The 5 Tradgic Transgressions: Alcohol
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Intro
Intro
Today i wish to start a treaching series called the % tradgic Transgressions. You have heart of the 7 deadly sins, well this is my take on it.
These 5 transgression are popular sins. Sins that are so common place that they have become acceptible, even in many churches.
I hope to warn you and spare you, because each of these transgressions have tradgic consequences.
Thanks to worldwide media coverage and the constant pressure for higher program ratings, sin has become an important part of international entertainment.
Evil activities that we ought to be weeping over are now sources of entertainment; they are vividly displayed on movie and TV screens and discussed in depth in newspapers and magazines.
The all-seeing camera moves into the bedroom, the barroom, and the courtroom and enables excited viewers to enjoy sin vicariously.
Movies and TV are instructing generation after generation of children how to ridicule virginity, laugh at sobriety, challenge authority, and reject honesty.
Actors, actresses, and advertisers have convinced them that “having fun,” “feeling good,” and “getting away with it” are now the main goals in life.
The Book of Proverbs has something to say about popular sins that are weakening our homes, threatening the peace of our communities, and destroying lives.
1. Drunkenness
1. Drunkenness
Alcohol is a narcotic, not a food; Proverbs warns us about alcohol abuse.
We need to heed that warning today.
Paying for the tragic consequences of drug and alcohol abuse in RSA
The combined total tangible and intangible costs of alcohol harm to the economy were estimated at 10 - 12% of the 2009 gross domestic product (GDP). The tangible financial cost of harmful alcohol use alone was estimated at R37.9 billion, or 1.6% of the 2009 GDP.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24893544/
Drugs:
At least 15 percent of South Africans are said to have a drug problem, according to the country’s Central Drug Authority. According to an article published on Parent24, we’ve gone from 8 787 people admitted for drug treatment in 2016 in SA to 10 047 in 2017.
Durban in South Africa has been slated as one of the largest markets for illegal drugs in sub-Saharan Africa. This is outlined in a US State Department 2017 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report. Illegal drugs such as cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine (tik), Methcathinone (cat) and Methaqualone (mandrax) is on the rapid increase over the last few years.
Wine and Israel.
Wine and Israel.
Wine is mentioned nearly 150 times in the Old Testament.
The people of Israel considered it a gift from God, along with oil and bread.
When Isaac blessed Jacob, he asked God to give him “the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn [grain] and wine”.
That is why i warn not against alcahol but against drunkeness. But we must be very very careful.
While drunkenness is condemned by the Law and the Prophets, the use of wine was not forbidden, except to priests serving in the holy precincts and to people under a Nazirite vow.
Wine was used as a drink offering to the Lord, and could be brought as part of the Jews’ tithes, so wine itself wasn’t considered sinful.
The problem was what wine did to people.
The Old Testament doesn’t demand total abstinence, although certainly it recommends it.
Wine and wisdom.
Wine and wisdom.
1 Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.
This is the first of several passages in Proverbs that warn against what today we call “alcohol abuse.”
Alcohol mocks people by creating in them a thirst for more while not satisfying that thirst.
The more people drink, the less they enjoy it.
The drinker becomes a drunk and then a brawler.
In spite of what the slick advertising says about the charm of drink, it just isn’t a smart thing to do.
As a Japanese proverb puts it, “First the man takes a drink; then the drink takes a drink; then the drink takes the man.”
Alcohol also mocks people by giving them a false sense of happiness and strength, and this is what often leads to fights.
The weakling thinks he’s a superman so he challenges anybody who gets in his way.
The grade-school dropout thinks he’s the wisest person in town and argues with anybody who disagrees with him.
Addiction to alcohol can lead to poverty.
17 Whoever loves pleasure will be a poor man; he who loves wine and oil will not be rich.
As a pastor, i deal with and cousel the poor almost every day. Over 20 years years i been counselling the poor and to this day i am yet to meet a person who is financually desitute who does or did not have a problem with alcahol.
Im not saying its always the case, but I yet to find a contradiction.
Proverbs 23:29–35 is the most vivid description of the tragic consequences of drunkenness you will find anywhere in Scripture, including delirium, sorrow, strife, bruises, and bloodshot eyes;6 “and in the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper”
29 Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?
30 Those who tarry long over wine; those who go to try mixed wine.
31 Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly.
32 In the end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder.
33 Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart utter perverse things.
34 You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on the top of a mast.
35 “They struck me,” you will say, “but I was not hurt; they beat me, but I did not feel it. When shall I awake? I must have another drink.”
You’d think that after having this frightening experience, the drinker would want to become a total abstainer for life, but alas, he’s a slave! “When will I wake up so I can find another drink?” (v. 35, NIV)
Alcohol and civic responsibilities don’t mix, according to Proverbs 31:1–9; yet the alcohol flows freely in parliament meetings.
1 The words of King Lemuel. An oracle that his mother taught him:
2 What are you doing, my son? What are you doing, son of my womb? What are you doing, son of my vows?
3 Do not give your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings.
4 It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to take strong drink,
5 lest they drink and forget what has been decreed and pervert the rights of all the afflicted.
6 Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress;
7 let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.
8 Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.
9 Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.
There many parties running our country. The ANC party, the DA party, the EFF party, but by far the most influential is the cocktail party.
My personal conviction is that abstinance should be required for any goverment position, but if that were the case SA would not have a goverment at all.
King Lemuel’s mother warned him to stay away from wine so that he would be capable of serving others.
16 Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child, and your princes feast in the morning!
17 Happy are you, O land, when your king is the son of the nobility, and your princes feast at the proper time, for strength, and not for drunkenness!
22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink,
That’s what the queen mother was warning her son to avoid.
Wine and today’s believer.
Wine and today’s believer.
The New Testament clearly warns today’s Christians about the sin of drunkenness.
13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy.
7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night.
34 “But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.
Galatians 5:21 names drunkenness as one of the works of the flesh
21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
And 1 Peter 2:11 admonishes us to “abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.”
Passages like Romans 14:1–15:13 and 1 Corinthians 8–10 instruct us to:
(1) receive other Christians and not make differences about diets and special days a test of fellowship or spirituality;
(2) avoid being a stumbling block to others;
(3) seek to build one another up in Christian maturity; and
(4) avoid being obstinate and defensive about our own personal convictions so that they become a cause of disunity in the church.
Christians with a weak conscience stumble easily and need to be built up, but stronger Christians are sometimes quick to criticize and look down on others.
Both groups need love, patience, and the help of the Spirit.
There’s such a thing among God’s people as “cultural Christianity.”
Practices that are acceptable in one place may be classified as sins in another place, and this includes the use of alcohol as a beverage.
Christians everywhere should deplore drunkenness, but not all of us agree on total abstinence.