New Wine, New Wineskins

The building was gone, the ground was bare, and there was no evidence that the building had ever been there. And the two of us then got into a conversation for the remainder of the distance about how common it is in the United States when a building like that is no longer useful to the restaurant chain, that it is simply refurbished and somebody else takes it over. In the number of times we had seen the pointed roof that indicated that once upon a time there had been an IHOP there, or the very boxy square shape that said, that used to be a Kentucky Fried Chicken, or the long covered walkway where cars used to park that said, that was an A&W root beer. In fact, we were driving to Costco yesterday to do a little shopping, and just before the Butte, there was the well-worn phrase, the iconic shape and the long covered walkway that said, this was one of those makeovers. Now, you may ask, well, what has that got to do with the feast? It has everything to do with the feast. Jesus Christ is not coming back to do a makeover on Satan's world. Let me say that again. Jesus Christ is not coming back to do a makeover on Satan's world. He isn't coming back to take a pair of Satan's old clothes, take them down to the tailor, have them fitted off to the dry cleaner, to have them cleaned, and have that be the standard for the remaining thousand years. Now, the point that I'm making can be summed up by the principle of a parable that is found in Matthew 9. The parable itself is irrelevant for this afternoon's sermon. The point is the be-all end-all for this afternoon's sermon. In Matthew 9, Jesus Christ, toward the end of a parable, gave this axiom. He said in verse 17 of Matthew 9, "'Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskin breaks, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined, but they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.'" Jesus Christ is coming back to put new wine in new wineskins. And you and I are here for these eight days to look at a time ahead of us that will absolutely transform everything we see every way we do new wine in new wineskins. This afternoon, as I speak to you, I think all of us know that when we take a look into the millennium, and we try to inspire ourselves by looking at the Word of God and then picturing what's ahead, that there are only three ways that we can go. We can look at the explicit where God says, this is, in emphatic terms, the way it's going to be, and there's no discussion. Or we can look at the implicit where we can see principles that are so profound and so broad in God's Word that we can say that, I know the nature of God, because He has exposed Himself in His Word, and through that exposure, it is implied that this is the way it will be when Christ returns. The third option is speculation, which allows us to go hither and yon and everywhere, and may lead to ways that are fairly close to what will actually be, or maybe far astray. I'm going to try to stay as close to the explicit and the implicit as possible with very, very little speculation. So I want you to literally look at those places where we will see the new wine and the new wineskin, rather than simply speculate about what it might be.

I'm going to set the stage with two for instances. I'm not going to dwell there, and I'm not going to elaborate on these. These may very well be components of some of the sermons that are yet ahead of us, but I simply want you to understand what I mean by the explicit. Isaiah 11, verse 6, is probably the oldest explicit example of new wine and new wineskins that I can give to you.

Isaiah 11, verse 6, The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young one shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play the cobra's hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.

That's something this world has never seen. When Jesus Christ returns, as I said, He's not here to modify. He's not doing a makeover.

A companion to that is a little earlier in Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter 2. Both of these instances are repeated elsewhere, so it isn't a one-off scripture. It's a statement that is repeated in other places. But here's another simple, for instance, Isaiah chapter 2 and verse 4. And He shall judge between the nations, and shall rebuke many people, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. We checked into our lodging yesterday, or actually day before yesterday, and during the course of the day, there was a loud thundering roar that went over the house. And my son looked at me and had that inquisitive look, and I said, well, it's probably the Oregon National Guard. I said, that's a very familiar sound in Portland. There's a squadron base there, and every so often you hear that throaty rumble, and you look and say, okay, if there's one I heard, then I expect to hear two more. And sure enough, a squadron of three in succession will take off from PDX. That sound will disappear. Now, you can speculate about all of the things in terms of the dominoes that will fall as a result of this. There will be no such thing as a defense industry. There will no longer be any schools of military science. There will no longer, and you can go on and on. These are explicit. These are simple statements of fact that God gives to us that we can take to the bank. So I wanted to give you these two very quickly, only to set the stage and to help you understand what I meant when I said, I don't really want to go into the speculative, but rather stay primarily in the explicit and in the implicit. I'd like to talk to you then for the remainder of the sermon about three radical changes. that God will make when Jesus Christ comes back as King of Kings to rule this earth. The first one deals with geography. Turn with me to Ezekiel chapter 47.

