Okay, we're good. Luke chapter
five. So Jesus has been dealing with
these Pharisees and these lawyers, been having a conversation with
them, and he continues that through the end of the chapter here in
verse 31. And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are
whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." And they'd
been asking, well, why are you eating with publicans and sinners? Why are you hanging around with
unrighteous people? And he said, because I came not
to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And they said
unto him there in verse 33, well, why do the disciples of John
fast often and make prayers and likewise? the disciples of the
Pharisees, but thine eat and drink. And he said unto them,
can you make the children of the bride chamber fast while
the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the
bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they
fast in those days. And he spake also a parable unto
them. No man putteth a piece of a new
garment upon an old. If otherwise, then both the new
maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new
agreeth not with the old. And no man putteth new wine into
old bottles, else the new wine will burst the new bottles and
be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But the new wine must
be put into new bottles, and both are preserved. No man, also
having drunk old wine straightway, desireth new, for he saith, the
old is better." So that's kind of a, seems like on the surface,
kind of a strange set of circumstances and things to talk about with
these Pharisees, but as we get into it, I think you'll see how
it makes perfect sense. And we've been talking about
grace all the way forever, but the things that he's done, he
healed the paralytic man, he cleansed the leper, all those
things that he did that were pure acts of grace to people
that It had no merit. They didn't deserve anything,
but it was by grace. And we find that nothing is by
accident. The paralytic man. This is so
that you may know that the Son of Man hath power to forgive
sins. It wasn't because he was an extra
sinner that he was a paralytic or something like that. So nothing by accident, everything
with the Lord is by exact design and grace in the purposeful steps
of Christ in going to this tax collection booth and effectually
calling Levi or Matthew, follow me. And we looked at the true
meaning of this word follow. It means to be in union with
on the road, And as Brother Parker mentioned last week, that narrow
road, that way of Christ is a narrow road, and it allows no other
things to intervene with it. It cannot be altered, and it
cannot be widened, and wide is the path that leads to destruction.
And so can true union with Christ, the question that we asked last
week was can true union with Christ and free grace exist if
one insists on trying to incorporate works into it? And that's what
these Pharisees were really doing. Well, you know, we have all these
things that we do. we observe all these sacrifices,
we obey the law, we do this, we do that, and your people don't
seem to be following along with that. So with that, with these
things in mind, we come to verse 33 where the scribes and Pharisees,
they continue to try and equate their adherence to work and the
law to grace, which they couldn't really fathom. And why do you
eat with publicans and sinners? You know, they should have been
proclaiming the Gospel to sinners all along, and yet they were
saying, here's what you need to do to be righteous. You need
to do this. You need to do this. You need
to follow this law. You need to do this sacrifice.
All these doo-doo things that were, in fact, pictures, types,
and shadows of the very Christ. So why don't the disciples fast
and pray like we do? Why don't they pray and fast
on a regular schedule like we do? Why don't they adhere to
the works and the law? And why don't they do the religious
stuff that we do so people can see us and observe that we're
religious? How will people know that they're
religious if they don't do the things that we religious people
deem proper and necessary to do? And so once more, the Lord,
He, He answers their question, but
he always gives the deep answer. And remember the profound answer,
the answer that's more than what we could imagine, more than what
we could fathom. He gives an answer which was
really beyond comprehension to one that's not been born again. And to the unregenerate, I like
that sign our pastor has on his wall. Well, I think it says to
the unregenerate, no explanation is possible. To the born again,
it's not necessary. They believe it. And so there's
a state of unequaled peace and joy and trust in the Lord when
the Spirit of God breathes. into us the breath of life and
who causes us to believe, and who makes us to understand that
terrible pit from which we've been yanked out of, the brand
that's been pulled from the burning, and so forth. There's a peace
there with God that we didn't have before, and that peace is
in Christ. And in Psalm 60, 5, verse 4,
we'll take a verse from Psalms this morning in Psalm 65. Verse
4 says, blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causest to
approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts. We shall
be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even thy holy temple. And boy, there's just volumes
in that one verse. We're just satisfied with everything
Christ has done. We don't need anything else. We can't imagine anything else.
