You Can't Say You Weren't Warned

I grew up in the happy little armpit of Pennsylvania known as Delco. Perhaps you've heard of it, and not in a good way. Delco is a string of little towns all known for traffic lights, pizza places, and generally angry residents. Oh, and cops. There were loads of cops! Growing up, we all knew about them. Which township was a bit more forgiving; which borough would give their own mother a ticket. We knew where they hid to catch speeders, which members of the force had an axe to grind and with whom, and what days of the week financial cutbacks worked to the benefit of those who didn't always mutter to themselves S-T-O-P at intersections. In the event one person of our friend group was stopped by the local municipality's law enforcement, the word was out. If the officer winked, we took liberties. If he got out his ticket book, each of us heeded the warning; sometimes going so far as to avoid the area altogether.

I was reading this morning in Jeremiah 35. The Rechabites were separatists of sorts. An ancestor, more than one hundred years prior, had commanded his family that none should drink wine, grow grapes, or even build houses, so as to not distract them from the worship of God. Setting up a tent every couple of months being less time consuming than dusting each week or roof repairs when necessary, I suppose. Anyhoo, God told Jeremiah to invite the Rechabites to the house of God and offer them wine. He wasn't trying to hang them up --after all, He hadn't given them the command anyway; He was using their commitment as an object lesson for all of Judah. They didn't fail Him. The Rechabites refused to drink, saying:

We will drink no wine, for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying, ‘You shall drink no wine, you nor your sons, forever. You shall not build a house, sow seed, plant a vineyard, nor have any of these; but all your days you shall dwell in tents, that you may live many days in the land where you are sojourners.’ Thus we have obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, in all that he charged us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, or our daughters, nor to build ourselves houses to dwell in; nor do we have vineyard, field, or seed. But we have dwelt in tents, and have obeyed and done according to all that Jonadab our father commanded us.

In fact, they even explained, the only reason they'd stayed in Jerusalem so long was because of the furious attacks of Nebuchadnezzar; otherwise, they would have been long gone.

And God's point was made. An ancestor many years before, a mere mortal, had given his family a command, and here were the Rechabites, still obeying it; their patriarch no longer with them; no fear of consequences were they to have just a sip or linger one day more. Now, they were being offered drink by God's prophet. In God's house. If ever there was license, surely this was it! But they refused, holding fast to their vow. Yet, Judah, the people of the One True God, His eternal presence with them in the temple, had been warned time and time again by the prophets He sent, had seen their brothers in Samaria carried off by the cruel Assyrian army, and still refused to obey. They disregarded every admonishment and silenced the prophets. They continued in their offenses toward God. The word was out that God wasn't playing around. But even the practical lesson taught through the faithfulness of the Rechabites would go unheeded and Judah would suffer the catastrophic results of their rebellion. 

Scripture tells us that God's Torah accomplishes all He wills it to do. If we heed it, it will serve to inform us, transform us, and protect us. If we ignore it, it will be the evidence against us before The Judge. Though I was pretty hard-headed back in the day, defying the tried-and-true recommendations of friends was generally not in my playbook. Had I done so and broken the law, their warnings as well as the law itself would have served to condemn me. We warned you! For those who observed the warnings we exchanged, they were valued acts of mercy on a natural level. How much more the words of wisdom contained in Scripture and the sage advice dispensed by pastors and other seasoned saints?