Let's open God's Word this evening to the book of Deuteronomy. We will read together Deuteronomy 6. Deuteronomy 6. This is the word of the Lord. 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. 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. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. 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. And it shall be when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he swear unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildest not, and houses full of all good things, which thou fillest not, and wells digged, which thou diggest not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantest not, when thou shalt have eaten and be full. Then, beware, lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. Ye shall not go after other gods of the gods of the people which are round about you, for the Lord thy God is a jealous God among you, lest the anger of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee and destroy thee from off the face of the earth. Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God as ye tempted him in Massa. Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee. And thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest go in and possess the good land, which the Lord swear unto thy fathers, to cast out all thine enemies from before thee, as the Lord hath spoken. And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, what mean the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments which the Lord our God hath commanded you? Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders great and sore upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household before our eyes. And he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God for our good always, that he might preserve us alive as it is at this day. And it shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God as he hath commanded us. We read that far in sacred scripture this evening. The text for the sermon is verses six through nine. 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. People of God, when we witness a baptism, we recognize that we are also witnessing the taking of a vow. The couple makes at baptism a promise before God, a threefold vow and promise, a solemn promise, asking that God would help them to fulfill their vow and asking that God would witness to their effort to do exactly that. And the third question to which the brother and sister answered yes this evening, and to which all parents answer yes at the time of baptism of their children. deals with the raising of that child. Parents promise to raise their children in God's fear. And specifically, the question indicates, that means teaching them the doctrines of God's Word, teaching them what that Word says when they reach an age where that becomes possible. The parents also then promise that if at some point they are unable to do this, they will even still do everything they can to ensure that it happens, having someone else train that child in these ways for them. And when they do that, When they make that vow, they are not just saying something that they have decided that they would like to do. This is not just something that seems like a good idea in the moment. If that were true, then there would be very little reason, very little incentive to actually stick with this. They might decide two months from now that this wasn't actually such a good idea or that they're not really that interested in carrying out this responsibility and thus not actually go about this. But instead, this is a matter of obedience, obedience to God Himself. We didn't come up with this idea. This doesn't originate with us. God commands. that we would raise our children in this way. And God will not allow a halfway sort of approach to this. God's commands, including this one, are always uncompromising, even if we realize at some point that we are unable to fully carry out this task, to train them up in the aforesaid doctrine, as the form puts it, even then we promise that we will have someone else assist us in this to ensure that it is still done. But that very point also then brings us to the motivation. We are not just doing this in order to try to appease God. We're merely doing this because God says you have to train your children, and so we say All right, I guess I will. Instead, when we make this vow, we are saying, I will obey that command, and I myself so desire this for my own child. that I will do everything in my power to ensure that this child is raised in the fear of the Lord, to ensure that this child is raised knowing the scriptures, knowing the doctrines, knowing the truth, knowing Christ. May God grant that you and I, all of us, have that mentality today and every day. Diligently teach your children these words. Let's look at that then with three points. First, the command to teach. Second, We will look at what it is in the text that underscores the seriousness of this command. And then third, that there is here a vital starting point that cannot be ignored. The command to teach underscoring the seriousness and a vital starting point. The command to teach is recorded for us at the beginning of our text. 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. The word that's translated here, teach diligently, interestingly, really has to do with sharpening. or sharpness or pricking something. So that same word is used a bit later in the book of Deuteronomy in chapter 32, verse 41, and is translated this way, if I wet my glittering sword and mine hand take hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to mine enemies and will reward them that hate me. If I wet my sword or sharpen my sword, that's this same word. And in fact, this word only occurs nine times in Scripture, and all of the other instances are translated like that, sharpen, or wet, or prick, or something along those lines. This is the only exception. So the imagery of this word is of honing a blade, making it sharper and sharper over time. That's different, then, from the word that is used in a very similar text that's found in the book of Psalms. Psalm 78, verse 4, speaks of showing