The Continuous Stretching of the Wineskin

In his book Unto Full Stature DeVern Fromke explains the importance of being flexible in the hands of God:

"Where there is no continuous governing of the Holy Spirit, whether in our personal walk or ministry, or in our church services or fellowship, there will be no real development of inner stature. Inward spiritual growth comes only as the believer or group gladly responds to that daily, fresh breath of the Spirit intended to govern the life. The result is a continuous inward stretching, adjusting and enlarging.

"Is it not most evident today, that in most every circle of fellowship there are those who have 'settled on their lees'? They are content with the gains the pioneers have wrought for them, and now feel called of God to simply hold to the old landmarks. What was good for their parents and grandparents is plenty good for them. No breath of vision, no reaching for new plateaus of experience is gripping them. And the result? Legalism, fixity of form, straining to retain meaningless patterns and empty letter-conceptions. They are in prison without realizing their captivity.

"One who has discerned this predicament has evaluated: 'The history of Christianity from the latter days of the Apostles is the history of prisons. Not literal, material prisons, though there have been not a few of these, but prisons which are the result of man's inveterate habit of taking hold and bringing into bondage. How many times has the Spirit broken loose and moved in a new and free way, only to have that way brought under the control of man and crystalized into another "Form," Creed, Organization, Denomination, Sect, "Order," Community, etc.! The invariable result has been that the free movement and life of the Spirit has been cramped or even killed, by the prison or framework into which it has been drawn or forced. Every time we seek to express something Divine in word or form we at once limit it, and when that expression or form becomes the established and recognized formula we have in effect put fetters on the Spirit. God gives a vision, and every God-given vision has illimitable potentialities; but all too soon the vision is laid hold of by men who never had it in or of the Spirit, and the grapes of Eschol turn to raisins in their hands. So very many of the living fruits of the heavenly country have suffered in this way, and have become dried, shrunken, unctionless shadows of their early glory.

"'Upon a living movement of the Spirit, born with fire in the heart of some prophet, successors, sponsors, or adherents build an earthly organization, and imprison the vision in a tradition. So a message becomes a Creed; a "Heavenly Vision" becomes an earthly institution; a movement of the Spirit becomes a "Work," which must be kept going by the stream of human energy, and maintained by man's resourcefulness.' (T. A. S.)

"Yet in the midst of this traditional pattern of confinement by men, God has always had His remnant in every hour--those who are pressing unto full sonship and stature. They know that inner stretching and adjustment of the Spirit, and even though painful seem to delight in it, for they realize that such an inward stretching is God's sure way of producing a spiritual elasticity, vitality and capacity they could not otherwise know.

"As we keep under the government of the Holy Spirit, we never come to any fixed or final place as far as light and attainment is concerned. Of course we must distinguish between truth which is absolute, fixed, final and forever settled in God, and that which God unfolds before our eyes to be continuously appropriated and wrought out in life and experience. The great objective truths of our faith are fixed and settled. What Christ has wrought for the Father, what He is unto Him, and the work of the Son made available to us, never changes. So it is in the realm of our understanding, our apprehension, our knowledge, and our growth that we must remain open, ready for enlargement and expansion. In these there can never be any sense of finality either in our conceptions or attainment. And, as we remain stretchable, we may experience drastic changes both in our thinking, as well as our experience.

". . . Stretching brings the development of inward graces. These actually constitute our 'inner spiritual stature,' and it is the stretching of these graces which Peter describes in his second epistle. How well we know that such inward enlargement--that enlargement which causes us to be partakers of more and more of the divine nature--is most painful. Apart from 'giving all diligence' we shall surely faint, and 'settled on our lees,' we shall find reasons for avoiding that stretching which is so necessary for the growth of faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, kindness and love.

"First, let us consider the stretching of faith. Look at Philip. He was down in Samaria, and under the evident blessing and approval of the Lord. Wonderful things were happening. Then the word of the Lord comes to leave. What a stretching of faith here! We can almost hear him argue, 'But Lord, You are doing such a great thing here. It doesn't seem reasonable that You should take me from this center of revival to a barren desert. Lord, this is where my faith is really strong and growing.' But the real issue was in God's special word, 'Go.'

