We will go ahead on and get started in this afternoon's message. Finishing out part two of wine is ambiguous. And that means it could be two different things. And that's what we have to be careful about in life. Whether it's food, sex, drinking, whatever the case may be, things that God doesn't prohibit an individual to. We have a duty to become temperate, moderate in that. And even with anger, the Bible says, be ye angry and sin not. So it's not a sin of being angry, but the sin is what we do when we get angry. God had created different things in life and everything he created, he saw that it was good. different churches about drinking and being a teetotaler and abstaining from alcohol or whatever. But as I've gotten older, I wonder what the Bible says about it. Cuz in teaching and preaching and in preparing this week, you think about how many people has been deterred from the church because of our opinions and what we think. I remember Brother Swagger was talking about some places that he wouldn't even frequent if they serve that alcohol or whatever. So that would put him to a very limited place of going, you know, because just about every restaurant, every place you go serve alcohol. Well, the problem isn't alcohol. The problem is just like with an overweight person that Indulges in eating too much So it becomes a sin to that's gluttony when you eat too much Same thing with wine wine is ambiguous goes both ways and thing is to be temperate moderate and have self-control or self-restraint and alcohol because God had made alcohol God had allowed alcohol and we'll see that some of the sacrifices that was given with alcohol. We start talking about that Saturday, the book of Luke says, 21 and 34 says and take heed to yourselves less at any time, your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this life. And so that they come up on you unawares. Within that, it's characteristics or attributes in there is a warning of be careful of your lifestyle, the way you're living or whatever. The Amplified Version reads similar to that. It says, but be on guard, so that your hearts are not weighed down and depressed with giddiness or debauchery and the nausea of self-indulgence. and the worldly worries of life, then that day when the Messiah returns will come upon you suddenly like a trap. As the times of Noah, people eating and drinking, and we know that wasn't the only reason that he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah was because of sexual immorality, but it was because of fullness of sanity, a fullness of bread, the way they were treating their fellow man. The living version says, watch out, don't let my sudden coming catch you unawares. Don't let me find you living in a careless case, carousing and drinking and occupied with problems of this life. like all of the rest of the world. We have to stand out from the world. We have to be different. And alcohol really is a depressant. So we can't take drugs or different things to change a mood or living of life. But that it's part of our would be part of our lives would wouldn't be a sin. But the more we exposed to something, the more insensitive we become to it. And so that's one thing that happens with Drinking and like anything else that you could become addictive to the human body starts to self-indulge in it and frequent too much The book of Romans the 13th chapter 11 through 14 verses and that knowing the times that now is high time to awake out of sleep for now our salvation is It says a critical time. Let me read that and amplify it. Do this knowing that this is a critical time. It is already the hour for you to awaken from your spiritual complacency or your sleep because the world is slumbering and sleeping. We're not alert. We're not cognizant of what's going around us because Satan has lulled us into a false sense of security. We're drunk with the wine. of the spirit of this age. It's poured out. It's being poured out and we are drinking the wine of Babylon. So the symbolism that's in wine, we're talking doctrine, we're talking a spirit of the age. We're getting intoxicated with celebrations, feasting, and having a good time, and frolicking, and all of those things which in and of themselves is not evil. But access of it is the problem. When we indulge too much in it, and that's the consuming part of our lives, and we're not walking circumspectively, being sober and vigilant, and we're getting caught up in the world, we must be cognizant of all times of what's going on around us. It's just like the designated driver that It has to be one that's sober and vigilant. I'm not saying, I know secular society changes everything or whatever, but the designated driver, they designate someone to drive or whatever, but that's for this world or whatever, because I think if you go out or you're doing something, you shouldn't drink to the point that you intoxicated anyhow. That would be a sin to drink to that point. eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we dies, the secular world, but we look at it as Solomon said, there's nothing better for a man to do than to eat and drink and enjoy the fruit of his labor. So if he get off and he worked a hard day or something, maybe one or two drinks or something like that, but he's not drinking to relieve the stress and all the other things that glad your heart drinking sometime makes merry and makes cheerful. That's one of the reasons God allowed man the knowledge to make wine and create wine. As I told you, suddenly that