[Mike Iiams] My title today is "God's Family Reunion." Now, question, how many of you have ever been to a family reunion? Okay. Well, I became interested in this topic when, once again, my wife's maternal, that's the my wife's mother's side of the family, once again this summer had another family reunion. What's unusual about this is that my wife is a member of the Dean family, again, on her mother's side, and she can remember organized family reunions her entire life. All 35 years that she's been alive.

The family has recorded business minutes, they have business minutes, they didn't record them like a tape recorder, they have recorded business minutes going back into the 1950s. And, according to the, I'll say, word-of-mouth or the stories that are told, they have had these family reunions clear back into probably 1900. And so, clear back into the 1900s, they have the family reunion history at the Dean family farm.

Now, some of you didn't raise your hands when I asked about the family reunion. Did you ever think that you're actually attending a family reunion right now? You know, there has to be something to draw people to a family reunion. And something there has to make it worth your time and energy to go back to the Dean family farm for over 100 years. And at some point, those people, at some point, those that attended in 1900 weren't there in 2000. But something has to make you want to go there from year to year, there has to be some kind of a draw and appeal. There has to be someone who's organizing and promoting and encouraging. They can't make you come, there's a committee that puts together the next year's reunion. There's a secretary, there's somebody… there are people that make it their policy or make it their business to keep these family reunions going but there has to be something there to keep you going.

The Feast of Tabernacles seems like the closest thing to a family reunion that most of us or many of us will be a part of. And apparently, there's something here that's drawing you here because no one is making you come here. I've never been to a Dean family reunion, but if I had a chance, I think it would be very educational. They, even though I don't really know them, they are a part of my family history and they helped shape what my wife is and where she came from. That family reunion is a part of her life.

In case you haven't thought about it, the Feast of Tabernacles is the largest of several family reunions that we attend each year. I'll rehearse them briefly. You do a weekly one called the Sabbath where family members of God's family come together. You do seasonal reunions, there are things called summer camps that I understand a lot of you are really excited about and you go there once or twice or three times in a year. And then, there are northwest weekends and Winter family weekends. And women's retreats and men's weekends. You might just say they're church activities but in reality, they are family reunions because God's family is coming together.

So what happens at these family reunions? What happens? Well, you go to a family reunion and you expect to see other family members. And what are you going to do? Well, you're going to talk and you're going to discuss. And, in many cases, I hear people talking about the hope that lies within them. You could turn to 1 Peter 3:15, you probably know it pretty good. It says, "But you should sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear." That doesn't say that you only give answers to people on the outside of our fellowship, people at work, or people on the street, we answer each other for the hope that lies within us. We pass on, in these family reunions, we pass on our history. We talk about maybe the way it used to be, we talk about our faith. We talk about how you came to believe what you do and you say, "Well when I was being called, it was like this. I got called by The Radio Church of God," "I had listened to Herbert Armstrong," "I saw The World Tomorrow," "I found a magazine in a trash can and I pulled it out and it was the best thing I'd ever done." There are many many stories that you all tell one another on a weekly Sabbath or, in this case, a family reunion like you're at now.

So you share stories. You gain encouragement by hearing what others are going through and how God has intervened. And maybe you catch up on someone's trial, many of you have trials that are just a long history of, "Okay, what went wrong this week?" And sometimes it feels like you're getting just ground through, you know, on concrete and it's hard sometimes, and I understand that. But by coming together, you kind of get it off your chest. And sometimes people will point out the blessing, "Oh, you know, you're looking better this week," and it gives you some encouragement to get you on through the weekend. And even though God allows this trial, as we've heard about in other messages, He is forming and shaping you. And it's a beautiful thing to know that God is involved in your life even though He allows you to suffer.

