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and help us, our children, become better servants to serve you. In Jesus' name, we pray, amen. Amen. Proverbs 23, the Bible reads in verse number one, when thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee and put a knife to thy throat if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties for their deceitful meat. And so the Bible is basically warning us here about being a glutton. Later in the chapter, it's gonna specifically talk about gluttony, but it's also just talking about, you know, showing up at an important dinner or something and just kind of going crazy on the food, just gorging on the food. So he says, you know, if you're a man given to appetite, put a knife to your throat, consider diligently what is before thee. He's just talking about having a proper attitude, proper behavior, not being a slob, not being a barbarian when you sit down to eat. And then it says, you know, be not desirous of his dainties for they are deceitful meat. Now, if you jump down, this ties in a little bit with what it says in verse number six, eat not thou the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meat. So we have the dainties in verse three and the dainties in verse six, but apparently the ruler in verse number, the ruler in verse number one has been swapped out with him that hath an evil eye in verse number six. I guess just because rulers are often evil people, covetous people, that's how they got there. That's I guess why like 99% of Congress is doing some kind of dishonest financial goings on like say insider trading or whatever dishonest things that they do because they're covetous type people that are often in those positions of leadership. But it says, eat not thou the bread of him that has an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats, for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he, eat and drink, sayeth he to thee, but his heart is not with thee. So what the Bible is talking about rich people, covetous people who often rich people are covetous, that's how they got to be rich because they just live their lives all about the love of money and getting more. Rich people, politicians, rulers, governors, magistrates, these type of people, they often say one thing and actually believe or do something totally different. Surprise, when politicians say something to you is not necessarily true. And rich people, businessmen are often the same way. And so the Bible is warning you that a lot of times these people are disingenuous and they're whining and dining you because maybe they wanna get something from you, maybe they wanna use you. So don't just show up and just fall for the pitch, hook, line and sinker, eating and drinking and partying and getting sucked into that world or whatever it is that they're trying to entice you into. I guess you could apply this in a whole bunch of different ways of just people trying to whine and dine you and the Bible is just saying, don't let your appetite get away from you and don't be enamored by that world of riches and dainties and fancy foods. The Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil and that's a pretty strong statement, isn't it? And that the Bible says that many Christians have fallen through the love of money. What's while some have coveted after, they've erred from the faith and they've pierced themselves through with many sorrows. So we need to be careful that if we do ever have a chance to eat some fancy meal somewhere, maybe we get invited over to some rich person's house or we're at some important gathering for some reason, not that any of us move in those kinds of circles, but if we ever did, that basically, number one, we behave ourselves well and maybe don't just gorge ourselves and keep going back for seconds and embarrass ourselves, but also that we don't get too sucked in to that world or enamored by that and start thinking, well, this is how I wanna start living my life. This is my new goal is to live this way or to get this way. And I've eaten some fancy meals in my life. I've been invited out by rich people where they bought me some expensive meal that I never would have afforded on my own, right? And they took me out. But what I didn't wanna do is then say like, oh, well, I wish I had money so that I could start eating like this, right? I wish I had that car that they drive or I wish I had that house they drive. You know, if you ever get a chance to eat with the ruler or to eat with rich people, enjoy it as a fun and exciting treat of like a one-time deal, but don't get too enamored by it to where now you're gonna start desiring those things or coveting those things. And you know, when I've gone to these fancy restaurants, they're good, but are they really that much better than other places that we like? You know, Chipotle, anyone? You knew I was gonna say that. I just didn't wanna disappoint you. But anyway, you know, I'll tell you what, let me do some advertising tonight. I'll tell you, you know where I love to eat is Longhorn Steakhouse. Who knows what I'm talking about? Hey, that place, it's $13.49 for a six ounce steak that is so good. And you get two sides included. I mean, and I've never had a bad experience. I've eaten there like six or seven times in my life because we did it a few times on the road trip, but I've done it here locally. That place rules, okay? It's always good, it's cheap. And so, yeah, and you can pay like $21.99 to get the filet mignon or something. I don't even need it. I'm already satisfied with the $13.50. It's so good, okay? But here's the thing. Yeah, I could go to some restaurant that probably have a steak for $100 or $150. But you know what? I'm gonna have just as much fun down at Longhorn and save all the money. And so it's just overkill. Like for example, one time I was taken out to this really fancy dinner and they brought out like this tiny little dish of french fries and it only had like maybe 10 fries. But they were fried in duck fat. Like why do I need fries that are fried in duck fat? I couldn't even taste like the duckiness of it. You know, it just, to me, it just tasted like a french fry. And they had all these weird sauces and I'm just like, excuse me, can I get a bottle of ketchup please for my fries? You know, so you don't wanna be one of these people that just is into like wasting money on these super expensive meals and all these dainty meats and all the foie gras and the escargot and the caviar and the, you know, I mean, you know, yeah, the filet mignon's a little easier to chew, but you know what? The other stuff tastes just as good. You just have to chew a little harder, okay? And as long as you order it medium rare, then you're okay, amen? So don't be one of these people that orders your steak well done. That is, I can't prove from the Bible that it's a sin, but the Bible does say the thought of foolishness is sin. And that's kind of a catch all for any stupid thing that anyone does. All right, so the point is that you don't wanna desire his dainty meats because that's covetousness and you don't wanna get sucked into the love of money. Yes, it's fun to get to do it once. Don't go crazy, don't eat too much and make an idiot of yourself. You're just like, oh man, you know, oh, open bar. You know how people are with the open bar and they all get drunk? You don't wanna do the food equivalent of that. Like, oh, that's all you can eat and you're just eating yourself sick or something and make a fool of yourself, have good manners and don't become a covetous person and realize that the people who are whining and dining you might even be bad people. In fact, now that I think about it, the people who took me to that duck fat french