Through worshipping together on Sunday mornings and worshipping throughout the week in the home, our children will have been in the presence of God so much that they know exactly how these counterfeit gods look and their response will be to flee from them. Parents, disciple your children. Make going to church a habit and worship regularly together, in your church and in your home. Teach your children diligently. It’s vital for your family and our culture. Now the time to take Deuteronomy 6 seriously.
I have a dear friend who works in the banking industry, and as he was training I was fascinated by a particular story that he shared with me. He was sitting in the training room and his manager began to lay twenty-dollar bills on the table. As he laid them down he looked up and asked, “Which one is a counterfeit?” My friend carefully examined the bills and chose one. He chose the wrong one. The manager picked the bills up and began to teach him how to spot the counterfeit bill. This happened everyday until he could spot the counterfeit within seconds. Likewise, we must train our children so well that they can spot the counterfeit gods that our society invites them to serve within seconds. These brazen invitations to serve counterfeit gods are the reason our children need to be trained just like my friend who works in the bank.
Teach Them Diligently
These are the words of God in Deuteronomy 6:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, 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. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. –Deuteronomy 6:4-9
When we think about raising children, these words from God come quickly to mind. God commands believing parents to raise their children diligently.
“You shall teach them diligently to your children, 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.”
This training is a lifestyle and you must teach it to your children.
We must answer the question, “Why?” Why do we need to be teaching this to our children? It is quite simple—because as believing parents, we are the primary means of discipleship in our family. God tells us to teach our children diligently and that is exactly what we must do. Besides, as you may have figured out, this command has many practical implications for your life and your children.
God is very clear in why he commands his people to train their children up in the way they should go; because when they go into the land that he has promised them, there will be counterfeit gods and they will be tempted to go and worship them! Well, we know that the only God that must be worshipped is the Lord and he is a jealous God for his people (Deut. 6:15). He demands we worship him and him alone (Exod. 20:1-6).
My mind immediately goes to Galatians as Paul warns those believers not to turn to a “different gospel” (Gal. 1:6). Well as frankly as I can put it, believers are finding their children turning to a different gospel and falling into the temptations from its counterfeit gods because we have not followed the command from Deuteronomy 6 to diligently teach our children.
More times than not I hear parents say, “I’m just going to let my child be a child. They don’t need to worry about things like homosexuality, abortion, transgenderism, etc until they’re out of college.”
This response is oblivious at best because everything that surrounds them in life pushes them to counterfeit gods and their “gospels.” Our children are pushed by the media to care more about the latest Tik-Tok trend than the devaluation of human life. Their schools teach them that it’s foolish to believe in any absolute truth and only their feelings should be trusted . I could go on and on about how our world is telling our kids to run far away from God and into a different gospel of false love and acceptance—where anything goes and God does not exist.