Originally posted by Harald:
I had a glass of white wine a few days ago. My brother and his fiance had come up for Easter to visit me and mom. We had elk steak and mom had provided a bottle of Australian white wine, about 9 % alcohol content. All four of us had a glass with the meat and no one got drunk or even thought about getting so. Mom and brother and his fiance are not in any sense religious people, yet no one of them has ever made any fuss about the fact of me liking to have a glass of white wine with them whenever we have wine with meat. Yet the fact that this is not a problem with me does not mean it is convenient for everyone else who professes to know Christ. I don't condemn any who choose to abstain from alcohol for conscience's sake. But I don't give much for such who try to force abstinence on everyone else by twisting the Scriptures to teach something they do not teach.
Harald
I am not twisting the scriptures. I believe that if you study "wine" in the Bible, it is plain to see that more evidence points to the abuse of wine than anything.
Proverbs 20:1 Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. Are you wise?
This may be long, but here is 75 scriptural reasons to stay away from alcohol.
1. Gen. 9:20 - 26. The first drunkenness and the attendant immoral behaviour.
2. Gen. 19:30 - 38. Drinking results in Lot's defilement of his own daughters.
3. Gen. 27:25. Isaac was drinking when he mistakenly blessed Jacob.
4. Lev. 10:9. An express command not to drink.
5. Num. 6:3. The vow of the Nazarite.
6.Deut. 21:20. Drinking leads to stubbornness, rebellion, and gluttony and brings dishonour to parents.
7. Deut. 29:2 - 6. Abstinence assures a closer walk with God.
8. Judg. 13:4,7,14. Samson's mother, an example of all womanhood, was commanded not to drink.
Was alcohol recognized even then as a protoplasmic poison, injuring posterity?
9. 1 Sam. 1:14,15. Hannah, an example of honoured motherhood, refrained from drinking wine.
10. 1 Sam. 25:32 - 38. Nabal, a rich but churlish man who opposed David, died after a drunken spree. He had already lost his wife's respect.
11. 2 Sam.11:13. By having Uriah plied with strong drink, David attempted to cover his own sin.
12. 2 Sam. 13:28,29. Amnon, in a drunken brawl, was murdered by his brother, Absalom.
13. 1 Kings 16:8 -10. While a king was "drinking himself drunk" in his own home, one of his captains conspired against him and slew him.
14. 1 Kings 20:12 - 21. Drink and war. While Ben - hadad and thirty - two other kings were drinking in their pavilions, a small band of Israel's men fell upon the Syrians and put them to flight.
15. Esther 1:5 - 22. Drink wrecks homes and separates man and wife. At a week's feast of food and wine, King Ahasuerus drunkenly tried to subject his queen to the beastly gaze of inebriated nobles, thereby causing separation of the royal husband and wife.
16. Job 1:18,19. The children of Job were feasting and drinking when blown away in a cyclone.
17. Pr. 4:17. Violence results from drinking.
18. Pr. 20:1. No wise man will indulge.
19. Pr. 21:17. He that loveth wine is not rich.
20. Pr. 23:21. Drinking leads to poverty.
21. Pr. 23:29,30. Strong drink produces sorrow, contentions, wounds without cause, babblings, redness of eyes.
22. Pr. 23:31. Do not be tempted by intoxicants.
23. Pr. 23:32. God's Word warns that liquor eventually harms all who drink.
24. Pr. 23:33. It fills men's minds with adulterous and impure thoughts.
25. Pr. 23:33. It produces wilfulness and prevents reformation.
26. Pr. 23:34. It brings on insecurity.
27. Pr. 23:35. Insensibility follows drinking, rendering a man as a clod.
28. Pr.23:35. Habit forming. One drink calls for another.
29. Pr. 31:4,5. Kings and all other rulers or officials with the weight of human lives in their control should not indulge.
