(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

The title of the sermon this morning comes from verse 29 where the Bible reads, Who hath woe, who hath sorrow, who hath contentions, who hath babbling, who hath wounds without cause, who hath redness of eyes. And the title is, The Woes of Lying. You see that there are several woes that are listed. You have of course the woe, who hath woe, which is just that great sorrow that a person would feel. And who hath sorrow, and who hath contentions and babbling. These are the woes of lying. That's what I want to preach about this morning is the woes of lying. And right off the bat I would just say that there are a lot of things I'm going to read this morning in terms of just different studies that were done, different statistics that are going to come at you. And at the end we're going to kind of wrap it up with looking at what the scripture has to say about drinking. But it's important to know that even the world understands that there are troubles with alcohol. Even the world, the lost world that doesn't have the spirit of Christ going in them can look and see what a devastating effect alcohol has upon an individual and upon society. We're going to look at some of those things this morning and of course the scripture is always our final authority and if the Bible condemns something then that should be enough for us. But sometimes it's helpful to go to the world and look at some of the statistics so we can see the Bible played out, fleshed out in the world that we're living in. And we can see the consequences of certain sins in the Bible taking place in the world. And alcohol is of course no exception, alcohol is one that we see a lot of the consequences of drinking, the negative effects of it, are having devastating effects on our country. And I'll just come right out and say in the very beginning of the sermon how we are living in a nation that is filled with drunkards. We are living in a nation that is just drinking and drinking and drinking. I mean drinking and being drunk is just a major part of our culture. I mean you think about all the billions and billions and billions of dollars that are spent that are related to alcohol, all the advertising that goes into pushing alcohol, all the money that goes into producing alcohol, just the whole culture that's been built around wine and beer and liquor. I mean we're living in a nation of drunkards. We're living in a nation that is just being drowned in alcohol. So these kinds of sermons are important. These are sermons that we might have heard often. These are good reminders because as we live in the world, we can start to grow numb to the sin that surrounds us. And alcohol is one of them. We can start to think, you know, well so many people are doing it, I'm seeing that all these people are still managed to function in society even though they're drugs. Maybe it's not that bad. But what we often don't see is the devastating effects that alcohol has on people. Like yesterday was St. Patrick's Day and that's a big day for drinking. That's a big day when a lot of people just go out and drink their green beer and they go bar hopping and they dress funny and they decide to just go live it up. And it's a big celebration and all it is is just another excuse to get drunk. And what we don't see is the people this morning. We don't see, if we could look into those homes this morning and see the condition that some of those people are in now. Those people that were out till two, three, four, five o'clock in the morning, living it up, drinking all day, drinking themselves into a stupor. I wonder how they're doing this morning, you know, it's still fairly early. They're going to wake up, they're going to have the splitting headache, they're going to have rotten breath, they're going to probably smell like a bar, they might even be waking up to somebody lying next to them they don't even know. They might be waking up in jail and a lot of people aren't going to be waking up this morning because they went out and got drunk and got so drunk to the point where they might have even drunk themselves to death or been involved in an auto accident. Those are the negative consequences, those are the tragedies that take place due to alcohol that we don't see. That's what's not advertised on the billboard. That's not what's shown in the magazine or what's shown on the TV commercial. Is the devastating effects, the woes of wine that come from drinking. Now the first low there is sorrow. And what is sorrow? Sorrow is a feeling of deep distress caused by loss. You know, if you think of times that we've been sorry in our life, usually it's because we've lost something. Whether it be someone that we know and love or whether it be something that we, possession that we hold dear to us. I know I lost, you know, a personal example just coming to mind is that I lost my wedding band that we had since our wedding day. It just kind of disappeared. And I don't like to even think about it because, you know, it bothers me. You know, it brings some level of sorrow that got lost. That was special to me. It was special to my wife, but it was something that got lost and, you know, because of that we had sorrow. So that's what sorrow is. It's the loss of something. Now think about the sorrow, it's the Bible specifically saying here that those that have sorrow are those that tear you long at the wine. Seeing this, those that drink, those that use alcohol, they're going to experience sorrow. And don't be fooled today by our culture. They want to think that, they want you to believe that there's no consequences for drinking. That you can just drink, you know, you might have a mild hangover, but you'll get over it and life will move on. But there is sorrow that comes with it. There's a lot of sorrow that's associated with drinking. You know, if it's the sorrow of loss or disappointment or the misfortune suffered by one or others. There's a lot of people that are suffering misfortune, and that's a light way to put it. It's unfortunate some of the consequences that they're dealing with because of alcohol. Now what are some of the sorrows that might come from drinking alcohol? One of them might be the loss of the family unit. That's one that I can personally attest to is that alcohol is something that will cause people to get divorced. It will cause husbands and wives to treat each other very poorly and it will cause those families, those homes to break up. I mean, I wonder how many homes in America today have been broken up because of alcohol. Because people can't control their liquor. Because people want to go out and get drunk. Those are one of the sorrows that people experience is the loss of the family unit via divorce. And I've done other sermons on divorce and gone to those statistics and I'm not going to preach on that one too much this morning, but that is a fact, isn't it? That people today, they're suffering the loss of their spouses. Children are suffering the loss of their mom or their dad because of alcohol. I mean, I have friends in my past. I mean, it's interesting, when I wrote this sermon, all these personal examples came to mind and I didn't even bother to really put them into the sermon. And even now as I'm preaching this, I'm beginning to recall all the different ways alcohol has touched my life, even though I wasn't the one consuming it. Sorrow might come to others by alcohol and they might be the ones that are drinking it. I remember having a friend in high school and she came to us one day and her mother had died. She had literally drunk herself to death. She went home from school one day to get into her apartment and she had to push the door open because her mother had fallen down dead at the door because of alcohol. There are devastating effects that come with drinking and it's touched our lives and I'm sure others. If we were to ask others, if you were to talk to other people about if they know any ways that other people have experienced great sorrow through alcohol, there are probably very sad stories out there. But that's not what we hear today. We don't hear that sad story