Ex 10:1+2, Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may perform these signs of Mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son, and of your grandson, how I made a mockery of the Egyptians, and how I performed My signs among them; that you may know that I am the Lord." 
	This morning we continue with the great command from God for the sake of the Godly instruction of our children. We do so as we love the Lord with all our heart and all our mind and all our thought and all our soul and all our strength. This is to be our life on this earth. As we considered last week, there are two aspects to this command that we dare not neglect. 
	The first is that as we teach our children and grandchildren of the goodness and the grace and the mercy and the love and the salvation of the Lord, it will be a constant reminder and memorial to us of all that God has done, is doing, and will complete in Jesus Christ. It is good to remember and to remind ourselves that the Lord is the Lord God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth and the altogether Sovereign and Holy One. There is no other! As we declare His mighty work and lovingkindness, it reinforces just how much God loves and cares and provides for our every need. This should cause us to proclaim His glory and His majesty in praise and in honor with utmost thanksgiving!
	The second aspect, which we recounted, is that this is not a voluntary act on our part. It is a most firm and definite requirement placed upon us by God to teach our young ones of the way of the Lord. We cannot just hand over this responsibility, to even those who are well-intentioned and willing to do so. Those teachers do have their place within the full scope of this instruction. But the heart and the main thrust of the instruction in the Lord is fully centered in the parents and grandparents and great-grandparents of each generation. The methodology of that instruction is that our lives are to be a living witness and testimony of the love that we have for God.
	This will be taught, generation to generation to generation as it is fully evident that we love the Lord with all our heart and with all our mind and with all our soul and with all our effort and with all our resources and with all our energy and with all our priority and with all our focus and with all our words and all our deeds. When we are seen at work, at play, at home, at rest, in sickness, in health, in wealth, and in humble estate as those who love and trust and count on the Lord no matter what, our children and grand children and great-grandchildren will witness that the Lord God Almighty is real and alive and our very life!
	It is no small thing to take the stand that we will instruct our own children, generation to generation, in the reality of the Living Lord God Almighty. Listen to the effect that this had on the Psalmist as recorded in Ps 44:1. O God, we have heard with our ears, Our fathers have told us, The work that Thou didst in their days, In the days of old. 
	The heart of God goes forth unto the children of each generation in order that they may know the truth. In this day and society, when truth is considered a relative thing to be only regarded in terms of how it affects our way of life, we, as the people of God, must stand firm. We declare, in word and deed, to our succeeding generations, that there is really an absolute and definitive demarcation of truth and reality! Truth, real and eternal truth, is found only in the Lord God Almighty as declared in the giving of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. To know Him is to know all Truth! To deny Him is to deny the very existence of life resulting in the horrible and eternal consequences of human folly and imagination and confusion and ideology. 
We are so instructed by the Apostle Paul in Col 2:1-8, if you would please turn to it. Col 2:1-8, For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf, and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with persuasive argument. For even though I am absent in body, nevertheless I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ. As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. 
Just as we are not to be taken captive by all the …philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world… so is it our responsibility, for the sake of our young ones, to teach them and to encourage them and to display to them the reality of our living relationship with Jesus Christ. As they see our life hidden in Jesus, so will the reality and the truth of the Living Lord God Almighty become the dominant focal point of what life is all about. 
Another element to take to heart in this is that there is no expiration date on this responsibility to teach and to declare the life of Jesus Christ. Unlike the present status of our societal norm which declares that children are no longer children or the responsibility of parents after their 18th birthday, in the Lord, our children are our children until our death. At no time are we relieved of the duty to teach and to encourage and to demonstrate the life of Jesus Christ. And please realize, it is not a matter of holding the Bible over their heads as a threat for wrong-doing. It is the way of living in which they are always in our hearts and in our prayers and in our thoughts as we hold them before the throne of Our Lord God Almighty. 
No matter what goes on and no matter what course they choose to follow, it is our accountability unto God which makes us hold the course. We determine, in our hearts and minds, that they will see nothing other than the way of Jesus Christ in our lives and as the manner of our support for their lives. 
As the Psalmist declares for every generation in Ps 71:17-19, O God, Thou hast taught me from my youth; And I still declare Thy wondrous deeds. And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me, Until I declare Thy strength to this generation, Thy power to all who are to come. For Thy righteousness, O God, reaches to the heavens, Thou who hast done great things; O God, who is like Thee? 
We do this for the sake of the love of God and our love for our children, and their children, and the children of those children. At no time do we give up or forsake our living declaration of the Lord Jesus Christ, even if our children turn their hearts and minds away from Him for a time. Our faithfulness unto God is the heart of our love for these following generations. We live to declare His glory and His way and His majesty in praise that will resound through the ages of ages. 
