Sermon Transcript — July 10, 2004
Solomon had a very profound statement that he made. It was almost like a prophecy that I think applies to us today in the United States of America. He said these words: "Wine is a mocker; strong drink is a brawler and whosoever is led astray is not wise." That's from the New King James version (Prov.20:1). The Old King James Version says it a little differently, but I think it also adds something more than even the New King James when it says, "Wine is a mocker; strong drink is raging, and whosoever reels because of it is not wise."
Alcohol: Blessing or cursing? In our modern day, we have it flowing like water. Our sales in the area of wine, our sales in the area of spirits have risen over the past ten years. And tremendous profits are being made because alcohol flows in our country very, very freely. Sad to say, however, that we find in our society that because of that, there is a high risk that is becoming involved in our society with drinking.
The consequences of excessive and underage drinking affect virtually all college campuses, all college communities and college students whether they choose to drink or not. And this is only a six-year group, from age18 through age 24, that this report covers. How about those who are younger? How about the many people who are older even into senior citizen age. But, it's interesting that just in this area alone, to show you the problem we face in this country, 1400 college students between 18 and 24 die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries including motor vehicle crashes. How many have we had over the last few months here in Cincinnati? Five hundred thousand students between ages 18 and 24 are unintentionally injured under the influence of alcohol. More than 600,000 students between ages 18 and 24 are assaulted by another student who has been drinking. But again that is only a six-year window. How about the rest of our society?
Sexual abuse — 70,000 people are victims. Unsafe sex — 400,000. Academic problems — 25% of all those who go to college. Health problems, suicide attempts. They continue to just grow and multiply upon us in our society. Students between the ages of 18 and 24 who drove under the influence of alcohol numbered 2.1 million last year. How many older adults did as well?
Alcoholic beverage. I ask the question: "Is it a blessing or is it a cursing?" I'd like to tackle the topic today and ask the questions, "What does the Bible teach about this topic? What can we understand? And what should we be doing as members of God's Church?" Because we face the fact that as you all know, I said several weeks ago that some of our people struggle and they do things and they hurt themselves with alcohol to the point that the next morning they ask the question, "What did I do? Did I do anything wrong? Did I say anything wrong last night?" because they couldn't remember. Because they became tipsy. Or as we used to say when I was younger, "They got bombed. They got soused." You know all the different names. And of course, we have all our jokes about drinking. We have our jokes about alcohol and sometimes they are very, very funny. But the point is, we must ask the questions as members of God's Church today, "Is it a blessing or is it a cursing? What does the Bible say?"
Now alcohol is discussed in basically two forms in the Bible. It's wine and strong drink or derivatives of those two. Now, for a moment, let's evaluate what the Bible has said. It was used in emergencies. It says, "Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish." (Prov. 31:6) That's true. Now there are some people that think they are about to die, so therefore they need to have a drink. You know. You've seen that sort of thing. And we laugh and kid about it. We did about this particular scripture, but it is true that in the Old Testament, they did give that to them as a kind of an emergency or medicinal from the point of view of numbing some of the pain as they were nearing the end of their lives.
The Bible also talked about giving wine to those who are of a heavy heart. There is a time that that might happen and Prov. 31:6 tells you that. Now you don't have to turn there because I'm going to go through a dozen hundred scriptures right now and so let's just listen to the scriptures as we go through them, if you would.
It was used to bind up the wounds of a man beaten in the parable of the Good Samaritan, if you remember, because it was used again as a medicinal thing. It was recommended by Paul to Timothy. He said to him simply, "For your stomach's sake." (1 Tim. 5:3) And so we have people also say, "Boy, I've got stomach problems. I need to drink more." You know. You've heard that. We sometimes kid about it, but it is still, nevertheless, true that it was recommended by Paul to Timothy.
It was used in dozen and dozens of examples in both the Old and New Testaments for meals. It was a part of the way of life that these people followed.
Jesus made gallons of the real stuff because the same word, oinos, is found in Eph. 5 and it says that it can get you drunk if you drink too much of it. So Jesus made gallons of it at the marriage in Canaan.
Jesus and Paul showed a small amount being used for the symbolism of the blood of Christ. It was given by Melchizedek to Abraham. Remember he brought forth bread and wine?
It was denied to the priests while they were on duty. There was a time when you should and a time when you shouldn't have it. It was forbidden to those who were under a Nazarite vow, whether it was all their lives or whether it was for a short period of time. It was offered with the sacrifices to God as a sweet smelling and a pleasant thing that God looked upon. It was, at times, denied to the Israelites when they were in the wilderness. Or under certain conditions to people in the Old Testament because of whatever reason there might have been.
