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Amen. You can set your hymnals
aside. Before I preach this morning, I'm going to sing a song that's
written by a man in the States named Ron Hamilton. Ron Hamilton has that ministry
we've talked about with you before, Patch the Pirate. It's a children's
ministry. And God's really used him in writing music and hymns.
A lot of our songs in this book, because it's published by them,
are ones that he's written. But he wrote this when his dad
passed away, I believe. And it's entitled, I Saw Jesus
in You. It's a good one to think about
Mother's Day as we celebrate the moms that God's given to
us. We talked about Sunday school. Paul asked about Titus. Did Titus walk where I walked?
Did he walk in my steps? And we talked about walking in
the steps of Jesus and how we need to walk where those that
follow us see Christ. And so I saw Jesus in you. When I enter heaven's glory and
I see my Savior's face, I will offer Him ten thousand years
of praise. Then I'll find that special one
In whose life I saw God's Son, and through tears of joy with
trembling lips these words I'll say, I saw Jesus in you I saw
Jesus in you I could hear his voice in the words you said I
saw Jesus in you in your eyes I saw his care I could see his
love was there you were faithful and I saw Jesus in you When I stand before my Father
to receive my life's reward, and my soul is bathed in God's
eternal day, When this race on earth is run, And God sees the
works I've done, More than anything, I long to hear my Father say,
I saw Jesus in you. I saw Jesus in you. I could hear his voice in the
words you said. I saw Jesus in you. In your eyes I saw his care I
Could see his love was there You were faithful and I saw Jesus
in you And if you love the Lord, I think
you'd say, by God's grace, that's what I want, help Jesus to be
seen in me. All right, we'll dismiss the
little ones to go to crash with Mrs. Shore. You can go ahead and be
dismissed. The rest of us, please open up our Bibles to Jeremiah
35. Was that band equipment coming in the door? All right. We might be OK, but
if we start to hear music from the other hall or something,
feel free to get up and help me by shutting those doors. But glad you're here today. It's
good to have Alex with us today and glad. He's able to visit
with us. He's at Faith Mission and came
across from Northern Ireland to study there. I guess I look
forward to talking with him a bit more. He's a student there and
training for the ministry. Is that right? So praise God.
It's great to see a young person that has a heart for the Lord,
isn't it? It's really an encouragement to us today to have you with
us. All right, Jeremiah chapter 35. You know, mothers are great.
at accepting gifts this morning. We gave some things to my wife,
you know, and I enjoyed doing that this morning. But I remember
my mom was just great at receiving gifts. One time I went to a garage
sale, we call them in the States, but it's kind of like a car boot
sale in your garage and I bought a very nice glass. It was beautiful. It had this
long stem on it. It went up to this nice part
up here and it was gorgeous. I'd never seen anything like
that in our house before. I thought mom would like that. And so I paid,
I think, a dime for it or something. I brought it home. And I remember
my mom just being very thankful for it and not saying, you know
what? She didn't say, I think that's for drinking alcohol.
She didn't say, well, where's the set or anything like that.
She just had a good mom. She just took it and appreciated
it. I remember also playing with
some buttons and some glue. some thread and just I was kind
of playing with it. All of a sudden I had this little
man, you know, and just a little couple of dots for eyes. And
it was this little kind of look like a little man. I don't think
I really tried to make it, but I mean, it just kind of ended
up being made. And I remember giving that to
my mom. Hey, mom, here, you know, and that was I think mom still
has it. I remember it being on a Christmas tree for several
years. So moms are good. at taking a gift from their kids.
And I know today mom's got some things much nicer than those
things and can honestly appreciate them. But moms are good at taking
those things and appreciating them. And I want to challenge
us this morning. What I'm going to preach is not specifically
a Mother's Day message. I say it's a Mother's Day introduction. But you know the best thing that
you could give your mom today as a child Is the gift of obedience
and that's what we're gonna look at in the Word of God. There's
one thing that a godly mother would desire More than anything
from their child is that is that my child would learn obedience
and give the gift of obedience God who's the perfect authority
says he'd rather be given our obedience than a great sacrificial
offering offering 1 Samuel 15 verse 22, Samuel said to King
Saul, as King Saul had tried to do his sacrifice, he wasn't
a priest, he wasn't supposed to do that. Samuel was taking
a long time coming to him and he's anxious to obey God and
so he said he forced himself to sacrifice. And Samuel said,
Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better
than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. If you
want to give God something today that really delights the heart
of God, God doesn't want necessarily a great sacrifice. God doesn't
want necessarily a great offering where we can say, God, I gave
this to you. What God wants is just obedience.
