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Amen. Well, good to be back tonight, and thank you all for coming back. Tonight I'm preaching on the subject, Horedom, wine, and new wine. Horedom, wine, and new wine, of course, from verse 11 there, it says, Horedom and wine and new wine take away the heart. Let's back up just a few verses to verse number 8. The Bible says, They eat up the sin of My people, and they set their heart on their iniquity. And when the Bible says that Horedom and wine and new wine take away the heart, what it's talking about is obviously taking our heart away from where our heart should be. We should have our heart set on the Lord, right? We should love and set our affection on things that are above, not on things on this earth. And wine and Horedom and new wine, they take away our heart from loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and even from loving our neighbor as ourself. The Bible says, Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. It's so important that we have a heart that's right with God and that we love God and love our fellow man, but these three things end up taking our heart away from God and away from the right kind of love for others, Horedom and wine and new wine. It says they set their heart on their iniquity, right? Their heart is consumed by the things of this world. They love sin. The Bible says, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. The world passeth away and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. And so we can't be just in love with this world and loving God at the same time. Any love that we have for the sinful pleasures of this world ends up taking away from our love for God. We can't really serve two masters, can we, right? We're either going to hate the one and love the other or else we'll hold to the one and despise the other, and therefore we cannot serve God and mammon. We cannot live our lives just for the things that this world values and also serving God 100%. And so we as Christians, we're here on Sunday night in church because we're serious about serving God, and so we don't want our heart to be taken away. We don't want whoredom and wine and new wine to take away the heart. It says in verse number 9, There shall be like people, like priests. I will punish them for their ways and reward them for their doings, for they shall eat and not have enough. They shall commit whoredom and not increase because they have left off to take heed to the Lord. Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart. Let's talk about these three things separately. First of all, whoredom. What is this talking about? Whoredom. We're talking about fornication, right? We're talking about sleeping with someone that you're not married to. And of course, today in the United States, this is becoming more and more prevalent. It's becoming more and more accepted. Whereas in the past, there was a stigma on this. You were supposed to wait until you're married because that's what Christianity teaches. That's what the Bible teaches. But as we become de-Christianized as a nation, hey, this becomes more and more normal in our society, but let it never become normal in the house of God. Let our young people grow up and, whether boys or girls, grow up as teenagers and as young adults pure until their wedding day, waiting until they get married to have that physical relationship. They need to be a virgin when they are married. Now, why does whoredom take away the heart? Because whoredom is a grievous, grievous sin. It's a major sin in the eyes of God. This is not a little sin. This is not a small thing. In fact, the Bible talks about the fact that if any man is called a brother, be a fornicator, to put away from among yourselves that wicked person and with such a one, know not to eat, it says in 1 Corinthians 5. We should have nothing to do with someone who is a Christian who's living in fornication. That sounds pretty serious because God doesn't say that about every sin because, let's face it, we're all sinners. There's none righteous, no, not one. Even the thought of foolishness is sin and we all have all kinds of bad thoughts and wrong actions that we perform. But then there are certain major sins that would be so grievous where we can't even fellowship with those people. We can't even have them at the church. And fornication is one of them. Whoredom is one of them. And so if that is such a big sin, obviously this is going to create a major rift between us and our Heavenly Father if we're involved in this kind of serious sin. Someone once said, Sin will keep you from this book or this book will keep you from sin, right? Because when people get involved in sin, especially if it's a serious sin like whoredom, then they don't want to look into the mirror of God's Word. They don't want to be reminded of their wickedness and they end up staying away from the Bible, staying away from church and just pushing God out of their mind, unfortunately. When they need to be getting back with the Lord, they end up doing the opposite, unfortunately. And so if you think about, for example, turn if you would to 1 John 3. If you think about, for example, Peter after he denied the Lord and denying the Lord was a pretty big failure on the part of Peter. Pretty embarrassing. A major failure when he denied that he even knew Jesus in Jesus's hour of need. And what did he do after that? He quit serving God. He went back to fishing. He just kind of threw in the towel because that's what sin will do. Sin will take you out of the ministry. Sin will take you out of church. It will take you out of the fight for the Lord. And so whoredom takes away the heart. The Bible says in 1 John 3 verse 20, For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. So the Bible is saying that sin, iniquity, it actually drives a wedge between us and God. And we don't have confidence toward God. We don't get our prayers answered. And, you know, if we want to get our prayers answered, if we want to be close to God, we've got to walk in the light as he is in the light. And so sin ends up creating that rift. Isaiah 59 too, 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 when we have major sin in our life, this is going to ruin the fellowship that we would normally have with God. And if you think about your earthly children, obviously if your children are getting into all kinds of trouble and they have major sin in their life, you're not going to have a very good relationship with them. They're not going to want to face you. They're probably going to start avoiding you. And maybe you'd go to your children and say, hey, why are you avoiding me? You know, is there something that you're trying to hide or something? And this is how we as human beings can be with God. Sin ends up taking our heart away from God and creating a rift. And whoredom is, I believe, in this list representing just grievous sin. Whoredom, wine, and new wine. What does whoredom represent? Just a big major sin that would separate us from God in fellowship. Go if you would to Proverbs chapter 4. Proverbs chapter 4. While you're turning there, I'll start reading. It says in verse 20, My son, attend to my words and climb thine ear to my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes. Keep them in the midst of thy heart, for they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. Look at verse 23. Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee. Let thine eyes look right on and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand, nor to the left. Remove thy foot from evil. We need to keep our heart right by staying on the right path, not getting diverted by sin, not looking around and being enticed by all the garbage that the world has to offer out there, but to be steadfastly fixed on the prize, following Christ, looking unto the author and finisher of our faith. So, number one, whoredom takes away the heart. We need to make sure that we're living a clean life and get as much sin out of our life, especially major, big sins, because those things are getting in the way of us having a right heart toward God and right fellowship with God. But the Bible goes on to say, whoredom and wine take away the heart. Now, what about wine? What does wine represent? Well, wine represents something that actually literally takes away your heart in the sense that it actually messes with your mind to where you're not even thinking straight. You're not even thinking clearly because you're not even sober, right? So how can I have a right relationship with God? How can I communicate with God, have communion with God, be close with God if I'm under the influence of alcohol? And let me tell you something. Just because the Bible doesn't specifically mention drugs, that goes under the canopy of alcohol, okay? Because obviously the Bible can't just sit there and spell out every possible variation on every sin. If the Bible's telling you not to be drunk with wine, we're in his excess, obviously he doesn't want you smoking pot, and I don't care if it's legal. I don't care if you have a prescription or whatever, you know, for your mood swings or whatever, stupid, bogus prescription you have, you know, that I'm sure is pretty easy to get just because you're just in a bad mood or something. Hey, this will make you feel better. Take two of these, smoke two of these and call me in the morning or whatever. But the point is that when God is condemning drunkenness, he's also condemning recreational drug use and drug abuse, whether it's marijuana, whether you're abusing pain pills and you're just taking them recreationally, mixing them with alcohol or snorting cocaine or whatever it is that you're taking. It doesn't really matter, does it? Because drugs and alcohol are going to separate us from fellowship with God. You know, we're not going to have a right relationship with God while we're under the influence. We need to be sober. You know what's funny is that satanic religions in this world literally teach the opposite of this. They literally teach that drugs and alcohol are somehow going to bring you into communion with God. Now, that's kind of hard to believe, isn't it? Just something so wild, right? But yet if you look at a lot of indigenous religions, like you could even look at religions in Southeast Asia where some shaman will take drugs and then he'll enter the spirit world, you know, because he's just hallucinating or whatever and so he goes into the spirit world and comes back with a vision and oh wow, you know, we've got a new revelation or what have you. You go back to the ancient Greeks and of course they had the Oracle at Delphi and the current theory of how that worked is that there was actually like a rift in the earth there with noxious fumes coming out of the earth and so they built this Oracle around this deposit of this kind of poisonous gas coming out of the earth and they stick like a middle-aged woman in there and she sits on a tripod, a three-legged stool and then basically she gets high off all the fumes. She's huffing all the fumes in this temple of Delphi and then she would say a bunch of just nonsense and none of it made any sense. It was just total nonsense. But then the priests that were there, they would take her nonsense and turn it into something coherent and so people would come and ask the Oracle a question and she's just like, you're just saying whatever and then they're like okay and then they would write it into a little poem that actually made sense based on the ravings of this woman who's high on whatever fumes were coming out of that crevice in the earth. Then you think about of course in the United States, in our part of the country of course in Arizona, we've got the Navajo Nation and the big traditional religion up there is peyote religion. I mean imagine having the name of a hallucinogenic drug in your religion. Like what religion are you? Baptist. What religion are you? Oh, I'm LSD. I'm sorry, LDS. No, I'm just kidding. But like what religion are you? Oh, marijuana. Marijuana religion. Oh, I'm part of the cocaine cult. What the? What is that? Right? Oh, I'm actually, you know, I converted from meth-odist to now I'm a heroin religion. But the point is though, you know, when you got drugs in the name of your religion, something's wrong with your religion. But it's literally called peyote religion. That's what they call it. I mean the official name is Native American Church, but if you ask them, they'll say peyote. What religion are you? Peyote religion. That's what they say. What is this peyote religion? Well, here's the funny thing about it. They claim it's their traditional religion. It actually goes back to like 1896. That's how traditional it is. And in fact, here's the proof that it's not their traditional religion is that peyote doesn't grow in Arizona. So how can this be your ancient ancestral religion when it doesn't even grow here, right? It grows in northern Mexico, maybe just barely into Texas a little bit, but it was started by a guy in Oklahoma in 1896 and they started this peyote religion. And so you have Indians all over the American Southwest and even the heartland and other parts of the country that are practicing this peyote faith, okay? And they basically take peyote. Now, a lot of people think that peyote is smoked because you're thinking of the peace pipe, smoke a peace pipe. The peace pipe is tobacco, okay? So the peyote, they eat it or drink it, okay? So they put it in like a tea or