The times, they are a changin'
Through Luke • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Luke 5:33-39
Luke 5:33-39
Last week, after Levi a tax collector left all to follow Yeshua, he held a reception in His honor inviting all his co-workers and friends. Yeshua obviously enjoyed their company. Why? Because this was the very reason He came to this earth.
“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”
You recall the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled at this scene. To see this so-called Jewish Messiah opposing Judaism was quite offensive to them. To them being godly, holy and acceptable to God meant adhering to the law, the traditions of the elders as well as performing rituals such as prayer, giving tithes, sacraments and fasting. They saw none of these things observed by Yeshua and His disciples. And to eat with tax collectors and sinners was the opposite of holy!! When Jesus overheard these self-righteous rabbis grumbling over this he replied. “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. Matthew adds this exhortation not found in the other accounts:“ But go and learn what this means: ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,’ [Hosea 6:6] for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
From this day on, in each confrontation, Jesus will stump these religious men over and over again! John 5:39 is a classic.
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that bear witness about Me;
But in regards hanging out with sinners, Jesus later explains how heaven reacts when sinners repent.
“I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
You see, the reason angels rejoice over the salvation of sinners is because they understand what we have escaped from. They witnessed the rebellion of Lucifer and angels that followed and their future does not look bright.
So the scene continues as the Pharisees divert and quickly change the subject. Look at Luke 5:33
33 And they said to Him, “The disciples of John often fast and offer prayers, the disciples of the Pharisees also do likewise, but Yours eat and drink.”
Notice they are focused on external disciplines asking. “how come you’re not being religious and following sacraments like the rest of us?” The implication what that Jesus wasn’t promoting holy living or performing proper sacrificial rituals.
I’m sure the Pharisees were not expecting His answer because Yeshua will challenge them by asking a question.
Luke 5:34-35
And Jesus said to them, “Can you make the attendants of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them?
“But the days will come; and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days.”
What did a wedding have to do with fasting? While fasting has many benefits in changing diets, or clearing our heads, spiritually it is beneficial for seeking the Lord, or getting direction from the Lord. But why does He refer to a wedding metaphor to answer? Besides fasting during a wedding celebration was considered inappropriate and insulting - even rabbis explicitly forbade it!
Keep in mind, all four gospels refer to Jesus as the bridegroom. But we can’t look American weddings as an example.
In ancient Jewish weddings, the attendants were the groom’s closest friends responsible for executing the wedding plans. Thus His disciples are the attendants in His metaphor. And John the Baptist described himself as the “friend of the bridegroom” and they helped make preparations for them. In those days, most marriages were pre-arranged at birth by the father of the families. A predestined pick if you will.
When these children came of age, somewhere between 14-19 years old the bridegroom would go prepare a place for His bride built onto His father’s house before they were married. Jesus used this metaphor in John 14.
The Father, knowing the day of this marriage would tell his Son when he finished building the room and say, “go get your bride”,
Then the bridegroom would inform his best man to go tell his espoused wife and declare “the bridegroom is coming!”
The espoused bride was to be prepared with oil in her lamp because it usually happened in the middle of the night.
Upon the best man’s announcement, the bride would travel with her bridesmaids to meet her bridegroom with his family and friends half-way.
So too, we are told when the last trumpet of God blows long, the church will appear with the Lord in the air. 1 Thessalonians 4.17
Now the typical Galilean wedding could last up to seven days or one week.
This is quite interesting because there is one final week or seven years left for Israel known as “Jacob’s trouble” or Daniel’s 70th week yet to be fulfilled. The prophet Zechariah...foretold
“And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.
I believe this is the window of time when both the dead and living believers are instantly transformed to be with our bridegroom in heaven to a place He has prepared for us. [John 14].
So what was the point of Yeshua’s answer?
He reveals that changes were coming when He would be taken away and then His disciples would fast. But nobody knows about that at this point. It was a mystery.
In defining a balanced marriage, Paul referred to this marriage this way.
This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. “previously hidden truth now revealed”
Marriage is a committed relationship of love, respect and submission. It takes responsibility of both man and wife to follow Jesus and to serve each other. The hidden truth is that we the church are engaged to be married to Yeshua through regeneration. So just like the Galilean wedding, we are His virgin bride waiting for His coming!
He even told his disciples to be ready before they knew about the church using this illustration in...
“See to it, keep on the alert; for you do not know when the appointed time will come.
