The Wedding at Cana (Cross References)

Introduction

This morning we covered several topics as we learned of Jesus’ first miracle

The ones we will discuss tonight include

Wine and drinking

Numbers in the bible

The concept of the Bridegroom and the Bride

Wine and Drinking

Whats the deal with drinking and wine?

it can be a hot topic for some

some consider it a sin and state that we should not drink at all

Some say it is fine and no problems with it

And some, as with what I agree with, find its ok in moderation

Maybe give my background on drinking before and after coming to the Lord

Wine

Wine was actually the most common beverage used by the Israelites of this day

Wine represented Christs blood to the early church and still does as we regularly take communion

And as we know after this morning, Christ first miracle was based on Jesus turning water into wine

Due to Israels location, drought, and contamination

there was actually a shortage of drinkable water

The water was often full of bacteria, viruses, and all kinds of contaminants

The fermenting of the grapes proved to make it safer to drink than water at times

Paul even instructed Timothy in 1 Timothy 5:23“Don’t continue drinking only water, but use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.” Reasons such as these make wine central to life in ancient Israel

In fact, there is only one group of people who are told to never drink wine or strong drink and that is the Nazarites

we see that in Numbers 6:1–4 “The Lord instructed Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When a man or woman makes a special vow, a Nazirite vow, to consecrate himself to the Lord, he is to abstain from wine and beer. He must not drink vinegar made from wine or from beer. He must not drink any grape juice or eat fresh grapes or raisins. He is not to eat anything produced by the grapevine, from seeds to skin, during the period of his consecration.”

The biblical view of wine is that it is given as something to delight in and blessing

Psalm 104:14–15 “He causes grass to grow for the livestock and provides crops for man to cultivate, producing food from the earth, wine that makes human hearts glad— making his face shine with oil— and bread that sustains human hearts.”

Ecclesiastes 9:7 “Go, eat your bread with pleasure, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart, for God has already accepted your works.”

Amos 9:14 “I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel. They will rebuild and occupy ruined cities, plant vineyards and drink their wine, make gardens and eat their produce.”

Isaiah 55:1 ““Come, everyone who is thirsty, come to the water; and you without silver, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without silver and without cost!”

Matthew 26:29 “But I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.””

So wine was intended to bless us right

And this can be used by those that abuse alcohol, but, theres a really good chance that Jesus drank wine on occasion

Because remember, he was a nazarene, not a nazarite

So… with that said, what is the other side of the coin

as we all know, that when wine, or alcohol is abused

See wine or alcohol in and of itself is not sinful

But, leave up to man and our sinful nature, to make it that way

See anything really, in when taken in excess can become sinful.

And what the bible does condemn is drunkeness and its effects

we see those warning in

Ephesians 5:18 “And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit:”

Proverbs 20:1 “Wine is a mocker, beer is a brawler; whoever goes astray because of them is not wise.”

Isaiah 5:11 “Woe to those who rise early in the morning in pursuit of beer, who linger into the evening, inflamed by wine.”

See us as believers are not to allow ourselves to mastered by anything.. except for Christ himself

This, unfortunately is where the rubber meets the road

1 Corinthians 6:12 ““Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything.”

2 Peter 2:19 “They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption, since people are enslaved to whatever defeats them.”

Scripture also forbids us from doing anything that will offend another Christian or encourage them to do something outside of their conscience

Right, so thats using your christian freedom to drink around a brother that at one point struggles with drinking

don’t do that.. we see that in 1 Corinthians 8:9–13 “But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone sees you, the one who has knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, won’t his weak conscience be encouraged to eat food offered to idols? So the weak person, the brother or sister for whom Christ died, is ruined by your knowledge. Now when you sin like this against brothers and sisters and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ. Therefore, if food causes my brother or sister to fall, I will never again eat meat, so that I won’t cause my brother or sister to fall.”

So what is my opinion, or recommendation

well I believe I just spelled it our in cross references

Drinking in small quantities

Abstaining from alcohol is a good idea

drinking in moderation is an good idea well

with the caveats we just pointed out

Personally I don’t have a problem with it

However, I personally for the most part abstain,

and this is due to the biblical concerns regarding alcohol and its effects, due to the easy temptation to consume alcohol in excess, and due to the possibility of causing a brother to stumble

Numbers in the bible

This is often referred to as Biblical Numerology

the study of numbers

The two most common numbers in the bible are 7 and 40

The number 7 is often called Gods number since it signifies completion, or perfection

Because, well God is the only one that is perfect and complete

The number 40 is understood as the “number or probation or trial”

lets think about

the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for 40 years

Deuteronomy 8:2–5 (This one is long so we won’t read it)

Moses was on the mount for 40 days

Exodus 24:18 “Moses entered the cloud as he went up the mountain, and he remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights.”

40 days in the story of Jonah

Jonah 3:4 “Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!””

Jesus was tempted for 40 days

Matthew 4:2 “After he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.”

there were 40 days between Jesus’ resurrection and the ascension

Acts 1:3 “After he had suffered, he also presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.”

A couple other biblical numbers of significance are 3

We see that in the trinity

days Jonah was in the whale

and days Christ was dead before his resurrection

We have the number 4 which is a a number of creations

we have the 4 directions, (north, south, east, west0

and the 4 seasons

This evenening lets focus on 7 since that was our number of completion this morning

Source, Got Questions.org

We see the command for animals to be at least seven days old before being used for sacrifice (Exodus 22:30),

the command for leprous Naaman to bathe in the Jordan River seven times to effect complete cleansing (2 Kings 5:10)

the command for Joshua to march around Jericho for seven days (and on the seventh day to make seven circuits) and for seven priests to blow seven trumpets outside the city walls (Joshua 6:3–4).

In these instances, 7 signifies a completion of some kind: a divine mandate is fulfilled.

