Title: Will You Not
Hear and Do (God’s Words)?
Text: Jer 35: 12-13
Date: November 21,
2019
Place: SGBC, NJ
Jeremiah 35: 1: The word which came unto Jeremiah from
the LORD in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, saying, 2:
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. 3:
Then I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habaziniah, and his
brethren, and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites; 4: 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 Maaseiah the son of Shallum, the
keeper of the door: 5: And I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites
pots full of wine, and cups, and I said unto them, Drink ye wine. 6: But they
said, We will drink no wine: for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father commanded
us, saying, Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye, nor your sons for ever:
7: Neither shall ye build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any:
but all your days ye shall dwell in tents; that ye may live many days in the
land where ye be strangers. 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; 9: Nor to build
houses for us to dwell in: neither have we vineyard, nor field, nor seed: 10: But
we have dwelt in tents, and have obeyed, and done according to all that Jonadab
our father commanded us. 11: But it came to pass, when Nebuchadrezzar 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.
12: Then came
the word of the LORD unto Jeremiah, saying, 13: Thus saith the LORD of hosts,
the God of Israel; Go and tell the men of Judah and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem, Will ye not
receive instruction to hearken to my words? saith the LORD. 14: 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. 15: 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. 16: Because
the sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have performed the commandment of their
father, which he commanded them; but this people hath not hearkened unto me: 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
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. 18: 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: 19: 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 for ever.
The book of Jeremiah is not in chronological order. This prophecy came about 10 years before
Zedekiah became king of Judah. At
this time Jehoiakim is king of Judah. He
did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD. Jehoiakim led the people into idolatry which
led to base sin of every kind contrary to God’s command. So God is using the Chaldeans to purge the
nation of these idolatrous men, while chastening his elect among them.
As this is happening, God told Jeremiah to call the
Rechabites into the temple and offer them wine to drink. The Rechabites were Gentiles, the descendants
of Moses’ father-in -law, Jethro. One of Jethro’s descendants was a
man named Rechab, thus the name “the Rechabites.” The Rechabites
were proselytes worshipping the one true and living God—that is the reason they
were permitted into the temple. Rechab
had a son named Jonadab. Jonadab joined
with King Jehu in tearing down the idols and groves of Baal worship in Israel
during the days of Elijah.
Before he died,
Jonadab gave these strange commandments for his descendants to
follow. Jonadab’s reason was v7: “that ye may live many days in
the land where ye be strangers.” For
300 years they had obeyed their father. So
when Jeremiah offered them wine they quickly, stedfastly, refused that they
might continue obeying their father
Afterward, God asks
Judah and Jerusalem, “Will ye 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.”
Subject: Will Ye Not Hear and Do (God’s Word?)
Proposition:
God our Savior commands his sanctified children to hear his words and obey, to
receive and do.
The LORD’s purpose in
showing the Rechabites obedience is not to say we should obey the commandments
of Jonadab. The LORD’s purpose is to
contrast the Rechabites obedience to their father with Judah’s disobedience to
theirs.
Divisions: We will see the 1) Contrast in who gave the commands 2)
Contrast in how often they were given 3) Contrast in the number of witnesses 4)
Contrast in the commands themselves 5) Contrast in the promise connected with
them
CONTRAST WHO GAVE THE
COMMANDS
The Rechabites
command came from a mere man, on earth, Jonadab. Yet, his sons performed every command. Their obedience was constant. They passed the test set before them. Bear in mind, it was an insult to refuse food
or drink in those days. They were risking
being thrown out of Jerusalem which would have meant death at the hand of
Nebucadnezzar. Yet they refused
to disobey the command of their father.
The motive of their obedience was the honor and love of their father. They said, “For Jonadab our father commanded
us.” That was the motive they gave
for their obedience.
But God says to
Judah, “Notwithstanding, I have spoken to you…” God says, “What is Jonadab compared with
me? What is his authority compared with mine?” God’s saints
believe our Father because his is the word of the one true living God of heaven. Christ Jesus our Redeemer is the King of
kings and Lord of lords, who is above all!
Christ’s love toward his people melts our hard heart. God our Father gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have eternal life. Man in the earth cannot save or destroy
eternally. The God of heaven is he who has
power to save and to destroy eternally. The
precepts of Jonadab were arbitrary and external. God’s command is for our good. When sent in power, God’s command reaches to
the heart and conscience. The gospel is
not an offer, it is a command from God the Father, to believe on his Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. Our Father spoke,
not from earth, but from heaven, commanding, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I
am well pleased; hear ye him” (Mt 17:5).
