They Have No Wine

They Have No Wine

by Reginald (Reg) Goff

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

I couldn’t help but think as we sang tonight. The song just fitted in beautifully with what I’d like to speak as a starting tonight. Of course, this great song, “How Great Thou Art,” hundreds of years old in its original score. O Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds Thy hands have made, I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, how great Thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, how great Thou art. I’m a great lover of nature, and when through the woods and forest glades I wander, hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees. When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur, as we can in Wyoming, and hear the brooks and feel the gentle breeze, then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, how great Thou art. But most of all, this is it. And when I think that God, His Son not sparing, sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in. But on the cross my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, how great Thou art. How great Thou art.

I want to come to the life of Jesus tonight and take one little episode out of it and see if we can’t find something in the secret of prayer. And in reading out of the second chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, beginning at the first verse and reading through 11. And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. And both Jesus was called, and His disciples, to the marriage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus said unto Him, They have no wine. And Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever He saith to you, do it. And there were set there six water pots of stone after the manner of the purification of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. And Jesus said unto them, Fill the water pots with wine, and they filled them up to the brim. And He saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. And when the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was, but the servants which drew knew, the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine.

When men have well drunk, then that which is worse. But thou hast kept the good wine until now. Notice carefully the next verse. This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth His glory, and His disciples believed on Him.

Most of the things that God does are silent. No one has ever heard God’s running of the universe. I have stood in the great western plains where you could see wheat for, well, as far as the eye could see. And on the western plains of Alberta, Canada, that’s a long, long ways. For there is the longest level street track piece of railroad track in all the world.

And you can look out across the horizon and see towns in the evening with the lights on 35, 40 miles away, on the flat level ground. You can see wheat growing there, tons of it, millions of wheat stems. And yet you might stand in the midst of all of that with the keenest ear that man could ever have, and he could hear nothing. Yet none of us, and I suppose not even a scientist or a mathematician, would ever dare to try to compute the amount of power that is taking to sustain and to make grow all of those thousands of acres of wheat. Solemnly. We go out in the evening, and as we did one evening here with some of our friends, and looked at the stars. When we begin to see stars, and when we begin to think of distances among the stars, the ordinary man’s mind, mine included, is simply lost about the second turn in distance and space. With all those working in beautiful symmetry, and all those working in perfect timing, don’t seem to make as much noise as one vanguard we pop off.

Most of the things that God does are silent to the ears of man. The growth and the sustaining of the universe. But we humans have a fallacy in our thinking because we have become enamored with the idea that when there’s a loud noise, much running and hurrying about, something’s being done.

Just the opposite to God. But you see, what’s that got to do with prayer? Because we often demand to see or hear or feel some human manifestation of the power of God when we pray, else we immediately conclude God isn’t doing anything about it, when God in reality may be turning the wheels of the universe to answer a single prayer of a single petitioner. And we sit idly by, thinking nothing is happening.

Christians must come somewhere along the line, and the sooner we come to it the better, to the place where we really believe that what Jesus said when He said, “Hitherto my Father worketh, and I work.” In other words, there were things going on that man could not grasp as they looked at Jesus. There were things that were tremendous in the eyes of God, and in the scales and in the measurements of eternity. And we utterly were ignorant that anything at all was happening. Now, wouldn’t it be wonderful if when a person gives their life to Christ, and has the born again experience and comes into the personal knowledge of salvation, that Jesus could come down in person so we could see Him, and use His vocal cords so we could hear Him, and say something like this: “Now, my child, you have become Mine. I’m going to go with you all the way. Every bit of this life. There may be trials. There may be hard times. There may be many, many things happen to you in confusing hours. But remember, son, nothing will ever happen at any time, nor shall any circumstance ever come your way, but what I will have adequate resources for that situation.” Now, wouldn’t that be wonderful if Jesus could actually come and say that in words so we could say, imagine the glow that would come all over our being as Jesus would sit on the side hill or on the other end of the log and talk to us just like that.

Well, you know, frankly, folks, that’s exactly what Jesus has done. That’s exactly what He’s done. For He wrote a little book. Not so little. But He has given to us, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, far more wonderful and weighty promises and far greater in their outreaches than anything I have said just a moment ago. Now, let’s look at the story of Mary and the turning of the water into wine. Mary was certainly one of the most wonderful women, if not the most wonderful women, that ever walked the face of this earth. Certainly, she was a woman who was willing to completely give herself to God without any reservations, utterly and completely.