“It is like a man away on a journey, who, leaving his house and giving authority to his slaves—each one his task, also commanded the doorkeeper to stay awake.
“Therefore, stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house is coming, whether in the evening, at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning— lest he come suddenly and find you sleeping. “And what I say to you I say to all, ‘Stay awake!’”
But while we continue to look for the glorious appearing of our great God and Savor Jesus Christ. God also has a prophetic plan for Israel.
God’s message through the prophets is also described using marriage imagery, declaring “I will betroth you unto me for ever” and emphasizing the intimate covenant between them Is 54:5 -“For your husband is your Maker, Whose name is Yahweh of hosts; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Who is called the God of all the earth. Presently Israel remains blinded until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, and this is where Paul reveals another mystery.
For I do not want you, brothers, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.” “And this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.” [Jer 31, Zech 13.9]
So Yeshua has a plan for His church, God the Father has a plan for His chosen people Israel!
Two prophetic plans for two different purposes. Are you ok with that?
So these two parables continue the theme of a wedding!
But why parables?
Because a parable uses the choicest examples of figurative speech to express and enforce divine truths or facts.
Rabbis taught in parables—known as mashalim in Hebrew . The very first parable of the bible comes from Judges 9. But the Hebrew language is a pictorial language as well. When Jesus grew up in Nazareth, He heard the rabbis teach using parables and adopted them to instill a newness of spirit within them. Lets look at the first one.
1] The new garment
36 And He was also telling them a parable: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and puts it on an old garment; otherwise he will both tear the new and the piece from the new will not match the old.
Message? You can’t mix or force a new cloth onto an old cloth.
In other words The times were a changin’
At the present moment, Yeshua was there with sinners so they could rejoice freely. No need to fast.
But three years later at the last Supper Jesus told His disciples He was leaving them and they were stunned. Simon Peter asked, “Lord, where are You going?” Jesus answered, “Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.” “I will send the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me, and you will bear witness also...John 15:26-27 -
In essence, they needed to be changed from the old garment of the flesh into a new garment. And when He is taken away from them, He who knew no sin, became sin that we might become the righteousness of God “in Him” - that is, clothed in a new linen garment [His righteousness]. This is what Yeshua came to do for the world. 1 John 4.10
In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
The system Jesus was creating was going to supersede the old ways of finding holiness: the times were a changin’
So the old garment speaks of our sinful nature and cannot be mended by practicing rituals to make us new creations -Flesh and spirit are contrary one to another - these natures do not match.
Then Yeshua offers a second metaphor from weddings.
2] the new wine -
“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined. “But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. “And no one, after drinking old wine wishes for new; for he says, ‘The old is good enough.’”
Message? Putting new wine into an old skin will ruin both, why? The old skins are so stretched that the fermentation of the new wine would burst any bottle or skin.
Unfermented wine must be put into new skins. Once fermentation is complete, it can be put into any bottle, whether new or old.
The interpretation is similar new wine and old wineskins. The times were a changin’
This parable is about the transference of the old covenant law to the new covenant in Christ’s blood! What was wrong with the Law? 1] it is perfect 2] it can cause guilt - Paul explains the difference.
Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are in the Law, so that every mouth may be shut and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.
It doesn’t make the old covenant bad, it did its job but the times were a changin’ - The new covenant is a better covenant
For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.
But before faith came, we were held in custody under the Law, being shut up for the coming faith to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor unto Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
So here’s the bottom line for us!
Today, we are new creations because He poured out his Spirit into these vessels and both are preserved now!!
The new power and gifts of the Spirit, which were given on the Day of Pentecost, are likened unto new wine (Acts 2:13).
A born again believer is a new wineskin!
But the Pharisees persisted in believing that the old wine of the Law was better (Luke 5:39).
All over scripture we are warned not to mix old with new, or be unequally yoked with unbelievers.
How many horror stories have we heard about that?
Paul later emphasized this idea, “To me to live is Christ” the times were a changin’
We cannot serve two masters ...what do I mean?
We can’t trust salvation to be in Christ and in our own works - they don’t match.
We can’t mix law and grace, or follow the world and Christ at the same time. - it will ruin us.
So, if the “new wine” represents the believer's inner life by the Spirit, then the “new cloth” illustrates the outward life and conversation which of course is the good news of the gospel!
Let’s give thanks to Jesus for offering us a new life and giving us His Spirit!
