Better than Wine 2

II. But, secondly, CHRIST'S LOVE IS BETTER THAN WINE BECAUSE OF WHAT IT IS.

Let me remind you of some of the uses of wine in the East. Often, it was employed as a medicine, for it had certain healing properties.

The good Samaritan, when he found the wounded man, poured into his wounds "oil and wine." But the love of Christ is better than wine; it may not heal the wounds of the flesh, but it does heal the wounds of the spirit. Do not some of you remember when your poor heart was gashed through and through by the dagger of Moses, when you felt the wounds caused by the law, the deadly wounds that could not be healed by human hands? Then, how sweetly did that wine of Christ's love come streaming into the gaping wounds! There were such healing drops as this, "Come unto me, all you that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" or such as this, "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin;" or this, "All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men;" or this, "He that believes on him is not condemned;" or this, "Look unto me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." I cannot, perhaps, quote the text that dropped like wine and oil into your wounds; but I remember well the text that dropped into mine. The precious vial of wine that healed up all my wounds as in a moment, and made my heart whole, was that text I quoted last, "Look unto me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth." Wine made by man cannot be medicine to a broken heart, nor can it heal a wounded spirit; but the love of Jesus Christ can do this, and do it to perfection.

Wine, again, was often associated by men with the giving of strength. Now, whatever strength wine may give or may not give, certainly the love of Jesus gives strength, and strength mightier than the mightiest earthly force, for when the love of Jesus Christ is shed abroad in a man's heart, he can bear a heavy burden of sorrow. If he could have the load of Atlas piled upon his shoulders, and if he could have all the care of all the world pressing upon his heart, yet if he had the love of Christ in his soul, he would be able to bear the load. The love of Christ helps a man to fight the battles of life; it makes life, with all its cares and troubles, a happy one; it enables a man to do great exploits, and makes him strong for suffering, strong for self-sacrifice, and strong for service. It is wonderful, in reading the history of the saints, to notice what the love of Christ has fitted them to do; I might almost say that it has plucked up mountains, and cast them into the sea, for things impossible to other men have become easy enough to men on fire with the love of Christ. What the Church of Christ needs just now to strengthen her, is more love to her Lord, and her Lord's love more fully enjoyed in the souls of her members; there is no strengthening influence like it.

Wine was also frequently used as the symbol of joy; and certainly, in this respect, Christ's love is better than wine. Whatever joy there may be in the world (and it would be folly to deny that there is some sort of joy which even the basest of men know), yet the love of Christ is far superior to it. Human joy derived from earthly sources is a muddy, dirty pool, at which men would not drink did they know there was a stream sweeter, cooler, and far more refreshing. The love of Jesus brings a joy that is fit for angels, a joy that we shall have continued to us even in heaven itself, a joy which makes earth like to heaven; it is therefore far better than wine.

It is better than wine, once more, for the sacred exhilaration which it gives. I have already spoken of this; the love of Christ is the grandest stimulant of the renewed nature that can be known. It enables the fainting man to revive from his swooning; it causes the feeble man to leap up from his bed of languishing; and it makes the weary man strong again. Are you weary, brother, and sick of life? You only need more of Christ's love shed abroad in your heart. Are you, dear brother, ready to faint through unbelief? You only need more of Christ's love, and all shall be well with you. I would to God that we were all filled with it to the full, like those believers were on the day of Pentecost, of whom the mockers said that they were full of new wine. Peter truly said that they were not drunken, as men supposed; but that it was the Spirit of God and the love of Christ filling them with unusual power and unusual energy, and therefore men knew not what it was. God grant to us also this great power, and Christ shall have all the glory of it!

III. But now passing rapidly on, for our time is flying, the marginal reading of our text is in the plural: "Your loves are better than wine," and this teaches us that CHRIST'S LOVE MAY BE SPOKEN OF IN THE PLURAL, because it manifests itself in so many ways. I ask all renewed hearts that have been won to Jesus, the virgin souls that follow him wherever he goes, to walk with me in imagination over the sacred tracks of the love of Christ.