First, just our willingness to say, God, I am striving to obey
you and to please you in what I do. And so God accepts obedience
as a great gift. I'm sure mothers would as well.
Proverbs written by the wisest man, Solomon, Proverbs 10 verse
1 says, A wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is
the heaviness of his mother. I mean, how many moms have stayed
awake at night, and moms can do this sometimes, they'll get
something in their mind and they just can't sleep as they think
about it. How many moms are losing sleep as they just think about
a child that, especially a Christian mom, a child that's away from
the Lord. We talked about it a bit in Sunday School, a child
that has rebelled, a child that has gone away, how that breaks
the heart of a godly mother. Proverbs 17, verse 25 says, A
foolish son is a grief to his father, in bitterness to her
that bare him. I can't imagine the mother of
the man that took the lives of those people down in London this
past week and the grief that causes to a family that looks
at what they saw as that little child, that little innocent child,
and thought, how could that child grow up to do this? And it ought
to be a wake-up call to us as children of our parents, God
helping me. I'm going to live a life that
will never shame my family, never hurt my family. God, a life of
obedience. And so our topic. This morning
is obedience, our text again is Jeremiah chapter 35. But what
we have is, and we didn't read the entire chapter, and it's
a very interesting chapter, and I've read this in my Bible reading
the last couple years, and I think every time I get to it, I go,
I've not seen this story before. I don't remember this story,
and why wasn't I taught this in Sunday school? It's interesting
to me because it's kind of a story you think, and I understand with
wine and things, maybe that's why it's not there in Sunday
school, but it's a great illustration because it's a God-given illustration.
God, we'll see in this story, takes the Rechabites, puts them
in front of Israel, and says to Israel, Israel, look at the
Rechabites. Look how they obey their dad.
Look how they kept his word. Why don't you do the same for
me? And so God uses them as an illustration of obedience. Our topic this morning is obedience.
Again, the text is Jeremiah chapter 35. And before we really get
into it this morning, let's pray and ask God to bless his word
to our hearts. Father, I pray that the spirit of God to give
us grace as we come to this passage. Father, I pray that you challenge
us in our obedience. And Father, I pray that you'd
help us to see different facets of obedience, different things
that will impact how we obey, why we obey, when we obey. And
Father, it would be very helpful to us this morning to be in a
place of obedience to God. Father, that's the main thing.
There's somebody or some today that would be disobedient to
you with regard to the gospel. Father, you command all men everywhere
to repent. Father, pray that Spirit of God
work in their hearts about obeying the gospel. Father, some might
be sanctification and getting sin out of their life and dealing
with sin. Father, give us grace to obey
you. Father, some that need to obey
the Lord in believer's baptism. And Father, we pray that the
Spirit of God give them grace to obey. But Father, I pray that
the Spirit of God guide me as I preach. Lord, I'm not worthy
to proclaim your Word. I praise you for the privilege.
I thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank you for the Holy
Spirit. And Father, we are the group
that you desire to hear the Word of God this morning in this place.
We thank you for each one that's here. And Father, I pray that
you'd meet needs this morning, that you would speak to us. And
God, that we listen. It's in Christ's name we pray.
Amen. All right, so we're going to just start at the beginning
of the passage. We're going to try to work our way straight down through
it this morning. But God's going to take the Rechabites. He's going to put them center
stage and say to Israel, Israel, this is my example of obedience. And so how does he do that? First
of all, he calls the leaders of the Rechabites to meet with
Jeremiah. And so beginning at verse 1 again,
we've already read it this morning, but let's begin reading there
again. It says, The word which came unto Jeremiah from the Lord
in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah,
saying, Go into the house of the Rechabites and speak unto
them, and bring them into the house of the Lord, into one of
the chambers, and give them wine to drink. Then I took Jezaniah,
the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazaniah, and his brethren,
and all the sons of the whole house of the Rechabites." As
you read about the Rechabites and study a bit who they were,
they were a nomadic people. They were called also in the
Bible, Kenites. They were descendants of Jethro, Moses' father-in-law,
that was with them as they came out in the Exodus. And so they
were later absorbed into the tribe of Judah. And they said
today, I mean, you can't tell the difference to know who's
of which tribe even, but they were absorbed into. So they're
God-fearing people. And this man, Jonadab, that it
speaks of, is also called Jehonadab, and he was a God-fearing man.