Ezekiel 47 is a millennial picture of a geographical change that will take place in Jerusalem and will affect the entirety of the economy and the setting in what is today modern Israel. In Ezekiel 47, Ezekiel is being taken and envisioned by an angel to see what Jerusalem will look like at the time that Jesus Christ returns to this earth. And the narrative begins in this fashion. And then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and there was water flowing from under the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the front of the temple faced east, and the water was flowing from under the right side of the temple, south of the altar. And he brought me out by the way of the north gate and led me around on the outside of the outer gateway that faces east, and there was water running out on the right side. Then when the man went out to the east with the line in his hand, he measured 1,000 cubits. We'll do this in simply rough terms. He measured out about a quarter of a mile. If you want to be precise, it's 1,750 feet. But he went out about a quarter of a mile. He brought me to the edge, as Ezekiel is saying, to the water, and at a quarter mile past the temple, the water simply came up to his ankle bones, a quarter mile out. So he took his measuring device and he measured another quarter mile in verse 4. And he brought me to the water, and the water came to my knees. And he went out another quarter mile and measured, and the water was up to his waist. And out a full mile past the temple, verse 5, at that place he said it was too deep, and I couldn't cross it.

Now, that is one phenomenal artesian well that is going to be springing out from under the temple in Jerusalem. Now, there are a number of lovely artesian wells, and in this part of the country there are some absolutely glorious ones, but they don't begin to compare in magnitude and size to this one. But as we go along, it talks about the geographical effect. He said, When I returned, verse 7, there along the bank of the river were many trees, one side and the other.

And he said to me, The waters flow toward the east region, goes down into the valley, and enters the sea. And when it reaches the sea, its waters are healed. The Dead Sea is not called the Dead Sea for any other reason than the fact it is a Dead Sea. It is so saline that it is dead, dead. You know, salt water is a phenomenal place for marine life, but there comes a place in time where the salt ratio is so high that all of that goes away. And this is going to flow down toward the Dead Sea. And he said in verse 9, And it shall be that every living thing that moves, wherever the rivers go, will live.

There will be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters go there, for they will be healed, and everything will live wherever the river goes. It shall be that fishermen will stand by it from Ngedi to Ngalim. There will be places for the spreading of nets. Their fish will be the same kind as the fish of the Great Sea. So he said species-wise, they will be the same species of fishes that are found in the Mediterranean.

But its swamps and marshes will not be healed. They will be given over for salt. Along the river, or along the banks of the river, on the sides, will grow all kinds of trees used for food, and their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. And they will bear fruit every month because their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for medicine. Now, that's only one simple place in the earth, but the ramifications are phenomenal.

Now, what I won't do is speculate exactly how it takes place, but I can tell you geographically what has to take place. God says this river that is only ankle-deep a quarter mile from the temple, knee-deep a half mile from the temple, waist-deep three quarters of the mile from the temple, will take the Dead Sea and turn it into a productive fishery.

To do that, it is going to have to raise the level of that water to the place where it connects to the Red Sea to the South. In order to do that and maintain the boundaries that Ezekiel was also shown for the tribes who are returning from Israel, God is going to have to raise the level of the Dead Sea above 1,400 feet. The Dead Sea is currently the lowest place on the face of the earth. It's just over 1,400 feet below sea level. The boundaries of Israel upon returning indicate the Jordan Valley and the Sea of Galilee, both of which, if God is simply filling that basin with this phenomenal river, will disappear because the Sea of Galilee is 600 feet below sea level.