Jesus made the best wine. He made the wine at the wedding feast when they ran out of wine. He made wine and continually, and they say this wine is better than the rest of the wine we had been drinking. It says, tonight this present evil age is almost gone and the day of Christ's return is almost here. So let us fling away the works of darkness and put on the full armor of light. Let us conduct ourselves properly and honorably as in the light of day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and irresponsibility, not in quarreling and jealousy, but clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provisions, not even think about gratifying the flesh in regard to its improper desires. There's an excess of desires that the flesh craves that we can't keep making provisions of the flesh. We're supposed to be crucifying the flesh, putting the flesh to death, not going contrary to that, and that works against the Spirit. first corinthians the sixth chapter the ninth through the tenth verse is do you not know that the righteous the unrighteous will not inherit or have any share in the kingdom of god do not be see be deceived neither the sexually immoral idolaters adulterous infeminate that is sexual perversion of those that with a a man with feminine characteristics, feminine attributes, acting in a feminine way. not those who participate in homosexuality, thieves, those greedy, not drunkards, not revilers, whose words are used as weapons to abuse. In other words, that's part of the nature of a drunk. Even those that are not drunk, they're intoxicated with the spirit of this age where we disrespect one another. calling us all kinds of vile and insulted names. That's what a reviler is, one whose words are used as weapons to abuse, to insult, to humiliate, intimidate, or slander someone. None of those will inherit the kingdom of God. But here in religion, now religion is starting to fortify us in doing some of those things, and that's what the false prophets and the false One of Paul's letters addresses those as forbidding people to eat or drink or whatever. And when he says forbidding to eat or drink, he's talking about things that God had created for good. You remember the love feast in the book of Corinthians that they talk about, the love feast? There were wine at those gatherings or whatever, but they were drinking to excess. And by the time everybody else got there, they were drunk and they had turned into a drunken festival or whatever. You know, and there's a church, there's some churches, and like I said, and coming up to this teaching and throughout the years, finding out that a lot of churches have switched and start serving wine because it is proper, the proper sacrament. And if they research anything, they talk about none for money and all, well, that was one of the things that kept the wine in the wineskins and everything or whatever. It's fermentation because grape juice, once you open grape juice, it has to be refrigerated, just naturally pure grape juice. They didn't have ways of refrigeration in those days or whatever. So it wasn't grape juice. A lot of the churches are looking into that. after that. And some of the people, like the Pharisees, they strain out a net and swallow a camel in trying to distinct between fermented and unfermented wine. Whereas the Bible, it looks at those things. And if we study the Bible, in which a lot of churches have prevented or caused the Lord's name to be blasphemed and a lot of people did not attend some churches or whatever because they're preaching on different things that the Bible doesn't prohibit. So some people that may have a drink or two and all of those festive occasions and some of the sacrifices was offered with wine. The book of Proverbs 23 19 And 21 says, listen, my son, and be wise and direct your heart in the way of the Lord. Do not associate with heavy drinkers. It makes them associate a distinction here of someone that drinks heavy, early drinker, you know, and starts drinking in the morning, a continual drinker. In other words, he's not pleasure drinking here. He's not drinking out of a sustained weight, but he's a heavy drinking and says, or with gluttonous eaters of meat. In other words, tailgaters and things that's eating today about the bus you know like Thanksgiving and different holidays that's gluttonous you remember I told you even food and we know food or drink doesn't commend us to God so it makes no difference what you eat or drink the distinction in those days was separating the clean from the unclean making a distinction in God's people. Just as circumcision and uncircumcision was. That's why Paul says circumcision or uncircumcision doesn't profit you anything. Because circumcision was illustrative of God circumcising the heart. giving you a new heart. So when he inaugurated the covenant, this new covenant in the book of Mark, the 14th chapter, the 25th verse, he inaugurated that covenant with wine. He said, and he said unto them, this is by blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many. Verily I say unto you, I will drink it no more of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God. We observe the Passover, we partake of the wine, which symbolizes the shed blood of Jesus Christ in our Come back to that a second. I think we enter that a little bit too soon. Let me finish off Proverbs you sister Jackson It says these verses are among those often quoted by those that believe it is wrong to drink alcoholic beverages and And