Well, good morning. If you care
to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 9. Matthew chapter 9
is where our lesson will be from this morning. Before we begin, let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, how can we begin
to praise you for your deity, your power, your mercy, and your
grace to your people. How can we begin to praise you
for who you are, your character, your love, and your mercy and
pity to your people? But Father, with what you have
given us, we praise you. We thank your matchless name.
And Father, I beg of thee this morning that one more time, you
condescend to bless your people. That you bless us through the
preaching of your word that you give us another sight of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Bear your mighty arm of power
and mercy and grace to your people and let us in awe and in wonder
worship Christ our Savior. Father, how we need you. We cannot
see unless you give us eyes. We cannot hear unless you give
us ears. Reveal your Son to each heart here this morning, I pray.
I know that I ask a great blessing. But you're a great God who's
great in mercy. Father, I pray you bless us.
Bless us with faith in the sight of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
what we ask for ourselves, we ask for our children's classes,
we ask for your people everywhere they meet this morning. Father,
bless for your great namesake, for the good of your people.
Father, for those who are traveling and away from us at this time
of year, we pray for them that you We give them traveling mercies
and give them a good time with their families and bring them
back home safe when it's time. For those who are sick and hurting,
Father, we pray you'd undertake in their behalf to heal, to comfort,
give them a special portion of your presence at this difficult
time which you brought them to. Father, we thank you for the
many blessings of this life. How richly you've blessed us
is beyond measure. Father, we beg your forgiveness
for how often we murmur and complain after how richly you blessed
us. Forgive us, we pray. Keep your hand of mercy and grace
upon us. We ask that you not look at us
in merit, but always in your mercy. It's in the precious name
of our Lord Jesus Christ. For his glory, we pray and give
thanks. Amen. Alright, Matthew chapter
9, you may recall last week we ended looking at a feast going
on in Matthew's house. The Lord had saved a publican
named Matthew, passed by Matthew, sitting there at the receipt
of customs where he sat, cheating his countrymen, and he told Matthew
to follow me, and he did. The Lord revealed himself to
Matthew, and the first thing Matthew did after that was host
a feast in his house in the Lord's honor. He wanted to invite all
of his friends. Now who were, Matthew's a publican. I mean, he's the dregs of society.
Who were Matthew's friends? Other publicans, harlots and
sinners, the worst folks in town. He invited them to come to his
house to this feast because he wanted them to meet the Savior.
And the Pharisees, of course, they looked on as they hated
that guest list. And they had a question. They
want to know why would this religious leader, this man who set himself
up as a religious leader, why would he have fellowship with
publicans and harlots? In verse 12, Matthew chapter
9, the Lord told them. But when Jesus heard that, he
said unto them, they that behold need not a physician, but they
that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth. I'll
have mercy and not sacrifice. For I'm not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance. This is what the Lord told them.
Sinners are naturally drawn to the Savior. Naturally. Just like
sick people are naturally drawn to go to the doctor. Christ came
to save real sinners. That's who you'll see Him with.
That's who you will find coming to Christ is sinners. That's
why He's with sinners. He'd come to save them. But you
know, that wasn't good enough to satisfy everybody there. You know, there are just people
that always want to pick at something Well, they were there at this
at this feast to look at verse 14. Then came the then came to
him the disciples of John saying, why do we in the Pharisees fast
off? But thy disciples fast not. Now,
here's what John's disciples were saying. Why are you all
at this party eating and drinking? And they lumped themselves in
with the Pharisees. They said, the Pharisees and us, the disciples
of John, we fast often. Now, they said, you'll notice
we're at this feast, but we're not eating anything. We're not
drinking anything because we're too religious for that. We're
fasting. You know, we do this. We fast
often because we're so pious. And you and your disciples must
not be as pious, must not be as straight doctrinal as we are
because y'all don't fast. Now, the Pharisees are a separate
issue here, and their motivation is obvious. This seems to be
something the disciples of John are saying. So what about John's
disciples here? Now, I'm going to go on the assumption
that John's disciples are believers. They're disciples, followers
of John the Baptist and who preach Christ. So I'm going to go on
the assumption that they are believers. Yet, they think. They're more religious. They're
more doctrinally sound. They're more holy than the Lord's
disciples. In Luke's account, Luke says,
not only do they say we fast more, they say we pray more.
