The Personal Prescription against Drunkenness (Proverbs)

Well, if you would take your Bible and turn back with me to Proverbs 23, we were there earlier in our scripture reading. And two weeks before, we have been in Proverbs chapter 23. So it is a familiar place for you. And like I said earlier, we'll cover verses 19 on down to verse 22. Now, we have been dealing with the subject for several weeks. That is the subject of alcohol and drunkenness. Really three weeks so far tonight makes the fourth week. And we're going to finish up with the subject. We're going to finish up in these verses, verses 19 to 22.

And if I go back in time and refresh your memory, you know we started off in chapter 20 verse 1 with what I call the personification of drunkenness. Now, Solomon is a master teacher. And in being inspired of God and equipped of God, he uses these personifications all throughout the Proverbs. And so we saw that he personified drunkenness. And then we looked at what I call the portrait of drunkenness. That was a part 1 and a part 2. That came out of verses 29 on down to verse 35. And then tonight we're backing up in chapter 23. And we're going to look at what I'm calling the personal prescription against drunkenness.

And I'll talk a little more about the title of the message there at the conclusion at the end of the message. Now, some of you could be asking a question like this. "Pastor, why in the world would you spend so much time on this subject? Is this needed? Do you really need to spend this much time on the subject?" Well, I would answer that by saying most definitely. As a matter of fact, we probably could spend more time with this subject. There are many, many real reasons that this subject needs to be addressed. First of all, on a personal level for many of you. Some of you have been affected by drunkenness.

Some of you experience the horrible effects of drunkenness. Some of you grew up with a parent who was an alcoholic. Some of you maybe even have a sibling even today. A mother or a father, a brother or a sister. And they are in the just the throws of alcoholism and drunkenness. Some of you maybe you grew up with a secret alcoholic. Maybe you had a mother or a father who was an alcoholic. And you know that secret was just kept in the family. I have known people associated with our church through the years. They grew up with a parent who was an alcoholic and then ultimately they struggled with alcohol.

Now, that's an incomplete list, but we can struggle with this subject of alcohol and alcoholism on a very, very personal level. And then second, on a social level. On a social level, alcoholism and drunkenness is really just a big part of our culture. Now, when we got started in this series, I mentioned the fact that we have a big uptick of alcohol sales because of the coronavirus crisis. It's sad to say, but liquor stores, those establishments that sell alcohol have been considered essential businesses. And so there's been an uptick of alcohol sales and the consumption of alcohol during this time.

And then also in our culture, it's just everywhere. You know what's on television ads? It's in restaurants when we go eat in a restaurant. It's at events and you know our children see this, our teenagers see it. And we have to bridge the gap between what we believe and what we see in the culture and what God's word says. But then third, on a church level. I'm very thankful that we have not had a debate or division within the life of our church over the use of alcohol. Now, I've seen this happen in some churches, but you know this could happen.

There could be a debate that would start maybe in a Sunday school class or with a group of people and that spills over in the life of the church. There are many who debate this and it becomes a division of the life of the church. And you know, this could come up in the life of our church and we have to deal with it appropriately and biblically. Now, I'm gonna address this on a church level again at the end of the message. Now, I wanna talk with you about Solomon's approach here and the verses that we have tonight. Solomon is giving us a very loving and a very firm warning. This is a very loving, but yet it is a firm warning.

Now, we know what mornings are. We have them all around us in life. If you think about it, when you're driving, we have warnings everywhere. All of those road signs are warnings, are they not? If we use pesticides or maybe poisons and you know, to take care of those nasty weeds in our yards, maybe we're dealing with, keep cleaning supplies. They have warning labels there, do they not? I thought about it like this this afternoon. A security system in your front yard, that's a warning for a crook, isn't it? I remember years ago, I worked with a guy who had a bumper sticker on his truck.

It said, "Gun control means using two hands." Now, what was he saying? Don't mess with me. That was a warning to anyone who would seek to rob him or molest him in any way. But you know, I ask you a question. Are we going to heed the warning signs that are in our lives? We think about those road signs. If we ignore those road signs, we kill ourselves, kill our families or kill other folks. If we ignore the warning labels on pesticides or cleaning supplies, I mean, we endanger our lives, you see?

