Veith - 7738: Old Bottles New Wineskins (DVD)

In order to be effective witnesses for Jesus, we need to adopt His character and to portray Christ’s character to all those around us. So what is Jesus like? Did He walk around with a long face trying to keep the law and follow doctrine and dogma? Or did He spend time with tax collectors and sinners teaching people about the law and also about grace? Jesus realizes that it is not the righteous that need His time, but it is the sinners and brokenhearted that require a saviour. With all of our flaws and shortcomings, we need to actively seek salvation through Christ Jesus. Trying to change is difficult. We do not want to sacrifice or compromise, we do not want to give up our old lives. 

Spirit of Prophecy writes this: 

The Pharisees thought themselves too wise to need instruction, too righteous to need salvation, too highly honored to need the honor that comes from Christ. The Saviour turned away from them to find others who would receive the message of heaven. In the untutored fishermen, in the publican at the market place, in the woman of Samaria, in the common people who heard Him gladly, He found His new bottles for the new wine. The instrumentalities to be used in the gospel work are those souls who gladly receive the light which God sends them. These are His agencies for imparting the knowledge of truth to the world. If through the grace of Christ His people will become new bottles, He will fill them with new wine. 

The teaching of Christ, though it was represented by the new wine, was not a new doctrine, but the revelation of that which had been taught from the beginning. But to the Pharisees the truth of God had lost its original significance and beauty. To them Christ’s teaching was new in almost every respect, and it was unrecognized and unacknowledged.

Jesus pointed out the power of false teaching to destroy the appreciation and desire for truth. “No man,” He said, “having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.” All the truth that has been given to the world through patriarchs and prophets shone out in new beauty in the words of Christ. But the scribes and Pharisees had no desire for the precious new wine. Until emptied of the old traditions, customs, and practices, they had no place in mind or heart for the teachings of Christ. They clung to the dead forms, and turned away from the living truth and the power of God.

It was this that proved the ruin of the Jews, and it will prove the ruin of many souls in our own day. Thousands are making the same mistake as did the Pharisees whom Christ reproved at Matthew’s feast. Rather than give up some cherished idea, or discard some idol of opinion, many refuse the truth which comes down from the Father of light. They trust in self, and depend upon their own wisdom, and do not realize their spiritual poverty. They insist on being saved in some way by which they may perform some important work. When they see that there is no way of weaving self into the work, they reject the salvation provided.

Man must be emptied of self before he can be, in the fullest sense, a believer in Jesus. When self is renounced, then the Lord can make man a new creature. New bottles can contain the new wine. The love of Christ will animate the believer with new life. In him who looks unto the Author and Finisher of our faith the character of Christ will be manifest. DA 279-280

In this lecture with Walter Veith we will look at the importance of having new bottles and new wineskins and the change that we must experience to achieve this. We need to ask Christ to impart His wisdom and His righteousness into our new selves so we can be efficient followers with a revised character. Filmed live at a church service in British Columbia. 

(45 minutes)