We're looking tonight at Ephesians 5, 18, and I shared this morning that when you preach, once you preach through a book, of course there's 52 Sundays in a year, and I probably, when you take all the special events we do, and you know, trunk or treat, or celebrate America, get around the holidays, I probably only preach about 30 of those 52 weeks. I like that, it keeps enough of different events on our Sunday night. Again, only 5% of our 46,000 Southern Baptist churches have Sunday night services. 95% of our churches no longer have them. And I'm not bashing them. They need to follow the Lord. But we do enough of a variety of things on Sunday night that we're really, really grateful to do that. But I'm preaching through the book of Ephesians. And this is my 49th message. And I would say it's probably going to take us 65 or 70 to get through this book. And when you preach through a book, the strength of that is you just take whatever comes next. And what comes next tonight is Ephesians 5.18, which I mentioned this morning, which talks about not being drunk on wine, but being filled with the Spirit. You know, God's sovereign. It fell on the calendar that I would preach this message this night. I love when people come up and say to me, oh boy, on a Sunday night, you know, you ought to preach that message on a Sunday morning. Well, first of all, I pray everything I preach on Sunday night is something that I would preach on a Sunday morning, because it's all God's word. We don't shy away from any topic in this church. We believe all God's word for all God's people. It's funny, I had someone come up to me and say, you know, all that's going on in our world in the issue of of same-sex marriage and defining what marriage is. I just really wish you'd preach about that, Pastor." And I said, were you here last week? Because of the Ten Commandments I talked about, I did an entire message, or other topics about sanctity of life. I wish you'd talk about it. Well, were you here when I, you know, we do talk about those things. What's great is, though, even though I realize this is a Sunday night and we're talking about this topic tonight, our world has changed. God's Word goes out much more than just the people who are here. In preaching this message tonight, it goes on our app, and we'll have a lot of people who will come back and listen to the message again. We have CDs of this message, and it gives an opportunity. Anytime we discuss a topic or cover a topic here, I can always refer people back to it. If I have someone come to me and says, I'm really struggling with, if you're saved, can you ever lose your salvation? And rather than me sitting down and talking with them for an hour, I can give them a tape series. I preached a three-part series on eternal security. And I'd say, listen to this over and over again. Get out your Bible, study it, rather than me just verbally sharing this. And this is one of those topics, too. which we have, as we'll be talking tonight about alcohol, that, you know, as we go forward, if there's anyone in our church has a question, you know, a lot of times even what I believe as a pastor where we're at on this, it's great to have these messages on our app, on our podcast, or to have CDs that we can share with people. We can even on a Sunday morning share that if you're interested in this topic, you can go to this message. So, we're looking at Ephesians chapter 5, verse 18, about alcohol and the Holy Spirit. I don't know how far we'll get with this. We may just cover the first part and I'm not going to force it. We may have to come back and take another run at what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. First of all, let's pray. Father, we love you and we're just so grateful that we could come to your house tonight. God, we thank you for this morning. God, I thank you for how you're working in the midst of your church and just all the wonderful connections we had this morning, new families, new visitors. Lord, decisions for you, additions to your church. God, you're just working and moving in such a great way. Lord, in this Mother's Day, we just thank you for mothers. We thank you, Lord, for the blessing they are to us in the life of this church. And God, we ask a special blessing on them today. Lord, I thank you for my wife and I thank you for my mom. And Lord, thank you for just, boy, giving them to me. So, so blessed. Lord, speak to us through your word. Lord, help us to see that you have a way for us to live that's a way of wisdom. That you have a way for us to live that's gonna bring you the maximum glory. And God, that's what we want to do. We want to walk in a way through this world where you're going to be glorified in all we do. We love you and we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Fox News had a story December 31st of last year, and this was the title of the Fox News story. It was a national story. It says, a woman gets out of a DWI because her body is a brewery. This is what it says. Last year, police in western New York stopped a driver who had been reported weaving all over the road. The female motorist had a flat tire, and her car was producing a large amount of smoke and noticeable smell of burning rubber, per the police report. The responding officer said the driver smelled of alcohol, her speech was slurred, her had glassy bloodshot eyes. She passed one sobriety test, reciting the alphabet, but had trouble with others, and her blood alcohol content ultimately found to be 0.33%, which is four times the legal limit by a breath analyzer. She was charged with a DWI, but a judge dismissed the charges earlier this month after medical evidence was presented to show that the woman suffers from Otto