Wine and Strong Drink (Part 1)

[00:00:00] Okay, so we're going to be in, of course, in proverbs, looking at another of the major themes in the book of proverbs. And for my kids, we're going to go over this and it's going to seem to my kids, it's going to seem very timely because of some recent events that happened in our family. [00:00:23] But actually it's not just so my kids know, it's not the reason I chose this particular theme. [00:00:32] So we will start. We're actually going to be kind of all over the place in proverbs to begin and some other verses. We're going to talk about what the proverb says about wine and strong drink. Wine and strong drink. All right, so let's pray first, and then I want to read you something before we look at the verses. [00:00:52] Our father, thank you for your people, thank you for your church. Thank you for the work of the spirit of God, the grace of God in us, Lord, to make us what you would have us to be, help to help us to grow and to increase and to prosper spiritually and to sustain us, Lord, in affliction and infirmities. And, Lord, we do pray for those among us who are unwell and who need your grace. Please help them. And I pray even as brother Ari mentioned and the verse that he quoted, that they would have a continual feast by having joy in their heart. And so, Lord, please just give help and grace to your people, Lord, that we would live not as this world lives in the base places of the earth, but we would live on a higher plane where we enjoy your peace and your joy and contentment and knowing you, knowing your faithfulness to us, knowing your guiding hand in our lives, bless our lesson today as we look at this subject, help us to look at it with an honest eyes and an honest heart, and to get from your word just exactly what your word says, and we would apply it to our lives. [00:02:12] And so we pray you bless it, but also service to follow. We ask you, as we have this final service of the year, and as we look back on the things you've done, that you would, Lord, help us to remember the things that you have done and not be forgetful of your blessings in our lives, because we are certainly forgetful often. [00:02:33] And so, Lord, bless our time together. Lord, I pray that your grace and your help and your spirit would be just plainly obvious among us. In Jesus name, amen. [00:02:44] I'm going to read you from part of our church's church covenant. [00:02:53] It says this. This is point d in the church's church covenant. So the reason I'm reading this is I want to make sure it's perfectly clear. [00:03:04] The church covenant is basically a statement of what we're getting ourselves into. You know what I'm saying? A statement of this is kind of what we believe. It doesn't cover all of our doctrinal stances and things like that, but it really deals with practical things. The church covenant deals primarily with practical things. In other words, this is the commitment that we're making to each other, to the church, to the Lord. [00:03:36] And it's articulated in the church covenant in kind of an encapsulated in a summary way. Point D says this. Well, I'll read the statement at the beginning, and then I'll read Point D. It says, having been led by the spirit of God to receive the Lord Jesus as my personal savior, and having been immersed in obedience to his word, and having been brought together providentially with this group of believers, I solemnly and joyfully enter into covenant with the members of this local representation of the body of Christ. I promise by the aid of the Holy Spirit that I'm going to read Point D. Okay, there's others, but I'm going to read point d for our lesson here. I promise by the aid of the Holy Spirit that I will make every attempt to be honest and exemplary in my conduct, by dressing modestly and appropriately, and by abstaining from anything that would be a detriment to my testimony for Christ, including abstaining from such worldly amusements as watching ungodly movies, gambling, rock music, and dancing. Of course, we could expand upon this. We could get just as specific as we wanted to be, or we could be more general and cover a whole lot of things in one statement. [00:04:49] But this is as it stands to be, free from all oath bound secret societies and partnerships with unbelievers to abstain from the sale or use of tobacco in any form, narcotic drugs, or intoxicating drink as a beverage, and to be zealous in my efforts to advance the kingdom of our savior. [00:05:10] So this is the church covenant. Now, here's what you have to understand as a church, the Lord has given to the church. [00:05:20] Okay, let me back up a little bit further so that we can understand this more clearly. [00:05:27] Our church is an independent baptist church, and I use the term independent with a little I right. That means our church is not part of a denomination. It's not part of a group, an association, or anything like that, except it's done voluntarily. So there is no group above us that is going to tell us the standards that we have. In other words, we look at the scripture and we say, this is what we believe. But in that regard, and this is, of course, seeking to follow a biblical pattern where the churches in the New Testament were independent churches, not that they didn't care for one another and pray for one another and work with each other, they