Grace Bible Church
pastor Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
070320
God has a perfect plan for you. There are no coincidences in life. Everything happens for a reason.
John 2 = the passage where our Lord performed His first miracle; JOH 2:1-11.
This is going to be the beginning of the ministry of our Lord and approximately the first miracle of that our Lord chose to perform as He gets ready to begin His ministry in front of His friends, His family, His disciples.
This is the first time that our Lord refers to her as “Woman” in Joh 2:4, but not as His mother.
This is the mother of the humanity of Christ, it is not the Mother of God.
Although there are times when God the Holy Spirit acts as a mother to us, as we need to forget all the things that God the Holy Spirit has done in us and for us.
As God the Holy Spirit reminds us of the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in MAT 26:41 the Lord says, "Keep watching and praying, that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
It is God the Holy Spirit who places His hedge upon the believers and treats us with the honor and respect that we all need to function under. ZEC 2:5 'For I,' declares the Lord, 'will be a wall of fire around her, and I will be the glory in her midst.'
In MAR 1:8, we read from John the Baptist who treats us with the mother heart of God. "I baptized you with water; but He [God the Holy Spirit] will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
Mat 3:11, "As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
MAT 28:19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
1CO 12:13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free,
Maybe A day in the restoration process of Gen 1 and 2.
A day to watch as God restored the earth.
The very creation of man with the woman Ishshah.
To watch with Noah as the first raindrops fall and the ground floods, and any doubt in Noah’s mind is forever removed.
This is a promise from God Who cannot lie; Titus 1:2.
TIT 1:1 Paul, a bond‑servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith or the pistis of those chosen or elected of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness [eusebeia = living the spiritual life or living godly,
TIT 1:2 in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago,
Over 75% of the flood came from the waters below and not from the sky or the heavens above?
If you had the chance to watch the very fall of man, would you?
Watch as Moses carries down the tablets or the Ten Commandments from the mountains which were written on stone.
To See the Lord as a pillar of fire by night!
To see the reflection of the glory of God in the clouds in the daytime.
Would you watch as the Red Sea parts.
Watch as Moses gazes upon the promise land.
See David confront Goliath.
To be with Daniel in the lion’s den.
Be in the stable as the Lord enters the world in His humanity.
Watch as John the Baptist baptizes Jesus and hear the voice of God say “This is My son in whom I am well pleased. LISTEN TO HIM.”
To observe the crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension and then the session.
This would go along with our Lord’s plan for all believers who desire to respond to the Word of God.
Maybe in Heaven, the Lord will show all of the events and all the true meanings behind them.
Watch-out as the Lord unfolds the majesty of His deity.
From time to time, it’s nice to go back and revisit the accounts the Holy Spirit recorded for us through the writers, the apostles.
Try and examine what we learned which is another reason, why there is a certain comfort in the family when it gets growing in the spiritual life.
The plan of God still goes on in spite of all the arrogance that we live in.
Your concentration level was different.
Your ability to metabolize doctrine increases.
In each trip, through the Gospels, it is revealed by different sights and thoughts that one or all three members of the Trinity await the believer who has PVTD.
The miracles that were performed by our Lord. There were over 30 of them recorded for us, and I always found it interesting that seven of them were done on the Sabbath.
The Holy Spirit recorded seven of them to remind us and to announce to Jews that the Sabbath was complete, He was now here, He was now the real Sabbath, He will give man real rest.
There was a scientist who reportedly that he was asked for the definition of a miracle and responded with “A miracle is nothing more than a natural law that has yet to be discovered.”
All science belongs to God and all science does consist of God’s Laws! God is not limited by the natural laws of science.
Miracle: “Coincidence is a miracle where God chooses to remain anonymous.”
He is the Great I am.
JOH 1:3 All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
HEB 1:3 And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.
In ISA 44:24 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, #"I, the Lord, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself, And spreading out the earth all alone,
He is the exact image of the invisible God, the first‑born of all creation.
The first-born son was the son who received double honor as well as double blessing.
REV 1:5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first‑born of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us, and released us from our sins by His blood,
- The First-born would have the Rulership of the family.
TLJC does as the "Prince Ruler of the church."
- The Privileged One of the Priesthood.
TLJC is the Royal Priest after the order of Melchizedek whose reputation was one that stood against the lies of Satan and his kingdom of darkness.
- The Privilege One of receiving a double portion.
TLJC has two rulerships, Israel and the church.
Israel whom He rules as the Son of David.
The church whom He rules as the King of kings, etc.
If we look at the words in the New Testament that come from the Greek noun dunamis which uses God for miracles as we see the following:
(1) It is an act of a supernatural being who uses the Greek word for power which is dunamis used as the idea of a supernatural power.
