The yeast causes a reaction in some of the fresh sweetness carbon dioxide bubbles are released, causing the wine to swell. Sadly, in church life, the inevitable presence of sin among newly harvested believers changes the potential euphoria of the new wine. How does the yeast enter the wineskin to trigger this process? It comes in with the new grapes. Jesus also uses it as an illustration of the growth of his kingdom (Mat. In the Bible, “yeast” speaks of sin (1 Cor. However, when the juice of so many grapes mingle inside the constraints of the leather bottle, an interesting phenomena occurs … fermentation! “During fermentation, yeasts transform sugars present in the juice into ethanol and carbon dioxide (as a by-product).” (Wikipedia). Potentially, all their sweetness and mutual edification is a powerhouse for achievement in an atmosphere of heaven on earth. This is what Jesus wants to see in his church: a pool of combined talents, gifts, and callings-each individual investing him or her self into the combined body of resources, capabilities, and teamwork. However, when thrown into the winepress and stepped on, squashed, and squeezed all their individual juice is lost into a combined pool of sweetness and nutrition. But individually they won’t achieve much, and they won’t last long. When they are brought in, they are separate and individual carriers of delightful sweetness and life-giving nourishment. This speaks of the new salvations that are harvested in each new season. Freshly harvested grapes are collected for their sweet nectar. Wine comprises the combined juice from many grapes. What does the wine represent, and how does it help us understand new ministries and anointings for new seasons? In today’s image, however, he says that the new vessel made to carry the new wine can stretch. In yesterday’s illustration of the shrinkable garment, Jesus said that the network that comes up around a new ministry is subject to shrinkage. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” (Matthew 9:17 NKJV) “Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. In today’s illustration, he pictures new wine in old leather wine bottles: In other words, adding his ministry into John’s would have only caused tears in the body he had to begin a new one. In the first one, he explained that it would be unwise to put a new un-shrunk patch on an old garment. In explaining the reason why his ministry appeared to be so different to John the Baptist’s ministry, Jesus chose two illustrations.
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