Back to Matthew chapter nine. We have in these verses, the Lord speaking of himself
as the bridegroom. He's the bridegroom in the church.
is his bride. He is coming to this world to
redeem her from all her iniquity, all her sins, make her pure and
holy like himself, and take her home. Take her home. The father prearranged this marriage. This is a prearranged marriage.
The father chose his bride. Our Lord came into this world
after the father had chose his bride and made this covenant
with him. He came into this world and became
bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh. so that they may be made
one. When God created Adam, he put
Adam into a deep sleep, which I think represents the death
of Christ. And he took a rib from his side and he made him
a woman. And God brought her to Adam. and gave her to him. God is forming out of Christ,
his bride, his wife. And when life is over, when all
this has finally come to an end, when all the body of Christ is
put together, then she will be complete and
she will be with him forever. in glory. Our Lord came into this world
to give her His name. His name. I watched a program one time,
and this woman just had a really difficult time. She's getting
ready to be married, but she's having this real difficult time
taking her husband's name and giving hers up. Deal breaker. That would be a
deal breaker. Can you imagine the church not
wanting to take the Lord's name? Don't call me a Christian. I
want to keep my old name. I thought, well, you need to
find somebody that you're so enamored with, you want his name.
That's my that's my thoughts on it. You need to be in love.
You need to be in love with somebody so much that you want his name. To give up yours. And to have
his. To have his. And there's something we need
to see here. I need to understand is the work of the bridegroom.
We need to understand that the bridegroom came to redeem, not
to repair. He didn't come to repair. He
came to redeem his bride from all her sins. He didn't come
to repair Judaism. He came to save. He came to save,
he came to redeem, he came to get a people that make up his
bride and he's gonna take them home. Now verse 14, let's pick
up here. It says the disciples of John asked our Lord a question. And they said, why do we, And
the Pharisees fast often, and your disciples fast not. Well, here's the first problem
I saw in reading this. First of all, they identified
themselves with the Pharisees. They identified themselves with
the self-righteous. There's an old adage that goes,
birds of a feather flock together. Why do we and the Pharisees fast often? And
your disciples, they don't fast. Well, the second thing I saw
here after this first problem Why do we fast? Well, why don't you tell me?
You tell me why you do what you do. You'll notice the Lord didn't
answer that question. Not directly. Why do we do what we do? Why
do we believe the gospel we believe? Why are we here? Why? Really, why am I here? Is it to worship the Lord Jesus
Christ? Is it because I believe the gospel? I believe the gospel. I believe
the gospel preached here. I believe. And I worship Christ. Can we truly answer this question? Am I here because it's a family
religion? You know most people. If you
just look at statistics, most people, if they were raised up
Democrats, if they were raised up Republicans, that's how they're going to vote. If they were raised up Catholic
or Methodist or whatever, that's how they're going to believe. I don't want to believe this
because it's the way I was raised. I don't believe it because God
has revealed it to me. And there's no doubt. It's the
truth. Rather than I believe this is
the gospel, there's not any. That's how much I believe. Now fasting, they said, why do
we fast? Fasting was supposed to be a
form of worship. It was a heart issue. Fasting
was a heart issue. But they turned it into a ritual.
They turned it into a self-righteous ritual because they would fast,
they would disfigure their faces, and they wanted everybody in
town to know they were fasting. And the Lord said, don't do that.
He said, wash your face and go out and be joyful because truly,
whatever it is I'm going through, and I'm being honest, whatever
it is I'm going through, I have a right to still be joyful. I
have a right to still joy in the Lord. Don't I? You do too. Joy in the Lord, Paul said, what
did he say? Always. But now wait a minute. Joe, you just lost everything. There's still, They're still
in the greatest of sorrows. In the greatest of sorrows, they're
still, in the believer, a real rejoicing in the Lord. His hand
is in it. He's carrying me through it.
And there's a reason to rejoice. There's an end to it. There's
an end to it. And someday I'll be with Him.
It may end in death. It may be a trial that takes
me all the way to the grave. But there's an end to it, and
I'll be with you. The fasting was supposed to be
a heart issue. Let me read you something from
Joel. I marked it because it saved time and a little harder
for you to find. But over in Joel chapter two,
it reads in verse 12 and 13. Therefore also now saith the
Lord, Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting."
And this is mourning. It was a heart issue. "...and
with weeping and with mourning, and rend your heart, and not
your garments." It's an inward work. It's something inward going
on. Don't rend your garments. Don't
just make a show outwardly of it. But it's something that's
genuinely going on in your heart. Rend your heart, not your garments,
and turn to the Lord your God, for he's gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and of great kindness, and repents him of the evil.
