1-18-26 - Which Your Eyes Have Seen

So this morning, we're gonna be finishing up, Deuteronomy chapter 10, and we're gonna be jumping in, along with those last few verses into the first, few verses of chapter 11. I'll remind you that chapters and verses were are not canonical. These were just long books. And so if you if you, if you find yourself reading and you're like at a cliffhanger, but your reading's over, you just have to know that the author of that didn't decide to put a break there. Somebody else did later.

You're you can keep reading. So that's what we're doing with our sermon today. Our texts theme is the might and greatness of God in delivering Israel from Egypt and providing for them in the wilderness. That's a theme that's been constant through the early chapters of Deuteronomy. I I didn't go back and count how many times he taught has talked about them being delivered from Egypt, but it's been many times.

It's just it is the it is the chorus of these first 11 chapters. He talks about something else and he comes back to it. And he says another thing and he comes back to it. And so here we are back at it again. In our text, Moses adds a few of the mighty acts that God did while they were in the wilderness.

Not just in delivering them from Egypt though he references that. He talks about just a few of the things God did while they were in the wilderness that were both disciplinary and preparatory. The main focus of our text is that, that Moses refers to a few times is that refers to a few times is that you have seen these things firsthand. The things he's talking about, the original hearers had actually witnessed them. They weren't being told a story.

They were having a memory recalled to their mind. And so as we study this text, our job is to consider the mighty acts that we've seen him do. And then relate those testimonies of God's might and his faithfulness to our children. You'll see that theme show up in this passage. That it's not sufficient for us simply to observe ourselves, but that we're under obligation to pass those things along.

Would you please stand now as you read the word of the Lord from Deuteronomy chapter ten and eleven? This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. He is your praise and he is your God who has done these great and awesome things for you which your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down to Egypt, 70 persons in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven. You shall therefore love the Lord your God and always keep his charge, his statutes, his ordinances, and his commandments.

Know this day that I'm not speaking with your sons who have not seen, who have not known, and who have not seen the discipline of the Lord. His greatness, his mighty hand, and his outstretched arm, and his signs, and his works, which he did in the midst of Egypt to Pharaoh, works, which he did in the midst of Egypt, to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and to all his land, and to what he did to Egypt's army, to its horses, and its chariots when he made the water of the Red Sea engulf them while they were pursuing you. And the Lord completely destroyed them. And what he did to you in the wilderness until you came to this place, and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them among all Israel. But your own eyes have seen all the great work which the Lord great work of the Lord which he did.

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. He begins by saying that God is two things. He is their praise and he is their God. Why is he their praise?

Yeah. He is their praise. If you remember back earlier in the chapter, in chapter 10, he is their praise because he's chosen them out of the nations. It's not that he's made their life easy. It's not that he's given them a bunch of good things, though he has.

It's it's not that, they are worthy. It's that he chose them. And he is then described as their praise. He is the praise of God should be on the lips of the people of God because of what he's done for them. Them.

But we forget it. We forget his covenant and his kindness toward us. We focus on the things that go on in our lives and the things that, are difficult and they're real and they're there and God is there with them. However, Israel is told that God is their praise. That he's done things for us that demand our praise, not our lackluster lip service.

The thing that came to my mind, as I was thinking about praising God, I was thinking about the exuberance or the excitement that we have about other things. In Europe, it's soccer. Man, you just played Man City, and that is the rivalry of rivalries. And they have to divide the crowd. These people all live together in the same city, but they have to divide the crowd when they come together because it is a rowdy place.

Tomorrow, we're gonna watch some of you are gonna watch IU. And the question you have to ask yourself before you get there is, am I gonna be more excited tomorrow than I am today? And you go, oh, well, I'll just have to suppress it tomorrow. And I'm like, no, you have to express your praise today. Do you care more about what goes on in politics and give excited excited about it?

Do you is the stock market have your heart? What has your heart? What do you praise? Why are we so much more animated and passionate about worldly things and spiritually things? God is to be our praise and our hearts need to be retuned to praise him for what he's done for us.

He's also it's also said Moses says that God is the Israel's God. He's chosen them. He cares for them. He blesses them. It's worth noting that God is particularly good to his people in a way that he's not to others.