did voluntarily. But as a matter of the existence of the church, it's an independent church. That's what we see in the book of acts. Well, as a result of that, that means we look at the scripture and as each one of us is a priest of God, we have direct access to the Lord. We have, each one of us, from you all the way to me, even the young people that have trusted in Christ, to the older people that have trusted in Christ, all of us equally have the spirit of God in us and are able to be taught by the spirit of God equally, right? That's what the Bible teaches as far as the presence of the spirit of God, the priesthood of the believer. [00:06:52] So each one of us can look at the scripture and could come to biblical conclusions about what is right and what is wrong, what is truth and what is error. [00:07:03] And as a church on a corporate level, we establish in our church policies and guidelines and doctrinal persuasions that we believe are founded in the scripture. Now, what about the cases in which there are issues and these do exist? For instance, you're not going to find anything about point D, rather about. You're not going to find anything that directly addresses rock music by name in the Bible. Right? That's what I just read in. .5. So as an example, what we do is we take the scriptural principles and they've kind of been applied in practical things that we see and experience and know of. [00:07:58] Just as a contrast, not too long ago, we were studying, talking about idolatry, and we looked at first corinthians and how there was an issue of whether christians could eat that which had been offered to an idol. Remember that? We talked about that with the second commandment. But that's not in this. Why not? Because that's not something we normally have to deal with. So the covenant deals with the things that we are normally going to face. And so as a church, even though some of these things are not maybe as clearly spelled out as we would maybe prefer them to be in the scripture, yet we take the principles together and we say, all right, this is where our church is and this is what we believe and this is the practice we're going to have. And it's not that we just pulled that out of thin air. No. It's an application of the principles of God's word. All right? So you'll see what I mean in just a minute. [00:09:00] Because on the subject of wine and strong drink, and on subject of alcohol in general, our church has made that the policy of our church in the covenant. It's very clear. Right? It's very clear. I don't have any alcohol in my home. [00:09:16] None. Not one drop. [00:09:19] I don't drink it. [00:09:21] I don't want to drink it. [00:09:24] I will not have it in my home. [00:09:28] That was the case before this covenant came into play. But this Covenant articulates that kind of position. Total abstinence is the position. [00:09:44] So some people call us t totalers. But the reason I read this is I want you to understand that as we read this. [00:09:52] Please hear me out. As we read the Bible, the subject of wine. And strong Greek. Is not neat and tidy like we would want it to be. There are some difficult things in the scripture on this subject. But see, notwithstanding those difficult things, as a church, we've taken a position taking it all together. Do you understand what I'm saying? And saying, all right, this is what we're going to do. This is what we're going to do. And so I wanted to make sure that's clear. Because when we study the Bible, we have to study what the Bible actually says. And so, with that in mind, let's look at a few things in the Bible. Because one of the big problems when you talk about wine, not just in proverbs, but also in other parts of the Bible, is we come at this subject of wine and strong drink, and alcohol in general, with a lot of assumptions. [00:10:48] Because wine and liquor and strong drink and those things are very common in our world. And it's always been that way. It's a very common subject. So if I say wine to you, your mind goes to one thing and one thing only. [00:11:08] Your mind goes to a glass bottle that you buy in a particular section of the store, or a store with little red dots. In Greenville, not all places have the little red dots. But if you're from Greenville, you know what the red dot store is, right? But the red dot store is a place that sells. Exclusively sells alcohol, all right? [00:11:28] So you think, well, that's where you go to get it. You either go to the grocery store where they have it, or you go to the red dot store, as we call it. And that's what wine is. Right? So, do you drink wine. What you don't think of is a goat's skin that's been dehaired and tied up and the juice of a grape poured into it and stored. You don't think of that, do you? But that is exactly how the Bible describes it. [00:12:04] So do you see? There's a disconnect in those things. Now, there's a lot of things that are common, but what I'm saying is when you read the word wine in the Bible, not you, but all of us are bringing what we see and are familiar with into the subject, and we're reading kind of into it. And what I'm saying is in the scripture, it's not neat and tidy like that so much. And I hope to show you that this morning. Here's the first thing that's not neat and tidy. When you think of the word wine. When I think of the word wine. Oh, by the