This morning I would ask you
to turn with me to Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 31. And I'll go ahead and give you my
title. this morning which I take from
this text. It is strong drink and wine. Strong drink and wine. The words of King Lemuel, the
prophecy that his mother taught him. What, my son, and what,
the son of my womb, and what, the son of my vows? Give not thy strength unto women,
nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings. It is not for kings, O 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. Give strong drink unto him that
is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his
poverty, and remember his misery no more." Now these words, like so many
words in this particular book, are words of instruction in the very most basic of natural
things. Most believe that these are words
of instruction given to Solomon by his mother, and in them she
warns of the dangers of wine and drink for any individual
but especially a king. Look down again in verse 4. It is not for kings, O Lemuel,
it is not for kings to drink wine, or to tarry with the wine,
nor for princes strong drink lest they drink, and forget the
law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted. The king that tarried long with
wine and became drunk, they could not give sound judgment and decisions
in all the important matters that faced them. But these things being true as
they are, and they are everywhere in this Contrary to what many
individuals and religions teach, the use of strong drink and wine
is not totally forbidden in Scripture. Now, that comes as a shock to
many, I'm sure, in our day. It is not totally forbidden in
Scripture. But at the same time, moderation
is always commanded, abuse is always warned against, and drunkenness
is always forbidden. Always forbidden. In Isaiah 5,
we have such instruction. Woe unto them that rise up early
in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, that continue
until night, till the wine inflame them." Then we have also in this same
book many warnings, one of which is in Proverbs 20. Wine is a
mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby
is not wise." Not wise. And then we have it in the New
Testament in what I believe is the most plain and concise way
of warning when the Apostle Paul writes to the church at Ephesus,
and he says, and be not drunk with wine, which is excess. If you become drunk with wine,
Paul says, that is excess, that is not moderation, that is abuse,
and it is forbidden. and be not drunk with wine wherein
is excess, but be ye filled with the Spirit." Filled with the
Spirit. You see, as we read in our reading
this morning, wine was a common drink in Israel. And we know
just by what we read that Christ and His disciples drank wine,
and He even used it when He instituted the Lord's table. We read in John 2 that His first
miracle was His turning water into wine. The Pharisees who
believed so much in strict abstinence and fastings of all kinds, when
they saw John the Baptist, who did not eat like they ate, or
anybody else for that matter, and who did not drink wine, they
said, he's a madman and he has a devil. But when they saw the sinless
Lord Jesus Christ who did eat in their feasts, who did sit
at their tables, and who did himself drink wine, they said,
he's a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber. Rather than abuse strong drink
and wine, The king is here instructed to use his abundance of it to
help people, and to help people who are in desperate conditions
and situations. Look back at verse 6. unto him that is ready to perish,
and whine unto those that be of heavy hearts." What does that mean? Well, it is above all things,
whatever it means in the natural realm in that day, it is above
all things a spiritual instruction. And it in some way, if we believe
what Christ Himself says in Luke 24, it has something to do with
Christ. It is a spiritual command. And the strong drink and wine
here have to do with the gospel of Christ which is often likened
to these things. In the book of Judges, we read
about a wine, and this ought to surely make us know that it
is a spiritual wine, a spiritual drink that he is talking about
here, and it is described as the wine which cheers God and
Now, you think about that one for a minute. Wine that cheers. That brings
cheer to God. God Himself. And not only that,
but this brings cheer to man, and most importantly, it brings
cheer to God and man at the same time, by the same means, Joseph. Now, I'm interested in that.