But the next question would be, will we take serious the warnings that we see in God's word, specifically in chapter 20, verse one, and chapter 23, and all of the verses that we have been studying, will we heed the warnings and the teachings and the verses and the examples and illustrations that we've had in all of these messages? Well, I said this earlier. Tonight, we're gonna finish up. This will be our fourth message on drunkenness, and we're gonna look at what I'm calling the personal prescription against drunkenness. And we're gonna divide these verses in three ways or we'll have three major truths in the message.

I want us to go back to the verses. Let's start off with verse 19. Solomon is addressing his son. It's obvious, this is very personal, loving, I said it earlier. And notice what he's saying. Hear my son and be wise, and direct your heart in the way. Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of me, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty and slumber will clothe them with rags. Verse 22, listen to your father who gave you life and do not despise or reject your mother when she is old. So let's start off with the first verse, verse 19, or the first truth in the outline. I'm calling this heed the loving call.

This comes right out of verse 19. This is what I'm calling heed this loving call. Now right away, this gets real personal in the language. We see the language of family. Do we not? I mean, look at verse 19 and verse 22. In the scripture reading earlier, I connected those two verses. We see a loving father and we see a loving mother and we see a son relating hopefully in a positive way to that loving father, to that loving mother. Specifically, we have Solomon and he is instructing his son. Again, this is loving. Again, this is firm. Solomon loves his son and he wants what is best for him.

Now out of this verse, I want us to see three specifics. Really there are three words that point to three commandments that we can apply to our lives. First, this word here, look back at the verse, verse 19. Hear my son. Now the new American standard that I teach and preach from sometimes uses the word listen, but these mean the same thing, whether it's the English standard or the new American standard. Solomon is calling his son to listen up, is he not? He is calling his son to hear his instructions. Now a few questions that I want you to ponder over. How many times has Solomon called his son to listen all throughout the Proverbs?

We've not been exhaustive in our journey through the Proverbs. One or two messages, sometimes three per chapter, but we have seen this repetition. Solomon is calling his son to listen up all throughout the Proverbs. But also, how many times do you have to tell your children to listen? Remember the context here, Solomon is urging his son. Now think about our family lives. Think about how we relate to our children. How many times do we have to tell our children over and over and over and over to listen? But then third, a third question, how many times have we seen the same commandments from Jesus to his disciples?

We took a long journey through the Gospel of John and we saw Jesus repeat over and over and over the same thing to his disciples. Now I want you to hold on to those questions and I want you to hold on to those thoughts that came into your mind and heart with those questions. We'll come back to those here in a few. So we see here in verse 19, Solomon is calling his young son to listen up and to listen to what he has to say. So the first command out of verse 19 is here. And then second, this second command, the word be. Look back at the scripture. Hear my son and be wise. Now if we're not careful, we can read right over this part of the verse.

Again, we see this repeatedly all throughout the Proverbs. Solomon is constantly calling his son to get wisdom. He is calling his son to keep wisdom. He is calling his son to treat wisdom like something that is very precious and valuable to the life. Wisdom is personified all throughout the Proverbs because Solomon is trying really, really hard, really hard to make this teaching on wisdom stick in the heart and the mind of his young son. So what does he say? Hear my son and be wise. You see that commandment? Now I have said numerous times the past three messages that Solomon calls his son to avoid three traps in the Proverbs.

One commentator called these traps the fearsome trio. Laziness, adultery and drunkenness. We've seen that. Laziness is a trap. Drunkenness is a trap and adultery is a trap. Well here Solomon is calling his young son to be wise in regards to the subject of alcohol and drunkenness. Just a few verses back in chapter 20, verse one, what is he saying? Be wise, that's what he's doing. Then here in verses 19 to 20 and then later on in verses 29 to 35, it's all about drunkenness. So Solomon is calling his young son to be wise, to get wisdom with this subject, to hold on to that wisdom and to stay wise in dealing with drunkenness.

So the second command is be wise. And then third, this word do. We see this word do. Hear my son and be wise and direct your path in the way. Now I chose to use the word do, but I'm referring to this phrase direct your heart. Solomon is calling his son to action. Here he is saying you, you my son, direct your heart in the right way. Do as I have taught you. Now a question, what is the way here? This is the way of wisdom. This is the way of wisdom. But more specifically, this is the way of its teaching. Solomon's teaching here is the way of wisdom. This is not an opinion or one of several opinions, no.

