I'm preaching tonight on the subject of alcohol.
Now the sad thing is that in 2007, most churches you go to, probably, I mean hopefully if it's
an independent fundamental Baptist church, they believe that drinking alcohol is wrong.
But unfortunately, when the preacher doesn't preach why it's wrong, when he doesn't teach
what the Bible says about any given subject, the next generation is going to lose that
truth.
You see, when a church says, this is wrong, but they don't explain why it's wrong, well
the kids grow up and they don't know why it's wrong, they just know it's wrong because the
preacher said it's wrong.
When they get older, they're just going to question and say, well, come on, is that really
wrong?
I mean, is alcohol really a sin?
I mean, is it really wrong just to drink one beer?
I mean, come on, a glass of wine with dinner?
What could possibly in the world be wrong with that?
Well, tonight we're going to look at the Bible and see what the Bible teaches about
this subject and lay a more solid foundation in your mind as to why alcohol is wrong and
just to show you why even one drop of alcohol entering your body is a sin.
And children, adults, need to be grounded on this subject and need to know why everything
we believe.
Know why you believe salvation is by grace or faith.
Know why anything is wrong.
Let's just mindlessly follow a set of rules because some fundamentalist somewhere said
that something's a sin.
Well, let's see it in the Bible.
But look, if you would, at this passage, Proverbs 23, 29 is where it really begins.
Verse 29, the Bible says, who hath woe?
Who hath sorrow, you know, sadness, depression?
Who hath contentions, you know, fighting, arguing, striving with people?
Who hath babbling, saying stupid things mindlessly, going on and on about nothing?
Who hath wounds without cause?
Who hath redness of eyes?
They that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine.
And look at the next verse, look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth
his color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.
At the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.
Now, look at verse 31 and you'll see something.
He says, look not at the wine when it is red.
So there is a type of wine that you should not look at, and there's a type of wine that
is okay to look at.
Do you see that?
Because he doesn't just say, look not at wine, period.
He says, look not at the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when
it moveth itself aright.
He says, there's a type of beverage, and I like to break things down to very simple terms
and really prove something from the Bible.
There's a type of wine that's wrong, and there's a type of wine that's not wrong.
There's a type of a beverage that's wrong, and there's a type of a beverage that's not
wrong.
Now, the type of a beverage that's wrong, according to the Bible, and let's say we don't
even know what it is yet.
We're just starting from scratch, we're just seeing what the Bible says.
God is teaching us that there is some beverage on the face of this earth that you shouldn't
look at.
Can we agree on that?
I mean, there's some kind of a drink somewhere, whatever it is, whatever you define it as,
there's some kind of a drink somewhere that's called wine that you're not even supposed
to look at.
Is that right?
Now, whatever you say that is, you must agree to that principle, that there's some drink
somewhere that's wrong.
Now, we can also see from this that there's a wine that's not wrong, because he says,
look not on the wine when it is red, when it moveth itself aright, when it giveth his
color in the cup.
Now, look at the effects of this evil beverage, whatever it is.
The Bible says in verse number 32, at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth
like an adder.
Look at verse 33, thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter
perverse things.
So, here's a drink that if you drink it, it makes you say filthy, perverted things out
of your mouth.
It's a drink that makes you see strange women, it makes you see ungodly women, it makes you
behold and look at and feast your eyes upon women that are not your wife, is what it's
teaching here.
He says, your heart is going to utter perverse things.
Your eyes are going to behold strange women.
Look at verse 34, Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or
as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.
They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick.
They have beaten me, and I felt it not.
It's a drink that will dull your senses.
He says, when shall I awake?
I will seek it yet again.
It's a drink that's addictive, according to the Bible.
He says that even though it's causing you woe, even though it's destroying your life,
even though it's giving you sorrow and sadness, even though it's causing contention between
you and your spouse, perhaps, or contention between you and your friends, even though
it's getting you into fights, even though it's getting you wounds without cause, even
though it's giving you redness of eyes, even though it's putting you through pain and beatings,
he says, when shall I awake?
I can't wait to wake up so that I can take another drink of this intoxicating beverage.
Now everything in the Bible is very black and white, isn't it?
Isn't the Bible so clear and simple?
There's heaven, there's hell, there's right, there's wrong.
Now tell me something.
If there is a drink that's wrong, if there is a wine that's sinful to even look at or
even taste, and if there is a wine that is not sinful and not wrong to drink, do you
think that God is going to make it clear and simple for us to understand which is which?
I mean, he must make it very simple for us to differentiate between a right beverage
and a wrong beverage.
Now those who believe in social drinking, I'd like to know where they draw the line
of what is the drink that we're not supposed to look at or touch or have anything to do
with.
Now you say, well, that's just talking about the hard liquor.
Define that for me.
What percentage of alcohol does something have to have before it's the drink you're
not even supposed to touch or look at?
Drink a little bit of the 3% alcohol, which is Budweiser, you know, 6% is your wine and
your Corona Extra and your hard beer, and then what is hard liquor could be anywhere
above that in huge amounts.
See, God is a clear-cut God.
Obviously when God draws the line, he draws the line between alcoholic and non-alcoholic.
It's so simple to see that, that there's a difference that everyone understands between
alcoholic beverages and non-alcoholic beverages.
It's a very clear-cut distinction that God makes between alcoholic and non-alcoholic.
Look if you would at Proverbs chapter 20, verse number 1.
Look back a few pages in the Bible and we'll see a few more verses in the book of Proverbs
on alcohol and then we'll get into something else, but look at Proverbs chapter 20, verse
number 1.
Wine is a mocker, and strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
See, wine will make a fool out of you, that's what it means by wine is a mocker.
A mocker is someone who makes fun of you.
Wine will make you act like an idiot.
Wine will make you look stupid in front of other people, is what the Bible is saying.
And strong drink is raging, it'll produce anger, it'll produce fights.
He says, and if you're deceived thereby, if you think that you can play with this serpent
called alcohol, if you think that you can take some of this beverage into your body
and not be enraged thereby, and not be mocked and made a fool of thereby, he says, you are
not wise if you are so deceived as to think that wine will not inflame you and destroy
you.
He says, wine will try to trick you and deceive you.
And he says, don't be deceived thereby, don't even touch it.
See, people get over-confident.
The devil tried to make Eve over-confident.
He says, you're not, you still about to surely die, go ahead and try it.
The devil will try to give you confidence to sin, and he'll try to deceive you into
sin and he says, if you let alcohol deceive you, he says, you're a fool, you're not wise
at all, given the results that everybody can see of what alcohol does.
Look at Proverbs 31, flip over to Proverbs 31, the last chapter in the book.
Proverbs 31, in verse number 3, the Bible reads, whoops, wrong page, Proverbs 31, 3,
the Bible says, give not thy strength unto women, this is Solomon's mother Bathsheba
speaking to him, give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth
kings.
It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine.
So the thing that destroyeth kings, in verse number 3, is alcohol.
Did you know that Alexander the Great died at age 29 by drinking himself to death?
Did you know that?
He drank himself to death.
Remember Alexander looked on all the world that he could see and he said he wept because
he had no more worlds to conquer when he took over the entire world?
Well he drank himself into oblivion, he drank himself literally to death at the age of 29
years old because he felt like he had nothing more to do in life.