Brewery Syndrome. the Buffalo News reported. Her condition, which is also known as gut fermentation syndrome, involves her body is messed up to where carbohydrates in her body, whenever she has excess yeast in her body, in her digestive system, it causes those carbohydrates to be turned into alcohol in her body. She was drunk, but she had never taken a drink. Her body just turned yeast, carbohydrates, into alcohol. It's a pretty rare disease. It says, indeed, this syndrome is gradually getting more attention with sufferers reporting bouts of goofiness. Some of you may have that if goofiness isn't... Bouts of goofiness after eating French fries and false accusations of alcoholism, U.S. News & World Report said about it. It also notes that a BBC story raised the possible connection to long-term use of antibiotics. In a Buffalo area case, a woman actually did not know about the syndrome until her lawyer researched it. Here she is arrested for DWI. She has four times the legal limit of alcohol in her system, and she keeps saying, I never took a drink. Huh, like we've never heard that before. But it was true. It was a medical issue in her life. Her lawyers did some research. They did a medical study and found out that she suffers from this disease where her body turns carbohydrates into alcohol and makes her drunk, even though she doesn't drink. She doesn't drink alcohol, but she was under the control of alcohol. And today, the Bible teaches us, it says, don't be drunk with wine. In other words, the only thing that's supposed to control you and the only thing that's supposed to control me, if we are Christ followers, is the Holy Spirit of God. Nothing else is to control us. And this verse teaches us, just like she was under the control of alcohol, even though she hadn't had a drink, the Bible says, no, don't be under the control of anything else except the Spirit of God. See, it was coming from what was inside of her, was controlling her. And from the inside of us, our life's purpose, our life's direction, the wisdom of our life, we are to be, the Bible is teaching us, like a drunk person. Just like someone who's drunk is totally under the control of alcohol You and I are to be not the negative not to be drunk with alcohol, but we are to be filled with the holy spirit We're to be controlled by by the holy spirit. And that's what ephesians 5 18 is teaching us Let me just say up front the the thrust and the teaching of ephesians 5 18. It's not a verse about alcohol It's a verse about being filled with the holy spirit But we can't ignore the first part of the verse, what it is teaching, especially in our culture. So we're going to spend some time on it. And I don't know, I'll see if we get through all this tonight. We may end up dividing this verse in two, talk about the first part. But I don't want us to miss, if we walk away thinking that Ephesians 5.18, God's word is teaching us about alcohol, we've missed the thrust of that verse. The thrust of the verse is about what's going to control you. Either I'm gonna control me or the Spirit's gonna control me, and nothing is to control me but the Holy Spirit of God. This section of the book of Ephesians we're looking at in chapter five is all about the Christian behavior as Christ followers, that we're to live under the authority of Scripture, that we no longer live life the way we think we should live life, or other people think we should live life. We're to live life for the glory of God in a way that doesn't please self, but pleases God for His glory. Our walk through this world, everything we do, all of our actions, all of our words, we just want to look like Jesus, love like Jesus, and talk like Jesus. So the question before us as we come to this section in Ephesians 5, and I'm going to back up a little bit before we get to verse 18. Here's the question, what does it look like to walk through the world in a way that glorifies God? Specifically, can I socially drink alcohol and walk through this world in a way that's gonna glorify God? What does it look like, according to the Bible, to walk in wisdom? What's the wisest way to live our lives to walk through this world for the glory of God? Look at Ephesians 5, and again, we're looking at verse 18, but I'm gonna start in verse 15, because all these verses are connected. We go really slow on Sunday nights. And I want us to see the full picture here. It's about walking in wisdom. It's about living my life in a way that I'm living in wisdom, that I'm living my life in such a way that God is going to be glorified in what I say, what I do, and who I am. Look at verse 15. It says, see that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. In other words, verse 15, remember we talked about this several messages ago, it's really teaching us to watch your step. It's a picture of walking on a narrow trail on the side of a mountain. If you and I were walking on a narrow trail on the side of a mountain, we would very intentionally think about every step that we take. Every time we pick up our foot and put it down, we would be very careful to watch where we're walking. Each step matters. That's the picture in verse 15 as we walk through the life as christian through this world We just don't blast through this world shooting from the hip doing what everybody else does thinking not even giving it any thought This verse is teaching us just like walking on a narrow trail on the side of a steep mountain every step matters as we walk through life Watch where we walk. We should constantly be evaluating everything in our life by, will this action bring God glory? Will this action help spread the gospel? Will this action help me grow and become more like Jesus? Verse 16 