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bitter. Their wine is the poison of dragons and the cruel venom of asp." Now Deuteronomy 32 is contrasting, you know, God's people with people that are wicked and evil. And the reality you have to understand is this, that God uses carnal truths to expound spiritual truths. And so he's talking about their rock is not the same as our rock. It's not talking necessarily about specific rocks, okay? It's talking about God. God, you know, the Lord is my rock, okay? And so the Lord is our rock. So there's spiritual pictures that we can take out of these carnal truths. A rock picture is a foundation. A rock picture is that which you would build your house upon or things like that. But the carnal truth itself is still always true, okay? And he makes a phrase here. He has a phrase where it says, "'For their vine is of the vine of Sodom and of the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are grapes of gall. Their clusters are bitter. Their wine is the poison of dragons and the cruel venom of asp.'" Now a grape in and of itself is good. It's great. In fact, it's one of the most expensive fruits that you can buy. But grapes, if they're allowed to just sit on the vine and no one's tending to them, they start to rot and decay and deferment and they become alcoholic. And then they become bitter and they're bitter. They're like gall. They're a poison. And the Bible just plainly states, it says, "'Their wine is the poison of dragons.'" Now I'm not going to go on all the spiritual pictures here because tonight's actually a carnal sermon, all right? We're going to be talking about something very specific, something very physical, because God gives us commandments not just for all the spiritual edification. He also gives them for our physical bodies. He gives them for how to live our lives. You know, God cares about how we look, how we dress, how we act, how we behave ourselves. And there's a sin that most Christians will not get up and condemn, and that is drinking alcohol. Drinking alcohol today. Now you don't have to be spiritual to understand that drinking alcohol is a sin. You don't have to stand the dangers of alcohol in this world today. You know what? All you have to do is just have a brain in your head and you can realize the problems of alcohol, yet there's pastors today, there's churches today that will pretend like drinking alcohol is fine. And in fact, I've heard so many pastors that say, there's no verse in the Bible that says anything bad about drinking alcohol. There's nothing in the Bible that says you can't drink alcohol. Well guess what? I have 15 reasons, 15 biblical reasons why you shouldn't drink alcohol this evening. 15, and there's probably more that I wouldn't even be aware of, but I have 15 biblical reasons from the Bible why alcohol is a sin, why it's wrong, why you should never ever drink it. And point number one is this, it's poison. It's poison. The Bible says their wine is poison. Now obviously, fresh fruit juice is not poison. It's when you let it deteriorate and rot and decompose and ferment that it becomes poison. Just like good food, if you let it sit out, it will spoil, it will mold, it will decompose. No one wants to eat moldy bread. So here's the question, why do you want to eat some kind of beverage that's been able to sit and just become a toxic poison that's going to be harmful to your body? You don't. As a godly Christian, you don't. Now the Bible tells us it's poison, but you know the world tells us it's poison too. I have several articles that I'm going to look at this evening, but I looked at an article on theguardian.com and it was written by a guy named David Nutt. He's a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and chairs the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs. He wrote an article that says this, there is no such thing as a safe level of alcohol consumption. That's the title of the article. This guy is not an independent fundamental Baptist. And he's saying, look, there is no such thing as a safe level of alcohol consumption. In fact, it was one of the top articles that popped up just searching alcohol on Google. And this is what he says, alcohol is a toxin that kills cells such as microorganisms, which is why we use it to preserve food and sterilize skin, pills, etc. Alcohol kills humans too. That's one of his, it's like a Jesus wept sentence. Alcohol kills humans too. He says a dose only four times as high as the amount that would make blood levels exceed drink driving limits in the UK can kill. The toxicity of alcohol is worsened because in order for it to be cleared from the body, it has to be metabolized to acceltahyde, an even more toxic substance. Any food or drink contaminated with the amount of acetate, I'm sorry, acetatecide, wow, dahyde, acetatecide, I can't even say this word, it doesn't matter, that a unit of alcohol produces would be immediately banned as having an unacceptable health risk. So it's saying it's a poison, it's saying you have to metabolize it, and really your liver is the part of your body that would break this element down and allow your body to decompose of it. It says the supposed cardiovascular benefits of a low level of alcohol intake in some middle aged men cannot be taken as proof that alcohol is beneficial. To do that, one would need a randomized trial where part of this group drink no alcohol, others drink in small amounts, and others more heavily. Until this experiment has been done, we don't have proof that alcohol has health benefits. A recent example of where an epidemiological association was found not to be true when tested properly was hormone replacement therapy. Population observations suggested that HRT was beneficial for post menopausal women, but when controlled trials were conducted, it was found to cause more harm than good. Now I read all that to say this. People will say, well drinking alcohol has benefits, it's positive for your health. He's saying there is absolutely no evidence of that. He's saying there's no evidence of it, and you'd have to have specific controlled groups to even test that hypothesis, but he's saying it's a toxin, he's saying that it's damaging to your body, and in fact one of the most harmful aspects is that it takes a lot of time for your body to get rid of the alcohol in which you have drink. Now go to Proverbs chapter 20 for a moment, go to Proverbs chapter number 20. Look, alcohol is literal poison, yet people think that it's good to drink. How could you convince anybody to drink anything if the bottle just said poison on it? I mean imagine I hand you a bottle and say this is good for you, and it just labeled poison, toxic. If you drink too much of this you will die. It's like, oh this is great. Let's just down a whole bunch. That's literally what science says about alcohol. Not the Bible necessarily, it does, but I'm just saying not just the Bible, even the secular world will tell you that alcohol is a literal poison and you say, well I believe that God created alcohol so therefore it's good to consume. Okay, God created rocks. Is that good to consume? I mean God created formaldehyde and God created everything. Look, just because God created something doesn't mean you're supposed to eat it. I know your toddler eats