I. THAT CHRIST HAS SYMPATHY WITH HOUSEKEEPERS. The wine gave out and Jesus came to the rescue. Don’t fret when there is a scant supply in your household, but trust in God and do the best you can and He will help you. Christ is the best adviser and most efficient aid.
II. CHRIST DOES THINGS IN ABUNDANCE. A small supply would have been enough, but Christ gave one hundred and thirty gallons of the very best wine. Everything God does He does plenteously.
1. In nature.
2. In grace.
III. CHRIST DOES NOT SHADOW THE JOYS OF OTHERS WITH HIS OWN GRIEFS. Christ knew what was coming for Himself, but He hid His own grief to kindle their joy. So don’t you infuse your own griefs into your children. They will have trouble enough by and by. Be glad that they cannot appreciate yours. Keep back the sorrows as long as you can. Let them enjoy life while they may.
IV. CHRIST IS NOT IMPATIENT WITH THE LUXURIES OF LIFE. The wine, that could have been dispensed with, ran short, and yet Christ replenished it. There is no more harm in honest luxury than honest poverty. There is no more religion in a new coat than in an old one. The world was once a paradise and will be one again.
V. CHRIST HAS NO IMPATIENCE WITH FESTAL JOY. the very miracle augmented it. The children of God have more right to laugh than others: no joy is denied them.
VI. CHRIST COMES TO US IN OUR EXTREMITY. When the wine had given out, and before there was any embarrassment thereupon, He came to the aid of these people.
1. So often in extreme poverty Christ has come to the relief of His people.
2. In the despair of conscious guilt.
3. In death.
VII. CHRIST GIVES HIS BEST LAST.
1. In Christian experience.
2. In glory. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
Infinite resources
Notice
I. THAT GOD MOVES BY A HIGHER LAW THAN MAN UNDERSTANDS Isa_55:8-9).
1. Men give their best first, but God adopts the principle of gradual development.
2. Men give sparingly, God gives abundantly.
II. THAT MAN IS SOMETIMES PRAISED FOR BLESSINGS THAT COME DIRECTLY FROM THE DIVINE HAND.
1. In legislation the politician is praised, and few ascribe the blessing to the Great Fountain of government.
2. In social life men have praised parental discipline, or scholastic education for a high tone of morality, whereas few acknowledge the Source of Purity.
(1) It is here that infidelity has erred; it has stopped at second causes and paused at the bridegroom, instead of inquiring for Christ.
(2) So with science; but science is only an agent. It may be a botanist, but who started the vital fluid? A geologist, but who wrote the rocky page? An astronomer, but who built the world?
(3) So with professing Christians.
III. THAT GOD SOMETIMES PRESENTS THE RESULT WITHOUT REVEALING THE PROCESS, In some departments of the moral universe processes belong exclusively to God, and results to man. In the discipline of our nature God conducts the mysterious process; whereas in the dissemination of the gospel man is required to undertake the agency. These three great principles may teach us
1. To recognize the Divine hand in every advancement. What have we that we did not receive. We should be humble, therefore.
2. Never to distrust the resources of God. You have never drunk the best wine which God can provide. He has unsearchable riches.
3. To repress inquisitiveness, and cultivate gratitude. Take thankfully what God provides. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
Five characteristics of Christ’s working
I. APPROPRIATENESS. Christ does the right thing, in the right place, at the right time. The people did not want bread, nor clothes, nor health. Had they been rich the miracle would have been unnecessary; at an earlier period it would have been premature. And in His providence over our life Christ does nothing out of place or superfluously.
II. MYSTERY. Christ simply willed and the water was made wine: no one knows how.
1. So in physical life.
2. Human life.
3. Spiritual life.
III. SELF-ABNEGATION. The bridegroom received the credit for Christ’s act.
1. So in life the employer gets the credit for the skill and strength of the employee.
2. So in morals human cleverness and power get the credit for successes which should be given to the goodness of God.
3. So in the Church the means of grace are allowed to usurp the place of the Giver of grace.
IV. PROGRESS. The best last. This is the law by which Christ governs men.
1. By His providence.
2. Through His Spirit.
V. UNOSTENTATIOUS GENEROSITY. The need of which the guests were ignorant was anticipated by Christ. (J. W. Burn.)
Satan’s banquet and Christ’s
I. THE HOUSE OF SATAN, in which are four tables.
1. The table of the profligate--a gay table. The governor comes in. He has a bland smile and a robe of many colours. He brings
(1) The wine-cup of pleasure. The young man takes it, and sips at first cautiously. He does not intend to indulge much. But how sweet it is! He drinks a deeper draught, and the wine is hot in his veins. How blest is he! He drinks and drinks again, till his brain begins to reel with the sinful delight. This is the first course.