What else do we do at a family reunion? Whether it be a Sabbath day, or a summer camp, or a church outing, or the Feast of Tabernacles? Well, we eat. Imagine that, we eat. Acts 2:46, let's turn there. Acts 2:46 is a scripture that is a reoccurrence or, you know, a recollection of what was happening back when the New Testament Church was started. Acts 2 and verse 46. So, after the Holy Spirit had come and they were learning and growing, verse 46 says, "So, continuing daily with one accord in the temple," so they were, not necessarily going to church every day, but they were together in rehearsing all that was going on, "they were breaking bread from house to house," so they were eating and sharing what they had, whatever that was, from house to house, "they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart." How many of you eat with gladness and simplicity of heart? And I dare say that most of you do. There's these times of the Feast of Tabernacles where you do have a little extra money, you're allowed to able to go to places without going into debt for it, you can eat something a little nicer than you might the rest of the year. And verse 47, "Praising God and finding and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved."

So, as we go to our family reunion, to church, to the Feast, from time to time, God blesses us with other people that are learning and seeing what the beauty and the value of following God's ways are. And, you know, usually, in a family reunion, there's somebody taking notes. They're keeping the records, who had babies, who got married, who has finished the race and is resting now. And we don't, you know, go around and say, "Oh," you know, "we take attendance and we…" you know, if you read the United News, we're showing you who's getting married and who's engaged and who had, 50-year, 60-year anniversaries and these types of things.

And the final thing I wrote down, I just added this to my notes at the beginning of services, we sing at family reunions. Imagine that we sing praises to God who happens to be the Father of all that's going on here. So, Joyce's family history is that her grandmother came into the Worldwide Church of God in her latter years. And I never met her, but there are stories that circulate about her driving from Illinois to Penticton. So we were recently in Penticton, there's a Feast site there just adjacent to it in the town of Osoyoos we're going on right now. But her grandmother used to drive all that crazy distance before four-lane highways, and that's an amazing story in itself how that must've gone. But her parents came into the Church in the early 1960s, in Illinois, as a direct result of Larry Walker who used to pastor here, in Bend, and was the Feast coordinator here. So, Larry Walker and his father were installing floor coverings in an apartment building that my father-in-law was building. Now, he wasn't my father-in-law back then because you know… but Joyce's father was building an apartment building and the Walkers were laying the flooring in it. And her father and mother overheard the father-son, installers, talking about Larry going to Ambassador College. And there was something about the conversation, about the character, about the work ethic, something about those two men that impressed them. And I guess the rest is… you know, something clicked in their head, the rest is history. They've been members of the Church for decades now also.

You see young people, there is a lot of history in the Church of God. A lot of history. And many times, many times, probably too often, we're kind of focused on the negative side of what's gone on in God's Church. But the fact is there's a lot of positive going on in God's Church. You look around, look at the positive things that are going on here. You are here and you're you're taking in God's Word and you're trying to live God's Way of life. And that is an incredible blessing. Many of your friends, your co-workers, people that you know on street, they would think it's less than smart to take a week off. Somebody I know went to school one day and then he took 2 weeks off of the school, or 8 days or 9 days off the school, it doesn't make sense… in fact, I guess I have two children that just did that. But you're not only taking off school where we all take off work unless you're retired and then you, apparently, never work. But we are God's family and we do have a lot of history in the Church and we're here making history.

So, 1 Corinthians 12, in verse 12… I think this is 1 Corinthians 12:12. We are members of the Body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 12:12. I'm not going to go through this whole passage but verse 12 says, "For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body— whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves are free— and all have been made to drink into one Spirit. For, in fact the body is not one member but many." So, all of us, from different states, different walks of life, different backgrounds, male, female, all nationalities, different countries represented here, we're all, wherever we come from, we're here as part of the Body of Christ, that's one family, one family reunion that we're here involved in.