But you and I live in an age of binge drinking. We live in an age of using alcohol as what we call "the drug of choice," with, supposedly to many people, only small side effects. But yet we live in a day of a growing number of alcoholics and just plain old alcohol abuse. How should we understand this societal problem in relationship to the Bible on this topic? Well, let's take a look at it. Let's evaluate it. Let's then take some of the information that comes to us in our society to show where the Bible is correct in all of these things as well.
The book of Judges 9:13 says the following:
Judg. 9:13 — "And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine which cheers both God and man?"
So in the book of Judges, he shows here that the wine cheers God. How does that happen? I don't know exactly, but God must be pleased in some ways with the proper use of this fermented fruit of the vine. In Ps. 104:14-15 he tells us these words:
Ps. 104:14 — "He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man . . . ."
vs. 15 — "And wine that makes glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengthens man's heart."
So, you see, wine is a part of all of those things that God has given. The herb, or what we would simply call that spice that is added to our food, is a part of what is there with the wine and the oil and the bread. It's all a very positive thing that God says he gave to man.
Now, here's an interesting thing over in Deut. 14:22, 26, it says that during the three seasons of the year, when we come before God to worship, he tells us that we are to save a second tithe and then take some of it to be used in a very special way. He tells us:
Deut. 14:22 - "You shall truly tithe all the increase of your seed . . ."
vs. 26 — "And you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires, for oxen, for sheep, for wine, for strong or similar drink, for whatever your heart desires."
So there's a time when, perhaps, we see that there is a celebration. There is a greater opportunity
to enjoy all of the foods and good things God has given, typifying the millennium or typifying the meaning of these Holy Days, and he says, "for whatever your heart desires." Now, we're going to see in a moment that there's a scripture that says that there's going to be a great abundance of all these things in the millennium. But, the Bible shows a very positive approach. It shows a very positive approach.
The church does not teach, nor does the Bible teach, abstinence. I remember when I came from the Baptist church and I remember that I didn't have one sip of alcohol (except when I was a five-year-old when my grandfather was making his wine in the basement. I snuck some.) But until I was older, until I went to Ambassador College, I never knew what a beer tasted like. Somebody used to say well, you know, that you have to give up certain things when you come into the church. And then you have to begin to learn how to dance, play cards, and drink. Now, that's what someone told me when I first arrived there. And I said, "Oh. Is that right?!" But the point was that there is alcoholic beverage that God says is to be used for, and to enjoy, and to participate in, the Feasts of God.
Now, Ecclesiastes (9:7), according to Solomon, says this, "Drink your wine with a merry heart." So there's something there that shows a positive relationship between that glass of wine and a merry heart, something that can produce a very positive result.
Eccl. 10:19 — "A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes merry:" (or, "makes glad the life" according to the Hebrew), "but money answers everything."
So I don't know what that means, but I think it says that money is needed. But also, you can have laughter at a feast and wine is certainly a positive thing that is considered by God as something good.
Now Jer. 31:12 says the following that in the millennium
Jer. 31:12 — ". . . they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the LORD for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; . . ."
So, it shows you a balance of all of these things. There is the good eating; there is the good drinking; there is the abundance that is going to be there - all of those things in a very positive way. These are very positive uses of alcoholic beverage from the past, from the present, and from the future.
What's the problem? OK. Let's talk about the problem. OK? Let's deal with the issues that we must face as members of God's church. Let's go to I Tim. 3 and begin in verse 3. This is the example here of the qualifications or qualities necessary that we look for in a bishop or an elder. And it talks about all of the things that he must be producing in his life. There must be certain fruits; there must be what we call foundational qualifications. These are only foundational. These are not the top character qualities; these are simply the foundational ones. So, it says, after talking about being "blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach;"
I Tim. 3:3 — "Not given to wine,. . . "
Now, in years gone by, we simply saw that as simply overindulgence. But it's interesting to note that the word here actually has a greater connotation than just simply having too much wine. It says, "not addicted." Now, today you and I think about people who just simply have their cells so saturated with alcohol that they have a very great difficulty functioning. Sometimes, we call them alcoholics. And sometimes people don't realize there are many more alcoholics than we realize sitting in our midst and sitting in God's church because they struggle with the problem of being given to alcohol, whether it's wine or strong drink. The point is the qualifications foundationally to be an elder is that the individual not be given to wine.
Now, I'd like to do something today because I've spent many a year in Canada working with the Don Woods Institute. These are the individuals who deal with chemical dependency. There's a gentleman there who, I believe, is an exceptionally fine man. His particular name is Gordon Bell. We've had a chance to work with him; we've put together a tremendous amount of material which we had given to Pasadena years ago that they found exceptionally fine and then we have grown beyond that a hundred times over. Gordon Bell has a lot to say about the topic of addiction and I'd like to just share a few paragraphs with you in the sermon today because I think it is very helpful.
