Mark 2:21-22 No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but NEW wine must be put into NEW bottles.

So who is He talking about? Who are these prophetic “Old bottles” being spoken of? The Bible does tell you. But do you know? Can you prove it? More importantly, can you prove it isn’t YOU??

The most foundational principle of Bible study is that the Bible interprets the Bible. The CONTEXT tells you WHO and WHAT the parable means!

Mark 2:15-17, And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him. And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners? When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

At this point, the Pharisees interrupted Him with a question, which He answered and then, not to be deterred, continued the subject in Mark 2:21, quoted above.

In context then, the reason He gave this parable is that the Pharisees didn’t like where Christ was putting His truth, by giving it to the trailer trash, so to speak, of the day.

New wine is new truth – the words that Christ was saying to them. This new truth wasn’t received by the Pharisees. When they heard it, they either didn’t understand it, or they tried to kill Him. They were the Old Bottles – the people who had already decided just how far they were going to go to please God, and had no intention of changing.

Of course the new bottles were the Publicans and sinners into whom He was, even then, putting new wine – for which the Old Bottles were condemning Him! Now read another version, which adds a little information, with this interpretation in mind and see how much sense it makes.

Luke 5:36-39 And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, THE OLD IS BETTER.

These Pharisees were HAPPY with their level of righteousness! They were PLEASED with their way of living, and they felt assured of their salvation!

John 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

They thought they had everything they needed – they thought they had EVERYTHING THEY NEEDED FOR SALVATION! Now, if they had that “old wine”, why would they want new? The old was better! They didn’t need to change or try anything new, for what they had already was quite good enough!

But Jesus Christ said it was NOT good enough! He said you could not put NEW TRUTH into these OLD BOTTLES, all of whom felt they had the answers already!

Jeremiah 6:16 Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.

This was an end-time prophecy, written over 2600 years ago. And in it you see the SAME OLD BOTTLES! “Look for the good way, and WALK it!” But the Old bottles said “We will NOT walk in it!”

They didn’t want NEW wine – because they said, the old is better! Now if this is an end-time prophecy, this group of people must be extant today. We’ll call them “Old Bottles, Inc.”, since it is a group devoted to the production of self-satisfied, complacent, old bottles who feel they already have everything they need for salvation!

Revelation 3:17 [to Laodicea] Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

They don’t desire new wine – why should they? The OLD is better, they say! But Christ says their old wine is not good enough! Is yours? Is your “old wine”, the understanding you’ve already had, and the righteousness that you now have, ENOUGH to please God?

Do you DESIRE new wine, or do you reject anything that doesn’t start with the words, quote “the church always said…”?

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But were these Laodiceans, Pharisees, and Old Bottles, Inc members always this way? Were they always self-satisfied? Did they always love the old better? No! Allow me to explain how people become Old Bottles.

Matthew 5:13 YE ARE the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall IT be salted? it is thenceforth good for NOTHING, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

Christ was speaking to a huge crowd of His disciples when He spoke those words. He said THEY, HIS FOLLOWERS, ARE THE SALT of the EARTH! Do you understand what that means? Ask yourself, what does salt do to food?

Job 6:6 Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?

Salt is used to add flavor to an otherwise bland, tasteless dish. So apply that thinking to the earth, and imagine what it would be like if there was no one in it who was following God at all. Imagine what it would “taste like” to God. Fortunately, we needn’t imagine; it’s already happened.

Genesis 6:5-7 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; …

Without the “salt” of righteous men, making the earth palatable, God cannot stomach it! And He destroyed the whole earth for lack of salt! There just wasn’t enough of Noah to go around!

Without the church of God, which began with many of those disciples whom He called the Salt of the Earth, God would have destroyed the earth long ago! But what happens if those people, what happens if that SALT, becomes placid, loses it’s zeal, and becomes inactive, inert, dead?

Luke 14:34 Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned?

In other words – once SALT loses it’s value, and once Old Bottles, Inc becomes just another social club of people warming seats hoping for a free ticket into the Kingdom of God, HOW CAN YOU RESTORE THEM?

A question that has been on the mind of practically everyone in the church of God in recent years, HOW CAN YOU FIX THE CHURCH? HOW Can you make that SALT PALATABLE AGAIN? HOW CAN YOU SALT, SALT?

GOD SAYS YOU CAN’T!