This is the way of wisdom in regards to the use of alcohol and the subject of drunkenness. So Solomon is calling his young son to action, to do as he instructs him to do. So Solomon is showing his young son that he has to be responsible to do as he has been instructed to do and to pursue the way of wisdom when it comes to alcohol and drunkenness. So in summary, notice what we have here in verse 19. It's a lot. Solomon is calling his young son to listen and to listen up, be and do. Isn't that what we see? Listen, listen up, make sure you be and do. Listen to what he's been taught. Be wise by being obedient.

Do what is right in directing your heart and your mind in the right way, the life in the right way and how you have been taught. Now I wanna help you drive this home here. I wanna help you by telling you a story. I couldn't remember years ago, a minister to a man in the life of the church and he was one of those individuals that came to faith in Christ much later in life. What I mean is this, he had lived the life of sin, he had lived the life of rebellion and he came to faith in Christ much later in life.

But you know, as he began to circle back with his children, as he began to say to his children, listen, don't do as I did, do as I'm doing now. Don't live as you saw me live before Christ. Live according to the way of God and the ways of the word of God. Well, what happened? Lo and behold, it was one of his sons that ultimately looked at him and said, I really don't wanna hear it. I don't wanna hear it. And what do we see? He was trying to say, listen, son, be and do. But yet that young son rejected that instruction, rejected that teaching from his father and ultimately he did what the proverb says, he became a fool, why?

Because wisdom and instruction was right in front of him and he rejected it. And when we do that, we become the fool. So he is saying heed this loving call. Now an application, I wanna come back to those questions. First question, how many times has Solomon called his young son to listen throughout the Proverbs? Over and over, it's repetition. It's saying the same thing a different way than coming back to the same old way. And listen, how many times has God called us to listen to the Proverbs over and over as you're studying ahead and reading behind as I've called you to?

What do you see Solomon comes back around to the same subjects, he says them in a different way. He says the same thing again, the same way as he did before. Over and over and over. Some of us might need to take a hint. Some of us might need to tap ourselves on the head and ask ourselves if we're being hardheaded by not getting it. And that other question, how many times have you had to tell your children to listen up over and over and over? Listen, you love your son, you love your daughter and you repeat those commandments. You repeat that instruction and they don't get it. And you say over and over and over, but I wanna turn that around.

How many times does God have to treat you the same way? You've been taught, you know what God's word says, but every now and then God has to jerk your chain and remind you of something that you should remember. We are far more like our children than we wanna admit. Now, this is what I'm getting at here. Hear the call of wisdom. This is what I'm trying to get to. Verse 19, heed this call, this loving call, this firm call and this firm commandment. We must hear this call to be wise when it comes to alcohol. Be wise when it comes to the use of alcohol. Do or direct our hearts towards wisdom when it comes to this particular subject.

And listen, our God is a loving heavenly father and he knows best. Solomon knew what was best for his son. And if we're born again Christians, then we must listen close to God, to God that we love, and we must submit to the loving call, to the word of God as it is put forth here. And so listen, heed this call, don't become a fool by ignoring what the word says here. Let's move on, our second major truth. Number two, this is what I'm calling bad company. Verses 20 and 21, this is what I'm calling bad company. Go back to the verse.

Be not among the drunkards or among the gluttonous eaters of meat for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty and slumber will clothe them with rags. Now Solomon here, he is describing a particular group of people, drunkards and gluttons. The new American standard, it reads heavy drinkers and gluttons. Now at this point, we need to come to an understanding about a few things, we really can't progress. We must start by understanding that God, God himself gave mankind three things, food and drink and sex. All three are gifts from God. All three are supposed to be used in the right way in the right context.

But there is a problem, Adam, the very first man, he sinned against God and he sent the entire human race down the road of utter sinfulness. In man's sinfulness, man has taken those three gifts, food and drink and sex and man has abused them. Man has taken those gifts and sinned against God, the God who gave them those gifts. Not just once, but every time man abuses those gifts, those are sins against God. One commentator said it like this, food becomes gluttony, drink becomes drunkenness and sex becomes fornication and adultery.