And I know it has something to do with the spiritual message
that we find here in verse 6, where he says, gives this strong
drink and wine to somebody, and it is this spiritual wine, this
wine of the gospel, the wine that the psalmist says makes
glad the heart of man. Would you be interested in that
wine that makes glad, truly glad, the heart of man? And it is contrasted. Hold your
place right here. Turn over with me to Revelation
17. It is contrasted to the wine that is often offered and given
contrary to it. This has to do with the gospel
of Christ. But also, there is what Paul
called another gospel set against that, and it is not to be found
in the Lord's church, but it is to be found in the churches,
in the messages, and in the teachings of false prophets. Chapter 17 of Romans, And there
came one of the seven angels, which had the seven vows, and
talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will show unto thee
the judgment of the great whore." That's the devil. But more especially,
that's the devil's religion. That's the church of Antichrist. And she sits upon many waters. She has many people, many converts,
many disciples. She is the one with whom the
kings of the earth have committed fornication, And the inhabitants
of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication." Is that natural? No, that's spiritual. In other words, they have forsaken
the Lord Jesus Christ, and that also is pictured in the book
of Proverbs, I think it's chapter 7, and they are now counted as
God, as those who fornicate, with Satan himself. That's not the wine we're talking
about this morning. The strong drink in wine that we find here
in the Scripture is that which God says He would set forth,
that He would give, and that He would bring in the preaching
of the gospel. Once again, hold your place and
turn over to Isaiah 25. Isaiah chapter 25, and look down
with me in verse 6, where the prophet Isaiah is led by the
Spirit and gives forth this prophecy concerning Zion, the church. Isaiah 25 and verse 6, and in
this mountain, that's Zion. That's the Lord's church. That's
the midst of the Lord's people. And in this mountain shall the
Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast
of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow,
of wines on the lees well refined, and he will destroy in this mountain
the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil
that is spread over all nations." Jew and Gentile, blinded. have no eye for God, no eye to
see and discern the truth, no eye for the worth and the value
of this feast He is setting, this wine, these well-refined
wines on the leaves. He will swallow up death in victory. And the Lord God will wipe away
tears from off all faces. And the rebuke of his people
shall he take away from off all the earth, for the Lord hath
spoken it. And it shall be said in that
day, Lo, this is our God. We have waited for Him, and He
will save us. This is the Lord. We have waited
for Him. we will be glad and rejoice in
his salvation." What is that feast? It's the
gospel feast. And it is characterized, he says,
in that day in Zion amongst all people that is Jew and Gentile,
he'll set forth this feast and he'll break out the covering
from off their eyes and the blindness on their heart, and they'll be
made to drink of that feast, they'll say, this is the Lord.
This is our God. They'll do it. And you see, if
you think about it, just like we saw there when we read about
the miracle in John 2, The Lord has saved this wine, the best
for the last. You remember what the governor
of the feast said to the bridegroom? He said, most people, when they
have a feast like this, they break out the best wine at the
first, and then when men have drunk wine, then they bring out
the lesser wine, because they probably won't notice it as much.
But not you. You saved the best for the last. And here we have Christ before
the foundation of the world. Christ there in the garden. Christ
all the way through the Old Testament and the history of Israel. But
then the Apostle comes along and he says, but God, who in
past times and different manners spoke in all these ways to the
prophets and people before, He's in these last days. spoken unto us by His Son. We
have the clearest declaration of God's grace. We have the clearest
proclamation of His grace and salvation. And so He takes that
very thing, that gospel, and He does with it what none other
can do, and He does for us and to us that which is the blessing
of His grace. What did they do? He commanded
them in John 2 to take some stone water pots, the number of And in these water pots to pour
this water as He commands it, and it is in these stone water
pots, which is like our stony hearts, our stony existence,
our dead, lifeless soul, that He takes this water, the water
of His Word, and He turns it into wine. That's what he does with the
water of his Word, the Gospel. He makes it this drink to our
souls. He commanded men likewise to
go into all the world and preach the Gospel. But I want you to
notice something here this morning. And that is, I want you to notice
who it is that he commands this strong drink and wine to be given
to. Verse 6, "...give strong drink
unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of
heavy hearts." You see, this strong drink and
this wine is especially necessary for,
and essential to, and will prove a blessing to, those ready to
perish, and those who be of a heavy heart. And the truth of the matter is
that in this spiritual sense, which is what he's talking about
here, Those are only such because the Spirit of God has made them
to see themselves as perishing. Everybody else seems to be doing
real well. All these religious people, all
these morally upright people, they think they're doing quite
well. But the Lord's people will be
brought by His Spirit to see their true state and their true
condition by nature and in Adam, and they'll know themselves as
ready to perish, dying, helpless, and sick of sin. and guilty of conscience, and
fearful of impending judgment, looking toward and expecting
the wrath of God because of their sin. This is a medicine. Would you
have some of this gospel medicine? No, I'm not sick. Would you have
something that has to do with eternity? No, I'm so busy here
in time. Would you have something that
has to do with your soul and the matter of sin? Would you
have something that has to do with the eternal God, with a
problem of that kind? No, I'm okay in those things.
