Well, that's good to see you
all. I just wanted to add these folks
to your prayer list. Janice Smith is in hospice. I
remember her and her family. I also asked her aunt's family,
who's also loved one, and Jolene Gunner. Remember those folks
in your prayers. Seek the Lord's help for them. Other than that, I can't make
a decision after last Sunday. Okay, next Sunday is the last
Sunday of the month, so we'll have a Lord's Tabernacle on snow. Okay, let's begin our worship
service with your hand out. Son of the Trinity, Jesus calls
us over the tomb. I am violent, so unrighteous,
haughty, brave, and full of sin. In my heart there is no goodness. Is there hope for such a sin? Can there be a remedy? Far from God and so eluding,
must I die eternally? All the good news of salvation
in the cross all came to me Jesus came to save the sinful by His
death on Calvary Tidings of salvation in the Word
of God I found! God who hears the violent guilty,
what a cheering, joyful sound! Mighty's day thrice saves me! Washed away their sin and shame
Life He gives and faith to trust in Praise His sweet and precious
Name I relieve upon the Savior For His blood has made me whole
That Jim Burton writes some good hymns. Every Bible student read the
5th chapter of Luke, Luke chapter 5, verses 33-39. And after these things he went
forth and saw a publican named Levi sitting at the receipt of
customs and he said unto him, follow me. And he left all, rose
up and followed him. And Levi made a great feast in
his own house and there was a great company of publicans and others
that sat down with him. But their scribes and Pharisees
murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink
with publicans and sinners? And Jesus answered and said,
They that are whole need not a physician, but them that are
sick. I came not to call the righteous, but bring sinners
to repentance. 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 you
make the children of the bride chamber fast while the bridegroom
is with them? For the days will come when the
bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then they shall
fast in those days. He spake also a parable unto
them. No man putteth a piece of new
garment upon an old. If otherwise, then both the new
maker rent and the piece that is taken out of the new agreeth
not with the old. 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. The new wine must be
put in the new bottles, and both are preserved. No man also having
drunk an old wine, straightway desireth new, for he We needed the righteousness of
Christ. You came, sought us out, bought us with your blood, redeemed
us, sanctified us, made us the righteousness of God, and accepted
us in Jesus Christ. We are thankful that we can even
speak of such things with clarity. We are thankful that you have
given us faith to believe these astounding things. We pray for
those who are sick and those who are troubled, going through
trials. We know their hearts are heavy. We know also, Father,
that you are able to comfort where no man can. We pray for
those who still are suffering from the effects of Hellene.
Ask the Lord you be with them. to look to you in all things,
knowing full well, and gladly so, that all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them that call it according
to His purpose. We praise you and thank you that
you did not leave us to ourselves, that you interfered in our career,
stopped us in our tracks, and brought us to the feet of the
Savior. We thank you for your word. everlasting word that teaches
us of Jesus Christ. Help us this day to worship you
in spirit and in truth. Help us to look to Christ. Help
us to see him as he sets forth these things in this passage.
