ALL ABOUT WEDDINGS, NEW WINE, AND NEW WINESKINS:
Jesus was The Great Communicator! His teachings and parables are breathtakingly simple yet profound. They are the definition of TRUTH.
The Rulers of Israel had enough of His miracles, signs, wonders, and truthful accusations of them as frauds, liars, hypocrites, thieves, murderers, and sons of hell.
They sent the temple guards to arrest Him to get their revenge on Him. When the guards returned without Jesus, they were insanely angry. They demanded to know why they did not arrest Him. The guards answered, “Because no man has ever spoken like this!”
The temple guards knew, as do we, that Jesus’s words are irrefutable, can not be argued, and are one hundred percent Truth.
(John 7:46, John 14:6)
Have you ever been captivated by the profound, earth-shattering Truths concealed within Jesus’s parables? One such parable, the parable of the wineskins, holds a depth of significance that many of us may have overlooked in our initial readings.
Before we get to the wineskins, we need to examine the miracle of the wedding wine in the second chapter of John. This event is known as arguably the first miracle of Jesus. It is another message with deep meaning, yet few understand it. Let’s take a look:
“ON THE third day (a day of great significance, as it was on the third day that Jesus rose.), a wedding took place in Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
Jesus was also invited to the wedding with His disciples. And when the wine was all gone, the mother of Jesus said to Him. ‘They have no more wine’!
Jesus said to her, ‘Dear woman, what is that to you and Me? My time has not yet come.’
Jesus meant that it was not yet time for Him to begin demonstrating His power and glorifying God through miracles. I sense that He meant that He had not yet conferred with Holy Spirit about whether He should intervene in this situation using the anointing to do miracles that Holy Spirit had just bestowed upon Him. I believe that He did at that very moment and was given the green light.
His mother told the servants, Whatever He says to you, do it.
(Holy Spirit asks the same from us)
Now, as the Jewish custom of ceremonial cleansing demanded, six stone waterpots stood there, each holding twenty to thirty gallons.
Jesus told them, ‘Fill the waterpots with water,’ so they filled them to the brim. Then He said to them, ‘Draw some out and take it to the manager of the feast.’ So they took him some.
And when the manager tasted the water, which had just now turned into wine, not knowing where it came from—though the servants who had drawn the water knew—he called the bridegroom.
And said to Him, Everyone else serves his best wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then he serves that which is not so good; but you have kept back the finest wine until now!”
(John 2:1-11)
Think about this! Jesus turned the water into one hundred and eighty gallons of wine, which was so excellent that the professional wedding planner was shocked. Jesus never does “just enough”! His blessings are always overflowing.
THE OLD COVENANT IS THE RITUAL WATER. THE GOSPEL OF JESUS IS THE NEW WINE THAT ONLY HE COULD MAKE.
This event is full of symbolic dynamite! It is a beautiful picture/reflection of the wedding in which we who believe and believe in Jesus join Him in the eternal marriage that He has paid for with His blood. He has poured out His New Wine on us. We need only receive it by believing and believing in Him.
The Wedding, the Bridegroom, and the New Wine!
“Let us rejoice and shout for joy! Let us celebrate, acknowledge, and praise His glory and honor because the marriage of The Lamb has come, and His bride (you, fill in your name here) has prepared herself. (By believing and believing in Jesus)
She has been permitted to dress in fine radiant linen, dazzling and white – for the fine linen signifies the righteousness of the saints (You, fill in your name here).
Then the angel said to me, Write this down: Blessed, happy, to be envied are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, “These are the true Words of God.”
(Revelation 19:7-9)
We earn the right to be dressed in white not by our performance (the ritual water) but by belief in Jesus (the new wine). Spend some time meditating on the joyous celebration in Heaven. How majestic and glorious that will be!
“For the law came through Moses, but Grace and Truth came through Jesus.”
(John 1:17)
The old wine is the Law, a relationship with God based on what we do and don’t do. The New Wine is Grace. Grace is God’s willingness, ability, and power that has done those things for us that we can not or will not do for ourselves. Our New Wine relationship is not about us as the Old Wine is but about Jesus and what He did.
