I hope you do not mind me sharing my devotions with you. Matt. 9:14-17 Yesterday, saw Jesus healing the sick, the demon possessed, and the afflicted, and being criticized for it. Today, we see that Jesus has confounded the wisdom of the foolish again. And, today, if we seek wisdom, it truly only comes from God Himself. No other can match Him. So the disciples of John asked a valid question. Why to we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not? His answer was simple and to the point, but I wonder if they got or absorbed the answer? Can the friends of the bride chamber mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? These friends of the bridegroom were those who accompanied him to the house of the father-in-law when he went to bring the bride to his house. The marriage feast lasted for seven days; but the new married woman was considered a bride for thirty days. This is surely different than the customs of our day, isnt it? Then He tells them something of importance in a parable that they must not have understood, for He followed it up with another. No one puts a piece of unshurnken cloth to patch an old shrunken garment. When the garment is washed, the unshurnken patch shrinks; the tear is made worse. Then Jesus told them that the day was coming when the bridegroom would be taken away from the bride and her friends; then they will fast. You dont mourn in sadness, restricting yourself from some pleasure, when you are joyously happy in the presence of the bridegroom. Fasting doesnt have to be the deprivation of food. It can be anything you extremely like, such as the (though I hope this is not your case!) slop operas, a game show, a special hobby you really like. Fasting can be depriving yourself of anything you especially enjoy and spending that time in prayer for a special need you have. These people especially enjoyed their time around Jesus. But here He is telling them there is soon coming a time when He would be taken away from them, and they would fast then. This reference to being taken away was probably trying to tell of them of His trial, death, and resurrection; but, they missed it all together. But...what has this, patching material, got to do with religious teachings? So He continued. No one puts new wine into old wineskins If they did, the new wine would cause the old wineskins to split, and both the new wine and the old skin bottle would be wasted. The old wineskins had already stretched as much as they could. Putting new wine into them would cause the splitting of the skin due to the violence of fermentation of the new wine. So what is He talking about here? He certainly is not teaching them how to preserve new wine to cause drunkenness. Jesus often talked about or compared His followers as fruit of the vine. I think it is in Luke, Jesus said He was the vine, we are the branches, and we are to bear fruit or be cast off into the fire. This parable is of a three fold meaning. First, He is telling them that combining the Pharisee and His doctrines would not mix. Jesus is bring into the world a new wine or a New Covenant, but the Pharisee would not let go of the old wineskins, or the Old Covenant Law. Plus, they had some 900 laws of their own above the laws of the Old Covenant! These old fogies and Jesus could not be both in the same bottle. Second. new converts can not be treated as a person who has followed Jesus for 30 years! The new convert has to be handled carefully and tenderly until she/he has time to grow spiritually. Until the new convert has had time to learn the laws of the grace of God, they are not obliged to comply with them. We should compare spiritual growth with physical growth. When a new born baby comes into your home, do you feed her/him beef stake, string beans, and gravy? Or do you feed her/him milk for a while, then strained baby food for awhile, until they have time to grow? But at the same time, you dont feed yourself Gerbers baby food to entice them to grow up quickly and eat the foods you know to be better! We cannot be this stupidly foolish spiritually, either. If we get to like Gerbers baby food again, we wont be able to entice them to like butterfly pork chops, green beans, mash potatoes and gravy like we once knew. Third, He is giving them a warning of His being taken away for His trial, crucifixion, and resurrection. What a beautiful picture is here! Jesus is telling them that a new era is coming to the Christian faith. The old wineskins could hold the old covenant laws of blood sacrifices for sin, of thanksgiving, of peace, etc.. But now is a different era of new wine. The new covenant of grace, with the Other Comforter being able to dwell within our hearts! These old foggy wineskins would either have to become new wineskins or bust! He isnt able to put this new wine or doctrine in old diehard, law bound hearts and survive. He had come into the world to introduce a new covenant. He, Jesus, was going to offer Himself as the supreme completion to blood sacrifices for the fulfillment of the debt of sin. And these old foggy Pharisees were going to have to do some changing if they wanted to make Heaven their home. They had to quit putting themselves up for pride and being self fulfilling; but make Jesus Christ their pride and dependence. They were going to learn that their long prayers for self importance was going to have to end; that they needed to put their dependency on Jesus Christ to give them His glory for justification. Yes, we have to be new bottles in order to put Him first and us second, to pray to Him in private so He could reward our prayers openly for His glory. In this, His new wine and us being new wineskins can both be preserved for the bridegroom!
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 17:57:59 +0000
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