fry restaurant turned out to be super bad people that I never wanna see again. So there you go. The Bible's right once again. Eat and drink said they, but their heart was not with me, turned out. So, and then the Bible says in verse eight, the more so which thou hast eaten, shalt thou vomit up. That's what happens when you eat too much and lose thy sweet words. You know, sometimes my kids will go a little crazy when they're little. You know, they don't know how to restrain themselves at say like church events where there's a lot of food, a lot of dessert, a lot of soda. They'll go a little crazy and then they go home and throw up. Who's ever had your kids go home from a binge and puke? All right, God bless you. I see that hand. Verse number nine says, speak not in the ears of a fool for he will despise the wisdom of thy words. Remove not the old landmark and enter not into the fields of the fatherless for their redeemer is mighty. He shall plead their cause with thee. So God at the beginning of this chapter is speaking a little bit negatively about rich people saying like, hey, watch out for these people. Don't desire their dainty mates. You don't wanna get into the love of money and realize that these people are not always your friend. They don't always love you. And so beware of these rich people. And then we have something positive about poor people, right, their redeemer is mighty. He shall plead their cause with thee. Now, this is what the Bible teaches through and through because for example, in James chapter five, you know, the Bible says, go to now you rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth eaten. And he warns about the rich people often being wicked and that they are often the bad people. In James chapter two, when he talks about not being a respecter of persons, he says, do not rich men oppress you and draw you before the judgment seats? Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by which you were called? You know, isn't there a rich person that sued pastor Jonathan Shelley and got him evicted from his building? Some rich landlord who had tens of thousands of dollars to spend on a lawyer to get a godly church, steadfast Baptist church kicked out of their building. That was a rich person that did that, right? Rich, that was a rich person who drew him before the judgment seats. Do not rich men oppress you and draw you before the judgment seats? Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by which you were called? And then about the poor, it says, you know, have not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he had promised to them that love him, but you've despised the poor, right? So we should not be like this world where we glorify rich people and despise poor people. God has chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith. Now, obviously there are exceptions to this. There are some godly rich people. There are godly rich people in the Bible. There are godly rich people in this world, but most rich people are wicked. That's why the Bible says in Isaiah 53, he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, because those are kind of the same part of the graveyard. Okay, and so what the Bible is teaching us over and over again is that we should not look down on poor people or despise poor people because often poor people are richer in faith than the wealthy people who don't think that they need God and they're just obsessed with money. They love money, that's all they wanna talk about. And so at our church, obviously we have some people in our church that I'm sure are a little bit well-off and we've probably got some pretty poor people. But at the end of the day, I would say that most people in our church are probably working class people and in probably every other independent Baptist church across America, it's gonna look similar as far as being like a working class crowd, not a bunch of rich, fancy people. We don't have the mayor of Tempe here, we don't have the chief of police as a member of our church and all the people that are the financial movers and shakers of Tempe don't really go to our church and never will. Why, because it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to be saved. There are exceptions because with God, all things are possible, but in general, rich people are not spiritually right with God and poor people are much more often right with God. That's why when we go soloing, where do we like to go? Do we like to go to a rich neighborhood to go evangelize or do we like to go to a poor neighborhood? If we wanna do a mission strip, are we going to a rich country or a poor country? Yeah, because the rich people, they think they already know everything. They think they already have it all together. And some people would say like, oh, well, you just go to the poor people because they're not as smart or something. No, that's not true, my friend. It's not a matter of intelligence because we have lots of very intelligent people in our church and the most intelligent people that you talk to are often Christians. But here's the thing about that, it's pride that's the issue. The thing that ruins the rich people, it's not education or learning or knowledge, it's pride. They are proud because they have all this wealth and this life, so it makes them feel like they're pretty awesome. And so it's pride, whereas the poor man is usually more humble because he's not really doing necessarily that well in this life and so he often has a more humble view of himself. That's why poor people are more receptive to the gospel. So we have some negativity toward the rich, positivity toward the poor. This is often a theme in the Bible. But then you kind of also have this balanced out in Proverbs by saying, hey, don't be poor because you're lazy or something. Obviously, God loves the poor, wanna take care of the poor, but if you make yourself poor by being lazy, shame on you. That's kind of the balance that we have in scripture. So let's jump back in here. It says in verse number 13, withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell. I'm not really sure if spanking's biblical. Can somebody help me exegete this passage? Isn't it kind of mind blowing that there are people in this world who literally will tell you that they don't believe in spanking and they'll claim to be a Christian. Could these verses be any clearer? Because I've heard them say, well, when the Bible says sparing the rod, it's talking about like the shepherd has the rod that he uses to like guide, it's that one with the hook on the end, right? That shepherd rod with the hook that they, you know, if a bad comedian's on stage, they pull them off the stage and you kind of like pull the sheep around with it that way. Okay, but the Bible says thou shalt beat him with the rod. So maybe it does have a little curve on the end of it. As long as you're beating him with it, it's biblical. Okay, but the point is that the Bible's very clear that we're to spank our children. Now, obviously when it used the word beat, we, when we say beat in 2023, it means something a little different. So obviously the Bible's not saying to beat them like in a 2023 sense of beat where you would bludgeon them or pummel them or something. That's what we think of maybe when we hear the word beat, we would use the word spank. Spank him with the rod is what this means. That's what we would do. Obviously the goal when you're disciplining your children is that you want it to hurt because if it doesn't hurt, what's the point? But at the same time, you don't wanna injure them. You don't wanna cause any injury. So you don't wanna hit them with a blunt object that's gonna injure them. You wanna hit them with something that's gonna sting