As men, we are called to train our children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  As I was going over my notes this morning and in prayer, there was one thing that stood out to me as I was looking at the passage where we left off, in Deuteronomy 6, about the responsibility we have to train our children.   Deuteronomy 6:7 says, “And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sitteth in thine house…”  You know, maybe that means that we shouldn’t run, one to the TV, the other one to whatever app he loves, and another doing something else.  Maybe we ought to sit down in our houses and talk; amen?  And what we would talk about would be the commandments of the Lord, the working of God in each of our lives.  “What are you hearing from the Spirit?” those of you who have young people here.  Go home, sit, and ask, “What did you hear?  What has God spoken to you?”  “…when thou sitteth in thine house.”  Let’s give a little thought to that; let’s begin to discipline ourselves; let’s make that one of our disciplines.  Now, you don’t have to approach it with great rigidity; it’s a spiritual thing.  Let the Spirit lead you, but let this be something that you men are putting into place in your homes.  Diligently teach your children.  “Diligently teach your children.  Talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.”  “And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.  And thou shall write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.”

As he continues then, basically we understand what he is saying: “Keep the Word of God ever before you.  Keep the Word of God ever before you.  Make sure that we’re hearing these sayings, that we’re seeing these things, and that we’re speaking these things,” all of those methods that cause us to retain the Word of God, even singing these things.  Back in the 1980s, there were so many songs being written that were Scripture.  When you sing them, they never go away, do they?  Those verses are there, and they’ll pop up in your spirit just out of nowhere.  Boom! and you start singing the Word of God with the refreshing that comes.  Men, we’re to see that that’s the environment of our households.

In Deuteronomy 6:17, which is the one I was looking at this morning, it just jumped out at me: “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…”  That it may be well with thee.  The four primary verses in Deuteronomy that have the word diligently in them describe our responsibility to pursue and to apply the Word of God.  Diligently.  Diligently!  But the one in this verse that jumped out at me was just something that I thought was so cool: the Hebrew word for diligence is more of a unique word (and this is important for us) which means, “to guard or protect; to preserve.”  We need to guard, protect, and preserve, these commandments.  How do we do that?  It’s by continually teaching them from generation to generation; amen?

We have to be jealous for the Word of God so that it’s not being stolen by the world, by whatever little videos are being watched or other things that would be the cares of this world, the deceit that we know is in the world (the deceitfulness of riches), and the lusts for other things (Mark 4:19).  We have to guard our hearts, and see how precious this Word of God is to us:  this very seed that’s been implanted into our hearts, which has, in fact, caused us to be born again.  “Born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God” (1 Peter 1.23).