1 Kings 20 - A Few Drinks Never Hurt Anyone
Tom Shrader uses the story of Ben-Hadad's drunken defeat in 1 Kings 20 to illustrate how alcohol impairs judgment and endangers life rather than enriching it. He draws from Proverbs 23 to show the destructive effects of drinking, then applies the principle that while all things may be permissible for Christians, not all things are beneficial or glorify God. Shrader challenges believers to consider whether their drinking habits truly honor God and serve others.
“Jesus didn't die on the cross to make bad people good. He died to make dead people live.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Dumb Mistakes: How to Avoid Them (2004)
Recorded: February 26, 2004
Duration: 41 min
Themes: wisdom, judgment, temptation, decisions, stewardship, self-control, integrity, choices, struggling with addiction, making poor choices, young adult, peer pressure situations, questioning boundaries, social drinking, college student, workplace temptations
Scripture: 1 Kings 20:1-21, Proverbs 23:29-35, 1 Corinthians 10:23-31
Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, christian liberty, biblical wisdom, stewardship, glorifying god, spiritual discernment, holy living
Full Transcript
Introduction
Session 2 today, Dumb Mistakes. You've got the outline in front of you. Don't forget the subtitle: Dumb Mistakes - Here's the point, and how to avoid them. What we're saying to you is, you don't have to go through this entire process of making mistake after mistake. We'll give you a full ride. We'll give you a full scholarship and help you learn from these mistakes.
I found a couple more of those that I didn't use last week. Dumb Criminal Mistakes. Yankton, South Dakota: a woman was arrested at her stepson's Boy Scout meeting while watching a policeman demonstrate his drug dog's ability. The dog found a bag of grass in her purse.
This is from London. A motorist was unknowingly caught on automated speed trap that measured his speed using radar and photographed his car. He later received in the mail a ticket for 40 pounds and a photo of his car. Instead of payment, he sent the police department a photograph of 40 pounds. Several days later, he received a letter from the police that contained another picture of handcuffs. The police promptly sent the money for the fine.
Here's one from Pontiac, Michigan. Christopher Jensen was on trial for drug possession, and he said he had been searched without a warrant. The prosecutor said the officer didn't need a warrant because a bulge in Christopher's jacket could have been a gun. Nonsense, Christopher said, who happened to be wearing the same jacket on that day. He handed it over to the judge so he could see. The judge discovered a packet of cocaine in the pocket.
Here is my favorite. Charlotte, North Carolina. A man having purchased a case of very rare, very expensive cigars, insured them against fire, among other things. Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of cigars and without having made his first premium payment on the policy, the man filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the man stated the cigars were lost in a series of small fires. The insurance company refused to pay, citing obvious reasons that the man had consumed the fires in the normal fashion. The man sued and won. In delivering the ruling, the judge agreed that the claim was frivolous, stated nevertheless that the man held a policy from the company in which the company now warrants that the cigars are insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure against fire without defining what it considered to be an acceptable fire and was obligated to pay the claim.
Rather than undo a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid the man $15,000 for the rare cigar that he lost in the fires. After the man cashed the check, the company had him arrested on 24 counts of arson. I like that. With his own insurance claim and testimony from a previous case being used against him, the man was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property, sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine. Yeah. You bum. Lots of dumb mistakes and lots of dumb things all the way around.
Dumb Mistake Series Overview
Here we go. Just to remind you, we're eight weeks on this and we said finding eight dumb mistakes, not very difficult. We could have found 10, 12, 13, 20 of them. Picking the first one was very easy.
Last week, you missed dumb mistake number one. If you don't get dumb mistake number one corrected, then the rest of these things are not going to matter. Dumb mistake number one was not fearing God. Now when we talk about fearing God, what we're talking about is a reverential awe, an understanding, a respect of God and who He is. That's dumb mistake number one. That has to be corrected.
As we move into these last seven, we're really talking more about ethical, maybe moral, behavioral issues. Now, here you go. Just by the way, you've got to get this down. This is key.
