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The New Wine

by Jerry Ousley  
11/06/2015 / Christian Living

I never did like the taste of strong drink. Because of that I never really experienced getting drunk. Now I'm not trying to paint a lily perfect picture of myself; I never did much drinking because we lived out in the country and I had no way to get to town where all my friends were so even though I wanted to be with them and experience all those things teenagers get into, I was really better off for it.

But one time I got a boy from school to get me a pint of something to drink. It was eighty proof Dark Eyes vodka. When I opened it the aroma reminded me of a real sweet cough syrup. I guess that's because there's alcohol in cough syrup. I thought, "This is going to be good!" So I up ended the bottle and took a big swallow. When I brought it back down I thought that I needed a dose of that cough syrup because I couldn't quit coughing! That stuff had nearly taken my breath away and chocked me! After that I threw the bottle away and never bought any more. I didn't like it and I didn't want it!

In Biblical times and still yet in several parts of the world, including the holy land, people drink a lot of wine. It seems they had old wine and new wine. Now I'm not going to get involved in the argument here as to whether the new wine was alcoholic or not. In the original language the same word is used for both. Some say that means that it was alcoholic and some say that it proves nothing but that the same word is used for grape juice. Since the Bible doesn't really define that for us I'm not going to go into speculation.

Instead let's just look at the scripture at hand. In Zechariah 9:17 we read how we are like jewels in the crown of God. We talked about the grain, how that it is the Word of God to our souls and like young men, we logically apply it to our lives and so thrive because of it.

The second part of this says that as grain makes the young men thrive, so the new wine makes the young women to thrive. Now I don't believe for a second that it's saying that the young men eat to thrive and the young women become drinkers. That isn't what the scripture is referring to here.

We mentioned that men face problems and situations normally in a logical way. Most women on the other hand look at things from their emotions. That isn't bad either. We need to look at problems not only logically, thinking of how we're going to solve the problem, but we need to feel the situation with our hearts from our emotions.

Now I'm not for an instant going to suggest that in our worship of God we let our emotions run wildly away with us. But on the other hand, it isn't possible to really experience God and His presence without our emotions being affected. We are going to feel something. Our salvation is not in the feeling; it is not in an emotional experience, but when we receive salvation from our Lord and realize what He has given us we can't help but become emotional about it.

I've always prided myself at not being affected with emotion during movies. I've seen women break down and cry while watching a movie. But since I've gone over the hill I find more and more my emotions being affected. I'll get up and go to the bathroom or hide my face to cover it up, but folks, quite honestly I sometimes get very emotional over a good movie. That's because as I get older I can identify with more situations and my heart is more open to these feelings and I have to express them.

The new wine represents our emotions. When we experience God we will learn from the Scripture logically. We'll want to know the answers to our situations and problems. But when we discover them, our emotions will also be affected as we experience the love of God. Our emotional experiences don't save us, but sometimes when we discover what God has done for us and what He wants to do for us, a good cry is just in order.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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