The gifts in and of themselves are not bad things, they are good things, but we, sinful humanity, turn them into ultimate things and they become bad for us. Now I'm gonna add to that bad for us. The bad for us, the bad thing, is nothing more than sin and sinfulness, you see? So here in verses 20 and 21, we have a class of people, a group of people who take food to the level of sin and drink to the level of sin. They take the gifts of food and drink and sin against the one who gave the gifts in the first place. They make food and drink a lifestyle of sin, not a one time event, no, this is a lifetime of sin.

Now with that said, notice three specifics about this class or group of people. First notice their behavior, we have their behavior. We have already opened the door, we really have seen their behavior, they are gluttonous, the new American calls them heavy drinkers. There, these are the ones who take those gifts from God and they abuse them, not just one time, no. This is a habit, this is a lifestyle. These sins characterize their lives. Now question right here, dealing with their behavior. What is gluttony? In the scriptures, the normal routine is to eat with moderation with times of fasting and times of feasting.

We see that with our old friend Job in the Old Testament, do we not? We see that exemplified in the Old Testament festivals, those Jewish festivals. These were times of fasting and feasting, but most of the time it is eating with moderation. It is not sinful to eat, it's not sinful to desire to eat, no, that is a normal God given desire in need. The sin comes when one overeats or eat the wrong foods. There is no self-control. What is needed in eating is balance and self-control and moderation. Now we can't see gluttony in terms of weight, no. The Bible never does communicate gluttony in terms of body weight.

In the scriptures, gluttony is seen as a lack of self-control, eating too much and eating the wrong foods. No balance, no self-control. Yes, there are times of feasting, but there are also times of fasting as well. And there must be three things, moderation, self-control and balance. But now the question, what is drunkenness? The scriptures plainly teach that drinking alcohol to the point where the alcohol affects the mind and the body, well, that is drunkenness. The Old Testament and in New Testament times, there was diluted wine, which could hardly bring one to the place of drunkenness. This diluted wine was used kind of like every day.

It was like for everyday purposes. Then the scriptures teach there was sweet wine, there was new wine, there was that strong drink that we've looked at, which could easily bring someone to drunkenness. We've covered this subject at length. So understanding drunkenness should not be a problem here. Now, the point here is the type of people. Isn't that what we see in the scriptures, verses 20 and 21? Here we have those who make their habit to indulge in food and to indulge in drink. No moderation, no self-control, no balance. This was, these are habits, these are lifestyles. So we see gluttony, we see drunkenness.

It is their habit, it is their lifestyle. And then second, we see their outcome. We see their outcome. Now really we've studied this at length. The outcome of the drunkard's behavior, but we see it back here in the verses. Be not, verse 20, among the drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat. For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, see the outcome? And slumber will clothe them with rags. Here in verse 20, we see that poverty is their end. We have learned from previous messages and verses that this poverty is more than financial poverty. The drunkard, he is plagued with sorrow and strife.

They are hounded by contention and complaining. They have lost their good sense of reality and judgment. They lose clean and good speech. They lose good health and good life. They're poisoned by drunkenness and ultimately it destroys their life. Ultimately they can lose their life. So their outcome becomes poverty, not just financial poverty. They are poor in many areas of life. And then third, we have a warning here. I saved the warning for last, but the warning is at the beginning of the verse. What does he say? Verse 20, be not among drunkards. Be not among the gluttonous and the drunkards.

He says in the verse, don't be with this class of people. Don't make those kinds of people your friends. Stay away from those, the drunkards and the gluttons. They are bad, bad, bad company. So in summary, notice that Solomon is saying a lot here. Solomon is warning this young son not to hang with bad company. Those who abuse food and drink, Solomon knows that they are bad. Solomon knows the principle that Paul taught later on in 1 Corinthians 15, 33, and that is bad company corrupt good morals. Bad company corrupt good character. Solomon is warning this loving, firm warning. He's loving his son and warning his son.

He is identifying bad company's behavior. He is pointing out their end. And that's all part of the warning here. Now in application, there's a lot here that we need to see. I will start off with Paul's principle. And we see this also in Solomon's teaching here as well. Bad company corrupt good character. Mark it down. Bad company corrupt good character. And we must understand the principle. We must believe the principle and we must live the principle. Oh, there's some of you understand the principle, but you really don't believe the principle because you don't live the principle.