Two Groups of People
Right now, we've got two groups of people in this room. We've got two groups of people in the world. You've got those who know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Those that have come to Him in repentance and faith. Those that are Christians. I don't mean that just because you've got a whole bunch of people saying they're Christians just because they go to church or just because they're born in America. What I'm talking about, you've got a group of people who understand who Jesus is. You understand that He died on the cross.
This is really important. Jesus didn't die on the cross - I don't know if you've ever thought about this - to make bad people good. He didn't die to make bad people good. Jesus died to make dead people live. There's a very big difference there. This is not about just trading spaces and do a moral makeover. This is a radical change. This is people, you and me, who were dead spiritually and now we're alive.
We've talked about this at length. He didn't die to make good people bad or bad people good. He died to make dead people come to life. That happened simply through faith. I'm saved by grace through faith, not a result of any works, nothing I could do, nothing I ever did do, could do, would do, nothing. God didn't look at me and see something in me that had good and say, boy, if we can just bring that to the surface. No, He looked, He saw somebody who was totally unworthy and yet in spite of that, in His grace and mercy, He decided to save some and maybe you're one of those people, Christians. That's one group of people.
The other group of people is everybody else and you're going to take them and throw them all together and they're all the same. They have different variations and maybe different rituals but they're the same in that they are religious, some of them, religious people, go to church or have some sense of spirituality or maybe they're just not really religious people but their view is all good people go to heaven and so all the other religions, other than this, are based, other than I guess universalism, are based on man doing something. Well, we're going to talk now about the moral and the ethical part of this and these things
We do good works as Christians because we are saved. Everyone else is doing good works in order to be saved. Very different and it's important to do this. It's important.
We're going to talk today about dumb mistake number two which is thinking a couple of drinks won't hurt you. We can get you clean and we can get you sober, but if you don't fear God and know who Christ is, you're just going to be sober in hell forever. If you're out there and your problem is you're involved in adultery, we can get you monogamous, but if you don't know Christ, you don't come to Him, you'll just be monogamous in hell. Now you're sober and monogamous. You're going to be miserable forever in hell and have no life. Your life is awful. Do you see the point there?
The Story of Ben-Hadad
Dumb mistake number two: thinking a couple of drinks won't hurt you. If you have your Bibles, I'd encourage you to open them to 1 Kings chapter 20. There's a guy you're going to need to know today. His name is Ben-Hadad and he is king of the Aram world kingdom. He's on the way to conquering the world as a matter of fact.
He has an army and he has surrounded Israel. Now, this isn't Israel as we think of it. These are the ten tribes that have moved to the north. He has surrounded Samaria. He's got 32 kings under him and he's got their horses and their chariots. 1 Kings chapter 20 verse 1, and they lay siege to Samaria and they're ready to attack it.
He sends a message to Ahab. Ahab's the king of Israel and he says this. This is what Ben-Hadad says: "Your silver and gold are mine and the best of your wives and children are mine." Ahab answers and says, "Just as you say my lord the king, I and all you have are yours." Kind of an odd response, I would think. You would think you'd at least fight for your best wife, but he doesn't even do that. Not fighting for anything, come and take it all.
The Second Demand
Apparently in this process, Ben-Hadad has second thoughts. He sends the messenger again. He says, "This is what Ben-Hadad says, I am sent to demand your gold, your silver, your wives, but about this time tomorrow I'm going to send my officials to search your palace and your house and those of all your officials and I'll seize everything that you have of value and carry it away."
Now Ahab calls all the guys together, all of his elders of the land and says, "See how this man is looking for trouble. When he sent for his wives, children, silver, I didn't refuse him. But now he's got this other thing, this other request." The elders of the people said, "Don't listen to him or agree to his demands." So he replied to Ben-Hadad's messenger, "Tell the lord your king your servant will do all you demanded the first time, but I can't meet the demands of the second time."