the teachings of God's Word to the generation to come. And that's a different word. There, the idea is of recounting something that has happened or that has been said previously. But the word of our text, in verse 7, puts all the greater emphasis on the repeated nature of doing this so that, as a matter of fact, it has been suggested that in this particular verse the word ought to be translated, say again and again. That's what it is to teach the children. What does that tell us? Oh, that tells us multiple things. In the first place, that tells us that teaching children is, from a certain point of view, like pricking them with the point of a blade. In this respect, we are driving home to them what they are supposed to learn, driving it home into their own minds. And it's like we poke these things directly into their brains as we teach so that these things that we teach don't just hit the children and then bounce off of them, but they break through and they come into them so that they are in their own minds. Additionally, what we learn from this word is that teaching children requires a great deal of diligence. And from that point of view, the translation that we have here, and thou shalt teach them diligently, puts its finger on something, as we say. To truly teach the children means saying over and over and over again the truths that they are to learn. Any seasoned teacher can tell you that repetition is a very good way of helping children to learn a concept. You come back to it again and again and again, and it sticks over time. We have a saying even, a little at a time, oft repeated. A little at a time, oft repeated. teach small portions, small amounts of information, and come back to it again and again and again. course, is the great benefit of having tests in a school setting because it forces the children to go back over what they have already learned and learn it again and consolidate it all the more in their minds, solidify it rather. And then, similarly, the great benefit of having consistent reviews so that a teacher might begin every day of class by going back over what was said in the previous day's instruction. That's also the great benefit of having review weeks in the Catechism season, as we do beginning this Saturday. To change the figure of the word a moment, though, we can also say this. Sharpening a blade requires repeated strokes with the sharpener over and over again. It is not a matter of sliding the sharpener once across the edge of the blade and suddenly the blade is perfectly, totally sharpened. Rather, you have to work at it. And with every individual stroke of the sharpener, you're not actually doing all that much. Very, very little progress is actually made with any individual stroke. But as you continue doing this, diligently, faithfully, over and over and over again, the effect builds until finally the blade becomes deadly sharp. Although it's true that our text doesn't, strictly speaking, refer to sharpening children, that imagery helps us in understanding what we are doing as we teach them. It's still a helpful image. We even speak that way in our own language, in fact. We speak of a person who is very gifted or very smart as being sharp, or sharp as a tack. As we continue to teach the children, to instruct them diligently, to say again and again the things that are recorded in the Scriptures, we sharpen them. We sharpen their minds. And, over time, they themselves become like deadly blades. And, when they are like deadly blades, they are all the more equipped, using the sword of the Spirit, to do battle with the devil himself, and with temptation. That's what it is to teach. Now, who it is that teaches? In the first place, it is parents. Parents teach their children. That is the calling of all Christian parents. Children are not just random, and they are not just the inevitable or typical, expected, natural product of a marriage, but they are, all of them, gifts from God. As far as the elect among them go, they don't even belong to their parents, but belong to God. They are His children, so that He determines how we are to raise them, all of them, because every one of them is being raised in the sphere of the covenant. And that's fitting, too. that parents should be the ones to raise their children because parents spend more time and have more opportunities with their children than anybody else does. They get them for 18, 25, 30, maybe more years. And they also know and love them more than anybody else does, or at least that ought to be the case. So it's only fitting and only good. that they take on this responsibility in earnest and go about it diligently and more directly, so that even by decreeing this, by giving this command, God, in one more way, shows His wisdom. What might that look like then? Parents training their children. It might look like all sorts of things, and you could come up with all manner of examples for yourselves. It might look like parents reading a Bible story to their children once a day or once a week or something similar. It might look like parents helping their children to learn their catechism lesson over the course of the week, every day or a few times throughout the week. Or it might look like parents answering the questions that their children bring to them about God and about Christ and about spiritual things. That's exactly what happens in the context, isn't it? right after, or near the end of the chapter rather, God says through Moses to the people, when your son comes to you and says, why do we do these things? Here's what you do. You teach your son about these things. Children will ask those questions. It might look like parents memorizing scripture verses together with their children. It might look like parents helping their teenagers in the face of all of the unique trials, the unique temptations that teenagers experience in that phase of life, helping them to understand what the Scriptures say to these circumstances. And it might look like parents, and especially now fathers, fathers leading their families in family worship, family devotions, instructing the children regularly in that way as well. So parents teach their children, but