W. Robert Godfrey

Israel could have died out in Egypt.

Israel could have drowned in the Red Sea coming out of Egypt.

Israel could have perished in the wilderness.

But the Lord preserved them, and not only preserved them, but blessed them so that they grew dramatically.

And I do think, again, this is something for the church to think about, that the church grows by the blessing of God.

The church grows in our day by the blessing of God, and we see that happening in parts of the world that we may not be living in, but in parts of the world that have seen remarkable growth of the church.

One of the great examples of that is China in the 20th century, the great irony that after

A hundred years or more of Protestant missionary work in China, the church was very small and struggling, but when the missionaries were thrown out and the Communists took over, the church began to grow much more dramatically and quickly by the blessing of God.

Now, I don't say that to blame the missionaries or suggest they did something wrong, but it shows that the Lord can accomplish things beyond what we would imagine.

It's maybe the hornet principle we talked about before.

He can overcome enemies by the smallest hornet.

He can grow His church in the most difficult circumstances.

And we mustn't get discouraged that the church is not growing as we might hope and pray in America today, but it is growing in the world, and the Lord is blessing, and the Lord is accomplishing that great truth.

And so the Lord says, "'Teach your children that.'"

Teach them our history.

We see that also here, chapter 11, verse 2.

And consider today, since I am 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, his outstretched arm, his signs and deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.

Moses is saying the day is passing when the people who actually saw Pharaoh defeated will all be gone, and then you're going to have to teach those things to your children.

I'm beginning to experience that as an old man, that things I assume are kind of universally known just aren't known anymore.

Now, some of those things don't really matter.