because you don't wanna, you're not trying to bloody and bruise and beat and batter them. You're trying to spank them with a spanking that stings, it hurts, it's a punishment, but that there's no injury that takes place, right? And let me tell you something, even in a church like ours, there are parents that don't spank their kids or that spank their kids really rarely. And so if you're one of those people, I would admonish you to listen to the word of God here and withhold not correction from the child. For if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shall beat him with the rod and shall deliver his soul from hell. Okay, now why would beating him with the rod deliver his soul from hell? Because if you don't discipline your kids, they're probably gonna grow up thinking that God doesn't have any real consequences for sin either. And then they might not see the need for salvation. And they may go straight to hell because they think that they don't need to be saved. Because they think that their heavenly father is like their father on this earth who doesn't punish, who doesn't discipline. When in reality, God certainly does punish. And hell is real, obviously for the unsaved. And then for the saved, even the saved, the Bible says, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourges every son whom he receiveth. And then the Bible says, what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? If he be without chastisement, where of all our partakers then are you bastards and not sons? You know, are you not disciplining your children? It's like you're treating them like they're not even your children. Like you don't even love them. That's why the Bible says, he that spareth his rod, hateth his son, but he that loveth him, chasteneth him betis. We say, spare the rod, spoil the child. But the Bible says, spare the rod, it means you hate your son. You say, oh, I love my children so much. If you don't discipline your children, then you don't love your children. Because he that spareth his rod, hated his son. That's what the Bible says. And so spanking is not some last resort that happens like a couple times a year, by the way. You know, children need to be disciplined. Now, obviously, the less they need it, the better. And hopefully, as they get older, they need it less and less. But I've been a pastor for a long time. I've seen lots of kids do all kinds of naughty things. And you go and tell their parents, hey, you know, your child did this. And you can just, you just walk away knowing there's no way that they're giving their kid a spanking. Because you see this kid's behavior on a regular basis, it's always bad. And then when you tell them that the kid did something wrong, you just get this vibe from them like, yeah, I'm not gonna spank my kid. And it's like, okay, fine, you know what? But you're the one who's gonna have to deal with the repercussions of not spanking your kids, not disciplining your kids. You're the one who's gonna raise a kid who has no character and is going to do who knows what when they grow up. And so part of the reason why people don't spank their kids is because they're being lazy. Because spanking your kids is work. Okay, because you know, you have to kind of stop everything and take the time to discipline your kids. Sometimes people who don't spank their kids are the same people who are tied up doing everything else and neglecting their kids. And what does the Bible say? A child left to himself will cause his mother shame. And so children are not to just be left to themselves, left to their own device. We have to supervise our kids. Even at church, we need to supervise our kids and keep an eye on them. Because you know, even bad things could happen, even at church. So we gotta watch our kids. We gotta supervise kids. In the home, instead of just being glued to a TV or a video game or something, you know, you need to be engaged with your kids, taking time with your kids. And when they do wrong, you know, instead of just kind of throwing something at them from across the room, because you're too lazy to even get out of the chair, you might need to actually get up and walk over and actually spank them. Instead of just, it's easier sometimes just yeah, shut up, ah, stop it, ah. You have to actually get off your rear end and go discipline your kids, okay. So don't be lazy. And a lot of people, they have this in theory, like there are Christians in independent fundamental Baptist church, where if I walked up to them and said, do you believe in spanking? They'd be like, oh yeah, that's what the Bible says. But they haven't spanked their kid. They haven't spanked any of their kids in like a month of Sundays. You know what I mean? Like they haven't spanked their kid in forever. Because in theory, they believe in it, but in practice, they just let their kids do whatever they want and maybe just yell at them occasionally, right. And I don't think that yelling at your kids is an effective form of discipline. I'm not saying it's wrong to ever yell as a parent because I think there are some times when yelling could be appropriate, but that shouldn't be a regular basis. Just your go-to discipline is yelling, right. Less yelling, more spanking is what we need in our families. Okay, because then there's less anger and less yelling, you just spank, it's over, you move on, and so forth. That could be a whole sermon in and of itself, but it's important that we hearken to what the Bible is telling us in the book of Proverbs over and over again about physically disciplining our, well, I'm just gonna ground them. I'm gonna take away privileges. I'm gonna yell at them. But what does the Bible say is the best form of discipline? You know, the Bible teaches corporal punishment, physical discipline. And part of what's wrong with our generation today is that we've gotten away from physical discipline, haven't we? You know, our parents' generation, and you know, they were all spanked. 100% of them were pretty much spanked growing up. And then we come along with all the Dr. Spock and all of these other philosophies and the attachment parenting and positive only reinforcement and all this stuff, and now we have a generation that doesn't even know what gender they are, a bunch of just hoodlums and a bunch of miscreants and hoes and everything else. So let's move on. Says in verse 15, my son, if I'd heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine, right? Because having kids that are smart and do what they're supposed to do is a blessing. But a child that's left to himself causes mother shame. Verse 16, ye my rains shall rejoice. Of course, the rains are literally the kidneys. It's where we get the word renal. But in the Bible, the rains represent the seat of emotion, sort of like your heart in that sense. So he's saying, you know, he's gonna rejoice, and it's gonna be an emotional good feeling that his son is saying the right things, that his lips are speaking right things, that his children are righteous. Verse 17, let not thine heart envy sinners, but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long. Doesn't that tie in with the beginning of the chapter when it said not to envy the dainty meats, not to desire the dainty meats? Don't envy sinners, don't love money, but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long. For surely there is an end, meaning that in the long run, you're gonna be blessed as a godly person. There's an end that's good for those that are righteous, and thine expectation, as a person who lives in the fear of the Lord, right, as opposed to being a sinful person, thine expectation should not be cut off, whereas the expectation of the wicked will be cut off. Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way. Verse 20, be not among winebibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh. Now, what is the winebibber? Well, if you know Spanish, the word for drinking in Spanish is biber, right? So winebibber is just a wine drinker, right? A wine guzzler, you could say, or something like that. A wino. Be not among winebibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh. For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. So, obviously wine is expensive, right? And especially in the ancient world, it was a lot more expensive than it is now, because now we have technology, and I'm sure that the wineries now, they have all kinds of machines doing the work of creating the juice, and the whole fermentation process is carried out and monitored by machines, in many cases, and so it has gone down in price. You could probably go to the CVS and get some super cheap box, like a cardboard box of wine or something. Who knows what I'm talking about? You're not supposed to know about that stuff. But anyway, I used to do fire alarms at CVS, and I would see these boxes of wine, like a drink box for old people or something, you know? It's like a super big Capri Sun. Or it's like a bag of wine in a box or something. If you buy a bag of wine in a box at CVS, you are officially an alcoholic, okay? But then you also have these expensive wines, right? Chateau de whatever, some place in France or something. Every single town in France is the name of an alcoholic beverage, apparently. And you've got all this expensive wine and everything. Obviously, people who are just constantly indulging in buying this expensive drink, and then also buying expensive food, because they're a riotous eater of flesh, they're gonna come to poverty for a couple reasons. Number one, they're buying all this expensive meat and drink and number two, they're gluttonous, they're probably gonna gain weight, and then they're probably not necessarily working as effectively either. So they're gonna come to poverty, drowsiness, shall clothe a man with rags, because have you noticed that when you overeat, you're really tired afterward? Like if you eat too much and drink too much, you're like really tired and then you're drowsy and whatever. We're gonna get into the alcohol aspect of this a little bit later in the chapter, but for now, we're just talking about riotous eaters of flesh as well, right? And then obviously it talks about the drunkard and the glutton, two different people there, sometimes the same person, but it could be different. Now, being a riotous eater of flesh, what is flesh? Flesh is specifically talking about meat versus just food in the Bible, and this is confusing, so let me break this down to you. When you see the word meat in the Bible, because it's the King James Bible, it's from 400 years ago, when we see the word meat in the Bible, we're talking about food in general. This used to confuse me a little bit when I was a little kid reading the Bible, because we're talking about the meat offering and it was fine flour mingled with oil and I was kind of like, where's the beef? What kind of a meat offering is this? I was told there'd be meat in this meat offering, but that's because in the Bible, when we see the word meat, it just means food. Whereas when we wanna talk about what we know today in our language as meat, the Bible would call that flesh, right? So flesh is specifically meat, whereas meat is any kind of food. It's just our language has changed over time. Oh, we need a new version, no, we don't, because it's just a few little archaic words here and there, we're gonna get through it, amen? So flesh, riotous eaters of flesh, is talking about people who specifically are just eating tons of meat. Now, the problem here is probably that it's expensive, number one, especially back then, again, because obviously today, prices are maybe a little different but back then, especially eating meat is pretty expensive and also the riotous eater of flesh is obviously just going overboard on eating in general, he's a glutton, so he's probably just eating a lot of fatty meats in addition to other stuff and getting fat. Now, I know there are people in our church that are doing like a keto diet and they're doing like a carnivore diet, so I don't wanna call you a riotous eater of flesh, okay? But I personally believe that the Bible teaches in general that we should eat a balanced diet because it seems like the Bible has good things to say about eating fruits and vegetables, bread, give us this day our daily. All right, case closed. But the Bible also teaches eating meat and fish and honey and all these different things. And so I'm not against someone doing that if that's the best way for them to lose weight. Let's say they're overweight and they need to lose weight, so they're gonna be a carnivore, they're gonna be a keto guy while they're losing weight or something. But to say that that's how the Bible teaches to eat is truly absurd when the Bible says give us this day our daily bread, okay? So don't try to impose that on other people because guess what? It's not for everybody. If everyone on the planet decided to be a carnivore tomorrow we're all gonna run out of meat really fast because there's just not that many animals on the planet to feed all of us, okay? So thank God for all the vegans out there so that we can eat more meat, amen? Somebody's gotta be a vegan so that we can eat more meat. But anyway, veganism is also an absurd diet in light of the Bible because the Bible has so much to say about milk and butter and cheese and meat. And the priests ate meat constantly, but they also ate the meat offering which was fine flour mingled with oil. I personally eat a balanced diet. I eat bread, I eat carbs, I eat fat, I eat protein. I just have to sometimes put a knife to my throat because I am a man given to appetite. So I have to be careful about that. We don't wanna overindulge in anything. I think that when it comes to diet we need moderation. And so I'm not personally really into like fad diets or extreme diets, but that moderation is the key. And again, if you need to do something short term to lose weight, I'm for you. Or maybe you're just kind of an exception to the rule and your body just really responds, well, to a certain diet. Well, hey, I don't wanna tell you not to do what you do. But I think in general the best advice is to be moderate in our eating. And I think that's what the Bible teaches and not to go to extremes. That's not necessarily what people want to hear, but it's true. We need to just exercise moderation, self-control, not be a glutton, put a knife to our throat if we're a man given to appetite. Let's get off that subject now before people get upset. Harken unto thy father that begat thee, despise not thy mother when she's old. By the way, don't quote this verse around a woman when she's not really that old and like implying that she's old, okay? It's a bad idea. I don't know from experience or anything, I'm just saying. Verse 23, buy the truth and sell it not, also wisdom and instruction and understanding. The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice, and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him. And it's not like, oh, I won the lottery, I begat a wise child. You have to train up a child in the way he should go so that when he's old, he won't depart from it. And then the Bible says in verse 25, thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bear thee shall rejoice. My son, give me thy heart and let thine eyes observe my ways for a whore is a deep ditch and a strange woman is a narrow pit. Basically, the sleazy women out there, it's a trap. Promiscuous women are a trap, the Bible's saying. They're