Deuteronomy 6:4-9 “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.”
Proverbs 22:6 is a very familiar verse for all Christians:“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Training of children is a two-pronged operation: by precepts and by practice. Deuteronomy lays down the principles of teaching these precepts and that is to verbalize them all day during our daily routines--“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.” There should be a time when we open the Bible, read a passage, and explain it to our families--teaching the precepts--but, we should also demonstrate those precepts in our daily lives so our children see them in action: do not only tell them to "do as I say," but "do as I do," and explain to them the biblical reasons for the things we do.
The first step in this training process is to teach children to love the Lord with all their heart, soul and mind, with all their might. And again, this must be taught by example. We must never forget that our children will follow our examples more than our words. And then, it is necessary to expose them to the Word of God regularly. Here in Deuteronomy, we area told to write the Word, “thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” Consider hanging pictures with Bible verses on the walls of your home so the Word of God can be seen and read often. This is the God-given method of training up a child in the way they are to go, and the way we build a godly Heritage and Legacy.
To illustrate these truths, consider the legacies of Jonathan Edwards, the great colonial preacher, and a contemporary, a man named Max Jukes, born about 1720. Jukes was an atheist, who married an ungodly woman. In 1900, American pastor and educator, Albert Edward Winship, wrote a book entitled Jukes-Edwards: A Study in Education and Heredity. In it, he traced the posterity of the two men. Of Max Jukes’ 540 studied descendants, 310 died as paupers, 150 were convicted criminals, and there were seven murderers, over 100 drunkards, and 190 female prostitutes among them.
From Jonathan Edwards’ 1,394 studied descendants came an American vice-president, 3 senators, 3 governors, 3 mayors, 30 judges, 13 college presidents, 65 college professors, 100 lawyers, 60 physicians, 75 military officers, 100 preachers and missionaries, 60 prominent authors, and 80 other public officials.
How we live our lives, treat our families, and relate to our children will affect generations after us, for good or for evil. What will your legacy be?
