It's an honor to be here, a pleasure to be here. Despite the circumstances, I do pray for Ray that this is passing and that his body will be strengthened for it in the future. Adopted the King James and I haven't had this Bible out in use for 40 years. This was the first Bible I bought. I became a believer in the spring of 81 and started attending a church that used the King James. And so I was a poor young man in the military, but I still went and splurged on this Thompson chain reference King James Bible. I loved it. Used it for about a year, and then I met these seminary students that convinced me the New American Standard was the way to go. And I haven't used the King James since then. But here we are. I'm looking forward to preaching from it today. Jeremiah 35. It's 19 verses, and please stand and I'll read the chapter to you as best I can. 40 years ago, I bought a Bible with a very small font, and now I buy Bibles with big fonts. Jeremiah 35, the word which came unto Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying, Go unto 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 Jeazaniah, the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazaniah, and his brethren, and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites. And I brought them into the house of the Lord, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan, the son of Igdaliah, a man of God, which was by the chamber of the princes, which was above the chamber of Maaseah, the son of Shalom, the keeper of the door. And 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. But they said, we will drink no wine, for Jonadab, the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying, you shall drink no wine, neither ye nor your sons forever. Neither shall ye build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any. But all your days you shall dwell in tents, that you may live many days in the land where you be strangers. 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. 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 and for fear of the army of the Syrians. So we dwell at Jerusalem. 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 words,' 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 hearkened not unto me.' I have sent also unto you all my servants, the 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. Because the sons of Jonadab, the sons of Rechab, have performed the commandment of their father, which he has commanded them, but this people hath not hearkened unto me, 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 have pronounced against them. Because I have spoken unto them, but they have not heard. And I have called unto them, but they have not answered. And Jeremiah said unto the house of the Rechabites, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, because he 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 a man to stand before me forever. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for your word that we can trust it and that we can learn much from it. We ask you now to have your Holy Spirit direct us into your truth. We thank you for this and we ask your blessing upon this congregation in Christ's name, amen. You may be seated. The word which came unto Jeremiah, this is verse one. And it's during this time of Jehoiakim, one of the final kings of the southern kingdom, Judah. I want to begin, and some of you have a handout, I apologize. I brought 25 and I think I was supposed to bring 35, and so I'm short. And I hope you can all share. But it was intended more to help you if you get lost while we're referring to these peoples and these times. So where are we in the history of Israel? We're near the end. We're on 600 BC, we're halfway through this man Jehoiakim's reign, which was about 10 or 11 years. The nation of Israel, as you know, had split apart 330 years earlier. It had lasted only through three kings, Saul and David and Solomon. And then under Solomon's son, Rehoboam, the northern 10 tribes had split apart. And so that was referred to as Israel. The southern kingdom was referred to as Judah. And we're now talking about that southern kingdom because the northern kingdom has been gone for a long time already. The Northern Kingdom had fallen about 130 years earlier to the Assyrians, whose capital is Nineveh. They had sacked that Northern Kingdom. And at the time, it was likely, I would say, humanly speaking, obvious that the Assyrians were also going to sack Judah, Jerusalem. But through God's miraculous rescue, that didn't happen. And yet, here we are 130 years later, and it's about to happen. Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, the southern kingdom at this point, was actually made king by Nebuchadnezzar when he came into the land about five or six years earlier. And now he is prideful and growing resentful against Nebuchadnezzar, and in a few years he's going to be removed as king again. We know, Jeremiah's a big book, and we know him as the weeping prophet, You know and you can perceive why he's known as the Weeping Prophet. He is prophesying at the end of the whole Israelite nation. He began his ministry in around 626, 627 BC. That was during the heart of King Josiah's reign. Really, biblically, the greatest king of Judah. Because he turned to the Lord with all of his heart. And it says that there was no better king before him. Yet, he died prematurely, going out to do battle with the Egyptians. And then his sons took over, and they were not like their father at all. The second verse, that's all the first verse. That's just setting the context of where we are in time, where we are in this kingdom time. Now the second verse brings up this family. 