So now I'm speaking specifically to everyone that is, let's call it a second-generation Christian, or third or fourth, I really haven't tried to do the math and figure out what the possibilities are for who came in the church, when, and what generation could be here. But considering that we are at the greatest family reunion of the year with elders and middle-agers and juniors and precious children, as we saw on stage a little bit ago, the question is to you, younger generation, and it can apply to the older as well, do you respect your parents' religion enough to follow it while you are growing up into adulthood and for the rest of your life? Do you respect your parents' religion enough to follow it while you are growing up, going into adulthood, and for the rest of your life? Do you trust that what they have learned is worth you learning also? Do you trust that what they've gone through is worth you trying to understand and learn? Do you trust that the rules and policies and traditions and those types of things that they've laid down and taught you, that have been passed down to generation to generation, are those rules good for you for the rest of your life?

God's law doesn't change but how about the family traditions, as long as they don't conflict with God's laws, are you willing to keep those for the rest of your life? You know, technology changes, where we live changes, our career choices change, do the fundamental life choices change? Well, hear me out. If it was good enough for grandpa or grandma, is it good enough for you? Or do you have to live life and figure it out for yourself and go through the school of hard knocks… many people have will tell you that they graduated from the school of hard knocks because they have the bruises to prove it.

I want you to be turning to Jeremiah 35. Jeremiah was a man… or actually, he was a lad that was called by God for a special purpose. Jeremiah was called in his youth and God gave him the unpleasant task of warning Judah to stop their backsliding and their disobedience that they would not obey God. I don't think, and it's pretty evident when you read the whole book, that Jeremiah was not too impressed with his assignment from God, even though God's like the perfect employer, you know, who could be more merciful and all those types of things. But Jeremiah was given the unpleasant task of telling a lot of people that they needed to stop backsliding. So, I'd like to walk you through one of his experiences in Jeremiah 35.

You know, the Bible spends a significant amount of time talking about or keeping track of who begat whom and spends a lot of time in several chapters about genealogies. You might just make little notes here, Genesis 5 and 11, Genesis 5 and 11, Matthew 1, Luke 3, 1 Chronicles 1-8. There are many chapters that just go through the family lines and just bore you with names that you can hardly wrap your tongue around. And yet, these genealogies are written for a reason. Again, we're all family and, you know, the Abrahmic line and the Davidic line coming down through history, it's important that we know that God had a plan, that God lined things out and that He is following a plan that He works through people.

And so, you stay in Jeremiah 35, I'm just going to lightly quote 2 Timothy 3:16. So, there's a reason for all these genealogies in the Bible. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and instruction in righteousness," and the next verse says “that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." So there's value in every word that's in the Bible. And so, when you read these genealogies, they should mean something to you. So, Jeremiah 35, is a variation on a genealogy. And again, God works through people, so let's read Jeremiah 35. It says, "The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, was saying, 'Go to the house of the Rechabites, speak to them, and bring them into the house of the Lord, into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink." So, here's the temple, around the temple of… apparently there were some kind of, maybe not buildings, but there were rooms or storage areas, there were meeting places like you have this room here and there are different rooms with different other rooms. And so, God told Jeremiah to get the Rechabites and bring them into one of these rooms and drink wine. Now, what kind of a… I don't know, that's kind of unusual, wouldn't you say, how many places in the Bible do you find God saying, "Go drink wine."

Verse 3, "Then I took…" Okay, now I get to hack them, "Then I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazziniah, his brothers and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites, and I brought them into the house of the Lord, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan the son of Igdaliah, a man of God, which was by the chamber of the princes, above the chamber of Maaseiah the son of Shallum, the keeper of the door." Sorry, you guys. "Then I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites bowls full of wine, and cups; and I said to them, 'Drink wine. Have at it.'" And they said something very unusual, "We will drink no wine, for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father," and it doesn't mean father, it means, it's father, grandfather, great-grandfather… okay, I'm going to tell you how long this was but we're going to just read it now, “then Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying, 'You shall drink no wine, you nor your sons, forever, forever. You shall not build a house, sow seed, plant a vineyard, nor have any of these; but all your days you shall dwell in tents, that you may live many days in the land where you are sojourners.’"

