PER:Alcohol, Drugs, and Cigarettes  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."

Satan is going to try to enslave you.  You may find yourself saying, 
"I can go into bars or be with friends 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 cocaine snort, take that first toke 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)."

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 Standard 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 Testament in Greek, and you 
and I have an English version.  There is a Hebrew word yayen, and a 
Greek word 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 "wine." 
It's sad that in our English version they always translated yayen and 
oinos as wine, and they shouldn't always have been translated that 
way.

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," 33 times in the 
Septuagint, a reliable version, the context clearly indicates 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 you, when you 
go into the tabernacle of the congregation, that you may put 
difference between holy and unholy, and between clean and unclean." 
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 says 
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?  Can you prove this?  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 
Judah 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 them onto 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!" That 
goes for some 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 on the wine when it's red, when it giveth his color 
in the cup, when it moveth itself." Move 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, and continue till 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 neighbor drink, puttest the 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 that one out of every four 
male adults 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, verses 19-21--
seventeen of them.  Number eighteen is drunkenness, and he says, 
"...of the which I tell you before, as I have told you in times past, 
that they which do such sins shall NOT inherit the kingdom of God."

Now, some folks pick at the young people, and say, "Isn't it terrible 
the way they're on drugs?" But the United Press International says 
"Alcohol, number one; heroin, number two, 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."

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, if you're inclined to 
take notes in your Bible, 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 original 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 your stomach's sake, and your oft 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!  Did you know there are 
500 million Mohommedans 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 we ought to be far 
GREATER as far as holiness is concerned, when Jesus Christ comes into 
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.

But there are some people who are hooked on drugs.  And I'm here to 
tell you that Jesus Christ can set you free from drugs.  A preacher 
friend of mine was in a meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan, when a couple 
of college students came up to him.  And they said, "We're Christians, 
and we're on PCP, and sometimes we take marijuana and cocaine." The 
preacher said he'd give them an answer the next night.  He wrote a 
booklet and sent it to a colleague who had a doctorate in Greek 
exegesis, to check out what he had written.  The doctor wrote back, 
"You're 100 percent right!" I'll give you a brief synopsis of what 
Jack Van Impe said in that booklet.

Five times the Bible mentions drugs--only five times.  First of all, 
Revelation 9:21.  Get the picture?  It's the tribulation hour.  God's 
judgments are falling upon the world, because they will not repent of 
sin.  And one of the sins is, "Neither repented they of their murders, 
or of their sorceries, or of their fornications or of their thefts." 
"Sorceries" there is the Greek word pharmakeia.  When it is 
transliterated into English we have "pharmacy" or drug store.  But the 
literal and actual meaning of the Greek is "enchantment with drugs." 
It is not wrong for a doctor to use it as a medication, and as a help 
when there's tremendous pain.  Just like Paul told Timothy to use some 
of this alcohol as a medication...period.  So the idea here is 
"enchantment with drugs," getting high on drugs, uplifted with drugs, 
kicks on drugs.  And God is judging the earth during the tribulation 
hour because of it.

We find it again in Revelation 18:23, "for by thy sorceries were all 
nations deceived." Again it's the tribulation hour; nations are 
crumbling.  Why?  Because they're under the influence of drugs.  "By 
thy sorceries..." pharmakeia, getting enchanted with drugs, are all 
nations deceived.

What about it?  Can a Christian use this?  Is a person judged by God 
if he is trying to get high on drugs?  Let's see.  Revelation 21:8 
says, "The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murders, 
and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall 
have their part in the lake of fire which burneth forever and ever." 
In that listing one again sees "sorcerers," but Greek root word here 
changes to pharmakoi, and it means the enchanter with drugs, or the 
one who sells and pushes it.  Friend, if you sell and push this stuff, 
the judgment of God is on you.  I'd hate to stand in your shoes at the 
Judgment Bar of God!

Well, wait a minute!  In Revelation 22:15, he says, "Outside of 
heaven--{that's what "without" means}--are dogs and sorcerers." And 
here the word is again pharmakoi and definitely includes both the 
drugs, their use, and by extension includes the pushers and users.  
God says those who push it and sell it and use it are outside of 
heaven.

