Fathers, Teach Them God's Ways - Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Fathers, Teach Them God's Ways

Commanded By The Lord - Deuteronomy 6:1-9

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: 2 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.

Moses’ Commission From God to Teach Israel

Moses was commission by God to teach Israel the commandments, statutes and judgments of God. These were given to Moses beginning with the 10 commandments but ultimately incorporated over 600 laws and principles that incorporated everything that would impact and shape God’s nation. The Law of God would shape, form and define the people of God.

Moses said There were three purposes of the giving of the law.

First, that Israel might “do them” when they came into the promised land of Canann. The commandments and statutes were to be the rule of law, the common practices of the nation once they began to live in the land after they had conquered it. They were not just words written and then forgotten but they were the guidelines for the life of a nation and they were to be lived by.

Secondly, the law was given that they would know the fear of God. This word fear comes from the Hebrew word יָרֵא yârê’which means to fear; to revere. The law was to teach God’s people the  fear of God that they would reverence God. Through the law, they would glimpse the character of God. Jehovah was holy, righteous, just and true. His law was exactly the same.

The third purpose of the law was that the people might know the blessings of God. Moses tells them, “that thy days may be prolonged.” He is speaking of the days, the span of life for those who heard him and for all future generations. “Thou, thy son, and thy son’s son.” If the nation of Israel want the future generations to be blessed by God then they must keep the law given by God. What was true of their families in turn was also true of their nation, because the strength of a nation is built on the strength of its families. Weak families make a weak nation, strong families make a strong nation.

The Law’s Purpose Still Applies Today

Following God, Fearing God and Finding the blessing of God are still core values for the people of God today.

No, we are not Israel and some of the laws, like the laws of food and marriage within the nation of Israel no longer apply. They were for Israel, not for the world. But the moral law of God, those basics, foundational laws given in the Ten Commandments of God did not get canceled in the New Testament.

The Ten Commandments – Exodus 20:3-17

Thou shall have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

Honor your father and mother.

Thou shalt not murder.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shall not bear false witness.

Thou shall not covet your neighbor.

The Purpose of the Law - Galatians 3:21-24 Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. 22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. 23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

We can’t keep the law in order to be saved, but we must understand that the Law reveals the righteousness of God and my sinfulness. I dare not ignore it, or try to destroy it. Instead, by the working of grace and the Holy Spirit in me, I understand that Jesus fulfilled the law, that I could not and only in and through Him can I be saved.

The law could never save me, but the law can absolutely tell me and tell a nation what is right and wrong according to God who created all things.

The same principles of the purpose of God’s moral laws still apply, we strive to do them because they are right. We keep them knowing that God blesses those obey Him and he punishes those who do not. And we do them so that we and our children and grandchildren might have a good and a long life and through them our nation may be blessed and prosper.

I could at this point bring up statistics, studies and case histories that would show the truth of what Moses told the people of Israel that day. Those groups of people who best keep God’s moral law have good lives and those who ignore God’s laws suffer in this life. Their families suffer and many individuals will physically die before they should have because they ignored God and His will as it was revealed in the moral law.

Want to see the highest death rate for any group in the world? Do you want to see the least life expectancy? Do you want to see the worst dysfunctional families? All you have to do is look at those groups which hate God, his Word and His law the most. There you will see terrible lives, broken families and early deaths. The second most in those categories will be those who may not hate God’s law, but they simply choose to ignore it. No outdated morality for them. No Old Testament God of wrath for their kids. Just write it all off and try and find your own way. They are their own arbitrators of good and evil and then suffer the consequences of their own failed godhood. For only God can define what is right and will bless and what is sinful and will bring death.

Moses received the Law from God. He passed it on to the nation of Israel that they might do God’s will, honor and fear God and be blessed by God and live along with their generations a prosperous, long life.

So what comes next? Listen as Moses goes on in vs. 3

Covenanted To The Lord – Deuteronomy 6:3-4

3 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. 4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: 5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. 6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

Israel’s Covenant Blessings

Israel’s blessings were dependent on the nation keeping and honoring the covenant with God they entered at Mt. Sinai.

Moses in vs 3-4 reminds them of this, he says,  “Listen to what I have told you, what God has given to you. Listen because "it is vital to your future, therefore, be careful, be diligent and do it, do what God has commanded. When you do this then it will be well with you and you will prosper mightily in the promised land.”

Then in vs. 4 Moses gives the “Shema” the title taken from the Hebrew word which means, “hear”. Then he gives the law, not in ten commandments or 600 precepts but in one revelation about Jehovah God.

The Shema, vs 4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:”  This statement of God’s being is about His uniqueness. When Moses says, Jehovah our God is one.” He is saying, God who has revealed himself to us in our deliverance from Egypt, through the Red Sea and upon the Mountain of God, He is the only one, beside Him there is no other god or gods. The word “one” is the Hebrew word ’ehad and it means “compound unity.” The phrase one LORD means God has one name, Jehovah, the name He revealed to Moses at the burning bush.

“Jehovah, our Elohim, Jehovah is one.” 

The Tree of Life version written by Messianic Jews stated it this way in Hebrew, “Shema Israel, ADONAI Eloheinu, ADONAI echad; or Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone; - Messianic Jewish, Tree of Life Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2015).

One translator wrote it this way and I thought it captured the idea well, “Jehovah stands alone and there are no others.”

The Shema is the orthodox Jewish confession of faith. This confession of faith is  recited each morning and evening by devout Jews all over the world, it affirms that, “Jehovah, our Elohim, Jehovah is one.” Among the orthodox Jews babies are required to memorize the Shema just as soon as they begin to speak.

