3625 - Strong Drink by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 19, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 50.

3625 — Strong Drink

By Editor

Please explain Deut. 14:25, 26. Does it mean that a man is allowed to drink strong drink, as fermented wine, or something like it, or liquor?

There were no such strong drinks in the days when that scripture was written as we have at the present time. There were no distilled liquors in that day, and the strongest of all liquors were fermented liquors. And even these could have had no such effect as the drug-doctored wines and fermented liquors of the present time. Our inquirer should take the context also. God is talking to a people who are devoted to Him, who have yielded themselves to Him, who are doing His will, who are coming together to rejoice in Him. And this very feast referred to in Deut. 14:25, 26 is a place where they were to rejoice before God. We can not believe that when His people stood in that relationship to Him, they would be lusting after the things that were evil and wicked. In all such cases, the Christian especially ought to take home to the heart the apostle Paul's rule in 1 Cor. 10:31: "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."