Good words, huh? Horacious Bonar, the great preacher
of old. All right, back to John chapter
2 now. I do hope the Lord will bless this. I was blessed in studying it,
but it doesn't always come out that way. portion of scripture has a threefold
application or meaning, trifocal. You've heard me say, and I got
it from my pastor, that the scriptures are bifocal. They have more than
one meaning. They have a primary meaning and
secondary, sometimes even more. This one has a threefold application. And they are this. Number one,
this is typical. This is a type. Number two, this
is prophetical. There's a prophecy made here. All of this is a prophecy. Number
three, it has a practical application. Now, this is a well-known miracle. I've read it many times. I know
you have. You know it well. You know what happened here,
yet I must confess that I have often overlooked this, have not
studied it, don't ever recall anybody preaching from it. I
don't personally remember hearing it preached from. But there's
much to be seen here. All right. I said, first of all,
it has a typical. or there's a type to be seen
here. All right, let's look at it.
Verse 1 begins with the word, and. And you just don't begin a thought
with and, do you? What if I had started this whole
thing with, I stood up here and said, You say, and what? It means something
went before it, doesn't it? This is one of those chapter
divisions that's unfortunate, but maybe these things happened
so that we might, we ourselves might rightly divide the Word
of Truth. They didn't rightly divide it here. All right? You know what happened before
this. Chapter 1 is the story of John, the preacher. John. It mostly deals with his
ministry and his preaching. And this chapter is closely connected
with what was said there in chapter 1, the story of John's ministry. Now, who was John? John is the last of the Old Testament
prophets. Okay? John is the last of the
Old Testament prophets. And the scripture says, to him,
to Christ, give all the prophets witness. And that's just exactly
what John did. But John is the last of the Old
Testament prophets who pointed to Christ. And John represents
the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the first,
isn't it? It's the first. Well, he take
it the way of the first to establish the second. John said, he must
increase and I must decrease. Judaism, from the old to the
new. Law, when you think about the
Old Testament, you think about the law, don't you? The law of
Moses, the Old Testament. Well, the law was given by Moses. And the whole story After the
Old Testament, the Old Testament ends with some despair, it seems like.
Like Joseph, Genesis, the first book, ended with a coffin in
Egypt. But the New Testament begins
with a child born in Israel, in Bethlehem. See, the old, the
law, and then to grace, from Judaism to Christ. Well, the
priest Now, you have to pay attention to this, because it's somewhat
of an in-depth study here, but it's profitable, it's good, you're
going to be amazed by some of these things. The priests and
the Levites, they came to John, didn't they? The priests, Pharisees,
they all came to John. They didn't know Christ. They
came to John. They didn't know Christ. Luke
16 says this, the law and the prophets were until John. See,
John winds up the Old Testament system. That's what John did. He winds up the Old Testament
system. He says, all those lambs, all
those types, all those symbols, they're just a shadow. John said,
the light has come. That's all a shadow. It's a mystery. It's all a type. The substance
is here. All those lambs, turtledoves,
and bullocks, and goats, and all that was sacrificed, behold,
the Lamb of God. Don't need those anymore. There
He is. The one sacrifice to put away
sin forever by the sacrifice of God's Lamb. So they came,
they didn't know Christ. They came to John. John's allowed,
he winds up the Old Testament. The wine here in this story,
typically, it says, verse 3, when he came to this marriage
in Cana of Galilee, right in the heart of Judea, the Jews. This was a feast of the Jews.
This was a marriage of the Jews. These were all Jews here. Gentiles
weren't allowed. These were all Jews. That's significant. He's right in the middle of Judea.
And verse 3 says, they wanted wine. They have no wine. There's no wine in Judea. The wine had given out. And what
is wine symbolic of in the Scripture? All the way through, wine, David
said, David thanked the Lord for wine that made glad the heart. Joy, wine's a symbol of joy and
rejoicing. Wine is also a symbol of the
Holy Spirit in it. Wine of the Spirit, where there
was no wine. There's no wine in Judaism. There's
no wine of Christ's blood. No Christ, no joy. If there's
no Christ in religion, there's no joy. No joy. And where there's no Christ,
there's no spirit. Religion without Christ will leave you thirsty.
