Chapter 5. Luke Chapter 5. That ought to sound good on there,
shouldn't it? Luke Chapter 5. Our Lord Jesus was a master teacher. He was a master preacher. He
never made any effort to be eloquent or impressive in any way. Instead,
he taught the most profound, unimaginable mysteries in utter
simplicity. He proclaimed the mysteries of
everlasting grace, the kingdom of God, righteousness, imputed,
justice satisfied, faith in Christ. He proclaimed those things by
ordinary, common pictures. stories, events, things familiar
to all who heard it. He seems to have made no effort
whatsoever to convince men of doctrine and principles that
they weren't interested in. He just declared the truth. He
just declared the truth and declared it so plainly that no one could
mistake his meaning. I gave up long ago Trying to
convince folks to become Calvinist, trying to convince folks to believe
in election and predestination doesn't do any good. Doesn't
do any good. I wouldn't waste my time. I try to tell sinners
what God has done for me in Christ Jesus. Try to tell them who he
is and how God saves sinners and leave it at that. Why? Wouldn't it be good to convince
Arminians that Calvinism is so? Won't do any good at all. Would
it be good to get folks to quit going to papist churches and
start going to Baptist churches? Wouldn't do any good at all.
None whatsoever. You see, if you just sew a new
patch on an old garment, you haven't changed a thing, you've
still got an old garment. And if you pour new wine, or
new wine into an old wineskin, you will just burst the bottle
and lose the wine. Won't do any good. The change
has got to take place not beginning here, but here. The change has
got to take place by something God alone can do. Faith in Christ
is not giving assent to mere doctrinal propositions, but rather
it is believing the Son of God. Our Lord uses these familiar
things like this to instruct us. All who would be useful to
the souls of men as teachers and preachers would be wise to
follow his example in this. Our object ought never to be
to impress men. It far too often is like. It
ought never to be. It ought to be of absolutely
no concern to me how you or anybody else here responds to what I've
got to say as far as receiving or rejecting, approving or disapproving
of me. That's nothing but flesh. Our
interest ought not to be impressing our hearers, but instructing
them. Not getting them to approve of us, but rather getting them
to know God. When the Lord Jesus would teach
the work of grace, he looked out at the fields and he said,
fellas, a fella takes his corn in his hand and he goes out and
sows it in the field. Some falls by the wayside, some
falls on stony ground. Fowls there come and get it.
Some falls on stony grounds and doesn't have any root, springs
up quickly and the sun withers it. Some falls among thorns and
thistles and briars and those things choke out the word, but
some of it, some of it gonna fall on good ground. That's what
happens when God saves the sinner. He plants the seed in good ground.
How simple. You wanna know the way to life?
Here's the way. Well, let's study a creed. No,
I'm the way. You don't know how to get to heaven? I'm the door.
God come this way. Only way you can get in is through
this door. Just utter simplicity. Our Savior used these common
earthly things and as he did, he used parables and proverbial
sayings, again, very common and familiar to men to illustrate
and enforce his doctrine. We see this clearly in our text
this evening in Luke chapter 5, verses 36 through 39. The two parables that are used
here are also recorded in Matthew 9 and in Mark chapter 2. Now
Luke was inspired by our Lord to include one thing in this
passage of scripture that neither Matthew nor Mark give us. He
gives us a proverbial statement concerning that which is old
and that which is new. But all three gospel writers,
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three of the synoptic gospel
writers, tell us something that's very, very important. They tell
us that these parables and this proverbial saying were given
by our Lord in response to the cavilings of the Pharisees about
his disciples not fasting. And joining the Pharisees were
the disciples of John the Baptist. Now that's amazing. That's amazing. These men were true believers,
but they were infants. They were true believers, but
they were weak. They were true believers, but they were carried
away for a time by the religious impressiveness of the Pharisees,
and by the traditions they had learned from their youth up.
And this is plainly stated here. You have it again in other places
in Scripture, even by more mature believers. The Apostle Peter,
that stalwart pillar in the church, and he was a pillar in the church.