says, redeeming the time because the days are evil. In other words, Paul is reminding the church at Ephesus and God's words reminding us that these are desperate days. These are dark days of evil. And we should be aware of all the opportunities around us, the door that God's opens for us to serve and share him. And so we're walking through this world, watching where we walk. Running things through the filter of we want to walk in a way that glorifies God We walk walk in a way that pleases God because the days we're living in man They are desperate desperate dark evil days and God is working all around us and we want an urgency in our lives to Act upon the God-given opportunities. He gives us we do not want to waste our lives on things that don't really matter We don't want to waste our our time. We we're saying, you know, Lord I I don't want to be like the evil. I don't want to be like darkness. I want to be like you. And Lord, my greatest fear is wasting my life and not making every single day count for you. So God, how can I walk through life like that person on the narrow trail of a mountain, knowing the desperate, urgent days we're living in, where every step that I take matters? Because people need you and you're working all around me verse 17 says therefore do not be unwise but understand what the will of the Lord is Walking in God's wisdom as found in his word We the only way I can walk in God's wisdom is I have to walk according to the Bible the Word of God We should have one passion in our life. If we're saved all I want to know is God's will and I want to do God's will the last message you might remember we spent how to discern God's will what are the steps I can take in my life to know God's his overall will his very specific will for our lives we went through some steps we can take to discover God's will again you can catch that message on our app and if you want to, and about that. It says that it's not my will. I don't want to do what I want me to do. I don't want to do what culture says I should do. All I want is God's will. I want nothing more, nothing less, nothing else than the will of God. And the only way I can know the will of God is to be in the Word of God. So, the days are evil. Watch our step. Am I bringing God glory? Am I advancing the gospel? Am I becoming more like Jesus? I don't want to waste my life. I want to make my life count for the Lord. All I want to know is the will of God according to the word of God, and I want to do His will. Notice the first word in verse 18. It says, and. That means it's connected to verse 17, what we've talked about. It's talking about walking in wisdom knowing the will of God 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, I have trouble with that word, but be filled with the Spirit. So to walk in wisdom in the will of God is to Spirit-controlled life. So how do I walk through this world where every step matters, where I make every day count, days are evil, I'm walking in a way that I'm intentionally gonna, I wanna bring glory to God, I wanna live in His will and know His will, how do I do that? There's only one way and it's in verse 18, gotta be Spirit-filled. The Holy Spirit has to control us. Nothing else can control us. So again, the emphasis in verse 18 is not on alcohol. It's on what controls you and what controls me. And it's simple. Either I control me or the Spirit controls me as a believer. And it's teaching us to walk in wisdom, to redeem these evil days, to be in the will of God. I've got to be under the control of the Holy Spirit. I can't let anything else control me. If you're tracking with me, say amen. But with that being said, I want to focus on the first part of verse 18, which says, do not be drunk with wine. It's teaching us here that being drunk on alcohol, just hang with me for a moment, I'm not talking about at this moment, I will in a second, about drinking alcohol. But even if you think it's okay to social drink as a Christian, we can all agree that the Bible says being drunk on alcohol is never a way to walk in this world that's going to glorify God. The Bible is clear about that. Even someone who thinks social drinking is okay, if they believe the Bible, they've got to see the command here that being drunk is a sin. The Bible clearly says, do not be drunk on alcohol. So, let's just get that out of the way. And we'll talk about social drinking, but being drunk on alcohol is clearly what is commanded here not to do. I'm never going to walk in this world in a way that glorifies God if I'm drunk on alcohol, if I am under the control, if alcohol has impaired my mind, if it's impaired my body. There's no way I can glorify God in this world. There's no way I can walk to please God in this world if I'm walking around under the control, drunk on alcohol. What I want to share with you about this, I believe this is the way a believer should walk in this world with wisdom concerning alcohol, and I believe the wisest way to walk in this world concerning alcohol is abstinence, to abstain from alcohol. Now let me say as I share with you what I believe is the wisest thing, and man, hear me clearly, I've got friends of mine, who believe in the inerrancy of scripture, who love Jesus, who love the Bible. They abstain from alcohol in their own life. They've never had a drink in their life. They challenge and encourage other Christians to abstain from alcohol. And as they believe in the inerrancy of scripture, they make an argument that nowhere in the Bible does it prohibit you from drinking alcohol. That's their argument. And I love those people and I respect them. I know what other people say. I know the opposing views. And let me just say up front about a message like this. Man, I