Alcohol, and of course drugs, lower inhibitions and enable the imbiber to do things that otherwise they would not do. Be honest; we have all experienced that whether it be with alcohol, marijuana, criminal drugs or class II narcotics. Because at the time of Judah, humanity was not quite as stupid as we are today, the problem was over-indulgence of alcohol. If a "little is good", much is not! Paul recommended a little wine as medicine. Today, I take baby aspirin to thin my blood. They didn't have that; wine was their medicine.
Just as we don't notice the spin of the world, those who overindulge become acclimated to their spin on the world. They live a false reality. The harder the drug, and the more intense the addiction, the more false the reality. Reality is that much of the nation has a problem. I contend that alcohol is also a gateway drug because it lowers inhibitions. Face it, it is an escape mechanism from responsibility, and the heat of the alcohol stirs the imagination.
Of course, the world, and even my family, thinks that I am silly. The thought is: how can only one drink have any harm? We only need to look at the nature of sin to answer that! We don't ask God to "deliver us from temptation" as we're supposed to pray, then enter into temptation! Temptation leads to sin, and one sin leads to greater sins. That is the law of sin.
If one never wants to be a criminal, it is wise to heed, "thou shalt not steal". If one never steals, they will never become a thief. Likewise, if one never consumes drugs, one will never become an addict - be it an alcoholic, pot head, or meth slave. Serving addictions is serving two masters. Drink, marijuana, opium and such were gifts from God for one reason or another. Abuse of them are burdens from Satan. We do his will, rather than God's, and the more they are abused, the oftener we do our own wills.
Many times I have heard the alcoholic say, "just a little wine for medicine" when it was a pint of Jack Daniels for his addiction. The intent of alcohol may be to slow the world but its affect is to slow the individual.
Although our flesh wants to live forever, it is on our own terms. Sobriety is God's term because without soberness, people become insensitive to God's calling. I seldom witness to or correct those with addictions because they are not sober enough to be vigilant. I love them but feel sorry for them because the solace they seek is not in the bottle, the roach clip, or the needle; it's in the Comfort of God. When we put so much importance on our pleasure, it is wise to know that in heaven we all will do without those things forever. If that can be done for perpetuity, it can be done until death.
My addiction was cigarette smoking. Never minimize the power of nicotine. I lived for the next hit. I was skinny because nicotine was more important than nourishment. I could not eat fast enough because my cigarettes were impatient. Sex was even rushed because of the need to serve nicotine who was impatient. We needed each other! How did cigarettes need me? Satan needed them as an excuse for me to do greater sins.
When tempted to sin - any sin, my irrational thought was: I sin by smoking anyhow; I may as well do this other sin. Nicotine was my enabler to sin further. Once I kicked the habit, and God comforted me in that, I actually reduced my other sins because my enabler was gone. I saw the flaw in my reasoning before pot came into vogue or I could have been a pothead. We called cigarette smokers "nicotine fains" in that we felt compelled to smoke.
Thus, I speak to us. Only by the grace of God was I born before pot and opium became so in vogue! I was blessed by being disgusted by the affects of alcohol. I learned early that drunkenness is a sickness because it made me sick, not because it is a disease! Each time I drank, I chose to sin because my consumption was not for health improvement. It was for acceptance, partying, and to escape reality. Truly with alcohol I was never really accepted, missed the party because of inebriation, and the reality was false. Satan had me where he wanted me. I spit in the devil's face on my 21st birthday, and he ceased to tempt me much afterward with alcohol.
I do have a fleeting thought some days when I think, everyone else drinks; why shouldn't I? Because I am not my own! I belong to God. As such, I am set aside to be a sort of Nazarite, not taking pleasure in the things of the world. If God should want that Samson not drink, then he should want that I do not! My flesh may desire a false reality but my spirit asks me why? The answer is that pleasing God is more important than pleasing myself.
People reject my principles. It's true that salvation is not refraining from sin but trusting Jesus. However, if we truly revere God, our desire should change as we are reborn new creatures. God's will is that his new creation cease to be the old person. Therefore, abstention is not sacramental but reverent. My thought is that I need to be sanctified to please God, thus being a Nazarite seems honorable to me. I realize it's not me who sets me apart but God Himself. I do need to hold His hand, though, as He pulls me from sin.
Since my message is usually rejected by most, let's look at another man who seems to agree with what I say. This is the Testament of Judah, spoken from his deathbed centuries before Christ:
The Testament of Judah 3:
10 And now, my children, I say unto you, be not drunk with wine; for wine turneth the mind away from, the truth, and inspires the passion of lust, and leadeth the eyes into error.
11 For the spirit of fornication hath wine as a minister to give pleasure to the mind; for these two also take away the mind of man.
12 For if a man drink wine to drunkenness, it disturbeth the mind with filthy thoughts leading to fornication, and heateth the body to carnal union; and if the occasion of the lust be present, he worketh the sin, and is not ashamed.
13 Such is the inebriated man, my children; for he who is drunken reverenceth no man.
14 For, lo, it made me also to err, so that I was not ashamed of the multitude in the city, in that before the eyes of all I turned aside unto Tamar, and I wrought a great sin, and I uncovered the covering of my sons' shame.
15 After I had drunk wine I reverenced not the commandment of God, and I took a woman of Canaan to wife.
16 For much discretion needeth the man who drinketh wine, my children; and herein is discretion in drinking wine, a man may drink so long as he preserveth modesty.
17 But if he go beyond this limit the spirit of deceit attacketh his mind, and it maketh the drunkard to talk filthily, and to transgress and not to be ashamed, but even to glory in his shame, and to account himself honourable.
18 He that committeth fornication is not aware when he suffers loss, and is not ashamed when put to dishonour.
19 For even though a man be a king and commit fornication, he is stripped of his kingship by becoming the slave of fornication, as I myself also suffered.
20 For I gave my staff, that is, the stay of my tribe; and my girdle, that is, my power; and my diadem, that is, the glory of my kingdom.
21 And indeed I repented of these things; wine and flesh I eat not until my old age, nor did I behold any joy.
22 And the angel of God showed me that for ever do women bear rule over king and beggar alike.
23 And from the king they take away his glory, and from the valiant man his might, and from the beggar even that little which is the stay of his poverty.
24 Observe, therefore, my children, the right limit in wine; for there are in it four evil spirits--of lust, of hot desire, of profligacy, of filthy lucre.
25 If ye drink wine in gladness, be ye modest in the fear of God.
26 For if in your gladness the fear of God departeth, then drunkenness ariseth and shamelessness stealeth in.
27 But if ye would live soberly do not touch wine at all, lest ye sin in words of outrage, and in fightings and slanders, and transgressions of the commandments of God, and ye perish before your time
28 Moreover, wine revealeth the mysteries of God and men, even as I also revealed the commandments of God and the mysteries of Jacob my father to the Canaanitish woman Bathshua, which God bade me not to reveal.
29 And wine is a cause both of war and confusion.
30 And now, I command you, my children, not to love money, nor to gaze upon the beauty of women; because for the sake of money and beauty I was led astray to Bathshua the Canaanite.
31 For I know that because of these two things shall my race fall into wickedness.
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