We're looking at the topic tonight of addiction. The topic of addiction, drug and alcohol use. How do you think through all of that as Christians? That's what we wanna look at tonight. Before I begin, just by giving a little bit of a teaching on it, I wanna invite you to watch a video with me. If you did read the PDF of the book that was here on addiction, at the very end, he recommended a testimony. It's Brian Welch. He was a lead singer for a band named Korn, one of the biggest heavy metal bands of about 15 years ago when the Lord saved him. But he was a man who struggled with addiction. The video might be a little surprising to us in reform circles because you'll see very shortly, being a heavy metal rocker, he doesn't look like us, looks very different. Even the way that he expresses himself can be very different. And so, keep those things in mind but it's good these are brothers and sisters in the Lord whom God has chosen to save So in my head, I was like, OK, I'm going to accept Christ in front of everybody right now. Then I'm going to go home and snort drugs until I don't want to do them anymore. And that was my way of thinking. So I received Christ at the church. I went home, neglected my daughter, and put her in front of the TV. I remember I grabbed a $100 bill. I always used a $100 bill for some reason, pride or something. I chopped up my crystal meth. got it all smooth and powdery and I snorted a big ol' line and I held the bill and I looked up and I said, Jesus, if you're real like that pastor said, then you gotta take these drugs from me. Come into my life, come into my heart. And I just got quiet. I said, search me right now, search my heart. And I stayed silent. And I said, you know I want to quit. You know I want to be a good dad for this kid. She lost her mother to drugs. And she's going to lose me if I don't quit. Amen. There's a high when you go on stage and you see all these people, like, just loving your music and loving you and stuff. And there's these girls and all these people going, worshiping me. When you see all those people just going nuts for you, it's like, you know, it puffs you up inside. You're like, you know, I'm important. That's where drugs can creep in and, you know, cocaine or whatever, methamphetamines crept in. It all came from after drinking for me and my friends. And it seems like fun in the beginning. It's alive because it it turns around on you, it starts to wear on your personality, it starts to wear on your relationships, and everything is affected by it negatively. Everything. There was a few times where life seemed good. My daughter, Janae, she came into the world, and I was like, it was just such a euphoric feeling. I thought my life could just feel like that forever, you know? It was like a spiritual, just, I didn't know what was happening. I just felt so much love just fill my emotions. And I thought I was gonna be happy, but, I just couldn't, I couldn't stay sober. I didn't know how. I hit rock bottom. I had swore that I would never do methamphetamines again because I saw what it did to my child's mother. It, it just took her feelings away and made her leave her kid. I just wanted her dead. I wanted to kill her. I thought she was a scum of the earth and uh, you know, how could she do drugs like that and let the drugs win her like that. So I never was going to do meth again. I ended up with an everyday crippling addiction to methamphetamine and everything that I said about my ex-wife came true for me. I sunk to the lowest gutter I could ever think of. I would spend time with my kid and I'd still be on it because I needed it to function. I'd get up in the morning, have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and snort meth and then take her to school, or whatever. It was just, I was a junkie. I started losing my mind. This guy would show up at my house with like a gun and stuff. And then I ran out in Europe, had my drug dealer send me drugs through the mail. And I'd be tweaked out in my hotel room watching this package come from The U.S., it's just nuts. My life just was like spinning out of control. Janaya had come out on one of the tours in the U.S. I just remember her skipping around the house singing one of our Korn songs called Adidas. All day I dream about sex. And I'm like going, what am I doing? I'm a junkie. My daughter's singing All Day I Dream About Sex. And I'm going to die. father. My real estate broker, Eric, he said, Brian, I don't mean to be weird with you, and I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I felt the scripture jump out at me. I've never done this before, so I don't really know how to do this, but I felt like this would mean something to you. It's Matthew 11 28 come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest I Remember all tweaked out. I looked up in the dictionary wary I looked up burdened and I just I pulled the scripture apart and I was like I'm weary and burdened and I need rest for my soul and I didn't know if it was real, but they invited me to church a couple weeks later, and I received Christ at the church. I went home, neglected my daughter, got it all smooth and powdery. Jesus, you gotta take these drugs from me. Search me right now. Search my heart. Father, I felt so much fatherly love from heaven. And it was like, I don't condemn you. I love you. I love you. It was just love, love. And instantly, that love from God came into me. It was so powerful that the next day I threw away all my drugs. I quit corn. I was like, I'm quitting corn and I'm going to raise my kid. Because my kid, like I got the love from God coming to me and then it came out of me to my kid. It changed me. My heart was changed like that. And I was like, Jenea, daddy's going to be home with you all the time. I'm quitting my career. And her face lit up and she's like, for