way, Robert, you won. [00:12:42] You want to come get your snack? [00:12:48] We call it a cambodian snack, but it's actually from Thailand. [00:12:52] But it's safe to eat, I promise. [00:12:55] Well, assuming it's in date. [00:13:00] Yeah. There you go. There you go. Once you try it, tell me how you like it. All right. [00:13:08] All right. The first thing that comes across when you say wine. When I say wine is, of course, where we get it. It's a very methodical process that gives you the stuff that comes in the bottle with the corgan. [00:13:26] That's what wine is. And it can be nothing else. Let me show you a few verses. First of all, look at proverbs three. [00:13:35] I'll tell you all three verses. Let's go to proverbs three, Isaiah 65 and Joel two. [00:13:45] Proverbs three, Isaiah 65 and Joel two. [00:13:58] All right. Proverbs three says this, verse number nine. [00:14:09] Proverbs three, verse nine says, honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase. [00:14:18] All right, so God says, you honor the Lord with your substance. He's going to bless you. All right, this is a proverb. Now. Now look at what God's going to do to bless you. [00:14:27] So shall thy barns be filled with plenty. Stop. Do any of you have a barn? Raise your hand if you have a barn. [00:14:35] You have an actual barn. Do you put food in your barn? No. [00:14:39] You put equipment, right? [00:14:42] Yeah, exactly. [00:14:46] So what I'm saying is when you read this, that's foreign. Right? Now we understand what this is talking about. This is talking about material blessings, right? So shall thy barns be filled with plenty and thy presses. All right, stop. How many of you have a wine press at home. [00:15:02] Okay? You don't have that either. But again, we understand the principle of what's being said here. Thy presses shall burst out with new grape juice. [00:15:12] No, see this? It says wine. Now, if you take grapes and you throw them in a huge. How many of you have seen pictures of this? I mean, this is a huge, like, stone container. I mean, a big one. People can get inside of it, because that's how they trample the grapes. To get the juice out, we use big machine presses, right? That's what we do. Big, huge hydraulic deals that squish it with, like, 50,000 pounds of force or whatever. But in the biblical days, they would trample the juice. That sounds really nasty to us, but that's how they would do it, and it would squeeze out. Now, when that juice flows out of that press, is that wine in the way that you think of wine? No, we would think that is 100% juice. Right? Because in our mind, we have this very clear delineation between wine and juice. Why? Because we have modern industrial wine production, and we have refrigeration. And it's highly scientific. [00:16:12] The yeast content and the sugar content and different chemical contents, it's all tested, the quality control and all that stuff. And so you go into one part, not only that, but here's what we also have. We also have regulations as to what age you can buy certain things based upon the alcohol content. Right? [00:16:29] None of that was present here. [00:16:31] They trampled the grapes. The juice came out, and the Bible uses the term wine. [00:16:38] All right? So that's why. That's the first thing you have to do, is you have to understand that when you say wine and the Bible says wine, we might be talking about two different things. Okay, let's look at Isaiah 65. [00:16:54] Isaiah 65, and verse number 80. Thus saith the lord, as the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, destroy it not, for a blessing is in it, so will I do for my servant's sakes that I may not destroy them all. [00:17:18] Now, a cluster is a cluster of what? [00:17:22] Grapes. All right, so you hold up a cluster of grapes. We're very familiar with that. Because you can buy them, right? [00:17:29] The juice that is inside of a grape, the liquid, rather, that's inside of a grape, we call juice juice. Do we ever call it wine? [00:17:42] No. [00:17:43] Does the bible in this verse call that wine? Yes. Okay. Look at Joel two. [00:17:55] Joel, chapter two, verse 24. [00:18:10] Joel two, verse 24 says, and the floors shall be full of wheat and the fats. Or that's another way of saying vat, as in the press, or where it would be stored, shall overflow with wine and oil. [00:18:27] Once again, we're talking about freshly pressed grapes and the liquid that comes out of them. Now, again, we call that juice. The Bible in these verses calls it wine. Now, here's why I'm bringing this up. [00:18:42] Because generally, when a person takes a position that they believe that it's proper and suitable for a Christian to drink wine, all right, they will say things like, well, jesus drank wine, all right? [00:19:03] And what they're doing is they're taking a modern understanding of wine in 2023, almost 2024, and applying it and projecting it over what they read in the Bible. [00:19:18] We are not talking about the same thing now. We are talking about it did come from a grape. Grapes are the same. But the wine in scripture and the wine that we buy in this, well, that people buy in the store, although they come from the same source, are a different product. Okay? [00:19:39] Because. All right, let me give you an example to help you understand. You might be like, well, if it's just the juice that's