everything that he can find, but that doesn't mean that we should consume everything that can be possibly found. Hey, God created dung. Should we eat that? I mean what else can you find that God created that you should eat? Look, just because God created something, and yeah, he already gave some legitimate uses for alcohol, it could sterilize things. It could be used to preserve food or it could be used to preserve certain things. So yeah, it's not like alcohol doesn't have legitimate uses, but one of those is not drinking it. One of them is not consuming it. Point number one why you should never drink alcohol is because it's poison. Alcohol is poison. The Bible says it, the world says it. Point number two, alcohol will deceive you. Look at Proverbs chapter 20 verse 1, wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. Notice that the Bible is saying that it will deceive you. Whosoever is deceived thereby. That implies that there's people that are deceived today. Let me tell you who's deceived, a majority of Americans and a majority of pretty much the whole world, frankly speaking. I mean Europe, it's not like they don't have this problem. It's not like Moscow doesn't have this problem. It's not like the Russians have a problem with drinking alcohol. Wait, they do. Hey, it's not like virtually every society in this world has this problem. They all do it, it seems like. And you know what? It's being exported and imported. It's cool. It's fashionable. It's on the billboards. I mean imagine a billboard today. Drink and eat rat poison. Punch yourself in the face, you know. Eat dung. Try moldy bread. Have you ever tried moldy bread? It's the new hip thing. I mean that's literally the same logic of drinking alcohol today. Yeah, it's cool. It's hip. They'll put good looking men and good looking women on the billboard and they'll say, oh, come drinking with us. It's super fun. It's funny because I go to the ghetto where people drink all the time and they never look like the billboard. They look like they went to McDonald's more than they were, you know, going somewhere else. And look, you might think it's cool to drink alcohol. It's not. There's nothing cool about it. Well, what about all the good benefits? I'm listening. There is no good benefit. You're deceived if you think there's anything cool about drinking alcohol. You go to the bar and you see what, you know what you're going to see? Losers. You know you're going to see people that have nothing to live for. You know you're going to see people that don't care about their lives. They don't care about the Bible. They don't care about anything that has any kind of integrity. Look, people that are drinking alcohol, they're literally drinking poison. You would not say this person's smart. They've been deceived into doing something that's harmful to them. It's crazy how well the devil can work in this world. He can literally convince you to drink poison. I mean, if you've never heard of alcohol before and someone walked up to your door and said, hey, I have a case of poison in the back. I can give you a 24-pack. Do you want to crack one open? You want to start drinking some poison? It's watered down a little bit so it won't kill you right away. I mean, you wouldn't even kind of go for that. Well, here's a picture of some good-looking men and women drinking it. Does that help? You know. It's like people are literally drinking this. It's complete deception. There is no benefit. There's no positive outcome. It will only destroy you and hurt you. Let me give you some article information about this. It says, we must not allow apologists for this toxic industry to pull the wool over our eyes with the myth of a safe alcohol dose. However appealing it might be to all of us so-called safe drinkers, remember these words of a man whose great family wealth and influence was built on illegal alcohol. This is a quote from John F. Kennedy. This is the same article that I already referenced of this guy from the college in Europe. The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. But John F. Kennedy is saying, hey, it's not like coming out and just saying an obvious lie. It's the myth. Oh, alcohol, you know, it's good for you. It helps you. It's cool. It's good. That's a myth, which really is a lie. I don't like his quote. But John F. Kennedy, they're using his own words against him. This scientist, this person that's studied medical, let me get the exact phrasing here, neuropsychopharmacology. This guy has studied it. He says there is no safe dosage of alcohol. None. So then why would people do it? They're deceived. The Bible already told us that they're deceived. And on top of that, when they're deceived, they're not smart. Let me get you another article. This is a completely different article, but this is what happens when you drink alcohol. This is what happens to your body, your immune system. This is what fights off germs, viruses and other illnesses in your body. Alcohol slows the immune system, making bacteria-fighting white blood cells sluggish and much less efficient. Heavy drinkers may be more likely to succumb to illness such as tuberculosis or pneumonia and increased risk of numerous forms of cancer. Now it makes sense that when we're going through a quote-unquote pandemic, okay, and I'll let you decide what you believe about that. But if you believe we're going through a pandemic, okay, which lots of people are getting sick, that's hard to argue with, they're literally changing the rules in Texas to where you could literally buy alcohol through the drive-through. I mean, in Texas, you used to not be able to do this type of thing. You'd have to go into the restaurant and you can only consume alcohol on the premises, but they had changed the laws doing coronavirus to where when you go and pick up your food to go, you can get alcohol to go. Yet it says it literally lowers your immune system. So if you really think that there's this dangerous virus out there, the worst thing you could do is drink alcohol. Because drinking alcohol will lower your immune system and two of the diseases that it points out, tuberculosis and pneumonia, affect the lungs. Well, guess what? Coronavirus is supposed to be really bad for your lungs and cause you not to breathe well. So I wonder if they did a study on how many people are dying from coronavirus, drink alcohol, I wonder what those stats would look like. Well, we don't want to put any shade on alcohol, do we? Your skeletal system, so not just your immune system, your skeletal system, alcohol abuse inhibits new bone production, putting one at risk of osteoporosis and bone fractures. It also makes muscles more likely to weaken, cramp, or atrophy. So not only are you hurting your immune system, you're hurting your skeletal system. How about your reproductive system? One common side effect of alcohol abuse in men is erectile dysfunction. Oh, that sounds like a good one. Hormone production also may be inhibited, causing infertility. In women, alcohol may cause a ceasing of menstruation and infertility. It also heightens the risk of breast cancer. I'm starting to think that alcohol is good now. Circulatory system, just one occasion of heavy drinking may cause trouble for your heart. Therefore, a heavy drinker is much more likely to have heart