like I say, we run a lot of people off, or we diffuse a lot of people off. Instead of doing as Peter and the rest of the disciples did, you cast a wide drag net. They cast a wide drag net, and they invited everybody into that net. They pulled it there, and all kinds of fish was in that net. But then they separated the fish. It's just as the wedding supper, when the Lord of that supper, he says, invite the lame, the haute, invite everybody because he wants his wedding to be full. But you see, it was up to the individuals to worry about what were they supposed to wear because through their cultural traditions during those days, you know that if you was invited to a wedding feast or whatever, that they would supply the wedding garments. It's just like coming into the church. Christ supplies the wedding garment. It is his blood. That's why I said he inaugurated it with his blood, which was the wine, was symbolic of that his blood being shed for him and the broken body, the bread, which was symbolic of his body being broken for us, but it's the word of God. Now unlike the Catholics and transubstantiation, it does not transform that what we're drinking is not transformed into the actual blood body of Christ. It's metaphorical, it's symbolism of what it stands for, what that's standing for. The excess, when we're warning someone, it's just like warning someone about marriage and fornication and adultery and all of these things. They have their proper place, but when dating or whatever, you tell people about sexual promiscuity and how far to go with a date because sometimes you get carried away and go too far and you end up committing fornication. So the fornication wouldn't be fornication if it was inside of marriage, and that way God's sex is sacred inside of marriage, but outside it's a mortal sin. You'll die for it. Adultery and fornication is a sin. as part of the commandments, but within the realm of God's authorization. So he don't prohibit not having sex, but he has a place for sex. So just like alcohol and wine, he don't prohibit those things, but there's a place, there's a time and a season for all things. The excessive drinking of alcohol is a sin. The wine bibber drinks too much. They accused Jesus of being a winebibber. I think we went over that the other day. I don't know if it's in tonight's notes. But a wine bibber, you remember I told you, not someone as my neighbors and things, when they had their little meeting place in our neighborhood across the street, one of the empty lots, they would wake up in the morning with a 40 ounce in their hand or something drinking. You see some people staggering and drinking in the very early confines of the morning time. Sometimes you can make an accusation and not understand as I was telling you that Hannah had told Eli that she wasn't drunk, but that she was emotional praying unto the Lord. So sometimes we can see things and it's not actually what it is. And for those people that saying that, the disciples or that Jesus made or whatever about the different types of wine and it was just grape juice or a new wine. There's several scriptures, I don't know if I have time to go to them or not, about the new wine because remember that was the accusation against the apostles When the spirit had fallen upon them, and they were speaking in unknown tongues, and the people came by and said, these are full of what? New wine. They said, these are full of new wine. They didn't say these are full of wine, they said full of new wine. But then Peter says, these are not full of new wine as you suppose, but it's the Holy Ghost that has fallen upon them. Solomon says also in the book of Proverbs, at last it bites like a serpent and stings like a viper. Because wine will slip up on you. Wine is subtle or whatever. So we must learn to control it. We must be able to know how to control it. God's children should avoid company with those type of people. Matthew 24 and 49 says, but if that servant is evil and says in his heart, my master has taken his time, he would not return for a long while and he begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come in a day he knoweth not of and appoint him a place with hypocrites because he's doing unlike what he has teaching and what he's taught. And we know that that's a problem also to be carried away with the same confines of something that we tell other people not to do. If I'm a consistent drinker, I shouldn't preach to people about not drinking. You know, that's why we have to, to the point if we're not convicted, if we're being convicted of a heart of something that we're doing and telling others not to do, the spirit is working with you, but it's not working with you. If you're callous and you can do those things as the people that caught the woman in adultery and was ready for Jesus to do something, they were in sin themselves. And Jesus realized that they were being hypocrite, and he says, he without sin let him cast a free stone. We have to make sure we get all of the beams, boats out of our own eyes, the beams out of our own eyes before we take the moat out of our brother's eyes. So we can get everybody into the church if we let the wheat and tare grow together. In this last day and age, he says, the angels will separate the wheat from the tare. That was an intricate process. There's a lot of people that may have been given the alcohol, a drink alcohol, but they're not drunk. There's a lot of people that consume alcohol. That's one of the leading beverages, but