Not these folks. Unless God Almighty does something
wondrous does something for them, does something in them, does
something spiritual for them, and eternal that has to do with
His salvation, they'll perish. And they know they will. They're without hope in themselves. And they're without God because
they're without the true Christ. They're without hope because
they're without a righteousness that God will accept. They're ready to perish. I can
tell you this. The greater part of men and women
in our day, they do not fit this description. They're rich and increased with
goods, and they have need of nothing. They have their own
filthy rags of righteousness to commend themselves to God.
They live their lives. They do their things. They have
no interest in this gospel drink. And they're going to really perish.
They don't think they're going to perish, but they're the ones
that are going to perish. These are ready to perish, but
they're not going to perish. They're ready to perish because
of these spiritual things. And this word actually means
something like bitterness of soul. By their state, they've
been brought into this sadness and gloominess because burdened
with sin and afflicted with their own weakness and sinfulness and
have felt poverty. Think, the Bible describes those
that God saves. They're laying there. You ever
notice the pictures in the New Testament especially, and in
the Old Testament, of those that the Lord sent the prophets to
that did the miracles, and that Christ himself and the apostles
went to and did the miracle? Look at them. Here's a man laying
by a pool. He's so weak, he can't do anything. Here's another one laying there
blind. He doesn't know the way. Here's
another one leprous. Here's another one that's lame
in both his feet. Here's another one that's covered
from head to toe in balls and filthiness and violence. Everywhere
you look, that's a picture of the Lord's people. But I'll tell you what it says
about the Lord Jesus Christ. It says they brought this one,
and they brought that one, and they brought the other one. They
brought every case imaginable, every condition that could ever
be known, and it says the Lord healed them all. Because He gives them strong
drink. He gives us strong drink. Sinners in a desperate condition,
convicted by the Holy Spirit, and seemingly left in themselves
in such a state that there can never be hope. They are left
therefore dead like that man that the Samaritan came by. What do you do for him? He went
where he was at, and he gathered him up, bound up his wounds,
and he poured in oil and wine. That's what God does for sinners
that he saves. He brings to them, pours in them,
if you will, this gospel wine that is definitely, particularly
for these, He calls sinners, ungodly, unrighteous, lost, left
for worse by every man-made remedy. The woman that you read about
in Mark chapter 5, who we call the woman with an
issue of blood, it says that she had suffered many things
of many physicians, and she had spent all that she had and was
nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. That's what every man-made cure,
every man-made remedy, every man-made gospel, every man-made
drink, if you will, leaves us in a worse, much worse. This is for those ready to perish
and who, because of their sin and their state, have been left
to a heavy But there's something else I
want you to notice too. Notice how this gospel is described
and pictured. He says, give unto them that
are ready to perish strong drink and wine. He doesn't just say
give them strong drink. He doesn't just say give them
wine. He says give them the both of
it. And he doesn't say, just don't give them either, because
the gospel is both shocking and soothing. That's right. If the gospel has
never shocked you, then it will never soothe you. The Lord Himself says it in much
the same way. He says, I kill and I make alive. I thought about it. How many
cures, how many remedies, how many treatments, if you will,
are first destructive and painful? and harsh at first. Well, here they are. They're
ready to perish. They're ready to perish. First,
don't tell them the truth. The least way is don't tell them
the whole truth. Don't preach to them the whole
gospel. That would kill them. Surely
it would, wouldn't it? That would just blow them away. They'll
have no interest in the things of God or the church, just if
you tell them that. No, he says, give them first
strong drink. Why? Because this is a serious
situation. You see, the gospel is first
strong drink because we're not just disoriented, we're lost. And because we're not just those
who don't love God like we ought to, we're said to be those who
hate God. Our natural minds are enmity
against God. And we're not simply not so good,
we have no righteousness. We're not simply dim of sight,
we're blind and lame and vile and unacceptable totally in ourselves
to divine holiness. be like giving somebody who has
terminal cancer a Band-Aid, today's gospel does. It neither recognizes
God for who He is, it neither recognizes man for what he is,
and therefore it cannot recognize the true cure and remedy, which
is to be found in this strong drink. Strong drink. They say, don't tell anybody
about predestination. That's too strong. Don't talk
about divine election that God chose a people in Christ before
the world began. Don't talk about Christ just
simply laying down His life for His sheep and His people. Don't
talk about this business of an effectual call of God the Holy
Spirit. Don't talk about God keeping
and preserving a people. That's just too strong. I'll tell you this, these things,
these essentials of God's grace, they are the things, first of
all, that give God all the glory. But not only that, these are
the things the Spirit of God uses to shock and quicken and
awaken and bring those He saves to the knowledge of the truth,
especially to the knowledge of what they are and how helpless
they are, so that they might receive this
strong remedy. Give to those that are ready
to perish strong drink. A sovereign God electing mercy. God's predestinated purpose,
everything that we see set forth on the pages of His Word unashamedly,
clearly, just loudly declared by God the Spirit through prophet
and priest and apostle and Christ Himself. That's what Paul said to that
church at Ephesus, I believe it was. He said, I've kept back
nothing profitable to you. Your state is so bad, your condition
is so dramatic and drastic, that how could I ever hold back any
of God's truth? Because it's the truth that God
uses to save His people. And that's probably why the gospel
is so widely refused in our day. It's strong drink. It's the word
of an eternal salvation. It's the gospel of God, the true
and living God as He is. It's a message. It's a word that
didn't come from man, and it doesn't glorify man, and it can't
be accomplished by man. It's a free gift, the work of
God wrought in Jesus Christ. who is that one outside of ourselves. You remember Naaman the Syrian?