She knew from whence Jesus had come. She, if the only one in the world, she knew that He was begotten of the Father. Whether anybody else at this time knew it or not, Mary did know it. She could still remember the words of the angels. She could still remember the angel of the dispatch to tell her all the miraculous things that were happening. For it tells us that Mary kept all these things in her heart. How could any mother, let alone Mary, ever forget the voice of God’s angels as he came and expounded to her things that have never been expounded to any other woman in all history? This was the beginning of miracles. You read that in the scripture. This was the beginning of miracles. And yet, Mary had found something before Jesus had proven Himself to be the miracle worker that you and I need to know in our ordinary, daily life. I do not know how Jesus knew, or Mary knew, enough to trust Jesus. I do not know that. I would guess that by the many things that happened in the home, by His life, by His attitudes, and by the things we have mentioned, that Mary somehow had gotten the place where she was willing to completely believe just exactly what Jesus said.

Now then, they had a feast. It evidently was a relative of Jesus, for He, His family, and all His friends seemed to have been invited. In those days, in that country, they drank wine instead of water because pure water was impossible to get in those days. Well, that’s the reason. It was impossible to get. And wine was more pure than water in those days. So it was in the feast, the wine ran out. And here’s where Mary comes into the picture. Someone came and told Mary. Why they told Mary, I don’t know. She must have been a close relative. Told Mary that the wine had run out. And I want to submit to you the most direct prayer I know in the entire Bible.

Mary simply turned to the disciples, or to Jesus, and said to Him four words. “They have no wine.” I would imagine that most of us wouldn’t feel we had prayed if that’s all we said. We’d want more explanation than that, wouldn’t we? We’d want a little more pressure by words. You see, again, a lot of things, a lot of words mean something to us. Not to Mary. “They have no wine.” I want to submit to you that the most simple, direct prayer in all the world was simply telling Jesus about a need. Not even asking Him to fulfill it. I want you to get the brevity of this tonight.

We, with our long prayers. “They have no wine.” Now, I submit to you that this also was intercessory prayer. Because intercessory prayer is simply prayer being prayed for someone else. Isn’t that right? Here was a need of someone else’s. And here was Mary making an intercessory prayer. Now notice a strange thing. Mary didn’t seem to even look for an answer. She didn’t ask Jesus whether He would or wouldn’t. She didn’t have to have an answer from Jesus. But she did expect something to happen. Simply on the merit that she had asked it. Boy, how simple can you get in prayer? Simply because she had asked it, simply because she had told Jesus of a need, she immediately believed that something was going to happen. Isn’t that tremendous? And I want to remind you again, this was His first miracle. So the scripture tells us. Verse 11 says, “This was the beginning of miracles.” Now then, I would like to say to you that Mary knew one thing. Oh, I would to God that I could write this upon my heart and upon your heart tonight, if you’d forget everything else I’ll say.

All they did, all she did, was simply tell Jesus of a need. That is the total, complete realm of prayer. Just simply showing Jesus a need. Now then, so few of us today would dare to do that. I’ve thought long about this. I’ve been amazed how simple Mary’s prayer was. I’ve come to a beautiful conclusion that gave me a great lift when I saw it. I hope it will help you.

Prayer was not a burden to Mary. Prayer was a privilege. How many times we pray because we know we ought to. Because through some way of reasoning we force ourselves to do it because we ought to. Mary did not pray out of a burden. Mary prayed because it was a privilege. It was an opportunity. I’m going to have to confess tonight, to be honest about it, that too often my prayer life has not been like this. You know, we have a strange, wonderful cult and it’s growing in size within the church. It’s the cult of the burden bearers.

“I have such burdens to carry.” And we’re weighted down with burdens, almost as though because we had burdens, it was a sign of holiness, a sign of being used by Jesus, a sign of being in the inner circle, a sign of being spiritual, when it is no such thing. The cult of burden bearers. How often we have prayed, hoping that something would happen. But honestly, as we looked at the difficulty in the situation, we have risen from our knees feeling how terribly difficult it was, and actually really not expecting something to happen at all. Now, when Mary said to Jesus, “They have no wine,” He gave an answer which wasn’t very nice, as we would look at it here.

He said to her, “Woman, what have I got to do with thee?” That would have been enough to send anyone of us scurrying to our best friend to get some comfort and consolation. Because we’d been rebuffed by Jesus. Not Mary. We, in our praying, often pray, and are simply crushed by our burdens after we have prayed.