a deep ditch, they're a narrow pit. And then verse 28 is key. She also lieth in weight as for a prey and increaseth the transgressors among men. Now, don't miss this truth found in verse number 28, okay? It says, she also lieth in weight as for a prey, so she's out there hunting. The Bible says the adulterous shall hunt for the precious life. So the strange woman lies in weight as for a prey, but don't miss the second part, and increaseth the transgressors among men. Now, I've noticed that sometimes when you preach that women should not dress in a way that's provocative or immodest, that they shouldn't be scantily clad. And whenever you say something along the lines of, hey, if you dress that way, you're causing men to lust after you, if you dress that way. Or if women are promiscuous, they're leading men into sin, they're leading men into fornication and adultery, and people will say like, oh, how can you say that? That's the men's fault if they can't control themselves. Who's kind of heard that argumentation or line of reasoning that says, hey, it's the men's fault. They need to be controlling. I can dress however I want, and if men look at me, that's on them. But here's the problem with that, is that the Bible specifically says that the whore and the strange woman, that she increases the transgressors among men. Now, what does that mean? Stop and think for a second, that she increases the transgressors among men. That means that without her being that way, there'd be less transgressors among men. So I don't care whether it offends you or not, I don't care whether you like it or not, the Bible holds women accountable if they're sleazy for increasing the number of transgressors among men. Now, that's not to say that the guy who fornicates that he has an excuse or, well, you know, it wasn't my fault she's dressed this way. That's not what we're saying. Nobody's excusing the men here. Nobody's saying, hey, men who lust, men who commit fornication, men who commit adultery, you know, they're off the hook. Nobody's teaching that. But let's do teach what the Bible says that sleazy women increase transgressors among men. If some woman's parading her body around town, is she increasing the transgressors among men or not? If some woman is loose and willing to just hop in the sack with whoever, is she increasing the transgressors among men or not? The Bible says that she is and so it's a fact. It's the word of God. That's what the Bible says. So therefore women are accountable and women are partially to blame. Not saying that women are 100% to blame because obviously at the end of the day, no matter how many scantily clad women throw themselves at you, you young men are still accountable for keeping yourself pure, right? And look, I remember when I was a teenager, I had a teenage girl just hop into my lap and just throw herself, you know what I mean? And you're put in these positions, hey, it's still your job to flee fornication, to get out of there, to get away from those kind of people, to not go by the way to her house. Because if you go to her house and you're hanging around with her, you're heading like a sheep to the slaughter, the Bible says, okay? Like a fool to the correction of the stocks. And so yes, men are accountable, but women are accountable too. So we don't wanna let women off the hook and say, oh, you dress however you want and if people look at you with lust, that's their problem. Not really, no, it is your problem because you're making yourself a temptation by dressing that way. Plus, why would you want someone to commit adultery with you in their heart? Why would you want that as a woman, right? So you shouldn't want to just attract that kind of wrong attention for yourself and increase the transgressions among men in the way you dress, the way you act, your demeanor. Obviously, there are some guys that would remain pure, but then some woman throws herself at them and then they give in and they commit fornication. They give in, they commit adultery. Again, the guy is still accountable, but would there be less fornication and less adultery without the sleazy, easy women? The Bible says yes, because the Bible says that the strange woman increases the transgressions among men. So I think that's an important truth that we need to grab from that verse, understanding that this is a two-way street and that yes, men are responsible, but women are responsible as well. And sleazy women are a bane to society because they are inviting all this, because let's face it, men are probably worse at resisting this temptation than women are in general. Men are probably more likely to give in to the temptations of fornication and adultery than women are. If you look at statistics on adultery, there are more men cheating on their wives than vice versa. Why? This is a more compelling temptation for men in many cases. And so if women are just easy and throwing themselves at men, then they're gonna increase the transgressions among men. And again, men aren't off the hook because men need to remain pure in spite of the temptations. And God demands that we be pure. And as a young man, teenagers, young men, if you're a virgin right now, you need to stay that way until you get married. And you need to go, it's not just for women to be virgins, but every man and woman should be in a perfect world. It's God's will, it's God's plan that you be a virgin on your wedding day. And you're gonna be a lot happier that way. It's what God demands. And if you're growing up in a church like ours with all kinds of preaching against fornication, and you've got all these advantages of growing up in a Christian home and learning these things, and you're saved and you have the Holy Spirit living inside you, and you go out and sleep with someone before you're married, take it to the bank, God is going to punish you and it's not gonna be worth it. Whatever punishment God brings on you for fornication, at the end of the day, when you think about whatever pleasure you got from that fornication, the pleasures of sin for a season, and the punishment that's gonna come, the chastisement, I guarantee you, it's not worth it to have that pleasure of sin for a season because the consequences are gonna be serious because fornication is not a small sin in the Bible, fornication is a big sin in the Bible. And so there are gonna be big consequences for you, my friend, don't do it. Adultery is even worse than fornication. Adultery is another level of wickedness. If you commit adultery, it is for sure not gonna be worth it. The punishments are gonna be severe, don't do it. So then the rest of the chapter is this part that deals specifically with alcohol and so we'll go through this now quickly. Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? I mean, this would make a great Budweiser ad. Hey, this Bud's for you. Would you like to have sorrow, contentions? Well, hey, Michelob is here for you, right? Coors is here for you. This is what alcohol does for you, okay? And let me just make it clear, I am 100% against drinking alcohol. I am a teetotaler. I do not believe that you should drink any alcohol whatsoever and that God wants us to be sober and sober in order to be sober, in order to have sobriety or the absence of alcohol. You say, well, just don't get drunk. How about instead of don't get drunk, how about be sober? The Bible doesn't just only say, don't be drunk. The Bible says, be sober. And there's a difference between being sober and being not drunk. Because a lot of people are like, I'm not drunk, but they're not sober either, are they? We need to be sober. You say, well, just a little bit's gonna be fine. What's the point? Here's what I say to the person who says, well, it's okay to drink a little. What's the point of drinking just a little? If you're drinking so little that it doesn't even affect you, then what's the point? Save your money. I mean, why would I wanna buy drugs and feel nothing? Like, what's the point? It sounds like you're just throwing money away, right? So why would I wanna buy booze and drink so little that I'm still totally sober? Now, just to be clear, I don't even know what beer tastes like. I've never felt any kind of an effect of alcohol in my entire life. So I can't really speak about this from experience. I'm speaking about this as an outsider looking in, okay? And let me say this, though, that if I were interested in alcohol, which I'm not, and I've never been interested in alcohol, but let's say I were, I'd be real disappointed to spend money on alcohol and be totally sober. So who are these idiots who are these supposedly sober alcohol-drinking Christians? They sound like they're just kind of stupid people who just like spend money on stuff that doesn't work. I mean, does everybody see what I'm saying? Like, oh, well, we're Christians and we drink alcohol, but we don't get drunk. You know, but do you remain sober though? Well, yeah, we remain sober. Okay, well then you wasted money because the reason alcohol costs more than normal beverages is because you're supposed to have some kind of an effect from it, you know? But the reality is that they say, well, we're not drunk, but what are they? They're buzzed or whatever. Well, guess what? If you're buzzed, you're not sober. That's not sober. If you're sober, you wasted your money. If you're buzzed, you're not sober. So why don't you just quit being an idiot and just be sober and just not drink any alcohol? Because if you're gonna drink so little that it doesn't affect you, then what's the point? Why not have a glass of milk? Milk's better anyway. Milk just tastes good. Now I don't know what beer tastes like, but it smells like piss. And so I'm not interested. Smells like a restroom. Now here's the thing though. No good comes of it. It brings woe, it brings contention, it brings babbling. Wounds without cause, redness of eyes, okay? This bud's for you. Now who has these things? Verse 30, they that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine. Now look what the Bible says in verse 31. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth this color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. Now apparently there are more than one type of wine because there's a wine that is red and gives its color in the cup and moves itself aright, and the Bible says don't look at that wine. Now that makes it seem like there's a wine that I could look at and be fine, am I right? Like well don't look, it doesn't just say don't look at wine it says don't look at wine when it's this particular type of wine that is red, that gives its color in the cup, and that moves itself aright. What kind of wine is that? That is talking about fermented wine. Alcoholic wine is what that's saying. Now a lot of bozos will come along and be like, well you know the Bible says wine, that's always alcohol. And they're like wine means wine. Okay well here's what I always say to those people. I say well you know the Bible, when the Bible talks about the singing of turtles, turtle means turtle. Turtle means turtle. Who believes that the turtle, when it says the time of the singing of turtles has come, who thinks that we're talking about the animal with the shell? That's absurd. It's talking about a turtle dove. But it's the oldness of the language that back then you could just call it a turtle and it made sense, but now when we say turtle we're only thinking of the shelled creature, okay. So it's just like willful ignorance to just be like, I'm just gonna pretend that the word wine hasn't changed in meaning, I'm just gonna be uneducated about that and just pretend that this word has not changed in meaning and I'm just gonna just, well wine is wine. And so Jesus made alcohol and just demand that. But here's what's so dumb about that, the Bible specifically talks about wine being in the cluster of a grape. Now is that today's definition of wine? No, because there's no grocery store in America that's gonna card you when you buy grapes. Yeah, I'm gonna need some ID for those grapes, young man. Because there's no alcohol in the cluster of a grape, but there is wine in the cluster of a grape according to the Bible. See, here's the thing, the Bible doesn't use the word juice except one time it says the wine of the juice, because it doesn't wanna say wine of the wine. So it says juice of the wine or wine of the juice. But in general, when the Bible used the word wine, it's talking about fruit juice and it's not even necessarily grape juice. Sometimes the Bible used the word wine about juices that aren't even for grapes. The Bible used the word wine about pomegranate juice. Any juice is called the Bible wine. Now, then the same bozos will pretend that they don't understand what I just said, and they'll say, oh, so you're saying, you know, the Bible's warning you about drinking too much grape juice. But here's the thing about that is that when the Bible says wine, sometimes it is talking about an alcoholic beverage and sometimes it isn't because the wine is just referring to fruit juice in general, not just from grapes, but from any fruit, and it can either be unfermented or fermented. So the verses that are talking about being drunk with wine, guess, I wonder which one we're talking about. We're obviously talking about alcohol. And then the ones that say the wine is in the cluster, well, guess what? Now we're talking about fruit juice, aren't we? Or when the Bible talks about new wine, we're talking about obviously, and even just the fact that there is new wine, if it's new, how could it be fermented? The whole point, right? I mean, new wine, that proves that wine isn't always alcohol, sometimes just fruit juice, okay? But people who want to justify drinking, they'll just blind themselves to this and just wine is wine. And it sounds great. It sounds like a great little slogan, but is it true? No, because in the Bible, the word wine, it can easily be demonstrated, is referring to fruit juice in general, whether fermented or not fermented. And here's what's really, here's another level of stupid, okay? And you say, well, how dare you use the word stupid? The Bible says, whosoever is deceived by wine is not wise. So if you're not wise, you fill in the blank. But here's the thing, here's the other level of stupid is when they say this. Oh, at our church, we do communion, we do real communion with real wine, you know? We, you know, at our church, we do the real stuff. We don't do grape juice, wah! Now, hold on. In the Lord's supper, when he said, you know, this is my body which is broken for you and gave him the unleavened bread, unleavened bread, and then he also gave them of the fruit of the vine, why, what did the fruit of the vine represent at the last supper? The blood of Jesus, right? The bread represented the body, the fruit of the vine represented the blood of Christ. Why wouldn't, if the bread is unleavened, picturing the sinlessness of Christ, wouldn't the wine also be unleavened? Here's another word for leaven. You know, the Bible says leaven. Here's another word for leaven, yeast. Guess what wine is made out of? Guess what is used to ferment wine? Yeast. So, don't put any yeast in the bread, but make sure that the juice has yeast in it so that you can drink alcohol to represent the blood of Christ. How stupid are you if you think that alcohol represents Jesus' blood? That's just stupid, I'm sorry. Not only that, here's the funny part. You ready for the punchline? Nowhere