I have not knowingly consumed a full swallow of any alcohol since early in my Christian life. The only possible exception might be some forms of it hidden in medicine, or as used by cooks, without my knowledge, in a restaurant or two. My refusal to buy, drink or use alcohol is directly linked to my relationship to Christ. You could say that I am “fully persuaded in my own mind” (verse 5) that I should not drink that stuff. But more than this, I am convinced that no Christian should use alcohol.
Perhaps I should begin by pointing out that I’m not talking about drunkenness. There is no controversy about the evils and sinfulness of drunkenness. Both testaments are crystal clear about this point. “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them!” – Isaiah 5:11. “Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness” – Romans 13:13. I Corinthians 6 tells us that drunkards are as rare in Heaven as fish on the moon. “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” “Be not drunk with wine” – Ephesians 5:18. Drinking wine and other forms of alcohol is not the same as drunkenness, but there is only one way to become drunk or to become a drunkard, and it begins with a simple sip. Refuse that sip, and I guarantee that you’ll never be drunk.
Despite its lack of direct New Testament condemnation, the Kingdom of God does have laws against alcohol. In fact it might be said that abstinence embodies the spirit of that Kingdom. And the nature of those laws can be gleaned from a survey of this chapter 14 of Romans.
I was raised in a home, where just about every variety of alcohol could be found in abundance. It was not a Christian home, per se, so the application is just a little different, but there was a message to this little boy in every one of those bottles. It told me that there is nothing wrong with drinking, and there is nothing wrong with drunkenness. It taught me that to celebrate adult birthdays, anniversaries, national holidays, or anything else worth celebrating, drinking was a necessity and drunkenness was a good thing. It wasn’t that my parents sat down with me and told me that drinking was an essential to life. I simply learned these lessons by observation, because……… “none of us liveth to himself.” And when I saw the devastation that drinking was causing – the car accidents, and the marital problems – these points were basically ignored. Why is it that in the choice between lessons, we often pick and follow the worst? Once upon a time, I was well on my way to becoming a drunkard.
But today, one reason that I do not use alcohol is because I do not live entirely for, or unto, myself.
I am going to have to stand before the Lord, and there is a sense in which I will have to explain why I have done what I have done with my money, my spare time, and with my life in general. There is ample proof that for every tiny benefit that there is in smoking marijuana, there are a hundred arguments against it. And there is not a single good reason to smoke cigarettes. According to one biography that I read about Spurgeon, when someone told him that his cigars were bad for his health, he immediately quit. When it comes to alcohol, the benefits are less than 1 in 100. At this point, I don’t think that it will be necessary to run down a long list of the evils of drink. If you are not familiar with them, those facts and statistics are readily available. In many countries, including Great Britain, half the average food budget is spent on alcohol. In our own country some say that alcohol is involved in half of all crime. Between 10 and 15 million children live in homes destroyed by booze. Alcohol plays a major part in poverty, in the high cost of health care, in crime, in debauchery. And when you as a Christian will stand before the Son of God, if you drink, you will have no answer for your rejection or your lack of proper response to these facts.
And what will your answer be to the Author of the Word of God, as He points to verse after verse. “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” Why weren’t you more wise, avoiding strong drink? “He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man: he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich.” Look at the wealth that you squandered buying cigarettes and beer. “Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.” “Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.”
I don’t think that anyone is going to be so bold as to try to defend himself before the righteous Judge. But today is a different matter, as people do what they like – even Christians. It is easy to point to Christ’s creation of wine at the marriage in Cana, Paul’s commendation of wine to Timothy, or to the Psalms positive references to wine. But it needs to be remembered that we are not living in quite the same world that existed in Bible days. First, the word “wine” in either testament didn’t always refer to a fermented drink. Often the fruit of the vine was boiled and condensed making a syrup which was then mixed into water. This is quite likely what Paul was referring to in speaking to Timothy about taking a little wine for his stomach’s sake. It is still recommended today that we drink various kinds of fruit juice for health reasons. When you stand before Christ, if you drink, you will be judged for your rejection of facts like these.
If a Christian commits suicide, do you think that will be judged at the Bema? Suicide is a horrendous sin. Alcohol is a poison and at a certain point, the drinking of any more becomes a kind of suicide. If this can be said of tobacco, it could be said of wine and beer as well.