On one occasion when he was down at Galatia, he'd been sitting
down there eating some spare ribs and pork chops, and some
Jews came from Jerusalem. And this is what he did. He just
got up from the table, stepped aside. He probably got in some
Listerine so nobody smelled pork on his breath, and just acted
like he wasn't doing that. And by doing so, he impressed
the Gentiles with the idea that somehow we ought to bow to the
will of these legalists and we ought to act the same way. And
Paul said, I withstood him to the face. I said, you're to be
blamed for this. This is not to be tolerated.
And Paul also Acts chapter 23 I believe it is no chapter 21
verses 23 and following he came to Jerusalem and there was there
were four men who had taken a vow of purification and James said
to Paul he said now now we've already stated that the Gentiles
don't have to do these things we've already said we we've got
that issue settled but but now now Paul I've got the pastor
down here amongst these jails. I've got to get along with these
fellas. And these fellas have taken a vow of purification.
And in order to not offend these legalists, I want you to join
them in that vow and take a public symbol, shave your head, so that
you won't offend them. And Paul did the same thing.
So what was so wrong with that? Afterwards, he wrote Galatians. Afterwards, he wrote Colossians. And he stated emphatically, this
is not to be done. It's not to be done. You see,
the fact is the very best of God's saints in this world are
still just sinful, fickle flesh. And this is one reason why our
Lord Jesus has established in his church pastors and teachers. those men gifted and taught of
God, to instruct God's people in this world, who are constantly
being bombarded with religious traditions and customs and doctrines
and cunning devices from hell, to instruct them in divine truth,
in the Word of God, so that we be not tossed to and fro with
every wind of doctrine. Don't pay any attention to it. Just don't pay any, find out
what this book says and ignore everything else. Now let me point
out one more thing before we look at our text this evening.
If we are to interpret our Master's words properly, we must interpret
them according to the context in which they're given. Our Savior
gave these parabolic sayings in response to this dispute raised
by the Pharisees and John's disciples over the fact that his disciples
didn't fast. They didn't engage in the austerities,
outward show of ceremonial religion. And so he gives the reason for
his answer in verse 34. Let's start there, verse 34.
He said, how can, he said to them, can you make the children
of the bride chamber fast while the bride grooms with them? He
said, he said, man, I've come to a marriage feast and it's
my marriage feast and these are the children of the bride chamber
and you want to act like they're in a funeral home? Well, this is
absurd. This is absurd. He says, the
days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them,
then shall they fast in those days. And he is not saying here,
now believers ought to stop fasting now. What he's saying here is
this fasting is a symbol of sorrow and of pain and of concern. And
when I'm gone, there's going to be plenty of sorrow and pain
and concern. But right now, Right now to have
this outward austerity is absolutely ridiculous. You see, the scribes
and Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, they would have
been perfectly content for the Lord Jesus to have simply established
another sect of Judaism. Now this is a serious, serious
mistake in our day. People today in the news media
and in the religious world and the courts talk about the Judeo-Christian
ethic. The Judeo-Christian principle.