So, here's the son's son, son's son, son's son, son's son, son's son saying what Grandpa… great, great, great, great, great told them to do. "Thus" verse 8, "we have obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, in all that he charged us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, or our daughters, nor to build ourselves houses to dwell in; nor do we have vineyard, field, or seed. But we dwell in tents, and have obeyed and done according to all that Jonadab our father commanded us."

I'm hinting that… I want you to think about this. "But it came to pass, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up into the land, that we said, 'Come, let us go to Jerusalem for fear of the army of the Chaldeans and for fear of the army of the Syrians.' So we dwell at Jerusalem."

"Then came the word of the Lord to Jeremiah, saying, 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Go and tell the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, ‘Will you not receive instruction to obey My words?’” says the Lord.'"

Okay, so here's Jeremiah laying into them, "The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, which he commanded his sons, not to drink wine, are performed; for to this day they drink none, and obey their father's commandment." Remember it's father's father, father's father, father's father, I haven't told you how far yet, "But although I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking, you did not obey Me. I have also sent to you all My servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, 'Turn now everyone from his evil way, amend your doings, and do not go after other gods to serve them; then you will dwell in the land which I have given you and your fathers.' But you have not inclined your ear, nor obeyed Me. Surely the sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have performed the commandment of their father, which he commanded them, but this people has not obeyed Me."

"Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel: 'Behold, I will bring on Judah and on all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the doom that I have pronounced against them; because I have spoken to them but they have not heard, and I have called to them but they have not answered.'"

So the people that should be listening, God's people, are blowing God off. They're doing what they want and God warns them and warns them and just sends the prophets over and over again, "Obey Me, obey Me," and they go, “Eh, who are You?" "And Jeremiah said to the house of the Rechabites, 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: "Because you have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all his precepts and done according to all that he commanded you,”'" listen in verse 19, "therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not lack a man to stand before Me forever.'"

Forever. Different people might argue what that means but, being a simpleton, I'd like to think that it means forever. Now, what does it mean to "lack a man to stand before Me?" well, some would say, "Well, I think it means that there is someone for all time that I'll say is in the Church of God that is standing before God praising Him and singing hymns and probably attending family reunions for all time," and I don't know which one of you are of the house of the Rechabites but I think the house of the Rechabites is probably here among us because God said, "It's forever." Now, He didn't say, "It's going to be in Redmond, Oregon," but it could be. There could be lots of house of the Rechabites, it could be all over the place in God's Church.

Who were these people? Well, you'd think, "Well, these must've been," you know, "God's people, God's chosen people." Nope. They weren't Israelites. And there isn't a whole lot said about them in the Bible but you could go search around and you can find a few verses. We're not going to go through all of those but it would make a great little study. But they possibly were related to the family of Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law, they may have come into Canaan with the Israelites. You kind of wonder, when Moses went back to Egypt and God was working with him to take the Israelites out, maybe his family… you know, because he was out in the mountains herding sheep and doing those types of things, so maybe his family joined his as they left Egypt, maybe they came into the land of Canaan with the Israelites but they weren't of the Abrahmic line or David's lineage, they were not in Jesus Christ's lineage. Jonadab though was the father of the tribe. Apparently, they lived a simple nomadic life because, if you can't plant anything, if you can't raise anything, and you can't drink wine… I mean there are things that, if you can't own property… so they agreed that they were going to live their entire life like this, simple nomadic life, as their fathers did an effort to preserve them from the corrupting influences connected with the city life.

