Sunday, September 19, 2004

Hello, my name is Rand, and I'm a sinner.

They should have called it sinners anonymous...

Being sick with a cold, I watched a bit of TV this weekend. On one of the shows I watched, I was presented with a man who had the "alcoholic disease". I'm sure you've all heard about this by now. You see, alcoholism isn't a sin anymore, it's a disease. A poorly understood one from what I hear.

What complete garbage. I can say that because I have first hand knowledge on the subject. My grandfather died an alcoholic. My father was an alcoholic. For close to two years of my life, I was an alcoholic. How about that for genetic make-up! Yet, today, my father and I are no longer alcoholics.

Some will say here: "But I thought once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, even if you don't give in to the urge to drink."

Nonsense! Not only do I no longer drink, but I have no desire to drink. How can this be? What happened?

God happened. God saved my soul from it's sin, and one of those sins was drunkenness:

"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor DRUNKARDS, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Corinthians 6: 9-11)

When God got involved, my old wicked way of life was put to an end, and God worked in me the desire for a righteous, holy life:

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17)

The fact of the matter is, alcoholism isn't a physical/psychological disease, it's part of a large spiritual problem called sin. We have proof of this in the Bible. We saw, in 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11, that God condemns drunkards. And yet we see that the Lord has compassion on those who are sick with disease:

"And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick." (Matthew 14:14)

To drunkards, wrath; to the sick, compassion. Alcoholism is sin, not illness. The cure of alcoholism isn't therapy or some kind of medication. The cure is repentance.


Dear reader, don't buy the garbage Hollywood pumps out every week on the TV. There is a reason why the old-timers called the TV: the "idiot box".