And so that's what destroys kings.
You know many times kings, people who are rich, people who have power, they just drink.
That's all there is left for them because they have no fulfillment in their life because
they don't have a life that centers around the Bible and the things of God.
It's not for kings, O Lemuel, it's not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong
drink, lest they drink and forget the law.
Do you want to forget the Bible?
Do you want to forget God's word?
Pastor Anderson, how do you memorize so much Bible?
Because I don't drink.
That's one of the reasons.
You want to take a sip of Budweiser and forget a Bible verse the moment that it enters your
mouth?
He says lest they forget the law, it's going to happen.
If you drink you forget the law and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted.
Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish.
Now are you ready to perish because I'm not.
The Bible says whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
I'm not ready to perish.
I have eternal life.
The moment I breathe the breath out of my body for the last time and give up the ghost,
I'm going to be in heaven living on with Jesus Christ.
I'm never going to perish.
I have eternal life.
Give wine, give strong drink unto him that's ready to perish.
Give it to the unsaved guy.
Let him drink it.
It's not for Christians.
It's not for kings.
The Bible says he has made us kings and priests unto God and his Father in Revelation chapter
1.
And so we're kings.
We're not ready to perish.
And it's going to destroy kings.
They don't destroy the Christian is what he's saying about alcohol, or she is saying actually.
It's going to destroy the Christian.
It's going to make him pervert judgment.
It's going to cause him to forget the Bible and it's not for him.
And it's going to destroy him.
It's for the guy who's unsaved, who's of a heavy heart.
Give it to him.
Give it to the guy that's in the gutter.
Give that homeless bum.
That's who it belongs in the mouth of.
It doesn't belong in the mouth of God's people and children of God.
Let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more.
Is that the kind of life that God gives us, the Christian life?
A miserable, poor, wretched life?
No.
And so we don't need alcohol like the world needs alcohol-to forget their sorrows, to
drown their sorrows, to forget their misery.
But look if you would at Isaiah chapter 28, just a few books forward in the Bible toward the New Testament.
Isaiah chapter 28, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah.
Look at Isaiah 28.
The Bible reads in Isaiah 28, 7,
But they also have erred through wine.
The word erred there comes from the word error.
But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way.
The priest and the prophet.
Even the preacher is drinking.
And that's the day we're living in, in 2007.
I know personally preachers who drink.
And who laugh at you if you tell them that drinking is wrong.
I'm talking about Baptist preachers.
The priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink.
They are swallowed up of wine.
See you don't swallow the wine, it swallows you is what the Bible says.
They are out of the way through strong drink.
They err in vision.
They stumble in judgment.
For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness.
Isn't that the effect of alcohol?
So that there is no place clean.
Now let me give you some statistics about alcohol.
Because the Bible says in Matthew chapter 12.
Either make the tree good and his fruit good.
Or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt.
For the tree is known by his fruit.
He says if you look at the fruit of something you can identify the tree.
What's the best way to tell what kind of a tree a certain fruit tree is?
Well you look at the fruit on it.
If you see apples on the tree.
I mean good night you say well I know this is an apple tree because of the shape of the leaves.
None of us are that expert at botany.
To be able to look at a tree and say well of course it's an orange tree.
Can't you tell that the leaves are more elongated than that of the grapefruit tree?
We don't know.
At this time of year we don't know what anything is.
But when things are in bloom and when things are ripe.
Which is around here pretty much in the spring and in the fall.
It's kind of a dual harvest because we live in Phoenix.
You can tell it very easily.
Apple tree, orange tree, lemon tree and so forth.
The tree is known by his fruit.
What's the fruit of alcohol?
Well did you know that one third of all suicides in the United States are alcohol related?
One third of people who kill themselves use alcohol in the process.
Did you know that half of all homicides, half of all murders have alcohol involved in some way?
Did you know that 10,000 people are killed every year in alcohol related deaths?
You say oh it's September 11th.
Three times as much died alcohol every year, every single year.
Why don't we fight a war against alcohol?
Don't we fight a war against terror?
Let's fight a war against alcohol.
It kills three times as many people every single year.
75 million are harmed either directly or indirectly by alcohol each year.
For every heroin addict in America there are 15 hardcore alcoholics.
So which is the bigger problem?
Is it drug addiction or alcohol addiction?
The Bible says, not the Bible good night.
Drunkenness accounts for one third of all US arrests.
So we take one third of the police off the street.
The police that drive down my street every day and irritate me.
Take one third of them off the street because they're just busy rounding up a bunch of drunks.
Busy with a bunch of alcohol related arrests.
Do you know that one out of 20 drivers on any given Friday night is under the influence of alcohol?
One in 20.
When you go out and drive, when you strap your little kids into the car seat and you're driving down the road on Friday night,
one out of 20 people is driving drunk, is driving above what the government says is allowable alcohol, blood alcohol concentration in their body.
One out of 20 of them is playing Russian roulette with the life of your child because they're driving drunk and putting your life in danger.
One in 20 on any given Friday night.
Do you know that 28,000 of the 50,000 killed in traffic accidents in one year have an allowable blood alcohol concentration?
I mean, that's a lot.
We're talking about thousands and thousands of people dying every year from drunk drivers.
One third of high school students will get drunk at least once a month.
And based on my experience, I think that that's a low statistic.
That's very low.
One third getting drunk once a month easily.
There are 500,000 new alcoholics every year in the United States, which is more than the number of college graduates.
500,000 new alcoholics.
Six billion, 200 million gallons of beer are produced in the U.S. each year.
I wonder if that's why a serious crime occurs in the United States every 2.6 seconds.
I wonder if that's why a theft occurs every 4.8 seconds.
A burglary occurs every 10 seconds.
A violent crime occurs every 27 seconds.
A car or truck theft occurs every 29 seconds.
An assault or beating occurs every 51 seconds.
A robbery occurs every 68 seconds.
A rape occurs every 7 minutes.
A murder occurs every 24 minutes.
500,000 people in America are habitual lawbreakers.
Why?
We live in a country where alcohol falls like a river, where you can't look in this garbage can alley behind my house without seeing beer and beer cases in every single garbage can.
Beer is everywhere.
Go to the gas station.
There's more beer than soda pop.
In the gas station, where you go to put gas in your car, where you're driving.
Why would you sell beer at a gas station?
It doesn't even make any sense.
It's an automotive stop.
Here, let me put a beer in your hand.
And they don't just sell it in cardboard boxes.
They sell individual beer.
Here, put this beer in your hand and get on the road and start drinking and driving.
Bunch of idiots.
You go to the grocery store.
Beer aisles are huge.
You go to the health food store.
It's supposed to be healthy.
Sunflower Market.
I go there all the time.
Southern and McClintock.
This is a message brought to you by Sunflower Market on Southern and McClintock.
Anyway, you go to this health food store and four of the aisles.
Four solid aisles of booze in a health food store.
Really healthy, isn't it?
It's unbelievable.
Everywhere you go, alcohol.
Boy, if you're into professional sports, the whole stadium is plastered in alcohol.
And I'm not into professional sports, by the way.
I'm not into funding all this alcohol.
Everywhere you look, alcohol ads.
Beer commercials during the game.