That's who our God is. Here's my advice to me, to you. Don't do anything if you don't
know why you're doing it. If you don't know why you're
doing it, just don't do it. They said, why are we fasting?
Well, can't you answer that question? Can't you answer? Why do we come
here and worship? Can we answer that question? And notice here though, Matthew
called them John's disciples. Whose disciple are we? Whose disciple am I? You know, as far as my spiritual
childhood, I grew up under Henry Mayhem. 35, 36, 37 years, I don't know,
something a long time there. I sat under the ministry. And
as Paul said, follow me as I follow the Lord. And I followed his
preaching and ministry and sat there, but I am Christ's disciple. Someday, somebody will come along
and replace me. Somewhere down the road, I have
to step down. But the Lord never steps down. You see what I'm
saying? The Lord never steps down. There'll
always be somebody, if the Lord keeps the gospel here, there'll
always be somebody else. But we are Christ's disciples.
We are His disciples. These men had attached themselves
to John instead of Christ. Now, I'm not saying all these
men were lost. They might have been babes in Christ. I don't
know. I don't know. I think the majority of them
probably had just attached themselves to Him and didn't go any further
than that. But it's evident the Pharisees and John's disciples
did not like, listen, this is very telling. This is very telling. They did not like fasting. They
did not like denying themselves. They did not like doing it. Why
am I fasting? You know, like I was a kid, why
do I have to go to church? When I was young, that was my
attitude, really. Why do I have to go? And they're
like, why are we doing this? It's evident they didn't like
it. They didn't like what they were doing, but they just, why
were they doing it then? Show. Show. And they thought there was some,
there was some measure of acceptance before God in doing it. But they
didn't like it. Let us never forget this. God
knows the heart. God knows my heart. He knows
it. If we find worship to be a burden,
if I find worship to be a burden, there's a real problem. There's
a real problem with me, with me. And the Lord answers them. He said, can the children of
the bride chamber, can they mourn? See, he puts it in the correct
light. They want to know why they fast,
why they denied themselves, why they, well, certain times that
they, remember that Pharisee said, Pharisee said, I fast twice
a week. You know, he made sure to fast
twice a week. He denied himself of whatever,
but he denied himself. And he didn't like it. He didn't
like it. He couldn't wait till the day
was over with. The next day he can get back at it. Can the children
of the bride chamber fast, and the Lord said, mourn, He calls
it mourn, while the bridegroom is with them. Can you mourn while
Christ is with you? If you have Christ, what do you
and I have to mourn about? If you and I can really lay hold
of Jesus Christ, of what we have in Christ, and what He's done
for us, what do we have to mourn about? He said, these disciples
sitting there with Him, they don't have anything to mourn
about. They have the bridegroom, I'm with them. I'm with them. True mourning happens when the
Lord is absent. I'll tell you what, that's when
you mourn, when you can't detect His presence. But his presence is gone. David
said, restore to me the joy of thy salvation. Psalm 51. He had
lost the joy. He lost the presence of God.
He couldn't sense God's presence anymore. Although the Lord never leaves
us nor forsakes us. But that's a good question. Whose
children are we? Whose children are we? Are we
the children of the Lord? Now he's gonna speak of his death
here. He's gonna give just a glimpse. It's like just a glimpse here
of his death. He says, the day will come when they will have
something to mourn over. The day will come when they will
mourn when the bridegroom is taken from them. And he's talking
here about his death. when the sheep are scattered. You remember after he died, they
were mourning. We thought he was the one. We
thought he was the one. But he gives a revelation here.