Now, they have to mean publicly. They have to be seen of men praying
more publicly because they weren't more men of prayer than our Lord.
See, they just didn't see the Lord when he was praying alone
all night. But this is what they're hinting
at. We're more holy than We're more pious than you because we
do these things and you all don't. Now, we've got to be careful
about this. We've got to be careful that you and I don't fall into
the very same trap, that we think we're more holy or we're on a
better plane than other believers because we do more religious
activity than they do. We're more doctrinally straight
than they are. We're more somber or whatever
than they are. And the Lord answers their question.
with a parable. He uses an illustration, a parable
to answer their question. And this is what he's going to
show us. Christ is our salvation. Christ is our righteousness.
Christ is our holiness. Salvation is all Christ and none
of us. It's all who he is and what he's
done and nothing about what we've done. What Christ has done for
his people and in his people. That salvation, that's the title
of the lesson this morning, salvation for and in. So here's the first
thing the Lord teaches us, that salvation is a union. It's union with Christ. Verse
15, and Jesus said unto them, can the children of the bride
chamber mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But
the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and
then they shall fast. Now I love when the Lord refers
to himself as the bridegroom. the husband of his people. And
he's speaking here of salvation. Salvation is a living relationship. It's a living union with Christ
and his bride. That's what salvation is. It's
union with Christ. And I love to preach the gospel
from the picture of marriage. I mean, I just love it. And I
fought the urge to go into that all right now, you know, and
I just can't for time's sake. But I love it because marriage
gives us such a clear picture of the union between Christ and
his people. If you got time this afternoon,
you want a blessing on this, just go read Ephesians chapter
five. What a, what a glorious picture of the union between
Christ and his bride, the apostle gives us there. But at this time,
what would have been in their minds as the Lord talks about
the bridegroom and this marriage when they're all together at
this feast? Well, at this time, Marriages
were arranged for the bride and the groom by their parents. You
know, they didn't go out and fall in love with one another.
And, you know, no, it was a prearranged thing with their parents. The bridegroom had his wife selected
for him and given to him by his parents. This was a decision
they made for him. Well, that's salvation, isn't
it? The father elected, he chose a bride for his son and he gave
her to him. He gave her to Him to redeem.
And Christ loves that bride. How He loves her. And He took
full responsibility for her well-being. He took full responsibility for
her salvation. And He came and He paid all of
her sin debt with His own blood. He gave Himself to redeem her. And Christ makes Himself to be
one with His bride. This is that union. He makes
Himself to be one with His bride They literally become one flesh. Him is the head, and we is the
body. Christ dwells in his people,
and his people dwell in Christ. We're one with him. Now that
union, this is not just some doctrinal pie in the sky thing
we talk about. This is the salvation of God's
people. Jeremiah the prophet said that
this union is so real. This is the name wherewith she
shall be called Jehovah Zekiel, the Lord, our righteousness. To bear the name, that awesome
name, Jehovah Zekiel, to be able to give up Adam's worthless name,
bear his matchless name, oh my. That's salvation. That's salvation. We take the name of Christ, our
husband, because we're one with him. When the father sees his
people, you know who he sees? Jehovah's security. He sees Christ. And believers, because of their
union with Christ, are made partakers of the divine nature through
this union with Christ. We're made what Christ is because
we're joined again. This union is what the old timers
called a vital union. This union with Christ is vital. You know why it's vital? because
there can't be any salvation without it. We can't have life
without it. If we would be saved, we've got
to be made one with Christ. The only way we can have life
is if he's the head and we're the body. The body can never
have life unless it's joined to the head. We've got to be
joined to Christ. And in unspeakable condescension,
the Son of God made himself flesh. He took on him flesh, human flesh,
so that he could be joined to his sinful people. He had a bride. He's got to become one with her.