And that's an offensive thing to say depending on how you come at that. That he actually does show partiality to his people in a way that he doesn't to this to the unbeliever. And the reason he does that is because he's their God. He has obligated himself through his covenant with Abraham to be a father. Not just a god, but a father to us.

And so you who grew up without dads like me, have a father. I went and met my dad and well, I found my dad and went and met him back in 2012. Some of you guys know the story. Some of you don't. I'm not gonna tell the whole story now.

But I became a Christian in, like, 2004. Never been in the church. Never had a dad. My mom never remarried. And so I grew up with no dad, with no man, and got myself into quite a bit of trouble as most young men with no dads do.

And then I became a Christian over the course of about ten months, very painful and hard ten months. I came to faith in Jesus Christ. And I received God's fatherhood directly, but also the fathers of the church. They became my fathers. And so years later, we'd come up to plant this church.

I'd since when I and I moved up here to plant this church. And and one day I was sitting in the library and I wrote this email to this guy who had my last name. And he was from Israel. He'd grown up in Jerusalem. Like, well, we must be related.

You know? And, through all of that, I ended up meeting my dad. And when I met my dad, one of the things I wanted to say to him was, I'm not mad at you. God gave me fathers. And the reason God gave me fathers and took away my bitterness was because he's our father.

And he's Israel's father. And our earthly fathers fail us. We as earthly fathers fail our kids. But our father God does it because he's our God and he's perfect, and he loves us well. And so they ought to praise him for that, and they ought to feel possessed by him because of his love.

So he's your praise and he is your god. And then Moses says that he's done great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. This idea of seeing is important. Okay? In Luke 11, it says that the crowds were increasing.

As they were increasing, he, Jesus, began to say, this generation is a wicked a wicked generation and it seeks for a sign. I wanna see something. And yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah, which was him foretelling his death and resurrection not late not much later. But we like to see things. We wanna see it for ourselves.

Right? When there's an accident on the other side of the of the highway, what happens? The side without the accident slows down. Why? What's it called?

Rubbernecking. Well, it's called rubbernecking. It's it's called a, a what's it? A gaper's delay. Everyone slows down so they can look and see.

We all like to see. We can't go without seeing. What did Thomas need to do? To believe that Jesus was resurrected. Unless I see with my own eyes and put my hand into his wounds, I won't believe.

This idea of seeing is very important. And these people, they saw. They saw with their own eyes. And so Moses recalls what they've seen. And so God does give signs.

A wicked and perverse generation seeks for a sign, but God in his mercy does actually give signs, just not on command. Moses says that they had seen and great and awesome signs. The ones that God had performed. The difficulty we have is that we consume God's mercy on top of God's mercy, and we observe signs of God's presence in his power after signs of God's presence in his power, and we forget them and demand more. A constant stream of proof that God is there, that God exists, that he loves us, that he cares for us, that he will provide for us.

We forsake the past. We forget the past and demand constant reassurance. And there's a problem with that. The problem is that God has already revealed himself, revealed his might, revealed his power to his people. It's not not that they hadn't seen it.

It's not that we haven't seen it. It's that we forget it and we minimize it. And so Moses impresses upon them. You've seen these things. You've you've seen these things.

And so I ask you, what have you seen God do for for you? What have you seen him do for other people? Have you ever been like Thomas who said, unless I see and unless, I mean, unless I can unless it just falls right in my lap, I don't know if I can believe it. And then in God's mercy, it does fall right in your lap. And the thing changes.

Your heart's desire changes. You think I would never. I would never. I could never. I can't even conceive of it.

Only to look up a few months or a few years later and realize, it's all different now. Look what God did. Why does our faith and our memory, why do they fail us so frequently? At some point, we have to ask ourselves, do we really want god to act or do we just or or is our request for him to act really just a complaint and a judgment? Do you really want god to act?

Here's that may seem like a strange question because everyone all of us are like, well, yeah. I want God to act. I wanted to change. I wanted to rise up. I want him to do these things.

But the reason I don't think it's a strange question is that if God rises up and does what you'd like him to do, what are the implications for you? That you're just a recipient of the good thing? You are the recipient of the good thing. But if God rises up in acts, the part we forget is that it only confirms his love for us and his fatherhood toward us, and it reestablishes our obligations to him. Not only does he have to act, but we have to act.

