The old is better (Quality: Average)

[0:00] The fifth chapter in the Gospel according to Luke, for the Lord's help we will speak this evening from the last two verses. Chapter 5 in Luke's Gospel, verses 38 and 9. But new wine must be put into new bottles, and both are preserved. No man also, having drunk old wine, straightway desireth new, for he saith the old is better. This follows on what we were speaking from verse 36 this morning. Holly, of man putting a new piece on an old garment.

[0:59] The simplicity in the teaching of the Lord Jesus was sent out before us something that we could so easily understand and fully agree with. That it was quite the proper, ordinary and well known thing to do. Avoid such a cause as throwing a new piece onto an old garment, lest the rent should be made worth. Then our Lord speaks of the new wine being put into old bottles. And the folly of this. Because the leather and bottles would not stand the pressure.

[1:58] And the wine would leak out. The bottles would burst. But I said to the children this morning, not glass bottles, that we are so used to, but leather ones. Cracked, especially in the heat of the eastern sun, and couldn't be relied on. Cracked couldn't be seen. And if it were tried, it might very well prove the loss of the loss of the whole was put in it. So to be upon the same side, there was a constant need to prepare new bottles. To take the wine of the harvest. So that it wasn't lost or wasted by some pollen.

[2:56] Jesus then comes on to the last two verses. Which are of a different nature altogether. And that is the taste and relish which there is for the new wine and the old wine.

[3:17] So that is the taste and the old wine. There is a distinct difference in the food that God provides for us. Some of it, like the moldy bread that the Gibeonites brought in the days of Joshua.

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[3:59] There are many things of that nature that will not improve by keeping. But wine is just the opposite. And the longer it is kept the better it is.

[4:15] But it must be tasted to be known. So that there are men whose skill as tasters is much in demand.

[4:33] Who can tell by the very taste. This wonderful taste that God has given to us creatures in the ability to taste of it.

[4:45] We know of people who cannot taste or smell. The two are closely related. And they bore things labour under immense difficulty which we cannot really understand.

[5:03] When we consider the nature of taste it is indefinable. But it is not necessary to be able to define a thing in order to understand it.

[5:21] And even the youngest child can taste. And they know the difference even though they cannot speak. So with regard to this palette that God has given to us it discerns.

[5:40] Which is the word we read in Hebrews. It discerns. Much trouble is belonging to them that are of full age even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

[6:06] That is good taste and bad taste. And they have their senses exercised. That is put into use. Try.

[6:18] So that by degrees they gradually acquire the right taste. And they can tell the difference.

[6:29] And this remarkable sense, one of the five senses God has given us, is beyond all worth to us.

[6:42] We know the taste between a sweet thing and a bitter thing. That is why the children, or even adults for that matter, don't like bitter medicine.

[6:55] But the fact remains that the more bitter it is often, the better it is for you.

[7:07] This wonderful bitterness, and it is wonderful, that God has put in some remedies that needs to be thought of.

[7:18] That God should make some things truly bitter, that they might be the more purging, and do us the more good.

[7:31] So that we transfer this figure of bitterness to spiritual things. And we speak of the bitter cup that the Lord Jesus drank.

[7:47] That is not that Jesus had a cup of wine put into his hand in Gethsemane's garden.

[8:00] But he did, in all truth, receive in his experience, at the hand of his Father, that bitter experience, that his holy soul felt.

[8:13] And in speaking of this, he himself said, the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?

[8:35] Having just previously said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

[8:48] So that there is twofold view of this, primary meaning, and the secondary meaning of this, as set out before us in the scripture case.

[9:00] Again, the well-known scripture, O taste and see that the Lord is good. There is no want to them that fear him.

[9:14] And so we are instructed in these things that what we may, as I said this morning about the sowing, and the sowing needle, patching an old garment with a piece of new cloth, and a poly on it, we are instructed by these seekers in solemn spiritual matters.

[9:39] A vital consequence to us all. Paul uses a different meaning here. He speaks of milk.

[9:52] With what bluntness almost, we might call it, he speaks to those Hebrews in verse 11 of chapter 5, of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing he is dull of hearing.

[10:12] He is linking the taste with the hearing. And quite plainly speaks to these scattered Hebrews, of their being unable to fully receive what he has to say about the person and work of Christ as he was here upon earth.

