All right, well, we're working through the topic of the law of God, and In this part of the course, I'm going through just a few, I guess you could call it themes or topics in the law and trying to kind of bring together lots of scripture texts on given themes. so that we would get a sense of just how relevant the Old Testament law is to us today. And if you just remember, the basis of us looking at the Old Testament law is that it is Christian scripture. It was given to us by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the risen Christ. And it was given not just to the church in the Old Testament, Old Covenant, but it was given to the church until Jesus returns. Remember what Jesus said, I'm not one jot or tittle. In other words, smallest letter, smallest little fragment of a letter. will be erased or will fall away in God's word. So we know these things are lasting words to us. And we also know that the old covenant people of God are in the same covenant as us. We're both peoples, old and new, or really one people, because we're all in that one covenant of grace, which has two different expressions. The shadowy expression, that's the old covenant, and then the ultimate expression, that's what we're living in right now. And on this, the old covenant has lots to tell us about children. So what does God's old covenant law show us about our duty to the next generation? So just as a kind of culled through all of the different laws, these were a few themes I discovered. And the first is just having children. It's a command. God blessed the man and the woman and he said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And then you'll remember after the flood. God reiterates that twice to Noah. Noah is like a new Adam. And so he has a duty, fill the earth. And that duty continues even beyond those initial people. Malachi 2 talks about marriage and he's talking, this is part of the section where he's saying he hates divorce and he wants people to be faithful to each other. But then, as part of this, he's explaining why marriage, right? And he says this, did God not make them, that is a married couple, one with a portion of the Spirit in their union, which is an amazing statement, right? That the Holy Spirit is in a Christian union. What was the one God seeking? In other words, what was the one God seeking in making the two one? Answer, godly offspring. So there's this clear teaching of scripture that, you know, when you have the man and the woman coming together, one of the purposes for that is that there would be offspring. And there's even this in the law, and let's just turn to it. Deuteronomy 25, if you want to turn there with me. There's this rather extraordinary law. Verses five through 10. If brothers dwell together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband's brother shall go into her and take her as a wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. And if the man does not wish to take his brother's wife, then his brother's wife shall go up to the gate of the elders and say, my husband's brother refuses to perpetuate his brother's name in Israel. He will not perform the duty of a husband's brother to me. Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him. And if he persists saying, I do not wish to take her, then his husband's wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face. And she shall answer and say, so shall be done to the man who does not build up his brother's house. And the name of his house shall be called in Israel, the house of him who had his sandal pulled off. So this is definitely one of those passages when you're reading through it, where on the first go, you're like, wow, this is strange, right? But what's the heart of God here? What's his desire? What's the contingency that he doesn't want to have happen? wants to have a godly heritage, perpetuate, continue. Yeah, good. And what would be like if this brother doesn't do the duty he's supposed to do for his other brother? What's the terrible thing that could happen as a result? And it's not the consequence I'm thinking of to the man. But what is God trying to avoid? It's correct, a godly heritage. What more, though? Yeah. It says that the bad thing is that his name would be blotted out of Israel. So like, is that really, really important that that particular man have an offspring? Yeah, then it seems like it really is, right? So if you go through the book of Joshua, and you see, okay, this tribe is getting this big, huge chunk of land, but within that tribe, there are going to be different portions given to each of the different clans within the tribe. And then within the clans, there are families and within the families, there are individuals. And in each of those cases, there are portions that are given to that person. And so there's the land that's connected to the name of the person. And God's saying here, I don't want any of those names to be lost. I want all of those names to be perpetuated in Israel. And you guys may recall, this is exactly what's at stake in Ruth, right? Where Elimelech, his two sons die, and Elimelech, his two sons die, What happens, right? All that's left are the wives of those two sons, one of which is Ruth the Moabitess. And what happens? Boaz eventually arises to do the duty of what's being described here, raising up a son. And do