Radio Broadcast Tuesday 02/14/2023

Classic Christianity – The Book of John P05 (02-14-23)

Jesus Turns Water Into Wine ~ His First Recorded Miracle

“On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” ^{John 2:1-5}

~ “Then you have the wedding of Cana. And this was the first of Jesus miracles. So on the third day, it says a wedding took place in Cana in Galilee. And it says that Jesus mother was there, then Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. Now we have to assume because of what takes place following this, that Mary had some kind of a job at that wedding. She might have been the wedding coordinator has an example very likely that’s what it was. And that’s why she was there and made the invitation to her son and, and his friends who we know is his disciples. But it says that Jesus mother was there and Jesus in disciples had been invited to the wedding and when the wine was gone, Jesus mother said to him to Jesus, they have no more wine. Now his reply to me is really. I like it’s kind of humorous. Dear woman, why do you involve me? Why are you asking me this question? Oh, dear, I’m just a guest here. But obviously Mary was more than a guest. And he Jesus said, My time has not yet come. I think this is so indicative of a Hebrew mother. I think she in essence is like saying, I don’t care whether your time has come or not. He said to the people Do whatever he tells you. So he said to all the servants that were there, whatever he tells you to do, do it. I don’t care whether he says his time has come or not, DO what He tells you to do. Now nearby, it says that there stood six stone water jars, and the kind used by the Hebrews for ceremonial washings holding from 20 to 30 gallons. So if they were 30 gallons, you had a lot of water there. And Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars up with water, I guess Jesus felt there wasn’t a sense in arguing with his mom. So he said, let’s go ahead and do this. Fill the jars up with water. So they filled them to the brim. And again, I think there’s a reason for stating that they were filled to the very brim of those jars. filling them with water to the brim kind of prohibits putting some kind of a concentrated Welch’s grape juice into the water. They were filled with water to the brim, nothing added. Then he told them now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. And they did so. And the master of the banquet would tasted the water that had been turned into wine. Now that’s the first time we hear that it had been turned into wine.”

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Announcer 0:12
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George Bob’s clear, timeless teachings on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus Christ will transform your life as you learn about God’s amazing grace. Let’s join Bob as he teaches us from God’s Word.

Bob George 0:28
Let’s all turn together to the second chapter of the book of John. Before we do, if you have your Bibles with you, you might just kind of go with me as we’re explaining a couple of things here. In the book of John, most of you know what’s called the Synoptic Gospels or the basic Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and then you have John, and you have different viewpoints of the gospel that is given by each writer. Matthew was basically writing from the standpoint of the Messiah having the legal right to the to the Messianic throne. In Luke, you have a detailed account of the life of Christ. Mark, you have more to the to the Gentiles. And then John comes along and writes out about 95 ad, at the very end of his life, about the love of God. And so what you have here, if if you’ll look down into the first 18, verses where we talk about in the beginning was the Word and how the Word became flesh. And then in verse 19, this is John’s testimony, when the Hebrews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites, to ask him who he was now, in between this time and prior to this occasion, is where John’s ministry of his baptizing people in the Jordan, and Jesus temptation in the wilderness, all of those were recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke in the early chapters of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, where John excludes that detail, Matthew, Mark, and Luke picks up that detail. And so after you have the accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John the Baptist ministry, and how Jesus went into the wilderness with the temptations, we now pick up in John, where you will, we’ve already studied about the fact of now the Pharisees and the Sadducees have sent people and priests and Levites to ask John the Baptist, who are you? And, and then so you see all through chapter one, the events taking place, following that event. Now picking up in chapter two. This is the third day really of Jesus public ministry. Now, as I said, in Matthew, Mark and Luke, you talk about John the Baptist, the preparation for Jesus, you talk about the baptism of Jesus and how that John the Baptist identified Jesus to Israel through his baptism, stating that the one who sent me to baptize told me that the one on whom you see the dove descend, this is the Messiah, the Promised Messiah to Israel. And so the reason that Jesus allowed himself to be baptized was to fulfill that prophecy, and to fulfill the law of righteousness in regard to that prophecy. And so we have all of those accounts that took place before Jesus actually started his public ministry. Now we’re picking up after Jesus or John, the Baptists identified Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and beginning to call some of his first early followers.