And so we have to be careful that as we as we ask for signs, as we forget the past, that when we ask God to act, we are implicitly asking for him to change us too. And many of us don't like that prospect. We're comfortable. Things are familiar. The unknown is scary.

So when you ask for a sign, ask yourself, do I really need another one? I have a whole book full of signs. It's called the Bible. Do I really wanna sign or am I just justifying my sloth and unwillingness to change or move? And so Moses drives home this point.

You have seen it and then he says, you ought to serve and love and obey him. There's obligations of God toward us and us, we as his people toward him. And then he starts to point out some of the crazy blessings that God's poured out on his people. He says, you went down to Egypt 70 persons in all and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven. You remember when they went down it was just Jacob and his sons and their families, 70 people in all, starving, looking for food to be reunited with Joseph, the son whom Jacob thought was dead, whom the brothers had sold into slavery, who was to feed them, to be restored to them.

I mean, as if he was resurrected from the dead. And then they were settled in a land because of Joseph's faithfulness and provided for and cared for. Protection from Egypt. I don't remember if it was Eric who asked this me this question, but it's something I'd I think you had said it. I I never thought of it before.

What would have happened to to Israel if they had not been protected by Egypt? Was that you who asked me? I like, I'd never thought about it before. But I'm like, they grew exponentially under the superpower of Egypt, where if they just been left to themselves as this little group of 70 or a 100 or whatever people, they would have been fighting and fighting and fighting and fighting. But as it was, they were protected and cared for and able to grow through pharaoh until such time as pharaoh saw them as a threat because they'd grown so much.

When Jacob and his sons, those 70 people went down to Egypt, they weren't thinking about God's promise to give them a land. They weren't thinking about, being Abraham's children. They were thinking buying grain. They were hungry. They were trying to survive.

And so God fed them and gave them Joseph back, settled them in this land and multiplied them. We could look at all of this as just factual history. And it is a it is a is a faithful account of the history of of ancient Israel. But there's more to it than that. What was God doing?

Through through familial separation, through hatred, through being sold into slavery, through grief, through hunger, through all of the bad things that went on. What was it that God was doing? He was using all of those things in their lives at that time to accomplish his perfect plan. And so we have to be humble in our lives because you don't know what God's doing in your life. You really don't.

We often know what we want him to do. What we think is important and good. But then when things come and life changes and it's hard, and it's not what we planned for, it's difficult. We go, God must not be there, or he must not be strong, or he must not care. And none of those things are true.

None of those things are true about God. He's working in our lives with a much greater perspective than ours. His perspective is eternal. His perspective sees beyond our life. And he's using us and everything in this world to accomplish his will.

We are we are a part of it, but a small part of it is individuals. And so they were multiplied from 70 people to be as numerous as the stars of heaven. That's sort of a hard thing for us to grasp living in a big city. Because when you look up in the sky, you just you just don't see stars in the city. I mean, you see some of I mean, some.

You can see some stars. But if you get out, at way out, like, 50 miles away from Indianapolis, you can see the glow of Indianapolis from an hour away. I know because that's where I where I hunt. It's like that. And I and when I'm leaving to come home and if the sun is way down, I can look to the Northeast, and it's like there's Indianapolis.

The glow of it over the top of the trees. I'm 50 miles away. But if I if I go out there and I look straight up, then you see stars. In a way, you just don't see them around here. So if you ever wanna keep your kids up and ruin their bedtimes completely, go on a late night drive and just go way far like, look on a map and and get as far as you can away from cities.

Drive an hour, hour and a half away. And then turn off the car and then look up on a clear night. And that's what Israel was like. That's what God did for them. So God has purposes in things that we don't perceive as being good.

We can look after the fact and say it was really good what God like like Joseph's words to his brothers were, you meant it for evil, and they really did. That wasn't a joke. That was real. They meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. To fulfill his promise to Abraham, to grow them into a mighty nation, and to bring them out and to give them land that Abraham had sojourned on.

And he he put them in Egypt as like an incubator. And eventually, it became miserable. And then he brought them out by great and mighty deeds. Moses says, you shall therefore love the Lord your God and always keep his charge, his statutes, his ordinances, and his commandments. That's the hook.

Look at what God did and then love and obey him. And not only are you to love and obey them, but you're to pass that love and obedience onto your children. God designed it to work that way. Those older ones who had walked through the Red Sea on dry ground, we're supposed to tell their children about it. And not just in passing and not just as a historical artifact, but as an as an exhibit of God's might and power.

