[Chuck Smith] (Holds up wine glass.) You are thinking this is wine.  It’s actually fruit juice.  But it brings up the old addage – what? “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover,” which actually leads us to our sermon today, which asks the question, “Are you a winebibber?” Are you a winebibber? I bring that up because those are the words used to describe your Messiah – your Savior. He was called a winebibber. So face it. God was called a drunk. Yet, we see in scripture that we are to be like Christ. We are to be like Jesus Christ. Are you a winebibber? What does the Bible say about it?  We are going to look at that today. 

The Contempororay English Version actually states it as “those who drink too much.” The NIV says, “He was a drunkard,” as they quote in Luke 7, verse 34, in scripture. In his book, What Would Jesus Drink? by Brad Whittington, the author searches through the Bible and comes up with 247 references to alcohol use in the scriptures. 40 of those scriptures were negative, 147 were positive, and 62 of those references are considered neutral. Say, “Neutral?”  What do you mean, neutral?  Well, one of the references may mention a vineyard without saying either way.  Also considered one of those would be, someone falsely accused of being drunk. That’s in there right? Remember the story of Hannah? Eli the priest thought she was drunk – a winebibber. But we also have examples, in Acts 2, as you read this in the New Living Translation, where they were wondering how they were hearing these voices, how they were hearing these other languages. And the people looked on the outside and said, “Oh! They have just had too much to drink.” But yet, Paul tells his assistant, Timothy, in 1 Timothy 5, to drink a little wine for his stomach and not just water. So, where are we? Because it seems like we are all over the map.  But of course, Whittington actually showed us there are 3 times as many positives about wine and alcoholic drinks in the scriptures than there are negative. But yet you hear some of these examples. You see it.

Now, let me ask you a question. Money. Money – is it good or is it bad?  (Crowd: “Good when you have it, bad when you don’t.” Mr. Smith: “Now see, that’s a realist right there. Of all the thoughts that went through my mind this week, David, that isn’t one of them.”) Money – it can be used for good, it can be used for bad. So can alcohol. And we’re talking about what? Moderation. There are some people who won’t touch it. That’s fine. I don’t judge them. There are other people who drink it, and I don’t judge them. That’s not my job. But I think there has to be some understanding, so that we can look at it through God’s eyes – through scripture.  Because we can talk and debate all you want about certain things, but what does the Bible say?  Because that is where we get our balance. 

There are, as you know, bad examples in this book about drinking wine – not your fruit juice – wine. Remember Noah? 700 year old man – had his nakedness uncovered for all the world to see by a grandson. So now you are rationalizing, “I can drink all I want if I go through a lot!”  We also know of Jacob. If Jacob had not been liquored up by his father-in-law the night of his wedding – as it’s actually called, a mishteh, which is a feast of booze in Hebrew scripture – that’s what Laban laid out for his new son-in-law. Jacob would have been not so messed up as to see he got the wrong sister in his bed. That would have been to any man hung over to see the shock of a different woman you had lusted for and worked for for 7 years. It was definitely a wake up call for him. We see the time of Samson. We see Nadab and Abihu. Some people have brought that up. Let’s go there. Go with me to Leviticus 10, because this has been debated quite a few times in all the reference books. Leviticus 10, verse 1, as we see the two sons of Aaron are priests. In chapter 10, verse 1:

Leviticus 10:1-3 – Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. And Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord spoke, saying, ‘By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy. And before all the people, I must be glorified.’”

So the question has been brought up many times, “Wait a minute. They just came and decided to offer fire in the middle of the night.” or “came at this time and they were not told to,” and “there were certain times when they should have done this and they didn’t let anybody know.” And those are all legitimate arguments, but I find it so interesting, if you go down to verse 8, because he describes how they are actually zapped, killed, burnt up right there – temple. But it says – as a heading over these verses – it actually says, Conduct Prescribed to Priests – because it shows what they did, it shows why they were zapped. It says in verse 8:

V-8 – Then the Lord spoke to Aaron, saying: “Do not drink wine or intoxicating drink, you, nor your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die.”