in the billboard, in the magazine, in the commercial. All we see is alcohol being glorified, lifted up, and it's something that's okay. Well, the Bible condemns it and it condemns it not just because God's some old fuddy-duddy, not just because God's some grey-haired old man who doesn't want to have any fun, it's because God understands that there are serious consequences that come from drinking alcohol. That it affects people's lives, that it brings great sorrow into their life and this is one of them. The loss of the family unit, the loss of dear, precious family members even. Well, one big one that we could think of, I mean, if we want to really hit people where it hurts today, it seems like you need to just talk about their money. If we go after people, we're going to talk about, let's talk about the wallet. People seem to pay a little more attention to that. The loss of income, okay, that would cause great sorrow if you were to lose your income, right? If I were to for some reason go out and tomorrow lost my job, didn't have any way to make money to provide for my family, I could tell you there would be some sorrow in our house. There would be some distress. There would be some confusion. But alcohol is something that causes a loss of income. One way would be through just losing your job. I mean, people get to the point where they're so drunk, they're such drunkards, they can't even keep hold on a job. They're showing up to the job drunk, they're getting drunk on the job. I've personally known people, you know, even within the last five years, that have shown up to work drunk and were drinking on the job and lost their job as a result of it. I mean, how far out do you have to get, how out of control do you have to be with alcohol to think, I'm going to go to work and drink? It's crazy, but that's what happens. It happens all the time. It probably surprises us how often it really happens. So that's one way you could have sorrow through wine or through alcohol or through drink is through, you know, the loss of income by losing your job. What's another way you could have loss of income? Well, one would be through your being fined or imprisoned for driving drunk. You know, recently a guy asked me, he said, what is, he literally asked me, it was a serious question, I couldn't believe this young man was asking me, he said, is there, is it illegal to drink and drive in Arizona? And he was, this was a serious question, like I kind of thought to myself, are you serious? I mean, where is it illegal to drink and drive in America? I don't think there is a place. Now some places are harder on it than others and I told him there is a zero tolerance policy in Arizona. In fact, Arizona is very strict on it as far as I can tell. For example, and I'm not going to list it, there's different levels of course of punishment that comes if you get caught drinking and driving in the state of Arizona. Now to start right off, if you have a blood alcohol level of 0.08, if you have a 0.08 or higher, you are considered intoxicated by the law. Now I don't know how much you have to drink, you know, there's different factors that come into that with a person's, you know, their makeup and how much they can handle or how much often they drink, there's all these things that play into it, but if you're caught drinking with a 0.08 blood alcohol level or higher, you are considered intoxicated by the law. And on your first offense, it's an automatic 10 days in jail, automatic, right out of the if you get pulled over drinking and driving in the state of Arizona, you will go to jail for 10 days. Now that would cause a loss of income, wouldn't it? That would cause you to not be able to go to work for at least a week. In fact, if you call your boss, like let's say these guys are out drinking Sunday night and Monday morning they have to call their boss, hey boss, not going to make it in today, oh really, why not, well I got pulled over drinking and driving. Well guess what, you don't have a job anymore, and that's a real possibility, hey we can't wait around for you for 10 days, we've got to fill this position. And we've got to get somebody else in here to do your job, I'm sorry you aren't responsible enough to not go drinking and driving. Now it's about a $1500 fine also on top of that, which is substantial. And then it's also an $80 monitoring fee. Now I'm not entirely sure what that is, the monitoring fee, where they're going to actually monitor, probably having something to do with your probation. Screening and counseling, yes. So there's more time that you have to take out of your life to go be screened and counseled about your alcohol drinking. It's a 90 day suspension or a one year revocation of your driver's license. Can you imagine losing your driver's license for three months and being dependent upon others to get you around, dependent upon a public transportation system or ride sharing or something like that? That would make life very difficult, every time you needed to go to the grocery store to get the necessities that you needed, well how are you going to get there, you just lost your driver's license for 90 days. Interlock device on vehicles, this is a device they actually attach to your vehicle that you have to blow into before it allows the ignition to start the car. You'll have that on your car for 12 months, a whole year of having to put up with that. And that thing can cause problems, I know in my line of work sometimes you have to make keys for cars and people will call and say hey I lost the key for my car, can you come out and make a key and we'll go there. And it'll have one of these interlock devices on it and it'll say sorry I can't help you. And you can pay us for our time if we're coming out here, you should have told us that. But on the most extreme end, keep in mind those consequences, that's just a first time offense for the lowest amount of blood alcohol level. And the state of Arizona they kind of have all these different levels, I didn't list them all because it would just take too much time to go through them all. But even that, thinking about how this is structured in the legal system, to me it seems like a racket. They're like well, why don't we just throw the book at them the first time? I mean if a person is so irresponsible, if a person is so careless to get behind 2,000 pounds of steel and go hurtling down a highway at 60 plus miles an hour while they're inebriated, why do we have to have a structured system? I think we should just throw the book at them right out of the gate. Maybe you should just take their driver's license away for life. And if they're willing to risk the lives of others themselves, if they're willing to go out and commit manslaughter, why should they even be allowed to drive at all? I think because the system understands that there's money being made here. They say if we can get you in the system, we can start making money, so the first offense it's not enough to completely discourage you from doing it again. Of course it might, for some people it might correct them, but they might say $1,500, 10 days in jail, a year of probate or 90 days of suspension, I'll get over it, I'll get over that. And they'll go out and do it again. And believe me, there's people that go out there and do it again. I've known people that have lost their license for years and are tens of thousands of dollars in debt to the state because of the fact that they're drinking, because of their drinking. I've known a person like that. Now the super extreme DUI, that's the actual name for it, you could be charged with super extreme DUI, super extreme. This would be a blood alcohol level of .20 plus, so .20 plus. Again, I don't know how you get to that point. I guess you have to really drink. This would be your second offense. So you could have a blood alcohol level of .20 again, but if this is your second offense of having a blood alcohol level of that high, then you are going to look at 180 days in jail, home detention for 36 days, you're going to be at $4,600 in jail and costs, and $80 monitoring fee. You're going to have to go through the screening, you're going to lose your license for an entire year, you're going to have to interlock for two years, and you'll do 30 months of community service. 