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CONNIE: What happens when you “hit the wall”? Do you bend, or do you break? Is it important for Christians to be flexible and ready for something new? Join us today for Jesus’ answer.

Giving God’s trumpet a Certain Sound for 75 years, this is the Voice of Prophecy.

CONNIE: Hello, I’m Connie Jeffery,

LONNIE: and I’m Lonnie Melashenko, and I want to welcome you to our program today. We’ve just begun a new series in which we’re looking at the parables of Jesus, and today we’ll be studying one He used it to kind of shake people up a bit.

CONNIE: Didn’t Jesus do that quite often with His parables?

LONNIE: He sure did In fact, the stories He told were usually designed to put people a bit off their balance. He wanted to break them loose from their usual ways of looking at things and help them see life differently.

CONNIE: Well, I don’t remember any parable that talked about running into a wall—or someone bending or breaking in a collision.

LONNIE: But there is a parable that makes a point about that. Recently there was a report on television about an accident on the NASCAR racing circuit. It looked like a pretty serious bang up, but fortunately the driver walked away almost unscathed. As part of the report, the commentator pointed out that car designers have learned a lot from NASCAR wrecks through the years. At first designers decided to protect the drivers by making the cars stronger and stronger—more and more rigid. But that didn’t work. Because as the cars themselves got stronger, the thing that bent and broke during a crash was all-too-often the driver himself. So then they started making the frames more flexible, and as a result the drivers were better protected. By bending in a collision, the frame actually protected the driver better. And that sort of thinking has now been applied to passenger cars as well, making them safer for all of us.

CONNIE: I don’t remember any parables about race cars either...

LONNIE: Well, we won’t be finding any parables about racing. We’ll be looking at the parable about old and new wineskins and the one about patching an old garment. Jesus used these stories to make a very important point about how we should respond to His teaching. Flexibility and openness to something new are important characteristics for Christians to cherish.

CONNIE: And it was the disciples’ openness to something new that made them followers of Jesus in the first place wasn’t it?

LONNIE: You’re right about that. But the challenge for us often is that once we receive Jesus, we can get pretty set in our ways and not be open to new leading from the Holy Spirit.

CONNIE: In our interview segment today, Ken Wade speaks with someone who is always trying to poor new wine into people’s lives—in a spiritual sense. Let’s listen in.

KEN: Today I want to welcome Cheri Peters to our program.

CHERI: Well, thanks Ken, it’s nice to be here.

Cheri, I always like to talk to you and you are involved in a very important KEN: ministry there in Idaho dealing with people that would be considered old wine skins needing some new life poured into their lives. How’s that going these days?

CHERI: You Know, we are now international. We work with people in recovery not only here, but in the United States, and across the world.

KEN: When you say recovery…recovery from what?

CHERI: You know, just garbage. People dealing with addictions. People struggling with anything from food to drugs, workaloism, anger, we just work with people whose lives are just not working for them. My belief is that they just need to meet God, and let Him come into their lives to heal them.

KEN: This is something that you know from personal experience right? I mean, you lived on the streets as a young person; you were into drugs and just about everything else. Then finally you met Christ and let Him into your life, and now you are involved in a ministry that is involved with the recovery of people all over the world, and that’s great.

CHERI: Thank you! Amen!

KEN: Well, you were telling me about a couple of people recently, who were trying to find a new life but were up against some pretty big barriers. What’s going on there?

CHERI: Well, you know, I worked with this one person, drug addict, biker, just a horrible guy. He came home from partying and he was just so drunk that he could hardly see straight, and he wanted to go to bed, but his children would be crying, so he would walk over to them with a pillow and suffocate them until they passed out so he could get some sleep. The guy was horrible. So he finds Christ, and everything about him changed, the joy in his face, and every time he thought about being forgiven he would break down and cry like a little baby. He could not understand a God that could forgive him like that. However, every once in awhile you would see all of this junk come up, and he would seem to be slipping back into his old ways. He started to feel like everybody was untrustworthy, and I told him you have to give all of that up to the Lord. This is a new thing; God is not like anybody you know.

KEN: So he was kind of slipping back into the old wine skins. He has to stop and reexamine his priorities and get that new wine in him again.

CHERI: It’s almost like God says, I have to teach you everything, like a little baby. You know nothing yet@!

KEN: Do you find that quite often as you are dealing with these people who are trying to develop a new life with Jesus, trying to become new people?

CHERI: Yes, even in my own life. It’s taken me almost 20 years
To realize that hey, I do have to give up all, and trust totally in the Lord our God. I was homeless for 10 years; I had absolutely no trust for anyone. But Jesus wants us to surrender all and come to Him.

KEN: Some of the other people you were telling me about are having a lot of the same types of problems. What does that for Christians? Maybe I’m a Christian who has been sitting in the same exact pew for 29 years, and I’ve listened to every sermon ever preached, and I feel like my life is pretty well on track, is there any chance that I might need a little new wine in my life?