That’s why this has juice in it. (Holds up glass.) I take God for His word – not that I don’t have grace, but grace does not always cover stupidity – when you know not to do something and you do it anyway. So I have read this many times and figured that’s why. Because he wanted to make sure. Did they enter there that night just kind of taking it lightly? Do we sometimes go to church taking it lightly? That I know of, I have never come to church drinking alcohol. Even at a Feast – between services and I’m speaking the next time – I don’t do that either, because I take God for His word.

But God gives us incredible examples. And we have two, really, extremes sometimes in the world. In Christianity, you can Google alcohol – drink or not? And you see two extremes – those that say, “Oh no! You can’t even look at the bottle or even walk by a liquor store.”  Others say, “Oh yes, we should drink every day. It’s good.”  Well, I’d like to go to these verses that are used.  

I had a guy work for me 15, 20 years ago. He was a very religious man – a good moral man – and we would discuss scriptures. He did not belong to our fellowship or our belief, but He was so strongly held in his belief that alcohol – any bit of it – was wrong, he would never touch it and condemned it. So when I would actually talk to him about some of the scriptures, that we will go into today, he would say, “Well, that was just grape juice – just grape juice.”  I would like to go to the verses that he gave me all those years ago. I still remember them. Go with me to Proverbs, because this is what is used in God’s word.  At times, when someone wants to point me to something, I say, “Yeah, take me there.” So let’s go to Proverbs 23. Proverbs 23 – two sections here. I will read from the New King James Version. Proverbs 23, verse 17…let’s go to verse 19.

Proverbs 23:19-21 – Hear, my son, and be wise, and guide your heart in the way. Do not mix with winebibbers – there’s that word that Christ was called. He is saying, “Don’t even mix with them!” …or with gluttonous eaters of meat. We have some carnivores here. I know one, in particular – he knows who I am talking about – likes meat! It says: or with gluttonous eaters of meat. I don’t know how much meat you could eat that makes you a glutton. I guess we can see. All right? For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe a man with rags – for being lazy. Let’s go to verse 29, same chapter:

V-29 – Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? Hmm, seen anybody with redness of eyes because of this? (Holds up glass.) In high school, I graduated high school with this guy and didn’t know his real name, because I only had one class with him, but I went to a bigger school. We played ball together, laughed, and joked and stuff. Until he walked across the stage and got his diploma, I didn’t know what his real name was. And I only had 317 people in my class. Now I knew his name because we all called him it.  Everybody knew him as Wino. That was his name – Wino – Paul Allen – not the Paul Allen, the rich Paul Allen – the other Paul Allen. His father was a preacher. So everybody just knew him as Wino, because wherever he went – and we’re talking 16,17 years old – he always had wine. He always drank wine.  Let’s look at what it says here: Those who linger long at the wine, those who go in search of mixed wine. Do not look on the wine when it is red – I only drink red wine – I don’t know how to look at it any other way – when it sparkles in the cup, when it swirls around smoothly. At the last it bites like a serpent,and stings like a viper. Your eyes will see strange things – yes, I see people snickering and laughing, so let’s not go into the strange things you’ve seen – and your heart will utter perverse things. How many times have that happened before?  “I luv you….” Anybody remember Joe Namath? On what? It was Monday Night Football. He was long into wine, or he was long into something, and some young girl interviewed him, and he looked at her, and she was trying to ask him questions, and he said, “I love you.”  “Can say perverse things”, as it says there. “Yes, you will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, or like one who lies at the top of the mast, saying: “They have struck me, but I was not hurt. They have beaten me, but I did not feel it.” “I am feeling good,” I guess. “When shall I awake, that I may seek another drink?”

