This was a message written in the immediate weeks following my pastor’s tragic and shocking death, and preached to his congregation as a message of hope and healing from the Lord.
It was a sunny day in July when he decided, I have a few minutes between meetings, I will take my motorcycle out for a quick ride through the outskirts of town. After kissing his wife goodbye, he mounted his Goldwing and headed down the street. Only minutes later, rounding a well-known curve on the service road beside the Interstate, a truck crossed the center stripe and collided with him... knocked him from the motorcycle and under the moving truck.
Without making any sense to the humanity that loved him so dearly - the Lord chose to take him to his glorious reward. He was 51 and in the prime of life.
[These comments have been inserted for the benefit of the reader.]
Why do bad things happen to good people?
It seems as if life progresses so beautifully for a while, but then… seemingly out of nowhere… Bam! The gloves come off and blow after blow begin to pound upon you. Like the driving wind and rain without mercy and threatening as though it will never let up.
The Bible says well that it rains on the just and the unjust. While the words are true, to the hurting, this statement seems to lack a much needed substance at a time like this.
It would not be prudent to try to minimize pain or try to trivialize hurts. But I believe there can be an answer to the situation. There is a biblical explanation to the quandary we find ourselves in when trying to make sense out of the pains of life. It can be further understood through a study of “The Process of Wine Making.”
Within the Word of God the process of wine making is mentioned many times. The word wine is found hundreds of times. In Genesis chapter, nine, we learn of Noah’s ability to make wine. Throughout the Bible we find references to wine, wine-skins, winepresses, vineyards, and even Jesus mentions wine on many occasions. Jesus’ first miracle was making wine for a wedding party. And during his last supper address, He picked up a cup of wine and made a connection between it and his blood that would be shed.
Isaiah shows us of the Lord talking about his chosen people as His precious vineyard.
Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes....
(Isa 5:1-2)
The passage is a beautiful description of a husbandman who loved his vineyard. It was so precious to him that he went to great lengths to insure its success. The Lord called it his well-beloved vineyard in a fruitful hill.
He took special care to fence it for safety, gathered the stones out of the soil for a pure garden, and planted it with the best vines; he built a watchtower for protection, and then you will notice a part of the vineyard that seems to be mentioned out of place - the winepress.
The process used to obtain wine is not a mystery… you do not just let the grapes grow on a vine and then come back after a period of time to collect the wine. Wine making is a specific and time-proven process.
The simple steps of winemaking are as follows:
1) Pick ripe fruit;
2) Use a winepress to crush the juices from the grape;
3) Fermentation and purification.
There is a specific process that one must step through to get from the volatile fruit to a purified and stable wine.
From the first mention of the making of wine in Genesis, chapter nine, until today thousands of years later – without exception, to arrive at a drinkable and pure wine you must follow the same exact process as they used.
Step 1: Harvest Ripe Fruit
Ripe fruit is the result of growth and maturity. The only way blossoms become ripe fruit is through a process of time and patience.
The writer of Corinthians said: When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (I Corinthians 13:11-12)
It takes maturity to realize you may not ever get an answer on this earth. We must understand that to be mature we must realize that “we see through a glass darkly” or at best only “in part.”
Part of maturity is the understanding that we may never know the reasons and whys of life here on Earth. The word of the Lord says, Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5)
To trust is maturity.
The Bible says clearly that we only see in part what God is doing – but that never excuses us from trusting that he knows what is best for our lives. We never run away and stop trusting him just because we only understand a little of what is happening.
The proven process of winemaking takes time even when you lack a clear understanding of the circumstances that surround your life. There is still only one way to get a pure wine, and the exact steps and process must be followed. We must stay true to the process that we are in for only the husbandman knows the results he is working to achieve in you.
Step 2: The fruit must be pressed
In the process of winemaking the perfectly whole fruit is of no value. It must become broken, disfigured, and literally pressed away from itself before it can be of any use.
This is the part that does not make sense to the casual observer. People unfamiliar with the process of winemaking do not understand why a perfectly good harvest of fruit must be all but destroyed before it can be of use to become something more than itself.
This is the part where we want to jump out of the process.
It is my understanding that the bacterium that produces pure wine within the proven process is the very same bacterium that will completely destroy the whole fruit that becomes rotted on the vine or upon the ground.
That bacterium for us is life. The life that can destroy men and drive them to insanity is the very same life that produces great men.
The very same trials will either cause you to give up on the Lord, and discard him as a careless and heartless master– or they will drive you seamlessly closer to his bosom and bring you to the place of complete and total surrender.
Life happens to us all – I would rather have Jesus with me while he works me to perfection than to allow the junk of this world and the pains of life to completely destroy me.
The winepress will change you. You will not be the same when you come out the other side of this process.
At times like this we feel that we cannot take another ounce of pressure. The Lord knows what he is doing.
Paul encouraging the church in Corinth reminds them that “There hath no temptation (trial/proving/adversary) taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."
The great husbandman knows exactly what it takes to produce perfection within us.
Step 3: Fermentation or Purification
The final step in the process of wine making will let us know everything is going to be alright.
James, the brother of Jesus, writes “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."
After we have been through the winepress and into the stage of purification, we find ourselves patiently entire and wanting nothing. Once we have matured to the place where we can trust the Lord in any situation, we have a solid confidence that he is going to meet our entire need.
The book of Romans speaks of an interesting progression of truth: Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that [A] tribulation worketh patience; And [B] patience, experience; and [C] experience, hope: And [D] hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
It is popular in the day we live in to preach about “rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.” Anyone can do that, and be right most of the time, but it takes life hitting us hard to preach the other portion of this scripture, which is “we glory in tribulations also.”
There is a proven process of winemaking and the only way to come out on the other side of the process purified is to continue in the process until it is complete. One day very soon there will be a descent from heaven with a shout and those who have not leaned to their own understanding but in all their ways acknowledged the Lord, who are mature through time and purified by life and the blood of Jesus – who have trusted in the Lord through all manner of trials in this life and gloried in them, will find themselves face to face with the one who made us, and as the old song says – we will understand it better by and by.
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
(1Th 4:15-18)
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