Marriage in Canaan, Chapter 1. As we left the end of Chapter 1, John was writing in a time frame of days. And as we come to Chapter 2, We find ourselves looking at that third day, and I probably talk about commentaries too often, but at the number of them that I looked at, nobody could really give me a good answer as to what it meant, this third day. Was it where it? fell in line with the rest of chapter 1. So, if you have your Bibles, the Gospel of John 2. We're going to read down through about verse 4 there, if you will. And start looking at this. And the third day there was a marriage in Canaan of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. And both Jesus was called and His disciples to the marriage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus said unto him, They have no wine. And Jesus said unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. If you will, let us pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, as we come before you this evening, Lord, we just ask that you'd hide us behind a cross, speak through the lips of clay. Lord, lead us, guide us, direct us. Lord, we just ask your blessing upon this service. Thank you that we've been able to come together, Lord, and to worship you in spirit and truth. Lord, once again, we just ask that you'd hide us behind a cross. Lord, speak through the lips of clay. The very words that you would have said for this hour. And we ask forgiveness of sin. In Jesus' name, in Thy will, and Amen. We have a calling of about six. In the last verses of chapter 1, we have about six of the apostles being called or coming to follow Jesus. Now we find, and as John describes here in verse one, on this third day, and I'm not going to try to explain to you how that fits into anything other than as John was writing chapter one, especially as he was closing it, he was giving a time frame of Jesus was doing certain things. And he describes this wedding in Canaan as being the third day. Now, whether I've got to say this, several writings said this was the third day after Jesus had been baptized. And I have a little bit of a problem with that because as Jesus was baptized as John in Jordan River, you remember, that was the 40 days and 40 nights that He was there alone without any food and water and so forth and tempted of the devil and all those things happened. The writer here is picking up from some other source, unless we're coming back to the time that Jesus was tempted by the devil, and all those things have come to a close, and he starts to calculate time from that era. But the point really is not so much the time. Here is the fact that Jesus is in Capernaum... Cana. It's a little small town there between Galilee and Capernaum. But what we find is that Jesus's mother was at this wedding. Now, was that why Jesus was called? There's a whole lot of speculation here, and I'm not very fond of doing that, but we kind of have to set the stage at the same time. Was Jesus' earthly family, Mary and Joseph, related to the people here that were involved in this wedding? And so forth. Scripture doesn't tell us, so let's not put too much weight to that as well. But also, Jesus and His disciples, those that were following Him, and I'm going to have to make a little bit of a distinction here, nobody has been called an apostle at this time. So they're simply disciples, which you and I as born-again believers are disciples and followers of Christ. So let's not go too heavy there as well this evening. But this is what we have. As we read to you in verse 3, I know I'm moving along a little quickly this evening, but when they wanted wine, The mother of Jesus said unto him, they have no wine. Jewish weddings. And we're rather lengthy, and when I say lengthy, we're not talking about a minister standing up before the bride and groom and talking for 40 minutes. We're talking days of celebration here. And it's up to the wedding party to provide the food, the drink, and so forth for this. So Mary, Jesus' mother, comes to Him and says, they have no wine. There's something missing in this celebration. And that brings us to verse 4 where a lot of folks, I don't know if you've heard it taught this way, that Jesus was really kind of condescending His mother and said, woman, what do I have to do with you? Apparently, and if you look over in the latter day, well, let's just go directly Matthew, Mark, and Luke all give the account. If you'll go to the crucifixion for just a moment, when Jesus was hanging on the cross, Remember, He said, woman, this is your son, and then said to John that this was your mother. Apparently, to refer to her as woman was not a derogatory remark. It was not disrespectful. I do not believe that our loving Savior would have talked to His mother in that mindset. And I don't think he talked to anyone that way on that matter. And so apparently this was an acceptable way of speaking in that day and time and in that culture. But the next thing, part of verse four, mine hour is not yet Now, I'm not going to take you to all the passages that are possible in Scripture. As a matter of fact, I'm not going to take you to any of them. I'm going to just bring some thoughts to mind. A number of different places. Jesus is, you know, this is time and that is time. There was, you know, I can remember when I was just a little fellow, In Christmas plays we used to quote Luke chapter 2, we'd rattle it