Not too long after this in Joshua chapter four, we read this. It says, now when all the nation had finished crossing the Jordan, so this is them entering into the promised land. Now when all the nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord spoke to Joshua saying, take for yourselves 12 men from the people, one man from each tribe, and command them saying, take up for yourselves 12 stones from here out of the middle of the Jordan, from the place where the priest's feet are standing firm and carry them over with you and lay them down in the lodging place where you will lodge tonight. So Joshua called the 12 men whom he had appointed from the sons of Israel, one man from each tribe. And Joshua said to them, cross again to the ark of the Lord, your God in the middle of the Jordan.

Each of you take up a stone on his shoulder according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Israel. Let this be a sign. Remember signs? What you see? Let this be a sign among you.

So that when your children ask later, saying, what do these stones mean to you? Then you shall say to them, because the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of our Lord. When we when it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall become a memorial to the sons of Israel forever. This is what the sons were supposed the dads were supposed to do.

And God commanded them, take up these things. Take take a physical rock big enough that you have to carry it on your shoulder. Just out of the middle of the the riverbed. And just carry it along with you so that your kids will be like, dad, what's up with the rock collection? Why do we have to carry these things all around?

And so you can tell them. God told us to do it so we did it. No. What were they supposed to tell him? Guys, you won't believe it.

And it's contrary to the laws of nature that God created. But that big river over there, God stopped the water. And all of these people we walked through on dry land. And that wasn't the first time. He's taken us across a river on dry land.

Before that, he took us across we sang an amazing song at the on the shore, on the far shore of the Red Sea, Moses song. We danced and we praise God for all of the Egyptians dying. Because that's what the song was about. This is a song, son, and we sing it and teach them the song. That's what they were supposed to do for their children.

They were supposed to pass on their experience, the things that they had seen God do on their behalf. And so we as parents have an obligation to pass on to our children the things we read in scripture, not as not as historical artifacts, but as things that we have firsthand witness accounts of really did happen, really is real. And we have to do that with the things in our lives. If you don't teach them, they won't learn it. If you want your kids to take seriously the word of God and the commands of God and faith in Jesus Christ and being conformed to his image, they have to see you do it.

You can tell them you can teach them every bit of theology you want to teach them. But if you don't love God and love your neighbor, that's what they'll learn. And so you have to open up the word to them. You have to open up your life to them and you have to show them God's fingerprints all over it. All over it.

You have to show them how how foolish you were to not have seen it in the moment. You have to tell them that in the moment you were really struggling, frustrated and angry, scared, whatever it was you were. Tell them the truth. What was Israel supposed to tell their children about why all their uncles were missing? The whole generation of men.

Were they supposed to leave that part out of the story like good good children's Bibles do? They leave out all the important parts? Were they supposed to leave that out? No. They're supposed to say the reason that there's this missing generation of men It's because we were scared.

Not they were scared. We were scared. And all our sons died because we, the old men, were scared. And we're the ones left now here without all of our follow all of our sons. And shame on us.

But you're about to go do the same thing, cross over and do what we should've by rights, we should've done forty years ago. We failed. So don't do what we did. Wish you could have known your uncle. That's the kind of thing they were supposed to tell them.

That's from their heart. He says, no. This day, I'm not speaking with you with your sons who have not known and who have not seen the discipline of the lord your god. And by implication, I'm speaking to you. You saw these things.

You have an obligation to say these things, to to communicate them. It's hard in a world where everything all the information is at our fingertips. We don't have to remember anything anymore. We don't have to memorize scripture because we can find it in an instant on our phone. We don't even have to be good at at remembering the phrase.

If we just get kinda close, just a word or two, it does all the work for us. So if we don't have scripture throwed up in our hearts, what is it we're teaching our children if when we need to know what the Bible says, we turn to the Internet to tell us? We are teaching our kids. It's not important for us to know scripture and to have it in our hearts because we haven't prioritized it. Just as an example.

Like, we don't need to have Awana and teach all the kids to memorize scripture. We could just hand them a smartphone And they could find all the stuff that we are investing into their hearts. Right? So there's gotta be some point in teaching the kids to memorize these things. We want these things that they're memorizing to be real in their hearts and in their minds.

