Clough John Lesson 11

The Drinking Issue and the Bible – John 2:1-2

The Lord Jesus Christ, in gathering His disciples, did a very nice thing for our motivation today; He gathered clods along with geniuses. Philip was one of the clods and John was one of the geniuses. In other words, it takes all kinds to make a world and that includes the disciples. And it’s nice and comforting to realize that Jesus Christ, in fact, the first discipline that He personally chose on His own apart from John the Baptist, was the clod. So it shows that the Lord Jesus Christ had a purpose and a design for this clod’s life and therefore if you feel like you’re a clod, God has a plan for your life too. So never try to engage in self-pity because you think that somehow you’re not qualified for God’s plans and God’s destiny. It simply isn’t true, God can use all men. And we’ve seen how John was the introspective type of person, the man needed eventually in history to write this fourth Gospel. We see Andrew, the salesman, who was the evangelist type, always bringing someone to Jesus Christ. We see Peter who was the spokesman of the group; we see Philip, not to bright but effective. He used the “come and see” approach, an approach which we wish we could use more but because we have so few local churches that want to settle down for the long range picture and take in the Word of God in a systematic way and not just systematically in taking it in but in systematically applying it to every area of human endeavor. Because that’s not done we have very little opportunity to say to a doubter, or to the honest investigator, “Come and see,” see what Christianity has done in the lives of people, see its answers to your questions.

And then we had Nathanael, Nathanael was the man who had the very interesting conversation with Christ at the end of chapter 1, he was the man who was quite frank. When Jesus said say, you’re a man who’s quite frank, he said yeah, Lord, how’d you know that? Because he was not the pseudo humble type person. He was humble but he wasn’t the pseudo kind, he didn’t have all the pious religious fronts; Nathanael was an individual who was, frankly, he was probably very amusing to be around.

But all of these men, regardless of their kind of personality were slowly being drawn in to a more intimate walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. All of them had accompanied Christ for some time at least by the time the wedding occurred. All of them had moved northward, at least all but Nathanael, they had moved northward. Remember the week is almost finished, on Thursday there was the investigation; on Friday there was the meeting with John the Baptist, on Saturday John and Andrew had met Jesus Christ, very fitting, the last day of the week, the last part of the Old Testament era. And then on Sunday Jesus begins to move north up the Jordan Valley to Galilee with Philip. Monday and Tuesday is spent in traveling.

Once again to remind you of the terrain and the geography I’ll show you some areas. This is the map of the terrain; keep in mind as you go up the Jordan Valley it’s a long hot travel. That travel is missing in John’s narrative because John takes us… on a Sunday we’re leaving down here and the next event is John 2, up here. All the disciples so far come from Bethsaida, which is up in this northeast corner. The area of Nazareth looks out on the Valley of Jezreel and to the north is the site of Cana. It is at that place that John 2 is occurring and it’s short walk, about a ten or 15 mile hike from Nazareth, the home town of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We’ll look at John 2 and see what happened at that wedding feast. In John 2:1, it says, “And the third day,” that’s the third day from the last day recorded, “there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee.” Now we can’t go into the details of a Jewish wedding today, we will next week, and when we do so you’ll see an evidence that John the Apostle probably was the author of this Gospel as against the liberal critics who deny it. And one of the signs is that this author is very familiar with the unique kinds of weddings they used to have in Galilee because in Galilee they had a different kind of Jewish wedding than in other parts of Israel. So because the wedding was different and John notes this as he goes through the wedding and the narrative of it, John being so sensitive to this area, it shows that he was not some later first or second century believer whose native home was in Asia Minor. He indeed was who he claimed to be, the disciple whom Jesus loved.

“The third day there was a wedding,” and not any place but “in Cana, of Galilee;” it would be superfluous if he had not wanted to point out something peculiar in this wedding to say “Cana, of Galilee.” It would have been understood, moving north there is only one Cana. But to say “Cana, of Galilee” means he must be pointing out attention to something in Galilee, something unique in Galilee. “…and the mother of Jesus was there.” Verse 1 is a summary statement of the scene; it’s the stage-setting for the coming drama. Remember Cana is only nine miles, straight line distance from Nazareth, the hometown of Mary. And so Mary apparently knew this family quite well, and she’s apparently one of the hostesses at the wedding feast. She is well-known, Jesus is well-known. This is a small town wedding. By the way, Cana is the town of Nathanael. Nathanael was a man who came from Cana who looked down his nose at Nazareth and said, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” So there was some small town rivalry going on.