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. A house is figurative. We learned through our reading that they were nomadic, had been for generations. And so they had no houses, they had no vineyards, they had no fields, they had no property really, other than what could ride on likely camels that they would travel through the deserts with. And yet Jeremiah is here to bring them into the house of the Lord. When I'd originally preached on this about eight years ago, I had considered dropping verses three and four because they have a lot of names that are difficult to pronounce. And sometimes I think, do we care? Do we know who these people are? Does it matter to us? Does it matter to the message? And yet at the time, as I meditated on whether that would be more disruptive or helpful, the obvious reason that they're here and the reason that we should include them came to me. Verse three reads, concerning family names of the house of the Rechabites, verse four reads of the keepers of the temple. So picture this, you have these Rechabites who have been nomads for generations. They have now come into the biggest walled city all around. They have come to Solomon's temple. A few years ago, I gave a community meditation. It had the equivalent of what would today be $11 billion worth of gold molten and poured all over it. Solomon's Temple was an incredible sight to behold in that time especially. These people would come over these hills and see that temple in the distance. It must have just sparkled. I mean, it's no wonder Nebuchadnezzar wanted it, and he was about to get it. But these Rechabites, who just wandered the desert and had been for generations, are being brought by Jeremiah into this temple. They're in a walled city, they don't like being in cities, they're nomads. Yet they've come there for safety, they come into the temple, they're sat down, and then he says, drink wine. So see, what's happened is, God, through Jeremiah's ministry here, is bringing these Rechabites into an incredibly stressful situation in which he's attempting to intimidate them into giving up their beliefs. The very first command from their father was, don't drink wine. And that's the first thing Jeremiah commands them to do. Drink ye wine. I always show my age, and I'll show you my age. Who knows the Clampett family? Can you place the Clampett family? Jed Clampett. I wish I could remember the jingle. It's coming here and I'll tell you a story about this man, poor mountain man could barely keep his family fed. But he was the star, Buddy Ebsen, in this sitcom back in the 60s called The Beverly Hillbillies. And the reason I bring it up is that these Beverly Hillbillies, I think, are very much like the Rechabites here in our story. You have these Beverly Hillbillies who get in their truck and drive all the way from, you know, back in the mountains of Appalachia out to Beverly Hills. They're so out of context here. Yet, They don't care. They are who they are. And they expect everybody to accept them for who they are. And that's part of what makes that whole show funny, is their crazy ways from the mountains of Appalachia. So see, the Regebites are not intimidated in the least. What do they do? They said, we will drink no wine. They said, we will drink no wine. Now, this is the, not all the Reconvict clan. We don't know how many there were, but there were probably, you know, more than a couple dozen. But we probably have at most a couple dozen men having been brought into the temple in this area. And this is what has happened. Will they cave to the pressure? And for the safety of themselves, their families, their children, they don't want to get thrust back out and have to face these armies that are out there all over their land. But they do not hesitate. They do not hesitate to stand up for what they believe in. And they say, our father, Jonadab, commanded us to drink no wine, build no houses, sow no seed, plant no vineyards, don't own any of those things, and instead to dwell in tents. And his direction was for them to do that forever. And here they were, generations later, still following his directions. And we'll get into more details of that later, just how long they've been doing that. Now God's commands of the Bible, even when he has someone make a Nazirite vow, that's temporary, that's for a time. It's not meant to last your lifetime, let alone the lifetime of all your descendants forever. Yet, this is what Jonadab demanded of his ancestors and they were being faithful to that. Now, I'm about to share the main message. We're eight minutes into the message, and I'm gonna share with you the main message of Jeremiah 35. And the main message is this, and I'll start reading at verse 12 again. 