love you, but I'm not gonna have a meeting with you and have 30 questions on why you believe drinking alcohol socially is okay. You could go right now and find five articles from great Bible scholars who love Jesus, many who practice absence themselves, who believe the Bible says it's okay to socially drink, and I can fire right back at you five other articles from people who believe in the inerrancy of scripture, who love Jesus, and who say that it's wrong. And I want to respect your time and my time. Man, I've got too much going on in my world for you and I to chase our tails in circles for the next month. I totally get and understand that this will be debated in the church. It is debated in the church. I know that. Promise me, I've read the opposing views. I've read it. I understand the different definitions. Now, some look at why, and not that I can't learn anything, but I would say the articles you would send me probably is something I've kind of seen and heard before. What I'm saying to you as pastor, ultimately you've got to study and come to your own conclusions okay but this is what I believe the Bible teaches and people say well man that's not fair you get to stand up there behind the pulpit and say what you believe about abstinence I don't get a chance to share my view well here's a simple solution to that go get a church and get a pulpit knock yourself out okay that's kind of mean wasn't it I'm just teasing. Not really. Alcohol is such an issue in our culture and such an issue in the church. And again, it will forever be debated in the church. I know that. There are brothers and sisters in Jesus who love God. They're my brothers and sisters in Christ. They disagree with me. I know what they believe. I know they disagree with me. It's not a reason I would never break fellowship with a fellow believer over this issue. Never in my life would I do that. I respect and love those who disagree with me, but hear me, I do disagree with them. See, there are some, once again, who approach Scripture, who love the Bible. They're not trying to make an excuse for doing it. These are people who practice abstinence themselves. But they say there's no verse in the Bible that says you cannot drink alcohol. They believe it's okay to drink wine in moderation. There are others, which is the camp that I'm in, when the Bible says no strong drink, that's where I land, like Leviticus 10, 9, Proverbs 20, verse 1, Proverbs 31, verse 4, Deuteronomy 29, 6, Isaiah 5, 11, and others. When the Bible says strong content, I'm in the camp that believes the alcohol content today, that all drinks today make them a strong drink. That's the camp I'm in. And also the word wine is used so many times in the Bible, and every time we see the word wine, it does not necessarily mean alcohol. Sometimes the word wine means grape juice, sometimes the word wine means vinegar, sometimes the word wine means grapes on the vine, and sometimes the word wine means an alcoholic wine. What decides what it means is the context that it's in and the word that it is in the Hebrew or Greek language. People usually refer to saying, well, didn't Jesus turn water to wine in John's gospel? Yes, He did. But again, there is no biblical evidence that Jesus ever drank alcohol or made what we would consider today to be the strong drink of alcohol. Folks who say, I believe that he did that are plugging their own interpretation into that text. Some say, well, it had to be fermented. There are those who say that the wine in the Bible days never had more than 14% alcohol, even fermented, and you can't find any alcohol today that's less than 14%. Some say, well, the Passover cup had to be fermented. It had to have alcohol, and Jesus took a drink of that. It amazes me how people, make themselves in their own mind saying social drinking in my own life. I want to have a peace about it. I'm just going to come to things and say that Jesus did it. I don't believe we can say that. Again, I love my brothers and sisters in Christ who disagree with me, but I disagree with them. You see, what we know from Jewish culture is there's no doubt that the Jews would add water to the wine to dilute it. In Jewish life, the wine was kept in this big container and it was poured into a bowl called a kater, K-A-T-E-R. And in the kater, before it was poured from a big thing to the bowl, the kater, and to the cups, before the wine would ever be poured from the kater to the cups, water was added to it. And there are a lot of historical documents in Jewish literature that say sometimes it was a one-to-five mixture, sometimes a two-to-five mixture. Nelson Price is the one who shed some light on this, like at the wedding of Cana, where Jesus turned the water to wine. That word for wine there in John's gospel, he believes clearly is the word in the Greek language that speaks of mixing water and wine together. You know, Jews who know their own language and their own life, the Jewish, Talmud, which was around from 200 B.C. to 200 A.D., it gives very specific instructions. Again, this is 200 B.C. to 200 A.D., the Jewish Talmud, and it says that the water and wine is mixed in it as being discussed as being one part wine, three parts water. It was very, very diluted. Justin Martyr In A.D. 150, talked about in the early church, the Lord's Supper, in his own writings, he said that the bread was brought in and the wine and the water, how the two were mixed. Now again, there are others who will point at scriptures, they could show me five different scriptures and five different things that show it wasn't diluted. I know those verses, I've read those verses, I know those things. But I believe that this, I believe that Jewish literature and other things