come.

So, addressing all mums and dads who are before him, for you remember Moses is now an old man and he's taking his leave, he gives them this piece of advice. Remember what God has done for you. Don't let one thing, verse nine, don't let one thing slip from your grasp, from your hearts, but pass it on to your children for you are responsible for that presenting of the baton of spiritual treasure to the next generation.

Well, come on to the chapter and you'll find Moses saying exactly the same thing, but with one addition. We'll come to the fifth and start reading from that verse, Deuteronomy 6, verse 5. Love, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.

Impress them upon your children. Talk about them when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.

Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. What's he saying? Well, he's repeating what we've discovered in the fourth chapter, that the parents are to pass on what they've learned from God to their children. But here he's saying a little bit more.

He's saying that their lifestyle, that word which I use so much these days because it's much in vogue, and there is a Christian lifestyle, their family circle, their environment is to be conducive so that children shall accept what dad and mom is saying and implement it in their lives. You know on many occasions when it's been my privilege, my proud privilege, to have a little babe in my arm here in the front of the church and parents have brought their offspring and they want to dedicate themselves to the Lord. And I generally put two or three questions to them.

And one of the questions is this. Do you promise as best you can and on dependence also upon the prayers of your brothers and sisters in the tabernacle to create such an environment in your home so that when your little boy, when your little girl reaches an age of maturity, he, she shall be led naturally to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's not just words that we're going through when I make that particular proposition.

It's not just some empty religious practice that we've adopted here as a sort of substitute for infant baptism. Here is something very, very holy indeed. Here parents are contracting with the aid of their other brothers and sisters to create that environment so that it's natural to talk about Jesus.

As the Hebrews were said, were told by Moses, to make it so much a part of their home in their tents as they moved through into the promised land that they could talk about the Lord God with no embarrassment at all. It's natural to them. It's part of their family life.

And so children will grow up realizing that what makes their lives so wholesome and so happy is the trust that they had, that their parents have in the Lord God. And they'll want their trust also. So verse 7 of this chapter says, impress it.

Impress these things, these instructions you've learned from God upon your children. Well let's consider another couple of statements. They're not directly related to the parent-child situation, but indirectly they have bearing upon our theme.

Turn back for a moment to the fifth chapter of the book and let's look at the 16th verse. And now we're among the Ten Commandments. And the people who are being addressed in the 16th verse are none other than children.

That's why I say this is only just indirectly related to our subject, because we've been talking more about the role of parents. But listen to what is said here and perhaps you'll understand why I feel it's necessary to introduce this point at this stage. Honor your father and your mother as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

Now I would go so far as to say this, that the family circle which has known the working out of these principles which Moses has already given to the Israelites, will be one in which the children will automatically honor and respect their mother and their father. One of the things that's basic to any educational situation, if it's going to be successful, is rapport. It's confidence.

I used to teach as some as you know in downtown London. And really in the sort of blackboard jungle area of the educational world, the last qualification that you needed to start with was a head full of knowledge. You could have known Pythagoras's theory or theorem backwards and you'd never have communicated it to the London kids.

You could have been seated in the history of the British Empire and they would give you no listening at all. You could be one of the greatest gymnasts of all time and they still wouldn't be interested, believe it or not, in PT. Not these lads and lasses.

The first thing you had to do before you could start to teach in downtown London, and my colleagues who are there to this day tell me the same obstance, the situation is some degrees worse than when I was present. The first thing you had to do was to gain the confidence of your children. Until you'd, and particularly for your endeavoring to teach scripture, until you had convinced that 13 or 14 or 15 year old that you were a human being too and that you got an interest in his life, that what he had to say concerned you and you were involved with his problems and the fact that he came from a broken home and that he wasn't very good to start with in the English language and this sort of thing.

Until you'd started to relate to him as a human being, all that you had to say went in one ear, accelerated and stayed out of the other. And you know, that principle can be plucked from the direct educational context of the schools and it can be placed back in the home. Unless little Benjamin and Ruben in the days of the Old Testament had got confidence in what mum and dad were, they'd never have confidence in what mum and dad were teaching.

But that parent, mum and dad, who has been before the Lord, whose life is conditioned naturally by the Word of God, will automatically, if one can use that expression, gain the respect of their child, gain the honor of their son. And that's the reason why I brought into our consideration this evening this commandment. Honor your father and your mother.

It's directed to children, yes. But there are some parents who don't deserve to be honored because what they have to teach and the way that they live are so diametrically opposed, it doesn't ring true. And there's nobody who's more gifted to spot a hypocrite than a child.

