The Curse of Alcoholic Drink-part 4
Proverbs 20:1
“1 Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.”
The business person who offers an alcoholic drink to his client or visa versa, is not making things better but is making things worse. Both are now deceived and the result is poor judgment and bad dealings. Due to the consumption of this poison, both sides may think they have come out with a good deal, but the Bible says they were deceived by the consumption of liquor. Casinos offer liquor to their patrons to get them to loosen up and throw more of their money away in the hope of striking it rich. Again deception is involved. Any financial gains made through gambling are lost in the many who have been willingly robbed of their funds to make it possible for a few to get richer. Those who get richer in this way are also sinning against God in that they have now taken funds without working for them which is a form of theft. It would be very hard to convince the drunkards of this fact because they are deceived and thus justify their gambling. Just to be clear a drunkard is not just someone who is lying in the gutter utterly out of their mind from “too much” liquor. A drunkard is someone who consumes alcoholic drink. It matters not that our government has set a legal limit on the consumption of alcohol for drivers. What matters is what does God say. Let us look at another passage that helps us to see exactly what liquor does.
Proverbs 23:29-35
“29 Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
30 They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
31 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.
32 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
33 Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.
34 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.
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 awake? I will seek it yet again.”
God is not a drunkard. However, God knows all things. Nothing is hid from Him. He created grapes, and barley and corn and any other material that would be used to make alcoholic drink. He did not create these things to destroy man, but for man’s benefit. There are health benefits to grapes. Barley and corn are good for food for man and animals. It is sinful man that comes up with ways to turn these good things that God gives us into poisons that cause great harm and destruction.