Luke chapter 5 and verse 33. And they said unto him, 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 ye 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 bottles and be
spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But 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. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. If you remember our previous
study, we were speaking about the calling of Levi, and he's
also called Matthew, and Levi organised a feast for the Lord
Jesus and his disciples and many of his tax-gathering friends,
publicans and sinners they were called. And as Levi organised
this feast, there were questions raised, questions resulted concerning
the conduct of Jesus' disciples at that feast. Now, Luke suggests
that it was the Pharisees that brought these questions. Matthew,
on the other hand, he gives us an account of this incident as
well, and he says that it was the disciples of John the Baptist. I'm pretty sure that it was both
of them. The Pharisees were happy to be
creating discord between the disciples of Jesus and the disciples
of John. John's disciples very likely
imitated their leader, John the Baptist, in his austere dress
and lifestyle. I can well imagine that the followers,
the disciples of John, would take on the appearance of John
and the lifestyle of John. And as is the way with human
nature, they become preoccupied with the practice of their outward
religious appearance. Their rituals should have pointed
them to the Messiah who had now come. And instead, they became
a measure, their rituals became a measure of their mutual esteem
for one another and a standard of their behaviour. And this
is what we call legalism. So that these men looked at Jesus'
disciples and they said, if these men were holy, they would live
like we live. They would do as we do and they
would fast and pray as we fast and pray. So that was the background to
this question. And it has always been thus. In fact, John's disciples were
without excuse in this matter, because before being put into
prison, John had told them that Jesus was the Messiah. He had
told them that Jesus was the Lamb of God and the bridegroom
of his bride, the church. And yet here they were, censoriously
judging the Lord's disciples, and by implication, criticising
the Lord for not correcting his disciples for feasting with Levi
in his home. And the Lord's defence of his
disciples both shows that he was the bridegroom, agreeable
to John the Baptist's words to his own followers in John chapter
3 verse 29, and he gives two parables which I think beautifully
explain the difference between true inward spiritual grace and
mere outward religion. One of the biggest errors in
the Christian religion is the assumption that reformation of
life is the same as regeneration of spirit. And it's not. Men and women have always tried
to please God and impress their neighbours by the things that
they do and don't do in the name of their religion. Now, the first of these, impressing
or pleasing God, isn't possible. The Lord is not looking for works
from men and women, but faith, and faith is a spiritual gift. Without faith, it is impossible
to please God. The second one of these endeavours
by men and women, that is to impress their neighbours, is
simply vanity. What does it matter what men
think of us? It is what God thinks of us that
matters and whether we are justified before him or not. And the sooner
we get that into our heads, the better. The Jews fasted for hundreds
of reasons. And John's disciples, following
their example, were now denying their natural impulses as well,
forgoing food and nourishment and punishing their bodies in
an attempt to please God and impress men. They wanted to appear
to be dedicated to holy living but the Lord exposed their empty
efforts of self-denial. He showed first that what they
were doing was mistaken and wrong, that they had misunderstood what
fasting meant, and then he taught them the true spiritual meaning
of conversion, regeneration, and life. Fasting was an outward
sign of mourning and being humbled. And it's a spiritual activity
in its deepest sense. It's mourning for our sin and
it is being humbled before God. That is the only true fasting
that there is. These men had misappropriated
it as an indicator of holiness. And the Lord says, the friends
of the bridegroom do not mourn when the bridegroom is with them. That's what the Lord said, speaking
of himself. They rejoice at his presence
as Jesus' disciples now rejoiced in the company of their Lord
and Master. A time would come when they mourned
as the bridegroom was taken away, as Jesus was to be crucified. then they would be genuinely
humbled and mourn for their loss. But this was not that time. Jesus
was with them. This was the time to feast with
joy. Mourning and humbling would be
imposed soon enough, and there was no need to role-play that
experience for appearances' sake. But the Lord didn't only correct
their wrong thinking, these Pharisees and disciples of John. He didn't
only correct their wrong thinking, he preached the gospel to them
as well. And he preached that gospel in
the form of two parables. He spoke of trying to patch new
cloth into an old garment, and he spoke of trying to store new
wine in old wineskins. The Saviour's lesson is, it is
foolish to bind together what is natural and what is spiritual. It's impossible to unite the
old nature with the new nature. It's vain to try to contain the
power of the Holy Ghost under the constraint and confines of
the old body of sin. New life needs a new creation. And the way of the flesh and
the way of the spirit is altogether contrary and opposite to each
other. The new strong cloth will tear
away from the old weak material and the old dried and shrunken
skins of wine bottles will burst if new fermenting wine is put
into them. The Lord's message is simply
the incompatibility of flesh and spirit, the opposition between
works and faith and the conflict between the old man of nature
and the new man of the heart. The Pharisees and John's disciples
held a view of their own righteous activities believing that their
offerings and their sacrifices would appease God's anger against
sin and gain them honour in his sight. And Jesus' reply is that
Christ's robe of righteousness cannot be mixed with man's covering
or sewn into the filthy rags of man's self-righteousness.
And nor can the new wine represented by the Gospel be confined within
the decayed shell of the old nature. When the Holy Spirit
makes alive, he makes a new creation. When the Lord Jesus comes to
dwell in a sinner's life, he takes away our stony heart and
he makes a new heart of flesh, a new man in the Spirit, because
the old and the new are incompatible. I think that the Lord's lesson
had an immediate implication for the self-righteousness of
these critics of the Lord and his disciples. But it also taught
that the old teachings of Moses, with the traditions of the fathers,
they could not contain the new energy of the gospel. The services,
the rituals of the past could not accommodate the enlarged
and expanding church, nor were they ever intended to do so. They were types and they were
shadows. The days of sacrifice, the days
of robes, the days of washings, the days of fastings were over. One sacrifice had come. One robe
of righteousness was acceptable. One cleansing of blood would
suffice for all. The days of fasting, waiting
and mourning were over, now that the bridegroom had come. And
there's another application too, and with this one I'm finished. Today, We are often met by professing
Christians and church members who have all manner of individual
do's and don'ts, which they practise and insist express their dedication
to the Lord and their sacrifices for Him. They tell us that they
do what they do to honour the Lord. and they refrain from doing
what they don't do because they don't wish to dishonour him.
And the implication is that if we don't copy them, we are failing
to honour the Lord. So let me repeat again what I
said at the beginning. The Lord is not looking for works,
but faith. Faith is the criteria by which
we are accepted and received into fellowship with God. Now
I do not mean that there are no good works a believer can
do. On the contrary, like everything
good that is in us, even our good works have been foreordained
that we should walk in them. In fact, it is only believers,
men and women of faith, who can do good works because everything
else is spoiled by sin. The essence of our relationship
with God is faith. We worship God and honour Christ
and experience the Holy Spirit by faith. We please the Lord
by resting in Christ by faith and trusting in the sufficiency
of his death and his righteous obedience for all our righteousness
and all our holiness and all our sanctification. Do not let
men or women tell you you're not living up to some man-made
standard of holiness, or some over-righteous pattern of living. If Jesus Christ is our Lord and
Saviour, then the Gospel is our measure of obedience. Grace is
our sufficiency. God's glory is our birthright. And Christian liberty is our
privilege. Free grace and imputed righteousness
of Christ is the only acceptable righteousness upon which the
faith of God's elect is fixed. That's the new wine that nourished,
refreshed and, or it's the wine, the old wine, that nourished,
refreshed and satisfied God's people of old. And it hasn't
changed. When we have tasted and seen
that the Lord is good, we shall not search for any new wine,
but will say rather, the old is better. May the Lord bless
these thoughts to us today. Amen. Amen.