Jim Styles - Class 5: The Rechabites - a Lesson in Faithfulness

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Sometimes when you're giving weekend studies, it just doesn't quite work out to have the exhortation right in a spot in your classes where you want to exhort and they want to have the exhortation. But this time it did, actually. I looked back and looked at the six classes I had prepared at Jeremiah, or seven.

2. 0:16

   It just so happens that if you picked one of them to be the exhortation, this would be it. And that's sort of nice. We're going to get a chance to look at the Rechabites this morning. It's fun to do that in the context of the Sunday school class is having a look at Jehoiakim, and our afternoon class will be Zedekiah.

3. 0:33

   And sort of wedged in between those two, those two total failures. One of them that had no conscience to respond to the Word of God, and the other one who listened to everything God had to say, but no backbone to respond because the princes let him down a wrong pathway. We have the example of the Rechabites.

4. 0:51

   It really is a wonderful example, and it comes in at a time when we prepare to take the emblems, that they are an awesome reminder to ourselves of the covenant that we made at our baptism. Just as the Rechabites made a covenant in their family, the covenant that we would die with Christ to sin, that we would depend upon God and trust him for whatever he brings into our life, and we would join Christ in his way of life, doing the will of God, not our own.

5. 1:19

   And we come here week by week to remember that, brethren and sisters, and this morning we get to read the example of the Rechabites as they were put forward by Jeremiah. This actually is a really good example of looking at how the Rechabites are wedged in here in Jeremiah 35, and how this concept that at the end of Zedekiah's reign, you get to the end, and Jeremiah was trying to impress Zedekiah, because Zedekiah listened to him right to the end.

6. 1:45

   He just didn't do what Jeremiah said. But if you were trying to convince Zedekiah that, look it, you've got to do something, you've got to respond, what you would do is establish and put together the prophecies you had given, and line them up in such a way that you might be able to impress him on a theme.

7. 2:03

   And as you scan back through the chapters that we're in right now in Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 35, back to 34, 33, 32, 31, you know what starts coming up in Jeremiah 31, because those are chapters that we're quite familiar with. In Jeremiah 31, it's all about the covenant that God is going to make in the latter days with Israel, and that he will establish in Jeremiah 31 at verse 31, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

8. 2:33

   Not like the covenant that they broke. Oh, not this time. This time they're going to keep the covenant. You ever wonder, because we know Jeremiah 33 also makes reference to the covenant. You ever wonder why Jeremiah 32 is tucked right in the middle of that? What in the world is happening? See, from just a reading the Bible perspective, it doesn't make a lot of sense, in terms of a chronology kind of thing.

9. 2:56

   But when you look at it thematically, of Jeremiah trying to impress Zedekiah with the need to keep the covenant, what he does is he then throws in Jeremiah 32. Now, Jeremiah 32 is that story about in the midst of the siege. You know, here they are, the Babylonians had come down, the siege is on, and everybody runs into Jerusalem like the Rechabites did, and the land out there, nobody cares about it.

10. 3:20

    The land is worthless. We think that in the last five, six years or so, you might have had an economic downturn around here. The housing values out in California, where I came from, just plummeted and went down. Now, imagine being in the midst of a siege and being worried about somebody's plot of land out there that the Chaldeans are just like sitting on.

11. 3:37

    Nobody thought the land was worth anything. And so God tells Jeremiah, when his uncle dies, he says, go over there, you go redeem the field, you buy it, and you get a deed, he refers to. In Jeremiah 32, he talks about the purchase deed, which is a covenant. You now own that land.

12. 3:55

    And God is, Jeremiah doesn't understand, like, what in the world are we doing here? Why do I care about this land? But God was trying to impress the people that look at, in the same way you make those covenants, those deeds, and they go right through time so that when this is all over, that is going to be worth something.

13. 4:13

    I promise the day will come when I bring them back, and that covenant will be worth something in Jeremiah 32. And you find, like, even at the end of the chapter, what does he link it with? You know, he tells them at the end of the chapter that, I'm going to bring them back in verse 37.

14. 4:29

    I'm going to gather them from all the countries where I've scattered them. And what is he going to do? They're going to be my people, in verse 38 and 39 there, and I will be their God. You know, this is what he's going to do. And verse 40, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

15. 4:45

    This is what he's aiming at. Jeremiah attempted to thematically put these together to impress Zedekiah with the need to keep the covenant. And as you follow these chapters through, you just see it over and over again. Jeremiah 33 is all about the promises of the age to come when he will save Israel.

