The New Wine .Part 1.

Joel 2:24-25“The threshing floors shall be full of grain;
the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
I will restore to you the years
that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
my great army, which I sent among you.(ESV)

 As we have welcomed the New Year with aplomb, it’s my desire that personally I get to lay hold of what God has for me this year and that I may not miss out on that new thing that he has set for me to behold. It’s my prayer too for you whose life usually tends to be on the runway that you will take off and scale new heights that you will experience the abundant life God has for you.

It’s however a tragedy how we can make resolutions at the beginning of the year with so much zeal and piousness and loose the steam almost immediately after the year sets out. This is so especially as the heat and pressure of the year sets in. If you are one of those who make New Year declarations every January only to stick at the same spot the following year you probably know what am talking about.

The promise in Joel 2 is one of the most profound promises found in the Old Testament.

For hundreds of years In Joel’s time the earth lie pregnant with anticipation of when the spirit will not only come upon a person but flood the whole world. When Jesus was in this world, there was something special about him; he brought with him presence, presence that was not there in the world before. That is something that was not readily available for the people in the Old Testament to enjoy. One of the marks of the Holy Spirit upon a land or in people’s lives is the overwhelming presence of God.

In the events occurring during prophet Joel’s time, there was a landmark national disaster as a locust plague had destroyed the whole of Israel’s food plantation; wine and grain. Joel (1:5, 7, 10, 12). In the midst of this impeding calamity Joel foresees and foretells of the restoration that will come. Joel does not only foretell (To foretell is to simply to predict a future event) about the impending restoration of the nation of Israel but also forth tells(To  forth tell is to speak words of wisdom, warning, rebukes or promises of God) about how God will pour out his spirit on both the young and the old. Vs. 28.

Before this he talks about the threshing floor being full of grain and the vats overflowing with wine. Wine in the bible is used to describe the Holy Spirit. It’s the new wine that Jesus was talking about that we don’t put new wine in old wine skin.(Mat 9:17,Mark 2:22,Luke 5:37) When Jesus  miraculously turns water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee (John 2) it symbolizes the advent of the new covenant which Jesus came and inaugurated by his ministry but it wasn’t until his death and resurrection that his spirit was outpoured to all(Acts 2)           

The bible tells us not to be drunk with wine (Physical wine) but to be filled with the Holy Spirit. (The New wine) Eph 5:18. The comparison is exciting; the insinuation here is that that intoxication that we look for in the physical wine, the spirit can fill us to the overflow… have you ever heard of “being drunk in the spirit.” The point I want to make is that we have the new wine of the spirit which is not as the old wine which runs out or intoxicates only for a moment.

The bible says that if we are in Christ, we are a new creation. The Old is gone and behold all has become new. (Kainos).. 2^nd Cor 5:17. Friends let us delve into the New that God has for us. The old didn’t satisfy, It was so temporal and perhaps it drove us to the brink ;it made us sweat and try to work our socks out, it was frustrating and it laid its weight on us , but the new wine, The Spirit outpoured on us and the one living in us. The bible teaches us about him that he reveals to us the things given us by God (1^st Cor 2:12).

I don’t know about you but I want to experience and love in the overflow. Jesus came and ushered us into something new greater and superior. I wil urge you to open up your heart and get ready for an overflow of the New wine this year.

A D I O S

In part 2 of the new wine, we will Contrast the New wine that Jesus talks about from the Old wine. What did Jesus mean when he said that we can’t put new wine in old wine skins for the old wine skins will surely burst out.