A child is one of the most expert people in the world today to detect humbug and charade. And children do not respect hypocrites nor humbugs. So it's for parents, in the outworking of God's demands in their lives, to gain that respect that little Johnny and little Sally want to give.

Because it's natural to them to respect mothers and fathers who are lovingly and winsomely controlled by the Spirit of God. Have you noticed, and again this is not directly relevant to our subject, but it must come into it at some stage. Have you noticed how Moses, when giving the commands of God in this area, chastises anyone who dares to interfere with the religious education of a youngster as he or she has received it from mother or father? Turn to the 13th chapter of Deuteronomy, will you, and the sixth verse and onwards.

From one end of the land to the other, do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him.

You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of the people. Shall I tell you something? An hour ago I decided not to read the latter part of that scripture because, and I confess my weaknesses to a congregation as I have to confess them before the Lord, seem to me so harsh.

And I like to feel that I've got a relatively sensitive nature. Is this really what God meant? That if someone came along and dislodged a person from following the principles that godly mother and father had given to them, they had to be dealt with in such a horrific fashion as this? It offended my sensitivity. Until just in that vestry, some minutes before, the word came to me that I was to turn to Matthew 18 and verse 5 and 6, and pass judgment on this.

I'll read from verse 4, Matthew 18. In fact, I'll read from verse 2. Jesus called a little child and had him stand among them, and he said, I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.

But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin. Those words fell from the lips of the gentle Jesus, so often thought by children as being meek and mild.

But the mildness of Jesus was not to be confused with weakness, and he recognized the enormity of the crime of dislodging someone from faith, of leading someone into sin, of leading them away from godly principles which have been built into their personality. And Jesus shows none of the reticence that I show when he looks into Deuteronomy. And he takes up the principle, and in stark language he spells it out.

Those who rob others of faith, it would be better that a millstone had been placed around their neck and they had never been born. One of the most terrible crimes, says the Word of God in both testaments, is for anyone to interfere with the carefully given instruction of a godly mother and father to their offspring. I wonder if you'd ever realized that before.

You see what I mean, my friend? I'm in no way straining me. Stand up at this moment and object. Tell me if I'm wrong.

I'm in no way straining language when I say that within this book of Deuteronomy you've got principles, you've got gold, that will help you to live a much better life and to control your family circles in a much better way. Let's conclude this catena of scriptures, a catena being a selection of things that you bring together that I've lifted out. And I could have brought other scriptures to you, but obviously there's a limit on time.

To the 21st chapter in the 18th verse, and here you have again very strong language. This time it's referring not directly to the parent but to the child, the mature son who cuts across what his father has said, rides roughshod of the law of God. If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and who will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town.

They shall say to the elders, this son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He's a propagate and a drunkard.

Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

Now there is no reason to believe that that was to be a practice which would be frequently employed by the Israelites in the days of yore. But when you've done all that you can to modify it with a sort of sophisticated 20th century approach, this principle stands out in relief that it is a disgrace before God for a person to break his law and for someone to blot the testimony of a godly family. So you see how all these points interlock together, even though discovered in the early book, in an early book of the Old Testament, to show that God is a God who is concerned for families, for the welfare of mother and father, for the welfare of their offspring.

And if you take these principles that we've lifted from Deuteronomy and you start to apply them to some of the family situations that I enumerated a little while ago, say that of of Jacob, say that of, and I didn't quote these people, Ruth and and Boaz, say that of Eli and that of Samuel, you can work out just where they were successful and where they failed. And you can go on into the New Testament and you can apply some of these principles, say to the family circle of John the Baptist, or say to the family circle of Timothy, you remember, who had these godly parents and grandparents, Louis and and Eunice. One of the most wonderful things about the Word of God is that its principles remain constant throughout the two Testaments.

And you can not only lift these pointers and apply them to the those who seem to be successful and those who seem to fail in old and New Testament times, you can apply them to your own heart. You can apply them to your own family circle. We could have spent all our time probably this Thursday, if we'd have had the Sunday night congregation, asking for testimonies along this line.

And all the folks could perhaps have got up and said, yes, there as a parent I was strong. There I was weak. I implemented this principle.

I did it deliberately. I saw it. I applied it.

And this was the benefit that resulted. And someone else perhaps feeling honest and that they must confess their wrongfulness in front of a congregation could have said, yes, but I missed on this. And I didn't apply this particular scripture, this particular teaching in my family circle.

And maybe that's one of the reasons why things went awry. I tell you, these principles, they remain constant. So what can I do in the last six or seven minutes that I've got? Let me try to be extremely practical, realizing particularly some of the groups who will receive this tape later on and who have families to look after, parents and mothers, let's say, mothers and fathers, let's say a word or two to these people as well as to ourselves here in the tabernacle.