Does that remind you of anything else in history? What happens to me when I read it is I think of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Remember Khrushchev through Gromyko at the time sends this request to the Kennedys and they get this and while they're talking this over, in comes the second request. They're sitting around and they're saying, "You know what, we can live with this first one, we can't live with the second one." Bobby Kennedy says, "Hey ignore the second one, just answer the first one, pretend you didn't get it, just forget it, just throw it away, crumble it up, throw it away." Pretty clever, I doubt he got it from the scripture but pretty clever idea.
The Threatening Oath
They left and they took their answer back to Ben-Hadad and here's what he says. Ben-Hadad sent another messenger to Ahab and he said this: "May the gods deal with me be it ever so severely if enough dust remains in Samaria to give each of my men a handful." Now what that is may sound odd to you. That's very similar to an oath that they would take. You would see kings take stuff like that. What he's saying is, "Listen if I don't do this then my god can just destroy me." Here's what he's saying: "I swear to you I'm going to do this."
Ahab heard this and he said, "Tell him one who puts on his armor should not boast like one who takes it off." It's kind of a little bit of a play on words of a popular proverb of the day that said this: "Let not the one who begins the fight boast prematurely."
The Overwhelming Odds
Now make sure you understand this. There's Ahab, Israel, 7,000 people, essentially untrained little army against 130,000 men. The odds are overwhelming. The task seems insurmountable. What we're going to see run down two parallel lines here. One is this is all about God and what God's going to do, and God's going to make that point again and again and again in the lesson today. "I'm going to do this so you'll know I'm Lord. I'm going to do this so you'll know I'm Lord." Humanly I want us to take a look at Ahab and see a pretty serious flaw in his game here and see if we can at least learn something from it.
The Fatal Mistake
Here's the mistake. We're in 1 Kings on this, chapter 20 verse 12 through 21. Here's the mistake: He thought a couple of cocktails, a couple of shooters, a couple of drinks wouldn't hurt him.
Ben-Hadad heard this message. This is the message that says watch out, don't fire too quickly here. While he and the other kings were drinking in their tents, he ordered the men prepare to attack. So they prepared to attack the city. Meanwhile a prophet came to Ahab, the king of Israel, and said, "This is what the Lord says. Do you see that vast army?"
You've got to believe there's a chuckle at that point because Ahab's going, "That's all we've seen. That's all we see is 130,000. Do we see them? I wish we didn't see them. That's all we see."
can see is this vast army. I will give it into your hand today and you will know that I'm Lord. I'm going to give you victory over them today and it's going to confirm to you that I'm God because you understand there's no way on your own you could do this." He said, "But who will do this?" Ahab asked. The prophet replied, "This is what the Lord said. The young officers of the provincial commanders will do it." "Who's going to start this battle?" In other words, he said, "Are we going to attack them?" That didn't make sense. And he said, "Yes, you will."
So Ahab summons the young officers of the provincial commanders. He's got 232 men and he assembles the rest of the Israelites. He's got 7,000 guys and they set out at noon. Now it's high noon. Get the scene here? By the way, if you don't take this to West Point and start teaching this as a strategy here. This is about God. This is about God's faithfulness.
The Importance of Simple Obedience
Ahab's playing an important role in this. What's Ahab doing? Very important. What's he doing? He's obeying. He's obeying. What does God want you to do? One thing and one thing only. Obey Him.
Now I personally don't think God's dealing like this today. I will have people that will come to me and say, "God's told me to move to Albuquerque. What do you think?" Well what a stupid question. That's what I think. If God's told you to move to Albuquerque, why do you even care what I think? You shouldn't care what I think. If God told you to move to Albuquerque, you better get Allied Van Lines on the phone and get a realtor in Albuquerque and get your chubby little cheeks moving to Albuquerque. Buy a hat and tie it on tight because the wind blows when you get there. That is so stupid to come up to me or to anybody and say, "God's told me to do this. What do you think?" If God told you to go to Albuquerque, then you go to Albuquerque.
I'll tell you this, there's no way you can prove it from scripture though, right? Here's what God told you to do. God told you to live a holy and pure life. God told you to not steal. God told you to not sin. God told you to love one another, care for one another. You can say those with confidence. God told you to do that. You know that. That's absolutely true. And you do that. And God honors that.
