Alright, Jeremiah chapter 35. Thank you, Rob. Jeremiah 35. At this time, Jehoiakim is the
king of Judah. He did that which was evil in
the sight of the Lord. Jehoiakim was an evil king. He
led the people into idolatry. And that led to just base sin
of every kind. And so God's using the Chaldeans
here to purge these idolatrous men out of Judah. And at the same time, He's chastening
and correcting His people, His elect that are in Judah. And
as this is happening, God tells Jeremiah to go and call the Rechabites
into the temple and offer them wine. Now the Rechabites were
Gentiles. They descended from Moses' father-in-law,
Jethro. And they were of a tribe called
the Kenites. And when they had conquered the
land of Canaan, Jethro came in beside them and he didn't join
with them but he camped in the wilderness a little bit away
from Israel and he helped Israel. The Kenites helped Israel so
they became friends and it turned out God had mercy on the Kenites
and they became proselytes. They became worshippers of the
true and living God. That's how come they were allowed
in the temple. But there was one particular
Kenite whose name was Rechab, and hence the name the Rechabites.
And he had a son named Jonadab. And Jonadab joined with King
Yehu and tore down all the idols and all the groves of Baal worship
in Israel in the times of Elijah. Before he died, Jonadab gave
this strange commandment for his descendants. And he gave
it so that they would, his reason was that they may live many days
in the land where ye be strangers. Now 300 years they had obeyed
their father. 300 years they had obeyed their
ancient father up until this day when Jeremiah set wine before
them. And so when Jeremiah offered
them this wine, they refused immediately so that they could
continue obeying their father. Now afterward, God asked Judah
and Jerusalem, in verse 13, He says, Will you not receive instruction? Will you not hear my words, to
hearken to my words, to do my words, saith the Lord? The words
of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, that he commanded his sons not
to drink wine are performed. His words are performed, for
up to this day they drink none, but obey their father's commandment. Notwithstanding, I have spoken
unto you, rising early and speaking, but ye hearken not unto me. I
have sent also unto you all my servants the prophets, rising
up early, sending them, saying, Return ye now every man from
his evil way, and amend your doings, and go not after their
gods to serve them, their other gods. And ye should dwell in
the land which I have given to you and your fathers, which ye
have not inclined your ear, nor hearkened unto me. I have titled this, Will you not
hear and do? Will you not hear and do God's
Word? Now, God our Savior commands
His sanctified children to hear God's Word and to do God's Word. He commands us not only to hear
it, but to obey it, to obey the Word of God, the Word of the
Lord. Now, the Lord's purpose here in showing us the obedience
of the Rechabites It was not that we should obey the commandments
of Jonadab. Those commandments were neither
moral or immoral. They were just arbitrary commandments. That's not what it was about.
The reason he does this, he called them in and showed their obedience
to contrast the Rechabites' obedience to their father with Judah and
Jerusalem's disobedience to their father. You get what I'm saying? He was showing, he was contrasting
here the obedience of the Rechabites to their father with Judah and
Israel's disobedience to their father. This was a contrast,
an object lesson, they call it, using these Rechabites. Now,
so we're going to contrast it. That's how we're going to look
at it. We can look at John the Devil as a picture of Christ. Our Lord
left us commands when He left. And He told us to drink no more
wine. We won't drink any wine of Babylon's
fornication. He separated us out from the
great harlot. Keeps us separate from the world.
We don't have to plant vineyards because Christ is the great husbandman.
We don't have to try to build houses because Christ has prepared
us a house eternal in the heavens. We're strangers dwelling in tents,
just passing through strangers in a strange land. So we could
preach this as being a picture of Christ, but what I want to
do is just do what God did. I just want to contrast the obedience
of the Rehoboamites with the disobedience of Judah. First of all, we'll see the contrast
in who gave the commands. Then we'll see the contrast in
how often those commands were given. Thirdly, we'll see the
contrast in the number of witnesses. And then we'll see contrast in
the commands themselves. And then fifthly, contrast in
the promise connected with them. First of all, we see a contrast
in who gave the commandments. The Rechabites' command came
from a mere man, Jonadab, a mere man on the earth. Yet his sons
performed every command. They kept his commandments. Their
obedience was constant. They didn't pick out some things
they would obey and some things they would omit. It was whole
obedience and it was constant obedience. When Jeremiah set
that wine before them, they didn't sit there and think about it.
They immediately said, no, we're not drinking it. So they were
to be obedient to their father. I'll remind you of this too.