You remember the story of Jehu, when Jehu had all the Baal worshippers
come into the building and he said to them in 2 Kings 10.23,
Jehu went And it says, Jehonadab, the son of Rekeb, into the house
of Baal, and said unto the worshipers of Baal, Search and look, that
there be here with you none of the servants of the Lord, but
the worshipers of Baal only. And he said that because it was
a trap. He was bringing them onto that place to kill them,
just like the prophet Elijah on Mount Carmel. He had that
big duel that took place as he called down fire from heaven.
And afterwards, as they took care of the idolatry that had
come into that land, they'd slew the prophets of Baal. So here,
Jehonadab, this man of God, back then, this great-great-grandfather
of these people had participated, with Jehu and getting idolatry
out of the land. So he's a great man of God. He
was a respected, also as God does this, a respected witness
observed what took place. Verse 4 says, and I brought them
into the house of the Lord, into the chamber of of the sons of
Hanan, the son of Igdalia, a man of God, which was by the chamber
of the princes that describes where it's at. But the man that
was there, that Jeremiah's there, the Rehoboites are there, and
a man of God's there, a man of God that's respected. And he's
going to give verification to what takes place. As Jeremiah,
with these Rehobites, and as he sets this test before them,
the man of God is going to be there to give a witness and say,
this is what took place. Jeremiah, at God's command, then
puts the test before the sons of Rehob, as he says in verse
five. And it's set before the sons of the house of the Rehobites,
pots full of wine and cups. And I said, notice he doesn't
say God said, I said unto them, drink ye wine. It's an interesting test, isn't
it? I mean, here it is, Jeremiah, man of God, calls him in and
says, drink ye wine. There's a big decision that's
going to take place, but thankfully, by God's grace, they're going
to be obedient and a great example of obedience. And so this morning,
what I want us to look at is how God wants us to obey. How
God wants us to obey and ask the question, am I an obedient
child of God? We look at these principles about
obedience that these men had in their life. Am I in a place
where I'm going to obey God? And so principles about obedience,
if you have a pen, you could jot down some notes this morning
as we go along. But the first one is obey by deciding. Obey
by deciding. It says in verse six, as they
answered that, they said what they said, we will drink no wine. They didn't have to even think
about it. They agreed together. Jeremiah
sits in front of them, and they said, no, we'll drink no wine. Contemporary of theirs is a man
by the name of Daniel. You know, Daniel had a similar
test that was given to him as he was taken captive into the
land of Babylon, and he's there, he's in a foreign land. He's
a young man, but he has burden in his heart that I'm gonna obey
God, I'm gonna please God, and there's set before him the drink
and the food of the king that had been offered to idols, and
he rejects that, and the Bible says in Daniel 1.8, but Daniel
purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with
a portion of the king's meat. nor with the wine which he drank.
Therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he
might not defile himself. Daniel is a young man. The Rechabites, we're talking
about them as sons, but I mean, these are men. Daniel's a teenager. I don't know exactly, as far
as contemporaries, exactly where he was at in this. Because later
on, Daniel learns by reading the book of Jeremiah that the
70 years is determined. He begins to pray for the deliverance
of Israel from Babylon after 70 years. So if he had, at that
point in his life, access to Jeremiah, he might have known
this story of the Rechabites and what they had done. And as
a young man, he said, no, I'm not going to have anything to
do with that. You know, that'd be a good decision,
young person to make. And we're not here this morning
to talk about what wine was in the Bible, what it is today.
But that would be a great decision to have in your heart. I will
drink no wine. I will drink no wine. But the
Rechabites didn't need to discuss what they were going to do. As
a test was put before him, you don't see the men talking to
one another and naming each other and saying, what should we do?
There's a decision that has already been made, that they don't need
to even consider what they're going to do. It's good for us. And one of the things that will
really protect us from temptation is by knowing ahead of time what
we're going to do, having that in our hearts. It's not a temptation. If the decision has already been
made and the answer is no, it's not going to happen. When I was
a child growing up, we had a commercial that I remember on the telly
would come on. Fire safety was big when I was
a kid. And it was a situation where somebody catches on fire.
And it was to drop and to roll to get the flames out. It's good to know ahead of time.
Nobody expects someday to be in a house fire or something,
a catch on fire, or be doing something and have a fire. But
when the fire takes place, it's good to know ahead of time what
you're going to do, that you're going to lay on the ground, you're going to roll.