Let me tell you something. There is nothing about Christianity
that is even similar to Judaism. Nothing. Our Lord did not come
to repair Judaism. He came to kill it. He did not
come to make Judaism better, He came to destroy it. He said,
the moon will be turned into blood, the sun will be turned
into darkness, the stars will fall from heaven. And He wasn't
talking about literal things, He was talking about spiritual
things. He said, that which is your light, I'm going to destroy
because the light that's in you is darkness. our Lord Jesus shook
to the very foundations that which Judaism was so that those
things that might be shaken would be destroyed and that which is
the pure word of God should remain. But the Pharisees, there were
lots of sects of the Jews, the Pharisees wouldn't have had any
problem with that if the Lord had just not insisted that That
in order to serve God, you got to put away the Pharisees' religion. In order to serve God, you got
to kiss the Pharisaic notions goodbye, the customs and traditions
of men which nullify the word of God. The Pharisees fasted,
and very properly so. Their religion was as dead as
a funeral home court's, dead. They were properly showing signs
of mourning. Our Lord's disciples had been
brought into a marriage feast and fasting would have been totally
out of order for them. All right, now let's read our
text, verse 36. And he spoke a parable unto them. No man puts a piece of new garment
upon an old. If otherwise, then both the new
makes a rent and the piece that was taken out of the new agrees
not with the old. 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. Important word. New wine must
be put into new bottles. And both are preserved. No man,
having drunk old wine, straightway desires new, for he says the
old is better. Now these verses are intended
to teach one thing. One thing. When you study parables,
don't try to get a hundred lessons from them, they're just designed
to teach one thing. One thing. One message. If I'm making a
point in preaching and I tell a story or I relate some event
in history or some event in my life to illustrate what I'm talking
about, don't try to make it all fit. It's not intended. That's
not the reason. The reason is to illustrate one thing, to just
show you one thing. And when our Lord uses parables,
His intention is to teach us one spiritual lesson by pointing
to earthly things that illustrate that spiritual lesson. Now here's
the lesson. Any mixture of merit and mercy,
any mixture of law and grace, any mixture of flesh and spirit
is not just dangerous, it's fatal. It's fatal. Now this is the first
thing I want to show you in our text this evening. Christ is not a patch to be sewn
into your old religious rags. He's not a patch. Most people
in what are called grace churches, I feel, as well as in others,
have just put on a patch to their old religion. Just put on a patch. They cling to their old idolatrous
religion and they incorporate into that the doctrines of grace. But our Lord shows us plainly
in verse 36 that patchwork religion damning to the souls of men.
The Lord Jesus is an entirely new suit of clothes. An entirely
new suit. When the Apostle Paul was converted,
Saul of Tarsus was converted, Rex he was a religious man. More
religious than any of our families and neighbors. He was a, I mean
a religious man. He had some knowledge and some
experience. He had been through some things and he was devoted
and zealous. He was upright and moral. He never missed church for anything.
I mean for anything. He was right at it all the time.
And when he met Christ, he said that was damning idolatry. And he threw away the old garment.
He said it's just dumb. And it's time for you to do the
same. Just throw it away. That religion with which men
and women walk in darkness is not the religion of Christ. It is not Christianity. It is
just idolatry. That religion, and folks say,
well I just didn't have any light. Christianity is walking in the
light. It's not going about in darkness. The Lord Jesus Christ,
his righteousness can't be patched into your righteousness. If you
try to patch your old garment of self-righteousness with the
new cloth of Christ-imputed righteousness, the two will never agree and
the gaping hole in your ragged garment will only be made worse.
Let me see if I can explain the parable very briefly. Righteousness
is often referred to and compared to in scripture, a garment, a
robe. The Word of God very properly,
frequently speaks of righteousness as being a garment or a robe.
Isaiah speaks of the garments of salvation. The book of Revelation,
just throughout the whole book, you see God's saints as a white
robe thrown. They're people who've washed
their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. A robe
is used to cover our nakedness and our shame. A robe is an ornament
to beautify. A robe is something used to warm
us in cold. A robe often implies royalty. Now we must be robed in the righteousness
of Christ alone or we will perish under the wrath of God. How can
I say that more emphatically? We must be robed in the righteousness
of Christ alone, or we will perish under the wrath of God. The Jews
sought righteousness. Paul says this plainly. But they
didn't get it. They didn't get it. They missed
it all together. Because they sought it not by faith. And the
reason was one thing. They would not submit to the
righteousness of God in Christ. They were perfectly content to
have a patch. They were perfectly content to
have some help from God. They were perfectly content to
acknowledge that we can't do this on our own. Oh no, salvation's
of the Lord. But they kept getting their hands
in the work. And Bob, that's damning. Paul
said they stumbled at the stumbling stone because they refused to
submit to the righteousness of God in Christ. You see, the old
garment in this parable refers to that garment of righteousness
which all men and women attempt to stitch together by their own
works. The Pharisees thought they were
holy because of what they did, just like most people do. They
thought God would accept them because of their works and their
religious practices and their austerity. We're just like them. We all, by nature, are self-righteous
Pharisees. We vainly imagine that we can,
by something we do, make ourselves righteous before God at least
to some degree. We don't deny that we need God's
help. We don't deny we need God's assistance. We just deny that we must have
Him do everything. That's the issue. We just deny
we've got to have him do everything. We deny that we're really depraved,
that we're really dead spiritually, that we're really corrupt at
heart so that everything we do is corruption. Now this self-righteousness
is a very old garment. You find it first back in Genesis
chapter 3. Adam and Eve, when they had sinned
against God, found out they were naked. That is, their conscience
was depraved, and so they stood shame before God because of their
nakedness. God sees right through my skin
into my heart, and I'm ashamed. But we can take care of that.