When you look into the Old Testament and its teaching on the Father, you are driven to the conclusion, which is made so very plain in Martin Lloyd-Jones's commentary on Ephesians and the we read earlier this evening, that in the Old Testament, it is quite clear that the Father was a kind of priest in his household and family. He represented God. He was responsible not only for the morals and behavior, but also the religious education of children.

Now that's not too exaggerated a statement. In fact, it's not exaggerated one little bit. Moses makes it quite clear that it's not the rabbis, it's not the Levites, it's not the priests who are responsible primarily for the education of the Hebrew youngsters, it is their parents.

I think that one of the great tragedies, and here I'm going to make some eyebrows pucker, one of the great tragedies in the United Kingdom is the fact, though economics are preventing this from happening so much these days, that people pack their children off to boarding school. The place for a child, all other things being equal, I know there are exceptions to the rule and qualifications have to be made, but in the main, on the whole, in general, the place for a boy or a girl to be is with their mum and their dad. And the most powerful educative force in the world is not the school, is not teacher, is not later on the lecturer or the professor.

The person who has the greatest influence, humanly speaking, on a youngster is the mother and the father. And all this rubbish that we should leave teaching a morality and sexual behavior and religion and what have you to the schools or to the church, yes even the church, the absurdity that we should leave these things completely in the charge of someone else. Well, what can one say? It really is a nonsense.

We are called as gods. Mothers, we are called before God, mother and father, to exercise responsibility as priests before our children. And what does that mean? Well, it means that we must be there to be consulted.

So Moses postulates the picture of a Hebrew child centuries to come. Dad, why are we breaking this bread? Why are we drinking this cup? Why are we keeping this particular feast? Dad, why are we so different from the rest of the nations that are around Palestine? And dad knows. And he said, well, years ago, centuries ago, there was a great deliverance that God effected historically for us.

We were a slave people. We had no land. We had no hope.

But God came, sent as a deliverer. Moses opened up the Red Sea, took us out of the land of bondage, kept us miraculously during our wilderness journeyings, gave us his law, and brought us to his land. And we're remembering this.

We're remembering the goodness of our God. But dad, why have we got ten commandments? Are we to keep them all? Doesn't that one about the Sabbath day seem to you to be a little old-fashioned now, dad? And father will say, no. The reason why we keep the Sabbath day is because the Lord, our God, has commanded right at the beginning of time that there was a day of rest, which is symbolic of that great eternal rest that he will give to our nation and all righteous people.

And we will obey the law, our God, in regard to this commandment now and in the centuries to come. But you see, for the Hebrew father to be able to win the confidence of his child and answer his questions, he's got to be available. And as it was in the days of yore, so it is today.

Dad, our teacher says that the whole business of Adam and Eve is a myth. He doesn't believe it. Dad, what do you think? Oh, I've got no time at the moment.

Go and ask your mom. Go and ask the pastor. Go and ask your Sunday school teacher.

Not a bit. The priest, the loving father, he's had his eye and his heart on and in the word of God all his life. He may not be an expert, but little Johnny doesn't want an expert.

He wants somebody he can talk to. Dad may not know anything about the second law, thermodynamics, and all the problems that the physicists sometimes bring up and relate to the opening chapters of Genesis, but Johnny wants to know what dad's got to say and why dad believes it. And Johnny's got more confidence in his dad because he's got a love affection for him, not just a respect that he may have for a teacher.

He's got a deep love for his dad, and he listens to what father says. And it may well be in the years to come that he'll develop a greater maturity, a greater intellect than his father, but nonetheless he'll still be glad that it was his father who first of all started to answer his questions and didn't bob him off and push him on one side. And those who couldn't be present, and we just ask your blessing to be upon them.

We pray for fathers and mothers and for their sons and daughters, and we just ask for household salvation. We realize, Lord, some of us who've never had the privilege of bringing up our own children, that maybe it's not quite as easy as somehow, sometimes, some of us may think and feel. But in those vexed problems, in those compounded issues of these complex 20th century times, we ask that you will give fathers and mothers a wisdom which comes from above.

We ask for that rapport which will stay them in good, in a good situation during all the difficult times. We ask, O Lord, that there shall be that honor on one side and that respect on the other, and we pray that the Heavenly Father himself may preside over our family circles so that youngsters may be brought up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, eventually to put their wholehearted confidence in the God and Father of their own parents. And this we ask for Jesus' sake.

Amen.