The wedding will be developed later on, tonight I want to take you to verse 2 and the first part of verse 3 and then we’re going to discuss the doctrine of drinking; this will be Clough’s first, last and only booze sermon. We’ll discuss the issue of wine. John 2:1, “And both Jesus was called, and His disciples, to the marriage.” They were formally invited, it’s quite normal for the local rabbi or a rabbi of fame to attend the rabbi. Rabbis had to do the same thing that they have to now and that is take about 8 hours off their study to do all the niceties of a wedding, and probably it was as big a pain to them then as it still is; I would recommend for those of you getting married, we have a quick short one, it only takes five minutes in my office. So far no one has ever taken me up on the deal; it costs nothing, there’s no flowers to buy, you don’t have to have photographs, you don’t have to bother with invitations, it’s perfectly legal and sound, and then you can save all your money for your honeymoon.

So Jesus was invited, and His disciples to the marriage. And it’s appropriate that Jesus does His first miracle at the place where the first revelation occurred in history, the second divine institution. God spoke to man as male and female; we’ll develop this further also. Why was it Jesus, of all places to show His first miracle chose a wedding? Because of the role the wedding plays in history and in God’s overall design. Jesus honored the second divine institution, contrary to those who in the name of Christianity have promoted celibacy through the Church. There is no legitimate reason to proclaim celibacy as some higher spiritual state. It has its function in 1 Corinthians 7 but that’s the only thing. Marriage is the normal will of God for individuals today. And God is very much interested in it.

In John 1:3, “And when they lacked wine,” the wine ran out. Next week we’ll see just how embarrassing and how serious this was, to have a wedding feast and have the wine run out. It wasn’t just the lack of social niceties, they could be sued for having the wine run out. This was a very grave situation. And so there are a lot of reasons why Mary, the mother of Jesus, comes up to her son and says the kind of thing she’s going to say as well as there will be many reasons why Jesus said the kinds of thing He said back to His mother. There’s a lot of background here but tonight we want to concentrate on the wine.

So from this point we are going to take time out on the verse by verse approach and we will devote the rest of the time to summarizing principles of wine in the Scripture, principles that can be applied to any alcoholic beverage. The first major section of our discussion will be what was the wine? Was it grape juice? Was it the same wine we have today? What was the wine? First we have to go back and remember, those of you who are teetotalers and don’t know what wine is. There are stages in the development of wine, we won’t go through all the details but just to review the process, for two reasons, to understand some of the doctrine that is going to be taught and to understand the exact nature of the miracle that’s about to happen. So we ought to be familiar with the general process of wine making.

Grapes are crushed in a vat of some sort and they produce the pulp that is called grape must, and it is from this must and various operations on it, fermentation and so on, that wine is produced. Your red wines are wines that are produced from grapes and the skins are left in a certain time to get the dye; for white wine the skins are removed or certain different kinds of grapes are used. But it’s the must or the grape pulp which produces the wine and it’s allowed to ferment. Today certain chemicals are added to the process to allow only the correct bacteria to grow so you don’t get the wrong taste and so on. In those days, as far as we know, that was not done. It was natural fermentation all the way, and after a couple of weeks, many weeks in fact, the wine is gathered and then stored. And eventually wine has an alcoholic content of about 16%. The fortified wines run about 22%. Keep that in mind because we are going to give you certain ratios of the wine in Scripture and you’ll have to divide that number; 16% is the natural level of alcohol in wine; 16% by weight. So much for the general picture of wine.

We’re still on our topic, what was the wine in John 2. And to answer that we have to go back to not only surveying what wine is but how was wine used in the ancient world. We will cite three areas of evidence as to how wine was used in the ancient world; the Greek evidence, the Jewish evidence and the Christian evidence. So when we interpret the Scripture and we see the word oinos in the Greek we’ll be able to interpret what oinos was. The Scriptures must be interpreted in the times in which they were written, so we have to understand what good oinos means at that time in history. So I present to you these three areas, these three categories of evidences.

The Greek evidences: the process is most clear in the Greek texts; the Greeks had a large storage vat of about nine gallons called an amphora, this was about nine gallons and the wine was kept in there. And from this, when you wanted a drink you poured it into what was called a krater, or translated usually as a mixing bowl. Now the mixing bowl is a mixing bowl, it wasn’t just a small cup, it was a small bowl actually in which the wine was mixed with water. The pure wine was kept in the nine gallon container and when they wanted to take a drink they poured it in the mixing bowl as they served it. It wasn’t premixed, it was mixed as they served it, with water. And then from there it was put into the cup from which you drank. So it was a three step process, from the storage amphora to the krater to the cup. Here are some texts that illustrate the process. Homer’s Iliad, Book III, line 268, “The attendants brought on the oath offerings and mixed the wine in the mixing bowl,” in other words, they mixed the wine with the water. Iliad, book III, line 295, “They poured wine from the mixing bowl into the cups.” So there’s that last process that we showed you, after they mixed it with water they drank it.