30. Pr. 31:6,7. The only sanction for the use of strong drink was as a medicine or anaesthetic for those
about to die. We now know better medicines and anaesthetics than whisky, wine or beer.
31. Eccl. 2:3; 12:8. The writer of Ecclesiastes tried strong drink, but in the end was forced to admit that it too is
vanity.
32. Eccl. 10:17. Blessings are promised to the temperate and abstaining nation.
33. Isa. 5:11,12. Woe to drunkards.
34. Isa. 5:22. More woes to them who drink.
35. Isa. 22:13. Drinking and carnality go together. Leaves men hopeless.
36. Isa. 24:9. Drink is bitter to them that drink it.
37. Isa. 28:1. Woe to the drunkards of Ephraim.
38. Isa. 28:3. The pride of drunkards will be trodden down.
39. Isa. 28:7. Prophets and priests erred through drink.
40. Isa. 28:7. Those who drink are set aside as useless.
41. Isa. 28:7. Prophets and priests finally swallowed up by drink.
42. Isa. 28:7. Drinking brings on spiritual blindness.
43. Isa. 56:9 - 12. Rebuke to drinking church members, His watchmen.
44. Jer. 35:5,6,8,14. Total abstinence of the Rechabites cited as an example of obedience on the part of God's people.
45. Ezek. 44:21. Priests are not to drink wine.
46. Dan. 1:5,8,16; 10:3. God honoured Daniel because he abstained from the king's wine. Daniel, the man, was true to the home training he had received as a boy.
47. Dan. 5:1. Belshazzar exhibited as an example of a leader who drank and taught his people to drink.
48. Dan. 5:2, 23. A nation whose women drink.
49. Dan. 5:5 - 9, 25 - 28. Ruin and downfall for nations whose rulers and leaders cause them to drink.
50. Dan. 5:3. Belshazzar's sacrilege in using sacred temple vessels for liquor.
51. Hos. 3:1. Part of degradation of Hosea's wife induced by drink.
52. Hos. 4:11. Strong drink and immorality go hand in hand.
53. Hos. 7:5. King and people reproved because of drinking.
54. Joel 1:5. Drunkards to awake from their drinking.
55. Joel 3:3. Young virtue sold for the price of drink.
56. Amos 2:8. Wine of the condemned.
57. Amos 2:12. Pollution of the innocent.
58. Amos 4:1. Dissolute women, oppressors of the poor, call for their liquor.
59. Amos 6:6. Drinkers are not concerned about God nor the welfare of others.
60. Nah. 1:10. Drunkards to be destroyed.
61. Hab. 2:5. Arrogance inflamed by drink.
62. Hab. 2:15. Wrong to give one's neighbour drink. Social drinking.
63. Hab. 2:16. Drink leads to shame and humiliation.
64. Matt. 24:48 - 51. Drunkards warned about the return of Christ and His judgment.
65. Luke 1:15. Greatness of John the Baptist linked with his total abstinence.
66. Luke 12:45. Christ warns against being enmeshed in drink evils.
67. Luke 21:34. Warning against drunkenness and the acres of this life which follow, keeping one occupied to the exclusion of the Spirit.
68. Rom. 13:13. All are admonished to walk honestly, not in rioting and drunkenness. It is not honest to be less than men, created in the image of God.
69. Rom. 14:21. Drinking causes a brother to stumble. Importance of example.
70. 1 Cor. 6:10. No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God.
71. 1 Cor. 11:25. The Lord's Supper no place for wine. Word "wine" not even used. Instead all accounts say "the cup" or "fruit of the vine".
72. Gal. 5:21. Revellers in drunkenness shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
73. Eph. 5:18. Direct command that exhilaration shall be of the Spirit and not by wine.
74. 1 Thess. 5:7. Sobriety enjoined upon the Thessalonians. Children of light must not be overcome by darkness.
75. 1 Tim. 3:3 - 12. Church officers must not drink; neither should their families.