Series of seven things crop up often in the Bible.

For example, we find seven pairs of each clean animal on the ark (Genesis 7:2);

seven stems on the tabernacle’s lampstand (Exodus 25:37);

seven qualities of the Messiah in Isaiah 11:2;

seven signs in John’s Gospel;

seven things the Lord hates in Proverbs 6:16; s

even parables in Matthew 13; and

seven woes in Matthew 23.

Multiples of 7 also figure into the biblical narrative:

the “seventy weeks” prophecy in Daniel 9:24 concerns 490 years (7 times 7 times 10).

Jeremiah 29:10 predicted the Babylonian Captivity would last for seventy years (7 times 10).

According to Leviticus 25:8, the Year of Jubilee was to begin after the passing of every forty-ninth year (7 times 7).

Sometimes, the symbolism of 7 is a great comfort to us:

Jesus is the seven-fold “I AM” in the Gospel of John.

Other times, it challenges us:

Jesus told Peter to forgive a wrongdoer “seventy times seven” times (Matthew 18:22, NKJV).

And then there are passages in which the number 7 is associated with God’s judgment:

the seven bowls of the Great Tribulation, for example (Revelation 16:1),

or God’s warning to Israel in Leviticus 26:18.

Speaking of the book of Revelation, the number 7 is used there more than fifty times in a variety of contexts:

there are seven letters to seven churches in Asia

seven spirits before God’s throne (Revelation 1:4),

seven golden lampstands (Revelation 1:12),

seven stars in Christ’s right hand (Revelation 1:16),

seven seals of God’s judgment (Revelation 5:1),

seven angels with seven trumpets (Revelation 8:2), etc.

In all likelihood, the number 7 again represents completeness or totality: the seven churches represent the completeness of the body of Christ, the seven seals on the scroll represent the fullness of God’s punishment of a sinful earth

And, of course, the book of Revelation itself, with all its 7’s, is the capstone of God’s Word to man. With the book of Revelation, the Word was complete (Revelation 22:18).

Wrap up this section

The concept of the Bridegroom and the Bride

As we quickly mentioned this morning, Christ is often referred to as the bridegroom

and us, we are his bride

But where does that come from, whats with the reference

we see a couple of OT passages that are fantastic

Isaiah 61:10 “I rejoice greatly in the Lord, I exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation and wrapped me in a robe of righteousness, as a groom wears a turban and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”

Jeremiah 7:34 “I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sound of joy and gladness and the voices of the groom and the bride, for the land will become a desolate waste.”

So what is a what a bridegroom is

Its a man that was just married or is about to be married

He is essentially the male version of the bride

In scripture the bridegroom is used as a metaphor for God, specifically, Christ, as we have already discussed

Jesus actually would refer to himself as the bridegroom, mostly in the form of analogies

for example Jesus was asked, why do Johns disciples fast, and yours do not? Mark 2:19–20 “Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the groom is with them, can they? As long as they have the groom with them, they cannot fast. But the time will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.”

This would make the disciples his wedding guests

And we also know that John the Baptist is the best man

we will see that in a couple of weeks in John 3:29 “He who has the bride is the groom. (this is referring to Jesus Christ and the church, his spiritual bride)

But the groom’s friend, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the groom’s voice. So this joy of mine is complete.”

Jesus also spoke of the bridegroom in parables

Notably in the parable of the 10 Virgins

Matthew 25:1–10 ““At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the groom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they didn’t take oil with them; but the wise ones took oil in their flasks with their lamps. When the groom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep. “In the middle of the night there was a shout: ‘Here’s the groom! Come out to meet him.’ “Then all the virgins got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise ones, ‘Give us some of your oil, because our lamps are going out.’ “The wise ones answered, ‘No, there won’t be enough for us and for you. Go instead to those who sell oil, and buy some for yourselves.’ “When they had gone to buy some, the groom arrived, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet, and the door was shut.”

Now, the bride of Christ

Remember, this isn't specific to one denomination, or one church but it is the entire body of believers throughout all of time

Throughout time???

That is a question we often asked, what about those that came before Christ? are they saved

and well the answer is yes, for those that believed… those that believed or had faith in the one to come, the one the scriptures pointed to,

those that had faith in the fact that salvation came from God

They were granted righteousness due to the belief and faith in the one that would come, just as we are granted righteousness in the one that came

off shoot i know, but it is none the less a question we will all have to answer one day.

So, we are all collectively his bride

We see this spelled out in

Ephesians 5:24–25 “Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her”

2 Corinthians 11:2 “For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, because I have promised you in marriage to one husband—to present a pure virgin to Christ.”

And what are to do as his bride

We are to stay faithful to Christ, as a bride and the groom are to stay faith full to each other

We are to stand up for him, as we would stand up and defend our spouse

We are to share the good news and invite others to the table

We are to introduce others to the bridegroom through our gospel witness, with both words and actions

Becuase as I mentioned early there is room at the table

And at the rapture, the church (us) will be united with the Bridegroom at the official wedding ceremony

where we will be forever in communion with him,

oh the joy and the rejoicing that we have to look forward to

Revelation 19:7–9 “Let us be glad, rejoice, and give him glory, because the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has prepared herself. She was given fine linen to wear, bright and pure. For the fine linen represents the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, “Write: Blessed are those invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb!” He also said to me, “These words of God are true.””

Revelation 21:1–2 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.”

Brothers and sisters, this life we are living with is just a spec in the wrinkle of time

we will hit some speed bumps

we will hit some snags

Sometimes it will be easy and most of the time it will be tough

But faith is the belief in things hoped for

And all of us, as believers have hope in the fact that we will one day eternally dwell with the bridegroom at the eternal wedding feast where all sin and evil and things of this world will pass away