He said, "What is alcohol? Chemically, it's called C2H5OH. It's ethanol or ethyl alcohol. It is a potentially addictive drug." That's how he describes it. "It's a potentially addictive drug. It is a central nervous system depressant. Any amount you drink will touch every cell of your body."
Now, these are his and many other individuals' assessments of this particular thing.
"What's alcohol abuse?" he says. "What is moderation to you? Two drinks per occasion?"
Now, please understand. I am not about to create for you a righteous standard, but I am going to show you some things today that are being said by a number of people that I think will be helpful to you.
He said, "One drink equals a beer, or six ounces of wine, or one ounce of whiskey. Heavy social drinking," he says, "is five drinks per occasion, three to five times per week. Is moderation a lack of intoxication? And the answer is, "No." When one is intoxicated. . ."
When are they intoxicated? When are they actually drunk? It's a very, very difficult thing as he points out for us to completely understand, because, he said, "Body size and weight have different tolerances for alcohol." And then also, he points out later (which we aren't going to get into), you can begin to tolerate more and more as you drink and then, finally, you don't realize how much you are drinking, as he pointed out.
He said, "The body can oxidize ¾ - 1 ounce per hour, but more will backlog in the body and cause drunkenness. We have to face," he said, "fetal alcohol syndrome" because he realizes as he said, "Two drinks can cause birth defects and three drinks can cause some major irritation even in the fetus that is there. Can or should we suggest a standard?" And obviously he is not doing that; he is just simply showing the need to understand the effect of so many ounces of alcohol on the body.
He said, "What is alcoholism? Going back years and years ago, the general public attitude was that it was a moral weakness; it was a lack of character. There was little will power."
And these people, you know, we called them skid row bums. But you know the skid row bum was only 3-5% of all the alcoholics that were out there. They were only 3-5% of all the alcoholics out there. In 1934 Alcoholics Anonymous said that they believed alcoholism was a disease, that it was an obsession of the mind; that it was an allergy of the body; it was a sickness of the spirit. In 1954 the American Medical Association said it was a psychological problem and it was a physiological problem. But from that time forward, we found that only three out of ten doctors could properly diagnose alcoholism because they weren't trained. And only one out of ten thousand effectively treated alcoholism, so we see again some of the problems that we face.
Let me read just a couple of paragraphs of what Dr. Bell said.
He said, "The chemical trap. All chemicals are potentially poisonous. By chemical, I refer to any gas, liquid, or solid that can enter our bodies and combine with our own body chemistry. Poisoning is only a matter of quantity. Some are extremely poisonous, like potassium cyanide. Others are not so poisonous, such as sulfa drugs, morphine, and to a lesser extent, alcohol. With these, larger doses can be taken before toxic effects are produced. Even oxygen, the life-sustaining component of the air we breathe, is potentially harmful. Indeed, like oxygen, all essential elements and chemicals, essential as long as they are utilized under appropriate conditions in amounts appropriate to their requirements, are dangerous in unnaturally heavy concentrations, like vitamin A. And when they are taken in excessive, accumulative capacities, they become extremely dangerous. What is more, a great variety of chemicals such as alcohol are capable of producing enjoyment even when the poisonous quantities are used. Therein lies the danger of the chemical trap," he said. "We must live and move within it and be ever mindful of its jaws, ever cautious not to take too much of the bait as to trigger our demise; temptation is as old as man himself."
So, you see, if you begin to hear what I'm saying and you begin to understand, there is a word that is going to come out in the sermon today. It's called moderation. It's called moderation and moderation is not exactly this set of rules. But you begin to understand the importance of realizing that even things like vitamin A, even things like oxygen, in the body can have a poisonous effect. People don't understand that there is a balance. Listen to the word I'm going to use now. There is a balance that needs to be found in the way we conduct our lives. Christians need to learn balance.
Now, did I say that everybody should drink? everybody should not drink? No. You didn't hear that. There are people who should not drink ever again. There are people who never should drink because they have a problem. There are people who need to learn the principles of simply proper moderation and balance. We're going to talk a little bit about that in the time I have left in the sermon today. But the point I'm making to all of you is that we must be cognizant of what's going on and how it's affecting us. What the Bible says in a positive way, it also talks about, as I Tim. 3:3 says, in a negative way and that is that addictions can occur when someone moves out of balance. Sometimes balance for some people is just simply not drinking anymore. I can tell you we have said that to dozens of people in God's Church over the years of my involvement with this particular topic.
Dr. Bell said, "The popularity of certain chemicals, such as alcohol, opium, marijuana, etc., and their danger lies mainly in their ability to improve the way we feel."