Let's find a bush. Let's find some rocks. And we'll
hide. God can't see us back here. We'll
hide behind it. Or maybe he can. Let's make some
fig leaves. Stitch them together. Now then,
that'll put us in good standing before God. Until God speaks. Until God speaks. Oh, it'll give
you a little soothing for a while. But this old garment is a garment
that needs mending. Isaiah says our righteousnesses
are what? Filthy rags. Filthy rags. Just the stitch of a wasted, discarded,
rotten, minstrel's cloth. That's the word. And that's your
prayers. That's your Bible reading. That's
your tithing. That's your church attendance.
That's your love of your neighbor. That's your love of God. Our
righteousnesses are just filthy rags. They need mending, but
they can't be mended. The Lord Jesus, you see, did
not come here to patch up our garment. He did not come here
to patch up our religion. He did not come here to patch
up our flesh. He came to destroy our flesh,
to destroy our religion, to strip off our rags of filthy rags of
self-righteousness. What's meant by our Lord's declaration
that the rent is made worse? That's what Mark tells us in
Mark chapter 2. When one attempts to sew a new piece of cloth in
an old garment. Here's what it means. Religion
without Christ makes unregenerate men twofold more the children
of hell than they were before. Some of you have over the years
wondered and talked to me about why We don't encourage children
to make a profession of faith. We don't encourage them to get
baptized and join the church. We don't try to pressure folks
into doing anything. Here's the reason. Here's the
reason. Most of you have been there. Most of you have been
there. And you dwelt secure in religion
without Christ because you thought you had what you needed. You
thought, you put you on a row hoop, and you said, well, I'm
all right. You had a little experience, and you said, I'm all right.
You see, if a man was so senseless, so utterly senseless as to step
out in sub-zero weather, absolutely buck naked, thinking that he's
clothed for winter, he's in bad shape. He's in bad shape. And men who imagine that they
are somehow now clothed with righteousness that God will accept
when they've never met Christ are in terrible danger. They're
two-fold more the children of hell than they were before. The
rent is made worse because religion convinces them that they're better.
The rent is made worse because those who think they have righteousness
when they have none. Those who think they have a wedding
garment when they have none don't know they have any needs. The
rent is made worse because the old and the new will never agree. Never agree. A good many of you
made professions of faith in Arminian idolatry, made professions
of faith in darkness and corruption. And you've tried to hang on to
it, you tried to hang on to it, but you found out free grace
and free will just won't wash. You put it in the washing machine,
it's going to tear up every time. It will not mix together. You
can't hold to both. You can't take a piece of new
garment and sew it into that old, filthy robe of self-righteousness
and expect it to hold. Not gonna happen. Scripture tells
us plainly, they won't agree, because if it's by grace, then
it's no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. But if
it's of works, then it's no more grace, otherwise work is no more
work. Now then, if we would be saved,
If we would be saying, there's only one way, only one way, we've
got to come naked to Christ. Got to come naked. Oh, that's
tough business. Come naked to Christ. Nothing
in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. That's it. Naked come to thee for dress,
helpless look to thee for grace. That's it. Got to come naked
to Him. The only way guilty sinners can
come to God is by the blood and righteousness of Christ alone.
