Under the law if
parents had a rebellious, stubborn son who was a glutton and a drunkard, he was
to be brought unto the elders of his city and unto the gate of place, that men
of his city would stone him with stones until he died. In this manner they put
the terrible evil of drunkenness away from among them (Deuteronomy 21:18-21).
In 1st Kings 20:16 we find a Syrian king named Ben-hadad drinking
himself drunk in the pavilions, he and thirty-two other kings. But his royal
spree led to the defeat of Ben-hadad's army, and later Ben-hadad himself was
taken and executed in terrible fashion. Thus drink always brings death
ultimately to body and soul.
I remember the frightening phone call from a young teenage girl who
attended our Sunday school in another city. Her daddy had found a pistol which
his loved ones hid from him because of his drink problem. He had put the gun to
his head and pulled the trigger in their living room on a Sunday afternoon. His
blood and brains were sticking to the furniture, the walls, and the screen on
the front door. It was my sad duty to comfort the wife and daughter in the home
of neighbors across the way, and also to conduct the funeral for this poor
victim of the Liquid Devil!
Isn't it strange that while statistics show that ten thousand
people are killed by intoxicating liquor while only one is killed by a
mad dog, we shoot the dog and license the liquor!
The terrible blight of booze is a blight upon the soul as well as
on the body. "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of
God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor
effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous,
not drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God"
(1st Corinthians 6:9, 10).
So drunkards just don't make it to Heaven unless they get saved
from their drink. And remember that every drunkard was once a social drinker,
and that every social drinker is a potential drunkard! It is impossible to make
a drunkard out of a total abstainer.
On an early Egyptian tomb these words were found: "His earthly
tenement was shattered by beer and wine, and his spirit departed before it was
called for."
Let me repeat, men say they swallow strong drink, but strong drink
swallows them, really! The Bible speaks of those who are "overcome with wine."
And Galatians 5:19 speaks of the works of the flesh, which along with adultery,
fornification, idolatry, witchcraft, envyings and murder also speaks of
"drunkenness, and revellings, and such like." Drunkenness speaks of
depraved insobriety, and the "revellings" describe the drinking and dancing that
led up to the drunkenness. It sounds just like the carnal corruption of the
beer-blasts today!
King Lemuel received good advice indeed in the Bible in Proverb
31:4, "It is not for kings, oh 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 of any of the afflicted." This is as timely today as it was seven
hundred years before Christ!
One of the most insidious and dangerous things about television
today is the "have-a-drink" philosophy. At every turn someone is drinking and
offering someone else a drink as if it were quite the thing to do. All of this
makes a terrible and tremendous impression upon the minds of boys and girls as
well as men and women. (American parents had better remember that there's a
little knob on that picture box called "off"!) Thus, America stages a modern
feats of Belshazzar, and is heading for the last round-up unless we repent!
Speaking of death to the body, the national highway safety council
reported that booze was involved in nearly half of 53,000 road deaths in a
recent year. Other statistics indicate that more then half of the highway
fatalities were caused by strong drink. Twenty-five thousand dead bodies
constitute a lot of corpses.
A noted minister recently discovered that cold beer was being sold
at seven cents a can on a government base in Puerto Rico (the jumping off place
for Vietnam), while hot coca-colas were going for ten cents. Thus America
continues to play the fool with our fighting men!
As much as we deplore the tragedy of war in the Far East, and the
thousands of men who have been slain there, it is shocking but true that far
more people have been killed in one year by beer, wine and whiskey in the United
States!
Alcoholism is the number three killer in America today! Alcohol
shortens life. Drinking people have three times the mortality rate.
Samples of the way drink kills are found in headline from our
newspapers in these United States:
TWO YOUTHS JAILED IN NEW YEARS DEATH OF PONTIAC GIRLS (Pontiac,
Michigan).
HIT-RUN-DRIVING FATAL FOR TWO AFTER PARTIES. (In the background
were stories of a teenager drinking at a series of parties heralding the New
Year.)
YOUTH ADMIT LEAVING GIRLS TO DIE IN DETROIT SNOW BANK (Detroit).
Police said today a twenty-year-old youth surrendered and said his car struck
two pretty girls who were left dying in a snow bank on New Years Eve. The boy
had been attending beer parties before he killed the girls.
