July 18, 2007

• Creation & Fine Wine: Part 2 - From Gopher Holes to Truth

  The last time we imagined a ridiculous scene of several groups of
  people being preoccupied with whacking pesky gophers with mallets in
  the attempt to get rid of them and never succeeding. We took the
  example of the “evolutionist/creationist” debate and showed that both
  positions were locked into “whacking their opponents” into silence and
  submission yet every attempt to do so has been unsuccessful and that
  each position comes to the table with an act of faith. Even those who
  would like to reconcile both positions, along with the cynics, exercise
  their own faith in their positions as well. The point of this example
  is that argument for argument sake is counterproductive and robs us of
  the time and perspective to truly look for the truth that is out there.
  I would never criticize a genuine search for the truth nor one helping
  someone to find it.

  With this scene in the backdrop, I mentioned that God has already
  answered this entire issue with an absolutely simple bit of wisdom that
  would have everyone sitting back and scratching their heads and
  praising the Lord God for His awesome ability to confound the wise.

  Let’s go to John chapter 2… we find Jesus is only in the “3rd day” in
  His public ministry… so its “in the beginning” of it so to speak… and
  pay attention as these are more than “puns”… let’s read…

  
  On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother
  of Jesus was there; and both Jesus and His disciples were invited to
  the wedding. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him,
  "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does that have
  to do with us? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the
  servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it." Now there were six stone
  waterpots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing
  twenty or thirty gallons each. Jesus said to them, "Fill the waterpots
  with water." So they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them,
  "Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter." So they took it to
  him. When the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine, and
  did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the
  water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom, and said to him,
  "Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk
  freely, then he serves the poorer wine; but you have kept the good wine
  until now." This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee,
  and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.  John
  2:1-11 (NASB)

  So you might ask...Mr. Vee, what in the world would a wedding and wine have to do with
  the evolutionism/creationism debate? Absolutely everything.

  This was Jesus’ “first sign” that manifested His glory. It was “in the
  beginning” of Jesus’ ministry that He did this. It is interesting that
  it mentioned it was on the “third day” that this happened.  However, I'm getting ahead of myself. What was
  this sign?  Let’s look closely here.

  The wedding feast ran out of wine and if there wasn’t going to be any
  more, it would be a disaster. There are several important people in
  this scene: Jesus, His mother, the servants, the headwaiter and the
  bridegroom. His mother commands the servants to do whatever Jesus says
  about the matter of fixing the problem. We’ll skip His dialog with His
  mother for right now and move right to the servants and Jesus.  He
  simply tells them to go get water and fill the waterpots used for
  purification which would total somewhere between 120 to 180 gallons of
  water, a considerable amount and very heavy especially when full. Jesus
  does nothing more than tell the servants to draw some out and take it
  to the headwaiter, who obviously ought to know something about wine
  since headwaiters are supposed to know this. One could only imagine
  what went through the servants’ minds as they had just lugged all this
  water to the six stone waterpots perhaps even splashing some it around
  while handling it thereby knowing it was water they were carrying. Yet
  they do what He said and the headwaiter’s response is extremely
  important.  He said something like this… to the bridegroom. “What? The
  usual practice is to bring out the good wine first and as people drink
  it and get drunk they won’t notice when you bring out the poorer wine
  later. Why did you wait to bring out the best wine last?”

  I have a question for you. By normal means, how long does it take to
  make wine? I don’t mean just the fermentation process. I am talking
  about gathering the grapes (if they are in season) since they didn’t
  have enough for that sort of quantity of wine on hand, squeezing out the juice,
  collecting it and mixing it and allowing it to then ferment. Some of
  the best wines out there literally take years to mature and they are very
  rare. In the very first miracle Jesus ever did, “in the beginning” so
  to speak, Jesus made extremely fine wine in perhaps the time it took to
  take the ladle to the headwaiter or even less.  We would call this a
  miracle. While it is, let’s look at it more closely.

  From this account, we now know that making wine can take two different
  processes. The rain can hit the soil where grape vines are grown and
  over time produces grapes which will produce juice that will enter the
  whole process to become wine. This is the long process, the normal one
  we understand. Alternatively, Jesus, who in the beginning created the
  whole process of winemaking in the first place, knew the exact
  formulation and knew the exact chemical composition of the liquid to
  perfectly age it in seconds to create the finest of wine.

  If Jesus could do this, then it stands to reason that it is possible to create anything in a moment of time if God is doing it…
  even to the point of aging the creation and placing it at a certain
  intended maturity in order that everything would proceed in an orderly
  fashion. In fact, just as Jesus knew the exact formulation of wine and
  how to precisely age it to make it of such wonderful quality that an
  experienced wine taster would be amazed, is it so impossible to think
  that God could have make a universe that would be fully “aged” as if it
  had been around a million or even a billion years?

  Let me take it one step further. If our scientists are telling us that
  it most assuredly had to have taken millions and billions of years to
  have created the universe including this world in particular, isn’t it
  obvious that they are unwittingly praising God for His ability to make
  such a complex creation like this in only a few days?  Do not criticize
  them. They are telling you the truth … of how long it would take if God
  had wanted to slowly age the world as if we would make wine the usual
  way.  Where the scientists go wrong is that they will not acknowledge
  that the creation of the universe and this world could have been any
  other way than what they conceive… a slow natural process.  Never mind
  all the contradictions inherent in a slow development… and there are
  many.  The lie they tell themselves is that “if there is a God at all,
  it could not have been done by God in any other way but slowly." Essentially, they are saying that there
  are no such things as miracles nor a God to do them.

  If that isn’t enough, we have another indicator that applies here. I
  have noted over the years that God doesn’t waste words. If the world
  had been created in a slow process as we might simply assume, He would
  not have wasted the words to tell us this.

  For instance, we know that when a man and woman marry and have
  children, we do not have to guess how the children came about.  There
  is a God ordained way that children arrive here on Earth. That is the
  normal way of things. God did not have to describe this in graphic
  details in the Bible. Yet when Jesus was born of a virgin, quite out of
  the ordinary, God tells us clearly about this. He makes it plain since
  it is not the normal way of things.  In the same way, He takes the time
  to explain to us briefly the manner of His creating all things in six
  normal days which would not seem to be the normal way of things.

  The bottom line is this.  Jesus’ very first miracle was making wine
  which is typically a time intensive process, in only moments of time.
  In this, He was showing us who He was.

  
  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
  was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being
  through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come
  into being.  John 1:1-3
  
  
  If Jesus, the Son of God, could make fine wine that fast, would it be
  so hard to believe that God could create all that we know in the world
  in six days? Why should we think it so short a time? How about
  wondering why God took as long as six days to do it? Personally, I
  think He was enjoying His work being artistic and wanted to take His
  time and enjoy the experience and make it “just right”. Why? It was His
  time. It was His creation and He was in no hurry at all.

  Before we close, for those of you who might be a bit perceptive, were
  the six waterpots symbolic for the six days of creation or something
  else related to purification and was the third day significant in
  making “new wine”, and what about the “wedding”?  You did notice that
  the headwaiter questioned the “bridegroom” about the wine. Is this why
  when His mother asked him about the wine that He answers His mother the
  way He does? I think so. This passage is simply amazing in its richness
  in revealing some of the most critical points in the entire plan of God
  in one setting. I love it when God does things like this…  So there you have it. God's answer in a place we wouldn't have expected it. Now we are free to figure out the rest...    Mr.Vee

  • 12:47 am
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