me, you know, she felt so special. And God used her to save me. To save her life later on. My dream came true way more than I dreamt about. I made more money. I played bigger shows. I mean, houses, cars. I tried drugs. I tried sex. I tried everything to try to get pleasure out of this life. And I thought that I could fulfill my life with all this stuff by having my dream come true. And it came true, but it didn't fulfill it. When Christ came in, That feeling, He gives you the gift of understanding life, which is everything was created for Christ and by Him, and we're created to be with Him. And it's the most incredible feeling because you're where you belong. And contentment is given to you in life because you don't have to look anywhere else. and you're exactly where you need to be. And the question about life is answered. I'm Brian Head Welch, and I am second. Well, the danger of showing a video like that is that we might be tempted to think, well, of course a guy like that would be addicted to drugs, or of course a guy like that would struggle with alcohol, or of course a guy like that would be a person, you know, who would indulge in those things. And we might think, you know, that's not really common to our kind of people, or that's not very common to the world that I'm living in, the circles that we're in. I know a pastor very well who, you know, was addicted to marijuana in high school and also alcohol and that's what he went to on the weekends and throughout the week with friends, you know, playing football, playing baseball, enjoying just being popular and living the good life of being a young, young man. And that's your pastor. That was me. before the Lord came into my life and saved me, before I became converted, before I went to college, that was my life. And addiction, struggles with alcohol, struggles with marijuana, struggles with different kinds of substances is a common thing that's in our world. One of the lies that's written about in the book, that hopefully you got a PDF to read, is that it's not a big problem in our culture. That was one of the lies that he addressed at the start, that this issue is not really that big of a deal. and he highlights that and says, no, in all of these different areas it's a big deal. It's a big deal in high school. And he gives you the statistics. 58% of 12th graders have used alcohol, 35% have used marijuana, 24% have used illicit drugs. And when they get a little bit older, go to college, the statistics are higher. 79% have consumed alcohol, 35% do binge drinking, which is a habitual drunkenness kind of drinking, and And there's that place in, he mentioned in Huntington, West Virginia, where one in four are addicted to heroin or some kind of opioid. So, you know, it's sad. It's sad to think about the reality of addiction, alcohol abuse, and drug abuse. Just a few months ago, and a couple from here were also at the conference or the talk, but a Canadian Reformed pastor gave a talk, Ian Wildeboer, at one of the churches near Waterdown. And I remember him talking about the life of the church and being a missional church. And he says, one of the interesting questions to ask your neighbor, you know, your unchurched neighbor, is what do you think of when you hear about our denomination? When you see Canadian Reformed, what comes to your mind? It's an interesting question to ask your neighbor, right? And this person, and he's heard it from multiple persons outside of the Canadian Reformed, he says, oh, Canadian Reformed, that's heavy drinkers. Those are the people that drink a lot. And that's how non-Christians, how outsiders viewed your church denomination when they heard that name. Now, we don't wanna pick on Canadian reform people, he brought that up in the talk, because the same is true in our own circles, that we have this kind of brokenness here. I've heard it from multiple young people at different conferences, at different events where I've talked with young people about issues that they struggle with, and what's come up multiple times is alcohol and heavy drug use. It's not foreign to our churches. It's not foreign to our children. It's not foreign to our schools. It's an issue that happens here. And so that's why we're thinking about this tonight. How does God's word address this issue? What does it have to say about alcohol and drug use? As Christians, how should we think about this? What are some categories? And what's the hope that we do have for those addicted inside the church and those outside of the church as well? And I hope this will be also helpful for discussion. We can't talk about a lot of things tonight, but I would really like to. He zooms in on alcohol, so that's what I'm gonna zoom in on, but marijuana is equally as important to think about, and maybe we could talk about that. It's one of the questions in the discussion. Maybe we could talk about that as a group, but I'm not gonna zero in on that in this part, but I hope you'll see that there's categories that scripture gives to us that can be applied to that. So first, I'm gonna dive into thinking about alcohol, this particular drug, you could say, and think about this topic. What does the Bible have to say about it? can a Christian drink alcohol to the glory of God? Hold our breath, let's see. Well, there's two things I think the Bible does say about it. And first I wanna highlight the positive. The Bible actually highlights alcohol, specifically wine, as a good gift from God. A good gift. You probably know what the first sign that Jesus performed in John chapter two, that evidenced a bit of who he was, what sign was it? The water into wine, good, yeah. It's an interesting miracle that our Lord performed. The wine had already run out at the wedding, the people had already had their drink, and he doesn't turn the water of wine and give