SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/30/2019 5:06 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
Scripture Sometimes Commends Wine
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
5:18a
Message of the
verses: “Don’t
be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life” (NLT).
Perhaps one may think that because
of all we have learned about drunkenness that it forbids the drinking of
wine. Sometimes it even commends the
drinking of wine. In the Old Testament
as seen in places like Exodus 29:40 and Numbers 15:5 we see that wine is
actually a part of the sacrifices given to God.
Psalm 104:15 says “And wine which makes man’s heart glad, So that he may
make his face glisten with oil, And food which sustains man’s heart.” The author of Proverbs advised giving “strong
drink to him who is perishing and wine to him whose life is bitter (Pr.
31:6). Now in speaking of God’s gracious
invitation to salvation, Isaiah declared, “Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to
the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come; buy wine and milk without money and
without cost” (Isa. 55:1). Look at this
one “De 14:26 "You may spend the money for whatever your heart
desires: for oxen, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink,
or whatever your heart desires; and there you shall eat in the presence of the
LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household.
In 1 Timothy 5:23 Paul advised Timothy to drink a little
wine to help his stomach problems. We
also know that Jesus made water into wine at the wedding in Cana as seen in
John 2:6-10. My first Pastor, Pastor
Burns, use to say “If you have Timothy’s stomach then you can drink Timothy’s
wine.
John MacArthur concludes this short section with the
following comments: “Like many other
things, the kind of wine of which Scripture speaks (discussed below) has the
potential either for evil or good. I
believe there was a time when the juice of the grape, like every other thing
God created, was only good and did not have even the potential for evil. Fermentation, a form of decay, likely was
made possible by the corruption of nature at the Fall and actually began with
the vast environmental change caused by the Flood and the accompanying removal
of the vapor canopy over the earth that had protected it from direct
sunlight. It is not unreasonable to
believe that in the millennial kingdom the process will again be reversed, when
the curse is removed and nature is restored to its original state of perfect
goodness.”
I did mention a part of this in an earlier SD, and so
that makes me happy that John MacArthur agrees with me on some things.
Scripture that goes along
with Spiros Zodiates quotation from yesterday is from Proverbs 9:9 “Give
instruction to a wise man and he will be yet wiser; teach a just man and he
will increase in learning.”
6/30/2019 5:21 PM
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