Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church

Sermon scripture is in Deuteronomy 21:18-23. Deuteronomy 21:18-23. If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son which will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother and that when they have chastened him will not hearken unto them. Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him and bring him out unto the elders of his city and under the gate of his place.

They shall say unto the elders of his city, “This our son is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones that he die, so shalt thou put evil away from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear. And if a man hath committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day. For he that is hanged is accursed of God, that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.

This time the younger children may be dismissed, go down to their Sabbath schools if their parents desire that. Afternoon we’re going through our series on the seven deadly sins. And we now come to, in the traditional or classic order of the seven deadly sins, the sixth sin which is gluttony.

It’s interesting just to help you remind you again of these seven deadly sins and the order of them. We began with pride, envy, and anger, sloth—inaction, lack of heart for God’s test. It’s sort of like the hinge sin between what some have referred to Dorothy Sayers, for instance, as the three cold sins and the three hot sins at the end of the list. Pride, envy, anger, sloth is the conjunction. And then the last three are greed, which we dealt with over the last four weeks relating it to death. And then gluttony. We’ll be doing this for probably three or four weeks, probably four. And then finally lust.

I thought of this order again as I was watching the last half of Pinocchio. My wife and I, our anniversary was Friday and we bought a video for the kids or rented a video for them to watch while we were gone. And Pinocchio was one of them. We came back a little earlier than we’d expected and they were watching Pinocchio and I watched the last half of it, my wife and I did with them.

And if you remember that story or if you’ve seen the video lately, it’s a pretty good story. In any event, his temptations come in two different groups, at least the ones that we saw. The first was when he got off with a guy named Stromboli. His temptation for him to sin and not go to school and to do his work, to be slothful, not have a heart for school—in other words, the first temptation was to be an actor, which is, you know, actors are kind of prideful, envious, etc.

And so you have that kind of thing. And then after he’s recovered from that sin and comes to repentance, as it were, and goes back to school on his way to school the next time, the next floor is that he gets taken off to Pleasure Island and he goes to Pleasure Island and that I guess could be a place we could think of these last three seven deadly sins. And of course, Pleasure Island boys smoke cigars and drink beer and play pool and get in fights and break houses and just do all kinds of mean and nasty things.

And those boys become donkeys at the end of their stay there. They grow ears and they turn into jackasses and they exchange the image of God for the image of a beast. So it’s a good picture and it’s a good picture of these two categories of the seven deadly sins.

So we’re going to continue now in the second category, Pleasure Island, as it were, greed, gluttony, and lust. Sins which are deadly because they lead us into exchanging the image of man that God has given to us in Jesus Christ for the image of a beast and therefore in disobedience to him.

Now, the way we’re going to handle this more this afternoon is more or less an introduction, kind of an overview in scripture, attempting to draw out a little definition of what gluttony is and into a little fuller definition. And then next week we’re going to deal specifically—at least at this point, the plan is next week to deal specifically with Philippians 3:19 where we read of those whose god is their belly, whose end is destruction, whose glory is in their shame, and who mind earthly things.

It’s a good synopsis of the gluttonous as well as other sorts of people there. So next week, Philippians 3:19. The following week, we’ll probably deal with Hebrews 13:9. “It’s a good thing that the heart is established with grace, not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.” We’ll talk about a preoccupation with meats and food. And then finally, we’ll probably spend one more week looking at proper eating methods, what we should do when we eat, some things to help us remember what we’ll go through from the scriptures in these next three weeks.

So the next three or four weeks—three weeks will be sermons on gluttony. Gluttony 2, 3, and 4. Next week we’ll probably look at in terms of a responsive reading. Next week will be—what will it be? It will probably be Proverbs 23, most all of it. And then the following week, Psalm 134. So if you’re looking at the responsive readings, those are the ones we’ll be doing in the future.

Okay. Now, I want to begin with some rather obvious things about what gluttony is, and then we’ll talk about some obvious things, at least it seems to me, from the scriptures that gluttony is not and then we’ll go to a little broader definition, fuller, broader, good girth terms when we talk about the sin of gluttony.

Okay, gluttony is a serious charge to make about somebody. First of all, it is interesting that apparently gluttony is the only of the seven deadly sins that our Lord was specifically accused of. I list the references there, Matthew 11:19 and Luke 7:34 in which we read, “The son of man came eating and drinking, and they said, ‘Behold, a man gluttonous and a wine bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners,’ but wisdom is justified over her children.”