them another cheap batch, some of the watered down stuff, that's usually what they did give, kind of a diluted kind of wine, but he saves the best for last. He gives them a very enjoyable wine to enjoy. Maybe you've heard the joke concerning this debate about alcohol and whether Christians can enjoy it. But the joke is, you know, Jesus turned the water into wine and the Baptists have been trying to turn it back ever since. So I could say that I went to a Baptist seminary for a year. It's the first church I was converted in. So I enjoyed it, talking about these things. But the scripture highlights wine as a good gift. Alcohol, Psalm 104 verse 14 and 15, the psalmist says, you cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate that he might bring forth food from the earth. And you've given wine to gladden the heart of man and oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen his heart. When you think about God's purposes for it, he gives it for a sense of enjoyment. Wine in the Bible is a symbolism, a symbolic for celebration. It's a symbol for enjoyment, to gladden the heart of man, it said. The Lord Jesus instituted wine for part of the Lord's supper. Again, not just water, but wine to show the celebration of what he has done, along with the symbolism of pointing to his blood. Moreover, in the Bible, the new creation, the place that we're looking forward to, part of the symbolism used in that picture is of wine given to the people of God for this celebration of what God has done. Isaiah 25, on this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast full of marrow, of well-aged wine, well-refined. In other words, it's not gonna be the cheap stuff that's there, the two buck chucks that's at the table, but it's the best of the best that God gives to enjoy that his people might celebrate his victory ultimately. At this point, maybe the wine lovers among us might celebrate and say, yes, we like that point. Amen, pastor, it's a good gift. Thank you for highlighting that. But that's not all the scripture say about it. It's a very balanced view of wine of alcohol. The first thing, it is a good gift. But secondly, the Bible highlights how it can be very dangerous, very dangerous as well. You know, because of sin, the desires that we have, the cravings that we have, even the good gifts of God, every single one of God's good gifts in the Bible can be perverted because of our sin nature. When you think about overindulgence and abusing a good gift like alcohol, we need to remember that doesn't just happen with alcohol. Right? God gives us good gifts and food, but what's the sin associated with food? We could become gluttons, right? We become those who overindulge, those who twist this good gift and we turn into gluttons. Moreover, God gives us sexual cravings and we could twist that good gift as well, that desire and pervert it. and engage in sexual immorality. So the Bible then, because it knows our tendencies to abuse all of the good gifts of God in different ways, it warns us about abusing this gift here, and it shows us the real dangers. We wanna hear those as well. Proverbs 20 verse one. Proverbs 20 verse one, it says, wine is a mocker, a strong drink, it's a brawler, and whoever is led astray by them is not wise. It's that picture of wine beating you up, leading you astray. This one's fascinating. Proverbs 23, 29 through 35, it's a little longer, but it captures what happens when we're mastered by alcohol. This is what it says. It says, who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of the eyes? Those who tarry long over wine, those who try mixed wine, those do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. In the end, it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. Your eyes will see strange things and your hearts utter perverse things. You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on top of a mast. They struck me, you will say, but I was not hurt. They beat me and I did not feel it. When shall I wake? I must have another drink. In this proverb, we see the sorrow that alcohol abuse can bring upon us when it takes hold of us. That as we began to maybe enjoy it as a good gift, if we're not careful and we abuse it, then it becomes something that controls us. It becomes a harsh master that abuses us. and we become addicted. As the proverb says here, when I awake, I must have another's drink. You see, whenever we exchange really at the heart of any kind of abuse, whether it be alcohol abuse, marijuana abuse, or any kind of substance abuse, whenever we exchange God for one of those things, it becomes an idol. It becomes a false God and that God will always, always, always destroy us. It looks good, the Proverbs say, but it stings like a serpent. It bites like a serpent. It masters you. And that happens with any false God that we put in the place of the one true God who can give us what we stand in need of. Lastly, the scriptures here, there's other scriptures as well. I'm just giving you a brief survey, but Galatians 5, 19 through 21, it warns amongst the list of people who will not inherit the kingdom of God, it lists drunkards, those who, become drunk with wine, they will not inherit the kingdom of God, those who have that habitual life of drunkenness. And so we have to be careful, right? We see it from these two things. It's a good gift to gladden the heart of man, to celebrate, to enjoy, but it can be very dangerous if we go into it with the wrong mindset. If we go with it with a sense of pride as well, right? If any man thinks he stands, let him take heed lest he fall. Well, in light of this, secondly, how are we to approach it as Christians? You know, if it's good, but it's dangerous, then how do I approach it? And there's different ways that Christians come to that conclusion, different conclusions they come