In the Broadway play, Fiddler on the Roof, there is a scene
where Tevye, the main character (who is a dairy farmer), is
encouraged by his wife to pay a visit to Lazar Wolf, the town
butcher (who wants to marry one of Tevye’s daughters).
Tevya,
however, has not been clued in to Lazar’s interest in his
daughter; he thinks Lazar just wants to butcher one of his cows. The
conversation goes like this:
Lazar : “Tevye, I suppose you know why I wanted to see you.”
Tevye: “Oh yes, I do. But there is no use talking about it.”
Lazar: “Tevye, I understand how you feel, but after all, you have a few more without her.”
Tevye: “I see. Today you want one; tomorrow you may want two.”
Lazar: “Two? What would I do with two?”
Tevye: “The same you do with one.”
Lazar: “Tevye, this is very important to me.”
Tevye: “Why is this so important to you?”
Lazar: “Frankly, because I’m lonely.”
Tevye: “Lonely? Lazar, what are you talking about? How can a little cow keep you company?”
Lazar: “Little cow? Is that what you call her?”
Tevye: “What else should I call her? That’s what she is! Lazar! What are you talking about?”
Lazar: “Don’t you know?”
Tevye: “Of course I know. We’re talking about my new milk cow, the one you want to buy from me!”
Lazar: “A cow? A milkcow to keep me company?” *laughs* “I’m talking about your daughter!”
Tevya didn’t understand the big picture. He thought they were talking about an everyday business transaction of selling a cow, and almost missed a very important once-in-a-lifetime occasion of giving away his daughter in marriage!
When it comes to evangelism or having children, a similar problem can happen. We can get caught up in the day-to-day business and miss the big picture of the staggeringly-glorious outcomes that could result years into the future.
In evangelism, we tend to focus on bringing another person to the point of a decision for Christ, get them to attend church, maybe get them reading their Bible, then move on and try to get someone else to pray the sinner’s prayer, forgetting the amazing potential for that first convert to make disciples themselves which could get you multiplying disciples rather than merely adding them one by one. Please understand, I’m not knocking evangelism, I’m just saying that discipling new converts and coaching them to the point where they can share the gospel themselves and make disciples themselves is more strategic than abandoning your evangelistic contacts after they have prayed the sinner’s prayer.
And think about how we Americans raise children. Once our careers are established, we have ourselves a couple of children, and assume that since they are part of the younger generation we will never be able to understand their culture, and we just hope they will say the sinner’s prayer at some point like we did. Americans by and large resign themselves to losing relationships with the younger generation and don’t try to bridge the generation gap.
I contend that this way of thinking is missing the big picture. I believe God doesn’t want to save individuals. I believe God wants to save individuals plus their descendants!
When God saves someone, He is not intending to pour His grace just into that person – pouring water into a stagnant lagoon, but rather to open up the headwaters of a new river for His love to be poured out on many generations to come.
Does the Bible actually say that? Yes! This principle is all over the book of Deuteronomy.
By the time of Deuteronomy, God’s promise to Abraham had been fulfilled in the development of many descendants – millions of people now in the nation of Israel, and
The generation that Moses had led out of Egypt (and to whom Moses first delivered the Ten Commandments) had died off (except for Joshua and Caleb).
Now the second generation of Israelites after the Exodus are about to enter into the land of Canaan under Joshua’s leadership.
“Deuteronomy” means “Second-Law.” In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses is preaching his last sermon to the children of the people who had received the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, and he is giving them the law again.
Read from Deut 4 (My translation)
8 And to which great nation belongs righteous statutes and judgments like all this Law
which I am presenting before y’all today?
9 Just watch out for yourself and really keep watch over your soul,
otherwise you will forget the things which your eyes saw,
and otherwise they will go away from your heart all the days of your lives.
Make known to your children and to the children of your children
10 the day when you stood before Jehovah your God at Horeb,
when Jehovah said to me, ‘Assemble the people before Me, and I will make them hear my words
such that they will learn to fear me all the days which their lives are upon the earth,
and they will teach their children.’
11 And y’all came near and stood at the base of the mountain,
and the mountain was blazing with fire up to the heart of the heavens
[with] darkness, cloud, and fog,
12 and Jehovah spoke to y’all from the midst of the fire,
(You heard the sound of words, yet there was no body for you to see – only a voice.)
