How does sitting under one’s own vine picture the wonderful World Tomorrow?
About 10-12 years ago, I decided to grow my own grapes, to get a taste of the Kingdom of God. I would like to share with you some lessons I have learned raising grapes.
Where I live, in Wyoming, it is difficult to grow
anything. Wyoming is in the western United States, and is the least populated
state. In our frigid winters, the temperature sometimes drops to minus 40
degrees Fahrenheit. However, a special variety of purple grapes can survive
our freezing cold winters.
I planted several young grape plants in mid-May. A few weeks later, we had a hard frost, and the leaves shriveled. However, grapes are hardy, and they came back. Lesson one: grape vines are very tough!
I hate to prune back my grapes. It seems cruel to the poor plant. However, the more I prune back the branches of my grape vines, the more my grapes grow. Christ is the vine, and we are the branches. In John 15:1-2, Jesus said, “I am the vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit He taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” Lesson two: we need to produce fruit. Lesson three: for us to be productive, God prunes and purges us by sending us trials and tests to make us hardy grapes for Him. Mercifully, God only prunes us back as far as we can take it.
Judges 9:13, says that “wine cheereth God and man.” God likes wine! So, I thought I would make some natural wine from my grapes. Grapes have a natural yeast on the skin. To make wine naturally, you do not wash the grapes. I picked and mashed the grapes, added sugar, and stirred them in a bucket for about a month. Then, I squeezed the pulp out through a thin cloth, and put the blood-like juice in open bottles for several months of secondary fermentation. Finally, I bottled and corked the finished product.
In January, I was enjoying the fruits of my labor, sitting under my own vine, looking forward to having wine for Passover. Then, suddenly, a terrible noise came from our basement, where I had stored my wine bottles. Pop! Pop! The corks were blowing off, and the precious wine was spewing forth like a geyser, onto the floor, making the carpet blood red! What a mess! Madly, I desperately tried to salvage my remaining wine. There was one step in the wine-making process that I had forgotten: before you cork your wine bottles, you have to stop all fermentation, by adding a little white powder. Lesson four: wine needs to be fully refined! Isaiah 25:6, speaking of the Millennium, says, “And in this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.”
When I pull out an old bottle, I discover that the taste is richer and better. Lesson five: wine gets better with age. Christians, who are pruned back by God, are to mature, Hebrews 5:14, “But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” Let’s allow God to refine us!
Matthew 26:29 tells us that Jesus Christ will not drink wine until He drinks it new with us in the Kingdom. He has been waiting 2,000 years to sit down and drink with us!
Recently, I picked 110 pounds of grapes from our seven foot cube grape arbor. By raising grapes and making wine, I can better appreciate and look forward to the Kingdom of God. May God send His Kingdom soon, so that everyone can sit under his own vine, and none will make him afraid.
— by Richard C. Nickels Ω