"Immediately we can see this was really a question of being wholly under the Spirit's government. How often our logical reasoning collides with God's reasoning at this very point. We think we see, but not as He sees. How much are we grooved in a fixity or finality of vision as to how God will use us, or where? Of course we can see now how much it meant to the Church that Philip was flexible. For while the desert may have seemed to be an end, it was, really, a gateway into that greater ministry which God intended. From that point there opened up for Philip a long story of ministry. You will find, that after this contact with the Ehiopian, some very vital things came into being through the ministry of Philip. And this all hung upon the matter of flexibility or adjustableness, on whether the Lord was free to have His way in Philip's life, or whether Philip would say, 'No, this is where I am staying and this is how things are; this is where the Lord is working, and here I stay!'

". . . Let us note this. When we have set our face with the steel of determination to achieve a certain task , this admirable quality can become our very downfall. All too easily our determination takes the place of the Spirit's government. We decide on a certain course, and become so rigidly bound by it that we have no mind to listen to the Spirit when He speaks. We are prone to fall into the same snare which Paul nearly fell into, that is, to follow our plan through with inflexible determination. Paul, you recall, was set on going to Asia and Bithynia. It seemed the most logical course, and we admire Paul's determination to overcome every obstacle. But just at this point Paul is 'forbidden of the Holy Ghost . . . the Spirit suffered them (him) not' (Acts 16:6,7). What if Paul had not been adjustable; what if this admirable quality of determination had not been stretchable? We all know what it has meant to Macedonia and Europe that Paul's determination was tempered by the Spirit with flexibility.

"What a painful area of stretching in our inner wineskin! . . . So often our inflexibility may manifest itself by our becoming completely demoralized if anything interferes with our plans. We are prone to be like the enemy general: 'who was so lacking in adaptability that he had no resourcefulness with which to meet anything outside his program. Any slight deviation which turned him off his set course threw him into confusion.'

"How often we have witnessed this when a speaker could not follow his prepared message; a storm cut the electric power and without light he cannot read his script. Or suddenly the meeting was moved from the tabernacle to the waterfront, and the wind played such havoc with his notes that he was completely frustrated. Often a speaker has prepared a message to meet the needs of believers only to discover the majority in his audience do not know the Lord and his theme would be most inappropriate.

"Yes, what stretching takes place when the life is completely governed by the Holy Spirit. God alone can keep one prepared for every emergency and situation. He can keep one properly balanced in determination and flexibility when the severe test is on.

"Third, we have the stretching of knowledge. One can look at Peter and see that he had developed a fixed position regarding certain laws of the Old Testament and his interpretation of them. From his rigid, static position he argued, 'Not so, Lord.' He was neither stretchable, teachable nor adjustable. Yet what a tremendous advance, not only for Peter, but for the whole Church when, without giving away any steadfastness or determination, he adjusted to the new light that the Lord gave, and to a new knowing of the Lord and His ways. This ability to be adjustable to new insights of truth has been a problem throughout the centuries, not just with individuals but with groups as well.

"History reveals how each new movement starts with a new and fresh glimmer of truth. The next generation lives to keep that truth bright and clear, and to perpetuate it. But a younger generation within the ranks is not content with God's manna of yesterday. There is a yearning for fresh manna, for the 'present truth' essential for this hour. And when God answers by giving a fresh glimmer of light they seek immediately to include it within the 'old wineskin.'

"How innocently the battle begins. Quickly the 'old pillars' will rise up to reject any invasion of new light. They feel duty bound to stay by the 'ancient landmarks' as interpreted by those who founded their movement. Without realizing it they are being sucked into a private whirlpool of fixed doctrine which leaves no place for that fresh flowing stream of living revelation which produces vitality, enlargement and true elasticity.

"With real discernment one who 'sees' has written: 'Sooner or later any real or seeming departure or diversion from the "recognized" and traditional order of Creed or practice will be heresy, to be violently suspect, repressed, and outcast. Too often what, at its beginning, was a spiritual energy producing a living organism expressing something that God really wanted and to which He gave birth has become something which the next generation has to sustain and work hard to keep going. The thing has developed a self-interest and it will go hard with anyone or anything interfering with it, or seeming so to do. The Spirit has become the prisoner of the institution or system, and the people become limited spiritually as the result. The refreshing breeze of the Spirit is lost--lost through self-protection.' (T. A. S.)