As I say, the world is getting worse, and it’s not unusual to find the liberal congregations and the members of the neo-evangelical churches with bottles of beer in their hands or in their garbage bins. But I still think that if my neighbor saw me with a beer, it would not enhance my testimony before him. That is to say, he might let me get a little closer to him initially, but as soon as I tried to tell him about the holiness or righteousness of the Lord, I’d loose him even more quickly. How can I speak about the righteousness of God, when I am so obviously unholy myself?
Perhaps I should point to Paul’s relationship between eating flesh and drinking wine, here in verse 21. He is telling us that there is no direct sin in eating flesh. Obviously, if you had pot roast for lunch this afternoon, or chicken or even lamb, you did not sin. But in the context of those weak brethren in Rome who considered that to be sin, Paul was saying that we should not eat flesh before them, lest we cause them to stumble. And in the same way, he may be condemning the drinking of wine for the same reason – Christians should not drink because it will hurt others as they learn about the Lord.
Remember that the wine of Bible times was low in alcohol content, usually ranging from 2% to 6%. The highest concentration of alcohol possible with primitive methods of fermentation was 14%, because yeast cells die when the poison of alcohol reaches much more than 10% or 12%. That doesn’t mean that people couldn’t or didn’t get drunk with wine in the Bible, because they did. But it took a lot more wine than it does today, because there wasn’t the same amount of alcohol. Furthermore among the Israelites, wine was usually diluted – it was described as “mingled.” It was only about 700 years ago that the process of distillation was perfected, in which the alcohol could be concentrated into what is usually consumed by the drunkards of today. As a result, much of today’s beers contain more alcohol than wine did in Jesus’ day. And modern beer is not as intoxicating as the wines and hard liquors which are constantly consumed by most of our neighbors. Paul may have said, “it is good NOT to drink wine” as he thought about the wine of the First Century AD., but I believe that if he were here today, his language wouldn’t have been quite so mild. He would flatly condemn today’s consumption of alcohol, because it is a completely different problem, and because it causes both Christians and lost men to stumble.
One aspect of the theme of this chapter is that we all have responsibilities toward the weak. Sometimes the weak are adult brethren, who have not had time to learn much. Sometimes those weak are the very children under our roof. What a terrible responsibility if we should be the cause of another person’s sin.
In Proverbs 31 Solomon was describing some of the instruction that his mother gave to him before he ascended to the throne. They are lessons which could be applied to anyone and should be learned by everyone, but they are particularly appropriate to people in positions of leadership. “Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings. It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink: Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted.” Why do such a high number of auto accidents involve alcohol? Isn’t it obvious? It’s because alcohol perverts our ability to make proper judgments. What general society tends to forget, this perversion of thought is not confined to those behind the wheel. The criminal and potential criminal are just as misguided. The drunkard and the social drinker make illogical decisions constantly. Isn’t Washington DC one of the most intoxicated places on earth. Quite obviously, the American thought process would improve if it wasn’t corrupted with drink.
Is the edification of the body of Christ, the responsibility of the pastor only? Is Paul speaking only to the elders or bishops of the church at Rome? Mutual edification is the job of every church member. And alcohol hinders that edification, if not actually working to tear things apart.
Along the same line, but not quite dealing with edification, there is Leviticus 10. I think that this is one of the most overlooked scriptures in the arguments against alcohol. Please turn to Leviticus 10:8-11. “And the LORD spake unto Aaron, saying, Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations.” If we stopped there, the argument could be that drunkenness in the service of God should be condemned. It might be that some of the holy oil, or some of the incense might be spilled. It could be that a drunken priest, speaking out of slurred lips, might say some awful thing. While this is true, the scripture goes on – ” And that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean; And that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the LORD hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses.” Remembering that the wine that they were drinking rarely produced drunkenness, except in large quantities, still they were forbidden to drink – in order to mark another difference between themselves and the rest of the world.
Let’s say that you and your family see me buying a bottle of wine. Because your children have seen me, there is no way that this news isn’t going to be spread throughout the church. Whether or not you think that I should do that or if I should be forgiven, there will be people who take the other tack. And furthermore, whether I am censured or disciplined, or forgiven or overlooked, there might be others who disagree. And that purchase, could not only hurt weak individuals, it could cause a split in the church which might ultimately destroy this body of Christ. Not only do I have no desire to buy that wine, I have even less desire to destroy the Lord’s work. And neither should you.
All in all, I think that there is ample prohibition in the New Testament against Christians making, buying, and consuming alcohol.