to. Some choose to fully abstain. Look, it's dangerous, right? I'm just gonna just be really careful. I'm just not gonna enjoy it at all because it's dangerous. And that is a legitimate option, especially if drunkenness has marked your past or is associated with a certain lifestyle in your family. There might be multiple reasons a Christian might say, no, look, for me and my conscience, I need to abstain. Again, I told you a little bit of my story, having struggled with that through high school. I had to take a break from enjoying any kind of alcohol for a number of years so I could learn in a sense some healing and learn how to engage it responsibly. because if I were to have gone to it too quickly, I would have associated it with just partying. So there's a sense in which people abstain for different reasons. And there's good times for all Christians to abstain. Whether or not your conscience leads you to have a glass of wine or a beer, there's occasions for all Christians to abstain. If you're with a person who cannot drink, as the book says, without overindulging, it's good to abstain. If you're with people who are inclined to drunkenness, you don't want to participate to promote their sin. The Apostle Paul writes, even though there might be issues of Christian freedom, he says, you always wanna lay aside your rights for the sake of love. That's a great principle we can think of when we think of alcohol and whether or not I should enjoy it amongst other Christians. If there's a brother or sister there who is struggling with alcohol addiction or who has in the past, you abstain for the sake of love for your brother and sister. You don't say, I have freedom in Christ and so I'm gonna insist on my rights. No, for love's sake, Paul says, lay aside that. But the danger as well, for those who might abstain and who might be very strong in their opinion about that, as the book says, when Christians sometimes see something abused, quote, we often resort to wholesale condemnation of the thing in question, rather than promoting its proper use. In other words, if it's dangerous and I wanna abstain, I'm just gonna condemn it altogether rather than think about how a Christian can properly use it. If you wanna reference Colossians 2, 20 through 23 deals with that very issue of those who in the church would not only abstain but command others to not touch or participate in enjoying certain foods. Interesting in scripture, total abstinence in areas of Christian freedom is not held up as a virtue, but what's held up as a virtue is moderation. That's what you see in the book. He highlights there engaging in proper use of God's good gifts. Proper use, not just again with alcohol, but with all things that are good gifts that can be abused. And he writes, the glutton is just as guilty as the drunkard when it comes to improper use of good gifts. It's just that one is more socially acceptable than the other, right? C.S. Lewis writes, and he quotes this in the book, temperance, that's the proper use, that's the moderation, temperance referred not specifically to drink, but to all pleasures. It's meant not abstaining, but going to the right length and no further. And Lewis goes on to say, a man who makes his golf or his motorcycle the center of his life or a woman who devotes all her thoughts to clothes or bridge or her dog is being just as intemperate as someone who gets drunk every evening. Interesting thought, isn't it? The key sin in all of those things is improper use of all these good gifts that God gives to us. And as Christians, the virtue then that we're pursuing, the virtue that we're praying that God would work in us is spirit empowered self-control. Self-control to the glory of God. And that's the mark, he says, of a believer's life in godliness and this issue, a self-controlled enjoyment. Well, what about for those who can't do that? What about for the addicted? just briefly here, because I want you to be able to get in your groups to discuss it. And I want to discuss these things together. I'm so curious to hear your thoughts. But how does the gospel offer hope to the addict? You know, again, addictions happen because we're broken people. There may be biological elements to our addiction, right? We might be predisposed because of our maybe family history to certain kinds of lifestyles. But we acknowledge we're reformed people who acknowledge that the core issue that all of us face is spiritual. And addictions really at root are trying to get rid of that true spiritual issue that is in each person as a broken center. Addictions happen because people want to escape, right? As he highlights in the book, they want to escape torturing memories. They want to escape a sense of loneliness. They want to escape a sense of dread or doom. Again, we believe in what we call total depravity, that all of us are born into this world with our minds and our hearts polluted by sin. And as those who know that we're sinners, we have a conscience and that conscience is always reminding us of how we're falling short, isn't it? It's always reminding us, you're not meeting the mark. You're not living up to the person you wanna be, let alone the person God wants you to be. And so what do we do? We try to escape that feeling. We take on alcohol, or we take on marijuana, or we start abusing many other substances, or we start overindulging in food, and we're trying to escape that feeling that we have. And at the heart of addiction, at the heart of why we do it, is the same issue of why we do any other sin, it's idolatry. We have those feelings of restlessness, we want that peace, we wanna do away with the guilt, we want some joy. And so we put something up as God who will give us that joy, whether it be heroin, whether it be marijuana or alcohol, we say, give me that joy, give me that escape, give me