Luke 5:39
No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he
saith, The old is better.
Transitional times are always difficult times for
God’s people. It is so in the natural realm, and it is so in the
spiritual realm as well. One needs a pioneering spirit to step
forward into the unknown. In this, men of the world are often wiser
in their generation than the children of light. They readily stretch
toward unexplored dimensions and move into new inventions to
continue to meet the challenge of the unreachable and the
impenetrable. But men in the church are comparatively complacent;
they sit back and feel content and satisfied in the realm of the
Spirit. On the other hand, Satan along with all his principalities
and powers in the world of darkness, is totally active and
innovative. Daily he brings new weapons of destruction to destroy
the spirits, souls and bodies of men. It is so tragic that God’s
people can envision nothing better than the restoration of something
they had in the church two thousand years ago! The majority in the
church are of the conviction, and feel scripturally secure and
confident, that the wheat of God’s harvest must ever remain a little
short of maturity because they feel that after all no one can be
perfect.
The reason we do not want to venture forth in response to the new
vision is because we do not want to become involved with the
unsettling and disturbing changes that it the new vision demands. To
change the existing order one has to make sacrifices. A new
beginning necessitates the giving up of old titles, deeds, rituals
and practices. This may amount to a price that is just a bit too
high for most of the people to pay. Often we do not want to lose
what we already have, but Christendom can know no life and can boast
of no spiritual progress, unless we are prepared to lay down the
life we have and relinquish the things we have prized so high. The
truth of the Cross needs to be enacted and re-enacted in our lives
from our very spiritual birth to the final moment of our
glorification.
Often people ask, “Where do we go from here?” They are unable to see
what lies ahead. It would undoubtedly be safer if we could see the
future pathway clearly in the very beginning itself. But beloved,
God’s way is the “Rule of the Cloud”. We have to move forward only
when the cloud of God’s glory moves forward. The road ahead may
appear dim, obscure and murky, but we who hear Him calling must have
confidence that “the path of the just is as a shining light, that
shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”
