Behold The King: Fasting, Are you Kidding?
Notes
Transcript
Then came to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not?
And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast.
No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse.
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.
Jesus Changes Things, or returns things to His original design.
From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
The Gospel is that the King came as the sacrificial Lamb to bring new life and Joy to all who believe on Jesus.
Are you holding on to traditions or Jesus?
Pius Inquiry
Pius Inquiry
John’s disciples had been trained (at least unintentionally) that the repentant life style was one that required complete self-denial as crucial evidence of ones sincerity.
And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey;
Along comes Jesus preaching the same message and is given the ministerial stamp of approval by John himself.
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
These disciples seemed to stick with John despite John’s continued commitment to the truth that Jesus was the Messiah.
He must increase, but I must decrease.
Jesus was teaching His disciples that the external conformity to laws does not guarantee someones sincere relationship with God.
Those things that one cannot improve in himself or in others, he ought to endure patiently, until God arranges things otherwise. Nevertheless when you have such impediments, you ought to pray that God would help you, and that you may bear them kindly. Endeavor to be patient in bearing with the defects of others, whatever they are; for you also have many failings which must be borne by others. If you cannot make yourself be as you would like to be, how can you expect to have another person be to your liking in every way? We desire to have others perfect, and yet we do not correct our own faults. We would allow others to be severely corrected, and will not be corrected ourselves. We will have others kept under by strict laws, but in no case do we want to be restrained. And so it appears that we seldom weigh our neighbor in the same balance with ourselves.
Thomas a' Kempis.
Purposeful Interrogation
Purposeful Interrogation
Jesus does not turn in aggravation or anger to these inquiring pious disciples. But rather gracefully asks an probing question.
Jesus knew the answer and also knew that these disciples had been taught that it is rude to refuse to eat during a wedding celebration.
They had also been informed by the one they called master that Christ was the bridegroom.
Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him.
He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled.
He must increase, but I must decrease.
Jesus is the Bridegroom of the church, and He has come to bring us joy.
For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
Jesus payed the dowery of the church with His lives blood. He ascended giving eternal hope to all who believe on Him. He promised He is coming again to collect His bride.
I read an article about a man who was asked back to his forty-year high school reunion. For months he saved to take his wife back to the place and the people he'd left four decades before. The closer the time came for the reunion, the more excited he became, thinking of all the wonderful stories he would hear about the changes and the accomplishments these old friends would tell him.
One night before he left he even pulled out his old yearbooks, read the silly statements and the good wishes for the future that students write to each other. He wondered what ol' Number 86 from his football team had done. He wondered if any others had encountered this Christ who had changed him so profoundly. He even tried to guess what some of his friends would look like, and what kind of jobs and families some of these special friends had. The day came to leave and I drove them to the airport.
Their energy was almost contagious. "I'll pick you up on Sunday evening, and you can tell me all about it," I said. "Have a great time."
Sunday evening arrived. As I watched them get off the plane, my friend seemed almost despondent. I almost didn't want to ask, but finally I said, "Well, how was the reunion?"
"Tim," the man said, "it was one of the saddest experiences of my life."
"Good grief," I said, more than a little surprised. "What happened?"
"It wasn't what happened but what didn't happen. It has been forty years, forty years -- and they haven't changed. They had simply gained weight, changed clothes, gotten jobs...but they hadn't really changed. And what I experienced was maybe one of the most tragic things I could ever imagine about life. For reasons I can't fully understand, it seems as though some people choose not to change."
The greatest change you can have is to receive the Gospel by faith and let God change you.
Preserved Investments
Preserved Investments
Are you letting the Gospel change you? Or are you trying to fit the Gospel into your lifestyle?
Both of these illustrations that Jesus gives would be very relatable to anyone living in the first century.
The piece of new cloth of course is a patch. Today holes in clothes is in. But to have a tattered garment showed poverty and shame to individuals in the first century.
They also did not have the technology or synthetic materials we have today. For a piece of cloth to be ready to patch onto a garment it needed to be washed and dried several times so it would shrink into its final size.
If you put a new cloth over a hole to patch it would be disastrous. Over the next several washings the new cloth would shrink and tear the garment in ways that could completely destroy it.
The new wine was typically unfermented, or just starting the fermenting process. The bottles were made out of leather and the new ones were pliable and able to stretch while the fermenting caused gas that would expand the leather. If you put new wine into old/used bottles that had already been stretched the bottles would crack and sometimes explode.
Jesus is using this to illustrate the incompatibility of man’s traditions and the Gospel.
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
Jesus is tearing down any man-made, religious traditions that had come to overshadow, supersede, or contradict the Old Testament and the gospel of the kingdom.
Jesus did not have a problem with synagogues, the passover meal traditions, but He does critique any religious view or practice that does not hold up to the new wine of the Gospel.
Jesus fasted. Forty days.
Through faith alone we are united to Christ in a personal relationship that compels us to strive to glorify God, live out the Gospel, and help people on their Faithway journey.
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.