So when people begin to feel good, what do they do? They want to feel better and so they take more. And we're not talking about opium or marijuana in any manner, shape, or form. We are talking simply in this case about alcohol.
"Continued use develops tolerance. Our bodies adjust to the impact of these chemicals and ever greater and more frequent doses are required to achieve the same pleasurable effects. When tolerance develops to the degree that distressing symptoms occur with abstinence, then tolerance has become dependence and the desire has become sick need. The chemical trap has been sprung.
"The process of entrapment by dependence is similar for all pleasure-producing chemicals. So to a large degree are the problems that come with dependence. There are physical problems, there are psychological and social problems."
There are people in this room who drink because they need that in order to be able to carry on a social thing. They have to be able to break down the barriers. You see that happen. They feel very inferior, very insecure. So what do they do? They take a drink to bolster them. We see this happening in society. I saw that happen when we were at Ambassador College. That's a problem. It's a wrong reason for having a drink, in the sense of the word of what the Bible says about having a drink.
And so he said, "For specific chemical weaponry are the methods that promise escape, and there are many of them."
There's a whole lot more I could read. I realize that there's too much reading to even carry on in this regard.
Let's go to Eph. 5 and begin in verse 18. The apostle Paul says the following:
Eph. 5:18 — ". . .be not drunk with wine wherein is excess; but be filled with the spirit."
So he's not saying, "Don't drink." He says, Don't drink so there is excess." And again we come back to the word balance; we come back to the word moderation; we come back to the word learning how to assess and use this particular thing that God has said is good and can be good. Yet, the other side of it as we have seen here, tells us not to be drunk wherein there is excess. Now, the word again, wine is "oinos" and it means the fermented juice of the grape. So it does show that it is the same kind of wine that Jesus made, gallons of it for a wonderful merry feast that they were to have.
Now, Peter tells us the same thing. He talks about excess of wine over in I Pet. 4:3. You don't need to turn there, but the point is we see that these are the principles that God has given to us as members of the church.
So, what we have is the fact that a number of issues come into play here. We have a moral issue. We have a health issue. We have a possible psychological issue. We have a possible physiological weakness issue. We have a problem, possibly, with boredom and inability of a person to handle himself in society so he needs to drink in order to bolster his--whatever he needs to bolster. And, of course, a lack of purpose that people have when they just get caught up in drinking and other matters in the use of alcohol. There are many. I could just literally go through dozens and dozens and dozens.
If you want to find out a little bit more about yourself, we have some tests that have been given. Indiana has a wonderful program and I have some of those tests if you'd like to see where you are. And by the way, in case anyone wants to talk about this topic with me, I don't disfellowship people who come to talk to me. I do quietly try to help people. We've had literally dozens and dozens of people who have come. We have helped them and in most cases, they have done very well. We don't come looking at an individual who has a problem with alcohol as being a drunk. We come looking at them as needing some help because they have a problem. And I can simply tell you that that's the way I've handled it for the last, probably now, 25 years in my ministry. But there are things that you can do to help yourself if you're finding that you have difficulties. And people do. And people do have problems.
Now let's go over to Prov. 23:29 for a moment. Let's notice here that there's an interesting relationship between abuse that then begins to border on addiction Again Solomon tells you these words. He said:
Prov. 23:29 — "Who has woes? who has sorrows? who has contentions? who has babblings? who has wounds without cause? who has redness of eyes?"
That's an end result of alcohol and its bad side in the sense of the word that people begin to have difficulty. Have you seen certain drunks who sit on the bar stool and what happens to them is that when they have a few drinks in them, they begin to be really morose and they begin to cry and they feel so bad. Then you get the other side — you get these guys who get emboldened by the drink and then they want to have a good old fight. You know, we used to kid about the Irishmen who always wanted when they had a couple of good belts, they liked to get into a good fight. In Chicago we had that type of thing. And the guys would simply either be one or the other in many, many cases. They would be full of sadness and their woes begin to pour and the bartender has to hear the ongoing saga of their problems.
So we have sorrow. We have contentions - again fights. The other side of that is a fight. "Who has babbling?" You see people and you can't even hear what they are saying sometimes.
I had an alcoholic doctor who used to call me at two or three o'clock in the morning. It was wild. I mean, night after night after night. And he'd call me and he'd say, "Oh, Mr. Pinelli. Come out and save me." And that's the way he'd start out. He was in terrible shape. And he said, "Take these bottles away from me."
And I told him, "Dr. So-and-so, I'm not going to take the bottles away from you because you're going to go out and buy some more as soon as I get out of there. That's not the way."
"Oh, I'm in terrible shape."
I remember one night, he put a gun to his head and he said, "I'm going to kill myself tonight." And I said to him, "Don't do that." And BOOM! the gun went off. And I said, "What kind of game is he playing with me?" He said, "Thank you so much for telling me don't do that to myself." And I said, "Aw, baloney."
