Strangers and Pilgrims in this land

"The house of the Rechabites." -Jeremiah 35:2 [KJV]

My soul, as the prophet had his commission from the Lord, to go unto the house of the Rechabites, and the Holy Ghost hath been pleased to have the event of the visit recorded; do thou go down to it also, and see what instructions thou canst gather there, under His gracious teachings, for thine evening meditation.

The house of the Rechabites drank no wine. And was not this to intimate the law of the Nazarites? Surely there was a reference, in this prohibition, to the one glorious Nazarite, even Jesus! The Rechabites had no fixed dwelling-place, but lived in moveable tents; and believers in Jesus, like their Lord Himself, have "here no abiding city, but are seeking one to come." Hence, when the king of Babylon came into the land where the Rechabites had no fixed abode, they had no attachment to the place, and therefore the more readily took their departure.

Such, my soul, will be the case with thee, in the land where thou art but a stranger, if, as a stranger and a pilgrim, "thou abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; and set thine affections upon things above, and not on things of the earth." Oh! how truly blessed to have no ties, no clogs, no impediments, to fasten down the soul; but when the Assyrian cometh up into the land, and "this man (this Glory-man, Christ Jesus,) shall be the peace," Micah 5:5.

My soul, ponder well this sweet view of the house of the Rechabites, and mark the Lord's observation concerning them: they obeyed Jonadab their father, in all their abstinence and movements. The precept for this obedience, it should seem, was but once given, and the motive to it had no reward, either in dwelling-places here or hereafter. But with thee, my soul, all that thy God and Father hath enjoined thee concerning His dear Son, He hath again and again held forth; as He saith Himself, rising early and speaking, He hath sent all His servants, the prophets, as if entreating an attention to what must make for thy present peace and everlasting happiness. 

Oh! how truly blessed, like the house of the Rechabites, to sit loose and detached from earth and earthly things, and to be tracing Jesus in all, and enjoying Jesus in all. Go, my soul, go down frequently to the house of the Rechabites, that there the Lord may cause thee to hear His word!

 

-preacher Robert Hawker (1753-1827 A.D.) 

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