Deuteronomy 5 and 6
Do you wish you could live for a moment in the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve fell? We can have part of Eden with us today, and it’s close to home. In fact, it is home. Images of Eden flash in our vision. Whispers of Eden linger in the walls of our family homes. God established the family in the Garden. Family is the only thing Adam and Eve took with them when they left. The family is that part of Eden we can still have on Earth. Your family can have a future, but you must claim it.
Anthropologists want us to believe the family emerged from the ooze of evolution, but the family began in the heart and mind of Almighty God, the first institution He formed, specifically designed to meet the deepest needs of mankind. The family’s importance cannot be overstated. Children need to be born into a family.
A child gets his self-concept from the home. It’s where children learn who they are, what they can do, and get a sense of security—that they’re dearly loved and valued.
A child gets his concept of life from the home. Within his home’s discipline, he learns he’s not a law unto himself, must live with others, and respect authority. When we lovingly discipline a child, we deliver his soul from Hell (Proverbs 23:13). The child who doesn’t learn to respect authority—even God’s—may end up going to Hell.
The child gets his concept of God in the home.
God is called a father, and if the home doesn’t give the child love, mercy, and grace, his concept of God Himself will be warped.
The family is society’s basic unit and God’s core design for mankind. Therefore, from Eden to this day, Satan has waged an all-out war against it. Does the family have a future? Will it survive or become extinct like a dinosaur?
We fight this war on several fronts at once, both within our nation and without. The United Nations two decades ago pushed the elimination of gender and destruction of God’s design.
Within our nation we’ve seen the rise of unmarried people cohabitating, the holocaust of abortion, children wounded from easy divorce laws, a moral free fall, rampant pornography, a godless school system that bans God and rewrites history.
Read God’s longing for His people in Deuteronomy 5:29, “Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!”
In Deuteronomy 5 and 6, God gives five precepts for training our children so families have a future:
1. Home is the university of life.
God gave His commandments to the home, to the family. His priority is for faith to go from parent to child. Our children should see our faith in God in all we do and say.
2. Parents are the professors.
Deuteronomy 6:7 says of God’s commands, “You shall teach them diligently…”
Our problem is not primarily drop-out kids; it’s drop-out parents. You must “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5).
3. The Ten Commandments are the curriculum.
Without boundaries for your children, you will never have a successful family. Don’t use “Because I said so.” Instead, “Here is what the Word of God teaches….”
Without boundaries, children grow up with a sense of insecurity. They conclude: “In our world, there are no real laws.” Establish rules, then refer your children back to God’s law as the final authority.
4. Children are the students.
Enroll them early. Character is formed by the time children are age 7. Pray for your children even before they’re born.
5. Life is the laboratory
Real life is where you teach these things. Deuteronomy 6:7 says to talk of God’s commands “when you sit in your house, when you walk in the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.”
Teach the Word of God
- with conviction (v.6).
- consistently (v.7), over and over again.
- creatively, using stories, games, songs, memory, Christian books, and rewards.
- conversationally. Talk of them every day and throughout the day (v.7).
- conspicuously. Your house should conspicuously be a house of God.
Psalm 112:2 beautifully summarizes the family’s future: “The generation of the upright shall be blessed. And his descendants shall be mighty upon the Earth.”
Pray not just for your children and grandchildren but, should Jesus delay, for your great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, that they will be “mighty upon the Earth.”
God tells us in Deuteronomy chapters 5 and 6 there is a future for our families, and you must claim it.