You know, there's the song in the Messiah that says, every valley shall be exalted and every hill made low. For the Jordan River to still exist and for the Sea of Galilee to still be there, God is going to have to raise that entire area by a tremendous amount. But as a result, there will be a tremendous fertile area, a productive fishery, a change in a radical way to a piece of real estate today that is as barren and as dead as virtually any place on the face of the earth.

There are other scriptures elsewhere that are explicit. Their ramifications lead, as I said, to a great deal of pondering and thought. Revelation 16. This is not the sole place where this happens, but it is the great place where it happens. In the context of the seven last plagues after Jesus Christ has returned to this earth, and as He makes His presence known before all mankind, we were actually singing about this particular time at the beginning of this service.

In Revelation 16 and verse 17, the very last of the punitive signs and wonders that is poured out in Christ's presence is described in this way. It's described in this way. And then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven from the throne, saying, It is done.

And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings, and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as has not occurred since men were on the earth. Now, the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and great Babylon was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. Then every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. That's an absolutely mind-boggling picture.

But it leads by implication in a direction that has no alternative. We look at the millennium as a time of prosperity. We look at it as a time of peace. We look at it as a time of health.

The population that is allowed to grow for a thousand years and is not diminished by warfare, and is not diminished by disease, has to have somewhere to go.

Isaiah 35 verse 1 says, and I don't need to turn there, you know the scripture or the point made in the scripture. Isaiah 35 verse 1 speaks of a time when the desert will blossom like a rose. 30 percent of the land surface of this globe is desert. You and I are sitting in the front edge of one of those deserts. You and I, if we are watching and pay attention after going to Bend yesterday, we came back through Tumolo to Eagle Crest. And I was talking to my wife all the way along. I said, we have a stretch of road here where we can simply rehearse the millennial statement that says the desert will blossom like a rose. On one side are irrigated fields that are just as lush as any fields you would ever want to look at. And on the other side basalt, sandy, yellowish-gray dirt, scraggly junipers, and brush. One has water, one does not. Those of you that travel by air, every time I get on an airplane and I head eastward, I enjoy looking out of the window as you arrive, especially in the eastern part of Colorado and into the western part of Nebraska and Kansas, and see all the circles. Endless, endless circles. Every one of those verdant green circles saying the same thing, I wouldn't be here except for irrigation. I wouldn't be here naturally.

I am here only because somebody has a well, and from that well, in a circular fashion, a sprinkler produces this field.

I love the mountains of this area, but I'm not married to them. I realize that God, in whatever way He chooses, will somehow have to allow the currents in the Pacific to cross the barriers into this part of the country and beyond into Nevada and Utah and Wyoming and Colorado as a, for instance, for those lands to be able to blossom like a rose.

When Jesus Christ returns to this earth, among the things that will happen are those described. You know, sometimes we get to see a millennial picture through the back door. We've got to go all the way around the house, open the back screen door, and walk in the back door to see what's out in front. Leviticus 26, blessing and cursing chapter, told the children of Israel when they came out what they could have if they would obey God and what were a part of His blessings.

In Leviticus chapter 26, one of those blessings is the promise from God that they would be able to see rain in due season. As He described to them their blessings for obedience, which took up the first 13 verses, and then He began to talk to them about the consequences for disobedience that began in verse 14. Among the blessings that He said, I will give you if you will obey Me, I will give you rain in due season. Elsewhere, Deuteronomy chapter 11, this was not a part of the blessing and cursing chapter, but as He was describing what are the blessings that come from obedience, in verse 14 of Deuteronomy 11, He said, Then I will give you the rain for your land in its seasons, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. I appreciated several years ago reading a landmark volume that was the product of a think tank posed to answer the question, why are the rich nations of the world rich and why are the poor nations of the world poor? Among the analyses that were done in that particular article, one of the analysis was the richest nations and those that have the prime land for the raising of stock are those that have rain in due season. They said the most blessed place on the face of the earth in terms of rain and due season and its consequences were the British Isles and the western European coast of France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark.

