Many people go to church to pick and choose what they want of the gospel, and in two or three years, they are torn apart and mixed up spiritually. The Lord Jesus is saying, “You cannot take piece by piece the salvation that I give you. Take everything or take nothing.”
There is so much power in the gospel that there is power even in the small piece of cloth you took, powerful enough to cause great agony to your old nature. You may say to yourself, “If I take too much of the gospel, I’ll become a fanatic. So I’ll take a small piece that won’t hurt me.” But before long, that tiny bit will make the “one-quarter” Christian or the “three-quarter” Christian feel uncomfortable.
This is what the Lord is saying: we cannot take the new wine of the gospel and put it into our old lives, because the new wine is powerful.
It will expand and burst apart our old lives, tearing it to pieces. The old life cannot coexist with the gospel. We cannot live in sin and believe in the gospel. That won’t work. We cannot live proud, self-centered lives, and hope to believe in the gospel.
