The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation
at
Question
"Should
Christians drink Wine Coolers?"
Answer
Perhaps some
of you were hoping that this question didn't come up. "Should Christians drink Wine
Coolers? Let me give you just a brief
response to that.
A Wine
Cooler is an alcoholic beverage. It is
my own personal conviction that I do not drink alcoholic beverages, of any
kind, at any time. And there are several
reasons why. And they are not in a
particular spiritual order.
Reason
number one is the fact that, I believe the Bible warns very, very strongly
about drunkenness, and very, very strongly about losing control and
dissipation, Ephesians 5:18, "Be not drunk with wine, in which is
dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit." If I am going to be under the control of
something, I want it to be the Holy Spirit, not some substance.
Beyond that,
I am convinced after studying the Word of God and studying the backgrounds
around the Word of God, that the wine which was imbibed in the time of the New
Testament, and even in the Old Testament, was highly diluted with water, 5 to
1, 6 to 1, 7 to 1, 8 to 1. They really drank water if you want to see
the true picture, and they simply purified the water, by putting a little bit
of fermented wine in it, because it killed whatever else would be in the wine,
that might cause them some physical problems.
It was not the
normal drink of the time of our Lord, for people to drink unmixed wine. You read in the Bible about two kinds of
drink, wine and "strong drink."
"Strong drink" was unmixed, and those who drank "strong
drink" drank it for the purpose of drowning their problems. The wine that was consumed in the Bible was
very definitely mixed with water extensively.
Because you lived in a warm climate, the
So that is
simply to point out to you, that I don't think you can advocate wine drinking
from the Bible, unless you have diluted it sufficiently with water, as they did
in Biblical times.
The other
reason, that I will give to you, as to why I don't believe that Christians
should drink wine, is simply because of what the Apostle Paul says, "The
Kingdom of God is not food and drink," Romans Chapter 14. And he says, "If anything that I eat and
drink offends my brother, I won't do it."
Now I have lived long enough, to have dragged enough people out of
saloons; to have tried to "patch up" enough shattered devastated
lives; to have tried to put together families and marriages that have been
devastated by alcohol, to have a healthy hatred for it.
And since we
live in a culture where alcohol is only an option and not a necessity, it seems
to me, without particular constraint, for us to consume that kind of
beverage. I certainly would not want to
be responsible for giving someone else the idea that it was ok to drink
alcoholic beverages and then watch them, in an out of control way, be destroyed
by what they saw me do.
And so in
deference to a weaker brother, and in deference to not
making someone stumble, I choose not to do that. And since there is no compelling reason to do
it, because there are so many other things to drink, it has no place in my
life.
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
Websites: www.biblebb.com and www.gospelgems.com
Email: tony@biblebb.com
Online since 1986