And you think about this. Especially you girls, you're
thinking about, what if my parents arranged a marriage for me? I
mean, buddy, if I was you, and this is the case I've been telling
my parents, now listen, you pick me out a handsome man, You pick
me out a nice, kind, be careful who you pick out. This is who
I want. The father chose a bride for his son. And he did not choose
a beautiful, rich bride who could add something to his son. You
know, a lot of marriages were made between families. You know,
well, this girl or this man, they can add something to our
family. The father didn't choose anybody to add anything to his
son. He chose a bride, a poor bride, bankrupt. He chose not
a fine upstanding citizen. He chose a harlot for his son. Someone who had prostituted herself
to man's religion. That's who the father chose for
his son. The worst of the worst. And the son said, father, I love
her. I love her. I'll be joined to
her. I'm going to join myself to her.
I'm going to come and pay all of her sin dead. And what does
the bride do? She rejoices, rejoices. What a celebration when Christ
the Savior comes and joins himself to this useful, useless, ugly
people and makes them beautiful with his beauty, which he puts
on, makes her useful, makes her useful in his kingdom by giving
her life and faith. That's worth celebrating, isn't
it? This is a celebration. Now, our religion, our belief
in these things that we preach and we believe are very serious
issues. I take our times together, these
times we have here together in public worship, I take them very,
very, very seriously. I spend all week preparing for
him. I spend all week begging God
that he would give a message and he would bless this time.
I mean, I take it so seriously. I take preaching Christ very,
very seriously. I take worshiping Christ very,
very seriously. I take believing Christ very
seriously. I take walking with Christ not
just on Mondays or Sundays and Wednesdays, but every day of
the week. I take walking with Christ very seriously. This is
a matter of life and death. It really is. But let's never forget to have
joy in the Lord. This is a celebration, a wedding
feast that celebrates Christ our Bridegroom. Let's just not
think we've got to be a Puritan and say, oh, we're so somber.
No, we're more pious. No. Let's just remember this
is a wedding feast that celebrates Christ our Savior. Sinners celebrate
grace. They celebrate mercy. They do.
I've plucked a few comments here out of a rather lengthy statement
by Charles Spurgeon. Listen to these statements I
just kind of pulled out. This is, it'll give you the meaning
of what he was saying. He says sorrow is not suitable
for a wedding feast. You know, we have, we have a
wedding. This is not a time for sorrow, is it? No, we're celebrating
this, this union of this young couple. He went on to say, can
we allow little things to kill our joy? Should we? I mean, we can obviously, should
we? He said, can we, in consistency with reason and in harmony and
respect for our Lord, can we mourn as long as the black man
was near us? No, we can't. No, this is a time. to rejoice
as long as Christ is with us. We rejoice because this union
with him, him be with us. That's our salvation. And that
ought to make us happy. But I tell you what, you take
his presence away and we'll have good reason to mourn, won't we?
Good reason to mourn. And you know, when the Lord does
go away later on, he's going to tell his disciples, now it's
expedient for you that I go away and they're going to mourn, aren't
they? But he's going to turn their sorrow into joy. He's going
to turn the thing that they mourned about into the reason for their
joy. They mourned because the Savior
went away because he died. And that's going to be the very
reason they rejoice. He's going to turn that into
the very reason they rejoice because if he's resurrected,
they're going to see his death meant my salvation. His death
meant my life. His death meant my sin was put
away and they're going to rejoice. All right, number two. This is what the Savior is teaching.