30 months of community service. That's a lot of time. That is a lot of time. So we can see that one of the sorrows a person can experience from going out and drinking, one of the woes of wine that will come into your life potentially, is this loss of income. And to be honest, as stiff as those punishments are, as much as we would never want to experience anything like that, it could be far worse than that. Because another one of the losses that we could experience, another one of the sorrows, another one of the woes of wine that could come into our lives is the loss of life. I mean it's enough, it's one thing to lose your income, it's one thing to go into probation, it's one thing to have some money taken out of your pocket and lose your driving privileges, but it's another thing when your life is completely taken from you, or when the life of somebody you know and love is taken from you. I mean what's more frustrating, what's the saddest thing is when it's a drunk driver that hits somebody and he's the one that lives. When it's some innocent family, when it's some mother, when it's some teenager, when it's some young person, when it's just some person who was going about their life, you know that was being responsible, that wasn't drinking, they go out on the road one day to go somewhere and they get hit by a drunk driver. And the drunk driver is the one that lives, he gets to live with that, the fact that they did that. You see drinking, now this is a study from the CDC, it says drinking too much can harm your health. Excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths and two and a half million years of potential life lost. Now this was in the years from 2006 to 2010, so in a four year span, the CDC is saying that within four years, if you were to add up all the loss of life that was associated with alcohol, not just through drinking and driving, but through the heart disease, the cirrhosis of the liver, the drinking of people, all the chronic diseases that people bring upon themselves through drinking. And again, I just can think of all these personal examples, I personally know a man who literally drank himself to death, I've known more than one individual like that. And you can see it coming and these people, they can't be reasoned with, they'll get to a point where their body begins to shut down and they'll go to a hospital, they'll be laying in a hospital and the doctor will say, look, if you drink, you're going to die. If you continue to drink, your liver is so scarred, is so worn out, you're experiencing kidney failure and if you continue to drink, you're going to die. And these people go out and they continue to drink and they die, and that's exactly what happens. And it's sad, it's really sad, but if we were to add up, the CDC is saying in that four year period, they were able to add up and figure out how much loss of life was experienced from alcohol within just four years. And what was that number? Two and a half million years of potential life. Two and a half million years. The earth hasn't even been around that long. We heard that great sermon about the age of the earth by Pastor Anderson, where he calculated the earth was just over 6,000 years old, I believe. But that's more time than we could spend. Two and a half million years. And that's a staggering number, that's how much life has been lost and that's just in a four year period. It says that it's shortening the lives of those who died by an average of thirty years. Thirty years, an average is just lost. Excessive drinking was responsible for one in ten deaths among working age adults age twenty to sixty four. One in ten. One in ten. Ten percent. That's crazy. The economic cost of excessive alcohol consumption in 2010 were estimated at 249 billion dollars. That's billion with a B. Billion. Or two dollars and five cents a drink. So they figured all this out. They figured all the alcohol was consumed and all the economic costs that came from it. Probably all the health care bills, all the legal system bills, all these different economic costs that came to 249 billion dollars. That's a lot of money. Some other facts on alcohol. The woes of wine that will come into your life considering the loss of life being one of those woes. Alcohol poisoning kills six people every day according to some studies. Six people every day drop dead from alcohol poisoning. They drink themselves to death. That means today by the end of the day six people are going to die on average if you're an average adult. Six people will die today in the United States from drinking themselves to death. This buds for you and it's still going to continue to be advertised and pushed but six more people are going to die today because of alcohol. And of those six people that die today, seventy six percent are going to be adults ages thirty five to sixty four. As a thirty seven year old I'll go ahead and say that that's the prime of life. Thirty five to sixty four. I mean the average thirty five year old is probably a person who started a family, probably has children, probably has a career, probably has somebody who's got a lot of life ahead of them and seventy six percent of them, that's the age they're going to be that die. Three of every four people killed by alcohol poisoning are men. And it makes me think of that verse in Isaiah that says, woe unto them that call evil good and good evil that put darkness for light and light for darkness, they'll put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. That's a very famous verse, if you've been around very long, if you've read our Bibles or been under much preaching, we've probably heard a preacher get up and preach that verse. And I'd say woe unto them that call good evil and evil good that put light for dark and dark for light and bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. But do we know in the context of that scripture as it goes on and reads in the very next verse, woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight, woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine and men of strength to mingle strong drink. You know that study said right there that seventy six percent of the adults that die every day from alcohol poisoning are thirty five to sixty four. They're mighty, that's when they still have strength in their life. They're still able to accomplish much with their life and that three of the four of those people are men. Mighty men, men that can still accomplish great things with their lives. Men that could be productive, that could raise children, that could raise families and they're being killed by alcohol. Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine and men of strength to mingle strong drink. You know, woe to those men, woe to those families, woe to the people that are going to be slain by alcohol. These are the woes of wine, the loss of life. Alcohol impaired driving accounts for more than thirty percent of all driving fatalities each year. You know, everybody's up in arms right now about the firearms issue, all the loss of life that's taking place because of these shootings and things like that. It's nothing compared to the amount of people that are getting killed out on the freeways every year in this country. The amount of people that are being killed in auto accidents are far more devastating than firearm-associated deaths. People are dying because of guns. People are dying more because of cars than they are because of guns. But there's no call to ban guns, is there? I mean, no call to ban cars, there's definitely a call to ban guns. That's what everyone's clamoring for and screaming for. But no one's crying out saying, you know, get the cars off the road, so many people are dying. And they want to say, well, you know, if we ban guns, that's something we can control. That's something we don't need to have. We can get rid of that and control this. Well what about, how about we wipe out thirty percent of the fatalities on our roadways this year by banning alcohol. Just