TEXT: John 2:1-11

PROPOSITION: We must learn God's view of drinking alcoholic beverages.

Introduction:

1. Is the sin - drinking or being drunk?

2. Does the place matter - tavern vs. in own home?

3. What is the sin involved with alcohol?

Passages used to Approve Social Drinking

1. 1 Timothy 5:23

   1. See study from this morning.

   2. If Timothy were already drinking with every meal, it would not be necessary to urge him to take some.

2. John 2:1-11 Jesus' first miracle

   1. Don't straddle the fence. Did Jesus make intoxicating wine?

   2. Jesus made about 150 gallons

   3. It was non-intoxicating because:

      1. Jesus could not violate Habakkuk 2:15

      2. Would not remain sinless Hebrews 4:15

      3. People did drink unfermented wine in Jesus' day.

      4. Contrast the purpose of miracles vs. results of alcohol

         1. Miracles - produce faith through reason

         2. Alcohol - lack ability to reason

      5. Burden of proof lies with those who claim this was alcoholic

3. Matthew 9:17 (also Mark 2:24; Luke 5:37)

   1. Jim McGuiggan, The Bible, the Saint, and the Liquor Industry, pages 113-114

      1. Could not have been unsealed.

      2. Could not have been already fermented.

      3. Could not have been wine started to ferment.

      4. Had to be unfermented carefully kept from starting to ferment.

      5. The reason for new wine skins was to avoid the fermented dregs in the old skin.

   2. No skin (new or old) could stand fermentation in a sealed skin. One cubic inch of sugar transformed into carbonic gas expands 40 times.

4. Matthew 11:18-19

   1. Notice:

      1. Luke 1:15 John did not drink wine (fresh) nor strong drink (alcohol).

      2. "They say" is gossip and slander - neither charge is true.

      3. If Jesus was a social drinker - he also was a glutton (Proverbs 23:20-21) and John had a devil.

Passages Against Social Drinking

1. Leviticus 10:1-3, 8-11

   1. God's requirement - "I will be sanctified." (3)

   2. God's definition of "drunk"

      1. Not: thick tongue, blurred vision, staggering

      2. Rubel Shelly, Young People Make Moral Decisions, pages 34-35.

      3. But: breakdown of moral judgment, restraint, reason and moral sense

      4. "That ye put a difference between holy and unholy." (10)

   3. Drunkenness is a matter of degrees. "If it takes ten beers to make you drunk, then one beer makes you one-tenth drunk."

   4. "When you have drunk one drink, you are one drink drunk."

2. Temperance (self-control)

   1. Acts 24:25

   2. Galatians 5:23

   3. 2 Peter 1:6

   4. Titus 2:2

3. Harms the body

4. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

5. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17