then in addition to that, we can say that the church as a whole teaches the children. God, through Moses, is addressing the nation. Israel collectively receives this command to teach the children collectively as a nation so that there is a role for all of the members, for the young people, for the empty nesters, as we call them, for the children, for the unmarried, for every single one, male and female, does not matter. Not just parents with young children in the home, not even just parents who have young or older children in the home, but all of us have a calling to be involved in the training of the children in the church. Any one of us can be involved, can look for opportunities to speak to the youth and especially to the young, young children, teaching them, saying again and again the truths of God's Word. Any of us can go to the children after church and can talk to them about the Bible and about the things that they know it says, saying to them again and again what they have already heard. And children, Listen up, this is for you too. Even you can do this. Even you can teach other children the things of God's Word. You could even do that tonight after this church service. After this service is over, you could go up to some of the other children and you could tell them about your favorite Bible story. And by doing that, you would be doing exactly what this verse says to do. Teaching the children the things of God's Word. It also has application then to parents banding together in order to educate their children in classroom settings so that having Christian schools can be one application, part of fulfilling this calling as well. And in that connection, remember again, as we said, the elect children of the church are not ultimately our children. They are God's children. And so, we as parents should not be resistant to others providing instruction to our children. Office bearers, to be sure, but then also family members, friends, other members of the congregation. We shouldn't be resistant to that sort of thing. We should welcome that. Every one of us has a role in the training up of the children of the church. What it is we teach them would be these words. That's how the text puts it. So what are these words? Generally, they are all of God's words. The whole of the Scriptures, all of them, are part of what children ought to learn. We should be teaching the children all of God's Word, the Bible stories and the doctrines found in it. And when we teach these stories and these doctrines repeatedly, We speak of them again and again. We sharpen the truths and then prick the minds of the children so that they come to understand these things for themselves. And as we say them again and again, the children themselves grow sharper too. Generally, it's all of God's Word. Specifically, these words are the Ten Commandments. The immediately preceding chapter, Deuteronomy 5, is Moses reiterating the Ten Commandments, reiterating the law to all of God's people. And God says in verse 6 that these words are those words that He commands to His people. Often, the Old Testament saints referred to the Ten Commandments as the Ten Words because The word that is translated word is sometimes also the one that's translated commandment. And so, we teach God's law. We teach the children that they are not to have other gods before God, that they are not to be greedy and covetous and all the rest. We teach that law repeatedly. We speak of it again and again. We sharpen the truth so that they prick the minds of the children we drive home the point of these words. And as we say these things again and again, the children themselves are sharpened. Generally, it's all of God's Word. Specifically, it's the Ten Commandments. Centrally now, It's the summary of the first table of the law, exactly what's recorded right before the text in verses four and five. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. That's the immediate reference. Verse 5 is clearly issued as a command, well known to the Israelites and even to the modern-day Jew, is the language of verse 5. So we teach the children the summary of the law and we tell them, love your God, love Him with all of your heart, all of your mind, all of your soul, all of your strength. Serve Him. Obey Him. Hear Him. He is one. He is God alone. Serve this great God. And we teach that summary repeatedly. We speak of it again and again. We sharpen the truth so that they prick the minds of the children. We drive home the point of these words. We say them again and again. And as we do so, the children themselves are sharpened. Generally, it's all of God's Word. Specifically, it's the Ten Commandments. Centrally, it's verses 4 and 5, the summary of the first table of the law. And all of that with the background of all of God's saving acts. Moses has been rehearsing all those saving acts up to this point in Deuteronomy. He's been talking about how God delivered them through the wilderness. He guided them. He saved them from their foes. He provided for their needs. And so we do the same. We teach children of God's saving acts. He leads us through the wilderness that is this life. He provides for our physical needs. and he grants us spiritual victory over all of our foes, especially through the cross of Jesus Christ, his son. And we teach that history repeatedly. We say it again and again. We sharpen the truth so that they prick the minds of the children and we drive them home to their minds. These words, we say them again and again and again. And as we do so, the children are themselves sharpened. Don't miss the fact that this is a command. This is God's requirement. This is not something that God puts before us as a suggestion. Parents bringing their children for baptism recognize that, as we said in the introduction. That's why they say yes in answer to that third question. They promise to strive to fulfill what God commands. Teaching the children is exactly what He demands of us. We could give all sorts of other texts in Scripture where that is taught, one of them being The end of this chapter, verses 20 and following, God commands it again. God even underscores His command to a degree