The pilgrims came to this country seeking religious freedom so that they might pass on the Gospel message from generation to generation. They sought to establish in this very state a city set on a hill so that the Gospel light could shine from it. They looked forward to seeing a country emerge that would exalt godliness and shun evil. Even the initial education system that they erected (which was a precursor to today’s public schools) was for the purpose of teaching children so that they might be able read the Bible. But today, instead of being overtly Christian, this nation has slid to the depths of depravity. A school child cannot freely relate the story of the pilgrims today but in writing a report on them would have to say something like this: The Pilgrims came to this country to seek freedom of you know what so that they could worship you know who.
From this passage of Scripture in Deuteronomy, the Lord had a plan in place to allow the Gospel to be passed along from generation to generation (from these pilgrims in Egypt unto their children). The Lord describes this here because He knows the tendency of all people to rely on themselves instead of Him. And had those in the nation of Israel put this plan into practice they would have continued steadfastly with the Lord for many centuries to come. And had the descendants of those first pilgrims continued this practice the history of our nation might not be in the process of being rewritten for a society that hates God.
However, in looking at how poorly the Israelites put this into practice, we see one of the saddest portions of Scripture found in Judges 2. The passage says that the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders, who survived Joshua, who had seen the work of the Lord that He had done for Israel. Then it says All that generation were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel. In just two generations, there came into being a whole society who because of the neglect of elders did not know the Lord. Shall we let the same thing happen to the generation coming behind us?
In this passage, Moses gives us four aspects in passing on the gospel to the next generation.
I. Our Motive for Passing on the Gospel (Who God Is)
The first aspect in passing on the gospel to the next generation is our motive for passing on the Gospel. We see this in verses 4-6. Our motive for passing on the Gospel is because of who God is. And in verses 4-6 we see three characteristics of our God that give us the motive for passing on the Gospel.
A. He is unique (The Lord alone)
The first characteristic of our God that we see here in verse 4 is that He is unique. These verses are probably the most well known verses to Jews. They are called the great Shema because the first word in verse 4, “Hear” is pronounced “Shema” in Hebrew. These verses are the John 3:16 of the Jewish people. And rightfully so because of their import. The verse is probably best translated, “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! It is not, “The Lord is one, speaking of His unity. That is not the idea at all.
Here Moses is proclaiming the uniqueness of the Lord. Who is our God? The Lord alone. There is no other God beside Him. There is no one who can deliver except the Lord. He is unique. This is why we should pass on the Gospel to others. Isaiah 43:10 & 11 say, “Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me. I, even I, am the LORD, and there is no savior besides me.”
There is no one or nothing else that can save us. This is why we must pass on the Gospel. Because all man made cures for sin will not work. As a matter of fact, the world cannot even agree on what is or is not sin. Robert Schuller, the pastor of the Crystal Cathedral says that sin is merely a bad self-image. He is leading people to their own doom because the Word of God is perfectly clear on the matter and how you feel about an action does not justify it. The Apostle Paul says that God will ultimately judge people’s actions in the Day of Judgment and it is a judgment according to God’s standard, not our own.
Because the Lord declares that He is the only one, that the Lord alone is their Savior, unless people repent of their thoughts that God must accept them only because they tried their best they will perish. And they will never understand that unless you tell them the Gospel. If people cannot receive eternal life in any other way than through the cross of Christ, then why do so many Christians act like they don’t believe it? If we believed it, we would tell it. And we wouldn’t wait for people to come to us we would go into the highways and hedges and compel them to come. If we truly thought that our friends and family would be in hell if they died tonight we would not cease praying for their salvation.
B. He is worthy (v. 5)
The second characteristic of our God that gives us the motive for passing on the Gospel is that He is worthy. We see this in verse 5. Moses says, “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Why are we to love the Lord with every ounce of our strength? He is worthy of all of our effort. If we put everything we have into loving the Lord, if we desire Him above everything else, all our love is only what is due Him.
Does this mean that all we do is pray all day and sit at home reading our Bibles in some kind of holy trance? No it means that every part of our lives will be completely devoted to Him. Our thoughts throughout the day are set on pleasing Him. Our work throughout the day is done for Him. Even our rest is done so as to please Him. For the Christian there is no division between the sacred and the secular. Because the Holy Spirit dwells in you, you are always standing on holy ground. Loving the Lord with our whole being ought to be the goal of our lives because He is worthy.