Because our Lord, listen, our Lord came into this world not
to do patchwork, This is not patchwork. This is, this is redemption. This is redemption. No man, verse
16, no man puts a new cloth to an old one. Nobody does that. And why? Because he says the
new will tear the old. It will tear the old. The gospel,
here's what he's saying. The gospel will not be sewed
to the old covenant of works. It's not going to happen. It's
not gonna be sold to the old covenant of works. That is not
what he came to do. The liberty we have in Jesus
Christ cannot be sold to the bondage we have in the law. They
can't be married together. The Galatians were trying to
do that. And Paul called him, he said, oh foolish Galatians,
who hath bewitched you? What are you doing? You cannot
marry grace and works. It's either all of grace or it's
all of works. It's either all of Christ or
it's none of Christ. Christ's work, as I said, is
no patchwork. His work of redemption and satisfaction,
it's a new work and it's a complete work. Listen to these scriptures, we
won't turn to them, it takes too long. But in Hebrews 8, 6
through 13, he speaks of a new covenant, new covenant. In Hebrews 10, 9 to 20, he speaks
of a new way, a new way. In Revelation 21, 5, he says,
behold, I make all things new. In Revelation 21 he says he makes
a new heaven and a new earth. It's not a renovation. Salvation
is not a renovation of the old man. It's not an improvement
of the old man. I'll show you this here in a
minute. In Revelation 2.17 we get a new
name. In Revelation 3.12 it's a new
Jerusalem. In Revelation 5.9 it's a new
song. In Ephesians 4, 24, in 2 Corinthians,
it's a new man. He's not renovating. He's not
doing patchwork. That storm that came through
took some shingles off Doug's house, and he's got tarp over
it, over where the shingle was taken off. That's called patchwork. Until you get it fixed, it's
called patchwork. He didn't do patchwork. He said, I came to
make all things new. All things move. Grace and works
cannot be sewed together. They don't match. They don't
match. Then he says in verse 17, neither
do men put new wine into old wineskins. They don't put it in the new
wineskins. The new wine of the gospel cannot be put into the
old wineskins of works religion. He said it can't do it. You're
gonna have a problem. He said there's gonna be a problem. But now listen, nor can it be
put into that old nature, that old man. That new wine of the
gospel cannot be put into an unregenerate heart. It doesn't
work. This is why in John chapter three,
it is the Lord said, you must, you must be born again. You must
be born from above. There must be a work of God.
God has to do a mighty work in me, in you, in order for him
to pour the gospel, to pour the truth into our hearts. Has to be. There has to be a
new nature created of God in righteousness and true holiness. There has to be. That old nature can't, he says,
it doesn't mix, it doesn't work. It will burst. It'll burst. That old wine skin that's held
that old wine, once that's poured out, once it's emptied out and
you put new wine in there, It's gonna swell and swell and swell
until it just burst. If God does not give me a new
heart, if God does not give me a new birth, pouring the gospel
into me would do nothing but add condemnation to me. That's
really, it'll add condemnation to me. It'll become destructive
to me. If he does not, if he does not
do a work of creation, pour a new wine, the new wine
of the gospel into an unregenerate heart, it'll just cause problems. It'll just cause problems. However, pour it into a new heart. Pour the gospel, The gospel of
God's grace, the gospel of God's glory, the truth poured into
a new heart. And you know what'll happen?
It will expand. It will expand as God gives the
increase. It'll just grow with it. It'll
just grow with it. Over time, it'll just grow and
grow and it won't burst. It'll just grow. It'll grow with
that new wine. It's what happens. Now, what can we learn from this?
What can we learn from this? Those who have the Lord Jesus
Christ have no reason to mourn. Paul often in his epistles speaks
of the joy of the Lord. We have much to rejoice in. That's why Paul tells the Colossians
and us, Set your heart, your mind on things above, where Christ
sits at God's right hand. Set your heart and mind on those
things. We have no reason to mourn. We've
been redeemed from our sins. We've been purchased by the blood
of Christ. We've been born of God. Now,
now are you the sons of God. Do I feel like it? No. Do I look
like it? No. Am I? Yes. Yes. I believe the gospel. You
believe the gospel. Many of you believe the gospel.
And the reason you believe the gospel is because you've been
born of God. And if you're born of God, you're
a child of God. And now are we the sons of God.
It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know this, when
he shall appear, we shall be just like him. Be just like him. And then we
learned this, you cannot mix works and grace. See, they were
trying, when they came to the Lord, they said, why do we and
the Pharisees fast often? They was trying to mix it. They
was trying to bring it together. And the Lord said, they don't
have anything to mourn over. First of all, I'm with them.
And secondly, you cannot put that old covenant, that old covenant
of works, you cannot put it You cannot sow it, put it that way,
you cannot sow it to the gospel of God's grace. You can't do
it. And you cannot take the gospel
of God's glory, the gospel of God's grace, and pour it into
an unregenerate heart. It's got to be new wine. It's
got to be a new wineskin. It's got to be a new wineskin. And that's the third thing we
learn. There must be a new creation before one can receive the gospel. You'll not receive it until God
himself does a mighty work in you and in me. Until then, you
know what it'll be? As Paul said in 1 Corinthians,
foolishness. It'll be nothing but foolishness.
And then one day God does the work and you're like, I see. I see. I understand how God can be a
just God and a savior. I understand. We have nothing to mourn. We
have nothing to mourn over if we have Christ. I know someone's
gonna say, well, we do mourn over our sins. Yeah, but we do
understand that they're gone, that they've been put away, they've
been taken care of. We've been redeemed now. Let's
get a hold of this. And on this side, let's get a
hold of this. Right now, in this day, at this
hour, that all our sins have been taken away and we have nothing
but rejoicing in the Lord.