Rechabites

We visited the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte today. It was our second visit there. I bought a book....and my wife bought a gift for her mother.....and we had lunch there.....and I recommend that if you are traveling Interstate 77....that you take that short two or three mile excursion off of your route....as it's very easy to get to....and then get right back on the interstate. God used Billy Graham in a number of ways....first and foremost in evangelism.....but also.....particularly in his last few decades.....to give us an increasingly strong warning that judgment is coming upon America. He completed his task....and was called home....but Jeremiah's warnings to the "men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem"....as described below....are also to us. I came across the following that was written on October 11, 2019....but never posted.....and I do not remember why:

             There is an interesting chapter in the book of the prophet Jeremiah....chapter 35....where God demonstrated how he often reasoned with men. He told Jeremiah to go and bring a certain family....the house of the Rechabites....into the house of the LORD....and when they come offer them wine to drink. Jeremiah did so....and those men came....and Jeremiah offered them wine....and they of the house of the Rechabites proceeded to tell Jeremiah that their father had told them never to drink wine....nor build houses....nor plant vineyards....but to live in tents....and that they would then live many days in the land where they sojourn. The men told Jeremiah that they did just that....that they were only in Jerusalem because Nebuchadnezzar was coming against the land.
             Then God spoke to Jeremiah again....telling him to go to the "men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem"....and tell them of the obedience of the house of the Rechabites to their father....and then relay to them from the LORD...."I have spoken to you persistently, but you have not listened to me.....I have sent you all my servants the prophets....(today Billy Graham and many others)....saying....'Turn now every one of you from his evil way, and amend your deeds, and do not go after other gods....(Trump being just one)....to serve them....but you did not incline your ear or listen to me" (verses 14 and 15 ESV)....and because of this....disaster was coming. Jeremiah then said to the house of the Rechabites....relaying it from God....because you have obeyed your father...."[you] shall never lack a man to stand before me."
              There is a remnant in America....true believers in Jesus....from differing denominations.....who stayed true to those "old paths"....but most have rejected both the warnings and the old paths. Disaster will therefore come upon us....(it is already amping up greatly....as the Jonah's....the Grahams and Sprouls....are gone....taken home....while the Nahums....MacArthurs & others....are here now not so much to warn us but to prepare us for what is ahead).....and there will always be that remnant.....both high and low.....educated and simple....differing in many ways but obedient to the sound biblical traditions and practices that fathers long since gone have given us.