they just eat it and it's like this little cactus thing that grows and the peyote makes them high. It's a hallucinogenic drug similar to like LSD or something like that and so they have some kind of an experience and this is supposedly bringing them into communion with the great spirit by taking drugs, right? And I'm sure that they have visions and it's a mix of a couple different things. Number one, it could just be their own imagination going crazy because let's face it, we've all had some pretty crazy dreams at night. When we go to bed and we have a crazy dream, we wake up and we have some wild dream, that's just your imagination going crazy. And when you start poisoning your brain with chemicals and taking hallucinogenic drugs, yeah, you're going to have a lot of crazy visions. That didn't come from God. It came from your own heart. It came from your own imagination. Or you could also be communing with demons because it seems like the devil is promoting drug use in his false religions across this world because make no mistake about it, the devil is behind false religion. False religion isn't just invented by humans. The devil specializes in false religion. The Bible says the devil himself is transformed into an angel of light and his ministers are transformed into the ministers of light. False apostles, false ministers, evil workers, these are the minions of Satan. The Bible, in fact, pretty much equates false prophets with reprobates because they're so wicked, they're so evil, they're the lowest of the low. And so isn't it interesting how so many false religions, whether we're in Southeast Asia, North America, whether we're in India, so many religions teach, oh, you're going to have communion with God through getting high, through either drunkenness or drug abuse. That's how you're going to get close to God. Of course, the Hindus in their holy scriptures, quote, unquote, so holy telling you about, hey, get high and you're going to have this experience by taking a drug called soma. Nobody's really 100 percent sure what that is because the Vedas were written so long ago, but it's some kind of a hallucinogenic that's being drunk in the Vedas and that's somehow opening doors to the supernatural. Yeah, maybe it is opening doors to the supernatural, but not God, the devil. And isn't it hilarious that so many people today like to make fun of us as Baptists for being teetotalers and for not drinking. And then they mock and laugh about the fact that we don't believe that the Lord's Supper was represented by alcohol when Jesus Christ took the cup and said, this cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you. They go, huh? Well, you think it was grape juice? Yeah, I do. I do believe it was grape juice. Oh, you think it was Welch's? It's so funny how just the word Welch's is just like a punchline with these people like, was it Welch's? You know, they just love to bring that up. But here's what's so foolish about that is that they claim it's got to be wine. Right? So if you go to the Roman Catholic Church, it's alcohol. Right? But the Bible never even says wine about the Last Supper. At the Last Supper, what are they drinking? The fruit of the vine, it says. Now, I don't know. Correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't the fruit of the vine, if you drink the fruit of the vine, that sounds like grape juice. I'm drinking stuff that came off of fruit off of a vine. Was it Welch's? But what's funny is that they've just been gaslighting us for centuries, telling us it's wine, wine, wine. It doesn't even say wine. It says fruit of the vine. And Jesus literally says new. He says, I'm not going to drink this again until I drink it new in the kingdom of God. And, of course, new wine is talking about wine that is for sure not fermented because it's brand new. And it talks about, in the Bible, new wine being in the cluster of the grape. And the last time I checked, you can buy grapes without having to show any ID or anything because it's not alcohol. It's just a grape. It's just grape juice. But they make fun of that. But not only do the Roman Catholics and Protestants basically have communion, oh, let's enter into communion with alcohol. It kind of reminds me of a lot of other religions who want to use inebriating substances, hallucinogenic drugs. They want to be under the influence. Somehow that's going to bring them into communion with God. And not only that, you think about the mass, obviously, with the Catholics and the Protestants' communion with alcohol. And you say, well, they're not getting drunk because it's just a small amount or whatever. But what about these monks and monasteries? And they're literally just like brewing beer in the monastery. That's the monastery's business. Well, we support the monastery by making it a brewery. And they're drinking beer. And, of course, now you've got this whole culture of the new Calvinists who get together and drink beer at their Bible studies. And, frankly, that's probably the only way that these Bible studies make sense, is after a few beers. Calvinism starts to make sense after a few beers. But I wouldn't know because I've never drunk a beer. So it still don't make sense to me. But we're not Hindus. We're not Native American church. We're not into shamanism from Southeast Asia. We're not into the Rig Vedas. We're not Roman Catholics. We're not Presbyterians. We're not new Calvinists, reformed, trendy, tattooed, beer-swilling whatever theologians. We're Baptists. And so what we believe is that alcohol and drugs do not bring you closer to God. You're not going to believe this, but wine takes away the heart. And that alcohol does not commend us unto God. That drugs do not bring us closer to God. And, in fact, I would tell you that if you have drugs and alcohol in your life, it is hurting your walk with God. It's hurting your relationship with God. It's hurting your Christian faith. It's hurting your Christian testimony. And you need to stop drinking and stop taking drugs and just be sober. Wake up. And don't be under the influence of these substances. It's not making you more spiritual. It might make you feel more spiritual. It works for the Indians. They feel more spiritual when they take peyote. But let me tell you something. Feeling spiritual and being spiritual are two different things. You might go sailing and going through the spirit world, but that's not what the Bible means when it says the spiritual man judges all things. You know, the spiritual man is soberly judging all things because he has a clear mind. And you know what? We can walk with God and be close to God without drugs, without alcohol. Be not drunk with wine were in his excess, but be filled with the Spirit. Those are two opposite ideas. And