It's good for us as, again, we think about what's going to take
place in life that we would have decisions made ahead of time
that says to God, God, I'm not going to do that. God, I'm not
going to smoke a cigarette. God, I'm not going to drink alcohol.
God, I'm not going to look at pornography. God, I'm not going
to swear. I'm not going to curse. I'm not
going to go with these friends that do those kind of things.
God, I know ahead of time by God's grace what I'm going to
do. And the Recordbites had that. They didn't need to discuss it.
but it was a real test of their obedience. They could have reasoned
among themselves, and as we study the passage more this morning,
you're gonna find that part of what they, and we read it this
morning, part of what they had been commanded not to do was
to dwell in houses. They're just to dwell in tents.
And we'll talk about their coming into Jerusalem. but they're already
in Jerusalem. And so it's possible they're
living in houses and there's a reason for that, but they could
have said, you know, we've already changed this about our culture
and our society. And so let's change this as well
about what had been commanded us. They could have said that.
They could have said, well, you know, when in Rome, do as the
Romans. They're in Jerusalem again. They could have said, you know,
Jeremiah's asking us. Jeremiah's a man of God. They
could have reasoned and said, you know, surely it's not wrong
to listen to a man of God that's saying, hey, drink this. They could have reasoned that
250 years is a long time, and we haven't talked about this
this morning, but Jonadab was way back in their family lineage. We say father to refer to our
father. We don't say father to refer
to grandfather, great-grandfather, great-grandfather. But when they
spoke about Father, they're going way back and saying, our father,
Jonadab. And what the Bible says, God
said, they've kept their father's word. They're going way back.
And they could have said, we've kept it all these years. But
you know, they obeyed God. There's other contemporaries
of them as well, and at this time, praise God, there were
men of conviction. There was another group, three
Hebrew children that we know as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. In Daniel chapter 3, verses 16
through 18, it says, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they're
at that idol that the king has made, and the king has said,
when you hear that music, you have to fall down and worship
that idol. And if you don't, I've got a fiery furnace over
here, and whosoever doesn't worship the image, they're going to be
cast alive into that fiery furnace. And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we're not careful
or anxious to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our
God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning,
fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thy hand, O king. But
if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve
thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." And as we talk about obey by
deciding, it's a conviction, isn't it? It's a conviction. No, I mean,
that's something that I won't do. And not only will I not do
it, but I won't do it no matter what enticement, no matter what
punishment, no matter what takes place. I have a conviction. I
stand by that conviction and I'll die by that conviction.
And I like what the three Hebrew children said. They said, but
if not. Are God's able to deliver us?
King, we're gonna defy you. We're not careful to answer you
in this matter. We're not anxious about it. Our
God is able to deliver us, but if not? Even if God doesn't deliver
us? Do you have that kind of Christianity
that says to God, but if not? I mean, there's things that we
want to see. We want to see souls saved. We
want to see lives changed. We want to see people respond
to the gospel. But do we have the kind of conviction
that says, like yesterday, we put out flyers that if nobody
gets saved, but if not, we're going to be faithful. I was thinking
about it last night. I mean, we desire, there's things
that we're burdened about. We want to serve God. We want
to see God do things. But do we have a but if not conviction? that says, I am resolved that
I will stand here for the Lord. Obey by deciding. That's the
first thing this morning. Do you have those decisions already
in place so that you're ready to go? You'll not obey if you
have not decided. And then obey by knowing. Obey by knowing. They knew the
law of their father. It says in verse six, they said,
no, we're not going to drink. For Jonadab, the son of Rechab,
our father, commanded us saying, you shall drink no wine, neither
he nor your sons forever. Neither shall you build houses,
nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any, but all your days
you should dwell in tents that you may live many days in the
land where you be strangers. And so they said, no drinking
wine, no settled lifestyle. You know, it's like the Bible
speaks about, when it speaks about as pilgrims, searching
for a land, it's that they're living as if, in a sense, like
the Nazarite vow that separated life, that lifestyle that was
nomadic, and they didn't have vineyards because they're not
going to grow grapes to produce wine. They're not going to be
settled in their life. They knew as they thought about
that the source of the law. It says in again in verse 6,
our father commanded us. He's a God-fearing patriarch
of the past that lived for God, loved God. And they look back
at him and said, no, that's our father's law. He said, drink
no wine. And so as it came to a test,
they obeyed by knowing, first of all, that this is a law from
our father. And it's his law that we're going
to keep and obey. This past week we had two men
into our home, a gas technician, an electrician, they were checking
the gas and the electric. One man gave me the opportunity
that I don't get very often, that's rather than me going up
to somebody and saying, you know, a conversation about the Lord,
he asked me, I said, I'm the Baptist minister in Lone Head.
