Jesus was asked why he didn’t fast like John’s disciples and the Pharisees and this is Jesus’ answer.
Then John’s disciples came to him saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast many times, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus said to them: Can the friends of the groom cry while the groom is with them? But days will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and they will fast. cloth over an old dress, because the patch pulls on the dress and makes it more torn. Nor do they put wine into old skins, lest the skins break, and the wine spill out, and the skins be ruined. new wine in new skins, and both are preserved.”
The Pharisees and John were doing things under Old Covenant law. They were acting under the law of the Old Covenant, and part of that law was fasting; it is a religious duty as a way of being faithful to God and showing that you are subordinate to God and obedient. You want to follow it and fast so that religious practices have more effect on your prayers and show that you are more devout.
Jesus answered them and said Imagine being at the wedding supper with the groom and the groom’s friends fasting? The groom does not call his attendants to fast when it is time to be merry. Jesus was trying to say that if you understood the other parable about how the king gives a wedding banquet for his son. He was trying to point out to the listeners that he was the son who was going to marry the bride, and all the disciples, when they were going to be his disciple, how they were going to be a bride to him. But the problem with the people was that Jesus spoke in parables, and not everything he said was understood. Even today parables remain a mystery to many people and that is the reason for this book.
Let people today think that fasting is a way of putting the arm of God behind your back, like putting pressure on God if you don’t get your prayers answered and you really want your prayers answered. He should fast for 3 days or 20 days and make sure God answers his prayer. This is also a religious approach to fasting, and it is how the people of the Old Covenant acted.
The book of James says that good and perfect gifts come from the Father of lights, and if you want something good and perfect, and something suits you, the Father will not deny you. Going into some kind of fast is not going to push the hand of the Father in the modern day for you. Similarly, in the Old Testament, fasting did not work. They were fasting as a religious form of self-righteousness, and Jesus had none of that. He knew who he was. He was the Son of God, and he didn’t need to do anything to impress the Father; in fact, from sunup to sundown, everything Jesus said and did was the will of the Father. He walked totally in the perfect will of his Father. He didn’t need to fast to impress his dad; he had never seen it, he had never done anything wrong. So fasting was something that was not necessary.
Jesus did not need to impress his Father even before he began these public ministries when he came out of his baptism by John. You will remember, the heavens opened and the dove descended as the Holy Spirit; She got down and leaned on his shoulder. God said from Heaven: “Behold my Son in whom I am well pleased.” Jesus hadn’t even done any public ministry, and the Father was pleased.
I think the application of this to business today is that we don’t have to do anything special to impress God. God has already been impressed; He was impressed by the blood of Jesus Christ. The cross of Jesus Christ, his Son, and the blood covenant that was shed on that cross made a way for us. God has been completely impressed that the law and the condemnation that we deserve were nailed to Jesus Christ. All of our sins were nailed to that cross.
John’s disciples were trying to fit Jesus into the Old Covenant, and Jesus had none of it. He was expressing the New Covenant. Now, it’s hard to understand. I only have eight weeks of understanding in September 2010, while I am dictating this video, but the real New Covenant did not come into existence until the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Many of the sayings of Jesus Christ, many of the commandments of Jesus Christ in red letters in the Bible from him are actually more difficult to fulfill and similar to the Lord of the Old Testament.
Jesus was saying that the covenant that he brought, the new wine that was poured out was his blood, the new wine that was poured out, the new wine of grace, cannot fit into the old wineskins. It just doesn’t fit. Old skins were old and should be used for old wine, and new wine should not be put in them or they will burst.
If you try to live under the New Covenant but still be bound by the 10 Commandments and the laws, you will get into big trouble. You don’t even have to strain and obey the 10 commandments to be tied to the Old Law and try to put New Wine into old wineskins. Laws can be as simple as:
you have to go to church;
you cannot leave the meeting of the brothers;
you have to pray every day for half an hour;
you have to read your Bible every day.
You don’t have to follow the Old Covenant law to be law bound and self-righteous. If you try to mix your own form of law with grace, it just doesn’t work that the New Covenant and the Old Covenant are not built to mix. It’s like putting a new piece of cloth on an old pair of jeans; it will make the old pair of jeans rip. That’s what Jesus said about unshrunk cloth.
Mixing the New Covenant with the Old Covenant is just a recipe for disaster. I lived in that condemnation and guilt and shame, and the load on my shoulders was so heavy that I felt so depressed. I thought I was going to hell because I was caught up in some forms of habitual sin.
I wasn’t until I sat under some teaching that said the law has passed away and we should no longer be under the judgment of the law as New Covenant believers that I was able to free myself from my habitual sin. It wasn’t until I was convinced that I had been forgiven for my past, present, and future sins that I was able to come out of the shame and condemnation that the law was bringing upon me.
You are like me? Are you mixing a little law with grace? Are you someone like John saying that the way of Jesus is too easy? Is grace too easy for you? Do you have to do your penance? Is there some form of sacrifice you have to make to be worthy of God? Do you fast part of your TV time? Do you fast some of your meals? Do you fast part of the time in front of your children and with your family to do things for God or are you busy serving God and doing things self-righteously? Are you one of John’s apostles?
Trying to remain forgiven by Jesus and free, while also believing that you have to fulfill the impossible requirements of the law, is like mixing a bitter drink with a sweet drink. If you mix a bitter drink with a sweet one, everything will taste bitter to you. The law was given and it was destined to be bitter. The law was meant to show us that we need Jesus and then when we have accepted Jesus, we should obey the leading of the Holy Spirit and not the law.
If you try to obey the law, it is like putting bitter wine in old wineskins and they will burst. Jesus is saying that you cannot mix the Old Covenant with the New. If you try and do it, you will always feel the weight of sin in your life.
Are you like the Pharisee or are you one of Jesus’ disciples totally happy to spend time with Jesus and totally happy that they are forgiven, righteous, loved, holy, blessed and sitting in heavenly places doing nothing? Can you handle going to heaven for doing nothing or do you have to make a living?
I believe that this teaching can be shared many times and not understood. I lived in personal torture, personal horror, of legalism for many years, and I certainly don’t want any of you to experience that. I encouraged you to watch all the videos on the parables that I am teaching here because I believe that the Lord, through the Holy Spirit and through Jesus, has given me quite a divine view of them.
God bless you!