There's no wine. All right, look at this. It says
in verse 6, and this is They didn't plan it this way, but
it happened. Verse six says there were six
waterpots. Six waterpots of stone. Six waterpots. Now, I know that prophecy people
today, they just love this, these thoughts of six, six, six. Right? They just love them. But
it's scriptural. that is in the Revelation. And
it does speak of six being the number of man. We don't despise
prophesying because they have butchered it and run with it
and misused it doesn't mean we totally ignore it. He said, despise
not prophesy. 6 is indeed the number of man. 666 indeed in the revelation
speaks of some superman of sorts. I don't know much about that,
neither does anybody else. But it does speak of man. Why? Because God created man on the
sixth day. That's the number of man. Six
is the number of man. He created man on the sixth day.
Seven is the number of God. It's the number of perfection.
Well, what happened on the seventh day? God rested. He rested from
all his work. Well, God rested on the seventh
day, and what is the seventh day? A picture and a figure of. What is the Sabbath a figure
of? What is it a type of? The Sabbath. What's it a type of? Come on
now, who is the type of it? Put it that way. Who is the Sabbath? Who is our rest? Who is the perfect
one? Who is the God-man? Add one and
two, and you've got God. That's Christ. That's Christ. He is the Christ. He's the Lord
of Sabbath, the one who became flesh. He became flesh, yet he
was perfect. Perfect, and he's the one who
would perfect us and give us rest sometimes. But here's the
significance here. Six water pots of stone. Six
water pots of stone. Religion without Christ is all
of man, isn't it? What will you hear religion speak
of today? If you go three days in a row
like they did to John, what will you hear them preach? Man, man. Six, six, six. It's the number
of man. This is the religion of man.
It's the spirit of Antichrist. It's what it is. And Paul said
it's already at work. Already at work. So it's at work
today. All right, look at another thing
here. It says there are water pots of stone. Six water pots
of stone. Symbolic is typical of man by
nature. It's typical of his nature, his
hard heart, his stony heart. It's not stone. It's not silver,
which speaks of redemption. It's not gold, which speaks of
divinity, but it's stone. That's a picture of man's hard
heart by nature. And what else about these six
water pots? These six stony water pots. What
did they have in them? Huh? What'd they have in them?
No. They had nothing in them. Christ put something in them.
But to begin with, they had nothing in them. They were empty. That's typical of man, by nature. He's flesh, he's got a heart
of stone, and it's empty. It's void of Christ. It's void. It's empty. We'll leave the heart
stony and leave it empty. All right? Look at verse 13 down
here. And this is what this whole thing had degenerated into. Judaism. Do you see what it's building
up to here? This is the first miracle of our Lord. Significant,
John. This is the first miracle he
performed that manifests his glory. And this is all the type
of state that man is in, you see, in Judaism. Religion, but
the void of Christ. There's no wine. It's stony,
it's hard, it's empty. They had, I'm reading right now
some history by Pliny the Elder, the history of the first, second,
third, fourth Christian generations and what happened to the early
church and so forth. And it was, oh, so the Dark Ages,
empty, empty. Verse 13 says the Jews' Passover
was at hand. Now, what's wrong with that? You see anything wrong with that?
That's right, Jeanette. What should it say? It says the
Jews' Passover. What should it say? The Lord's
Passover. See, that's what religion has
come down to. Man's religion. Void of Christ. Christ is not in it. This table
here has degenerated into a common thing. The Jews Passover. Not the Lord's Passover. That's
sad, isn't it? Well, you remember me telling you a
story one time about a fellow coming in to to a place and they were partaking
of the table and they came up to him and they passed him by. They wouldn't
offer him the table or the bread or the wine because he was not
a member of that local assembly. And he started to grumble and
he said, You can't partake of our table. And the man wisely said, Well,
I don't really want to. I want to partake of the Lord's
table. I don't want anything to do with
your table. This is the Lord's table. The Lord's table. All
right. Mary here. What does she represent
here? Mary. She represents Mother Israel. So she is Mother Israel. That's where Christ was born,
wasn't it? She represents mother Israel. She's ignorant of who
he is and why he came. Isn't she? His very mother is
ignorant of who he is and why he came. Though, my, my, she
demands him. She says, look down at verse
four, she said, or verse three, she said, they had no wine. Give
them some wine. Demands of him. They had no wine. I imagine she said this real
curtly, real shortly. They had no wine. Don't you see
they had no wine? Give them some wine. Show yourself. Prove yourself. You see, Christ came to suffer
and die. He didn't come to perform miracles.