May seem like just sort of a picky little charge that they threw at Jesus in terms of calling him gluttonous and a wine bibber and the friends of not good people. But it’s a serious charge the Pharisees were making by that as I hope you will have already correlated in your minds from Deuteronomy 21, the case law about the rebellious son. This was a very serious charge and I bring this up first in the outline to warn you against making this charge verbally or in your heart about other people lightly.

We’re going to be reminding you several times this afternoon to be very careful about what you describe in your mind or particularly in your speech to other people as what is gluttonous behavior to other individuals. Okay, the Pharisees threw that lightly at Jesus Christ. But it’s a serious charge and I want us all to be very careful how we approach the sin of God in terms of analysis of others.

I want us primarily over these next three or four weeks to think through our own interaction with food, what we do with food and drink and how we may be doing it incorrectly. And I’m sure we all do to various extent. So I want us to focus on ourselves, not somebody else. And I want us to realize this is a serious charge that the Pharisees brought against our Lord. It’s serious because Deuteronomy 21 tells us that gluttony is part of the description of a capital crime.

Now, your outline is a little bit overstated. It says that gluttony is a capital crime. Gluttony in and of itself is not listed in Deuteronomy 21, but it’s important that you look at that verse for a couple of minutes.

Now we’re going to talk about this description of the rebellious son. Now, as you’re turning to Deuteronomy 21:18 and following, of course, this is one of the worst charges that is brought against Christian Reconstructionists or theonomists—that we want to stone disobedient children of small age. And of course, if you go through this description and realize this person is rebellious and incorrigible, then you realize it’s not talking about some seven-year-old boy. I mean, a drunkard is a full-grown adult who continues to drink and become drunken over a period of time refuses to hear correction. So, first of all, don’t get worried when people throw that kind of charge at you. In point of fact, this is obviously talking about grown adults, although still considered children of the parents.

Secondly, it’s important that you know that this verse has been very important in the history of criminal justice in America. The proverbial three-time loser or people originally—number of years ago after the third felony offense would be given a life sentence. I think that may still be the case in Texas. It was until just recently and it has been the case in many states, many colonies certainly during the history of America.

And the reason for that—the reason for a life sentence or even the death sentence for an incorrigible criminal is based upon this specific case law in Deuteronomy 21. It is the only place I know of where the incorrigible criminal is treated in these sorts of terms. And so there’s the only correlation between that and then the common law treatment of the incorrigible criminal and then American jurisprudence as well.

So this is an important piece of scripture. If you get rid of this, you get rid of a central aspect of American criminal justice for the last 200 years. And going back further than that, English common law as well.

Now, let’s look at this a little bit to make sure we understand the correlation to gluttony to the capital crime that’s listed herein. We read that they go to the elders of the city in verse 20. Okay? And they say this, “Our son is stubborn and rebellious. He won’t obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard.”

Now, I think that what we’ve got going on here is we have a charge against the son and then a specification of the charge given by the parent that is evidentiary in nature. What do I mean? I mean that for instance in if in church court if you’ve been disciplined by a church hopefully what they’ve done with you is they’ve given you a general charge—which of God’s laws have you violated in principle—and then they’ll give you a specification of that charge saying that on such and such a date this guy did this.

In the civil courts for instance the charge may be murder and the specification will be that on such and such a date he entered into such and such a home pulled out a gun and shot this person. Specification well, here I think the general charge is this rebelliousness of the son, that’s what he’s being executed for. But the evidentiary material that they bring to the court is the fact that he is a drunkard and a glutton.

And now based upon the Old Testament practice of not having a single witness or even a married couple being the only testimony involved, these are public sins and it seems like they’re appealing here to public knowledge of the judges they were bringing the child to. Remember when I said child here—born of the parents but not of a little child and now a grown adult that’s still a child, as it were—a son I suppose would be a better term. So they’re bringing gluttony then and drunkenness are the two external signs that the parents give to say he is rebellious and stubborn and won’t obey our voice.

