I want to tackle one of the last, won't be the last, as in the final controversial subject here in this passage, but one of the last controversial things in our apex here in the book of Ephesians concerning our carefulness in how we walk, and that is the issue of alcoholic beverages. So let's read Ephesians 5 and in verse 18. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. Today in our culture, drinking or the usage of alcoholic beverages is a fairly recent controversy in the life of the church. When I was much younger, several decades ago, it really wasn't a hot issue or a controversial issue, but today there's been a lot of discussion about the usage of alcoholic beverages. And in fact, it kind of reminds me a little bit, and I am dating myself here a little bit, of when I first was born again. This was in the early 80s. There was still the remnants of controversy over cigarette smoking. Any of you remember the controversies over smoking cigarettes, and many of the same justifications for alcoholic beverages were being proposed for smoking cigarettes. I don't think anybody today would advocate smoking cigarettes. I think just from a health perspective, I think most people would shy away from that, but it used to be a very, very predominant issue in the life of even conservative churches. I remember the church that I was in, I was very old in the Lord, I was about two years old in the Lord, and one of the deacons there in the church took me aside in the corner and started arguing that he didn't see anything wrong with tobacco, that God had given tobacco and tobacco had to have been in the Garden of Eden. And since God created it and it was good, he didn't see any reason why we should be smoking. And he just, I don't know why I got that thing. I had not preached on it or anything like that, but he decided that he wanted to let me in on it. And so some of the issues that we're seeing today with this kind of reminds me of the cigarette smoking issue many, many years ago. was raised in a family, not my immediate family, not my father or my mother, but my extended family that was very much engaged in using alcohol as a beverage. My grandfather actually was an alcoholic and he actually passed out in the midst of a cornfield, a farmer's cornfield. And in the morning he was still out of it, but in the morning the farmer lit his cornfield in order to burn down the chaff of the corn. He'd already gotten the corn out of the harvest and actually my grandfather was burned alive because of alcohol and its effects on him. And because of that, my father was vehemently against drinking in any shape, fashion, or form, and he would rather rail about it on many occasions to me. As I grew up, I became an alcoholic myself. I was not only an alcoholic, but I was also a drug addict. Thanks be to God, the Lord reached down and saved me from my sins. I'm very familiar with the dangers. of alcoholic and its use as a beverage. In fact, when this was before I was saved, and I'm speaking very personally here, but before I was saved, I never knew anyone who would argue that drinking was okay. It wasn't until after I was saved that professing Christians were telling me that drinking was okay. But when I was lost, no one thought that using alcohol as a beverage was okay. In fact, many of them would say that it was bad or it was actually a sin. So just to let you know where I'm coming from, my position on this is total abstinence from drinking alcoholic beverages. So I'll let you know just right off the top my position on that. When my wife and I went to the Middle East as a missionary, we were very quickly exposed to the issue of alcoholic beverages. Most of the believers, the few believers that were there in the nation in which I was serving, encouraged me, in some cases, exhorted me very strongly that I would never be able to reach the community if I was an abstainer. from drinking alcohol. In fact, that if I even mentioned that I was an abstainer, that this would be an offense, and that offense would keep people from being saved. And my wife and I actually got brought into a situation like this. Our landlord, who was a Jew, our landlord invited us to his home to celebrate the Feast of Booths, or Sukkoth, is the way it's worded in our Old Testament. And what they would do, we could actually look out of our flat or our apartment. We could look out and out in people's backyards, they would construct booths. And some of them would actually live in, and our landlord was relatively wealthy and he wouldn't do that. But he did construct a tent on his back porch and they would have the festival of booths. And I knew that they were going to have alcohol there and So I got counsel and they all told me, well, you're gonna have to go and you're gonna have to drink and all that. And to make a long story short, we did accept the invitation. And when we were there, I did mention that I did not drink to my landlord. And I was just waiting to hear the railing that was going to come upon me. And basically he looked at me and