So, I went through tons of commentaries and people's thoughts and comments on who these people were and how they got there, so I'm just kind of pulling bits and pieces out of some of those. So, city life leads you to some of the, I'll say, immoral behavior, it doesn't have to be, but it is certainly easier in a city than it would be out under the stars in the country. Apparently, maybe the father saw value in the solitude that, if you wanted to consider people call it the Bedouins, maybe around Petra you would see the Bedouins living around there. Now, the Nazarites take a vow of not drinking wine, and so, it doesn't say that it was a Nazarite vow but it's very similar to the Nazarite vow. So they were abstaining from anything that's made of the vine. And I'll read you one comment from the F.B. Meyer commentary and it says, 'They clung tenaciously to the regulations promulgated by Jonadab," and here's the years, ready for this, "they clung tenaciously to the regulations promulgated by Jonadab some three hundred years." Now, what if I'm wrong? What if he's wrong? What if it was only 200 years? How long has the United States been in existence? This would be like George Washington saying, "All right guys, I don't want any of you to have wine or buy property or have vineyards for the rest of your life ever." And then, this George Washington's son, whoever he told that to, said, "You know, George knew what he was talking about. So we're not going to do that." And when he had kids, he said, "You know, kids, my dad said that you shouldn't have property or drink wine or plan anything forever. And if anybody marries into this family, they can't do it either." And their kids said, "You know, my dad's dad dad said that you shouldn't have property and plant things.” For 300 years. Was he out of his mind? What did Jonadab think that he was doing? Did he think his kids were going to follow him?

The man had something going on that was pretty honorable. It's kind of unbelievable to me. What kind of power did he have over his kids? Who would want to marry into that family?" Well, they could count the costs and they said, "Well, you know what? If we married into that family, we'd never have to worry about anybody being a drunkard, no one would ever have to be in debt. You know, it could be just a simple good life. We could be out under the stars every night and it would be simple, it'd be kind of a nice deal. You know, this might not be so bad after all."

How about one generation later, you know, when grandpa's dead or, you know, at some point you don't know who… I mean how many of you have never seen a picture of Herbert W. Armstrong? Not very many. It's because the little hands, the little hands aren't that tall. But it only takes a generation or two and you don't know who that guy was. And so, by the time you get to 100 years… how about 150 years? 200 years? The kids are going, "Dad says, you know, you can't ever drink any wine, you can't ever own any property.” And the kids are going, "You want us to what?" Kids. "You want us to what? All my friends, everybody else I know, there's really this great piece of property, look at this girl over here." But God honored and respected that, didn't He? These people and they weren't converted… although, when you read, you think about it, they were pretty close to what God would be lining out for them. God greatly respected, in verse 19 again, "They will never lack a man to stand before Me forever."

I don't know if I have that kind of control on my kids. And I don't think my dad had that kind of control on me. So it's a powerful lesson to the impact that a parent can have on his children and that the grandfather and grandmother and how these things are handed down into family traditions, this wasn't a command from God, this was something that was handed down somehow. I don't know how they did it, it amazes me. But it's a very important lesson also because there's the parent's perspective, but there's a different perspective that I want to get across to, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th generation, that we individually have the power to uphold what has been laid out for us. It's like, "Here it is, all you have to do is do it. You don't have to fudge it or blow the tradition off or think that there's a better way, it's here. It's a good life, and who wouldn't want to marry into our family?"

Jonadab might've said, "This is what we do. And he taught his children, and they taught their children." It's pretty amazing. You know, I said they had a family tradition, you need to be reminded what the tradition, what the difference is between tradition and God's law. Tradition says, "We sing three songs before church," God's law says, "We keep the Sabbath." God doesn't have to spell everything out for us, He expects us to be able to think.

There's a lot to be gained for each of us in following in the righteous footsteps of those who have gone before us. I don't take the story of the Rechabites and their family tree, I can't tell that they were exactly obedient to God but I think they tracked pretty close. They are an example of what a family that believed that, when one of them made a rule, that was a good rule and it didn't dishonor or it wasn't against God and it wasn’t... again, they weren't necessarily God's people, He may have certainly been working with them, but there is not much evidence in the Bible of it. "If the grandpa said it, then we're going to do it. I believe it and I find it," you know, the child could say, "I believe it. It's honorable, it's overwhelmingly powerful and it's something that you individually have a choice." And the way it's written in the Bible it's as if no one ever left the family. I don't know if that's true but God really paints a great picture that this family kept it and did it, He didn't say that they waffled in it, He said they did it. God was impressed, He was so impressed that he used this unconverted family and He threw it in Judah's face and says, "These people can keep a tradition going for 300 years and you can't obey me for 10 minutes." Well, He didn't exactly say that but that's pretty much what it boiled down to.