And so now we come to this section here where they say, well, why
don't your disciples fast? Why don't they pray? And he says, well, can you make the
children of the bride chamber fast while the bridegroom is
with them? Prayer and fasting is a circumstance in which a
believer is so overcome, so burdened, that the heart and the mind are
in unison and are totally engaged in a spiritual matter and issue. And the natural issue and outcome
of it, the natural response is prayer and fasting. Not something
that you produce on a regular schedule. I fast twice a week. It's what that Pharisee says
in Luke chapter 18 verse 10. I'm glad I'm not like them other
guys. I fast twice a week and I give tithes of everything and
I, I, I, I, I. Here's all the things I do that
equate to my being religious. And I think that there's just
a true contrast there with this publican. And we've been talking
about this publican named Levi. This Pharisee says, here's my
schedule, twice a week I fast. And the publican just smote on
his breast and said, he couldn't even look up. His heart and his
mind, his soul was engaged. And he said, God be merciful
to me, a sinner. There was an issue where I think
there's a good example there. He was fasting. He was spiritually
fasting. Well, I'm not going to eat on
Tuesdays and Thursdays so that I can chalk my box that says
I fasted. I don't really have anything
particular in mind that I'm fasting about, but it says that I should
fast, so I'm going to do it this day and this day. And this guy said, my soul is a burden and I've
been made to recognize that only salvation is of the Lord and
God be merciful to me." And so he says, how can the children
of the bridegroom, bride chamber fast when the bridegroom is with
them? He says, the days will come when He'll be taken away
from them. And for a time, He'll be taken
away. And then they shall fast in those
days. And we can look ahead into the Gospels and see that they
were pretty broken up about this when He was taken away from them.
Even after they kind of threw Him under the bus and said, we
don't even know Him. And then they said, oh, our hearts
are just broken. We love Him so much We can't think about anything
else. We're not hungry. Our hearts are tuned in to what
we think we've lost. And then, it turns out, they
shall be made to know that by free grace they have been and
are and will be loved with an everlasting love And nothing
can separate them from that love of Christ. Not Him being temporarily
taken away in a physical sense. He was with them. He's wherever
two or three are gathered together, there am I in the midst of them.
And not that He pops in and out. Just that He's there. That we
don't see physically, but He's there with us. So, we have this picture that
for a time they'll fast. But then when the Spirit of Truth
tells them all the things in the Gospels concerning Himself,
then they'll be at peace and they'll be about the business
which I've assigned them to do, which was launch out into the
deep and bring in a knot. He says, I'm going to make you
fishers of men. And we just see pictures of that
all the way through. In the next chapter, they're
going to be going through a field of grain. And here and there,
they're going to grab a handful. The harvest is truly plenteous,
but there's not many laborers and so on. And so he says, they'll
fast for a time, but then they'll They'll come to see everything
in its true course, and that everything is by design. And
so now he's still speaking to these Pharisees, and he says
unto them a parable. Well, we know about parables. And he's speaking to these Pharisees
who are always seeking by works of the law to attain some form
of righteousness. And a parable which outside the
grace of God, they're just not gonna be able to know or understand. And in Matthew chapter 13, 10,
it was even kind of a puzzle to these disciples. They said,
Master, why are you always talking to them in parables? And he said,
therefore I speak to them in parables because they seeing
not and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. As
we get into Luke chapter eight, he says unto you, it's given
to understand the mysteries of the kingdom. of God, but to others
it's in parables that seeing they might not see and hearing
they might not understand. So he's given them a parable
here, and it's perfectly clear to God's
people, and it's really pretty simple, but it's this parable
of the garments and the patching and the wine. And we'll read
through that again here, and then we'll just have kind of
a brief explanation here. No man putteth a piece of a new
garment upon an old. If otherwise, then both the new
maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new
agreeth not with the old. There's a key word there. It
agreeth not. And no man putteth new wine in
old bottles, else the new wine will burst the bottles and be
spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be
put in new bottles, and both are preserved. No man, also having
drunk old wine, straightaway desireth new, for he saith the
old is better." What a parable. What a thing to say, the natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God because
they're foolishness to him. Neither can he understand them
or even know them because they're spiritual in nature. And if we
think about this, I think the roots of this, starting in verse
36 about putting a new piece of a new garment on an old, patching
a hole as it were, Remember in Luke chapter 24,
he said, and beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded
to them in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself.
And I just think that means so much more than we comprehend.
