Look at verse 26, the Bible says this,
"And thou shalt bestow that money
"for whatsoever thy soul lusteth have."
Now, to give you context, the Bible's talking about the tithe,
and it's saying when you have your tithe,
if you're traveling to Jerusalem
or you're traveling to the city to perform your feast,
it may be difficult for you to physically take that tithe
because it wasn't always in money.
It could be several oxen or sheep or your wheat,
or there was a lot of things that it could be.
So if it was a long journey and an effort to be able
to travel quicker and to not be a burdensome task,
the Lord allowed you to change all of your goods into money,
take that money with you to Jerusalem,
then buy other cattle or sheep or whatever it was
that you had for your sacrifice there,
and then use that for your sacrifice.
And that's kind of just a real logical conclusion
that God's giving us.
It makes a lot of sense, real practical,
because God's a very practical God.
He's not looking to give us burdens.
His yoke is easy, His burden is light.
Now, when we pick up in verse 26,
it's saying when you bring that money,
you can bestow that money
for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after.
It says for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine,
or for strong drink,
or for whatsoever thy soul desireth,
and thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God,
and thou shalt rejoice thou in thine household.
And the Levite that is in thine gates,
thou shalt not forsake him,
for he hath no part nor inheritance with thee.
So the Bible says, when you come back into town,
you buy all the things that you need,
you perform your sacrifices,
and when you're performing your sacrifices,
make sure to share with your Levite.
So how then, if we're literally taking strong drink here,
which we've already said is alcohol,
are we now violating a bracket two
where we're putting our strong drink bottle
to the Levite's mouth and forcing him to get drunk
so he can look on his niggas
like Ham did unto his father, Noah?
No.
That's obviously not how you would interpret this passage.
Only a pervert would translate this passage
into meaning something so grotesque as such.
Now, of course, on the surface,
it's a little bit misleading, perhaps,
as to say like, oh, you know, the strong drink here,
does that mean that we're consuming the strong drink?
But notice in the latter portion of verse 26,
it says, "Shall eat thereof."
It doesn't say drink,
but I still believe that the word eat there
could be in reference to just general consumption.
Now, when it comes to wine,
I would believe that the wine here
is non-alcoholic beverage, okay?
So they would be able to drink wine.
But if here is talking about drinking strong drink,
then we should have other places in the Old Testament law
that illustrate for us drinking strong drink.
But we actually have the exact opposite.
If you go to Numbers 28,
it actually brings up the strong drink offering.
Now the other offerings like the oxen or the sheep
or the goats or anything like that,
it has plenty of places in Leviticus and other places
where it talks about eating it,
what parts of the animal you do eat,
what part of the animal you don't eat.
You're not supposed to eat the dung here.
You know what it's saying, whatever thy sole desire,
it's not saying eat the dung and pray for it.
You still burnt the dung, you still burnt the flesh,
you didn't have all the call above the liver
and all the fat and all the N words,
you didn't eat the blood, you didn't drink the blood,
you wouldn't consume these type of things.
So when it comes to the strong drink though,
it was a particular sacrifice or particular offering
that sometimes the children of Israel would perform.
So why don't we just look it up
and see what they even did with the strong drink
before we jump to conclusions.
Deuteronomy, or I'm sorry, Numbers 28 verse seven,
the Bible says this, "And the drink offering,
there shall be the fourth part of an hen for the one lamb,
and the holy place, thou shalt cause the strong wine
to be poured unto the Lord for a drink offering."
So the Bible talks about this strong wine being poured out,
meaning that what's happening is they would literally
take strong drink and they would just pour it on the ground.
And you would say, well, that seems wasteful.
That seems bizarre.
Why would you just pour a beverage on the ground?
What would be the illustration there?
What do you think would be the illustration here, Ben?
Give us some spiritual enlightenment here.
What conclusion can we draw from a drink offering
being poured out?
I mean, is there anything that's just being poured out?
I think what we're seeing here is a picture
of the wrath of God being poured out.
That's the drink offering.
You got the blood of Christ.
Could be another way to look at it as well.
The blood of Christ, which was poured out,
in a sense, to save humanity.
But those are the two that I would point
to the spiritual pictures.
Well, here's, let's follow up on your answers, okay?
What color is blood when it's poured out?