He didn't come to establish an earthly kingdom. He said to her
in verse 4, Mine hour is not yet come. The cross was his hour. That's his finest hour. Everything
pointed up to that. All right, look at the second
thing here we see. This is a prophecy. This all
is a prophecy. This miracle and everything happened. Everything happened on verse,
look at verse 1. When did it happen? The third
day. was the marriage and came up.
The third day, water was turned to wine. This first miracle,
this great miracle, the manifestation of his glory happened on the
third day. Coincidence? Oh, no. Oh, no. The third day, water became wine. This is prophetical. Turn with
me to Hosea. The book of Hosea. Hosea chapter 6. You turn it.
Hosea chapter 6. You see, in the creation, in
the beginning, in creation, the earth arose out of the water,
didn't it? When did it do that? When did
the earth come out of the water? When did God do that? Third day. Third day. Creation. The creation happened
on the third day. The earth arose out of the water.
Recreation of a new heaven and a new earth. When's it going
to happen? When's the recreation of a new heaven and a new earth?
When God makes a new one. When's he going to do that? When?
Third day. Look out here at Hosea 6. This
is a prophecy. You that have eyes to see, let
you see. Hosea 6, look at verse 2. I want to mark this verse. After
two days will he revive us. In the third day he will raise
us up. We shall live in his sight. Then
shall we follow on to know the Lord. His going forth is prepared
as the morning. And he shall come upon us as
the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth." After two
days, on the third day, he's going to revive us again. All
right, now what did Peter say over in 2 Peter chapter 3 about
the day? Do you remember? What did Peter say? I quoted
it this morning. Peter said, a day is as what? A thousand years. thousand years as a day. The year 2000 is the beginning
of the third day. And Peter said don't be ignorant
of this one thing. That's when he said that. He
said don't be ignorant of this one thing. A day is a thousand years
and a thousand years is a day. Year 2000 or somewhere before
or maybe somewhere after according to Whether or not our calendar
is correct or not, no man knows exact day and hour, but we do
know the seasons, and it's right now. Good. Good. I said come quickly. Oh my, three more years. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe one. The Lord would come as a thief
in the night. Come quickly, Lord. May you find
me watching and waiting. Amen. And a new wedding is going
to take place. A wedding amongst the Jews. Not over in that piece of dirt
they call the Holy Land. Ain't nothing holy about it.
But he which is a Jew in that land. who has the mark of circumcision,
he'll have a mark. God's people have a mark, all
right. Circumcision of the heart. Blood. Blood. What's the mark
of the Antichrist? Some say it's a credit card or
something. It's false religion. It's the religion of man. You
see that, John, that play? Seventh-day Adventists say it's
all those who worship on Sunday. Well, no, it's man-centered religion. That's what it is. Paul tweeted,
even now, the spirit of antichrist is already at work. The great
whore they're all in bed with. Not me. Not me. A great wedding is about to take
place and new wine is going to be enjoyed. That thing, wine on the loose. You read that? What caused you
to choose that? You don't know? I do. I do. He read Isaiah 25 and said, in
that mountain shall they feast, wine on the leaf, fat things
and wine on the leaf. It shall be said in that day,
the third day, this is our God. He will save us. We've waited
for him. Here he is, third day. What made
you read that, John? The Spirit of the Lord moved
on the face of your brain full of water, and cause the wine
of that glorious chapter to come full. I just marveled when I
was sitting there reading. When you said, let's read Isaiah
25, I thought, my, my, my, my, my. Oh, marvel. A wedding's about
to take place. New wine's about to be enjoyed. A wedding which Christ will attend.
It says here he's invited in his disciples. Invited. He's the bridegroom. This is
where this parable won't walk on four legs. He's not invited.
He invited us. He's the bridegroom. All right,
let's look at the practical application here. That's the prophetical. Here's the practical, lastly.