Over and over and over again in our church, when I will go into someone, maybe a lovely mother who has really some burdens, and I will say, “Let us take them to God.” And into the lovely sanctuary we’ll go before that beautiful stained glass window of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane behind the altar. And there she and I will kneel and weep a few tears, tell God all about the problems, and say, “Now, Lord, we can’t do anything about this. You take it.” That sounds wonderful up to that point. And immediately we arise from our knees and start back down the center aisle. And before we’ve gotten halfway back, she is pouring out some more difficulties about the burden. And I turn to her and say, “Ma’am, I thought we left those at the altar.” “Oh, but you can’t forget those things.”

Maybe not. Maybe so. We go to the altar. We come to Jesus. We treat Him as though He did not care, as though we did not expect Him to do a thing about it. And though we prayed as a lovely gesture, we’ve still got to work it out ourselves. He didn’t care. An insult to Almighty God. And the finest people on earth, including myself, are guilty of that at times.

Well, if people can say on a garage, “The finest people on earth are our customers,” then I can say that too, can’t I? I want to lift up for you tonight that all of us can rise from the cult of burden bearers to the great place that Mary stood when she said, “Sir, they have no wine.” “Fellas, whatever He tells you, go do it.” Go back and sit down and have a big time saying, “What’s He going to do now?” Just having a high old time, seeing how you’re going to get out of that jam. Do you know that you can have fun in watching God answer prayers? You can weep and cringe and get nervous. And tight and tense until you’re no good to your family, to your husband or to yourself. Or you can let God do it and have the biggest time in the world watching how He does every situation different. I like to call that living on tiptoe. Full of expectancy. Did you ever see a kid come out of the bedroom on Christmas morning? With a tree about to be seen? He isn’t walking flat on his feet. No, sir. He’s running off on his toes. And you and I can learn to love God enough, to trust Him enough, to believe in Him enough, to believe simply that the moment we present a problem to Him, He is already working on the answer to that problem.

Now, how easy it is for us to talk out our hearts to someone we really love. You sit down with him and the greater the love, the greater the ease with which you will unburden the most inmost things because love will not hurt when they find out the worst about you. Love will not turn and rend you when you have unburdened your soul, even though it may be a dark picture. And when you love, you will be perfectly willing to unload the worst, as the Bible says, perfect love casteth out fear. If we could see Jesus as the scriptures depict Him, and as it’s so clearly told in this story, you and I would find it the easiest thing in the world, in fact, a joy, to come to Jesus and unload the worst about ourselves, the worst about our friends, the worst about any situation, believing that Jesus would take that burden from our shoulders and say, “Son, I’ll take this, run on about your business, enjoy that world I made for you while I get this thing done.”

Now, this kind of praying brings inner peace. And like Mary, we can begin to rest knowing that God is working on our problem. But I have heard much praying when it wasn’t much more than commanding God to get busy and do something.

He must love that. And this kind of prayer, my friend, will break your body physically. It will destroy every bit of peace there is in your life. It will even break your faith in God. Prayer of that kind will even break your faith in God. “Woman, what have I got to do with you? My time hasn’t come.” We wouldn’t have liked that, would we? But Mary, knowing the joy of the fact that she knows Jesus is going to do something about it, she doesn’t care what He says.

She doesn’t care what He says because she goes off and sits down and says, “Now, what’s He going to do?” She’s never seen Him turn water into wine before. She knew something was going to happen. “Whatsoever He says to you, do it.” Oh, what a message. The when, the how, and the why is all left up to Jesus. Isn’t that wonderful? The when, the how, and the why all left up to Jesus.

She didn’t try to tell Him when and how or why. Now, that’s not an easy lesson for you and I to learn. It hasn’t been easy for me, I’ll tell you that. How impatient we are when we pray to God. We come urgently imploring Him. Expect Him to move with thunder and storm and lightning and miracles.

And then when nothing happens like that, we feel that God Almighty has just plain let us down. We had planned to receive it a certain way. We had planned to receive it at a certain time. And when it doesn’t come the way we want, we act like pouting children. Say, “Well, I guess it’s no use praying after all. It didn’t help anything.” Without knowing it, our prayer, which should be a privilege and not a burden, actually becomes a struggle with God. Now, you wouldn’t say that, would you? You wouldn’t admit that, nor would I. But it’s the truth. Our prayer actually becomes a struggle with God, as though we’re going to persuade Him and force Him by some previous contract to come through.

