“And consider today, since I’m not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it, consider the discipline of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his outstretched arm.”
– Deuteronomy 11:2
And then verse three goes on to continue to describe all the different ways that God’s people, who he’s speaking to at this point, had seen his power, his love, his righteousness, his justice, his might, his discipline, his mercy, all the ways they had seen God work. And God is saying to them, “Consider what you have seen and pass what you have seen on to the next generation.” So you keep going on in this chapter and you get to verse 18 and God says, “Bind my word on your heart and on your soul and teach my word and all of these things that you have seen to your children.”
God cares deeply for the next generation and has entrusted us to pass the gospel on to them.
And that’s what’s interesting here in Deuteronomy 11:2, because God makes a distinction. He says, “I’m not speaking to your children who have not known or seen what you have seen. I’m speaking to you and I’m calling you to faithfully pass on what you know, what you have seen about me, about my character, my works, my word. Be faithful to pass this on to the next generation.”
Deuteronomy 11:2 Reminds Us of God’s Mercy
When I read this I think about all the ways that I have seen God’s mercy and I’ve experienced God’s mercy and seen God’s hand at work and learned from God’s word, and I have been entrusted. And when I think about what I have seen in God, mercy I’ve experienced from God, love I’ve experienced in God, the word of God I realize based on Deuteronomy 11:2 I have a stewardship entrusted to me not to keep this to myself, but to pass it on to others, and specifically to the next generation.
I want to encourage every adult listening right now, you have a responsibility. You and I have a stewardship to pass on to those who come after us, the next generation the good news of who God is and how God loves and how God works, God’s might and God’s mercy and God’s majesty and God’s word. And if you’re a teenager, a child listening to this, we want to be faithful to tell these things to you.
Even right now I want to be faithful to tell these things about God to you and for you to learn who God is and how awesome he is, how much he loves you, how much he loves the world, how good his word is. His word is worth following with your life, that you might know him and you might walk with him and you might pass the good news of who God is and now God works and the wonder of his word onto those who come after you. This is what I pray all the time.
This Verse Reminds Us to Pray for Future Generations
I pray not just for my children, but for their children and for their children’s children that until Jesus comes back that in my family and through my family that people would know God and know who he is and know his word and know his love and know his mercy, worship him for his majesty. So God, we pray as we think about your love and your mercy and the majesty we have seen in our lives, the word you have given to us, We pray that you would help us to faithfully pass your word onto the next generation.
As we see even in my country the number of people and succeeding generations who are turning away from you, who are not involved in your church. We pray for a turning of that tide. God, we pray for a revival, for spiritual awakening and, God, we pray that you would help us to lead the way in that. Help us to faithfully speak about you and your word and all the mercy and majesty we have seen in you.
Deuteronomy 11:2 Leads Us to Pray for Mercy
And God we say, even as I pray that, we want to see more mercy and more majesty, and we want to know you more. We want to know your word more. We want to know your glory more. And we want to be faithful to pass on all that we know and all that we see to those who come after us. God, we pray for our children, for our children’s children, for their children.
We pray that until you return there would be a long succession of faith. Faith in and through our lives and our families. We pray that there would be people long after we are gone who are worshiping you and following you. And we pray for people that are proclaiming you in all your glory until Jesus returns. God, we pray for that. We plead for that based on Deuteronomy 11:2. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