We want them to govern their affections and their desires and their priorities. If our children don't follow our faith, it's because we haven't communicated to them sufficiently what we believe. You can blame the world. You can blame their friends. You can blame the politics.

You can blame money. You can blame all kinds of things. But they're your kids. And I mean to tell you, you have more influence on your kids in their growing up than anybody else does. If you'll have it.

But if you withdraw and let everyone else speak to them, you'll get out of it what you put into it. So invest in your kids. Tell them what you've seen. Tell them what you've done. Tell them what you've been through, and don't give them the abridged version.

Give them an age appropriate version, but tell them the truth, the whole truth. Children don't see things the same way that you do. When they're growing and they're learning, they don't have your adult perspective. They're just learning whether you believe it or not. They're just learning whether you care or not.

Don't ever think, oh, I've told them this before, so I don't need to tell them again. They'll roll their eyes and kinda like, if you tell them the story again. But that is good for them and you. Because what you're communicating to them is that this is really important to me. So don't mind repeating yourself.

Peter says in his one of his epistles, he says, it's no trouble for me to remind you of the things that I know you already know. I'm glad to repeat myself. So parents, part of your job is to repeat yourself. Not just the commands, but the stories and the faith and the work of God. Repeat those things.

And then Moses talks about what gave some examples. He said you know, he says, you you've seen these things. You've known them. You've seen the discipline of the Lord. His greatness and his mighty hand, his outstretched arm, his signs and his works, which he did in the midst of Egypt to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and to all his land.

And what is that referencing? That's referencing the plagues. You guys all live through that. You live through the water being turned to blood, and you live through the hail, and you live through the locusts, and you you live through the darkness, and you live through the death. And you saw what he did to Egypt's army, to its horses and its chariots in the Red Sea.

What a what a gory scene. Man and beast alike floating around drowning. When he made the waters of the Red Sea engulf them while they were pursuing you, And the Lord completely destroyed them. That's what they were supposed to communicate and tell as I mentioned already. How are the children supposed to know that stuff?

They certainly couldn't have read it in a book or looked it up on the internet. It was their parents job to tell them. And whether we have books and internet or not, it's still our place as parents to communicate to our children the might and greatness and goodness and power of God. So why don't parents share what God has done for them or what they've seen? Is it because they steal God's glory for themselves?

Sometimes perhaps. Is it because they're ashamed of their past? Or is it because they don't think that God has actually done anything mighty and awesome? These are the questions we ought to ask ourselves if we're thinking, why don't I talk about these things? Is this because I don't believe there's anything to talk about?

Is it because it doesn't reflect well on me? Is it because I didn't play the role I should have played? I didn't stand with with Caleb and Joshua. I was over there with the other spies scared. It's my fault that those people passed away.

What we say and don't say to our children regarding God's work in the world and our own lives is very important to our children continuing in the faith after us. We shouldn't want our children to discover God's faithfulness on their own. They should be introduced to his faithfulness from our hand and our mouths. We have to lead them in this. And so in family devotions or around the dinner table, by the example of your own life, by how you process and interpret what goes on in the world.

You're to be showing them God's handiwork. You're to be teaching them to wait on the Lord when you don't have an answer. When God hasn't revealed his will yet. As you raise your children, you have to be answering the question, why do you mom, why do you dad say that you love and serve God? Because your kids want to know why they should do it if you don't.

And so you have to interpret your own weaknesses and your own failures to love and serve God and to tell them, don't copy me in this. I screwed it up. Don't be like me in this. But do be like me in this. And then he gives another example, another destructive example.

He says, and what he did to you, to Israel, in the wilderness until you came to this place. And what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the sons of Reuben, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, their tents, and everything living that followed them among Israel. So if you don't know the story of Dathan and Abiram, they were sons of Korah. And the account of Dathan and Abiram is recorded in Numbers chapter 20. It's a long chapter.

I'm not gonna read the whole story to you. But but to sum it up, what happened was they got sick and tired of Moses and Aaron leading everybody through the wilderness. And so they basically just stood up and said, who in the world made you the boss? We aren't gonna do what you say. You can go pound sand.

And they had led 250 other people from Israel in their rebellion. That's what it's in verse three. It says, they assembled together against Moses and Aaron. This is Dathan and Abiram and they're 250 rabble rousers. And it says, you have gone far enough.