take away the alcohol. People would just put down the bottle and quit drinking. Or maybe some preachers would get up and start ripping face and start telling their people, hey look, if you drink, you're in sin. And there's churches today where they condone drinking. The pastor condones drinking, says, oh, you know, a little alcohol doesn't hurt, and you know, you can go ahead and drink, you can have your glass of wine with dinner. And they start to, and people go down a dark path and they end up in an auto accident. And if we want to do something about the driving fatalities this year, maybe we could get people to put down the bottle and wipe out thirty percent of them. More than fifteen people struggle, fifteen million people, excuse me, more than fifteen million people struggle with an alcohol use disorder in the United States. Now that's their nice way of saying it, alcohol use disorder. You have an alcohol use disorder, well the Bible calls that being a drunk. Maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe you get back to using some terms that aren't so nice to describe people that have these problems. I mean, it's a lot easier if you say, I have an alcohol use disorder. It almost sounds like it's something you're born with. You know, it's like, oh I have, oh he has alcohol use disorder, you know, he's a, he's a, he has Down syndrome. You know, it's like they want to put it in that category, you know, or it's just something you can't help. Well, I'm sorry, I don't believe that, and to start putting these nice little comfortable terms on things, you're not doing anybody favors. Let's call them and say, oh you have alcohol use disorder, oh you're, you mean you're drunk. You mean you're a wine bibber. That's what you mean. Well that's not nice. Well, you know, it's not nice that fifteen million of these people are affected by being a drunker. It's not nice that all these people are going to lose their jobs and lose their income and go through, you know, the legal system or lose their life, the families are going to be destroyed. That's what's not nice. More than sixty-five million Americans report binge drinking in the past month. Now binge drinking is where, you know, the person who doesn't maybe drink every day, but they go out on Friday and Saturday night and they just drink themselves to just black out drunk. And again, all these memories, all these people that I can think of, coming back to my mind, people who we had to go to the next day and say, do you remember doing X, Y, and Z? They had no clue what they did the night before. I mean shameful, embarrassing things that I don't care to repeat from the pulpit, that they did. And they're completely clueless that they even did it because they were binge drinking. Then once they started drinking, they just drank themselves to the point where they just blacked out. And it's not, and blackout is different than passing out. It's where you're still functioning, where you're still walking around, where you're still doing things and you have no clue, you have no control. You completely lost all control of what you're doing. And 65 million Americans report binge drinking in the past month, which is more than 40% of the total current, of the total of current alcohol users. So more than 40% of people that admit to using alcohol are the same people that are going out and drinking to the point where they black out or binge drinking. Teen alcohol use kills 4,700 people each year. 4,700 people die every year because of teens getting drunk. And again, I had a friend in high school that died in a fiery wreck because he left the house party drunk, ran his pickup into a telephone pole and it ignited in flames and he burned to death. And I went to his funeral and I had to stand there and listen to the dad go to the young man that was throwing the house party, the dad who lost his son, and say, we're going to talk about this. And the people that threw that party, the people that gave him that drink and let him walk out the door, I believe they faced legal consequences. Young people, teens, drunk driving costs the United States $199 billion every year. Now I don't know exactly how that cost plays out, I didn't get the details, but that's it, almost $200 billion every year has to be spent because of drunk driving. Kids who start drinking young are seven times more likely to be in an alcohol-related motor vehicle accident. So if you start drinking when you're a kid, you're seven times more likely to be in a wreck. That's one of the woes that wine will bring in you. That's the sorrow that people can experience from drinking wine, from drinking alcohol, is being in an auto accident, being killed in an auto accident, being injured, being permanently disabled because you've decided to get drunk and go drive a car. So that's that first woe, right? That's a pretty serious woe, that's some serious sorrow that wine can bring into your life. I mean that ought to be enough to scare us, that ought to be enough to say, you know what, I don't want anything to do with this stuff. Or that should just be enough for us to say, I don't ever want to touch alcohol again. I don't want to ever touch alcohol in the first place. You know, and I hope my kids can have that testimony that Pastor Anderson has, and that other men of God that I know have, that they've never had a drop of alcohol touch their lips. What a great testimony that would be for our children, that they could say, I don't know what beer tastes like. You know, I wish I could say that, and I wish I wasn't given beer. I mean I was given beer as a little boy, as a kind of a joke. I'd come hang out with the guys out in the garage, I'd get my little cup of beer, and I acquired a taste for it from a very young age. Not the Bible, the study says here that those that start drinking young are seven times more likely to be in an auto accident. Now thank God I never experienced that, but I don't want that testimony to be for my children. So it's important that we understand that if we don't want our children to drink, we ourselves can't be drunk. We can't be offering, or allowing our children to see us drink, and tell them don't do as I do. Don't drink like me, son, while you're tipping back a bottle. That's not the testimony I want to give my children, I want my kids to see their parents living a sober life. That ought to be our desire, that our kids would have godly examples around them of people that don't drink, that understand the woes, the sorrows that come with drinking alcohol. Now let's move on to the next sorrow. What's the next one there in our list that says, Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? So we've seen the sorrow, but now we're going to look at some contentions. And what is a contention? You know, often a contention we think might be just like a real heated argument that two people have, where people are just disagreeing very strongly, and they're having a contention. But a contention is even to the point of physical violence, where people are at each other's throats, where they're going out of their way to hurt each other, that would be a type of a contention. Now there are several examples of criminal activities associated with the excessive use of alcohol. A lot of times when people want to talk about the negative effects of alcohol, you know, our mind instantly goes to the drinking and driving, and that's a big one, you know, like we talked about. All the stats that go with the drinking and driving, and all the imprisonment, and all the fines, you know, those are pretty serious. And the loss of life. But what about just the physical violence? What about just the contentions that come with drinking alcohol? You know, a big one that people need to think about, especially women who want to go out and drink, is the sexual assault that occurs because of alcohol. There's a lot of sexual assault that goes along with alcohol. Now that's not a word I like to use in the pulpit, but, you know, the fact is that's a word that we're probably going to end up hearing at some point in our lives, so let's just go ahead and use it. A sexual assault is a forced sexual act that may involve touching, kissing, and intercourse. So we all understand what that is. And an estimated 37% of sexual assaults and rapes are committed by offenders who are under the influence of alcohol. 