Verses 1 and 2, read them again. The third day there was a marriage
in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there, though Jesus
was called and his disciples to the marriage. And I pointed
this out at the Barry's daughter's wedding. Christ attended this
wedding, and therefore he sanctioned marriage. He sanctioned the union
between a man and a woman by attending it. That's what he
blesses. That's the institution he blesses.
It's sacred. It's honorable. The Lord attended
it. If you want your marriage to
be blessed, Christ has got to be there. That's the practical
application. If you want your marriage to
be blessed, Christ is going to have to be in it. Look at verse 3. It says, And
when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus said unto him, They
have no wine. They have no wine. Mary commands
the Lord. She's ignorant of his deity.
This shows that, I believe this shows that which is flesh is
flesh. I was telling Brother John earlier that, can you imagine
what old Mary saw and heard in thirty years of living with
The Lord Jesus Christ, she'd go out with Him over to anybody.
She saw Him. Can you imagine what she saw
in her, out of His mouth, even as a baby? I've often rejoiced
in thinking about her as a young mother with that baby in her
arms and her showing, you know how mothers like to dote over
their children and show them off? You know what all mothers
say about their babies too, don't you? He's a good boy. Well, buddies, she could say
that. from the heart, couldn't you? He's a good boy. You know, it probably shocked
me. He never cries. He never cries. I never have to tell him to clean
up his room. I'm not being trivial here. This
is so. He was perfect. I never have
to tell him to do anything. He's always in perfect obedience
and subjection to his mother and his father. He always says,
yes sir, yes ma'am. Thank you. He's so polite. He's good. He amazes his father
and I. And as he grew up, twelve years
old, remember what happened in the temple? She rebuked him there
when he stood hung behind. There's a whole story in there.
I want to preach from that someday. How that they left Christ was
not in their midst and they didn't know it. Well, that's a sad shape
to be in. At any rate, he was where you'd
find him. It was in the temple. And they
went back and they said, well, you worried your father and I.
And he said, why? Wished ye not that I must be
about my father's business?" And it said that they wondered
at the gracious words that came out of his mouth. That shut them
up. Do you know what all they saw?
What all they heard out of this? And yet John, thirty years. And
here in the end, when she ought to, she should have known by
now, this is not my child. This is no mere man. Huh? Shouldn't she have known that
by now? This is extraordinary. He's extraordinary. This is not
my child. This child doesn't pick up anything
from me. But yet she rebukes him. You
see, that which is flesh is flesh. How long have some of us professed
and known the Lord? Charles, I'm going to pick on
you again. You used to always happen to be the oldest one in
here. Seventy years. I don't know if you've known
Christ since you were forty years old or not. Maybe you have, maybe
you haven't. But if you have, how well do you know Him, Charles?
Just how well do you know Him now? You're still greatly ignorant.
And there's still a time when you exert your own will, don't
you? Huh? And there's still time when you
think, well, my will be done. And look at him, he rebukes her.
He says, I'm no woman. Peter walked with him for three
years, didn't he? Three and a half, nearly three
and a half years. And one day when he was about to go and he'd
been telling him from the start, Peter, I'm going to Jerusalem
and they're going to take me and they're going to kill me.
But I'm going to rise again the third day. Christ must suffer. I must suffer. For this hour,
what shall I say, Father, deliver me from this?" This is the hour
I came for. He, Jeanette, he told them this
time and time and time again. Weren't they listening? Hadn't
they learned anything by now? Three and a third years of hearing
the gospel from the Son of God Himself, hadn't they learned
anything? Were they so ardent of hearing? Peter said, Don't
go, Lord. Don't go. Get thee behind me safe. He rebuked
him. And the devil in me rises up
all the time. And he rebukes me, too. Haven't
you learned anything yet? He says, Woman, I like this.
I like this. Catholics surely don't like this.
This verse. I like this verse. It shows Mary
for what she is, isn't she? What is she? Blessed art thou,
Mary, mother of God. What blasphemy. She ain't the
mother of God. He calls her the mother of Jesus. You know, he never called her
mother. He never called her mother. He addresses her in Scripture.