CHERI: You know, I think that when Christ walked around, He really talked a lot to the Sadducees and Pharacies about how you think that you have it all together, but you are like empty or white-wash tombs. I think that sometimes we are so comfortable in our Christian traditions that we lose sight of God. I feel that all of heaven is saying new skins come on.

KEN: It must be exciting, yet draining for you to constantly be working with people who need to be lifted up and set back on the right track.

CHERI; There are times that I get frustrated, but the heartaches are worth it all when you are able to help some one come out of threat pit of despair and addiction and watch them thrive in a new life with Christ.

KEN: And your ministry True Step has a website is that right?

CHERI: Yes, it’s TrueStep.org. And you can come visit anytime.

KEN: Well, thank you for being here today to share you new wine with us.
“New Wine”, Heritage Singers, from Peacespeaker CD.

CONNIE: New wine! Wow, that song really gets into the topic of our parables for today, doesn’t it Lonnie?

LONNIE: Well, it does, in a very joyful way. That, by the way, was the Heritage Singers, and the song is found on their Peace speaker album. The song picks up on the theme of the peace and happiness that come when you receive Jesus into your life. And that’s an important aspect of the parable that we’re looking at today. But there’s more to it as well, because when Jesus comes into a person’s life, all sorts of things begin to change.

CONNIE: And the joy that the Heritage Singers sang about comes both from knowing Jesus, and from letting Him grow in our hearts and change things in our hearts. Which is the reason we’re sharing a book today called Truths That Change us inside. This book shares the stories of many people whose lives have been changed for the better through an encounter with Jesus.

LONNIE: You know Connie; I like to think of the books and other items that we offer on our broadcast as kind of vitamin supplements for our program. There’s only so much we can say in a half hour program, so we like to supplement that with good reading material for our listeners. So friend, please don’t hesitate to pick up the phone or drop us a line and ask for our special offer each week.

CONNIE: We’d like you to have a copy of the book Truths That Change Us Inside, and it’s our free gift to you. All you have to do is pick up the phone and call us at our toll free number 1-800-872-0055, and we’ll send you a copy.

LONNIE: Or of course you can always write to us as well. We’ll be sharing our mailing address later in the broadcast, and let me assure you that we read each letter that comes in carefully. And we encourage you to share your prayer requests and other concerns you’d like us to know about.

CONNIE; We’ll be sharing that mailing address in about a dozen minutes or so, but right now let’s listen to Lonnie’s message for today, “Are You Ready For Something New?”

Are You Ready For Something New?

He hadn’t had a bath in six weeks. You could almost smell him coming before you could see him. His clothes were of the most questionable nature—made of rough cloth, cut rough and ill fitting.

If you chanced to meet him on the street, you probably wouldn’t be inclined to invite him to church.

Unless, perhaps, you had heard him preach.

Because the man I’m telling you about was one of the most renowned speakers of his day. In fact he was employed as the Roman emperor’s Court Orator. He was one of those men who have gone down in history with just one name, but one name that is recognized all over the world. Like Buddha or Plato or Galileo. His name: Augustine.

But what was this famous, talented, highly-placed government official doing wandering around the streets of Milan, Italy dressed in haircloth, looking and smelling like a beggar?

He was preparing for the bath of a lifetime. He was preparing to be baptized. He was ready for something new in his life, and part of preparing to receive new life in Christ involves getting really tired of the old ways and deciding you never want to go back to them. The rough, smelly clothing symbolized the life Augustine was leaving behind.

The year was A. D.387 and Augustine was not the only one who had spent the 40 days of Lent wearing uncomfortable clothing and avoiding the baths. In those days baptism into the Christian Church was not something one took lightly. It was not something that happened to you a few weeks after birth, when you had no clue what was going on. It was something you chose to do only after earnest and careful consideration and after you had undergone a period of thorough instruction as a catechumen.

The people preparing for baptism on Easter in Milan that year had all spent the period of Lent in penitence and preparation. They hadn’t had a bath in all that time because they wanted their baptism to symbolize being cleansed once and for all from the sins of the world.

They had eaten only the smallest portions of the plainest foods as part of their preparation as well, because they wanted to focus their attention on partaking of Christ. On the eve of Easter, the candidates prayed all through the night, and then at dawn they renounced Satan and proceeded to the baptismal font. Baptism and becoming a part of the body of Christ would be a very big thing to them. They were preparing themselves for something very important and very new. A complete transformation of their lives.

They took baptism quite a bit more seriously than most people seem to today. We found this little story on the Internet by searching for the phrase “preparation for baptism”:

Before baptizing an infant, the priest approached the father and said solemnly, “Baptism is a serious step. Are you prepared for it?”
“I think so,” the man replied, “My wife has made the appetizers, and we have a caterer coming to provide plenty of cookies and cakes for the guests.”
“I don't mean that,” the priest responded. “I mean, are you prepared spiritually?”
“Oh sure,” the man said. “I’ve got a keg of beer and a case of whisky—that should be enough to keep everyone in good spirits, don’t you think?”