Maybe not circumstantially. One of the problems with all these stories to me is they always have a happy ending. I wish at the end all the good guys would get killed once in a while because we can read these and say, "Oh, if I just do everything, everything's going to be exactly like I want it." Not necessarily, but everything will be as God wants it. And that's what's key. So He says, you just do it.
High Noon Attack
At noon they go. They set out at high noon. Ben-Hadad and his 32 kings are allied with him, are in the tents getting drunk. High noon. The young officers, the provincial commanders went out first. Now Ben-Hadad had to dispatch the scouts and the scouts said, "Hey, they're coming after us."
So here's Ben-Hadad. You see it? Ahab, the 7,000 guys, they're going to attack the 130,000. Doesn't make any sense militarily. Makes perfect sense if God told them to do that.
Here's Ben-Hadad's problem. He's sitting around at high noon with overwhelming odds in his favor and he's drinking. I got to tell you, this story, I'm not, a lot of the stuff that I teach, you all know. I don't have any training, never been to school, all that stuff. I got a PhD in this baby today. I can speak with some level of authority on the drinking, on the booze and on the stuff that goes with it. And I had days in the old days where I wouldn't wait until noon. We'd get in there around eight or nine in the morning on the way to work and sit around and say, "It's got to be noon somewhere." And have a toast and away we'd go. Or try to set our, I remember a guy, as a joke, he used to keep his watch on East Coast time. You know, say, "Well, it's noon there now." I'd say, "It's nine here." He said, "Whatever. I'm an East Coast guy."
The Johnny Walker Red Strategy of War
Here they are. It's noon. Now they're attacking. And here is the direction. Here's the king. Okay? Here's Ben-Hadad. All his generals are around. They're looking for advice. Here's what he gives them. "If they come out for peace, take them alive. If they come out for war, take them alive."
I call this the Johnny Walker Red strategy of war. It's pretty confusing. What's he saying? I was never in the military. I just, the colonel and I have had lots of discussions about it. I think that I would have been a terrific general. But I don't think I would have been a very good private. And generals seem to be not an entry level position. So I didn't think it was going to work for me. But I'll talk to Al frequently about strategy. So when I'm reading Civil War stuff, when I read Vicksburg, I'm saying, "Why does Grant just sit at Vicksburg? Why doesn't Grant just attack Vicksburg, get it over with? We've got battles to win here." And Al said, "Have you ever been to Vicksburg?" And I said, "No." And he said, "Well, if you've been to Vicksburg, you understand it." He lays siege to the city because the city, the cost of attacking that would be so huge. So you have to understand strategy.
Strategy is "take them alive." Now here's what happens. I'm not even going to read it to you. The armies collide and Ben-Hadad loses his whole army. 130,000 guys are killed. They're gone. Ben-Hadad escapes on a horse with a couple of horsemen.
Preparing for Round Two
Now afterwards, the prophet comes to the king of Israel and says, "Strengthen your position and see what must be done because next spring the king is going to attack you." 2 Kings chapter 11 tells us that they love to fight these battles in the spring. That was the prime time for war. Weather was right. Training was right. Temperature was right. Climate was right. So he says, "Look at Ahab. He's going to attack you again."
Now that's one scene. On the other side, meanwhile, the officers of Ben-Hadad are advising him. And here's what they say. "Their God is the God of the hills." So you can imagine now, right? Ben-Hadad
goes back. He gets all his advisors together and says, "What happened? How did we lose? How can that possibly happen? We outnumber them almost 20 to 1. How can this happen?"
And they say, "Well the problem is their God is the God of the hills and we fought this battle on the hills. If we fight them in the plains, we got them." So Ben-Hadad says, "Fine." Here's what they said. Here's the advice they gave him: Remove all the kings from their command. Replace them with other officers. Raise up an army like the one you lost—another 130,000 guys. Horse for horse, chariot for chariot. We'll fight Israel on the plains. Surely we'll be stronger. And he agrees to do that.