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 words, 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 hearkened not unto me. I have sent also unto you all my servants, the 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 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. Because the sons of Jonadab, the sons of Rechab, have performed the commandment of their father, which he commanded them, but this people hath not hearkened unto me." Then he's contrasting, this is in the Bible, this is a very typical argument in the Bible, and it's called from the lesser to the greater. God himself is pointing out that Jonadab is not God. and yet his ancestors have obeyed him. Yet here I am God, I created you, I blessed you with all of this wealth, I have made you this special nation, yet you have consistently rebelled against me. You are not following in my ways. Therefore, and this is verse 17, 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 have pronounced against them, because I have spoken unto them, but they have not heard, and I have called unto them, but they have not answered. Perhaps you know, some of you know, maybe not all of you know, that when God makes a pronouncement in the Bible of imminent destruction, It is always, always conditional because should they turn from their wicked ways, He will typically extend mercy. He extends grace. And so even if there is no caveat in the pronounce that the prophet makes, It's always there. It's always there. Our God is a God of mercy. That caveat is always there. So I just want you to know that. So some people who are critical of the Bible will say, see, here God said he would do this and he didn't. So he's a liar. But when it comes especially to judgments, there's always, always that caveat present. So we need to talk about more than this though, because see, I've shared with you the main message. This sermon is over. This is the purpose of Jeremiah 35. God has shared it. He argued from the lesser to the greater to say destruction is coming. We now know later, you know, how many years later, that it did come, but it need not have had you to truly repent it and return to the Lord. They did not. Judgment fell. Solomon's temple, as I mentioned earlier, $11 billion worth of gold poured over it. Nowadays, the folks that are expecting Jesus to return any minute always talk about there still being a piece of the temple left. You've probably heard that argument. No, there is no piece of the temple left. What they're talking about was not the temple itself. It was way outside in the courtyard, that wailing wall that all the Jews go to. That is not part of Solomon's temple. Solomon's temple had all the gold on it. Nebuchadnezzar had that whole thing disassembled, sent back to Babylon, and every bit of that gold scraped off of it long, long, long ago. There is another message here, obviously, that I want to continue on and share with you, and I think it is very important. When I preached on this eight years ago, I kind of saw pieces of it, but yet, as I've been studying it, I kind of see it more, especially in light of who you are, what you've done here at Ascension. I think this text really does speak to you, and I'm glad that I kind of chose to speak on it. So we're going to take a detour further into the past, and we need to talk about these Rechabites, and who is this man, Jonadab. Rechab was a descendant of Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, and so they were Kenites, which means they were non-Semitic. They were not the chosen people. They were not descendants of Abraham, and that they had not gone down into Egypt. So they were converts to Judaism. Jonadab, one of the sons, subsequent sons, also, and in the Bible you'll see this in various places, especially as you read between Kings and Chronicles, and sometimes even in the same section of text, you'll see this occur. We know this man to be Jonadab, but yet he is also referred to as Jehonadab. There is an E-H inserted after the letter J. and that's not done just for his name. There are many names in the Bible that have that occur, and it makes it confusing, especially when you're talking about the two strains of the Israelites and the Judah, and then you begin using the same names, and then you begin using nicknames, and then you begin having overlapping times of the king because the father's still alive and he's allowing a son to rule. It gets very confusing trying to tell people apart and the sequence of events, but it's worth the effort. Jonadab, also known as Jehonadab, is introduced in 2 Kings 10, and he lived at one of the most amazing times to be alive in the history of the two kingdoms. But before we talk about Jonadab, we have to do another Go sub here, if you're familiar with the basic programming language. We have to talk first about Jihu. King Jehu to us peasants. He became king at this earlier time that I'm talking about. And before we talk about Jehu, we'll talk about the time he lived in. And that was during the time of Elijah and what had occurred on Mount Carmel. We know that, where he had that contest with the Baal prophets and ended up killing them all because his God brought fire down and ate up that calf, licked up all that water, and then he commanded all the people that were witnessing this, grab the Baal priests, execute them, and they did. We know how that story went, though. Within hours, Jezebel hears of this, who loved Baal, and sent a letter to Elijah and saying, you will be dead tomorrow like one of my Baal priests. He fled, he ran. I mean, you know, after that great victory, he was scared to death. He ran and ran and ran and he didn't stop running. He kept running for days and days. He practically killed himself. God had to nurse him back to health through angelic interaction. But at that time then, after God has had his talking to with Elijah, and we could get into details in all this of course, but we don't have