come out of the grape, why doesn't the Bible just say juice? All right, let me illustrate the reason for this. [00:19:57] Brother York, I assume that today when you came to church, you drove a vehicle, right? [00:20:06] But by using that term vehicle, I have not specified the kind of vehicle, like whether it has eight cylinders or six cylinders, or whether it's diesel or gasoline or electric, or whether it's a truck or a car or a van, right. [00:20:27] Or it could be a motorcycle. It could be a backhoe, a vehicle. Right. So in other words, when you use the word vehicle, it's broad enough that it represents a lot of different things. And we do this all of the time in English. We do it all the time. We use general words, and we have to be more specific. So if I said, did you drive your truck to church? Well, he'd know exactly what I'm talking about. Well, the word wine is no different. When you see the word wine in the Bible, we think of it as a word, an alcoholic beverage from a grape. That's what we think of. But in scripture, all it's saying is the juice, the liquid that comes from the grape without specifying its alcohol content. That's what I'm trying to explain. [00:21:14] So when you see it, this is why you see it sometimes, and it's a reference to juice, and you're like, well, that's not how we use it. Exactly. So that's why I'm trying to make you understand that when we read this, we have to understand that just because Jesus. All right, let me. Who was I talking to about this? Was it David or brother Ari? I can't remember. Maybe Ben. I don't remember. We were talking about this subject because people say, well, Jesus turned water into. [00:21:42] Know. If you look at those water pots and it says each one of them was two or three firkins apiece, we're talking about large amounts of water. [00:21:53] I mean, gallons and gallons and dozens of gallons. And so, Sister Rita, what in essence, we're saying is Jesus had these huge water pots of stone. Each one of them had gallons of gallons. And Jesus turned all of that water into Chardonnay and distributed to the guests so they could all get hammered. [00:22:14] You see how stupid that sounds? [00:22:19] That's what comes of projecting onto the text our own understanding of what it is instead of looking at the Bible and what it says itself. [00:22:30] Okay, here's the other thing, and I have to say this before we move on. [00:22:34] So I'm trying to illustrate to you that it's not neat and tidy and we have to look at the biblical understanding and definition of wine. All right. But the second thing is, I have also heard people that would take a position similar to ours were abstinent. Right. And they would say, well, wine in the Bible is always non alcoholic or alcoholic. It's either Chardonnay or what? I don't know. Wine terms. You all have to just fill in if you all know the wine terms. But it's whatever. It's wine like, you get it at the store. It's that or it's juice. And they're clearly separated, but that's not like that either. And I'll show you that in just a minute. [00:23:19] All it's talking about is the juice that comes from the grape. That's it? That's it. The question of whether it has alcohol or how much alcohol or that question is a different question, and I'll show you that. All right, but here's one thing I want you to understand. [00:23:33] Look at proverbs, chapter three. [00:23:37] Proverbs three. For this point, if I'm going to be honest with the scripture, I'm going to have to show you these verses. [00:23:48] Listen, it doesn't do any of you, it doesn't do me any good to take a position on alcohol or wine or whatever, teaching on the subject and fail to point out all of the Bible verses. Because what's going to happen is I say the Bible says nowhere anything good about wine. And then you and your Bible reading come across a verse that says something good about wine, and you're like, well, hold on. [00:24:13] So I have to be honest with you about that. And there are verses that say good things about wine. All right, proverbs three, verse ten. [00:24:22] We just read it. So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presence shall burst out with new wine. You say, well, that's juice, all right, well, look at chapter nine, verse two. [00:24:38] Speaking of wisdom, we'll come back to this passage later. But speaking of wisdom, the Bible says, wisdom, she hath killed her beasts. She hath mingled her wine. She hath also furnished her table. [00:24:51] Keep going at verse five. Look what it says. She says in verse four, who so is simple, let him turn in hither. And as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, come eat of my bread and drink of the wine which I have mingled. Now, that's going to throw you for a loop. Mingled. That means you take the wine and you mix it with water. [00:25:09] She has prepared it for her guests. Wisdom has. Now, that means it's a good thing. She's preparing a spread. Wisdom is preparing a spread for those who are simple so they can come in and feast. That's basically what's being pictured here. So if I were to look at you and I were to say every time the Bible mentions wine is bad, well, that wouldn't be right, obviously. Or if I was to kind of pick and choose, well, this is talking about nonalcoholic wine, which in modern parlance isn't a thing. We call it juice. [00:25:43] And this is