problems than a non-drinker. The risk is even higher for females. Heart problems may include poisoning of the heart muscle cells and irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, stroke, or heart attack. I wonder where that poisoning of the heart's coming from. Maybe the poison that you're pulling down your gut, your gullet. Your digestive system, this is where serious damage can quickly occur. Alcohol makes it difficult for our intestines to control bacteria and absorb nutrients that can lead to malnutrition. Alcohol is also known to cause salivary gland damage, gum disease, tooth decay, esophageal ulcers, acid reflux, heartburn, stomach ulcers, gastritis, internal bleeding, hemorrhoids. Sign me up for this. I mean, whatever drug this is, I mean, this is sounding good. Your central nervous system. Alcohol changes behavior. It inhibits speaking, which causes slurred speech and coordination. It affects impulse control and the ability to make memories, leading to blackouts. Alcohol can cause numbness, weakness, and temporary paralysis. Long-term use can shrink the frontal lobes of the brain. Heavy drinking can lead to dependency that may have severe withdrawal effects. I'm not even reading the Bible, and this is like the hardest preaching that most people ever heard. I mean, I'm just reading the side effects of alcohol, the excretory system. So basically, every part of your body is just completely destroyed with its poison. This system is responsible for moving waste products. That sounds beneficial. Such as alcohol from the body. Excessive alcohol consumption can cause the pancreas to lose normal insulin production and create toxic substances that can lead to its destruction. An abundance of alcohol can harm the liver, whose job it is to break down harmful substances in the body. This can lead to hepatitis, jaundice, and cirrhosis, which is the buildup of scar tissue that eventually destroys the organ. Alcohol may cause kidney, bladder, and prostate inflammation. Now, that's just what science is telling you alcohol does. So anybody that drinks it, the only thing you can say is they're deceived. I mean, deception. Alcohol is a poison, number one. Alcohol, number two, will deceive you. People that drink alcohol don't even realize that they're harming every part of their body. And if we keep reading this verse, it says not only that, you're just not wise. You know what that means in modern vernacular? You're stupid. You're an idiot. If you drink alcohol, you're stupid. If you drink alcohol, you're an idiot. You say, is that what the Bible says? That's what the Bible said. It says you're not wise, you're stupid, you're an idiot, and drinking more alcohol will make you even more of an idiot, more stupid. Let me give you some more articles, okay? Since you don't like the Bible, let me give you science then, all right? IQ and level of alcohol consumption. So they did a Swedish study and they found that lower results on IQ tests are associated with higher consumption of alcohol. Shocker. Here's another article. This is your brain on alcohol from the Harvard Health Publishing. That's a Christian institution, right? Harvard? A team of researchers from the University of Oxford looked at data from 424 men and 103 women who were participating in the 10,000 person White House study on ongoing investigation of the relationship of lifestyle and health among British civil servants. At the beginning of the study in 1985, all the participants were healthy and none were dependent on alcohol. Over the next 30 years, the participants answered detailed questions about their alcohol intake and took tests to measure memory, reasoning, and verbal skills. They underwent brain imaging with MRI at the end of the study. So they did a 30-year study of several different people where they're constantly following up with them, checking their alcohol consumption, and then testing it and comparing it. It says when the team analyzed the questionnaires, the cognitive test scores, and MRI scans, they found that the amount of shrinkage in the hippocampus, the brain area associated with memory and reasoning, was related to the amount people drank. Those who had the equivalent of four or more drinks a day had almost six times the risk of hippocampal shrinkage as non-drinkers, while moderate drinkers had three times the risk. However, the only link between drinking and cognitive performance was that heavy drinkers had a more rapid decline and the ability to name as many words beginning with a specific letter as possible within a minute. So they did all these different tests to try and figure out if these people were getting better or worse, and it's saying that the parts of your body that actually have memory or cognitive thinking would literally shrink because of drinking alcohol. It's literally destroying your brain, shrinking your brain, making you where you're literally stupid. You're an idiot. You're dumber on purpose. Go through to Proverbs 23. Proverbs 23. So point number one, alcohol is a poison. Point number two, it will deceive you. Point number three, it makes you stupid. Point number four, it leads to bodily harm, which we've already proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. Let's look at more of the Bible, though. Proverbs 23, look at verse 29. Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath the redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine, look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it moveth itself right. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things. Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick. They have beaten me, and I felt it not. When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again. So we have a passage in the Bible that's saying, hey, if you want sorrow, if you want contentions, if you want wounds without cause, drink alcohol. It's saying it will harm your body. You will have wounds without cause. You won't even know why you're hurt. It will just hurt all parts of your body. It will lead to you hurting yourself. So many people that drink alcohol, they just smash their hand in the car. They smash parts of their body on the wall. They punch things, not even thinking about it, and breaking knuckles, harming their body, getting into accidents, doing all manner of evil, tripping and falling, stumbling, hitting the ground, getting into fights with people, getting into contentions with people, and them just literally beating the snot out of them. Why would I want to go around punching myself, hitting myself, running into things, and letting people beat me up? And the worst part about it is this. In the moment, you won't feel the pain. It's saying someone can literally punch you, and you won't even know that it hurts. You could punch the wall, and you won't even know it hurts. Look, pain is a good thing. Without pain, you would destroy yourself very quickly. You know, pain helps you realize, oh, fire hot. Fire burn, especially in hell, okay? But people are constantly hurting themselves, and why? It's because they're drinking alcohol. They didn't even realize it. You know, from the CDC, not Steadfast Baptist Church, the CDC, okay, not SBC, impaired drinking, get the facts, in 2016, 10,497 people died in alcohol impaired driving crashes. Over 10,000 