35% of the people that committed a rape were drunk. That's what this study is saying. Now I wonder if those guys that did that, those 37% of those people, if they ever would have done it if they weren't drunk. You know, because that's part of the drinking. Drinking just, you know, takes away all those inhibitions that you have. Things that you never would have thought of doing. Things that you would say, you know, I'm not going to do that, that's not right. They would go ahead and do that because they're just feeling like they can get away with it because of the fact that they're drunk. You know, and again, it's sad that it seems like every one of these stats that I read for you, I can think of a personal example. And I personally know somebody that was raped when they were drunk by somebody who was drunk. She got to the point that she was so drunk that she passed out. And this guy was so drunk that he thought he would just take advantage of her. And she came out of it. She came out of that situation. She came to, she came out of her drunken stupor while it was going on. Realized what happened to her. And the man, young man, ran into another room and made up some lies that he was sleepwalking or something like that. And I can't tell you the devastating consequences that carried on with that young lady's life. I mean that changed the whole direction of her life. That's sad. But 37% of those rapes that occur is because somebody's drunk. Not only that, when you're drunk it says here that perpetrators, those that would rape somebody, drinking may intensify their aggressive behavior. So it's not, they might even be more aggressive about it. This can make them become more forceful when someone tries to resist them. So we see that a big part of it, of one of the contentions, the woes that can come into a person's life, is the fact that they can be sexually assaulted, they can be raped due to alcohol. The Bible, again, it talks about this in Habakkuk, it says woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink that putteth thy bottle to him, and make him drunken also, that thou mayst look on their nakedness. The Bible talks about people who get other people drunk for the express purpose of looking on their nakedness. That would take advantage of them in that way when they get them drunk. So that's something that happens. Aggravated assault, that would be another contention. That would be another woe. That would be another sorrow. That would be another one of the woes of wine that come, would be aggravated assault. The study says that 27% of aggravated assaults are committed by individuals who have used alcohol. I mean, anybody who's ever been to a party, you know, where I grew up they had the caterers out in the woods, right? I can't tell you how many fistfights that people got into. For no reason. They just go out in the woods, they're bored, they've got nothing better to do. They get drunk and they start feeling tough and pretty soon people start swinging. And it's just aggravated assault. They might even go after somebody that didn't even have a problem. They don't even have a problem with them. I mean, we've all heard about the bar fight. We've all heard about it. You know, it's something that takes place on a regular basis. I mean, how else do you explain all the security guards at these bars? How else do you explain the cops that have patrolled New Orleans during Mardi Gras? How else do you explain the people that are going to have to be in Old Town Scottsdale and Downtown Scottsdale and Mill Avenue on the weekends and on Friday nights making sure that people don't get out of hand because they're out there getting drunk. Because they want to get drunk and start beating each other up. 27% of aggravated assaults are committed by individuals who have used alcohol. And a lot of times you can even escalate to the point where they use a weapon. You know, the classic bottle getting broken on the bar table and them going at each other. That happens. Homicide. That would be the next level of it. We've talked about the aggravated assault. We've talked about the fact that people are raped because of alcohol. Terrible terrible things that happen. What about homicide? Where people get to the point where they'll even kill somebody. That kind of contention. That would be another woe, that would be another sorrow, that would be another one of the contentions that come because of alcohol. Alcohol is involved in more homicides across the United States compared to other substances. You know all the substances they want to ban, all the substances that they say are illegal, all the substances that will get you thrown in jail for years, make you a felon for the rest of your life. Those ones, they're less responsible. Those substances, if you were on those, you'd be less likely to commit a homicide than you want alcohol. But think about how readily available alcohol is. I mean I wonder how much alcohol is just within a few miles of where we're sitting right now. How quickly can we go out and get a bottle of alcohol and get drunk? It'd be very easy. We could probably just go right up to the corner here and find some supermarket, find some gas station, find some liquor store, find Rite Aid, find some pharmacy that has wine on the shelf, that has alcohol on its cooler. And yet that's more, and it's people that are on alcohol, drinking, that are more likely to commit homicides than any other substance, like heroin or cocaine. Forty percent of convicted murderers had used alcohol before or during the crime. Forty percent. That's a lot of people that decided to kill somebody because they were drunk. They got drunk and said, you know what, this guy made me mad. Whatever. Who knows what the details are. Excessive drinking can lead to more severe forms of violence that can quickly escalate to extremely dangerous situations. I mean that's true. That's sad. Now, fortunately on this one I can't think of any personal examples. I don't know of anybody that killed another individual because of getting drunk. Now what's another, what's the next, we'll move on here. We'll talk about this one very briefly. Babbling. Who hath babbling? That's another one of the woes of wine. Now this is probably more a woe to the people that are around such people than that person themselves. I mean there is nothing more obnoxious than having to be around drunks. They are the most obnoxious people. They just babble. Now in the last month and a half I've started doing ride sharing at night to try and make ends meet where I pick people up and drop them off, you know, through the different ride sharing apps. And it's, you know, you pick up a lot of people that are getting their groceries. I try to go out during the week, you know, early in the evening so I'm not dealing with a lot of this. But on a few occasions I've been out, you know, on a Friday night, you know, past ten o'clock and it's just, it's not funny but it's definitely something that, it's an observation that I made that from about ten o'clock is when you pick up your first drunk. And then about every person after that they just get excessively, by the time midnight rolls around the people you're picking up are just inebriated. I mean they're just, they're just drunks. And they are so obnoxious. I will never forget the couple I had to pick up and drive twenty minutes. Now at least they have enough sense to call somebody else to pick them up and not get behind a wheel car. I will say that. But man do you want to talk about the woe of babbling. I don't know what it is about alcohol that convinces people they have to talk louder. And they just talk about the most inane, stupid, you can't have a serious conversation with these people. You're never going to get with a drunk person and have a deep, meaningful conversation. It's going to be just the most vain, stupid, moronic discussions that you have with drunk people. It's