Well, we smile and laugh at a story like that. But it does create a stark contrast, doesn’t it, when we compare it to the way people prepared for baptism in the early days of the church? Everyone who was baptized knew what was happening to them, and had chosen to start his or her life over anew as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

By the way, if you go to Milan, Italy today, you can still see the eight-sided baptistery where the man we know as Saint Augustine was baptized in A. D. 387. In fact, all over Europe, you can find these ancient baptismal fonts where people put their old life behind them, were buried beneath the waters, and rose to new life in Christ.

Are you ready for something new today? Ready for some big changes in your life?

Let’s take a moment to look at the parable we’re studying today. I’m reading from Luke 5:36-38

“He also told them a parable: ‘No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins’ ” (NRSV).

The picture Jesus paints is very clear. He’s talking about the new and the old and the contrast between them. He starts with a simple, obvious observation: if you have an old, worn-out pair of pants that needs to be patched, why go into the closet, get out your newest Armani suit and tear a piece off the pant leg to patch your worn-out work clothes? For one thing the patch will be a different color, and for another, why spoil the new suit to fix the old?

The second part of the parable isn’t quite as clear to us today, because we don’t usually buy grape juice in wineskins at the local Safeway. But it’s easy to figure out what Jesus is talking about. He’s making the point that in the absence of refrigeration fresh grape juice will soon ferment. And if you put it in old, stiff wineskins, the “tiny bubbles in the wine” will soon burst the skin. Fresh grape juice needs new wineskins made of fresh, supple material which can expand and take the pressure without bursting.

There’s an important spiritual principle here. Have you noticed it, throughout the Bible—when God wants to do something really important, something really new, He has to start with new people or with people who are willing to make drastic changes in their lives.

Think of Abraham for example. When God was ready to start something new, He came to Abraham and invited him to pull up stakes, leave the old hometown behind, move away from family, and start life over again in a new land.

And do you remember the story of Elisha? When the prophet Elijah was ready for retirement—retirement to heaven that is—God sent him to find the man who would be his replacement, who would continue the prophetic work in Israel.

1 Kings 19:19 tells us what happened next: “So [Elijah] departed from there, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before me, and he was with the twelfth. Then Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle on him” (NKJV).

Elisha responded immediately, running after Elijah—who pretended like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But Elisha knew something very extraordinary is going on when the premier prophet of all of Israel casts his mantle on your shoulders. He quickly ran back to the oxen he had been plowing with, took the yoke off, and proceeded to sacrifice them, distributing the meat to all his neighbors. Then he left everything behind and set out to follow Elijah.

He didn’t take his oxen with him or load all his possessions on the family camel. He left it all behind and began a new life—a life of serving the Lord.

God needs new people—people who are willing to leave the old behind—to do His work on earth.

Then there are the disciples: Peter, Andrew, James, John. Did you men really expect to meet someone who would ask you to leave everything behind that day when you were tending your nets by the Sea of Galilee? And if someone had told you that by the end of the day you would have closed up shop permanently to become itinerant preachers, would you have believed them?

Probably Not

But when God comes into your life, something’s got to give, something’s got to change. There isn’t room for Both Jesus and the old stuff. You can’t stay the same. If you try to, you’ll end up looking like an old garment with a new patch sewn on—not a pretty picture. Or you’ll become like an old wineskin that can’t take the pressure of the new life that Jesus wants to pour into you. You’ll burst if you try to take Jesus into your tired old life without giving Him permission to make everything new.

The apostle Paul put it plainly in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new” (NKJV).

Are you ready for something new? Just imagine what God could do with your life if you were willing to let Him make any changes He wanted to make. If you were willing to leave everything behind and let Him make all thing’s new!

Maybe you’ve already done that. Maybe you’ve already left your old life behind and become a Christian. Maybe it was a dramatic experience in your life, calling for drastic changes. And if you let God make those kinds of changes in your life, well Praise the Lord!

But you know, that’s not supposed to be just a one-time event in your life. In fact, Jesus wants to come in every day. And our hearts must be prepared daily for the kind of expanding, stretching influence that He wants to pour in.

Not only that, Jesus is a whole new piece of cloth. His teaching can’t be just patched over one little part of our life. He wants to make you into a whole new garment. That’s the only way His cloth will look right on you.

You know, you may not agree with everything the man they call Saint Augustine said and did. But there’s one thing he got right for sure. He took his walk with Jesus seriously. He put the old aside and embraced the new. And God blessed him richly and used him to lead many others to Christ.

I think you’d like that to be the testimony for your life too, wouldn’t you? I know that’s what I’d like people remember about me—that I gave my life will heartedly to God, and helped others to do the same.

Jesus’ parable of the patched garment and the new and old wineskins can teach us a lot about letting God’s power really work in our lives. The power is there. But does it have room to bubble up in my life? Will I let Jesus make me a new garment each day—right there beside my bed, when I first get up in the morning and kneel before Him?

I want to do that. How about you?

“In the Garden”, Cynthia Clawson, from Blessed Assurance CD.