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

We receive wisdom from the sermon this morning. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Title of my sermon this morning is, New Wine Takes Away the Heart. New wine takes away the heart. Look, if you would, at verse number eight there in Hosea 4. They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity. And there shall be like people, like priests. Finish them for their ways, and reward them their doings. And we see here that the nation of Israel, the northern kingdom specifically, has become very wicked, very sinful. Even the religious leadership in those days would be like the Levitical priests, or whatever the priest. And that would be like today's pastors or preachers. And the people are wicked. The priest is wicked. And God says, I'm going to punish them for all this iniquity. It says in verse 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. But then in verse 11, he gives this sentence that sort of explains how they got this way. They've left off to take heed to the Lord. And he's explaining partially their spiritual condition, how they get there. Verse 11, whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart. And that's the thought that I want to preach on this morning. Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart. Now, the first couple there are pretty easy to understand. When we see whoredom, we're talking about fornication, adultery. And obviously, that is very serious sin. When we talk about wine there, it's specifically referring to getting drunk. And these are two major sins. In fact, these are such big sins that in the New Testament, these are on that short list of sins that will cause you to actually be thrown out of the church. Where in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, it says, if there's a brother that is a drunkard or a fornicator, and he lists other things. But he says, with such a one, know not to eat. Put away from among yourselves that wicked person. And so obviously, we at the local church here, we're all sinners. None of us is perfect. We all do things that we shouldn't do or fail to do good things that we should do. There's none righteous, no, not one, humanly speaking in this church. We're all sinners. But there are these major sins that would actually even get you disciplined from the church. And of course, whoredom and wine would be in that category, being a drunk or committing fornication and things like that. And so these are big sins. So it makes sense that these big sins would take away the heart, would cause us to depart from the Lord or put a rift between us and the Lord. And I heard this saying many times, sin will keep you from this book, and this book will keep you from sin. So this book, reading the Bible, studying the Bible, listening to the preaching of the Bible, is going to help us avoid sin. The book will keep us from sin, but also sin will keep us from this book. Why? Because when we're living a sinful and ungodly life, it would make us not want to think too much about the word of God or spend too much time praying to the Lord, because it's going to make us feel guilty about the life that we're living. And so you can see how the whoredom and wine would take away our heart from the Lord, because if we're living in serious sin, we're not going to want to be dwelling on God's laws and dwelling on the word of God and thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for our sins, right? Now, if you would flip over to 1 John chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3, think about when Peter denied the Lord. That was a big sin on his part. And right before that, man, he was right with the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's saying, man, I'm willing to die for you. And he was at kind of this spiritual high point at the Last Supper with Jesus. But yet, because he committed this huge sin where he denied that he even knew Christ, which is pretty humiliating, pretty embarrassing. And after he did that, he went out and wept bitterly because of the sin that he had committed. But because Peter denied the Lord, he ended up quitting on God. And if you remember in John chapter 21, he went back to fishing. It's like he's done preaching. He's done evangelizing. And he just goes back to the old life, back to fishing. Why? Because the guilt of that sin that he had committed ended up causing him to put some distance between him and the Lord. And that's what happens, right? Hortem and wine and new wine take away the heart. It makes sense that committing huge sins like fornication, adultery, or drunkenness are going to cause there to be a rift between us and the Lord and our walk with God. Look at 1 John chapter 3, verse 20. It says, for if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. You know, sometimes we might have a really guilty conscience and feel bad and our heart is condemning us. But you know, God's greater than our heart and knows all things. God's willing to forgive. And sometimes God's even willing to forgive us when we're not even willing to forgive ourselves. But God's greater than our heart even if our heart's condemning us and we think, oh, man, I'm trash. What's the point in even trying? You know, God's greater than our heart and he knows all things. And so sometimes God's forgiveness is even greater than our own forgiveness for ourself. And thankfully, his mercies are new every morning. God was ready to forgive Peter even though he wasn't really forgiving himself. And he ended up just quitting. And Jesus had to go back and recruit him back into the ministry in John chapter 21. But look at the next verse. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. So you see the difference here. You know, if our heart condemn us, hey, God's greater than our heart and knows all things. He's always ready to forgive. His mercies are new every morning. We're still saved. We can never lose our salvation. But you know, if our heart condemn us not, though, here's the good thing about our heart not condemning us. Here's the good thing about having a good conscience is that we then have confidence toward God. And that's where we want to be in our Christian life. We want to have confidence toward God. We want to feel good about opening our Bible and reading it, feel good about praying, feel good about going to church. Even though those doors are open to us anyway, as far as the Lord's concerned, a guilty conscience can sometimes cause us to draw back and take away our heart from the Lord. So it's good to walk the right way and have a good Christian life so that our heart doesn't condemn us, so that we have confidence toward God as opposed to our heart being taken away by the sins of this world. Then we have confidence toward God, verse 22. