This past Father’s Day I enjoyed celebrating fatherhood with my family. I love being a father; I love all that it involves, every nuance that it brings to life. And yet I worry, I worry about the culture that my children will face; I worry about subtle influences that gently creep into young hearts. You see, I’m fourth generation Apostolic, statistics tell me that my children will likely not fall in love with Truth. I’ve always hated math anyway, so I’ve chosen to reject what the data tells me, and do everything in my power to see that my children serve God.
The Scriptures are filled with fatherly role models, and we find some not so great examples as well. David, the sensitive poet, described as “a man after God’s own heart,” was a good king and a terrific military leader but not the best father. The life and faith of Abraham, God’s friend and father of a nation leaves us with many good lessons. Others, like Isaac and Jacob, had mixed success as fathers. The New Testament is remarkably void of fatherly details. In fact, some of the stronger dads in the Bible were obscure and minor characters in Scripture. Others were obedient to God in their own time but failed completely to pass their faith on to their families.
Allow me to remind you of a godly father who encourages me to believe that my children and my children’s children can indeed serve God. You may have forgotten about Jonadab, his story is so briefly told in Scripture. We first read about Jonadab the son of Rechab in II Kings chapter 15 when Jehu the 11th king of Israel made an alliance with Jonadab to destroy the followers of Baal. King Jehu knew that Jonadab was zealous for God and an influential man. Together they successfully completed what the prophet Elijah had begun. They destroyed all the worshippers of Baal. So complete was this destruction that the pagan worship of Baal (which sometimes included parents sacrificing their own children) was wiped out in Israel, and the temple of Baal was torn down and made into a garbage dump.
We don’t know a lot about Jonadab’s life or his style of parenting but we do know that when it was time to take a stand, he took a stand. When it was time to choose a side, he chose the Lord’s side. When he became a father, he chose to BE a father. He wasn’t anxiously waiting for his children to turn 18 so that he could be free of his parental responsibilities. He understood that fatherhood is a lifelong commitment. He also understood that the spiritual well-being of his children was just as important as the physical well-being of his children.
In great wisdom Jonadab commanded his children to abstain from wine and strong drink. He warned them to dwell in tents and not buy houses. He asked them not to plant vineyards or to buy fields and plant seeds. Jonadab set standards to preserve his family BOTH physically and spiritually. Some of his guidelines sound unreasonable to us even today. But he wanted to insure that his family could survive the changes in Israel that would come when the nation was destroyed. He took measures that would permanently set them apart. They were to live differently than those around them. They were to maintain moral purity. He didn’t want them to get too comfortable in a dangerous place.
Most people today would say that he was old fashioned and behind the times when, in reality, he was ahead of the times. He was preparing his family for the tragedy that was coming to Israel in a few short years. Many other families didn’t survive because they had been living the “good life.” But Jonadab’s family survived pagan invasion after murderous invasion because they listened to their father.
How could he know that these things were going to happen in the near future? He knew by faith because he believed the words of the prophets who were speaking into his life. Several prophets had predicting the destruction of Israel. Elijah had predicted the complete destruction of the family of Ahab and Jezebel. Perhaps Jonadab was a little boy on Mt. Carmel when Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal. Maybe he saw the fire of God fall. Maybe he witnessed the prophets of Baal fall on their faces and cry, “The Lord, He is God!” He would only need to see a miracle like that ONCE to know that Baal was a defeated god. Again, it was Elijah who prophesied that Jehu would be king of Israel. Somehow Jonadab instilled a RESPECT in his family’s heart for men of God and the WORD of God. Even after his death he left a continuing legacy of RESPECT.
While other dads were allowing their families to worship God and Baal at the same time, Jonadab remained zealous for the one true God. When everyone else had accepted that Baal worship was a necessary evil, Jonadab said, “NOT SO!” I wonder if Jonadab remembered Joshua’s powerful declaration, “…as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” when he agreed to risk his life taking a stand against the worshippers of Baal? He centered his family’s life around God’s word. But none of this would have made any difference if he had not been consistent in his private life. Our families notice our inconsistencies and sense our secret sins. Faith, faithfulness, greatness, integrity, strength of character, and moral purity are things we learn by example and not by decree.
After II Kings chapter 15 it is almost three hundred years after Jonadab’s death before his name is mentioned again. Judah is in great turmoil. Idolatry is everywhere. Jerusalem is about to be captured, destroyed and plundered by the Babylonians. Thousands of Israelites are about to endure the humiliation of captivity in Babylon. The prophet Jeremiah had been pleading with Judah for almost 40 years to turn from their sin and unbelief. When suddenly in the middle of all this chaos God spoke to Jeremiah and said, “Go find the descendants of Jonadab.” God told Jeremiah to test Jonadab’s legacy. They gathered his descendants together gave them jugs of wine and invited them to have a drink. That’s when something truly astonishing happened. They refused. “No,” they said, “we will not drink wine, our ancestor Jonadab son of Rechab gave us this command: ‘You and your descendants must never drink wine. And do not build houses or plant crops or vineyards, but always live in tents. If you follow these commands, you will live long, good lives in the land.’ So we have obeyed him in all these things. We have never had a drink of wine to this day, nor have our wives, our sons, or our daughters. We haven’t built houses or owned vineyards or farms or planted crops. We have lived in tents and have fully obeyed all the commands of our forefather.”
Almost 300 years after his death Jonadab’s children were still benefiting from his wisdom. He left a continuing legacy. The obedience of six generations was based on one man’s faithfulness. In Jeremiah 35:19, we see one of the most extraordinary promises given to a father and his family in the entire Bible. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah and rewarded the faithfulness and obedience of Jonadab and his descendants, saying, “Jonadab, the son of Rechab, shall not lack a man to stand before me forever.” Jonadab even after his death was promised that he would always have descendants serving God.
This means that somewhere in our world today a descendant of Jonadab still survives and serves the Lord. This promise from God is more valuable than power, fame, wealth, health, comfort, looks, intelligence, or any of the things that we pray our children will have. The legacy of Jonadab stands as a shining example that faith, moral purity, values, standards, and families can remain strong from generation to generation.
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