Salvation is a work done for us. Verse 16. No man put a piece
of new cloth into an old garment for that which is put in to fill
it up, taketh from the garment and the rent is made worse. Now
you can't patch an old dry rotted shirt that has a big hole in
it with a brand new piece of material. It just won't work.
When I was a teenager, when I thought about a dry-rotted shirt. This
is what came to my mind. When I was a teenager, I bought
a t-shirt when I was at the Grand Canyon. It said, go hike the
canyon on it. It had a picture of the pack
mule, you know, going down. And I'm telling you, I loved
that t-shirt. I loved that logo and just everything. I just loved it. And I wore it
at least once a week for years. And I mean, I kept it a long
time. So long, you could see through it. It was a dark navy
blue t-shirt. And eventually, you could see
through it. And Janet told me, Frank, it's time to throw that
old rag out. And I said, I love this shirt. And she said, well,
I know you do, but it's not a shirt anymore. It's a rag. It's time
to throw it away. And I looked at it, and you could
see through it. I mean, pretty sad, I reckon.
And I could see there's no patch in this thing. It's too thin. It had to be thrown out. That's what the Lord is saying.
You can't take this old rag and patch it up with nice, new, thick
material. That material, you know, it's
brand new. It's a little stiff. It hasn't been worked. And you
try to sew that into a hole that's in a thin, just dry-rotted old
shirt. You're just going to make the
whole shirt look worse. You're going to make the hole bigger.
It's just going to tear. That new, heavy piece of cloth
is going to tear more of that old, dry-rotted thing out. The
only thing that can happen is you got to throw it out. That
old rag, that rag of your righteousness may be your favorite shirt, but
God's going to save you. It's got to go. It's got to be
thrown out and God's got to give you a new one. And that's what
God does when he saves his people. When God saves his people, he
doesn't patch them up. He doesn't fix them up like,
well, you know, they're pretty good. I'll just fix them up and, you
know, add to them, fix them up. He can't do that because there's
nothing to work with. Nothing to work with. You can go fix
up some old home. You got something to work with.
We're ashes and we're just a pile of ashes. There's nothing to
work with. So what's God got to do? He can't patch us up. He's got to make us new. He's
got to make us new creatures in Christ Jesus and everything
but that flesh has got to go. Everything we trust in about
that flesh has got to go. And eventually God's going to
throw the flesh away, too. Take that new man to be with
the Lord. You see, the only robe of righteousness that God will
accept is a perfect perfect. It's got to be the righteousness
of Christ. God will never. So the perfect
righteousness of Christ. And on to patch up our rags of
righteousness. It'll never do that. Besides
being offensive, isn't that offensive to the Savior? That we'll just
say, well, I'll just take your righteousness and patch it up,
you know, and, you know, finish making mine. That's offensive
to Him. Besides being offensive, it won't
work. It'll just tear our, it'll just make the hole in our rags
of righteousness bigger, and it'll just expose our nakedness
all the more. And besides making the hole bigger,
you make the hole bigger, it just reveals more and more of
your nakedness. Besides doing that, if you take
that perfect righteousness of Christ and you try to patch that
onto our rags of righteousness, the contrast is going to stand
out, isn't it? The contrast of His perfect, beautiful righteousness
next to our filthy rags of righteousness. That's just going to make the
contrast appear, make us look so much worse. God's not going
to take Christ's righteousness and try to patch it in to our
little good works. I mean, that's just absurd. God
cannot accept a patchwork robe. That's the way my grandmother
used to make quilts. Patchwork. She'd make all these
patches in there and she said, well, this is a dress I had,
you know, when I was 16. And this is a shirt your grandfather
had. This was some pants your dad
had. You know, it's just a patchwork quilt. Well, that has a lot of
sentimental value to me. I mean, that's wonderful. But
God's not going to accept that. The only righteousness that God
can accept is a perfect righteousness. Look at Revelations chapter 19.