My friend, this is the seat of anxiety in so many, many families. I want to show you that. For here is the key to faith in praying. I was troubled about faith. What is faith? Oh, you can buy books on it, and they’ll all give you some help. Take your money. What is faith? I was preaching about a year and a half ago to my own people, to my love. As I was looking out over a sea of faces like this, Sunday morning, my heart was pounding and saying, “Oh, God, I’m not getting through to this bunch.” I wasn’t blaming them. But I was just saying by their faces that I wasn’t getting through. I said, “God, what is faith? What can I tell my people is faith?” I was desperate. I really meant it. And into my mind came an illustration right out of our own family life, which has helped me more on faith than any book I ever read.

I have a son called Jim. At that time, he was getting toward the end of high school, getting into college. I guess he was in college the first year then. Not sure about that. But anyway, I took it out of his high school life. I could see Jim in his senior year wanting to go to a basketball game up the road at a little town called Grayball. And I could hear Jim coming to me as he would readily because we are pals and saying, “Dad, I’d like to have the car Friday night.” Now, this is Saturday, the week before Sunday. Let’s say it’s Sunday. He comes to me. “Dad,” he said, “I’d like to have the car next Friday night.” I said, “What do you want it for, son?” “Oh, Calvin and I want to go up to see the football game.” Well, that’s a half truth. You see, there’s two more in it. Two more girls.

And I know that Jim runs with a nice crowd and I know that Jim, that Calvin is a swell kid and I have no objection to them going and I say, “Okay, Jim, that’ll be fine. I’ll let you have it.” Now, watch what happened. Watch this carefully. Watch the movement. So, Jim, he’s quite delighted and he goes to the phone and he dials a certain number and he gets Calvin on it and in high school vernacular, he says, “Calvin, I’ve got the car for Friday night.” Now, he ain’t any such thing got the car for Friday night. He’s only got a promise.

Calvin says, “That’s swell. Who are you going to take, Jim?” “Oh, I think I’ll take Bunny tonight.” “Okay, that’s all right. I’ll take Patty.” So, Jimmy calls Bunny and he says, “I’ve got the car for Friday night. Bunny, will you go with us?” “Sure.” So, she gets her clothes all cleaned up and Jim gets himself all fixed up. All week long, these four people are walking around exactly the same as if I had handed the key to him on Sunday and given him the car and locked the garage and given Jim the key, which I hadn’t done. I only gave him a promise. But here are four people who live just the same as if it actually was or had come to pass. That is faith.

Unadulterated faith. Now, I can tell you why Jim could have that kind of faith. Please don’t think this in a sense of bragging. It’s the truth. Since Jimmy was a little boy, I made up my mind while he was just a little tad that if there was one thing I was never going to do to Jim, I was never going to break my word to him. That was one thing. Maybe he couldn’t do everything being a preacher’s son that some other kids did. Maybe he couldn’t have all the things that he wanted. But he was going to have a dad that when he said he could have it, he could have it. Period. No questions answered. Down through the years, Jim and I have grown like that. And I think if Jim were here tonight, and I wish he were, if Jim were here tonight, he’d stand up with all his six feet. And I’m sure he’d say to you, “That’s right.” And because of a trust built up between us, Jim was as sure that he had a car Friday night as if he had it in his pocket.

Now, I could never understand Paul before when he said faith is the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not yet seen, but I saw it that Sunday morning. It was clear to me then what Paul meant. The substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Now, this is faith, and I am proud to say that if anything less than that, Jim would do, I would be hurt. Supposing that Jimmy rose on Monday morning and came over to my office before I went to school and said, “Dad, can I have the car Friday night?” Well, he might get by with it once. The next time he’d come on Tuesday morning, I’d look at him and say, “Son, what are you trying to pull off? I told you could have that car Sunday. Get out of here.”

“Quit your worrying. You got the car.” I perhaps would say it that very way and you still didn’t have it. I’d get the bug like he had. Now, I believe that we as Christians and most of you have gone quite a long way in Christian experience. You wouldn’t be here. You have walked a long road up toward God or you’d never come to this camp. But do you have that kind of faith? Because that’s the kind of faith Mary had. “Whatever He says, go do it.” Jesus hadn’t yet said one word. He hadn’t flicked an eyelash. He hadn’t smiled at her and said, “Okay, honey, I’ll do it in a few minutes.” He hadn’t given her one thing of promise.