Beer, beer.
Everything's beer, beer, beer, beer.
Budweiser, Budweiser, Budweiser.
You see, we live in a drunken country in the United States.
And that's why we live in a violent, rapist, murdering, robberist country.
Because of the alcohol that's causing these things.
Well, let me give you some reasons why alcohol is a sin.
And let me give you some of the main reasons why.
And some of this is a little bit repetitive because I preach on alcohol in other sermons.
But there's a lot of new material here as well.
But look if you would at Acts chapter 2.
And, you know, some people say that alcoholism is a disease.
And even the word alcoholism, the Bible calls it drunkenness.
And, you know, they have a euphemism for everything.
Alternative lifestyle.
The gays.
They're not gays.
They're queers.
Like the Bible says, they're strange flesh.
And I don't call it alcoholism.
I call it drunkenness.
That's what the Bible calls it.
Drunkenness.
If alcoholism is a disease, then it's the only disease that's bottled up and sold to people.
If alcoholism is a disease, it's the only disease that's advertised on television.
If it's a disease, then it's the only disease that you pay money in order to contract this disease.
And if alcoholism is a disease, it's the only disease that you must get a license from the government to spread this disease.
So you tell me if you think alcoholism is a disease or if it's a sin.
Now, look if you would at Acts chapter 2.
The Bible says in verse number 13,
Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.
But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and said to them,
Ye men of Judea, and all ye that dwell in Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words.
Acts 2 15, For these are not drunken as ye suppose, seeing it as but the third hour of the day.
But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, and it shall come to pass in the last days,
Sayeth God, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh.
And on and on.
And you see that people were accusing them of being drunk.
They were actually filled with the Holy Spirit.
Now the reason that they said they were drunk is because they were speaking in a foreign language
that other people understood that were there.
But the Jews did not understand because they were Jews
and these men were speaking foreign languages to people in foreign languages
and people were understanding the Gospel in their own language
and it lists 17 foreign languages there in Acts chapter 2.
And these other guys just heard all this, you know, ting-tong, tong-tong, you know,
and they're just like, you guys are drunk.
Listen to the sounds that are coming out of their mouth.
But you'll notice that nothing in the Bible is coincidental, incidental, or accidental.
And all throughout the Bible you will see a correlation between alcohol and the Holy Spirit.
The antithesis of the Holy Spirit is alcohol.
That's why the Bible says in Ephesians 5 18,
Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit.
Now what does the world call alcohol?
Spirits, wine and spirits.
Not the singular, capital letter, spirit of the Holy Spirit, but spirits.
Now how many spirits is the Holy Spirit?
He's one spirit, the Holy Spirit.
What kind of spirits do you think we're talking about when we talk about booze,
when we talk about liquor?
We're talking about unclean spirits.
We're talking about the devil.
And so the devil has a counterfeit for everything.
He has an anti-Christ.
Christians are looking for the second coming of Jesus Christ, which is coming someday.
But what's going to come first?
Well first it's going to come to the anti-Christ.
He's going to pretend that he is that second coming.
And he's going to deceive many, the Bible says.
And so he has a counterfeit Christ.
He's got counterfeit Bibles.
It's called the NIV and so forth.
The devil has a counterfeit of Christianity.
And it's all these various different denominations that don't teach that the salvation is by grace through faith.
And so he also has a counterfeit for the Holy Spirit.
It's called spirits.
Now, why is it a counterfeit?
Well, think about this.
Alcohol gives you boldness.
I mean, think about it.
People get bold.
They get courage from drinking alcohol to maybe chat up members of the opposite gender because they've got some alcohol in them.
You know, they feel a little more loose and they can...
That's why people drink.
They can be more likely to get in a fight because they're very bold, because they have alcohol in them.
Well, what does the Holy Spirit give you?
If you're saved and you're filled with the Holy Ghost, the Bible says you have boldness to speak the word of God.
Now, alcohol gives you boldness to do wrong.
The Holy Spirit gives you boldness to do right.
They both make you act different than you normally would act.
Think about this.
Under the influence.
Of what?
Of who?
Oh, of alcohol.
Well, what are you really under the influence of?
You're under the influence of the devil when you drink alcohol.
And so, both of them are very similar in that way.
Now, look if you would at Deuteronomy chapter 32.
I'm going to show you an interesting passage on this.
Deuteronomy chapter 32, and this is on the subject of the devil using alcohol.
It's sort of like his version of the Holy Spirit.
It's sort of his counterfeit for what we have, where we're just filled with the Holy Spirit, where we're 100% sold out to God,
where we're just filled with the word of God, where we have the boldness to speak things that we normally wouldn't speak,
to step out of our comfort zone and do things that we normally wouldn't do.
Well, the devil gives people that feeling when they drink alcohol.
But look at verse number 28 of Deuteronomy 32.
For they are a nation void of counsel.
Let's talk about the United States.
Neither is there any understanding in them.
Oh, that they were wise that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end.
How should one chase a thousand?
And two, put ten thousand to flight, except their rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up.
For their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.
So he's explaining that the only reason that the children of Israel would ever lose a battle is if their rock had sold them.
It says in verse number 30 of chapter 32.
And he says that the enemy's rock, their rock, is not as our rock.
Even our enemies themselves being judges.
For their vine, their vine is of the vine of Sodom and of the fields of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are grapes of gall.
Their clusters are bitter.
Their wine is the poison of dragons and the cool venom of asps.
Now, we're talking about the worldly crowd versus the godly crowd.
And I gave a little bit of the context of the chapter by starting to read in verse number 28.
But we're seeing a contrast in God's people and their rock and the world and their rock.
Now, who is the rock of God's people?
Jesus Christ, right? Jehovah God, the rock of our salvation.
Who is their rock?
They have a rock. Yes, they do.
He's called the devil.
All throughout the Old Testament you'll see that the heathen nations, the Philistines, the Moabites, the Amorites,
the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, they were all religious, all of them.
And they all worshiped false gods.
And most often that god was called Baal.
And Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter number 12 equates Baal with Satan.
He says, if Satan cast out Satan, how so then his kingdom stand?
If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out?
Study the Bible, 2 Kings chapter 1, where Baal Zebub is spelled B-A-A-L hyphen Z-E-B-U-B.
Baal Zebub, as Baal is Beelzebub, is Satan.
Very easy to see that in the Bible.
All the false gods, G-O-D-S, lower case G-O-D-S, every time you see the word God, lower case G,
always is talking about demons all throughout the Bible, talking about devils.
That's who they're worshiping.
They're not worshiping Baal, they're worshiping Satan.
They're not just worshiping Moloch and Astrot, they're worshiping devils.
The Bible says that they burnt incense to devils in their groves.
And that's a whole other sermon.
So who is their rock?
Well, their rock is Satan.
Okay?
Look at verse number 32.
He says, their vine is the vine of Sodom.
He's talking about their beverage that they produced, the wine.
He says, of the fields of Gomorrah, their grapes are grapes of gall.
That's poison.
Their clusters are bitter.
Their wine.
Whose wine?
The world's wine.
Their booze.
The alcoholic beverage that the world has created that they call wine.
Their wine is the poison of who?
Dragons.
Well, who's the dragon in the Bible?