Then you have the wedding of Cana. And this was the first of Jesus miracles. So on the third day, it says a wedding took place in Cana in Galilee. And it says that Jesus mother was there, then Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. Now we have to assume because of what takes place following this, that Mary had some kind of a job at that wedding. She might have been the wedding coordinator has an example very likely that’s what it was. And that’s why she was there and made the invitation to her son and, and his friends who we know is his disciples. But it says that Jesus mother was there and Jesus in disciples had been invited to the wedding and when the wine was gone, Jesus mother said to him to Jesus, they have no more wine. Now his reply to me is really. I like it’s kind of humorous. Dear woman, why do you involve me? Why are you asking me this question? Oh, dear, I’m just a guest here. But obviously Mary was more than a guest. And he Jesus said, My time has not yet come. I think this is so indicative of a Hebrew mother. I think she in essence is like saying, I don’t care whether your time has come or not. He said to the people Do whatever he tells you. So he said to all the servants that were there, whatever he tells you to do, do it. I don’t care whether he says his time has come or not, DO what He tells you to do. Now nearby, it says that there stood six stone water jars, and the kind used by the Hebrews for ceremonial washings holding from 20 to 30 gallons. So if they were 30 gallons, you had a lot of water there. And Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars up with water, I guess Jesus felt there wasn’t a sense in arguing with his mom. So he said, let’s go ahead and do this. Fill the jars up with water. So they filled them to the brim. And again, I think there’s a reason for stating that they were filled to the very brim of those jars. filling them with water to the brim kind of prohibits putting some kind of a concentrated Welch’s grape juice into the water. They were filled with water to the brim, nothing added. Then he told them now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. And they did so. And the master of the banquet would tasted the water that had been turned into wine. Now that’s the first time we hear that it had been turned into wine. He tasted this wine. And he did not realize where he had come from, though it says the servants who had drawn the water knew where it had come from. And he called the bridegroom aside and he said, Everyone brings out the choice wine first. And then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink. But you have saved the best till now. Now guys, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. What he is saying is what happens at many parties. Yeah, bring out the good booze first. And then after they get drunk you bring the rot gut out on him and they don’t know the difference. And that’s exactly what he’s saying there is this is unusual for someone to do this. But it says it appears to me that what you’ve done is bring the best out at the end, which is unusual. Now in saying that, guys, they were not drinking grape juice. You know, the Scripture does not say Be not drunk on grape juice. Wherein is excess. It says be not drunk on wine. Now the miracle of turning the water into wine was not making grape juice. I said you could have done that with a cannon Welch’s concentrate. It was the fermentation. Wine to be wine has to be fermented, am I right or wrong? That’s why it says don’t put new wine into old wineskins you put wine in it has to ferment expand. So the miracle at the wedding feast was in the fermentation of the wine. And so you have people who are so anti drinking. And the Bible isn’t anti drinking, it’s anti getting drunk. It’s anti allowing something to control your mind except God. It’s altering your mind instead of renewing your mind. So there’s nothing in the scriptures that give glory to drunkenness in fact it condemns it. But in those days, many times wine was much more healthy to drink than water. And so we cannot deny the fact that there was wine that was served at the wedding feasts. Otherwise, why would he be saying most people, you know, save the rot gut or the end. So the issue is that there was wine being served. And we have people in some denominations that just absolutely would absolutely die at the thought that the Lord’s lips ever touched wine that was alcoholic. But the fact of the matter is, that’s what wine is. But he was not drunk. And there’s the key. Everything in moderation. The scripture says Everything is permissible. But not all things are profitable.

As an example, people will say in the serving of the Lord’s Supper, well then why don’t you serve wine there? I’ll tell you the reason why we don’t serve wine. I’ll tell you the reason like other people don’t serve wine, there are some people that are addicted to alcohol. And that would be about the most unloving thing in the world to do would be to tell a person, God wants you to take communion and then give them wine, something they’re addicted to, which would start them off on a path to alcoholism again. And so that would be a stumbling block, would it not to a person in this, and as we as we live today. But the nevertheless, wine was served at the wedding, in Cana and Jesus turned water into wine. Now, guys, that is not an excuse to go out and get hammered tonight. It is not an excuse to be an abuser of alcohol. an abuser of alcohol is abusing his own body is abusing his own mind. And he is ruining his family. As my daughter said, she’d never seen a family break up by drinking Cokes. But I’ve seen a bunch of families break up through the use of alcohol. And so ever giving credence to overindulgence of alcohol is not biblical in any way, shape, or form. And if people, those of you and me who are sitting out there who think that sit down and drinking a bottle of wine at night, is moderation. Something’s wrong with your moderation. And yet there are Christians who do that. I have been in settings in different people traveling around working with different ministries, of guys sitting around and having beer in the afternoon talking about Jesus, I can’t do that. To me, it’s a stumbling block. To me, something like that is not consistent. I had a friend of mine who said he was in Las Vegas one time he came to Christ. And he was in Las Vegas sitting there with a martini, and one hand a cigarette and the other telling this guy about Jesus. And he said he looked down, he said, this is kind of inconsistent. And he realized that this doesn’t make sense anymore, that these are habits many times that are equated with the lost, but really don’t have any business in the habit of the saved. And I know that I’m meddling today. But I need to meddle, because there’s some people that need meddle. Because you’re not being a testimony to Christ Jesus drunk. You’re not being a testimony to Christ Jesus when you’re getting drunk, period. Having a glass of wine, a person wants to do that that’s between them and the Lord. And if you feel comfortable with that, you can do it. If you’ve look at it as a stumbling block, don’t do very simple. It’s permissible. You got to figure out is it profitable. But at any rate, I don’t think you had those problems back then Jesus turned water into wine.

