Bible studies are intended to
help us to dig a little deeper so we can gain an understanding of what God’s
Word says and teaches. Bible studies are
to help us to become more Christlike and teach us how to live holy in an unholy
world.
Bible studies are not written to
condemn the hearer but rather to admonish and teach us how to be more like
Jesus. The ways of the world are not the
ways of God. God has called us to
separation and holiness.
The Bible warns that there is a
way that seems right to man but the end are the ways of destruction (Prov
14:12). So keep an open heart and an
open mind as we open God’s Word to learn what He is saying to His people.
SIPPING
SAINTS
What does the Bible really say about Alcohol?
The United States has become a sodden
society where many are unable to cope with life without a drink or two to ‘get
them through’.
PEOPLE TURN TO ALCOHOL to escape
problems – but rather than escape problems, alcohol is a mocker and will
actually cause a person to wallow in their problems even more than without
it.
Alcohol
increases the risk of suicide in heavy drinkers because rather than drowning
out their sorrow, it causes them to wallow and drown in their sorrow.
STATISTICS:
According to statistics from
2018, 14.4 million adults ages 18 and older have Alcohol Use Disorder. (9.2
million are men and 5.3 million are women)
The leading cause of preventable
death in the United States each year is from tobacco related use.
480,000
deaths per year in the U.S. is from cigarette smoking.
41,000 of those deaths are from 2nd hand smoke exposure ---- think
of the kids!
The second leading cause of
preventable death in the U.S. is from poor diet and lack of physical activity.
The third leading cause of
preventable death in the U.S. each year is from alcohol-related causes. Approximately 88,000 people (approximately
62,000 men and 26,000 women die from alcohol related causes annually, making
alcohol the third leading preventable cause of death in the U.S.
Facts:
7.7% of deaths among men globally is alcohol attributable.
And 2.6% of deaths among women globally are alcohol related.
CONSEQUENCES:
Affects on health - Destroyed
livers, raised blood pressure, mood swings, mental, etc
Hangovers – passing out, vomiting
Loss of critical judgment and slow
reactions
Birth defects in children of
mothers who drink while pregnant.
We see an increase in underage
drinking. Kids will not do as you say as
much as they will do what they see you do.
That’s why it is so important that we are a godly moral example to our
children.
Nearly 10% of U.S. children live
with a parent who has alcohol related problems. (study was from 2012 –
percentage is higher now since covid hit and alcohol consumption has
increased. They knew that and is the
reason they allowed liquor stores to be open yet tried to keep the doors to
Churches closed tightly when that is the only place that people can find real
hope!)
Children who grow up in a home
where alcohol consumption is common are at a greater risk for emotional
problems than children whose parents are not alcoholics. And they are 4 times
more likely to become alcoholics themselves than other children.
Most children of alcoholics have
experienced some form of neglect or abuse in the home. Some suffer from the
painful after effects of a parent dying from either alcohol related illness or
suicide from increased alcohol consumption.
Bottom line: CHILDREN ARE THE
INNOCENT VICTIMS WHO SUFFER THE MOST FROM ALCOHOL ABUSE!
~ ~ Is it any wonder the Bible
warns against Alcohol consumption?! ~ ~
What does the Bible say about
alcohol?
**Keep in mind: There are varying
Hebrew words which were all translated to the English word ‘wine’ yet had
different meanings.
Things that meant one thing when
originally translated do not have the same definition now as they did back
then.
Example:
gay used to mean ‘happy’, now it describes something that is perverse
The ‘wine’ mentioned in the
following verses will typically be the Hebrew word yah’-yin meaning
‘effervesce; wine as fermented, intoxication’ (H3196).
The ‘strong drink’ mentioned in
the following verses will typically be the Hebrew word shay-kawr’ meaning
‘intoxicant, intensely alcoholic liquor’. (H7941)
Proverbs 20:1 – wine is a mocker,
strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
Proverbs 31:4 – it is not for
kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong
drink.
Why?
Because it affects their judgment!
Isaiah 5:11 – 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 5:22 – Woe unto them that
are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:
Isaiah 28:7 – 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 wallowed up of
wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they
stumble in judgment.
God required separation from the
world and Holiness!
Leviticus 10:9 – those who
ministered before the Lord in the Tabernacle were not permitted to drink wine
NOR strong drink.
God said if they did, they would
die. Intoxicating drinks affect their
ministering. God wanted them to be holy and consecrated fully to Him, not
altered or inhibited by the alcohol.
Nazarites took a vow which
separated them unto God - they were not permitted to drink wine (fermented -
H3196) nor strong drink (intensely alcoholic liquor – H7941) nor drink vinegar
of wine nor from strong drinks (vinegar obtained from fermenting fruit juices
or beer - H2558) nor were they permitted to drink any liquor of grapes nor were
they permitted to eat grapes in any form (most likely to avoid any chance of
alcoholic consumption) – Numbers 6:3-4
John the Baptist’s mother was not
permitted to drink wine nor strong drink while pregnant with him and John, the
forerunner of Jesus who preached for everyone everywhere to repent, was not
permitted to drink alcohol all his days – God didn’t want him to be influenced
or inhibited against preaching the Truth of Righteousness and Holiness through
the influence of alcoholic beverages.