The Greeks considered anyone who drank wine that was not mixed with water to be a crude barbarian. In Homer’s Odyssey Book IX, line 208, it says: “When he drank it, he mixed twenty parts of water to one part of wine.” It was extremely dilute wine. There were various rations given, six to one, three to one, two to one and here the extreme in the Odyssey, twenty to one. So much for the Greek evidence. We learn, at least, that wine was mixed with water, it was mixed with water upon serving. This is going to be interesting because when Jesus Christ makes the wine from water He is going to do it not in the mixing bowl, He is going to do it in the original container in which you had the pure wine.

The second category of evidence beside the Greek is the Jewish evidence. And in 2 Maccabees 15:39, a book written prior to the time of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have this admonition. “For just as it is harmful to drink wine alone; or again to drink water alone, while wine mixed with water is sweet and delicious and enhances one’s enjoyment, so also….” So again the evidence was the Jews also mixed their wine with water.

The Talmud contains instructions on mixing the wine for Passover, and we have the exact ratio given of water to wine in the Talmud. In [can’t understand words] line 77 a: “Passover wine was mixed three parts water to one part wine.” It was a three to one mixture that was used at the time of the Lord Jesus Christ. So much for the Jewish evidence.

Now the Christian evidence of the 1^st and 2^nd to show you that the Church continued that process. Justin Martyr in his Apology, Book I, chapter 67, paragraph 5: (quote) “Bread is brought,” he’s describing communion, “Bread is brought and wine and water, and the president sends up prayers and thanksgiving,” that’s the pastor.” Ciprian, in his epistle, Epistle Number 62, large section 2, small section 11, paragraph 13, (quote): “In considering the cup of the Lord, water alone cannot be offered, even as wine alone cannot be offered. Thus the cup of the Lord is not indeed water alone nor wine alone unless each be mingled with the other.”

Clemet of Alexandria, in his book, The Instructor, section 2, subsection 23, point 3 to 24 point 1, (quote): “It is best for the wine to be mixed with as much water as possible,” (end quote).

So we have evidence from the Greeks and the Jews and the Christians that the wine was diluted with water. Therefore the answer to our first question, what was the wine in John 2; it was not grape juice, it was genuine wine, but it was not the kind of wine we have either, it was mixed, most probably three to one, which would reduce the alcohol content to some 4%. If that’s the case then obviously it was a very dilute wine and for these reasons if you were going to get under the table by drinking wine that dilute you’d have bladder problems before you’d inebriation problems. It was a dilute wine and it was real wine.

The second area is what are the legitimate uses of wine in the Bible? What are the legitimate uses of wine in the Bible? Why did God have wine if it causes people so much problem? The major, basic picture of wine throughout all of Scripture is that it is part of the creation to be enjoyed; enjoyment. Wine is a gift of God to be enjoyed; that is the basic picture and where you see wine you will see the picture of joy. So used according to God’s instructions wine is a blessing; misused in rebellion against God’s instructions it is a cursing. Some verses: Deuteronomy 16:13, we’ll turn to many of these verses because I want you to see these for yourself, it’s easy to put them in your notes and never look at them again.

Deuteronomy 16:13-15, the Feast of Tabernacles, I am showing you verses that give you the basic picture of wine as a source of joy. The word is wine here, the Hebrew had two words for wine, yayin and shakar, yayin and shakar by Jesus time came to mean undiluted wine, in other word strong wine and that’s the way it’s translated often in the King James, wine or strong wine, or strong drink. So they had these two. Now for the religious ceremonies this was not used, only yayin was used, the light wine, the diluted wine, and here in Deuteronomy 16:13-15 we have the Feast of Tabernacles. “Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after thou hast gathered in thy grain and thy wine. [14] And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite, the…” etc. Verse 15, “Seven days shall you keep a solemn feast unto the LORD thy God in the place which the LORD shall choose; because the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thine increase,” so part of their worship in the Feast of Tabernacles was having a good party, and at that party wine was served, but it was the yayin wine, it was the wine that was diluted. And the key verb in verse 14 is “rejoice,” that’s the picture, a picture of joy.