So long as anyone imagines, so long as you or I imagine that
we have done or maybe can do something, so long as we put
something of our own to the righteousness of Christ, we're sewing a new
cloth onto old rags and it won't work. We must count our righteousness
but dung. Just count it dung. But I, boy
I had some experiences, just dung. Man I went to Bible college,
just dung. But I taught Sunday school, just
dung. Just dung. Just dung, that's
all. Read Philippians chapter 3. We
are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit. and rejoice
in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. And everything
else is just dog. Just dog. All right, now look
at verse 37. Only those sinners who are born
of God, only those who are made new creatures in Christ can hold
the new wine of the gospel. Old bottles just can't hold new
wine. Let me familiarize you with what
our Lord's talking about. In the days when our Lord walked
upon the earth, men would take their juice from the grapes and
in making their wine, They didn't go through all the refining processes
we go through. They just take and put that new
wine, unfermented, into new wineskins. They'd take the skins of an animal,
put them together, seal them up so they wouldn't leak, and
they'd put that new wine in there. And as the wine fermented in
that new skin, the new skin would just expand and stretch and stretch
and stretch. And the wine and the wineskin
became as one. They became as one. They were
so intermeshed that you couldn't possibly get all the wine out
of that wineskin. They just stretched and became
as one. But if a man were fool enough to take care of, man I
don't want to bother making a new wineskin. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of bother. Got to
kill another goat. That's some expense involved
in that. I don't want food. I've got a
perfectly good wineskin here. I'm going to pour that wine,
that unfermented wine, into this old wineskin that worked good
last time and give it a few weeks. It starts to swell up and the
wineskin's full. But it's already stretched to
capacity. and soon it's gonna burst and you lose the wine and
the wine skin. That's what happens when you
try to put the grace of God in many women who don't know God. It's exactly what our Lord's
talking about. Can't be done. Can't be done. You take the Wine
that our Lord's talking about here, it is the gospel of Jesus
Christ, the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace in him. It
is that gospel by which sinners are saved, wherein the righteousness
of God is revealed. The wine skins, these old wine
bottles, are unregenerate men. The new wine of grace will never
agree with the carnal lust of men in natural religion. The
new wine must be put into new bottles. These new bottles are
born again children of God. There are many women who have
been called, made new creatures in Christ. And the new creature
with a new heart, a new will, a new creature receives the wine
of free grace and revels in it. He just loves it. He just loves
it. And as he grows in grace, as that wine matures in him,
so the wineskin adapts to it. And he lives in Christ and becomes
one with Christ. And the two cannot be separated. Now then, look at verse 39. If
ever you drink the old wine of covenant love, full redemption,
free grace, you'll have no taste for the new wine of free will
works religion. No taste for it. No taste for it. It's just sour. Just sour. You think sour milk's bad? Sour
wine's even worse. It's sour, tastes bad. Tastes
bad. Now I realize this, most of the
commentators, they say this talking about natural men who are drunk
of the old wine of their lusts and pleasures and self-righteous
religion don't desire the new wine of the gospel. There's an
application there. But our Lord, it seems to me
here, is giving a deliberate contrast. He's saying there,
fellas, I've been talking about lost men, they try to patch up
a righteousness of their own, mix a little grace and works.
Lost men, it's like pouring new wine into an old wineskin, it's
a waste. But if ever, if ever you drink
the old wine of free grace, the old wine, You see, this new wine,
this new wine not new because it's recently invented. It's
new because when we see it, it's new to us. It's new because when
we taste it, it's new to us. Before, we were blind and couldn't
see. Before, we were deaf and couldn't hear. Before, we had
no sensibility to the things of God. But now, the grace of
God has been revealed and we drink of this new wine. and find
out this is the old wine of everlasting love, effectual grace, the old
wine of salvation in Christ alone, and this wine causes your heart
to rejoice. This wine calms your soul before
God in this world. This wine will enable you to
rest before God. And you'll say, you can have
the new stuff. You can have it. Folks, I don't want to argue
with you about the gospel of God's grace. Say, well I like
this, I'm gonna do this. You have it. I got no problem
with that, go ahead and take it. Go ahead and take it. If
it suits you, that's all right with me. As for me, I've tasted
the old wine. And I'm not interested in your
new stuff. I rest in Christ alone. God help you too. Amen. All right, Lindsey, you come
lead us in the hymn.