said, no problem. We have Coke right over here. In fact, they had Coke for all the children, so I just joined in with the children. And it wasn't an offense at all, and it didn't hinder our witness at all. In fact, later on, I was able to, by God's grace, to lead a Jewish lady to a profession of faith in Christ. And so, just to say all that, I do have a little history with this situation. In preparation for this, I did want to take a fresh look at the arguments pro and against, and I decided that I was going to gather information on both sides, and I found an article. It was written in the 1800s. that examined every usage of beverage terms in the Old and New Testament. And so I downloaded it, and I read, and I read, and I read, and I found out that I just read part one. And it was like 200 pages. And I was exhausted. But it was the most thorough examination that I've been able to find concerning this subject and his position at the end of the paper is total abstinence for today. And so just to let you know that there have been people who have really given a lot of energies to this subject and I did not go that far with it. What I did find as I looked at articles, YouTube sessions, teachings, I did find one common error through all of this teaching, and I do want to mention this right at the front, and that is, I'm just going to use the word most, most modern discussions concerning alcoholic beverages make the mistake of just going through the whole Bible through all different dispensations and considering it all as one. In other words, assuming that the Lord's warnings on food and drink are uniform throughout all the dispensations of the Bible. That is a mistake. And in fact we know from the Bible that the Bible has been given to us progressively. Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 and 2 teaches us this, that in these last days God has spoken how? by his son. In other words, there's been a progression of revelation from the Garden of Eden all the way to our New Testament. And in that progression of revelation, there are dispensations in which God has revealed his mind and will for his people. And what we learn when we look at those dispensations is this, I'm gonna give you three things that I think would be helpful here. Number one, there are cases where the Old Testament allows what the New Testament allows. For example, does the New Testament allow pastors and preachers to marry? The answer to that is yes. In the Old Testament, does God permit the priest to marry? The answer to that is yes. So here we have a situation where the Old Testament would allow something that the New Testament allows. Secondly, We have situations where the Old Testament forbids something, but the New Testament allows it. Can you think of the obvious one? Well, think about the dietary law. Are New Testament believers under the dietary law? The answer to that is no. God has made all things edible as long as it's received with Thanksgiving. But in the Old Testament, they couldn't eat certain foods, right? So here we have a situation where the Old Testament forbids something, but the New Testament allows us to do it. And so in the Old Testament, again, you couldn't eat certain meats, you couldn't eat swine, you couldn't eat pig. Well, that rules out your bacon, that rules out all that, right? But some of you would say, thanks be to God, in the New Testament, we can eat bacon, right? So the Old Testament forbidding something that the New Testament allows. And then there is the third situation where the Old Testament may allow something, but the New Testament either forbids or discourages it. And that would be in the case of wine. So if you just look in your Old Testament, I think it's commonly understood that in the Old Testament, they drank what? They drank wine. And I think we would be foolish to try to read something back into the Old Testament just because the New Testament discourages it. In fact, one commentator wrote this, and I'm quoting. Efforts to impose abstinence back into the Old Testament fails, as well as efforts to impose alcoholic consumption into the New Testament fails. And I think that's a very astute statement. Is there benefit to going back to the New Testament and looking at those passages? The answer to that is absolutely yes. But we understand as new covenant believers that in our Bibles the New Testament takes precedence over the Old Testament law. So I think that's very important for us to understand. In some cases, the Old Testament encourages the drinking of wine. In many cases, the Old Testament warns against the drinking of what? Of wine. And in the New Testament, we of course have certain things associated with it. So I do think that we need to be careful in our study of the Bible concerning this issue. The second thing that I want to bring out is right here in this passage in Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 18. We have this comparison. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation. but be filled with the Spirit. And as we've gone through these results of being filled with the Spirit, being filled with the fullness of God, as we've gone through there, I've made this statement, that Paul is using the phrase, do not get drunk with wine, in reference to our former manner of life, the way we used to live as Gentile people. And then he's using the phrase, but be filled with the spirit to refer to our, not our old manner of life, but our new manner of life. And folks, if that's the case, I think that we need to exercise, just from this one passage, that we need to exercise caution if we're arguing for the use of alcohol as a beverage. Because here, Paul's using this phrase, don't be drunk with wine, as a broad description of our old manner of what? Our old manner of life. And he's using the description, but be filled with the spirit to our new manner of life. So this phrase, do not be drunk with wine, wherein is dissipation, is actually the opposite of what we ought to be doing. The second thing that we see here in this passage is that we're not to be drunk with wine, for that is dissipation. Here we have this, that dissipation is in the wine. And you might see that when you look in your margin if it gives a literal rendition it'll say in which is this aspect. And this phrase dissipation refers to a lack of control. So in wine is a complete disintegration of a lack of control. And of course one of the fruit of the spirit is self-control. So here we have this thing where wine This type of living, in fact, if you say someone is living this type of life, you mean that they are descending into a life of drunkenness and sexual inhibition. So again, what we have here is this opposite of what we should be doing. That the usage of alcohol as a beverage has within the beverage a loosening of self-constraint or the loosening of our morals. And I think a little bit of thought will have us all be in agreement with that. This is why people what? That's why they get drunk. That's why they drink. Because they're going to have a good, they're going to have a good time. The other thing that I want us to look at is in the book of 1 Corinthians. And I want to give a warning here. When we're considering this, And that is in 1 Corinthians chapter eight and chapter six. What we have here is an argument from the Corinthians for the use of their liberties. And I'm here in 1 Corinthians chapter six and in verse 12, here's what the Corinthians were saying. They were saying in 1 Corinthians 6 that they could go to the temple, that they actually could engage in fornication. And they said, well, Paul, all things are lawful for me. But Paul counters it in verse 12 by saying not all things are profitable. He repeats what the argument that the Corinthians were giving. All things are lawful for me, Paul counters, but I will not be mastered by anything. The Corinthians counter, verse 13, food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Is the stomach for food? And food is for the stomach. And since all things are lawful for me, it doesn't matter what I eat or drink, it doesn't matter if I go to the temple and engage in sexual immorality, all things are lawful for me. But yet Paul says in verse 13, he counters, the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord is for the body. Now I quote that to say, there is a danger when we are arguing for liberties. Is this not what the Corinthians are arguing for? They're saying everything's lawful for me, so I get to do anything that the Bible does not explicitly tell me I can't do. And folks, the Bible really cautions us when we argue this way. More often than not, when we're arguing for a liberty, We are arguing for the liberty because we want to do the liberty. It's not that we're trying to evaluate from the Bible what is God's mind, how should we handle this. No, we want to do the liberty, therefore we end up arguing for the liberty to do it and even using the Bible to do it. And even using the words of the Apostle Paul to do it. And I think that there is a grave danger there. I've given this illustration before. This man, as far as I know, is now with the Lord. But there was a man in my previous ministry who was against divorce and remarriage. He was adamant about this. He stood with me on that issue. He really argued it with people who did not take that position. And he was staunch about it. And I was very thankful for that, because I believe that is the Bible position. And his wife died, and she went home to be with the Lord. And four months later, he was wanting to marry a divorced person. And he said that he had gone in the Bible, and he had looked at it, Good men differed on this, and so here was this person, and he decided it was okay. Why do you think he was arguing for that liberty? Because he wanted to what? He wanted to marry a divorced person. And folks, we can, we can, the Bible speaks of this, we can use a liberty as a cover for what we really want to do. And folks, the Bible is actually, when it comes to our liberties, the Bible actually argues not for the use of the liberty, it actually argues for us to deny our liberties. And so if you go over to 1 Corinthians 8, 9, and 10, he actually brings this up concerning their argument to be able to go to the idol's temple and to partake in their feast. I mean, food is nothing and God created it, so I ought to be able to do that. I'm strong enough to be able to do that. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8, now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. And then Paul goes on here in 1 Corinthians 8, and he actually is going to come down and actually say, now look, you need to actually deny your liberties at times. And when I was a newly born again believer, and like I mentioned earlier, no one ever argued with me that drinking was okay until after I got saved, and all these religious people were now trying to tell me that drinking was okay. And it really sent me into a whirlwind. Until the Lord had me read 1 Corinthians 8, When it says in verse 13, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again so that I will not cause my brother to stumble. Does everybody read that? Do we have a liberty to eat whatever we want to eat? Yes or no? We have that liberty. But folks, when I was in the Middle East, and the nation that I was serving in did not believe in eating certain foods, guess what my position about that food was? We did not eat it, lest it cause someone to stumble. And folks, I think that it is very evident that the use of alcoholic beverage, even if I have the liberty to partake of it, is a potential stumbling block to other people who might see me partake of it or argue for it. indulge in it themselves and end up stumbling because of it. And the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 9, it says that this denial of liberty feels this way. Look at verse 26. Therefore I run in such a way as not without aim, I box in such a way as not beating the air, but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified." Folks, denying our liberty For the gospel sake, Paul says, it feels like I'm running a marathon. You may have never run a marathon. I've run five of them. And I'm just gonna tell you that as you run that marathon, it becomes very tiring and very weary. It can be weary to deny a liberty. And he also says that denying a liberty can feel like giving yourself a black eye. How would that feel? I always ask my brother back there, take your fist, you don't have on glasses, right? Take your fist and just go. Would you say, ah, feels so good? It doesn't feel good, does it? Folks, denying our liberty can feel that way. Denying a liberty can feel like handling a rebellious feeling from your body. But what do we do? We discipline our body. and make it our what? Our slave. So if I'm in that nation in which I'm serving and they don't eat certain foods, I may love that food, I may wake up one day and think I gotta have that food, but I do what? My body's saying eat the food, the scripture says I have the liberty to eat the food, but I don't what? I don't eat the food. I make my body my slave. And folks, that's why I'm saying that when it comes to this issue there is a danger when we're arguing for the partaking of a liberty that it could just be an excuse covering over what you really want to do versus arguing for a denial of a liberty for the sake of a brother or a sister. And in fact, many of our Christian forefathers have lost their lives over a liberty. For instance, let's take this issue. Let's take the issue of clerical garments. If I wore a Catholic priest's garment, Anything sinful about that garment? That garment's not inherently sinful? Do I have the liberty to wear a garment like that? I do have the liberty to wear a garment like that. Would it be profitable for me to wear a garment like that? The answer to that is no. Could it be a stumbling block to someone Could it be that I'm giving implicit okay to a certain denomination? The answer to that is yes, but folks, many of our Christian forefathers would not do that. And they were persecuted for it. They were persecuted for denying a liberty. And you and I may be persecuted for denying ourselves a liberty that the Bible says that we can do. So my point is this, that even if you disagree with me and you think that we have the liberty to partake of alcoholic beverages, The Bible's argument with you would be this, that you really do need to consider denying that liberty for the sake of a brother or a sister, because they may see that, partake in that, and really fall into transgression because of it. Now I want us to turn to the book of Romans, chapter 14. The book of Romans, chapter 14. This is another passage that the Lord graciously guided me to, and really, it just nailed this for me when I was dealing with it as a very young Christian. When the Bible tells us in verse 21 of this chapter 14, it says, it is good not to eat meat or to drink wine or to do anything by which your brother stumbles. In many cases, when we're talking about perceived liberties in the Bible, the one law that we hardly ever bring up is the law of