Sharing God's word
SHARING GOD'S WORD
When our Lord Jesus Christ began His ministry, it was soon obvious to all that He was doing a new thing. In Matthew Chapter 9, we see Him forgiving sins, healing the sick, raising the dead, and associating with sinners. The people said, “nothing like this was ever seen in Israel” (Matt 9:33 NKJB). Immediately the establishment attacked. “He is working by Satan's power,” some said. Others went to Jesus and asked why He didn't make His disciples keep their rules. His answer deserves the thoughtful analysis of every called out Christian. “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” (Matt 9:17).
New wine, you may or may not know, is still fermenting. It bubbles and heaves, emitting gases, and is expanding. Old wineskins are dry and rigid and brittle. Such was the condition of Judaism in the time of Christ The pressure of new wine goes into soft new skins, flexible and pliable. This represents the Holy Spirit and God's vital truth at work in mans heart. Jesus revolutionary teachings could not be reconciled with the reactionary dogmas of Judaism.
It is for this reason, many churches of God are no longer of any use to the Lord. They have engaged themselves in a laodicean attitude - nether hot nor cold. They have grown dry and rigid inflexible and unresponsive to truth - God's truth. Their called out life is all about conserving the status quo and resisting change!
Three points need to be made here. 1. God is always doing New Things.In the Old Testament God said “Behold I will do a new thing”(Isa. 43:19). At the end of the New Testament, He said, “behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5). Between those two promises we see God making a new covenant with a new people to whom He gives new commandments and new doctrines, a new ministry of the new living way, resulting in a new person who will live his life in a new way.
2. God requires a certain kind of people to do His new work.Christ calls these people “new wine-skins.” Why, because they are eager to expand and take in new truths when proven from God's word. God's people are to be flexible in their methodology. God's called watchword is “Lord what would you have me to do?” (Act 22:10).
The problem with wineskins is that they age and become dry and brittle, resistant and unyielding, stiff and set in their ways - stiff-necked. Old wineskin prefers old wine. It doesn't make waves, or stir things up. Old skins like everything tame and predictable, comfortable and un-challenging. Now at the age of seventy, I still see ways in which my old mind resists change and likes its rut. So I have to fight against it. Because a rut is just a grave with the ends missing.
I urge you, whatever your age! To resist this creeping negativism that wants everything the same, resisting God's new truth He wants to share with you.
3. Fortunately, God said He made His way life eternal. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John. 10:10). And in Psalms we read, “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing; To shew that the LORD is upright: He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him” (Ps. 92:12-15).Beautifully describes God's called out. The righteous flourish like a: palm tree that grow from the inside “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day”(2 Cor 4:16). Cedars of Lebanon, are tall and strong yet are fruitful in old age just as God's called are to be. Full of sap and green. “Full of vinegar,” we used to say. Alive and sassy.
This is what God does automatically in lives of people who live in obedience to Him. Jesus chose disciples (see Matt.10), one characteristic distinguished the twelve they were all outsiders. God the Father wanted men with a total commitment to His son Jesus Christ, and willingness to obey Him at all costs! That meant being different, not defending the status quo, making waves, taking risks, being flexible in methods and sold out to God. Just like His son Jesus Christ. In the 17thcentury B.C., Hosea called on God's people to “break up the fallow ground.” Two hundred years later Jeremiah preached the same sermon “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till He come and rain righteousness upon you”(Hos. 10:12). “For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns”(Jer. 4:3).A hard crust had formed over the soil,making it impossible for seeds to penetrate. So farmers had to sink a deep turning plow into the soil, to break and soften it up, before it could grow a crop.
God is calling on us to do the same. The remedy is for each of us to: * Recognize the tendency to grow cold and resistant to God, and the resulting danger. * Renounce our resistance to God for what it is: the sin of unbelief. * Recommit ourselves to God ways and truths. * Renew our relationship daily in prayer in order to stay usable for God in our calling.
James Russell