We're in a rancher area here. You walk through all the different breeds of cattle and it's amazing. The list goes on and on, and as you think of them, they're simply geographical designators of places in England, in France, and Holland, in Denmark. Hereford's, Angus, Frisian's.

And on we go into Charley, and we could name breed after breed after breed. That were bred because God gave that particular land in this day and time rain and due season. The article said it's interesting. The coast of western Europe is the most blessed area on the face of the earth in regards to rain and due season. Many, many places in Africa get exactly the same amount of rain inches per year, but they get it in incremental deluges coming down so fast and so hard that it doesn't stay on the land. And so here are places in central Africa. Here are places in western Europe. One hard-scrabble existence, the other prosperity and riches, both getting the same amount of rain, one getting what God offered rain in due season.

It's going to be exciting to see when Christ returns what He has to do to this earth so that it will sustain the population that will be created during that thousand years. But among the things that He says will be a part of it is places that are now desert, will no longer be desert.

And that on the land there will be rain at the time that the rain is needed, not rain at the time that destroys all that was there to enjoy. New wine, the new wineskin. There are two more changes that I'd like to share with you.

There are actually two parts of the same thing. The first one affects farming. Jesus Christ has made it plain, implicitly within His Word, that when He returns to this earth, there will be a totally, completely different approach to agriculture in the world. That the mindset of the agricultural community will have to change in a way that it simply is not possible to do today. And frankly, according to history, it appears that it was emotionally impossible in ages past.

As a stage center to understand the changes that must be made, I want you to go back to Deuteronomy 4.

You know, in understanding the millennial rule of Jesus Christ, there's an interesting reality. It's been many years now since the movies came out, but there were the Back to the Future series of movies. And if you understand the Word of God, their title carries a message for us about how God is going to deal with mankind. We're going to literally see Back to the Future. God told ancient Israel, I gave you a way, and I don't want you to add anything to it, and I don't want you to take anything from it. And if you'll do that, the time will come where the nations around you will look at you and say, let's go inquire of those people about the God that they have, because who's got a God like their God? So in Deuteronomy 4, God said, you're going to be the conduit for the world. All I want you to do is obey me as I've given you to obey me. And people will come to you and say, I need to understand your God. You've got something going here that no one else has, and we know the source of it. Well, there was a lament in that same book, and that lament went thus. Oh, that there were such an heart in them. Meaning, it isn't going to work. It isn't going to work. All the design is right. All the guidelines are right. All the directions are right. It'll never get off the ground. Hebrews chapter 8 tells us what it will take to correct that.

And it also tells you what the problem was. In Hebrews chapter 8 and verse 7, talking about the contrast between the Old and the New Covenant, it says in verse 7, For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.

Then he goes on to tell you what the fault was with the Old Covenant. The fault wasn't with what was written. The fault was with the people nodding their heads, saying, we'll obey it. Because finding fault with them.

He says, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they didn't continue in my covenant. And I disregarded them, says the Lord. So what's he going to change? This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. And this is what I'll change. I'll put my laws in their minds, and I'll write them on their hearts, and I'll be their God, and they shall be my people. God didn't have second thoughts about his covenant. He had second thoughts about the people that agreed to the covenant. And he says, I'll fix the problem with the covenant. It's the people who agreed to obey it. The change will change everything. God has a bur in his saddle regarding agriculture. That bur in the saddle is the land Sabbath.

God is going to make something mandatory that our world has not respected. Leviticus chapter 26. As I said, this is a back-to-the-future look.

I mentioned to you earlier the first half of the book are blessings, and the second half are curses. Notice what God says in this particular context. Leviticus 26, verse 34. As he's talking about the time when Israel will be punished, he says one of the consequences will be, verse 34, then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemy's land. Now, God wasn't satisfied to leave it at that, so in verse 43, he said, then I will remember my covenant, oh, excuse me, verse 43, the land also shall be left empty by them and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them.