13 and He declared to y’all His covenant,
in which He commanded y’all to do the ten things,
and He wrote them upon two stone tablets.
14 And Jehovah commanded me during that time to teach y’all statutes and judgments
for y’all to do them in the land which y’all are going over there to possess it.
15 So y’all must really watch out for your souls,
for y’all did not see a body at all
on the day Jehovah spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire.
16 Otherwise y’all will mess up
and make for yourselves a carving of a body of every image of
a figurine of a man or a woman,
17 a figurine of every [kind of] cattle which is on the earth,
a figurine of every winged bird which flies in the heavens.
18 a figurine of everything that crawls on the ground,
a figurine of every fish which is in the waters below the surface of the earth.
19 and otherwise your eyes will rise up to the heavens
and see the sun and the moon and the stars – all the army of the heavens,
and you will be lured away, and you will worship them and serve those things
which Jehovah your God allocated to benefit all the peoples under all the heavens…
37 Now in succession, since He loved your fathers, He also chose his descendants after him,
and He brought you out from Egypt before His face with His great power
38 to dispossess for you great and populous nations from before your face
in order to cause you to enter –
in order to give to you their land to be an inheritance, as it is this day.
39 And you must know today and you must think it over in your heart
that Jehovah Himself is The God in the heavens above and over the earth beneath;
there is not another.
40 And you must keep His statutes and His commandments which I am commanding you today,
which will be good for you and for your children after you,
also in order that you will have extensive time on the ground
which Jehovah your God is giving to you for all time.
I want to prove from Deuteronomy my thesis that God has an interest not only in you but also in your children, then I want to show from Deuteronomy how to go about protecting the interest God has in your children.
In Deut 4:37 and its context, we see God acting presumptively with at least five generations: “Now in succession, since He loved your fathers, He also chose his descendants after him1, and He brought you out from Egypt before His face with His great power”
First is the forefather whose “descendants/seed” was chosen after him. In most English translations the singular “him” in the original Hebrew is changed to a plural “them” in order to flow better in English, but in Hebrew the pronoun is singular, (“him”) referring to Abraham, the first man chosen (Gen 18:19) to experience God’s love, after the creation of the nations at the tower of Babel, the first to be called “the friend of God” (James 2:23).
But in choosing to love Abraham, God says in this verse that He also chose to love “his seed/descendants/offspring after him,” speaking of the “fathers” of the children of Israel whom Moses is addressing, those fathers who had been slaves in Egypt but whom God had delivered from that “iron furnace.”
Now Moses is addressing a third generation, which is the “you” in this verse, also chosen by God to be in a special relationship of closeness to God and blessing in the terms of this covenant that God made at Horeb when He gave the Ten Commandments.
And, of course, it doesn’t stop there. God forsees in vs. 26-28 the failure of that generation to be able to even keep the first two commandments – they are going to fall into idolatry, so God promises to punish a future generation for failure to walk in faithfulness to the covenant that He didn’t make with them but which He made with their fathers! These descendants will be held to the terms of the covenant made with their ancestors, and they will be “annihilated” and “scattered among the nations.”
But then God promises in vs.29-31 to show “mercy” to an even more distant future generation that finds itself in exile among foreign nations and that turns away from idolatry to live in faithfulness to the terms of the covenant God made with their distant ancestors.
Do you see how God thought and acted intergenerationally in the Old Testament? When God made a covenant with Abraham, God did not make it just with Abraham, but intended it for all Abraham’s descendants too.
The book of Deuteronomy is full of this concept of God’s covenants applying to subsequent generations, for instance:
6:3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with you, and that you may increase greatly, as Jehovah, the God of your fathers, has promised to you....
7:9 Know therefore that Jehovah your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps cov-enant and lovingkindness with them that love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations.
8:18 But remember Jehovah your God, for it is He that gives you power to get wealth; that He may establish His covenant which He swore unto your fathers, as at this day.
9:6 Know therefore, that Jehovah your God is not giving you this good land to possess it for your righteousness; for you are a stiffnecked people… (Moses’ prayer to God follows) 26 Your people and Your inheritance, that You have redeemed through Your great-ness, that You have brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand. (Note that the children are called God’s inheritance. God is claiming the children as His! Not because they have done anything to deserve it but simply because He wants to redeem them.)