16. 5:04

    And he talks about in verse 30, or verse 20, rather, that God says in verse 20 of Jeremiah 33, if you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that there shall not be day and night in their season, then my covenant may also be broken with David my servant.

17. 5:20

    But God assures them he will keep his covenant. That's what he intends to do. So then you run into, like, Jeremiah 34, and you find out, well, what's this all about? Jeremiah 34, the Babylonians had come down, and now we're into Zedekiah's life. And you're at that point in the end of the 10th year, the beginning of the end of the 9th year, the beginning of the 10th, where the Babylonians had surrounded the city, and now Zedekiah is panicking.

18. 5:46

    He realizes something's going to happen, and he's in trouble. So what does he do? They realize that they're about to become slaves of Babylon. They haven't fulfilled their covenant about freeing the slaves every seven years, and then the year of Jubilee. So what does he do? He says, look, let's make a token to God that we're going to keep his laws, and we're going to follow his ways.

19. 6:09

    So they make a covenant in verse 9 that every man should set free his male and female slaves, a Hebrew man or woman, that no one should keep a Jewish brother in bondage. So that's what they do. They all agree to the fact, all right, here we are. We're trapped up. We're slaves to the Babylonians.

20. 6:25

    We're locked in the city right now. So they make a covenant that they will free their Jewish slaves and follow God's law, like a sort of a token, one thing of the law they're willing to do. So what happens? Zedekiah cuts a deal with the Egyptians. The Egyptians come up from the south.

21. 6:42

    The Babylonians pull back at that point. And what did they do? Verse 15, Then you recently turned and did what was right at my sight, every man proclaiming liberty to his neighbor. And you made a covenant before me in the house, which is called by my name. That's what you just did. You made a covenant to keep it.

22. 7:01

    But then, in verse 16, Then you turned around and profaned my name, and every one of you brought back his male and female slaves, which he had, and you didn't set them free. You took them back. As soon as the Babylonians pulled away, they went right back, broke the covenant they had just made, and they took their slaves back again.

23. 7:21

    They said, Oh, we're going to renege on that covenant. Because now there's no pressure anymore to keep it. And, you know, what a sad case. You can see as you're reading through Jeremiah 34, and you're looking at how they had not kept the covenant. All right? And in verse 18, God looks forward to the day.

24. 7:37

    You know, I will give the men who have transgressed my covenant, who have not performed the words of the covenant, which they made with me, when they cut the cap in two and passed between the parts. They had made a promise to God. And God expects us to keep our promises. That's what this whole section is really all about in Jeremiah.

25. 7:57

    God's going to keep his promises. He has promised to forgive our sins. He has promised to stand with us, like he did with Jeremiah, to make us bronze pillars and walls. He'll stand with us, and he'll save us through all the afflictions of our life. That's his promise. And his promise that he'll bring us into his family.

26. 8:17

    He loves us. He will keep his covenant. And the question that God has for all of us today is, how are we doing on keeping our side of that covenant? That's what we come to remember every week, because we need weekly reminders. We need the reminder of what are we doing with our lives?

27. 8:34

    How are we doing on keeping that covenant? And what a great way to illustrate the concept than to bring in the Rechabites. I just think this is fascinating, how they would be brought in to illustrate the idea of, because some of us might come here and you think, well, I really, you know, humans can't really keep a covenant like that.

28. 8:52

    You really can't expect us to do that. You know, it's just too hard. We make a promise, and then something happens in our life, and it's easy, you know, circumstances change, and now I can't keep that promise that I made anymore, because things are different. Economic things have changed. Family situations are different.

29. 9:06

    Things with our spouse, our kids, or whatever. My health issues are different now. God can't really expect me to keep that covenant. And so he calls in people, and sets them before the leaders, and says, look at these folks. Look at them. These are other humans just like you. They've been keeping this covenant for 200 years.

30. 9:27

    200 years. And the fellow that started it all, long dead. Can't even see him anymore. And they still keep the covenant of the family. They still keep the covenant. And they hold fast to the family values. And he says, look at you. You've got a living God. Your God's alive. He's working in your lives.

31. 9:45

    He's giving you all these examples through prophecy that yes, he is active in the world. You can't keep his covenant for a few months. You can't do it. And what a sad state of the community of Israel. And that's the example of the kind of thing that I mean about when the prophecies of Jeremiah were pieced together, they were finally put together at the end for Zedekiah to impress Zedekiah at the end.