Only ever will you find the dragon referred to as Satan.
Remember in Revelation 13, the dragon gave him his authority, talking about the Antichrist?
The Bible talks about the dragon, the dragon all throughout the book of Revelation.
The dragon with a capital D is the devil.
You say, why do the Chinese, why do they have all these dragons?
You know, you notice they have decorations of dragons?
Because they worship Satan.
This stuff is so simple, isn't it?
But people don't say it because they don't like to offend people.
But yes, dragons, and why do you think it's so popular in American culture right now?
You see people wear t-shirts with Chinese dragons on them.
Why? Because it's a satanic symbol.
Why do you think a movie just came out two weeks ago called Eragon?
And it was like a guy riding a dragon in a whole movie about dragons.
Why?
Well, because it's occultism.
It's worshiping Satan.
It's demonic.
Because the dragon represents the devil.
So who are the dragons?
Those are the devils.
Because the Bible uses the phrase the devil, the capital D devil.
And then it talks about devils, singular with a lowercase d.
So there's the devil, and then there's devils.
Well, there's also the dragon, and then there's dragons.
And the Bible says that their wine is the poison of dragons.
And the cool venom of asps.
Of course, that's a correlation to Proverbs 23,
where the Bible said that at the last it stings like an adder and bites like an asp.
And clearly, if you have an honest heart and you look at this,
you see the correlation here.
The cool venom of asps, we saw that in Proverbs 23.
It said at the last it, let's see, let me look at my notes here.
It said, at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.
A serpent, an adder, an asp are all snakes.
What else?
Well, the serpent, hey, the serpent's also the devil, isn't he?
The dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan,
all in one verse there in Revelation 20.
You'll see all of his names there.
And they took hold of the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan.
So you've got four names right there in one verse at the beginning of Revelation 20,
in verse number 2, I believe.
And so you see that booze, alcohol, wine is the poison of dragons.
It's the devil's drink.
It's the devil's spirits that he's using to poison, not your body,
although it does poison your body, he's using it to poison your mind
so that you'll see strange women, so that you'll utter perverse things.
You see, this is his modus operandi to put this beverage in your hand
and get you to drink it.
He says, now my foot is in the door.
Now I can start making him forget the law.
Now I can start having him under my influence.
Now, do you see how bad alcohol is?
You say, well, Pastor Anderson, I know alcohol is wrong.
Yes, I know you know alcohol is wrong, but do you know how bad it is?
It's one thing to know that something's wrong,
and it's another thing to say this is really bad.
Some people say, well, I know that the King James Bible is the Word of God,
and I know the NIV is bad.
But if you were here a few weeks ago when I preached my sermon on the NIV's attack on Jesus,
and I went through all the different comparisons,
you'll walk out of that sermon saying the NIV is written by Satan.
Now there's a difference there.
There's a difference between saying, well, I don't think the NIV is as good
and saying, boy, the NIV is straight out of hell.
And if you have knowledge, if you know the subject,
you'll know that it is straight out of hell,
and if you were here a few weeks ago, you'd know that.
I believe it was on December 24th at the evening service.
And so here you'll see that alcohol is a little worse than maybe any of us thought
when you say the Bible.
You'll see that it's the tool of Satan.
It is the poison of dragons, dragons.
Now let me show you quickly, and this is review.
I've mentioned this several times, but it's so vital to understand.
Look quickly at Genesis 9.
I'm going to show you the first time alcohol is mentioned just quickly.
Always, always I like to look at the first time something is mentioned.
Whenever a thought crosses my mind,
whenever just a lightning bolt hits me and I have an idea,
I always say, well, when is the first time that God talks about that?
Because usually God introduces us subjects
and tells us what he thinks about something right away.
And before I move on, I'm sorry, before I move on,
something else about Deuteronomy 32, you don't have to turn back there,
but remember how he was comparing all rock and their rock?
Remember how he was comparing their wine?
He kept saying, their wine is the poison of dragons.
Their vine is this.
See, there are two kinds of wine.
There's wine that God made, and there's wine that the devil made.
Does that make sense?
Two kinds of wine, clearly.
Remember, we saw that right at the beginning in Proverbs 23.
There's a wine that you shouldn't look at, and there's a wine that's okay.
Now all throughout the Bible, well, I'll get to that later,
but I just wanted you to see that correlation,
that there's their wine, and then there's God's wine.
But look, if you would, at Genesis 9, verse 20.
And Noah began to be a husbandman.
This is the first time wine is ever mentioned in the Bible.
Genesis 9, 20.
And he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine and was drunken.
First time anybody drinks wine in the Bible, they're drunk.
See that right away.
And he was uncovered within his tent.
So what did it lead to?
First, he drank wine.
It leads to drunkenness, and immediately it leads to nakedness, nudity.
Then it gets worse.
And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father
and told his two brethren without.
And Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it upon both their shoulders,
and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father.
And their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.
And Noah awoke from his wine, who was so drunk that he passed out,
unaware of his surroundings, and knew what his younger son had seen.
Is that what it said?
No.
And knew what his younger son had done unto him.
That's why in the next verse, and he said,
Cursed be Canaan.
A servant of servants shall he be in Israel.
And he goes on and curses him.
And that curse is carried out when the children of Israel
go into the land of Canaan and destroy the Canaanites.
And they were supposed to destroy all of them, and they destroyed most of them.
And so we see here that molestation, filthiness, occurs.
Homosexuality.
The first time that alcohol is mentioned, homosexuality is the result.
Filthy abomination.
You say, well, no, it just says he saw it.
Look, that's not even a sin between two men.
And I could prove that from the Bible.
I've done it before.
That's not even a sin, okay?
The sin is what he'd done unto him.
And that's why it was such a curse and such an evil act here.
Hey, that doesn't shed a very good light on alcohol
when the first time it's mentioned,
drunkenness, nakedness, nudity, shame, homosexuality,
filthiness, abomination.
It's horrible.
It's wicked stuff.
It's the poison of dragons.
Now, this goes hand in hand, of course,
and I talked about this in Habakkuk 2.
It goes hand in hand with Habakkuk 2.15.
Habakkuk 2.15 says, woe unto him, male pronoun,
woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink
that putteth thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also,
that thou mayest look on their nakedness.
Here we have a man in Habakkuk 2.15 giving alcohol
to another man to look on his nakedness.
Now, read verse 16, and I'm not even going to read it,
but verse 16 explains a little further.
This isn't just talking about seeing someone's nakedness, okay?
It's talking about a filthy act between two men,
which is commonplace in 2007.
I wonder if that's because alcohol is so common.
And so that, to me, when I read that in the Bible
in Genesis chapter 9 and in Habakkuk 2.15 and 16,
I want to run screaming in the other direction from alcohol
and say, ah, get me away from it!
Ah!
I don't want anything to do with it!
Get it away from me!
You say, I just want a little drink of wine with your dinner!
No!
What are you trying to do to me? Huh?
What are you trying to take advantage of me?
Get it away from me!
Don't offer me alcohol.
Don't you ever offer me alcohol.
It's scary.
It's a scary drink.
That's why God says, don't even look at it.
Now, tell me if I'm making this stuff up
or if I'm reading it straight out of the Bible.
Now, look, how about the second mention of alcohol?