(2) Now, with a leer, the subtle governor riseth. His victim has had enough of the best wine. He brings in another, all flat and insipid--the cup of satiety. “Who hath woe? who hath redness of the eyes? They that tarry long at the wine,” figuratively and literally. The profligate soon discovers that all the rounds of pleasure end in satiety. “Give me something fresh,” he cries; and gaiety itself grows flat and dull.
(3) The governor commandeth another liquor to be broached. This time the fiend bears the black goblet of suffering. He who rebels against the laws of God must reap the harvest in his own body here.
(4) The last course remains--the grave. The profligate dies, and descends from disease to damnation.
2. There is another table, all clean and comely. The wine on it seems to have no intoxication in it. How contented are the guests! It is the table of self-righteousness. Satan, like an angel of light, brings forth a golden goblet containing the wine of
(1) Self-satisfaction. This wine makes the drinker swell with self-important dignity.
(2) This cup is eventually replaced by that of discontent and unquietness of mind. As confidence is wanted, it is found wanting.
(3) This is removed, and the cup of dismay is brought in. How many a man who has been self-righteous all his life has, at the last, discovered that the basis of his hope has gone.
(4) The last course must be the same as that of the profligate, inasmuch as Christ has been rejected.
3. The third table is crowded with most honourable guests--kings, princes, mayors, aldermen, and great merchants.
(1) Satan brings in a flowing cup, and says: “Young man, you are starting in business; get rich as fast as you can.” The youth drinks, and says: “I have abundance now: my hopes are indeed realized.”
(2) But next comes the nauseous cup of care. Riches canker his heart.
(3) After this comes the cup of avarice, which increases the burning thirst of which many have died clutching their money-bags.
(4) Then there is the cup of loss, in which money and the satisfaction it once gave perish.
4. The fourth table is set up in a very secluded corner for secret sinners. Satan steps in noiselessly
(1) with the cup of secret sin. “Stolen waters are sweet.”
(2) After that he brings the wine of an unquiet conscience.
(3) A massy bowl filled with black mixture, the fear of detection, next has to be quaffed.
(4) Discovery is the last cup. “Be sure your sin will find you out,” if not in this world, in the next.
II. THE HOUSE OF THE SAVIOUR.
1. Come and sit at the table of Christ’s outward providences.
(1) The first cup is often one of bitterness--the worst wine first. Christ seeks no disciples who are dazzled with first appearances.
(2) After the cup of affliction comes the cup of consolation.
(3) The cup of glory.
2. The table of inward experience.
(1) The first cup is the bitter cup of conviction.
(2) This gives place to the cup of forgiving love.
(3) The cup of everlasting bliss.
3. The table of communion.
(1) The cup of communion with Christ in His sufferings.
(2) The cup of His labours.
(3) The cup of good wine, communion with Christ in His resurrection and triumphs. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The feast of the Lord
I. FOR THE BELIEVER CHRIST KEEPS THE BEST WINE TILL THE LAST.
1. There are some of God’s best beloved who have never known what it is to get out of the depths of poverty, affliction, profitless toil, to whom it will indeed be true, when death gives them their discharge, that Christ has kept the good wine till the last--riches, happiness, rest.
2. This will be equally true of God’s favoured ones. The most highly favoured, who had been caught up to the third heaven, declared that he only saw through a glass darkly, and that there was a higher heaven yet. There are many aspects of the heavenly state, and in each of these the principle of the text holds good.
1. Here on earth the believer enters into rest by faith, and enjoys the peace which passeth all understanding. But drink of that as we may, the good wine has yet to come. The present peace is dashed by cares and doubts and disquietudes.
2. Heaven is a place of holy company. Here we have some of that wine, but our companions are compassed with infirmity. There the just are made perfect.
3. In heaven there is perfect knowledge. On earth we know much that makes us happy, but heaven is a place of complete and endless manifestations and joys.