So those are the main scriptures to say that we don’t need to be drinking. No one needs to drink.  Does it carry weight?  Well, it shows one thing. I think it tell us, we don’t need to drink to get drunk, do we?  We don’t need to stay long at the bottle – stay long at the bar – where it says your eyes get red and you start saying perverse things, or you start seeing things that aren’t there – the pink elephant - they actually bring that up at different times.

Well, I did a lot of research and looked at quite a few websites, looked at quite a few books. I wanted to research for my old friend, who said it was only grape juice that righteous people – people of God – drink.  And I found that about 99 percent of all scholars – people who aren’t of a certain religious bend, but they actually search history and are authorities on it. And I will read a major quote here. That quote says, “All wine mentioned in the Bible is fermented grape juice with an alcohol content. No non-fermented drink was called wine.”  Most people probably would not argue with that. God’s called out ones, through the scriptures, drank wine. Abraham just had a major battle, and what did he do? Drank wine and served wine. 1 Samuel 16 tells of how Jesse sends David with wine to give to Saul as a gift. And God even tells Israel in Deuteronomy 7, verse 13, that new wines that they will have…that these new wines are a blessing from God, and if they would follow Him, He would bless their vineyards. Does that sound like a God who condemns alcohol? I know in Jeremiah 35, the incredible story of the Rechabites, that we have covered here before, they would not drink alcohol.  And God so told his servant, Jeremiah, to bring them in and set wine before them, and told them to drink. And they would not do it, because their father, their grandfather – their father’s father – gave that tradition to them that they would not drink any wine. John the Baptist – no greater man on earth, Christ said – never drank alcohol – told not to. But Jesus…yes, God drank alcohol. That may be a shock. It is a shock to people, who might even hear this on the website, because we have some people who just don’t believe it. But the scriptures picture – and I just have two of them here – picture that the grand fulfillment in the coming Kingdom of God – 1000 years of heaven on earth, for those who want to say it that way – when peace will finally be here. God describes it with wine – as one aspect of it. Let’s go there. Let’s go to Isiah 25 – Isaiah 25, verse 6 – talking about this coming kingdom, he says:

Isaiah 25:6 – And in this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of choice pieces, a feast of wines on the lees – he is talking about mature wine – not something you have just pulled off, but wine that has been aged – of fat things full of marrow, of well-refined wines on the lees. Then he talks about redoing the surface of the earth and he talks about no more tears. So there is no doubt he is talking about the coming Kingdom of God.

As a matter of fact, Amos…let’s go to Amos, if you will – Amos. We’ll look at another…Amos 9 – Amos 9, verse 13:

Amos 9:13 – Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper – the coming Kingdom of God – and the treader of grapes him who sows seed. The mountains shall drip with sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.

In the Kingdom there will be wine – and plenty of it.  Bad? It doesn’t appear God looks at it as bad. The coming Kingdom will be that way.

So, as we saw the drunkards, we saw about the red eyes, we saw about seeing things, we saw this from the scripture, and you put on top of it, Galatians 5:21, which says that “no drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God,” which, when you put that scripture with this one, the last thing you want is somebody who can’t handle their wine and be in a place that is flowing with wine. “No, Jesus!” Right? I mean, do you really want that? “You get ‘em Paul!” 

So it is very instructive for us, because when you put it all together, as Brad Whittington did in his book, What Would Jesus Drink? you see that even the offerings that were laid out – in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers – the offering, when it was given, what was required? Alcohol – wine. Yes, it was required for those offerings – multiple times. And 1 Chronicles 9 talks about when the temple was built – Solomon’s temple was built for God – and they would have these incredible services there – that wine was kept in the temple itself. They had a special place for it.  It had a part in the worship of God. I think it’s pretty important to see.

But I’d like you to go back to Judges, because here was a man, in the book of Judges – the man was not a judge – but God put his words down, because he was correcting a supposed judge. He was a son of Gideon. Let’s go back to Judges 9, verse 13, as this man is telling the people of Israel, because they had swayed away from God and gone to the worship of Baal. And he says in verse 13, as he is yelling this from on top of this mountain to them:

Judges 9:13 – Should the vine say to them, “Should I cease my new wine which cheers both God and man…? God and man?  Cheers both God and man?

