The Recabites

There is an amazing parallel to some of the issues that I've recently been thinking about regarding the Salvation Army in Jeremiah 35. Johnny and my wife and I were talking about it last night over coffee. If you click on the title of this blog you can read the passage at Biblegateway.com.

In fact, you'll need to read it for this post to make sense.

Anywho, Jeremiah was sent to the Recabites with a message for the Recabites. And he was supposed to offer them wine. And he did just as the Lord commanded.

But, the Recabites turned the wine down, saying, we don't drink wine because some old ancestor of ours told us not to - he also told us to live in tents and never plant crops, and a whole bunch of other "regulations" that we still hold to this very day. God later says, somewhere around verse 18, that that's commendable - but in the meantime, Jeremiah has to go back and tell the God's people that they can learn a lesson from this whole thing. The recabites didn't drink et al because an ancestor told them not too. But the people of Jerusalem wouldn't even hold true to God's commandments.

The question that I ask the soldiers among us is, "Why are we agreeing to what we are agreeing too?" Is it because an ancestor told us not to? Is it because William Booth said not to drink Alcohol? There's nothing WRONG with that. I would just hope our commitments go much deeper than that. I would hope that we would be listening to God and what he is saying.

My wonderful wife also brought up a good point. We're VERY self-righteous people. We boast about the commitments we've made. We scorn homosexuals and their lifestyle, we view our homeless neighbors as less worthy, but we're all about the gossip, and anything else thats really of no eternal consequence.

Our commitment to the Army, I'm more convinced, needs to be a commitment to the Army. We've already covenanted with God based on receiving Salvation alone. We've already agreed to certain terms an conditions. Our Articles of War needs to be primarily to the Army, saying that because I love God, I am motivated to FIGHT under these additional stipulations, not that I like the people here, and it's a great way to learn to play the trombone.

I mean we still need to keep Him in the loop . . .

Grace.