You know it's just an alcoholic just playing games with me, just babbling away. So I put the telephone down, literally put it down on the floor next to my bed. That was about three in the morning. At 4:30, I picked it up and he was still talking. The poor man. It was a terrible problem. He ended up having a stroke and for whatever reason, he never drank again. He moved over to an area in Eastern Canada and he was the most docile, gentle man from that time on. Now I'm not recommending a stroke for everybody who has too much problem with alcohol. But the point was, he was always fighting and arguing. He used to walk drunk, through a town in the Middle East and he'd have guns, two six-guns, challenging all the Arabs. He was crazy when he was drinking, but he never was willing to admit that he had a problem. Finally, for whatever reason, having this stroke and coming out of it, he survived it and he began to act normally. He didn't babble anymore. He didn't argue. He moved over and when we moved to that particular area in Eastern Canada, we couldn't believe. Is this the same doctor?! And the answer was, "Yeah." But it was interesting that something did occur. The point is that you have this sort of thing that goes on.
And they have "wounds without cause." Have you ever found people who talk about they are all beat up. Yeah, they are. They fall off their bar stools and they get all bruised. Or they get into the alley and someone else beats them up. I've seen that many a time that there was this sort of thing. The point is this is what happens when people have too much. And it says in
vs. 30 — "They that tarry long at the wine; they that seek mixed wine."
vs. 31 — "Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it gives his color in the cup, when it moves itself aright."
I assume that from my understanding that this is alcohol that has not properly fermented and, boy, that stuff is bad for you! It's kind of like somebody who used to say back years ago that the guys who were running alcohol from the hills of Tennessee used to ask the question, "Did this age?" They said, "Oh, yeah. From the time we put it in the car until we got it to the bottom, it was aged." Ready to be drunk. But I had several people that I've known that actually went blind because of that sort of thing. It wasn't properly fermented and they were buying it on the side during the prohibition period. So the point is, it says in
Prov. 23:32 — "At last it bites like a serpent, stings like an adder." And then he says,
vs. 33 — "Your eyes shall behold strange women, . . ."
Basically, sometimes people have this problem. They see things.
vs. 33 — ". . .your heart shall utter perverse things." That is exactly true.
vs. 34 — "Yea, your shall be as he that lies down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lies upon the top of the mast."
Yeah, he gets all sick and he has to put his head in the toilet sometimes. And sometimes he doesn't quite make it there. But the point is, they get really sick from the stupidity of too much alcohol. And he said,
vs. 35 — "They have stricken me, they say, I was not sick; and they have beaten me and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again."
Why? I think we see misuse of alcohol finally leads to addiction. The misuse of alcohol like that, you will find, will finally lead to addiction as Dr. Bell points out. Not in every last person, because you have a lot of people who still remain abusers of alcohol, but you have a certain number of them who move from drinking to misuse to finally coming to the place where they are addicted. And more people than not need to realize that that is a very strong possibility. Does everybody who does that become an alcoholic? No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that you put your chances up a whole lot higher when you do that.
I'd like to read to you from a May 10th Newsweek. I picked this up the other day again to read it. The title of it is "Alcohol's Deadly Triple Threat." Now I didn't write this, but I want to read a couple of paragraphs to you because it shows you what I'm talking about when we deal with the question of balance and moderation. It has to do with women. Please understand this is not against women. But it's written by Newsweek, May 10, and I think you'll find it a very interesting article.
"Women get addicted faster, seek help less often, and are more likely to die from the bottle." I found that really sad. I didn't know that. Listen to what it says. This is the article. "Staples grim assessment echoes new research about the devastating effects of alcohol on women. Women get addicted faster with less alcohol and then suffer the consequences more profoundly than men do," says Susan Foster, Director of Policy, and Research & Analysis at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. "A single drink for a woman has the impact of two drinks for a man. One reason? Women's bodies contain proportionately less water than men's and a given amount of alcohol produces a higher concentration in the bloodstream. For women anything that is more than one drink a day - five ounces of wine, (or six ounces as Dr. Bell said), or a 12 ounce bottle of beer — is considered risky. The limit for men is two. Women who start drinking younger and become heavy drinkers as they get older are more vulnerable to the range of major problems from infertility and osteoporosis to cancer. At the same level of consumption controlling for body size, women seem more likely than men to develop alcohol-related liver disease."
And then, of course, it goes on and talks about this one particular lady, named Elizabeth Anderson. In here is a girl's guide for smart drinking. I thought it was an excellent article, if you are interested in seeing that. And then it says, "Moderation." If you want to cut back, it goes through this entire thing about what you should do.