We're on a roll, right, with that first mention.
How about the second mention?
Genesis 19, 10 chapters later.
Genesis 19.
Genesis 19, 31.
The Bible reads in Genesis 19, 31.
And the firstborn said unto the younger,
these are Lot's two daughters,
Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth
to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth.
Let's see if this fits in our pattern
of Genesis 9 and Habakkuk 2.
Come, let us make our father drink wine.
Second time alcohol is mentioned in the Bible.
And we will lie with him that we may preserve seed of our father.
That's verse 32.
And they made their father drink wine that night.
And the firstborn went in and lay with her father.
Okay?
And he perceived not when she lay down nor when she arose,
and it came to pass on the morrow
when the firstborn said unto the younger,
that the firstborn said unto the younger,
Behold, I lay yes tonight with my father.
Let us make him drink wine this night also,
and go thou in and lie with him,
that we may preserve seed of our father.
And they made their father drink wine that night also,
and the younger arose and lay with him.
And he perceived not when she lay down.
He's so stinking drunk.
He perceived not when she lay down nor when she arose.
You see that?
Thus were both the daughters of Lot
with child by their father.
Boy, isn't alcohol wonderful?
Isn't it great?
Isn't it such a blessing?
Incest, second mention.
Again, someone's being violated against their will.
Wasn't that one of our statistics?
Let me see if it's on here.
If not, then they sure left it out
because it must play a part.
Let me see here.
I'm not seeing it,
but I'm sure that it must have a huge part in rape victims.
I'm sure alcohol and drugs are being used frequently.
You know, you could put all this,
you could really put drugs in the same category.
It's just mind-altering substances,
poisonous substances that people use.
All drugs are just very mild doses of poisonous substances.
Alcohol will kill you in its pure form.
All drugs in their purest form will kill you.
They destroy brain cells,
and that's why they mess with the reward center of the brain
to release endorphins to the body
to make you feel elated and happy and good.
My wife and I translate a lot of medical documents
from German into English,
so we've studied a lot of how drugs work
and how opiates work and everything like that.
It works the same as alcohol in a lot of ways.
It's all poison.
Isn't that what the Bible said it was poison?
Long before science,
long before these articles,
these cutting-edge articles that my wife and I are translating,
you know, they just figured this stuff out.
Long before that, the Bible said in Deuteronomy 32
that it's poison.
And so on from that point,
but, you know, think about the hypocrisy
of the world that we live in.
Did you know that it is illegal
to have a smoking ad on television?
Did you know that?
It's against the law.
When I was a kid, they had,
I believe when I was very young,
they had the cigarette ads, a little bit.
That was gone by the time I was Solomon's age.
When I was a kid, they had cigarette machines.
You remember those in the lobby of restaurants?
Every restaurant had a cigarette machine?
Gone.
But let me ask you something.
Why is it legal for there to be a cartoon ad
advertising alcohol for hams?
Hams, they'll be refreshing hams
from the land above the waters.
You know what I'm talking about?
It's a cartoon bear.
It's this happy land, rivers are flowing,
and they're drinking beer on a cartoon commercial.
But it's God forbid that we should ever have a smoking ad.
Hey, I've never seen anybody take a drag of a cigarette
and throw their wife across the room and beat her up.
I've never seen anybody drive down the road smoking
and crash into something.
No.
And I'm 100% against smoking.
I think smoking is a sin.
But I'm going to tell you something.
The world is hypocritical.
And I'll tell you why alcohol ads are legal today.
I'll tell you why it's on every billboard.
I'll tell you why it's on sports that kids watch.
I'll tell you why it's in a cartoon form.
I'll tell you why it's in the ads
on every primetime TV show and daytime TV show.
I'll tell you why.
Because the majority of Americans today drink alcohol.
And because we live in a democracy
where the majority rules, they say,
don't you dare make a law against my alcohol.
Don't you dare limit my consumption of alcohol.
Don't you dare limit my advertising of alcohol
because everybody does it.
Churches don't preach against it anymore
because everybody does it.
They don't want to step on your toes.
Well, my friend, if you drink alcohol tonight,
I'm about to step on your toes and get in your face
and say it's a sin, it's law.
It's the poison of dragons.
Get so tired of people who won't just call a spade a spade.
Just say what it is.
It's poison.
It's wicked as hell.
It's ungodly.
It's a sin.
It's not a disease.
It's not a preference.
It's a sin.
It's wrong.
And I'll skip a point for the sake of time,
but let me just read several scriptures for you.
Just listen.
You don't have to follow along with these
because I'm going to go through many scriptures.
Leviticus chapter 10.
Do not drink wine, verse 9.
Do not drink wine nor strong drink.
Thou, nor thy sons with thee,
when you go into the tabernacle of the congregation,
lest you die.
He says, if you go into my house, Aaron, and your sons,
he said, if you walk into that tabernacle
with alcohol in your body, he says,
I personally will kill you
if you walk into that tabernacle filled with alcohol.
And by the way, two of Aaron's sons died,
two of his four sons,
because they didn't take any of this stuff seriously.
In fact, they die in this chapter.
Leviticus chapter 10.
For a different reason, but still, God was serious
when he tells them that he's going to kill them
about these things.
And he says, well, I'm just going to have to show you
because you're not taking me seriously.
Two of Aaron's sons were wicked.
Why? Why, God?
Why should we not drink alcohol?
Well, it answers in verse 10.
That you may put a difference between holy and unholy
and between unclean and clean.
The first thing that goes out the window
when you drink alcohol is your good judgment,
is what the driving handbook says.
So you're going to become unable to tell
what's right and what's wrong.
If you drink alcohol at all, if you ever drink alcohol,
don't tell me whether alcohol's right or wrong.
You don't even know how to put a difference
between holy and unholy.
You can't even tell the difference
between unclean and clean.
My sober mind up here of Pastor Steve Anderson,
who doesn't even know what beer tastes like,
I can tell you exactly what's right and wrong
because I'm not any influence of alcohol tonight.
And so do you want to go through life
not knowing what's holy and what's unholy?
Do you want to spend five minutes
not knowing what's unholy and what's holy?
Do you want to spend five minutes
not being able to tell the difference
between clean and unclean?
I don't. I want to know the truth.
I want to know what's right.
Isaiah 5-11,
Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning,
that they may follow a strong drink.
That's people that are real alcoholics and drunkards
they drink first thing in the morning.
That continue until night,
until wine inflame them.
And the harp and the vial,
the tabard and pipe and wine are in their feasts,
but they regard not the work of the Lord.
See, it's all about music and drinking.
Isn't that the teenage crowd?
Isn't that the world today?
Music and drinking.
But they regard not the work of the Lord,
neither consider the operation of His hands.
Isaiah 5-22,
Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine,
and men of strength to mingle strong drink.
Jeremiah 51-7,
Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord's hand
that made all the earth drunken.
The nations have drunken of her wine,
therefore the nations are mad.
They're insane, he says.
They're nuts.
They're crazy.
You could apply this to the United States.
The United States hath been a golden cup in the Lord's hand.
It was used by God greatly in the past,
but now that it made all the earth drunken,
the nations have drunken of her wine,
therefore the nations are mad.
We're the big alcohol producers now.
We're the big dope producers.