10:15 Jehovah had a delight in your fathers to love them, and He chose their seed after them, even you above all peoples, as at this day.
29:14, 15 Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath, but with him that stands here with us this day before Jehovah our God, and also with him that is not here with us today… 22 And the generation to come, your children that shall rise up after you, and the foreigner that shall come from a far land… (Chapter ends with the following summary statement) 29 The secret things belong unto Jehovah our God; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children. (Do you think I am remiss in connecting verse 15 with verse 22? Hold that thought until we see Peter quote this very passage and make this connection in the book of Acts.)
30:6 And Jehovah your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your children, to love Jehovah your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may live. (Although the Jews physically circumcised their male descendants, this promise is that God will perform the spiritual counterpart of removing the fleshly, sinful nature from the hearts not only on those who return to Him but also on their children. This is N.T. language!)
Now here’s an important question: Is all this presuming that descendants have a special relationship with God just for the Old Testament, or is it still operative today?
A comprehensive answer to this question would take more time than we have to give it this morning, but let me point you to one passage in the New Testament where the Apostle Peter quotes this principle from Deuteronomy when addressing a group of new converts to Christianity:
After Jesus died to pay for our sin and rose from the dead and ascended into heaven and sent His Holy Spirit to the church on earth, we read in Acts 2:37b-39 [They] said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said unto them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call unto Him.”
Here, Peter quotes from Deuteronomy 29, connecting verse 14 with verse 22, “Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath, but with… the generation to come, your children that shall rise up after you, and the foreigner that shall come from a far land.” Peter says that God’s covenant-making arrangements are going to work in the church age like they did in the Old Testament: the promises are for you who believe, and for the children of believers, but it doesn’t end with your descendants, the promise of the Gospel can also be passed on to outsiders whom God calls to Himself and brings to faith in Jesus!
When God saves a person, He is not creating a new dead-end for His blessing but a new headwaters for a new river for His blessing to be poured out into the world!
If God claims our children and grandchildren as His special interest, then we must work to promote God’s interest in our children. What does Moses’ sermon teach us about how to set our children up to follow God?
Deut 4:9b Make known to your children and to the children of your children the day when you stood before Jehovah your God at Horeb2, when Jehovah said to me, ‘Assemble the people before Me, and I will make them hear my words such that they will learn to fear me all the days which their lives are upon the earth, and they will teach their children.’ …13 and He declared to y’all His covenant, in which He commanded y’all to do the ten things, and He wrote them upon two stone tablets. Since your children are going to be held to the terms of the covenant, you’d better clue them in on what the covenant is! Tell them what the Ten Commandments are and what they mean. Impress this upon them so that they don’t become cursed as covenant-breakers!
And notice who is supposed to be doing this spiritual teaching: the fathers and grandfathers! It’s all throughout Deuteronomy:
Deut 6:6 And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently unto thy children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when thou walk by the way, and when thou lie down, and when thou rise up. And thou shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. And your shall write them upon the door-posts of your house, and upon your gates… 20 When your son asks you in time to come, saying, “What do the testimonies, and the statutes, and the ordinances mean, which Jehovah our God commanded you?” Then you are to say to your son, “We were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt: and Jehovah brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand…”
This is repeated word-for-word in Deut 11:19 And you shall teach them to your children, talking of them, when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up…
Deut 31:10-13 “…every seven years, … you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Assemble the people, the men and the women and the little ones, and thy sojourner that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear Jehovah your God, and observe to do all the words of this law; and that their children, who have not known, may hear, and learn to fear Jehovah your God, as long as you live in the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it.
Why? Hypocrites lose their children’s faith.
Deut 6:1-2 "Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules that Jehovah your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear Jehovah 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...
Your children notice your speedometer; they know what you’re watching on-screen even if the door is closed; they hear what you say in your unguarded moments. You can’t fool them if your faith is not real, and you can’t expect true faith to rub off on them if your faith is fake.
So, TEACH your children/grandchildren how to relate to God, OBEY God yourself, then:
Deut 7:18 …you shall remember what Jehovah your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt...
Deut 8:2-3 you shall remember the whole way that Jehovah your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness…
How can you keep from forgetting God?