Cause us to hear his voice and to follow him. We pray in Christ's
name. Mary's Lord Jesus, ruler of all
nations, O Thou of God and man, there are Hope in the living God of strength. Jesus is fervent, Jesus is pure,
Who makes the willful heart to sing. Jesus shines brighter, Jesus
shines purer than all the angels with Him can pose. Lord of the nations, Son of God,
and Son of Man. Glory and honor, praise and Let's pray. Father, again we
approach in the name of Christ, our blessed Savior. Indeed, the
fairest among 10,000, rider of the morning star, the lily of
the valley, the rose of Sharon, the sun of the morning, the sun rising with healing in
its wings. because he gave his life for
thee. And with him you've really given them everything. May they
return unto thee that which belongs to you in thanksgiving and praise. It's in his name we pray. Amen. so so so Pay attention back to Luke chapter
5. These words of our Lord are spoken
at a dinner party thrown by someone who the Lord had known and loved,
cherished and chosen from all eternity. His name was Levi and
his surname would be Matthew. And he was a publican. A publican
who was one of the elect of God, who was predestinated to be conformed
to the image of God's Son. His Savior had come to fetch
him at the seat of customs, where he was about the business of
robbing his own people and working for the enemy. Our Lord had called
him as he does unto all those whom he has foreknown. Levi had
been given faith to believe and grace to follow Christ. And having
met his Savior, he wanted other sinners to know the grace that
he had received. He wanted other sin-sick souls
to know the healing touch of the Master's hand. So he threw
a big dinner, a sizable feast, a large feast, in honor of the
Son of God. A cross-section of humanity showed
up, other publicans and tax collectors, Romans, Jewish scribes and Pharisees. The disciples of John the Baptist
were also there. And the Lord's disciples. The
Son of God was there himself. That's the featured guest. And
there were scads of sinners. It was a pretty big party. When
the scribes and Pharisees saw the spectacle, this cacophony
of crass and rude, low people, They asked the disciples of Christ,
why do you eat with publicans and sinners? And our Lord responded,
saying, they that are whole need not a physician, but them that
are sick. I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. He said, simply this, he dismissed
them out of hand. He said, I didn't come for you.
that would fly in the face of most of what we call religion
today for Jesus Christ to look at someone, anyone, and say,
I didn't come for you. But that's what he said to these
folks. Being lost religionists without the possibility of understanding
spiritual things and thinking themselves to be neither sick
nor sinners, these words went in one ear and out the other.
However, being what they were and always looking for an edge,
they saw some of John the Baptist's disciples there and they thought
they might stir things up a bit and gain an advantageous position. They knew that the disciples
of John kept the same outward religious customs and ceremonies
that they did, which are public prayers and fastings and the
like. They also had observed that the
horses did not observe these things at all. They hatched a
plot to defy Christ's kingdom. Religion, ever seeking a controversy,
saw a way to drive a wedge between John the Baptist and the Lamb
of God. That was their desire. Nothing
else is understood. You understand this, true Christianity
is not a patchwork. of different scraps of dissimilar
religions stitched together. True Christianity is altogether
something new and it always is something new. This does not
mean that true believers may not at times be weak. They may get sidetracked by the
religious world. In Matthew chapter 9 and verse
14, When this is recorded, it says John the Baptist's disciples
joined up with the Pharisees, asking about why the disciples
of Christ didn't fast. None of us is totally immune
to the effect of many meaningless things. But for the grace of
God, we're subject to And they have been given an unction
from the Holy One that they cannot be deceived concerning the Gospel.
They may yet fall. They are frail. They are fickle. They are sinful men and women
made of flesh and blood. And if the situation arises where
there's enough influence on the outside and you stand alone,
you're probably going to tank too. Because that's the way it
is. And we would have anyone know
we fall under the influence of wicked men thinking they have
done something good or doing something good. Sometimes they
are unduly influenced by apparently sincere people who are turned
off, of course, by issues of no value. We used to call that
chasing rabbits down a rabbit hole. John's disciples fell under
the influence of these Pharisees. They listened to these religious
men with whom they shared a common practice of religious ceremony. John the Baptist still operated
a great deal under the Old Covenant, though he was the first New Testament
preacher. He was the last Old Covenant