so, number one, we said whoredom takes away the heart. Why? Because having major sin in our life creates a rift between us and the Lord. That's why whoredom takes away the heart. Easy to understand. But number two, wine takes away the heart because it literally takes away the heart. It takes away the sense. It takes away the sobriety. It takes away our thought process from where it should be. What does the Bible say are the effects of alcohol according to Proverbs 23? Thy eyes shall behold strange women. Thy mouth shall let her perverse things. Look, if alcohol is making mine eyes behold strange women, it sounds like it's taken away my heart from where it ought to be, focused on the Lord. And obviously, I understand there's a difference between drinking a little bit and getting drunk, but let me tell you something. I don't even want to be a little bit drunk, and I don't want to lose any of my sobriety. I just want to be sober. I'm not trying to figure out where that line is. I'm not trying to, you know, just dabble with sin and play around with it. No, man, I just want to stay away from it and just be sober. And I guarantee you that drinking a beer, you say, well, just one beer is no big deal. Okay, please tell me if that beer is bringing you closer to God. Are you really just like, man, I just drink a beer, and then all of a sudden, man, my Bible study, it's just another level, man. You know, like, you know, I can't read my Bible without drinking a beer first. No, because nobody says that. Maybe some of these new Calvinists might say that. But virtually no one says that. Who's going to say like, oh, yeah, you know, I like to drink a beer before church, get in the right mood for worship? You know, again, I shouldn't be giving these people ideas. But I've never heard anybody say that. Because why? Because here's the thing. I think just we all common sense kind of know that alcohol is not putting us in the spirit to worship the Lord. And, you know, honestly, I have enough problems with the flesh. You have enough problems with the flesh as it is. Why do we want to throw alcohol into the mix and just make it worse? Isn't it already sometimes a challenge to stay focused on the things of God? Isn't it already a challenge to stay focused on your Bible reading? Stay focused on prayer. Stay focused walking with God and to keep your eyes straight ahead, to keep your heart with all diseases. Look, the Christian life is a challenge. I'm not up here saying, oh, it's just so easy living the Christian. The Christian life is hard for all of us. We're all working at it. We're all putting in work. We're all putting in effort. We're all denying self daily and taking up the cross and following Jesus. Well, you know what? Is beer making it easier or harder to serve God in your life? It's going to make it harder, my friend. It's going to take away your heart and I need all the help I can get to walk in the spirit, to put on the new band. The last thing I want to do is put something into my body that's just making my job that much harder to live for God. You know, I just preached recently a faithful word and I said, you know, when you don't drink any alcohol at all, that'll end up giving you opportunities to witness because people will be surprised because so many people drink today that when you say, oh, I don't drink, really, why not? That's what people say. If you tell people you don't drink, they say, why not? And then here's what you say. Well, I'm a Christian. And now, boom, you got a great opportunity to witness. Are you a Christian? Well, hey, do you know for sure if you were to die today that you'd go to heaven? And that segues into conversations about things. My dad's the one who told me that because my dad told me just how when he was in his 20s, just the fact that he didn't drink ended up opening the door for him to witness to a lot of people because people would ask him, why don't you drink? Oh, you're a Christian. And then they're interested and they want to know more. And then he would talk to them and give them a gospel. I just preached that a couple of weeks ago. And then I had someone come up to me and say, hey, you just preach that? It happened to me right after you preach that. Less than a week later, I told someone I didn't drink. They asked me why and I ended up giving them the entire plan of salvation. You know, it's real, my friend. But I wonder how many witnessing opportunities you get because people are just so impressed with your beer consumption that they just kind of want what you have. You know, and they just see your good works and they just glorify your Father, which is in heaven. No, my friend, because I think even people who promote drinking or condone drinking, I think deep down we all know that drinking is sinful and that it's something that God doesn't want us to do. It's not healthy. We all you know, there's always going to be some idiot doctor that's going to tell you, hey, you know, drinking is good for you. Of course, everybody's going to love. They're going to flock to that doctor. He's like the Joel Osteen of medicine. You know, some doctor who tells you, you know, what you want to hear or whatever. And, you know, all these supposed health benefits of a glass of wine. You get the identical health benefits from Welch's. Oh, man, I can't say that without laughing. Guess where the health benefits coming from? It's coming from the fruit. It's coming from the vitamins and minerals in the juice. OK. And obviously there could be some good things in fermented foods like how about yogurt? How about sourdough bread? How about kombucha? Like you don't have to go to something that's literally poisonous, alcohol that will literally kill you today if you drink it. You could die in one sitting if you drink enough of it in one sitting. You'll literally die of alcohol poisoning. You don't have to go there when cheese is available. Right. Like, like, oh, you know, fermented. So good for you. Yeah. Yeah. Fermented like cheese, like sourdough bread, like yogurt, like kefir, like kombucha. I mean, what else? What am I missing? Sauerkraut. Sauerkraut's gross. But, you know, what's that? Natto. Fermented soy? What the? All right. That was a continuation of the Japanese test from this afternoon. So, you know, wine takes away the heart. It doesn't bring us closer to God. What does the Bible say? The Bible says, hortum takes away the heart. You know, oh, well, you know, yeah, I'm living in fornication. Well, I guarantee you're not serving God while you're doing that because isn't it interesting how fornication takes you away from serving God? Now, obviously fornication's wrong because it's fornication. But in addition to just being bad in and of itself, being a major sin, it's