Think, beloved, of Christ's covenant love, the love he had to us before the world was. Christ is no new lover of his people's souls; but he loved them before the day-star knew its place, and before the planets began their mighty revolutions. Every soul whom Jesus loves now, he loved forever and ever. What a wondrous love was that ù infinite, unbounded, everlasting, ù which led him to enter into covenant with God that he would bear our sins, and suffer our penalties, that he might redeem us from going down into the pit! Oh, the covenant love of Jesus! Some dear souls are afraid to believe this truth; let me persuade them to search the Scriptures till they find it, for, of all the doctrines of Holy Writ, I know of none more full of consolation to the heart when rightly received than the great foundation truths of Divine Predestination and Personal Election. When we see that we were eternally chosen in Christ, eternally given to Christ by his Father, eternally accepted in the Beloved, and eternally loved by Christ, then shall we say, with holy gratitude, "Such love as this is better than wines on the lees, well refined."

Think next, beloved, of Christ's forbearing love the love which looked upon us when we were born, and saw us full of sin, and yet loved us; the love which saw us when we went astray from the womb speaking lies- the love which heard us profanely speak, and wickedly think, and obstinately disobey, yet loved us all the while. Let the thought of it ravish your heart as you sing,

"He saw me ruined in the fall,
Yet loved me, notwithstanding all:
He saved me from my lost estate,
His loving-kindness, oh, how great!"

Thus were we the subjects of Christ's electing love and forbearing love. Yes! but the sweetness to us was when was realized Christ's personal love, when at last we were brought to the foot of his cross, humbly confessing our sins. May I ask you who can do so to go back to that happy moment? There you lay at the cross-foot, broken in pieces, and you thought there was no hope for you; but you looked up to the crucified Christ, and those blessed wounds of his began to pour out a stream of precious blood upon you, and you saw that he was wounded for your transgressions, that he was bruised for your iniquities, that the chastisement of your peace was upon him, and that with his stripes you were healed. That very instant, your sins were all put away; you gave one look of faith to the bleeding Saviour, and every spot and speck and stain of your sin were all removed, and your guilt was forever pardoned!

When you first felt Christ's forgiving love, I will not insult you by asking whether it was not better than wine. Oh, the unutterable joy, the indescribable bliss, you felt when Jesus said to you, "I have borne your sins in my own body on the tree, I have carried the great load of your transgressions, I have blotted them out like a cloud, and they are gone from you forever!" That was a love that was inconceivably precious; at the very recollection, our heart leaps within us, and our soul does magnify the Lord.

Since that glad hour, we have been the subjects of Christ's accepting, love, for we have been "accepted in the Beloved." We have also had Christ's guiding love, and providing love, and instructing love. His love in all manner of ways has come to us, and benefited and enriched us. And, beloved, we have had sanctifying love; we have been helped to fight this sin and that, and to overcome them by the blood of the Lamb. The Spirit of God has been given to us so that we have been enabled to subdue this ruling passion and overcome that evil power. The Lord has also given us sustaining love under very sharp troubles. Some of us could tell many a story about the sweet upholding love of Christ ù in poverty, or in bodily pain, or in deep depression of spirits, or under cruel slander, or reproach. His left hand has been under our head while his right hand has embraced us. We have almost courted suffering itself by reason of the richness of the consolation which suffering times have always brought with them. He has been such a precious, precious, precious Christ to us, that we do not know how to speak well enough of his dear name.

Then let us reflect with shame upon Christ's enduring love to us. Why, even since we have been converted, we have grieved him times without number! As I have already reminded you, we have often been false to him, we have not loved him with the love which he might well claim from us; yet Christ has never cast us away, but still to this moment does he smile upon us, his own brethren whom he has bought with blood, and to each one of us he says, "I have graven you upon the palms of my hands. I have espoused you unto myself forever. I will never leave you, nor forsake you." He uses the most kind and endearing terms towards us to show that his love will never die away. Glory be to his holy name for this! Is not his love better than wine?