the time. But what God commands Elijah are three things. Anoint Haziel, king of Syria. Anoint Jehu, king of Israel. And anoint Elisha as a prophet in your place. Because Elijah was saying, God kill me, God kill me dead right now, I can't go back. So that's where we are in 1 Kings 19, in the middle of that chapter, that's where Elijah is with God. But then something changes. Again, I brought up that concept earlier of there being a caveat. The first thing Elijah did when he left there was he anointed Elisha as his replacement. And then there are various episodes of Elijah and Elisha together. The anointing of Jehu, however, did not occur. Elijah confronted Ahab at Naboth's vineyard. And you're probably familiar with Naboth's vineyard. Ahab went to Naboth, all excited. Ahab, if there's any king in the Bible that behaves like a child, it's Ahab. So Ahab goes to Naboth. He's all excited. I want your vineyard. Trade me your vineyard. I'll give you whatever you want. I just want this vineyard because I want to have a vegetable garden here near the wall of my city of Samaria. And Naboth said, no, this land has been in my family forever. I'm not selling it to you. Ahab pouts like a two-year-old. He goes back to his castle, and his wife confronts him and says, you are king. So then they have this plot. They end up killing Naboth with false witnesses, and he seizes his vineyard. The moment Ahab arrives at Naboth's vineyard, who shows up? Elijah to confront him with what he's done. Ahab is immediately despondent again and in despair and pouting. But what does he do? He puts on sackcloth. And so I want to read to you what happened because of his humility. This is from 1 Kings chapter 21. First Kings 21, and I'll start reading at verse 25. But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up. And he did very abominably in following idols, according to all things as did the Amorites, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel. And it came to pass when Ahab heard these words, it's this rebuke from Elijah that he's going to hold him accountable. He rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went softly, meaning that he was humbled. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? Because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days, but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house. So Ahab has bought himself time because of his humility. And we might think, why would God do this? God knows all of our hearts. Why would God allow Ahab this reprieve when he knows this is not truly repentance? The word repentance is never used about this action of Ahab. We know God to be very merciful. And in this instance, what has this man done, who has been fighting against God and against God's word and his people all of his life? He recognizes, for one, the existence of God. Now, frankly, most would, but still, at various times in various cultures, people do not recognize the power of our God, Jehovah God. Ahab recognized that power. He prostrated himself before that power, and he admitted that he was helpless. And see, God... Our God is moved by such a response. I started reading military books when I was 11 or 12. I had a paper out and I joined a military book club and I'm getting all these military books through the mail. I'm reading stuff that's way beyond my maturity level, no doubt. 50 years of reading military books has taught me one thing, and that is that you've heard the phrase, there are no atheists in foxholes. When men in battle are faced with just this chaos of near death, they pray to God. They do exactly what Ahab did. They recognize the existence of God. They prostrate themselves before the power of that God, and they plead for his mercy. And God so often answers their foxhole prayers. I don't care how profane that man is, he's going to return. As soon as he's saved, he's gonna return to taking the Lord's name in vain. But yet he was saved, and God will hold him accountable for that salvation one day during judgment, as he will hold all people accountable for all of the grace that he's extended to us that has not altered our behavior. I brought this book because I want to share something about this from my personal history. When Tabitha and I came back at the start of August, the first thing we did was went into the basement. I retired back in March and so I have more free time and I have 70 books boxed up in the basement. It's just 70 boxes of books. And I went down there in the hopes of finding a subset of specific books. And I did, I opened like six books and I found them. God was very kind to me. One of the books was this, Millennialism and Social Theory by Gary North. Has anybody read this book? You've read others by Gary North perhaps. But I read this, he published it in 1990. I read it as part of Pastor Kaiser's what was called Spiritual War Council back in the 90s. There were a few people, I'll forget them, but it was like John Wennerstrom, a deacon in our church at the time, Carl Shoemaker, a man who moved away years ago, he's a pastor now in New Hampshire. But anyway, Ken Cope, some of you might have remembered Ken Cope, he passed away a couple years ago. But anyway, we would get together and discuss these books concerning post-millennialism. So this book is by Gary North, and I think Phil had me read it. I'm not sure if we read it as a part of that council or not, but this is a quote from Gary North in 1990. It's in a chapter called