“‘Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by injustice, ... who says, “I will build myself a wide house with spacious chambers, and cut out windows for it, paneling it with cedar and painting it with vermilion.” Shall you reign because you enclose yourself in cedar? ... Your eyes and your heart are for nothing but your covetousness, for shedding innocent blood, and practicing oppression and violence.’” Jeremiah 22:13-17.
This scripture pictures the work of those who manufacture and who sell intoxicating liquor. Their business means robbery. For the money they receive, no equivalent is returned. