In the book of Jeremiah, chapter
35, I'm sure, and as Brother Aaron read through that passage,
or I hope at least that you found it interesting at best, this
episode of the history of Judah as prophesied by Jeremiah, God's
man for the day and that day, And you may have thought, well,
what in the world is this all about? What is this historical
event with these people called the Rechabites? The Rechabites,
who were they? What are they all about? And
what significance do they play for the people of Judah at that
time? And especially what significance
do they play in our lives? What does it mean to us? I'll tell you right now what
it doesn't mean. This is not God's case for total
abstinence. And the reason I say that is
because if you do research on these passages of scripture and
word studies like I do, you'll find almost thousands of messages
totally dedicated to preaching against the drinking of wine.
Total abstinence. That's not what this is about.
Now that's not to say that there are some people who should totally
abstain. There are some who are given
to excesses of things, you know. But the Bible doesn't say that
drinking wine is a sin. It says drunkenness is a sin.
But when you think about that, now just remember, it says gluttony
is a sin too. And you know, we'll keep quiet
about that one. And the thing about it is, when you see a passage
of scripture like this, and it's a gift of God, it's
not natural to man, but you've got to look at it with eyes of
grace. You've got to see Christ in the scripture and how this
applies to the people of God who are saved by the grace of
God. And what we have here is a picture of obedience by the
grace of God. And I've entitled the message,
Obedience by the Grace of God. Now he says this prophecy, verse
one, the word which came unto Jeremiah from the Lord in the
days of Jehoiakim. Now you know when we read through
the book of Consolation from chapter 30 to chapter 34, that
was given in the days of Zedekiah. Zedekiah was the last king of
Judah just prior to the destruction of jerusalem in the temple but
here this reaches back to the days of jehoiakim. Jehoiakim
was the third son of king Josiah, he had four sons. Jehoiakim was
the third son and he ruled judah he was an ungodly king he was
not a godly king he didn't lead the people in the ways of god
in the ways of the covenant certainly didn't lead the people as he
should have in that place of that throne of David to be a
type of Christ and the ways of God. He ruled for about 11 years. This part is chapter 35. It actually took place about
10 to 15 years prior to the prophecies of the Book of Consolation. that
we just finished. And what that shows you is that
Jeremiah's prophecy is not given to us by revelation from God
in chronological order. But it's given in another order.
It's sort of like the book of John. You know, you read Matthew,
Mark, and Luke. They're kind of alike in their
progression of history, but John kind of changes. His book is
more set up in what they call the order of spiritual truth.
And that's the way Jeremiah's prophecy is set up. So this takes
place about 10 to 15 years prior to the prophecies of chapter
33 and 34. And then it says in verse two,
it says, go into the house, that's the family. Anytime you refer
to a house, that's a family. The family or the house of men
rather, not the house of God, Now, sometimes the people of
God or the family of God are referred to as his house, but
here I'll make this distinction. He says, go into the house, the
family of the Rechabites, and speak unto them and bring them
into the house of the Lord. That's the temple. So bring this
family of Rechabites into the temple of the Lord, into Solomon's
temple, into one of the chambers and give them wine to drink.
That's significant. And these chambers, there were
different rooms in that Temple of Solomon that were outside
the outer court and the inner court, and then certainly the
holiest of all. They had places where the priests
kept their garments. There were offices, things like
that. And he said, you bring this family of the Rechabites
into one of these chambers, and then you give them wine to drink.
Now the Rechabites, they were a tribe of nomads. They were
travelers. They didn't put down roots. That's
what it means. And they were of the Kenite race.
You may have heard of the Kenites. Well, they descended from a man
named Jethro. Jethro was Moses' father-in-law. I'm giving you a history lesson,
I know, but hold on, this is all significant. And they descended
from Jethro, Moses' father-in-law. And they had, through a man named
Jonadab, or sometimes referred to as Jehonadab, you know, they'll
give different names for the same person sometimes. They had
separated themselves from their natural family by a vow that
Jonadab had made that he wouldn't drink wine, he wouldn't build
a house, he wouldn't plant a vineyard, all that. We'll come to that
in just a moment. And what happened is these Rechabites that he's
talking about, when the children of Israel finally crossed the
Jordan River into the promised land, into the Canaanite land,
these Rechabites came with them. Now they remain distinct from
them, but they came with them into the land. And they made
a close alliance here with the family of Judah, the tribe of
Judah. And they were proselytes to Israel
and to the God of Israel. And they continued with Israel,
but they still remained distinct from them. And that's the significance. That's who these Rechabites are.