Please follow along as we read Ps 78:1-8. Ps 78:1-8, Listen, O my people, to my instruction; Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old, Which we have heard and known, And our fathers have told us. We will not conceal them from their children, But tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, And His strength and His wondrous works that He has done. For He established a testimony in Jacob, And appointed a law in Israel, Which He commanded our fathers, That they should teach them to their children, That the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, That they may arise and tell them to their children, That they should put their confidence in God, And not forget the works of God, But keep His commandments, And not be like their fathers, A stubborn and rebellious generation, A generation that did not prepare its heart, And whose spirit was not faithful to God. 
	Once again, we have the directive to faithfully and consistently teach our posterity, day after day after day, without fail …the praises of the Lord, And His strength and His wondrous works that He has done. This is true even in the terms of those children who are yet to be born. We instruct in such a manner, through the lives that we live and the way in which we honor and praise and adore the Lord God Almighty, that …That they should put their confidence in God, And not forget the works of God, But keep His commandments… If we neglect this tremendous obligation of reverence and honor and service to both God and to our young, we will be guilty of raising a generation that will be …A stubborn and rebellious generation, A generation that did not prepare its heart, And whose spirit was not faithful to God.
Parents, and grandparents, and great-grandparents, please hear this very clearly in all our hearts of love for our children. Teachers and prayer warriors and each of you who have taken these young ones into your hearts of love and service for the sake of the testimony of the Lord in your life and in their lives, listen earnestly. This is a dire declaration of the consequences that will befall our young if we fail to take this decree into the very fabric of our hearts and beings. It is upon our heads if our children become …A stubborn and rebellious generation, A generation that did not prepare its heart, And whose spirit was not faithful to God. 
At the same time, The Lord is always faithful in the provision of His heart unto those who have such charge over the instruction and the encouragement and the training of the young of the flock. Yes, this is a great responsibility that is given to us in the preparation and the education of these precious gifts of joy and life that He has entrusted to us. We have His reliable and trustworthy promise as we seek Him to make us those guardians that will honor Him in the manner of how our young learn to love Him. Prov 22:6, Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it. 
This is something onto which we can hold as the guarantee of God’s faithfulness to us. Even when we see our young ones treading the way of the Prodigal Son, there is that assurance in the truthfulness and the Omnipotence of God. He will bring to their minds and hearts all that has been taught to them over the course of their training and their upbringing. He will make Himself known to them and bring back to mind the full measure of Who He is and what He has done. 
The Apostle Paul follows up this reality as we see in Eph 6:4. And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. We do not force our young ones to obey through the use of anger and intimidation. We train them and we discipline them and we instruct them in accordance with the fact that it is for their benefit and their eternal salvation. Our lives are to manifest the measure of pleasing the Lord in which they learn that God is exactly Who He proves He is, day in and day out. The discipline is the same in our lives as in the lives of our children which brings forth the glory of God seen in how we respond and react in every situation and circumstance.
	As we are so fully charged by the Prophet Joel, Joel 1:2+3, Hear this, O elders, And listen, all inhabitants of the land. Has anything like this happened in your days Or in your fathers' days? Tell your sons about it, And let your sons tell their sons, And their sons the next generation. 
There will be that which courses through the lineage of the people whose God is the Lord God Almighty, to make known His grace and His mercy and His love. As we read in Ps 145:3+4, Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised; And His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Thy works to another, And shall declare Thy mighty acts. It will happen that as each generation learns of the Lord, they will proclaim His goodness and His grace and His praise to their children, and to their children’s children. 
Finally in this measured consideration, again read along in the writing of Joel as we place our united heart before the Lord. This is the reason and the measure of why we bring our young ones into the assembly each Sunday. They are fully part of the fellowship of the saints before the throne of God’s grace and mercy. Joel 2:12-19, "Yet even now," declares the Lord, "Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping, and mourning; And rend your heart and not your garments. "Now return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness, And relenting of evil. Who knows whether He will not turn and relent, And leave a blessing behind Him, Even a grain offering and a libation For the Lord your God? Blow a trumpet in Zion, Consecrate a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly, Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, Assemble the elders, Gather the children and the nursing infants. Let the bridegroom come out of his room And the bride out of her bridal chamber. Let the priests, the Lord's ministers, Weep between the porch and the altar, And let them say, "Spare Thy people, O Lord, And do not make Thine inheritance a reproach, A byword among the nations. Why should they among the peoples say, 'Where is their God?'" Then the Lord will be zealous for His land, And will have pity on His people. And the Lord will answer and say to His people, "Behold, I am going to send you grain, new wine, and oil, And you will be satisfied in full with them; And I will never again make you a reproach among the nations. 
For the sake of the Lord and for the benefit of our succeeding generations, we trust and count on God to teach us how to instruct and to encourage each other. We count on Him to show us how to instruct our children and their children in all that will bring glory to the name of the Lord. In this light, each generation will know the Lord God Almighty, and give Him the entire honor and the praise and the adoration that He is due! So be it!
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may perform these signs of Mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son, and of your grandson, how I made a mockery of the Egyptians, and how I performed My signs among them; that you may know that I am the Lord." Amen.

	This morning’s benediction is 1 Chron 29:11. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Thine is the dominion, O Lord, and Thou dost exalt Thyself as head over all. Amen.