II. CHRIST’S REASONS FOR DOING THIS.
1. To make a broad distinction between His dealings and Satan’s.
2. Because it is His good pleasure.
3. That He may give us an appetite for the good wine.
4. That He may be glorified by the trial of your faith.
III. LESSONS:
1. Hasten towards the place where the good wine is kept.
2. If the best things are to come, let us not be discontented.
3. Why should we envy the worldling? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ’s method and the world’s
I. THE WORLD’S METHOD IS TO GIVE THE GOOD WINE FIRST.
1. The gay world, to the young, presents the appearance of a feast where everything is provided that can please the eye and gratify the taste. But experience strips off the disguise. Enjoyment brings satiety, and long ere the cup is drained the soul turns from it in dislike. There is not a more miserable creature than the man to whom the world has given all its blessings and has nothing more to promise. The novelty of this world’s pleasures is their greatest charm.
2. Take the case of the drunkard. He is dissatisfied with the low life of drudgery he leads, and pants after a higher life and a freer atmosphere. So he drinks to drown his sorrows and to promote his joy. But the hour of elation passes, and leaves a grievous sense of bodily discomfort and a profound sense of self-contempt. More so with the confirmed drunkard. It is long since he drank all the good wine which his lust could give him; and now he is drinking the bitter dregs of the wretched wine which “biteth like a serpent,” etc. There was a time when the tottering frame was instinct with health and vigour, and the palsied hand had a grip of iron, and the bloated face was full of comeliness and intelligence.
3. Nor is it otherwise with the avaricious man. How precious was the first piece of money that came long ago as a reward of industry. But as he drank deep of the golden cup of wealth the first fresh glow of happiness disappeared. Care and anxiety grew with fortune, and wants with the means of gratifying them.
4. So with the ambitious man. The first draught of ambition’s cup is indeed the sweetest; all that follows is often bitterness and loneliness. The fruit is fair to the eye; but in the mouth it crumbles into ashes. It lures but to disappoint; it tempts but to betray.
II. OUR LORD’S METHOD IS TO GIVE THE BEST WINE LAST.
1. This is illustrated in His own life. He drank the poorest wine first and then the best. He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the cursed death of the cross; wherefore God hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name.
2. So with the disciples; they drink of His cup and are baptized with His baptism. The law of His kingdom is first the cross, and then the crown; first suffering, and therefore glory. His blessings are not like random sunbursts through the clouds, or the irregular overflowing of an intermittent spring, but form parts of a gradually unfolding series. They are bestowed in proportion as our necessities arise and our faculties expand. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
The best last
The world presents us with fair language, promising hopes, convenient fortunes, pompous honours, and these are the outside of the bowl; but when it is swallowed, these dissolve in an instant. Every sin smiles in the first address, and carries light in the face, and honey in the lips, but when we “have well drunk,” then comes “that which is worse,” a whip with six strings, fears and terrors of conscience, and shame and displeasure, and a caitiff disposition, and diffidence in the day of death. But when, after the manner of purifying of the Christians, we fill our waterpots with water, watering our couch with our tears, then Christ turns our water into wine--first penitents and then communicants--first waters of sorrow and then the wine of the chalice; for Jesus keeps the best wine to the last, not only because of the direct reservation of the highest joys till the nearer approaches of glory, but also because our relishes are higher after a long fruition than at the first essays, such being the nature of grace, that it increases in relish as it does in fruition, every part of grace being new duty and new reward. (Jeremy Taylor.)
Well drunk
Taste educated
At first the palate distinguishes with the utmost nicety the quality of the wine; but afterwards, as more of it is drunk, the keen edge of the taste is blunted, and it cannot distinguish between the different kinds, so that an inferior wine at this stage might be substituted for a superior one without the guests being any the wiser. The extraordinary pitch of perfection to which the sense of taste may be educated is shown by the experience of those who are employed, in docks and warehouses, to discriminate between samples of different kinds of wine and tea; but these men use the utmost caution in the exercise of their peculiar gift. They are careful only to employ a very small quantity of the article experimented upon; and they confine their trials within very narrow limits. Excess or familiarity destroys the sensitiveness of the nerves, and tends to deaden the impressions produced upon them. So alive are some musicians to this physiological fact, that they will not touch an instrument that is out of tune, lest their sense of harmony should be impaired. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
