Living Hope Fellowship Church...Sermons From the Pastor
DRINKING
by Pastor Kevin Badgley
I want to speak to you today about drinking. Can a Christian drink? May a Christian drink? If he can or may, how much can he drink? What is he supposed to drink? Any particular thing?
The Bible declares to us as Christians who are born again and filled with the
Spirit of God that we will behave like we're drunk, but on the new wine of the
Spirit of the living God. If you don't think so, read the book of Acts, Chapter
2. People looking on actually thought they were drunk on new wine. They were
filled with the Holy Ghost, and there was no sin in it, neither would they be
compelled by that drunkenness of the Spirit, to sin. However, there is another
kind of drunkenness that is sin. The Bible declares in 1 Corinthians 5: 11 and
13, " (11) But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any
man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or
a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
(13) . . . Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person."
Some say, "Well I'm not a drunkard, I just drink." Why do you drink?
Is it not to get drunk? "Well, I drink to be sociable." Don't you
know that if you drink to be sociable, that means that you don't have enough
power in your own spirit to deal with (and socialize with) other souls to get
them to come to Jesus? When you "socially" drink, you become a partaker
of other men's sins. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 5:22, ". . . neither be
partaker of other men's sins: keep thyself pure." Don't drink in order
to entreat them to be saved. You may say you are not really trying to witness
to them but you are just trying to be with them. 2 Corinthians 6:14 says, "Be
ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness
with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?"
1 Corinthians 10:21 says, "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils." You are supposed to drink the cup of the lord which is salvation, not the cup of devils which is drunkenness of this world. You can't do both! You'll be found a liar and a hypocrite if you are a drinker as a Christian. As a Christian you can drink the new wine of the Holy Ghost of God as he gives it. You can drink of the water of life freely if you'll come to the Lord. However, a Christian can't "drink" and go to Heaven.
The Bible declares in Proverbs 20:1, "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise." That covers wine, champagne, whiskey, and all the different kind of liquors and beer. It says wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging; in other words it'll make you mad. Whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
The Bible also declares in Proverbs 23:31-32, "Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder." That serpent is the spirit of alcoholism, the spirit of drink, a spirit that will turn you into a pervert if you get drunk enough. If you don't think so, check out the families that it has destroyed. Check out the drunken drivers who have killed entire families and themselves on some occasions. People were killed because of the liquor that they were drinking. Somebody say amen out there who has the guts to say so.
Proverbs 31:5 says, "Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted." What law? What judgement? That of the Lord. The Bible warns pregnant women back in Judges 13 not to drink wine or strong drink lest her child be deformed. Medical science has told us this. I know people right now who have deformed or children with birth defects, and they will not confess the fact that it was their booze that did it.
Did you know bourbon was invented by a minister? Yes it was. A backslid preacher invented bourbon. How many people have gone to hell, because he decided to go to hell? The bible declares there was a man in 1 Samuel by the name of Nabal whose heart was merry within him because he was very drunken with the booze of the world. Later on when he heard about God's word against him, his heart died within him.
He died because of his own drunkenness, which is foolishness, vanity, and pride against the things of God. Some people even do that in church. They have their own spirit, they have their own drunkenness, and they have their own "religion." They're drunk on it and they're not saved. They are not being moved by the Spirit of God; they are drunk with old wine; they will not see God.
What happen to Lot? A godly man, God delivered him out of Sodom and Gomorrah, which he leveled to the ground and nothing grows there even today. God let him, his wife, and two daughters come out of that city because He regarded the prayers of Abraham and the righteousness of Lot. Hebrews talks about his righteousness in front of the people. Yet, when he got drunk he committed incest with his two daughters, and two nations came up that came against Israel later, the Moabites and the Ammonites (see Genesis 19). If he had stayed away from the booze he could have kept his righteousness. He would not have shamed his walk in God, or shamed his daughters, and they wouldn't have had children that ended up fighting against the people of God.
