Sobriety Takes a Savior

Give strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to those who are bitter of heart (Proverbs 31:6 NKJV).

From the pen of the wisest man that ever lived, Solomon recalls the words of warning from his mother.  But I’d be willing to bet that these words were not recorded until after he had ignored them completely.  It is usually only on the other side of having been the victim of the destructive nature of alcohol that someone can clearly see that while it is permissible for the Christian to drink, it is not really profitable.  In fact, the entire purpose for alcohol, according to this verse, is to give comfort to those who do not know God and are, therefore, perishing and have become bitter of heart.

When you examine the other side of this equation, it makes all the more sense.  The reason that people grow bitter of heart is because they process life through the lens of a temporal mindset and therefore every injustice, every wound, every broken dream, and shattered relationship, remains unresolved.  And no matter how much “therapy” they undergo, they cannot rid their heart of the longing for closure.  In another area, Solomon wrote about this condition as well:

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life (Proverbs 13:12).

Does that phrase, “tree of life” ring any bells?  There were two trees in the Garden of Eden – the one that bore the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree that bore the fruit of eternal life.  Mankind, through the act of Adam and Eve, ate of the first tree and were thereby introduced to the reality of evil that cannot be fixed in this life.  Yet Scripture tells us that we have eternity written in our hearts, so the only way to really avoid this heart sick condition is to place our hope back in the place where we lost it.  We need to eat of the tree of life – through what Jesus did on His own tree – and thereby reenter the Garden and have the longing fulfilled to be reunited with our Creator. 

Only from that eternal vantage point can we shrug off anything that happens in the here and now with the knowledge that God will make all things right, eventually.  When we can’t do that, we end up needing a good strong shot of whatever to help us with the bitterness that slowly takes over the heart whose hope has been crushed over and over by a destiny that cannot deliver.

So, if we have no hope in Heaven, then a good strong drink is the only way we can seriously make it through the nagging internal longing that haunts us every day.  Sin was never part of God’s original plan for mankind and deep down inside, we know that.  That’s why it really rattles us when we are caught in the trap of sin, can sense that it is wrong on every level, but we can’t seem to find the way out on our own.

This was my life for 31 years before I met Jesus.  For me, I do not need any form of sedation because I am not perishing and through the grace of God I never have to be bitter of heart again since my longing for Heaven is always fulfilled in Christ.   Today, I will walk in the joy of having no need for anything but Jesus.

To Drink or Not to Drink?

It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to take strong drink, (Proverbs 31:4 ESV).

It is interesting that one of the top things on Bathsheba’s list of wisdom for her son, Solomon, was not to drink alcohol.  It ranks right under not having anything to do with loose women.  As you look at our society today, it is easy to see how far from this mark we have come.  In fact, we kind of expect that young men between the ages of 18-25 will actually go out and “sow their wild oats.”  Instead of telling them to stay clear of this, we tell them to designate a driver and use a condom.  This is pretty pathetic when you compare the two mindsets this closely.

It makes you wonder what our society would be like today if this was still the advice mothers gave to their sons.  And yet, it does require one other factor as well – that the sons would listen.  And, not unlike today, Solomon didn’t listen.  He went through a period of “sowing his own wild oats” in way that not many can because he was a King.  There was not a woman unavailable to him and he had his choice of the finest in wine – and anything else you can imagine.

Yet, at the end of his wild escapades, his sowing reaped for him the bitter truth of what his mother had initially told him.  The entire book of Ecclesiastes is Solomon’s commentary on what life is like when we live only for the gratification of the flesh.  It is probably one of the most depressing books in the Bible, second only to Lamentations, yet it still yields wisdom for anyone who is wise enough to glean form it:

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9 NIV).

Solomon, like every other son that ever has live, is alive now, or will be born later, could save themselves a lot of grief and misery by applying the wisdom of the ages at which he finally arrived:

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man (Ecclesiastes 12:13 ESV).

I don’t have to be a son to know wisdom when I see it.  I, like Solomon, had to learn the hard way that all of the indulgences of my flesh only lead to death.  Today, I will choose life by fearing God and keeping His commands, to the best of my ability.