does the Bible say that Jesus drank wine at the Last Supper. It never even says wine. Wine is wine. Okay, guess what it says in Matthew. Guess what it says in Mark. Guess what it says in Luke. Guess what it says every single time in the Bible. It says that Jesus drank of the fruit of the vine. So now, fruit of the vine is alcohol? Folks, I defy anyone to show me in the Bible where Jesus took wine at the Last Supper and said, this cup is the New Testament in my blood. That's not what it says. If you actually look up your Bible, you know what it's gonna say? Fruit. Ah, they're using fruit juice, ah! Jesus used the fruit of the vine. And if there's no yeast allowed in the bread, why would there be yeast allowed in the juice? It makes no sense. But yeah, it's like, oh, you Baptist, ah! Tea totalers. No, who's stupid now? I mean, how can anyone who, I mean, look, if you don't understand what I just explained in the last five minutes, I don't know what to tell you. I mean, could this subject be any simpler? No mention of wine at the Last Supper. Fruit of the vine. No yeast allowed. I mean, anybody who just wants to still do alcohol is just willfully ignorant at that point. Because they don't have a leg to stand on. They don't have a single verse, okay? It's not in Matthew. It's not in Mark, Luke, John. Have fun finding it. It isn't there. But there's a kind of wine that we shouldn't even look at. Now, what does this mean when it's red, gives its color in the cup, and moves itself to the right? Let's talk about those three elements, okay? Red wine takes its color from the skin of the grape, okay? If you take red grapes and peel them, are they red on the inside? No. They're not red on the inside. If you peel grapes, you know, when I was a kid, I used to like peel grapes and eat the peels separately and eat the grape. Who did that? Who still does it? You know? When you got a little time on your hands, you peel grapes. That's what I do to this day. But anyway, it's the skin that's red and so red wine is made because the skin is left in the juice to give its color to the juice and make it that, that's where it gets its color from, okay? Because what's on the inside, the juice on the inside even of red grapes is not quite red, okay? So that's what, the redness is a reference to the skin of the grapes, okay? Giving its color in the cup, same feel, and then moving itself around. Why would the wine move itself around in the cup? What would cause it to move itself around in the cup? Carbon dioxide, right? Carbonation, natural carbonation. Now, both the red color and the moving itself right are both references to fermentation because the yeast that does the fermenting in wine, because wine is, you know, vinegar is fermented with bacteria, but wine is fermented by yeast. The yeast lives on the outside of the grape's skin. So if you wanna have fermented wine, you have to let the juice soak in the skins to get the yeast in there, to get maximum yeast, maximum fermentation. The skins make it red, the yeast is on the skins. That's what we're talking about here, okay? Now, yeast, just like we, you know, we breathe in oxygen, and we eat carbohydrates, and then, except you carnivore people, no, I'm just kidding. We, you know, we eat carbohydrates, we breathe air, and then what do we breathe out? What do we exhale, right? Carbon dioxide. So we're like the opposite of plants, right? We turn oxygen into carbon dioxide. Plants turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, okay? Well, here's the thing. When you ferment things with bacteria or yeast, there's also a carbon dioxide byproduct from the fermentation, which produces a natural carbonation. So the moving itself around and the red color are ways of poetically saying that it's fermented. That's what the Bible's telling us here. And he's saying, look not upon it when it's fermented. At the last, it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. Thine eyes shall behold strange women. Thy mouth shall utter perverse things. And on and on. Now, I'm running out of time here, so let me just kind of wrap up with a few important thoughts about this, okay? Apparently, there's a drink that we're not even supposed to look at. Stay away from it, it's bad. It's gonna cause you all these problems, agreed? Now, even if you disagree about what drink that is, wouldn't you agree that there must be some drink on this planet that God's warning us to stay away from and that we shouldn't even look at? Agreed? Okay. So you could say, well, maybe this is talking about a drink with a lot of alcohol in it, like a really fermented drink. Maybe something that's just mildly fermented isn't as big of a deal. Okay, let's just quickly run through the types of alcohol that are out there. We got beer, which is less fermented, right? So, I mean, less alcohol content, right? How much alcohol is in a typical beer? It's about 2% or 3% alcohol in a beer, right? And then let's say you have like one of these like banquet beers or whatever, like Corona or something is like 6% alcohol. Like there are beers that have more alcohol in them. Then you have wine, how much alcohol is in wine? Well, on average, wine is like 11, 12, 13% alcohol. And it could even be 16, 17, it could be more, but the average is like around 11, 12% alcohol. So therefore, wine is about four times as alcoholic as beer. Does everybody understand that? You would have to drink four times as much beer to get the same alcohol as you would get in wine, which is why alcoholics love wine because they can get drunk faster drinking wine. This is why bums are often called winos because they get that adult Capri Sun at CVS, that plastic bag filled with wine in a cardboard box, because that's their cheapest, easiest way to get drunk, some 99 cent bottle of wine from CVS or something, right? Does everybody understand what I'm saying? So we got beer, two, 3% alcohol, depending on the beer, some beers could even be five, 6% if it's a really alcoholic beer, maybe even beyond that. I don't know, I'm not an expert on these things, but what I'm saying is true. Wine is like 12%, maybe even 14, 15%. Then you have hard liquor. Now hard liquor could be like 40% alcohol or 50% alcohol or something, or maybe even more than that. But here's the thing about that, that technology to make hard liquor did not exist in Bible times, because in order to have these really high levels of alcohol, you have to distill alcohol. So that is a technology that goes back to the medieval times, middle ages. So in the Bible, we're not talking about hard liquor, we're talking about wine that without modern technology, because modern technology allows them to make wine more alcoholic. The alcohol in the Bible, the most alcoholic wine that you would come across would have been this like 12 or 13% wine. That's pretty much the max alcohol drink you could have found in the Bible. So that's obviously what the Bible's talking about. It can't be talking about hard liquor, because hard liquor hadn't been invented yet, because the technology wasn't there. Is everybody following the logic here? Okay, but yet you have Christians today, and what do they say? They say, well, you know, I'm not gonna get drunk, I'm just gonna have a glass of wine with dinner. Now notice that they don't say, I'm gonna have a glass of beer with dinner. They typically say, I'm gonna have a glass of wine with dinner. Why do they always wanna justify wine instead of beer? Well, number one, because the word wine's used in the Bible, and so they wanna twist scripture and basically ignore the fact that wine in the Bible is not always alcoholic, and there's no beer mentioned in the Bible, so they kinda wanna hide behind a misunderstanding of scripture