it's also one of the most dangerous beverages. So it's just like gun owners, it's a lot of people with guns, but everybody with a gun is not a killer, they're protecting their home. It is for safety, it's protection, it used to be for hunting and different things of survival. So watch what we prohibit and what God had blessed us with. Poverty is just one potential negative result of drunkenness, that you come to poverty, but we know that if you're paying your tithes and offerings, it says that your wine vats would be full. Proverbs, I have that preached. Like I said, I can't jump all over the place there, but there's so many scriptures that God promises. That's one of the promises of God's word, that your vats would overflow with wine. That's one of the signs of prosperity. When Abraham and Melchizedek met, didn't Melchizedek greet him with, what, bread and wine? bread and wine. And let's not just say that that's the Old Testament idea or whatever. God, through Paul, lists drunkenness as one of the works of the flesh, warning that no drunkards would enter into the kingdom of God. And remember, we went over that, about those things that wouldn't enter. But that prohibition comes, and he didn't say anyone that drinks, he says drunkards. He says, no, drunkards are an idolater of those that's sexual immorality, impurity, drunkenness. He didn't say that. Drinks. Numbers 28, 7 through 14. There's a lot of things I told you in the Old Testament. We talked about wine being used for ceremonial purposes. And we can't combine, Sister Jackson, okay but sir we can't we have to be careful of fixing it too because it's like the old wine skins here and the new wine skins here we need them both jesus talks about that in that parable of the wine skins that i keep going from one thing to another and I say I'll come back to it later, so let me start trying to tie some of these together as I go over them. I hate it. New wine. Luke 5 chapter 36 to 39 verse. Jesus then told them a parable. He says, no one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and puts it on old one. Otherwise he will both tear the new and the piece from the new will not match the old. No one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the new wine, the fermenting wine, will expand and burst the wineskins and it will spill out, and the skins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into fresh wine skins. And no one, after drinking old wine, wishes for the new wine. They say the old wine is fine. And we know in the secular world, the aging of a wine is better. The aged wine is better. But what Jesus is saying, we have a dichotomy here. a dichotomy, here we have two things, two different things, but of the same one. It's the same God in the Old Testament as in the New Testament, but we can't combine, we can't stick grace, be a legalist. If we bring legalism into the New Testament, then Christ died in vain. It says the new covenant is a much better covenant. This covenant that he inaugurated with wine, we can't go in and then prohibit wine in that new covenant, but we have to look at it in a sacrificial or ceremonial way in which God intended it. That's why I say a lot of people have gone back to using Bargain David or some different types of wine because of the small amount that they're using for communion or whatever. Now, I'm not advocating becoming a wino. I'm not advocating that you start drinking or whatever, but it does, Paul says about the deacon shall could be given the wine, but the elders or the pastors shouldn't drink or whatever. about the women drinking of people so it doesn't prohibit that paul told him to drink a little wine for his often for his infirmities of his stomach so let's not just attribute medicinal purposes to this but let me go back to where i was here wine offered with the sacrifices in exodus twenty nine and forty it says when one lamb With one lamb there shall be one-tenth of a measure of fine flour mixed with one-fourth of a hen of beaten olive oil, one-fourth of a hen of wine for a drink offering to be poured out. A drink offering. Now, we sit on television a lot of times and people are drinking, they pour a little bottle of wine out and say, this is for the boys that ain't here or whatever. But we see wine being poured out as an offering and Paul says that his life, that he was being poured out as a drink offering. Wine is symbolic of the blood. You remember I told you the blood of Jesus Christ, he instituted as a memorial that last supper. the Passover feast, but he used a cup of wine. You remember he says I should not drink of the fruit of the vine. But listen now. Leviticus 23 and 13, it says, its grain offering shall be two tenths of an effort of fine flour mixed with olive oil and offering by fire to the Lord for a sweet and soothing aroma with its drink offering to be poured out a fourth of a hand of wine. That's about three quarts of wine goes in there. How many meals today and especially a lot of fine restaurants, do they use alcohol and cook a great number of meals? a great number of meals, and I've worked in restaurants, and we use a great number of meals. We're making bernet sauce and different things with a chateaubriand and all of these different things that we would be making up. Bananas foster and different desserts and things, there's different alcoholic beverages. There's many use rum and whiskey and pecan pies and different things that have alcohol in those. So I'm not saying that God had created these things for a purpose, but overindulging in anything is bad. That's what Solomon did. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. He was using sex of marriage for the wrong purposes. Numbers 13 and 5 says, and you shall prepare wine for the drink offering a fourth of a hen with the burnt offering for the sacrifice for each lamb. Here and again, wine is used. Numbers 13 and 10, you shall bring as the drink offering one half of a hen of wine as an offering by five as a sweet and soothing aroma. What was the problem with Aram, Sons, Nahab, and Abihu? with drinking of wine. It was prohibited from the priest while on duty of drinking those wines. But let's be careful right there. They had drunk to the point of intoxication. And that's why it says be careful with wine. It makes you do strange things. It's inhibitor. They offered up strange fire unto the Lord. In other words, they offered up fire from one place to another place where it shouldn't have been offered. That's why we have to be careful and circumspect. That's why they say there's a certain limit and they do it by weight and what should be intoxicating to one. And they have an average of those things. So if you blow a point Old three or something. It's a thing where they declare you drunk or whatever whether you're not drunk or not They have a standard what God has a standard and he tells us not to be drunk with wine But he doesn't tell us not to drink the wine Numbers 28 7 says in the drink offering valve shall be the fourth part of an hen for one lamb in the holy place Listen at this Y'all listening? It says, in the holy place shall thou cause strong wine to be poured unto the Lord for a drink offering. Now that didn't say new wine, and this is the King James I'm reading this out of. I put that purposely that the King James says strong wine for a drink offering here. Fermented wine, and all this is coming from knaves and Taurus topical Bible where you could if you want to research and look through these things and study it so you won't be telling people the wrong thing because That's what they was telling you beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees because a little living living the whole lump Their doctrine has leaven and you know what? Leaven is a fermenting process and That little leaven, it says leaven's the whole lump. They use leaven in an allegory as a metaphor for sin then. They said, beware of the doctrine. You remember, Sister Jackson, that he was talking about the doctrine. He says, beware of the doctrine of the Pharisee, for it contains leaven. For that little leaven makes the whole thing bad. Get the leaven out. Well, that yeast is leaven. It makes the dough rise. That's fermentation, just like with the wine. It causes us to rise up, to be boastful. It inflames us. Fermented, that's the alcohol that's fermented. It causes a fermentation process to begin. When we come under the blood of Jesus Christ upon our baptism and acceptance of Him as our Savior, we enter into that new covenant. When He inaugurates that covenant with the wine, His blood inaugurated that we're covered by His blood. We observe the Passover, we partake of the wine, which symbolizes the shared blood of Christ. When we come under the blood of Jesus Christ, our baptism and acceptance of him as our savior, we enter into that covenant. That baptism we buried with him unto death, right? And we rise up to walk in the newness of life. But that covenant begins and I have new covenant is mentioned in numerous places throughout the Bible and that would be within your notes. But can we use this, listen at this symbolism? I tell you about the new wine and the old wine skins. The new wine is a symbolic of truth here. It's analogy of being the truth. So grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. He is the way, he is the life, he is the truth. What is truth? Jesus Christ to do what? The Word that was made flesh. We must drink of Christ. He's our drink offering. That blood, the Word of God, that's what we should drink and staggered we should be filled with the Holy Spirit. It says be full of the Spirit, be intoxicated with the Spirit, that He should inhibit us. Our ashes should flow out from Him. Just like wine, just like the wine of the world, Babylon, the cup of God's wrath. That's why I say you all shall drink the cup. But some of us drinking of the cup of Babylon, we drinking from Babylon's cup. The new wine represents the truth of God, while the old wine represents the traditions of the culture that we have been born into. We were born into the world, so that was the shadow of things to come. But we can't, Jesus said, by your traditions, you may void the commandments of God. God says, honor your parents, but now you've changed these things up. You've become a legalist and you've developed the word Corban, that you've dedicated this unto God, and you no longer take care or honor your parents. So by your traditions, that's why we have to watch out for legalism. It's nothing you can do, Sister Jackson, to go to heaven, no work or nothing you can do. You can't work your way to heaven, D. It's by grace that you're saved. That's the new wineskin. You can't put the old wine in there, no worries. So food or drink doesn't commend you to God. So whether you abstain from wine or not, that doesn't commend you to God, whether you keep the law or not. Let's keep those two separate. Paul said the law was pure, it was holy, it was just, it was right, but let's not, He says, you