When you find something really good, don’t you go around telling people about it? When you find something that is the best thing since sliced bread don’t you want others to get in on it too? This is our God! There is no one more worthy or greater than our God. Shouldn’t this be a motivation to tell others about Him? Our God is worthy.
C. He transforms us
The third characteristic of our God that gives us the motive for passing on the Gospel is that He transforms us. Verse 6 says, “And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.” Moses was telling the people that the Word of the Lord was to be placed upon their heart. The heart represented the inner person (the real person). The term could be interchanged with the mind when it also describes the inner person. And the individual who allows the Word of God to saturate their heart will see God transforming them. This is what Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” The renewing of our minds comes about through allowing the Word of God to richly dwell within us. We must take the time to read and memorize and meditate upon the Word of God.
It ought to motivate us to tell others about God when we see Him transforming our lives. This is why we ought to be placing God’s Word in our heart. We need to be memorizing God’s Word. We need to be thinking on God’s Word because it is the Word of God through the Spirit of God that changes us into the kind of people that God wants us to be. When we stop pouring over the Word of God, and pouring the Word of God into our hearts we cease being molded into the image of God. God loves to bring glory to Himself by transforming sinners into saints. He has done this for millennia and will continue to do so for as long as the earth continues. Isn’t this a motive for passing on the Gospel?
II. Our Means for Passing on the Gospel
The second aspect for passing on the Gospel is our means for passing on the Gospel. How do we pass on the Gospel? We find this in verses 7-9. And here Moses gives us two means for passing on the Gospel.
A. Diligence
The first means for passing on the Gospel is diligence. Verse 7 says that “You shall teach them diligently to your sons 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 up. Passing the Gospel to our children or to others requires diligence. It requires labor to pass on the good news of our great God. And Moses is reminding us of this because we don’t always feel like it. We would rather spend time with our children and spend time with our friends without making the effort to speak of the Lord to them because looking for the right time or saying the right words just seems too difficult and we would rather just relax than exert ourselves in our God given duty to pass on the Gospel.
When Moses says that we ought to speak of the Word of God when you sit and walk and lie down he is not saying that this is something that happens 24/7. It doesn’t mean that you cannot speak of anything else. But it means that the Lord and His Word needs to be an integral part of every aspect of our lives. It doesn’t mean that sitting around reading a passage of Scripture together as a family completes the requirement in speaking about God. It means that the Lord is on our minds throughout the day and that if we are putting His Word upon our hearts, speaking about Him will be a natural extension of our family and lives. Jesus said that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. If God’s Word has a preeminent place in your life then you will speak Bible. Spurgeon once said that he so wanted God’s Word to richly dwell within him so much so that if he cut himself he would bleed Bible.
So what does it look like in our families when we have our lives centered around God’s Word. How does it live itself out? Without wanting to give any indication that we are a perfect family let me use a few illustrations from our own household. The fact that God is the center of our life and family, our discipline time focuses around God. When Paul needs to be disciplined, we don’t just deal with the fact that he has sinned against us, but we remind him that he has also sinned against Lord. And so he doesn’t just ask our forgiveness but we pray with him and let him ask God’s forgiveness too. We need to recognize that what we do is not done in a vacuum. We also talk about the Lord and His Word. We read God’s Word at the supper table before eating so that we might be able to discuss it or ask questions. We read the Word with the children before we go to bed. I have begun talking to Paul about how I became a Christian so that he might see his need to likewise have his sins forgiven. And we address other areas too as they relate to what God thinks. Paul, why should you treat your brother with kindness? Because God treats us kindly and the Bible says we ought to be kind to one another. To live out God’s Word we first need to center it in our lives.
God has given the family the main emphasis here because of its importance. Satan knows that if he can destroy families he will destroy the main tool God uses for passing on the Gospel. This is why in every age he has attacked the family. So by all means, read the Bible together as a family, but don’t leave it there. Talk it up.
Let me say what will happen to those of you who say, “Yes we need to read the Bible as a family.” You will get out your Bible, gather everyone together of course you didn’t give them any warning so one was getting ready to watch TV, one was getting ready to shower, one was getting ready to go to bed and you start off on the wrong foot to begin. Then you open your Bible, whoever is leading this, without having looked at the passage before and you read a chapter. After waking up the one who was going to bed and telling the one who was going to watch TV to stop looking at their watch and being distracted by the one who was going to shower because they keep smelling their arm pits you ask, “Any questions?” When no one answers you get upset and say, this won’t work for our family.” Satan will try to discourage you from accomplishing this and that is why Moses says you must be diligent. So what if the first few times no one has any questions or comments? If they don’t have any questions look at the passage beforehand and you ask them. This is all I do with the weekly word sheets that you get in the bulletin each week.