Some try to find a contradiction in this verse with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, that God is three persons in one God. But this word does not mean one in singularity but one in unity. The same word is used in Genesis 2 when God describe man and one becoming “one” flesh and in Exodus 26:6, 1111 to describe “unity” of the joined curtains in the tabernacle.

Moses, after telling the Hebrews who God is, tells them how they must respond to their God in vs. 5 “And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”

Jesus when asked about the greatest commandment answered in Matthew 22:37-40 “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Israel was to keep the covenant with God, but they could not and they did not. Even this condensed version of the Law. They worshipped other false God, denying the “Shema,” they did not love the Lord with all their heart, their soul and their might.”

Our New Covenant With God

We also entered into a covenant with God, not at Mt. Sinai, but at Mt. Calvary. Our covenant is not like the Mosaic Covenant. That covenant was conditional, our covenant, the New Covenant, the Covenant of Grace is unconditional. The Mosaic could and was broken, the New Covenant can never be broken. The reason is simple,

Paul stated it this way in Romans 8:3-4 For what the law (Mosaic covenant) could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, (the Hebrew’s strength) God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.

Our covenant can’t be broken because we can do nothing to keep it. The covenant of Grace is between the Father, the Son and the Spirit and we enter into it by grace through faith.

Just as it says in Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

We are covered in the New Covenant because of Jesus’s part in the covenant. His death opened the door of eternal life through faith in Him. We can’t lose our salvation because we can’t break the covenant. We can’t break the covenant because we are not one of the parties that agreed to it, but thank God we are provided eternal life through it.

And you, if you have taken God’s offer of grace through Jesus, His son, then you can keep what the Hebrews of the Old Testament couldn’t. You have God’s love in you through the Holy Spirit and you in that supernatural love of His, can “love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”

But that wasn’t true for Israel after Moses and Joshua were gone. Why didn’t the future generation of Israel keep the covenant? Why did they forget it, and forget their God and His blessings? The reason is in the next few verses.

Committed to The Lord’s Children  – Deuteronomy 6:7-9

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. 8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. 9 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

Why The Covenant was Forgotten

Moses’ next command was for the fathers of the nation of Israel to teach their children. Knowing how important this command is, he says it should be carried out in three ways, teach them, Bind them and write them.

Teach them, Diligently: שָׁנַן šânan; intensively, as to pierce; to prick, or sharpen like whetting a blade. (It means to teach carefully, constantly and conscientiously as one shaping and preparing the one being taught.)

He tells them: Teach them when you sit at home

Teach them when you walk by the way

Teach them when you go to bed

Teach them when you get up in the morning.

Bind them.

for a sign on your hand.

as frontlets between your eyes

And Write them

upon the doorposts of your house and on the gates.

All the entries and exits of your home, the places you must pass every day, many times a day.

All those ways are meant to convey the idea of permeating the child with God’s Law. Everywhere they went teach them about God. Make that teaching permenant like something worn upon on your hand or like something in front of your eyes so that everywhere you look, God and his law is always seen. And yes write them out and put them on the door of your house and the entry to your property. So that when you come in or go out you are reminded of all that is God.

The orthodox Jews turned this command into something literal and wear phylacteries on their heads, bindings of small boxes with scripture upon the back of their hands and the place a mezuzah, a small box or tablet with the Shema written on it on the doorposts of their house. But by making it a physical requirement, the Jews forgot the spiritual requirement.

The fathers did not diligently teach their children, they did not show them God all around them, they did not fill their homes with fill their homes with the word of God and Israel forget and Israel lost the blessings of God and suffered the consequences of their disobedience and apathy.

Fathers, Teach Them

Do you see the parallels between our families, our churches, our nation today and the word of Moses here in Deut 6? The same reason Israel lost God’s blessings are the same reasons that today we are losing God’s blessings.

Fathers are not teaching their children the things of God. Yes it is the duty of both parents but it is especially to the Fathers that God looks to carry out this sacred duty for our children.

Ephesians 6:4, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

The Lord speaks to us Dads and just like Moses speaking to the Children of Israel as their spiritual leader and lawgiver, we are to carry out this task in the same way.

Talk of God when you sit in your house as you walk with your child. When you put them to bed and greet them with the love of God when they get up in the morning.

Make the things of God as tangible to them spiritually as if it were wrapped like a bracelet around their hand, or colors and focuses everything they see like glasses on their face.

Fill your home with the Word of God. Give them a Bible before they can read and then teach them to read from a story Bible and continue with the wonder of the King James Bible. LeeOra and I even have a Mezuzah on our door post at the house, scripture framed on the walls, written on plaques and my computer screens have God’s word as screen backgrounds and screen savers.

It is not the physical things that are the teaching though. No matter how many Mezuzahs or pictures of scripture you have in your house they won’t accomplish anything unless you, Fathers teach them to your children. Unless you Grandfathers teach them to your grandchildren. Unless we the church of Jesus Christ, teach them to a world of lost children who do not know the Father in Heaven you so loves them.

Conclusion

Patrick Henry the great orator and lawyer whose speech, “Give me liberty or give me death” helped launch the Revolutionary war and win our freedom, had one last thing to say before he died. He wrote it to his children and placed it in his will, it simply said.

“This is all the Inheritance I can give to my dear family, The religion of Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed.” – Patrick Henry

I pray that each of us and especially those of us who are fathers have that same desire as Moses as Patrick Henry and even as our Heavenly Father, to teach our children diligently the ways of God, the word of God, the wisdom of God and above all else the love of God.

If we fail in this duty, we fail in everything else.