people died from a crash, accounting for 28% of all traffic-related deaths in the United States. So more than one-fourth of all traffic accidents are related to alcohol. And, you know, these are the ones that died, not just the ones that got injured. These are the ones that lost their life. Of the 1,233 traffic deaths among children ages 0 to 14 years in 2016, 214 or 17% involved in alcohol impaired driving. So they're saying 200 plus children died in an accident related to alcohol. They died from someone drinking alcohol. Not just the person that's driving, they're also hurting other people. Why would you want to drink alcohol to hurt your children? Not just hurting yourself. It's leading to bodily harm of yourself and others. Point number five is this. Then it leads to crime and jail time. You know the Bible taught that too. Go to Isaiah 28. Go to Isaiah 28. Look, there's nothing positive about alcohol. And you say, what's the point of this sermon? Well, I hope your children never touch it. I hope you never touch it. I hope you don't even look at it. That's what the Bible already told us. You shouldn't even look on it. It's not going to benefit anybody. No one has ever had a positive experience with alcohol. And any time they thought they did, it was that they were deceived by it. They didn't realize all the damage that they did to themselves by drinking that poison. Isaiah 28, look at verse three. The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim shall be trodden under feet. Now, God's saying he's going to punish the drunkards at Ephraim. Look at verse number six. And for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate, but they also have erred through wine and through strong drink, are out of the way. The priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink. They are swallowed up of wine. They are out of the way through strong drink. They err in vision. They stumble in judgment. You know what? You can't see right when you're drinking alcohol. So when you get behind a wheel, when you get in your car, and you're driving, when you drunk alcohol, you're going to get in an accident. And what a selfish, evil thing to get behind a car, wheel, and drive when you've been drinking. Even the carnal world condemns it. Look, when America says that you're wicked, you're, you know, for something that the Bible says, I mean, you're really out to lunch. Yet there's Baptists today that have gone soft on drinking. There are the Southern Baptist Convention. I've heard people preaching in the Southern Baptist Convention going light on alcohol and saying, oh, you can drink in moderation. You can handle a little bit. Now, you know what the problem with that is? Is this. People like to drink in public. And here's the question. How do you get from your house to that public place? You drive. And whenever people hear this green light of drinking, you know what they do? They drink and they drive. People that drink, drive, drunk. It just happens. These all be responsible. No one's responsible. These people that drink, they already showed that they lacked any responsibility when they drank poison in the first place. How are they going to, and then they lost all the good judgment they had to say, well, I won't drive home drunk. And so then they just drive home drunk. And you know what? They get all kinds of accidents and they're killing people and they're hurting people. Children are dying from this. Listen to this statistic. 1.4 million incidents of alcohol-related violence are committed against strangers each year. 1.4 million incidents of alcohol-related violence. Not only just with a car, just anyway. Just punching people, hitting people, hurting people, harming people. And you know what? If you grew up in a home where your parents drank, you probably got hurt from them. Physically. They probably physically hurt and abused their children because that's reality. It's sick. It's gross. And you know what? When you drink and drive, you will go to jail if you get caught. And you know what? If you're a Christian in this room, you're way more likely to get caught. Because you know what? God does not approve of that behavior. And God doesn't let his children just act however they want. God will discipline them. You know, when I go to Walmart, there's lots of kids that kick and scream and cry and throw fits and they get away with it. But my kids aren't going to get away with that. And you know what? God's children aren't going to get away with the sins of this world. You know what? God's going to bring down the hammer. And you know what? There's some serious punishments for those that make these mistakes. Listen to this. About 3 million violent crimes occur each year in which victims perceive the offender had been drinking. Rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and simple assault. About two-thirds of violent crimes are characterized as simple assaults. Based on victim reports, alcohol use by the offender was a factor in 37% of rapes and sexual assaults, 15% of robberies, 27% of aggravated assaults, 25% of simple assaults. Drinking alcohol will cause you to commit crimes. And when you commit crimes, you go to jail. One of the worst things. Now if you drink and drive and you get caught, this is what happens. The first offense is up to a $2,000 fine, up to 100 days in jail, and the loss of driver's license for a year. That doesn't sound like fun. Second offense, up to a $4,000 fine, one month to a year in jail upon conviction, loss of driver's license for two years. Now I remember whenever I turned 16, my dad said if I ever get a ticket, I would lose my license for a month. And man, it sucked not being, I got a ticket. All right, let's be honest. It sucked not having my driver's license for one month. How about two years? That's not fun. A third offense, a $10,000 fine, two to ten years in prison, loss of driver's license up to two years. And you know what? Frankly speaking, if you were drinking and driving and got in an accident and killed someone, the Bible says you'd be put to death. And even today's society, you'll get a very severe punishment if you do this. Go back to Proverbs 23. This is a serious thing. And it baffles me that Christians can get up and preach and say the Bible doesn't say anything negative about drinking alcohol. I've heard Baptist preachers get up and actually say the Bible says good things about alcohol. What Bible are they reading? Now here's where they get this, okay? And I'll explain this. The word wine in your Bible can be one of two things. It could be fresh new wine that's non-alcoholic. It could be alcoholic wine. But you have to study the context. And here's the thing. These people don't study the context, so they just think every time the word wine's used, it's alcohol. So there is positive mentions of wine, but that mention is that of fresh fruit juice. That would come from the vine. That would take grapes and squeeze it into a cup and you'd drink juice. And look, you say, oh, I don't know why that would be a positive mention. We'll have kids. You know, my kids love juice. In fact, juice is their favorite beverage. Especially since we drink water all the time, right? Anything but water. But man, juice is a delicacy. And I'm sorry that you live in such prosperity you don't even