It's quoted that he addresses her two times. Here, and when
he was hanging on the cross, what did he call her? Woman. Same one that brought the woman
to the man in the garden. Call her name Woman. Woman. No disrespect to her, really,
but he never addressed her as Mother. It's narrated in scriptures
for us to know which Mary. Why is she called in scripture? We need to know that. Why is
she called the Mother of Jesus? Why do they recognize that? So we'd
know which Mary they're talking about. That's plain. She's not the mother
of God, like Catholicism said. She's just a woman. She's just
a vessel. She just had a womb. She just
happened to be the one, the womb, that God chose to put his son
in. It could have been anybody else.
Huh? Yeah. It doesn't say, blessed
art thou, Mary, highly favored above women. It says among Now,
he says there, my hour has not yet come. You know, seven times
he talks about his hour in scripture. That would be a good study sometime
for you. Now, I don't think Mary knew
what he was talking about. I don't think she knew what he
was saying here. But I'll tell you what she did
recognize in his voice. He said, Not ours, not yet come. I'll tell you what she did recognize.
She recognized authority. She heard a voice. A voice of
authority. Look at her reaction. First thought.
What's he saying? Do it. I like this. This is what's going to happen
when a person... Don't they? Well, I told Jesus. Don't people like to tell what
they told the Lord? I told the Lord the other day,
Lord, man, aside of the sovereign,
when you hear his sovereign voice and who he is, when you hear
his sovereign voice and aside of his sovereign will, it'll
make you quit telling about what you told the Lord and what you
did for the Lord, and it'll make you say whatever he says. do it. I did it, the Lord willing. Whatever he says, you start telling
what he says, what he must do for us, not what we do for him. And lastly, this is a picture
of regeneration, of change, salvation, what he did to this water. All
right, look at it, just a few points here, okay, and then I'll
quit. It hasn't been long, not long at all. This is a picture
of regeneration. He changed something into something
else. First thing I want you to notice
is, when Christ turned this water into wine, I want you to know
who did it. Who did this? Christ did it. Has this ever
been done before? Has it ever been done since? Why don't some of these fellas
try this? Huh? Let them try it. And go down
to Skid Row and get somebody that knows wine. And let them
try it. They might fool somebody. They
might fool those old drunks. This is the best. That's what
this fella was. And I mean, that's what he was,
a bunch of drunks. And they said, Man, you're not serving the cheapest
last, you're serving the best. Well, the only one that can do
this miracle, the picture of regeneration, turning water to
wine, is Christ himself. He's the only one that has done
it and can do it. He turns a sinner into a son
of God. He's the only one that can. Secondly,
as I said, these water pots are stony and they're empty. And
that's our heart. We need a heart of flesh. We
need to be filled with his spirit, and Christ is the only one that
can do that. Bring about this change. He's
the one who must give us a new heart, a new heart, and fill
us with his spirit. And then Christ commands. Look
what he does. It says, here's what Christ commands. He said, Whatsoever he saith,
do it. And verse 7, Christ said, And fill the waterpots with water.
He didn't ask anybody. He didn't ask anybody's opinion,
what do you think we ought to do? Will you this? Will you that?
He says, do it. He sends the command, and the
command is fulfilled. Christ commands the filling of
the pots with water. And the Holy Spirit, he said,
Christ said, when the Comforter is come, whom, who's going to
send him? I shall send unto you. He'll
take the things of mine and show them unto you. And that's the
next point. It says here that he had them
fill it to the brim. Fill them up. Christ never did
anything halfway, did he? Fill it to the brim. You see,
the Lord is my shepherd and my cup, and he fills cups. When
he fills cups, he's not miserly. John? Thank you. But you didn't fill it, buddy. You didn't fill it. That's a
picture of man trying to work salvation in it. It won't fill. He just can't fill it out. You
can't fill yourself up empty. Well, he does. Our Lord is my
shepherd. Matthew Henry, I love the old
English, he said, The Lord is no miserly paymaster. He's no
miserly paymaster, like Joseph. Fill their sacks. Well, fill,
they're running over. Get the wagons. Fill the wagons. Fill their cups. It's running
over. It's enough. Didn't we just sing
it? It's enough. It's enough. I have some old animals that
aren't worth anything. They're worth a little something
to me, but they aren't worth much, really. And when I go out
and I fill their water buckets all the time, and I fill them.