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. You know, we want to have that confidence toward God and know that God's going to bless us and answer our prayers because we're doing the stuff we're supposed to be doing. Because obviously, if we're out living in sin, there is chastisement that goes along with that. Here's another quick verse I'll hit you with here is Isaiah 59 2, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God. And your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear. And so God hears our prayers more and answers our prayers more. The Bible says if we have confidence toward him, if our heart's not condemning us, if we're actually doing what we're supposed to be doing, the Bible says if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. And so it's kind of a two-way thing. If we're out living in sin, that obviously causes God to be displeased with us. And now God's chastising us and chastening us and not blessing us. But then also from our perspective, when we're living in sin, it takes away our heart. And it causes us not to have confidence toward God and to shy away from the Bible, prayer, church, et cetera. So sin takes our heart away from God. The Bible says keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. We want to keep our heart right. We don't want things to take away our heart. What's going to take away our heart? Horedom is going to take away our heart. Wine is going to take away our heart. And that's pretty obvious that big sins like fornication, adultery, and drunkenness will do that. But what about that last part? Because that last part's kind of interesting because he said, horedom and wine and new wine take away the heart. Now here's the interesting thing about new wine is that it doesn't have any alcohol in it whatsoever. Okay, because it's new wine. What does new mean? It's talking about that which is freshly juiced or freshly crushed from the grapes. And so it has not had time to become alcoholic yet. It specifically is new wine. Why would that take away the heart? It's not like you're getting drunk drinking a bunch of grape juice or a bunch of other fruit juice. Why would that take away your heart? Now a lot of people that are just ignorant of history and just ignorant about the way the world works, they have this really foolish, simplistic view of the word wine in the Bible where they just think, well, wine's always booze. And it's just because they lack understanding. Okay, and they actually will make stupid statements like, well, why would grape juice make anybody happy? How could grape juice take away the heart? But really what they're doing is they're kind of just glorying in their own stupidity. You know, it'd be like someone who doesn't understand math so then they're making a mockery of calculus because it's just so far over their head. You're really just showing how ignorant you are of the Bible, history, culture to make those kinds of statements. And if you'll hang out with me here for the next few minutes, I'm gonna just show how ridiculous those statements are. First of all, one has to understand that the word wine in the Bible is used to refer to both an alcoholic beverage and just any juice that is squeezed from any kind of fruit. It's not even just used exclusively for a grape product. It could be used for a juice from a pomegranate or anything else. You see, the word juice is not the word that the Bible uses to describe this beverage. In fact, the word juice in 31,000 some odd verses in the Bible is only used one time because it says the wine of the juice. So they just don't wanna say wine of the wine. So they mix it up a little, wine of the juice. Juice and wine are synonymous in the Bible. That's why the Bible doesn't use the word juice except that one time. Now, I find it pretty hard to believe that juice just never gets mentioned for 31,000 verses. Wouldn't it make a little more sense to think that the word wine is doing double duty and talking about both? Fruit juice and an alcoholic beverage, it's covering both. It'd be pretty absurd. I mean, the Bible mentions milk, water. It mentions all these different things. Why would it just never mention fruit juice? Just doesn't exist in the Bible. Because that's what you'd have to believe if you're gonna have this absurd view that says, well, wine is wine, and every time it says wine, it's what they're selling in a cardboard box down at CVS. That's what it is, it's alcohol. If you're gonna have that bizarre, simplistic view, then you would have to believe that the Bible just never mentions fruit juice. But that's not even an option because if we actually study the scripture, we will see that it's for sure talking about juice because how about this verse? And if you would, flip over to Psalm 104, if you would. Isaiah chapter 65 verse eight says, thus saith the Lord, as the new wine, and notice, new wine. That's what we're talking about this morning. The new wine is found in the cluster. Now, does everybody know what a cluster is? We're talking about a cluster of grapes. Now, I've never been carded, even when I was a child, if I went to the grocery store and bought grapes, they never said, hey, I'm gonna need to see your ID. Now, they wanna see my ID for spray paint. They wanna see my ID for Sudafed. They wanna see your ID if you were to buy things like liquor and cigarettes. But it's funny how you never get carded for grapes, but they're filled with wine, man. Let's party, right? Let's go down and we'll get a keg of grapes and we can really, folks, because everybody knows that the juice that's found in the grape is not alcoholic. It has to go through a process to become fermented, to become wine, and so this is why kids' meals all over America are including a little cluster of grapes, even though it contains new wine in that cluster. Now, to look at this verse and then claim, well, wine is wine. Well, right there, my friend, you have the new wine that's found in the cluster, okay? Then you have Proverbs chapter three, verse nine. Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the firstfruits of all thine increase, so shall thy barns be filled with plenty and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. Notice that what you squeeze out of the press, what comes out of the wine press, right? What comes out is new wine, because you just pressed it, it's brand new. Does everybody understand? New wine, okay? But how about this one? Zechariah, you're in Psalm 104. Let's look at Psalm 104 first. Psalm 104, verse 13 says this. He watered the hills from his chambers. The earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. We're gonna read this passage because of the fact that some people would say, well, it's only juice when it specifically says new wine, and that's not true because a lot of times when it says wine, it can go either way still without specifically spelling out new wine, okay? But look what it says in verse 14. He causes 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. The trees of the Lord are full of sap, the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted. Now again, this is one of those verses that the Bozos will pull out and say, how in the world could this be talking about fruit juice here? You know, it's this gift from God, right? The maybe that should be their new slogan, right? CBS is now offering boxes filled with the gift from God. You can get drunk, okay? What a blessing, right? And they'll say, how in the world do you expect me to believe that a fruit juice is gonna make me glad? But here's the thing. You're looking there in Psalm 104 verse 15 that wine maketh glad the heart of man and this is what God gives. How about Zechariah 917? For how great is his goodness and how great is his beauty? Corn. Corn shall make the young men cheerful and new wine the maids. So the Bible says that corn is gonna make the young men cheerful and that new wine is gonna make the maids cheerful. Look, we've already established that new wine isn't alcoholic. But how come new wine is making the maids cheerful over in verse 17 of Zechariah 9? But no, no, it can't be doing that in Psalm 104. It's the same Bible, my friend. If wine is cheering up the maids and it's for sure an alcoholic in Zechariah 917, then why can't it make glad the heart of man in Psalm 104? Especially since the context of Psalm 104 is all nature. It's grass growing, the herbs, wine, oil, bread. That's the context. We're talking about food products. We're not talking about alcohol. And here's the other thing about that is that if corn is making the young men cheerful, you know, again, how is this alcohol? It's corn, okay, and new wine. These are food items, okay. So anyway, I don't wanna spend the whole sermon talking about this. I've done other sermons where I've showed verse after verse after verse where the wine in the Bible sometimes specified as new wine, sometimes not, but where the word wine is sometimes referring to an alcoholic beverage, sometimes not, because it's just any fruit juice, whether fermented or unfermented, is wine. Sometimes the Bible would specify it as being a strong drink or being new wine, but the word can go both ways, okay. And people who deny this, it's because they just really wanna drink. That's what it comes down to. Or they wanna defend their buddy pastor who really wants to drink. Okay, that's really what it comes down to because the Bible's pretty clear, and again, I'm not gonna beat this into the ground this morning because it's not really what the sermon's about. But now that we understand all that, we've seen all that, we've seen that for sure new wine is unfermented, even sometimes just wine in the Bible. And these people pretend not to understand this. They'll be like, then they'll pull out a verse that's clearly talking about alcohol, and then they'll insert grape juice and say it's absurd. Folks, I'm not saying that it's always unalcoholic. I'm saying it can go either way. That's clearly what I've always taught. That's what all teetotaling Baptists have always taught, okay. But what does this verse mean? What's the sermon about? Hordom and wine and new wine take away the heart. Flip over to Jeremiah chapter five, Jeremiah chapter five. Hordom and wine and new wine take away the heart. Do we all understand why hordom could take away the heart? Yeah. Do you understand how wine in the context of drunkenness could take away the heart? You're probably not gonna be close to the Lord if you're out boozing it up with the alcoholic beverage wine, but how in the world could new wine take away the heart? And notice he lists wine and new wine separately. So he's really making it clear. I'm talking hordom, I'm talking wine, I'm even talking new wine that could take away the heart. How could new wine take away the heart? You say, well, how could fruit juice take away the heart? Folks, that's exactly what I'm teaching. And let me explain to you why that's only absurd to you if you're ignorant of history and life in general, because of the fact that throughout history, fruit juice and especially grape juice is a luxury. All throughout the Bible, wine is used as a metaphor, it's used as a symbol of luxuriant living. Even the teetotaler that I am, I will constantly use this term, wining and dining someone. I'll talk about being wined and dined or we're really gonna wine them and dine them. We're not actually going to be ordering an alcoholic beverage when we do that. But we call it wining and dining because we're talking about a fine meal. We're talking about finer things in life. And the Bible will talk about corn and wine, wine and oil. Why, because these are things that you can kind of live without. There are other ways to get your nutrition and survive and have your rice and beans and get by just fine. Then there are these nicer things, the oils and the wines and the corn and the fat and the land flowing with milk and honey and everything like that. We're talking about the finer things. And so when the Bible says that new wine takes away the heart, new wine there represents soft living, luxury, indulgence, being at ease. That's what we're talking about with new wine. Having it good, living it up, living soft, overindulging. Now, maybe this metaphor is lost on us a little bit in 2022 because we can just go to the gas station, buy a bottle of juice, no matter how poor we are, we can go to the grocery store, buy a bottle of juice. But think about without machines, how much work it is to make that juice. You have to have human beings stepping on these grapes. You have to have literal human labor stepping on these grapes, smashing it. Think about how hard it would be to make a glass of orange juice without a machine. That'd be a lot of work sitting there, you know? And look, I've had one of those kind of citrus juicers that you do yourself by hand. Who's ever done that by hand where you're just kind of grinding half a grapefruit or grinding half a lemon or orange? That's a lot of work, okay? And not only that, it involves a lot of waste because you're not eating the whole fruit. You're not doing the whole thing. So you end up putting all this pulp in the trash. Even if you