Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] We will get our Bible now and go to the book of Deuteronomy.
[00:00:08] Deuteronomy, chapter number six.
[00:00:18] Deuteronomy, chapter number six. We will read starting in verse number one.
[00:00:30] Deuteronomy 6, verse number one.
[00:00:34] The Bible says this. 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.
[00:01:10] We're going to continue reading in just a minute, but the question I want to ask you is this. As we kind of introduce this passage of Scripture as How is your son and how is your son's son?
[00:01:24] How are they going to learn the scripture if God's talking to you, how are your children? How are your descendants going to know the things that God has commanded if he's talking to you, which is what we have here, right? Who is God talking to in this passage?
[00:01:46] God's talking to the adults. He's talking to Israel. He's not talking to the kids, he's talking to the adults.
[00:01:51] And so that message somehow has to get from the Lord to the parent, and then somehow it's got to get to the children. Because the Lord expects not only the people to whom he is speaking to keep his commandments, but he also expects that their children and their children's children also keep his commandments.
[00:02:15] Verse 3 says this. 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.
[00:02:32] Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. This is called the Shema. This is a big thing in Jewish faith that comes from the word. The Hebrew word for here starts with verse number six. It's the word Shema. And this is a major truth. And the Lord actually refers to this in the New Testament, as you'll see in just a minute. Verse number five.
[00:02:57] And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. Now, we don't know it as the Shema, do we? We know it as the first and the greatest commandment, because that's what our Lord said. So that's the way we refer to it. And that's the right way is to be understood the greatest commandment of them all. Verse number six. But note, I want you to see that verse five. To love the LORD thy God with all our heart and soul and might, mind and strength are found in the New Testament as well. That is then immediately followed by verse 6, which says, and these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart 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, and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and on thy gates.
[00:04:15] Would you pray with me this morning?
[00:04:19] Our Lord in Heaven, we come to you in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
[00:04:23] Thank you so much for being our Savior, for bleeding and dying upon the cross as they just sang the song to remind us of that Lord, even as we have the Lord's Supper, let us not go through the form, but let us really think upon the great love that you showed to us.
[00:04:41] Thank you for loving us. Thank you for giving yourself to us for us, for our sin.
[00:04:48] I pray that everything we read here would not just be the commandments of the Lord, but would be that your words would be answered in light of what you have done for us. Lord, you deserve every minute, every moment, every breath, every thought of our life. And Lord, we know we fail so often to give that to you.
[00:05:08] But Lord, you deserve everything.
[00:05:11] And Lord, as we look at this subject, especially with focus on our families, our relationships with our husbands and wives and with our children and with our extended family, we just pray not only in this service, but also this whole month that you would really give us the help that we need. Because Lord, we need your help. Without you we can do nothing.
[00:05:33] Lord, here this morning I pray that you would give me understanding to be able to say what you'd have me to say to your people and that you would also give your people understanding that they might receive it with humility and with meekness and act according to what you've spoken.
[00:05:49] And so Lord, we just commit this time to you. We ask for your grace and help in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:05:57] Now as I said, this is the first and the greatest commandment. You notice something that's missing in this passage of Scripture that is mentioned in the passage in Mark chapter 12 about the greatest commandment. The thing that's missing is the second commandment. It's not mentioned in this passage at all.
[00:06:13] That's from a different part of the Scripture. And the Lord combined them into the first and to the second great commandment. I'll put this out there and we'll hear more about this later, I'm sure, at some point.
[00:06:25] But if you take the commandments of God that are spoken to us in general as we might apply them, and use them with one another, with your friends, with people in the church and that kind of thing, if you take those same commands that apply there and you just take that and apply it into your family, then it will change your family, because the commandments apply in those cases just as much as they apply in these cases. In other words, if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength and. And with all your might, and you love your neighbor as yourself, there is no neighbor closer to you than your wife, your husband and your children.
[00:07:15] There is no one closer to you. The idea of a neighbor is someone who is nearby, right?