remember in the transfiguration when it says Elijah and Moses and Jesus? was transfigured before Peter and says, let us build a tabernacle for all three of them. And God stopped him, he says, wait, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. See, we can't compare those two to Jesus Christ. Nothing compares this new wine. All of that's good and right. That's the righteousness of God, the Old Testament, whatever. But grace and truth has come in and by his spirit, we by faith, help establish the law of God. So we hadn't cast that away. That's why I say we need the older people in church. We need the elders in the church. We need everybody. There's a place, this is a big tent, you know, it's a church. In other words, none shall be lost. We must all find our place in Christ Jesus, but our understanding in Christ Jesus. These traditions have produced a prejudice that we do not want to get rid of whenever the new wine comes. It's hard to unlatch people from Christmas. It's hard to detach them from Easter. It's hard to detach them from things of hell and all of these other things. But see, here comes the angels in these latter days that are able to loose the bonds, the word of God. the preaching of the word. You're washed and cleansed by the word. It releases the bonds. Jesus Christ comes to set us free. It says the truth will make you free. So freedom is in Jesus Christ. He had came to set the captives free, just like Job was a perfect and upright man, but he said, I know my Redeemer living. He's gonna be free in Jesus Christ. That's why our liberty are. We think we are free, but freedom is in Christ Jesus. But we're bound by this old world and the legalism of it, and that's who we seek to please. We are the vessels in it. We do not have the willingness to change, then we will be burst, the old wine skins by the new wine. Trying to put the new wine in it, we need repentance. We need to turn from self. Self has to die, our way of thinking. And that's why I say sometime what your parents and other people have told you or whatever, it's time for a fresh take on that. Jesus is opening up new avenues here. This is a much better way. Christ is a much better way. Those old sacrifices, they were just a shadow of things to come. Now we will be drunk with the spirit. If you're drunk with the spirit, you may not find room for the new wine. The new wine is the merriment of the spirit. That's why he gives you peace and joy that the world can never take. See a drunk has his ups and downs and drunk alcohol is a depressant. It might stimulate you like a sugar high does a cop. You might stop and get a donut, it might spur him on, but that's the jigsaw he got himself into because you got to keep eating those all night because it's like a cup of coffee and you keep drinking coffee and keep drinking coffee and you become addicted to the coffee. It's the caffeine in the coffee or whatever. So now you go, what? You don't overrun yourself. Too much coffee didn't got you. It's like the book of Proverbs says about honey. Honey is good, honey is sweet, but too much honey will make you sick. A process of destruction begins to take place unless we become new also. So we can't be tied to these traditions, as my mother was ready to accept a whole lot of things as I started preaching. But what was, my wife was there when I preached my inauguration sermon. It was about Jesus' mother, because that's when things changed between him and his mother, was at that wedding feast when he changed water into wine. That was an act of divinity, that man can't change water into wine. So that's why he says, woman, what has that to do with us? That changed their lifestyle. At that wedding feast, it was no longer the young man that went back with her, and he says that he was subject to and obedient to her. When he did this one miracle, this first miracle he did, that's changed their whole life. He left them then. He left home then. He became itinerant preacher then. Once you put your hand to the plow, you can't look back. This changes your life. Once you taste of the gospel, once you taste of Christ and see that old wine, in other words, the symbolism of the law, those promises, they're all fulfilled in Christ Jesus. So we don't cast away the law. We come and by faith we help establish the law because it's going to move everything else out of the way. Jesus understood the principle that was working against him in his own life is that We are born to die, and that's why when he came to that hour, he says, this is the hour I had come for. This body was to present his life as to lay down that life. To live a complete and mature life and then lay it down for the sacrifice of others. To shed his blood. Without the shedding of that blood, we wouldn't be saved. It atoned for all of our sins. So it was necessary for us to be covered by the blood that he be that sacrificial lamb. He was coming with the good news that was really new to these people. And what did they do? They rejected him and they crucified him because we don't like anything new. We don't like change. People like to be in that little cave and they rejected him and they put the messenger to death. Sometimes we kill a messenger because we're in our comfort zone. Just think, your spouse sitting there watching TV or doing something, or you're eating and you're into it and somebody tries to take it away. You ever try to take a plate away from a dog or a bowl of food from a dog while he's eating it? He's gonna bite you, ain't he? A