I'll give you just a side note there. That just shows you how hard it is to get good advice. Those of you that are running businesses, those of you that are a boss, you need to know you're going to have to seek out and create an environment where people can come to you before you're ever going to get good advice. Nobody's going to tell you the truth if you're the boss. It's pretty hard to get. I remember reading about Richard Nixon and they were lamenting no one would tell him the truth. And you hear that over and over again.
Well, the next spring comes. Ben-Hadad gets the troops together. Here's what happens. The two of them collide. The armies collide. God says, "Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to deliver you this vast army." Seven days later, the armies collide. Indeed, they do destroy them—100,000 casualties take place. The rest of them escape to the city of Aphek where the wall collapsed on them and 27,000 of them died. Lots of bitter irony on the wall, and it collapses right on them and they're gone.
So there you go. There's the background. There's the story. There's the mistake. There's a little bit of humor, but you weren't clever enough to catch it.
The Core Principle About Alcohol
Here's the principle: Alcohol doesn't enrich life. It endangers life.
Now we'll get down to the nuts and bolts of this thing. You're sitting there and you're saying, "Wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you telling me I got to stop drinking?" I'm not going to tell you what to do at all. I just want to tell you what the Bible says and give you what I think is a little bit of wisdom around it. I'm not going to ask you to do anything. I'm going to just say, think about this stuff. Figure this stuff out. And maybe booze isn't your thing. Maybe it's a little bit of cocaine or maybe it's something else.
The Distorted Cultural View of Alcohol
It's hard to get an accurate view of this. I didn't see the movie, but remember the movie Arthur with Dudley Moore, the little munchkin, and Liza Minnelli. And then they made Arthur 2. Here's what Dudley Moore said. I guess Dudley Moore was a little drunk guy in this thing. He said this: "You can't judge Arthur in real life terms. He's a nice alcoholic. Perhaps that doesn't exist in life. He never drinks and drives, never becomes violent or morose or disgusting. We were very careful about his boozing. It was just a device that lets him be outrageous."
The whole thing is so ironic because you got Liza Minnelli whose mom could have been, or probably was, one of the greatest singers of all time—Judy Garland. She dies with the drugs and the booze and Liza Minnelli obviously just whacked out on the same thing. And here you are trying to glorify this.
There was a commercial used to be, and it's just a commercial that epitomizes it. Two guys sitting in these lawn chairs on the beach and there's these three gals running down the beach—there's a skinny little blonde, and then there's one that's a little skinnier but maybe a little better built brunette, and then a redhead. It's not like I studied this thing, but I have to understand these things for you. And what subliminally it said to me is, whatever you like, there's one of them. And these two guys are sitting on the beach and here they're running by and they got a couple of beers and the line is, "It doesn't get any better than this." See, and that's the image that's sold.
The Reality Check from Law Enforcement
I had a police officer in the study yesterday. He didn't know I was going to call on him. I said, "When you go out on domestic violence, is alcohol ever involved?" Here's what he said to me, and he said what he said to the class yesterday: "I have never gone out when alcohol wasn't involved."
We've got this moral outrage over tobacco. This is just my view. The tobacco and then the smoke and all this—it's just all they're doing is a bunch of politicians just screwing the tobacco companies out of cash. If you want to make a difference, no kid's going to drive his cigarette into me. If you want to stop killing kids, get them off the booze. Outlaw the booze. Close these joints down. It'll be Reagan-esque: "Mr. Anheuser-Busch, you're going to have to do something about this. Tear down this bar." We're not going to touch that, are we?
Which one is really most dangerous to you today? I'll tell you. You may have health care—I may have overstated the cigarette thing. You may have health care issues, but I'm telling you, in terms of quality of life, violence, most likely to hurt you, it's this stuff. We're never going to touch it.
Wait a minute, it sounds like you're saying don't drink. No, I'm just telling you, you better get an accurate view of it. I'll tell you, God's Word gives you an accurate view.