I mean, all the scriptures, not just, you know, there's so much
detail in some of these old scriptures. And we're gonna look at one here
in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. And I think that's the root of
where this parable comes from. But all the Scriptures in some
way are connected to Christ, and they all say something about
grace. And so it's really when we boil
this down, this parable about this garments and the wine, it
just boils down. It's just a parable of the same
old problem of trying to incorporate works into grace. grace that
is from and is based on the everlasting electing love of God the Father.
Grace before time. Important to remember that. Works
in the law were never able and never were meant as a source
of righteousness before God. They were a schoolmaster, the
scripture says, to bring us to Christ. And then we find from
those same scriptures that Christ is the end of the law to righteousness
to everyone that believe it. That's from Romans chapter 10,
verse four. So in the flesh, in the old nature,
we think and believe we can supply a measure of righteousness enough,
in fact, to make the finished work of Christ really unnecessary. We can do enough good. We can
keep most of the law. We really didn't sin that much.
And surely God will have respect to our best efforts. Where can
we find example of that? Genesis. Chapter 4, verse 3. In the process of time it came
to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering
unto the Lord. He worked hard for that offering.
He had to plow the soil. He had to plant the seed. He
had to weed it and do all the things to bring that crop. He
had to pick it and harvest it and do all those things. And
Abel He brought also of the firstlings of his flock, and the fat thereof,
a picture of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
But unto Cain and his offering he had not respect. It was completely of works. It
was completely based on what he did. And God had not respect. And Cain was very wroth and his
countenance fell. It reminds me of those disciples
that are out there. We toiled all the night long
and taken nothing. And Christ says, by grace, launch
out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught. For
a big haul. So Cain, he toiled all the season
long He was looking to that for his
righteousness. And God says, hey, you know the
same story that your brother knew. And if you go there, it'll
be okay. But if you don't, sin lieth at
the door. So the garments and works of
the law is just rotten. It couldn't be kept. And you
keep coming up with, well, Christ is not enough. Saved by grace,
but you must be circumcised. Saved by grace, but you must
be baptized. Saved by grace, and on and on
it goes. Trying to patch a piece of works
into grace only makes it worse. And this picture is just really
a picture of the gospel of grace. Remember the law of the leper.
by grace, He cleansed that leper. And then He says, now you go
back to the priests and you tell them to go look up the law of
the leper in Leviticus. And they said, oh my God, here's a picture of Christ. Well,
that's not what they said. We probably have to look that
up to see what they're supposed to do, because it never happened.
Anyway, trying to patch A piece of works into grace just
ruins it. It just makes it worse. Christ
is not enough. And it says in verse 36, there's
no agreement between the two. That's a critical thing to remember.
There is no agreement between works and grace. There just isn't
any. That word agreement means harmonious. They are not in harmony. You
know, Dan always plays us a wonderful hymn. Well, if he just turned
that over to me, I'd just be banging around on a bunch of
stuff that was out of key and out of not the right notes, and
it would just sound awful. And that is what the noise is
when you try to incorporate works into grace. And as I said earlier,
I think this parable has its roots in Leviticus 19, verse
19, You shall keep My statutes. And
I want you to look at this from a spiritual context. Man, I wish
Norm had all those Leviticus on sermon audio. I would have
went back and looked this up. I'm sure he covered this. Think
back in Leviticus 19.9, you'll keep my statutes, the spiritual
nature of it. Thou shalt not let thy cattle
gender with a diverse kind. Thou shalt not sow thy field
with mingled seed, neither shall a garment mingled of linen and
woolen come upon thee. Mixing two kinds of seed. things
together. Remember how the lesson he gave
on salt. Individually, they were two things
that were not good for you, but combined, they were okay. But
in this case, it's kind of the opposite there. In Deuteronomy
chapter 22, verse 11, thou shall not wear a garment of diverse
sorts, as of woolen and linen together. The only garment that's
going to suffice is the garment of righteousness that's supplied
by Christ, and there is no works in it. It is holy of grace. And this is just a picture of
trying to combine grace and works. You can't put a piece of this
new stuff on the old stuff, and it's not really new. You know,
grace, the grace of the Lord is the oldest thing there is.
He's the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.
And adding to grace, free will, adding to grace, baptism or sacraments
or church membership or church covenants, good works. false
evangelism, and on and on and on. And substituting the word
I in the place of Jesus paid it all. It's just trying to incorporate
works into grace and just saying that You know, Christ didn't
pay it all. I need to do something else.