Our Blessed Earthly Hope in History. What this world needs today is a really big plague if such a plague would bring men face to face with mankind's impotence in the face of God's judgments in history. An economic collapse would not be a bad thing either if men learned to rely on the providence of God to sustain them. So this was in 1990. Let me read you another one. An economic crisis would be ideal. Few people would die, but millions of people in the West would be filled with fear. They might then turn to God for deliverance. The false god of this age, material prosperity, would be publicly dethroned. And part of his rationale and part of my rationale for thinking the judgment was imminent at that time revolves around a prior statement he made. If crises do not come and women continue to execute 50 to 60 million unborn infants a year worldwide, what does this say about the God of the Bible? If this level of transgression does not bring massive negative sanctions in history, then the random news, he refers to amillennialism as the random news common grace amillennialists are correct. The sanctions of God are ethically inscrutable in history. In other words, you can't connect the dots. We have no idea why good or bad things happen, because good and bad things happen to everybody. And so we can't claim this or that being God's blessing or his curse. So this is what many of us have probably had conversations with other Christians about, and we can't convince them of the fact that God's sanctions still work in our history. So now, When we just went through COVID, several times since we've gone through COVID, I've referred to it as Y2K. I mean, it just shows my imprecision or my mental lapses. But at this time, in the mid 90s, Gary North, having just written all these books, he became concerned about Y2K. At a meeting of the Spiritual War Council in the middle of 1997, someone asked me about it. I think it was Pastor Kaiser. And I said, well, you know, I've heard about it, but I hadn't really thought much about it. And so within, you know, days I was concerned and within weeks I was obsessed. I was just obsessed. And so I did what Ray mentioned in your intro of your book. He turned to me and said, I need to write a book. That's what I told my wife. I was sending out emails like every day to people, this, this, this, that. And I thought, I need to write a book because then I can put it all in one spot. And so I did. Gary North's website was one of my resources for good articles on Y2K at the time. He was obsessed like me. We were both obsessed. He and I believed God was bringing judgment upon the West for all of its evil, and we could not be convinced that it wasn't coming. We knew it was coming, and we even knew the exact day. What power we had in our minds, in our hands, didn't we? But we were wrong, way wrong. People ask me after, you know, 1100 came and not much happened. And I was saying, I way overreacted. I just presumed upon God's grace. It is so easy for us Christians to presume upon God's mercy. We think His mercy extends this far. We don't know where God's mercy ends. We really don't. We don't know the mind of God. In every circumstance, we know this much, and God knows this much. We don't know the extent of his mercy, nor do we know the timing of his judgment. When judgment comes, we're typically as shocked as everybody. It's like, boom, suddenly, you know, hailstones are coming out of a clear blue sky. That is typically what happens with God's judgment. We need to talk though, however, about one of those times where God's hailstones came out of a clear blue sky, God's hammer of judgment came down at a point in the past. Now we get to talk about Jihu. Jihu, I'm not gonna reference a lot of texts because it would really way bog us down, but I'm going to familiarize you with this man because you read through Kings and all the names blur together and it's hard to tell them apart, so let me just kind of share with you and I ask you to trust me. This is all from 2 Kings 9 and 10. Jehu was a commander of the northern king's army. Now he had obviously been a leader even 20 years ago, because that's when Elijah had been commanded to anoint him. But here we are, 20 years down the road, and we're still on Jehu. God did not change the man he was going to anoint as king of Israel. He was serving as the commander of the Northern King's army. This is about 840 BC. They were across the Jordan to the east, defending Ramoth Gilead from the Syrians who had attacked it. His king, King Joram, had been over there with him. Joram had been wounded. He had been medevacked to Jezreel on the other side of the Jordan. So Elisha, Elijah's replacement, has sent a young prophet to seek out Jehu and anoint him king. So he appears at Jehu's headquarters. They let him in. He asks for the commander. Jehu raises his hand. He takes him off to a quiet room and he pours the oil on his head. And what Elisha had told him is anoint him king and then run. And that's what he did. He anointed king, you are king of Israel. And then he bolted. Jehu's the only man that heard this prophet say this, that they did this by design. What happened then is he came out and his men said, what was this all about? And he tries to downplay it. And they said, no, no, no, tell us, tell us. And he told them, this man anointed me king. They immediately, they immediately accept this. They lay down their jackets under him and recognize him as king. I