going to be what the Bible calls babbling. This talking rapidly, this continuous, and in a continuous and foolish, excited or incomprehensible way. That's what it means to babble. And I can think, now I can think of a lot of personal examples where I've run into drunk people like this. I remember a time when I had to work another part time job delivering pizza to a hotel. And I had to get in an elevator with this drunk couple. And I had to go like several floors. And that was the longest elevator ride of my life, having to listen to this couple. This drunk, they could barely walk, and they're just carrying on. I didn't want to say what they were saying. But I just remember just being so annoying, and it's the most annoying thing. I remember, I've talked to people that are drunk and just watching them fall literally face first into a wall. I watch people get so drunk they just, they're talking to me, staggering, and you can't understand what they're saying, and then just, bam, hitting a wall, falling on their butt, and then cracking the back of their head on the cement. And you're just like, whoa, and it's that fast. It's babbling. It's whoa. It's sorrow. That's what wine brings to people, the babbling. Anybody who's ever talked to a drunk knows what this is referring to. The slurred speech, the incomprehensible speech. In fact, there was a study, I didn't include it, but they took people that were involved in law enforcement, and they had them listen to audio recordings of people reciting certain passages, and they had to identify the person that had been drinking and the person who had not been drinking. And they progressed, and they had a group of people, and they gave them certain increments of alcohol to read the same passage over and over. And the people hearing it, they didn't know who had been drinking and who hadn't, or how much. And they didn't know it was the same people. But sure enough, they were able to identify which people had been drinking and approximately how drunk they were, just by listening to the words that were coming out of their mouths. I mean, officers are trained when they pull people over to look for certain signs, and one of them would be you battling. I mean, I don't care how much you can get the alcohol off your breath if you get pulled over, how straight you can walk that line toe to toe. I don't care. If you open your mouth and start having a conversation long enough with somebody, they can tell you whether or not you're drunk, because of the babbling that will come out of your mouth, the slurring of the speech, not being able to talk in a comprehensible way. Now, I don't want to spend a lot of time on that one, but we'll move along. What's the next whoa of wine? We've looked at sorrow, we've looked at contentions, we've looked at babbling. The next one is, who have wounds without cause? Wounds without cause. And it's just amazing how accurate the Bible is. It never ceases to amaze me how descriptive the Bible is. How accurately it portrays people, and the drunks are no exception. I mean, so many drunks that wake up with bruises and scars and wounds that they can't explain. This one really strikes home with me because this is something that I was witness to as a boy. I remember my dad coming home and having to go drive around with him the next day after him being out drinking all night, and he got his teeth knocked out in a fight. He allowed both his front teeth and a couple molars in the back. He went to a bar and he had some contentions, he got into it with some guys, and they took him out back and they beat him. He had cracked ribs. Now, did he have to have those? No, it was a wound without cause. He didn't get that in the line of duty. He wasn't suffering for the cause of Christ, he didn't take a beating for the Lord. He was out there, he had a wound without cause. There was no need for him to have to get that wound. At the time, we thought, wow, that's kind of cool, and boy, it sure was neat when he got the fake teeth and he could make them rattle up and down in his mouth. But I tell you, at the time, it was kind of embarrassing, and even now, looking back, it's embarrassing. You say, well, you shouldn't use a personal example like that. Well, you know, me and my kids will learn from that, and maybe some other people's kids will learn from that. Maybe people will appreciate a dad a little bit more that wouldn't do something like that. You can say, at least my dad wasn't that bad, where he'd go out and lose teeth in a bar fight. But that could happen to people, and people need to understand, and I remember as a young boy, I took note of that. I said, man, the bar sounds like a scary place to be. Drinking doesn't seem like it's a very good thing when people are getting wounds without cause. I mean, you could think about the battered mother, the battered wife who was married to a drunk, and he comes home and beats her, and has wounds without cause. She doesn't deserve any of that. There's no reason for her to take that beating, but it's because her husband's a violent drunk. How often does that take place in our country? Far too often. It's common. Wounds without cause. People who wake up the next day after being a drunken stupor, and they can't explain why they're beat up. They can't explain why they have the gash, why they have the wound. Why is it there? And, you know, we could go on with that one. I'd rather not, because it could be a sad thing to talk about, but people really do suffer wounds without cause. The next one would be what? It would be the redness of eyes, right? Who have redness of eyes. This one is kind of different, but what I take from this is the fact that drunks are obvious to others. If you're a drunk, it's obvious to others. That's not something that you can hide very easily. I mean, sure, you can go drink quietly and privately and probably sober up, but if you're like an all-out drunk, to where you're just drinking every day, you can't hold down a job, you're obvious. The redness of eyes, that's easy to pick up. My wife can tell me when I haven't had enough sleep, because my eyes are good on bloodshot. She's like, you need to go take a nap. Probably because I'm cranky, too. But she can look at my eyes and she can say, wow, you need to get some sleep. Your eyes are bloodshot. Or you can tell. It's obvious to people. That's not why I don't have redness of eyes, because I've been drinking. But some people, have you ever heard about the big nose? People who drink a lot, they'll get a very large and swollen nose that's disproportionate to the rest of their face. Or they'll get the beer belly, right? Look at that big belly. That guy that I knew that drank himself to death, he was skinny everywhere else. Skinny arms, skinny legs, skinny everything, but he had this big, he looked like he was nine months pregnant, just this big old belly, just sticking out like that, and the guy drank himself to death. You know, if you're going to be a drunk, you're going to be obvious to others. People are going to see you coming. They're going to know what you're about. And they're probably going to feel sorry for you or want nothing to do with you. And people will say, well, you know, I might be a drunk, but I can still function. You know, I can still get up in the morning, and I don't drink and drive, and I can still function like a normal human being and hold down a job and everything. But you know, you can't stop the physical effects. You're going to have the redness of eyes. You're going to have the cirrhosis of the liver. You're going to suffer the effects of alcohol one way or another. You know, and as I said in the beginning of the sermon, really all we've been looking at this morning are just statistics, facts, studies that the world has done in an unsaved and godless and heathen world. Even they would say, wow, there are some serious problems associated with alcohol. Wow. And you know, they offer all these different ways for people to get sobered up, you know, people to get in these programs. And you know, by the way, I'm all for it. I'm all for the alcohol anonymous. I'm all for anything a person has