[00:07:19] There is no neighbor closer to you. Why would we then treat our neighbor who is next door to us or who lives nearby with more kindness and generosity and Christian charity than we would treat our own family members? Well, Pastor, you just don't understand.
[00:07:37] I'm afraid I do. That's the whole problem.
[00:07:40] We all understand how hard that is, right? We do. We all understand how hard it is, but it's still the truth.
[00:07:48] Even if it's hard, even if those people are the people that get under our skin the easiest, the fact is, the solution and the way to have and maintain a good relationship with, with those nearest neighbors of ours is still to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Those things apply.
[00:08:09] It's simple, is it not? It's basic. It's elementary. And we all know it. We all know it.
[00:08:15] And that's what we see here in verse number five.
[00:08:18] First thing I want you to notice about these verses, and I'm going to try to go quickly through these verses because we want to get to the Lord's Supper. But verse number five says this. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. Note the order.
[00:08:34] The first. In these series of verses, there's a proper order as it relates to the verse in question, which is really Verse number seven. Talking about the family, teaching your children there is a proper order. Before we get to verse seven, the first thing he has is verse five, which is, we must love God himself supremely.
[00:08:59] That is so important. It is vital.
[00:09:03] Everything else falls apart if that's not in order. The order has to be there. We must love the Lord himself supremely. And then you get to verse number six. It says this. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, shall be in thine heart. These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. What is the Lord saying? He's saying God's word has to be not on your lips. We're not there yet. God's word doesn't need to be just in the church. God's word doesn't need to just be displayed in your home. God's word must be these words that he has commanded must be in our heart.
[00:09:46] Right in our heart. Love the Lord our God first.
[00:09:50] God's word in our heart second.
[00:09:54] And then we get to verse seven.
[00:09:57] And thou shalt teach them. Now Paul's in verse number seven. And ask yourself, what is the them in verse number seven? Take a minute and look at that verse and look at the verse above it. What is the them that the Lord commands us to teach to our children?
[00:10:14] What is it?
[00:10:15] It's the word of God that he has commanded. Right? Verse number six, that's very important.
[00:10:21] Please don't miss that. And thou shalt teach them God's word diligently unto thy children. If there is anything in listen, if there is anything, any truth in family life that is self evident, it is this.
[00:10:37] Every good thing you want to do in your family will be hard.
[00:10:42] Every good thing. Everybody's looking at me kind of blankly here. Surely those of you that have a wife, surely those of you that have a husband, surely those of you that have children know that if you're going to do any good thing in your family, it's not going to come easy. It's going to come with work. It's going to require diligence. If you or I think that it's going to be easy, we are sadly mistaken. And if we think it will be easy, and we're only going to do it if it's easy, you know, you know what's going to happen. We're going to fall off the apple cart because it's not easy.
[00:11:14] He says, teach them diligently.
[00:11:18] It's going to be hard to teach your family and your children the Ways of God, the word of God, diligently. It's going to be hard, and there's going to be a lot of reasons, a lot of personal squabbles, a lot of personal conflict in a family that's going to urge you and tempt you to set that aside.
[00:11:39] And that's why that word, I think, diligently is there.
[00:11:44] It's going to require some effort.
[00:11:48] He says, Verse 7. 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 again. The proper order.
[00:12:05] First, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart. Number two, you must put God's word and have God's Word in your heart. Number three, after one and two are in order. Then and only then is three going to work, which is to teach our children God's word just as we have received it, to teach it to our children.
[00:12:34] Here's what I want you to see about verse number seven. Here's what I want you to see. This is very important.
[00:12:39] We know that we should teach our children. We know that we should instruct them in the word of God. We know that that is what God wants us to do.
[00:12:48] But verse five and verse six, and this order that's given here is instructive and helpful to us because it shows us the motive, it shows us the emphasis, and it shows us the perspective from which that teaching our children is to come.