mean, he had men that obviously respected him and felt that he would be a good king. He said, well, okay, if I'm your king. seal this information off, no one gets it out, they gathered the army, they started heading to Jezreel. And then it says that King Joram sees this coming from afar, the sentinels see this, he sends out two different riders, and Jehu says, do you come in peace? What do you have to do with peace? Fall in with me. And so the riders each fell in. And then the lookout told Joram, it looks like Jehu, because he's driving his chariot like a madman. So Jehu comes up, Joram, and now also, luck would have it, that the king of Judah from Jerusalem happens to be visiting his cousin. This is King Ahaziah. So Ahaziah gets on his chariot, Joram gets on his chariot, and they ride out to confront Jehu. And Jehu accuses Joram from his chariot of having corrupted the land. And Joram calls out to Ahaziah, treachery Ahaziah, and he turns around, Jehu, arrow through the heart, they kill Ahaziah. One day, These two kings, both the Northern Kingdom King and the Southern Kingdom King, died at Jehu's hand. He goes to Jezreel. He sends a letter to Samaria, the capital city of the Northern Kingdom, and he tells the leaders of Samaria, Ahab has 70 sons in the city. Anoint one of them king. I've killed the other one. I'm coming to fight you. They say, no, we're not anointing a king. Then you do this instead. You deposit the 70 heads of Ahab's sons at the gate of Jezreel tomorrow." And they did. All 70 of Ahab's sons are decapitated and their heads are placed at the gate of Jezreel. When he had arrived in Jezreel the day before, Jezebel calls to him from a tower. He says, who's on my side? And a eunuch stuck his head out. He said, push her out. Jezebel falls to her death. Then they gather up their army and they're heading to Samaria. He's going to take over Samaria and eliminate all of the men that are still faithful to Ahab. On the way, he comes across 42 of Ahaziah's brothers who have been coming from Jerusalem to party it up in Samaria with their cousins. These are all evil men. All of this, all of these people are evil. He kills them, all 42 of these princes. So see, now we come to the purpose of our detour. This is why we've been talking about Jehu, because this is what happens in 2 Kings 10. Let's read this. 2 Kings 10, starting at verse 15. He has left Jezreel. And when he departed thence, he lighted on Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, coming to meet him. And he saluted him and said to him, is thine heart right as my heart is with thy heart? And Jehonadab answered, it is. If it be, give me thine hand. And he gave him his hand, and he took him up to him into the chariot. And he said, Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord. So they made him ride in his chariot. And when he came to Samaria, he slew all that remained unto Ahab in Samaria, till he had destroyed him, according to the saying of the Lord, which he spake to Elijah. This is Jonadab, the son of Rechab, who these men, generations later, are following. He's the one that had made those commands to him, and we'll get to that in a minute. But I want to talk to you about Jonadab meeting Jehu in the plains here, separating Jezreel from Samaria. What man in his right mind rides out to meet this one who has just killed his king, the king's 70 sons, the king of the southern kingdom of Jerusalem, and their 42 princes. What man in his right mind would do that? A man that you know to be a friend of Jehu, right? Jonadab knew Jehu. Jehu knew Jonadab. They might not have been best buds, but they were aware of one another's reputations. My theory is this, and there isn't a whole lot in the Bible, honestly, to base this on, but I believe the inferences are clear. And let me share with you again what I just read in verses 15 through 17 of 2 Kings 10. He departed thence, he lighted on Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, coming to meet him. Jehonadab wanted to come to Jehu. Jehu greets him, salutes him even, says to him, is your heart right as my heart is right? And he said, it is. Then he gives him his hand and walks him up into his chariot. Then what's his next phrase? Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord. Jehu is recognizing in Jonadab a godly man. He emphasizes the fact that he's doing this in recognition of God, in obedience to God. And that's why John Antiochus has come. He's been looking forward to this day. But then what happens? Earthly saviors disappoint us. And so Jonadab was looking for this earthly savior, someone who would turn this kingdom around, right? Someone who would restore the northern kingdom to the God Jehovah and escape from these golden calves, the calves of Jeroboam that he had set up way, way, way back when they had rebelled against Rehoboam, Solomon's son. All earthly saviors eventually disappoint, and Jehu was no exception. God promises him, however, that he will give him the kingdom for three more generations, him plus three of his kids. Let me read this at the end of chapter 10 here. This is verses 31 to 32. But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart. For he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin. In those days the Lord began to cut Israel short, and Hazael smote them in all the coasts of Israel. God started winnowing down the Northern Kingdom under Jehu's reign. Jehu had three generations more. They ruled for about 90 of the remaining 130 years of the Northern Kingdom, Jehu's children did, but yet never, never returned to serving the Lord. And so Jonadab, as the godly man of this pair, must have felt not necessarily betrayed, but very disappointed. So what did he do? He did what we started our text with. He rescued his family and his posterity from this evil nation that he knew God's judgment would fall upon. And here he is with the southern kingdom, his posterity still living this nomadic life to escape the corrupt culture that prevailed in their times. And so I see the similarities, I see some similarities between what Jonadab did and what's going on in our world today. Now we return to Jeremiah 35 and we'll cover the last two verses that we left hanging there. 