Deuteronomy 31:12,13 “Gather the people together, men, women and children, and that stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they man learn and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law: And that their children, which have not known anything, may hear, and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as ye live in the land whither he go over the Jordan to possess it.”
Some observers of the religious scene in our nation today predict that there must be either “revolution or revival.” I am inclined to believe that either one would be all right. If it is to be revolution, let us pray that it may be bloodless. If it is to be revival, let us pray that it may be lasting.
After all, it was “revolution” that started this country. And it was the revival spirit of a century ago that spread Christianity westward with the shifting population. So whatever it is, revolution or revival, let's have it. But let's be ready for it.
I simply want to be “in on it.” I want to have something to say about the kind of a revolution or revival that it is to be, and not be swept along like a chip in a rushing stream. I want my faith to be an influence affecting the result.
The way to make our kind of faith effective in this chaotic world is clearly shown in our text. The ancient Hebrews were given a word of promise from God, and although they were battered, defeated and often disgraced, for 5,000 years they kept their faith alive and glowing. Conquerors as horrible as any in history swept over their country. Depressions and plagues took their toll. But the Israelites' faith never faltered. We certainly can admire and emulate this trait!
The text gives their simple method. they carefully and diligently taught their children; not only their own, but all children. Their Rabbis were true to their trust, their schools were remarkably efficient, their homes and family circles aided and abetted the work of the other teachers. And to this day the ancient faith of the Hebrews is maintained and kept alive by the same time-honored system.
Here is a cue for us all. Here is a way to keep faith and hope and love alive. Teach the children -- our own and as many others as we can reach. Oh, yes, there are unlearned and religiously illiterate adults too. We must reach them as well. But the children -- there lies the future of our faith.
We know from experience in religious education that many parents are indifferent and shiftless in the important matters of their faith. Some will never be moved from their ways of lazy ignorance. But their jewels, their richest possessions are their children. Those parents may not have one hour a week to give to their God; but if they give us their children to teach, the future is secure.
Boys and girls quickly change, advance and progress. Time never seems to move so fast as when we measure it by the growth of children. And as they grow, they will often discard our ideas for new ones of their own. They will develop new inventions, ways not now dreamed of. And that is fine and commendable. We hope they'll discover new worlds and conquer them. But underneath it all, the eternal truths as we know them and as we teach them will go on.
Let the next generation find a better way of living, a better way of locomotion, and a better way of communication. But let us so implant in them the eternal truths about God and the living knowledge of the right, that it will endure and be passed on to every generation until the end of time. That is our task; the task of Christian education.
A phrase from the Catechism comes to my mind: “Calls, gathers and enlightens.” This is the function of religious education, to do the work of the Holy Spirit, which is really our work, too.
The Church calls. It calls adults, but it summons the children, too. In this way it is doing the work of God, of Whom we sing in a famous hymn, “God calling yet, shall I not hear?” The leaders of Israel , the Prophets of old, John the Baptist, Jesus and His disciples in all ages have sounded the call of God. Today the Church stands in the place of all those ancient giants. The world hears the call of God today only through His Church!
We are not responsible for the morals or the salvation of everybody on earth. Some will be immoral and some will be unsaved in any generation. But we are responsible for the preaching of the Gospel to all men, those far away as well as those who are near at hand. Our God-given task is to call all men to hear His program for the world.
A recent innovation in this huge job of calling all men is church advertising. On the printed page, on signs and billboards, it sounds the call to Salvation. But experienced advertising executives freely admit that the best sort of advertising is accomplished by work of mouth. “Ask the man who owns one.” “Millions of satisfied users.” “One friend tells another.” What a glorious invitation this offers for personal evangelism, the opportunity of telling others about Christ and what He does for us! Let us, every one, sound the call to Christ! The Holy Ghost can speak through us!!
The Church gathers Christians together. There is definite value in such a gathering. For mutual support and strengthening, for spiritual edification, for instruction and enlightenment we need to gather. In simple words, this means we need to attend the Church services and the Bible classes.
In old days in our land there was much emphasis on home instruction. when pioneer families lived many miles apart, the whole burden of Christian instruction rested upon the parents, who in many cases responded nobly and taught their children with a real gift of Grace. The Mother taught her children to read their Bibles and to say their prayers. The Father conducted frequent family worship. Even today some advocate this excellent form of pure family worship. But in modern communities many families scarcely seem to be together long enough to greet one another, what with commuting schedules, differing hours of work, social and other engagements. In this day, more than ever, we need the influence of group worship and group study.
The parent who fails to send a child to some Church School is deceiving himself and defrauding his child of the greatest asset in life. The person who deliberately fails to attend worship at Church harms himself. Not without reason does Paul warn “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is.” Absence harms the adult and the child. There is a time-worn anecdote of the man who absented himself from Church. When his Pastor called to inquire, he was seated before an open fire of glowing coals. Without speaking a word, the Pastor took a poker and removed one red-hot coal from the fire. In a moment it dulled, smoked and then lost its glow completely. Away from the firebed , it cooled. The dilatory parishioner watched with interest, then he said: “I get it, Pastor. I'll be at church on Sunday.” If we had any assurance whatsoever that the children who are not in Sunday School received adequate home training, I suppose we might be less insistent upon the mere fact of church attendance. But how many of those children receive home training in religion? A fair estimate would be, not one! The type of religiously shiftless parent that allows its child to grow up without adequate formal training in religion is neither qualified or willing to teach a child.
Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “I am a regular churchgoer. I would go for various reasons, even if I did not love it. In the corner of my heart there is a plant called reverence, which needs to be watered about once a week.”
Many children are maturing today away from good influences. They are exposed to all the bad influences of childhood, and to none of the good. Yet entwined in their childish hearts are reverence, conscience, honesty and faithfulness. Are these glorious virtues not to be nourished? The Church must gather together adults and children alike!
And the Church enlightens. How little we really know about religious things! Do we know the three universal Creeds of Christianity? Do we know the chief documents of our Lutheran faith? Do we even know by name the four Gospels? Do we know what our Church teaches about the presence of Christ in the Holy Communion?
In life, we learn to keep up with all sorts of surface things. We study the baseball averages, algebraic formulas, popular songs and the like. We feel like social outcasts if we don't keep up with the theater and current literature. But in our everyday lives there is so little of real, eternal value. The Church tries to teach in its services, its programs, its study groups, its organization, its school! Jesus gave to all Christians a firm and unforgettable command. He said, “Go ye and teach!” We must try our best. Ignorance breeds fear and superstition. Enlightenment is needed.
In our “Christian” nation, seventeen million boys and girls of Sunday School age are not in Sunday School. No congregation can feel that it has reached the limit of its growth or exhausted the possibilities of its field while even one child remains without Christian tutelage. Parish education is a mighty arm of the Church. This arm of love and power should be extended to reach out for the unreached millions. Lift up your eyes to the fields; they are white for the harvest! The Lord's work depends upon us. Will you help to call, to gather and to enlighten? All together, united, let us do God's work with power, a mighty Christian army. The Sunday School and every other phase of our educational program offers us our great opportunity to do the work of Christ. Let us never fail to keep the faith.