have a machine to do it and you have a juicer and you actually buy good fruit and juice it, it ends up being pretty expensive. The cheap stuff you're buying out of the store is factory farmed, GMO, pesticides, that whole ball of wax. Then they're putting it in a machine and that's why we're able to have this abundance of cheap juice. But you can't just assume that the world has always been that way because throughout history, juice has been a luxury item. Having a sugary, you know, we got the Coca-Cola and the root beer. Folks, throughout history, people weren't just popping open a Coke. You know, the children of Israel aren't in the wilderness just tossing each other a cold one, opening a Coke and being like, you know, I'm getting tired of the manna out here. Can we get some quail? These type of sugary drinks are kind of a modern phenomenon as far as being this readily available. It's a part of why we have a bit of an obesity epidemic in the United States that hasn't really been a problem. You know, if you study the history of America a hundred years ago, the problem was like, how do we get enough calories? We're having trouble getting enough calories because we're out working in the fields and it's just, it's hard to get the nutrition and the calories we need, especially during the Great Depression. Even before the Great Depression though, that was an issue, getting enough calories. And so the easy living is what we're talking about with the new wine taking away the heart. The danger of having it too good in life is that it takes our heart sometimes away from God. Have you noticed that during hard times people get closer to God? When the finances are tight, prayer increases. You know, when the country is in danger or going to war, all of a sudden now people are praying more. People are going to church more. Great Depression, Great Recession, hard times financially. People start praying, they start seeking God. Church attendance goes up. You know, I remember there was quite a big recession around here, around like what, 2007, 2008, and the housing market crashed, if you remember that. Those of us who owned homes definitely remember watching our house, you know, just devalue and just completely lose all its value. And so during that time I noticed that soul winning got more receptive. Just because people were suffering, people were struggling, and that caused us to get closer to God. Whereas good times sometimes can cause us to just say, well, who is the Lord? You know, the Bible says, give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny thee and say, who's the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my God in vain. So the author of Proverbs there is saying, I don't wanna be super poor and then I might get angry at God and I don't wanna be super rich because then I'm gonna be like, well, who's the Lord, man? I, you know, I've got everything I need. I'm self-sufficient. And so just as hard times drive us closer to God, having it too good can sometimes take us away from God and take our heart away from God, the soft, easy living. And that's why new wine takes away the heart. Yes, whoredom, yes, wine, but also new wine takes away the heart, okay. Look at, did I have a turn to Jeremiah five? Look at Jeremiah five verse six. Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them and a wolf of the evening shall spoil them. A leopard shall watch over their cities. Everyone that go without them shall be torn in pieces because their transgressions are many and their backslidings are increased. How shall I pardon thee for this? Thy children have forsaken me. Again, we have a really bad spiritual condition similar to what we saw over in Hosea chapter four. Thy children have forsaken me and sworn by them that are no gods. When I'd fed them to the full, everybody see that? They then committed adultery and assembled themselves by troops in the harlot's houses. They were as fed horses in the morning. Notice that being emphasized again. Everyone neighed after his neighbor's wife. How do you like that play on words? Right, the horses that were fed in the morning, they neighed after their neighbor's wife, okay. See what God did there? Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? And shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? Folks, our nation has it good. And because our nation has it good, the new wine has taken away our heart from the Lord in general, as a nation. Why are we getting more atheistic, more agnostic, de-Christianized? Why are we drifting further every day from God? It's because new wine is taking away our heart. Oh, whoredoms take away our heart too. All kinds of fornication and adultery, that's causing our nation's heart to depart from God. The drunkenness in America, the drug use. And folks, don't be one of these bozos that thinks it's okay to take drugs, but that alcohol is bad. Okay, listen Bob Marley, all right. When the Bible has all these condemnations of drunkenness, you should apply that to drugs as well. Because obviously God's not just gonna spell out, you know, thou shall not snort cocaine, thou shall not smoke marijuana, thou shall not shoot up heroin, thou shall not smoke crack. It's like, come on. He's not gonna sit there and just break this all down. You know, if there's a general principle of sobriety, be sober, be sober, be sober. And he talks about drunkenness, obviously marijuana, all these other things are gonna fall under that category of not being sober. In fact, usually drugs are worse than alcohol, okay. But you could say, well, some of them are equivalent. Okay, they're equivalent, don't do them. Don't do the one, don't do the other. Just because it's legal now, doesn't make it right. And we, man, we drove across this country and let me tell you something. I learned some stuff on this road trip. Let me tell you some stuff I learned. Number one, people have been talking so much smack about how liberal California is and how weird it is and the queers and whatever. But let me tell you something, the whole country is like that. I drove the entire length of California and I noticed no difference between California and the rest of the nation. Now I will say this, Arizona's a little better, okay. Basically, Arizona's number one for godliness. Everything else is tied at second place. Except Texas is third place. No, I'm just kidding. So I'm not even kidding. It's like Arizona, 48 states, Texas. Okay, that's the morality level that I saw on this trip. I'm just, I mean, let's face it, I saw the weirdest stuff in Texas, okay. But hey, I was in Oklahoma. The greeter at Walmart was a transvestite in Oklahoma. The Bible Belt. I