Jesus was known by His mother. Now I’m going to talk about family life for the few moments I have left. And let’s see how this works in daily life. Because it’s tremendous. Even if it is mine. I know I often say that but I was embarrassed myself.

About time he had a laugh anyway. I’ve been too serious. I was in a city in Illinois a few years ago in a school of prayer. And I was preaching about this faith in God and what God would do and how He’d answer your prayer and how I believe that the Bible teaches family religion and how I believe that you can dedicate your family to God and see every one of them under Christ. And I was really poor and all. I got down to that service that night and thought I’d made a pretty good home run. A lovely lady came up to me and looked at me. Disgusted like. And she said, “Do you mean all you said tonight?” I said, “Yes, ma’am.” Quite brave. Not knowing what is coming.

She said, “You wouldn’t if you had my kids.” I said, “Okay, tell me about your kids.” So she did. The story very briefly… She took quite a while but I’ll tell her briefly. The story quite briefly was she had two high school kids. A boy who was now a senior who was just raising the Dickens. He had smashed up three cars for them already. And he was out till three or four o’clock at night. He was getting in touch with the law and the police. They never knew where he was. He wouldn’t tell them a thing. And now, the little sophomore sister was starting to go with them on these escapades. Now that would make any mother’s hair turn gray. And I didn’t blame her for having a few gray hairs. She said to me, “What do you do with such kids?” I said, “Give them to Jesus.”

She looked at me and must say, “Well, I guess I’ve got a fanatic. I might as well end the conversation.” Not going to get any of her hair. I turned to her and said, “Mother, I believe exactly what I’ve said tonight.”

And I’d like to see you go to the altar with me because the church was practically all empty now and only the pastor remained and she and I, her husband standing outside the door wondering how his wife was getting along with me. And I said, “Let’s go to the altar tonight and dedicate those two children to God.” So we did. No sooner I got up than she started telling me worse things. I said, “Oh, wait a minute. We’ve dedicated those kids to God.” I said, “Do you know where they are now?” “No,” she said, “They’re out somewhere right now.” I said, “Well, that’s a wonderful time to start praying. Let’s go back to the altar.” So we went back to the altar and we said, I said, “You say the prayer that I say right after me. Dear Lord, don’t know where those kids are. They may be raising Cain somewhere. They may be in an accident. But I’m asking You to take care of those kids wherever they are and bring them home safe. Thank You, Lord. Amen.” She looked at me so funny. She must say, “You can’t do it that way.” Well, we did. Now I said, “Let me give you a little bit of advice.” I said, “You’ve been pouring out your wrath about your children and ordinarily, I wouldn’t blame you too much.”

But I said, “Do you realize the fact that maybe you are causing the kid to do this?” Oh! She just flew up. Man, lie. She wasn’t going to take that. I said, “Let me explain to you.” We sat down in the pew. I said, “Every time you see that daughter, and that son, you’re filled with wrath, aren’t you?” She said, “I can’t help it.” I said, “I didn’t ask you that. You are, aren’t you?” “Yes, I am.” Then I said, “Evidently, you are pouring out wrath even in your eye to those kids and letting them know that you think they’re so-and-sos.” “But they are.” I said, “I didn’t say that. You’re doing that, aren’t you?” “Man,” she said, “I guess so.” And I said, “When they come in about four o’clock and you finally go to sleep, you get up in the morning and all the time you’re cooking the porridge, getting the toast ready, you’re fuming inside because of what the kids didn’t come in like that and where they were and wondering where they were until you’re in a froth by the time they come down for breakfast.” She said, “That’s no lie.”

Well, I said, “You are making juvenile delinquents out of your children.” And she didn’t like that. So I had to do some more explaining. Now I said, “I’m going to give you a technique. We believe that God answers prayer. Do you?” She said, “Yes, I do.” I said, “All right. We made a prayer about those kids tonight. Do you believe God’s going to answer that?” “Well, I don’t know.”

I said, “I thought you believed in prayer.” “Well, I do.” But she must have said, “But my kids.” As if God couldn’t do anything with her kids. They’re too tough. I said, “I want you to go home tonight. Hurry off to bed. Don’t stay up. Get down in your bed with you and your husband by the bedside and say, ‘Dear God, I still don’t know where those kids are but take care of them and bring them home. Good night, God.’”

Go out of bed. And I said, “Don’t you lie awake. You go to bed. Go to sleep. Don’t worry a minute about them.” Two nights after that, she came in to meet him with her face like a rising moon. And after church was over, in fact, I had already preached. She was sitting down there glowing.

