PER:The Christian and Alcohol  by Jack Van Impe

The devil--called "Satan"--has many alluring traps to 
enslave victims into a life of misery and heartache. The Lord 
Jesus Christ has power to liberate and set men free, for He 
said in John chapter 10, verse 10, "I am come that they might 
have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."

One of these "traps" the devil uses is alcohol.  People 
say, "I can go into a bar or whatever and take a social 
drink. I don't have to become an alcoholic!"  You know, 
that's the way the devil fools a lot of people.  "Come on, 
take that first drink, take that first LSD trip, take that 
first drag of marijuana..."  and lives are ruined.

We need an old-fashioned evangelist like Billy Sunday 
today to tell us what to do with liquor.  He used to say, 
"Liquor is all right in its place, but its place is in the 
bottom of hell, and the church member who takes his liquor in 
moderation does so because he takes Jesus Christ in 
moderation, for `no man can serve two masters'" (Matthew 
6:24).

But you know, we're living in a day and age when people 
say, "Oh, there's nothing wrong with drinking."  Even 
clergymen say that the Bible is all in favor of drinking 
alcoholic beverages.  They must be reading from the reversed 
vision!

Well you say, "Jack, there are times when I study the 
Bible and I become confused, for there are times when it 
looks like one can drink and times when it looks like one 
can't drink."  Well, friend, there are no contradictions in 
the Bible, so let me explain why you seem to have a problem 
when you study some of these Scriptures.

You see, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the 
New in Greek, and you and I have an English version.  The 
Hebrew word was "yayen" and the Greek "oinos."  And we 
translated from those words into the English the word "wine."  
But, you see, when a Hebrew got up and said "yayen" and a 
Greek said "oinos," he did not necessarily mean alcoholic 
"wine."  It's sad that we always think of the alcoholic 
beverage when we think of "wine" in the Bible, but "wine" did 
not always refer to the alcoholic beverage.

Why?  "Yayen" and "oinos" could mean many things.  It 
could mean "grapes," "grape juice," "grape syrup," "raisins," 
and then, friend, it could even mean "jam" and "jelly," and 
finally, if it fermented, an alcoholic beverage.  But when a 
Hebrew said "yayen," a Greek said "oinos," he could be 
talking about jelly.  He could be talking about grape juice.  
He could be talking about raisins.  In fact, the Septuagint, 
which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, 
translated by seventy scholars, when it comes to this word 
that you have in your English version "wine," thirty-three 
times in the Septuagint, a reliable version, it says, "grape 
juice...grape juice...grape juice!"

Well, you say, "Since I'm not a Hebrew or Greek scholar, 
how do I know what's right?"  Well, common sense will tell 
you.  Leviticus 10:9: "Do not drink wine nor strong drink, 
thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle 
of the congregation...that ye may put difference between holy 
and unholy, and between unclean and clean."  Yeah, but that's 
when man goes into the temple he's not to mix the holy and 
the unholy.  But in the New Testament, I Corinthians 3:16, 
the body of the Christian is the temple, and we ought not to 
mix the holy with the unholy.

Say, Jack, are you sure about this--"yayen" and "oinos" 
meaning juice or grapes?  You be the judge.  Isaiah 16:10: 
"The treaders shall tread out no wine in their presses."  Now 
notice:  They were picking the grapes and smashing them with 
their feet, and they were calling it wine; but it couldn't 
have been a fermented beverage, because it had just been 
picked and just smashed with the feet.  The only way this 
stuff could have fermented is if their feet hadn't been 
washed in weeks, and that automatically performed the miracle 
instantaneously.  Ha!  Ha!

Nehemiah 13:15:  "In those days saw I in Judea some 
treading winepresses on the Sabbath," and they loaded wine on 
the donkeys.  Get the picture?  They picked the grapes, 
crushed them, and then loaded it on the donkeys and called it 
wine, but it wasn't wine.  It had just been picked and it was 
fresh juice, but it proves that oftentimes the Bible calls 
grape juice "wine."

Let's go on.  Proverbs 20:1: "Wine is a mocker, strong 
drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not 
wise."  Proverbs 23:20: "Be not among winebibbers."  What did 
you say, God? Be not among jelly eaters?  Now God couldn't be 
talking about jelly there.  He says, "Be not among those who 
use the fermented beverage."