32. 10:08

    Look at either you get back to the covenant, and you are faithful to the covenant, or the fire's going to break out in your day, and it's going to burn forever. This is the end. This is the last chance. And in many similar ways, brethren and sisters and young people, we live in a similar day today.

33. 10:24

    We are at the end. We are at the end. And at any moment, Christ can come back. And the events of the end will just snowball and happen so fast to bring about the kingdom of God. Now, when you go back and look at the background to these Rechabites, they get brought in, all right?

34. 10:40

    And this happened in the days of Jehoiakim. So this is Jehoiakim's time. So I really think that what he's done is compiled all this together for Zedekiah at the end and said, here's what we did in the days of Jehoiakim. Because can't you see Jeremiah trying to compile the events back then and impress Jehoiakim the same way?

35. 10:58

    He just didn't respond. No conscience whatever, but Jeremiah tried. And I'm sure Barak was just copying down all these passages, putting them together and attempting to change Jehoiakim back there at this time. So they went to the house of the Rechabites and they got some of the Rechabites and they brought them in and set them in.

36. 11:16

    Look what they did in verse two. Speak to them and bring them into the house of the Lord into one of the chambers and give them wine to drink. So they're right there on display. It would be like calling in some of the Rechabites. Well, they happen to be in the city right now because usually they don't live with us.

37. 11:31

    Usually they're out there in tents. But now because the Chaldeans have come and surrounded the city, they came into Jerusalem for protection. So bring in some of the Rechabites, you know, right into the chambers so that all the leaders were there. And we'll set them up right in front here. We'll set them down at the tables and we're going to give them wine to drink.

38. 11:49

    We're going to put wine in front of them. Let's watch and see what they do. Now, these Rechabites, when you go back and try to figure out where in the world did they come from? How did this ever happen? And it's a really interesting story when you look back through the history. We think that what happened with the Rechabites is that they came from the time when Israel came out of Egypt and Moses came back to Midian to meet his father-in-law and Moses meets up with Ruel, Ruel, who was the priest of Midian.

39. 12:19

    In Exodus 3 and verse 1, he's actually referred to as Jethro. And he ends up becoming Moses' father-in-law because he gives him Zipporah to marry. So in Exodus 18, after the children of Israel left Egypt and they're pulling away from the Egyptians at this point and they come out into the wilderness, Jethro brings Zipporah and Moses' children, his two sons, to meet Moses.

40. 12:41

    And Jethro rejoices in Yahweh's victories. He talks about Yahweh, the God of Israel, and he's rejoicing in the victories over Egypt. He offers sacrifices. He has a fellowship meal with Moses and Aaron and the elders of Israel. And Jethro gives Moses advice, remember, about dividing up the work of judging the people. This is Jethro.

41. 13:01

    This is his father-in-law. In Numbers chapter 10, over verse 29, Moses asked Hobab, which would have been Jethro's son, and this would be like the brother of Zipporah, he asked his brother-in-law to travel with the Jews. He says, look, when we leave this place, when we live Mount Sinai, will you go with us?

42. 13:21

    Will you travel with us? You can be our eyes, he says. And when you read the account in Numbers chapter 10, Hobab doesn't want to go. He wants to stay with his family. And there's nothing said about whether or not he went or not. But in Judges chapter 1, all the way to the period of the Judges, you find out that some of the family is with Moses.

43. 13:39

    You know, you find, like Heber, in this case, in Judges chapter 1, he shows up, in Judges chapter 1, if you just skip over to verse 15, or 16 in there, in Judges 1, you'll see that some of them did actually come. It's down in Judges chapter 1, at, where is it? Verse 16 right there.

44. 13:59

    Now, the children of the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law, went up from the city of the palms with the children of Judah when they were going out to conquer the land. So even though Numbers doesn't tell you what happened, you find out later on that, yeah, Hobab did go, and some of his family now is with Moses.

45. 14:17

    And they sort of stayed with the community of Israel, but they were sort of with them, but not really incorporated totally into the community. They sort of had a little bit of their distance. And this is what they were trying to do at that time. Like when you read Judges 4, for example, and I have this story when Jael comes in and she kills Sisera, and he comes in, and that whole battle with Sisera, that what happens is you find out that Jael was married, she was a Kenite, and she had been up and sort of isolated from the rest of the group, but she stands firm, and she ends up bringing about the victory at that time.