In those days when you refused food or drink from a people,
that was a great insult. Israelite Jews could have easily
cast them out of Jerusalem. And if they'd have been cast
out of Jerusalem, they'd have been killed by Nebuchadnezzar.
That's the whole reason they fled into Jerusalem. So this
was not just some minor matter for them to say, no, we won't
drink this wine. It was a serious thing. They
could have been cast out. That's what they're thinking
from their point of view. They don't know what's going
on here. Jeremiah don't know what this is about either. He just
obeyed the Lord. But they were constant in their
obedience. They said, no, we won't. We won't. We won't drink
the wine. And their motive in their obedience
was this, the honor and the love of their father. That was their
motive. They said there in verse 6, For
John of Dab, our father, commanded us. That's the only motive they
had. The only motive they needed to
be obedient. Our father commanded us. But God says in verse 14, He
says, notwithstanding, I, I, I have spoken unto you. God says, what's Jonadab compared
with me? What's Jonadab's authority compared
with my authority? God's saints believe our Father
our heavenly Father. We're not trusting in an earthly
man. We're trusting in the God-man,
mediator, who resides in heaven. Our glorified redeemer who resides
in heaven. And we trust our Father because
His is the word of the one true and living God of heaven and
earth. You see how far above His word
is than the word of a man, the commandment of a man? Christ
Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of lords who is above
all. His love toward His people is
what melts our hard heart. His love, His unceasing everlasting
love toward His people is what melts the hard heart in His people. and brings us to obedience. Our
Father, we have a Father in heaven, brethren, and He gave His only
begotten Son. I don't care what obedience God
calls you and me to perform. It comes short of giving your
son. It comes short of giving your
only son to a bunch of rebels that are your enemies so they
can kill him. Whatever God commands us, it
comes short of that. And that's what God did in His
great love for His people. His love toward His people saved
us. Here in His love, not that we
love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. Man in the earth can't save.
Man in the earth can't destroy eternally. But the God who's
given us His Word, He can save or destroy eternally. That's
who He is. The precepts of Jonadab were
arbitrary and they were only external. He just chose these
commandments and we really don't know why. No reasons given in
the Word of God. The commentaries give a bunch
of different reasons, but God doesn't give a reason. So as
far as we know, John of David just arbitrarily chose these
commandments to give to his people. And they were only external commandments. God's commandments are spiritual. They reach to the heart, they
reach to the conscience when they're made effectual in His
people by the Word of God and they control the man from the
inside out. When God has our heart, the rest
will follow. The rest will follow. But a form
of religion where there's just the external but there's no heart,
God despises that. This gospel comes not as an offer,
it comes as a command from our Father. And it's an effectual
command when he speaks into the heart. The times of this ignorance
God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. The gospel is not an offer, the
gospel is a command. And our Father spoke from heaven.
He told us the command. He spoke from heaven. And He
said, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. He
only said that about one. Christ only. I'm well pleased
with Him. And then what was the command?
Hear ye Him. Hear ye Him. Men and women want
to make great sacrifices and great offerings to earn God's
acceptance. If you took dirty clothes and
you filled your washing machine with dirty clothes and you took
your soapy rag and you washed the outside of that washing machine
real good and got it so clean it looked like you just brought
it off the showroom floor. Would those dirty clothes be
clean? It wouldn't have touched them. An outward form is just
maybe pretty, but inside there's nothing but vile, guile and corruption
and abomination to God, disobedience to God. Whiting the outside of
the sepulcher while inside is dead men's bones. Remember God
told Saul, He told him to go to the Amalekites and He said,
I want you to wipe the Amalekites off the map. kill everybody,
all the Amalekites, every living soul in their camp, kill them
all. And kill all their animals, all
their sheep, everything. When you leave there, there won't
be anything with breath. Saul goes down there, comes back,
Samuel said, did you do what God said? He said, oh yes, I've
obeyed the Lord. Samuel said, why then do I hear
some sheep bleeding out here? I hear them calling out here
very loudly. Why do I hear these sheep? Saul
said, well, we brought back the biggest sheep so we could sacrifice
them to God and offer them to God for giving us this victory
over the Malachites. Samuel said, hath the Lord as
great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying
the voice of the Lord? Which is better? To obey the
voice of the Lord? He says, Behold, to obey is better
than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion,
now listen to this, rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. And stubbornness, Stubbornness
against God, not obeying God is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the
word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. See how serious obedience is,
obedience to God? A first, a sinner has got to
be brought down. He's got to be brought down to
the dust to obey this commandment right here. The Lord Jesus Christ
said, this is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom
He hath sent. This is it. This is the first
commandment. Believe on Christ who God hath
sent. It doesn't matter what else takes
place after that, unless you have cast all your care into
Christ's hand, nothing else will be accepted. Nothing else will
be accepted. And this is the command of God
Himself. When we preach and we lift up Christ in this place
and like Moses lifted up that serpent and we cry out, look
and live. It's not just the words of a
man. If you ignored the words of a man, that would be insignificant. But this is the Word of God.