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Bob George 13:55
Now it says this was the first of his miraculous signs. And Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed His glory and His disciples put their faith in Him. In other words, that was a miracle of such extent that they were able to say, maybe what John the Baptist said about this man, and identified him as the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, and identified the world as this is the Messiah, the Promised Messiah that was written through all of the Old Testament scriptures and promised to Israel. This is the man this miracle for some reason, and to some people clinched the deal. This must be the Son of God, or else he could not have done what he just did. Now he goes on to say after this, Jesus went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. Now they’re again, my friends. You see By the time Jesus started his public ministry, at approximately 30 years of age, his mother had other children. He went down to Capernaum with his mother and his brothers and his disciples. Now there are people who want to claim that Mary was a virgin, all of her life. And if that’s true, it’s no wonder you didn’t hear about Joseph any longer. You guys could laugh. So nothing wrong with that. And they’ll say, Well, no, when it says brothers, that means disciple. Well, you see this annihilates that idea. He went down with his mother, with his brothers, and with his disciple. And they stayed there for a few days. Now, folks, there are other passages in the scriptures that deal with the fact that Jesus had other brothers and sisters. If you want to take a look at some of those passages, because I think it’s important for us to see turn to Matthew 13:55.

When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there and coming to his hometown, He began teaching the people in the synagogue, and they were amazed. Where did this man get his wisdom? And these are miraculous powers. They asked, isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary? And aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? And aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things, and they took offense at Him. But Jesus said to them only in his hometown in his own house, is a prophet without honor, and he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

Okay, so there in that passage, you find out that he had four brothers and sisters. So you had brothers and sisters, it says that Mary was, had not been with a man until the birth of Jesus. So she was a virgin until the birth of Christ Jesus, still a virgin. And then after the birth of Christ, Jesus, being married to Joseph, they had sisters, Jesus had sisters, and brothers, turn to Mark 3:31.

Then Jesus, mother and brothers arrived, standing outside, they sent someone in to call him and a crowd was sitting around him, they told him, your mother and brothers are outside looking for you, who are my mother, and my brothers, he asked, then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, Here, my mother, and my brothers, and whoever does God’s will, is my brother and sister, and my mother.

Again, his brothers were outside. I wasn’t talking about Christian Brothers, you’re talking about regular brothers. Now, we also know something about his brothers, and about his family, and that is that they were not too fond of Jesus. On the other hand, how would you like to have had Jesus as your brother always doing right? He would have been frustrating to be around, wouldn’t he? And I think James probably experienced some of that, burn tube seven, one through six of the book of John.

After this, Jesus went around to in Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea, because the Jews there were waiting to take his life. But when the Jewish peace of Tabernacles was their Jesus brothers said to him, You ought to leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples may see the miracles you do. No one he wants to become a public figure acts in secret, since you’re doing these things, show yourself to the world, or even his own brothers did not believe in.

Turn to Mark 3:20 through 21. Then Jesus entered a house and again a crowd gathered so that he and his disciples were not able to eat. And when his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him for they said, he is out of his mind. And his mother and them, they thought that Jesus was insane. And when they, when they went to him, they said, We gotta get him out of here. It’s like he’s lost his mind. So and you know, I’ve been beside yourself is, you’re over here and we were beside yourself. We do know now that Jesus did have brothers and sisters. And we know that from the Word of God.

