This meditation on the Psalms was given at the Grace Church Guildford Prayer Meeting on 7 April 2022.
Before we consider God’s Word, I would like to do a quick experiment. I can see the panic in some of your faces! I have two questions I would like to ask in order to conduct a brief survey: (1) Raise your hand if you became a Christian before you were 11 years old; (2) Raise your hand if you trusted in Christ between the age of 11 and 18. Statistics show that the vast majority of Christians first trust in Christ before they become adults. Considering this appears to be how the Lord consistently chooses to call so many of his children, it is right for us to remind ourselves of the importance of reaching the young with the Gospel and properly teaching God’s Word. Deuteronomy 6 is a key passage when it comes to considering a concern for children. This evening we don’t have time to consider the chapter as a whole, or dwell on the significant differences between the status of children of Israel under the Old Covenant and the children of Christians today. Rather, I simply want you to notice two truths in this chapter relating to children. These truths are both very simple, yet form the foundation of all our work with children: (1) God’s People are from all generations; and (2) God’s Word is for all generations.
1. GOD’S PEOPLE ARE FROM ALL GENERATIONS
For at least the last 200 years, as evangelical Christians, we have done a much better job of remember that God’s people will be made up of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. Since the modern missionary movement, we have seen many sent across the world to fulfil the Great Commission that calls us to go into all the world. Such a focus is fitting, and we should continue to stir up zeal to reach the nations for Jesus Christ. And yet, we must be careful not to let our conception of God’s people become one-dimensional. That is, focus so much on geography that we forget to also focus on generations. For God’s people should not only have a breadth that cuts across all terrains, but also a depth that covers all time. In the end, God’s people will not only be comprised of all nations, but it will also be made up of all generations.
We see God’s desire for such a people here in Deuteronomy 6. In 6:1-2 we read, "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 themmay fear the LORD your God as long as you live...". God gave his Law not only for the generation that he brought out of Egypt or the generation that he would lead into Canaan. He gave it so generation after generation would come to know and fear him. In the New Testament, we have a similar concern presented to us by the apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 2 when he instructs Timothy train up other men as teachers, passing the Gospel onto them even as Paul had passed it onto him. Such a succession of teachers secures the spread of Christianity not just across geography but also across generations, means long after Paul has been executed in prison and Timothy has exited Ephesus there will still be someone to proclaim the Gospel in that city. Indeed, it was clearly Paul desires to have such a congregation continue through the generations in the city of Ephesus, for in Ephesians 3:20-21 he writes, "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." Grace Church, that is the task that is set before us. Not just to go to all nations, but also to all generations. Indeed, for many of us, we can go to the generations so much more easily and directly that we could ever go to the nations. Some of us may go as missionaries, and as a church we will all support the work among the nations financially and prayerfully, but the work among the generations is all around us right here in Guildford. For many of you, it is in your homes, as you seek to share the Gospel with children in your families. Indeed, even as a church, when we gather together on a Sunday, the majority of unbelievers present with us are not strangers that we have invited to church, but children we have brought to church. Next week, over 100 hundred children will sit quietly listening to the gospel being presented to them again and again! Can you imagine an evangelistic event like that with adults? What a wonderful opening God has given us to go with the gospel to the generations, to build up his people in that way!
2. GOD’S WORD IS FOR ALL GENERATIONS
Deuteronomy 6 is in many ways the heart of the Old Testament law. There in 6:4, you have what is known as the Jewish Shema, the verse that contains such a central truth that it is repeated in prayer throughout the day by Jews: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one." And in 6:5, you have what the Lord himself told us is the first and greatest commandment: "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." What does Moses want his hearers to go with perhaps the greatest truth and the greatest commandment in the whole Old Testament? In 6:6 he continues, "These commandments that I give you today are to be on 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 doorframes of your houses and on your gates." Later in the chapter he get a glimpse into what such a conversation might look like, in 6:20 Moses explains, "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 signs and wonders—great and terrible—on Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land he promised on oath to our ancestors." This is perhaps the most important chapter in the whole of the Old Testament law, and over and over again Moses takes time to tell the Israelites to not only understand these truths themselves, but to teach them to others. Not only to remind themselves of the great rescue their ancestors experienced from slavery, but explain that to the generations to come. Surely we see here that God’s Word is for all generations, that the core truths about who God is and what he has done to rescue his people can be understood by even a small child!
Such instructions for parents continue into the New Testament. For example, in Ephesians 6:4, Paul instructs "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." And this is exactly what we see in the New Testament, with the story Timothy’s mother and grandmother. As Jews, perhaps their actions were prompted by these instructions in Deuteronomy 6. Regardless, Paul says of Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15, "from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." As we seen earlier tonight, that verse is as true for many of us as it is for Timothy. And how glad we are. How thankful we are to the parents, Sunday School teachers, HBC leaders, older Christians who shared the Scriptures with us so that we were made wise onto salvation and brought by God’s Spirit to himself! O that next week, as we have the opportunity to tell children about that rescue from Egypt, even just as Israel was instructed to do so here in Deuteronomy 6, and to explain the even greater recuse that has taken place in Jesus, that God would work by his Word in the hearts of this coming generation.
ALEXANDER ARRELL