The idea from the word dunamis is that there is a supernatural power that is involved in all of us.
The Greek word for sign is semeion which means a significant miracle or a sign of a significant event.
A miracle is an unusual and significant event which requires the working of a supernatural force and is performed for a particular purpose such as that of authenticating the message or the messenger; (semeion).
Where our Lord Jesus Christ performed and contained stories in the Bible which have New Testament comments and stories that have context, characters, plots, etc.
We want to see what the meaning was for the Jews who saw the miracles? The Jews needed or required signs, miracles, or the dog and pony show.
What was the meaning for the disciples when they saw the event, the miracle, the signs and wonders?
What was the meaning for the person or persons involved and finally what does it mean to me, or to you.
We look at the miracles to determine what truths they teach and then determine how the truths apply to us. Then of course we look to apply those principles.
There were something like 55 or 60 days of the Lord’s three-year ministry actually recorded, so there were certainly many more events that occurred, but not recorded.
In each miracle we will reflect a little, perhaps glean a few new insights, but for sure we will be reminded of insights and doctrines we have seen in the past.
Miracle 1: Turning the Water into Wine; Joh 2:1-11.
John has just presented Jesus as the Creator in Joh 1:3.
The wine had run out, that would have been a social embarrassment in that culture.
Mary knew who Jesus was, not only Who He was as her perfect earthly son, but She knew that He was the Messiah as well.
Mary may not even be her real name because she was a spiritual woman and the name Mary was attached to a spiritual woman or a title for a mature female believer; Luk 1:47.
Elizabeth was excited about Mary’s pregnancy not because John the Baptist leaped in her womb, but Elizabeth was excited for Mary who had become impregnated by God the Holy Spirit.
The noun translated “the baby leaped” is the Greek noun brephos (bref'-os); an infant; unborn; fetus; blastosphere, unborn infant.
JON 4:1, Jonah writes that the Lord had compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know {the difference} between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?"
Literally, “Woman, what do you have to do with your relationship with me?”
By addressing His mother as woman, it is for her sake that separation and detaching her from our Lord and He is actually distancing himself from her in a way.
When it is a term of respect, Mary was trying to get into the picture, so that it doesn’t look that bad.
As we have seen this in a clear statement concerning Mary as the mother of the humanity of Christ, but not the mother of our Lord’s deity.
Perhaps this verse indicates that His earthly existence is over and with it, the earthly mother-son relationship as well.
Our Lord’s Ministry has now begun, and with it His responsibility and His commitment to the Father and the mission He has been given by the Father.
This introduces the theme of "the hour" in the Gospel of John, that is the hour of the passion.
When our Lord gives the bread to Judas, he says His hour has come, and the unstoppable chain of events, have been set in motion that will lead Him to the Cross.
When He says here that His hour has not yet come, He is saying the time when He would be glorified has not yet arrived.
I was always kind of puzzled by the fact that right after He said that He did the miracle anyway.
Perhaps He is just pointing out that He will do things only according to His Fathers plan, and only in His perfect timing.
He doesn’t want human power to direct the believer, He wants the power of the Word, focusing in on the power of the Spirit; Zec 4:6.
Zec 4:6 “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, 'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the Lord of hosts.”
Nearby stood six stone ceremonial water jars. These jars could not be ceremonially clean unless made out of stone.
The number six is the number of man, but there are also many references to the number representing the work of God, (six days God worked and the 7th He rested, in Genesis).
The wine of course could represent His blood, which would now be the source of real purification.
No longer were the Jews to be cleansed by the water in the pots, but now they could be cleansed by believing upon the Messiah and His saving work upon the Cross.
He tells the servants to draw water and fill the jars.
He told them to put water in the pots first and then draw it out so that they would know that there was nothing in the pots beforehand.
This was part of the dog and pony shows that use gimmicks to deceive those who are members of certain congregations who deny the application of the Word of God.
There was no wine concentrating in the bottom of the waterpots which became wine when the water was added.
It removed all doubt that this was miraculous.
There is no hype in His miracles. In all of His miracles there is almost a distancing from the miracle event itself, so that we can focus on the meaning.
Notice that this was good wine too, the principle that we have seen many times: God saves the best for last.
He took the ordinary and made it extraordinary.
He took the natural and made it supernatural.
He took a crisis and brought forth a solution.
As the Messiah, Jesus did not have the first word at the wedding feast; instead, He demonstrated the Last Word. Jesus saved and served the best wine for a lasting impact.
"Appointment of the Ages" is upon us when once again Jesus saves and serves the best at the last.