person, they may tell you to help them with their diet or something. But notice how you get in big fights and arguments when you tell somebody they shouldn't be eating this, they shouldn't eat that. They have to develop that mentality themselves. We have to develop, that's why it says, save yourself from this untoward generation. So I can pray and do all of these things for my family, but they have to, God has to bring them to that point of being new. They have to awaken. He says awaken. He was cheap wine like vinegar was given to Jesus on the cross during his crucifixion. Matthew 27 and 48, Mark 15 and 23, this was a vinegar, this was a wine vinegar. You've heard the term wine vinegar. So this was given to him, but one of the reasons he didn't want to drink it, he didn't want it dead in the pain. He wanted the full point of what sin had. That's what they had put on the sponge and offered unto him. In the book of Judges, the 9th chapter and the 13th verse, Jocham gave an example to Abimelech and the people of Shechem who had killed his 70 brothers, and Abimelech had taken over. And the analogy was of a great vine that was asked to rule over the people. It's in Judges 9 and 13. I'm just pulling this, I'm not just yanking it out of context, but I just need this one verse out of here where it says, And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? This was an analogy, he was talking about the people made Abimelech's king. And Abimelech and the people ended up fighting against themselves. But the word in there, the scriptures in there, it says, the vine, it supplies the wine that cheereth God and man. But this is not the only place where we find that vine, that the vine cheereth God and man. The grapevine, after being axed, is a producer, and I have it in your notes here, the symbolism in this. The wine symbolizes to join the blessings that come from God, and the grapevine's refusal to give up this function highlights its value and it's important. So that's why I say God had put wine here for festive occasions and on many of those occasions God On many of those occasions are feast days commended by the churches. And Christianity wine is central to the Eucharist, the ceremony commemorating Jesus' last supper, where the wine is symbolical and transformed into the blood of Christ representing the sacrifice and redemption offered to him. In other religions, Hindu, Buddhism, they have different things with the wine, but I'm not here to teach and preach on other religions. The phrase, a little wine is good for the stomach comes from 1 Timothy 5 and 23. Paul was advising Timothy from a reasoning of the water wasn't as clear then, as pure as we have today. And the wine, the alcohol in the wine, it would kill the bacteria, the fermentation in the wine. will kill the bacteria and the stuff in the water. It's just like today I've seen in Florida where they passed a law to take the fluoride out of the water. Now they had an article in the newspaper a couple about a month or two ago where the dental associations here in Baton Rouge and Louisiana were saying that's going to be a boon for the dentist because fluoride helps treat cavities. Since they started putting fluoride in the water, the children's teeth hadn't been as bad because it's a preventative that stops tooth decay and cavities and things. But these religionists come up with all of these things. And that's why I say sometimes religion can be very dangerous because of sedatism. That's what there was during the time of John. They say he was ascetic. He says, he come neither eating and drinking with you. And they say he was crazy. But then Jesus Christ come eating and drinking and you call him a glutton and a winebibber. So that's why I say what people say, we have to be careful of what people say. But one of the most dangerous things today is religion. Religion is the wine of today. It's the wine of Babylon. It's the rabe. And God says you go drinking to the drakes. Religion is what's gonna kill the people. You'd better believe in religion, but religion is wine. And that's why we call it Babylon the Great Harlot. And you could drink to your destruction. You could drink the whole cup. Jeremiah and I'll come back to that. We preached on that, taught of that. But like I said, I can't keep beating a dead horse here. But religion, that's the wine of Babylon. The fornication, when we go in the book of Revelation and talk about the wine of our fornication and that they're drinking the cup or whatever. This is the doctrine of the Pharisees. This is the teachings, the religious teachings. Those are the ones, that's the poison that bite it like an asp. That's very dangerous, false religion, and that'd be false teaching. Those was the warnings. Notice that Jesus' warnings stem from about the false prophets and the false teaching. As we keep going here, though, in Psalms 104 and 15, the verse states, and wine that make it glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengthen a man's heart. This is a description of the earth's bounty and high sustains and brings joy to humanity. Wine makes the heart glad. The verse is part of a larger psalm that praises God's creation and his provisions for all living creatures. Ephesians, I mean, Ecclesiastes 9 and 7 and 10, 19. These verses also touch upon the theme of enjoying life's pleasures. including wine and food with a thankful heart. Ecclesiastes 9 and 7 encourages enjoying life, including drinking wine with a merry heart. There will feast in