Well, he says, you bring them in. See there in verse 2, bring
them into the temple. God commanded that they be brought
into the temple. And the indication here, we're
not given all the information by commentary, but the indication
here is these people were worshipers of the true God. They were foreigners. They were uncircumcised. And
so they might be admitted into places belonging to the temple.
They couldn't go but so far. And then he says, give them wine.
Set wine before them and offer them this wine to drink. Well,
look at verse 3. Well, then I took Jeazaniah the
son of Jeremiah. That's another Jeremiah there.
That's one of the priests of the temple. The son of Habazaniah. And his brethren, all his sons,
and the whole house of the Rechabites, these officers of the temple,
they took these Rechabites, verse 4, brought them into the house
of the Lord, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan, that was
a particular chamber or room in the temple occupied by the
sons of Hanan, they were priests. And he says, the son of Igdaliah,
the man of God, That probably indicates that this Hanun, the
son of Yigdalai, was also a prophet. So he was one of the prophets
that partnered with Jeremiah in the preaching of the gospel,
the preaching of the coming of the Messiah, the directing of
the people to God and the ways of God and to obedience. And
he says, which was by the chamber of the princes. The princes probably
refers to the court, the officers of the court, like the Sanhedrin,
as it became to be known in the New Testament. And he says, which
was above the chamber of Measeah, the son of Shalom, the keeper
of the door. There was the doorkeeper. And
he's the one who stood at the threshold of the temple and let
him come in and let him go out. Verse five, he says, I sat before
the sons of the house of the Rechabites, pots full of wine
and cups, and I said unto them, drink ye wine. So what we're
told here is that Jeremiah obeyed the Lord. He went and got, with
the officers, he went and got these Rechabites. Prior to this,
they were outside the city of Jerusalem. They were nomads.
And then it says in verse six, look here, he says, but they
said, now here's the Rechabites. They said, we will drink no wine.
For Jonadab, the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, and
that's their ancestor. And our father commanded us saying,
you shall drink no wine, neither ye nor your sons forever. Now
you might have in your concordance, there's second Kings chapter
10, and you can read about Jonadab there. He went, I can't remember
who the king, I think it was Jehu, the king of the Northern
kingdom. And he got in the chariot with
him and they went and they were out to destroy all the Baal worshipers.
So this Jonadab was a man of God. He would destroy idolatry. The idolatry that Ahab had brought
on the people and they went out to destroy them. And Jonadab
had taken a vow. And he made this vow for his
whole family. Now this is a providential act
of God. You understand this now. This,
what's happened, what happened, that was probably about, I think
it was probably about 300 years before this event in chapter
35, this Jonadab was there. But all that, and this is so
amazing to me, and I hope to you, all that was done back then
to make the point that's being made here. And it's an amazing thing. And
I'll tell you, we really ought to take some comfort if I ever
get to the point. We'll do that. We'll take some
comfort in this, especially being the Gentiles that we are. All
right? Give you a hint there, didn't
I? All right. So he says he's going to do it.
Your son's forever. And he says, neither shall you
build a house. Now, if this chapter is talking
about that it's a sin to drink wine, And total abstinence, well,
I'll tell you something else, it's a sin to build a house,
too. Y'all ever done that? He says, here's part of the vow.
Neither shall you build a house, nor sow seed. Well, I know you
fellas have been sowing seed, because I get the tomatoes. Well,
if that's what this is teaching, then it's a sin to build a house,
and it's a sin to have a farm, have a garden. And you know better
than that. That's not what it's talking
about at all. This was a vow that the Rechabites had taken
for a purpose. And it says, nor plant a vineyard,
nor have any, any of that, see, but all your days you shall dwell
in tents. You're not going to put down
roots, you're nomads, you're pilgrims, that you may live many
days in the land where you be strangers. You see that? And thus we have obeyed the voice
of Jonadab, they said, the son of Rechab, our father, and all
that he had charged us to drink no wine all our days. We, our
wives, our sons, nor our daughters, nor to build houses for us to
dwell in, neither have we vineyards, nor field, nor seed. But we've
dwelt in tents and have obeyed. They've obeyed. And done according
to all that Jonadab, our father, commanded us, according to that
vow. But it came to pass when Nebuchadnezzar,
king of Babylon, came up into the land that we said, come and
let us go to Jerusalem for fear of the army of the Chaldeans.