He started asking me about Revelation and some other things. I said,
you know, we're studying that book on Thursday nights in our Bible
study. And one thing I said to him as
we talked about Revelation, I said, you can see it happening right
now. And as we talked about that, I said, you know, one of the
great things about that is that just emphasizes that this is
a divine book. And I got one guy that's kind
of interested and one guy that's really not interested, but he's
listening. And I said, I said to him, I said, because it's
a divine book, we don't choose and say, well, this is, this
is true. This is not true because it's
God's book. And that's important. Our society
today, they don't obey by knowing because they've rejected that
this is God's word. And they're not going to obey
it. because they absolutely do not believe that God said it.
What helps us as a believer, as we seek to mold our life to
a life of obedience for God, is first of all, to know that
this book is divine. A lot of obedience, I would say,
in our society is probably due down to that fact, this unbelief
that this book is a divine book. If people really understood today
and ask yourself this, And understand, man's heart is hard, and they
reject God. It's unbelief. It's sin on their
part for rejecting this. But if they knew that this book
was the Word of God as we know it as believers, in the sense
of standing before a holy, awesome God about to be cast into a lake
of fire based on this book, if they knew that in their heart,
that's where obedience comes from, isn't it? I mean, isn't
that the problem this morning? That they look at this book and
they go, it's just a book. No, it's from God. See, what
helped the Rechabites, they looked at the law and they said, wait
a second, that is the law of our father. And they were going
to obey their father. We got to look at this book today
and say, you know, that's the law of God. So I don't change
it. I don't try to get it to say
what I want it to say, because God said it. It's God's Word. 2 Timothy 3.16, all Scripture
is given by inspiration of God. It's God-breathed. It's profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness. What's really going to help us in our life
is to say, that is God's Word. And the second thing, they knew
the source of the law, but they also knew the law. They said,
saying, ye shall. And they listed it, we already
read it. But nobody would ever convince them. Even if Jeremiah
said to them right now, he said, look, Rehoboites, that's not
what your dad said. It's not what your father said.
Your father said to drink wine. You know what? Those Rehoboites,
every single one would have said, not so, because we know that
our father said. Neither your sons, nor your sons'
sons. These sons are passing it on.
Next generation, next generation, next generation. That's what
our father said. They know what the law is, and
it's not to drink wine. You'll see from the very beginning,
seeks to attack what God said. He doesn't just attack the fact
that it's from God, he attacks what God said. Remember in the
Garden of Eden, as he was tempting Eve, Genesis 3 verse 1 says,
And in Sunday school last week, we just to kind of a simple, what does
the Bible teach lesson that we had, and we're talking about
this story. Satan says, hasn't God said that
you can eat of every tree of the garden? It's partly true
and it's partly false. God said you could eat of every
tree of the garden, except for the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. The day that you eat of that tree, thou shalt
surely die. But Satan was trying to change
it, wasn't he? As he said, hath God said. You
know, Satan is going to come up to you and you'll be, you
know, somebody say, hey, have a drink. Just a little alcohol,
what's the problem? Didn't Paul say, take a little
wine for thy stomach's sake? You could say something like
that. Well, what does the Bible say
about alcohol? Proverbs 20 verse one. One, wine
is a mocker. Strong drink is raging. And whosoever
is deceived thereby is not wise. I live across from a pub. I see
the problems of alcohol visually. Wine is a mocker, strong drink
is raging, whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. A lot of
Christians say, ah, come on, I can social drink. Wine is a
mocker, strong drink is raging, whosoever is deceived thereby
is not wise. Proverbs 23, verse 29. Who hath
woe, who hath sorrow, who hath contentions, who hath babbling,
who hath wounds without cause, who hath redness of eyes? They
that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine,
look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his
color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright, at the last it
biteth like a serpent. and stingeth like an adder. Thine
eyes shall behold strange women, sexual sin. Thine heart shall
utter perverse things. Yea, thou shalt be as he that
lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon
the top of the mast. They have stricken me, shalt
thou say, and I was not sick. They have beaten me, and I felt
it not. When shall I wake? I will seek
it yet again." Yesterday, we're down in Princess Street, and
an Irishman, who was talking to me this far away, and if I
couldn't tell by his actions that he was intoxicated, I could
tell by his breath. He'd been drinking. He's already
drunk. And I said to him, I said, think
about this when you're sober, because he said, I'm going to
go to heaven because I'm a good person. I said, have you ever lied all
the time? I said, well, let me tell you a verse. The Bible says,
all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with
fire and brimstone, which is the second death. All liars shall
have their part in that lake. And you're on the wrong way.