also going to take you away from serving God. It's also going to create this rift between you and God where, and it's especially going to create a rift when you get kicked out of the church for committing fornication. That's not going to help your walk with God. So, hortum takes away the heart. Now, let's think about America for a minute. Hortum, wine, and new wine take away the heart. You know, these are three things that abound in America. All three of these abound. Hortum, wine, and new wine. Isn't it amazing how America's slowly drifting from God or is it slowly? Maybe it's drifting from God quickly and we're being de-Christianized. And look, even just in the last 18 years of being a pastor, just even in the last 25 years that I've been soul winning, I've noticed it getting less receptive and just people are more hostile toward the things of God. We're getting de-Christianized. Maybe as a nation, hortum and wine and new wine are taking away the heart as our nation is a drinking nation where not drinking is a little out of the ordinary these days to most people. Or where hortum is becoming more and more acceptable to where now there are more couples living together without being married than married couples. That's crazy. That's madness. But let's talk about that third component. We said hortum, wine, and new wine take away the heart. Now, we said that new wine is not alcoholic. It's not fermented, right? New wine is found in the cluster. The Bible says in Proverbs chapter 3, you don't have to turn there. If you want, turn to Zechariah chapter 9. But Proverbs chapter 3 says this, Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine increase. So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, watch this, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. Now, think about this for a minute. Your presses will burst out with new wine. What is that talking about? What's a press? Talking about a wine press, right? So here's how this wine press works. You put grapes into the wine press and you press down. And what happens? When you press down on the grapes, new wine bursts out. Now, is that an alcoholic beverage bursting out of that thing? Of course not, right? Because it hasn't had time to become an alcoholic beverage. It's new wine. What comes bursting out of the wine press? You shove down on it. Maybe people step on it. And what gushes out is fruit juice. New wine, not yet fermented, not yet alcoholic. So when we see the word new wine in Isaiah 65, it's in the cluster. It's in a grape. It can't be alcohol. When Proverbs 3, 9, and 10 talks about it, it's bursting out of the presses, okay? The Bible says in Zechariah chapter 9 verse 17, for how great is his goodness and how great is his beauty, corn shall make the young men cheerful and new wine the maids. Now, a lot of people, what they'll do is they'll say, well, any time the Bible talks about wine making someone happy, well, that's got to be alcohol. Well, spoken like a true drunk. Like you just think like that's the only thing that makes people happy is just alcohol? Because that's funny because is corn alcohol? Corn is food. So when it says corn, so let me ask you this. If corn can make young men cheerful, does there have to be some drug in the corn or can they just be cheerful because it's corn? Now, look, obviously I know we're not talking about the yellow kind of corn that we eat in North America because the Bible is written on the other side of the world and corn grows over here and not over there. But, you know, it still serves as an illustration. I realize that this is not the same corn. But, you know, I get pretty cheerful at Thanksgiving when there's a big pile of that yellow sweet corn because this is good. Obviously the Bible is talking about other kinds of grain and corn. But you know what? I get pretty cheerful just about a fresh baked piece of bread smeared in butter. That could put me in a good mood. That could get me cheerful. Well, what drug is in it? There's no drug in it. There's no drugs in it. You know, I get pretty excited about a glass of milk. Well, is it fermented? Is it alcoholic? Does it have LSD in it? No, it's just milk. It does the body good. And look, I just love milk. I just get excited. Hey, I could get pretty happy with just a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch with milk in it. And it can make the men cheerful. But isn't it hilarious how people just say, well, you know, it talks about somebody being cheerful or merry. You guys think it's grape juice making people happy. Yeah, I do. Because here's what you have to understand is that in the ancient world, you don't just walk to 7-Eleven and buy a bottle of grape juice. Right? I mean, in the ancient world, this stuff's a little harder to come by because you have to actually, first of all, grow all this fruit. But then you have to squeeze the juice out of it with no machines. Right? Because think about how much work it is even to do juicing. Who's ever gone on like a juicing kick before? But you got into juicing and you're so out of, so basically 3% of the congregation has been into juicing. Okay. All right. I'm not talking about using steroids in the gym when I say juicing. Is that what you guys say? Everybody's like, oh, man. I know there's a lot of deadlifts. I know there's a lot of deadlifting and squatting and bench press going on in this church. And I'm not accusing anybody of juicing. I'm talking about the other kind of juicing. All right. Same people. All right. So, but here's the thing. If you've ever done juicing, you get some juicing machine and it's still a bunch of work. And not only that, you'll have like this big bag of oranges. And you're like, oh, man, I got this big bag of oranges. Let's make some juice with it. It's like one glass. One of your 12 children just walks up and is like, ah, what just happened? This is gone. All that work. And then you have all this pulp everywhere. There's so much waste. Right? Because it would take a while to eat 20 oranges. Like, you know, that'd be a lot of food there. But you juice it and it's just like, it's not much. And then there's all this waste. And then it's this big mess. And you've got to clean it up. And it's a big hassle. It's a lot of work to deal with. But now go to the ancient world. There's no machine. There's no juicer. So you're having to have literal humans, literal slaves. Right? Stepping on the grapes. You literally have slaves stepping on your fruit so you can get the juice. This is going to be expensive because of all the manpower that's going into it. All the effort. It's wasteful of the fruit because you're not eating the whole fruit. You know? And so therefore, this is a luxury item in the ancient world. Today, of course, we have