prophet. Setting aside for a moment the truly valuable matters of
redemption, grace, and forgiveness, They sided with the Pharisees,
whose bread was to carp and criticize and call into question the Lord
Jesus and His disciples, because they did not fast. We are all
susceptible and must take great care that we are not drawn into
frivolous whims of useless religious games. We must hold fast to the
truth. This is the way it is explained
in Ephesians chapter 4. Verses 1 through 4, I therefore,
Paul says, the prisoner of the Lord beseech you to walk worthy
of the vocation wherein you are called. How do you do that? With lowliness and meekness and
long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, and daring to
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is
one body. one spirit even as we are called
in one hope we're calling one lord one faith one baptism the
unity of the spirit bond of the spirit religion seeks to tear
that up and to tear that down in luke chapter 5 verse 34 35
our lord teaches us a glorious fact about our relationship with
him and he said to them Can you make the children of the bride
chamber fast while the bridegroom is with her? But the days will
come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and
they shall then fast in those days. And after our Lord went
to glory, there was a whole lot of fasting going on, but not
while he was here. Not while he was here. You see,
all true believers, all those who've been given faith by God
himself, they are the bride of Christ, and he is the bridegroom. This gospel age is the time of
our wedding feast. It is a time for the feast of
fat things and wine on the leaves well refined. It is not a time
for mourning and fasting. Fasting in the Old Testament
was symbolic of repentance and mourning. Certain fasts were
given under the law for times of personal and national and
public humiliation. But the Pharisees, unable to
grasp anything spiritual, saw fasting as form. and posture,
merely outward ceremony designed to get somebody's attention and
pay attention for their fasting. They not only insisted on keeping
the fast days described prescribed by the law, they invented new
ones. They added many, many more and called them the doctrine
of God. They wanted, and they meant for God and everybody else
to see how holy and humble and devoted and diligent, how good
and godly they were. In Isaiah 58, verses 1 through
4, our Lord describes this people. One of the things He says, you
fast. You fast, and you say, why does not the Lord pay attention?
How come He doesn't pay attention if I fast? Concerning fasting, our Lord's
doctrine is clear and plain. If the Lord is with his people,
there is no need for sorrow. There is no need for mourning,
symbolized by fasting. Look at verse 34. He says, can
you make the children of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom
is with her? The bride's days of fasting are
clean gone. Her sins are gone. Grace, righteousness,
and eternal life are earned. In his mighty arms she is protected,
comforted, loved, and has the only reason to rejoice. The Lord
Jesus Christ is our bridegroom, and all chosen redeemed sinners
are his bride. And this is how he feels about
his bride, and how he directs wives and husbands. He says this in Ephesians 5,
25, husbands, love your wives even as Christ also forgive yourself for your wife,
for your wife. And he did it that he might sanctify
and cleanse it with the washing of the water by the word, that
he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having
spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that it should be holy without
blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies,
he that loveth his wife loveth himself. No man ever hated his
own flesh, For we are members of his body,
and of his flesh, and of his bones. For this call shall a
man leave his father and mother, and shall be adjoining to his
wife, and they too shall be one flesh." This is a great mystery.
And he's talking about, look at your relationship with your
wife. Wives, look at your relationship
with your husband. He said, this is a great mystery. I speak concerning
church, Christ and his church. That's what I'm talking about.
When he tells the husband to love his wife and give him his
dear one, he's talking about Christ and his church. When he tells the
wife to love her husband and submit herself to him, he's talking
about Christ and his church. That's what this is all about. That's how I begin every wedding
ceremony that I'm not performing in anymore, but if I did, I would
be doing that. This is the privilege that every
man and woman has who's married in this world. They have a unique
privilege, and that is to show forth Christ, the relationship
with Christ and his church. What a privilege, what a privilege. In verse 36 through 38, the Lord
tells us in spiritual matters, we must never attempt to mix
things that differ. Verses 36 through 38, back in
our text. He says, and he spake also a
parable. He spake it in light of what's
just been going on. They're saying, your disciples
ought to fast like we fast. like John the Baptist people.