The fifth listing is Galatians 5:19-21, where seventeen sins are 
listed, and number six is "witchcraft," and it's again the Greek word 
pharmakeia, and means those who get high on drugs.  And when he gets 
to the end of that listing, he says, "...of the which I tell you 
before, as I have told you in times past, that they which do such 
things, SHALL NOT...SHALL NOT inherit the kingdom of God."

Oh, just like God can set you free from alcohol, the Lord Jesus can 
set you free from drugs...and from tobacco!

All people today, it seems, are slaves to this dirty cigarette.  No 
wonder Revelation 22:11 says, "Let him that is unclean be unclean 
still." Now, if you're not a Christian, God isn't trying to tell you 
anything.  You don't have to live for him.  I'm talking now to those 
who name the name of Jesus Christ, for I want the emphasis in my 
message hereafter to be this:

One is not saved by believing on Christ and quitting tobacco, for that 
would become salvation by works, and it's not by works, Titus 3:5.  
The point is, when one is really converted, genuinely born again, 
regenerated, these things ought to fall off.  And the Word of God 
definitely says that these things--because our bodies are temples of 
the Holy Ghost--ought not to be in our lives.

You see, the American Cancer Society, the American Tuberculosis 
Society, the American Respiratory Society, and so many of the groups 
are constantly saying how rotten this thing is, while many of the 
deacons in our churches say, "I don't see anything wrong with it." 
Why, I've seen some churches on Sunday morning look like the 
Indianapolis Speedway as some of the deacons stand on the front porch.  
God forgive you, shame on you!  And you claim to be vessels of God.

What's wrong with tobacco?  All right, I'm talking again to 
Christians.  If you're not a Christian, this isn't for you.  Enjoy 
your cancer stick!  You have very little else in this life.  But if 
you're a believer, your body's the temple of the Holy Ghost.  Some 
folks say, "Oh, Jack, I can smoke anywhere, but in the house of God." 
Have you ever said that?  Well, I hope you have, because I've got you 
where I want you.  There isn't a one of us--if we're born again--who 
does not have the Spirit living in us.  The building is nothing to 
God; "the most high God dwelleth not in temples made with hands" (Acts 
7:48).  "God, that made the world and all things therein, seeing he is 
Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands" 
(Acts 17:24).  "You are God's building" (I Corinthians 2:9).  "Know ye 
not that your body is the temple of God" (I Corinthians 3:16).  "What?  
Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is 
in you" (I Corinthians 6:19).  It goes on to say, "Ye are not your 
own." I'LL DO WHAT I WANT!  "You're not your own!" I'LL DO WHAT I 
WANT!  "You're not your own.  Therefore glorify God in your body and 
in your spirit which are God's," if you're saved!

What's wrong with cigarettes?  Every cigarette has 19 poisons, 
nicatine, acrylin, pirodine, plussic acid, carbon monoxide, 
pheriferol, and 13 other things that hurt this thing in which we walk 
around called the body.  Every cigarette has 162 chemical compounds, 
of which 16 are known to be carcinogens, cancer-causing agents, 
causing, number one, lung cancer.  You get that from exhaust pipes.  
Yeah, if you stick your nose in one for a whole week, and then you'd 
never live to tell about it!

Number two, emphesema!  What's that?  Listen carefully, for I can only 
say this once.  HHHHHH!  Webster's Dictionary.  We have 750,000 cells 
which pull in oxygen and throw out poisons, which become ruptured 
through nicotine, causing the hacking, emphesemic cough.  Number 
three, circulatory disease, because the nicotine destroys the 
circulatory system, parts of the body have to be amputated.  Number 
four, heart disease, on and on!

Oh, we ought to be a different people!  My friend, thousands are going 
to doctors today and hearing this:  "You must QUIT because of these 
difficulties," and these people say, "I'm a slave, I'm hooked, I'm 
part of a generation that Satan has trapped, and I can't get relief, I 
can't quit!" So they come to you, deacon.  "Brother Jones, how can I 
get rid of this thing?"

"Well, you go to the drug store, you buy a package of Bantron, and 
chew it, and that helps you lose a little bit of the desire." Come on!  
Why not say to them, Jesus Christ has power to set men free, from 
alcohol, from drugs, from tobacco, from ANY wicked habit under which 
Satan has enslaved you, and I know He can do it for you because He did 
it for me.

Oh, I'll tell you friend, we ought to be a different people!