We've influenced the whole world to be drunk.
We've taught everybody through the television
and through Hollywood movies that are translated.
Hollywood movies,
it used to be the Bible was translated into all languages.
Today, Hollywood movies are translated into every language.
You can go to Germany and watch all the same movies,
all the same booze,
all the same fornication,
all the same adultery,
all the same TV shows,
all the same filth that's put out in the United States in Hollywood
is promoted all over the world in all different languages.
Yes, we were the golden cup in the Lord's hand.
Now we're making everybody drunk.
It's just like Babylon.
Ezekiel 44, 20.
This is talking about the priests,
and this is that exciting part of Ezekiel at the end,
the last nine chapters,
Ezekiel 43, 48.
But Ezekiel 44, 20.
Neither shall they shave their heads.
He's saying don't be completely bald as a man.
Don't shave off your hair, the big razor look.
Nor suffer their locks to grow long.
He's saying don't be a long-haired hippie.
They shall only pull their heads.
Pull, it's talking about a short haircut, P-O-L-L.
It's a word used to shear sheep to short hair.
Neither shall any priest drink wine
when they enter into the inner court.
Now look, God says that no priest should drink wine.
Of course, I preach on the priesthood of the believer.
That's one of the things we believe in as Baptists,
that every believer is a priest.
He had made us priests.
We are a holy priesthood, the Bible says,
in 1 Peter 2.
You say, well, that's just when they enter into the inner court.
When they're in that outer court, they're tapping a cake.
Look, you have the mentality of the Church of Christ guy.
You have a problem understanding the Bible
in the English language.
Because just like the Church of Christ guy about Mark 16, 16,
you're confused that when it says that they don't drink it
when they're in the inner court,
that doesn't necessarily mean that it's okay to drink it elsewhere.
He's just saying, especially not when you go into the inner court.
And so Daniel 1.8.
You don't have to turn there.
I'm just trying to go through these quickly.
But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself
with the portion of the king's meat.
Of course, we know from the rest of the Bible
that it's meat sacrificed unto idols.
The Bible talks a lot about that.
We just saw it on Wednesday night in Revelation 2.
Nor with the wine which he drank.
Therefore he requested the prince of the eunuchs
that he might not defile himself.
He refused to drink in Daniel chapter 1.
Hosea 4.10.
For they shall eat and not have enough.
They shall commit whoredom and shall not increase,
because they have left off to take heed to the Lord.
Horedom and wine and new wine take away the heart.
Joel 3.3.
And they have cast lots for my people
and have given a boy for an harlot
and sold a girl for wine that they might drink.
The Bible talks about people getting so low down
that they sold their own daughter.
Somebody sold their own female offspring daughter
and said, I'm going to sell her into prostitution
so that I can take another drink.
What could drive someone to put their daughter into prostitution
so that they could take a sip of some kind of a beverage?
I'm telling you, it's addictive.
It's the poison of Acts. It's horrible.
It's the devil's concoction.
It's alcohol.
1 Corinthians 5.11.
But now I have written unto you not to keep company
if any man that is called a brother...
Talking about a born-again Christian,
somebody who is called a brother,
somebody who is known as a Christian,
if they be a fornicator or covetous
or an idolater or a railer or a drunkard
or an extortioner with such and one know not to eat.
He said there are certain sins that when born-again believers
and people that are part of the church,
when they start to commit these,
he says, you shouldn't even eat with these people.
He says, I mean, good night.
Somebody who is called a brother who is a fornicator,
you shouldn't even eat with them.
Somebody who is called a brother that is a drunk,
don't even eat with them.
Don't have anything to do with it.
It's bad sin because he listens to some really bad sins
and he says a drunkard.
So God puts alcohol up there with these other terrible sins.
Now here are some supposed arguments by the liberals
why they think drinking is okay.
Number one, they say, well, and this is the most common one,
didn't Jesus turn the water into wine?
Now earlier in the service, we established
that very clearly in the Bible,
God is differentiating between their wine and God's wine.
Well, here's a verse, Isaiah 65, 8.
Thus saith the Lord, as the new wine is found in the cluster.
Now what is a cluster?
A cluster is a cluster of grapes.
So God says here, as the new wine is found in the cluster
and one say it destroy it not for a blessing is in it,
so will I do for my servant's sake that I may not destroy them all.
God says that there is wine found in a grape
that is still in the cluster that is still on the vine.
So that's called grape juice.
Now the word juice, you're not going to find the word grape juice in the Bible.
You're not going to find juice of a grape in the Bible
because the word that God uses and the word that was used in the 17th century
when this Bible was translated is wine.
That was a word that could mean both something in the cluster
and something that's become an alcoholic beverage.
It's just an all-inclusive word, wine.
And so there you have proof right there
that the Bible is not talking about alcohol
every time it mentions the word vine
because wine is something that you can find in a grape that's still on the vine.
And then number two, look at Psalm 104.
This is a verse that I've had people show me
telling me that wine and alcohol and beer was okay.
And somebody showed me this verse in Psalm 104.
See right here.
You're wrong. You're wrong.
Alcohol's fine.
Psalm 104, starting in verse number 13.
Actually, just look at verse number 15.
I'll show you the verse that they showed me.
The Bible says,
And wine that maketh glad the heart of man.
Now does that sound like the drink in Proverbs 23?
Does that sound like the drink that said sorrow, remember?
That's sadness. That's the opposite.
Wine that maketh glad the heart of man.
See how good alcohol is?
See how Budweiser can make you happy?
See how a little drink of wine with your dinner
will make you so glad and happy in life?
And wine that maketh glad the heart of man,
and oil to make his face to shine,
and bread which strengtheneth man's heart.
Now listen.
All throughout the Bible you will find positive mentions of wine
because there are two kinds of wine.
There's their wine, which is the poison of dragons,
and then there's the wine that God created.
Now did God create the wine that's found in a grape?
Absolutely.
God's the one who made that vine grow.
God's the one who produced the grape.
God's the one who produced the juice within that grape.
Did God produce what's coming out of Anheuser-Busch?
Does he run that factory?
That's not God's creation.
That's where somebody took God's creation and perverted it
and let it rot and decompose and decay into alcohol.
If you leave juice on the counter, it will decompose into alcohol.
Now you're going to see all throughout the Bible verses about wine,
extremely negative, like we just read a ton of verses.
You'll also find some that are very positive, like this one.
But look at the context.
Don't isolate the verse.
Look at verse 13.
He watereth the hills from his chambers.
We're talking about rain.
The earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works.
He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle,
and herb for the service of man,
that he may bring forth food out of the earth,
and wine that maketh glad the heart of man,
and oil to make his face to shine,
and bread which strengtheneth man's heart.
Now look, everything listed there is a natural, good, healthy food,
whether it's the cattle eating grass,
whether it's the earth drinking in the rain which cometh off the pond,
whether it's the bread that strengthens man's heart,
whether it's the oil that causes his face to shine.
It's all these very positive, healthy foods.
Oil is a food. Bread is a food.
Fruit is a food. Grass is food for cattle.
Wine is a drink that you drink that's good for you, that tastes good.
I go to Jamba Juice a couple times a week.
Okay, that's wine. That's where I get my wine, my friend.
And you know what? It makes me glad every time I drink it.