There is one word I must not leave out, and that is, Christ's chastening love. I know that many of you who belong to him have often smarted under his chastening hand, but Christ never smote you in anger yet. Whenever he has laid the cross on your back, it has been because he loved you so much that he could not keep it off. He never took away a joy without meaning thereby to increase your joy, and it was always done for your good. Perhaps we cannot at present say that the Lord's chastising love has always been sweet to us, but we shall say it one day, and I think I must say it now. I bless my dear Master for everything he has done to me, and I can never tell all that I owe to the anvil, and the hammer, and the fire, and the file. Blessed be his name, many of us can say, "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept your Word." Therefore will we put in Christ's chastising love among the rest of his loves, and say of it, "This love also is better than wine." We would sooner have the chastisements of God than the pleasures of the world; we would rather have God's cup full of gall than the devil's cup full of the sweetest wine he ever made. We prefer to take God's left hand instead of the world's right hand, and would sooner walk with God in the dark than walk with the world in the light. Will not every Christian say that?

Beloved, there are other forms of Christ's love yet to be manifested to you. Do you not sometimes tremble at the thought of dying? Oh, you shall have; and you ought to think of it now, ù you shall have special revelations of Christ's love in your dying moments. Then shall you say, like the governor of the marriage feast at Cana, "You have kept the good wine until now." I believe we have hardly any conception of what comfort the Lord pours into his people's souls in their dying moments. We do not need those comforts yet, and we could not bear them now; but they are laid up in store, and when we need them, they will be brought out, and then shall our spirits find that the Lord's promise is fulfilled, "As your days, so shall your strength be."

And then ù but perhaps I had better be silent upon such a theme, when the veil is drawn, and the spirit has left the body, what will be the bliss of Christ's love to the spirits gathered with him in glory?

"Oh, for the bliss of flying,
My risen Lord to meet!
Oh, for the rest of lying
Forever at his feet!
"Oh, for the hour of seeing
My Saviour face to face!
The hope of ever being
In that sweet meeting-place!"
Or, as Dr. Watts puts it,
"Millions of years my wondering eyes
Shall over your beauties rove;
And endless ages I'll adore
The glories of your love."

Then think of the love of the day of our resurrection, for Christ loves our bodies as well as our souls; and, arrayed in glory, these mortal bodies shall rise from the tomb. Oh, the bliss of being like our Lord, and being with him, when he comes in all the splendour of the Second Advent, sitting as assessors with him to judge the world, and to judge even the angels! And then to be in his triumphal procession, when he shall ascend to God, and deliver up the kingdom to the Father, and the Mediatorial system shall be ended, and God shall be all in all! And then to be forever, forever, for ever, "forever with the Lord," with no fear of the soul dying out, with no dread of the false doctrine of annihilation, like a grim spectre ever crossing our blissful pathway! With a life co-eternal with the life of God, and an immortality divinely given, we shall outlast the sun; and when the moon grows pale, and wanes forever, and this old earth and all that is therein shall be burned up, yet still shall we be forever with him. Truly, his love is better than wine, it is the very essence of heaven, it is better than anything that we can conceive. God grant us foretastes of the loves of heaven in the present realization of the love of Jesus, which is the self-same love, and through which heaven itself shall come to us!

IV. Now I must have just a few minutes for my last point, and that is, CHRIST'S LOVE IN THE SINGULAR, is a theme which might well suffice for half a dozen sermons at the very least. Look at the text as it stands: "Your love is better than wine."

Think, first, of the love of Christ in the cluster. That is where the wine is first. We talk of the grapes of Eshcol; but these are not worthy to be mentioned in comparison with the love of Jesus Christ as it is seen, in old eternity, in the purpose of God, in the covenant of grace, and afterwards, in the promises of the Word, and in the various revelations of Christ in the types and symbols of the ceremonial law. There I see the love of Christ 'in the cluster'. When I hear God threatening the serpent that the seed of the woman should bruise his head, and when, later on, I find many prophecies concerning him who is mighty to save, I see the wine in the cluster, the love of Christ that is really there, but not yet enjoyed. What delight it gives us even to look at the love of Christ in the cluster!