shows that it was diluted. So the bottom line is, it didn't have the alcohol content that we see today, which would make it a strong drink. That's where I land. Now I know there were strong drinks in the Bible, because it mentions strong drinks, and people would get drunk. If it was watered down so much, your bladder couldn't hold enough to get you drunk. But obviously some people in the Bible did get drunk off of strong drink. Here's where we land at First Baptist Church, Arnold. Our leadership, pastors and deacons, every one of our pastors, all of our deacons abstain from alcohol. Now, it's not like if they take a NyQuil before they go to bed, we bust them and kick them out of the church or anything, okay? I'm not talking cough medicines or things like that. I am clearly aware You know, in this room where we're sitting right now through the course of a month, I mean, and if you consider the people on radio, who knows how many 3,000 plus people we touch a month that's in this room. Different people through the course of an entire month. It's gotta be pushing 3,000 people. I'm not naive. I understand very, very clearly there are some people in our church who love the Lord, whom when we love them, who socially drink. It's not an issue of membership. Let me tell you something, church. Once a church starts going down the path of saying what it means to be a member, and you, outside of the core issue of Jesus Christ being my Lord and Savior and following him by believer's baptism, once you start slicing it up, and oh yeah, you can't be a member if you don't drink alcohol, you can't be a member if you use tobacco, you can't be a member if you're a Mason, you can't be a member if you watch Oprah, you can't, I mean, whatever. Once you start slicing this thing up, you have chaos, and I believe we're leaving the Bible. The grounds for the early New Testament church is to be a follower of Jesus Christ and to follow him in believer's baptism. Then we let the Lord do all those things. So we've got folks who are part of our church membership. We don't say, so you want to become a First Baptist church? Arnold, is Jesus your savior? Have you been baptized? Be a merchant and do you drink? No. But it's important, our leadership. It's so important to the life of our church that our pastors, our deacons, the leadership, we abstain from alcohol. If you're someone who does socially drink, hear me, Jesus loves you. We love you. We're glad that you're here. You're my brother, sister in Christ. We love you. I encourage you to pray and study and follow the Holy Spirit. What I want to share with you today, even if you believe it's okay to do that, I want to make a loving argument with you. Even if you believe it's okay, I don't believe it's the wisest thing to do in your life. Now come down where I am, where it's not okay for me, no way. I believe that's what the Bible teaches. But even if you're in that camp where you think it's okay, I don't want you, I want you to get away from, is it okay to socially drink? I want us to go down, is this the way to glorify God? Is this the way in our culture to advance the gospel? Is this what is best for me or best for other people? Here's what the Bible says. And why as a church we stand for abstinence but love all people. Leviticus 10.9 says, do not drink wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons with you when you come into the tent of the meeting so that you will not die. It's a perpetual statute throughout your generation. Judges 13.4, now therefore be careful. not to drink wine or strong drink, nor eat anything unclean." Proverbs 20, verse 1, wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is intoxicated by it is not wise. Isaiah 28, 7, and these also reel with wine and stagger from strong drink. The priests, the prophet reel with strong drink. They are confused by wine. They stagger from strong drink. They reel while having visions. They totter when rendering judgment. Proverbs 31.4, it is not for kings, it is not for kings to drink wine or for rulers to drink strong drink. Isaiah 5.11, woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may pursue strong drink, who stay up late in the evening that wine may inflame them. Isaiah 5.22, woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine, valiant men in mixing strong drink. Deuteronomy 29.6, you have not eaten bread nor have you drunk wine or strong drink. in order that you might know that I am the Lord your God. 1 Samuel 1 15, Hannah replied, Know my Lord, I am a woman oppressed in the spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have poured out my soul before the Lord. Romans 14.21 about brotherly love demands abstinence. It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine or do anything which causes a brother to stumble. I'll say more about that in a moment. The Nazarites, the example of Daniel and John the Baptist all abstain for he will be great in the sight of the Lord and he will drink no wine or liquor in Luke 1.15 and he will be filled with the Spirit. Notice there, He will drink no wine or liquor, but he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while in his mother's womb. Proverbs 23, verse 29 and following. Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who has wounds without a cause? Who has redness of eyes? 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, when it sparkles in the cup, when it swirls around smoothly. At the last it bites like a serpent and it stings like a viper." Again, there are scholars who make the argument in Proverbs 23, it's talking about the stronger drink that's not diluted because it talks about how it sparkles and how it bubbles and how it swirls. Verse 32, and at the last it bites like a serpent, and it stings like a viper. Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart will utter perverse things. Yes, you will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, or like the one who lies at the top of the mass, saying, they have struck me, but I was not hurt. They have beaten me, but I did not feel it. When shall I await that I may seek another drink? Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica in chapter 5, verses 6 through 8, where he contrasts sobriety with drunkenness, and he directly commands that we be sober. And the Greek word for sober in that text means to be wineless, to have no wine. I think we all would agree that we should obey the laws of the land. Again, I am not in the camp of social drinking. I want to be clear about that. But even my fellow believers who are in the camp of social drinking, I think all would agree with me we obey the laws of the land. That underage drinking is wrong. It's totally wrong. We all can agree on that. We can clearly, even if we think again social drinking is okay, the Bible says do not be drunk. To be drunk is a sin. Most people who social drink Don't social drink because they like the taste of it. Most people who social drink do so to get drunk. Okay? Even in the church. There are some who want to have a little glass of wine with their steak or whatever and feel great about it. The majority, that's hogwash. They do it to get drunk. I know people can say, well, you're a preacher. I haven't talked a lot about my past. I didn't become a believer till I was a freshman in college. And all I'll say is this, I've been down that path more than I care to talk about, about what that means, and drinking alcohol and being drunk, okay? If you, you have said before, if you knew everything about me, you would never listen to me preach. If I knew everything about you, I'd ask you to please leave. Okay? We're all sinners saved by grace. People who social drink do it primarily to get drunk. So the Bible clearly says don't get drunk. Here's the issue then, what does it mean to be drunk? If we agree the Bible clearly says a Christian is not to get drunk, what is the definition of drunk? Does Ephesians 5.18 only apply in public? Am I okay to be drunk in private, but not public? Am I okay to be drunk in my backyard, in my privacy fence, but not driving my car? Is there anything in that verse that tells us it is okay to be drunk if you're in a specific location? No, it just says do not be drunk. So the question then is even if someone believes in social drink, what is it to be drunk? Well, God created three institutions. God created the family, God created the church, and God created government. Government gives us a definition of what it means to be drunk. because we all would agree we're to obey the laws of the land. We don't want to disobey the laws of the land as Christ followers. Of course, the word drunk itself means you get to a point where alcohol is affecting, and that's so vague and arbitrary, it affects your mind, how you think, and affects your physical body. When are we drunk? Till we're slobbering and throwing up and can't stand up? Or when we got a little buzz going? When are we drunk? Is it private? Is it public? The Bible says don't be drunk. The state of Missouri says if you're at .08% blood alcohol content, you are legally, according to government that God created, you are legally drunk. At .08% alcohol content, you are impaired enough mentally and impaired enough physically that you cannot drive. Depending on the person, you could sit in the privacy of your home and have two or three glasses of wine, and if someone came in and had you blow in a breath analyzer, you would probably be above .08%. So is it okay to sit in my house, in private, with no one else around, and legally be drunk? No. I didn't really want an answer, but that's cool if you want. That's all right. So not only I'm breaking God's law, and again, I see the argument here. Well, I'm in my home. Don't be drunk. What is the definition of drunk? When is someone drunk? Where do they have to be drunk? If I can't even begin to answer those things clearly in a concrete way, why would I mess with it? Jerry Vine says moderate drinking equals moderate intoxication. The guaranteed way to never be an alcoholic is to never take one drink. It's guaranteed. There are heartbreaking stories. I know personally Christians who believe social drinking was okay and they would have a little wine now and then. Now their children are alcoholics because they watch mom and dad do that and thought it was okay. Like alcohol, if marijuana is legal, is it okay to smoke pot? Alcohol alters our mind like marijuana alters the mind. I have the mind of Christ. Why do I want to alter my mind? Well, it makes me happy. Isn't Jesus enough to make me happy? It helps me with the stress of my life. Isn't Jesus enough? The wise place to be is to abstain. Well, you're picking out a sin. That's all you Baptists do. I never hear that preacher talk about gluttony. He talks about alcohol. True, the Bible says gluttony is a sin. But number one, let's just take one sin at a time. Let's talk about the alcohol thing, then we'll go to step two and talk about the gluttony thing, okay? Let's just, let's not get in a position to say, if I've got something controversial in my life, I'm gonna look at what someone else is doing that may be controversial to make me feel better about me. Plus, can I just be blunt? I need to eat to live. I don't need to drink alcohol to live. There's a difference, okay? It's been said that, and I believe it's true, it's a real choice in our culture. It's our wine or our witness. DWIs and drunk driving in our culture. My