the machines. It's easy. We go to Walmart. Ninety-nine cents. Get a bunch of juice. No big deal. But in the ancient world, juice is a treat. It doesn't have to be alcohol to be a treat. And not only that, they don't just have sugar packets on the table in the ancient world. You're living at the time of Christ. It's not like every table they sit at just has a salt shaker and a pepper shaker and a bunch of little white packets of sugar and a bunch of harmful artificial sweeteners and the pink packet, the yellow packet, and the blue packet. Right? We only touch the white packet. Amen? You think they had that back then? Sugar wasn't really a thing. And so, you know, if you wanted sweet, you're pretty much getting it from fruit or honey or something like that. And when you've got juice, that's pretty much, you know, the most concentrated sugary sweet thing besides honey that you're going to get is a glass of juice. I mean, think about it. What if you just didn't drink juice for like a year and then somebody offered you like a glass of orange juice or apple juice or something? I mean, that would be pretty good. You might even smile and you might even get a little merry or cheerful or whatever, if you could imagine that. So what does the Bible mean? We know what new wine is, right? New wine. It's in the cluster, just fresh off the press. You just squeezed it. It's fresh squeezed juice. And by the way, the Bible used the word wine not even just about grape juice. It's really about any kind of juice. Unless it specifies, sometimes it could be the juice of the wine of the pomegranate, the Bible tells us in Song of Solomon, for example. It could be other fruits. And the point is that new wine is a luxury item, so why would fruit juice take away the heart? I mean, does everybody understand why Hordum takes away the heart? Okay, do we all understand why wine takes away the heart or marijuana or beer or LSD or peyote? Yeah, we get it. Why would new wine take away the heart? Why would apple juice or orange juice or grape juice, like why would that stuff take away the heart? Well, what this represents is it's talking about comfortable, luxurious, decadent living is what we're talking about. You ever hear the expression of wining and dining someone? That's what we're talking about here. So when the Bible says here Hordum and wine and new wine take away the heart, new wine is representing the finer things in life, expensive things, luxury things, the filet mignon and the lobster and the expensive foods and drinks of this world. In the ancient world, this is kind of epitomized with wine because it's something you could go your whole life without ever drinking a sip of fruit juice and you could live a long, healthy, prosperous life. It's not something we really need, is it? Because we could get those same nutrients just from eating an orange or eating an apple or eating a grape. But, you know, we like juice. Look, when I was on the airplane on the way over here, a stewardess came by, asked me what I wanted to drink. I got an orange juice. Kevin was with me. He got apple juice. We were wining it up. We were a couple winos on the plane. But it was new wine. You know, we were drinking just an unalcoholic fruit juice. Part of the reason is because it's free and you kind of feel like, well, you know, if it's free, let's do it. And again, in today's world, it's 99 cents. It's $2.99. It's not a big deal. But again, put yourself in the Old Testament mentality or the time of Christ mentality. Wine is an expensive. It'd be like today, maybe, you know, spending like $30 on a drink or something or spending $40 on a drink or something. Right. It'd be, you know, it'd be like, wow, this is something we would pull out at special occasions. It's expensive. It's for rich people. It's luxurious. So why would new wine take away the heart? Well, if you would, turn your Bible to Jeremiah chapter 5. Jeremiah chapter 5. Hordom wine and new wine take away the heart. Why does new wine take away the heart? Well, here's what takes away the heart. Soft living. Soft living. Luxury. Ease. Having it too easy. Life is going too good, too smooth, too comfortable. This actually takes away the heart from God. This is why in Proverbs, he says, two things have I required of thee. Deny me them not before I die. Remove far from me poverty and riches. Give me, feed me, 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. The author of Proverbs there is saying, I don't want to be rich, I don't want to be poor. Because if I get too rich, I'm going to just start thinking that I've got it made in the shade. And you know what? If we get too used to just comfortable living, we can become soft and you know what? We can start to not have any character. Right? No discipline. I mean, if everything's just handed to us and we're just comfortable and we're just relaxing and we just have just a gallon of juice in the fridge and just, you know, we just, life is so easy, you could see how this could make you soft and that luxuriant living actually is not conducive to a good walk with God. Look what the Bible says in Jeremiah chapter 5. It says in verse 6, 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 goeth out then 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 and sworn by them that are no gods. When I, now watch this, when I fed them to the full. Does everybody see that? When I fed them to the full, they then committed adultery and assembled themselves by troops in the harlot's houses. They were as fed horses in the morning. Everyone neighed after his neighbor's wife. Shall I not visit these things, saith the Lord, shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? See, here's how it works in the Bible is that when people go through hard times, they turn to the Lord. And then when they turn to the Lord, God blesses them. And then that blessing brings good times. And then when the good times come, people turn away from the Lord. And then God brings judgment. And then the judgment brings bad times. And then bad times cause people to seek the Lord again. And so the idea here is that getting too luxurious, too soft, having it too easy in our life is going to take away our heart. Because we stop caring. We just get apathetic. We're just, we're just kind of just fat, lazy, comfortable, happy, just kind of slumped over and just like, eh, whatever, who cares? I'm feeling good. Life's good. Life's easy. I'm satisfied. I don't need anything. But, you know, that's not really a conducive atmosphere for doing your best for the Lord. God wants to keep us a little bit hungry. He wants to keep us a little bit uncomfortable all the time. Have you ever noticed why there's always something about your life that isn't right? And that, like, you'll