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.