Is Drinking Alcohol a Sin?

00:00:00.000 | Here we are at episode number 200 in the Ask Pastor John podcast series, and what

00:00:09.960 | grace and kindness from the Lord to have shown us such favor on this little

00:00:13.680 | podcast. And in episode number 200, "It's Appropriately Epic," is a question that we

00:00:18.560 | get all the time, weekly, from listeners who send us emails. And here it is, Pastor

00:00:22.120 | John. "Is drinking alcohol a sin?" Let me start by putting my biases on the

00:00:29.840 | table, okay? My background, my biases, because everybody's influenced, right, by

00:00:34.520 | their family and experiences they've had. I'm a default, default teetotaler. And

00:00:40.640 | what that means is, if I have my choice, I don't drink alcohol. But I might, to be

00:00:48.560 | a good guest. In other words, that's my little experience of freedom in

00:00:52.120 | Christ. In Germany, I'm not gonna make a pain in myself.

00:00:58.040 | They put something on the table. I'm gonna do my best to manage it for their,

00:01:04.040 | to honor them as my guest. I want to let love be the guide, and love inclines me

00:01:09.880 | away from alcohol in our day. But here's the nuanced answer, and a

00:01:16.000 | little bit of why I've chosen this path for myself, and don't make it a

00:01:22.120 | requirement for everybody. The first answer is, that I would give, "Is it a sin

00:01:30.000 | to drink alcohol?" is the same answer I'd give to, "Is it a sin to drink water?" And

00:01:35.320 | the answer is, it could be. Drinking water when you should be giving a glass to

00:01:40.520 | someone else in need, that's sin. Drinking water when you should be paying more

00:01:47.760 | reverence to the preaching of God's Word, that's a sin. Drinking water when

00:01:54.080 | someone just warned you it's contaminated, it might kill you, that's

00:01:57.160 | sin. So drinking water can be sin, and presumably then alcohol could be sin. But

00:02:05.760 | it may not be. I mean, Jesus made wine for the marriage at Cana, and I presume he

00:02:12.240 | made it because he expected people to drink it, and he didn't want to

00:02:15.280 | participate in their sin. Paul told Timothy to drink it medicinally. The

00:02:20.520 | church leaders are not to be enslaved to it, which I think implies a moderate use

00:02:25.960 | of it. And Psalm 104 15 says, "It's a gift from God. Wine is to gladden the heart

00:02:32.680 | of man, oil to make his face shine." So I don't think anybody can make a case from

00:02:38.320 | Scripture that teetotalism is required. If you choose not to drink alcohol, like

00:02:46.760 | I do, as a kind of default way of life, it's got to be based on some kind of

00:02:51.600 | principle other than what the Bible requires of us. So what might that be? And

00:02:59.200 | it is remarkable how many warnings there are in the Bible about alcohol. I'll just

00:03:07.280 | bullet a few here. Don't get drunk with wine, Ephesians 5 18, or Romans 14. It's

00:03:13.760 | good not to drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.

00:03:19.880 | Hosea 4 11, "Beware of wine and new wine which take away the understanding." Ezekiel

00:03:28.280 | 44 21, "No priest shall drink wine when he enters the inner court." Proverbs 20,

00:03:34.280 | "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler. Whoever is led astray by it is

00:03:40.200 | not wise." Proverbs 21, "He who loves wine and oil will not be rich." And the

00:03:46.520 | most extended statement in Proverbs goes like this in verse 23, I mean, chapter 23,

00:03:52.240 | "Those who tarry long over wine, those who go to try mixed wine, do not look at

00:03:59.480 | wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. In the

00:04:05.640 | end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. Your eyes will see strange

00:04:10.880 | things and your heart will utter perverse things. You will be like one who

00:04:15.080 | lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on the top of a mast." What a

00:04:20.240 | great image. "They struck me, you will say, but I was not hurt. They beat me, but I

00:04:26.560 | did not feel it. When shall I awake? I must have another drink." That's Proverbs

00:04:32.560 | 23, 30, 35. So, I mean, do not look at wine when it's red. I don't know what that

00:04:37.120 | means, except maybe there's a kind of drink that's just a little too dangerous.