What was the Father's expectation? Did he think that they would obey for 3 centuries? I'm not sure He questioned it, I would think He said it, and his expectation is He didn't have to say it twice. What was going on in the minds of each of those generations? Did they grumble? Did they complain? "Why did He make a rule like that? This is stupid." He didn't make them do it. They did it, they kept the kids and the kids and the kids kept it on their own. Again, it blows me away because this is such an incredible example of how a successful family works. And who got the credit for it? Well, you could say, "Well, God got the credit for it," but I'd say that each individual, as they walked through the decisions and the thoughts that they had to go through to be able to take what your dad said and to train their kids and to say, "Well, we're going to do it. Is there any doubt? You know, that's what we do.” We keep the Feast of Tabernacles, we go to church on the Sabbath, we go to the Holy Days, we don't eat pork. These are just things that we, our family does, and it's not a question. That's what we do.

In the Millennium that we are here picturing, it will also be the expectation for all of those families. Only, the interesting thing is they're not going to be expected to do it for 300 years, they're going to be expected to do it for 1,000 years, and then, they're going to have to make a choice if they're going to follow it. Apparently, during that 1,000 years, they're going to have these people that look a lot like you, tapping him on the shoulder and go, “Ah, ah, ah, you can't do that. Yeah, remember what somebody told you, don't do that."

So, we are gathered here, we're telling stories, we're talking about our trials and our triumphs. And we're not going to be here very long and we're going to go back to our home church areas. And I hope you take some memorabilia and some pictures and some memories back with you. In our house, one of our daughters who is a pretty good photographer, she did this collage of family pictures on the wall behind our couch. And it's really heartwarming, from time to time, and I do it on a fairly regular basis and just look at the various pictures. And wouldn't it be great to have a collage wall of pictures, not only of the Feast for the last 100 years, but, you know, your faces in those pictures, group pictures, and the laughing and the smiling? Take pictures, tell the stories, enjoy yourselves, be family, talk. You know, the older folks, sometimes it's hard to hear. Sometimes you would rather sit down. Well, that's great when you sit down because now you're down closer to the little people, to their face, and you can look at them, and listen to them, and share their laughter, and take pictures of them, and various things. It's a wonderful thing to be here with so many different age groups and everybody gets to learn about each other and you get to tell the stories and eat the food, and all those types of things.

So God's family reunion is going to go on for eternity. It's not going to be a yearly thing like the Dean's had, you know, God is all about family. And He's growing His family, and He tells us to come together regularly, He tells us to take care of one another.

I'd like to ask you a question. How many of you have been to a family reunion? More hands went up. I must've said something right. We are all family and we should take advantage of every opportunity to reunite. Family reunions are for everyone, young, old, middle-aged, married, widowers. The effort is not to leave anyone out, get to know as many as possible. This isn't just about us, this is about a celebration of perfect government, of perfect living conditions, perfect godly activities. And we all get to contribute and be involved in all of these things.

So I ask you and remind you to make the Feasts special for others. And has been said, when you do that for others, it will become special for you too. So this is a wonderful year here in Bend, Redmond. Remember the Rechabites and the loyalty to one man's directive. The directives that were given, that are handed down, must be honorable and godly but it is our individual choice to follow those that have walked before us, which in many cases is our parents, as they follow God. So the directives need to be godly but some of them are traditions, and there's nothing wrong with traditions. So, enjoy God's family reunion and every other family reunion throughout the year and may you have a great Feast and enjoy your family.