realize that. Why don't you go to Africa and ask kids if they want to drink some juice? They would just like clean water, let alone some juice. Juice is a delicacy. Juice is for kings. And because we live in such prosperity, we have such a warped mind today. But let me tell you what. When wine is negative in the Bible, it's always alcohol every time. And there's no way to get around it. These people that teach that alcohol is positive need to sit down and never preach again because they're harming people's lives. It's sick. You shouldn't be a preacher of God's word if you can't even figure out the difference between wine and the Bible. Proverbs 23, look at verse 33. Thine eyes shall behold strange women and thine heart shall utter perverse things. You know what alcohol does? It causes perversion. It causes perversion. Go to Genesis 19. Now, I looked at another article. Roughly 1 in 10 people polled regardless of gender had cheated on their partners while drinking alcohol. You want a 10% chance of committing adultery when you didn't even want to? 80% of first experiences were under the influence of alcohol. 80% of people lost their virginity due to alcohol specifically. 80% of people lost their virginity due to alcohol. 40% of men believe it is acceptable to force women when they're drunk. I'm just reading. Almost 50% of unplanned encounters occur when one or both persons are under the influence of alcohol. Look, drinking alcohol causes you to do weird stuff that you would not normally do. And here's a really, really bad example ... Actually, I wanted you to go to Genesis chapter number ... Yeah, Genesis chapter 19 is right. Okay. There's tons of stories in the Bible. This one's really bad, though. Look at verse 32. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him that we would preserve seed of our father. These are the first Kentuckians in the Bible. You literally have a daughter wanting to lie with her own father, which would never, ever happen. No one would choose to do this. But you know how they convince him? They get him drunk. And then when he gets drunk, he fathers a child with his own daughter. He becomes grandpa and papa at the same time. How sick. How perverted. Only through the device of what? Poison. Alcohol. Let's keep reading. It says, and they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father. And he perceived not when she lay down nor when she arose. He was so drunk, he didn't even know what happened. He was just blacked out. It says, and it came to pass on the morrow that the firstborn said in the younger, Behold, I lay yesterday night with my father. Let us make him drink wine this night also, and go thou in and lie with him that we may preserve seed of our father. Not only did the older daughter do it, the younger daughter did it. Fathering two children with his daughters. His only descendants are from his own family. And these become two of the most wicked tribes to ever live on the face of the earth. The Ammonites and the Mobites, who invent abortion basically, who worship false gods, all came from where? Alcohol. That poisonous wine, the poison of dragons. Go to Habakkuk chapter two. Habakkuk chapter number two. In fact, Noah became drunk, and guess what? His younger son came in and spied on him, and then when he woke up, he said he knew what his younger son had done unto him. And it was like, what did he do? I don't even want to know. If it's not sick enough to be with your own daughter, how about two men? That's even worse. And you know what? There are so many fags in this world. It's sick. And you know what they want to do? They want to get you drunk so they can do stuff to you. Just on that point alone should cause you to never drink ever. Kevin Spacey. Oh, he's such a good actor. He's a pedophile. You know what he does? He takes straight guys into bars, and he gets them drunk so that he can force himself on them. There's been multiple witnesses come out of young men, and they were just star struck. They're like, it's Kevin Spacey. He's an actor. He's a celebrity. It's so cool. I don't know why this 50-year-old dude is talking to an 18-year-old kid or 21-year-old kid why he's so interested in talking to me, but he keeps pouring liquor down my throat. You know why? So he can look upon his nakedness, and that's why. I wonder if the Bible has a story like that. Well, look at it back in chapter 2, verse 15. Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink that putteth thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness. Now let's slow down. He said, woe unto notice this hem that giveth his neighbor drink that putteth thy bottle to him. So it's a hem giving to a hem. And what's the goal? To look on his nakedness. Look at verse 16. Thou art filled with shame for glory. Drink thou also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered. It's sick, my friend. It's gross. Well, you know what? I just let little Johnny go and hang out with his buddies. It's sick. Oh, well, they go to college, and they just did stuff. You know, I don't know what they're doing. He's joining a frat house. You don't want to do that. You don't want to go down that road. Go back to Proverbs 23. Go back to Proverbs 23. Look, whenever you drink alcohol, you take yourself out of the driver's seat, and you let another spirit come and inhabit your body. This is the God of oneness. This is the antichrist, and this is the false God of manly peril. Where a God just came and inhabited some body or whatever. Look, that's a different spirit. That's called a familiar spirit. When you drive down, it says spirits on the billboard. You don't want that spirit. You want the Holy Spirit, which is the Bible. And you know what the Holy Spirit doesn't do? It doesn't force you to do anything. You're in the driver's seat. He'll fill you with knowledge and wisdom. He'll tell you not to drink alcohol. You know what? He won't force you to not drink it. But you know what? When you drink alcohol and you get another spirit, it'll force you to do all manner of stuff. You would never, ever, ever, ever do. People wake up, and they don't even know what they did. Here's an even worse part about it. Verse 35. They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick. They have beaten me, and I felt it not. When shall I wake? I will seek it yet again. Alcohol's addicting. Not only does it cause perversion, it's addicting. Meaning what? You can get to the point where you never want to drink ever again, yet you drink every single day. Oh, I have all these wounds without cause. I've committed all this perversion. I've done all this wickedness. I just impregnated my own daughter. Let's drink again tonight. Because the younger one's not pregnant yet. I mean, just going down a dark road, just drinking, drinking, drinking. Look, you're going to wake up and not even know what happened to you. The prevalence of drinking in America, according to a 2019 national survey on drug use, said 85.6% of people ages 18 or older reported they drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime. So that means more people in this room have drank alcohol than not. About 85% of you. In fact, I don't want to raise your hands, but it might be almost close to 100%. You know, the Mormons don't drink, but God's people for some reason do, and it's sick. 69%, almost 70% reported that they drank in the past year. So 70% of Americans are drinking at least once in every year. 54.9% reported that they drank in the past month. So more than half of Americans are drinking every month. Every month. I think these are conservative statistics, too. Prevalence of binge drinking and heavy alcohol use. In 2019, 25.8% of people engaged in binge drinking. That's where you're just drinking yourself drunk. That's where you're just getting, like, hardcore blacked out. You're just drinking so much. I mean, you're just consuming so much alcohol. It says a quarter of our nation's doing this on a regular basis. 