"A little alcohol," (and this is in Newsweek) "can do wonders for a meal or a social gathering and there is considerable evidence that one day, one drink a day can improve a woman's health. The catch is that more than one drink can keep you from functioning at your best and excessive drinking can damage virtually every organ in your body."
So she begins to tell you about things you can do to change it. It's an excellent article. If you don't have it, go get it from the library and make a copy. May 10, 2004. And you can just see for yourself what I'm saying.
Again, we come back to these words — balance and moderation. Remember those words. They are very, very important.
Over the years in God's Church, we have had people in a number of categories. We've had people who slipped up and they drank too much once or a few times and they repented and they never did that again. They learned when they came into the church how to be balanced in the way that they drank and the way that they approached it, but they went over the line one or two times. They repented of it. They got rid of the problem in the sense of not realizing what kind of an effect alcohol would have upon them. When they could, and when they couldn't, drink. All of those different things. I think that was very encouraging to see that.
Then there was a second category of people who were, and are, abusers of alcohol. They drift in and out of overindulgence. Sometimes they are called weekend alcoholics. Sometimes when they go on vacation, they drink too much. It just depends. But they were or are sorry for what they did. The problem is, it's more like a kind of a Judas Iscariot-type of repentance. They are sorry for the effect. And the sad part of that is that it isn't the kind of true repentance we should have. But under the right trigger, they will continue to abuse. They sit in this room; they sit in the Church of God. I've seen it for a number of years. I'm not being nasty; I'm just simply telling you that there are people who have that particular problem.
Then we have a third group of people who were either closeted alcoholics or simply they drifted into dependency and then to a full-blown alcoholism. We've watched over the years. We've seen that happen to some in the ministry. We've seen that happen to some members of the church. Many of these people got the help they needed. They either went to clinics or they went to outpatient clinics and things along that line. Many of them got help by talking to some of our ministers who have been involved in working with that. We have a Dependency Program, a discussion that we can have with people like Mr. Luker and Larry Walker and some of these other men who can work with people like that. But the point is that many of them got help and they have been sober for a few years or many years. We have recovering alcoholics in this room right now. Many of you don't know who they are, but it's great to see that.
But I remember that there was a lady in my congregation, in fact I had somewhere around seven people in my congregation in Kansas City who were recovering alcoholics. They were so proud. Every year they'd come up and say, "Guess what? I had my birthday." And I'd say, "Yeah, how old are you now? Fifty? Fifty-five?" "No," they'd say. "I'm talking about being free of alcohol" for twelve years, eighteen years, nine years, twenty years. They learned things. For instance, they learned you can't even drink an O'Doul's because there's still some alcohol in O'Doul's. Some of them learned you can't even take medication because it has alcohol in it and it triggers it for them. Many interesting things that they learned. These are people that came up and told me that and I'm telling you that today in a sermon for your sake, for all of our sakes, so that we can understand something very important.
Now for most of us, moderation can be a healthy part of a healthy diet and a healthy lifestyle for most of us in this room. I think we can see that. For instance, I have an article that I pulled off the Internet. I was helped with this particular one. The title of it is AIM — Alcohol in Moderation- Eat Wise. So you see, there is an interesting balance. I look at Alcohol, Inclusive Nutrition Concepts From Around the World, "Moderation is a part of a healthy diet and lifestyle." Again, listen to the words that we are talking about because we're going to see in the conclusion of the sermon one of the characteristics for most of us in this room.
Now look, we're not asking people to drink. If you don't drink, don't drink. If that's what you've been — fine. If you do drink, drink in moderation. If you're overindulgent, do something about it. That's basically where I am today. But I'm trying to show you the principle of moderation.
Listen to a couple of paragraphs and I promise I won't keep you too much longer. But I think you should hear this.
"As a part of cultural traditions and well-balanced lifestyles, wine, beer, and spirits consumption has been a common staple in diets around the world. In acknowledgement of such practices, groups of nutrition experts have included the moderate consumption of alcohol as an optional component (notice the word Ôoptional', not Ôrequired') of various diet guidelines and food guidelines, such as the Mediterranean, the Asian, the Latin American, and the vegetarian pyramids."
In almost all of the pyramids, the bottom thing is exercise and then eating properly and letting alcohol be a small part of the individual's life.
"Cardiovascular disease and cancer are leading causes of death in developing nations around the world, predominantly being associated with diets high in animal fats. With all this energizing scientific consensus, the old ways pyramids all emphasize fruit, vegetables, cereals, and pulses with little meat/animal fat consumption. These nutritional concepts also include wine, beer, and spirits, which have shown to contribute to lower heart disease rates and improved longevity. Accumulating scientific evidence suggests that moderate consumption of beer, wine, and spirits does not pose a health risk to the vast majority of consumers who choose to drink in moderation."