[00:13:05] In other words, it's not just supposed to be rote teaching. It's not supposed to be just.
[00:13:09] We just make it happen. We do what we got to do to make it happen. The Lord wants us to teach them from the perspective of someone who first loves the Lord and who first has the word of God in us. I want to ask you a question once again. To whom is the Lord speaking? Look at verse seven. Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children. Okay, Therefore, to whom is the Lord addressing?
[00:13:36] Who is the Lord addressing here? He's talking to the parents, to the adults.
[00:13:41] He's saying, mom, dad, you need to love the Lord your God.
[00:13:50] Not you just tell your children to love the Lord your God. But you need to tell your children to love the Lord their God, and then to keep his commandments. Because you first have loved the Lord your God, and you first have put God's word in your own heart.
[00:14:10] Before you venture to tell your children. Now, you might say, well, I know I got things out of order in my life, and I know I don't love the Lord like I should. And I know I don't have the word of God in my heart as I should, so I'm just not going to teach my kid. Hear me now, your children, and you will reap the whirlwind for that kind of negligence.
[00:14:37] This is a principle throughout Scripture.
[00:14:39] When the Lord says, this needs to be done and this needs to be done so that you can do this.
[00:14:45] That doesn't mean these first two give you an out.
[00:14:49] It means the Lord wants you to work on these so that you can do those.
[00:14:57] You see, the Lord wants us to teach our kids. True. But he wants us to teach our kids because we love the Lord first and his Word is in our heart. Is that the case with you, mom and dad?
[00:15:11] Do you love God with all your heart?
[00:15:14] You know you can teach. And we often. Are we not guilty of this? So often we start with obedience. We teach our kid the word of God, or at least the portions of the word of God that we can use as kind of a form of manipulation to get them to sit still and act right and to be upstanding, because it embarrasses us if they're not.
[00:15:35] And so we say, you need to obey your parents, and we use the Bible instead of teaching God's Word.
[00:15:46] See, the right way is not to start with their obedience.
[00:15:50] The right way is to start with love to God.
[00:15:54] We don't teach our kids so that they'll sit still and be. And do us proud.
[00:15:59] We don't even need to worry about that.
[00:16:02] We don't even need to worry about that.
[00:16:04] Listen, if you have a kid, if you have a teenager. We don't have any. We don't have any teenagers that are doing this. That I can tell. Maybe someone is doing it in their heart. I don't know. But they would be my kids if they are, or maybe some of the McLean family. But they're not doing that. I'm sure if you had, you know, say you had a teenager sitting in the pew, right?
[00:16:20] And they were slouching and they're. And everybody looks at them, they say, man, they don't seem to care at all.
[00:16:26] And the parents, like, oh, that embarrasses me. That embarrasses me that they're not sitting right, acting like they're paying attention.
[00:16:33] Why doesn't it bear. Why does it. Why does that bother us more than the fact that our kids don't love God?
[00:16:47] You see, the Order is important because the love to God is manifested and it's shown by love for his words and putting his words in the heart.
[00:17:00] And so when we teach our kids from that perspective, not just you need to obey, you need to do this, you need to do that, but you teach them God's word from the perspective of love to God because you have it. And I don't let the kids know if you love God or not. The Bible says if a man loved God, the same is known of him.
[00:17:19] And that is that not true of our children?
[00:17:22] It is absolutely true of our children. That's why. Listen, our. Our kids have the ability to see a fake instantly, do they not?
[00:17:31] They can see a fake from a mile away because they live with us.
[00:17:35] They live with us. And listen, all of us have bad days. All of us get out of sort.
[00:17:41] But listen, they see a fake, they know if we love God or not.
[00:17:48] And that will directly affect the way they respond to what we tell them.
[00:17:55] You see, we shouldn't be just trying to get mere obedience out of them, but we should be trying to get them to actually love the Lord and put His Word in their hearts.
[00:18:04] But that requires that we, as their parents, do that first.