You say, what, you get glad when you drink Jamba Juice?
Yes, I get glad because I don't need alcohol to make me happy.
I don't need to drink away my songs.
I'm a born-again child of God. I'm a child of the King.
Why would I need alcohol to have a good time?
I can have a good time with Jamba Juice in my hand.
You don't understand that.
Then you probably have a warped view of what a good time is.
Do you enjoy eating foods that taste good?
Do you enjoy going to a nice restaurant, sitting down, having a quality meal?
Do you enjoy drinking some kind of a fruit beverage that tastes good?
Yeah, of course you do.
Unless your senses are so dulled by drugs and alcohol
and smoking that you can't taste anything anymore.
But you know what? If you just eat food and drink milk,
milk tastes good, chocolate milk tastes good.
Fruit juice tastes good. Hey, it's good. It makes you happy.
You say, that doesn't make me happy.
Oh yeah, you need a PS3 to be happy.
You need to go watch some filthy movie to be happy.
Did you know that I can just be happy?
Just sitting down eating a good meal,
which is what God has provided a nice way for me to enjoy food.
Read the book of Ecclesiastes.
It talks about enjoying food, enjoying beverages.
But see, our mind in 2007 is so warped, we read it.
Wine makes you glad. That must be talking about people drinking.
It must be liquor that's making them happy.
It can't be that they just ate good food and drank a good juice
and that made them happy. That doesn't make you happy.
It must be alcohol. See how it's a little bit warped?
And see how it's taken out of context where everything's very natural
and then all of a sudden it's this little squiggly glass pipe to distill alcohol?
I don't see any squiggly glass pipe in this verse at all.
Did you know that, and by the way, if alcohol is so wonderful,
then why are pregnant women not allowed to drink?
I remember a company that I worked for, there was a woman there,
there was a secretary, and she was just,
Oh, man, I hate being pregnant because you can't drink.
She said, I can't wait until I have this baby so I can start drinking again.
That's literally what she said.
I mean, isn't that a little bit tacky, first of all?
Isn't that a little bit ghetto?
But she's just like, I just can't wait to drink again.
Well, if alcohol is so wonderful, then why is it that when pregnant women drink,
it could really injure their baby if it's so wonderful?
It's not poisonous.
And by the way, I'm pregnant right now.
You say, what?
Look, the Bible says in the book of Titus and 1 Timothy and in Philemon,
Paul said, I've begotten you in my bonds.
He said, you're my son in the faith.
He said, I gave birth to you.
Oh, ye Galatians, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.
All throughout the New Testament, the Apostle Paul uses the illustration
of winning people to Christ as giving birth to a child.
Travailing, being in labor, giving birth to souls.
See, I'm in the process of giving birth.
I gave birth this afternoon, okay, between the services I gave birth.
And here I'm up here preaching.
I gave birth this afternoon, two times.
It was twins, okay.
I gave birth twice.
I better not drink because I'm pregnant all the time,
because I'm trying to give birth all the time.
Okay.
He said, that's a silly illustration.
I know, I'm just...
Forget it.
But look at you at 1 Timothy 3.
1 Timothy 3.
If you really know the Bible, you'll know that what I said wasn't silly.
If you're laughing right now, it's because you don't know the Bible.
No, I'm just kidding.
Look at 1 Timothy 3.
1 Timothy 3.
That was the first reason that the drunkards who want to justify drinking alcohol
and be a Christian and say that alcohol is okay
use these verses that I just showed you.
The water and the wine, Psalm 104.
Number two, look at 1 Timothy 3.
This is the next one that they use.
1 Timothy 3, verse 3.
The Bible says of the pastor, it says,
not given to wine.
It says the pastor should not be given to wine.
Well, this is what they say.
Well, look at verse 3, now look at verse 8.
Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double tongued,
not given to much wine.
So they say, now the deacons can drink a little bit of wine.
Okay.
Because the pastor can't be given to any wine.
The deacon just can't be given to much wine.
So he can have a little wine.
Come on.
Give old deacon so and so a break and give him a beer.
Okay.
Look, this is not what's being taught.
And let me prove it to you.
Okay.
Number one, the Bible says in verse,
well, flip over if you would.
And this will shed a little bit of light on it.
But flip over if you would to Titus chapter number 1.
And look at verse 5 and you'll see a parallel passage
of almost the identical phrases from the Bible.
The same thing you'll see about not given to wine and all that.
But look at Titus 1 5.
This cause left I thee in Crete,
that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting,
and ordain elders or pastors in every city,
as I had appointed thee, if any be blameless,
the husband of one wife, having faithful children,
not accused of riot or unruly.
And he goes on and on, not given to wine.
It says in verse 7 there.
What's he saying?
He's saying you're in Crete.
You want to ordain men to pastor churches in the country of Crete.
He says you've got to find somebody who fits these criteria
so that you can train them to be a pastor
and make them a pastor.
They have to fit these criteria.
So is it you find some guy who drinks, right?
A little bit.
Okay, he only drinks a little bit.
And you say to him,
you're going to be the pastor of the church.
Brother Dave, you're going to be the new pastor
of Faithful or Baptist Church.
And so from now on,
you're not going to be able to drink any wine.
That's not what it says.
It says that he has to find a guy who already is drinking no wine.
You see that?
Even though he's not the pastor,
he's already fitting these criteria.
I mean, he's not even the pastor,
but yet he's married and has a wife that is in subjection to him
and the wife has criteria too.
She's blameless.
She's living for God.
And he has to have children who are not accused of riot or unruly.
He has to be someone who doesn't drink at all,
who's never drunk.
I mean, not never drunk,
but it's not something that he did last week is what I'm saying.
He's not given to wine in general
like he wasn't drinking two weeks ago,
but now he's found out he's got to be the pastor.
It's like, well, that was my last Budweiser.
I've got to pastor a church.
That's not what it is at all.
It's somebody who just in general,
they already didn't drink.
Now let me ask you something.
Why would God hold the pastor to a higher standard than the people?
Now the pastor is more accountable for his actions
but does the pastor live by a different set of laws?
Now listen, in my office I have my own rule book that I go by.
Now this is what I want you to do, okay?
I have my own little Ten Commandments that I go by now.
I go by the same rules.
We all have the same Bible.
So if God says, no way do I want a pastor who's given to wine,
wine must be wrong.
Wine must be a sin.
And we showed like 30 verses that said it was a sin.
So if it's wrong for the pastor, it's wrong for the deacon,
and it's wrong for the church member.
So just because he says it in a different way,
just because he says it more emphatically about the pastor,
this guy has nothing to do with alcohol at all.
And the other guy says, this is not a guy who drinks much wine.
He's not saying he drinks a little wine.
And so it's clear, it's simple,
that if the pastor can't drink wine, then you can't drink wine.
Now you can drink wine and you're not going to lose your position as the pastor
because you're not the pastor.
If I drink wine, God says you can't be the pastor anymore.
If I take a drink tonight, I'm no longer qualified to be the pastor, okay?
But is it right for you to take a drink tonight?
You won't cease to be the pastor,
but you shouldn't be doing it because it's a sin, okay?
And so that's a pretty weak argument in light of the whole rest of the Bible.
That's pretty lame, I think.