you remember what happens when the son is born? Obed is put in the lap of Naomi. In other words, this is your son, in a sense. This one is bearing the name, not just of Boaz, but of Elimelech. And so there was another guy before that who was cut off, or quite striking. He refuses to do this duty, and then he is left nameless, this one who is first in line after Boaz. It's very much reflecting this law. Yeah, did you have a thought there, Charlie? Yeah, I think this command from God, it seems to fly in the face of individualism. Yeah. I do find it odd though, like if we were to roll this into modern times. That would feel like a weird expectation of me to do if one of my brother's wife's died, for me to fill those shoes, even if I wasn't married. Is that something that we would carry over to new content? Yeah, this is a great question, right? I guess also too, I'm trying to roll the clock back and say, hey, okay, let's say I'm an Israelite. The cultural significance must have been huge for God to command that it must have made intuitive sense to them. Otherwise, it might have been easily hand waved. So maybe you could speak to that a little bit to like, yeah, what would be an analogy for, you know, today's culture. I think we should be wrestling with like, okay, here's this law, how does this apply now? Yeah, did you have a thought, Trina? Oh, I think Charlie's question is great. Maybe along the same lines or... Consideration is like in this verse. He's talking mostly about the name But like you were connecting it to the land And and Boaz was clearly connecting it to the land as well that he would have to take care of Naomi's land right and then the Sun would receive the land of a limelight and And so there's definitely, and maybe even has something to do with the children's caring for the parents. So a widow wouldn't have a son. I mean, it would take a while for him to be raised up and take care. And so there's that community aspect that Charlie was talking about as well. Yeah, yeah. There's all these things bound up in this. Did you have a thought there, Anne? Yeah, I mean, I can't be the only one also thinking about this, but this does not seem right, you know, for sexual purity in marriage. Like, this is weird. Why is God commanding a man to go and have sex with somebody that's not his wife so that he can get her pregnant? That does not seem to align with what we understand as biblical marriage and biblical sexual purity. Yeah, and I think it's not made exactly clear here, but I think that the point is that he's taking his brother's wife as a wife. And I'm not, I'm not, it's not like completely laid out for us, but that is in fact what happens in the case of Boaz. He's a single man and he marries his previous I guess his relatives, Widow, who is Ruth. So, you know, I'm not sure, I get what you're asking and I'm not exactly sure how to square it with everything that we know from other texts. Yeah. And we see it go wrong with Judah and Tamar. Yeah, where Tamar takes matters into her own hands to trick... Yeah, that's right, that's very much connected. And Judah very much failed to give his third son to Tamar to raise up offspring for the fallen brothers. Yeah, and I think just going back to Charlie's thing, his question of like, okay, how do we apply this now? I think that we have to understand, again, remember the process, like what does this show us about the character of God? And then how do we keep that character in a new covenant context, right? Those are the two key questions we're asking of every single law. And so what is it showing about the character of God? It's that God doesn't want the name of a person to disappear. He very much cares about this person's name and therefore their inheritance continuing forever, perpetually. How do we see this fulfilled in Christ? in the gift of eternal life. These are places where we see the Old Testament beckoning us forward to something higher, something bigger. So what was the Old Covenant land supposed to picture? It was supposed to picture our everlasting inheritance that we would never ever lose. What is that ultimate inheritance? It's the new creation with Christ. And so as we think about God preserving a name, It's pointing us forward to the ways in which we will now live forever in glory with Christ. And so we don't need lever at marriage. That's the term that's given to this law. We don't need lever at marriage to preserve our name. We actually have Christ preserving us, both body and soul through the resurrection. We don't have an old covenant shadowy land. We have the ultimate eschatological and times land, which is the new creation. So much about this law passes away in terms of its like shadowy form, the form it's supposed to take, the practice is not being enjoined on us. What is being enjoined on us though? The sense of like living on forever in Christ. And I think there's a value that's being placed here on children. And that's kind of the larger point I'm getting us to here is that in the scriptures, God places a high premium on filling the earth, subduing it, and raising up children for him. I think there could be a legalism here that says the goal is to have as many kids as possible. I think instead it's more calling us to be faithful, to raise up godly offspring. That's what Malachi 2.15 says. There's nowhere in the Bible where it says, you know, have as many kids as possible, but it does say be fruitful, multiply. Psalm 128 says, children are a blessing. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. And so I think it's pushing back against the idea of our culture of, you know, have the minimal number for your own satisfaction, right? And calling us to say, hey, look, there's this great opportunity to see the life of Christ live on in your own offspring, yeah. I remember reading through, I think it was Corinthians, where under the new covenant, the church is supposed to take care of true widows. Yeah. And then it commands, Paul commands those who are, those widows who have family members, either the widow should remarry or the children should take care of the widow. Yeah. Under the old covenant, it was, Not nearly as tight-knit in that sense as we are under the church Because children were a retirement plan you know now that we have the yeah structure of the church the Deacons can take care of true widows and yeah, that's oh, yeah Yeah, that's good. Yeah, and that is built into part of this is families caring for families and we're caring for each other as a church family. Any questions on this first point, the ways in which God's law is showing us the value of having children? I think it's very, very much counter-cultural in our time. the blessing of children. Most people see children as something to be avoided, as long as you can put them off. But there's also this deep sense we got to have them eventually. Okay, then the next theme has to do with teaching. So let's just look at a couple of these passages. So Deuteronomy 4. Verse 9, we'll just read both verses 9 and 10. Only take care and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen. What are the eyes seeing? Well, the exodus, the provision in the wilderness. Lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children. How on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, in other words, Sinai, the Lord said to me, gather the people to me, that I might let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children also. And so we have like this idea that They need to not forget what God has done, but then they also need to not let it become forgotten in the subsequent generations. What's that require? Teaching. Why did God reveal his law? One was so that they would know how to obey. What's another reason why God revealed his law? Look at the end of verse 10, that they may teach their children to obey too. And then the great text on this is Deuteronomy 6. Deuteronomy 6, we'll start in verse one. Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you that you may do them in the land to which you're going over to possess it. That you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son by keeping all his statutes and his commandments which I command you all the days of your life and that your days may be long. And then just a little bit further down, we have the great, what's called the Shema, the hero Israel, the Lord your God, Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God. And then he says, look at this, verse six. 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 in your hand. They shall be as frontlets between your eyes and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house. and on your gates. So what's the vision that God is casting for parents in this passage? That they would raise their children absolutely saturated in God's Word. It would be a part of every minute, every conversation, everything, even the mundane things of life. It would be the central core of their home and their lives. Yeah, well said. It's the exact opposite of, well, I brought my kid to Sunday school. I'm glad you brought your kid to Sunday school, but it's supposed to be life on life, full immersion. I like how you put that. And that there's never a time when you're not looking for those opportunities to speak of the word. And notice, A little bit later in this chapter, he's going to give us an example of how to do it. So if you look at verse 20, when your son asks you in time to come, what is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you? Then you shall say to your son, we were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed us signs and wonders great and grievous against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household before our eyes. And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always, that he may preserve us alive as we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us if we're careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God as he's commanded us. So what's the son's question? It's what's the meaning of, and then you get the like, the testimonies, the statutes, the rules, but you get the sense of like, that's a sort of filler for whatever they might be doing, right? So why are we doing this Passover lamb thing? Why are we, you know, why do we wear the tassels off of our garments? Why do we not shave the hair on the side of our heads? Why this, why that, right? Whatever the law is that they're curious about. And do you notice how the son words the question? What is the meaning of these things that the Lord our God has commanded you? Why do you think that the way, why do you think he said it that way? What does that suggest about the son, the