6.3% reported that they engaged in heavy alcohol use in the past month. Now, their definition of heavy alcohol use is such extremity. I mean, we're talking about people drinking, like, six-plus alcoholic beverages every day. That's extreme. And it's saying 6% of our society is doing this. You wonder why there's so much violence. You wonder why there's so much wickedness in this world. Look at verse 35 again. We can get so much just from this one chapter. They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick. They have beaten me, and I felt not. When shall I wake? I will seek it yet again. You know what else? It's not satisfying. Not only is it addictive, alcohol is not satisfying. You can't get enough of it. You just have to have more and more and more and more. And here's another problem with alcohol. As you have more and more alcohol, it starts to lose its effect on you. So you have to have even more and more to get the same effect. And then you can get to a point where it does nothing to you as far as your enjoyment. You know, people get a buzz or they get a good feeling when they drink alcohol. You can drink so much alcohol that you get to the point where you can't get that buzz feeling again. And they're just constantly drinking to try and get that high, and they're never gonna even get it. Look at Isaiah 5. Let me show you a group of people that get that point. Isaiah chapter number 5. You say, I already get it past the Shelly. I'm not gonna drink. Why would it make you never drink? And your kids never drink. And you realize how dangerous it is. You realize how poison it is. Look, it's sick that churches today won't preach against alcohol. It's obvious. It's a poison. It's deceiving you. It's killing people. The government is warning against alcohol. The government is doing a better job than churches today. It's sick. It's sickening. You say, how much alcohol do you let into your house? None. Never. In fact, I don't want to get too ahead of myself. There's another point here. You may not even be able to come to this church because of alcohol. Look at Isaiah chapter 5 verse number 11. Woe unto them who rise up early in the morning that they may follow strong drink that continue until night till wine inflame them. There's people they wake up and they just have to get drunk as soon as possible. They have to get that feeling of buzz. And they'll drink all the way into the night. And then as soon as they wake up, they drink until the night. And as soon as they wake up, they drink until the night. And eventually they just die. And let them remember what happened. One point they were just drinking alcohol. All of a sudden they lift up their eyes in hell. They don't even know what happened. They just drunk their life away. They're just a constant drunk. Look at verse 22. Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine and men of strength to mingle strong drink. I've heard people say, oh, you can't handle it. I can handle lots of liquor. Well, woe unto you. Because the only reason you can handle so much liquor is because you drank so much already. Because you're a drunk. If you think that you can drink lots of alcohol, that's nothing to brag in. And you're a drunk anyways. Why? Because it's not satisfying. In fact, another article says this. The top 10% of American adults drink an average of 74 alcoholic beverages every week. That comes out to 10 drinks per day. So the people that are in the worst side of this, they drink 74 alcoholic beverages every week. It's amazing how God created our bodies to withstand so much poison. I mean, you can drink that much poison on a regular basis and still live? That should be a testament to how well God made our bodies to be able to handle so many dangerous and harmful things. But it's not like there's not going to be consequences. It says this, most Americans are more likely to drink once or twice per week instead of 11 times. Go to Proverbs 31. Go to Proverbs 31. I have so much Bible. Let's do a review of our points, okay? Alcohol, number one, is a poison. Alcohol, number two, will deceive you. Alcohol, point number three, makes you stupid. Alcohol, leads to bodily harm. Alcohol, leads to crime and jail time. Alcohol, cause of perversion. Alcohol is addicting. Alcohol is not satisfying. Point number nine, alcohol makes you forget. We already saw that. A lot didn't even know what was going on. But look at Proverbs 31. Look at verse four. It is not for kings, O Lemuel. It is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink, lest they drink and forget the law and pervert the judgment. The Bible says when you drink alcohol, you forget things. In fact, you can get a syndrome because of this called Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. It's a type of dementia linked to heavy alcohol use. This condition creates gaps in a person's memory. It's possible that a person can prevent this syndrome from getting worse, but they usually must stop drinking. Usually the effects of long-term memory loss are related to drinking 21 or more drinks a week for four years or more. So if you drink 24 drinks a week for four years, you're basically likely to get this disease. That's called college. Just go to college and you can literally put yourself on the fast track to get Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. And you can pay for it while you're there. What a benefit. Sign me up for college now. Can I get debt while I get diseases at the same time and drink poison and commit all kinds of whoredom and whoremongering and let guys do things to me that I didn't even know what happened? No, thank you. No benefit in drinking alcohol. It's stupid. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter number five. Alcohol will result in another thing. It will result in church discipline. Alcohol will result in church discipline. Now, this is not a popular doctrine. In fact, I would say it's a very unpopular doctrine. But I'm sorry that I believe the Bible and you don't. It makes me sad that people don't believe the Bible today. But if you don't like this point, you know, that's your problem. It's not my problem. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter five verse 11. But now I have written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, covetous, or an idolater, a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner with such and one know not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? Do not you judge them that are within? But them that are without, God judgeth. Therefore, put away from yourselves that wicked person. Notice people who are drunks are wicked. Now, let me give you the standard for drunkard in this church, okay? Let me tell you if you're a drunkard or not. If you drink every day, you're a drunk. I have five points. I didn't put these in my notes. I think I can remember all of them, all right? If you mix drugs and alcohol, you're a drunk. There's point number two. If you ever drink and drive, you're a drunk. Get out. If you drink hard liquor, you're a drunk. No one can convince me that you're drinking hard liquor to be sober. Get out. You're a drunk. I have a fifth one. Yeah. If you go to bars, you're a drunk. Well, I'm just the designated driver. I don't believe you. That's when two young people say, we live together, but we don't lie together. It's like, what? No. You're a liar. Nobody goes to hang out at the bar and drinks water, okay? That doesn't exist. You know what? If you fit in that category, you can just throw yourself out, or you can stop doing it and come to church and serve God. You know what? We don't need people that are drinking poison to serve God. You already are filled with the wrong spirit. You need to cleanse yourself, clean your hands, and come into church, and notice we're not supposed to have any fellowship with you. We're not supposed to be eating with you. Now, let me make this really practical. Anybody in my family that is saved, that is a drunkard, I will not fellowship with them, period. You say, what about your dad? What about your mom? What about your brother? What about your sister? What about any family member? It doesn't matter what person. Did this say, well, accept family members? In fact, the person's called a brother. I mean, it sounds like family if you ask me. You know what? That's unpopular. You know what? I don't want my kids to think that drinking alcohol is ever good in any way. I remember family members getting mad about this and telling me, oh, your kids are going to think that we're bad because we drink alcohol. Well, then stop drinking alcohol. Sorry, but I don't want my kids to think, oh, look at the cool family member that drinks alcohol. He's so cool, and he gets away with it. You know, it's just fun. Now, look, if I have a family member that's not saved, I'll go over there and try and preach them the gospel, but I'm still going to distance myself from that situation. I'm still not going to go over to the drunken party and try to preach the gospel or something. You say, well, I don't like that because my whole family is drunkards. Well, I guess you just don't like the Bible. Well, I define drunkard as the guy that has two 40s taped to his hands and laying in the gutter. Okay, well, then you're just ignoring what the Bible says. Go to Romans chapter 14. Go to Romans chapter 14. You might lose people, Pastor Shelley. Well, I hope I lose all the drunks. I hope I lose all the railers and the extortioners. I mean, how many extortioners do you want to hang out and be buddies with and railers and drunkards? I don't want to be around these people. Get out. You know, I can serve God by myself if I have to. I don't have to be around a bunch of drunks, and I don't want a church full of drunks, and I don't want to have a constantly, hey, steadfast Baptist church member kills another person in drinking, driving accident. And, you know, one of the fathers of steadfast Baptist church impregnates his daughter through drinking alcohol. Oh, and steadfast Baptist father, he beats his kid to death. And steadfast Baptist father and mother, they drink so much alcohol that they pass out on top of their baby and suffocate their baby and kill it, like the harlot in the Bible did. I don't want that. I don't want that headline. So if you're like that, get out. We don't need you. And why don't you fix yourself? Look, the goal of that is not to condemn people. The goal is to say you're wicked and you need to fix it. But you know what? If you don't want to fix it, you're not welcome. Romans chapter number 14, look at verse 13, let us not therefore judge one another anymore, but judge us rather that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall on his brother's way. Alcohol is a stumbling block. And you're putting it in front of your brother. If you drink alcohol in moderation, quote, unquote, well, how do you know your brother's going to do it in moderation, quote, unquote? And first of all, I don't like drinking poison in any quantity. If you say, hey, I put a little tiny drop of arsenic in your water, Pastor Shelley, I'm going to throw it away. Oh, it's just a little bit? Okay. Oh, a couple drops? No problem. You know, I don't want any. I don't even want a thimble full of alcohol. I don't want a thimble full of a wine cooler. Oh, come on, Pastor Shelley, it's a wine cooler. I don't want it. Jesus Christ, when he received some bad drink, he spit it out. And that's what I'll do. Go to Ecclesiastes chapter 2. Alcohol is not just a stumbling block, it's vanity. Go to Ecclesiastes chapter number 2. Say, why do you preach the sermon? Well, you're not going to hear it anywhere else. In fact, it used to be that every Baptist church was preaching against alcohol. Baptist churches used to preach you weren't even allowed to go dancing. Baptist churches used to preach the Bible. Now today, you have fags behind the pulpit in Baptist churches. I mean, this broad view or broad way to hell Baptist church or whatever somewhere around here, they are literally saying they're going to put fags in leadership. I guess I can see why they're not preaching against alcohol. They can't even get the fag behind the pulpit out of the church. Ecclesiastes chapter 2, look at verse 3. So he's saying, hey, I was going to give my heart to this wine, yet my heart had wisdom. And he says, I want to lay hold on folly till I might see what was good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. So he's saying, well, I was thinking about doing everything. Solomon, you know, he got so tired or he got so bored with all his riches, he just started thinking about everything. What about folly? I studied the Flat Earth Theory and it was stupid. I just did everything. I just considered everything, even wine. It says in verse 11, then I looked in all the works that my hands had brought and on the labor that I had labored to do and behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit and there was no profit under the sun. He says, hey, look, it's vanity. You should have already gotten that from chapter 1. Look at verse 2. Vanity of vanity saved the preacher. Vanity of vanity. All is vanity. Verse number 14, I have seen all the works that are done under the sun and behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Why drink alcohol when it has no point? There's no benefit. There's nothing adding into your life. Why would you do something that has no possible benefit? Why would I eat sugar pills if it has no benefit? What if I said, hey, I invented this new food. It's tasteless. It has no calories. It just does nothing. You want to eat it? Like, why? Why would I do that? Hey, I've got an activity for you. It's doing nothing. You can literally just sit. You don't even have to think. You don't even have to move. It's called nothing. Who's interested in this one? It's called sleeping. I'm actually interested in that one. All right. No, I'm just kidding. But look, doing absolutely nothing