I can give you one piece of simple speculation. The land you and I are living on will be uninhabited for a period of time until God is satisfied that those two verses have been fulfilled. I'm always a little bit skeptical about Jewish commentary comments, but I want to share one with you. I believe it's from Gil's commentary, where Gil said, based upon Jewish thought, that the reason in the days of Jeremiah that God told Jeremiah that they would be in the Babylonian captivity for 70 years is because mathematically, those 70 years in captivity precisely, mathematically accounted for every single land Sabbath. Judah had ignited the land that was ignored from the time it became a nation.

Now, whether the Jewish authorities are correct, Jarchi and Maimonides, I cannot vouch. But they said that 70-year captivity made up for every single solitary land Sabbath was observed in the 430 years that Judah had occupied the land.

I was at dinner after the Day of Atonement with a couple of members, and I said, you know, it would be interesting to ponder how far back you'd go in American history to start counting seven-year cycles and how long this land would have to remain desolate for God to fulfill his statement that you never gave the land the Sabbath. I will give the land the Sabbath while you are no longer there.

Land Sabbaths are going to be a fundamental part of the nature of this earth. I won't go through all the scriptures if you read in Leviticus 25, starting in verse 1. In fact, we'll probably stay here for the remainder of the sermon.

The first seven verses lay out the prescription for the land Sabbath. It says, The Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. Six years you shall sow your field, Six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather your fruit. But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, A Sabbath to the Lord. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyards. What grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, Nor gather the grapes of your untended vines, For it is a year of rest to the land. And the Sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you, For you and your servants, for your maid servants, For your hired servants, for the stranger who sojourned with you, For your livestock and the animals that are in your land. All its produce shall be for food. Two of those verses sound contradictory. You're not supposed to take anything off. It's going to be food. It's not a contradiction. The statement is actually this. In the sabbatical year, you will not harvest anything for income. You're not going to farm it like you normally farm it. What it produces voluntarily, you're welcome to.

Any people who work for you are welcome to. Your neighbors are welcome to. Your livestock that you own are welcome to. The deer that run through your yard at Sun River and Eagle Crest are welcome to. He said, it's free. Enjoy it.

You, as a group of people, are a head scratcher to the society around you. And we repeat this to one another. We are the most workaholic nation among the European races. You go to Europe and you look at the people there, and they look at us like, why do you work so hard? Why don't you take a decent vacation? Go to Western Europe the month of August. Everybody's on vacation. Here, when you look at vacation studies, if we can eke out... You know, I may have three, but if I can find time for one, that's good. It seems the work world is a work world that it's just constantly the escalation of more bricks and less straw. More bricks and less straw. Collect your own straw, make more bricks. Our society doesn't understand our God. And so, when you, at just this much, when you at the minimal level today do what God says, your co-workers can look at you and they can say such things as, and they do say such things as, how is it that you can sit around one day every week and do nothing? How is it that you simply shut it down, close it down, and on that day you're not on call? On that day you don't show up. On that day you're not there. Now, if they know you well enough, that's just the precursor, because the second half of it is, how in the world can you afford both monetarily and time-wise to pack your bags for 10, 12 days every autumn, go off to who knows where in the world, and come back home. You're envied. I've heard the statements of envy over and over. You've been where? How did you afford it? You went to what? Where'd you get the money? You stayed how long? You stayed how long? How'd you get the time off? You know what? You are tasting just the eye-dropper on the end of the tongue of what God really wants. I don't know how prevalent it is in the academic world today, but the academic world, as a for instance, is an area where the word sabbatical is a part of the language of the employment. Meaning once every seven years, you as a professor get to walk away from your job, you're paid for that seventh year, you go someplace where you can study, someplace where you can relax, somewhere where you can be refreshed, and you can come back a better teacher. Now, for everyone, which is the overwhelming majority of people whose employer would never give them a sabbatical if their life depended on it, you can look at the concept of every seven years you simply close your toolbox, hang up your work clothes, and for that year, that year is yours only in your dreams.

