Saturday - Jeremiah 35 - Keeping God's Word

W

HAT does it mean to keep God’s word, or even the word of a human authority figure? This kind of "keeping" means: to fulfill an obligation or a duty, specifically one that has been placed upon us by someone else; that is, not self-inflicted. If keeping our word is important, keeping God's word is infinitely more important. And of course, the 2 things are interconnected. But, keeping God's word is the most fundamental of all responsibilities. It is where the human race went wrong in the Garden of Eden. God's word was "don't eat of that 1 tree" (of the knowledge of good and evil), and we failed to keep that injunction.

In Jeremiah 35, we find a very unique account of a family that faithfully kept the words of their father, juxtaposed against a very common account of a society that did not keep the words of their heavenly Father. God instructed Jeremiah to offer wine to a household know by the family name, Rechabites. But, when he did this, the whole family of men refused to drink of the wine. And, they all had the same reason. About 300 years prior to Jeremiah’s offer, their common ancestor, Jonadab, had forbidden the consumption of alcohol forever by any members of his household.  And so, they kept the words of their progenitor.  Their diligent reverence for and observance of a family rule would be interesting enough and instructive enough by itself. But, laid up beside the Jews' casual irreverence for and in-observances of God's rules, the Rechabites' strong character stands out even more as an example.