have something wrong with your life. And then, like, right when you get it fixed and you're like, everything's perfect now. And then just, like, another problem pops up. And sometimes it's almost like, man, I don't want to fix this problem because I'm comfortable with this problem. And I don't, you know, I don't know what's coming. I don't want what's behind door number two. Because it seems like God's never going to let you have a perfect life where your marriage is perfect and your finances are perfect and your health is perfect and your job is perfect. It's just not going to, and church is perfect. It's just not going to happen. Why? Because God knows that as soon as everything's perfect in your life, you're going to just start getting soft and lazy and it's going to take away the heart. New wine. What does new wine represent? Easy street. Living easy, comfortable, wealthy, abundance, plenty of money in the bank, everything's cool, take it easy. That takes away the heart. And when I had fed them to the full, that's when they start committing whoredoms. It's like once they get one appetite satisfied, all of a sudden another appetite kicks in. Well, I'm not hungry for food anymore, but I'm hungry for the other. And then they go assemble by troops at the harlot's houses. You know, people say when you have plenty of food, you have a lot of problems. But when you have no food, you only have one problem. No food, right? Because when you have no food, that's the only problem that matters anymore. But the Bible is talking about this in Jeremiah 5, the backslidden, sinful, wicked people. Why? Because God fed them to the full, that's why. Go if you were to Deuteronomy 28, it's the last place we'll turn. Deuteronomy chapter 28. Horedom takes away the heart. Why? Because when we have grievous sin in our life, it creates a rift between us and the Lord. We don't have good fellowship with them. Wine takes away the heart. Why? Because intoxicating beverages and drugs, they end up clouding our mind, clouding our judgment, and causing us to focus on the wrong things, and we get enticed by sinful things, and it does not bring us closer to God. New wine takes away the heart. That's kind of surprising. Why does new wine take away the heart? It's just fruit juice. What's the big deal? Well, because just tons of abundance and easy living and luxury and soft living. You know, we as human beings, we're not cut out for soft living. Our bodies are designed for struggle. Our bodies are designed for a fight. Our bodies are designed to survive and to push through difficulty. And when everything is too comfortable for our bodies, it's unhealthy. When you just eat as much as you want and you just get as much rest as you want and it's like you're just in the shade all the time, that's not good for you, right? Our bodies are designed to be out there in the sun and working hard and pushing ourselves and getting our heart pounding and straining our muscles and working and struggling and going hungry and going thirsty and being tired and pushing through. You know, our bodies are designed for that. Otherwise, we get unhealthy when we just sit around. It's bad for our physical heart even to just sit around all the time. It feels good to sit around. But you've got to go through some pain out there in order for your physical heart to actually be in shape. It's called cardio, right? In the ancient world, there's no treadmills. Why? Because cardio was called just going to work every day. You know, if you're out there pulling a plow all day, that's cardio. You don't need to go to the gym. There's no gym membership in the Bible. In fact, there was no gym membership 100 years ago. That's all new because we're so comfortable now, we have to like artificially go work somewhere. Because we don't have to do hard work in our lives because our jobs are often not physical, right? So we don't have to work hard physically. So then we just like, you know, lift things up and put them down again for no reason. You know what I mean? Just pick it up, put it down, pick it up, put it down. You know, in the ancient world, you would have picked up something for a reason. Pick it up and put it somewhere that it needed to go. You know, now it's like we have to pay to let someone, pay for someone to let us pick things up and put them down. You used to get paid for picking things up. Now you pay them to let you pick up their stuff and drop it again. And sometimes they don't even let you drop it. But we don't go to those kind of gyms, right? Deuteronomy 28 verse 45 says, 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. Verse 46, And they shall be upon thee for a sign and for wonder and upon thy seed forever, because thou serviced not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart for the abundance of all things. Why didn't you serve God? Because you had it too good. Because of the abundance of all things, right? You didn't serve God, verse 47, with joyfulness and with gladness of heart for the abundance of all things. And so what's the consequence? Therefore thou shalt serve thine enemies, which the Lord shall send against thee, 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 have destroyed thee. God shouldn't have to put us through hard times to make us turn to him. If we're smart, we will actually do that to ourself and not wait for God to do it to us and have to punish us and bring our neck under the yoke and put us through hard times in order to keep us from being prideful and being lazy and going soft and just having our heart taken away from the things of God to where we're just living for pleasure, just hedonistic living, right? So what's the solution? Like, how do we fix this? Because if whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart, how do we fix it? I mean, America is a rich country. We've got abundance. That's the new wine. People drink in America. A lot of them drink a lot. That's the wine, right? Whoredoms, it's becoming more and more normal in our culture. That's why we're turning away from God as a nation. But what's the solution? Obviously, we need to walk with God, live right, get the sin out of our life, abstain from alcohol, abstain from drugs. And look, if you're addicted to prescription drugs, get off that garbage. Get off that stuff. It's not helping you. It's not making you happier. You're going to be happier when you get off that habit and kick that habit. You need to get off those drugs. And when you're mixing drugs with alcohol, you're way over the line of where God wants you to be. But in addition to those things, you know, on the new wine point, we need to make sure that we don't let life get too easy. Don't let life get too easy. Challenge yourself. Don't just do the