The New Wine part 2

In part one of The post ‘The New wine ’ we established some important facts.

Ø  The promise of restoration of Wine and oil to the nation of Israel was not only for that time but for the latter day when the spirit is to be out poured in the whole world.

Ø  The promise of the new wine speaks of the era of the spirit when the spirit is poured on all flesh. This has been inaugurated by Jesus being manifested in flesh and after his death and resurrection the spirit being released and poured on all flesh (Acts 2)

Ø  The Lord is   doing something new , by outpouring his spirit upon all today. He is doing a new thing and it springs forth,,, the question remains “will you perceive it ?”  The threshing floor will be full of grain and the vats overflowing with wine.

In the second part of this post, we examine the fact that you don’t put new wine in old wineskin for the wineskin will burst out . We also don’t do it the other way round; put old wine in New wineskin for it simply cannot be compatible.

Scrip: Matt 9:17, Mark 2:22,Luke 5:37-38

First of all before we engage further, lets shed off the old thinking, the old mentality of lack, striving , always struggling to get things and acquiring status, being people pleaser, etc. I will call this the Old wine skin mentality for now.

We have seen that Jesus brought with him something new, superfluous and out of this world which is to succeed the old frail, monotonous, predictable, boring, religious way of thinking. Jesus did not bring an improvement of the old order neither does he intend to patch up the old cloth with a piece of a new one. He brings something totally new.

Matthew 9:16-17: “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.. N I V

The Pharisees wanted to pin Jesus down and to disgrace him by opposing his ministry in every way. This time they accused his disciples of not fasting as the others were. This kind of fault finding judgmental tendencies was what they had superbly specialized in. However in their endeavor they missed the point completely. They thought they could confound Jesus into their little winy behavior modification system of religion. What was unknown to them is that Jesus did not bring a behavior modification scheme but a whole different way of life.

The pharisaical way of thinking is that of patching a new cloth on an old garment. It looks like repair on the old garment of which result is catastrophic. You don’t want to do that .If you bury your head in the detail of religion, ou will miss out on Christ. Religion is basically a way of life which is performance based . Its fueled by how well you feel you can pray, how well you have mastered your bible (With the aim of proving others wrong), it could also manifest the good things we do in the name of God ignorantly  but missing out on the newness and freshness that Christ brings.

I have found out that whenever I seek to do things of Christ with an old mindset, I get to be frustrated. I may appear to be zealous on the outside but hurting and remorseful in the inside. I may do good things religiously giving praise and honor to God but murmuring J Ryle says that we need to be careful not to attach excessive importance to lesser things of religion.[1] When we attach so much meaning to our outward expression. How good we look, how happy we make people be, we’re likely falling into religion and missing out on the new life, freedom in the spirit that Christ has for us.

Peter the apostle tells that we have been rescued from an empty way of life.

1^st Peter 1:18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors 1^st peter 1:18.

I will equate this empty way of life with the worthless, empty way of life handed over to us by our ancestors. The empty way of life could be human tradition we have held on to for ages.. it could have been wisdom packaged and filtered through human minds and passed on to us that creep in subtly and occupy the spaces in our hearts where the true unadulterated word of God is supposed to settle.

I would ask you what kind of garment are you? Do you want to take the promises of God, the fresh new things that God promises and patch against an Old heart ? Is that even worth your time and effort? Why wouldn’t you allow the fresh wave of the spirit overwhelm and flood your heart with his loving kindness? Why would you waste your precious time patching up worn out segments of your garment and God is inviting you into something altogether lovely and new? He with one stroke of loving kindness and mercy can give you a whole new heart, change your heart completely.

Why do you labor so hard for that which doesn’t satisfy, why do you spend so much on that which is not bread ?(Isaiah 55:1-2) Come to the waters. Come to him who pours into you new wine, New way of thinking. Receive the spirit through whom we receive life and all that pertains it freely from God. Come , ooh Come yee.

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[1] J.C Ryle,Matthew (Expository Thoughts on the gospels ):The Banner of Truth trust,Edinburg(2012),7

The New Wine .Part 1.

Joel 2:24-25“The threshing floors shall be full of grain;
the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
I will restore to you the years
that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
my great army, which I sent among you.(ESV)

 As we have welcomed the New Year with aplomb, it’s my desire that personally I get to lay hold of what God has for me this year and that I may not miss out on that new thing that he has set for me to behold. It’s my prayer too for you whose life usually tends to be on the runway that you will take off and scale new heights that you will experience the abundant life God has for you.

It’s however a tragedy how we can make resolutions at the beginning of the year with so much zeal and piousness and loose the steam almost immediately after the year sets out. This is so especially as the heat and pressure of the year sets in. If you are one of those who make New Year declarations every January only to stick at the same spot the following year you probably know what am talking about.

The promise in Joel 2 is one of the most profound promises found in the Old Testament.

For hundreds of years In Joel’s time the earth lie pregnant with anticipation of when the spirit will not only come upon a person but flood the whole world. When Jesus was in this world, there was something special about him; he brought with him presence, presence that was not there in the world before. That is something that was not readily available for the people in the Old Testament to enjoy. One of the marks of the Holy Spirit upon a land or in people’s lives is the overwhelming presence of God.

In the events occurring during prophet Joel’s time, there was a landmark national disaster as a locust plague had destroyed the whole of Israel’s food plantation; wine and grain. Joel (1:5, 7, 10, 12). In the midst of this impeding calamity Joel foresees and foretells of the restoration that will come. Joel does not only foretell (To foretell is to simply to predict a future event) about the impending restoration of the nation of Israel but also forth tells(To  forth tell is to speak words of wisdom, warning, rebukes or promises of God) about how God will pour out his spirit on both the young and the old. Vs. 28.

Before this he talks about the threshing floor being full of grain and the vats overflowing with wine. Wine in the bible is used to describe the Holy Spirit. It’s the new wine that Jesus was talking about that we don’t put new wine in old wine skin.(Mat 9:17,Mark 2:22,Luke 5:37) When Jesus  miraculously turns water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee (John 2) it symbolizes the advent of the new covenant which Jesus came and inaugurated by his ministry but it wasn’t until his death and resurrection that his spirit was outpoured to all(Acts 2)           

The bible tells us not to be drunk with wine (Physical wine) but to be filled with the Holy Spirit. (The New wine) Eph 5:18. The comparison is exciting; the insinuation here is that that intoxication that we look for in the physical wine, the spirit can fill us to the overflow… have you ever heard of “being drunk in the spirit.” The point I want to make is that we have the new wine of the spirit which is not as the old wine which runs out or intoxicates only for a moment.

The bible says that if we are in Christ, we are a new creation. The Old is gone and behold all has become new. (Kainos).. 2^nd Cor 5:17. Friends let us delve into the New that God has for us. The old didn’t satisfy, It was so temporal and perhaps it drove us to the brink ;it made us sweat and try to work our socks out, it was frustrating and it laid its weight on us , but the new wine, The Spirit outpoured on us and the one living in us. The bible teaches us about him that he reveals to us the things given us by God (1^st Cor 2:12).

I don’t know about you but I want to experience and love in the overflow. Jesus came and ushered us into something new greater and superior. I wil urge you to open up your heart and get ready for an overflow of the New wine this year.

A D I O S

In part 2 of the new wine, we will Contrast the New wine that Jesus talks about from the Old wine. What did Jesus mean when he said that we can’t put new wine in old wine skins for the old wine skins will surely burst out.