that peace when we should be trying to find that in God. And so at the heart of it is that idolatry. Addictions happen because people want to escape. We want to soothe our souls. Again, maybe we want to help with our stress. We're working hard. We're putting in the work and we feel stressed and we feel anxious. So maybe we just want to have a glass of wine, enjoy something so that we could, you know, wind down a little bit. There's nothing wrong with that, to enjoy something for the sake of just relaxing. But as Christians, we always have to be careful, again, recognizing and being honest with what we believe about ourselves, that we're sinners. We have to always come back and say, am I running to Christ for these things? Am I looking to Jesus for the rest and the joy and the fulfillment that my heart's longing for? Or am I running to wine? Am I running to food? Am I running to screens? Am I running to Netflix? There's so many things that we can run to to substitute for the Savior. And that's, again, the same essential idolatry that's behind addiction. But the gospel offers hope. As we heard in the video, we could offer hope to people who feel this brokenness. Matthew 11, 28, as he quoted, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. You know, when I look at men like Brian up there, I think that's exactly who Jesus spent time with when he was here. It's exactly who he got his hands dirty with. That's exactly the kind of people that he came to save. People who were helpless in themselves. People who knew that they were sick, but just couldn't get free. People who knew that they needed a physician. That's who Jesus came for. And we have real hope as God's people to offer to those who are enslaved by sin. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5.19, if anyone's in Christ, he's a new creation. The old has passed away, the new has come. That's a wonderful gospel promise we can give to those who have come out of addiction and who have come to trust in Christ. Some might throw their drugs away like Brian immediately and might say, I'm done. That's not usual. God does that, but others need to be engrafted into a community of faith that will hold them accountable. And they need to begin that process of picking up their cross and following Jesus. It's difficult. But the same hope we give to both. Your old man, if you're in Jesus, doesn't define you. Your old desires, your old lifestyle, your old cravings, though you might still feel them to a degree, they no longer define you in God's sight, but Jesus does. You're a new creation. He's gonna form in you new cravings, new loves, new habits that you might run to him for that joy, that you might run to him for that strength and that rest that your heart is needing. And so there's hope in the gospel. There's healing offered by Jesus. He puts into us, every Christian, he puts in the spirit. And Paul says in 2 Timothy 1, 7, he is the spirit of power and love and self-control. that we're not fighting these things on our own, but God puts inside of Christians the Holy Spirit to begin to work in us that spirit and empowered self-control as we walk that process of sanctification. But what's a must in all this is that God not only brings us to Jesus, he brings us here into his church. Jesus came to save sinners, plural, And the gospel, you see, creates a community of Christians who were all addicts to something. We all had some sin that we ran to for pleasure. We all had some sin that marked our lives, but God creates in the gospel a community of people who say, I once was this, but because of Jesus, I'm now that. And we're all walking that same path of sanctification, picking up our crosses and following Jesus together. And God brings in people like Brian to the church that they might be enfolded in and loved on and encouraged and prayed for and held accountable, as Paul writes, were to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. One of the thoughts I had was this when I was preparing this, would Brian Welch, that man that you saw up there, would he be welcomed in a church like this? Would he be hugged here? When someone put a hand on him and say, so glad you're here, brother. Let's pray together. Let's worship Christ. Let's sit around the Lord's table together. He came forward at a church to accept Christ. He was invited by his real estate friends and he met the Lord there. And do we have that kind of community here where we can invite the Bryans in? of Brantford to come and to meet Christ? And do we believe in the power of the gospel to actually change lives like that? Do we believe the Holy Spirit can change hearts and truly break every chain of sin? And my prayer is that God would help us to believe in that power more and more and to create in us a church community that welcomes addicts of every sort, welcomes broken people of every sort, that we might be a place of healing and of hope for those who are struggling. if we're prone to become addicted to alcohol or other substances, should we abstain from all things that can be addictive? And I was hoping, I didn't hear it, but did anybody talk about coffee? No, huh? You did? Okay, nice. Good. Espresso, all right. One of the thoughts I had, one of the questions was, you know, I see a lot of people sometimes post it online, on their Facebook, funny things about, like, don't talk to me before my coffee, or, you know, I forget, don't hold, you know, what I said before my coffee against me, or different things, right? But the thought is, right, when we have our coffee, we improve our mood, we make ourselves better, more enjoyable for other people. How is that different from a glass of wine at the other end of the day? changing your mood, making you a more pleasant person, maybe you're easier to talk to, a little bit better. What's the difference? Is