1202. Proclamation to the Faithful

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Today on The Daily Platform, we're continuing a series from Seminary Chapel on proclaiming the invincible word in a cancel culture.

Today's speaker is Dr. Gary Reimers, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina. We are under constant pressure to adopt the changing cultural norms of our society. Sometimes that pressure is overt, intense, and insistent, while other times it is more subtle and more intangible. But it's always at work, trying to turn people away from God's way, and it's a powerful influence. Jeremiah 35 is one place where God presents the answer, but it does so in an unusual way. This is a dramatic portrayal, a dramatic object lesson that clarifies the issues involved when people are in a society facing that kind of pressure.

Our pressure is great in our day, but that kind of pressure is not new. It was already going on in Jeremiah's day. An example in chapter 35 is a family, a clan, known as the Recubites. The message here is a call to guard your heart to listen to God, that God is speaking through his word. He wants to do that this morning. He wants to do that in every Bible class that you take. He wants to do that every time you open his word. You have to guard your heart to make sure you are inclined to listen, because that goes against all the voices in our world today. Let's look into this passage.

This falls naturally into two parts. Verses 1 through 11 are the portrayal and the hands-on lesson that God wants us to derive from what he describes in these verses. And so the example here is a family. This family has an ancestor.

His name is Jonadab. Jonadab is the son of Recub, and so the family goes by Jonadab's father's name, but Jonadab is the key character here in this story. The story tells us that a father has authority over his children. It's an authority that many fathers are hesitant to take advantage of and to impose on their family.

We all, of course, do so to some degree, but when it comes to lifelong decisions, children have to make up their own mind, right? Well, not in Jonadab's experience. He commanded his people, his descendants, and he's expecting obedience. And that obedience, as this passage opens, faces a test. This is actually a low spiritual point for the people of Israel. As verse 1 tells us, this episode took place during the days of Jehoiakim. It's hard to imagine a lower point for God's people than the reign of Jehoiakim. The instruction to Jeremiah, I'm not going to go through all of the verses. I'll remind you of the story.

You've read this before. We don't have time to read all the verses, but God instructs Jeremiah to locate, there in the city of Jerusalem, the clan of the Rechabites. This might be somebody that Jeremiah has hardly paid any attention to.

They tended to be on the outskirts of society. But they were there in Jerusalem, and he'll tell us why they are there, and he instructs Jeremiah to bring the family into the temple. And in one of the chambers of the temple, he is to offer them wine to drink.

And so then Jeremiah relates that he located this family, named some of the leaders of the family. Verse 4, he says, I brought them into the house of the Lord, into the chamber, and he describes the particular place. You might have thought, one of the chambers of the temple? Thought there were only two. There's the holy place and the holy of holies.

Which one is he going to use? Well actually, there were some others, and I'm going to go ahead here just a bit, because I found this in the ESV Study Bible. It's a drawing based on all of the instructions that we have, and descriptions we have in 1 Kings of the construction of the temple. And so you see the holy place, and the holy of holies represented there, but on the outside walls are all of these other rooms. In fact, they are three stories high, and access to each one of them, some of those are storage rooms, others are apartments where officials in the temple could live, probably just temporarily while they're on duty.

They would cycle off duty for a period of time, go back to their own homes. But pick one of these chambers, was the instruction to Jeremiah, so he did that. And he assembled all the family of the Rechabites in verse 5, and placed before them pots or vessels or pitchers of wine and cups.

And he said unto them, drink wine. That's the test. It's a test because these very same people have been commanded by their ancestor, Jonadab, not to do that. Now this is God directing it, so this is not a temptation.

God doesn't tempt people to sin. This is a demonstration. Demonstration of the grace that God can make available to do what they ought to do. We are now 250 years after Jonadab, and these people are facing a test because they had already committed themselves to obey their ancestor.

Let's go back up. Now this case, as described here, involves what we call personal convictions. The issue right at the forefront is a matter of drinking wine. That was not a matter of command for God. There is no command that says do not drink wine under any circumstances. In fact, it was an acceptable practice, not just among the wider society as it is in our day as well.

It was acceptable among God's people, acceptable to the Lord. Now we have to understand there was a difference in what they were drinking. Did it have alcoholic content?

Of course. There's no other way for it to be preserved without refrigeration or modern canning processes. So yes, there was an alcoholic content. There was limited to natural fermentation. And virtually all of the historical and archaeological evidence says that they always mixed their wine with water.

Typically with three parts water, one part wine. And that's not just the standard for God's people. There was no distinction between God's people and the wider society.

That's where we get a vast majority of our historical and archaeological evidence. As long as it's mixed, it violates no biblical principle. And so what Jeremiah is setting in front of the Rechabites that day in one of the chambers of the temple is not a violation of any command of God. As we'll see, it is a violation of their ancestor's command.