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 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 a man to stand before me forever. Shall not lack a man of faith to stand before God forever. So that means, If you calculate it, that means that Jonadab has a male heir, at least one male heir, living today 2,864 years after this happened. That's between 70 and 120 generations, I figure. That's how many generations of Jonadab have gone since then. And God has honored them with obedience. He's brought them to faith. The title of this message, I asked Ray yesterday morning to change it. I changed it to The Reward of Obedience. It had been called Obedience Rewarded. But see, Obedience rewarded is one aspect of what has happened here. But there are two aspects of obedience. Obedience, the obedience of Jonadab's children, have led God to acknowledge them to everyone forever. But it's also led him to promise them forever a line to exist. So see, obedience was what the children of Jonadab were giving God, but yet it's also what God gave them. It's like in our sanctification. We participate in our sanctification through obedience, and then God blesses us. It's God that sanctifies us, we know this. It's God that saves us through faith, we know this. Faith is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. So I want to close with three, three, I can't do it with my fingers apparently, but I wanna close with three things that have been discussed but might not be clear in your head right now. First though, I wanna give you an illustration. These people that Jeremiah met at this time, it had been 240 years between 840 BC and 600 BC. How long ago in American history is 240 years? You know how long it is? 1784. It was the year after the Treaty of Peace formally ended our war of independence with Britain. This is how long these people have been living a nomadic lifestyle. Probably somewhat briefer than that, because Jonadab probably didn't become a nomad until Jehu had proven his true colors. But that occurred probably within 15 to 20 years of this occurring. So we're talking 225 years then. But still, these people have been faithful that long, and God rewards them in that miraculous way. First, the first point I want to emphasize is that we cannot presume upon the extent of God's grace or the timing of His judgment. I did it, and I was wrong. Our God is very merciful. You know the story of Jonah. Jonah didn't want the Ninevites to repent, but he knew God was a God of mercy. So when God commanded him to go to Nineveh, he ran away. He headed west towards Spain, but God brought him back, made him go. God extends his grace as long as he wants to whomever he wants, and he judges whomever he wants, whenever he wants. Two, God's arm is not too short to judge all who offend Him at any time. He doesn't need our help, He doesn't want our help. He may use us as a Jehu here or there, but when that's the case, He will tell us exactly what He wants us to do. God took out two kings, 112 princes, and all of the civil and religious supporters. It was an infestation of evil. God took it out like that. But then we know what happened in the Southern Kingdom. Athaliah took over, ran roughshod over those people as a despot. And in the Northern Kingdom, Jehu turns his back on God, who had done all this, who had orchestrated all this. The third point, God rewards his faithful with long lives of service and godly offspring. Jonadab was a godly man. He saw his nation headed towards destruction, and he took very bold action to rescue them. And it paid off big time, far more than he could have realized at the time he was doing it. But he felt it was worth it. He wanted his family to survive, and he didn't want them to be caught up in the evil that was coming upon that northern kingdom that he was a part of. So I encourage you in your work. I mean, your work is similar, in my opinion, to what happened with John Adeb and the Rechabites. And so let's pray that you'll have a similar success as John Adeb. Father God, we thank you for life. We thank you for the power of your word and the power of your Holy Spirit at work in our world. We are so often faithless. We do not know your true power. and we lack faith in your mercy and justice in being administered at the right time. And so we ask you, Lord, to forgive us for these failings and have us to be sold out to you to do what it is that you've commanded us to do and not have us be wrapped around a hunger for justice as we see it as necessary. But Lord, it's you, it's you that will tell us when it's necessary. We give you thanks, Father, for life, health, and all of your many blessings. In Christ's name and for his sake, amen.