[10:40] In particular, about him learning obedience by the things which he suffered. And in this, there is of course a bar step of the old wine of the kingdom as it is called.

[11:01] And this sacred taste, or the old wine, which is said to be better.

[11:13] No man says the text, having drunk old wine, straight away desireth new.

[11:26] For he says the old is better. Now, none of us, I don't want to give a dissertation on this, not that I could do, but you know as well as I do, that this is perfectly true.

[11:42] And, er, to the Eastern, wine being the main drink, he was of course well versed in it. I had nothing else but wine and water, all but ricklel.

[11:58] So this fell upon their ears with a very simple understanding. And in some measure, to us Gentiles, we can clearly see that there is something that is to be preferred.

[12:17] And the great question is, have we a taste for the old? Do we know what the taste of the old wine is of the gospel?

[12:32] What is this old wine? Where is it? Where is it? And in these few short words in Hebrews 5, we have a very classic part of it.

[12:47] The part that is closely united with what I was saying this morning with regard to patching up your religion with your own good work.

[12:59] And trying to make that perfect, or more perfect, that is already perfect. Mingling your own works with the works of Christ, which is utter folly.

[13:14] And yet, er, so constantly, er, attempted, that er, one is almost, er, astonished to think that complete and constant failure does not take men off of this, er, er, fool's pathway.

[13:36] And, er, none the less, their minds and hearts were blinded, that they should not know and understand. So that when Jesus in the very midst, miracles performed on all sides, none of them ever believed on him.

[13:57] And this brings us to the great source of the old wine, the covenant, the works of God that are mature.

[14:12] And so, as I said, the maturity of the truth, which has been the joy of the Church of God through all ideas, and the joy of the Gentiles, since they were brought more fully into gospel blessings after and at the day of Pentecost.

[14:42] And, er, this gradual tasting. Now, we must start at the beginning, and the beginning we started at this morning in the little measure, that is, as you sang in your hymn, How do I feel my need of Christ to save me from my sin?

[15:08] This is where we must begin. This is where the first stage comes in, as the scripture clearly points out, and as I quoted this morning from Luke, with regard to the position, they that are holy, not a position, but they that are sick.

[15:31] I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repent. Now this old gospel, therefore, the old wine of this gospel is matured to the point of full acceptance by guilty sinners.

[15:55] They feel it to be something they can receive, taste, enjoy, and which is the proper function of wine.

[16:09] It is life-giving, reviving. There is something particularly singular about God's gift to man in wine.

[16:22] Though he has made a beast of himself so much with regard to excess, like he does in so many things, taken, as good Paul says to Timothy, take a little wine for thy stomach's sake.

[16:43] A most beautiful commendation of that which is available to us all, the wine which God gives to man.

[16:55] But with regard to the wine of the gospel, he says the old is better. Now there are many attempts, as you know, to introduce very different doctrines.

[17:13] Very many rise on one hand and on the other, who say, though here is good wine, though there is good wine, or here is Christ, there is Christ.

[17:32] It is a question of discernment, taste. It is not a question of bare doctrine. It is not a question of theology.

[17:45] It is a question of taste. If someone showed to me a bottle of wine without any label on it, or any date on it, I should be totally ignorant.

[18:01] I should know nothing whether it was good, bad, or indifferent. But if someone showed me a bottle with a date on it, at least I have got enough knowledge to know that that wine is mature.

[18:19] I couldn't tell you anything about a particular variety of it, where it came from. But I should know that it was mature. Now, with regard to the age of the gospel, this goes right back to the beginning, that it was in the eternal purpose of God to save sinners, and that he foreknew them before they were born, and that he predestinated them, and that not only did he foreknew and predestinate by divine act, but he also in due time called them.

[19:08] And then, having called them, he justified them. And having justified them, he glorified them.

[19:21] And in these words, we have a brief summary of the wine of the kingdom of God, and which is well mature.

[19:38] God has done it. He has brought the vilest of the vile out to himself, irrespective of their station in life. He has been no discerner, or taken favor, in the events that man would, or respecter of person.

[20:03] He has solemnly taken one and left another, as he did with the twin, Jacob and Esau. He has given abundant proof that this old wine of the kingdom is very, very mature.

[20:25] And furthermore, it will go on. But it's to be tasted. That is the point I would bring before you, of the man who says, in this text, no man having drunk old wine, his hour is new, for he says, the old is better.