love. Love to my fellow man. And folks, there are many, many things that can be a stumbling block to someone else. But in this discussion concerning alcohol, and you're talking about the law of cruciform love, and you're talking about the fact that many, many professing Christian people have fallen in this area, and other Christian people have really struggled with this, we need to consider in our considerations the supreme law, the law of cruciform love. And Paul just says very emphatically, I will not do anything by which my brother will, what? Will stumble. Now folks, the world understands this. That's probably the most sorrowful thing about the issue is that the world understands this. I want to quote to you from an article that was written in the July-August issue 2021 in the Atlantic magazine. The Atlantic magazine, it's a New York magazine, it's not a conservative magazine, it's not even a Christian magazine. In that magazine they had an article, a very long article, I read the whole thing. The title of it was, America has a drinking problem. Now just think about that just for a second with the title. Here's the world looking at America and saying what? We have a drinking problem. And yet we have within the church of Jesus Christ people arguing to do this. The conclusion of the article was not abstinence. But in this article, and I'm going to read fairly lengthy, I know sometimes it can be boring for me to read something to you, but a very lengthy section here in this article, because I think it's helpful in this fact that we're not going to do anything by which our brother stumbles when we think about here's lost people and here's what they say. They went through the whole history of alcoholic beverages from the dawn of time all the way to the present day America. And in the middle of the article, they write this. But this rosy story about how alcohol made more friendships in advanced civilization comes with two enormous asterisks. All of this was before the advent of liquor and before humans started regularly drinking alone. And here's what they write about New Testament days. This is lost people writing this. This isn't me. The early Greeks watered down their wine swilling it full strength was, they believed, barbaric. A recipe for chaos and violence. That's what Paul says in Ephesians, right? Don't be drunk with wine because in wine is chaos and violence. Quote, They would have been absolutely horrified by the potential for chaos contained in a bottle of brandy. This is the world. Singerlin writes, and I'm just quoting him, human beings, he notes, are apes built to drink. but not 100 proof vodka. We are also not well equipped to control our drinking without social help. The article continues. Distilled alcohol is recent. It became widespread in China in the 13th century and in Europe in the 16th to 18th centuries. A different beast from what came before it. Fallen grapes that have fermented on the ground are about 3% alcohol by volume. Beer and wine run about 5 and 11% respectively. At these levels, unless people are strenuously trying, they rarely manage to drink enough to pass out, let alone die. So in Jesus's day, you had to make an effort. Continues. Modern liquor, however, is 40 to 50% alcohol by volume, making it easy to blow right past a pleasant social buzz and into all sorts of tragic outcomes. That's what Paul says in Ephesians 5, verse 18. He continues. Just as people were learning to love their gin and whiskey, more of them, especially in parts of Europe and North America, started drinking outside of family meals and social gatherings. As the Industrial Revolution raged, alcohol use became less leisurely. Drinking establishments suddenly started to feature the long counters that we associate with the word bar today, enabling people to drink on the go rather than around a table with other drinkers. This short move across the bar room reflects a fairly dramatic break from tradition. Solitary drinking had been almost unheard of among humans. The social context of drinking turns out to matter quite a lot to how alcohol affects us psychologically, physiology. Although we tend to think of alcohol as reducing anxiety, it doesn't do so uniformly. Now listen to this. Michael Sayek, a leading alcohol researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, recently told me, if you packaged alcohol as an anti-anxiety serum and submitted it to the FDA, it would never be approved. You know why it wouldn't be approved? It's a toxin. Alcohol is a toxin. Your body treats alcohol as if it's a poison. That is scientifically proven. And the world knows that. America does have a drinking problem, right? Folks, let's not bring that into the church. Let's not bring that into the church. The Old Testament allowed wine to be partook of commonly. However, the Old Testament permission was qualified. And of course we know that if you read the book of Wisdom, which is the book of Proverbs, we know that Proverbs, a book of wisdom, dogmatically declares that the partaking of alcoholic