New Wine New Wineskins

"And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins. But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. 'The old is just fine,' they say." (Lu5:37-39) This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (2Co5:17) 

Years ago my brother and I would catch eels from a nearby stream to sell to the locals who like to smoke them and eat them. But before we tried to sell them, we would put them into a bucket of fresh water to purge the mud in their system. If we didn't do this the eels would taste like mud and people wouldn't want them. When we accept Jesus as our Saviour we are like those eels, we carry the flavour of the environment that we are part of. God wants us to carry the flavour or influence of the Holy Spirit and to fulfil our God-given potential. He can't pour the new wine in until He has dealt with the old wine, pouring it out. "Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don't be surprised when I say, 'You must be born again.' "(Jo3:6,7)

What happened to the Israelites in Egypt, how they escaped and their time wandering over forty years but going nowhere are a warning of what can happen in our lives.God never sent the people to Egypt, they went there to get food despite knowing that God had warned Isaac not to go to Eygpt during the famine (Ge26:2) but to stay where he was. There is no record of God speaking to the people while they were in Egypt. They could have left after Joseph died when there was no famine and before they were enslaved, but they didn't. God never designed us to live in the world enslaved by Satan through poor choices and shame. Left to ourselves we don't leave that way of life either, we might try to change what we do but not who we are inside. 

God heard their groaning and remembered His covenant with Abraham and knew it was time to act. (Ex2:24,25) Meanwhile, Moses, who had grown up in Egypt, had spent forty years tending sheep in Midian and being purged of his life in Eygpt. And it was to Moses who had already left Egypt that God spoke to sending him to rescue the Israelites.

God delivered the people out of Egypt with signs and wonders then He gave them His Law through Moses. God never spoke to the people or unfolded His plan for them while they were in Egypt and He doesn't reveal His specific plan for us while we are in our old life either. It's after we have committed to Him and started following Him that the way becomes clear. ...The Lord... said to Moses, "Give these instructions to the family of Jacob...if you obey Me and keep My covenant, you will be My own special treasure..you will be My kingdom of priests, My holy nation.' " (Ex19:3-6)

God was trying to prepare the people for their new life in Canaan, but although they had left Egypt physically their minds were still there, "We remember the fish we used to eat for free in Egypt..." (Nu11:5) God wanted to prepare them for what was ahead, for things like Jericho, where the walls just fell down because the people believed God; but they needed to develop a new mindset where they trusted God and had a relationship with Him like Moses did. 

Eventually, of over one million people who left Egypt, only Caleb and Joshua entered Canaan.  " 'You said your children would be carried off as plunder. Well, I will bring them safely into the land, and they will enjoy what you have despised. But as for you, you will drop dead in this wilderness.' " (Nu14:31,32) The adults, old wineskins, spent forty years going nowhere while their children adopted a new lifestyle that included the LORD, the Law and the Tabernacle. When Jesus made this comment in Luke about people not accepting a new covenant with God, He knew what happened when the first Covenant was made. This is possibly why He chose young people, open to new ideas, to be His disciples and not the religious leaders from the older generation.  

Before we can be a new wineskin we have to be fully surrendered, ready to leave the old life and the old way of thinking behind. ...let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you which is good and pleasing and perfect. (Ro12:2) This doesn't just refer to our rebirth when we come to repentance but all through our walk with Jesus. We are washed by the cleansing of the Word so that we can be glorious, holy and without fault (Ep5:26,27), but it is an ongoing process. Not just when we come to Jesus, but when He calls us to come closer and rise to a new level. And as we are prepared for all that the new wine represents, we learn how to stretch so that we don't burst when pressure comes from this new wine or new responsibilities and we don't spill what we have been entrusted with. 

It is easy to get into a religious rut where we just coast or we resist the prodding of the Holy Spirit and end up in a wilderness of our own making going nowhere. The difference between the wilderness for the Israelites and for Moses was that while both were provided for (...your clothes never wore out...He gave you food...De29:5) the Israelites perished but Moses knew the LORD face to face. (De34:10)

The new covenant came because the old one couldn't bring us into a relationship with Our Father. Our old life has to go completely so that we can fully experience the life that Jesus came to bring. A life of peace and joy, an exciting life where we never know what God might bring into our day. I will praise You, LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all the marvellous things you have done. I will be filled with joy because of You. I will sing praises to Your name, O Most High. (Ps9:1-2)

Praise the Name of Jesus!