because of the word that He uses, teach them diligently. And we need it. That's a needed reminder. In fact, we need that reminder repeatedly. Because we're slow to do what we are called to do, and we are very quick to find excuses as to why not to do these things. I'm too tired today. I don't have time. I don't have children of my own. It's awkward to talk about spiritual things with my children. I'm not gifted enough for this responsibility. And we could give all sorts of others, couldn't we? We need to be prodded along at times. And God's Word does that in wonderful ways, including our reading of passages like this one. The text underscores for us the seriousness of doing this, the seriousness of the command, and it does that in a couple of ways. First, through the frequency of the teaching. Verse 7 says this, 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. Which is to say, all the time, always, Teach them diligently all the time when you're sitting down, when you're together for family time in your own home, sitting together as a family. And when you walk by the way, when you are away from home, when you are journeying or when you are in some other place for whatever reason, when you lie down and when you rise up in the evening, when your head hits the pillow at the end of the day and in the morning, when you rise up to greet the day, the morning and the evening. So what's going on here? What's going on seems to be a figure of speech that is called a merism. Marism. Marism has two opposites that are set up as the opposing poles given to indicate those two things and everything in between. All of it. And by putting things in those terms, by giving just the two poles at the end, it underscores the point even more. So an example might be if we were to say that we are called to love those who are unfathomably rich, and we are called to love those who are absolutely destitute, poorer than poor can be. We're not just saying we're only called to love rich and poor people and only the extremely rich and the extremely poor. We are saying everyone, no matter where on the spectrum they fit, no matter what walk of life they are from, no matter what their economic circumstances, we are called to love them all. And it underscores the point even more to put it in those terms. That's what seems to be going on here. Always. There are two merisms in verse 7 which underscores it even more. All the time. There is no time of life when it is a good period to just have a hands-off approach and say, they can figure it out for themselves. Now it's true that as the children get older, they do need to begin to learn things for themselves and we do need to let them learn things and make decisions and make their faith their own. But even when they come to those older years, young adult sort of age, high school and even just beyond, even then parents should not have a completely hands-off sort of approach so that they simply say, figure it out for yourselves. They should be ready and willing to take advantage of opportunities and help them when there is need, teaching them of the things of God's Word and how those things apply to their circumstances. So, to apply this, we wouldn't want to restrict it just to these four things, but they do serve as helpful poles to give us hard specific circumstances in which we can apply the text. So when you're sitting in your house, a child might be fighting with a brother or a sister, and so as they are being selfish and being idolatrous, really, you step in as a parent and you break apart the fight and then you teach the child and children, this is what you need to hear too, that we're called to love God with all of our heart, and that means not doing this sort of thing, not fighting with brother or sister, not being jealous, not acting in that way and being selfish. So we connect it to the first commandment and say, we are to have no other gods before God, and that includes the God of me and self. We serve him alone. And if we are, if we love God with all of our heart, all of our mind, all of our soul, all of our strength, then we won't do those things. But we will love the brother or the sister, too. And then, when they get in another fight the next day, you do the same thing again. You break apart the fight and you tell them the same thing. You teach them again and again. Repeat over. to sharpen the truth and drive it home into the mind. When you walk by the way, when you are away from home, maybe driving around town and you have one of your children in the back seat of the car, you take the opportunity and just from memory, you tell them a Bible story. Or when you as a family are on a vacation and you're out of town over a Sunday, you get up on that Sunday morning and you take your family to some other local strong reformed church and bring them there for worship so that they recognize that love for God is the most important thing. Or even you literally take a walk, take a walk with the children and speak of God's beauty and of his creation and the glory of the world around us. When you lie down, When they lie down in the evening, you teach the little children simple prayers, and even older children, and then you help them to see that they broke God's law today, and teach them to ask for forgiveness for their sins as well. When you rise up, maybe that's reminding the young people as they get up in the morning that God's law is their rule for thankful life today as they go out to work or as they go out to school, reminding them of that. And in all of these, every one of us can apply it to ourselves too. We can all be thinking of additional ways in which we might do this in these sorts of circumstances. The text also underscores the seriousness by way of illustrations in verses 8 and 9. Thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. Thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and on thy gates." These things indicate for us how important this really is and how important it is to be for us in our lives. Writing them down on a piece of paper and, as it were, putting it on our wrist so that it's always there. That's the imagery in verse 8. Or, The imagery of the