Goes for some of you preachers and others who say it's 
all fine!

In fact in Proverbs 23:31, he says "Look not"--there's a 
good negative verse--"look not thou upon the wine when it is 
red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth 
itself."  Moveth itself?  Fermentation.  God says when it 
comes to that point, don't look at it.

Isaiah 5:11: "Woe unto them that rise up early in the 
morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue 
until night, till wine inflame them!"  Isaiah 5:22: "Woe unto 
them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to 
mingle strong drink."  Hosea 4:11: "Whoredom and wine...take 
away the heart" from God.  Habakkuk 2:15: "Woe unto him that 
giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, 
and makest him drunken."  God says, "My judgment's on the man 
who makes it, on the man who sells it, on the man or woman 
who serves it"--even in his own home.

Why?  Because there are 8 to 9 million alcoholics now in 
America alone.  Recent reports on television said one out of 
every four men in France is an alcoholic, and the Bible says, 
"No alcoholic (drunkard) shall enter the kingdom of heaven" 
(I Corinthians 6:9).  Look at that listing of sins in 
Galatians 5:19-21, seventeen of them.  Number eighteen is 
drunkenness, and he says, "...of the which I tell you before, 
as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such 
things shall NOT inherit the kingdom of God."

Now some of you folks pick at the young people.  And you 
say, "Isn't it terrible the way they're on drugs?"  But I 
have a Miami Herald that says, "Alcohol, Number 1, Heroin, 
Number 2, in drug abuse."  The United States Government 
classifies alcohol as a drug, as a narcotic.  Most Christians 
agree that it's wrong for a believer to take drugs, and yet 
they think it's all right--many of them--to use alcohol.  
Let's be consistent; it's a drug, it's a narcotic, it's not 
for the Christian whose body is the temple of God.  "Abstain 
from all appearance of evil" (I Thessalonians 5:22).

But then there are always those who say, "Well, Jesus 
created wine."  Did He?  You be the judge.  In John chapter 
2, verse 10, at the wedding of Cana, when Jesus performed 
this miracle, they said to him, "You have kept the good wine 
until last."  Now circle that word "good," and I will now go 
slowly so that you get this.  Turn to John chapter 10, verse 
11, where Jesus Christ cries out, "I am the good shepherd."  
Now circle that word "good."

"Good" wine?  John 2:10.  "Good" shepherd?  John 10:11.  
They are both the same word in the Greek New Testament.  And, 
according to Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament 
Words, the "good" there means "not spoiled, no corruption, no 
sin, no wickedness" in Jesus.  But that's the same "good" 
used for wine--"no corruption, no spoilage, no rottening 
process, no fermentation"--good juice!

Oh, yes, but Timothy was told to drink wine!  In I 
Timothy 5:23: "Use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and 
thine often infirmities."  Number one, it was to Timothy.  
Number two, it was just a little--not sitting around a table, 
drinking it up as a social beverage.  Number three, it was 
for a sickness, for your "infirmities."  And number four, 
this is the greatest verse in the Bible to prove that 
Christians did not sit around the table drinking, because 
Timothy was won to Jesus Christ by the apostle Paul.  He 
wouldn't touch the filthy stuff!  But he got sick, and they 
didn't have drug stores like we have today, where one can get 
all kinds of medications.  So Paul wrote to his convert and 
said, "Timothy, don't be afraid to use it as a medication." 
... PERIOD!!

Some of you folks name the name of Jesus Christ and you 
sit around drinking booze, you need a real experience.  You 
know, there are 500,000,000 Mohammedans in this world who 
won't use liquor or tobacco.  And they claim Allah does this 
for them!  And then we see Christians who say, "I can do 
anything!"  I'm not saying Allah saves, and I don't believe 
Mohammedanism is the answer, but I believe that we ought to 
be far GREATER as far as holiness is concerned--when Jesus 
Christ comes in the heart.

And I can't accept the experience of these people who 
say they're Christians, and they do everything and they go 
everywhere.  I believe when Jesus comes into the heart, God 
comes to live in the body.  One begins to act differently, 
live differently, talk differently, walk differently--even 
SMELL differently, as the old habits drop out of the life.
