Do you Want to see Water turned to Wine?
John 2:5 His mother said to the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it."
Does the Lord Speak to us Today?
The Lord spoke to Joseph, Daniel, and Job through dreams. He spoke to Kings through prophets. He speaks to us today thought His Son. The writer of Hebrews tell us, “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds (Hebrews 1: 1-2).” But just how does He speak to us in 2018?
We know that He speaks to us through His Word, the Bible. We also knows He speaks to us through counselors, conscience, circumstances and perhaps in other ways. But when He speaks He always guides us in a way that is consistent with the principles properly interpreted in the Bible. For example, He tells us in no uncertain terms that we need to have faith in the Lord to become children of God and to have our sins forgiven. In Acts 13:39, Paul says, “and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.”
There are Direct commands and then there are Principles
We have already seen that we are told to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus. The Lord preached it and Paul preached it and Peter preached it. Our relationship with God starts there. Then we are told to be baptized. The Lord commanded it, and the disciples practiced it. Baptism identifies us with Christ. It tells the world that we have changed our minds about the hindrances that have kept us from believing and have put simple trusting faith in the Lord Himself. I do not believe that the Lord can clearly speak about the particular way we are to serve Him after we are saved, until we are willing to submit to the clear command about being baptized. Blessing is always associated with obedience. Faith saves but obedience brings joy and fellowship and just may allow us to experience miracles as the servants did in this first public miracle of the Lord.
Many people tell me about things that the Lord has said to them that I know are contrary to the principles laid down in the Scriptures. While we might argue about Old Testament principles and how they apply today, we can pretty much take the things written in the epistles at face value since they were written to Christians just like us. Principles dealing with church gatherings, the headship or leadership issues of our day, the matters of separation from unbelievers with regard to worship and social practices–these things are all clearly laid out in the epistles. Doing some of these things will not make sense, but they will make the Lord happy and when the Lord is happy, we will be happy.
Sometimes The Lord tells us to Do things that make no Sense
I can just imagine the plight of the servants in our story. They should have provided enough wine for the feast but they apparently did not get a large enough delivery from the local Walmart. Now they are in a bad spot but Mary, the mother of the Lord, knew the solution. After all she had raised the Lord and this story tends to make us think she had seen some miraculous things before now. Her comments are simple. " Whatever He says to you do it." Now we have a tendency to try to confuse the issue by saying, “that won’t work.” Or we say we will do it only to make some sort of excuse for not doing it. Maybe we trying to accomplish the same thing the Lord wants but in a little more "sensible way". But they did what the Lord said to do. If the Lord wasn’t Who He claimed to be, they were going to be taking water to the master of this wedding feast. I don’t think He would have been happy with them. So whether they had faith to start with or not, they could either be reprimanded for running out of wine, or they could do what the Lord said. If He didn’t have the power Mary seemed to think He had, they would be taking water to the Master of the feast. But lo and behold, they took good wine to the Master of the feast. The best wine was kept until last and, yes, this was real wine. The Lord blessed the servants, and those at the feast. He proved that He had power over creation. It usually takes some time to turn grape juice into wine, but He turned water into wine.
What Can We Learn?
Doing what the Lord asks us to do will always bless us and we may see miracles. But we need to make sure that the Lord is speaking and that we aren’t listening to voices that are carnal or perhaps to voices that are the deceitful whisper of Satan. The Lord spoke in the Garden of Eden and Satan spoke as well. We have the sin problem today because Eve listened to the wrong voice. We also know that when the Lord tells us to do something it doesn’t always make logical sense, but we will always be blessed if we are willing to do what He asks. And we can see that the Lord often tests our faith so that He can give us something better than we expected. The good wine was left until last. When we think of this life, it may be nice and we may have it good. But if we trust the Lord, the best wine is just over the hill on the other side. Earth will never compare to the good wine reserved for us in heaven.
Bruce Collins
Meditation for the week of April 8, 2018