Tell Your Children

Exodus 10:2 "…and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with Egypt and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the LORD." The locust plague and the plague of darkness are arriving, and in the middle of this escalating confrontation God pauses to tell Moses something about purpose.

These signs are not only for the Egyptians to see. They are for the Israelites to remember and retell — to their sons, and to their grandsons. The plagues are a curriculum. The Exodus is a story that must be passed down, spoken over dinner tables, woven into the identity of a people for every generation to come.

Pharaoh's servants begin to break. They beg him: "Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?" His officials can see what he refuses to see. The darkness of the ninth plague is described as a darkness that could be felt — three days in which no one moved.

Only in the land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived, was there light. The line between darkness and light is not geographic; it is covenantal. The people of God were not immune from Pharaoh's world, but they were distinguishable within it.

The purpose of every sign, every deliverance, every act of God in your life is larger than the immediate relief it brings. It is also a story. And stories are meant to be told. The generation that does not transmit its testimony leaves the next generation to begin their faith from scratch, without the accumulated evidence of God's faithfulness that prior generations paid to collect.

Tell your children what the LORD has done.

The three days of thick darkness echo the three days that will become central to the gospel narrative. The darkness over Egypt lasted three days and then was dispelled by God's command. The darkness over Calvary lasted three hours, and three days later the light of resurrection broke.

Both darknesses were covenantal: one was judgment on the gods of Egypt; the other was the sin of the world absorbed by the Son of God. Psalm 78:4: "We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done."

The transmission of testimony across generations is not optional in Israel's covenant life — it is commanded. The story must be told, or the next generation inherits only the land and not the faith. 🪞 Reflect on this • What testimony from God's faithfulness in your life have you told the next generation — or failed to tell?

What story is at risk of being lost if you don't speak it? • The Israelites had light in Goshen during the thick darkness. Where is your "Goshen" — the place or community of covenant belonging that keeps light present when the surrounding culture is dark?

• Pharaoh's own servants could see what he refused to. Are there people around you who can see something about your situation more clearly than you can? Are you listening to them? 👣 Take a Step Tell the Story Identify one specific act of God in your life — a deliverance, a provision, a turnaround — that you haven't yet formally told someone younger than you.

This week, tell it. Over a meal, in a text, in a letter. Pass the testimony down.

Lord, let me not hoard the story of what You have done. Give me the words and the opportunity to pass my testimony to the generation coming behind me. Let Your faithfulness be a lamp passed from hand to hand, never extinguished.

Amen.