What Scripture Says About Alcohol
If you've got Bibles, the book of Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 23. It's the longest contiguous passage in the book of wisdom, the book of Proverbs, dealing with this idea of booze. You can learn a lot from it. Proverbs chapter 23, verse 29.
Solomon starts with six questions. This is a great technique. We've told you this before. If you are a writer or you're teaching, asking questions is a great way to entice and involve people. And he starts with six very short questions. Here's his questions: Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has
Proverbs Describes the Reality
Solomon operates on three levels here. He talks emotionally. Emotionally, who's got woe and sorrow? Socially, who's got complaints and strife and can't get along and they're argumentative and they're combative? And physically, who's got bruises and bloodshot eyes?
Who are these guys, Solomon asks. He says, here it is. The one who lingers over the wine and goes on to sample the bowls of mixed wines. The one that's sipping the wine, touching the sauce.
He says, "Do not gaze at it when it's red, when it sparkles in its cup, when it goes down so smoothly." It happens that when the wine is its best color is when it's most potent. He said, don't gaze at it. It's so alluring. It looks so good. "This is really life. It doesn't get any better than this." All of those lies that are repeatedly told to you in these ads, in these commercials.
In the end, He's talking now about booze. "In the end, it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper." It gives you some physical characteristics here, and I can say amen to every one of these. "Your eyes will see strange sights, and your minds imagine confusing things. And you'll be like one sleeping in the high sea."
I remember nights where I'd hit that bed and I could just feel everything moving. And the stomach is rolling. And your mouth starts to water. And you start to swallow. And now everything's spinning. And then He'll say, "They hit me, but it doesn't hurt. They beat me, but I don't feel it. And when I wake up"—this is how sick this is—"when I wake up the next morning, I go to find another drink. I go to do it all over again."
The Problem is Real
If you're out there and you're getting a little liquored up every once in a while, you got a problem. Because more often than that, you obviously have a problem. And you need to talk to somebody who's enough of a friend to tell you you got a problem. And this stuff just takes its toll.
If we were to graph these things and you put success here—by success we might mean relational business or whatever—and you put consumption here, whether it's alcohol or drug, whatever it is, at some point as this increases, these babies are going to cross. Why? I'm watching it yesterday. Jamal Lewis. Now, we presume he's innocent. Why would he even be around this stuff? Why would an athlete making $10 million a year go to the gym and be messing around with cocaine?
Why would a business guy—and you know what? Some of you are saying it's stupid. Let me tell you, I did it for 10 years. I know it's stupid. But why would you? Because it looks so good. It presents a lie. It allows you to get a little relief from the world. It's somebody that can't deal with reality.
I love to go into the bars. Not a bar like this. This isn't a bar. This is a lounge. I mean a bar where it's dark and it's cold and there's sports on and guys are lying to each other. That's what I mean. I love that environment. It's refreshing to just step into something different. It gets you away from the real world, doesn't it?
Biblical Parameters for Decision Making
Well, it sounds like you're telling us no booze. No, I'm not saying that. We've got 10 minutes here. Let me give you some parameters on how to deal, not just with booze, but also, here you go, should a Christian see R-rated movies? For I don't know how many years we've been arguing about R-rated movies, especially the Baptists. "No R-rated movies, no R-rated." Now the Baptists are buying theaters out to show an R-rated movie. Seems ironic to me.
You've got all these "Should you go to this movie, not go to this movie? Should you have a drink?" Here's the principle. 1 Corinthians 10:23: "Everything is permissible, but not everything's beneficial. Everything is permissible, but not everything's constructive. Everybody should seek His own good, but the good of others. Whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, you do it for the glory of God."
So now you begin to ask these questions. Is it okay for me to have a drink? If you're saying to me, "Give me a Bible chapter, verse that says don't drink," I cannot give you one. It isn't in there. There is clear instruction in here, and the instruction we have regarding booze is what? Don't get drunk.