[00:18:12] It will be ineffective otherwise. And that's the second point I wrote down. Parents first.
[00:18:19] Parents first.
[00:18:23] Look at verse seven again, note, and we'll look at this in a minute, but note what it says. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children and shalt talk of them God's words when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up again.
[00:18:39] You see this? This is not sitting at a desk or at a table having devotions. That's not what we're talking about here, although that's good.
[00:18:46] This is casually discussing God's word. You know why that happens? It's because God's word's in your heart. Parents. That's why you're talking about it, because it's there.
[00:18:57] You love Jesus, so you talk about him.
[00:18:59] It's like Sam and Anna. Oh my goodness. And Josh and Marty. Same way.
[00:19:03] They're in love. They're in love. And so, well, Abby too. It's always this. Marty this, and Louis this and Sam this. In my house, that's all. That's all they talk about. You know why? Because there's love there.
[00:19:17] But I'll tell you something.
[00:19:19] If we as the parents, we're failing in our love to the Lord and God's word is not really in our heart.
[00:19:30] We will not be able to do this kind of casual speaking of God's word to our kids on a regular basis like is being described here will fall out real quick. Look at Proverbs Chapter two, Proverbs two, Proverbs two. Number one.
[00:19:56] And this is just a sample of these verses, but you could see in other parts of Proverbs as well. Proverbs 2, verse 1 says this, My son, if thou wilt receive my words and hide my commandments with thee, so that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding.
[00:20:14] Verse 5. I'm skipping some verses here. Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord giveth wisdom out of his mouth cometh understanding, knowledge and understanding. Chapter 3. Look at chapter 3. Verse 1 starts the same way. My son, forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments. For length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee.
[00:20:37] Verse 4. So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes, Fear the Lord and depart from evil. It shall be help to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones. Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase, so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presley shall burst out with new wine. My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction. For whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth even as a father, the Son in whom he delighteth. What do you see here? The Father is speaking to the Son in the proverb. And he's saying, son, do what I tell you to do. Follow my commandments. And because I've already done it, I've honored the Lord and I've seen God provide.
[00:21:34] I have departed from evil and seen the help that it brings.
[00:21:39] I have been the object of God's correction and chastening. Verse 11.
[00:21:44] And I know the comfort that comes from repentance.
[00:21:48] You see this? The man is not speaking in theory. He's telling his Son, do my commandments. I. I've been there. I know what it's like. See, he is doing the thing that he is asking his Son to do. He's not just giving his commandments so they'll sit still. No, he has done that he is faithful.
[00:22:06] He loves God with all of his heart.
[00:22:10] Look at chapter 23 of Proverbs, verse number 26.
[00:22:25] Fathers, mothers, please listen to these words.
[00:22:29] My son, give me thine heart.
[00:22:33] I wonder, if our children gave us their hearts, what would.
[00:22:46] What would be the effect upon them of that?
[00:22:49] In other words, the heart deals primarily with the affection.
[00:22:53] My son, give me thine heart. And the idea is, I'm going to take your heart and I'm going to give it an affection. I'm going to attach it to something good and right. I wonder what we would give them, because we can only give them what we have.
[00:23:09] Notice what it says.
[00:23:11] My son, give me thine heart. And let thine eyes observe my ways. You know what he's saying?
[00:23:18] Son, look at me.
[00:23:20] Watch me.
[00:23:24] Set your heart on me.
[00:23:26] You can only do that if you love the Lord your God and His Word is in your heart. Else you dare not ask your child to follow you.
[00:23:34] I dare not ask my child to follow me.
[00:23:38] Listen, the Lord wants us to concentrate on us first.
[00:23:47] You know, why don't parents. Going back to Deuteronomy, chapter 6, why don't parents give instruction to their kids like we see here?
[00:23:57] I'm not talking about whether it's a devotional time in a particular time every day or whether this is just this kind of informal instruction that we see in verse 7. Why don't parents do that? You know why?