Now what does that imply? That implies that one of the specific ways in which they tried to discipline their child, their son, was to command him not to be gluttonous and a drunkard. And that means that by way of application to us, we all know that we want to warn our children very strongly against the dangers of strong drink and of drunkenness. But this verse says that if you’re going to do your job as a parent, you also have to have them hear your voice to warn them about the dangers of gluttony. Gluttony is a very serious sin according to the scriptures. Placed here alongside of drunkenness and in a category where it gives evidence of a capital sin on the part of a son. Very important information here and very giving us a great deal of responsibility as parents to listen very hard this next three or four weeks so that we can instruct our children not to be gluttonous and to avoid this kind of vile sin.

A sin that’s correlated here and in many places in scripture to drunkenness. Okay. And then in verse 21, all the men of his city shall stone him with stones that thou shalt put away evil from among you. Gluttony, drunkenness, and what they represent—rebellion, and stubbornness, and a failure to hear the voice of the parent—is described as evil. It is evil to be gluttonous, and it is evil to be to be a drunkard continually.

Then in verse 22, if a man hath committed a sin worthy of death, these are sins that are worthy of death. Okay? So gluttony is a very serious matter and we get that from the case law of Deuteronomy 21.

Now I want to just kind of take a little bit of a divergence here and go to Titus 1:6. In Titus 1:6, we have the qualifications for elders given here in 1 Timothy 3. We read in Titus 1:6 that if any man be blameless, this is what he has to be. Blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly.

Not accused of riot or unruly. For a bishop must be blameless. I think that there is a some sort of correlation between this qualification and Deuteronomy 21. If you’ve got a son who is riotous and unruly, what should you have done to not have blame put upon yourself? You should have obeyed Deuteronomy 21. You should have taken that child to the civil magistrate, and if the civil magistrate won’t punish the crime, at least to the church magistrate, and turn that child over for the discipline of the church to be excommunicated if need be from the church and disowned by you and disinherited by you. So that the man who doesn’t do that—what this says is that if a child the relationship to a son or a daughter, a grown son or daughter even is more important to that man than following to whatever degree he can Deuteronomy 21, he has no business being considered as an elder of the church.

Now remember, these are qualifications that apply to all of us in all of our households. I’ve got to tell you, I’ve talked to any number of pastors over the last few years who would disagree in the strongest possible terms with what I just told you. “I would never excommunicate my own son. They would tell me. I would never treat him as an unbeliever. I would always try to show him unconditional love and win him to the faith that way.” Well, I don’t know. I’m willing to be taught on this, but the scriptures seem clear that the best way for our son and daughter in this matter is to follow God’s law.

The son who is convicted by church court for instance in discipline and excommunicated may well in the providence of God through his given means in the scriptures be brought back to repentance. And so again the mercy of those who would be merciful apart from God’s law. It doesn’t bring correction to people. It leads them into further damnation because it doesn’t win them back. It goes around God’s chosen means to deal with rebellious children.

Now this word riot—it’s not accused of riot. The term there is a negative and a negative and so which is meaning saved or accumulated. And so somebody who is given to riot doesn’t save things up and isn’t he expends or gets rid of all that he has and that can refer to drink it can refer to food any number of things. Here I want to just as continue this brief divergence by looking at Luke 15:13. You don’t have to turn there. In Luke 15:13 we have the prodigal son and the prodigal son is the one who takes his inheritance leaves his father’s dwelling place and he goes away and wastes his substance with riotous living—word riotous living.

He spends it all on fine food, fine drink, lots of fun. And the terminology that sort of sums all that up is riotous living. By the way, this also should remind us of Proverbs 28:7. “Whoso keepeth the law is a wise son? But he that is a companion of riotous men shameth his father.” Okay. So riotous living is spoken of against in the scriptures on any number of occasions. And I think it’s the summary term for those things that are spelled out in the case of Deuteronomy 21.

In 1 Peter 4, why don’t you turn to 1 Peter 4. We’ll spend a little bit of time here. 1 Peter 4, verses 2 and following. 1 Peter 4:2 we read that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men but to the will of God. Verse three for the time passed of our life may suffice us to have brought the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lasciviousness lust excess of wine revelings banquetings and abominable idolatries wherein they think it strange that she run not with them to the excess of riot speaking evil of you.

What’s going on here? He gives a list of sins in verse three of 1 Peter 4. Lasciviousness and lust, excesses of wine, revelings. The word there is komos. It means in its root to be laid out. It can mean to recline or lay down either while eating or as a result of eating too much to be tired and as a result lie down. And then the next word banquetings means specifically a drinking bottle or carousing and a bottle of idolatries.