mean, I remember one time flying into Oklahoma to do a job and it was a cab driver, an Uber driver. He said, you know, hey, you heard of the Bible Belt. This is the buckle. That's what he told me about Oklahoma City 10 years ago. Well, let me tell you something. You know, it's a rainbow belt buckle now apparently. Okay, I'm just trying to say that, you know, this country has gotten away from the Lord. It's not just California, my friend, because we saw the same thing everywhere. We saw probably more weirdness in places other than California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas, you name it. We saw it. And but that's kind of like not having anything to do with the sermon this morning. But here's what does have to do with the sermon this morning. I'll tell you what is ubiquitous. I mean, I'll tell you what we saw again and again and again and again was marijuana. I mean, good stinking night. Just the marijuana dispensaries. And we do have that here in extreme as well. Just, you know, the marijuana dispensaries are everywhere. Man, I couldn't even count the billboards. It's like you're driving down the freeway. It's just like marijuana, marijuana, marijuana, marijuana, marijuana, next exit, marijuana, next exit, marijuana. It was like every exit had a subway and marijuana. It was like the two things you never had to wonder if this exit has a subway. Every exit in America has a subway. Every gas station in America has like a subway in it and there's marijuana across the street. So I'm telling you, my friend, the marijuana is just insane across this country. And don't let them program you because you know, you keep seeing the signs. You keep seeing that stuff. That's how advertising works is it keeps showing you something and gets it in your head. You gotta make the effort to say, I'm not going to smoke pot. I'm not gonna do it. It's just as bad as it was 20 years ago. It's just as bad as it's all. Don't let them get to you with the continual programming. You've got to fight against it and be one who will not drink and will not take drugs. So many lives have been destroyed. So many hearts have drifted from God. I guarantee you that the person who is lighting up marijuana isn't the biggest Bible reader in the church. They're just not. Say, well, you know, I can still be productive and I can still be a good worker and I can still serve God. Hey, it's gonna take away the heart. And so whenever you're thinking about drunkenness, just put drug use in the same category because it goes in the same category. And so it takes away the heart, right? Our country is drifting from God because of whoredom, because of wine, because of drugs, because of drunkenness. But you know, our country is also drifting from God because of our prosperity. Now, prosperity is good, not against prosperity. But here's the thing about prosperity is that when things are going good, you have to be extra vigilant about your walk with God. Look, man, I want things to go good in my life. I want things to go good in Arizona. I don't want some housing crash. I don't want some recession, depression. I don't want to see bread lines and soup lines and all of these things. I don't want the economy to crash and burn, my friend. Hey, I want prosperity just like you want prosperity. But let me tell you something, during times of prosperity, we have got to be doubly on guard about our spiritual walk with God. That's what I'm saying. Did I have to turn to Deuteronomy 28? Do it now, all right? Deuteronomy 28, let's go. Let me kill a little time while you get there. Actually, I'm gonna start reading it while you get there because really what I want you to see is the latter part of this. Listen to verse 45 as you get over to Deuteronomy 28. Moreover, all these curses shall come upon thee and shall pursue thee and overtake thee till thou be destroyed because thou harkenest not unto the voice of the Lord thy God to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee. Look, he's saying if you do bad stuff, bad things are gonna happen to you. If you don't listen to God's commandments, you're gonna get punished. Verse 46, they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder and upon thy seed forever. He's saying people are gonna marvel at how bad things get when you get away from God. It's gonna be a wonder to them and it's gonna be a sign showing, hey, you disobey God, you get punished. Here it is. Look at verse number 47. Because thou servits not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart for the abundance of all things. He's saying why didn't you serve God when things were good? When you had abundance of all things, when the bank accounts were full, when the grocery shelves were full, when the cupboards were full, when everything was great, why didn't you just rejoice and be happy and thank God and serve God in that abundance? And folks, we're in that abundance right now. You know, the gas prices. But folks, my friend, you know, this ain't the Great Depression by any stretch of the imagination. Yeah, the gas prices are high, but so are wages high. Wages are going up, everything's going up. You know, people are making a lot of money right now. Yeah, the gas prices are high, but they can afford it. And people aren't starving, we're all fine. Okay, the point is, in general, if we compare ourselves to history and if we compare ourselves to the rest of the world right now, we're living in abundance right now. Let's compare it to India, China. You know, we're doing great. And that's like billions of people that I just mentioned in one breath, okay? And here we are in the abundance. Are you gonna serve God in the abundance of all things or does God have to take everything away from you to get you to serve him? Hey, you better quit while you're ahead and not just keep on sinning and keep on living bad while things are still okay for you because things can always get a lot worse. Serve God when things are good so that God doesn't have to take you down a notch, so that God doesn't have to bring you to your knees. You know, I'd rather get on my knees when things are good than for God to just have to just bring me to my knees. And he can bring us to our knees. I don't care how puffed up you are. You're like, you don't know my finances. My finances are bulletproof. Well, that's okay because God has other ways of hurting you. God could just go like this and just destroy your health and people would give all their money to have perfect health. And so, you know, you'd rather serve God in the good times and in the abundance. Don't let that new wine take away your heart is what I'm saying. Because new wine takes away