Song of Songs 7:9, this is the man speaking, he is making love to his wife and in verse 9, “The roof of thy mouth, like the best wine. For my beloved,” he compares the roof of her mouth, it’s obviously what we would call a French kiss, and he is comparing the roof of the mouth of his wife to the best wine; in other words, he enjoys it. This is why you do not have good commentaries on the Song of Songs; this couple is having sex all the way and they enjoy it. And there’s not one… I was talking to Arnold while we were in Israel, he has done a fantastic commentary on the Song of Songs and no Christian publisher will publish it. That’s real smart in a day when we need instruction in the area of sex; the Christians and their legalism get so up tight that they are preventing the Word of God from being taught correctly. The non-Christian, I asked him, why don’t you get a good non-Christian publisher. He said they won’t publish it either because it involves moral absolutes. So neither the Christian publisher nor the non-Christian publisher will publish the Song of Songs today. So that just an added incentive, I will deliberately teach the Song of Solomon, probably at the 11:00 o’clock service.

Some more verses on wine and it’s joy, Isaiah 5:2; God wants Israel to be a source of joy and so in Isaiah 5:2, “And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones, and planted it with the choices vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress in it; and he looked,” he anticipated, that it should “bring forth grapes,” now they weren’t going to make grape juice, I assure you. Welch’s didn’t exist then. They are looking forward to enjoyment and God therefore, His enjoyment of believer’s fellowship He parallels with the joy of wine. The other verse; Zechariah 10:7 is also a verse in this regard. [“And they of Ephraim shall be like a mighty man, and their heart shall rejoice as through wine; yea, their children shall see it, and be glad; their heart shall rejoice in the LORD.”

That’s the first legitimate of wine in Scripture, the basic use, for enjoyment. The second use of wine is found in Proverbs 31:5, “Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the justice of any of the afflicted.” Verse 5 is dealing with the prohibition. Verse 6, “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish,” it is used for medicinal purposes in the Bible; here it was used as an anesthetic against pain, “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that are of depressed [heavy] hearts. [7] Let im drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.” It was used as a tranquilizer and as an anesthetic. By the way, that shows you the Bible does have the use of tranquilizers at times. A further medicinal passage which you’ve all heard, “wine for thy stomach’s sake,” 1 Timothy 5:22. Timothy was a pastor-teacher and he had ulcers from the congregation and so Paul had to tell him how to handle the problem. So we have two uses of wine, joy and medicine.

Now we come to the wisdom principles on the proper use of wine and the improper use of wine. Turn to Proverbs 20:1 for the overall concept. We have dealt with one concept, what is the wine of John 2; we have found it is diluted wine. We have seen the second point, the proper uses of wine, for joy and for medicine. Now why does the Bible say what it does and why does the Bible not say certain things about wine. The basic idea is given in Proverbs 20:1, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” The principle is that “wine is a mocker, letz, that’s the word that we found in Proverbs, and what the word letz means is someone whose conscience has been seared, who has denied right and wrong, that is the categorization of right and wrong, so long that they basically are now conscienceless. And when the Bible says that wine is a letz it means that wine improperly used prohibits you from using your conscience correctly. It distorts the mind, distorts the thought process and therefore is detrimental to conscience and because it is detrimental to conscience it is detrimental to the Christian life. Wine is a letz and that goes for any other alcoholic drink; it’s a letz, it can render your conscience useless. You’ve all heard and probably seen how people lose their inhibitions under drink. That’s what this is teaching, “wine is a mocker, strong drink is hamah or boisterousness and that has to do a person whose –R learned behavior pattern may be suppressed under social pressure, but with wine all that social pressure is removed and boom, out comes whatever it may be.

Then it says, “whoever is deceived thereby” and the word “deceived” means to go on the wrong path, shagah, the idea means to be misled and it doesn’t mean being misled by the wine, it really means misled in the use of the wine. The Bible obviously in the Torah, the Torah uses yayin during the religious feasts. So this is not a prohibition against the use of it, it is an admonition to use it correctly. Said more clearly it’s just saying that if you don’t know how to use it you’re stupid. Now let’s apply Proverbs 20:1 to some common everyday situations. This means the teenagers should not drink because most teenagers are stupid and they do not have the maturity to use wine correctly. Now some adults are stupid too, I’ll agree teenager, but generally speaking you do not have the maturity to know when to stop this kind of thing or you do not know how to use it, so Proverbs 20:1 disqualifies you; you do not have the proper wisdom to utilize it correctly.