[20:55] Now, wonderly, this wine of the kingdom, therefore, has been accepted by four unworthy sinners. God's sovereign mercy to them, and he called them out of their native state.

[21:13] God's sovereign mercy to them, and as they gradually grow, and their taste increases, and their discernment, how they see this, as I said this morning, with regard to our youth, and the fact that the Lord remembers, as well as we do, sins of our youth, our life.

[21:46] The more we see this, the more do we see, and taste and relish, the sweetness, perfection, maturity, of the wine of God's sovereign love and mercy to us, when we were ruined in the fall.

[22:06] They had no desire after him whatever, and yet it was his covenant purpose that it should be so, that he determined to say, as the hymn writer said, determined to say, if he watched all my power, when Satan's blind slave, I supported with death.

[22:29] It was Newton, I think, said that. Now this is a real taste, and therefore, he does not want something new.

[22:45] He cannot wish that there were some alteration in the plan, and if anyone should tell him that there is, and that he's really old-fashioned, and out of date, he will stand his ground, and he'll say, you give me the old wine.

[23:07] I don't want any of your new wine, thank you. The old is better. And this is where his discernment comes in.

[23:19] And he doesn't need someone at his elbow to say yes and no, because he's got the witness in his own heart and conscience. A believer has to stand alone.

[23:34] He may have good, loving friends, blessed be God, he often has. But when it comes to discernment and judgment and taste, he can't go to another and say, well, what do you think?

[23:51] Do you think that God really has a people foreknown and before the foundation of the world and say, it's very doubtful, what do you say?

[24:07] You say, give me the old wine, looking. You say, how true it is that this is so. And I've tasted that it is so.

[24:19] Because he's called me. He's changed my course in life, altered my whole outlook. And in tasting this, I have a relish for that which is according to the word of God.

[24:38] And this taste is found throughout the word of God to confirmation. The Lord said to Jeremiah, before I formed in the womb, I knew this.

[24:54] Peter, of whom we spoke this morning at his call in the fifth of blue, what does he say concerning this?

[25:08] How he rejoices in the divine foreknowledge of God and those who were scattered abroad throughout the various countries in the age of mine.

[25:22] it was his joy to declare that God did foreknow them. The old wine of the kingdom, therefore, is not to be marred with the new in a vanillus heart.

[25:41] His unworthiness, his next step is his indebtedness. God has got a hold on him.

[25:55] God has got a hold on him. He is in God's divine grip. You don't like being in debt, do you? And the person to whom you are in debt, they may be kind, they may not be, but they've got a hold on you, haven't they?

[26:14] They come to you and say, like in the parable, pay me that thou art. That man we read took him by the throat. But the believer, as Paul says in the 8th of Romans, therefore, brethren, we are debtors.

[26:35] Not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. But that is not where we are in debt. We've lived the time of our life beforehand would suffice to have brought the will of the Gentiles, says Paul, in this epistle to the Hebrews.

[26:57] But we are debtors. Not to the flesh, to live after the flesh, but unto the spirit, to live after the spirit. Now, here is the strength of this wine of the kingdom.

[27:12] And strength that is needed. Refreshment that is needed. It is a life-giving influence. It governs your pathway, strengthens your faith, revive.

[27:32] It is by this that men live and they taste their indebtedness to God. And the old wine of the gospel is granted to them.

[27:49] And they never will then, unless they are left to themselves very solemnly, want something new. I say the old is better.

[28:01] when you follow through with the apostles' teaching, the justification of the sinner. The justification is one of the sweet truths of the gospel that is made perfect in Christ.

[28:28] Now, this doesn't come all at once. If there's something you can read about in a book and say, yes, well, I've got it from A to Z.

[28:39] How dare. Beware, read, by all means. But beware of what to do with you what you read.

[28:52] Because you stock your head with theory, theology, maybe sound in that.

[29:04] The great need is to taste of the justifying influence of the gospel, the cleansing influence of it, its separating influence of it.

[29:18] That it is something that doing you good, that having an effect in your life, that it just establishes your going in God's power, and makes his word profitable to you.

[29:40] So that the work of Christ is set out in the chapter that we read is a very precious part of this, that Jesus Christ is a high priest at the right hand of the Father, who is there for the particular purpose of having compassion upon the ignorant people and on them that are out of the way.