He's in one of those pictures of what we are. Leprous. And he knew something about his
situation and the danger of it because he traveled a great distance
to hear something about how the prophet might heal his situation. When he got there, the prophet
told him to go and dip himself in the river of Jordan seven
times. And he went, oh me, I came all this distance, and here I am, I am the captain
of the Syrian host, look at my regalia, look at my medals, look
at my garments, look at who I am, look at what I command, look
at what the king thinks of me. That's just a little bit too
strong. One of his men said, but if the
prophet had told you to do some great thing, you would have done
that, wouldn't you? Oh, he said, I thought that he
would surely say something spectacular and maybe rub his hand across
the wound or something like that and heal me. But you mean to
tell me that this is going to require me to bow down, to strip
off my old garments? and to go down into that muddy
water that is just literally a loathing sight to me, and dip
not one time, but seven times, as if to say,
I am that unclean. That's it. Strong drink. Strong drink you bow and confess
yourself as nothing but sin. Strong drink that you own the
truth that you are what God says you are, hopeless and lost and
undone and vile a sinner who must be saved by Him and by His
grace alone. salvation accomplished by and
through the Lord Jesus Christ alone, His work alone, His blood
alone, His righteousness alone, because He drank a cup. Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ
had a strong drink to drink? on the behalf of his people?
As a matter of fact, he had to drink the cup that it says no
other one could drink. And that was the cup of divine
wrath for our sin. Now, here is this cup that is
itself described as a cup full of wine because it says it has
the dregs in it. So how did these grapes that
we know made the wine, how did they become this wine that he
has to drink? They had to be crushed. And the Bible says that the Lord
Jesus Christ treaded the winepress of God's wrath by Himself. He drank this cup. Oh, Hawker
said, the strong drink of Jesus was the cup of salvation for
his redeemed. To Jesus a cup of trembling,
and to them a cup of rejoicing. Here he was to see the travail
of his soul and be satisfied. And in drinking of this draught,
bitter as it was, to the dregs, Jesus forgot all his sorrows
and remembered his misery no more. For the joy that was set before
him. He said, O that the drunkards
of Ephraim would seriously lay this to heart. And oh, that every
follower of the Lord Jesus would now take the cup of salvation
and call upon the name of the Lord." You see, this strong drink, that's the cup of salvation. It's that cup that Christ first
bore, first drunk, The one He said, Father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt. That cup of wrath that He drank is the cup of salvation. that his people drank. Strong
drink. Death by one who is God in the
flesh. Death by one who took to himself
to save all his people. Death by that cross. And he had to drink it without
deluding, down to the last dregs, not even accepting what is represented
in this very drink himself. You see, they took this drink,
and one of the uses that came to be regarding it later was
that when somebody was about to be executed or crucified or
something like that, they gave them this drink to kind of stupefy
them so that the endurance of the death itself would be out of their minds. It says that they gave him to
drink wine mingled with myrrh, but he received it not. Why? He had to drink the strongest
drink. He had to suffer for sin. He had to bear in his body separation
from God, the affliction of divine justice upon him. And you see,
this strong drink, this wine, is simply, as we find elsewhere
in Scripture, the gospel of Christ's shed blood. How many times in
this book is the blood of Christ likened to wine? Strong drink. It's the blood of the everlasting
covenant of God's grace to His people. It's Christ's atoning
blood that pleased God. And it is only this gospel that
can cheer God and man. It's only the gospel of the precious
shed blood and righteousness that can cheer God and man. Think about that. Wine that cheers
God and man. Here it is. The shed blood of
Christ For the sins of man, that satisfies God's justice and that
puts our sins away. The righteousness of Jesus Christ
through that death which satisfies God and enables Him to bless
us with every blessing and makes us righteous. That's the only one there is.