Make a visual reminder like a plaque on a wall of your home or office. (Scripture calligraphy makes great décor!),
Keep holidays (Israelites celebrated Passover to remember their deliverance from Egypt, they later created a holiday called Hanukah to celebrate deliverance from the Greeks, and the Gospels indicate that Jesus even observed this man-made holiday of Hanukah, so you can make up your own holiday to keep remembering something special that God did in the history of your family!),
Write a history of what God has done in your life in a photo album or a diary. Preserve these things so they are not forgotten!
TEACH, OBEY, REMEMBER, and finally:
Deut 4:3 Your eyes saw what Jehovah did in Baal Peor, for Jehovah your God destroyed from your community all the men that walked after Baal Peor.
You know what happened at Baal Peor? That was where Balaam told the Moabites to send their women out to seduce the Israelite men and also to get them to worship their Moabite idol named Baal Peor.
God struck 24,000 Israelites dead with a plague as a result, and you know what stopped God from killing any more of the men with the plague? It was the zeal of Phinehas the priest who enthusiastically fought against this terrible idolatry3.
If you don’t destroy the things that will lure your children and grandchildren away from God, they will be ensnared.
Deut 7:1-5 When Jehovah your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites... and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of Jehovah would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire… 26 And you shall not bring an abominable thing into your house and become devoted to destruction like it...
Deut. 12:2-3 You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place.
This is violent language because it is a spiritual war.
Each one of you has to discern what things will lead the next generation astray and then get those idols out of your house. Our kids may not be tempted to bow down in front of carved figurines, but there are many other things (and persons) that are worshipped today.
We will all probably come up with slightly different lists of what we want to keep out of our house, so we need to be gracious with other Christians and not assume that just because you see something as a threat to your children’s faith that your standards must therefore be imposed upon all Christians.
Some things I think we can all agree upon are to keep our children from being discipled by anti-Christian teachers,
and to carefully control the entertainment that comes into our home – books, movies, magazines, music. All too often these media carry powerfully-convincing appeals to your children to follow the religions of Secular Humanism, New Age Buddhism, and Paganism.
Another thing that can cause our children to stray is busy-ness. If you are too busy at work and at watching the news and they are too busy with school and sports for you to teach them when you sit down to eat and when you sit around in the living room and when you walk by the way (or drive around) and when you go to bed and when you wake up, then you need to go to war against the busyness in order to preserve the lives of your children for God!
Do you want to be clueless like Tevya or great like Moses?
Are you a dead-end lagoon or the headwaters of a new river of God’s grace flowing into the world?
Obey God, remind your family about God, and destroy idols that could lead your family astray!
Stop thinking only for yourself and your needs, and start laying the groundwork for future generations to follow God!
1 “The singular suffixes in זַרְעֹו (his seed) and אַחֲרָיו (after him) refer to Abraham, whom Moses had especially in his mind when speaking of “thy fathers,” because he was pre-eminently the lover of God (Isa. 41:8; 2Chr. 20:7), and also the beloved or friend of God (James 2:23; cf. Gen. 18:17.).” ~Keil & Delitzsch
2 “Desert” a.k.a. Mt. Sinai. Exodus 19:2-9 When they set out from Rephidim, they came to the wilderness of Sinai and camped in the wilderness; and there Israel camped in front of the mountain. Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain, saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel: 'You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you to Myself. Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel." So Moses came and called the elders of the people, and set before them all these words which the LORD had commanded him. All the people answered together and said, "All that the LORD has spoken we will do!" And Moses brought back the words of the people to the LORD. The LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people may hear when I speak with you and may also believe in you forever." (NASB)
3 “Lord of the Gap” Numbers 25:1-9 While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the LORD was angry against Israel. The LORD said to Moses, "Take all the leaders of the people and execute them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel." So Moses said to the judges of Israel, "Each of you slay his men who have joined themselves to Baal of Peor." Then behold, one of the sons of Israel came and brought to his relatives a Midianite woman, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the sons of Israel, while they were weeping at the doorway of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he arose from the midst of the congregation and took a spear in his hand, and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and pierced both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman, through the body. So the plague on the sons of Israel was checked. Those who died by the plague were 24,000. (NASB)