and say, well, I'll just have a little wine with my dinner. Plus, wine just sounds a little classier, doesn't it? Like, hey, have a beer, you know, versus like, I'm gonna have a little bit of wine with my dinner. But in reality, these people would be better off drinking beer than wine, because wine is for sure the drink, today's alcoholic wine, is for sure the drink, for sure that God's saying, don't even look at it, because if he's saying, don't look at something that's very fermented, there's no way you could ever make the case that some 13%, 11% wine doesn't fit that bill. It's for sure prohibited. It shouldn't even be touched or looked at. That's the mixed wine that you're seeking, the really fermented stuff, because that's as fermented as you could even get back then. Does everybody see what I'm saying? That's for sure prohibited. Now, I personally believe that according to this scripture, God doesn't want us to drink any alcoholic beverage at all. But what I'm saying is you'd have a much easier time trying to make the case for beer than wine, because wine is so much worse. But I say that God is just saying to be sober in so many verses, where he doesn't say don't be drunk, he just says, be sober, be sober, be sober, that I believe that God is just saying, stay away from wine when it's fermented, period, because it's red, it moves around, because it's fermented, don't drink the fermented stuff. But I'm saying even if you wanna take the loosest possible interpretation, wine is off the table, no pun intended. But yet today we have guys like Pastor Jeff Durbin from Apostasia Church here in Tempe, and his sidekick, James White. James White and Jeff Durbin are on social media talking about drinking Scotch whiskey. Now, what's the alcohol content of whiskey? It's way beyond anything that the author of Proverbs 23 could have even imagined, because it's a drink that hadn't been invented yet. No drink of that magnitude had been invented yet, because that technology came about in the Middle Ages. And so now we have these supposed pastors and theologians on social media, hey look, my pastor friend gave me this whiskey, I got this whiskey, my pastor, I got this Scotch, I got this bourbon, I got, you know, and they got hard liquor. You know, hey brother, thanks for the vodka, God bless. Folks, it's madness. But then again, if I were Calvinist, I'd probably have to have a few drinks before that made any sense either. You know, because Calvinism doesn't make sense when you're sober, amen? That's why all these Calvinists are so into drinking. But if they wanted to justify beer, they'd be wrong. Because again, back to my original argument, be sober. And if beer, if you're still sober after a beer, what are you doing? What are we doing here, what's the point, okay? And so we need to be sober, but to justify hard liquor or wine, today's wine, alcoholic wine, is just to completely ignore Proverbs 23. You know, and if somebody wants to try to justify beer, they're gonna have to deal with all these verses on being sober. Now obviously, any drink, any drink, because they'll be like, well back then, they didn't have refrigeration and blah, blah, blah. You know, so it's all alcohol. So I wonder if it was alcohol when Joseph has the dream, or interprets the dream about the guy squeezing the grapes and then giving it straight to Pharaoh. People didn't drink juice back then. Somebody told me juice was invented in the 1800s. If people didn't drink juice back then, then someone explained to me why Pharaoh drank juice. You remember that Bible story? The butler squeezes the grapes directly into the cup and gives it to Pharaoh in the dream. That was the invention of juice, my friend, okay? But oh, then refrigerant. But there are other ways to keep grape juice from fermenting. And even if you let it ferment, it would not become what they're selling down at CVS. They have to make a point to put the skins in and go through all this process to make it get the way they want. Look, you know, Anselm's from Germany. Hey, when I was over in Germany, and I'm out of time, but I have to impart these important truths to you. They have these tiny refrigerators in Germany. Like in my house, we have two fridges, and they're both huge. But in Germany, they have like a little camping fridge. That's like their fridge for their whole family. It's like a fridge that you would have in like a dormitory or like an office or something. That's like their fridge. So therefore, there's a lot of stuff they just don't refrigerate. So when I was there, they didn't refrigerate juice. So basically, fruit juice would always just be left on the counter. Apple juice, grape juice. Have you experienced this, Anselm? Or is this foreign to you? Because you're Americanized, that's why. You guys are all Americanized now. You're dropping all these American words into your language. I was there 20 years ago. You were five years old, okay, Anselm? So let me tell my story. More than 20 years ago. But I'm telling you, the juice was left on the counter. And the first day, it tasted like juice that we're used to. And a week later, it tasted a little bit fermented from being left on the counter. But that's not an alcoholic beverage. Nobody was getting buzzed, nobody was getting tipsy or drunk from drinking the apple juice or the grape juice that was left out, because you can leave it out. And here's the thing. Even a bottle of Welch's grape juice has minuscule amounts of alcohol in it. Any drink with sugar in it has trace amounts of alcohol in it. So you say, well, where do you draw the line? I'll tell you where I draw the line. The law says that anything with more than a half a percent of alcohol is an alcoholic beverage and you have to be 21 to buy it. That's what the law says, right? State of Arizona, if it has more than a half a percent of alcohol, it's an alcoholic beverage, you must show ID. Well then, you know what? That's what I consider an alcoholic beverage. And that's all beer. Beer is an alcoholic beverage. Because it's two or three, four percent alcohol. Anything above a half percent is defined by law and I think that that's a pretty good standard because anything below half a percent, you're gonna be sober no matter how much you drink. Okay. Don't try to test that. But I'm saying, you might get sick and throw up if you try to drink too much fruit juice or near beer or O'Doul's or whatever. But, and you know, I don't think that near beer is very popular, is it? How many people do you know that drink near beer? Who knows what near beer is? O'Doul's. Okay, wow. 20 people out of, nobody knows what near beer is. Near beer is unalcoholic beer. Okay? So like O'Doul's or whatever, right? But how many people do you see drinking O'Doul's? Not that many. I'm not saying that no one drinks it. I'm sure there are. And look, I'm not against it. If it's unalcoholic and you just like the taste. But my point is, if beer tasted so wonderful, like everybody would be drinking it. But why are people really drinking beer? Because they wanna get drunk. They wanna be buzzed. They don't wanna be sober, that's why. Anyway, I'm out of time. I hope that that's helpful. But I think if you're honest with scripture, you're not gonna walk away thinking that God wants us to drink alcohol. And you're certainly not gonna come away with this bizarre alcohol Lord's Supper doctrine. That's just way out in left field. 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 be receptive and open to what your word is teaching, Lord. And I pray that we would all be sober and that we would all be godly people that are not going around, beholding strange women and saying perverse things, Lord. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.