is more beneficial than drinking alcohol. But at the end of the day, it's all the same. It's all vanity. Look, these people are wasting their lives away. And not only that, not only is it vanity, it's an expensive vanity. Alcohol is expensive. You have to pay a whole bunch of money to do something that has no benefit, no purpose. It's harming you. It's hurting you. It's wicked. It could get you thrown out of church. This doesn't make sense. Go to Proverbs 21. Let me prove to you that it's expensive. Proverbs 21. Because I have a Bible verse for every one of these points. Proverbs 21. Look at verse 17. He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man. He that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich. Hey, you like wine? You're not going to be rich. Hey, you want to drink alcohol? You're not going to be rich. And you know what? These celebrities, these rock stars and these hip hop artists, they make their big contract. You know what? All their drugs and alcohol soak all the money out of them. And they end up becoming a poor, destitute, derelict loser. You want to look at people that had a lot of money and lost it real quick? Alcohol is in that equation. And if we go to the ghetto, if you go where the poor people are, you know what abounds? Alcohol. I remember going to the Indian reservation up in Yakima. And there was this guy, it was a poor house. This guy had like literally 10,000 beer cans just sitting in like the front of his yard. They were all smashed and just like, I mean, it was like his yard was decorated with beer cans. And I tried to patient the gospel, but he wasn't there. And think about 10,000 beer cans. I mean, I might be exaggerating, but I don't think so. Some beers might cost three, four dollars a can. The cheap stuff is maybe like a buck. I don't know. Let's just say it was a dollar. That's 10,000 dollars just sitting on his front lawn. And some alcoholic beverages are seven, eight dollars a drink. I looked at an article. It said that the average alcoholic beverage is eight dollars. Now this is like if you go to a restaurant or go somewhere. But it says if you drink seven days a week and five drinks a day at eight dollars a beverage, you're likely spending around 280 dollars a week, 1200 bucks a month, 14,000 dollars a year. That's an expensive habit. And you know what's not that expensive? Water. I used to be a joke in college when I'd tell my buddies like, hey, I'll get you something. I'll get you water. Because they never charge for water at any store. I mean, let's just get a bottle of water, okay? But you're too fancy for me, all right? Go to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. I have two more points, all right, and we've finished. I have 15 biblical reasons why you should never drink alcohol. You should only need one. I mean, if God says thou should not kill, it should be done. Thou should not bear false witness, done. I mean, how many commandments, how many clear instructions do you need? Look, drinking alcohol is a sin. Let me prove it to you beyond any shadow of a doubt. 1 Thessalonians chapter number 5, look at verse 7. For they that sleep, sleep in the night, and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. The Bible commands you to be sober. So guess what? When you start drinking alcohol, you're breaking the commandment of being sober. Look at Titus. It's right there. Just flip to the right, Titus chapter number 2. You say, well, who's supposed to be sober, Pastor Shelley? Well, let's see. The Bible gives a list of a few people. Titus 2, 2, that the aged men be sober, so the old guys. Verse 4, that they may teach the young women to be sober, okay? So the older women are teaching the younger women to both be what? Sober. So we've got the old ladies, we've got the young ladies, we've got the old men. What about verse number 6? Young men likewise exhort to be sober. Sounds like everyone's supposed to be sober. Therefore, drinking alcohol is a sin. Oh, the Bible never says anything about alcohol. That's because you're stupid. That's because you were probably drinking alcohol when you thought about that. Look, they don't read the Bible, so you know what they do? They go to their little word search tool online, they type in the word alcohol and nothing popped up. Oh, I guess it doesn't talk about alcohol. But I shouldn't read it and see it says sober. Like, you want to know how a lot of these fake pastors get around? They just do word searches on the internet. They don't actually read the Bible. They actually know what they're talking about. Well, if you go back to the Greek, you know, the word sober means I don't even know, you know, because I'm too drunk to even look up the Greek word. Go to Ephesians chapter 5, the last verse I'll be turned to. Let me give you a review. Fifteen biblical reasons why you shouldn't drink alcohol. Number 1, it's poison. Number 2, it will deceive you. Point number 3, it makes you stupid. Point number 4, it leads to bodily harm. Point number 5, it leads to crime and jail time. Point number 6, it causes perversion. Point number 7, it's addicting. Point number 8, it's not satisfying. Point number 9, it makes you forget. Point number 10, it results in church discipline. Point number 11, it's a stumbling block. Point number 12, it's vanity. Point number 13, it's expensive. Point number 14, it's a sin. And the final point, it's the wrong spirit. It's the wrong spirit. Ephesians chapter 5, look at verse number 17. Wherefore, be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is, and be not drunk with wine, where it is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. You can't have both. You know what? We're supposed to walk in the Spirit. We're supposed to be filled with the Spirit of God. And as soon as you start drinking alcohol, you're destroying your spiritual life. And you know what? It might be a carnal thing. It might be a carnal application, but notice it has spiritual ramifications, doesn't it? When you drink alcohol, it causes you not to be spiritual, and it's the wrong spirit. We don't want that spirit in our church. I don't want that spirit in your family. I don't want that spirit in anything around us. And you know what? It's sad that the Bible's so crystal clear on this, and the world yet doesn't care. You know what? As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your Word. Thank you for giving us so much clear instruction, for giving us the ability to be wise today. I pray that people would study to show themselves approved, that they would look at what the Bible actually says, that they would take heed to the warnings that you've outlayed, that they would just use common sense and logic and realize that alcohol's a danger, it's a poison, it's harmful, it's hurting so many people. I pray that you would just wake America up, that you would just sober America up, that you would sober Christians up, you would sober Baptists up, that people would realize the harmful damage they're doing to their bodies so that they could be filled with the Spirit today. You know this demonic spirit, this evil spirit that's trying to affect them with alcohol? I just pray that you would just help people to realize what's happening so they could be filled with the true Spirit of God. In Jesus' name we pray.