46. 14:49

    She maintained her family values and realized that he should die. In 1 Samuel 15, at verse 16, Saul gave the Kenites a chance to separate from the Amalekites before he went in and attacked them because the Kenites had helped Israel when they came out of Egypt. So this idea of the Kenites being part of the, you know, connected with the community actually goes way back, and you can follow it through right through the history of Israel.

47. 15:15

    In fact, you get to, even after the captivity, in Nehemiah 3, you find out when it was time to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, you find out that there were Rechabites around after the captivity, that some of these people were still there. And Melchijah, who's the son of Rechab, the leader of the district of Betheserim, he repaired the refuse gate, which is interesting because you know what the refuse gate would be like.

48. 15:39

    He ends up working on probably the one gate that nobody else in the whole community wanted to work on. This was the kind of people that they were. You find out in 1 Chronicles 2, at verse 55, that Rechab's family included the family line of Judah, which is why in Judges 1, when it was time to go up, it seems like they're connected with the tribe of Judah.

49. 16:00

    Now, in 2 Kings 9, in verse 16, it's interesting that Jehu got chosen to be the one to eliminate Ahab's house. And what he does is he kills Joram, and he kills Ahaziah, so he kills the king of Judah at the time, he kills the king of Israel at the time, and really the king of Judah was just as bad as the king of Israel, and he kills Jezebel.

50. 16:21

    This was, remember, the days of Jehu. In 2 Kings 10, Jehu came down and he intimidated the rulers of Samaria. Remember that move that he made about, you know, they want us to come in there and wipe you out? And what they did is they threw 70 of the heads of Ahab's male descendants out, and they ended up killing them all.

51. 16:38

    And that's, he took care of all of the descendants of Ahab at that point and got rid of them. In 2 Kings 10, at verse 15, is the first mention of Jehonadab. He's actually called Jehonadab in 2 Kings 10, right around this time of Jehu. And he's the same fellow that's known here in Jeremiah 35 as Jehonadab.

52. 16:58

    He's called Jehonadab back there, but he's actually the same fellow. So this would be like 200 years before Jeremiah 35 ever takes place. Now we know about Jehu. Jehu loved to fight for God. He loved to go out there and kill people. He loved to be like the valiant warrior. He's probably a bit of a violent guy himself.

53. 17:16

    But what happened with Jehu is he never internalized the principles of God. He's one of those people that went out and did the mechanisms and he did what God said, but it never really meant anything to Jehu. And so he really just, he never really became part of living like a family member of God.

54. 17:31

    But Jehonadab, Jehonadab who was with him, when Jehu invited him up into the chariot and said, come and watch and you'll see, you know, how we're going to go out and take care of this. Jehonadab saw all the evils going on in the community at that time. He watched the influence of Ahab and Jezebel.

55. 17:46

    He saw how the influence of the northern kingdom came down into Judah and how, you know, Jezebel had got her daughters in there involved and the whole family was connected so much so that the king of Judah is actually like called the king of Israel. He acted like the kings of Israel at that point.

56. 18:01

    And Jehonadab's family were part of this. They're watching this happen and Jehonadab looks at that community and decides, you know what, we better make some preparations right now that we never get sort of like caught up into all of that and he didn't want to lose his children and his grandchildren. So Jehonadab made some decisions at that point to change the way they lived.

57. 18:24

    The Kenites were already people that seemed to be a bit nomadic. When you go back and look at their history, really from Hobab on down, right up through the judges period, but he made sure he locked in some family values that they had that would keep them separate from the community of Israel at that time because he saw the community of Israel going down the tubes and he made some decisions about how they would live, what they would do, and these were like their family values.

58. 18:51

    That's what he decided. So when you go back and look at them, you probably figure that what he had done was analyze what went wrong with Ahab and Jezebel and all of their influence in the land and he decided, you know what, we can actually set up some boundaries for our family so that we don't get sucked into that in the future.

59. 19:09

    That's good practical wisdom, really, when you look at how the world goes down the tube and things are happening. You set up some boundaries so that you don't get into and sucked into that. You don't want that ever to happen to your children, your grandchildren down the line. So what does he do?