Now we’re going to look at many, many passages of Scripture and see how wine is properly and improperly used. First we will take a series of verses that show that wine is to be refrained from when clear decisions are needed. Turn to Proverbs 31:4-5, following the principle of Proverbs 20:1, that whoever is led astray by wine is stupid. You have to have skill in how you use it. It is for a mature person. And usually it is the immature people that are using it. Proverbs 31:4, “It is not for king, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink, [5] Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert judgment [of any of the afflicted.]” See the same principle of Proverbs 20:1 coming out, it renders your ability to distinguish right and wrong useless or at least it weakens it. So this first verse teaches that high government officials are not to drink because they are the ones involved in key decisions, and they’re to refrain from it.

A second verse, Leviticus 10:8-10, in Leviticus you think of the word “Levi,” Levi was a priest, the priest did service at the tabernacle, what is the book of Leviticus? It’s an instruction, worship instruction manual for the priesthood. And in Leviticus 10:8-9 we have God instructing Aaron about the priests and their use of wine, yayin and shakar, “And the LORD spoke unto Aaron, saying, [9] Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when you go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die:” God made it quite clear that the priest, when he was on duty was not to drink. He could drink off duty but when he was on duty he was not to drink; you cannot drink and be on the job and be effective on the job. So this is saying don’t drink on the job is what it’s saying. They had decisions to make, they had sins to confess, they had they had doctrine they had to apply to people who came and therefore these priests had to be very acute mentally and they could not afford to be dulled by wine. Another verse is Numbers 6:3, the Nazirite was prohibited wine because of his particular function. [He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes, or dried.”]

In the New Testament, 1 Timothy 3:3 and 3:8, it follows the same principle of Proverbs 20:1, the same principle illustrated by Proverbs 31 with the high government officials, the Nazirite, the priest on duty was not to drink, so in 1 Timothy 3:3, the pastor-teacher is “not given to wine,” which means he is not to drink much of this,” notice the comparison between verse 3 and verse 8, the deacons are not supposed to be “given to much wine,” the deacons can drink a little more than the pastor-teacher. And the principle of it is this: the pastor-teacher has more authority and more responsibility than the deacons, so you have the normal believers, they can drink wine, you have the deacons here, they are not to drink much wine, and the pastor is to drink very little wine. And the use of the wine is very clear because it’s an application of Proverbs 20:1; in that escalating ladder of responsibility the higher the office the higher the responsibility, the more involved and the more complicated the decisions that have to be made the less use of wine. That’s the principle. So that’s an application of Proverbs 20:1 on the leadership and wine.

Now some examples of what wine does and why it works the way it does. Wine, because it unplugs the mind from the conscience, it threatens that link because it basically makes you mentally weaker, because wine has that effect, if a person has a lot of –R learned behavior patterns, bad habits, bad spiritual habits, wine does nothing but amplify these bad habits. Three examples, two from believers, one probably was an unbeliever. In Genesis 9:21 Noah got involved with homosexuality while he had tied a couple on. Noah normally was not a homosexual but when he got bombed out of his mind he became a homosexual quite fast. Apparently there were areas in Noah’s soul that had this tendency and normally Noah kept it under control but when he had too much wine he couldn’t and that was it. So Genesis 9:21 shows an illustration of believers having latent homosexuality which he has obviously not dealt with the sanctification, and this booms forth under conditions of drunkenness. [“And he drank of the wine, and became drunk; and he was uncovered within his tent.”]

In Genesis 19:32-36 we have Lot and a case of incest, believers can do all sorts of things; Lot had sex with his daughters in Genesis 19 and he was out of his mind. Again it was a case where you have a –R learned behavior pattern that surfaces in a very violent and very clear way under the weaknesses of alcohol. [32, “Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. [33] And they made their father drink wine that night: and the first-born went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. [34] And it came to pass on the next day, that the first-born said unto the younger, Behold, I lay last night with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. [35] And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.”]

The last illustration we’ll show, there are many others but the last one we’ll show is Nabal, the idiot in 1 Samuel 25:36-37; remember he had a very fantastic wife; nabal is the Hebrew word for jerk, and that was his name, and you remember when his wife came out to David she said I know my husband’s a jerk but don’t kill him, let the Lord take care of him, and she counseled David some tremendous advice, gave him the advice just put it in the Lord’s hands and the Lord would take care of it. But Nabal’s problem was he became abusive under conditions of alcohol. I’m sure you’ve seen that, loud-mouth abusive type people. Oftentimes this can destroy a home, physically violent people can kill in this kind of situation, so Nabal is an illustration of what alcohol can do. [36, “And Abigail came to Nabal; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal’s heart we merry within him, for he was very drunk. Wherefore, she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light. [37] But it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heard died within him, and he became as a stone.”]