They couldn't exist outside the city there. They had to get inside
the city to be safe. And he says, and for fear of
the army of the Syrians, so we dwell at Jerusalem. They still
didn't build houses now or plant vineyards, but they dwelt in
Jerusalem. So that was the vow that Jonadab
had taken 300 years before as he followed the providential
workings of the sovereign wisdom, mind, and purpose of God. And
as I said, this is not a lesson in total abstinence. The Bible
does not forbid drinking wine. It does forbid drunkenness. And the Lord, you know, the Lord
himself made and drank wine in moderation. And you know, wine
in the Bible symbolizes some things sometimes that are positive
and sometimes things that are negative. First of all, when
I think about wine, I think about the wine of the Lord's Supper
symbolizes the blood of our Savior. That's a beautiful thing, isn't
it? Somebody asked me, he said, well, why do you have to use
wine? Because it's a proper symbol. It does not spoil. It's a symbol
of the incorruptible, precious blood of our Savior. And that's
a beautiful thing, the blood that washes away my sins. I want
to properly present that, whether I'm preaching or whether it's
symbolized. And I know we're not taken up
with the symbol. There's no power in the cup of
the Lord's Supper to save us or to wash away our sins, just
like there's no power in the waters of baptism to wash away
our sins. But there's the proper use of
things that properly reveal and picture and typify our Lord and
what He did and what He accomplished for us on the cross of Calvary. And so we use that. But that's
a beautiful picture, isn't it? The wine symbolizing the blood
of Christ shed for the complete payment of all our sins. And
then negatively, the wine will symbolize the wrath of God against
Babylon. Jeremiah speaks of that. He's
spoken of it before. We've seen it. We won't turn
to all these scriptures. But he talks about how they drank
the cup of the wrath of the wine of God. And that's a cup that
sinners who do not have Christ. That's a picture there. That's
a cup that all who die and go to meet God without Christ That's
a cup that they'll have to drink. The wrath of God right now abides
on him, John 3, 36. He that believeth not, the wrath
of God abides on him. You don't feel it. You may not
even see it. You don't see it. You don't,
do you? I mean, I don't care if a person just in a poor situation
in this life, you still don't see anything near the wrath of
God. Closest thing we can get to a
description of the wrath of God is our Savior on the cross when
he cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And
he called that a cup, didn't he? He said, let this cup pass
from me if it be possible. He knew it wasn't, but he's speaking
out of the weakness of his human flesh. He was hurting. And he was about to drink the
cup. that God the Father gave him,
pleased the Lord to bruise him. You know what that word bruise
literally means? It means crush him. Same word that's used back
in Genesis 3.15 when he said the serpent will bruise your
heel, but you'll bruise his head. He'll crush your heel, but you'll
crush his head. He was crushed like the grapes
of wrath. You've heard that statement that
we read about. And then Revelation 18, you can
read that sometime, you know, where it's talking about Babylon
has fallen. Babylon has fallen. That's spiritual
Babylon. That's the enemies of Christ
and the enemies of the church and how they'll drink the cup
of the wrath, the wine of the wrath of God. But then another
positive symbol for wine, and I believe that's what's significant
here, is that wine symbolizes joy. Joy. This vow made by the
Rechabites, made by Jonadab 300 years before and taken by the
Rechabites is similar to what you may have heard of before
as the Nazarite vow. You ever heard the Nazarite vow?
Samson was one who took the Nazarite vow. And the Nazarite vow was
a person who vowed to refrain from wine and from other things
Because he in picture and in type and in symbol was to indicate
in his life That he was totally dedicated to the things of God
and got no joy in a ruined creation And that's why he could drink
no wine That was his whole life The sons of recap as strangers
and pilgrims Touch not that which comes from the vine of the earth.