way he says it? What's the meaning of these things? The Lord has commanded you. What's that imply about the child? On the surface, it sounds like he didn't command me yet. I don't know. Yeah. There's a kind of in-between expression here of the son's loyalty to the Lord. He says, on the one hand, it's the Lord, our God. So he says, Yahweh, the God of Israel, is my God, too, and yours, Dad. He's our God, but he's commanded you. You, dad. And then notice all the pronouns in 21 through 25. It's all first person plural. We were Pharaoh's slaves. The Lord brought us. The Lord showed signs and wonders before our eyes. He brought us out from there and so on and so on. What's the father doing? What's he doing with those handy first person plural pronouns? Yeah, Ryan? He's personalizing it. He's a witness. Yeah, and he's personalizing it for whom? He's personalizing it for his own son. Exactly. Exactly. He's incorporating and he's including the son saying ah Don't think of it that way son. Don't think of it as the Lord commanding me like this is dad's thing. Oh, no This is your thing. This is our thing and Deuteronomy is really kind of extraordinary about this if you just turn back in to chapter five at the beginning, Moses says, hero Israel, the statutes and rules that I speak in your hearing today, you shall learn them and be careful to do them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Again, that's Horeb of Sinai. Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us alive here today. Now that's an amazing statement. Because if you think about the context, this is after the 40 years of wilderness wandering, the entire older generation has passed away. The people who were there at Sinai. There's the people, I think it's 20 years and younger, who were 20 years and younger when they were at Horeb, who didn't die in the wilderness. So there were a handful of people who were there, literally. at Horeb, but they were all minors at that point. They were all under age. And since that time, what's happened? Well, they've been wandering the wilderness for 40 years and there's been a lot of babies. And so there's all of these people who were born after Horeb, after they left Horeb in those 40 years, many of whom are adults as of the plains of Moab when Deuteronomy is being given. And Moses is saying not, with our fathers, and there's a rhetorical thing there. It's not like he's saying, God didn't make this commandment with our fathers. He's saying, not exclusively with our fathers, right? That's the point of it. Not just with them, but with us. In other words, this covenant is with us too. And there's a couple of other passages in Deuteronomy. It's actually back in chapter four where it says, your eyes have seen, that's chapter four, verse three. Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal Peor. And they're like, well, wait a second. That was like before I was born. My eyes didn't see that. What's being said here about the covenant When he says, God made this covenant with you all, who weren't there, what's he saying about the nature of intergenerational relationships? Let me try the word in a different way. What can you tell me about the obligations, or I guess, what can you tell me about the relationship of the children in Israel to the covenant that was made at Sinai? Yeah. Their inheritors, whether they like it or not. Whether they like it or not. And we're familiar with this, actually, in our own culture, right? If you're born in America, you're an American citizen. If you're an American citizen, you have all the privileges and all the duties of an American citizen. Like you didn't ask for it. You never signed on a dotted line. It's just the way it is. And so now this is going to be the way it is with God's people too. If you're born into the covenant, you're in it. Your parents were in, they were in covenant with God, you're in covenant with God. And so this is obviously why they circumcised their kids and it's why we baptize our babies. It's not like we're saying everybody who's baptized is just automatically saved. That's not the point. The point is, objectively, you are in covenant with God simply by being born. simply by being born into the family of a believer. Yeah, right? Yeah, and also, you know, toward the beginning of chapter 6, we're told to instruct our children all hours of the day, the things of God. But also, kids are naturally inquisitive. We'll be sitting here and having the Lord's Supper and my kids will ask me all sorts of questions. Why are you doing that? Why can't we have that? Stuff like that. And it goes back to Exodus chapter 12 about the Passover, too. It's the same thing here. Your kids are going to naturally ask the question, why are you doing this? What do these things mean? And you instruct them, well, we're doing this because we had to leave so hastily, and that's why we do this. We continue to pass down the tradition from generation to generation. Yeah, great. Great. And there's, I think, a mandate here. for us as parents to include our kids. Just look even further down under teaching them. Incorporating the children into various worship occasions. When they get brought their offerings, it says, you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters. and then other members of the household too, your male servants and female