Last week we looked at the Kingdom and the priority that the kingdom has. We also looked at the Righteousness that comes with the Kingdom of God. Ths righteousness is both positional as well as practical.
This week I want to look at what Jesus says about wineskins and how that relates to the Kingdom.
Jesus said, “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed” (Luke 5:37).
For many years we have had seasons of revival where God did some extraordinary things in the earth. Great men and women were used to usher in a time of refreshing and a visitation from God. Let me just say that even though these revivals were great, God has never intended to visit his people. God has always desired to stay with his people. The question begged to be asked: why then do we wait for another revival or why did the last revival not last?
I believe that the problem has never been the move of God. It has never been what God was doing, I believe the problem was that we never had the right wineskin for it to last. As soon as there is something great happening, people are fast to lay claim to it as if their denomination or way of doing things has caused it to happen. As if their wineskin or denomination was the reason God did something.
Let me say a few things about the wineskins before we look at the wine.
Wineskins in biblical times had to be properly prepared. If anything was lacking in preparing the wineskin, the container would not qualify to hold the wine. The risk was always that you could lose the wine.
There is a preparation that must happen with us to be able to contain what the Kingdom offers.
The first thing that I see that we must prepare is a desire for the new.
Luke 5:39 No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.
We like comfort and we like the ability to know what is happening. Nobody likes to change. We love the old and the familiar. The saying goes familiarity breeds contempt, but familiarity breeds contentment as well. Always having what you had, creates a familiarity with the old, and the old have a tendency to stop challenging you. Familiarity has a tendency to wear away your edge and you become satisfied with a place that can stun your growth. Familiarity tends to undermine discernment and breeds judgmentalism from what you know and understand. I see it in the Bible when Jesus came, that they had a hard time stepping away from the familiar and accept the new. I see it today when God shows up and it doesn’t look like what people are used to.
The second thing we must do to sustain the Kingdom is to prepare a vessel that is holy. God will never sanction something that is the opposite of His character. Holiness is a work of the Spirit as well as a choice. He sanctifies us from within but we sanctify ourselves by setting ourselves apart from worldly things. Vessels can not contain anything that might spoil or influence the process of producing wine. In Jewish tradition, the wine that was considered to be kosher (Yayin) had to be prepared according to certain specifications. One of the requirements was that the wine should never touch anything that was influenced by leaven. Leven has the ability to influence. You add leaven to the dough and it influences the dough. God is looking for vessels that are free from the leaven that is not Kingdom.
Matt. 13:33 Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
The Kingdom is a new wine. On the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out, they said that the disciples are full of new wine – Acts 2:13.
The Kingdom has the ability to influence us just like leaven does to the dough. It is very subtle. How does it work? Jesus compares it to a sower that sows the seed. The farmer does not know how it grows but it does.
Mark 4:26-27 And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth the fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.
Another way to see and understand this is by using wine as an example. If I drink one glass of wine, I have surrendered my body to the influence of the wine. I am still in control. When I drink a second glass of wine, the influence of the wine increases and my body begins to feel and submit to the influence of the wine. I might still think I am in control. I drink a third glass of wine and now my body is controlled by the wine. I know I am no longer in control. The Kingdom is like that. The more you partake of the Kingdom the more it will begin to influence and control you.
As the influence of the kingdom increases in my life, my life changes. Living holy is now my natural choice because the influence of the Kingdom directs my choices. I don’t want to sin. What was once a choice now becomes my lifestyle. As I surrender to the Kingdom, his life in me becomes more evident.
Next week we will continue looking at the Kingdom.