That's why they say you can't plant vineyards. They typify
God's people. That's what they are. They're
a picture. They're a type of God's true people who seek a
higher, deeper, more lasting joy than this world could ever
offer. We have joy and peace in believing. And their abstinence from wine
now did not make them holier than the rest of mankind. Their
abstinence from wine and their abstinence from building houses
did not make them more righteous than any other sinner. In fact,
I want you to look over at Colossians chapter 2 with me. Look at this. And what I want you to understand
is this. Get this in our heads. I pray Lord get this in my head. Seal this in my heart. Righteousness
and holiness is never achieved in any degree by our doing or
not doing anything. Do you understand that? Let me
say it again. Righteousness and holiness is
never achieved by what we do or don't do. If you want to find
righteousness, look to Christ. His doing, His dying, He's the
one who achieved it. He's the one who wrought it,
worked it out by His obedience unto death. The righteousness
I have is the righteousness of God imputed to me. Now if I decide
to be totally abstinent in every area and never to overeat or
whatever, that doesn't make me more righteous. Sometimes it can make you weirder.
But it doesn't make you more righteous. There are no degrees
of righteousness. And technically there's no degrees
of holiness. Now look at Colossians chapter
2 verse 18. He says, let no man beguile you. That means that literally you
might have this in your concordance, judge against you. That's what
that means. Pass judgment on you. Why a Christian would never
do that. That's what he's talking about.
Alright? Or if you were a real Christian,
you'd do this. He says, let no man beguile you
of your reward. Now what is our reward? Our reward
is the reward of grace, salvation, blessedness in Christ. It's not
what we've earned. We know that. In a voluntary
humility and worshipping of angels. Now this voluntary humility is
self-imposed humility. It's not godly humility. It's
what man sees. And the worship of angels here
seems to be something that was peculiar to this group at this
time. And I understand that. You know,
people today who call themselves Christian, they'll pray to the
angels or they'll pray to the saints or through the saints
and all of that. And that's just man-made religion.
He said, "...intruding into those things which he hath not seen,
vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the head..."
The head there is Christ. Not holding up Christ. Not looking
to Christ. Not honoring Christ. You see,
in other words, he's honoring the flesh. He's not honoring
Christ. Look at me, I don't do this. I would never go in there.
Do you remember when the Pharisees got the disciples and they said,
look at your master, look where he's going. Places we wouldn't
even think about going. Why, he even sits down and eats
with publicans and sinners. How'd the Lord answer that? He
said, look, it's not what goes in the mouth that defiles, it's
what comes out of the heart. He said, I didn't come here to
heal the whole, but to heal the sick. They call sinners to repentance.
So look at it, he says, he says, not holding the head from which
all the body, the church by joints and bands having nourishment
minister and knit together increase, increaseth with the increase
of God. That's growth and grace and knowledge. Verse 20. Wherefore, if you be dead with
Christ from the rudiments or the elements of the world, why
as though living in the world? Now what he's saying there, now
listen to it. He says, why are you so connected to this awful,
ungodly, fallen, wretched, evil world? And look how he describes
it. as though living in the world
are you subject to ordinances, that's man's ordinances. And
look how he describes it, verse 21, touch not, taste not, handle
not. You see, that's not godliness. Now that's what man's impressed
with. That's what makes a sinner righteous in man's view. It's
what makes him holy. But that which is highly esteemed
among men is what? An abomination to God. He says
in verse 22, which all are to perish with the using after the
commandments and doctrines of men. You're just following men
there. Is there any excuse for a true believer to go out here
and get drunk? Absolutely not. That's a sin.
And you should never do it. I should never do that. That's right. That's not the
issue here, you see. But what we drink and don't drink,
eat or don't eat, that's not what makes me righteous before
God. That's not what makes you righteous. Christ is our righteousness. And he says in verse 23, which
things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship, that's
self-imposed worship, not godly worship, and humility, self-imposed
humility, and neglecting the body, not in any honor to the
satisfying of the flesh. But he says, if you then be risen
with Christ, seek those things which are above. Now, this is
what this Rechabite story is about right here. It's a picture
of how the true believer who has been made obedient by the
grace of God in Christ is to set his affection, his heart,
his goals, his mind upon things above and not on things of the
earth. Now that's what the Rechabites picture. Does that mean all these
Rechabites were saved? No. Did they all know what it
meant? I doubt it. Did some of them?
Probably. There's always been a remnant,
hasn't there? That's not the issue. It's what do they teach
us? What do they picture? You see, it's not whether I drink
wine or don't drink wine. That's not the issue. Where is
my joy? My joy is in Christ. I'm not
connected to this world. I'm living in the world. And
you know, the book of Ecclesiastes tells us over and over again,
there's nothing wrong for a true believer, a person of God, a
sinner saved by grace, to enjoy the things of this life in their
proper perspective. But once in a while, God gives
us a picture, like the Nazarite vow, here the Rehoboite vow,
that teaches us a spiritual lesson, and it's right here. If you then
be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where
Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. That's where we sit in
Him. The place of acceptance and honor.