Then he sums all those practices up in verse four by saying where they think it’s strange that you run not with them to the same excess of riot. And that word riot is the same term that’s used of the children of potential elder candidates and for in Titus 1, it’s the same term that’s used of the prodigal son. It means essentially to sum up this sort of riotous living which includes an excess of wine and travelings which include an excess of food.

And so those things are connected. So again, I think that’s reason there to see that Titus 1 does have reference back to the incorrigible son who was both a drunkard and a glutton and these lists and we’ll go through a couple other lists like this a little bit later in the outline. Okay, so gluttony, first of all, is a serious charge to make against somebody and it is a part of a pattern of a capital crime in Deuteronomy 21 and then warned against in terms of the New Testament as well.

And third, and this is rather obvious, but it’s important that we look at the obvious as we begin a study such as this, it is an excess of food or drink. And now I’m putting food and drink under one term, gluttony. The way the church fathers and the church writers in the Middle Ages worked with gluttony, that’s how they saw it. Food and drink were combined under gluttony. And there’s some good reasons for that, as we’ll be pointing out.

Excess food and drink. See here in Ecclesiastes 10:17 we read, “Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength and not for drunkenness.” Okay, so it’s a good thing to have rulers who eat for strength instead of eating for drunkenness. Eat for drunkenness. But that’s what it says. It uses the term drunkenness there which normally refers to intoxication by beverages. But it uses that of people who eat not for strength, who eat to excess and who get sated as it were by eating too much. And so the scriptures in one verse here correlates—brings together in a very radical fashion overeating or eating not for proper purposes and intoxication or drunkenness.

So the gluttonous, it’s bad to have gluttonous rulers who drink too much, who eat too much and who eat not for strength, but who eat instead for drunkenness or intoxication.

Additionally, in Proverbs 23:20 and 21, we see these things linked. “Be not among wine bibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh. For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe the man with rags.” So again there, excess of wine, drunkenness is combined with gluttony, excess of food.

Now the term gluttony in the Old Testament essentially means wasted or worthless or useless. And that’s what a person does when he eats too much food. He becomes worthless in that way. It does have eating connotations, but again, they’re linked up here. Drunkenness and gluttony.

Now we’re going to go back. Remember I said in 1 Peter 4:2-4, we have those two things listed together in the list of sins there. Excess of wine and revelings, which I said refers to food many times. Again, in Romans 13, verses 13 and 14, we read the same thing. “Let us walk honestly as in the daytime. Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.” So again, here we have a list of sins of the flesh and two things are linked together. Rioting and drunkenness.

Now, it’s hard to believe that Paul didn’t see those correlations from Proverbs 23:20 and the incorrigible son, etc. I think he did. And I think that the term there rioting, although it can be referred to drinking as well, I think it has its primary reference to food there and overeating in terms of food. So in Romans 13 we see that same correlation rioting and drunkenness. Komos again the word meaning to a letting loose or a lying down or reclining either from eating too much food or actually at food sometimes in the original Greek. And it’s interesting in Romans 13 it’s followed that verse is by saying that put on the Lord Jesus Christ make no provision for the flesh. It’s a sin of the flesh. And again in 1 Peter 4 we read that too. It talked about that they shouldn’t give the rest of their time to in the flesh to the lusts of men.

And then again in Galatians 5:19-23, we have these same things linked. Galatians 5:19, we read a list of the works of the flesh. The list is three verses long. And we get down to verse 21. In that list of works of the flesh, we read envyings, murderings. Those things are continually linked together in scripture. Envying and murdering. We talked about that. We talked about envy. And then it says “drunkenness, revelings, and such like as which I tell you before as I’ve told you in time past that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” And so again drunkenness is hooked to this word komos which is translated revelings in this text and I think refers to excess eating. And again it’s a very serious matter and it combines again drinking and eating to excess.

And again in Galatians 5 we go on to read in verse 24 “they are Christ have crucified the flesh.” So you’re not supposed to feed the flesh unduly here. Not supposed to give into the lust of the flesh. When you eat, you’re eating supposed to be for a different purpose as your drinking is.