there a difference? That's right. One, everybody does it, and you don't question my Tims. The other one, it's like, whoa, you have a glass every day? But what's the difference? Do you have a coffee every day to improve your mood, to wake you up? It's just a question for you. What do you think? OK. OK. OK. Good, so one is still an alcohol at the end of the day, and there may be a little bit more of a danger there. Any other thoughts on that? That's just one for you. One of the thoughts our group was talking about was the differences between depressants and antidepressants. OK, good. Yep. The difference between depressants and antidepressants. Yeah. Good. I think with caffeine versus alcohol, you can worship God. Okay, yep. Sure. It depends on how much you do have. It's true. You can't worship God if you have definitely too much alcohol. Might become Pentecostal. Too much, Kathy. Sorry. That's a good thought. It's a good thought. It's the difference between how they affect your mind. And ultimately, that's a key principle right from number two, a good biblical principle, having a mind that could still glorify God, sober-minded. That's what the scriptures call us to. Is alcohol or any of these other things that we could engage in going to alter that so that we can no longer love the Lord with our mind? Robert, I saw a hand. Yeah, I think that's kind of where I was going. OK. You can't do with either one of them or without either one of them, then there's a problem, right? Then if you can't do without your coffee in the morning, it's no different than if you can't do without wine at the end of the day. Still addicted? It's an addiction. It's an addiction. It's putting something other than God. It's the same patterns being made. OK, good. I like how you put it. It's the same kind of pattern, perhaps dependence. Yeah, that's a good thought. Yeah, Carl in the back. Technicality, maybe. Yeah. But does the coffee in the morning really change the person or is it just part of the process of waking up so that you're ready to face the day? Good. That's a good question. What do you think? The process of waking up. Yeah. Well, what about the alcohol as a process of winding down? But the alcohol is instrumental in making that happen. True. Less instrumental in the waking up? I guess it depends on how strong your coffee is, yeah. For some, it wakes you up. It's a good thought. It's a good thought. Just a thought I had when I was back there. I was like, huh. And so I thought I would ask you that one. Any other thoughts on that one about addictive things? Things that we're addicted to? Abstaining, how to engage that? The principle, I think, again, that we have with all these things is that spirit-empowered self-control. I wanna jump into, because I heard some of you talking about the one on marijuana. What would you say about a Christian who says, you know, just like alcohol, I'm trying to enjoy some marijuana at night to help me wind down. I struggle with anxiety and all these things. I just wanna kind of just relax, and it helps me relax. I'm not super high. I'm doing okay. I just enjoy it in the same way you enjoy wine. What do you think? Is there a difference there? How so? Could you just explain a little bit? I heard a couple of groups talking about it, but... I don't even know what it smells like. Okay. It's now legalized. Yes. So we have a better upper bottom now. Good. I would say that's the way we as Christians, and anyone makes you stay away. And only if it's for medical use, yes, I would say go for it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay, good. So there's a distinction between a medical use which could be helpful versus a recreational use. Good. And the difference is that it's mind-altering and you can't necessarily enjoy, at least the basic premise is you can't enjoy, as he said in the book, you know, a joint or a thing of marijuana in the same way you can enjoy a glass of wine. There's not that kind of one glass to two glass to three glass, whatever your thing, whatever your tolerance is before you're, you know, in the state of drunkenness that with marijuana it's a little bit of a shorter window. It's an immediate window of immediate mind-altering high. So there's a difference there. Good. I was challenged on this because that is my perspective as well, but I was challenged on this by a couple of different pastors as well, Napark reform pastors, but they said, Well, it's actually, this is, I haven't had marijuana since I was converted, so I didn't know, but they said it's changed, that you could enjoy some of the benefits of marijuana that would help with the anxiety you might feel, the ease at the end of the day, that you could remove some of that, I think it's the, this is all my ignorance, the, anybody knows, THC? From it, so that's the part that would give you the actual high. In that case, what do you think? That was a question posed to me, and I pose it to you. Don't buy the lies. OK, don't buy the lies. You'll still be high at the end of the day, is that? I mean, I haven't tested either out for myself, but to me, I have to understand where my priority is at first. If my priority is recreational marijuana, then that's what I'm going to be responsible for. Yeah. OK, good. Yeah, other thoughts? Just on marijuana in general? I think before we can actually, I don't agree with it, but I think before we can actually defend it, we actually have to know what effect it has on us medically. Because you talk with a lot of people, they think of it differently than I do, but they know a lot about it and what effect it has, but I can't defend them. I can't defend my view on it because they claim to know more about it medically. So I think before we can actually sometimes compare, we actually got to know what effect it has. Because it does have a different