God’s word comes as a command, not an offer. “The times of this ignorance God winked at;
but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30).
Men and women want to
make great sacrifices and offerings to earn God’s acceptance. If you put dirty clothes in a washing machine
then you took a soapy wet rag and washed the outside of that washing machine until
it shined like new. Will it clean the
clothes inside? That is sacrifice
without heart obedience. If we white the
outside of the sepulcher inside is nothing but dead men’s bones. A man can be reformed outwardly but until God
performs a work of grace within it is all sacrifice with no heart obedience. God told Saul to utterly destroy the
Amalekites. But Saul brought back the
fattest sheep to offer to God.
1 Samuel 15: 22 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. 23:
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and
idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also
rejected thee from being king.
A sinner first has to
be created anew within by God and made to obey this command from the heart, “Jesus
answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him
whom he hath sent” (Joh 6:29). That is
the command of God himself. Will you hear
and obey the word of God?
When we lift up
Christ in our preaching, as Moses lifted up the brazen serpent, and we cry, “Look
and live”, we are not speaking our own words but the words of God. To reject our words would be insignificant. But to reject the testimony of the God of
heaven is the greatest offense of all! “He
that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth
not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave
of his Son” (1 Jn 5: 10). The gospel commands
our obedience because it has the authority of God Almighty behind it.
But depraved sinners,
left to themselves, will reject the command of God while they believe and keep
the commandments of men or of a church or of some creed. Christ said,
“I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall
come in his own name, him ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive
honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?”
(Joh 5:43-44)
To you who have not
believed on Christ, what a shame it will be that sinners all over the world obeyed
the commands of men while you have the gospel of the true and living God of
heaven and earth and refused to obey him.
Christ said, “If the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done
in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But
I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of
judgment, than for you” (Mt 11:21-22).
Seeing that the true
and living God of heaven and earth has commanded us to believe on his Son that
we might have eternal life, will we not hear and obey God’s word?
CONTRAST HOW OFTEN
THE COMMAND WAS GIVEN
Jonadab gave the
command to his children one time. Yet,
God says in verse 14, "unto this day”, 300 years later, his sons
obeyed. The voice of Jonadab was a cry coming faintly from far down the ages. His sons obeyed. But God says in
verse 14, “I have spoken unto you, rising early and speaking but ye
hearkened not unto me.”
Again and again God has
sounded forth his command in our ears to believe on his Son and follow him. His mercies “are new every morning: great is
thy faithfulness” (Lam 3:23). Jonadab
was long since dead. He could not see
when his children disobeyed nor give correction for it. But God lives forever. He has declared his gospel to us every
day. We have the witness of creation,
the witness of God’s word and the witness of his preachers. And each elect child is ever at the center of
God’s attention. Our heavenly Father leads
his redeemed, chastens and corrects his regenerate child and ever keeps us at
the feet of Christ!
Beholding how God has
born witness to us every day, will we not hear and obey the true and living God?
CONTRAST HOW MANY
WITNESSES GAVE THE COMMAND
Jonadab was one man
who commanded his immediate children. Then
one father would pass it to his immediate family. But God says in verse 15, “ I have sent
also unto you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them…”
How many preachers
have preached to us in 12 years in this place? We have had at least three
pastors visit and preach for us each year.
Some years we had four and five.
That means there have been at least 40 preachers declare the same gospel
to us! In this place alone, God has sent
prophet after prophet declaring the good news that in Christ mercy and truth
are met together. Over and over we have
heard from the mouth of multiple witnesses that Christ is the fulness of the
Godhead bodily and God’s saints are complete in him. God has sent one preacher after another to us
declaring to us the good news that the good work God begin in his people, he
will finish.
If we had 40
witnesses telling us the same thing concerning any earthly matter—we would
believe beyond all doubt. Does that not
show us the depths of our depravity. To have
so many witnesses speak the same good news and yet not believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ declares our total inability if God leaves us to ourselves.
Beholding how many
witnesses God has sent us who have all declared the same gospel of our glorious,
triumphant Redeemer, will we not hear God’s word and obey and cast all our care
on his Son, Christ Jesus?