As the Children of God, we should
be separated completely and wholly from the world so that no one can accuse us
of any unholy actions.
ALCOHOL AND ITS INFLUENCE
Have
you ever seen someone under the influence of alcohol? They’ll say and do the
craziest things that they are later embarrassed about.
รจ Have you
ever stopped to think about why liquor stores have the word “spirits” connected
to it? Drinking can put you under the influence of spirits that are not of God.
That’s why the Word of God and Pastors
warn against it!
The most dangerous thing about
alcohol is that a person cannot shut down a craving for it without the help of the
Lord. Alcohol enslaves, inflames, and
renders powerless all who surrender to it.
But there is hope through Jesus
Christ! By Him, we are made overcomers! James 4:7
*Submit to God
*Resist the devil
*and
he WILL FLEE from you
I’m sure we all have at least one
family member who has been affected by alcohol addiction.
My great uncle drank himself to
death.
My dad’s brother just passed in
March 2020 from alcohol intoxication. So many times they found him in a drunken
stuper face down in the snow suffering from frostbite – yet he still would
return to the bottle after he was released from the hospital.
His daughter would post about how
she was trying to drink her sorrow away, yet her posts revealed the alcohol was
just taking her deeper into depression. The alcohol was not helping alleviate
the sorrow. Instead, it was intensifying
it.
I deal with calls and texts often
concerning my dad and his addiction to alcohol as well as calls concerning
other family members.
Alcoholism doesn’t just affect
the person who is drinking. They don’t think
or realize how it affects the ones who love them.
Biblical example…
Lot (nephew to Abraham) moved
close to the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and eventually moved his
family INTO the city. Those cities were so wicked and perverse in their ways
and it began to affect his children and wife.
The wickedness was so great that
God said He was going to destroy them.
Bur first, God sent angels to deliver Lot, his wife, and 2 daughters out
of the cities before they were destroyed.
They were told not to look back
upon that sinful place but Lot’s wife did and she turned to a pillar of
salt. Lot and his daughters kept going
and eventually found shelter in the mountains.
The mountains were just a resting
place, not a final destination but his daughters thought they would forever be
without a husband and children. So that
night, his daughters, who had learned the wicked ways of those perverse cities,
decided to get their father drunk.
Lot was so drunk with alcohol and
sorrow that he did not recognize that he was being promiscuous with his own
daughters. That was considered wickedness before the Lord.
Those daughters each bore a son
who became enemies that vexed the Israelites (Abraham’s descendants) – they
were the Moabites and the Ammonites.
Sin can have long lasting
consequences.
Some say:
BUT JESUS APPROVED OF DRINKING
WINE….
Did He really?
People like to use the example of
when Jesus turned water to wine at the wedding in Cana.
The wedding had been going on for
3 days. If they were drinking intoxicating drink, they would have been too
drunk to know the difference once Jesus arrived.
Keep in mind: not all wine is
alcoholic any more than all cider is hard.
The word ‘wine’ did not mean back then what we take it to mean now. It was the word used to describe the juice
from the fruit.
The intoxication came the longer
the wine (juice) set and fermented into decayed wine. But this was new wine –
new fruit juice.
The wine served at the wedding
was a sweet fruit juice. How could Jesus and why would Jesus approve of serving
something that His Word expressly speaks against?! He didn’t!
Remember Jesus served His
disciples ‘wine’ and bread at the last supper.
That ‘wine’ was symbolic of the Blood that He was about to shed for our
sins.
There is no way that ‘wine’ was
fermented and intoxicating because Jesus’ body never saw decay. Intoxicating
wine is made from decaying and fermenting juice.
It is revealed through Scripture that
it was the ‘fruit of the vine’ that was in that cup. (Matt 26:27-29) supporting
that it was not alcoholic wine.
Jesus is the Creator and Giver of
Life, not of death.
Jesus exampled the refusal of
taking intoxicating drink into the body even while in excruciating pain at the
point of death when He refused to drink wine mingled with myrrh that was
offered to Him to help numb the pain He was experiencing while on the Cross.
Jesus could not and would not
partake of something that His Word warned against! It would be contrary to His sinless
character.
Some try to use the Scripture
where Luke admonished Timothy to drink no longer water, but use a little wine
for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities. (1 Tim 5:23)
The point of Luke’s admonition is
found within this verse. It appears
Timothy was having some trouble with his stomach and bowels. Luke was a physician. As a physician, he was not promoting consumption
of alcoholic beverages. He was
prescribing a medical treatment for Timothy’s often infirmities.
We can see not only is there
Scripture after Scripture that warns against drinking alcoholic beverages but
statistics as well as medical evidence reveal that intoxicating drinks are not
healthy or wise to ingest.
God, by His direct act, does not
make alcohol. The laws of nature, if
left to themselves, do not produce it. Grapes ripen, and if not eaten, they
then rot and decompose but do not become wine. The manufacture of alcohol is
wholly man’s device. It is man who
created intoxicating alcohol, not God.
God would not created
intoxicating beverage and then warn time after time in His Word not to drink
it.
God’s Word will never contradict
itself. We have to follow what God says,
not what man thinks on this subject.
God’s Word warns against it for
our own good! And the good of our family!