Now, the AMA was very scared about putting this stuff out because they were afraid that people would abuse it. But I think you see that their recommendations emphasize that simply, "Adults should enjoy alcoholic beverages in a sensible manner, preferably around mealtimes or other responsible social settings. Moderation is the key to healthy diet and lifestyle. This is reflected in several traditional nutrition concepts."
And I won't read any more because there's a whole lot more. But you can pull it off the Internet. I found it was very, very important to the balance we find in God's Church.
I want you to turn with me to 2 Tim. This is the latter part of the sermon, so let's get down to a question that we face, and that is, "How do we handle all of these things?" And I would like to show you something that I hope may be of help to you.
2 Tim. 1:6-7 — "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that you stir up the gift of God which is in you by the putting on of my hands. For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."
There are three words here. God has given us the spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. I would like to introduce you to a thought. I'd like to share it with you when it comes to the question of moderation and balance.
The first word God has given us, the spirit of power, comes from the Greek word, dunamis. It just simply means power, ability, or might. This has to do with the will and the character of a man. It deals in that particular area, not necessarily only, but I'm saying that it seems to reflect itself in the will or character development of a human being.
The second word is love and, of course, that's agape. It means divine love or proper attitude or emotion. It's a word that has to do with emotion, but it also has to do, as well, with doing the right thing under every circumstance, as I have said before in sermons.
But we come to the third one. This is the word, sound mind. This is the word I want to focus on in the conclusion of the sermon. It is the only time it is found in the entirety of the New Testament. It is the only word. that is found in the original Greek and it's found right here when it comes to three of the qualities to be found by the Holy Spirit: love, power, and sound mindedness. It is only found in the New Testament. It means simply in its basic detailed explanation, saving the mind or being in a right mind, the healing of the mind, or the calling to the soundness of mind. So let's break that down and get a little bit better explanation of that. Barclay's Commentary says that the word, when you bring it and boil it down to its basic component parts, actually means self-discipline or control of oneself. It has to do with control or balance. It deals with dealing with our temperaments, our created bodily functions, and our physical cravings. It is the ability for God's Spirit to give us the balance that we need in order to do the right thing under every circumstance.
Abraham Maslo in his Pyramid of Needs and Drives says that there are five basic drives within man with his mind and his nervous system. Some people don't agree with that; some people do. I'm going to use him simply as my point of driving home the concept of dealing with our temperaments. Now these temperaments that we are talking about are characteristics of habitual inclinations; they are modes of emotional response; they're dispositions of composure; they're moods; it's the heat of the mind, or emotion, or proneness to anger or passion as well. All those things are a part of that. For instance, in emergencies you will simply use this particular characteristic that you have within you called the fight or flight concept. And what you do is if you can't flee, can't remove yourself, then sometimes you have to fight. Well, it deals with those areas.
This particular Greek word, and it's spelled s-o-p-h-r-o-n-i-s-m-o-s, deals with simply self-control or discipline of these human created drives, keeping them within the lawful bounds of God's law and God's principles. This is where that aspect of the Holy Spirit goes with our minds. This is where God works with us to develop an ability to have, what I call, balance and self-control.
Now, self-control demands the controlling of the will under the operation of the Holy Spirit. Self-control and temperance, or moderation, show restraint over one's own impulses, emotions, or desires. Now, that's all technical. You can simply go to the Greek Dictionary and get some of this, but, balance is the end result. Balance is a means of judging or deciding; stability is produced by an even distribution between two contrasting or opposing elements. You're not too much this way and you're not too much that way. You finally develop the ability to find, if I might use the word in this sense, the middle of the road in your emotions. You learn how to handle them in such a way that you don't fly into this ditch or fly into that ditch as often as you did when you were first baptized. That's the basic essence of what I'm talking about. Moderation is the key word in what we are looking for with alcohol for most people.
Let's take a look at three temperaments or drives within the man that should come under the operation of the Holy Spirit or self-control and balance. Let's take the word "anger" for just a moment. We are not to be angry without a cause. That tells us in Mt. 5, Jesus said, "Don't be angry without a cause." There's a time to be angry. It's not wrong to be angry, but you have to be controlled in that anger. You can have righteous indigestion sometimes over some things. And I mean that very seriously. You can be indignant about something that is absolutely wrong, but you don't keep it so that you end up having ulcers or you end up having an upset stomach. We are told not to be angry without a cause. Jesus healed in anger. Jesus healed in anger. We are told we can be angry, but sin not. Don't let the sun go down on your wrath. So there's a balance learning how to handle this temperament. Yes, there's a time to show, in the right way, that type of thing. The Bible doesn't say that anger is completely wrong. It says that under certain conditions, it was used and properly used. It's a part of the basic created drives of man.