Don't we have them? We fill them up. Sometimes when
they're full of water, I put more water in. I go ahead and
stick that hose in there and flush out the old and bring in
the new. I fill them up. The water tank,
water bucket, they're never going to be lacking for water. long
as I'm their shepherd. And the scripture says, Of his
fullness have all we received. Grace? Oh, he's been on top of
grace. He giveth more. I've got, Lord,
I'm full. Here's some more. Oh, Lord, how
you bless me. I'm going to bless you some more.
But, Lord, I have all things. Here's some more. Isn't that
the way he's done things with you? Oh, my. And the water became
wine. What is the water typical of
in the Scripture, other than the Spirit of God? It's something
that always, always, the water typified. What is it? Somebody.
Anybody. Huh? That's exactly right. He
washes us with water by the Word, and what does He come to us with?
How does He fill us? With the Word, doesn't He? He
fills us overflowing with the Word. What does the Word become
to us when he fills us full of it? What does the Word become
to us? What does it change unto us? What is it? What's in the
Word? What do you see all the way through?
This Word is black and white. What color does it turn? Red! We see the blood of Christ when
it's red. It's red. Black and white, and
it's red all the way. Fills us full. It's filled full
of the blood from beginning to end. The blood, the blood, the
blood, the blood, the blood. When he fills us full. Verse
9, read on, I've got to close. When the ruler of the feast had
tasted the water we had made wine, and there's so much more
here, and I'm leaving some things out, but it says the ruler of
the feast knew not which it was, where it had come from. The servant
knew. I immediately think of Paul of
1 Corinthians 1 where he said, Not many wise men of the flesh,
not many mighty, not many noble are called." Well, you see your
calling, brethren, don't you? He's taken things that are nothing
and things that are nobler and revealed, made known unto them
the mysteries. The doctors, the lawyers, the
Pharisees, the scribes don't know. They didn't know the Christ.
He took us dumb, ignorant publicans and sinners and harlot. and revealed
the truth to us. I know where that, I know what
that, where'd this wine come from? I know. Where's salvation
come from? You remember over in Isaiah,
John, where it says the book is delivered to him that has
learned it and he can't read it? It's a mystery to him. It was delivered to one who didn't
learn it. And he read, I know what that means. And like your teacher asked you,
One of our young ladies, her teacher asked her, said, do you
know what the, do you know what's in the Bible?
She said, yeah. She said, Genesis, he says, Romans
3, Exodus, he says, Passover, the Lamb, Leviticus, he's the
Raising Serpent, Numbers, he's the, you know, and that woman
said, I wish I hadn't asked her that. She didn't know that. She said, you know what she said
to her? I'll have to go look that up. Are you a master in
Israel or in Rocky Mountain and know not these things? We're
real among the babes. Huh? Are our children getting
anything? Verse 10, this is a miraculous
change. A miraculous change. It's this old Rulers said, Every
man at the beginning doth set forth good wine. When men are
well drunk, then that which is worse. But you kept the good
until now. You've saved the best for last."
That's exactly what our Lord is going to do in the third day. He's saving the best for last.
You see, in the first creation, he created a man named Adam.
Oh, he was good. He was good. It was good. Oh, but Christ is better. The second Adam. The Lord from
glory. He's the firstborn among many
brethren. He's saving the best for last.
He's brought in an everlasting righteousness. And the old has
passed away, and all things become brand new in the third day. Third
day. He's saving the best for a laugh,
a new man, just like Christ. And all this happened for a reason,
as we said this morning. It all happened for a reason.
What's the purpose in all this? Why did he do this? Why is this recorded here? What
is this first miracle? Look at verse 11. This beginning
of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth
his glory. And his disciples believed on
him. You believe on him a little more now? Everything we read,
everything I read is just another nail in a sure place. You know,
I believe when we started in John 1, that's all this is yet. Go on to another, that's it.
Driving home. Faith, you know, it's just being
established. Just being nailed and rooted. Joe was just getting more settled
on it. Just being driven down on the
rock. Just being written on these rock-hard
hearts with a pen of iron. Instilled in a manifest His glory. He didn't do this just to show
he'd turn water into wine. He didn't. Oh no, this is a picture
of that great work of regeneration and salvation which manifest
his greater glory." Okay.