But if you are not diligent to inculcate the Word of God in your family life then you will not have the glue of God to hold your family together. Did you know that though the divorce rate in America is 1 in 2, the divorce rate for those who daily read their Bible as a family is 1 in 1,500? Why is that? Because those who are diligent to center their lives around God have a perspective on life that keeps their families together.
Diligence in speaking about God also means that we follow up with those who show some interest in the Lord. We must be diligent in seeking to speak to them as long as they will listen.
Often the problem in not leading someone to Christ isn’t that we don’t have anyone with whom we can share the Gospel but that we are not diligent in following up with those who want to hear the Gospel. We will not go the extra mile to meet with someone on our own time to answer their questions and tell them of Christ. We think, “If its convenient for me then I will share the Gospel but if I have to take extra time to do it I won’t. I won’t drive to their house if they want to hear the Gospel let them come to mine (as long as its not during the game). We waste hours a day in our leisure activities and then say we don’t have the time to tell those who want to hear about the Gospel. If this life is all we have to share the Gospel then let’s go about it like heaven and hell are real.
B. Consistency
The next means for passing on the Gospel is consistency. In verses 8 & 9 Moses says, “And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” What Moses is talking about here is the setting of reminders in every area of your life to be consistent. Putting out the Word of God wherever you go calls for consistency in your life. Keeping God’s Word before you wherever you go will cause you to be consistent in your life. If your friends and relatives know that you claim Christ as your Savior then you will seek to consistently live in front of them.
The point is if your friends and neighbors and family do not see a life lived for Christ (and I’m not talking about a perfect life but a life that desires to seek His will) [if they don’t see that] then the Gospel will have very little impact in the lives of those around us. We need to be consistent before a watching world.
III. Our Warning against Failing to Pass on the Gospel
The third aspect for passing on the Gospel is our warning against failing to pass on the Gospel. And Moses gives us this warning in verses 10-19. This section actually comprises two warnings. The first is found in verses 10-15 and the second is found in verses 16-19.
A. Warning against complacency
The first warning that we see in verses 10-15 is a warning against complacency. Moses was trying to check the tendency in every believer to begin to go it alone without God when life is great. Moses describes the life of these Israelites when they come into the promised land. He talks about their affluence. They will have homes and possessions and cities and vineyards and all kinds of things. He tells them that they must watch themselves. The word for watch means to set up a guard. They were to set up a guard against satisfaction. Here is the guard against it. Moses is writing it down before it happens so that they might be warned.
So let me tell you this morning that we need to set up a guard against becoming complacent in all that we have as rich fat Americans. One of my son’s library books that I read him recently was that of Chicken Little. Chicken Little, thinking that the sky is falling, gathers an entourage of other animals to go and tell the king about this drastic event. Foxy loxy follows along with them. And one by one begins to eat up each of the little critters until none are left. The last picture in the book has Foxy loxy lying on the bank of a river, stuffed and unable to move. Creeping up quietly is an alligator about to devour old Foxy loxy.
Have we become so stuffed with the materialism of our age that we are complacently lying beside the river unable to do the work that God requires of us and unwittingly are about to be devoured by our adversary the devil? Have we been sidetracked in pursuing the American dream instead of pursuing God’s will? Moses says that if we don’t guard against this complacency then we will forget the Lord who brought out from slavery.
This complacency causes us to neglect to pass on the Gospel to those whom we know. We may say things to assuage our fear for them like, “I hope they’re saved. Oh they must be saved, I bet they’re saved . . . after all they watch touched by an angel.” Has our complacency caused us to sink to such a level that we fail to pray for our lost friends and speak to them of their need for Christ alone.
B. Warning against a lack of faith (Ex. 17:1-7)
The second warning comes in verses 16-19 and this a warning against a lack of faith. In verse 16 Moses says, “You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested Him at Massah.” What was it that took place at Massah? Let’s read Exodus 17:1-7 from where this took place to understand of what He is speaking.
Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Sin, according to the command of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water that we may drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water; and they grumbled against Moses and said, “Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “What shall I do to this people? A little more and they will stone me.” Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us, or not?”
What was their problem at Massah? They had a lack of faith. Instead of believing that God would provide for them and give them water, they thought that God hated them and wanted to kill them. They didn’t realize that wanted to use difficult times in their lives to cause them to trust Him in a greater way. They had a lack of faith. The statement that they repeated among themselves in verse7 shows this lack of faith. “Is the LORD among us or not?”
And so Moses is linking this mistrust for the Lord (this lack of faith) as something that would cause them to fail to pass on to their children the good news of God’s work in their midst.
Think about this for a moment. When difficulties come in your life and you evidence lack of trust in the Lord, how will that affect your ability to tell others about your great God? It simply hinders it. And so Moses is warning the Israelites that they must not put the Lord to the test. We must not fail to evidence faith in Him because this will severely limit our testimony for Him. If we can’t trust Him how can we call others to do so to the saving of their souls? How can you share the gospel with your friends and family if they can only hear from you how you don’t trust the Lord.
IV. Our Opportunities in Passing on the Gospel
The final aspect for passing on the Gospel to the next generation is our opportunities in passing on the Gospel. In verses 20-25, Moses describes three different ways in which we have opportunity for passing on the Gospel.
A. Answer questions
The first opportunity for passing on the Gospel that Moses mentions we see in verse 20. This opportunity is to answer questions. “When your son asks you in time to come . . .” is the phrase the Moses uses to describe this opportunity. We need to recognize the opportunity to share the Gospel with others and be ready to do so. Peter says in his first letter, “Be ready to give an answer to those who ask you for the reason of the hope that is in you.” When people ask we ought to be ready to answer people’s questions about God. It is the perfect opportunity because it helps you to realize where the person is coming from.
My wife and I were having a Bible study with a couple, the wife who had grown up in Buddhism. The first lesson in this Bible study was on the spirit world. But I decided to skip this lesson and move onto the creation. After we finished speaking of the creation, the woman looked at me and said, “my father here in America mentioned that there were good and evil spirits, does the Bible say anything about them?” That gave me a good indication that I needed to go back and do lesson one.
Questions are an opportunity from the Lord to pass on the Gospel. But let me give you one word of caution. Use questions like potato chips or peanuts. If someone gives me a few peanuts, in a little while I will be looking for more. But if someone dumps a can of peanuts down my throat I will probably be sick of them and the next time I think about them I probably won’t ask that person for some. When someone asks you a question, try not to give them both barrels. Let them process your answer and come up with more questions. And it will give you more opportunities.
B. Tell of your salvation
The next opportunity that Moses mentions here is to tell of your salvation. Verses 21-23 describes the father speaking of his testimony to his son. Sometimes the questions that we receive will lead us into sharing our own testimony of how God opened our eyes to the Gospel and how He brought us out of the slavery of our sin. As simple as the telling of your salvation may be, it cannot be denied. This is your own personal testimony. It doesn’t have to be dramatic, it doesn’t have to be spectacular. You don’t have to make up anything. It simply has to be a description of how God brought you to recognize your need for a Savior and how you called upon Him to save you and how He is now living in you.
Don’t underestimate the power of your testimony. Personal testimony is powerful. Otherwise, people wouldn’t pay Paul Harvey money to say that he sleeps on a select comfort mattress and he feels great. God has come into our lives so that we can tell others about Him. Use this opportunity.
C. Live out your salvation
The third opportunity to share the Gospel is to live out your salvation. Verses 24 & 25, say “So the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always and for our survival, as it is today. And it will be righteous-ness for us if we are careful to observe all this commandment before the LORD our God, just as He commanded us.”
Moses concludes with the fact that righteousness is living out the Lord’s commands before Him (literally in the Lord’s presence). Living out the commands of the Lord by His strength is one of the most powerful ways that we can show the righteousness of Christ in us and lead us to tell others about Him. When people see us evidencing the fruit of the Spirit, people will notice and desire to know. If our lives don’t match our lips no one will be fooled by our talk no matter how slick we may think we are. We have to live what God wants in our lives. And we can only do that by living as Moses says, “in His presence.”
Have you seen this morning, areas in which you need to change? Have you been diligent and consistent in speaking about the Lord to others? Do you need to leave your complacency and lack of faith behind? Are you taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves to you?