And I said, when you're sober, think about that. And you see,
I mean, it's grievous that Christians would even try to defend alcohol
when so many lives have been destroyed by it. And so what's
gonna protect me? What's gonna help me to obey? Obey by knowing, knowing what
the word of God says. And we could this morning go
into many other scriptures, scriptures about friends. Proverbs 13 verse
20, he that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion
of fools shall be destroyed. As I seek to obey, God give me
good friends. What does the Bible say about
dating? What does the Bible say about
God's will? What does the Bible say about
sanctification? What does the Bible say? Obey by knowing. So obey by knowledge and by decision. But then obey by habit. Obey
by habit. It says in verse 8, Thus have
we obeyed the voice of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, our father,
in all that he hath 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 vineyard, nor field, nor seed. But we have dwelt in tents and
have obeyed and done according to all that Jonadab, our father,
commanded us. How long has this been taking
place? 250 years. You could say they were obeying
by habit. They were obeying by habit. You
know, habits are interesting things. They're things that you
do without thinking about them. If I asked somebody that's been
married very long, tell me the habit of your spouse. I mean,
it's probably something that we all do that we don't think
about. I had a girl in my youth group. She liked to twirl her
hair. I don't know if you've ever seen
somebody that habitually twirls their hair. But she twirled her
hair to the point where she had an inch wide bald spot on her
head from twirling her hair. She had to get steroid injections
into her head to try to get her hair to grow back. Habits, some
habits are bad. But you know there is such a
thing as a good habit. There are things that we can
help ourselves in obedience by being habitually doing things,
habitually obeying. I mean, you could think about
it like this. Manners, you could say, are habits, aren't they? Holding
the door for people, being kind, being gracious. I mean, those
are good habits that we do habitually. Let me ask you this morning,
what are your good habits of obedience to God? Do you habitually open this book
every day and spend time in it seeking God? Do you habitually
bow your head in prayer and spend quality time with the Lord? Are
you habitually in church when the doors are open, getting there,
seeking God's face? I mean, soul winning that we
did yesterday. Are you habitually seeking those
opportunities to give the gospel to somebody, to speak to them
about the Lord? We're talking about obedience.
How can I better obey God? One of the ways that will help
us is to be habitually obedient so that it's a practice in our
life. I don't know how many times the Rehoboites have been offered
wine, but every single time they'd say, no, no, no. It was a habit. And so when the
test came, it was just easy to say, no, that's not what I do. So obey by habit. Then obey by
wisdom. Obey by wisdom. And in verse
11, it says, but it came to pass when Nebuchadnezzar, king of
Babylon, came up into the land, that we said, come, let us go
to Jerusalem for fear of the army of the Chaldeans and for
fear of the army of the Syrians. So we dwell at Jerusalem. And
they offer that by way of explanation to Jeremiah. They've said to
Jeremiah, no, we're not gonna do that because our father commanded
us. And he said, dwell in tents, don't have vineyards, do these
things. And Jeremiah could have said, well, what are you doing
in Jerusalem? And so they explain, they say,
we're in Jerusalem because of the time that we're in, the danger
that's outside these city walls for the safety of our families,
we've come into this place. And so they're obeying by wisdom. And I hope I can explain this
as I prayed about this message, thought about this message. This
is one area I hope I can explain in the way that I desire to.
And that is this. I cannot stand up this morning
and say, take this book and obey everything in it without fail. And let me add this, without
God. See, obey by wisdom. There's
some people that don't obey by wisdom. They pick up this book
and they say, okay, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna make myself
go to church. I'm gonna do these things. I'm
gonna do these things. I'm gonna do these things. And I'm gonna get
to heaven. How? By my goodness. And it doesn't
work. See, just obeying for obedience
sake, not with grace, not with the Lord's help, not with the
right spirit, not with all the other things. It's not obedience,
is it? And so you look at what the Word
of God is teaching, even in this, it's just that there's a bit
of wisdom that goes with it. The Lord, on the Sabbath day,
He's walking through the field and His disciples pluck the ears
of corn and they begin to eat. Man wasn't made for the Sabbath,
but the Sabbath for the man. He heals on the Sabbath day and
restores life because anybody would know if your ox is in a
ditch on the Sabbath day that you get your ox out of the ditch.