FATHER HAD INSULIN, GIRL DIES WAITING (Statesville, North
Carolina). Authorities disclosed today that a 22-year old girl dies of acute
diabetes while her father was in jail on a public drunkenness charge, her
life-saving insulin in his pocket.
YOUTH CALMLY ADMITS SLAYING FATHER (Buffalo, New York).
Sixteen-year-old boy accused of killing his father with a rifle in suburban
Kenmore is in the Erie county jail pending grand jury action. Kenmore police
said the youth told them he drank 17 to 20 beers before the killing.
SOLDIER ADMITS HE CHOKED WOMAN SERGEANT TO DEATH (San Rafael,
California). Sergeant_____, 32 kept a moody silence in jail today after the FBI
announced he admitted choking an attractive woman sergeant to death. He had been
drinking heavily, the statement said.
FATHER KNIFED SON, THREE, AND WIFE (Santa Rita, Florida). An angry
father of two children slashed the throat of his three-year-old son and knifed
his wife as she fled with her five-year-old daughter. The man told a
News-Journal reporter that he had been drinking continually for more than a
week and would have not caused any trouble if he had not been under the
influence. An arresting officer said he had been drinking at the time of the
cutting.
FATAL CHOKING LAID TO YOUTH. Tragedy follows drinking party (Edina,
Missouri). Second degree murder charged was filed Tuesday against a 17-year-old
boy accused of suffocating his cousin. The death occurred after a drinking party
involving teenagers. A 14-year-old girl testified the boy attended a movie with
her on the night of November 20th and afterwards drank several bottles of
liquor.
DRINKING PARTY ENDS IN DEATH (Winona, Minnesota). An all-night
drinking party involving teenage boys and girls ended in a deadly game of
Russian Roulette at a nearby farmhouse Sunday.
THREE SLAIN IN BARROOM BRAWL (Houston, Texas). Feuding Texans shot
it out from behind overturned tables and a squawking juke box in a Saturday
night barroom battle that left four men lying on the tavern floor when the gun
smoke cleared away.
BRADENTON MAN GETS LIFE FOR SLAYING WIFE (Bradenton, Florida) _____
was sentenced to life imprisonment Monday for beating his wife to death with a
claw hammer. "I loved her and I know she loved me," the man said who threw
himself on the mercy of the court because he and his wife were drunk at the time
of the argument leading to he slaying.
WIFE SET FIRE WITH GASOLINE (El Paso, Texas). Airman 2nd Class
_____, confessed today that he threw a beer glass of gasoline on his sleeping
wife and set her on fire wit her own cigarette lighter. "I don't know why I did
it," he said, "I was drunk. No one in his right mind would have done a thing
like that."
YOUTH HANDED LIFE SENTENCE AT HARD LABOR (Wewahitchka, Florida).
_____, 17, today was sentenced to a term of natural life imprisonment at hard
labor in the Raiford prison for the pistol slaying of his brother-in-law. The
young man said, "Yes, I would like for my case to be an example for all other
teenage boys not to drink. Drinking was caused by my troubles. Let this be an
example to all teenagers. Every time you start to take a drink, think about what
whiskey did to me, and don't take it"!
BABY LIES DEAD IN CRIB FOR FIVE DAYS (Cleveland, Ohio). January 8.
For five days five-months old _____ _____ lay dead in his crib because his
parents could not agree who would call an undertaker, the mother told police
today. The mother said she had found the baby dead when she returned from a New
Year's Eve celebration. The coroner said the child died from "neglect and
exposure to cold." The parents, of course, had been drinking.
MOTHER COMFORTS INJURED DAUGHTERS (St. Louis). Two little girls
seriously injured when struck by a car near their home are being comforted by
their mother in a suburban hospital. Eight-year-old _____ had her right leg
amputated by a doctor whit a borrowed penknife, using the headlamps of a police
patrol car for light. Her nine-year-old sister is recovering from fractures of
both legs. Their mother witnessed the accident. State police have charged the
driver of the car which struck them with careless and reckless driving while
drinking!
These are but frightening samples of what strong drink is doing to
America today. Liquid Devil!
WHAT CAN CHRISTIANS DO ABOUT THIS MONSTER? Consider these things:
1- Abstain altogether. Never touch the stuff!
2- Support those who stand against booze.
3- Win others to Christ!
4- Support the church that refuses to compromise.
5- Make known to people why you can't stand it!