Set your affection on things above, not on the things of the
earth. You're dead, he says. How am I dead? I'm dead with
Christ. I'm justified. My sins are all taken away. I'm
righteous in Him. And he says, and your life is
hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life,
Christ is our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with
Him in glory. That's what it's talking about.
Now go back to Jeremiah 35. Now in this sense, wine here,
And along with everything else, the building of houses, the sowing
of seed, the planting of vineyards, all that symbolizes a settled
life. Because if you're going to, listen,
if you're going to plant a vine, it's going to take time for it
to grow and you've got to tend it. It's got to take your time.
You've got to care for its cultivation. And while the preparation of
the wine itself requires buildings, you've got to have a wine press,
all of that. And it has to be stored up before
it's ready for use. The drink, you know, the nomads
of that day, you know what their main drink was? It was the milk
of their herds. And what this is, it's a picture.
Turn to Hebrews chapter 11 with me. It's a picture of God's people
brought to salvation by the sovereign mercy and grace of God in Christ,
living in this fallen world as strangers and pilgrims and not
as earth dwellers. We're in the world, but we're
not of the world. That's what they picture. That
was said of Abraham. Look at verse 13, Hebrews 11. So these all died in faith, not
having received the promises and having seen them afar off.
That means they died before Christ came. That's all that means.
And they were persuaded of them, and embrace them and confess
that they were strangers and pilgrims in the earth. For they
that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.
It means they're seeking a home. And truly, if they had been mindful
of that country from which they came out, they might have had
opportunity to return. That's lack of repentance. If
you come out of something and your mind and heart's already
there, you hadn't repented. But now they desire a better
country, that is, in heavenly. Wherefore God is not ashamed
to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city."
Abraham was a stranger and a pilgrim. It goes down there to say that
Moses, rather than living in the luxury of Egypt, he chose
Christ and the people of God. And he did that by the grace
of God. You see, this is obedience. This is the obedience of grace.
And as I said, notice, no houses, no vineyards, no fields, no planting.
God used this family called the Rechabites to be a picture of
salvation by His grace. Look back at verse 12 of Jeremiah
35. Now He gives us the lesson right
here. He tells us. What's He doing here? Now, I
mentioned before This is very, very significant that these Rechabites,
they were descendants from the Kenites who were descendants
from Jethro, Moses' father. What does that mean? It means
they were Gentiles. They were Gentiles. And listen, by nature that is
so offensive to the Jew. You remember when the Lord stood
up in His hometown synagogue and He talked about the fulfillment
of that great passage in Isaiah 61. This day is fulfilled before
you, before your very eyes. And then, you remember what he
said? He talked about there were many lepers in Israel on that
day, but God saved it. He healed a Gentile named Naaman.
There were many, many women who were sick, and He saved a Gentile
woman. And remember that made them so
mad, they wanted to throw him over a cliff. They were so angry. But here's an episode in the
lives of Judah, the royal tribe, where Gentiles who were obedient ought to bring them to shame
for their disobedience. Now look at it, verse 12, Then
came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah saying, Thus saith the
Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, Go and tell the men
of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Will you not receive
instruction to hearken to my word, saith the Lord? Won't you
listen? Won't you obey? The words of Jonadab, the son
of Reca, that he commanded his sons not to drink wine or perform.
Oh, Jonadab, he commanded his descendants not to drink wine,
and they obey. But the Lord God of Israel, the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he commands you to obey, and
you don't listen. That's man by nature, isn't it?
He says, for unto this day they drink none, but obey their father's
commandment. Notwithstanding, I've spoken
unto you rising early and speaking, but you hearken not unto me.
Now there's the key. You didn't listen. I've said
also unto you all my servants the prophets rising up early
and sending them." God said, I've sent you prophets. And he
says, return ye now every man from his evil way. That's repentance.