So it's obedience with wisdom. That's a very, I think, vital
principle as we talk about obedience this morning, that there's a
wisdom that we must have as we come to applying principles of
obedience. So obey by wisdom, by habit,
by knowledge, by decision, and then obey by listening. As God,
we're gonna continue with the story now. We've read this first
part of the story now twice, but now as they get done talking
about why we're not gonna do it, this is how God applies it.
It says in verse 12, then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah
saying, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, go
and tell the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
will you not receive instruction to hearken to my word, saith
the Lord? The words of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, that he commanded
his sons not to drink wine are performed. For unto 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 and prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying,
return ye now every man from his evil way and amend your doings
and go not after other gods to serve them. And ye shall dwell
in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers. But
ye have not inclined your ear nor hearkened unto me. So as
God comes now to Israel and says, Israel, look at this example
of how they have obeyed their father, what he says to them,
he says, why didn't you listen? Why don't you listen? Why aren't
you hearkening? I am saying, I am sending. My prophets are getting up early.
I mean, I'm not delaying, I'm getting the message to you. But
what? But you're not listening. this
morning. I mean, you're at church. Praise
God. Are you listening? I mean, you open your Bible and
you read it, but are you listening? How can I, how can I better obey
God? Listen, listen, God, God is a great God. And as we come
to God and say, you know, Lord, will you please lead me? Will
you please guide me? Will you please give me wisdom? God's,
God's not going to hold that back from somebody that desires
it. But when we ask, we gotta listen
to hear what God's gonna say. Are you listening? Are you listening? We're gonna talk about that a
bit more tonight as we talk about the voice of God. Are you listening
to God? And then obey by doing. Obey
by listening, by wisdom, by habit, by knowledge, by decision, and
obey by doing. Obey by doing. Verse 16, it says,
because the sons of Jonadab, the son of Rekeb, have performed
the commandment of their father, which he commanded them, but
this people hath not hearkened unto me." As they obeyed, they didn't do
obedience by saying, I know. Remember we talked about obey
by knowledge, but knowledge though it is necessary for obedience,
it is vain without it. You have to have knowledge to
obey, but if you just have knowledge and you don't do it, it's vain.
When I was in, it uses the word performed. When I was in college
at Bob Jones, I got to be in a play called Merchant of Venice,
and I just saw that they're doing the play again. But Merchant
of Venice, it's a Shakespearean play, and my costume is the only
time in my life where I've worn tights, had makeup, and a wig.
Thank God, right? That's not a normal part of my
life. But if you saw me, You'd look at me and say, Pastor Ben,
you've been performing. You'd get done laughing and then
you'd say, you've been performing. How do you know? Because of my
dress? Because of my actions, if you
saw the play? Let me ask you this, are you
performing obedience to God? See, the word of God says, look
unto me and be saved all the ends of the earth. God commands
men to be saved. Have you obeyed? Have you performed
it? Have you humbled your heart before
God and said, God, I'm sorry, my sin stinks in your sight. Please
forgive me. I want to accept Jesus Christ
as my savior. Those of us that are saved, at some point we performed
that act of obedience to God and accepting Jesus Christ as
our savior. God says to be baptized, to be biblically baptized. Have
you performed it? God commands me, go into all
the world, preach the gospel to every creature. After they
get saved and accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, what am I to
do according to the word of God? I'm to baptize them in the name
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Have you been baptized? What about holiness? Are you sanctified? God commands,
he says, be holy for I'm holy. See, the Lord Jesus Christ is
clean. He's perfectly clean. God commands
us to be like him in holiness. And it's not that we do that
without failure. The steps of a good man are ordered by the
Lord. He delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not
be utterly cast down. For the Lord upholdeth him with
his hand. Failures come. But sanctification is a constant
process of the grace of God, where we go to God, confess our
sin, forsake our sin, God cleanses us, but the reality is, it's
not enough to know I should be holy, it's only enough to be
holy. How are you performing the commands of God? You gotta
obey by doing. And then the last one this morning. Obey by responding. Obey by doing,
by listening, by wisdom, by habit, by knowledge, by decision, but
obey also by responding. Verse 17, therefore, thus saith
the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I will bring
upon Judah and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, all the evil that
I've pronounced against them, because I have spoken unto them,
but they have not heard. I have called unto them, but
this last phrase, but they have not answered. Obey by responding. Obey when
God reaches out. Obey by responding. Last night,
I was out of the house and I'd given the keys to my children. And as I'm walking back, I thought,
oh, yeah, that's right. The doorbell that's wireless
had fallen off, and they'd taken it inside the house. And we've
got a double door, and our house is kind of long. And you don't
always hear somebody knocking at the front door. And I thought,
well, thankfully, I've got my phone in my pocket so I can call,
so I don't have to go to the neighbors and say, can I climb
over the fence and go pound on the back door to get into my house?
