Sure Reasons Why Christians Shouldn’t Drink
(Series: Why It Matters)
Rom 14:10-21
Sermon by Rick Crandall
McClendon Baptist Church - Sept. 10, 2006
*Some people try to say that Jesus never drank alcohol, but that doesn’t make sense to me. In Matt 11:16-19, Jesus was talking to a crowd about John the Baptist and himself, about how John and Jesus were very different from each other, yet how the same people rejected them both.
*And Jesus said, “But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions, and saying: ‘We played the flute for you, And you did not dance; we mourned to you, And you did not lament.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ . . .”
*A winebibber . . . The NIV says “drunkard” and that’s what it means: A sot, a wino. Well, you can’t very well accuse someone of being a drunkard, if they never drank.
*I have to conclude that Jesus did drink alcohol. He’s not talking about drinking water in these verses. But if Jesus drank alcohol, then why shouldn’t we?
*It’s an important question, because there are possibly six kinds of drinkers here today.
-Young people who think it’s a grown-up, hip thing to do.
-Young people who are having fun partying, at least so far.
-Responsible adults who drink in moderation.
-Hurting people who are trying to use alcohol to numb their pain.
-Alcoholics living in denial.
-And people who desperately want to quit, but who so far haven’t been able.
*By the way: Don’t judge. It is easy to throw stones at someone who drinks, especially if you never drank or maybe have never even been tempted to drink. But don’t judge other people. God’s Word is speaking to all Christians here in Romans 14, when it says:
10. . . . Why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
11. For it is written: "As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God.’’
12. So then each of us shall give account of himself to God.
13. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore . . .
*We are not here to judge each other, but let’s look at this important question: If Jesus drank alcohol, then why shouldn’t we?
1. We shouldn’t drink first of all, because alcohol is easy to abuse.
*We know that because there are so many problem drinkers in America. infoplease.com says that nearly 14 million Americans currently abuse alcohol or are alcoholic. (That’s 1 in every 13 adults.) And several million more adults engage in risky drinking patterns that could lead to alcohol problems. Over 50% of people in the United States report that one or more of their close relatives have a drinking problem. (1)
*Alcohol is easy to abuse. We know that because the average amount of alcohol consumed by Americans over thirteen is 2.2 gallons per year. (2) That means over 400 million gallons of alcohol were sold in the United States last year. That’s a lot of drinking! There is enough alcohol within a mile of where we sit, that if we poured it out in here today, we could all swim in it. Every grocery store, every gas station, most every drug store and most every restaurant are loaded down with it. Somebody has to be drinking all of that beer and liquor.
*Alcohol is easy to abuse. We know this best of all because the Word of God strongly and often cautions us against drinking too much. Nave’s Topical Bible lists 32 references dealing with drunkenness, and there are others.
*One of the strongest warnings is in Prov 23:29-33. Let’s take a few moments to see what it says.
29. Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?
30. Those who linger long at the wine, those who go in search of mixed wine.
31. Do not look on the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it swirls around smoothly;
32. at the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like a viper.
33. Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart will utter perverse things.
*God put this warning in His Word, so that you and your loved ones won’t have to live it. But you might, if you drink.
*Daniel Akin is the president of our seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. And last summer he wrote: “I readily confess to a personal bias when it comes to the issue of alcohol. My wife Charlotte grew up in the Georgia Baptist Children’s Home because her parents were alcoholics. Her father died a lost alcoholic. Her mother, by God’s grace, was saved on her deathbed; the twin killers of alcohol and tobacco had ravaged her body. Today, Charlotte’s sister and brother are lost alcoholics and so are most of the rest of her family. (3)
*We shouldn’t drink because alcohol is easy to abuse. Drinking can be just a small step away from drunkenness. Where is that line? If you don’t drink, you never have to wonder or worry about it. You will never have to worry about drinking too much, if you don’t drink at all.
2. We shouldn’t drink because alcohol is easy to abuse, and because drinking is closely connected to a life without Christ.
*This is one of the truths Paul pointed us to in 1 Cor 6:9-11, where he said:
9. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,
10. nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
11. And such were some of you. 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 Paul talked about a lot of things there, but today we are focusing on alcohol, and Paul is saying, “Christians, some of you used to be drunkards. But not anymore! Because you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”
*Christian, you could be thinking, “I’m not a drunkard. I just drink.” And that may be true. Unfortunately, that’s a little like being on the West Monroe football team, but wearing a Carencro uniform the night of the game. Whose team are you on?
*People today, especially young people are looking for something real. It is hard for them to come to church on Sunday, when they saw you in the bar on Friday night. It is hard for them to see the difference Christ has made in your life when you are living the same way they are.
3. We shouldn’t drink because drinking is closely connected to a life without Christ, and because we don’t want to cause anyone to stumble into sin.
*Romans 14:21 is the key verse here, where Paul said, “It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak.”
*To me, this has always been the most important reason not to drink: Because we don’t want to cause anyone to stumble into sin. But that’s what your drinking can do.
