Wine, new wine and fornication take over people’s minds

Alcohol kills. The Bible says that “Infidelity, wine, and new wine take away the understanding.” (Hosea 4:11 NASB). Unfortunately, we are living this sad truth. The Bible does not permit the consumption of strong drinks today.

In recent years we have been told that drinking in moderation is good for your health. So much so that some journalists (but no doctors yet) have claimed that those who are in good health will be even healthier – better protected from disease and heart attack – if they add to their “daily bread” a glass of wine. Is that true? Can we put alcohol along with fruits, vegetables, vitamins, and minerals, which contribute to our health and longevity?

If so, alcoholic beverages should provide significant benefits, as alcohol poses serious risks. Let’s first look at the biggest problem with moderate drinking: the risk of becoming a restless consumer, an alcoholic. And I know people who seem to have started drinking a glass of wine in moderation, but then became heavy drinkers and broke up their families, and later died of serious physical and mental illness.

Most people who write about the benefits of moderate consumption do not include the risks to which all drinkers are exposed. Because a person who starts drinking seriously is no longer a moderate consumer, he falls out of the category of those whose health is being studied. This results in an underestimation of the risks of moderate alcohol consumption.

Alcohol, dear reader, kills more people, ruins more lives, shatters more families, destroys more careers, wastes more money, and causes more disease than many drugs combined. 1/3 of all preventable causes of death are caused by alcohol consumption. More than half of the crimes are committed under the influence of this drug. Half of the arrests, 90% of robbery attacks and more than 50% of rapes are related to alcohol consumption. Many road accident victims are caused by those who drive under the influence of alcohol.

However, it continues to be produced, packaged, marketed and advertised in the most diverse and attractive forms. In these conditions we can easily say that alcohol has become a real endemic of this century, a plague of society. Alcoholism is a disease that can only be cured by faith in the Lord Jesus. Only the Savior of the world gives free the vaccine and the power to get out of this vice.

I don’t know why tougher laws are not being introduced in our country to stop the development of this scourge. But these laws will be good when both parents and grandparents understand that the offer they make to their children and grandchildren “to give a glass of wine for health” is in fact a clear invitation to destruction.

Our society needs to be educated that alcohol destroys us. More than once I witnessed how it was difficult to drive on the streets of Chisinau in the evening because of the young drunks. And where there is drunkenness, there are a lot of other vices. It was hard for me to look at these images and I was sadly thinking about their future, if of course they still have it.

Let us flee from this vice and tell those who have fallen into these passions that they can be healed by faith in the Lord Jesus. Only in this way can they be released and restored to have the future they, their families and our nation want!

Translated by Ina Croitoru