You have three illustrations of why the Bible means what it says when it says wine is a blessing but you’d better know how to handle it; since most people don’t know how to handle it today, since we live in a stupid generation, we ought to be very, very sagacious in the use of it, very, very conservative in the use of it.

Alcoholism in Scripture is related to compound carnality and we want to clarify a point because of Alcoholics Anonymous. AA has done some fine work in this country, but AA happens to operate on a totally anti-Christian basis. AA makes the most fundamental error that could possibly be made by saying that alcoholism is a disease. Alcoholism is NOT a disease! Never has been and never will be a disease, and I say that on the authority of the Word of God. Alcoholism is nothing but sin, it’s a –R learned behavior pattern, it is included in sin lists in Scripture along with other sins. And we will now look at some examples.

Isaiah 5:11, to show you that AA is wrong, the Bible does not treat alcoholism as a special problem; the Bible treats alcoholism like any other sin. The problem, yeah, it’s not a simple sin. Now the fundy is wrong when he says…when he comes to the alcohol he says now you can just quit just like that and so on. That is naïve, that’s a naïve application of a true fact. But AA is false in its basic premise and the point is you have a person out here who goes negative volition toward God at some point in his life; it may be general lack of thanksgiving for the job, God has put this man under pressure on the job, and instead of handling that pressure biblically, giving thanks for it, looking to the text, praying to the Lord, examining the facts, seeing what in the business environment can be changed, what Biblical principle, instead of going to the church library and getting out the book on Introduction to Christian Economics and utilizing those principles contained therein to reorganize his business, instead of doing those things he gets involved in the mental attitude of self-pity. Alcoholics are the most self-pitying type people you will ever meet in life. They wallow in it. And they have wallowed in it long before they became an alcoholic. Self-pity is a mental attitude sin and the worst thing you can do with somebody like this is go along with their self-pity; they do not need pity, they need help and they need help desperately but you’re not helping them by pitying them.

The mental attitude self-pity; so they’ve reacted and reacted and reacted and reacted and finally because they have gone negative toward the Word of God it goes back to the chaos in the heart thing, negative to the Word of God, what happens? The next step is a darkening of the conscience so their spiritual discernment, if they had any to begin with, is now out and the creates a vacuum that sucks in human viewpoint and human viewpoint mental attitude and some of those human viewpoint mental attitudes are self-pity, sometimes vengeance but mostly self-pity, and then they go on and they develop an intense hatred for God and anyone around their environment that reminds them of God’s authority. For example, this guy gets involved in alcoholism and he goes home to his wife; his wife reminds him of the institution of marriage and God’s authority, so he begins to beat up his wife, not necessarily because of anything she has done but for what she stands; she stands for the second divine institution, and right now he’s in deep rebellion against God and so he’s about to punch in the nose anybody that is smaller than he is that reminds him of this. Sometimes they punch in the nose people bigger than they are.

When I was on the west coast in active duty one time we had a report came in on the teletype one night, it was on maneuvers during an exercise, the National Guard was driving tanks down a particular road in California and they had the lights out on the tanks because it was an infiltration type exercise, it was supposed to be an abandoned road. Well this drunk apparently made the wrong turn and he started coming down this road about 60-70 miles an hour and all of a sudden he went head-on into one of these tanks and the guys inside heard this crash and they stopped the tank and got out and here was this guy holding a steering wheel in the middle of the road and he was all right, drunk but all right. Now that also is obviously what happens because alcohol has killed people on the road. See, they can hit you and kill you and kill your family and your loved ones and they’re so inebriated they can get knocked on the dash panel and it wouldn’t bother them in the least, they’re completely relaxed. So usually in automobile wrecks it’s the drunk that walks away from it.