In fact, how come they don't? They should. So this is the parable,
the story that he's teaching concerning what they had just
said and what they're thinking. He spake also a parable unto
him. He said, no man putteth a piece of new garment upon an
old. If otherwise then, both the new
maketh the rent and the piece that is taken out of the new
agreeth not with the old. 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 straightway desireth new, for he saith, The old is better,
the old is better. This parable is spoken in response
to the non-issue raised by John's disciples and the Pharisees about
fasting. That's what this is about. Should
disciples of Christ fast? Religion fasts. John the Baptist's
disciples fast. The Pharisees and the scribes,
they fasted. Shouldn't they fast also? He said for them to fast,
when the bridegroom is with them, It was like him putting new cloth
on an old rag, on an old gun. He said, it won't keep. The new
cloth is stronger, it will rip, and the old gun will pass away.
Both of them will be ruined. And you don't put new wine in
old bottles. Because the new wine will cause the bottles to
burst. Now, by the way, what they're talking about, remember,
was wine sacks. I had one of those. I bought one of those
when I was in Libya. Carried it around for a long time. Used
to put water in it. It was neat. I think it was made out of a
camel's belly, but it was kind of neat. But the prayer was spoken
because these fellows have raised an issue. They want to raise
an issue to divide. Pharisees have turned fasting
into a common, publicly advertised display of presumed piety. By fasting, they pretended holiness. They pretended devotion. And
evidently, John's disciples had also held this practice in high
esteem. Our Lord, however, rather insisted
that fasting and prayer and giving were never to be made a public
show. Didn't he do that in Matthew chapter 6? He says, when you
give, don't let your left hand know what your right hand's doing.
And do it privately. Don't do it where people can
see it. And take notice that you're a giver. That you're a
giver. I don't want to know what you
give. That's why when you take over an office, I sit behind
this desk and I don't look. Because I don't know who gives
and who don't. I don't handle the money. All
I do is hand it to the bank and they take care of it. I don't handle the money. I don't
want to know. It's not a public thing. It's a private thing.
If you want to give, you give. If you don't, don't give. It's
that simple. And if you give, give as the Lord has prospered
you. And give from your own heart. Give from your own heart. Don't
give because you're paying some kind of tax to the law, some
kind of tithe. In fact, if you look at the Old
Testament tithing, there was nothing, money was never involved.
It was cattle, sheep, fruits and vegetables. There was never
coinage involved in that. Never. Now the Lord made that
clear. When you give, don't anybody
know what you're giving. And when you pray, don't pray
openly out in public or at the restaurant. Don't do that. That's
calling attention to you, not calling attention to Christ.
Don't do that. He said when you pray, go into
your closet and pray privately with you and the Lord. That's
a private thing. There's room for public prayer
when we have public worship, but it's a rare thing because
we ought to pray without ceasing according to the Word of God.
And when you fast, he said, don't. Don't come out of the fasting
looking worn and torn and need a shave and need to bath your
hair all messed up saying, oh, I'm fasting. I've been fasting
and I'm sore out. He said, when you fast, after
you finish, take a bath, comb your hair, shave, come out looking
like you just woke up from a good night's sleep. No, they need
to know that you've been fasting. The Pharisees said fasting is
important. People need to see it. And what
they wanted was to see it. They wanted to see Jesus' disciples
doing what they did. They wanted to be seen. They wanted to be seen to make
a fair show in the flesh according to Galatians 6. It might have
been proper for the friend of the bridegroom and his disciples
to fast. But to acquire such mourning
of the happily married bridegroom and the disciples was ludicrous
and foolish as sewing a new piece of cloth on an old garment and
putting new wine in an old wineskin. The primary issue was righteousness,
and that's always the case, and how it's attained. Everybody
knows you gotta have it. The Beatles knew it. One, two,
three, four, five, six, seven, all good children. They knew it. Everybody knows
that's the requirement if you want to stand before God. You've
got to be righteous. You've got to be as good as God. Now, how
is it attained? It's attained by works of righteousness
or by union with Jesus Christ. That's the issue. These parables
may be applied to many things. Essentially, the application
is this. Old and new cannot be mixed. Much of the error that
has arisen in the church over the years could have been avoided
by this lesson if these parables had simply been heeded. In spiritual
matters, we must never attempt to mix things that are discordant.