minimum, like, well, I have to go to work for eight hours a day, and then I'm going to get home and I'm just going to sit on my butt for eight hours, staring at a glowing rectangle. And then I'm going to sleep for eight hours, then I'm going to get up and go to the work that I have to go to, which is actually not that hard. Right? Because, you know, we're not living in the days where work is super hard. You know, and then what am I going to do on the eight hours that I'm off? Well, I'm just going to sit on my butt and stare at a glowing rectangle because it's just easy. It's just comfortable. And by the way, pass the fruit juice. Pass the, you know, or whatever. And, you know, you laugh at the fruit juice, but like, whatever. What is it now? Coca-Cola? Mountain Dew? Dr. Pepper? Root beer? You know, am I getting on it? You know, it's like when I get to your drink, you kind of flinch a little. Fanta? No, I'm just kidding. And look, I'm not saying, I'm not saying that these sugary drinks are necessarily sinful. Obviously, you could do these things in moderation. Obviously, if you're drinking a bunch of them, you might be a glutton. So you might want to slow down on the Fanta there, buddy. But I'm not saying these things are inherently sinful. You know, but my point is, though, we don't want to let life get too easy. We don't want to get too comfortable. And if you think that a comfortable life, if you think that just comfort is going to make you happy, you're wrong. Now look, we all want to be happy, don't we? I want to be happy. Anybody else want to be happy? I don't want to be sad and miserable and going through a bunch of pain. I want to be happy. But I don't necessarily want to be totally comfortable because I know that being 100% comfortable isn't the road to true happiness anyway. I know I need to stay a little bit uncomfortable. I need to stay a little bit on the edge. Why? Because I don't want life to get too easy because I don't want to go soft. I don't want my heart to be turned away from God. And so, let's not get too comfortable. Here's what I would suggest. Do hard things every day. Do something hard every day. Don't just go through life. And look, I'm telling you, some people, they wake up in the morning and it's like they just do what they want. It's like what do they feel like doing? They feel like just vegging out in front of the TV or morning talk, brain dead radio, whatever. And then it's just like they fall face first into that bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Maybe I'm testifying a little bit here. But basically, you know, they get up, they eat their cereal. It's like they only do stuff they want. They just do the minimum at their job. They only want to have an easy job, do the minimum. And then it's just all entertainment the whole day. It's just I'm just going from a movie to ice cream to a video game. Like just all easy, all entertainment. These are not happy people. And more importantly than that, these are not the tip of the spear in the Lord's army. People who just indulge the flesh all day. Because part of following Christ is denying self. And so we should be in the habit of doing hard things every day. You know, and you say, well, it's hard to read my Bible. Then read your Bible. Read your Bible. If it's hard to get to church, get to church anyway. Praying is hard. Pray. You know, even at your job. Push yourself at your job. Push yourself harder, not just doing the minimum. Push yourself and do more. Do the hard jobs. Sign up for the hard assignments at your job and push yourself and do more. And take yourself a little bit out of your comfort zone every day even in your secular job. Even physically. Go out and run or lift weights or something. Take yourself out of your comfort zone and do hard things every day just to build some character. Get up in the morning. Eat something that tastes bad. And go do something hard. You know what's funny? You know how kids, they don't want to eat food they don't like? Like, ah, I don't like that, you know. And they get all picky about their food. Here's what I always tell my kids. I always tell my kids. I say, you know, have you ever seen people in the gym and they're really pushing for that last rep? And they're like, they're like, you know. You know, and they're pushing. I mean, they're struggling. They're in pain. I always tell them, I say, you know, that's how you should treat eating. When you have to eat a vegetable you don't like. Treat it like a rep. I'm serious. Like, it's just like, you pick up that Brussels sprout and it's like, one! Two! I mean, look, if you're going to go through pain in the gym, why don't you go through pain at the dinner table? Eating what mom made. And it's not even bad food anyway. It's good food. In my house it's always good. Do hard things every day. Every single day. Push yourself. Don't become just a soft, lazy, new wine kind of, Mr. New Wine. You know, just Mr. Easy Street, Mr. Luxury, Mr. Everything on a Silver Platter. Oh, my life's so hard. Good! It ought to be a little bit hard, because if it gets too easy, next thing we know, the new wine's going to take away your heart. And so I believe that's what God's saying here when he says new wine takes away the heart. Here's what he wants us to do. 2 Timothy 2, 3. Thou therefore endure hardness. Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Endure hardness. Our Christian life, yeah, God wants us to have joy. God wants us to enjoy things. Look, I'm not a big stick in the mud that never has fun. I know how to eat. I know how to eat with the best of them. Okay? I've drunk the fruit juice on the airplane on the way over here. But at the same time, I know that if I'm going to be a good soldier for Jesus Christ, I've got to endure hardness. So I try every single day to do something that I don't like doing every single day. Push myself a little bit. Do something hard. Do something that's work. Push myself so that I don't become soft, lazy, and get taken away. Wine, new wine, and whoredom take away the heart. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and help us all to have a heart that is right with you, a heart that is filled with love for you, love for the Lord Jesus Christ, love for our brothers and sisters in Christ, and love for the lost. Help us to have that right heart by avoiding the things that take away the heart. Help us to walk with you, Lord, and to serve you while things are good so that you don't have to put us through hard times to make us serve you, Lord. Help us to put ourselves through some hard times out soul winning and reading our Bibles and serving you, Lord. Help us to push ourselves and do the best we can for you, and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.