*Richard Land is the head of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Last summer he reported a study that talked about teenagers experimenting with alcohol. This study found that if parents totally abstain from alcohol, then only 16% of the teenagers in the home experimented with alcohol before adulthood. But in homes where parents were social drinkers, teenage use of alcohol jumped from 16% all the way to 66%. (4)
*What a difference your choices can make! If you are born again, if you have received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, your drinking will not send you to hell. But it might help send someone else there. It might not wreck your home. But it might help someone else’s home to fall apart. Your drinking might not cause you to have a terrible accident. But it might help lead someone else to do something tragically stupid. It might not keep you out of church. But it might slam the door on someone else who desperately needs to draw close to the Lord.
*We don’t want to cause anyone to stumble into sin. We want to help people get closer to Christ. And the great news is that we can! You can make an eternal difference in someone’s life!
*Guy McGraw tells about someone who made a difference for James Reed. I wish I knew his name, but all I know is that he was living in Tulsa when he led James and his girlfriend to Jesus. They were caught up in a motorcycle gang and alcohol and drugs.
*The new Christian couple came to church and got baptized. Then they got married in the pastor’s living room, but they still struggled with the old life. They would do well for a while, then go back to drinking and drugs.
*Finally, the young man who led them to Christ said, “You are moving into the apartment next door to us.” Every morning at 6 a.m. there would be a knock on the bedroom wall, “Get up. It’s time for your quiet time. Are you up yet?”
*At night he came over to study God’s Word and disciple the Reeds. Did it make a difference? James and his wife went on to become SBC missionaries in Uganda! (5)
*Do you think that the man who did so much to help the Reeds was a drinker? Not a chance.
4. We shouldn’t drink because we don’t want to cause anyone to stumble into sin, and because we have a far superior satisfaction.
*God’s Word reminds us of this in Eph 5:17-18, where Paul said, “Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation (That’s excess, debauchery, wickedness, decadence, corruption). Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit.”
*Paul is making a contrast here between being filled with wine and being filled with the Holy Spirit of God. “Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit.”
*Now you need to know that you cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit unless you have put your trust in Jesus Christ. You must hear and believe the Good News about Jesus:
-That God loves you in spite of your selfishness and sin.
-That God the Son loves you so much, He was willing to leave His home in Heaven and come to earth as a man.
-That Jesus suffered and died on the cross to take your place.
-That He took the punishment for your sins and three days later, He rose again.
*Jesus will forgive you and give eternal life to you, if you will open your heart to receive Him as your Savior and Lord. By His Spirit, Jesus Christ will come into your life.
*But what about this filling Paul talks about here? Well, it’s a matter of awareness: We are more fully aware of the Lord’s presence in our lives. And it’s a matter of control: We are allowing God to have more control in our lives.
*But it is also a matter of enjoyment. That’s part of the contrast. People enjoy being full of wine, but there is infinitely more joy in the fullness of Jesus Christ. And you can’t be filled with both at the same time.
*C.S. Lewis made great sense when he said, “Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us. . . [We are] like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” (6)
*No one or no thing can satisfy us like God can. King David knew that. Take a look at Psalm 63:1-5. David wrote this song while in the wilderness of Judah, most probably when he was running for his life from his rebellious son, Absalom.
*There he was being hunted down by his own son, forced to live in a dry and weary land where there was no water. But David didn’t forget that the Lord wants to be our greatest satisfaction, so David sang.
1. O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water.
2. So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory.
3. Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips shall praise You.
4. Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.
5. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, And my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips.
*David knew that no one or no thing can satisfy us like the Lord God can. And He wants to be your satisfaction. It is not a sin to drink alcohol in moderation, but we have a far superior satisfaction.
*I know a lot about drinking. The first time I ever got drunk was when I was 12 years old. Can you imagine that? 12 years old. By the time I was 17, I was a weekend alcoholic. By the time I graduated from high school I was drinking 3 or 4 times a week. And by the time I was 19, I had moved on to marijuana and other drugs.
*Heaven only knows how many times the Lord spared me from a fatal accident when I was driving drunk, but by His grace, God did spare me. And by His grace, He saved me when I was 24 years old. Thank God for the cross of Jesus Christ!
*I would love to be able to tell you that the day of my salvation was the end of my problem with alcohol and drugs, but it didn’t happen that way for me. It took years before I finally got free from all of that waste. But by the grace of God I was set free, because Jesus came to set the captives free!
*And now I am getting more and more satisfied with the Lord Jesus Christ. Like the song says, “Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before.” That’s what God wants for all of our lives.
Conclusion:
*The Bible never says, “Thou shalt not drink alcohol.” That’s a fact. But the Bible does give us some great reasons not to drink:
-Because alcohol is easy to abuse.
-Because drinking is closely connected to a life without Christ.
-Because we don’t want to cause anyone to stumble into sin.
-And because we have a far superior satisfaction.
*Jesus Christ can satisfy you like nothing else can. Put your trust in the Lord, and ask Him to be your supreme satisfaction.
1. Statistics found on infoplease.com 9-8-06
2. Per capita consumption from the NIAAA for 2003
3. Adapted from FIRST-PERSON: The case for alcohol abstinence - Friday, Jun 30, 2006 / By Daniel L. Akin / WAKE FOREST, N.C. (BP)
4. Faith and Family Values, July-August 2006 - page 5
5. SermonCentral sermon “Getting Along in God’s House” by Guy McGraw - Rom 15:1-13
6. Quote found in SermonCentral sermon “Finding Satisfaction in God” by Greg Linton - Psalm 63:1-5