If God's going to accept us, it's got to be all Christ, all
because of who he is, what he has done for us. Revelations chapter 19, in verse five, and a voice came out of the throne
saying, praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear
him, both small and great. And I heard as it were the voice
of a great multitude, as the voice of many waters, as the
voice of mighty thunderings saying, Hallelujah. For the Lord God
omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice and
give honor to him for the marriage of the lamb has come and his
wife has made herself ready and to her was granted that she didn't
earn this. It was granted that she should
be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white for the fine linen
is the righteousness of saints. See, this is the only way that
we can hand, this marriage supper. The only way we can be the bride,
this marriage supper of the lamb is to be dressed in his perfect
white, clean righteousness, this perfect linen. It's his righteousness,
which he earned as a man. Yet you'll notice scripture calls
it our righteousness. It's the righteousness of saints. It's the righteousness that belongs
to them. Why does it belong to them? Not
because they earned it. because God gave it to him. When
he gave it to him, it's theirs. And this perfect linen, this
righteousness of Christ is described as a robe, but it's not a robe
that we put on to just cover the sin and the filth, you know,
that's still there. People just can't see it because
we're hiding it with a robe. That's not what this is at all.
The righteousness of Christ, this linen, makes it so that
we're justified. made without sin, justified,
made without sin through and through. If Christ has justified
you, it's not just as if you'd never sinned. If Christ has justified
you, he made it so that you have never sinned. He took all of
your sin away and washed it away with his precious blood. Now,
that's a work that Christ has done for us. He's taken the sin
of his people and put it away. And in order for us to be saved,
there's got to be a work done for us. The debt's got to be
paid. Sin's got to be put away. Because when God pardons sin,
it's not like the governor pardoning a criminal. When the governor
pardons a criminal, he's just saying, you're guilty. I mean,
I know you're guilty. We're just letting you go. That's not the
way God pardons sin. God is holy. He can't overlook
sin. So when God pardons sin, you
know what he does? He makes it so his people are
not guilty. That's why he pardons them. That's why he lets them
go from his hand of justice, because they're not guilty. Well,
if you and I are going to be not guilty, we've got to be given
a new nature, don't we? Not only does our sin have to
be put away, we've got to be given a new nature so we don't
mess it up. If God just takes us as we are and gives us this
perfect, clean, white linen, you know what we'll do with it?
Make it filthy and hard. So we've got to be given a new
nature. And that's where the new birth comes in. And that
brings me to the third thing the Lord's teaching here. Salvation
is a work done in us. Verse 17. He says, neither do
men put new wine into old bottles, else the bottles break and the
wine runneth out and the bottles perish. But they put new wine
into new bottles and both are preserved. Now I don't know anything
about making wine, but I can tell you what I've read. The
wine bottles they used at this time were not glass bottles or
plastic bottles like we use today. They were skins made from animals.
And if they put new wine in that old dried out skin, in that old
dried out leather bag, the bags would burst. The process of fermentation
would expand the juice and expand the wine. It would just burst,
that old skin. And then everything would be lost. You'd lose the
skin and you'd lose the wine. Now that's just a example, a
common example the Lord used to make a spiritual point. And
here, this is what he means. When the Lord saves a sinner,
he does not fix up that old man. The Lord doesn't take the old
man and put spiritual life and spiritual light and spiritual
understanding into that old man, into the man of flesh. He doesn't
do that because the flesh can't contain it. It just can't contain
it. The flesh can't contain spiritual
light and spiritual life. The flesh, our flesh can never
love spiritual truths. We can't understand them and
we can't love them. That which is born of the flesh
can only ever be dead sinful flesh. God can't fix it up. He can't put light into it. We've
got to be made a new creature. Salvation is not reformation.