This is God's Word. God has given us His Word. This
is the command of God. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath
made him a liar, because he believes not the record that God gave
of His only Son. The Gospel claims our obedience
because the authority of God is behind every word. But depraved
sinners, if left to themselves, will reject the command of God
while they believe and keep the commandments of men. Isn't that
what Christ said? He said, I've come in my Father's
name and you receive me not. He said, if another come in his
own name, him you will receive. You take us to preach this gospel. Week in and week out preaching
this gospel. Men won't believe it. And somebody
comes down the pipe speaking some outlandish word claiming this is how you're going
to have happiness and peace in your life and God's going to
smile on you and men will just latch on to it. Well, to you that don't believe
God, listen to this. It's going to be a shame for
you when sinners all over this world believed and obeyed the
commandments of men, and yet you had the Word of God and you
wouldn't believe it. You had the Word of God saying,
Believe on my Son and thou shalt be saved, and you wouldn't believe
God Himself. You see what, this is what the
Lord is showing him. He's saying, you're being shamed
for not trusting me, the God of heaven and earth, by the Rechabites
who are simply obeying the word of a man. Now secondly, let's contrast
how often the command was given. Jonadab gave the command one
time. He just gave this one time. And yet God says in verse 14,
unto this day, 300 years later, his descendants were still obeying
that word. They were still obeying that
word. The voice of Jonadab, it was a cry that could just faintly
be heard from ages past is what it was. But God says in verse
14, I have spoken unto you rising early. That means each new morning. I have spoken to you every day. Every day in speaking, but you
hearken not unto me. We got the witness all around
us. We wake up every day. The sun rising. Christ is called
the Son of Righteousness arising with healing in His wings. Every
day that sun that rises is a witness to us. The air we breathe is
a witness to us. The birds singing, everything
around us is a witness to us. That God should be bowed to and
obeyed and worshipped. Again, He sounded forth His command
in our ears over and over and over to believe on His Son and
follow Him. And His mercies are new every
morning. Aren't you thankful for that? The thing about God is He never
gives up on His people. You start over every morning
with new mercy. Isn't that wonderful? You can start out every day new,
with new mercies. Jonadab was long since dead. He died a long time ago. He couldn't
see when his children disobeyed. He couldn't correct his children.
He couldn't do anything. And here's God, who lives forever,
and each elect child is at the center of his focus, center of
his attention all the time. and He can correct, He can chasten,
He can send... You have something happening
in your life where it's just painful and there's nothing you
can do about it? God's chastening His people.
He chastens His people. Don't ignore that. God's chastening,
that's what He's doing. He's teaching me, I'm not obeying
Him and I need to turn and trust Him. That's what He's teaching.
That's the preeminent instruction. I'm to hear that word and obey
God. And so are you. Over and over,
God has sent this word to us. And He keeps us at the feet of
Christ. He keeps us looking to Christ.
Then thirdly, look at this. Contrast how many witnesses gave
this command. Jonadab was one man. He was just
one man. And then, I'm sure it was passed
down because one father would declare it to his house, and
then the next father would declare it to his house, one of those
children would grow up to be a father, he'd declare it to his house,
and on and on it went. How many preachers have we had preach
to us in 12 years? We've had at least three every
year. Some years four and five. Not even counting the conference
during the year, you know, four or five. It has to be at least
forty that have come here and preached
the same good news. Preached the message that Christ
came and He made mercy and peace, kiss and harmony. The good news
that He's the fullness of the Godhead bodily and every believer
is complete in Him. We heard the good news that what
God has begun in His people, He shall finish it. Prophet after
prophet after prophet after prophet, God has sent to us. Look what
He said in verse 15, I have sent also unto you all My servants
the prophets, rising up early and sending them. God has not
left Himself without a witness. If we had over 40 witnesses,
there's been at least 40 preachers come through here preaching the
gospel to us. Not to mention week in and week out. If we had over 40 witnesses all
agree on something they're telling us about some earthly matter,
we'd believe it without a shadow of a doubt, wouldn't we? You see the depravity of the
human heart that you got all these witnesses declaring the
same message and a man won't believe in Christ. Won't trust
Christ, won't see His sinfulness, won't see His need, won't see
how badly He needs a Savior. That's depravity. That's sinfulness
to not be able to see. That ought to be evidence enough
to you need a Savior. And you haven't believed on Him
yet. Contrast the commands themselves. Jonadab's commands were not preceded
by grace and pardon. There was no grace, no pardon.