to do to get off the alcohol. I don't care what it is. If they have to join some group somewhere, some therapy, whatever they have to do. Because there's so many woes that are associated with wine. There's so many woes that come with drinking that you know, it's worth a person going through whatever program they have to go through in order to get off alcohol. You know, if people need to join Alcoholics Anonymous or whatever it is, or check themselves into rehab or have some kind of intervention, amen, do it. Do whatever you have to do because it's not worth it. It's not worth the contentions, it's not worth the sorrow, it's not worth the battling, it's not worth the wounds without cause and the redness of eyes, it's not worth all these things to be drunk. Whatever a person has to do, they need to get off of it. Even the world can see that. Even the world can look at the society that we're living in and look at the statistics and say there is a problem with alcohol. There's something seriously wrong with the world we're living in. Now, if these people that do all these studies would just pick up their Bible and read, they would understand that the Bible condemns drinking. And there's a lot of people today that say, well you know, the Bible doesn't condemn it. Listen, the Bible condemns drinking. It says, look not upon the wine. I'm going to give it its color in the cup. The Bible says we're not even supposed to look at the wine. So that's my question to these people that will say, well a little alcohol is okay. Well okay, well just make sure you don't look at it when you're drinking it. Make sure when you walk into that liquor store blindfolded and find some man to guide you over to your favorite bottle of whatever and help them pull it off the shelf and have them help you get your wallet out and make sure you find a cab ride before you even drink it because you're going to have to drive blind because you can't even look at it. It says look not upon it and then when you get home, make sure you keep the blindfold on and pour yourself a glass of that wine or pour yourself a glass of the beer and try not to spill it and get it in your mouth. I mean, the Bible condemns it, it says don't drink it and it's one of the qualifications for the pastorate. A man is not to be a drunk and to be a pastorate. The Bible says in 1 Timothy, this is a true saying, if a man desired the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work, a bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach, not given to wine. I mean not being a drunk, not somebody who drinks, not somebody who's going to be partaking in alcohol. Why is that? Is that just so that he can make sure that he gets up Sunday morning and he's not hungover? Is that why? Because God doesn't want a hungover preacher? No, it's because he's supposed to be an example to the flock. Meaning this, if it's a qualification for the bishop, it's highly recommended for those that would hear him. It's highly recommended that others would follow in their footsteps and not be drunks themselves. And the Bible says that we are to give heed to those that have taught us and to consider the end of their conversation. Whose faith follow, considering their conversation? We're supposed to follow in the footsteps of those that have spoken unto us the Word of God. The pastor, the preacher is somebody who's not supposed to be a drunk so that they can be an example to the flock. So if it condemns it for the preacher, it's condemned for the people of God. It goes for the deacons too. It says, likewise must the deacons be grieved, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre. So for the pastor, for the deacon, for all of those that would be examples to the flock so that others would learn not to be drunks. And in fact, it specifically addressed several groups of people that are not to be given to wine. The Bible says in Titus chapter 2, but speak thou of the things which become sound doctrine, that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound of faith, and charity of patience. So they're to be sober. So if you're drinking, are you sober? Of course not. It doesn't take much to be drunk. To be not sober. I mean, what is sober? It's the absence of those things. It'd be like saying, well I'm sober, but I only smoke half a joint. I only smoke half of the pot. So I must be sober, right, because I could have smoked more, I could be much higher than I am right now. Well I only drink a glass of wine, I only drink a few beers. I could be much more drunk than I am now, therefore I am sober. That's not how it works. Sobriety is the lack of those things, it's the complete absence of alcohol and drugs. That's what it means to be sober. The Bible is saying here that the aged men are to be sober, they're to be grave. And it says that the aged women likewise, they also are to be sober, they also are to be grave. Why? That they may teach the young women to be sober. So we've got our aged men, we've got our aged women, and we've got the young women all commanded to be sober. And it ends there in verse 6, young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded. So we've just covered every demographic, we've covered every person, we've covered the pastor, the deacon, the aged men, the aged women, the young women, and the young men. They're all commanded to be sober. And to not be given to wine. And people need to take heed to that, because the Bible has made it very clear that there are woes, there are sorrows. Again, it's for our own good that God commands us to be sober, so that we don't have to experience the woes of wine. And there's just so much scripture, there's so many verses that we can turn to, so many passages that just cast alcohol in a negative light. It's foolish to think that God is okay with drinking. It's just a dumb, stupid teaching. The Bible says in Proverbs 20 verse 1, wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. You know, if you're deceived by the preacher who will get up and tell you that you can drink, that wine is okay and a strong drink, there's nothing wrong with it, you're not wise. You've been deceived by that man, and he's been deceived himself. And the Bible says that wine is a mocker. It's something, you know, if you drink, you're going to be one that mocks. You know, the world would hear this preaching, I mean, we read the statistics, we saw the devastating effects that alcohol is having on our country. But if we, you know, so many people in the world, if they were here preaching, if they were here to man a guy get up and say, hey, you shouldn't drink, because the Bible condemns it, they would mock. They would scoff. They would say, that old fuddy duddy, that old stick in the mud, you know, they want to go out and have their fun, but they don't ever think about all the woes that come with it. No one ever goes out and gets drunk and thinks, gee, I wonder if I'll be the victim of rape tonight. Gee, I wonder if I'll be the victim of some kind of physical assault. I wonder if I'll get in a car wreck. They don't think about that. Wine mocks them. It just says, yeah, go out, drink, have fun, have a good time, live it up. But at the end, you know, it's going to be sorrow. And we have a lot of people today, you know, this is a particularly timely sermon I've believed, because of the fact that yesterday was St. Patty's Day, and it was St. Patrick's Day that fell on a Saturday, which makes it, you know, all the worse. Sometimes it falls in the middle of the week. As I remember it, growing up, I've never remembered it being on a Saturday. And I know this because of the fact that, you know, like I said earlier, I'm with that ride share program, and they were really pushing drivers to go out. They're saying, look, this is going to be the most profitable day of the year for you to go out and make money. I remember about eight, nine o'clock last night, I got on the app, and it shows you where all the demands for rides are, and it was all Mill Avenue. It was all Scottsdale, where all the strips of bars are, where people are just getting drunk. And it was like 400% rate increase in some places, because