servants when they're bringing their offerings. At the three major feasts, Passover, weeks, and booths, in each of those cases, it mentions your sons and your daughters. joining with you in the three big ones in worshiping God. So what are some of the implications of this in terms of how can we as a body, how can we live out this reality, the fact that our kids are objectively part of God's people simply by being born into the covenant? How can we incorporate this thing that God's valuing so much? I have a question because I don't come from the Reformed belief system like all my life, but yet I am persuaded of infant baptism and this idea that the children of believers are in a sense part of this covenant and that's why we give them that sign. But I would love to hear more of a an understanding of how can someone be in covenant with God and part of this covenant and yet potentially not be actually regenerated or saved. I think maybe that's like the tilting point for a lot of people who come from a Baptist tradition to not understand what is happening with infant baptism. And I don't know, I guess that's probably not what you were wanting to ask, but that's what's on my mind, that's what I'm thinking. It's very relevant, and I think we all kind of feel that. that tension, that there's the reality of children being born into Christian families, being baptized, and then walking away. These things happen. There are people who are adults who are baptized, right, profess their faith, baptized, and then they walk away. right? They've renounced Christ. What do we do with these things? Does that make being in covenant with God just sort of this sham thing, like that doesn't really, isn't really meaningful? And I think that we'd want to say, no, it is really meaningful. It's just not the end times ultimate expression of the visible people of God. So like we are the visible people of God, right? Everybody who's baptized, who's a member of a Bible believing church, They are the visible people of God. Who are Christians? Well, those people. The people who have been baptized that God has basically certified and said, this one is part of my people. At the same time, we know that the final revelation of the sons of God awaits the resurrection. That's what we know. We're realizing that if there's two circles that represent the ultimate people and then the visible people today, they're not going to perfectly overlap. But that doesn't mean that the overlap is meaningless. It just means that we're not yet at the point of the final judgment. So aren't they covenant breakers? Like if they're born into a Christian family and they're part of the covenant, then they would be covenant breakers as opposed to a child who is born not in a Christian family. Yeah, and there's this principle from 2 Peter 2 that talks about people hearing the word and then walking away, and 2 Peter 2 says it would have been better at the end there, it would have been better if they had never heard the word because now they're being held to a stricter judgment because of the revelation they've been exposed to and then rejected. And so a covenant breaker, I think that's exactly the right term, someone who's been baptized but then refuses to walk with Christ, like they will be held to a more stern judgment because they had this wonderful means of grace, the sacrament of baptism, the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the gift of the Word. And then they, having been exposed to all those things, rejected the light. That's where Hebrews 2 says, How great a judgment awaits those who neglect so great a salvation. Yeah. Sorry, it's because it's normally on. OK. Well, anyways, doesn't that also apply, though, even to people who don't baptize their infants? If they're Baptist or whatever, are their kids still in the covenant? Because their kids are still, whether they want to believe it or not, Objectively, they are. Let's just say you've got a little baby who is born and dies before you can baptize them. Were they in the covenant? Yes, they were. Just hadn't been sealed to them yet. I think in that case, we have to account for the fact that they've been given this inconsistent witness, in the case of Baptist children, I'm thinking of, children who are objectively in the covenant with God, but the church refuses to give them the sign and the seal of that covenant identity. And so they grow up in this sort of liminal middle world where they're, on the one hand, being taught to pray, and they're being told to live as Christians, And yet on the other hand, they're not being given the sign of inclusion. And so what gives, right? And so we have to acknowledge that it's harder for Baptist children to claim their covenant identity because of that inconsistency, but it doesn't change the objective reality, yeah. I was going to say, some of the things that have helped me to understand this, and it's not completely perfect, obviously. I mean, there is a tension there. Yeah. But I do know that Paul says that a true Jew is one that is of the heart and not merely of the flesh. And yet, in the Old Testament throughout, whether they're regenerated or not, they are his people. In Hebrew, it says that God will judge his people. Well, he's not going to judge the elect, at least in a damning manner. They wouldn't have been judged in Christ in that sense. Also, he refers to the life of the church as a vine, and there are living branches and there are dead branches, but those dead branches are still alive. part of the vine in some aspect. Yeah, the olive tree. And the olive tree too. And then eventually they will be pruned or cut off. Yeah. Yeah, and so this is part of why we include our children in the worship service here. We want them to be present here because it isn't just an adult thing, being in covenant with God. It is in every person in the body of Christ thing. And so to send them away at part of the worship service is not to recognize their covenant identity. Did you have a question there? I was just going to say, it could be similar to if there was an old rich man that had a bunch of children, in order to qualify for the inheritance, they must be part of the family, right? Offspring. However, and we call that baptism, the fact that they are qualified by birth, right? However, if they're not baptized, the old man could still, in theory, carve out a portion of the inheritance for the maid. or something like that, right? Even though she was never baptized, quote unquote, he still has the right to save her and give her that money too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I think that that's part of what will be marvelous on the last day is not just the people who were baptized, thought they were really real Christians, but then Jesus will say, depart from me, I never knew you. But then there will also be Those who were never baptized but had genuine faith in Christ, that God will say, today you'll be with me in paradise, as he said to the man on the cross next to him. So if we try to say that you have to be part of the visible church, or it's impossible for you to go to heaven, we really are limiting the grace of God in a way the Bible won't let us do. And that kind of connects to your analogy there. Yeah, and before we move on, I'll just mention one natural outflow of everything that I've been saying is that why wouldn't we let all our children take communion? Aren't they included in the people of God? And I think a lot of the things I've been sharing are good arguments in favor of that. And I think that we should think of communion just the same way we think of everything that goes on here as being the birthright of our children. Like this is what they ought to participate in. And yet at the same time, what's the criterion for a person being able to take the Lord's Supper? It's not just that they're able to physically eat the elements. But it's that they're able to remember, do this in remembrance of me, Jesus says. And so that's why we practice in this church, young child communion, where we invite children when they're ready to come to take the Lord's Supper. And we don't like say, oh, you have to be 15 or something. But we do say, look, if you're capable of remembering what Christ has done in a very simple, childlike way, then what you'll be doing when you come forward as you take the Lord's Supper is real partaking. of the body and blood of Christ. And so we're including them as soon as they're ready to be participants in this aspect of the church's life. Okay, we should probably do the last section here, because I really want us to see a few other things. But there's actually a lot in the law about not destroying your children. So, Deuteronomy 12, verse 31. You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. And he's talking about not going and asking the nations that you're dispossessing, how do they worship their gods so that I might do the same? He says, you should not do that. Don't worship the Lord your God in that way. Don't imitate the ways of the nations. For every abominable thing that the Lord hates, they have done for their gods. For they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. So child sacrifice was practiced by the Canaanites. And there's a couple other passages here where he just tells it straight up. Deuteronomy 18.10, there shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or daughter as an offering. And so there's this mandate against destroying your children. And then there's also this, that's sort of like literally destroying them, like murdering them. But then there's also this, keep the law, and here's why, Deuteronomy 440, therefore you should keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you. and that you may prolong your days in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time. And what I want you to think about is this, keep the commandments, why? That it may go well with you and with your children. Implication, if you don't keep the law, what are you doing to your children? Bringing the curses of the covenant on them. Imagine what it's like to be in exile, 30 years in, and you're asking your mom and dad in Babylon, why are we here? And the answer will be, because we sinned gravely against the Lord our God, right? So when you fail to keep God's law, what's the implication? You are not just ruining yourself, you're ruining you're bringing great harm on your children as well. And so just as we think about these two thrusts of the book of Deuteronomy, really of the law of God, how do we see the relationship How do we apply this today? How do we fight against the idea, or how do we see manifesting itself today, parents