But this is a personal conviction on the part of that ancestor. In verses three through five, this includes some what we could see as reasonable pressures. Bring them into the temple.

That'd be an intimidating experience, wouldn't you think? These individuals have probably never been that close to the holy place ever before in their lives. And who's instructing them to drink wine?

It's none other than Jeremiah, a well-respected prophet of God among those who take God's word seriously. And besides, there it is. Tasty. These people don't drink wine. They're pretty much limited to water and maybe some milk on occasion. There was nothing else. There was no other beverage for them to drink.

This would have been a challenging circumstance in all of those respects. And we get their answer beginning in verse six. But they said, we will drink no wine.

Why? For Jonadab, the son of Rekab, our father, commanded us, saying, you shall drink no wine, neither ye nor your sons forever. This wasn't just during his lifetime, now long over. Forever.

Our family is not going to do this. And he's not done. He issued some more commands. Verse seven, neither shall ye build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any of these things.

But all your days ye shall dwell in tents, that ye may live many days in the land where ye be strangers. Now, the commentary literature has a strong element of opinion about Jonadab and his personal standards. The opinion, while widespread, is that this is ridiculous. These are random issues that he's settled on. These are just things he thinks would be best. It's personal preference for him, and he is imposing this on his family.

Even suggesting that he shouldn't have done that. And furthermore, their dad is dead now. They have no obligation to continue to follow the commandments that he gave to them.

But remarkably, they still do. And see, they want to remove the content of the commands entirely from the point of the chapter. All the chapter is about is that a father gave commands. What he commanded doesn't matter.

Actually, they're kind of weird. But that he commanded and they obeyed, that's all there is to this point. I think, though, that they overlook some evidence in the text.

Some of it occurs already in verse 7, where he commands them all these things for this reason at the end of verse 7. That ye may live many days in the land where ye be strangers. Aliens, in their own society, in their own country. What could prompt this man to want his descendants forever to live as nomads with a degree of separation? But they were not hermits. People that plant no garden, they're essentially like modern Bedouins. They're dependent on their animals that they raise and graze from place to place. And they're also dependent on trade. There's some other things they've got to have, other kinds of food, and they're not raising it themselves. So they're not entirely separate from society.

But there is a bit of removal here, and it's very deliberate. The phrase that you may live many days in the land is not just prescribing a lifestyle that's healthier. You'll live longer if you live like this. He seems to be responding to a couple of things. One is God's promise. His promise that if you follow my ways, obey God, that God would extend the opportunity to serve him. We'll see God confirming that by the end of the chapter.

But there's something else here as well. Something else we need to know about Jonadab. You remember the account of Jehu when he killed the current king, the neighboring king, and took over the government.

And as he's in the midst of taking over in this coup, he was a military general. He was in his chariot, and he came across a man by the name of Jehanadab. And he extended his hand with a greeting and looking for somebody that would affirm the good things that he's doing, brings him up into his chariot, and he says, come see my zeal for the Lord. That Jehanadab is the center of recap. Jehanadab, Jehanadab, it's the same name, just a slightly different spelling. Jehanadab, when he was brought up into that chariot, that's because Jehu already knew that Jehanadab was really concerned about the direction of their society, about the prevalence of Baal in their day. And Jehu wanted Jehanadab to see his zeal for the Lord, which included trying to eradicate Baalism from the land of Israel. That's the Jehanadab that here, sensitive to the issues of society, and apparently able to discern the harmful direction that society and their current culture would have on his family, decided he needed to institute some safeguards. And so these safeguards he has designed because he can perceive there's danger here.

And I want to help protect my family. You see, the content here is integral to this message. He could see it when many others couldn't. And he was willing to make some changes in his own life that we would say deprived him of some things that, well, it's actually hard to see how there's anything wrong with it. As long as you follow the biblical standards, what's wrong with wine? What could possibly be wrong with planting a garden in your backyard?

And a house? Why do we have to avoid houses? But Jehanadab's motivation is, I just don't want myself or my family to be that close to society. Associating that closely, we need to have some distinctions here.

And even distinctions that to us might seem to be arbitrary. That's always the nature of personal convictions. Somebody has a personal conviction, that is something where there's no explicit command in scripture, and to other people, ah, I don't see why.

Personal convictions are a personal way to obey God, to follow His ways, and not be just like other people in this world. Fathers can perceive danger. And when they issue commands, God's plan is that children must obey their parents. The testimony through verse 11, then, is from the current Rechabites there in that chamber in the temple, talking to Jeremiah, and they explain, we've been obeying. 250 years later, and the current Rechabites are still obeying God. And we get no sense here that their attitude is, can you believe it? These monstrosity commands He's given to us, and we still have to obey.