Let's take eating, number two. We are told to eat our bread with joy. We are told to enjoy food. Now, he tells us in another place in the Proverbs that honey is good, but he said (25:16) too much causes one to vomit. I remember years ago there were people who were storing it up to go to Petra and it broke right through the bottom of their trailer and they ended up spoiling all that good honey because it dumped out. I remember that happening! I was shocked at that. And, of course, there are people who did the same thing with wheat and other things and they ended up having bugs and all that sort of thing in there because that isn't really the principle that God is saying about being protected and having your food and water to be sure. But the point is that too much of a good thing gets you out of balance, or it poisons the system, or it gets to the system that causes the individual to vomit. Now, we are told in the Bible (Prov 23:12) that if we are given to appetite, we should put a knife to our throats! So what does that mean? That we should all be running around here bleeding from our right and left sides of the throat? No, it means simply that we should stop eating in the wrong way. We should enjoy our food, but we shouldn't eat more than we should be eating and we shouldn't become a glutton. We should not become a glutton.
Now, let's take the third one. I'm going to shock you. I'm going to talk about sex drive! Okay, Kids. It's okay. I'm not going to say anything really bad today. The principle of fidelity is seen in the Proverbs, how you are to live joyfully with your wife. Let you be ravished by her beauty. It talks about several other things (which we will not discuss here!) in this particular case. But, the point is that that sex drive is used in that fidelity to satisfy human needs in the marriage state as revealed in I Cor. 7:2-5. It says not to refuse one another. So, it shows you that there is a time and a place that is a part of those things. Now, when those drives are perverted, you have fornication; you have adultery; you have bestiality; you have homosexuality; you have a number of things that happen. That is a perversion of a good, basic drive. But, in marriage in the way God intended in balance, it brings great blessing and comfort and joy. So this Greek word, spelled s-o-p-h-r-o-n-i-s-m-o-s, means self-control, balance, and moderation, as seen in those three basic drives. And that's what we need to learn in the question of balance and moderation when it comes to alcohol.
Now, most of us, but not all of us, have the opportunity to use God's Spirit in developing a man of self-control or moderation and balance. There are people, as I've said, who can never drink again. I have met them. I have talked with them. I have worked with them. And I agree wholeheartedly with the statement that it is the time to leave it alone. But if you can't do this, if you can't live in a balanced and a sound approach to alcoholic beverage, then stop drinking now because you won't make the Kingdom of God. You've just been told to stop doing that. Because drunkenness and alcohol abuse definitely becomes sin.
Let us not forget these godly principles in a society that is hell-bent on killing itself through chemical and alcohol dependence. Let's simply remember that. Let's remember this third word because it does, in the use of it properly in the Church of God with the Spirit of God, produce a good result.
Now, let me conclude with one scripture and let you think about all these things I'm saying to you today. I Cor. 6. If you'll notice today, I told you what the writers say about moderation. I told you what they say about chemical dependency. I told you what they say about women and their particular approach to alcohol. I think we see that it is important that all of us look at this. Let's all take a good, long look at what we need to be doing in this area and see what we can do to make sure that we are living within the balance of God's word and God's law. Notice, in conclusion, what he says:
I Cor. 6:9-12 — "Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators" (these are people who misuse the sex drive that is not intended for them), "nor idolaters" (people who have this need to worship something outside of themselves, with themselves and not of the true God), "not adulterers" (again, that's a part of that same drive), "nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
vs. 10 — "Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the Kingdom of God."
Notice verse 11 now. This is in the New King James Version:
vs. 11 —"Such were some of you: . . ."
There are a lot of people who sit in God's Church who were formerly alcoholics. They were formerly homosexuals or lesbians. I have talked to dozens of them over the years. We have had all kinds of people who were this way. They had these terrible problems and they confessed before God and, in some cases because they needed help, they talked to a minister. He said:
vs. 11 — ". . .but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God."
Now, in conclusion, notice verse 12:
vs. 12 — "All things are lawful unto me, . . ."
Now, what does that mean? All things have a right use. When you look at the basic drives of man, they do have a right use within the law of God. So, they do have a rightful use within God's law, within God's principles. And he said,
vs. 12 — ". . . but all things are not expedient:. . ."
Sometimes, it is not profitable to drink anymore. Sometimes, it is not profitable to do this or that or the other thing.
vs. 12 — ". . . all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any."
So, you think about that, would you? Think about what I said today. Analyze the principle that we are talking about. The Bible is very clear about the blessing. It is also very clear about the cursing. The society also will tell you the same thing. And if you and I will practice those things, we will find God's blessing and God's enjoyment both at our Festivals and in our own homes with our friends.