So we have this person who is an alcoholic, does not have a disease, what happens is finally he gets frustrated and he begins to look to panaceas and drink happens to fit his little thing, for somebody else it might be sex, for somebody else it might be something else, with him it’s alcohol. Now his selection of the vehicle to take out his frustration doesn’t make his sin special; so if we’re going to say okay, just because you happen to pick drink instead of something else, do we thereby call it a disease? After all, some people have money, some people have sex, are we going to have sex anonymous? Have money anonymous? Because sex isn’t a sin, it’s a disease. You see how stupid it sounds when you begin to apply it to other things and yet we have an entire generation through this AA thing that has picked up the idea that alcoholism is a disease, and even Christians get up tight. Every time I mention this in this congregation there are a few people that get up tight about this. Well, you’re wrong. Look at Isaiah 5:11, God does not distinguish alcoholism as a special disease, it’s just part of the general disease called sin. “Woe unto them who rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; [who continue until night, will wine inflames them!]” When an alcoholic really gets going this is what happens, the first time out of bed he’s got to get started, not a cup of coffee but with a drink, and this is the advanced alcoholic in 5:11. Isaiah 5:22, “Woe unto them who are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle [mix] strong drink.” In other words, they were strong men and they are going to ruin their assets by foolish use of alcohol.

Isaiah 28:7 again refutes the AA hypothesis, God holds people responsible, He does not condone this as a disease. “But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way. The priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink; they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink, they err in vision, they stumble in judgment. [8] For all the tables are full of vomit and filthiness…” now how’s that for a beautiful picture of a drunk? You have to wade your way through the house of the priests, squish, squish, squish. Get the picture. That’s the picture that Isaiah gives of the alcoholic, and he does not specialize in excusing him. There are other verses in Scripture, Romans 13:13, 1 Corinthians 5:11, that also demonstrate this same point, that it is a sinful behavior pattern. [Romans 13:13, “Let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in immorality and wantonness, not in strife and envying.” 1 Corinthians 5:11, “But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one, no, not to eat.”]

Now instead of getting up tight about this and saying are you condemning the alcoholic? No. Why? Because the alcoholic is not doing anything that is basically is different than anyone else does in the situation, it’s just that he’s picked drink. Other people pick other things and it’s not what you pick that counts, it’s the reason you do it that counts. The problem isn’t drink at all, the problem isn’t money, the problem isn’t sex, the problem is negative volition toward God and having trained yourself to respond time and time and time again, every time you get frustrated instead of solving your problem you go out and tie one on, until this has become automatic with you, and if you have a few physical problems in your body and you add that to the alcohol you’ve really got problems. But God still says that you’re wrong and it is sin, and furthermore if it is sin, there’s some very good news because 1 Corinthians 10:13 applies, God will make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it and that is a promise that can be claimed by any alcoholic or any person having a problem in this area, that God has a way out for you, a way out that can work, today, a way out that can make a change in your life and you do not have to go to AA meetings and drop your dirty linen all over the floor in front of everyone else. You can do this in the privacy of your own priesthood. But God’s Word approaches the problem from a totally different way than how it’s usually viewed.

Furthermore, in connection with alcoholism as being not a disease but as a sin, when a country gets involved with alcoholism it is a sign of national disaster. Jeremiah 13:13, where you have high alcoholism in a nation it is a corollary of divine judgment upon that nation. Jeremiah 13:13 follows the principles or Romans 1. Oftentimes people come to these kinds of passages and argue this way: gee, you know I see all this crime and I see this and I see that, and I see alcoholism, you know, it won’t be very long before God begins to judge the nation because of all these sins. Wrong! Both Romans 1 and these kinds of passages teach that by the time these sins have become nationwide judgment has already begun; they are the judgment. In Romans 1 Paul says “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven,” well, how’s the wrath of God revealed from heaven before Christ returns? Now we all know God’s wrath will be revealed from heaven in the future, but have you ever thought… Paul said God’s wrath is continually… continually, present tense, being revealed from heaven. Now where can you go today to say there’s God’s wrath, there’s God’s wrath, there’s God’s wrath, there’s God’s wrath? There’s got to be some place or you can’t argue for the present tense in Romans. Well, because we’ve misread those passages.

And here’s one in Jeremiah 13:13 so let’s look at it carefully. “Then shalt thou say unto them,” in other words, by the time that the nation collapses God tells Jeremiah preach this message, pass on this information from Me. When you see the nation going down, and you see the rise of mass alcoholism, then say this: “Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will fill al the inhabitants of this land, even the kings who sit upon David’s throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness.” I, God says, will cause the drunkenness. You say isn’t that unfair of God, to cause drunkenness? No, here’s what’s happening and look at the chart again. You have the person go on negative volition, this can be an individual or it can be a nation. After that nation’s national conscience has become very weak and destroyed, the nation begins to absorb human viewpoint. When this happens you have a general hatred and despising of God’s character and God’s authority and God’s institutions. Finally you have that nation begin to throw out its frustrations, craving for one thing after another to put in that vacuum of the soul that can only be filled with Jesus Christ. And when the nation starts to look around, that’s when God exercises His judgment. He says okay, you’re looking around, I’ll give you something, I’ll give you mass drunkenness. He doesn’t even call it alcoholism—drunkenness! And I will cause it, God says. In other words, you’re looking around for something, okay, you take all the drink you want I’ll supply it for you, just to make you good and drunk, you can vomit all over the table like Isaiah said until you can’t get the door open, and that will be how bad it will be in the nation when I get through My judgment.

