Wineskins in the Smoke 2

[HKHaugan]

Smoke---what is it, where does it come from and how do we get rid of it?

There are three things we need to understand when we approach the Old Testament.

First, it is an earth grounded spiritual history of God’s preparation for the coming of Jesus. The Law, the Prophets and the Writings all contain deep personal issues with which we are to identify.

Second, it is an outward expression of an inward problem, sin, which Jesus was sent to solve. It is written to the mind, heart and spirit of every human being.

Third, all its physical pictures have spiritual significance. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph through the Kings and Prophets are pictures. Through the Holy Spirit the life and words of Jesus clarify and answer what those pictures mean and how they speak to every human heart. No image is left out. When seen together the Old and New Testaments are the explanation and solution of the chasm between man and God.

So when we read any visible description what is it saying to us spiritually? Smoke is a great example. Smoke dries, hardens and deteriorates. Ps.119:83 is a direct visual about sin. Sin is the smoke. Evil is the result. For instance, the devil’s fires producing the smoke of sin is the visual seen in the valley of Gihenna where garbage was thrown outside Jerusalem during Jesus’ time.

If you stretch the visual to the enclosed tent, that’s us, each of us, a tent closed to God, in need of a wind, the ‘mighty rushing wind’ of the Holy Spirit to clear the air. The Psalmist is pleading for help in his infirmities, his aloneness and his fears. But he is also seeing his hope in the Scripture he knows is personal counsel from God. It’s the smoke that keeps him on the teeter-totter, the roller coaster, of his emotions and uncertainties yet his hope is in the Word.

The absolutely amazing thing about all the noble characters in the Old Testament is that their faith was based on the Word. If ever there was a picture of grace covering the history of God’s people before Jesus it was the response of the Psalmist reflecting the typical attitudes of believers then. Think about it for a minute. Would you base your everyday life on words written on fragile parchments? Here we are with all of our latest translations contained within one cover and now even available on electronic screens, audio devices and opened in huge assembly halls. Are we as wrapped in its power? And what is the world’s response? The world's attitude is to fight it, deny it and humiliate its followers. Yet it still takes precedence as the insightful guide God intended. It is living proof of His grace. His grace held Israel together through every adversity and generation, sustaining them and maintaining them until it was time for the Word to be made flesh in Jesus. And in Jesus we are still being held close to Him through His Word.

So if sin is the smoke how is it experienced? All we have to do is be willing to look inside and admit three things, self-centeredness, fear and pride. Riding along on those are the needs to be in control, to look right and feel right. As we look for our place in the sun we give ourselves to whatever will satisfy those ends. Sin is there in the manipulative schemes we undertake to advance ourselves at the expense of others. Right there in Genesis 3 we see the idea that we can gain wisdom apart from God and run our lives without Him. We can see it in the quest for intellectual, social, economic and physical superiority. The stories of the kings in the Old Testament typify this struggle. Relational issues are exemplified all over the place from Adam and Eve to Samson and Delilah, Ahab and Jezebel, David and Bathsheba. Then in the New Testament we zero in on specific personalities like those of the disciples, those about whom Jesus speaks in the parables and those surrounding figures whose personal dynamics reveal the problem and the healing Jesus brings to them.

The core picture, the final painting, the tapestry woven into the framework of man’s existence and recovery is the Cross of Jesus. The smoke of sin is cleared through the wind of the Holy Spirit Jesus died on the Cross to give us. Jesus embraced the final sting of sin, death, so that the external God now could be for all mankind an internal reality and relationship. Again the sound ‘like a mighty rushing wind’ enveloped the disciples. The smoke of sin was blown away. The Holy Spirit came among them and brought the Lord Jesus into each of their hearts. Physical images bore the spiritual realities and faith became the vehicle to embrace the ultimate reality of God Himself.

For each of us who are born in the smoke and destined to the fire of aloneness Jesus has come to clear the air within. It is that relationship that returns to us significance, meaning, purpose and eternal destiny.

But one more thing, Jesus brought a new fire without smoke. When we are baptized into Jesus it is the Holy Spirit with whom we are baptized. He is the new fire, the motivation, the exciting new insight giver, the One who urges us to be like Jesus within. No more smoke, just new fire.