Flip over.
You're in Titus or 1 Timothy, wherever you are.
Flip to 1 Timothy, chapter 5.
Just write in a couple pages of where you are.
1 Timothy, chapter 5.
Here's another one of their key verses
to prove to you that drinking is okay.
1 Timothy 5, 23.
Drink no longer water,
but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake,
and thine often infirmities.
Hey, drink a little alcohol.
It's good for you.
This is healthy.
Look, does he say drink no longer juice,
but drink a little wine?
The contrast is between water and wine.
He says drink no longer water,
but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake,
and thine often infirmities.
What he's saying is go from water
to not drinking just only water,
but, hey, drink some juice.
It's going to be healthy for you.
It's going to be good for you.
Now, let me ask you something.
Is a little bit of alcohol good for your stomach?
I know of a man who had part of his stomach removed
from alcohol abuse.
He had to have surgery in part of his stomach taken out
because he damaged his stomach with alcohol,
because alcohol is poison.
But is juice good for your stomach?
Will juice settle your stomach?
Think about when you're sick.
You can't even keep water down,
but what can you keep down?
Cranberry juice.
It's wine.
The Bible talks about wine from pomegranates.
The Bible talks about wine from all manner of fruits.
And so the Bible here is telling them
not to just drink water,
but to add a little bit of juice to his water
for his stomach's sake.
Not talking about alcohol.
And we saw that there's God's wine
and there's their wine.
Numbers chapter 6.
I'm trying to hurry.
I'm almost done.
Numbers chapter 6.
We'll see argument number 4 for why alcohol is okay.
See, I'm just trying to make you solid in what you believe.
I want you to know why you believe it,
not just mindlessly follow somebody's rule book somewhere.
But know what the Bible says.
Numbers chapter 6.
And you'll see the Nazarite.
Numbers chapter 6.
The Bible says in verse number 1,
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Speak unto the children of Israel,
and say unto them...
Actually, you know, before I read this, I'm sorry.
Look at verse 20.
And this is their big verse.
And then I'll show you what's wrong with it.
Numbers 6, 20.
The Bible says,
And the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before the Lord.
This is holy for the priest,
with the waved breast and heaped shoulder,
and after that the Nazarite may drink wine.
See that last phrase?
After that, the Nazarite may drink wine.
See?
As long as you're a Nazarite, you can drink liquor.
And then look at the beginning,
and I'll show you why they say that.
Look at verse number 2.
Speaking to the children of Israel and saying to them,
When either man or woman shall separate themselves
to vow a vow of a Nazarite,
to separate themselves unto the Lord,
he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink,
and shall drink no vinegar of wine
or vinegar of strong drink,
neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes.
So alcohol is being mentioned here, isn't it?
Don't drink any alcohol.
But look.
Nor eat moist grapes.
He can't even eat a grape either.
It's not just alcohol that he's separating himself from.
It's wine and strong drink, vinegar of wine,
vinegar of strong drink, liquor of grapes,
nor eat any moist grapes.
He can't even eat grapes.
Look at the next words.
Or dried.
This guy can't even eat raisins.
Okay, it's not just alcohol that's being mentioned.
Look at the next words.
All the days of his separation shall he eat nothing
that is made of the vine tree,
from the kernels even to the husk.
He can't eat the plant of the vine.
He can't eat the leaves.
He can't eat the seeds.
He can't eat the grapes.
He can't eat raisins.
He can't drink grape juice.
He can't drink alcohol.
Okay, isn't that clear?
And then at the end of the chapter,
after his vow of a Nazarite son,
then may he drink...
Look at the end of verse 20.
After that, the Nazarite may drink wine, strong drink,
liquor of grapes.
Is that what it says?
Does it all of a sudden say,
now he can drink all the alcohol that he was separated from?
No, it just says now he can drink wine.
Now he can drink juice, God's wine.
Not, not the liquor of grapes and all this other stuff
that it's talking about that's clearly alcohol.
And the final argument that they use is they say,
well, what about communion?
What about when Jesus, you know, the bread and the wine?
Well, Melchizedek in Genesis 14, he bought forth bread and wine.
He was the priest of the Most High God.
What about the Lord's Supper where we eat the cracker and drink the wine?
Well, think about how silly this is.
And the Roman Catholics, of course, take actual wine,
actually alcoholic beverage.
And I believe a lot of Lutheran churches do as well.
Actual alcoholic beverage is what they consume for the Lord's Supper.
Well, think about how ridiculous this is.
It's called the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
It's called the Passover in the Old Testament.
Jesus was our Passover.
The meat portion is gone.
Now we just have the bread and wine portion.
Look, if it's unleavened bread,
leaven is to bread as fermentation is to alcohol.
It's a decay process.
Leaven is a bacteria that you put inside a bread.
You know, yeast, you get that bacteria of yeast.
You put it in bread.
It causes the bread to rise.
God said, I want you to eat unleavened bread
because that is a picture of the body of Jesus Christ,
that it was completely pure, completely undefiled,
there was no uncleanness in that body at all.
Remember, take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you.
Likewise, also the cup after supper,
saying this cup is the New Testament in my blood?
This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me?
You think that that drink that Jesus handed to his disciples
that represented the pure, sinless, spotless, untainted blood of Christ
was fermented in decayed wine, was old, decayed booze?
No.
It would be like eating leavened bread.
It doesn't even make any sense.
The Bible says in Amos 2.8,
and you could apply this to the Roman Catholics,
Amos 2.8,
And they laid themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar.
And listen to this.
They drank the wine of the condemned in the house of their God,
little G.
They drink, they, the worldly, unsaved heathens,
they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their God.
You see that?
The Catholic Church tonight drinks the wine of the condemned in the house of their God.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 11,
Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily
shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord,
but let a man examine himself.
Compare Scripture with Scripture.
You'll see that same examine yourself in 2 Corinthians.
Examine yourself whether you be in the faith.
They say examine yourself whether you're saved.
Let a man examine himself,
and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.
For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily,
eateth and drinketh damnation to himself,
not discerning the Lord's body.
You see that?
He says they're drinking the cup of the condemned.
They're drinking the wine of the condemned.
It's only fitting that they would drink the poison of dragons in their temple,
their house of God, which is a false god, which is the devil,
when they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their God,
because they're drinking it unworthily because they're not in the faith.
Faith, faith is what saves you.
They're not in the faith,
and so they're drinking damnation on themselves
when they go into the house of their God and drink that cup,
which is alcohol, which is liquor in the house of their God.
And, of course, we love them.
We want to get them saved.
We want to get them born again.
My wife used to be a Catholic.
Virginia used to be Catholic.
And on and on, we love them and want to get them saved.
But at this point, they're drinking the wine of the condemned.
And I don't want to drink it.
I don't want to drink what they drink in that false church
that calls itself the Roman Catholic Church,
the no saints Catholic Church, Newman Center in Tempe.
I don't want to drink what they drink.
I want to drink what we drink here,
which is the wine that God made in the husk,
in the cluster of the vine,
the pure blood of the grape, the Bible calls it.
I drink juice.
I don't drink alcohol because alcohol is a sin.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
God, I thank you so much for a clear book
that's easy to be understood
as long as you don't have an ulterior motive.