Repent of your evil ways. It's a call to repentance. The
call to repentance is the call to faith in Christ. When you
come to Christ, you leave everything else behind. And do like Paul
in Philippians 3, count it but done that you may win Christ
and be found in him. Not having your own righteousness
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ. And he says, amend your doing, your doings, and go not
after other gods to serve them. And you shall dwell in the land
which I have given to you and to your fathers, but you have
not inclined your ear nor hearkened unto me. Man by nature, that's
us by nature isn't it? We will not come to Christ. He
says in verse 16, because the sons of Jonadab, the son of Reca,
have performed the commandment of their father, which he commanded
them, but this people hath not hearkened unto me. I'll tell
you what, God providentially in earthly things had done so
much more for Israel and Judah than he'd done for the Recabites,
hadn't he? And he says in verse 17, Therefore
thus saith the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I
will bring upon Judah and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem
all the evil that I pronounced against them. There's the cup
of the wine of God's wrath. Because I've spoken unto them,
but they've not heard. And I've called unto them, but
they've not answered. You see, God's purpose in all
this was to put Judah to shame for not obeying the commandments
of God. To stir up jealousy. You know, Paul wrote about that
in Romans 10 and Romans 11. He said, Whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how are they going
to call? In Him of whom they've not heard.
And whom they've not believed. And Him they've not heard. All
of that. He said, but they've not obeyed.
Israel. That's all of us by nature. What does God do for His people,
His sheep, His elect, the redeemed of the Lord, who are dead with
Christ? What does He do? He calls us
unto the obedience of grace, doesn't He? He brings us by the
Holy Spirit to see our sinfulness and to bow to His judgment against
us to drive us to Christ. for salvation and obedience.
And look what happens here, verse 18. Jeremiah said unto the house
of the Rechabites, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of
Israel, because you have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your
father and kept all his precepts and done according unto all that
he hath commanded you. Therefore, thus saith the Lord
of hosts, the God of Israel, Jonadab, the son of Rechab, shall
not want or lack a man to stand before me forever. Now what he's
saying here is this, because the son of Jonadab, the son of
Reca, and there's such a contrast, here's the obedience of the Recabites
to the vow of their father, contrasted with the disobedience of the
Israelites, the Judaites, and what he's showing here in picture
and type, this is the obedience of the people of God, brought
about by the grace of God in Christ, as contrasted with the
natural disobedience of all men and he's picturing here by prophecy
that God has some of his elect out of the Gentiles. Gentiles,
can you imagine that? Gentiles are going to be saved. You believe that? I do. And he
says this, he says, that Jonadab shall not want a man to stand
before me. Now that phrase, stand before
me, literally means to stand before God, ministering before
God, serving God. That's what he's talking about.
And that pictures acceptance with God. You see, before we
can serve God, you know, we're sinners. We cannot serve God
acceptably unless the matter of sin is taken care of. You've heard me say it a couple
of weeks ago. I talked about the moment you say God saves
sinners, God forgives sins, God accepts sinners, God brings sinners
into his family, you have got a major, major, major theological,
moral, ethical problem. Because you see, God is holy.
And He's just. And He's got to punish sin. If
I were to stand up here and say, now God's going to send everybody
from Adam on straight to hell, there'd be no theological, moral,
or ethical problem. No legal problem. Why? Because
that'd just simply be God giving all of us what we deserve. So when you talk about sinners
serving God, You have to understand from the context of the Bible
as a whole and the situation that we're in by nature, fallen
in Adam, that this matter of sin has to be taken care of.
Before you can serve God, we have to be redeemed by the blood
and regenerated by the Spirit. And that's what he's talking
about. This is a picture of the future salvation of God's elect
among the Gentiles who will obey the Lord according to the gospel
of His grace in Christ. They'll be brought to faith in
Christ. They'll serve in newness of spirit
because God will give them a new heart, a new mind, a new spirit,
new life, new motive, new goal. And that is to glorify God in
Christ. Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man, not like
a man to stand before me to serve me forever. God has some people
out of the Gentiles. Now, there are some people who
say, well, that means in that specific family, God has some
elect. Well, I believe that's so. But I'll tell you what, just
like the old writer said, well, if God can save one Gentile,
he can save more, can't he? Well, how do you know he saves
any of us? He'll bring you to Christ. He'll leave you with
no hope but Christ and your joy. You might have some joy here
on this earth, but you realize it's not going to last, don't
you? You know it's not going to last. You might wake up and
have a great day tomorrow, but there's another day coming, isn't
there? We're just not connected to this world. Our joy is in
Christ. And that's how we live our lives by the grace of God.
All right.