that will cheer God and man. That's the only one that will
satisfy God's justice, clear your conscience, the matter of
sin. Because this gospel honors God
in all His character and His law, satisfies His justice, saves
us from all our sins, and gives all the glory to Him alone. And so before he left this world,
he instituted the table, the Lord's table. He gave us that
cup to drink. This is my body. This is my blood,
which was shed for many. And it's the blood, it's the
cup of the new covenant. which is all in Christ, which
is all by grace, and which is a full salvation for the Lord's
people. And then lastly, hurriedly, I
want you to look at what it says to these in this condition. Verse 7 again. What does it say
for this one who is ready to perish and heavy of heart to
do with his strong drink and wine? He says, let him drink. Let him
drink. I can tell you this, the best
remedy for your disease, whatever it might be, in the natural,
set there before you, if you don't drink it, you will perish. You will perish. Let him drink this gospel wine,
this wine of the kingdom. Because to drink this strong
drink in wine is simply to believe on Christ. To believe the gospel, which none can do without the
Spirit. Give them life and faith. He says, let him drink. Oh, but
he's in such a condition. He can't drink. He's ready to
perish. He can't lift a hand. Let him
drink. Does that mean allow him to drink?
No, that's the command like we find so many times in the New
Testament, especially when people were commanded by Christ to do
things that it was impossible for them to do. Then they did
it. He said, rise up and walk. Now,
that man can't do that. But he did. Why? Because the power was in the
one who commanded it. Here's an illustration in Scripture
that shows us this very thing. We know that the Bible says that
the natural man receives not the things of God because they
are spiritually discerned. But it says, God has revealed
unto us these things that we might know what is freely given
of God to us. In Luke 5, he says this, And
no man put his new wine into old bottles. Else the new wine will burst
the bottles and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish." You can't take new wine and put
it into, this is particularly about those leather bags and
bottles that they used to use in days past. He said if you
put new wine in these old bags, it will just explode and destroy
the wine in the bottle too. You and I can't receive these
things. We can't receive the gospel, which is the knowledge
of all these glorious things in Christ. We have no spiritual
capacity for it. So he says, the new wine must
be put into new bottles and both preserved. And no man also, having
drunk old wine straightway, desireth new, for he saith, The old is
better." God must do something for us to enable us to receive,
to give us a desire for, a thirst for this strong wine, strong
drinking wine of the gospel. And then he pours it in us, and
both are preserved. And we find out that what seems
to be new wine, it's old wine. It's the everlasting gospel.
It's the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. And it's a partaking of Christ.
Let him drink. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. In John 6 it says that there
was a great multitude following Christ And they were partaking
of his miracles, especially of what he gave them to eat. And then all of a sudden it says
that he says, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except you eat
the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no
life in you. Whosoever eateth my flesh and
drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I'll raise him up at
the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him." He said, except you drink my
blood, you have no life in you. And
what happened? Most of them walked away. That's
right. He said, this is too hard a saying
for us. This is too strong a drink for
us, this gospel. So he looked at the few that
remained. He said, will you also go away? They said, Lord, to
whom shall we go? You've got the words of eternal
life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that
Christ, the Son of the living God. Most of them didn't drink. They were glad to get a loaf
of bread, but they weren't in this bad a condition. They had
a little thirst, but they weren't possessed of this kind of thirst
and need. Look at this again in verse 7.
First thing he says to do, let him drink. I love this. And forget his poverty. Oh, I'll tell you what. I'm such
a bankrupt soul. I'm such a poverty-stricken being
as far as anything good or anything that God would be pleased with
or anything I could do to gain His favor. But when you drink
this strong drink and wine, you can forget your poverty and
wine. You can forget your poverty and
whine. You can forget your poverty and
whine. You can forget your... You can
forget your...