effect. Absolutely. That's a great thought that we have to study it and know especially how it affects us. And we've got to do our homework as Christians so that we can be thoughtful in these engagements. Sometimes we can be a little bit more, doing a little bit more straw man arguments sometimes if we're not actually engaging the issue. I have a pastor friend in Colorado, it's been legal there for a number of years already, and their consistory was so good, and just once it was legalized, and even before, they read it, so much on it together, and they thought, okay, how are we going to think through this, and how are we going to minister to people who are asking questions about this, and what happens if there's someone in the congregation who thinks it's okay, is this a matter of Christian liberty, how do we think about it? And I did a couple months study on this issue, just reading together books and things, and I think that's good for every Christian. If it's legalized, you gotta be thoughtful and you have to be able to engage in articulate ways that could be winsome. It's a great thought. Other thoughts on that one? That's okay, yeah. I mean, sometimes people can get a high up on religion, and that's a real thing. True, yeah. And if it's not directed in the right way, people go mad thinking that they're prophets or that they're God. True. So I think it goes back to temperance, like you said. Having things put in the right place, like sin actually means it's missing. That's right. Yep. Yeah. That's right. Yep. Send at the end of the day is missing, missing the mark for sure. Yeah. That's a good thought. Would you say then that given our climate the most addictive substances in our community would be Marijuana and alcohol are there others that you think I don't know Brantford as much as far as if certain drugs are here Yeah, Carl Yeah Okay, I don't know exactly the statistics. I was hoping. Okay. No, that's that's helpful. As a church that's in that kind of community, you want to be aware of those things. Because hopefully, as you're bringing the gospel out to the people in the community, you'll be engaging people who are struggling with that, and it's good to know what the struggles are, what's the most dominant kind of substances that are being abused, and how do you speak into that? What's the first step? What do you do as a Christian when you encounter someone like that on the street, or in a Tim Hortons, or wherever? What are you supposed to do? And I think it was really helpful to even just hear him. I loved how the colleagues of his just kind of stumbled and bubbled and said, we've never done this before, but this is just a scripture I feel like I need to share with you. It's Matthew 11, and they just share it, you know? But it's just neat. You're just stepping out in faith, and God uses that witness that's not all there, and he uses his word ultimately, right? Other thoughts on any other of these? We've got just a few more minutes here. Yes, please, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, please. Sure, I can read it. Proverbs 31, 4 and 5. I'll register. It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it's not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes intoxicating drink, lest they drink and forget the law and pervert the justice of all the afflicted. So I guess my question is just, what is that, how does that balance between, you know, it's wrong to drink, to abuse alcohol. Sure. And I just always, I've always wondered what. Yeah. I was trying to read that passage contextually. Yeah. And trying to understand, yeah. Yeah. I don't, even the next verse I don't know, give strong drink to those who are perishing. Yeah. That is my question. No, it's a good question. Might be one of those times where I say I don't know. Okay, yeah, I don't know contextually, but I mean, I think you could say as far as those who are in positions of authority and leadership, they have to be especially careful in those things. At least you can say that, but at most as well, I mean, I would have to look at it more to think of application for those, and who would it be called to abstain altogether given their position, given the foothold and the dangers that alcohol could have, you know? Is there a wisdom, you know, Proverbs is wisdom principles for, you know, how life, how you operate in the world. And is this a principle of wisdom that needs to be heeded by those in power? The definite principle is, you know, you're leading, you have to be extra careful because you bring people down with you, you know, and your sin will affect and your brokenness to others as well. But does it mean total abstinence? I don't know. I'd have to look at that a little bit more. It's a great, it's a great, great question though. Yeah. Yeah, Rob? I'm curious to understand how our brothers in Colorado resolved the marijuana thing. Yeah. I just talked with him yesterday night about it. I just talked to him on the phone. But I could ask him to send me some of the info, and maybe that would be a nice email, some of the resources that they were looking at. Yeah. be a good one for us to begin to really think through. I think we have a good understanding of some big categories, but it might be good to think about a little bit more of the specifics given the nature of how things change. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Yeah. That's a great thought. One of the practical steps if you read the chapter was for your kids, he talked about go beyond the just say no model of sanctification. You know, just say no. Go beyond that. Explain why was number five, right? Explain the why. That's so helpful. And I think when you, when you have kind of a, when you could kind of give a little bit of the fuller picture of what the scriptures say, and not just one verse here that supports this way, but another one, but you give the full picture, explain the why we need to be careful and self-controlled. It helps our kids to navigate it. I think a little bit more. carefully. But those practical action steps were great at the end. I wanted to get to those at the end of the talk, but I wanted to give you guys time for the discussion. But yeah, that's a great thought. Explain the why. Yeah. Any other reflection on this one? This is such a big topic, and I'm sorry we had to, that we couldn't spend even more time because it's so important. But anybody have thoughts? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like are you talking about when they are high, like during that time? Yeah. Yeah, you know, marijuana use is just interesting. And it depends on the person. But I feel like at least in my experience, the people who are addicted to marijuana, you're still able to converse with them. They're actually less aggressive, I feel like, when they are high. But yeah, and a lot hungrier as well. So bring some food and talk with them. But I remember after I was newly converted, you know, being at a party and my friends that I used to get high with were getting high and I wasn't anymore. And I was just having conversations about Christ with them. I just remember talking with them and just spiritual conversations. And I feel like they're easier to talk to when they were all on their stuff, unfortunately. Yeah, they disagree with you? No. But I mean, I think as far as addressing like the issue, again, it comes down to why it is that we're doing that. And it's the idolatry thing, right? Where we're wanting a sense of peace. Maybe we're wanting to feel more joy because we're naturally a down person. And when we get high, we feel like we're happier and we feel more joy. We're meant to find that in God. and this person is finding that in their marijuana. And so talking about that, that they're trying to feel that, they're trying to feel that restlessness, that sense of joy and peace with a substitute savior, it's idolatry. And so we're calling them to see that the issue is ultimately spiritual brokenness. There's always biological factors to certain things, but ultimately that spiritual brokenness, right? As Paul says, we're exchanging created things for our Creator, because we're suppressing that truth. And so we're graciously trying to have those conversations and calling them to find rest in Christ, ultimately, right? And having those conversations, yeah. It's a great question, though. Yeah, Rob? The example in the video prior to was just a recitation of Scripture was used by God to convict Brian. Yeah. That is the Word of God, and it is effective for His purpose. Yeah, absolutely. One of the podcasts I listened to today, it's a Reformed Baptist podcast called The Dividing Line. If you wanna look it up, it's called The Dividing Line, and the topic was dealing with drug and alcohol addiction. And it's a church called Apologia Church. You might know them because they're a very strong church that fights against abortion. But the pastors there, there's two of them, used to be drug addicts, and the ministry they have there in Arizona is mainly to drug addicts. And so they talk a lot about their experience as pastors in that, and then also just practical steps for dealing with people who are drug addicts. It's a really good podcast. But one of the biggest things they do that sparked my memory is for new converts, They get them, they're teaching them the word and just having them memorize it because they need that word to recite to themselves when they're feeling like they want to go back. They need to be telling themselves, you know, that whom the sun sets free is free indeed. You know, they need to be telling themselves the word and it's what Paul says, right? The renewing of the mind. They need that. I mean, we all do, right? But especially in those temptations to go with it with a word. Yeah. Any other thoughts for tonight? Yeah. I don't remember exactly, but I remember hearing it. I'm trying to jot it down. It kind of looks familiar. So whosoever relies on himself will be lost. And whosoever relies on his wealth will be empty of it. And whoever relies on others, people, we'll find no one there. And whoever relies on God will have wealth and health and clarity. And it goes on. But this is translated from an Arabic proverb. I appreciate you sharing it. We have a very similar Christian version of it as well, as far as getting the whole world and losing your soul and finding that rest in God alone. Appreciate you sharing that. Well, hey, let me pray for us. This is such a good topic and let's just pray and we could be dismissed. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for this time to be able to think about this most important topic and thank you for your word. It is truly a lamp unto our feet, and it reveals to us, Lord, our need for you, ultimately, and the restlessness that we feel apart from Christ, and, Lord, how we're so prone, all of us, to fill that void with so many other substitute saviors. And we pray that you would forgive us, Lord, and that you would help us to find our rest and our joy and our identity in Christ. We pray that that same hope as well we might share with those who are struggling with addictions, that we might see them like us as well, as those who need Christ, and that we might be a people, that we might be a church that welcomes in Lord and loves on those, Lord, whom Christ came to save. We thank you for the power of the gospel. We pray, Father, that you would show yourself mighty to save in these impossible situations, that you would magnify your name and that all glory would go to you. So hear our prayers and would you bless us this night and our travels home in this week. For we ask this in Jesus name, amen.