You for all the congregation are holy, every one of them. And the Lord is in their midst. So why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord? There's a lot that goes on. I'm not reading.

But Moses and Aaron fall down on their faces and they pray as they all kind of come together at the tent of meeting. Sort of like Elijah and the prophets of Baal, but a different scenario. They all come together and they say, well we're gonna see whose side God's on. They basically agree to these terms. We're gonna we're gonna have it out and see what the Lord does.

And the Lord wants to just wipe out the whole congregation, all the rebels. Not just the bad ones, all of them. And Moses and Aaron, as their lives are in play, are praying, should a whole nation suffer for the sin of one man? That's their prayer. Then we pick up in verse 20.

Reading through verse 35. It says, then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron as they've come to the tent of meeting to have at this showdown. Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, separate yourselves from among this congregation that I may consume them instantly. This is what I told you already. But they fell on their faces and said, oh God, God of the spirits of all flesh, when one man sins, will you be angry with an entire congregation?

Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the congregation saying, get back from around the dwellings of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Moses arose and went to Dathan and Abiram with the elders of Israel following him. And he spoke to the congregation saying, depart now from your tents, from the tents of these wicked men and touch nothing that belongs to them or you'll be swept away by in all their sin. So they got back from around the doorway of their tents along with their wives and their sons and their little ones. Moses said, by this you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all of these deeds for this is not my doing.

Right? So he's saying just like Elijah did. I'm asking God to do something and you're about to see it with your own eyes. And remember Moses is saying now, you saw with your own eyes. So this is all being done publicly.

If these men die the death of all men and if they suffer the fate of all men, then the Lord has not sent me. So what he's saying is if they die of old natural causes, like all the rest of us do, then I'm wrong. But if the Lord brings about an entirely new thing, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that is theirs, and they descend alive into Sheol, then you will understand that these men have spurned the Lord. It's incredible what he's setting is the mark. Right?

It's like Elijah. There's been there's been no rain for three and a half years. And he says, go ahead and get water from the sea and pour it on my offering. And we'll see if we'll see whose God can light it on fire. And it's like the knife's at his throat.

And the same is true with Moses and Abraham, Aaron here. And it says as he, referring to Moses, as he finished speaking all these words, the ground that was under them split open and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up in their households. And all the men who belong to Korah and their possessions. So that all that belonged to them went down alive to Sheol. And the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.

And everyone saw this. All Israel who were around them fled at the outcry for they said, the earth swallows us up. Fire also came forth from the Lord and consumed the 250 men who were offering incense. And and everyone saw it. And here Moses is at the end of his life preparing the people to go into Israel saying, this is what you have to remember.

Why would it be good to remember that? Well, so you don't do the same thing. So you don't believe the same lies and incur the same guilt and face the same judgment that they did. So Paul told us in, I believe, it was second Corinthians, maybe it's first Corinthians, where he says that they were given to us as an example so that we wouldn't be like them. So if you'd been there and witnessed that, been part of the screaming and running and crying away from the big gaping hole in the ground, would you have told your children about it?

Would you have wanted to tell your children about it? Wouldn't it have taken faith for you to tell your children about it? I've never seen that story in a children's Bible. But Moses said that they ought to tell their children. Oh, man.

Moses argues that their firsthand experience was invaluable in leading their children to love and obey God. But that is what they needed above all else. That massacre at the Red Sea, that that judgment in the wilderness with Korah and Dathan and and Abiram. These things needed to be told and interpreted to their children so that they could avoid them. And so that's the exhortation.

He ends by saying what he said at the beginning. But your eyes have seen all the great work which the Lord did. Are there more great things than this that they could have that they should have told their children about? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Forty years of it. Your whole lifetime. My whole lifetime. So what do you talk about? That's the point of the sermon.

What do you talk about with your kids? What do you tell them? What do you cut out? What do you grumble about? Having seen what God has done in the pages of scripture and the pages of your own life, will you pass it along?

Or will you let the mighty and awesome deeds of God fade into the past without giving God the praise he deserves, and the glory that's due to his name? What story are you gonna tell your family at dinner tonight? What story are you gonna tell your tonight? What story are you gonna tell your coworkers and classmates at school or work this week? That's the question, isn't it?

Let's pray.