Applying Wisdom to Relationships
Now I use this same principle when it comes to dating. I'll get a lot of single people and they'll say, "Is it alright for me as a Christian to date a non-Christian?" And I'll say, "Well I can't give you a chapter and verse." And of course they like that. "Oh, there's no chapter and verse." I said, let me give you a little wisdom. Here's my experience.
What the Bible says about dating is absent, but the Bible's clear on marriage, isn't it? Does the Bible say a Christian can marry a non-Christian? No. Virtually everybody that I know, with an exception or two, who's married was engaged. Everybody who's engaged dated seriously. Everybody who dated seriously dated casually. Everybody who dated casually had a first date. I wouldn't date an unbeliever.
Especially at this age. We don't have any teenagers running around in here. We may have one. We don't have any teenagers running around in here. You're way beyond this dating thing, companionship. Get a dog. You're dating now at this point to try to figure out, am I going to hook up with this person for life?
Don't start some relationship with this person who's a terrific person in all these different ways, but doesn't share your faith, because you're going to end up falling in love with this person and in the bottom line, you're going to feel a tension here. So don't get involved in it. Ladies, especially you, I'm telling you, this evangelistic dating is really dangerous.
And you need, here you go. So you're with a guy, a guy comes up to you and says, "Would you like to go to the movie?" "Well, I need to tell you my philosophy on dating. What is your philosophy?" "Well, I only date Christians. Are you a Christian?" "Is that really important to you?" "Yes." "Yeah, I am. Yeah, yeah." "Why do you go to church?" "I, you know, I'm like, what church..."
The Real Question About Drinking
You can be very successful in evangelistic dating. I'm telling you, we'll stay on dating for a second. You are nuts to go out with a person, a guy or a gal who's not just a Christian, but who doesn't demonstrate significant growth in their faith. But that's not the discussion.
The discussion is, can I have a drink? Let me reframe the question. The question isn't, can you have a drink? It's should you have a drink?
Can you have a drink? I think biblically I can make the argument. Did not Paul say to Timothy, take a little wine? Now, if you know the scripture, you come right back and say, but that was medicinal, wasn't it? If Paul was alive today, He'd say, take a little Tagamet. But didn't Jesus turn water into wine?
Who cares? I mean, get all those issues off the table. Let's not dress this thing up. I don't want to talk to you about whether it's okay to have a glass of wine with dinner. Let's talk about whether it's all right to come in here and have a boilermaker and watch the ball game. Let's call it what it is. It's okay to drink. Well, is it for the glory of God?
Three Personal Reasons I Don't Drink
I don't drink for three reasons. Let me give them to you. Number one, I tend to end up in jail. I have discovered that hurts the ministry effort. That slows things down. People don't like that.
Number two, although my girls—I am so relieved. April 2nd, Sarah's married and that whole chapter is done. We're gone. God's good. I knew if I had a beer in the house, that there'd be this time where I'd come back from playing golf and just legitimately get a beer and open one. The girls would be there and they'd be 17, 18, 19. They'd say, "Can I have a beer?" And I'd say, "No." And they'd say, "Why can't I have a beer?" I'd say, "Because you're not old enough." They'd say, "Well, I'm old enough to fight in Vietnam. I'm old enough to go to Iraq. I'm old enough to vote." It's a loser argument. You can't win that argument. I hate being in a position where I'm defending a stupid idea.
Here's the third reason I don't drink. It's because you can't handle it.
A Real-Life Example of Weaker Brothers
I met—oh golly, this is 10, 15 years ago now—up in Prescott visiting a friend of mine who's now the mayor of Prescott, as a matter of fact. We're out having dinner and I got Susan and the girls and we're waiting to go in. They were waiting. They said, "Can we get you something to drink?" So we have orders and he has a Miller Lite and I have a Diet Coke. Susan has coffee. The girls have Shirley Temples.
So the gal brings the stuff. I take the Miller Lite. I turn around. I'm just like this. I turn around like this, getting ready to give it to Him. I'm standing like this and there's the gal who's the organist from church. And I could tell by the look in her face, this was an issue. And I said, "Oh, excuse me, who had the Miller Lite? I had the Diet Coke."