Let’s go to Psalm 104 – Psalm 104, verse…let’s go to 14. The heading says, “Praise to the sovereign Lord for His creation and His Providence.” In verse 14, this is talking about God:

Psalms 104:14 – He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and vegetation for the service of man, that he may bring forth food from the earth, and wine that makes glad the heart of man,”

Does it relax you? Yes. Does he say, actually through various doctor reports, a glass or two of wine is not bad for you – it could actually be good for you – certain types of wine. But it does make the heart merry. That’s why He tells at the Feast of Tabernacles, even strong drink. But there is, and always has been, a problem with the people of God – whether it is Israel, whether it’s Judah, whether it’s today’s called-out ones, they’ve always had a problem with balance.  Because you can have a glass of wine and be relaxed. And then you want to get more relaxed.  And then you want to get even more relaxed than that. And then you have an issue where what? How do I keep that relaxed feeling for more than a few minutes? So it’s been a balance. It’s an issue of balance. …and wine that makes glad the heart of man. God would like us to be able to have moderation in all facets of our life.

There’s a scripture that actually tells us, “Don’t be overly righteous.” What do you mean? You can study the Bible too much? Yes! Haven’t you seen them? Maybe you live with one. You have people that the Bible is all that matters and they’re not even balanced. They can’t talk to people.  Christ was not that way. Christ walked this earth and talked with the lowest of the lows – talked with prostitutes, talked with whomever he came in contact with. And He was God! There is moderation in all things.

I’d like you to go with me to Ecclesiastes 10 – one that is quoted quite often – Ecclesiastes 10, verse 19. 

Ecclesiastes 10:19 – A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes merry.

God calls feast days feasts – and He likes us to have some wine. But He doesn’t like us having, just wine – right? – to where we are just crazy for it. Right? I’ve seen them – where they are like, “Smell that! Ahh!” We are not like Christ when we are over-imbibed, when we are trying to see just how far we can go without going too far. God likes us to be balanced in everything. 

So, as I wrap this up today, I think the only right way to finish a message on moderation is to look at the King of moderation - knowing He will be the King of kings, as we are called to be future kings in the coming Kingdom of God. Let’s look and see how the King handled it – how our leader handled it. Let’s go back and you can look at the story of Abraham as he wins that incredible battle and there is the pre-incarnate Christ, or the Word, who appears as a priest in Salem, called Melchizedek. As they come from the battle, what does pre-incarnate Christ do?  He brings out bread and wine – not grape juice, wine.

Let’s go to a story in John 2 – the story in John 2, the very first miracle. Many of you know this story so well. John 2 – I want to read it and lay it out as it is. John, chapter 2 – from the New King James Version – starting at verse 1:

John 2:1-11 - On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.  Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.  And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” Jesus said to her,“Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” He had not performed a miracle yet, that they knew of – a public miracle. Obviously, looking at His mother coming to Him, and saying, “Do something,” she had seen that He could do something. So He didn’t really argue anymore. Verse 5: His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” Now there were set there six water pots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty to thirty gallons apiece – of water, in order to wash your hands. This was like water to make sure, before you ateor anything else, they made sure they had plenty of water there, because back then, they didn’t have running water back then in most places. So here there were 20 to 30 gallons.  Jesus said to them, “Fill the water pots with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, “Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast.” And they took it. What? 20-30 gallons? And there are six of them? 120 to 180 gallons of wine? Whoa! I have been to parties in my life – especially in my twenties – but nobody had something like that! So to condemn alcohol would be very hard when Jesus Christ made 120 to 180 gallons of wine. Okay, let’s go back to the story.When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom. 10 And he said to him, “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk” – had a few drinks – they kind of got used to the taste on their tongue. Then it wasn’t important to have the good wine. You could have a little less – watered down – if you wanted to – or a less quality wine.  That’s what you do at weddings. But here, he tastes this wine and says, “Man! You gave me the best! Why did you do that? That’s not how it’s done.” So whatever Christ, did He did it well.  I’m sure I would like to have a house built by Christ, since He was a carpenter. I’m sure He did it well. And when it came to wine making, He did it well obviously. It says: “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!” This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory.