Okay. One more verse I’ll point out here. Two more and then we’ll go on from this section. Luke 7:25. Jesus says, “And what went you ought to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they which are gorgeously apparel and live delicately are in king’s courts.” And I use that one more uh evidence here to link together eating and drinking to excess. Those that live delicately in king’s courts, that word means to be infeebled in mind or body through either food or drink. Too much food, too much drink leads to infeeblement of the body. Remember the good guy in the palace is supposed to be to eat for strength.

This guy eats to consumption. He eats to eat up everything and as a result he’s weak in his flesh either through excess food or drink. He’s weak in his flesh and his body and his mind. And that then became a man who was known as an effeminate person. An effeminate person was somebody who would become weak through overindulgence to food or wine. And so they’re linked again in Luke 7 and this term who eat delicately or rather who live delicately are those who excess gluttonous neither food or drink.

Finally in 2 Peter 2:13 talking about those that shall receive the reward of unrighteousness as they that counted pleasure to riot in the daytime—spots they are own blemishes, sporting themselves their own deceivings while they feast with you. Now, this is a parallel passage where we talked about the love feast. These are the two references. 2 Peter 2:13 and then in Jude verse 12 of the book of Jude, we read about those who feast without fear at your love feasts.

And we’re going to talk about that in a couple of weeks that one of the things we should be doing when we eat is to feast with the fear of God in our mind. But these people don’t have the fear of God. And in 2 Peter 2:13, they’re described as those who take pleasure to riot in the daytime. And again, there’s this idea of consumption and a loss of all abilities through eating too much food and drink. And so gluttony is definitely excess food, excess drink into in to take into our system.

Now, as I said, it’s very important to see these two linked together, drunkenness and gluttony. It is interesting, and I mentioned this a little bit already, but it is interesting that in the evangelical and Baptist cultures that we’ve grown here in America, drunkenness has proven to be a big deal, but gluttony has never been much talked about. Gary North in one of his recent books says he’s never heard a sermon on gluttony. But you hear all kinds of sermons against drunkenness and yet the scriptures correlate these things together.

It is interesting of course that in if you’re concerned about the sin of drunkenness and hence call for total abstinence from alcoholic beverages. If you understand the correlation in scripture between drunkenness and gluttony, then you’d also probably have to call for total abstinence from food. You see, ’cause they’re always linked. They’re always pushing things to excess. So to cure the sin of drunkenness, you get rid of all wine. That means to cure the sin of gluttony, you’d get rid of all food. And it would cure the sin. He wouldn’t engage in it anymore. After forty days, he wouldn’t engage in anything anymore.

Gary North tells what may well be apocryphal story to sort of illustrate this funny attitude that’s developed in the evangelical churches. Apparently, there was a meeting between Robert Dick Wilson, who was a professor at Old Princeton, and R.A. Torrey, who was a fundamentalist evangelist. And apparently Torrey was a man of considerable girth. Well, they were sitting talking and Torrey was chastising uh Robert Dick Wilson because he was smoking a cigar. And Torrey finally said, “Well, you know, Jesus came back right at this very moment. How would you explain that?” And he pointed to his cigar. And Wilson, without batting an eye, turned around and said, “Well, how would you explain that?” And he pointed to Torrey’s stomach.

Now, it is interesting that there is no prohibition that I know of in the scriptures against smoking cigars. There are definite prohibitions in scripture against eating too much food and as a result having a very large girth. And yet most people today would side with Torrey in that conflict. Why is that? It’s rather interesting.

We want to take a little bit of a divergence here. One other indication of this by the way that North also brings out in this particular book that’s been recently published. He says that in the same line the Scofield Reference Bible of the early 1900s in dealing with the case law from Deuteronomy 21 where the son is declared to be a drunker—they cross reference that to passages against drunkenness and it is cross referenced to other drunkenness passages, but it is not cross referenced to other passages indicating overeating of food.

You see, so early on for at least one hundred years now, this has been going on where people saw drinking as a real big problem, but the ingestion of too much food is not a problem. Yet, the scriptures link both together.

One of the reasons, and I need to do this, I think I’m not in a hurry to get through this series on gluttony. And if we take more time with even the this morning, this afternoon to get through these outlines. It’s fine with me. I want to take just a brief diversion. So, we’re not going to look at it in detail, but 1 Corinthians 6:19 is often used to say that all smoking is wrong. And I want to take I’m not trying to defend smoking here necessarily, but I do want to make some points here as we go through this. And just so you won’t get confused in your thinking, I want to clear this up for you.