Now I think He also succeeded in passing on the motivation. They're okay with the distinctions. And they have to explain, we are currently living in Jerusalem, but that's because of the Babylonians. They're making a beto in life dangerous, so we're here, but it's only temporary.

As soon as that danger is gone, we're ready to move back. I knew a man once that we were having lunch together, and people serving the table brought us a bowl of potato chips. I handed it to him, and he's all, no thanks.

Okay, don't want potato chips today, that's okay. But he felt compelled to give an explanation. He says, I don't eat potato chips. He wasn't aware that this man had quite a health consciousness. And he said, well, it's actually not directly related to health, although he says, I don't think I'm missing anything valuable here. But he says, I noticed years ago a weakness in one of my sons, a weakness that pertained to food and other areas, but food as well. And he said, we made a pact back then that neither of us would eat potato chips. Okay, that's kind of low on the biblical convictions standard, right? The point is he discerned a problem, and he took steps to put up some guardrails, hoping that his son would not just get victory over potato chips, but food indulgences of a wider scale, and even beyond food, he wanted to teach his son discipline.

Yeah, I think that's largely what's going on here with John Adab. And the lesson here is that he gave a command, and his descendants followed. God has given an opportunity to hear wisdom that God himself can speak through your parents. You are blessed to have living parents.

Further, if you are blessed to have Christian parents, don't miss the opportunity to hear God speak through them. We let a lot of other people speak. You might need to reassess how much input you let Hollywood have in your thinking. Facebook as well. Facebook's under intense scrutiny this week.

I hope that scrutiny will continue. How much influence should that have on your life? I'm going to ask, have you thought about setting some guardrails in your life? This had a direct impact on me when my wife and I first started our family, and I realized this child and the children God provides, they're going to be looking to me for what's the best way to live. And in connection with that, I had the first church family that I was pastoring, and I thought, for the most part, these people are going to follow the direction I set for them. I'd better make sure I take that responsibility seriously and ask God to help me set appropriate guardrails, things that might not even have a direct biblical command behind them, but their goal is that this society in which we have to live will not have undue influence on me, my family, even my church family.

Now the lesson in the rest of this chapter is actually quite simple. The Lord claims to have authority over his people, and that authority includes a warning of judgment. Here God asserts that in comparison with Jonadab and his descendants, God should receive greater obedience.

He's arguing from the lesser to the greater. Look what they're doing for a 250-year dead ancestor, and here he is, the living God, issuing repeated warnings as he describes in verses 12 through 16. God deserves greater obedience, and further, God can provide greater incentive. Jonadab can do nothing if his family decides we've been doing this long enough. God can do something, and he describes here the discipline that he has available, and here impending consequences fulfilling past prophecies.

If we are currently in this episode in about the year 601 BC, about 14 years later is when these consequences took place. But on the positive side, and there are two things going on here. One, God commends obeying your parents, honoring your parents. So in verse 18, God observes your relationship with your family. Jeremiah says, reporting God's sentiment, because you have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all his precepts, and done according to all that he has done. Oh, there's a biblical promise there.

You obey your parents, you will live long in the land. So God gives that statement of fulfillment. He says, therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Jonadab the son of Rekab shall not want, he'll not lack a man to stand before me forever.

That's an amazing promise. I guarantee a future descendants. We don't know who they are today.

They're not identifiable. But with this promise, there are some Rekabites. What God would like us to have some more.

To have more individuals say, I am going to set and follow safeguards that will help keep me from the influence of this society. Verse 15 describes that influence as serving other gods. Other gods are things that you love and deep down the reality is you love them more than you love God. How can you tell what those are? Look at what you do when you've got spare time. Those are probably things you love and they might be legitimate. But assess those things, whether it's social media or sports or whatever your inclinations are. Not saying that those are wrong. But you must not love them more than God.

How could you know? How about proposing a test and go without them for a period of time? The real point that this whole chapter, though, is you guard the influences of others to make sure you can listen to God. The word listen occurs repeatedly, both positively and negatively throughout this chapter.

It's the key word. Commit yourself then to control the other voices so that you can hear God. In your daily Bible reading, ask God, what must change? Where have I already let the world influence me?

Would you help me change that now? Let's bow for prayer. Father, we are thankful that you have given us this instruction, the example of the recombines. Father, they instituted safeguards not because they were so smart, but because you gave them grace. Father, we plead for that same grace, for your forgiveness, for those instances when we have let the voices of our society have too much impact on us. Father, we pray that your word, through our intense listening and obedience, would by far have the greatest impact. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You've been listening to a message preached by Dr. Gary Reimers. Join us again tomorrow as we continue this series, Proclaiming the Invincible Word in a Cancel Culture, on The Daily Platform.