Well, when Christ returns, it is going to be mandatory. Forget your dreams.

God is interested in your refreshment and your ability to enjoy life in a godly fashion beyond what most people can grasp. As He told them in Leviticus, among my curses are, when I take you out of the land and remove you into captivity, I'll give the land the Sabbath that you refused. When Christ returns, the land Sabbath will be mandatory.

It's going to change the entire world of farming. He said, in addition to that, I'm going to change the entire world of commerce.

Because every seventh land of Sabbath, you're going to find that there are two years in a row. And in Leviticus, I'm not going to read it to you, but people, being practical-minded like we are, said, well, how in the world, if you give us a sabbatical, and at the end of that seventh sabbatical, you give us another year that we don't work? How in the world are we going to eat? And God says, I will simply give you such a harvest in the year before that it will carry you through your sabbatical year and through your next year. That year is called the Jubilee. We live in a world today that is completely and totally out of whack.

In an article this two weeks ago about the income gap in the United States, 1% of Americans earn 19% of America's earnings. 10% of Americans earn 50% of America's earnings. The remaining 99% of the first figure, or 90% of the second figure, have to make do with what is. When God returns the captives from captivity, He will allocate them land.

That land will remain theirs in perpetuity as a lease. God says, all the land belongs to me. But I give it to you, and I will parcel it out per family. And that land will be yours, and it will pass from your line to your children, to your grandchildren, to your great-grandchildren. It will continue to be yours. If you manage well, you will prosper. And if you manage poorly, you suffer the consequences of poor management. But He said, no matter what you do, I have designed a system where we will not have perpetual poverty and perpetual poor. Every 50 years, the land and the home that goes with that land goes back to the family that I issued it to. The cities and the business, that's different. The houses inside the cities are different. But the land, it's like Will Rogers said, he said back in his comedy days, by land, they ain't making it no more. The land is the basis of wealth. The absence is the basis of poverty. God says, every 50 years, we will reset the clock back to zero. We will forgive debt. We will return land that was given as security to debt to the original owner with the house that went with it. And we'll start counting all over again.

So every 50 years, your family may be able to make a royal mess of it. But eventually, your grandkids will not have to live, and their children will not have to live, the consequences. As I said, you can speculate forever and ever about the effect that that will have. Your mind can only go so far before it just says, I can't grasp it because this world can't demonstrate it. This world can't show it. This world doesn't know how to do it.

So as I said a minute ago with the land Sabbath, if you think when you look at your co-workers and they're scratching their head, if you're in one of these, we work seven days a week, but mutter, mutter, mutter, so-and-so, well, he doesn't come in on Saturdays. I don't know what makes him special. Why does he get Saturday off? Well, in his particular case, he gets Saturday off because if he didn't get it off, he'd walk away from the job and go somewhere else, which speaks to his or her faith. But it also speaks to the God that he or she worships that says, I want you to be refreshed every week. So, is there anyone in this room that works for a job that gives a sabbatical? I'm just curious.

No? Not a single hand in the room?

Well, I saw one hand that I'm not... Did I see it? Okay. There is one hand in the room that went up that says, I, in my profession, get a sabbatical. When the millennium starts, if I were on a stage and asked that question, there would be no working hands that were not up.

And the benefactors would be you and your wife and your children. What do you want to do for a year when you don't have to work? What part of the country do you want to see? Where in the world do you want to visit? What projects that you never have time for would you like to do at your leisure with no clock to punch? Just simply enjoy the doing of it because you enjoy the doing of it. Brethren, I've touched three elements, and only three elements, of a much, much larger picture. Our God is an awesome God, and His Christ, who is coming back to rule this earth as King of Kings, is going to show us in a way that we really can't even fully grasp what the principle means. Put new wine into new wineskins.