God Is  The Winemaker

. .

    "Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed.  Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will send unto him wanderers, that shall cause him to wander, and shall empty his vessels, and break their bottles" (Jeremiah 48:11-12).

    Moab was a county which is treated in this verse, both as a person and grape juice.  Moab, as grape juice, was placed by God, the winemaker, into a vessel for purification.  However, instead of becoming sweeter and having a pleasant aroma.  It just sit there with no change.  Therefore, God said, that He would break the vessel and pour Moab out on the ground.

    Jeremiah in this passage gives us a dynamic principle of God's seeing our circumstances from God's perspective.  In the course of wine making, the winemaker begins by plucking the grapes from the vine.  He then puts them into a wine press.  A wine press would be a shallow cistern hewed out of stone.  It would have a pole standing erect and braced on either side.  There would a long pole laid across the tops of the other two poles of the wine press.  There would be a rope suspended from the middle of the long pole.  A servant would take off his shoes, wash his feet, and would grab the rope and stomp on the grapes.  The juice and some pulp would come from the grapes and would run down a trough where the winemaker would catch it and pour it into a vessel.

    The vessel would be a porous stone vessel, possibly hewed out of stone, with a large bottom and a small mouth at the top.  The walls of the vessel would be hard and course.  The vessel would be cold and dark on the inside.  As the grape juice sat in the vessel, there would normally be a change in the aroma and in the taste.  We should understand that different grapes produced different flavors.  If the grapes produced good juice, the juice would become sweeter with aging.  The sediments (lees or dregs) were to adhere to the pours of the vessel and the wine became sweeter and would give a more pleasant aroma.  If the winemaker came and found that the juice had sufficiently changed, then the winemaker would pour the wine into another vessel for further purification and refinement.  The sediments were to be left behind in the first vessel.  The catch is that all grape juice doesn't respond the same way.  Some becomes bitter rather than becoming sweet.  At the curcifixion of Jesus, he was given vinegar mixed with gall or myrrh.  "They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink"  (Matthew 27:34). Myrrh (gall) may have been used to ease the pain, but the "vinegar" would have been soured grape juice or cheep wine.

    Moab, as grape juice, had been poured into a vessel, a circumstance.  However, Moab's scent and taste had remained the same.  Therefore, God said that He would pour out Moab and break the old vessel.

    By application of the Word, God plucks us from the vine of the world and puts us into a wine press.  One picture of tribulation is like putting a grape between your thumb and fore finger and squeezing. When tribulations come, what is on the inside of us comes to the outside.   Our lives, like grape juice, are poured into a situation or circumstance.  The circumstance is the vessel.

    When I was a teenager, my Aunt hired me and another young man to clean out an underground rain cistern.  Water that ran off from the roof of the house was caught in a rain gutter and went though a concrete box filled with sand and gravel to filter the water before it ran into the rain cistern.  The cistern was the shape of a large bottle and the sides were make of brick and concrete.  We lowered each other down into the cistern by a chain and pulley that was used for pulling buckets of water out of the cistern.  I distinctly remember the uncomfortable feeling of being in that cistern.  The walls were hard and rough. If I bumped into the side, I would get skinned up.  It was rather cool inside although it was a hot day outside. The inside was also dark except for the daylight at the top.  There was mud and slime on the bottom and sediments on the walls.  It felt really good to get out of that dark holeafter getting the cistern clean.

    This reminds me of the situations or circumstances (vessels) that God puts us into.  The walls are often hard and rough and seem to press in around us.  We may find ourselves in a cold lonely environment.  It may seem rather dark with only a small amount of light as we look up at the small hole out the mouth.  It may also seem like time has stopped as we endure the hardships.

    Our natural inclination may be to figure out some way to get out of this situation.  We may look for or try to build a ladder to climb out.  We may become quick to grab any ladder, even an unethical one or ungodly one to climb out.  If we are into the charismatic movement and faith movements, we may double up our fists and, in the name of Jesus, try to bust our way out. However, most of the time, we just get bloody fists, unless God has instructed us to bust out.  I counsel many people with bloody fists and who have become disappointed with God.  If we try to climb the walls which curve back over our heads, we soon find that we are falling back into the same old situations.  How many people find themselves in a difficult circumstance, discover a way which they think is a way out, but soon find themselves right back in the same situation again. 

    We need to remember that God is the winemaker and we are to be the wine.  He has poured us into this vessel.  He has a purpose in our being where we are!  His desire is that we become sweet wine giving off a pleasant aroma.  However, we have a choice!!!+  While we are in the vessel, we can become either sweet wine or bitter wine.  Remember, when Jesus was on the cross, the soldier gave him some gall, mixed with vinegar.  The vinegar was grape juice that had turned sour and bitter rather than becoming sweet. It had become a bitter toxicant. 

    If we choose to see that God is the winemaker and that we can by His grace become sweet wine, then we can turn away from the bitterness within us.  Then God will in time pour us out of the vessel into another vessel for further purification.  The sediments of jealousy, anger, blame, and bitterness should be left behind with the old vessel.  Along the way, God will point other people toward us and say, "See, there is some sweet wine.  Can't you smell the pleasant aroma.  Go, taste, and see if it is not good."  Then we can share the grace of God with those who are in similar circumstance as we have experienced.  We can tell them of God's faithfulness (I Corinthians 10:13) and that God desired to work all things together for their good (Romans 8:28).  We can tell them how, they too, can become sweet wine and become useful at the King's table.

    The Word says, "But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man" (I Corinthians 2:15).     ***** It is my responsibility to judge (discern), but not to be judgmental and become bitter.  Our real choices are: (1) To remain the same as Moab, (2) To become bitter wine, or (3) To become sweet wine and give off the fragrance of Jesus. 

     "And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.  Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:  And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you" (Ephesians 4:30-32).