1 Corinthians 6:19, we read, of the body being the temple of the Holy Spirit. May be well to come back to this passage and deal with it a whole sermon sometime in the near future. But I want to just point out a couple of things as we’re going through this. 1 Corinthians 6:19 and I’ll read a couple of verses before that. Verse 16. “What know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body. For two, saith he shall be one flesh. But he that is joined under the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body. But he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What will you mouth that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God, and you’re not your own? For you are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

Remember we talked many times about Jay Adams and you know the problem with a lot of evangelical Christians having plagiarism or having yeah plagiarism where they take verses take them out of context put them on a plaque and then get all kinds of meaning in them which is never in the verse originally. And that’s what people have done with verse 19. They take that out. The body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. Therefore anything you take into your body that isn’t good and healthy for it is sin.

There’s a real problem with that in the very verse that just preceded it. He says flee fornication. Every sin, every sin that a man doeth is without the body. But he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. You see what that says? It says that every sin—gluttony, drunkenness, smoking, if you can be convinced from some place in scripture other than here that or even in here if you want to look at it here. Smoking if you think that’s a sin. Every sin that a man does is outside of his body, but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.

And that’s the context for saying that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and that you profaned it through adultery, through sexual relations, ill illegitimate sexual relations. You see, you cannot use that verse to condemn gluttony because the verse explicitly says it’s not talking about the rest of sins. It’s talking about the one sin that’s different—sexual immorality—and that creates some kind of union, some sort of fellowship with the harlot that Paul refers to couple of verses earlier that make it totally different than these other sins that you commit against your body.

Now, this isn’t just me talking. I’ll just read a couple of passages here from a couple of commentators. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this, but it’s very important that you think this thing through. Lenski says that really what Paul does here is he cites the major premise of a syllogism. The major premise is fornication as no other sin violates the body. The minor premise will follow. The Christian’s body is the spirit’s sanctuary. And then the conclusion of this syllogism is made in plain fornication as no other sin desecrates the very sanctuary of God. He says, “We also when we question or challenge Paul’s statement regarding the exceptional character of fornication by referring to a sin like suicide or others that damage the body like drunkenness, caught the addiction to drugs etc. Paul is far more profound. No sinful act desecrates the body like fornication and sexual abuse. In this sense, fornication has a deadly eminence. A sanctuary is desecrated by befalling it within. So this sin desecrates the sanctuary of the body. All other sins besmirch the sanctuary on the outside only.”

Hodge’s commentary on this verse. Hodge says this does not teach that fornication is greater than any other sin, but it does teach that it is altogether peculiar in its effects upon the body. Not so much in its physical as in its moral and spiritual effects. The idea runs throughout the Bible that there is something mysterious in the commerce of the sexes and in the effects which flow from it. Every other sin, Hodge says, every other sin, however degrading and ruinous to the body, even drunkenness, is external to the body. That is external to its life. But fornication involving as it does a community of life is a sin against the body itself because incompatible as the apostle has just taught with the design of its creation and with its immortal destiny.

So I could go on and on. If you properly exegete that text, there’s no basis for using a verse and pull it out of its context to say that’s the reason why smoking is wrong. Now, we could talk about why some sorts of smoking is wrong. We could talk about health versus non-health. But, you know, if you’re going to use the argument that smoking is wrong because it is not healthy and it causes cancer, you’re in big trouble there, too.

You’ve proved too much. We could probably, you realize just about I could come up with a list as long as this aisle here in this church of substances that people tell us today cause cancer in the body. They don’t know that causes cancer. They know certain activities that correlate to a higher risk or rate of cancer in a particular individual. They don’t know the mechanism that gets from here to here. I’m not saying ignore that, but I’m saying you got to be very careful.

If you’re saying that smoking is wrong because this text says the body is the sanctuary of God and you should keep it healthy. It is certainly true the scripture says keep your body healthy. But to say then that anything that causes cancer should be always avoided means you better stop eating mushrooms. The man came up with the way to culture mechanisms and detect cancer in a petri dish. The man who did that was on TV not too long ago talking about the various natural substances that in and of themselves have chemical compounds that produce tremendous risks of cancer.