the heart. I didn't write that. I didn't put that in the Bible. Can we all agree that new wine isn't booze? Can we all agree it's coming out of wine presses that moment? Can we all agree that it's found in the cluster of a grape? Can we all agree that new wine is new? Well, new wine takes away the heart, my friend, and we are living in the land of what? New wine. Everywhere we go, the Coca-Cola flows like a river, right? The grape juice, orange juice, and apple juice flows like a river in this country. Now you say, well, Pastor Anderson, you want us to be poor, you want us to be in the depression. No, I don't. Man, I hope that prosperity lasts for as long as possible in this country just so that I can enjoy, so that you can enjoy, you know? But I don't want this country to get more de-Christianized at the same. So then you're almost like, well, if God has to bring those bad times, then it's almost like maybe he should bring those bad times. Just don't let it hit me too hard, you know? But the point, but you're thinking, I don't feel like God has to hit me hard because of the fact that I'm serving God in the abundance. And if you're serving God in the abundance, maybe God can just kinda mess up the economy for everyone else, and we can kinda be living in a land of Goshen where everyone else is affected by the plagues, and we're okay. But I'm telling you, if we let that new wine take away our heart, man, God might have to bring us to our knees and bring us back to him by bringing the drought and the famine. Why didn't you serve God with joyfulness and gladness of heart for the abundance of all things, right? Look at verse 48, therefore, shalt thou serve thine enemies. Oh, you don't wanna serve God? Okay, well, have fun serving your enemies. Have fun serving a foreign power. Have fun serving people that you hate. I mean, isn't it better to serve the Lord than to serve some wicked person or some wicked country? You know, I mean, do you want, and obviously this is never gonna happen, and so this is just a fiction. Never will happen, okay? I'll go on the record of saying that. But like, you know, would you want like the Muslims to just invade our country and take over our country and just rule over us with rigor, and we have to pay more taxes because we're not Muslim? I mean, that would be horrible, right? I mean, do you want, and these are just fictional things that I don't believe will ever happen or could ever happen. You know, do you want the communist Chinese to just take over our country and just put surveillance cameras with face recognition everywhere and just oppress us and bring us under some communist foreign dictatorship? Again, never would happen, but just as a fiction, is that, you know, wouldn't that be terrible? Who would you rather serve? Would you rather serve God because you chose to get up on Sunday morning and go to church, you chose to wake up and read your Bible, you chose to get out soul-willing? Or would you rather serve some, you know, Chinese evil dictator regime or serve some evil Muslim regime? And again, these are fictional, but you get the point, don't you? You wanna serve foreigners or you wanna serve the Lord? You know, you wanna serve wickedness or you wanna serve the Lord? But this is what he's offering them. Because guess what, the Israelites were pretty vulnerable to invasion, they didn't live on a continent on the other side of the world where they pretty much owned the whole continent like we do and have the most powerful military in the world. You know, they're in a situation where, yeah, the Ammonites and the Mobites can invade, the Midianites can invade, the Edomites can invade, the Canaanites can invade, right? The Zydonians or whoever, you know, they have all these people around them that could mess with them. And he says, hey, you didn't wanna serve God in joyfulness, then you'll serve your enemies, right? Look what it says in verse 48 there. Verse 48, which the Lord shall send against thee. Said, you're gonna serve these enemies that God sends in hunger and in thirst and in nakedness and in want of all things. And he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck until he destroyed thee. Now, even if a foreign invasion is unrealistic for us today in 2022, although obviously with God, all things are possible, it's extremely unrealistic. But you know what is realistic though, is for you personally to get hit with hunger, thirst, nakedness and want of all things. You know, he could really mess up your finances, he could mess up your health, he could mess up your situation and cause you to be in want or to have to serve a specific lender or to get messed up in debt and everything because of what he brings into your life. And so he'll put a yoke of iron on your neck. The Bible says the end of verse 48, he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck until he have destroyed thee. Well, you know what the Bible says about serving Jesus? It says his yoke is easy, his burden's light. Serving Christ is an easy yoke and a light burden. So when things are abundant, why don't you just put that yoke on you? And why don't you say, hey, let's serve God, let's serve Jesus Christ, let's obey the Bible, let's do what's right. That's easier than the punishment of sin. When God brings punishments on you, it's a yoke of iron and it leads to your ultimate destruction. As opposed to blessing, having the light yoke. It's kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? And so new wine takes away the heart. We don't wanna let that new wine take away our heart. So there are really two solutions to this that I wanna present to you as I close this morning. Solution number one is serve the Lord when things are good. Right, put on the easy yoke. Well, I don't wanna have any yoke. Oh, you're gonna wear a yoke, my friend. If you don't wear Christ's yoke, God'll put a yoke on you and it's not gonna be a wooden, lightweight yoke, it's gonna be a yoke of iron. So if you wanna have maximum freedom, you better serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, these rules. Hey, it'll be way worse if you don't serve him. You'll have more restraint, less freedom, more bondage when you live a life of sin. So solution number one is put on Christ's yoke, serve God when things are good, don't let the new wine take away your heart. But solution number two is how about this, how about just drink a little less new wine if new wine takes away the heart. So number one is don't let the new wine take away your heart because I mean, you know, serve him while it's good. As the new wine flows, serve him anyway. Don't make him bring you to your knees. But solution number two is also just how about don't let your life get too easy. Because when I say drink less new wine, I'm not saying just literally, hey, we just need to drink less juice, although that might be advisable as well. But that's not really primarily what I'm saying. Primarily what I'm saying is don't let your life get too easy. Because remember, the new wine is symbolic of what? Easy living, soft living, indulgence in general. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? So when I say that solution number two is less new wine, what I mean is less easy living, less soft living, less indulgence. What do I mean by that? Don't get too comfortable in your life because if you get too comfortable, that tends to take your heart away from God. And that's what new wine represents, getting too comfortable. Do something hard every day. Get in the habit of doing hard things, things you don't like, things you don't enjoy, but things that need to get done though, right? We all have things in our life that need to get done that are hard, that we don't enjoy, that we dread. Hey, get in the habit of doing hard things every day. You know, let me just tell you something about my personal life. In my personal life, and I'm not saying that I'm perfect obviously, but I'm just saying in my personal life in general, I don't go a week on easy street ever. Like I don't, it's not like I'm just like Monday, I'm just like doing whatever I want. And then Tuesday I do whatever I want. And then Wednesday I do whatever I want. And then I go to soul winning in church and you know. Do you really think that I'm just going through life just day after day, just indulge, indulge, indulge? Because I'm not. I'm constantly making my life hard. I could make my life as easy as possible. Why don't I do that? Because I don't want it to take away my heart. So I want to be in the habit of doing hard things every day, exercising willpower every day, exercising restraint every day, and not just overindulging in whatever I feel like every day. You know, I just went on this road trip and it was hard. It was really, really hard. But let me tell you something, I don't regret doing it. Cause I think it was great for everybody involved. I think it was great to help some of these churches get more exposure. Some people didn't know about them and now they've found out about some of these great churches across America that might be close to them. It got a lot of visitors out to church. It was interesting that, you know, the first half of the road trip, the first like five churches that I visit on the road trip, you know, there weren't really a ton of visitors. There'd be four, five, 10 visitors or something. But there weren't really a lot of visitors. But in the second half of the road trip, it was just every single church was just packed and just breaking every record, 50 visitors. It was a bigger deal. And I think part of the reason was people were just finding out about the road trip. Cause we don't really have a YouTube channel where we can just kind of get our message out to everyone. So it was like, it took people a couple of weeks to figure out that the road trip was going on. Then the attendance is, so the attendance is we're just like exponentially growing toward the end of the road trip. So I think the road trip was great in that regard. And the fact that, you know, it got a lot of visitors to come out to church. People found out about these churches. I know it was great for you guys, or I believe it was great for you guys to get all the guest preachers, nod your head if you liked having all the pre-pastors come out, shake your head if you're like, no, it was terrible. I want Pastor Anderson, give me Pastor Anderson. Okay, all right. But the point is, you know, I think it was good for everybody. It was like, you guys got to hear all these great guest pastors. I try to preach the whole Bible. I try to cover everything and be balanced, but I'm sure that I have imbalances and you know, bringing in some other pastors might've preached things that I wouldn't have preached and maybe got you a little balanced diet. You know, I think it was great for you guys to hear from these other pastors. You know, I think the pastors enjoyed meeting all of you and seeing Faithful Word and getting to fellowship with everyone. I enjoyed getting to fellowship at all these churches. I met a lot of great people on the road. I enjoyed preaching to them, ministering to them, spending time with them. I think they enjoyed it. I think everybody was happy, but you know, it involved, you know, a brutal amount of driving that was just kind of crazy. And so there was some pain and suffering involved, but I don't really regret it because of the fact that, you know what, I kind of like to live my life that way. Sometimes I like to push myself a little bit and do things that are hard just because I could let my life get too comfortable if I'm not pushing myself and setting goals for myself and working hard all the time, then it could take away my heart, the easy living. And so what I'm saying is do something hard every day. And maybe this could be different for everybody, but just force yourself to do things that you don't want to do. You know little kids, they're just like, I don't want to. I don't want to eat that. I don't want to do my schoolwork. You know, I don't want to read my bio. I don't want to go to, you know, I don't want to do this. Isn't that how little kids are? You're like, do this. And they're like, but I don't want to. And you want to like, do they think you're just gonna be like, oh, well, okay. Like they act like it's just a case closed. I don't want to. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you wanted to eat all those vegetables that you've been ignoring for the last half hour. You know, it's like, I don't want to. But you know, a part of growing up is doing things that you don't want to do. Eating things you don't want to eat, doing jobs that you don't want to do, doing chores that you don't want to do. And then there's things that you do want to do and you're like, I can't do that. It's irresponsible. So I'm not going to, right? Isn't this called adult life? And so don't just indulge every desire and every whim that you have. Make some hard decisions, do some hard things, challenge yourself a little bit, push yourself. Why? Because new wine takes away the heart. And if you're just laying in a lawn chair all day with just like a hamster feeder of new wine and you're just kind of just relaxing and just just bring me the sugar. Folks, you're not going to be a godly Christian living that way. Don't get soft. Push yourself, challenge yourself, challenge yourself mentally, challenge yourself physically, challenge yourself spiritually. Just do something hard. Don't indulge every desire and whim. Here's a good Bible verse for you. Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. So our lives ought to be characterized by working for the Lord, working for our family, working for the people around us, not just characterized by excessive indulgence and recreation. Now look, even on this road trip, you know, back to the road trip. We had some recreation. We had some indulgence. I mean, we had some great meals. We had some amazing meals. Then we had some not so great meals as well, okay? We had some times where we struggled to get good food to eat. There were some times when we had great recreation. You know, we went to like three trampoline parks because it was just kind of a good way to just get the kids out of the car and just get them busy for a few hours, let them just burn off a bunch of energy. And so I just, we went to three times, we just went to one of those indoor trampoline places and just, I'm like, you're gonna be here for four hours, kids. And it was just like, give me the all-day pass. And these, and you know, and just let them, just blow off good clean fun, just burn off all that energy, blow off all that steam because they're gonna cooped up in the car all day. Get out there. So look, that was fun. Recreation, fun, you know, most everybody likes those places. Those places are cool, those places are fun. You know, hey, recreation has its place. I wouldn't wanna go on this brutal 6,600 mile car ride and be like, no recreation, there's no trampolines, no fun meals, you know, but here's the thing though, you know, there's a lot of work. You do a lot of work, you do a lot of stuff. You know, we tried to keep the entertainment on the drives educational for the most part and as little, just kind of cheap entertainment as possible and really strive to be listening to stuff that was educational, audio books and things, you know, and then a few fun audio books that are just kind of for fun to listen to. A little bit of just get us through this drive, but you know, we're trying to be educational. We were trying to do Bible memory, Bible reading. We're working hard, we're doing stuff, but you know what? Yeah, there's a place where you need a little indulgence. You need a little R and R and guess what? God knows that. That's why even for the children of Israel, God had holidays throughout the year, didn't he? And he had the Sabbath day to take it easy. He had holidays throughout the year and he told them, drink the sweet, eat the fat. So yeah, I'm not saying don't eat fatty foods. I'm not saying don't drink a sweet beverage. He said, drink the sweet. I'm not saying never to drink a Coke or you probably never should drink a Coke, but anyway, you know, sorry. But I'm not saying never to drink a fruity soda or a sweet soda or a fruit juice. Hey, those things have their place in our lives. I'm for you and your fun drinks. I'm for you and your fatty foods. Hey, I'm for the corn dogs. My wife makes these organic homemade corn dogs. They're the greatest thing in the world. I'm for ice cream. I'm for the desserts, but you know what though? Overindulgence in those things is not good for you physically, but it's also not good for you spiritually to just constantly just be indulging the flesh, indulging the flesh, indulging the flesh. New wine takes away the heart and just constant relaxation. I mean, look, I can't even count how many times I got out of the car on this road trip and just laid in the grass for hours. I'm just like, you know, because you're cooped up in the car, you just want to stretch out. I'm just like doing snow angels in some random park by the side of the road, sleeping under a tree. I took naps under trees, just laying in the grass, just stretched out. You know, yeah, there's a time to lounge. There's a time to relax. I'm for you. But what if I just lived a life of just indolence and just all day long, I'm just laying in the grass all day every day and it's like, well, where's Pastor Anderson? Well, you know what? He's always laying around in the grass and he's got his, he's laying under a tree with a big sombrero over his head and he's got a bottle of Jamaica next to him and he's just, you know, this is where you find him. If it's not Sunday morning, Sunday night or Wednesday night, he's on a lawn chair. You know, he's got a sombrero on his head and he's drinking horchata and he's just living the southwest lazy days of summer, Arizona summer. Do you think that that's how I live my life? Let me tell you something. If I did, I wouldn't be, you know, your pastor. I wouldn't be qualified to pastor if I were given to wine, you know, and if I were one who's just luxuriant and indolent and lazy and sitting around and just take it and just doing, well, what do I feel like doing at this moment? Well, guess what? That's not good for anybody's Christian life, is it? So I challenge you two things. Number one, serve God in the presence of the good times and the wine and the fruit juice and the sodas and the luxury and the relaxation. But number two, maybe keep those things in their place in your life and let those be the icing on the cake, not cake for breakfast, cake for lunch, cake for dinner, but rather cake on your birthday. Not cake on everybody that you've ever known's birthday. Cake on your birthday, cake on mom's birthday, cake on dad's birthday, cake on your immediate family's birthday. You know, not necessarily like cake on your second cousin's former roommate's birthday, okay? Because new wine takes away the heart. Let's probably just have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and I pray that all of us would just serve you no matter how good things are, no matter how relaxed we are, no matter how much fun we're having. Lord, help us always to be meditating upon you and your word. And Lord, also help us to be wise and not overindulge our flesh and just overindulge in good times and just get rid of everything negative out of our life. Lord, help us to bring some negative things into our life as far as difficult tasks and maybe force ourselves to read and study and work hard at our jobs and maybe just challenge ourselves physically, whether it's exercise, whether it's studies, whether it's hard work on the job, whether it's working hard for our families and doing stuff around the house. Lord, help us to just stay busy and push ourselves a little bit and do something hard every day so that we don't become a victim of soft living. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.