Red.
Now, what was, when we talked about an alcoholic beverage
in the Bible, what color did it say it turns
when it becomes alcoholic?
Red.
So, how would this not be a great illustration
of Jesus Christ's blood that was literally spilled,
was literally poured out for us?
In John chapter number 19, his side was pierced,
and what came out?
Water and blood.
And that's a great illustration
of the Old Testament sacrifice,
illustrating what Jesus is gonna do for us,
where his blood is gonna be spilled.
Now, some people might say,
well, then why is it alcoholic?
Why would it be a strong wine?
Why would it be a strong drink?
Well, again, Jesus Christ is taking
on the sin of the world here.
And we all know that leaven is a picture of that sin.
And so him having a strong drink to picture his blood,
it's illustrating how his blood was shed,
filled with our sin.
It's being cleansed in our sin, in fact.
You know, the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanseth us from all sin, is what the Bible says.
And so it makes it very poetic, you know,
to have these poor offerings, to have these drink offerings,
to illustrate what Christ is doing.
But where does it say here, drink booze?
Where does it say here, now have strong drink?
You know, that makes me think of Micah 2,
where the Bible says, "If a man walking in the Spirit
"and falls to do lie, saying,
"I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink,
"he shall even be the prophet of this people."
That makes me think all the prophets that we heard today,
prophesying of wine and strong drink and liquor
and trying to get people to booze up
and to basically forsake the commandments of God,
forsake Proverbs, become deceived,
become a mocker, become raging.
And you know what?
These drinkers are mocking the word of God.
- Verse 27, if you look at the very next verse,
"And the Levite that is within thy gates,
"thou shalt not forsake him,
"for he hath no part nor inheritance with thee."
I agree 100% with everything you stated there, Pastor Shelley.
I think that this is in reference to the sacrifice.
When you go to Numbers chapter 28, verse seven,
Numbers 28, verse seven,
you can correct me if I have the reference wrong there.
But when you go to that portion of scripture,
we can see that the strong drink was poured out,
illustrating, I kind of gave an alternate version,
I said the wrath of God,
but it could also be the blood of Christ,
like you mentioned, illustrating for us,
you're picturing for us the blood of Christ.
But also, when you go to Leviticus chapter number 10,
Leviticus chapter number 10,
and we're gonna look at verse number nine,
it says, "And the Lord spake unto,"
verse eight, excuse me,
"And the Lord spake unto Aaron, saying,"
now we're at verse nine,
"Do not drink wine, nor strong drink,
"thou nor thy sons with thee,
"when you go into the tabernacle of the congregation,
"lest ye die.
"It shall be a statute forever
"throughout your generations."
And so my question is,
if in Deuteronomy chapter 14 verse 26,
God is permitting the Israelites,
which would include the descendants of Aaron,
which would include the Levites, to consume alcohol,
we know that there were also components
of a sacrifice involved in Deuteronomy chapter 14,
and we know that that involved actually going
into the tabernacle of the congregation
in order to execute that sacrifice.
My question is, Pastor Shelley,
why didn't they drop dead?
If they can consume, again, if you look at Deuteronomy 14
through the lenses of Leviticus chapter 10,
we should have seen a multitude of Levites dropping dead
whenever they entered the tabernacle of the congregation
because they consumed this strong drink in Deuteronomy 14.
So that's just another layer, I think,
to this that makes sense.
But overall, the connection to Numbers 28, I think, is clear,
that this drink was poured out.
Yeah, it says they can consume it.
But like you mentioned, does that mean--
I mean, obviously, there are certain components
of the sacrifice that they wouldn't consume.
How about the dung, like you talked about?
Exactly.
It goes without saying that that would be discarded.
And it goes without saying, in my opinion,
it is obvious that when you look at this passage
and connect it to Numbers 28, comparing spiritual
with spiritual, like we're supposed to do to help us
interpret passages, that the strong drink is poured out,
a picture of the blood of Christ.
- Well, and again, I think the reason why he's bringing
up the eat there is just so he's letting the reader
understand that these sacrifices are accepted
with the Lord and they're allowed to eat it.
Because if they offer a sacrifice that's not
acceptable to the Lord, they're not allowed to eat it
or consume it in any way, shape, or form.
And so it's just talking about that.