[00:24:09] It's because God's word is not in our heart, right?
[00:24:13] And so we don't. It's not something we talk about.
[00:24:17] But again, the effect upon our children, the effect upon generations to come is going to be dreadful. But it all started with us because the word of God was not in our hearts. It wasn't the. The source of our affection.
[00:24:32] And just as a practical matter, think about it. If we're going to talk about God's word, if we're going to love the Lord in such a way, our kids understand and see it.
[00:24:43] And we're going to then teach them in verse number seven, diligently.
[00:24:48] You know, think about activities that you do.
[00:24:51] You know, normally we can't sustain these kinds of activities. Just speaking as a human, right? We can't sustain these kind of diligent, faithful activities. You know, about the only things we sustain on a regular basis like that are things where we're required to do it, like work, right? Sister Karen goes to work because she loves going to work. No, she goes to work.
[00:25:14] She likes her job, but she goes to work.
[00:25:17] If she didn't need the money. I mean, I mean, so there's a certain level of necessity, right? And some of you are in a lot worse position than her. And you go, and that's all you got, is not necessity. So necessity drives us.
[00:25:31] That's what keeps us going in this, right? In human things, right?
[00:25:37] What is the other thing that will keep you doing this thing in verse seven? Teaching your children, talking about the word of God. What is going to do it? It's because something is in you that wants to talk about the word of God. Something is in you where there's a true, evident love for God. That's the only thing that's going to keep you going. And here's the problem is when we say, okay, from now on, we're going to have devotions every day at our house. That's good, that's good.
[00:26:02] But I'm telling you, that will falter and it will stop.
[00:26:07] That faucet will run dry unless you have gotten the love of God is in your heart and the word of God is in your heart, parent, it will dry up.
[00:26:20] But on the other hand, if God's word is in your heart and love of God is in your heart, I want to tell you something. You won't have to try, you won't have to schedule it, because it's already there.
[00:26:32] It's already there.
[00:26:34] So that's the question the parent needs to. All of us parents need to ask ourselves, myself included.
[00:26:41] But notice in verse seven, the content. What are they teaching? What does God command them to teach? And thou shalt teach them.
[00:26:50] We already covered that, right? God's words.
[00:26:54] Thou shalt teach them diligently and thou shalt talk of them in thine house. The words of God.
[00:27:04] So what are we to teach our kids? We are not just.
[00:27:08] I know I might be, you know, you might think I'm splitting hairs here, but I think it's very important.
[00:27:15] We're not simply teaching our kids to be good kids. We're not simply teaching our kids to be obedient and to be polite and to be respectful and to be honest.
[00:27:26] That's not what we're teaching our kids. That's not what it says in verse seven. What in verse seven is it is that we're teaching our kids. That we are talking to our kids about it is God's. It is exclusively the very words of God.
[00:27:40] And so if we're teaching our kids to be good kids and smart kids and have good grades and to be respectful and. And look them in the eye and shake hands Those might be all good things. But if we're doing that to the exclusion of teaching them what God actually says, we're not obeying this command.
[00:27:59] Because the truth is if we teach them God's word, all of those other things will be covered also.
[00:28:05] But if you cover all of those other ethical, maybe moral things that we often teach our kids, but you don't cover. You don't teach them God's word, you know, we're leaving out the one most important ingredient, and that is God himself.
[00:28:24] God himself.
[00:28:28] And he can only be found in the Scripture.
[00:28:32] So do you talk to your children? Do you converse with them about God's words? Do you guide them with God's words? Do you teach them God's words? Is that a topic of conversation in your house?
[00:28:46] I want to tell you something. And you see this in conservative media all the time. I know some of you watch that and listen to that. It's all fine and good. But I want to tell you something. Conservative media is filled, the Tucker Carlson's and the Ben Shapiro's and the Michael Knowles and the Bill O'Reilly's of times gone by, including Rush Limbaugh. Going back even further, that kind of stuff is filled with, with a Christian ethic, right Christian worldview to some degree, but no God at all.