Next, look at the love of Christ in the basket, for the grapes must be gathered, and cast into the basket, before the wine can be made. I see Jesus Christ living here on earth among the sons of men, ù gathered, as it were, from the sacred vine, and like a cluster thrown into the basket. Oh, the love of Jesus Christ in the manger of Bethlehem, the love of Jesus in the workshop of Nazareth, the love of Jesus in his holy ministry, the love of Jesus in the temptation in the wilderness, the love of Jesus in his miracles, the love of Jesus in his communion with his disciples, the love of Jesus in bearing shame and reproach for our sakes, the love of Jesus in being so poor that he had not where to lay his head, the love of Jesus in enduring such contradiction of sinners against himself! I cannot hope to enter into this great subject; I can only point it out to you, and pass on.

There is, first, Christ's love in the cluster; and next, there is Christ's love in the basket. Think of it, and as you think of it, say, "It is better than wine." But oh! if your hearts have any tenderness towards him, think of the love of Christ in the wine-press. See him there, when the cluster in the basket begins to be crushed. Oh, what a crushing was that under the foot of the treader of grapes when Christ sweat as it were great drops of blood, and how terribly did the great press come down again and again when he gave his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, and hid not his face from shame and spitting! But oh! how the red wine flowed from the wine-press, what fountains there were of this precious sweetness, when Jesus was nailed to the cross, suffering in body, depressed in spirit, and forsaken of his God! "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" These are the sounds that issue from the wine-press, and how terrible and yet how sweet they are! Stand there, and believe that all your sins were borne by him, and that he suffered what you ought to have suffered, and, as your Substitute, was crushed for you.

"He bore, that you might never bear,

His Father's righteous ire."

Yes, beloved, Christ's love in the wine-press is better than wine.

Now I want you to think of the love of Christ in the flagon, where his precious love is stored up for his people ù the love of his promises, given to you; the love of his providence, for he rules for you; the love of his intercession, for he pleads for you; the love of his representation, for he stands at the right hand of the Father as the Representative of his people; the love of his union with his people, for you are one with him, he is the Head, and you are the members of his body; the love of all that he is, and all that he was, and all that he ever shall be, for in every capacity and under all circumstances he loves you, and will love you without end. Think of his rich love, his abundant love towards his people; I call it 'love in the flagon', this love of his to all the saints which he has stored up for them.

And then, beloved, not only think of but enjoy the love of Christ in the cup, by which I mean his love to you. I always feel, when I get to this topic, as if I would rather sit down, and ask you to think it over, than try to talk to you about it; this theme seems to silence me. I think, like the poet, "Come, then, expressive silence, muse his praise."

Love to me! Dear child of God, do think of it in this way; let me speak for you. "He loves me! He, a King, loves me! A King? The King of kings, HE loves me! God, very God of very God, loves me!" Strange conjunction this between the Infinite and a worm! We have heard and read romantic stories of the loves of emperors to poor village maidens, but what are these compared with Christ's love to us? Worms were never raised so high above their meaner fellow-worms as the Lord Jesus is above us. If an angel loved an emmet, there would be no such difference as when Jehovah-Jesus loves us. Yet there is no fact beneath heaven, or in heaven, that is so indisputable as this fact, that he loves us if we are his believing people. For this we have the declaration of inspiration; no, brethren, we have more even than that to confirm it beyond all question, for we have his own death upon the cross. He signed this document with his own blood, in order that no believer might ever doubt its authenticity. "Herein is love." "Behold what manner of love" there is in the cross! What wondrous love is there! Oh! then, let us have Christ's love in the cup, the love that we may daily drink, the love that we may personally drink just now at this moment, the love which shall be all our own, as if there were no others in the world, and yet a love in which ten thousand times ten thousand have an equal share with ourselves. God bless you, dear friends, and give you to drink of this wine! And if any here know not the love of Jesus Christ, I pray the Lord to bring them to know it. May he renew their heart, and give them faith in him, for whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. "He that believes on him is not condemned." His great gospel word is, "He that believes and is baptised shall be saved." May the Lord confirm this word by his Spirit, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

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