He didn't give any grace to give the ability to obey his commands
and no pardon of sin came with it. They were simply commands. They were harsh. They were strict
commands. No wine, no gardens, no homes. They got to dwell in
tents. He got to always be moving from
place to place. God promised His people they
would once again build houses in that land and plant vineyards
in that land. Jonah Dab's sons wouldn't be
able to partake of that because their father forbid them to partake
of that. Contrast that with Christ. First grace comes. First grace
and truth come. Grace and truth. Tell them about
Jesus Christ. He gives spiritual life. He gives
a new heart. He convinces us of our total
inability in ourselves. Isn't it amazing how He convinces
you of your total inability to do anything, and then He tells
you to do what you can't do? But he said, ''Priests of that
valley of dry bones, tell them to live!'' And he said, ''As
you tell them that, I'll send forth my Spirit, and I'll enter
in them, and I'll make them stand up and live.'' And that's what
he does. As you're preaching, you cry
out, ''Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ!'' Some people say, ''Oh,
we wouldn't ever throw that command out, because a dead sinner can't
do a thing.'' I'm not calling for dead sinners to do anything.
I'm calling for the living ones to do something. The ones God's
given life. That's who I'm calling for. That's
all the ones who are going to respond. And then He gives faith
and repentance to believe on Christ, to follow Him in believers
baptism. And He makes you to know in the
court of your conscience that you're forgiven of all your sin,
past, present and future. Peace of conscience. That's worth
a lot, I tell you. You can't put a price on that. No matter how I sin in this world,
no matter how I stumble, no matter how I disappoint those around
me and disappoint myself, no matter how that happened, I still
have peace with God. I still have peace with God.
He unites us with His church, our brethren, under the preaching
of the gospel. And He's continually reminding
us we're justified from all things from which we could not be justified
by the Law of Moses. Continually teaching us this.
And then comes Christ. Now He brought you to faith in
Christ. Then comes Christ with His light and easy yoke. Not before. He does all this
work of grace and all this work of salvation. Then He comes with
His light and easy yoke. The Law said Do this and live. Christ says
live and do. And once He's given you life,
He comes and He gives you this light and easy yoke. Continue
in me, continue believing on me and love one another. You know why love is the fulfillment
of the law? Love doesn't work any ill toward its neighbor.
If I love my neighbor, I'm not going to do anything to hurt
him. He says, this do in remembrance
of me. This do in remembrance of me.
Partake of my table so you have a little physical thing to help
you remember me. He says, be in subjection one
to another. All of you submit to one another.
He says, regard your brethren better than yourselves. He says,
bear ye one another's burdens. So fulfill the law of Christ.
We have such a tendency when one of our brethren stumbles
and falls and falls in sin, especially if they offend us. We have a
tendency to want to turn our back on them. That's when they
need us the most. That's when they need you the
most. That's why he said, bear one
another's burden. Isn't that what Christ does for
us constantly? He did it on the cross and He
bore our burden away before God, before the law, before justice.
And He continues to bear our burden. And He continues to restore
us. That's what He tells us to do.
He says, if your brother sinned against you seven times in a
day, and seven times turn again to thee, saying, I repent, thou
shalt forgive him. Seven times in a day? Seven times in a day, He offends
you so badly, it just makes you want to bite nails in two. He ain't offended you near as
bad as you offended Christ, offended God. He says when He comes seven
times with a broken, contrite heart, repenting of His sin and
begging your mercy, He says, give Him mercy, forgive Him.