[30:11] Very unusual term is it? Would you be offended if someone said to you, well my friend, you're out of the way? yes, you might well say, if you had a taste of justification and what it ultimately will lead to anoint him, but that doesn't mean to say I don't want to be in your way.

[30:39] But this is the qualification of the great high priest, that he can have compassion on the particular people that come to him.

[30:52] And compassion is a very moving thing. You can't have a cold, hard heart and be compassionate. Someone come to you, as Jane says, and asks, and you say, well go and be warmed and fed and tomorrow I will give to thee.

[31:14] Well, there's nothing about hypocrisy in that. But compassion, you can't help having compassion, can you? It's a spontaneous movement of the heart in us human beings which we often feel I trust go over to a total stranger.

[31:37] You don't know who they are, but for a moment compassion springs up in your heart and sometimes moves you to help them. But be it what it may, there is this great natural gift of compassion.

[31:55] It is set out in the parable of the Samaritan, the man who fell among thieves. people. Now, Jesus has experienced and experienced and tasted the bitterness of the cup that he might have compassion on the people and them that are out of the way.

[32:26] God. Now, how this fits in with the gospel truth of the wine of the gospel.

[32:39] Supposing, let us hope, some of you are in that place where you say, well, you couldn't name a better description of me. I do feel like that.

[32:51] I feel ignorant. We won't have an examination, will we? A cross examination of what you feel ignorant.

[33:05] You feel ignorant on the things of God. You feel a poor nothing, a poor unworthy nothing, and you feel somehow different, out of the way.

[33:21] it was Ruth's experience to feel unlike the rest of the Boaz handmaids. You can understand that.

[33:35] She was a Moabite. They were Israelite. Quite clearly, she would. As you go to a foreign country, you feel out of it, very large extent.

[33:51] so, out of the way. And yet, the Lord Jesus is exhorted to the right hand of his Father to be moved with pity.

[34:06] out of him. This is the only way we shall be saved, delivered from our trouble, pity.

[34:20] This is the good why, the old why, the pity of the Lord Jesus to us in our lowest time.

[34:32] we cannot bring anything out. There is no other description available to us. It is pity.

[34:45] And the scripture confirms this, like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth and that feareth. it is a prerogative particular to a father.

[35:02] A mother comforts her children. As I often say, like a father cannot. You can't interchange the mother's comfort for the father's pity and vice versa, but as one who his mother comforts or like as a father pitieth his children.

[35:31] So, the Lord pitieth them that fear him, for he knoweth her praying, he remembereth that we are but dust.

[35:47] In this therefore, the Lord is so clear in his gracious teaching. And this new wine is so excellent that Jesus Christ is set forth as able to have and can.

[36:07] And this will bring you to it. Enable you to venture, as I said this morning, with nothing in your hand. this will make you need a position, bring you to see your sickness, your disease.

[36:30] And in this therefore, the Lord Jesus can have that great source of righteousness made available for his unworthy people.

[36:42] righteousness is communicated to them by an act which he himself has described.

[36:55] And it's called look. Or, as I quoted from the psalm, title, it was a look in the desert.

[37:07] the serpent was re-elected from the pole, but the command was to look. Your eye can travel much farther than your feet in a crown.

[37:26] And there were thousands upon thousands around that great serpent who would never have got anywhere near it had it been touched. But it was look.

[37:39] Look unto me and be ye saved all ye ends of the earth. Now this gospel therefore is the gospel of experience in coming, believing, looking.

[38:01] Now this mighty work Christ accomplishes by setting before his people that he himself has trodden the same pathway.

[38:15] This is the excellency of the wine. Here comes the outstanding perfection of it. That he is learned obedient by the things which is up.

[38:30] God and although it may sound irreverent to say so, it is not irreverent to say so, that he could not have learned obedience to the holy law of God in any other way than by taking human flesh and walking this earth.

[38:52] It was necessary for the Lord Jesus to tread this path. Here is the grand teaching of justification by faith in the finished work of Christ when I directed solely and alone to him and no one else, especially self.

[39:20] And here the excellency and maturity of this wine Paul sets forth in this chapter who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong cries and tears.

[39:39] Well, you one that has tasted of the wine of the kingdom and the old wine of the kingdom by practical experience, strong crying and tears, repentance toward God.