beverages is foolish and dangerous. But when we get from the Old Testament into the New Testament to today, Two martinis today is the equivalent of 22 glasses of New Testament wine. 22 glasses. I would call that staying long at the wine. To be able to drink 22 glasses, the equivalent of two martinis today. Not only inherent within the wine is this lack of self-control and loosening of morals, but as we've already discussed, we can call someone to stumble. We can offend someone. I was with a lost person and they were with me and we were at a A dinner of sorts. And another person that I knew of was recognized as a Christian. And this person that I was with knew that they said that they were a Christian. And this person that I was sitting with at this table looked over at this other person and they were drinking. And this lost person looked at me and said, I thought he was a Christian. That's an offense. It's not just another brother's stumble, it was offensive. It was a stumbling block for that lost person. Or we could even weaken somebody by the positions that we take. And brethren, when it comes to this issue, and again, I'm not being comprehensive, you don't have time for a 400 page explanation. But when it comes to this issue of the partaking of alcoholic beverages, the New Testament definitely encourages abstinence. Now I want you to turn to 1 Timothy as we look at this. 1 Timothy. We know from 1 Timothy chapter 3, And verse 2, that the New Testament restricts the use of wine. How do we know that? Well, 1 Timothy chapter 3 verses 1 and 2 deals with the office of an elder. And it says in verse 3 that one of his qualifications is he is not addicted to what? He's not addicted to wine. So is the New Testament restricting the use of wine? The answer to that is yes. If you look at 1 Timothy 3, look at verse 8. Deacons likewise must be men of dignity, not double-tongued or addicted to much, what? Much wine. So there is restriction of this even in New Testament days. But folks, when you look on in 1 Timothy and you go to chapter five, and you look down at verse 23, and you look at Timothy, Paul writes to Timothy, no longer drink water exclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments." Everybody see that passage? So he's advocating to Timothy to use wine as a medicine, right? But here's my point. Paul had to command Timothy to drink wine. Everybody see that? So was Timothy an abstainer? He was an abstainer. As it were, he just drank water. And folks, if he's an abstainer and Paul would do all things for the sake of the gospel, that though the Old Testament uses wine commonly, though it does have restrictions and warnings about it, when we get to the New Testament, even the New Testament places restrictions on the usage of wine. And when it came to the apostolic company, Timothy specifically, Timothy himself was an abstainer from this. And folks, that really is the road that you and I should take. When you look at the fact that in wine is this lack of self-control and self-restraint of our morals, when you look at the fact that Paul uses don't be drunk with wine as a category for our old manner of life, When you look at the fact that the drinking of alcoholic beverages can be a stumbling block and offense to other people, it can even keep people from coming to Christ. When you look at the fact that science says that the use of alcohol is a toxin, it's a poison, I just don't see how you could say Well, you have the liberty to drink poison. Do you have the liberty to drink poison? Sure. But what's going to happen? I think that the Bible recommendation for our day, the path of wisdom in our day, is to be an abstainer. At best, at best, wine is unwise and dangerous. That's at best. And at worst, it's a sin against other believers and the body of Christ. And I hope you can see that wisdom that is involved in that. Now I want to conclude by reading to you another section that I do think that you will find interesting and I'm not reading this as a mockery but I am reading this because a good friend of mine actually ran across this article by accident but a good friend of mine wrote this in 2014 And he entitled it, Drinking Cheeseburgers and Marijuana. So you can tell that's kind of a clickbait. You want to click that and find out what he wants to say. But he starts off this article by saying that Pastor Mike Harding of First Baptist Church of Troy was invited to debate the issue of alcoholic beverages on Moody Radio. And the title of the program was called Up for Debate. So they were gonna have a debate. Pastor Harding argued for the position of abstinence. And he said this, while the Bible, in his opinion, does not explicitly prohibit the use of alcoholic beverage, Christians should nevertheless abstain for the sake of their Christian witness. On the other side of the debate was John Smith. He is a Reformed Baptist pastor and brewer from Pennsylvania. And so they were here on this forum. So you could just, I know Pastor Harding, probably fireworks were going off. But anyway, so they had had