The Mocker

Mark Dunagan
09/23/12 - Sunday Evening

The Mocker

“Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is intoxicated by it is not wise” (Proverbs 20:1).  As with this verse, the book of Proverbs gives many warnings against alcoholic beverages, whether wine or strong drink.

• Wine can transform people, but not in a good direction.  Wine tends to bring out the skeptic, mocker and unbeliever in the drinker, where we are more comfortable making fun of people who are seeking to be pure.
• Strong drink was a term used for any intoxicating beverage that was not made from grapes.  Instead of relaxing a person and improving their personality, the verse is all negative. One mocks at goodness and is ready to argue, fight and stir up trouble.

In light of many modern statistics the warning is none too strong:

• One in every three families is disrupted by alcohol.
• Alcoholics outnumber other drug addicts 10 to 1.
• One in ten social drinkers will become an alcoholic.
• Alcohol is the number one drug problem in this country.
• Alcohol is the number three cause of all deaths, and the number one cause of death by drugs. It outnumbers other drug deaths 33 to 1.
• Alcohol causes at least 50% of all traffic deaths.
• Men who have two drinks or more a day have a 70% higher death rate.
• Alcohol is responsible for 70% of drowning and chokings.
• Thirty percent of all suicides are alcohol related.
• 85% of all murders are drunk when they kill.
• Over 50% of spousal abuse, falls, and fire deaths are alcohol related.
• 50% of rapes are committed under the influence of alcohol.
• 70% of robberies are related to alcohol.
• A Michigan study showed alcohol was involved in 55% of child abuse cases, 20% of all divorces, and 40% of all court cases.
• The cost of alcohol abuse to taxpayers is 11 times that of revenues collected from alcohol sales.

Statistics from To Drink or Not to Drink, A Sober Look at the Question, Norman L. Geisler).

An Honest Look:  Proverbs 23:29-35

The lure of the unfaithful woman (23:26-28) and of charming wine (29-35) are appropriately placed together.  Both the unfaithful woman and wine are hidden and deadly traps and both seek to allure (23:28, 31).  Both will lead men astray and destroy their spiritual lives.

23:29  “Who has woe?  Who has sorrow?  Who has contentions?  Who has wounds without cause?” 

The clear answer is “anyone” who goes after wine, just like anyone who gets involved with the harlot (23:27).  Right at the start we are told that bitter complaints, troubles, huge problems, sorrow, depression, all come with the wine glass. If you've lived long enough, you've witnessed the same resulting chaos.

23:30 “Those who linger long over wine”:  The verse is not limited to someone who drinks all day.  For the next verse warns the person who might just be thinking about drinking an intoxicant.

23:31 “Do not look on the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly”:  This is just like the warning against not even looking into the eyes of the harlot (6:25).  The warning is, do cooperate when the wine seeks to work its charm.  It looks wonderful, it is sparkling, and initially it may taste good.  “The prohibition arms the youth against addiction by nipping the temptation in the bud…Addiction begins with the first drink” (The Book of Proverbs, Bruce K. Waltke, p. 264).  “Do not look”:  “Don’t even think about it necessitates one has been thinking about it and needs to stop thinking about it.  Likewise, the command not to look at wine implies that one has been looking at it, and the qualifying statement, ‘when it goes down smoothly’, entails that one has even begun sipping it” (Waltke p. 265).  So here is someone who has started to stray into path of sobriety.  They love the color, the shape of the bottles, the cool glasses it is poured into and they justify all of it by saying, “It tastes good”.  Yet here the Holy Spirit sternly cries, “Stop!”

23:32 “At the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like a viper”:  There is a hidden danger that many do not see or may even refuse to see.  One might say, “But I can handle it”.  Yet the warning is that there is always an “afterward” (and notice that wine will eventually bite—it is just a matter of time.)

23:33 “Your eyes will see strange things”:  Instead of seeing things as they truly are, or getting a better view (an argument often made by those who advocate the use of drugs), you will lose your sense of good vision.  “Your mind will utter perverse things”:  One’s mind is not expanded, you immediately lose your sense of judgment, and the control of your tongue—both of which are spiritual disasters.  Rather than uttering profound truths, one will under the influence of intoxicants, utter perverse things. 

23:34 “You will be like one who lies down in the middle of the sea, or like one who lies down on the top of a mast”:    These verses depict a person who is completely oblivious to what is happening in the real world.  In addition, it notes a person who is mentally unaware of the great danger they may be experiencing.

23:35  Had this man been sober, he could have defended himself, but because he is drinking, he is completely vulnerable to people who want to take advantage of him.  “When shall I awake?  I will see another drink”:  This person has learned nothing from the consequences.

To Drink or Not to Drink

Some might argue that these verses only condemn the alcoholic or problem drinker.  The weakness with this point of view is:

• Wine and strong drink are singled out, not only drunkenness (20:1).
• We are told not even to (longingly) “look at” the wine in the cup: 23:31

Wine Good and Bad

Some argue that social drinking is acceptable because the Bible equally commends the use of wine, such as in Ecclesiastes 9:7.  Allow me to answer this argument:

• Just cause Ecclesiastes tells one to go and bring their wine is not a green light for me today to go down to the store and buy a bottle of wine.  The wine of today is not identical with the wines of Bible times.  In fact, by biblical definitions the wine of today would be considered strong drink.  And hard liquor would have an alcohol content far beyond even that.  In the ancient world, even unbelievers who drank wine would cut it with water.  Anyone who drank straight wine was looked on as a barbarian. It has been often noted that in New Testament times one would need to drink twenty-two glasses of wine in order to consume the same amount of alcohol in two modern martinis.

Is okay to drink just as long as one does not get drunk? God, in His wisdom, does not give a technical definition, nor obviously body weight/drinks chart, or blood alcohol level that officially constitutes drunkenness.

Too many assume that drunkenness is a state of being passed out, yet the Bible pictures drunkenness as a progressive state.  In Ephesians 5:18 “do not get drunk” means “do not grow drunk”.  Be aware then: one is guilty of drunkenness long before one gets sick or passes out.

• The Holy Spirit notes the danger of wine—“the mind will utter perverse things” (Proverbs 23:33).  The problem with social drinking and then trying to stop short of drunkenness is that the alcohol keeps working on one after that last drink.  Trying to drink “with judgment” is very hard because the first thing that is impaired is your discernment and good sense of judgment.
• Saying that you will limit yourself to one or two drinks should cause one to consider, “Why I am drinking something so dangerous that anything beyond one drink can get me into trouble?”  Or, “Why am I drinking something so dangerous that I can become addicted for life starting with this first drink?”

The Holy Spirit was certainly right when he said, “Who has woe?”  I have personally seen so many lives destroyed and marriages ruined because someone started to experiment with alcohol.  I have seen people justify a drink, and then justify drunkenness just as long as it was not in public.  Alcohol is our most abused drug, and it is the cause of so many of our social problems.  No wonder Timothy stayed away from it altogether, even when mixed with water and had to be told to take a little for a medical condition (1 Timothy 5:23).  Therefore, alcohol is like any other drug, and like morphine, there is a place for it (anesthesia), but only a very foolish person would use it recreationally. 

Mark Dunagan | mdunagan@frontier.com
Beaverton Church of Christ | 503-644-9017
www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net