[40:06] How many tears have we shed really in our lifetime? How many real tears of godly sorrow and repentance have we shed?

[40:18] a question worth asking and a question worth meditating on? It was the Lord's sorrowful pathway that he himself, as we read in the pith of Matthew this morning, he went into the wilderness and prayed, praying, and prayed.

[40:46] He offered up strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared.

[40:59] By this remarkable position, it fully exemplified and said out in the gospels, we know from the words of the disciples that Jesus did cry, strong cry, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken?

[41:26] Not only declared there in the utterance of it, but prophesied by the psalmist in the 22nd or the 69th psalm, I'm not sure which, but then strong, bitter, earnest.

[41:46] So, do not be surprised if you have to shed a few tears, and I ought to say it like that really, did I? Pray that there may be tears in your condition.

[42:01] They will stand out as way marks in the road. Ask for the old path, says Jeremiah in his sixth chapter. Ask for the old path.

[42:15] They say we will not. We will not walk in them. No. Self-created religion will never ask for the old path and the old wine, that gives that relish and taste for justifying righteousness, the imputation of Christ's righteousness to a sinner, but bitter tears and crying will, conviction of which I spoke this morning, though he were a son, it learned that he obedient.

[42:56] The argument behind this is that he might well have been expected to escape the rough pathway because he was a son.

[43:08] And naturally viewed, the apostle implied, that one would think he could well have been spared this bitterly.

[43:20] Though he were a son, yet learned he obedient by the things which he suffered.

[43:32] Now, he says the old is better. Isn't it better? Isn't it better this wine of the gospel that not a glimpse of hope, only in the justifying righteousness of Christ?

[43:59] Being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all men that obey him. Well, this is the copper.

[44:14] success. This is the success. This has been brought thousands around the throne now, bearing constant testimony to this, that they reached that heavenly shore, not by their own merit and righteousness, but that of the righteousness of Christ.

[44:39] And there was nothing in them whatsoever. They were taken off of every other crop and brought to trust alone in the righteousness of Christ.

[44:54] the old is better than having tasted the old wine. He does not straightway say that he wants new.

[45:10] Do you? Can you say in your heart, I can, true brave, I can say I don't want any, any of the new wine.

[45:24] Oh, it would be terrible now to come to some fallen place where you wanted to mix your own wine, where you could add something to the perfect robe, where you could sow some old rotten clout upon the righteousness of the dear Redeemer and what are you going to do with this new wine then?

[46:00] Where are you going to put it? Have you got anywhere to put it? Have you got the old special of Carnality and regenerative your native state?

[46:19] Are you going to put it in there? Will it hold it? Will it be able to carry it far with you? Or is it going to burst the bottle?

[46:33] How can it? How can it ever be that there shall be this precious new wine put into an old bottle?

[46:44] Never. A new heart will I give them and a new spirit will I put within them? Fed the Lord through Jeremiah thirty-third thirty-third chapter?

[46:57] It is this that holds its name. A new heart or a new birth a new creature a change something vastly different from the old.

[47:15] This is where the new wine is to be cared. this is where the relish and taste point is. This is where there is the discernment, the having your senses exercised so that you may come up against error and will do.

[47:42] You won't get through this world without coming up against error. And those things which by simple test dishonor Christ.

[47:55] Lower his status and standing. Bring him down more to your level. You won't come to this place where you want some of that new wine of unholy familiarity which brings a man and a woman and even a child to speak to God on level terms.

[48:21] What want that? It will be bitter. You will come up against error but your taste will remain with you.

[48:37] There will be that positiveness about it. It will be Christ in his perfect righteousness. Well, now, this is just a path.

[48:49] It's a short chapter. You can remember both of them, the fifth of Luke and the fifth of Hebrews. ask yourself, but let me ask myself as to our taste.

[49:04] Now, as regards glorification, we shall not taste that, this side of the grave. That is, as Israel, when they went into the land of Canaan, they ate the manor for the last time.

[49:31] And the next day, they had the corn of the land. No more manor. And so, with the great gulf between time and eternity, there will be no more need in, be justified freely by his grace, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, who be justified and be also glorified.

[50:06] I can only mention that, but what do you say about the good wine of that heavenly state where all say should be fullyском et through this thing will be able to