all off. And all of these things, everything that is on the earth, everything that is done through God, through the Lord Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, is done in its proper And apparently Jesus is saying here that Mary or Mother, whichever you want to prefer to use here, it's not time for me to do this. It's not my time yet to do this. But I have to take you to verse five. His mother said unto the servants, whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." I've always found that kind of interesting. He says, it's not my time yet, but then she looks around at the servants and says, whatever he tells you to do, do it. Which brings me to an interesting thought. There's a message there, and I'll not get into it tonight. But as the servants of God, as the servants and disciples of Jesus Christ, we that make up the church should embrace. I'm getting to be kind of cantankerous in that way. There's way too many Christian folks that aren't walking as... and that's, yeah, somebody's going to say, Preacher, you're judging. Well, an apple's an apple and an orange is an orange. And your actions, as I've been told over the years, speak louder than words. Folks, we need to be about the Father's business. We need to be, as Mary told the servants, whatever He tells you to do, go do it. Don't be so reluctant. Jesus, as a young person, I know I repeat this verse way too often, but when He was down there in Jerusalem when He was just a youngster, He said, know ye not that I must be about the Father's business? There is a time and a place for all the things that I need to do, and I need to be about those things. And yet, Mom says, whatever He tells you to do, It would be about doing it. And church, we need to be following that same example this evening. And there were set verse 6, and let me start again. And there were set there six waterpots of stone after the manner of the purification of the Jews, containing two or three Franklins apiece." Now, I'm not going to get into that one. If you were of that culture and knew the measurements of that day, you could say. But basically, what we have here is six empty waterpots. We have six pots here that have been purified after the method that Moses had set down for the cleansing of items that were to be used in the temple, and so forth. And that's what they were. And folks, they were empty. Another message. Empty vessels that are prepared to be used of the Lord. Do what God would have you to do this evening. And these weren't new. I've got to say this. These weren't new pots. They'd been probably sitting around somewhere, knocked around, banged around. A lot like you and I, you know, when we were lost, we were knocked and banged around and so forth. But now, here we come in verse 7. And Jesus said unto them, fill the water pots with water and fill them up to the brim. The Word of God is water. The water of life. And Jesus instructs the follower, the servants here, to fill them up to the brim. Now, I can step back to the purification. There wasn't anything else in these vessels. They were empty. They had been cleaned. Folks, when we're saved, that old man needs to be cleansed. Put away. Emptied out. And let us be filled with the Word of God. up to the brim, not giving space for other things to be in our vessels. Now we come to what I call the fun part, verse 8. And He said unto them, Draw out now, and bear to the governor of the feast, and they bear him. draw out and bear it to the governor. Apparently there is someone in charge of the feast and he's the first one to get this, get what's drawn out of the, not to get ahead of myself, he was to get the first of what was drawn from these vessels full of water and bear it to the governor. And then, excuse me, when the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, he knew not hence it was, but the servants which drew the water knew, and the governor of the feast called the bagroom. and said unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine, and when men have well drunk, then they brandt which is worse, but thou hast kept the good wine until now." Obviously, this is the first miracle that Jesus has performed. I've got several things to cover in these few verses that will take me a few moments, but nobody in the wedding party, when they filled those pots up, I don't know where they were paying attention or not, but they didn't know what they dipped it up and brought it to the governor of the feast. No one had realized until that moment that a miracle had been performed. Nobody knew except the sermons knew that when they dipped water out of that pot and handed it to the governor, it was now wine. Now, I'm going to take a side trip with you. And you're going to have to make up your own mind. I'm going to throw some issues at you. And you decide if you hadn't already made up your mind. I've said under teaching that Jesus did not make wine. He did not make an alcoholic beverage. I'm going to stay out of the argument for the moment. I've also been portrayed that Jesus made jelly. And I'm going to say I've never seen anybody dip up jelly and put it in the dipper. Whatever was in this pot, well, water was in this pot, and whatever they took out of these vessels was dipped up with a dipper and taken to the ruler. So it had to be some form of what they would describe as wine. Now, whether it was alcoholic or not, you have to decide