00:04:41.600 | It's not, here's another one from Proverbs 31, "It is not for kings, O Lemuel,

00:04:46.760 | it is not for kings to drink wine or for rulers to take strong drink, lest they

00:04:51.480 | drink and forget what has been decreed and pervert the rights of the

00:04:56.680 | afflicted." Or Deuteronomy 29, "You have not drunk wine or strong drink that you

00:05:03.040 | may know that I am the Lord." The reason they didn't drink any wine in the

00:05:05.640 | wilderness is evidently so that it would be an asset to their coming to know God

00:05:10.360 | fully. So, you get the impression that even though wine was permitted and was a

00:05:16.120 | blessing, that it was fraught with dangers. And I would add to those, the

00:05:23.440 | situation in which I live in America is why I feel zero incentive to try to like

00:05:30.960 | and enjoy alcoholic beverages. I'm very content without them, and here's what I

00:05:35.840 | have in mind. I did my ministry for 30 years at Bethlehem, just a few blocks

00:05:39.840 | away from Teen Challenge, and every Saturday night, virtually, some of those

00:05:46.680 | guys who were in there to be set free from their addiction to alcohol would

00:05:52.800 | show up and they would come forward for prayer, and their stories were simply

00:05:58.080 | tragic, and I was thrilled with them to get free. So, I watched it destroy lives,

00:06:05.960 | and I watched the lives being rebuilt minus alcohol. I looked on Google

00:06:11.360 | yesterday. $200 billion a year, according to the Center for Disease Control

00:06:16.880 | Prevention, it costs Americans, that's $750 per American in health costs and

00:06:22.720 | work production costs because of alcohol. One-third of all traffic fatalities

00:06:28.320 | owing to alcohol involvement, and so on, with most of the ills of our culture. You

00:06:33.840 | can read statistics on divorce and abuse, and so on. Not to mention that it

00:06:39.840 | makes people babbling fools on airplanes, so that they get very, very annoying.

00:06:45.240 | So, given the fact that I'm not commanded to drink, and by the way,

00:06:52.560 | nowhere in the New Testament is the communion drink called wine. Now, it

00:06:58.880 | probably was. I'm not arguing it wasn't. It probably was, but isn't it interesting

00:07:02.960 | that nowhere is communion called wine. It's called the cup, usually, or it's

00:07:08.880 | called the fruit of the vine. So, nobody can can insist that we are

00:07:14.800 | commanded to drink wine by being commanded to drink the Lord's Supper. And

00:07:20.600 | given the fact that the Bible is mainly cautious about it, and given the fact

00:07:25.640 | that I don't have any desire for it, and God has given many other drinks that

00:07:31.240 | don't have the same kind of addictive and destructive side effects, what I like

00:07:35.400 | to say is, "I'm saving the best for last." I'm saving the best for when I

00:07:41.120 | can handle it, and I know I'm an addictive personality, man. I buy a pack

00:07:44.880 | of gum, and I chew the whole thing within five minutes. So, knowing myself, knowing

00:07:49.640 | this culture that's being destroyed in measure by it, I find little incentive

00:07:56.840 | myself for pursuing something I have no desire to pursue. And let me end

00:08:04.040 | by just saying, I do not condemn those who make other choices. It's just not on

00:08:09.400 | my agenda to go on a crusade to get other people to join me in this. I'm just

00:08:13.680 | explaining where I'm coming from. Very good. Thank you, Pastor John. And thank you

00:08:18.840 | for listening to this podcast, episode number 200. We plan to keep going, so

00:08:23.720 | please email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. You can

00:08:27.440 | visit us online at DesiringGod.org to find thousands of books, articles, sermons,

00:08:31.400 | and other resources from John Piper, all free of charge. I'm your host Tony

00:08:34.320 | Rehnke. Thanks for listening.

00:08:37.320 | (Session concluded at 4pm)

Is Drinking Alcohol a Sin?

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