60. 19:23

    He says, this family, no alcohol. He saw what alcohol did in that community. He realized how people used alcohol, abused alcohol. It took away their inhibitions. They did things that they maybe wouldn't have done otherwise or maybe it allowed them to just have fun and do stuff that they knew was wrong. And he decides, John and Dad decides, this family, we're going to have family values here, no alcoholic beverages, none of that stuff.

61. 19:49

    We're going to be sober, we're going to make sober decisions, and at least we're going to know what we're doing and why. We're not going to get into this trap of, I didn't even realize that I was drunk. It's sort of like you look back at Noah and you look at some of the things that happened back in the family lines in the past.

62. 20:04

    Or you look at Lot and his family and look at how Lot, his daughters, get him drunk and he doesn't even know what he's doing. And John and Dad says, we don't want any of that. The other thing he did is he said, I don't want my family to get too sucked into the city life of the community of Judah and Israel.

63. 20:21

    So he said, from now on, we're staying Bedouins forever. We're going to just dwell in tents. That's going to be our family values. We will live in tents and we're not going to get sucked into the city life, the big city life. We're not going to be like Lot when he went down to Sodom and he got into the city and got sucked into the city and he's in the gate.

64. 20:39

    And he looked probably back to the past and the history and found out what used to go wrong with people, what happened so that they lost track of the truth in their family. And so he sets that up. He says, look, we're going to live in tents, no farming of crops, no, we're going to stay away from all the evils of the city and self-reliance and thinking, I'm all set, I don't have to trust in God anymore.

65. 20:58

    And he instilled family values that required them to trust in God. It's a really interesting concept of how you could do this. So the result is, when you look at what they did in the end, is that the Rechabites, after 200 years of Israel's history, where Jonadab is long gone, the father that set all this up, the Rechabites still refused to change their family values.

66. 21:23

    They kept the covenant that the family had made 200 years ago. And they obeyed it at a point in which Jonadab, the father who originally formed the family covenant, was dead and gone and couldn't even see him anymore. And what Jeremiah does is he brings in the Rechabites and he says to the community, he said, look it, look it, these people, these guys can keep the covenant from their long, long, long lost father who's gone.

67. 21:50

    They still faithfully do that. And we, on the other hand, can't keep our covenant for three months. we can't even keep a covenant like putting away the slaves and following God's law. I think it's a great example to the community at this point of showing them a human example of people who were able to be faithful to a covenant.

68. 22:12

    You know, and really what it boils down to for all of us, brothers and sisters, is really that's all God's looking for. He really is. He's just looking for faithfulness to the covenant. He understands that there will be times when we make mistakes. He realizes that about all of us. But what he wants us to do is hate the mistakes and hate them like he does and come back to him and say, I'm sorry, please forgive me, but I really want to keep the covenant.

69. 22:36

    I really want to do it. So, what he does for all of us is he provides us with opportunities to practice that kind of faithfulness. Did you realize that's what family life is really all about? God designed family life. He made it that way. You know, he could have had families in entirely different ways, but what he does instead is he takes a man and a woman and he says, get married and make a covenant.

70. 23:03

    And then I'll give you the rest of your life to practice faithfulness to a covenant. Or he puts children in a family and says, honor your father and mother. And he just watches to see how can we do at being faithful to that covenant. Family life is just practice. So is ecclesial life.

71. 23:21

    This is what God is doing. He's giving us all these opportunities to practice faithfulness and keeping our covenants. And he just wants to see what are we willing to do? And in the end, when he looks at us at the judgment seat, it will be so simple to him of how did you do at practicing faithfulness?

72. 23:40

    Do you really want the kind of life I have? The life that goes on forever and ever? My eternal life that involves faithfulness to covenants within the family? Is that how you've lived? Is that really what you wanted? And what do your actions show that you did? Did you just keep breaking those covens, breaking those promises?

73. 23:57

    Or did we faithfully keep them now? This is the practice time. This is the basis of the decision. And yet sometimes we don't even realize that. As kids and families, we don't even know that that's what's happening. Or as parents, we don't even see how that's working with our children. Or the relationship that you have with your spouse.

74. 24:14

    This is your practice time to find out how are you doing on being faithful to the covenant. And of course, Sunday morning is the other opportunity. Week by week, we come here to remember and reflect on this covenant. I just think it's a fascinating concept of what God does. It's not real complicated.

75. 24:33

    It's not real academic. You don't have to be some great student to understand what he's after. He's after creating a family of people who as children respect their dad to their dad and appreciate appreciate