for yourself. It was Middle Eastern country, it was Jerusalem, or Cana, and things weren't preserved, they would spoil rather quickly. Once again, you decide, but I will also throw out this, and it's always kind of stayed in the back of my mind on this, that if you're in a society that doesn't abuse, you kind of got to think about how they would think of things. And how we think, yeah, we'd say, why, oh, that's terrible. The wine is terrible in mine and your eyes because of abuse and what happens to people that abuse alcohol. If you allow me, I'm going to stop there before getting any more deep. Let you decide from there what you think of the wine or not. Verse 11, this being beginning of miracles did Jesus in Canaan of Galilee and manifest forth his glory and his disciples believed. Now the disciples have got into the equation. They have seen and realized what had happened. They were aware that it was water that was put in the vessels. And they also realized from the witness of the governor of the feast that it is no more water, it's wine. And they realize there's a miracle here. And the thing is that Jesus has the power has the authority to change the composition of things that are in nature. He changed water into wine. It had to be, you know, those things were changed. And this dispels something that I have read and listened to over the years. is that Jesus, as a youngster, as a teenager, would do all sorts of things that would be miracles. He jumped off the roof of... I remember one time somebody believed he jumped off of a building just to prove that he could. Folks, bear with me, this is stuff I've read and I want to talk to your adults so you can understand. I've even heard that he would kill a bird or something so he could bring it back to life to prove to his friends and so forth. Folks, Jesus didn't do those kinds of things. There's no way. I mean, that would not bring glory to God in any form. That would just be a little boy that could showing off. That would sound like something Richard would do, not the Lord tonight. So, dispel any of those things that you might pick up along the way this evening. But by doing this miracle, His early disciples, who still had a question as to whether or not that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, was or was not. If you remember, we went down through chapter 1. John the Baptist came over to check. Some folks from up at the temple in Jerusalem came down and questioned whether or not that Jesus was as He was picking these six that He picked. Down in verse 47, along through there, Nathanael, they were asking the question, is this the Christ? Is this the Anointed One? for those that were in the listening and those that were in touch, if you will, it may be a better word to use, but those that were willing to see this man Jesus is the Messiah. This is the man that we can follow from this point forward. This is the man that we can follow as we go. And this is the only begotten Son of God. Now, we run into something interesting as we go on down through verse 24. It was time for the Jewish Passover in verse 13. Excuse me, if I may read verse 13. And the Jews' Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and found the temple, those that sold oxen and sheep and doves and changers of money sitting. And when He had made a scourge of small cords, He drove them out of the temple and the sheep and the oxen and poured out the changers' money and over through the tables." Now, I'm going to stop there for just a moment. This is an interesting place for this to show up, or an interesting fact that John recorded this, and Matthew, Mark, and Luke did not. They did not. And you're going to say, well, wait a minute, over in the 26th, 27th chapter, the 11th chapter, and so forth, He did. That was the second time. This is the first time. And John's the only one to record the first time that Jesus purged and cleansed the temple. He gives credit to justifiable anger. Jesus kind of got upset here. He got angry at what was going on. Let me read verse 16 now, if you would. And said unto them that sold doves, take these things hence, make not thy father's house a house of merchandise. The priests and Levites, the scribes, had so altered, manipulated the Mosaic law, It was against the law for any of these things to be in the temple. Now, you say, wait a minute, how did you get it? It's going in as a sacrifice. But apparently, these folks had herds of sheep and herds of cows and ox in the temple. And it was customary to exchange the money. When you give an offering into the temple, you couldn't use Roman money. You had to exchange it for the money that was of the temple. And all those things were permissible under the law, but it wasn't for profit. These guys had figured out a way that we had, like you and I here in the United States, if we had to travel all the way back to Jerusalem, it would be kind of hard to get an ox over there. It would be kind of hard to get a lamb over there. And obviously here in this country, we wouldn't have Jewish money. So we would exchange it or purchase those things needful for the service and the worship of the Lord and so forth. And all those things were accounted for. But here we have a situation now that they were making profit. from the lambs, a prophet from the bullocks, and from the doves, and so forth. As we look here in verse 16, he's talking to those