[00:29:18] He is absent.
[00:29:20] The conservative movement is absent of God.
[00:29:23] They want everything about God, the good things, the ethics, but not God himself.
[00:29:29] This is what the Lord says. He says, you teach them my words because that's how your children are going to know God. God and all these other things will come. I promise you, if we're diligent, if we're diligent.
[00:29:45] That's why the Bible says, in Ephesians 6, verse number 4, it says this, but bring them your children up in the what nurture and admonition. What does it say of the Lord? It's not just enough to admonish them and to guide them and to nurture them. You got to do it with that. That comes from the Lord. That's his word.
[00:30:12] So, yes, in your family and in my family, God's word, the principles of it, the words of it, the verses of it ought to be a common conversation in our home.
[00:30:26] And that leads us to the next one, which is the method of teaching.
[00:30:31] I already mentioned in verse 7 how informal this kind of teaching is.
[00:30:37] I saw. I've seen it in Christian schools. I went to a Christian school.
[00:30:40] I seen it. I've seen it. I've seen the form.
[00:30:45] Everybody with me. The form kept but there's no substance, it's just the form. Oh, we had our devotions, but there's no substance. It's like we read our verses, but the rest of the day, the whole month, the whole year, we didn't talk about God's word at all. We didn't talk about the Lord at all. But we had our devotions.
[00:31:06] What doth it profit my brethren? That is not what the Lord is looking for. He's looking for the substance more than the form. And this. Notice what he says in verse seven. It is not just the form. He says, talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, when thou walkest by the way, when thou, when thou liest down, when thou risest up.
[00:31:24] The parents are to teach the children personally. You know, listen, Christian school's all fine and good. You want to send your kids there, but this is your job. This is my job.
[00:31:35] This isn't Christian school here. This is you with your kids at the house, right? This is you interacting with them. You can't delegate this to other people. It is the parents and only the parents responsibility to take this duty seriously.
[00:31:52] You can't give that off to say, well, I sent them to Christmas school, everything's good.
[00:31:56] It may or may not be, but if you personally are not doing this kind of thing and instructing them in God's word in this casual manner. That's not what this verse says.
[00:32:08] Many, many parents have sent their kids to Christian school and just, I did everything I could. Oh no, there's nothing mentioned about Christian school in this.
[00:32:19] But this works with or without a Christian school. Did you know there are kids in public school which is just a vile den of wickedness, but there are kids that go to public school whose parents do this and somehow they're able to still follow the Lord. That's the thing that exists, you know that.
[00:32:49] You see the core of this passage is that the word of God should be a common subject around our house and around our family. It should not be a one off or a once in a while thing because the word of God should have an enormous influence on everything and everyone in the home. How they make decisions, what values they hold, what advice we give our.
[00:33:13] This by itself will determine how your kids become familiar with the scripture and how it forms their worldview. Sunday school can't do that. It's saying enough.
[00:33:27] But the absence of God's word in the home is how heathen are raised in a Christian family.
[00:33:43] Is it possible for God's people to have a home where we can be God's, absolutely. Be God's people, but yet not think, discuss, talk about, interact with God's word in relation to our family. It is absolutely true. You know, that happened in Israel. That's who we're talking about here, right? They were God's covenant people. But you know, that happened because you see the effect of it throughout history.
[00:34:09] You get down to verse number nine, look what it says. Thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon thy post of thy house and on thy gates. You see this? The Jews have that to this day. They're called phylacteries. They're mentioned in the New Testament. We saw them actually at the Ark and at the Creation Museum. They these things they wrap around their arms, these leather straps, and they have little boxes with portions of Scripture written on parchment, tiny little boxes, and they put them around their head like this. Notwithstanding verse number nine says, verse number eight rather. And they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. It doesn't say, put something on your head. It says, as.