He says, if it be possible as much as life in you, live peaceably
with all men. You see what a light and easy
yoke that is. Be not entangled again with the
yoke of bondage. Light and easy yoke. You're crucified
with Christ. You're dead to the law now that
you might live unto God. Light and easy yoke. And with
the command comes the grace and the power that makes us to be
servants of righteousness. He takes away his power, takes
away his grace. You'll find out real quick, you
can't do one thing. But He gives it. He makes you
a servant of righteousness. But left to ourselves, Judah
was too proud to confess their sin. They wouldn't confess their
inability to keep God's law. Instead, they scorned His messengers. They didn't regard them and love
them highly for their work's sake. They scorned them. They
rejected them. They abused them. They even killed
them. And they rejected God Himself. And they made commandments of
their own. Go back to Jeremiah 2. It's right here. You can see
it. Jeremiah 2, verse 11. Look at this. Hath the nation changed their
gods, which are yet no gods? But my people have changed their
glory for that which doth not profit." They were saying, God,
we're not going to bow to you, but we're going to bow down to
these images we've made that don't have eyes, have eyes but
they can't see, they got arms but they can't, legs but they
can't walk, they're just dumb objects, but we're going to serve
them rather than serve you. We're going to bow down to this
big house we live in and make it our idol. We're going to bow
down to these children and make these children our idol. Make
sure they got everything under the sun and we don't ever not
give them their way. We're going to bow down to the
sports and entertainment. We're going to bow down to all
these different things and make sure everybody looks at us and
thinks we're perfect. God says, Be astonished, O ye
heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid. Be ye very desolate,
saith the Lord, for my people have committed two evils. They've
forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and they've hewed
them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. Here's
the offense. Forsook God. What does Christ
say? What's the first command? Believe
on Christ. What's the first thing they did
that was offensive? They forgot Him. The second command is, follow
me. Not to be right, not to make
yourself righteous, not to make yourself holy. Follow me, constrained
by love, because I've made you holy. They said, no, we don't
want any of that. We're going to work our way to
heaven. They forsook Christ and they made them cisterns that
could not hold water. Now contrast the promise connected
to the command. Jonah and Dab couldn't guarantee
them anything. At best, he said they'd live
long, but if they did, it was only going to be long on an earthly
piece of ground in which they were strangers. That's all he
could... and he couldn't guarantee them
that. Not at all. He couldn't do for his seed what
God does for his. Jonadab left them commandments,
but he didn't give them any steadfast hope of an inheritance. Christ's
blood guarantees acceptance with God for each one for whom He
died. Guarantee. Acceptance with God. Guarantee. Peace of conscience. Protection from our enemies.
All the exceeding riches of an eternal inheritance in God's
kingdom of grace and glory. God promises we're going to awake
one day with Christ's image. We're going to see Him as He
is and we're going to awake perfectly conformed to His image. And we're
going to be in heavenly Jerusalem, in heavenly Mount Zion, where
there is no sin whatsoever. Where we can worship and serve
our Redeemer perfectly forever. That's a good hope. That's a
good hope. Obedience to our Master's crown
with every blessing. So it's written, blessed are
them that fear the Lord. Scripture says, having promise
of the life that now is and of that which is to come. It's good now and it's going
to be even better then. That's the promise of God. But
because Judah and Jerusalem hearkened not to the Lord, He said, I'm
going to bring upon them all the evil pronounced against them.
Listen to me sinner, if you found in that day not trusting Christ,
and don't put it off because judgment delayed makes you think,
oh well God, I got plenty of time. Believe on Him today, because
if you are found without Christ, all the evil that God pronounces
in this book is coming upon you for eternity. And justly so,
because you rejected the Redeemer. But Jonadab, being this good
picture of Christ, we see a picture here of what shall become of
all who obey and believe on Christ. Jonadab, verse 19, the son of
Rechab, shall not want a man to stand before me forever. All those Christ died for. All
those that are standing in His perfect obedience to God, trusting
nothing else but His perfect obedience, and they're doing
it from a holy heart because Christ our sanctification abides
in us, every one of us are going to stand before God complete. And that word, stand before God,
means we're going to be servants of God forever. That's His promise
to His Son. You'll never want a man to stand
before Me forever. Because that's how pleased he
is with Christ's obedience. I tell you, man that won't believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, it goes against all reason, it goes
against all logic, it goes against all sense. But you and I who
believe Him, this day, let it be a new morning. And let's start today and obey
our Master. That's what I want to do. That's
what I want to do. Don't sit there and say, oh,
well, Clay, I know you, you've already failed. Yeah, I have. You have too. But I won't do
and I'm going to try to. I want to serve God. I want to
obey Him. I want to read these precepts
and these epistles and do what He says to do. Don't you? There's
nothing about it that's bad for us. It's all good for us. And
in Christ, it comes to God, bathed in His blood, absolutely perfect. And that day, God's going to
look at us in Christ and say, well done, my good and faithful
servant. That's right. I pray God will
bless it. Amen.