Deuteronomy 6 and Importance of Raising Children in the Lord

So by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, we need to push. To make every effort, every day, and every moment to faithfully steward the children God has entrusted to us because their salvation and the glory of God is at stake.

And in the history of Israel, God gives us a warning of just how important our parenting is. How important it is that we faithfully raise our children up in the Lord.

Look at Deuteronomy 6.

Israel’s Example

To give you the context, the children of Israel are about to enter the Promise Land.

God delivered them from slavery in Egypt, and because of the faithlessness of that generation, the people of Israel had been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years so that God could teach their children what it meant to relay on him.

That Exodus generation died in the wilderness and now their children were on the brink of God’s blessing and promise.

And in the book of Deuteronomy, God is renewing his covenant with Israel, and telling them how they, and their children, and their children’s children can enjoy the blessing of the Promise Land.

And here’s what God says.

Deuteronomy 6:1-3 Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, 2 that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. 3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

Notice right away, God is saying to this generation that they need to teach the fear of the Lord to their children and their grand children. God continues.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

God is saying his Word needs to be foundation of all their life. And that they need to teach God’s Word diligently to their children in every situation and at all times of the day.

When you sit in your house, when you walk, when you lie down and when you rise.

Do you see how biblical parenting doesn’t just happen. It takes effort. It takes work.

And here’s what God tells us we need to be teaching our children. The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

There is One God. One Creator. One Sovereign. And all of our life belongs

So we teach our children that there is One God. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And because there is one God, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

That’s what it means to raise our children in the Lord. We raise them to love God with all that they are.

And here’s why that was so important for Israel, and why it is so important for us.

Israel was going into a completely Pagan land. No one in the Promise Land worshiped God.So there was going to be temptation everywhere they went to accommodate to the world around them and adopt these pagan God’s as their own.

And God’s answer was, make your children know there is only one God.

We are in a similar situation today. America is utterly Pagan. There is not one God. There are many, and they are all demanding our worship, love, and devotion.

And unless we are diligent to teach our children there is only One God and train them to love him with all their heart, soul, and strength, they will not walk with the Lord, but turn their backs on him because that is exactly what happened to the people of Israel.

Judges 2:7-10 And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. 8 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years. 9 And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash. 10 And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.

Joshua was the one who led Israel into the Promise Land. And that generation, the one from Deuteronomy 6, served the Lord. And then they all died.

And after them, their children, verse 10 says, did not know the Lord.

The parents failed to diligently teach their children. And here was the result.

Judges 2:11-13 And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. 12 And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger. 13 They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.

The people of Israel abandoned the Lord. And for around 300 years, everyone in Israel did what was right in their own eyes.

1 generation’s failure let to hundreds of years of faithlessness for their children.

We live in a pagan land like they did, so we need to be diligent to teach our children and raise them up in the Lord.

Now the question you might be asking is how?