Mushrooms, you eat a raw mushroom, he says, you have a higher risk of cancer than if you eat, you know, a ton of fruit covered with pesticides with the normal pesticide residual sold in the markets today. Okay. Now, we can talk a lot about whether not smoking is a good thing. I think there’s addiction problems to it. You lose control. That’s the whole point of many of these texts is you want to have control over things. You want to do everything to the glory of God. So, you’d have to somehow think that through. But what I’m saying is it’s real odd that we have developed a Christian culture in this country that winks the eye at overeating and takes terrible offense at a man smoking a cigar. That is odd. It’s totally out of line with what I read the scriptures to be teaching, you know. You can probably think of incidents yourself.

I know of incidences when I’ve gone to gatherings, lots of food, lots of eating going on, Christian gatherings, people getting tired and sleepy because they ate so much and sitting down and laying down and taking a nap or something. Somebody though has a drink of alcohol or somebody goes outside and smokes a cigarette or a cigar and that guy is the focus of everybody’s concern. You see, it’s wrong. Gluttony is a deadly sin. It’s listed in this in this list for good reason. It’s important to realize that it’s good reason for being listed. And it’s important that we very carefully avoid calling sin what is not sin or what we are not convinced or sure from the scriptures is sin.

Okay? And because it’s very important we get this stuff down, I want to spend a couple of minutes now talking about what gluttony is not. What gluttony is not.

Gluttony is not non-utilitarian eating. Now, you remember that verse about the prince who eats for strength and not for drunkenness. You could easy take that and say, “Well, the only reason we should ever eat is for strength.” But that’s not what it’s saying. It’s saying the bad thing is the guy who eats for drunkenness, for intoxication, who overeats, who eats to excess.

We know from various scriptures, number Nehemiah 8:10, for instance, that the reason for eating on this particular occasion was joy. He said unto him, “Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, send portions to them for whom nothing is prepared for this day is holy unto our Lord. Neither be ye sorry for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” They’re supposed to go take food to other people so they could rejoice by eating that food. You sing that chorus, “the joy of the Lord is my strength.” Think of these verses and think that God tells us we believe every week to come together and eat food for the primary purpose of rejoicing before God’s presence and his good gifts to us. Not for the primary purpose of utilitarian eating.

Non-utilitarian is not utilitarian eating. Eating for something other than simply the maturation or strength of the body is not necessarily wrong and you cannot call it gluttony. Esther 9:18 and 19 I won’t read it same thing—a festival they go out they eat lots of good things they call it feast day and they have a good time and eating is correlated with joy it also is wrong to call eating anything for pleasure—for the good taste of it—gluttony. Again non-utilitarian eating would include eating things that aren’t necessarily you’re not eating necessarily for the health value, but because you enjoy the taste.

And there’s nothing wrong with that according to the scriptures. In fact, in that passage from Nehemiah 8:10, he said, “Go your way. Eat the fat. Eat the fat.” He said, we got a lot of objections to fat these days. And again, you know, I understand there’s health problems. We got to think things through. What’s healthy to the body, what hurts the body. I know all that stuff. But I also know the word of God says that there are occasions in which our eating is non-utilitarian. It is an aspect of joy and in that joy we eat things that are tasty to eat and indicate fullness and abundance that God has given to us. And here it uses the specific word fat—oil, olive oil, etc., glossy stuff. Eat the fat, drink the sweet, send portions.

Daniel 10:2 “In those days I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks. I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine to my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled.” He went on a fast from things he normally ate. What did he normally eat? He normally ate meat. He normally drank wine and he normally ate pleasant bread identified as being enjoyable to eat, not simply strengthening bread.

God promised the people to take them into a land of milk and honey. Sweet things is what you’re supposed to eat there on occasion. Good things from God, non-utilitarian eating. Don’t call what God calls good here. Don’t call it evil. That is one of the worst things you can do in life is to take something that God has given to us for our good and call it evil. Don’t do it because then you’re you’re casting aspersions on God who gave us these things or on his word that instructs us they’re good to eat. Can you overdo it? You bet. I’ve already made that point. Gluttony is excess. We’re going to spend most of the next couple of weeks talking about why how that’s violated.