there's just so many people, you know, that are drunk and need to get to the bar, get to the next bar, get home. I didn't go out, I didn't want anything to do with it, because, you know, there's nothing more obnoxious than either being in a van load of drunks. But I wonder, how many of those people last night, you know, they're waking up right now, they're just coming to you, they're coming out of their drunken stupor, and what's the first thing they're going to do this morning? They got a hangover, they're going to try and drink it off, and you say, wow, now it's time for the Bloody Mary. Now it's time for the raw egg and tomato juice and some vodka, so that I can get over this hangover. And the Bible says, woe unto them, rise up early in the morning that they may follow a strong drink and continue until night till wine inflame them. I guarantee you there were people yesterday, on St. Patrick's Day, that got up early in the morning and said, it's St. Patrick's Day. Who's St. Patrick? We don't know! But we're going to get drunk. They don't even know what St. Patrick's Day is about. All it is to them is wearing green beads and silly hats, and they start drinking very early. They'll start drinking, they're probably getting drunk by noon, they're already drinking. They rise up early in the morning that they may follow a strong drink and continue till night till wine inflame them. And it's just a perfect description of our country. And the harp and the vial and the tabaret and the pipe and wine are in their feasts. Go to Scottsdale, go to Mill Avenue on a Friday night and listen to the music. People are just there in throngs and the bands are there and the music's loud and it's just a big party. They got the harp, they got the vial, they got the tabaret and the pipe and the wine are in their feasts. But if they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of His hands. Do you think all the drunks, anybody down there in Mill Avenue, anybody in Scottsdale last night was thinking about God? They were thinking about the Lord? They were looking up the stars in heaven and going, wow, I wonder if there's a Creator? That they were giving glory to God? That they were thinking upon the things of God last night? No, of course not. They have no knowledge and their honorable men are famished and their multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore hell hath enlarged himself and opened her mouth without measure. Hell is enlarging itself today because people that are rising up early and following strong drink. Because they're so concerned with their party life, they never stop to think about God. They never stop to think about their soul. They mock the things of God and they're going to die and go to hell. That's sad because of alcohol. That's one of the woes of wine. That's the world. We would expect it from the world. I'll wrap up here. We would expect all this from the world, that the world is a bunch of drunks. That's not news to us. We need to be on guard and understand that alcohol, it's a very serious sin. There's only a certain number of sins that will get you kicked out of church and being a drunk is one of them. And we can begin to see why. Because of the devastating effects that alcohol has on a person's life. Because of the devastating effects it can have on those who live around a drunk. You can be a drunk and it affects so many other people around you negatively. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 5, I wrote unto you an epistle not to company with fornicators yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or the covetous or extortioners with idolaters, for then you must needs go out of the world. But now have I written unto you not to keep company in any man that is called a brother. So someone that we call a brother is somebody that we would go to church with. Somebody that's known, hey brother so-and-so, sister so-and-so, they go to church. You know we expect to see them on a weekly basis in church. If any man be called a brother to be a fornicator, or a covetous, or an idolater, or a railer. And we would say amen, amen, amen, yeah no fornicators, no covetous people, no idolaters, no railers. Then it says this, poor or drunkard. You know if you're a drunkard, if you're one who's drinking, you know the Bible says you should be kicked out of church. You should be allowed to associate with God's people. You shouldn't be allowed to have fellowship here in the local church if you're a drunkard. And that's serious. That's one of the devastating effects that alcohol can have on your life. You get kicked out of the local church. Now it's not a permanent excommunication where you're just never allowed to come back. The purpose is so that you get it right. So you'd be out there in the cold spiritually and say, you know what, I'm making a mess out of my life. Whatever the sin I need to get out of my life, I'm going to get it out. Stop being a drunk. That's the purpose of church discipline, of course, is that people will get things right. But it's also that we can spare the flock so that the kids don't see the fornicators, so the kids don't see the drunkards. So they don't see it being condoned. And so many churches today, they don't follow through on this passage. So many churches, they arrest that scripture, yeah I know so-and-so's getting drunk every weekend, they have this problem, but you know, I just want to live on them, help get it right. If you really loved them, you would deal with it. So let's take heed to the sermon, let's take heed to what the scripture says, that alcohol is something that's condemned. And so many times people, they want to question why. Well, why does it say, why is it a mock? Why does God condemn drinking so much? Why is it that drunks are going to be kicked out of the church? Well, why don't you just accept the fact, you know, quit worrying about why so much. People want to know why, why, why. There's nothing wrong with understanding why you believe something. But you know, you shouldn't question things just for the sole purpose of trying to argue against it. Well, I don't think God really should be that way about drunkards. Well, let's go to the world then, friend. Let's go to the world and see what the world has to say about it. Can we begin to see why, from what we read this morning, why God condemns drinking so much in the scripture? Because of the woes of wine, because of the woes of the contentions, the assaults, the loss that comes with it, the sorrow, the babblings. The Bible condemns drinking in scripture and it's not something we should have anything to do with. So let's take heed to the scripture and let's walk by faith and understand that there's a very good reason why God has condemned drinking and condemned alcohol. It's because of the woes of wine. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, again, thank you for the scripture, thank you for the warning that you give us about alcohol. Lord, something that's just so lightly esteemed in our society, something that's just, Lord, approved of and not looked down upon, and Lord, those that are even suffering the negative effects of being, of alcohol, drinking, Lord, they're called, they're given nice terms, they're given special terms that we wouldn't hurt their feelings, but Lord, the scripture calls them drunks. The scripture calls them wine rivers, where you have very strong language about those that would drink. Lord, help us, Father, to never be those that would be guilty of that sin, Lord, that we would do as you have commanded us, Lord, to be sober-minded, that we would have clear thoughts, Lord, and that we would think upon the things of God and that we would give you glory for them. Father, I pray that you just help all of us to remember these warnings from your Word, and Lord, help those in the world that are suffering, Lord, to understand that they can sober up, and Lord, that you want them to be sober and to know you and to give you the praise and glory that you deserve, and we ask that you would do these things in Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. Alright, let's sing one more time.