Wineskins in the Smoke

[HKHaugan]

A recent anti-smoking ad showed the emphysemic condition of the lungs after years of tobacco intake. The background voice described it to be like dried shoe leather that, untended, dries, hardens, cracks and is impossible to restore. This explains why you see people walk around with oxygen tanks (unless they have a lung transplant). They’re infusing what’s left of the shriveled remains.

A similar condition is described in Ps.119:83, “Though I am like a wineskin in the smoke, I do not forget your decrees Ps.119:83).”

In the nomadic tents of Bible times cured animal skins were the first ‘bottles’ in which wine fermented. Internal small fires were used for cooking and heating resulting in a smoke filled atmosphere. Increased use plus being hung in smoky confines, the leather bottles dried, hardened and lost their elasticity. Age diminished their ability to hold new fermenting wine and they would burst. Jesus refers to this in Luke 5:37-38.

The Psalmist seems to have been reflecting on his age and the constant battering he was receiving from longstanding enemies. The whole of Psalm 119 is a pleading prayer for strength to remain in the Word. Though his emotions and reactions were becoming more hardened, his eyesight failing along with other physical issues, he refused to be moved from the Word of God. He willed to keep his memory poised and focused on the principles of faith the Lord God has given Him. He believed that God would give him the spiritual elasticity required at the moment of need.

Perhaps it would be wise to follow his lead. By using the wineskin image the Psalmist gave a wonderful illustration to build his case of reliance on Scripture as wisdom for any age. So let’s put ourselves in his place for a moment.

“Wineskin in the smoke” ---you can almost feel like you are there on a trek through the wilderness, settled for the night in a family tent filled with smoke, the day’s tasks over, meals being cooked and time for the Word to be read. It’s been hard dealing with nomadic merchants, the orneriness of companions and the complaints of the dissatisfied. This has been going on for years and has become a way of life and consternation. The Lord God must have something better. He has always come through in spite of these daily encumbrances. It’s all there in His Word. His Word does sustain me. Even in the midst of it all His Word has been His promises half-filled and half-waiting. This is the world we live in, a half world waiting to become a whole. It is a smoke filled world in which I am a drying wineskin. I know that I am losing the physical and mental ability to hold the watered down wine the world is trying to substitute for the real thing. But the pure wine of the Word is always there to be the truth by which my life is managed and it is in that Word that I will cease time here and be taken into the Promised Land with God. Like a ‘mighty wind’ its precepts, statutes, laws, principles, decrees, commands, insights, concepts and ideas flowed freely through the Spirit and proved themselves as they cleared the smoke when the tent was opened to His fresh air every new day. What I found was the half-filled became whole for that that day and the half-waiting became the hope for each new day.

So what is the ‘smoke’ that shrivels us internally? It’s the cloudy insecurity that fear induces when we don’t have an ultimate relationship we can trust, a structure of behavior we can rely on and a confidence to stand up and be counted when the chips are down. The world we live in is a world of shadows, mirrors and the fool’s gold of material wealth and social identity. It is the devil and his spirits that tempt us to satisfy the moment of our perceived needs and blind us to the way that fulfills our real needs. This is why Jesus came into the world. His was a rescue plan not only to recover our true individuality but to make it the means by which He actually transforms the world with His truth for the mind, His way for the heart and His Spirit for our life. His plan of transformation is one heart at a time through one heart at a time by His heart in that time. More on ‘smoke’, its nature, its contents and effects next.