Wounds
without Cause?
When a soldier is wounded
during combat, he may receive some sort of medal in honor of his bravery on the
battlefield. Of course no one wants to
be wounded, and especially if the wound would result in some sort of permanent handicap,
but a soldier understands before going into battle that wounds and possible
death may occur. It is his love for country and commitment to duty that makes
him willing to enter the conflict, disregarding the potential dangers. If he should be wounded during battle, he
will live with the knowledge that his suffering is for a cause he believes in
and he will wear the wound itself as a badge of honor.
On the other hand,” wounds
without cause” suggest that someone has suffered unnecessary injuries. Through
some foolish action he has injured not only himself, but perhaps others as well.
Now he suffers contempt, disgrace and
regret. Rather than bringing honor to him, his wound will forever be worn as a
badge of humiliation and shame.
No person fits this description
better than person described in Proverbs 23: 29-30, “who hath wounds without cause?...They that tarry long at the wine; they
that go to seek mixed (fermented)
wine.” Who can possibly count the wounds of those affected, or the dead who
have been slaughtered by this drug. The
following statistics (from Dial-The-Truth Ministries) show the extent of
suffering that drinking alcohol has brought to the United States alone:
- There are over
18 million alcoholics in America.
- Cirrhosis of
the liver kills over 30,000 people each year and the number is rising.
- 50 percent of
the people on welfare are there due to alcohol.
- 80 percent of
all fire deaths are due to alcohol.
- 65 percent of
the drownings
- 22 percent of
home accidents
- 77 percent of
falls
- 36 percent of
pedestrian accidents
- 65 percent of
all murders
- 40 percent of
all assaults
- 35 percent of
all rapes
- 30 percent of
other sex crimes
- 30 percent of
all suicides
- Over 80
percent of all arrests are linked to alcohol!
- And one of the
most disturbing statistics of all - 60 PERCENT OF ALL CHILD ABUSE IS DUE TO ALCOHOL!
- Alcohol claims 50
times more lives than all the illegal drugs combined?
- Alcohol
costs
the American people 130 billion dollars every year
- It
destroys 1 in every 4 families in America?
- kills over 200,000 Americans each year?
No doubt the statistics in many other
countries are just as bad, or worse. But
it is obvious that alcohol is the king of mass destruction. Much of our world
lives in fear of nuclear or chemical weapons that are capable of destroying
multitudes of people. At highest levels of government the political world seeks
to prevent these from being developed and used.
In addition, millions are spent to diminish and hopefully remove certain
drugs from society such as opium, heroin, and cocaine.
Considering such efforts, it is surprising
to see that very little is done to remove the most destructive drug of all –
alcohol. Of course, The Church of God
cannot concern itself with how the governments of the world respond to these
problems. The point being made is that even though our world recognizes the
dangers of certain drugs and chemicals and seeks to control or remove them
entirely from society, intoxicating drinks are generally accepted world-wide.
The king of all drugs, the one that destroys and damages individual lives,
families, and societies more than all other drugs combined, is condoned,
promoted, even advertised and sold publically almost everywhere.
Such is the inconsistency of this present world. In addition, many church organizations that
once taught total abstinence now condone drinking according to that rather
vague term “moderation.” It is well
known that intoxicated people seldom believe they are intoxicated. That is part of the deception of all drugs. They affect not only the body’s ability to
function well, but also the brain’s ability to think clearly. How often has a person who believed he was
not intoxicated driven his automobile down the road and caused an accident that
killed someone? How often has that
person who said he was not intoxicated went home and battered his wife, and
abused his children? Of course once is
too often, but these and other sad consequences commonly occur among those who
think they are “drinking in moderation.”
Satan is the master of deception, and all
his sins have a deceptive nature about them.
Just as the Word of God warns men to “flee” fornication, so they ought
to flee the poison of alcohol. And
alcohol is indeed a poison. This is what
being “intoxicated” means. “Toxic” means - acting
as or having the effect of a poison; poisonous. To be intoxicated means to be poisoned. This is why bartenders are known to say to
their customers, “name your poison”!
To suggest that God would condone poison in
moderation is to be ignorant of the nature of God. To think that God would ever
approve the use of something that has wrecked multitudes of marriages,
destroyed bodies, sent tens of thousands of children to orphanages, led to
murder, theft, adultery and a host of other sins must surely be a major insult
to the integrity of the Holy God who created us and Who desires nothing but
good things for us in this world and in the world to come.
Those who plead for their alcohol love to
promote the idea that Jesus drank wine, but they are mistaken. The Bible makes
a clear distinction between fermented liquor and new wine, or grape juice.
Speaking of fermented liquor, Proverbs 23 says, "Look not thou upon the wine when it is red (speaking of
fermentation), when it giveth his colour
in the cup, when it moveth itself aright (speaking of the bubbling and
carbonation). At the last it BITETH like
a serpent, and STINGETH like an adder."
A description of new wine (simple grape juice) is found in Isaiah 65:8, "As the new wine is found in the cluster", not in a bottle! You can't get fermented liquor from a cluster. Fermented liquor is placed in a bottle, with yeast and allowed to ferment. Genesis 40:11 gives a clear picture of new wine, "I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup."
Some say Jesus drank wine at the Last Supper with the apostles. In Matthew, Mark and Luke where the account of the Last Supper is found, the word "wine" is never even mentioned. The Bible very carefully says they drank the “fruit of the vine.”
But what about when Jesus turned the water into wine at the marriage in Cana? If Jesus Christ turned water into fermented liquor, he directly disobeyed Habakkuk 2:15, "Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also" And, if Jesus disobeyed the inspired Word of God, He becomes guilty of sin. Furthermore, he becomes a hypocrite since He is the true Author of the scripture, as he would be guilty of saying it is wrong to give liquor to another person, then He does so Himself. The Bible makes it very clear that Jesus was without sin, and He certainly has never done anything in contradiction to His own Word.
God has placed a very strong warning in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, “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.”
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