I, in fact, I have the ability to do something else and I only
need, we say this all the time, well, on my scale here I have
my works. I just need just enough Jesus
to balance it out. I don't really need the whole
thing. In actuality, the works just put you deeper and deeper
and deeper into the whole. And I appreciate what Brother
Bill Parker said Sunday. Lord, Lord, have we not done
many wonderful works in Thy name? We've done all these things.
We fasted twice in a week. We cast out demons. We give to
the poor. We do this. We do that. And you
know, Jesus says, enter into your closet to do all that stuff.
Do all that stuff from your heart. All this fasting, it's not a
regular practice. something you do to incorporate
works into grace. In Luke 6, he says, why call
you me Lord, Lord, and don't do the things that I say? It's
just that simple. The natural man says, well, I
know what the Scripture says, but... I have my own idea about
salvation, and it must include me exercising my sovereign will
over God's sovereign will. Well, there can't be two. The
very definition of sovereignty does away with that. You can't
have two sovereign things. One is sovereign, or it's not.
You cannot overpower the one with the other. My good works
outweigh my bad deeds, if in fact there were any bad deeds. Man is always constantly redefining
sin. Just in my short lifetime, it
changed a lot. that we would not have even considered
or tolerated 20 years ago now are commonplace and not looked
at as out of the ordinary. I didn't really do any bad deeds. Maybe I never even stole a pack
of gum in my whole life, but you know what? That's not the
issue. The issue is what do you think
of Christ? We come down to the end here
where he says, No man, also having drunk old wine straightaway,
desireth new, for he saith the old is better. The old grace
was good. It was good enough for Abel. It was good enough for Abraham.
It was good enough for all those patriarchs that are listed as
examples in Hebrews, the 11th chapter. Total reliance on Christ
for salvation. By grace are you saved through
faith, and that, not even that is of yourself, it's a gift of
God. You know what it says, Jesus
Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. The old wine is
better. The old wine was good enough
then, the old wine is good enough. I enjoyed what Robert Hawker
wrote in his commentary. Here in one of the ones I was
looking where he usually just says, this is so understandable,
it needs no explanation by me. So perfectly obvious. No man
having drunk into the spirit of the faith of the old disciples,
the patriarchs and the prophets concerning Christ will desire
to taste of any other. That which was from the beginning
And in which the fathers among the faithful all lived and died
is the old wine of God's covenant love. And he which hath drank
into this will drink of no other. Christ's love is better than
wine." Quote from a Song of Solomon chapter one, verse two. No man
having tasted of grace can go back to the, well, I have a free
will. They know that their will, just
like the rest of them, is corrupt right down to the core. Their
will is not capable. That's why the Scriptures say,
you're dead in trespasses and sins. You have no ability. No nothing. Your will is just
as dead as the rest of you. No man tasting of grace ever
desires to go back. You can't go back. You can't
unknow true grace. And we say that from time to
time here because it's just so true. And, you know, people cling
to that, but when they come, they cling to these old, well,
I hope my good works outweigh my bad. I have a will. It's possible for me to reject
Christ, isn't it? In a sense, I suppose that you
could say the words, but when God exercises His power and makes
you willing, you're just not going to do that. And you're
not going to want to. And you're not going to want
to ever say, well, I wish I could go back and undo that. It's just
not going to happen. So, you can't unknow true grace. And you can't mix works with
true grace. And you could go into Romans
Chapter 11 for a little more explanation on that if you want
to he says if you do that, it's not grace anymore You've mingled
it. You know, how much corruption
do you have to mix into a glass of water before you don't want
to drink it anymore? Before it's not good for you If it's a grace then it's of
no more of works and And that's what this little block of scripture
on this parable is really about, and I hope you've got something
out of that. We're going to stop there for
today, and next time we're going to leap into chapter 6, and it'll
probably be a couple of weeks since our pastor's going to be
gone next week, and we'll pick up in chapter 6. Old Jesus is
out there on the Sabbath day doing things against the religion
again. And an interesting thing that
Luke points out that the other scriptures don't point out, which
brings us back to them expounding in all the scriptures and the
law and Moses, the things concerning himself. He says, it was on the
second Sabbath after the first. And that takes us back to the
Feast of Weeks. And so we'll look at that a little
bit when we come up to this in chapter 6. So in the meantime,
my brothers and sisters, be free.