other part is writing the words down on a piece of paper and then hanging them in front of your own face, before your forehead, so that it's always there. The Jews would eventually take these things literally and began to do these things in such a way that it was really works righteousness. They were just doing this to attract attention to themselves. That's why Jesus says this in Matthew 23, 5, all their works they do for to be seen of men, they make broad their phylacteries." The word phylacteries is exactly what's being taught in this particular verse. The Jews would write down words of Scripture, and especially the words of verse 5, and then they would put them in a little box and hang that box in front of their forehead, off their face, so that it was always before them. in a visible way to attract attention to their righteousness. But then, in order to look more righteous than their neighbor, they would make a bigger box and so forth. And so Jesus has to say, woe to the scribes and the Pharisees for this. That's not the point. The point instead is a figure. The figure that Moses is conveying here is that these words, these teachings of God's Word, would be always before you, ever on your mind. They would characterize everything about what you do and say so that, as one Bible scholar says, they are a perpetual remembrance. And then we have the language of verse 9, very similar. thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and on thy gates. The posts meaning the doorframe so that as you enter your home, as you exit your home, you will see these words of God. And the gate refers to the entrance, not to your home, but to your city, the gates of the city, so that everyone who came in and out, whether they had children or not, whether they were citizens of the city or not, everyone would see these words of God. And the figure is exactly the same. The point is that you would have these things always before you, always on your mind, constantly, so that they would characterize everything about what you do and how you think and would be for you a perpetual remembrance. The same thing ought to be true for us. We could maybe change the figures a little bit to make them a bit more familiar to us. We might speak of writing a note and sticking it on the door of your bedroom or on your bathroom mirror or something like that, but the point is exactly the same. Having these things. ever before you, on your mind, characterizing all that you do for a perpetual remembrance, so that we are fully committed to teaching these things. And although it would have to be done carefully, and avoiding any sort of pharisaical approach or works righteousness, perhaps it's not a bad thing to literally apply these things and to literally write a note and stick it on your bathroom mirror, stick it on the door of your bedroom so that every single morning when you get up, you see those words and you're reminded of the calling that we have to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And regarding the gate, even the non-citizens of the city would be able to see what's written on the gate. So that means the point is living our lives like someone who knows the commandments of God so that our conduct becomes a witness to those outside. Everyone can see it. that we live as those who love the Lord our God with our heart, our mind, our soul, and our strength. But if we're going to do this, there is a vital starting point. We cannot start except we start here. What is that starting point? It's what verse six says. These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. That's the starting point. These same words must be in your heart and they must be in my heart. All the words of God and of the scriptures, all the ten commandments, the ten words of God's law, all the summary of the first table of the law, the calling we have to love God wholeheartedly, and all the background, all of God's past care and deliverance that leads up to doing this, all of that must be in my heart, which means That we hold fast to these things for ourselves. That we love these truths. It means we're invested in this. We're not distant from these doctrines and just sort of looking at them in an academic kind of way. But we love them. They're in us and cannot be taken out. They cannot be separated from us. And it means we believe it. We believe the gospel that lies behind all of this teaching. We put our trust in Jesus Christ because of the past deliverance that He has wrought for us through His cross from all of our iniquities. That then becomes the motivation. That motivates us. to hold fast, to keep God's words, and to teach those words to others. That comes first. Only afterward, God said, were the Israelites to teach these things diligently. Only after, He said, they shall be in your heart. Those words must be, and they must be in our hearts. Are they? Are all of God's words, all throughout the Scriptures, all the Bible stories, all the doctrines, are they in your heart and are they in my heart? And are all of God's ten commandments in your heart and are they in my heart? And is the summary of the first table of the law, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, all your strength. Is that in your heart? And is that in my heart? And is all that background deliverance, salvation through the gracious work of Jesus Christ, is that in your heart? Is that in mine? That's the starting point. And that must be the starting point. It cannot be done in any other way. So if the answer is no, that's not in my heart, and I don't have that motivation to teach others, and I don't particularly care about these truths for myself, then the word to you is believe. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose deliverance forms the basis for all of this. And believing, we will have the motivation. And these words will be in our hearts. Believing, then heed the command. sharpen, believing, sharpen. Only God can penetrate the heart, and we leave that to Him. But we can penetrate the mind. And that's the calling that we have today. When these words are in our hearts, we can, and we do. So hear the call. Teach them diligently to your children.