The Bible & Alcohol Use Volume 1 | Page 4

Through unending ages the inhabitants of sinless worlds shall behold in that garden of delight a sample of the perfect work of God‟s creation, untouched by the curse of sin – a sample of what the earth would have become had man but fulfilled the Creator‟s glorious plan. Proof that the Antediluvian race prior to the flood had perverted God‟s original creation by turning the pure fruit of the vine into fermented spirits is verified by the fact that Antediluvian lives mirror those of a drunkard – fierce, evil, disrespectful, scoffers, corrupt, immoral, and pleasure seekers disobedient unto their own destruction. God was dealing with a world full of eight hundred year old giant drunkards steeped in idol worship. “Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” [Gen 6:5] Jesus summed up the first stage of humanity in simplicity: “They did eat, they drank.” [Lk 17:27] We can rest assured it was not the pure unfermented grape juice this gluttonous generation drank. Alcohol helped mar God‟s humanity made in His image to the place where God finally decreed: “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; for it repenteth Me that I have made them.” [Gen 6:7] WORDS FOR WINE The Dictionary Reference defines wine in the English language as being: 1. an alcoholic drink produced from fruits and flowers fermented with water and sugar 2. an intoxicating, cheering or invigorating effect 3. fermented grape juice containing an alcohol content of 14% or less together with ethers and esters that give it bouquet and flavour 4. unfermented juice of various fruits or plants The strong English inference is that wine is a fermented alcoholic beverage most of the time but leaves the door open, in rare cases, for the use of unfermented wine. When we read an English translation of the Bible only one word appears – wine – for all circumstances. In the ancient Hebrew Bible the word use of wine suggests many different meanings: Aciyc - fresh, squeezed out juice; new, just trodden out, sweet wine Chamar - to ferment with scum; to glow with redness; trouble Chemar - wine as fermenting; pure, red wine Cobe - a drink, especially alcoholic beverage; drinking party; carousal; drunken; tipsy Enab - to bear fruit; grape, ripe grape Mamcak - wine mixture, as with water, spices; drink offering 3 HEBREW (Old Testament) Page “As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man.” [Lk 17:26] The days spoken of by Jesus refer to the state of man prior to His Second Coming. Nary can a movie be made or a book written by the secular mind in which the flask of spirits is not prominently displayed in the hand of weak sops. Not a sports game or a good time can seemingly be had without the blessing of the insidious spirit industry devoted to destroying men‟s lives.