Noah was a righteous man. The entire world that is now, procreated from the days of Noah. The reason we exist is because Noah obeyed God. He obeyed God, built the ark, and eight souls were saved from the flood that destroyed the rest of mankind at that time. However, as righteous as he was he made a mistake. He began to be a husbandman, and he grew his grapes for the wrong reason. He let them set. The longer something sets that is supposed to be good, godly, and righteous the more it ferments and rots. When it rots it becomes a poison of alcohol! In this case he drank of his own foolishness, his own backsliding, and he got drunk on it. Ham, one of his sons whom we find out was a pervert, saw his father's nakedness. It wasn't sin for Noah to lay naked in his tent, but because he was drunk it set him up for sin, and for someone else to sin against him.
Sometimes people drink and they are set up to where somebody can do something to them and they won't do anything about it. They are still a partaker of sin. When Noah woke out of his drunkenness he knew what his younger son had done to him the Bible says. Because he had gotten drunk he had been defenseless. Then what happened? Not from the effects of wine, but because the Spirit of the Lord came upon Noah, he cursed Ham. Ham became the father of Canaan. Canaan is the land that the Israelites had to go in and destroy because they were perverts and exceedingly wicked before the Lord.
Seven nations in that land were totally annihilated, every man, woman, boy, and girl were killed, because they were so wicked. Why? Their father was Canaan of Ham and Noah had cursed him. What occasion was given for Ham to be cursed? The drunkenness of his father was the occasion. The devil opens the door for you to do something wrong by drinking itself, and he opens the door for someone else to do something with you. You will go to hell for it.
The bible declares there's a last day drunkenness. There is a lying spirit in the earth that tells people you can sin and do anything and you don't have to worry about God's judgement. That's a lie from the pits of hell! It's a wine of the spirit of the devil; it's a mocker, and it's a raging thing. People today forget the law and they pervert judgment because they're drunk on the devil's wine.
Some say, "Jesus drank wine. He made wine!" Jesus made new wine. When you freshly make wine like at the marriage feast of Canaan there is no sin involved because it's grape juice. Deuteronomy 32:14 calls it the pure blood of the grape. That's what we use for communion.
God does not want us to even look at alcohol or regard it. You're not to mess with the drink of the world. You're supposed to be drinking of the Spirit of life in Christ. Jesus made an understanding for us in Luke 5:36, "And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth 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 agreeth not with the old." You are getting set apart by Christ when you get saved. The Spirit of God makes you new, and it does not agree with the old ways of the world. Drinking is part of the old ways of the world. It is one of Satan's counterfeits.
Verse 37-38, "And no man putteth 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." You must be born again! You have to be redeemed because the Spirit of God is coming into your new vessel. God makes you brand new. Otherwise the new wine will burst the old bottle, it will be spilled, and you will perish. In other words, you will die. The new wine must be put in new bottles and both are preserved.
What do we find out then? If you're a child of God saved by the blood of Jesus and the Spirit of God dwells in you, and then you start pouring old wine back into a new bottle you are in deep trouble fast. The hand of God can set you free.
Matthew 26:27-28 says, "And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." We see Christ at the Last Supper, raising up the cup, blessing it before the disciples and telling them to drink.
What is the counterfeit? At Satan's tables you see him propose toasts to this thing and to that thing. We see it even in the Old Testament where Belshazzar took the vessels of God (that they had taken from the temple in Jerusalem) and filled them with his wine (see Daniel 5:2-3). In Verse 4 it says, "They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone." Verse 5 says, "In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote." Daniel interpreted the writing and told the king in Verse 27, ". . . Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting."
If you know better, and you are doing it anyway, you will be weighed in the balances and found wanting! That man died that night and went to hell! You might die in a drunken stupor yourself. You might desire to commit suicide; many things can come to you. You are not in full control, and your mind will be affected. We're supposed to have the mind of Christ if we're saved. You are not supposed to touch anything that could affect that, and drinking will affect it.
When you are saved you are not supposed to drink the wine of the world but take on the things of God. Drink of the Spirit. Ephesians 5:18 says, "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;" Luke 5:39 says, "No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better." If you're a Christian and you drink old wine again you will not immediately desire the new wine again. You will begin to be cut off! You'll desire the old because the old is more "fun." Today I caution, admonish, and warn you by the word of God that drinking is sin. It will send you to hell as fast as adultery or any other sin. Today harden not your heart against God's Word. Come out from among the world and be separate. Drink of the Spirit of God!
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