And I, after church, she made a beeline for me. I never did get halfway down the aisle. She said, “Preacher, it works.” I said, “What works?” I was going to make her tell. I knew, but I was going to make her tell. “What works?” She said, “My kids came in last night about 1230.” I said, “Wonderful.”

“Keep it up. Keep it up.” I had a letter from her a year later about Christmas time. And she said in her letter, “Dear Reverend Goff, you’ll never know what’s happened to our home. You’ll never know what’s happened to our home.”

You see, here’s the difference. I taught her, I didn’t, I missed one little point, I’ll give it to you now. I taught her a technique. I said to her, “Now, when you see those kids coming down in the morning, you just start thinking, boy, isn’t it going to be wonderful when those kids become Christian and start coming in early at night? Just smile all over and say, ‘Isn’t it going to be wonderful?’ You don’t want nothing to worry about them anymore. Just keep it up.” You know that in a week’s time, the boy came to his sister. Found this out afterward. In a week’s time, the boy came to his sister. And he said to his sister, “Sis, what in the world’s happened to Mom? She never jumps on us anymore. She never tells us to come in. She never balls us out. What in the world’s happened to Mom?” He says, “You know, she ain’t such a bad old stick after all.”

Those two kids began to do the things that Mom wanted them to do. On their own. Because her mother’s whole attitude changed to the children. I believe there’s somebody right in here tonight that this fits, or God wouldn’t have put it on my heart. Now then, I’m going to close.

The secret then of prayer is remembering who we are, first of all, children of God. We have a right to come to God. A right to come to Him. Second, I want to believe that God wants to help me. That He loves me. All you gotta do is look at the cross and you can see that.

Then thirdly, I am going to believe that God is immediately working on the problem when I bring it to Him. Without any agonizing. Without any screaming and yelling. Without getting a thousand people concerned about my big problem. Fourth, I’m going to remember who Christ is. Maybe that should have been first, but this is just the way I worked it out. I’m going to remember who Jesus is. You cannot remember in the scripture, in the stories out of the four gospels, of one single instance of any kind. That could even remotely be construed to be a part of the will of God. Where people came to Jesus, but what they got, what they came for. I’m going to remember that Jesus not only is the burden bearer, but that He is the very giver of life. And that He is the one who hung on the cross for me. That He really loves me.

Remembering then who He is. And remembering that He is evil. And believing that He is already working on my problem. I am going to start down the Thanksgiving road. And shout hallelujah. Before I ever see a thing. You can get happy before the gift comes. You can have Christmas early.

This is real praying. This is praying and expecting. Praying and expecting. “Jesus, they have no wine.” “Whatever He says to you, go do it.” And Jesus did it. Now that’s the sum total of that story, isn’t it? Can you take your family tonight and say to God, “Dear God, there are many things about my daughter-in-law I don’t like. My son-in-law, my children. Many things they do. I am lying awake at night just like the preacher talked about tonight at times. The dear Lord tonight, I am going to give my family completely into Thy hands. And I am going to claim them for Jesus’ sake. To be wonderful Christians. And I am going to have the time of my life watching how God wins them to Christ. And I will be there loving them all the way. And loving Him.”

That is real praying and expecting. And it is truly the prayer of faith. “Calvin, I’ve got the car for Friday night.” Is the key to faith. Let us pray. Loving Father. We love Thee tonight because Thou art this kind of a God.

And we love Thee tonight because You left these stories in the sacred pages that we could lift out and learn things out of our own hearts. We pray tonight earnestly that these who look up into the face tonight of the speaker may know of a shirt that God has spoken to them. And that homes may be reunited. Perhaps even some divorces reunited.

Perhaps some homes that are on the verge of breaking will never break. Because we take our hands off and our bitter tongue off. And our fighting for our own way. And our rights. And give that loved one to Jesus.

And unreservedly. Without putting our hands to that again. Father, in the quietness of our closing moment, may these dedications be made by scores of families. For we know how broken people are today. And we know how our hearts are torn by these very situations. For we see them every day. Bless these people, dear Lord, that they may learn the joy of expecting after they have prayed. And to watch with tip on tiptoe. For the very first sign that God’s plan is working. And that He is fulfilling our prayer that we have prayed to Him in simple trusting faith like a child. This we ask in Jesus’ precious name. Amen. Amen. What good will have you there from us? Amen.