the Old Testament, which it tells you as part of your offering your tithe. Take your tithes and buy food and drink and eat it. You see, that's where we have the problem, the people that are so miserable, the miserable Christians that have no joy, that are envious. The worst thing to be around is a miserable Christian because he wants to make everybody else's life miserable because they're miserable. That's why the problem within the Catholic church, that's why the indulgences and things that were sold. But when they preach abstinence, when they preach being eunuchs and they're priest in heaven, what happened? Homosexuality, altar boys, the biggest sexual scams come from within the Catholic churches because of their celibacy. because we're asking people to do something that's unnatural. God makes some men eunuchs, and some men are made eunuchs by man. But the problem is when we suppress things that God had placed here and blessed. That's why the people that are promoting unclean and clean foods, it says, in which God had put all foods here for us to enjoy. And Paul said, for conscience's sake, that he wouldn't eat me to eat certain foods if it made a brother's conscience weak. But it's nothing in food that could come in you to God. So we have a problem here with the churches. John 2, 1 to 10, not only did Jesus condone the proper use of wine, but he knew what the qualities of good wine were. In fact, confirming Luke 5, 39, and no one having drunk old wine immediately desires new, for he says the old wine is better. So, some have argued that at the Canaan wedding, Jesus changed the water into unfermented grape juice, not wine. However, the Greek word translated wine throughout John 2 and 10 is onus, which means fermented wine. And that's why I say a lot of churches are going back to having wine at their Passover or whatever. But like I said, we don't want to get caught up in symbolism. We don't want to get caught up in legalism. But we should know the truth so that we wouldn't preach unsound doctrine. The wine Proverbs 31 and 67, they talk about it for medicinal use. And I tell you, it was forbidden to priest while on duty, just like as a Nazarite, it was forbidden for Samson to even touch grapes. He shouldn't have been nowhere around grapes, anything, the fruit of the vine. Because even his mother was forbidden to eat wild during her pregnancy with Samson. Daniel's abstinence was not because of drunkenness, but because it would cause him the fellowship with the pagans at that time or whatever. So I have in your notes about the figurative uses of wine. Figurative, wine is figurative of divine judgment. Psalm 63, 75 and 8, Jeremiah 5 and 1, I mean 51 and 7. We have the wine of God's wrath being poured out upon the earth. So wine, in countless situations, is an ambiguous substance. And it's not just the context, but it's the understanding that God gives to the believer. And to enter into that understanding, we have to be led by the Spirit of God to establish the principles, because if he said, he shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until he drank it new in the kingdom. Now he was gonna drink, he didn't say new wine in the kingdom, he says, he will not drink of the fruit of the vine till he drink it new in the kingdom. Well, what does they picture the marriage supper of the Lamb at? merriment enjoying in a festive atmosphere. But some people have lost the ability to feast, they end up jealous and envious of one another. And they're like the Corinthians, they're drunk upon their own religion, they'll be holier than other people or whatever, faking abstinence, commend them to God. So you need the better if you eat or drink. So we will end this here. And I have also this thing from Naive's topical Bible, if you want to research and look at some of those things, because that's what we should be giving our time to is study and the word of God and praying and growing in the grace of God, because we can see the world being closed off. We can see people in darkness and being carried away with the world as it's getting brighter and brighter. If you can't see that, you're becoming dull of hearing and you need to go back, repent and turn to your first love. Remember, God gives you a space to repent. He gives you a small space to turn toward Him and abdicate the throne. God should be on the throne. We should be servants of God. We should be born servants of God, dying to self, not in self-indulgence and not in self-pleasure. So, like I said, we've grown this month. I think we have so far about 1,300 lessons, too. Ohio still being the lead, hopefully in Louisiana, but you need to get in a church. Those that listen over sermon audio or whatever, get to your local church in your area. Find a church, pray to God that he leads you to somewhere that you become a part of the body of Christ because That's God's authorized representative on earth. That's how we will grow. That's how your faith is going to grow, is the assembling together of yourselves. Find a church. In this day and age, one of the worst things that could happen is social media, the internet, podcasts, and all of these things, because no social interacting, and you're following someone without accountability, and we're not accountable one to another, not submitting one to another. We've become Babylon, scattered. The Spirit of God doesn't scatter. He says in the last time he was going to gather his people together. We will be one Father. Heavenly Father, we come before you.