So I call, and my wife answered. And she opened the door. You
know, God is doing that all the time in our lives as he's speaking
to us and he's knocking at the door and saying, you know what?
There's something that I want you to do. I had a young person from a college
in the States, every now and then we get emails saying, can
I just ask you some questions about ministering in Scotland?
And so we dialogue with those people. But I said, I said to
that young man, I said, in my email, I said, there's five times
that I can think of where God really called me. And specifically, when I got
saved, as a little boy, God spoke to my heart. I went down, talked
to my dad. I said, Dad, I need to accept Jesus Christ as my
Savior. When I was in high school, and God burned in my heart about
surrendering my life. I was at camp. There was a preacher
preaching. And afterwards, I went out and I wept. And I told God,
God, whatever you want me to do with my life, I'll do. When I
was in college, I was at camp, I was a camp counselor, and God
called me to preach. When I was in grad school, God
called me to church planning. When I was married and praying
about where He wanted me to start a church, God called me to Scotland.
Those are times where God, in my life, I look back and say,
God was asking, God was knocking, and I responded. And I said last
Sunday, I praise God for where I'm at in life. I have no doubt,
I'm doing exactly what God wants me to do with my life. No regrets. But we gotta respond. Today,
as God's speaking to your heart, I hope he's speaking to your
heart this morning, we're talking about obedience. Are you gonna respond? Are you
going to let God have his way in your life this morning? Verse
18 and 19 says, And Jeremiah said unto the house of the Rechabites,
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Because ye
have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept
all his precepts, and done according to 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 a man to stand before
me forever. There's some that believe that
they were brought into the priesthood. Whatever it means, it means they
were godly believers. The Rechabites, some also believe,
also would accept the gospel and continue. in the church age
to be Christian. But whatever the case, the Bible
says, they'll not ever want a man to stand before them forever.
Because of their what? Obedience. On the other hand,
you got Israel. Disobedient. Under God's judgment,
under God's wrath. Why? Because they didn't learn
obedience. You know, it's a blessing today
to think about the greatest gift you could give to your mother
would be obedience. You know, the greatest gift that
we could give to God today would be our obedience. Jesus said, my meat is to do
the will of him that sent me. He's saying, my greatest passion
is to do what God wants me to do, obey. This morning, you think
about obedience. Do you have convictions? You're
not gonna go far in obeying God if you don't have convictions
about what you do, where you watch, where you go, who your
friends are. Do you have those convictions? Are you obeying
by knowledge? Do you know who this book is
from, that this is God's book, and that what it says in it about
whatever you're asking a question about, that you find what God
says about it? Obey by knowing. Obey by habit. Are you habitually obedient?
If you're not, I mean, if you've got the other habit going on,
you've got to stop that, get rid of the bad habit and put
the good habit there, get in the Word of God, get in prayer, get in
church, get in that time with the Lord and soul winning. Obey
by habit. Obey by wisdom. It's got to be
by grace. Obey by listening. Obey by doing. And obey by responding. Verse
13 again says, thus saith the Lord of hosts, Will ye not receive
instruction to hearken to my words, saith the Lord. Let's
pray. Father, I praise you for your
word this morning. Father, success in this area
would make us dynamic for the Lord Jesus Christ. Failure in
this area, Father, would destroy us. And I pray today, may the
Spirit of God speak. And Father, decisions that need
to be made need to be made because of obedience. Lord, there's some
that need to get saved. Others, Lord, again, as we prayed
at the beginning, need to make decisions about sanctification,
about obeying the Lord and believers' baptism. And I pray, God, if
that is your will for anybody that's here, then I pray, Spirit
of God, they'd obey. And so I do pray, speak, help us to listen.
It's in Christ's name we pray, amen.
God's Object Lesson on Obedience
When God needed an object lesson on obedience for Israel, he had Jeremiah invited them to a meeting and offered them wine to drink. The Rechabites commitment to obey their father was shown before Israel and Israel was rebuked for not obeying God.
| Sermon ID | 32617111929 |
| Duration | 52:56 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Jeremiah 35 |
| Language | English |