talking about alcoholic wine. Well, then you have cases like this where it's not specified. It's not specified. [00:25:53] So again, we have to interpret the word of God based upon what the word of God says. Listen, you don't have to be afraid of what the Bible says on this subject. There are some difficult passages that, to be honest, you want to know what they are? I'll tell you. And you'll have a fun time trying to figure out how to fit it into the paradigm that we're looking at. But what the scripture does say about it is clear. All right? [00:26:27] Now, if you lived in the fifth century BC or eigth century BC and you wanted to have a drink, I'm talking about you're thirsty, okay. Or maybe you maybe had a festival, you have a party at your house or whatever, what are your beverage options? [00:26:52] Say again? [00:26:55] Warm root beer. [00:26:58] Well, okay, that's the first thing. No refrigeration. But what are your options. [00:27:02] You can have water. [00:27:06] You might be able to get some juice from a fruit. Okay, that's possible. [00:27:13] Okay. [00:27:16] All right. You might also have milk, but without refrigeration. Without refrigeration. Milk. I mean, you go from utter to table. [00:27:27] That's nasty. [00:27:29] I go to the grocery store where milk does not come from cows. [00:27:36] Some of you have probably drunk fresh milk. Like, I've never done that. [00:27:47] Okay, that's interesting. [00:27:53] Okay. I think I can handle that better than drinking a glass of it. Freshly squeezed or milked milk. Yeah. [00:28:10] Like I said, I go to the grocery store where you don't do that. [00:28:14] It comes out of a machine. [00:28:18] They milk a machine. Okay. [00:28:22] All right, man. [00:28:25] Okay. All right. What are your options? You've got milk, which that's hardly an option. You might have a fruit juice of some kind, but even then, I mean, think about the work. [00:28:36] You basically have to pick it and press it right there, which we have a hard time doing that now with all of our juicers and all that stuff. All right, but anyway, that might be an option. What else? [00:28:47] It's kind of hard to think of something, ain't it? [00:28:50] Water. [00:28:52] There's no pepsi, no soft drinks, no coffee. Maybe tea, but I don't think tea was present here. In Bible times. Maybe in India it was present, but I doubt it was present here. You're really running out of options, aren't you? You know what your option is? Wine. You know why? Because the grapes can be harvested, pressed, and the juice can be stored later, taken out, mixed with water, and presented as a beverage. [00:29:27] You don't have many other options. So you want to go to somebody's party and they have, like, a rack of lamb or whatever they have, and it's a big, huge party, and you got to drink water. So this is why you often find, just like we just read wine in association with feasting. [00:29:44] Okay? [00:29:46] So now along those lines. So you think of there. I'm. I'm trying to help you think on the basis of the scripture. Okay? So they harvest the grapes, right? They press the grapes. Now, if you want to drink the fresh juice of the grape, you can absolutely do it. And you know what? When they harvested the grape juice, I'm sure that's what they did. The Bible often uses the term new wine to refer to that. All right? [00:30:22] But you would have to do it right then, like, as soon as it was pressed. Here is why. I mean, you couldn't take all of those gallons of juice that just came out of the wine press and drink it all at the same time. Number one, you just can't drink that much. And number two, you wouldn't have any for later. So you would harvest it, and then you would drink it all, and then you would be drinking water the rest of the year or rotten milk. [00:30:52] So what they did is they stored it. [00:30:56] People figured out way back from the. Before the days of Noah that you could store it. [00:31:03] Here's what happens. Okay? [00:31:08] You can go ahead and turn to Luke five and you'll see what I mean. Here's what happens. When the grapes are pressed in nature and on the skins of the grapes is yeast. [00:31:22] Yeast. All right. Yeast is a bacteria or. Yeah, it's a bacteria, I believe. Yeah, it's a bacteria. [00:31:32] But that bacteria naturally occurs in nature. It's in nature already in the environment. And it's on the skins of the grapes. You don't have to do anything to it. You take that grape, you squish it. That yeast mixes with the juice, and then you take that juice that has the yeast already mixed into it from the skins of the grape and from the environment, and you store it. [00:31:55] What happens is the yeast, which is a bacteria, starts to eat the sugar in the grapes, the grape juice. And the byproduct of that process is ethanol, ethyl alcohol, which is what we call alcohol. [00:32:11] So what happens is, as that yeast consumes the sugar, it outputs alcohol and the juice becomes fermented until the point at which the alcohol content rises so high that it exterminates the yeast. [00:32:28] That's what happens at a certain level. The fermentation process stops because the yeast dies because of the level of alcohol itself. I think there's a lesson in there somehow about sin or something like that. [00:32:42] Sin is always fun until it destroys you, and then the game's over. But anyway, now where