bringing destruction on their children? Can you think of ways in which this carries over to this present time? Yeah, tell us. Yeah, abortion. Yeah. I mean, that's the number one thing I think we should all be thinking of here is like abortion. And what's interesting about abortion is that would not be considered by, I think, just about anybody, perhaps with the exception of maybe Satan worshipers. I don't think just about anybody would view that as a religious act, right? That would just be a very kind of like, for them, practical thing. I don't want to have a kid. So this though is saying like there is a spiritual dimension to this. And so how is it that abortion can be seen as a religious act? Yeah, you're not sacrificing the baby to a particular God that you have in your mind. You're sacrificing it to yourself. Yeah. My convenience, my dreams. I don't want anything to perturb that. And so I'll be lost, you know, for my sake. Yeah, there's always an idol for any sin. There's always an idol. Every sin is idolatry in some way. And certainly the case with abortion. Right. And just like you said, like, I want to have my career or I want to have this comfortable life or And yeah, an unplanned pregnancy is a really big deal. That's part of why it's not just that we need to fight abortion legally, we also need to fight it in terms of like in the social dimension of it, of providing support to unwed mothers and all that good stuff, helping them to make the right choice so that they would keep their baby. But I think we need to really understand that like, What's happening in abortion is the same thing, ultimately, as what's being described here, the Canaanites were doing. It's a religious act to a God, maybe a God that we wouldn't call a God, but it is a God. What else? What are other ways in which we are tempted? Hopefully, many of us are not tempted to abortion, but what are ways in which, even as Christians, we can be tempted to not pursue life for our children, not tempted to destroy these charges that God has given to us? Yeah, Scott? By telling, excuse me, by telling them to do as I say, not as I do. Yeah. Children watch us. Yeah. And they follow what we do, our instincts, whatever, the way we talk. So we need to be models for them. Christ is our leader and we need to show them that we're following Christ and what He stands for. Yeah, I think that's a direct outflow of Deuteronomy 4, 40. Keep these statutes that it may go well with you and your children opposite. When you don't keep these statutes, it will not go well. And one of the ways it won't go well is by propagating hypocrisy. Yeah, so like our obedience to Christ, so much is writing on that, right? We obey in the power of Christ. It's all of grace. We're not obeying to be saved, but we obey. There's so much when we're a leader, especially, that's hanging on our obedience. When you're a parent, you are a leader. When you disobey and you tell your children, yeah, it's okay to embrace sin instead of Christ when you feel like it. You're basically destroying your children. You may not think you're doing it at the time, you're just indulging in your idol, but it is actually destroying their souls to see that example set by you. I was thinking about when you do not make church a priority or the priority for your family and everything else becomes a bigger priority, whether it's a sporting event or going on a trip or just resting and relaxing and sleeping in or whatever. I mean, I feel like that is not the right way to raise them. Yeah, and you think of 1 Peter 1 where it talks about inheriting the feudal ways that you inherited from your forefathers. And so, what happens when we're not doing Deuteronomy 6 and imparting the love of the true God to our kids? Well, we're imparting the love of false gods to our kids through idolatry. And we need to own that and recognize what we're doing. And that's where I wanted us to land was just reflecting on how this ended for Israel. So you have this faithful generation in many respects, Joshua's generation, that obeyed the Lord through their time. But then Judges 2.10 is one of the saddest verses in the whole Bible. all that generation, that is Joshua's generation, were gathered to their fathers and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. In other words, everything we just talked about under bullet point number two, imparting teaching so that they would remember, not forget what God has done, they failed to do. And so that sets up the book of Judges, which is just this huge decline story of deeper and deeper depravity and sin, where by the end of it, Gibeah of Benjamin is basically the same as Sodom. It's being likened to Sodom. And so you have this pattern in the Old Covenant story of one generation might be faithful, but they fail to raise up the next generation to love God. And there's tons of this in the Bible. So Solomon, his son Rehoboam, Solomon's the wisest guy, right? But his son Rehoboam is a fool. You have Hezekiah who begets Manasseh, the worst of all the kings. of Judah. You have Josiah, the godly king, who repented more than any other king, it says, with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his might. And whom did he beget? Well, three wicked sons. Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah, all of whom did evil in the eyes of the Lord. And so you have this this terrible pattern. And there's, you know, another one here where it talks about the culmination of all their sin. Jeremiah 32, 35, they build the high places to burn their sons and daughters, literally doing the very thing God told them not to do. So you have this tragic end. of Israel's story, and what's one of the key brokennesses of Israel, it's not just that they didn't follow God. It's that they didn't pass on the true knowledge of God to their kids. And so many of us might be thinking to ourselves of like, well, I am a lot like that. I have not been faithful. I have not loved my kids the way I should have. I have imparted some of my idols to my kids. And that's where Jesus is so important for us to remember at this juncture, right? Part of why Jesus came, and we could even say John the Baptist too, part of why they came was Malachi 4.6. And isn't this interesting? This is the last verse of the Old Testament. that one of the purposes of Jesus coming, of the Savior coming, is to turn the hearts of fathers to their children. And so the blessing is that there's always, even when we realize we've sinned and fallen, there's always a chance to repent. We can, even if you know our kids are grown, we can still pray for them, we can still set a good example to them, we can still point them to Christ, And know that God still blesses those labors there. Yeah, any questions on this as we think about the theme of children? Yeah, Ryan? I was going to say, one of the modern examples of this is the abortion generation, this whole fight we're having now. Yeah. The sexual revolution of the 60s and stuff like that, it's like the generations before that just, I don't know, it's like dropped off the map completely. Yeah. And then you have the revolution and then just this awful slippery slope into what we have today. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, Betty? I don't know if you can comment on the... responsibility that parents have and yet in some of these Old Testament examples we're not sure that the parent was neglectful or not diligent in their duty and that foolish children, rebellious children bring shame regardless of whether the parent was or wasn't like that element. Yeah, and I think part of what you're bringing up is something I was really hoping to say and I forgot to, but I think that we can have this mechanistic view of child rearing where if I do everything right, the kid will be right. And if the kid is not a good kid, then that must mean I have somehow, I'm somehow to blame for this. And I think that it's a lot more complicated than that, that you can have godly parenting, where the kid just is a sinner and rejects it. After all, God is the most godly parent of all, and his son, Israel, rejected him. And so, you know, you have the parable likewise of the prodigal son. The father truly loves his children. That's the whole point of the parable. And yet he has this wayward son and then also a legalistic older son, right? And so I think we need to be really careful against false guilt. Like our kids do make moral decisions. They are moral choosers and they are responsible for their choices. But we also need to recognize that if we've been a bad influence, that we need to repent of that too, and recognize that we've sinned too, and take ownership of our place, our role in all of that. But yeah, I think it's one of the most horrible yokes we can lay down on somebody who's already struggling with their child's choices, is to say, yeah, and it's all your fault, by the way. That's not grace, that's not, And like you said, we don't really know. What was Solomon's parenting of Rehoboam like? We don't know. So we just need to be faithful and realize that God does love to save our children, even despite the fact that we're often terrible at parenting and we have lots of regrets. God is gracious and he loves to bless even our fallible labors. Ultimately, every salvation is by grace. Wish we had more time to talk, but I hope that you've seen, as we've gone through this, that there's so much in the Old Covenant of the heart of God. God loves children. He loves to see the faith imparted to children. He loves to include children in His people. And we should embody that as New Covenant Christians. So let's pray. Lord, forgive us for the many ways in which we've fallen short as parents. And we pray that you would help us to take ownership of that, to just candidly acknowledge it. But also, Lord, not to wallow in self-defeat and regret. Instead, Lord, help us to joyfully move forward, knowing that you're a God of grace, that you do give forgiveness, and that, Lord, you also still have a role for us in parenting our children. And we pray that we would be good parents who would frequently speak of Christ to our kids and that we would show them, not just by our words, but by our example, the joy of following you. And we pray that this church would really grow and thrive, that the next generation would surpass us in godliness, not just would they remember you, but that they would remember you really well and teach you better to their children than we have taught you to them. And we pray that this gospel advance would really be seen to be your great work, that you would get the glory. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, thanks everybody.