Now I want you to see, I had every right to say, "Hey, how you doing? Get a piano. Play that Amazing Grace. This Amazing Grace is for you." I have every right to do that. I'm free, right? I'm free. I'm so free that I will put my desires in bondage to those who are weaker brothers and sisters or to what I think the Lord would have me do.
The Reality of Public Perception
I got a kind of an out like today. Today's a little bit different because I got a full day, but oftentimes on Thursday, I'm done at one when I'm done at North Phoenix. You come into Miguel's on a Thursday at 1:45 and I'm sitting there and I've got an enchilada plate in front of me and a margarita. You don't know if it's the first margarita, the third margarita, and you want it to be the third one. Because you can't wait to tell your friends, "At 1:45, I saw Him down at Miguel's pounding down a pitcher of margaritas. I don't know when He got there." That's the way it is.
It's just like going to movies. I don't typically go to movies because you'll see somebody in the theater and now I don't even rent them. I send Susan to get them. I don't care about her reputation. I send Susan to go get this, "Go get this. I want to see it." But I'm conscious about that. There's a stumbling block there.
The Higher Standard We're Held To
There's even a greater issue than that: does it glorify God? You need to understand this. When you come waltzing in here with a Bible, or you go walking out of here with one of those books—and don't forget to take those books with you—or you got a tape, or you say to somebody, "I was at that thing in the morning" or "I went to church," at that moment, everybody around you is going to take your life and slide it under the microscope. They're going to scrutinize it. They're going to hold you to a higher standard for your life, probably than you have. And you know what? That's just the way it is.
We're going through this, getting the video ready. The wedding must be really going well, because nobody's said anything to me. But they're putting together the video and the pictures. Here's all the pictures of when the girls were small. I'm looking at them, I'm saying, "They look just like me, just like Susan."
Do you get this principle? You are supposed to look like your Father. When you start your prayer "Father," you're supposed to look like Him, act like Him. Does it glorify God for you to be sitting around having a shot, having a glass of wine, having a drink? It's your prerogative. You figure it out.
But understand that if it's out socially, we had a wedding at the church and a reception. There was not a drop of booze anywhere around. I'm telling you, we were dancing and laughing and had more fun. In the middle of it, I said to Susan, "If somebody came in, and there was a bottle..."
You can have an awful lot of fun sober. Some of you may not understand this, but when I quit drinking, I did quit dancing. But I'll tell you what, you can have fun without alcohol.
The Risk of Lost Reputation
Here's the issue you need to see. I've been with people who don't have a couple of drinks, and then they don't get a chance to eat, then they'll have another drink, then there's a party. And then all of a sudden, something happens. Why risk that?
Once that occurs, it's like Elaine is always going to be remembered for her dancing. It doesn't matter whether she becomes the greatest dancer in the world, she's always going to be remembered for that. Once this starts, once this occurs, you're never going to get it back.
Making Your Own Decision
Is it all right to have a couple of drinks? You figure it out. You're big people, you're adults, you don't need me to tell you what to do.
What's the Bible say? The Bible says don't get drunk. And the Bible says, "Whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it for the glory of God." And "everything's permissible, but is it beneficial?" Those are the questions you have to ask yourself.
Next time we'll look at dumb mistake number three.
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Father, help us take a look at this. In areas like this, where we feel this freedom, help us respond in a way that brings honor and glory to You. Father, thank You for Your word and Your truth.
God, it would be easier if You just said don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. You tell us something really hard, difficult. Look at your heart. Don't get drunk with wine, we know that. But God, where would You have us draw that line? And maybe it's to not have a line at all, to just stay away from this stuff.
Father, for those that are here and struggling in this area, would You give them peace and comfort as they work this thing through? And give them the strength. If the final decision is to just say no to this stuff, stop it, then give them the courage to say no. Take that desire away. And when it comes back, give them the courage to struggle and fight through it. Father, we pray to You this morning in Jesus' name, Amen.
Have a great week.