CONTRAST THE COMMANDS
THEMSELVES
Jonadab’s commands
were not preceded by grace and pardon. They
were simply commands. These commands
were harsh and strict: drink no wine, plant no gardens, build no homes; they
must dwell in tents and be always moving.
God promised his people they would once again build houses and plant
vineyards in that land but Jonadab forbid it in his sons.
Contrast that with
Christ. First grace comes giving
spiritual life, a new heart, convincing us of our total inability to save
ourselves. Yet, granting faith and
repentance to believe on Christ our Savior to follow him in believer’s baptism,
God gives his regenerated child the power to obey. Then the Holy Spirit purges our conscience
making us know that God has given the believer forgiveness of all our sins in
Christ. He has justified his people from
all things from we could not be justified by the law of Moses. Then Christ unites his new babe with his
church, our brethren, under the preaching of the gospel where Christ continues
to minister to us all our days.
Then comes Christ’s light
and easy yoke. Christ commands each
believer to continue in him and love one another. What a light and easy yoke! Christ commands us, “This do in remembrance of
me.” He even gave us an ordinance so we
could be reminded off his broken body and shed blood by the bread and
wine. How light and easy! Christ commands us to be in subjection one to
another and to regard our brethren better than yourselves. He commands us to bear one another’s burdens
and so fulfill the law of Christ—the law of love. Christ commands, “If your brother sin against
you seven times in a day and seven times turn again to thee saying I repent,
thou shalt forgive him.” He commands
that as much as possible we are to live peaceably with all men. He commands us to be not entangled again with
the yoke of bondage. Christ teaches us
the good news that “I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live
unto God” (Gal 2:19). All Christ’s
commands are a light and easy yoke because with each command comes the grace
and power of God to make us servants of righteousness.
But left to themselves, Judah was too proud to confess their sin and
inability to keep God’s law. Instead, they
not only disobeyed God’s commandments, they rejected God himself by rejecting his prophet. They
scorned and killed his prophets, rejected God’s commands and made themselves
new commandments. God said,
Jeremiah 2: 11: Hath
a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people
have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. 12: Be
astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate,
saith the LORD. 13: For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken
me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken
cisterns, that can hold no water.
Seeing how Christ has fulfilled the law for us and made
us the righteousness of God in him, will we behold so great salvation, so great
love for us, and then refuse to hear and do as Christ commands?
CONTRAST THE PROMISE
CONNECTED TO THE COMMAND
Jonadab could not
guarantee that his children would live long. And if they did obey and live long, they would
only live long on an earthly piece of ground in which they were strangers. Jonadab could not do for his seed what God does
for his. He left them commandments but no
stedfast hope of inheritance.
But Christ’s blood guarantees
acceptance with God for all for whom he died. Christ successfully gives each obedient child
peace of
conscience, protection from our enemies, all the exceeding riches of an eternal inheritance in God’s kingdom of
grace and glory. God who cannot lie promises his people shall
awake with Christ’s likeness and see him as he is. Our heavenly Father has given us the sure
hope of eternal salvation in heavenly Jersualem in heavenly Mt Zion in Christ
Jesus our All! We will one day have no
sin, only perfect conformity to our Savior.
God crowns obedience to our Master with every blessing so that it is written, "Blessed
is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments”
(Ps 112: 1). Those who obey God by
his grace and power so that they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and follow
him has “promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come” (1
Tim 4: 8).
But because Judah and
Jerusalem hearkened not unto the LORD, the LORD said in verse 17, “I will
bring upon [them] all the evil that I pronounced against them.” Every sinner who refuses to obey God, who
will not turn from their idolatrous, sinful way and believe on Christ and
follow him, God promises to bring upon them all the evil God pronounces
in this book for all eternity.
On the other hand,
Jonadab being a picture of Christ, we see what shall become of all who obey and
believe on Christ. God said in verse19,
“Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever.” The immutable God of glory promises
Christ his Son that due to Christ’s blood and righteousness, he shall not want
a man to stand before God forever. In
fact, each and every one Christ redeemed, the Spirit shall make obedient to
believe on Christ so that each and everyone shall stand before God perfect in
the last day and for all eternity!
Sinner believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be
saved. Disobey and you shall be damned
forever. And for you who believe, let us
start brand-new today devoting our lives entirely to obeying our Lord and our
Savior! As Mary said, “Whatsoever he
saith unto you, do it” (Jo 2:5).
Amen!