You don’t know that from tradition, you know it from the Word of God. And for people to deny that truth, again, is denying the truth of the Word of God, and hanging on to tradition that has been taught to them by their denomination, stating that Mary was a virgin all of her life. And when you make that kind of an error in regard to what is so obvious in the scripture, and stated so clearly in the Scripture, before long, you keep getting worse and worse and worse till today, in the Catholic denomination, she has been named as a co Redeemer along with Jesus. That is heretical teaching. To me anything that you look at the word of God, as obvious as that is, and do something else with it hinges on heretical teaching, not talking about people, I’m talking about the teaching. Many of you have been in that teaching in your life. And we’re taught that type of thing, until you read the Word of God, and you read the Word of God. And you realize that wasn’t true.

Now, it goes ahead to say that they stayed there for a few days. And when it was almost time for the Hebrew Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And in the temple courts, he found men selling cattle, sheep, and doves and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle, he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned the table. To those who sold doves, he said, get these out of here, I dare you turn my Father’s house into a marketplace. Now, guys, it’s always interesting to me how these kind of scenes are depicted in Hollywood. You first of all, you’ve got John the Baptist looking like a raging maniac. And you always seem just with wide eyes and just just ready to go bananas at any moment. And you always have that picture of John the Baptist. And then you have Jesus going through the temple, just like a wild man just tipping over temples and just like he’s getting ready to take on Rambo in the temple. It doesn’t say that it doesn’t say that John the Baptist was an it was some kind of a mental case. You said he was a man who lived out in the desert. There are many people who lived out such as that. It didn’t have him as a wild man. It had him as a man proclaiming truth, that this is the kingdom of God approaching Repent, and be prepared for the kingdom of God. In this particular case, when you’re in authority of something, you don’t have to be a wild man to get your point across. If you’re the boss, or you’re in authority, you don’t have to be angry and mad and vindictive, and mean in order to get your point across. But they always have Jesus going through like a wild man, I do not believe that this states that it says He made a whip out of cords in order to drive the sheep out. That’s how you drive sheep out. And he turned over the tables of the money changers. And I don’t think he did that in some kind of a wild outburst of anger. I think he went and tipped the tables over and no one said a word to him.

And he said get them out of here I dare you turn my Father’s house into a market. Now his disciples remembered that it was written a zeal for your house will consume me that was out of the Psalms. And then the Jews demanded of him what miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all of this? What authority do you have to be telling us not to sell? And not to do the things that we’re doing in this temple? What authority do you have for that? And Jesus answered them, Destroy this temple, and I’ll raise it again in three days. That really hacked off the Pharisees and the Jews. They said it’s taken 46 years to build this temple and you’re gonna raise it up in three days. But it goes ahead to explain that the temple that he had spoken off he was referring to his body. And after he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said, and they believe the scriptures and the words that Jesus had spoken. Now folks again, When Jesus was here on Earth, and it says that they believe the scriptures, what Scriptures, are they talking about Old Testament or New Testament? Well the Old Testament, it didn’t they didn’t like the New Testament one wasn’t there yet. But it does give the contrast between the Scriptures, the Old Testament Scriptures that had prophesied the fact of the coming Messiah, in fact that Jesus fulfilled over 600 such prophecies, and then it says, And the words that Jesus had spoken. Now, what did Jesus say to his disciple, he said, after I go, the Holy Spirit will come to you. And the Holy Spirit will cause you to recall everything that I communicated to you. And so Jesus was speaking the words that ultimately have been recorded today in the New Testament. And the Holy Spirit of God working through men is how the New Testament got into effect. They were basically the words and the wisdom that was given to the Lord Jesus Christ passed on to the disciples, and later on revealed to the Apostle Paul and to Peter and the other writers of the New Testament. Now, while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, it says, many people saw the miraculous signs that he was doing, and believed in his name, folks, this is so vitally important for us to get a hold of. He was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast. Many people saw the miraculous signs that he was doing. And it says they believed in his name now, would we not look at that and say, Oh, they’re saved? They believed and are saved? Wouldn’t we kind of think that? He says, Ah, no, I’ll keep reading. They believed in his name, but in essence, Jesus didn’t believe in them. Jesus would not entrust himself to them. They were trying to entrust themselves to him, but he said, No, I’m not going to introduce myself to you. Or he knew men, all men, and he did not need man’s testimony about man, or he knew what was in a man.

Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity, with Bob George. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We truly hope that today’s message has inspired you to walk a life of faith in the Lord, find more information online at shop.BobGeorge.net. There you’ll also find available CDs, DVDs, and bible studies available for purchase. It’s through your help that we are able to spread the good word of Jesus Christ. Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another and praise the Lord. Amen.