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Abraham Lincoln summarized domestic life in Sangamon County, Illinois, “We found intoxicating liquor used by everybody, repudiated by nobody,” he told a temperance meeting in 1842.  He was 33 years old.  “It commonly entered into the first draught of an infant and the last thought of the dying man.” “It was, he said, “the devastator.” (Daniel Okrent, Last Call, p. 9).
Intoxicating liquor, to use Lincoln’s own words, is destroying lives every day.  The opioid crisis in America takes 100 lives every day.  But, 88,000 Americans lose their lives every year to alcohol.  That’s 241 lives every day!  Where is the outrage?  Where are the voices crying out against this devastation?
The case for abstinence regarding the use of intoxicating liquor needs to be made clearly and strongly today.  The Bible does not endorse the moderation view which is now being accepted by many in religious groups.  The Bible condemns the use of intoxicating beverages.  One way to determine this is to consider the difference between good wine and bad wine throughout the Scriptures.
Moses Stuart remarks, “My final conclusion is this, viz., that whenever the Scriptures speak of wine as a comfort, a blessing or a libation to God, and rank it with such articles as corn and oil, they mean, they can mean only such wine as contained no alcohol that could have a mischievous tendency; that whenever they denounce it, and connect it with drunkenness and reveling, they can mean only alcoholic or intoxicating wine” (William Patton, Bible Wine and the Laws of Fermentation, p. 64).  Stuart’s comment recognizes that the word wine in the Bible is generic and may refer to either an intoxicating drink or an unintoxicating drink.  The context will determine which is intended.
Patton, in his book, Bible Wines and the Laws of Fermentation, demonstrates this important distinction.
Bad Wine or Fermented Wine.
One class of texts in the Scriptures characterizes wine as:
1.  The cause of intoxication.  Drunkenness is mentioned in the Scriptures and it is always condemned.  It is a work of the flesh (Gal. 5:19-20).
2.  The cause of violence and woe.  Prov. 4:17 and 23:29-30.
3.  The cause of self-security and irreligion.  Isa. 56:12; Hab. 2:5; Isa. 28:7.
4.  Poisonous and destructive.  Prov. 23:31; Deut. 32:33.  This argument refutes the notion that alcohol is a part of God’s creation and should be received as “food.”  Alcohol does not occur except through the process of decomposition and is not a natural state of the fruit of the vine.
5.  Condemning those who are devoted to drink.  Isa. 5:22, “Woe unto them that are mighty to drink (yayin) wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink.”  I Cor. 6:10.
6.  The emblem of punishment and eternal ruin.  Psa. 60:3; 75:8; Isa. 51:17; Jer. 25:15; Rev. 16:19; Rev. 14:10.
Another class of texts in Scripture speaks of wine as good.  Obviously, this is not the same type of wine.  The good wine is not intoxicating.
1.  The wine to be presented at the altar as an offering to God.  Numbers 8:12, “All the best of the oil, and all the best of the wine, and of the wheat, the first-fruits of them which they shall offer unto the Lord, them have I given thee.”  All the best of the wine (tirosh) is associated with the first-fruits.  The Hebrew word tirosh is used of sweet or unfermented wine.
2.  The wine that is classed among the blessings, comforts, and necessaries of life.  Gen. 27:28, Deut. 7:13; Deut. 11:14; Prov. 3:10; Isa. 24:7; Isa. 65:8; Judges 9:13; Joel 3:18; Psa. 104:14,15.
3.  The wine that is an emblem of spiritual blessings.  Isa. 55:1.  This passages teaches the riches of God’s grace.  Milk and sweet wine stand as emblems of spiritual blessings.
4.  The wine that is an emblem of the blood of the atonement.  When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper he spoke of the fruit of the vine as representative of His blood.  Matt. 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24.  In I Cor. 10:6, Paul refers to the cup as the “cup of blessing which we bless.”  This cup (fruit of the vine) is the communion of the blood of Christ.  Certainly, this juice must be distinguished from the wine so strongly condemned in God’s Word and designated by Lincoln as “the devastator.”
The correct interpretation of God’s word results in a strong case for abstinence and against the moderation view regarding drinking alcoholic beverages.  God leads us into the paths of righteousness and not into the paths of destruction and devastation.