But I want to make sure we know what gluttony is not here. We don’t enter into the Pharisaic routine of charging people with gluttony who are not gluttonous the way they did with our Lord. Okay. Non-utilitarian drinking. Same thing in Deuteronomy 14 where we read about the rejoicing portion of your tithe. Take your money. Take your tithe. Turn it into money. Go to the city of God three times a year. Eat whatever your heart desires. And it lists among the things your heart may desire a strong drink, alcoholic beverages. It says drink those things. What’s the purpose? The end of verse 26, “thou shalt rejoice thou and thine household.” The drinking is for the purpose of rejoicing. So non-utilitarian drinking is not in and of itself gluttony. Drinking for pleasure is not in and of itself gluttony. Non-utilitarian drinking, drinking things that are tasty is not wrong. It is not gluttony.

We just read from Nehemiah, “drink the sweet” he said. And now I want us to hear a couple of verses from Judges 9:7 and following. Judges 9:7 and following. Jotham tells the story. It’s kind of a little parable here. Says, “Hearken unto me, you men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you.” And he tells them this story of these trees and how uh the trees went forth to anoint a king over them. They go to various kinds of trees. They say, “Will you be king over us?” “No, you be king.” “No, I’m busy doing my work that God has given me to do.” Finally, they get to the bramble and he agrees to be king over them. And that’s a political commentary in the book of Judges 9 that you probably ought to keep in mind when you vote for candidates this November. All too often, candidates are the brambles who have nothing better to do with their time than to run for office and to be king over somebody. Not a good thing. Look for people that have been proven in their tasks that God has given them to do.

In any event, what I want to focus in here is Judges 9:12 and 13. “Then said the trees under the vine. They go to the grape vine looking for somebody to reign over them. They say, “Come th I’ll reign over us. The vine says unto them, Should I leave my wine which cheereth God and man and go to be promoted over the trees? Should I leave the wine that I produce? For what reason? I produce wine which cheers God and man.” The wine that comes from the vine is God’s blessing to men. Can it be overindulged in? Yes. Is that drunkenness and gluttony when it’s overindulged? Yes. Yes. Is it gluttony or drunkenness to drink any alcohol? No, don’t say that. That verse says that it’s there to cheer God and men.

More explicit verse Psalm 104:14-15. “He causes God causes the grass to grow for the cattle and herb for the service of man that he may bring forth food out of the earth. What else does God cause? Verse 15, he causes God causes wine that makes glad the heart of man and oil to make his face to shine.” Wine and bread which strengthens man’s heart. Wine, alcoholic beverages are given by God. He causes them to make glad the heart of man. It’s not gluttony to drink in moderation.

Finally, one more verse. Another remember I said you can the joy of the Lord is my strength. You remember that when you remember that it’s not bad to necessarily eat sweet things or eat for the purpose of rejoicing. Song of Solomon 2:4. “He brought me to the banqueting house and his banner over me was love.” You know, you probably sung that song in Sunday school. “He brings me to the banqueting table. His banner over me is love.” Well, be careful. If you think that all alcoholic beverages is are wrong, don’t sing this course to your children. Don’t teach it to them because the banqueting house here is the place where wine is drunk. If you have a New American Standard Bible, you’ll see a little footnote off to the side says that literally it’s the house of wine. The word used here for banqueting house is translated in other places wine or wine bibber.

The banqueting house is where the wine bibbers were people that drank wine. It says here that he—the bridegroom is a picture of Christ’s love. What do we do downstairs? He brings us to the place where we drink wine, communion, we have joy with him and eat good food all to the best food which is himself of course.

Okay. So the implication here it’s the place of intoxication? Not drunkenness. It’s a place of drinking a little bit of wine. It’s not wrong to drink a little wine. God gives us wine to make the heart glad.

It’s very important. That’s what drunkenness or gluttony is not. It’s very important. Don’t be a false accuser. Think through your reaction to social settings you’re in. Remember, what we’re doing here is trying to learn about God, learn about the world he’s created, and conform our thoughts to it. Don’t just, you know, walk away and say, “Well, I don’t know.” Next time you’re in a social situation examine your own reactions. Say, “Are these reactions biblical?” If they’re not, then I want to remold them according to God’s word. Bring make them more biblical.

Okay. Okay. What is gluttony? Not much time left. I’ll go through this real quick. I think I can. He said that gluttony is obviously excess eating and is also indicated as excess drinking in the scriptures. Now, I want to go for a little broader definition now and I have it listed on your outline.

Gluttony is to seek—let’s see actually uh