that had the doves in my father's house, a house of merchandise. If you want to look in Matthew 27, I believe it is, there, He turned my father's house into a den of thieves. He called it for what it was. And as he overthrew the tables, cleansed out the temple, they were allowing people... You were not supposed... One of the other rules that they were breaking here was that you were not to travel through the temple. For me and you to be out this side of the door and go through the church and go down out the other door out there, no. If you wanted to go to the other side of the building, you had to go around it. You were not to use it as a pathway. It wasn't a street corner, if you will. In verse 17, Jesus has come in. I'm going to back cap here for just one quick second. We're at the Passover. So this is a very lucrative time because people are coming from all different parts of the country and so forth back to Jerusalem to do in the temple the sacrifices and so forth and the giving of the taxes and so forth that should come in. And in verse 17, and his disciples remembered that it was written, the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. I know I've got it written down here. Psalm 69. I'll turn there and read it for you. "'For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproach of them that reproaches thee are fallen upon me.'" They're writing psalms. He was foretelling that this was going to happen. You're going to turn my house into a house of thieves and I'm going to come down here and clean it out. There's coming a day that Jesus is going to, you know, we talk about the wheat and the tare, the sheep and the goats. You know, one of the interesting things about the wheat and the tare that makes me kind of keep myself on a, try to keep focus is that we're trying to get some tares out of the church so we don't tare up some wheat. The man said, no, don't pull it up. We'll sort them out in the harvest. And there's coming a day that the sheep and the goats will be separated. And who will be doing that? Jesus will do that. Jesus will be the one that separates the wheat from the tare. Which brings me back to something that I said a while ago. we think ought to be in church, and so forth, especially me. I need to be careful how I deal with those things that I don't pull up somebody's suite trying to get somebody to do what I think they ought to be doing. And Scripture tells us that Jesus will judge us. I'm not the judge. We are not the judges. So keep that in mind as we look. Now we kind of change gears just a little bit. It goes over to the Jew there in verse 18. He says, Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou didest these things? One more time. And it will keep going as we go through the Gospel of John. Who gave you the authority to do this? Just who do you think you are to come in here and override what we have put in place? Verse 19, Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and thou will rear it up in three days. But he spake of the temple of his body." Here at the early setting, and I'm going to say the third day into his ministry, I think it's where John was going to with this as Jesus began His earthly ministry, which would have been following the 40 days and so forth and the tempting of the devil. He says, you will destroy this temple and I will raise it back up. He's talking about His own death. He's already telling them that I must die, and you're going to take My life, or you're going to put Me on the cross, and I'm going to raise up again the resurrection. I'm going to raise up the third day. And as we're all well aware, that's exactly what happened. The third day Jesus arose. So they were talking physical, He was talking spiritually. Fleshly and spiritual. Verse 20, 21. Then said the Jews... I'm sorry, verse 22. Where I should be. Got lost again. Then therefore He was risen from the dead. His disciples remembered that He had said this unto them, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said. Don't you just love these little bits? I really shouldn't have used the word little, but there was these things being said by Jesus from the beginning of His ministry that it would take the three and a half years in His death and resurrection for the disciples, the apostles, to understand what He was saying then, as we say, hindsight's 20-20. But they understood it. And they understood the miracles of those things. Verse 24 and 25, and we'll hush up here this evening. It says, But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men. That's an interesting verse. In 1 Samuel 16 and 7, You and I look on the outside. Back to the wheat and the tares. We really don't know. We can only look and see what's on the outside. Jesus knows all men because He knows what's on the inside. He knows why we do what we do. He knows the motive of the heart. Verse 25, and it says, And need it not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man." He knew what we were made of because He made us. He knew what we thought. He knew how we thought. As we go through the rest of the book, the next time we come to it, we will begin to see that Jesus knew all about it. As you study this, you'll see Jesus was constantly answering questions that were in the mind of the Pharisee and the Sadducee before they ever asked the question. Because Jesus knows what's in your heart. He knows the intent of your heart.