this argument. Because if you say that I can, partake, that the high road here is to partake alcoholic beverages, then you have to answer this question. Because everybody agrees with this. Everybody agrees you should not get drunk. So here's the question you have to answer. How do I know when I get drunk? Well, that came up in the debate. He writes, the second issue in the debate was equally troubling. Near the end of the interaction, the moderator asked John Smith how a person would know when he's had too much to drink. In effect, when does drinking in moderation end and drinking in excess begin? That's a great question, isn't it? Smith's answer to the question is one, I'm quoting my brother here, His answer to the question is one that I've heard before. Rather than providing a straightforward response, he replied, well, how do you know when you've eaten too many cheeseburgers? Both alcohol and cheeseburgers can be consumed in sinfully excessive ways, according to John Smith. Is he right? Could I sin eating cheeseburgers? You could be a glutton, could you not? Gluttony is a sin, we agree? Drunkenness is a sin, we agree? So eating and drinking are both permitted according to John Smith and good when done in moderation. But John Smith thought that his cheeseburger response was sufficient to answer the amount question. In effect, a person just knows when he's crossed the line. So there's the scenario. So my brother responds to this. Now let's think about this comparison just for a moment. While I would agree that gluttony is to be avoided, eating too many cheeseburgers is hardly a suitable comparison for drinking too much alcohol. What does gluttony look like? Going to a church fellowship and having one more cheeseburger because they taste so good and then afterward wishing you had refrained? Who among us hasn't overindulged at a church picnic or a family Thanksgiving or some other feast? But this is hardly the same as drinking too much alcohol. In the first place, when someone eats too many cheeseburgers, he may, quote, feel full, but eat another one anyway. By contrast, you may not feel drunk until you're well past the point of sobriety. I recently heard a news report that suggested that when people drink socially, they generally underestimate by about one half how much alcohol they actually consumed, and they overestimate by the same amount how little affected they are by their drinking. In other words, the consumers themselves really can't tell when they've had too much. Why should they be able to tell? Well, overuse of alcohol involves a complex of issues, body mass, the drinker's weight, time of day, fatigue, kind of alcohol, whether you drank it with food or without food. It's impossible to know when someone's had too much. But even if it were equally impossible to know when one's had too much of either cheeseburgers or alcohol, important differences remain. With alcohol, a mistake in this area can have devastating effects. When is the last time you've heard of a person killed in a motor vehicle accident because someone had too many cheeseburgers? When was the last time you were stopped at a police roadside checkpoint and the policeman asked, have you been eating cheeseburgers tonight? I worked, the writer, I worked in an ambulance years ago, and I don't recall ever attending a bar fight that was brought about by overeating cheeseburgers. I don't think you can lose your license for driving under the influence of cheeseburgers. And I don't believe that there's a cheeseburger tank at the local police station where the cops put you on Friday night after they picked you up at the local Burger King for overindulging. There's no mothers against excessive cheeseburgers. Or cheeseburgers are nominous. The comparison is downright silly. Now, I wasn't going to read that, but I read it for the sake of our young people. Because this is the type of argument that they come to you with. Well, alcohol is okay. People are gluttons. Gluttony's a sin, isn't it? Well, it's not a sin unless I overindulge. The comparison is silly. He closes it by saying, whether it's eating cheeseburgers or drinking alcohol, one may really not know when one has consumed too much. In one case, you may need Tums. But in the case of too much alcohol, the consequences can be significant and seriously affect many other people. I think the New Testament position and the wisdom position is to abstain total abstinence from all drinking of alcoholic beverages. And I trust that by the grace of God that this might help you understand how to navigate this issue in a day where many Christians are arguing for something only because they want to do it. And folks, it is a danger when you decide you want to do something And then you go to your Bible to find out whether to okay what you want to do. You really want to go to the Bible and say, what does the Bible say about something? And we really want to have a type of love for our brethren and for lost people to not be a stumbling block to them in any shape, fashion, or form. Let's pray.