"And this brings us to the other inward graces which Peter mentions. Briefly we must consider the stretching of temperance (self-control) patience and godliness. God desires to add to the inner stature of both individuals and corporate groups. To be wholly under the government of the Spirit means a continuous stretching, thus increasing inner stature. No wonder Peter could exclaim 'For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful . . .' (2 Pet. 1:8).

". . . There are those times when we all can look back on our pathway and believe that certain steps which we took and different courses we followed were in the will of God for us. Yet we have now been forced to almost repudiate or drastically revise the position we took at that time. Here is the point of so much frustration. It does not mean that we missed God's will at the time we took that step. It was perhaps all we could comprehend at that moment. The Lord may, at one time, in His . . . will , lead us in a certain way because that is the only way we could learn certain things. Yet it does not mean that He intends for us to stay there forever, nor that He had settled us there. Nor that in leading us in that way at that time we dare not ever contemplate another change. That is sheer bondage to a fixed conception. You and I as sons should come to know liberty from such bondage. This means that we keep teachable, stretchable, free for adjustments, and not be bound to any position that would hinder the complete government of the Spirit over us. Yes, it will surely require a patience with ourselves and our seeming instability. Furthermore, this self-control and patience will help us appreciate the same stretching in other lives. Indeed he who is being stretched will understand when others are groaning in the Spirit's stretching.

"Then we must be prepared for the stretching of brotherly kindness. At times we all have found ourselves in a corner. We are determined to be patient, controlled and kind unto all the brethren, yet the Holy Spirit asks us to 'plough deep' in some life or group, to unveil almost unmercifully some hidden root which is keeping that person from the fruitfulness he yearns for. Will we allow this painful stretch, and under the Spirit's direction perform the operation with a sharp scalpel? Even though it seems most cruel to the natural eye, yet it is loving kindness.

"There are those times when one seems to most utterly fail in the common gesture of brotherliness. You are forced to leave someone in the dark, to be almost mysterious in your failure to answer a question. The Lord Jesus often faced this test of adjustableness. His brethren came to Him one day and said, 'We are going up to the feast. Are you going up with us? If You do not go, people will wonder; You will prejudice Your interest.' He said, 'No, you go up. I am not going.'

"Now, when they had gone up, Jesus evidently received the Spirit's witness that He should go up. He did not say, 'I have told them I was not going up: they will think I have played a trick on them, that I did not want them.' No, He did not argue like that, but moved in the Spirit and left it all with the Father. He was not bound by the considerations of people or what they would think or say.

"What an inward stretching this means--that even at an hour's notice we should be free to follow. But just as important, we must learn how best to keep from any position where we are bound to contradict our word. Those who insist on binding us to something definite will imagine we are not kind, thoughtful or considerate in our relationships. Until they have experienced this same inner stretching, it will be impossible for them to understand.

"As the capstone of inner stature, we must add the stretching of love. But first the question: What is all this inner stretching really for? If we assume it is unto our own benefit and blessing we have missed the point. Peter would hasten to remind us this stretching is to insure abounding fruitfulness unto God.

"Self-love will never allow any painful stretching. It can only pity itself and flee from adversity or suffering or pressure. Yet the stretching of divine love in us will help us to both suffer and weep. It was this inner stretching of love which caused Jesus to weep in compassion as He beheld Israel like little chicks who could not hear the voice of their mother. How much He mourned for those lost sheep who were following blindly without a shepherd. Yet when He offered Himself as THE SHEPHERD, they turned upon His gesture of love and nailed Him to a Cross.

"Shall we expect any different treatment when we are pouring ourselves out in love? Such a stretching will produce a love that understands even when others misunderstand, a love that gives even when others reject our giving, a love that seeks not its own but always the welfare of another.

"Finally, what does Jesus teach us about the wineskins? He would seem to say that either they will remain flexible by continuous stretching, or they will become hard and unflexible, and by resistance to His will be useable only for old wine. When He looked at the Pharisees in their rigid positions, Jesus could discern that they were like wineskins fixed, and without elasticity. So He insisted that 'new wine must be put in new wineskins. . .' We can almost hear Him say: 'Let me make you anew--and keep you forever new.'"