If you understand it and believe it, then ultimately you live it. Now question, this is a legitimate question and one we must ask, how in the world do we associate and minister to sinners? We must love sinners. Listen, Jesus was hounded by the religious leaders because he associated with what? Gluttons and drunkards. He associated with tax collectors and prostitutes and harlots. Now, how do we associate with sinners? How do we minister to sinners? First of all, we must be wise enough and strong enough not to be affected by their behavior. You see, we must be wise enough and also spiritually strong enough not to be affected by their behavior.

Now there are two class of people who usually don't fit this classification. Usually young people, teenagers, and then usually new Christians. Usually new Christians don't have this kind of wisdom. And usually young people don't have the ability to distinguish between the two. They don't have the wisdom and the spiritual strength not to be affected. And then second of all, I think we must see that we can associate with sinners, but there must be a line and lines that we just don't cross. This takes wisdom. This takes Christian experience in life.

This takes prayerful decisions, many times having mentors in your life, those who are around you for accountability purposes. And you know, through my years, I've developed some standards. I say it like this. We must associate with sinners on our terms, not theirs. See, if we're on our terms, we control the circumstances. We must associate with sinners in neutral circumstances. You see, if we put ourselves in the wrong circumstances, we're not on our terms, we're on their terms. We're not in neutral circumstances. They dictate the terms. And then we also must be very careful to the temptations.

Some people can be tempted to certain types of lifestyles and sins. Now listen, don't fall prey to bad company. That's the warning here. We must take sound advice, make wise choices, not to be affected by bad company. Now, the third major truth here that I want us to see in verse 22, this will be short. This is what I'm calling the depth of this loving call. I connected this to verse 19 earlier. This is the depth of this loving call. Look at verse 19 again. Hear my son and be wise and direct your heart in the way. Verse 22, listen to your father who gave you life. Do not despise your mother when she is old.

See, there's almost like another layer to me. Dad repeats the call to listen to his instruction, and then he adds the teaching of mother. Notice why I call this this deeper loving call. Solomon is calling his young son to listen again. There's the repetition. And we see mom there in the instructions as well. All this is done out of love. Solomon loves his son, and he wants what's best for his son. So really this is rather short, but in summary, what do we have? A continued call. This is a call from mother. This is a call from father. This is a call from father and mother.

A loving call, a call to wisdom, a call to heed the instruction associated with alcohol and drunkenness. Now, an application, what do we need to see here? Well, I'll start with you dads first. Sir, men, dad, fathers, you must instruct your children in the ways of God, in the ways and wisdom of God, in the ways of God's word, and in the ways of God's word and wisdom as it relates to alcohol. And listen dad, you cannot do this if you've got a case of beer in the refrigerator. You can't do this when you drink it up at the fish camp or drink it up at the ball game.

You can't do this if the only Christianity your children see is when you come to church on a Sunday morning, you see? And listen, sir, listen, dads, listen, fathers, you must do this out of love because you really, really do love your children. You can't do it with a heavy hand. You can't deal with it being so authoritative that you come across as mean and gruff. You can't do it just with rules, no. This must come out of a love for your children and you're not being hypocritical. You're living out what's taught in the scripture and you're living out what you're teaching them. And then also this must come from dad and mom.

It must come from all within the family. If you've got mom teaching one thing and dad teaching another, that's nothing more than hypocrisy. It's a contradiction. And we must also have a lifetime of lovingly calling our children to wisdom. Listen, this isn't just one time. Over and over, we're calling them to God's word, calling them in the home and in the church. And as we go, it's continuously calling them to God's word and God's instruction with this particular subject of alcohol and drunkenness. So make sure, mom and dad, make sure parents, this is a loving call and make sure we heed this loving call ourselves.

Now in conclusion, I want you to notice what we've had here for four weeks. It's really a lot of material. Chapter 20, verse one, that was a lot. We saw that personification of drunkenness. In chapter 23, verses 39 to 35, or 29 to 35, that was the portrait of drunkenness. And then here we backed up the verses 19 to 22. And this is the prescription against drunkenness. This is a lot. Make sure you work through your notes, study the scriptures, listen to these messages so that you can get all that you can get. But notice that I ended up with the prescription. Why did I do that? I purposely did that. Why? Why did I end with the prescription?

