It’s surprising how many times in the Bible that there are major events that have happened, that the Lord asks them to memorialized for the sake of the children.
- The Red Sea crossing? Have a Passover feast and when the children ask why, explain to them about the deliverance form Egypt.
- Read the Law out loud to everyone every 7 years? So that the children will know and remember to follow the Lord (Deut 31:9-13)
- And now…the crossing of the Jordan?
The Lord instructed Joshua to have one man from each of the 12 tribes to get a stone out of the middle of the Jordan River. From it they were to create a monument in the new land.
“In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ you should tell them, ‘The waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the LORD’s covenant. When it crossed the Jordan, the Jordan’s waters were cut off.’ Therefore these stones will always be a memorial for the Israelites” (4:6-7).
God really cares about the generations and wants to make sure that one generation trains the next generation to love and fear him. This is especially true when God does extraordinary acts. Whenever he did something like this, he oftentimes asked them to create a memorial that would evoke curiosity from the youth. And in that, the parents could explain how God met and delivered them.
We have this in our nations as well. We have statues of heroes like Abraham Lincoln and others who have done great things. But do we have these things in our lives and nations that tell about the glory of God? That honor Him and not necessarily the people? How is that we’re passing faith to the next generation? Are they getting the stories of faith in books and in video and in-person teaching to help them remember the things God has done in our lives?