does that happen? [00:32:52] It's tough to get accurate figures on at what percentage of alcohol that happens, but with the best I could find in my research was around nine to 12%. Alcohol is when all the yeast, the yeast can no longer live in the alcohol at nine to 12%. Now, a beer, one beer, an average beer is about four to 6% alcohol. So this is more alcoholic than a beer. But here's what you have to remember that once that fermentation process has stopped, it kind of stabilizes. [00:33:30] Okay? It's not going to go rancid because all the bacteria have died. [00:33:35] That's why they can keep it a long time and store it and use it for later. So what they do is they take it and they mix it with water, and it's mixed with water. [00:33:49] Now, how is that different than modern alcohol production? [00:33:53] In modern alcohol production, what they do is they take special yeast that is specifically designed to have a high tolerance for alcohol so that they can drive up the alcohol content, and then they produce the wine so that it has a certain level of alcohol. And they don't mix it. They don't want to mix it. [00:34:17] Now, look at is our last verse. Look at Luke, chapter seven. [00:34:22] Luke seven. [00:34:24] I want to show you. Listen, we're just doing kind of a study on what the Bible says on the subject. [00:34:35] But as far as this fermentation process that I just described, our Lord himself. Listen to what he said in Luke seven and verse 30. I'm sorry. Luke five. I got my verses confused. Luke five, verse number 36. [00:34:54] Listen to this. [00:34:56] And he spake also a parable unto them. No man putth a piece of a new garment upon an old. If otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeeth not with the old. [00:35:10] Verse 37. And no man putth new wine into old bottles, else the new wine will burst the bottles and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles, and both are preserved. [00:35:27] Now, when you read that word bottle, what are you thinking? [00:35:32] You're thinking of a glass bottle. You're not thinking of a goat skin, which is what it was. [00:35:40] You say what you see seen. I knew a missionary. I was at a mission conference one time, and a missionary from the sub Saharan Africa brought a bottle made from a goat skin. Like, it looked like a goat skin, where the arms and legs of the goat, the skin was tied off, and it was sealed. [00:36:03] And that makes you really want whatever was in there, right? [00:36:08] And it was exactly what we read in the scripture. Because what happens, what's being described here is they pour the fresh new juice from the grape into this bottle, and that fermentation process starts, and the result is carbon dioxide gas. And so that skin is allowed to expand. It expands. But once the skin is well used, it's old. It's already expanded. If you put new wine in there, and then it'll burst the bottle because it's already expanded. That's what the lord is talking about. So when you look at that again, we want it neat and tidy. We want to think of what's in the store. It's not what we're talking about here. [00:36:49] This is why it was mixed. Now, here's what I want you to understand? And this is the verse we're going to look at next week. [00:36:56] Proverbs 20, verse one. [00:36:59] Wine is a mocker, and strong drink is raging. And whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. I felt like I had to give you some background because the same proverbs and the same Bible that talks about this fermentation process, and sometimes we get a little bit. It disturbs us. It's fermenting. That's what happens when you store grape juice. It ferments. Like, that is fact. All right. But the same Bible that talks about that also says wine is a mocker. You see? So it's not like this idea we have in our Bible that, well, Jesus was turning water into wine and they were drinking wine. Everybody's just having a good old time. That's not what we find here. We find the proverbs of wisdom are saying, you better watch out. [00:37:47] You better watch out. [00:37:49] That stuff will mock you. [00:37:52] That stuff will hurt you. [00:37:55] You better use wisdom. [00:37:58] You could apply that. Could you not apply that to prescription medication? Right? How many of you have taken oxycodone because you had a serious pain? Right? But how many times has that been abused? Right? How many times has that been taken to the point to where it is far beyond what is intended to be taken? [00:38:19] And so there's different ways you can apply it. So even within, even with that, you could look at it and you could say, well, wine is a mocker. Strong drink is raging. Now, I'm not, of course, that's why I read the church covenant at the beginning. I'm not saying that we should drink a little bit. I'm not. Rather the opposite, and that's what we're going to see. [00:38:37] But I also think we have to come at it with clear eyes, knowing what the Bible says on it, so that we can address it properly. Because here's the thing. When you're discussing this with somebody else, if you say something that's factually inaccurate, it actually is going to hurt you. So it's best to come at it and say, okay, this is what the Bible says on it, and this is why we take this position. [00:39:02] This is why I don't keep the stuff in my house. Right. All right, let's pray together.