[00:34:49] In other words, it's supposed to.
[00:34:52] The word of God is supposed to be so much a part of our lives that it's like that. That, right? But the Jews, what have they done?
[00:35:01] You know what they've done? They took the verses and they interpreted them in the most, in the most literal way possible and wrapped things around their arms for their hands and wrapped something around their head for the phylacteries. And they think if they're wearing that, they are obeying this verse and it's not the case. Let me tell you how this comes out in a Christian family, though, because we don't have phylacteries that we wear it on our head. You know what we do? It says, thou shalt write them upon the post of thine house. And we've taken that. We say, okay, we're going to take verses of scripture and we're going to frame them and we're going to hang them and put them in different parts of our house. How many of you have a verse of Scripture somewhere posted somewhere in your house? I do.
[00:35:48] I do.
[00:35:56] But what a shame if you have the verse and I have the verse of scripture posted in your house and you have the form, but you don't do what the verse says.
[00:36:12] That's a shame and a reproach.
[00:36:15] That's not going to help your kids.
[00:36:17] In some ways it might be harmful.
[00:36:24] They wore phylacteries because they did the form and they missed the whole thing.
[00:36:29] The Jews, they wore it on their head, but they missed the whole thing because they didn't love God.
[00:36:37] They were the ones who were primarily responsible for killing their Savior.
[00:36:51] I actually looked this up.
[00:36:53] Common verses that are displayed in houses based upon where you would buy it. You know, you go to Christian bookstore or you look online or whatever, you want to put a verse, a frame, a verse, and I'm for that, you do it, you have that, we do it, you do it. That's fine.
[00:37:08] Joshua 24:15.
[00:37:10] As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. But are you not just in word, but are you really?
[00:37:20] This is Joshua speaking for his family. This is the man of the house speaking, representing his family. Are you serving the Lord? He's saying, I don't care what you guys do, but as for me, Joshua, the man of war, saying, I know what I'm going to do, and I know what my family's going to do.
[00:37:39] It wasn't just words written on a post.
[00:37:41] It wasn't just words framed in the house. It looks nice, a decoration.
[00:37:46] He was going to serve God.
[00:37:51] Philippians 4:13. You love this one, right?
[00:37:53] I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me.
[00:37:58] Can he not enable you then? You can do all things. Can you love your husband? Can you love your children? Can you speak kindly? Can you deal with problems in a Christian way? You can do all things through Christ, can we not? Which strengtheneth us?
[00:38:18] It's in our house.
[00:38:20] But is it?
[00:38:22] First Corinthians 13:4. Charity suffereth long, it is kind.
[00:38:27] Charity envieth not. Charity vaunteth not itself goes on in verse 8, says, Charity never faileth. We put this in our house, but is this a house of charity, of love? Is it there?
[00:38:42] Micah 6, 8.
[00:38:44] He hath showed thee, O man, what is good? And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
[00:38:53] Put it up.
[00:38:54] I want to ask you a question.
[00:38:56] Is it more important that you put the verses in your house or that those verses are a part of you and you apply those verses in your house, within your four walls?
[00:39:08] It's more important. The substance is more important than the form.
[00:39:15] To be honest with you, I think it's a shame and reproach that we have things like that displayed in a home where. Where none of those things are done.
[00:39:22] I would prefer to see those things laid on their face.
[00:39:26] And then we lay on our face and get right with God for why there's this huge disconnect between what we're displaying in our house and what we're doing in our house.
[00:39:40] See, the Lord has always been concerned with the substance more than the form. Always.
[00:39:47] He always has put up things in your house. Do all that, just like Deuteronomy says. But my goodness, first and foremost, do what he says. Those verses that we display, do what they say first.
[00:40:04] Brothers and sisters, this is how we can have a home. We can have what we see in verse two.
[00:40:12] Our sons and our sons. Sons knowing God's commandments, loving God.
[00:40:20] This is how.
[00:40:22] Let's pray together.