Now notice here, when we in our day, when we're sick, we go to the doctor, do we not? We go to the doctor and we sit down and we say, "Listen, doc, I don't feel good here. "I got this going on over there." We're totally honest. Are we not? We do what the doctor says to do. We submit ourselves to examination and tests and the medical bills. We just come to the doctor and we just sit down and we're honest. And ultimately, that doctor writes us a prescription. Ultimately, they do more than write us a prescription. They tell us what we should do. They give us a plan, dealing with our issue, bringing us along to do what?

To bring us to a place of health. They want to bring us, we want to get to a place of health. Well, that's what Solomon is doing here with all of these verses. This is more than a warning to all of these verses. If we heed all of the instruction, if we heed everything that is taught here, what do we have? We have a great and godly prescription for godly living as it relates to alcohol and drunkenness. That's the whole purpose of the series, you see? That is what we have before us in all of the Proverbs, wisdom for Christian living. And we must seek godly living. We must seek to be a living sacrifice before God.

We must seek to be building up our brothers and sisters in the life of the church. We must seek to be a witness to the lost in the world. And we must be seen as all three. We must be seen as a living sacrifice before God, seen as building up our brothers and sisters in the life of the church, and seen as a good witness all around the world. Well, you might say, pastor, you really hadn't told us how you feel. You probably could pick up on it as I've gone along. You know, you might say, what is your position? You've not told us what your position is. Well, I will quickly speak to my position on three levels.

First of all, on a personal level, just me, Chris Shepherd is a born again Christian. Really and surely I have no use for it. Why? I don't have any need. I've got plenty of good drinking water, clean drinking water. You know, you can think about it like this here in our country. We are blessed to flush our toilets with drinking water. Yes, that is drinking water that goes in the back of our toilets. And we don't really have a need. There are all types of soda pops and cokes and flavored drinks. And to be honest with you, the strongest thing that I'm gonna put in my mouth is community dark roast coffee. I just don't have a need for it.

I don't have a desire. I don't have a need. It is just not worth it on a personal level. But also I wanna speak about it on a church level. As the pastor of this church and a leader in the life of this church, I'll be honest with you. I don't see the need for it or the use for it, especially in the lives of the leaders in our church. To be honest with you is the pastor of the church. I will not permit elders nor other leaders to partake in alcohol. Why? Because of the witness and we desire to be a living sacrifice before God. And I know brother Keith as an elder feels the exact same way. So on a church level, I just don't see the need for it.

And leaders in the life of the church, I will lead them to take that position as well. Notice what Romans chapter 14, two verses. Notice what verse 20 and 21 says. "Do not for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine or to do anything that causes your brother to stumble." You see, we would never wanna put anything in our mouths that would cause people in the life of the church to stumble. So on a personal level, I have no need.

And in my leadership in the life of the church, I will lead our elders and future deacons and leaders in the life of the church to do the same. But on the third level, there are people that I know that have liberty in their conscience to consume alcohol. I have friends. And I would direct you to what Romans chapter 14 deals with. Romans chapter 14 is all about things that are not clearly delineated in the scripture. They are just some things that are a matter of conscience. And I have friends that I love and I would never take the battering ram of my convictions and my positions and beat them over the head. It is a matter of conscience.

But for me, it's just not worth it. It is just not worth it. You know, if I lived in another day and time, if I lived in another society, it might would be different. But I just don't think it's worth it. Now here's how I wanna close. I wanna close with the term risk, reward. You could turn it around, reward or risk. Here's the question. Is the reward worth the risk? Is it drinking alcohol, a few beers, a mixed drink or whatever? Is the reward worth it? Really and truly no. For me, it's just not worth the risk.

Again, if we lived in a place, if we lived in a time where we did not have good drinking water that was available, I could be on the other side of things but it's just not worth the risk. You see, for me, it's all about personal holiness. For me, it's being set apart for God and for God's purposes. For me, it's about Romans 12, verse one, that I would be a living sacrifice for the Lord and be seen as a living sacrifice for the Lord. So what have we been looking at these past four weeks? Alcohol, drunkenness, what Solomon has to say from Proverbs chapter 20, chapter 23 and a few other selected scriptures.

And this all ties into our Wednesday night series, Wisdom for Christian Living. And as I close, I wanna say this to you folks. Listen, evaluate what you do with alcohol. Desire to have wisdom for Christian living, for your witness in the community, for your family and your usefulness in the world and in the church because I believe that is what would please our Lord.