Another passage, Joel 1:5-6, when that stage is reached the nation is ready for the fifth degree of discipline and military invasion. People who are drunk cannot fight; when you have drunkenness in the military and in general civilian life you are in a very dangerous situation. You have men operating machines that require decision making ability, require accuracy, require responsibility and they’re hitting the bottle you’re in a very bad way. “Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.” This is the second stage, Jeremiah says okay, I am going to make you drunk. This says after you are drunk and I’ve got you on the thing so you have to have your wine at 6:00 a.m. in the morning, when you’re that bad then I’m going to take it away from you, and here’s how I’m going to take it away. Verse 6, “For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion,” that is the fifth degree of discipline and military invasion. He says I’ll take your wine away, you’re going to crave, oh I wish I never had the wine; fine, I’ll bring in military invasion and they’ll take away the wine.

So you see, alcoholism, so-called, is a very serious thing in Scripture. Now we come to the New Testament for the solution. Ephesians 5, the solution to alcoholism is the solution to every other sin. It’s not a special sin. It’s not a simple sin, it’s a complicated sin, but there are other complicated sins also. In Ephesians 5:18, “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit.” And being filled with the Spirit is not some ecstatic experience; in the context, if you just look at the previous verses it’s talking about a mature relationship with the Lord and you’re in fellowship as a mature believer; you’re in the bottom circle and it’s an expression of the fact that you have enough maturity to, verse 15, walk carefully, not as idiots. Verse 17, be not stupid, “but understand what the will of the Lord is.” Now you can’t understand what the will of the Lord is unless you know the Word. So the solution to alcoholism, so-called, is again going back, first of all becoming a believer in the first place, then secondly growing in the use of Scripture and particular fighting that –R behavior pattern with a +R behavior pattern. What is the –R behavior pattern in the so-called alcoholic basically? A complete inability to handle life’s situations.

So where does therapy begin with such a person? The therapy begins by taking one of those situations that’s so frustrating, not going through the refrigerator and getting rid of all the liquor. That may be part of the therapy but that’s not all the therapy, it’s not getting rid physically of the liquor, it’s getting rid of the problem in the soul. And you take this area, we’ll call that a problem, problem number one, and over here we’ve got problem number two. Those problems have a Biblical solution, I don’t care what they are, it may be a business problem, a family problem, a marriage problem, so what do you have to do? You have to know what the will of the Lord is. Where are you going to know what the will of the Lord is? You’re going to have to search the Scripture, you may have to ask a pastor-teacher, you may have to get some reference work, somewhere the Scriptures tell you the will of God for that situation. They give you at least guidelines that you can bring in and solve that problem.

So now you have all of these guidelines and you have the chance to train yourself, just as you trained yourself the other way, you have the opportunity to train yourself in a godly way of life. Here comes that problem that before always you used this gimmick to solve it, which never solved the problem, it just made more problems. Now you have the problem, you’re now using Scripture and you outline step by step what your response is going to be. You may have another believer act as your kind of spiritual overseer to help you, to check on you for a while, to make sure he kicks you in the butt if you misbehave and to get you squared away, and then you move on and you begin to solve the second problem, and pretty soon you have solved your way out of these things.

Now it isn’t going to happen overnight. Some alcoholics have been cured with an instantaneous conversion experience. The reason for that was, in most cases, they were not in compound carnality, they were people who were desperately searching for a situation, never found it when they had the gospel preached all of a sudden their question was answered, their soul was changed, and then the alcohol doesn’t mean a thing. There are other people who can become very discouraged, they may have been in the Word one or two years or five years or even ten years and still have a problem. And the problem goes back to the fact they are not willing to search the Scriptures, find the will of God and apply it systematically to the situation. Now it’s a tragedy that men misuse God’s creation this way. Jesus Christ in this wedding ceremony for this young couple is going to show us the proper use of wine; He is going to commend it as a legitimate source of enjoyment and pleasure, like He commends the other things that men misuse. The principle is Proverbs 20, he that is led astray by wine is unwise.