Salvation is not an outward change. Now, if God gives you a new heart,
there's going to be an outward change, but salvation is not
an outward change. Salvation is not patching us
up. The Lord showed us that. Salvation is regeneration. It's the birth of a new man who
never existed before. See, God doesn't change that
old stony heart of his people. He doesn't put spiritual understanding
to that old nature. When God saves his people, he
gives them a brand new nature. And that nature does believe
Christ. That nature can contain spiritual
light. That nature does love Christ. Salvation requires the birth
of a brand new man who never existed before. God's got to
put new wine into new bottles. That's the only way both body
and soul can be saved. If you put new wine into those
old skins, you're going to lose both, aren't you? God's got to
preserve. The only way body and soul can
be saved is that God puts it into a new body, a new flesh
or a new, new man, new nature. See, this requires salvation,
requires both the work for us. Our sins got to be put away and
a work in us. We've got to be made holy, a
nature that's holy and can never sin. And that is something only
God can do. God, only God has the power to
do it. We're completely dependent on him. I'll go back to what
I said earlier. That's why we rejoice when God's
merciful. He sure didn't have to be, did
he? Only God can do this, and this is what he's done for his
people. And this new man, this new man, he's brand new. Everything about him is new.
He's got a new life. He's got new motives. He serves
now out of love and thanksgiving. He worships God not just trying
to get something from him, but out of love and thanksgiving.
He got new thoughts. He got new thoughts about himself.
He got new thoughts about how unworthy he is, how sinful. He
used to think he's pretty good and valid. This new man don't
think that. He got new thoughts about God.
God is so high and lifted up. God's merciful and gracious.
He got new loves. He used to sit there and just
think, how much longer can this creature go on? Oh, I'm going
to find anything I can do, not to have to go hear that fella
anymore. Just, Oh, it's so boring. And now he loves it. He loves
it. What happened? Creature gave him a new heart.
He has new loves. He got new sight. Now he can
see Christ in the scriptures where he could never seen before.
And look at Luke chapter five. He's got a new taste. This new
man's got new taste buds. I'll show you that this is Luke's
account of this parable. Luke chapter 5, beginning in verse 37. And no
man puts new wine into old bottles, else the new wine will burst
the bottles and be spilled and the bottles shall perish. But
new wine must be put into new bottles and both are preserved.
Matthew told us that. Here's what Matthew didn't tell
us. No man also, Having drunk old wine, straightway desireth
new, for he saith, the old is better. Again, this is what I'm
told. I've never tasted old wine, so
I don't know. But this is what they tell me,
that old wine tastes better than new wine. And they say, if you've
ever tasted old wine, I mean really good wine, you won't want
to drink new wine anymore. It'll just taste like vinegar
to you. Well, I reckon that's true about wine. Our Lord's not
telling us about alcohol. He's not telling you how to go
pick out the best glass of wine. What's he telling us here? What
is the old wine and the new wine? Well, the old wine is the old,
old story of God's grace in Christ Jesus. That's the old wine. This
is the old ancient wine of the eternal covenant of God's grace
that began before human time began, that began before creation.
And the new wine is the covenant of works in the law. Now I know
that the covenant of the law was first revealed in human time,
wasn't it? But it's newer than the eternal
covenant of grace. The eternal covenant of grace
began before time was. So this is what the Lord's saying.
Once there's been this work of grace done in you, once there's
been a new man born in you, that new man has tasted of grace. He's tasted the covenant of grace.
What David said, oh, come and taste and see. Taste the Lord
is good. Once he's tasted that, he doesn't
have a taste for cheap wine anymore. You put that in his mouth, he'll
just spit it out. That's gross. Give me the good
stuff. He's not going to go back to
the law anymore. Once he's tasted grace, he won't. He's not going
to go back to the ceremonies anymore. Once he's tasted Christ
who fulfilled them all, he's not going to taste that. The
only thing that will satisfy him is Christ. Give me Christ
or else I die. Give me Christ. That's the only
thing I got a taste for. And that's how you can tell if God
has saved you. If God's done a work for you
and he's done a work in you, you don't want anything but Christ. That's how you can tell God's
done this work for you.