OLD GARMENTS AND NEW GARMENTS AND OLD WINESKINS AND NEW WINE SKINS.
“And He (Jesus) also told them a proverb: ‘NO ONE puts a patch from a new garment on an old garment; if he does, he will tear the new one, and the patch from the new one will not match the old one.
And no one pours new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the fresh wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined. But New Wine must be put into new wineskins.” (Luke 5:32-38)
Paul was anointed and appointed by Jesus to teach the Gentiles the “Good News Of Great Joy Which Shall Be To All People.” He was the first Grace teacher. Paul spent fourteen years traveling around the Gentile world, teaching them about the New Wine.
Then, the Judaizers, some of which were the original disciples who never fully understood or believed the teachings of Jesus, went behind him, teaching his flock that they must believe in Jesus and keep the Ten Commandments, which never applied to anyone but Jews. (Ephesians 2:8-12)
Paul went berzerk and wrote the letter to the Galatians, which every “believer” should memorize. It outlines the cost of rejecting Jesus’ teachings by adding law to them.
It is a scorching rebuke to those who try to serve the law and Jesus.
The Judaizers are responsible for the incorrect teachings of works in the church today. They teach their followers to put old wine into new wineskins.
OUR WINESKINS ARE OUR HEARTS!
Is yours old or new? Jesus’s teachings are stunning compared to what religion has taught us. Believing them requires a willingness to change, a willingness to think as He thinks, and a willingness to pour out the old wine of false beliefs, paradigms, and entrenched non-biblical cliches.
HERE IS SOME NEW WINE
“Then they said, what are we to do, that we may habitually be doing the works of God? What are we to do to carry out what God requires?
Jesus replied, THIS IS THE WORK THAT GOD REQUIRES OF YOU, THAT YOU BELIEVE IN THE ONE WHOM HE HAS SENT!”
(John 6:28)
NOTE THE LACK OF ANY OTHER REQUIREMENTS!
“Solemnly I tell you, WHOSOEVER steadfastly believes in me will himself be able to do the works that I do, and even greater than these shall he do because I go to my Father.”
(John 14:12)
“And Jesus replying said to them, Have Faith In God. Truly I tell you, WHOEVER SAYS to this mountain, Be lifted and thrown into the sea AND DOES NOT DOUBT AT ALL IN HIS HEART BUT BELIEVES THAT WHAT HE SAYS WILL TAKE PLACE, IT WILL (not might) BE DONE FOR HIM.”
(Mark 11:22-24)
John, writing his revelations as given Him by Holy Spirit, in the book of revelation:
“May Grace and Peace be granted to you from Him Who is and Who was and Who is to come, and from the sevenfold Holy Spirit before His throne and from Jesus the faithful and trustworthy Witness, the Firstborn of the dead, and the Prince of the Kings of the earth, To Him Who ever loves us and HAS (Past-present tense meaning: already) ONCE AND FOR ALL LOOSED AND FREED US FROM OUR SINS BY HIS OWN BLOOD.”
(Revelation 1:4-5)
Jesus has no record of wrongs for those who believe and believe in Him! He, by His choice, can not even recall our sins. He forgave us all of our past, present, and future sins, as John wrote, once and for all!
(Zephaniah 3:17, Psalm 103:1-3 and 12, Isaiah 53:4-5, John 1:29, 1Peter 2:24, Hebrews 8:12, Hebrews 10:10-18)
That is why it is insulting to Him and redundant to ask Him to forgive us.
Jesus healed and delivered us from every disease, known and unknown!
(Psalm 103:1-3, Isaiah 53:4-5, Matthew 8:16-17)
THESE ARE BUT A SIP OF THE NEW WINE!
Jesus told us that unless we eat His flesh and drink His blood, we have no life in us. That means that unless we learn His teachings, accept and believe them, and activate them in our lives, making them the most important thing in our lives, we have no life at all because His Words are Spirit and Life, and the flesh counts for nothing.
(John 6:53-64)
CHUGALUG!
Guzzle the New Wine, fill yourself with life, get drunk in the Holy Spirit, and be happy!
END OF TEACHING
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