Just as we have seen in Deuteronomy, the mixture of linen and wool
and plying with an ox and an ass together was prohibited.
Why? Because they were different.
There was a mixture. So it is today. spirit. Christ and the world
are carnal ordinances with spiritual worship. The Judaizers of Galatia
were trying to put an old wine in new bottles to mix Judaism
and Christianity. They tried to blend the law and
the gospel. They tried to exalt Moses at
the expense of Christ. They wanted to mix physical circumcision
with spiritual circumcision. Such mischief is never to take
place. Our Lord said, be careful. through
Paul the Apostle. Beware, lest you be brought back
into that bondage again. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made you free, and be not entangled again in the
yoke of bondage. For if you go back to the law,
having professed Christ, Christ profits you nothing. Christ profits
you nothing. Just as many churches today,
the early church endeavored to amalgamate the philosophies and
the religious habits of pagan world through the gospel of Jesus
Christ. Every study we've dealt with,
beginning with Corinth, there was a whole bunch of idolatry
going on. The mark of the Thessalonian church, and how Paul knew that
they were elected of grace because the gospel came to them, not
only in word, but in power, and the Holy Ghost, and the blood
of Jesus, and they forsook their idols to worship the living God. There is nothing new under the
sun. In the earliest days of the apostles, and even while
the apostles were alive and preaching the gospel, there was a constant
attempt to make the gospel fit the world's thinking by mingling
pagan customs, traditions, and opinions with the singular truth.
It didn't work then, and it doesn't work now. In those days, compromise
paved the road to Romanism. Today, religious men are still
grading the roadbed of the Appian Way back to Romanism at lightning
speed. We must never lift a shell in
this abominable enterprise. We are the children of Christ. We are the circumcision. We worship
God in the spirit. We rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh. Crosses and pictures of Christ
and angels Sabbath-keeping, ceremonialism, genuflections, and religious
show have nothing to do with the gospel of God's grace, nothing
at all and never are to enter into the worship of the person
and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Many professional Christians
today endeavor to stitch Christ and the world together. Such
seem determined to prove our Lord wrong and seek to serve
both God and mammoth. They profess to know Christ and
serve the world. They want to enjoy the new wine
of Christ, but they want to drink the old bottle of the world.
They do not openly despise the new garment of discipleship,
but they want to wear it in their old haunts. So they try to sew
it to the old garments of self-pleasing covetousness and love of the
world. The garment they don will not stand the test of trial of
faith. We cannot put new wine into old
bottles. We cannot mix law and grace.
We cannot mix flesh and the spirit. We cannot mix the world with
Jesus Christ. It will be one or the other.
We cannot mix liberty and license. In verse 39, this is the word
of the Lord in the spiritual realm. The old is better. Now he's not talking about the
old covenant, because the old covenant was actually The law was given because of
transgression, so the law entered. There was an eternal covenant,
one established in eternity that assured the salvation of the
elect by the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
That's the old one. One fellow is now dead. Pastor now dead. Preacher comes
up and says, you preach that old predestination stuff. He
says, yeah, it's old. It's mighty old. It's as old
as God. Our Lord does not refer to the
old covenant here, but the ancient spiritually understood covenant
of grace compared to a fine aged wine. The gospel of Christ is
often compared to wine in scripture, for its color is blood red, it's
sweet to the palate, it revives the spirit, it calms and soothes
the heart. You taste the old wine of the
gospel, the old wine of free grace. You will not want new
wine of this corrupt apostolic apostate age. The gospel and
the attendant free salvation that it brings is old. Aged wine
of everlasting love. This is the vintage blood of
the grape of eternal election and effectual redemption. This
is the antique fermented soothing beverage of divine forgiveness.
This is the eternal cordial of unchanging grace. Drink it only. Drink it always. Drink it liberally. It has been
aged in the fine cast of eternal purpose and suits the need of
every believer every time to the tea. Okay.