sweet dad who's 78 years old can pull up his pant leg and you can see his bone in his leg when as a 10 year old boy he was in a school crosswalk hit by a drunk driver and it killed his little brother which killed my grandpa two weeks later. How many people in this church have experienced the heartache of a DWI, domestic disputes? I was a chaplain with the Christian County Sheriff's Department, Ozark Police Department for three years. I never walked into a room where a woman wasn't beat to a pulp with blood all over her face that her old man wasn't first drunk. I never in three years saw a sober guy beat up his wife. next-door neighbor where we lived she was he was an alcoholic and I remember in the wintertime Donna remembers this to his legs were outside on the front porch his body was in the he passed out in the doorway and I watched his little four-year-old girl and walk over her drunk daddy like this. And then he took off in the car when he got sober. And she, I was a pastor, she came over to me and said, my husband's driving drunk, he's gonna kill somebody. Would you call the police? So I called the police. About an hour later, he is beating on my door wanting to fight me because she said, he said, you called the cops on me, man. And oh man, I wanted to fight him. But I was a pastor, I couldn't do that. I'm just being honest. I wanted to put his teeth in his drunk-breath throat, but I'm sorry, that's horrible. And alcohol contributes to that. To some people in our culture, we lose our witness if we even socially drink in front of them. We lose our witness, we lose the power to advance the gospel in their life. Is it really worth that? Find someone who's had someone killed in a DWI and invite them to your house to share the gospel and offer them a social drink. Is it worth that even if you think it's okay? Are you really putting others ahead of yourself or yourself ahead of others? There's no doubt the Bible teaches us, even if we think something's okay, even if I think it's okay, if it causes one of my fellow believers to stumble, a weaker believer, maybe I'm the weaker believer, okay? If it causes the weaker believer to stumble, brotherly love demands that I put other people first and not my own preferences. That's why Romans 14, 21 again says, it is not good to eat meat or to drink wine or do anything that makes your brother stumble. Today, what I see in social drinking, this is my own two cents, because again, I wasn't raised in church and I've been down the other side of the tracks before. Man, my past, I have no desire to get near any of that junk. But what I typically see, I see, this is my two cents, I see kids who were raised in church, who were raised in a home of abstinence, and they become young adults, and in our culture, they want to show the grace and the freedom they have in Christ, so they'll post a picture on Facebook that shows them they're smiling, and just happen to have in the picture their bottle right there, to show everyone that, look at me, I was raised in the church, my legalistic parents that practice abstinence, but I have grace and I have freedom and I want you all to see that I'm a big boy and a big girl now and I can have my little drink. I think of, I say, oh man, listen, on Wednesday night, go across the parking lot to celebrate recovery and go to some of the members of this church who were alcoholics and go to some of the members of this church who had their family destroyed by alcohol, and you go over there in your little grace and freedom and show them your little churchy picture of your little alcohol. What about causing another believer to stumble? I mean, if you make a friendship with someone in this church who's a former alcoholic, And you have them in your home, you just not drink then, but you will other... Why even mess with it? I am also convinced of this more than everything in me. Social drinking in our culture today has nothing to do with theological conviction, but has everything to do with cultural comfort. Let me say it again. Social drinking in our culture has nothing to do with theological conviction. For most people, it has to do with cultural comfort. In other words, no one, I believe the majority, I won't say no one, the majority of people who socially drink today don't say, I am doing this because biblically, theologically, I have a conviction it's okay. It's called cultural comfort because if you don't drink in our culture, you're weird. Man, I have so much pressure at work. Every function we go to, they drink. All my buddies wanna go to the ball game and they all drink. And my neighbors all drink. And I just feel weird. I feel odd. It's not theological conviction, it's cultural comfort. It's just too uncomfortable in our current culture to not drink. People look at us like we're not normal. We're not normal. Normal is overrated. If we follow Jesus, we're not normal. We're not cool. We don't fit in. I'm not talking about us being legalistic and intentionally, you know, wanting to be weird. But I'm convinced it's just flat-out cultural comfort because it's easier for me to feel comfortable in my culture. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians, I'm not gonna get to the second part of the verse, by the way. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10, 31, let all that you do, whether you eat or drink, be done for the glory of God. In my own heart, my biblical conviction, here is the questions that I have about alcohol that I've never been able to resolve. Let all that you do be done, whether you eat or drink, be done for the glory of God. How does drinking alcohol glorify God? and how does drinking alcohol make me more like Jesus? How does drinking alcohol glorify God and how does it make me more like Jesus? Let me repeat what I said earlier. If you social drink, I love you, this church loves you, you're my brother and sister in Christ. It's not an issue of membership. It's an issue of what's the wisest thing to do. I believe biblically we shouldn't. But I understand I have brothers and sisters who believe biblically it's okay. Even if you believe it's okay, is it the wise, I'm not asking is it okay, I'm asking is it the wisest thing to do? How does it glorify God? How does it make me more like Jesus? I believe the way to walk in wisdom according to the word of God to glorify God is abstinence. Let me say it again. I believe the way to walk in wisdom according to the word of God to glorify God is abstinence. The position of abstinence will never be wrong. If you're dealing with a weaker believer who can stumble over your social drinking, or if you have lost people in your life who struggle with substance addiction, if you practice abstinence, it's never the wrong position dealing with a weaker brother and sister in Christ, or dealing with a lost person in your witness who has a substance addiction. You can never go wrong. If you social drink, you can go wrong in those situations. If you don't, there's never a chance of that. 1 Corinthians 6.12 says, I will not be brought under the power of anything else. James MacDonald said when it comes to alcohol, there are three groups of people. For some, it's a problem. They've got to do it. They're going a bad direction in their life. They've got to do it. Group number two, it's for amusement. They enjoy it from time to time. It's kind of nice, feels good, whatever. The third group abstains. And I believe the wisest, highest, best choice for Christ followers to abstain. We abstain because drunkenness is a sin. We abstain because alcohol impairs our wisdom. We abstain because alcohol is an unnecessary drug. We abstain because alcohol is disruptive and destructive. We abstain because alcohol is addictive. We abstain because of biblical wisdom. We abstain because I don't need a buzz to get me through the day. I've got the Holy Spirit of God to get me through the day. We abstain because biblical wisdom for the glory of God for the advancement of the gospel says that I should set it aside. Abstinence makes us More proud, and I use that word proud loosely, not in ourselves, but in Christ, when I stand before Jesus one of these days. Romans 14, 23 says, he who doubts is condemned. If it's not faith, it's sin. Listen to that once again. He who doubts is condemned. If it's not a faith, it is a sin. Believer, if you have any doubt at all in your mind about social drinking of alcohol, If you even remotely are wondering if it's right, then guess what? It's wrong. If there's any question, am I 100% sure that this is really right? Then that means 100% it's wrong. Because if you doubt, you're condemned. And if it's not a faith, then it's sin. If we walk away from Ephesians 5.18 and next time we'll come to the end of the verse thinking that this verse is all about this alcohol stuff, we've missed what the verse is about. It's not about alcohol. It's about, as a Christ follower walking in this world in wisdom and the will of God, how can I walk in a way to glorify God? How can I walk in a way to please God? And it's given us example that either I'm gonna control me or the Holy Spirit's gonna control me. And the Spirit-controlled life, the way to walk in the world with wisdom, says don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. Happy Mother's Day. Oh man, God's good. Let's pray. Father, we love you and we thank you for your word. And God, once again, we thank you. I thank you for my brothers and sisters in Christ who believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, who love you, who preach the gospel. Lord, who have a different view than me, who disagree with me, who believe that there's nowhere in the Bible that says it's 100% prohibited, and therefore, in moderation, they can do that. God, I love them, and you love them, and I thank you they're my brothers and sisters in Christ. Lord, I thank you for the position that you've brought me to in my life, that it's wrong. It's just, it's not for your people. Thank you that abstinence is the wisest path. Because Lord, we want to glorify you. We want to become more like you. We never want to be a stumbling block. God, I think of the believers in this church. Oh Lord, those who struggle with alcoholism. God, I think of lost people who are addicted. Lord Jesus, may we always love others more than ourselves. And even if we think it's okay. Is it the wisest thing? Lord, teach us. Lord, thank you that you love us, and thank you that you redeem us from alcohol, and you redeem us from sin, and you redeem us from selfishness, and you redeem us from brokenness, and you redeem us from pride, and it cost you a great price when you died on the cross for us, when you arose from the grave. Lord, I thank you that this very night, you're willing to save anyone who would come to you in faith. God, I thank you for our pastors. I thank you for our leadership, deacons. God, I thank you that, Lord, we have taken a stand to model to this church and to our family that we believe abstinence is the wisest way to walk according to the will of God and the word of God. God, I know that there's probably some folks who have left our church over this. Not that anything we've said, Lord, or pushed them away, but in their own hearts. And God, we love them. Lord, may we never break fellowship with a fellow believer over this, but may we clearly stand for you. We love you. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Would you stand please?