So Christ…of course, you have to realize that most weddings went 7-14 days and all the family was invited. And Christ may have well felt it, because here He just drug in Himself and twelve of His 20-something-year-old buddies, who could eat and drink probably. And they were going to be there for what? 7 to 14 days. 

Let’s go to Luke 7 – Luke 7, where this is laid out for us, where Christ is the one that references Himself, because that’s what they called Him in Luke 7. You will find it interesting that, at this time, the Greeks called him Dionysus and the Romans called him Bacchus – they were known as the god of wine. Bacchus was just another Roman name for Dionysus. And that’s the one they would all drink to. Now tell me that the Romans and so forth didn’t still keep those conditions even in Jerusalem. But it’s interesting to note that Bacchus, as I will call him, Bacchus was believed to the son of Zeus, the god, and a human woman. Sound familiar? And this god came down and impregnated her, and his son was half man and half god – who was later on killed and believed to be resurrected. This was hundreds of years before Christ came on the scene. But the word, winebibber, is from a German word called weinsaufel.  It’s the word winebibber. And it was actually put into the Bible, and put into speech at that time, by Martin Luther in the 1500’s. It means to be an alcoholic – to be a boozer, a lush. We call them a sous, a wine-o, barfly. All these are words used from this word, winebibber. So let’s look at Luke 7. I’m about to wrap this up here.  Luke 7 – let’s go to verse 31, because Christ is addressing here…teaching. We can all learn a lesson here. Because He had just talked about John the Baptist and how great John the Baptist was. But in verse 31:

Luke 7:31-34 – And the Lord said, “To what then shall I liken the men of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, saying, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We mourned to you, and you did not weep’ – talking about the leaders at that time. All they did was look at the negative. Don’t we see that today? That’s why I hate watching the news. We watch the news and it is all negative. It’s like our President today and he can’t do anything right. Even if he did something right, they don’t cover it. Same way like they did with President Obama. You would watch some network and he would do something that was good, and they would put a negative spin on it! So, have things really changed in 2000 years? Nope, because human nature has not changed. So He is saying, “You wanted us to play music. You love music. You wanted to be festive and play music and you didn’t dance!”  “Well, it wasn’t my kind of music.” Maybe they wanted country music then, I don’t know. Now you look at that. Without alcohol, how many country music songs would you have? Not many, right? So let’s look at this: “For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’”

So Christ came drinking. He probably had more than one glass of wine. But, did He ever get drunk? I can’t see how. He never sinned. Did he know what the limits of mankind were? He did, because He was in a great position – He created it. He knew. He also knew why He blessed mankind with wine – and it wasn’t to get drunk. It was not to get drunk. And isn’t that the beauty of it all? It is for the Passover, which is mentioned how many times in the scripture? Many, many times. And He chose wine to symbolize His blood.

So, am I advertising for you to go out after services and go to the wine stores? No. But my approach has been, as it hopefully will be, we need balance. We need to set the example for other people. If you drink, drink responsibly – as the TV commercial says. But if you don’t, that’s fine.  That is your choice. We drink wine, but we are not winebibbers. We are not winebibbers because we are Christians – followers of Christ – and He was not a winebibber. And neither should we be. The ultimate answer comes from scripture. I couldn’t cover everything in two sermons. It has to do with the 247 scriptures. I will leave that up to you – to dig in, if you want to. But we need to have an answer for what we do. The answer I give to you today is, we need to follow Christ.  Are you a winebibber? No. Was Christ a winebibber? Absolutely not. He is our guide. He is our example, and we will continue, as long as we are His church, to follow His example, and follow His lead, and look to Him.