Verse 35 It is NEITHER FIT for the land, NOR yet for the DUNGHILL; but men CAST IT OUT. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

This parable was sealed for the understanding of those who WANTED to know. You’ve just heard the interpretation of it. If you’re a member of the Church of God, since this harshly condemns you and your church, you probably don’t like it and have already rejected it.

If so, that is just ONE MORE PROOF that you are an Old Bottle, who says that the “Old wine is better!”, and one into whom I am commanded NOT to put new wine!

God says if you’ve once been the salt of the earth, and lose your zeal, and become a dead, lifeless old bottle, like I daresay the entire church of God today, you are not fit for land, you are not even fit for a SEPTIC TANK, the only thing that can be done with you is to throw you away!

Hebrews 6:4-6 For IT IS IMPOSSIBLE for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

The same story throughout the Bible; You cannot put new wine into old bottles. It is impossible to restore a lifeless Old Bottle to repentance again. You CANNOT SALT SALT!

*****

So what does this mean to us, in practical terms? How can this change your life, and what should you do? Well, if you’re a card-carrying member of Old Bottles, Inc, A.K.A. The end-time church of God, there may already be nothing you can do.

But God is not a respecter of persons, so if you, or anyone else, stops what you’re doing, reexamines themselves, and starts acting like you should act, and start desiring new wine, there may – MAY – be hope for you yet. Think about it; the church has had your present understanding of what God wants for 30 years; YOU may have had it for 30 years. And where has it got you?

God’s active participation in the church as a whole, and you individually has diminished. Your life and righteousness has gotten more and more empty, pointless and worthless. You’re probably convinced that the “end” is “just around the corner” in “3-5 years”.

Which has been believed for at least 40 years, and has kept people on the edge of their seats, hoping all they have to do to please God is come ONE MORE TIME to church, listen to ONE MORE EMPTY SERMON, and waste ONE MORE SABBATH talking about medical operations, pets, and sports, hoping God will come back and say “Well done, thou good and faithful servant!”. If that’s you, (and if you’re in the church of God, in my experience, that almost HAS to be you to some extent) well… go ahead. Try it out. See how it works out for you.

If you’re NOT a member of the church of God, and if you’re NOT an old bottle, and if you ARE zealous, and alive, and INTERESTED in new truth, if you’re always discussing and talking about the Bible and new questions and understanding you found… what does this mean to you?

It means that you shouldn’t waste your time on Church people. Yes, I said waste. If God says you can’t salt salt… and also

Matthew 7:6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Then the only conclusion can be that you should not waste your time trying to resalt old salt. Instead, you should go, as Christ did, to the world – the publicans and sinners who never heard this truth before, and never had a chance to become complacent.

I ask you, which is more fair; to give the same bored Old Bottle another hour trying to argue a new idea into his stubborn, resilient head, or to give that hour to someone who NEVER HAD A CHANCE??

The Old Bottle HAD his chance. If he blew it – well, that’s a shame, but how many chances does one person deserve when billions never had any at all??

Our job, our commission, is to help the world as much as possible to see it’s own evil and repent for it, and to generally make the world a better place. Our job is to SALT THE EARTH and make it palatable to God.

Now let’s say for arguments sake, that we could take a complacent Old Bottle, and through much arguing, convince him of the truth. What we just did is took a man, who already kept the ten commandments (more or less) – who already understood quite a bit about God, and already wasn’t hurting his neighbor nor stealing from his employer (much)… and made him into a more Godly person. Undeniably, if possible, a good thing.

But now lets say we could use that same time to teach a new person – who is shoplifting from the local Wal-Mart on a regular basis – to stop that, and repent of it, and teach him the commandments. Now we’ve done much more for the world as a whole, a long ways towards our commission of salting the earth, than we did with the Old Bottle.

And if we repeat this a thousand times in our lifetime…where was our time better spent…with the old bottle, or the new? Which helped the world most? EVEN IF, as is most definitely NOT the case, it was as easy to convince a stubborn Old Bottle that his so-called righteousness was repugnant to God, as it is to convince a shoplifter that he is wrong…

But EVEN IF that was the case, in which case did we salt the earth better? Where was our time better spent? And, in light of the commands you’ve read today, WHERE ARE WE COMMANDED TO SPEND OUR TIME?

I think you know. And one last scripture that shows WHY the church is a waste of the “salt’s” precious time.

Luke 7:41-43, 47 There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. … Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.