Click here to listen to the radio version.
Click here to search the AOG archives.
Apples of Gold
Radio Script for February 7, 2011
“Alcohol Hinders Holiness”
Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.
“So what do you think about Christians drinking alcohol?”
That’s what someone asked my Sunday school teacher.
He said, “The Bible doesn’t expressly forbid the drinking of all alcohol, but I don’t drink and here’s why.”
He went on to make what I thought was a great case for Christians to avoid alcohol.
In Leviticus chapter 10, God spoke to the first high priest Aaron and gave him very specific standards for the priests concerning alcohol. Verses nine through eleven say, “Do not drink wine or intoxicating drink, you, nor your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, that you may distinguish between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean, and that you may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord has spoken to them by the hand of Moses.”
Here was my teacher’s point. According to Leviticus, the priests were not to drink any alcohol before serving the Lord. In the New Testament we are now the priests, according to First Peter 2:9 which calls us the “royal priesthood.” And we are to always be serving the Lord, in season and out of season. There is never a time when we are “off” from serving the Lord. My teacher concluded that as a priest who is always on duty, he is to never drink alcohol.
I have never heard that teaching before, but I like it.
And I like the reasons given in Leviticus 10, “…that you may distinguish between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean…”
Alcohol diminishes your ability to distinguish. We are to be holy, but alcohol cuts down our ability to tell what is holy and what isn’t.
“But Doug, I just have a drink to take the edge off.”
Oh? To take the edge off of what? To take the edge off your thinking, right? You have stress, you have worries, you have burdens; your mind is full of unpleasant things, so you drink to take the edge off your thinking.
But if you take the edge off your thinking, then you are doing the exact thing the Bible is talking about – lowering your ability to discern.
It is harder to be holy with alcohol in your system.
Now if you don’t care about being holy, well this message isn’t for you anyway. But if you are a Bible-believing Christian, then you should care about holiness, and one thing that hinders holiness is alcohol.
“But Doug, the Bible just says to avoid drunkenness.”
Yes, we are to avoid drunkenness, that is plain and repetitive in Scripture; but more than that, we are to be sober. First Thessalonians compares the people of the light to the people of the darkness. The people of the darkness get drunk, but what do the people of light do? It says “…let us watch and be sober…” Then it says again in verse eight, “But let us who are of the day be sober…”
First Peter 1:13 says that our minds are to be alert, and we are to be fully sober. That doesn’t sound like a mind that has had its edge removed with alcohol.
Yesterday was the Super Bowl. Do you think either team dealt with the nerves by passing around a bottle of Jack in the locker room, or did they keep their minds alert and fully sober?
“But my life is no Super Bowl, Doug. It’s just not that important that I be fully sober all the time.
Okay, well here is one more “be sober” from the Bible. See if this sounds important. First Peter 5:8 says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”
“Doug, I don’t think these verses are about alcohol. I think they just mean be ‘sober minded.’”
Yes! Be sober minded! Be sharp! Be on your toes. Be on your guard. Be alert because your adversary is going to sneak up on you like a lion.
How many drinks do you want your babysitter to have before she drives your kids to the beach? How about none. Why? Because you want her to be fully alert when she drives your precious children around. One drink will chip one layer of sobriety from her mind, one level of the ability to distinguish. That may have been the level that kept her from texting while driving. That may have been the level that kept her from trying to beat that train. That may have been the level that kept her focused on watching the kids in the water instead of letting her mind wander.
Be sober, because our enemy is on the prowl, the Bible says.
Here is something I say often. One drink makes you one drink less sober.
One drink makes you a one-level-easier target for the enemy than you were before that drink.
“Why does it even matter?”
Why did it matter what the priests did? Why did God specifically and pointedly spell out His anti-alcohol rules for the priests who were serving?
So they could distinguish between the holy and unholy, the clean and the unclean.
So this role of alcohol in your life – I don’t know what part you think it’s playing, but I do know this. It was forbidden of the serving priests because of something we all know to be true.
Alcohol diminishes the ability to distinguish.
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
© 2011 The Arrow’s Tip
To subscribe to your own daily “Apples of Gold” e-mail, write dougapple@wave94.com.
If you want to be removed from this e-mail list, simply click reply and type UNSUBSCRIBE on the subject line.
If you want to catch “Apples of Gold” in its original audio format, go to www.wave94.com
To search through the large archive of past articles, go here: http://www.wave94.com/modules.php?name=Stories_Archive
If you have trouble reaching me at my main e-mail address, try this one: douglas_apple@msn.com
(Proverbs 25:11 – “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”)
Why “The Arrow’s Tip”? Each morning, after diligently seeking the Lord, I write Apples of Gold. Then before I release it to the public I pray one final prayer, “Lord, send forth your arrows.” I envision Apples of Gold as arrows, tips dipped in the river of the water of life that flows from the throne of God (Rev. 22:1), sailing toward the hearts and minds of men and women around the world.
Doug Apple
General Manager - Wave 94
Christian Radio for Tallahassee
PO Box 4105
Tallahassee, FL 32315
(850) 926-8000
-vi-
No comments:
Post a Comment