Teach Your Children Well
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Key Verse: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” Selected Scriptures: |
LAST WEEK’S LESSON focused on the miraculous manner in which God’s loving power was demonstrated on behalf of the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness for forty years. This was a blessed relationship which they were privileged to enjoy. Our attention is now drawn to God’s commandments as they relate to his people, and how they should worship him with all of their heart, soul, and might.
It is recorded: “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: 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, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.”—Deut 6:1,2
The Israelites were responsible for teaching their children diligently concerning these directions from God. They were to instruct them in the ways of the Lord, whether in the home or during the daily pursuits of life. Additionally, they were to keep the statutes of the Lord ‘between their eyes’ which suggests the intellect and memory of the child of God. The reference to placing these commandments of God on the posts and gates to their homes (vss. 8,9) further indicates the necessity of having these statutes and judgments close at hand.
It is further recorded that “When thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord our God hath commanded you? Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt; and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand: And the Lord shewed signs and wonders, great and sore, upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household, before our eyes: And he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers.”—vss. 20-23
God had truly blessed his people, delivering them, and caring for them in so many remarkable ways. This was a rich legacy which the Jews were instructed to leave with their children. They were to be reminded of these things whenever they inquired into the directions of God. God dwelt with the Israelites for their good always, and so that, as a people, they would be preserved in righteousness and in the ways of the Lord God of Israel.
During the present Gospel Age, the Lord’s people have been called out of the world with instructions to love God with all their heart, soul and might. Those who have thus consecrated themselves to the doing of God’s service, consider this a great privilege. They willingly use their time, intellect and energy proclaiming the wonderful manner in which God has directed them, and consider it an honor and a blessing to teach their children to have faith in the marvelous promises of God, “As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance.”—I Pet. 1:14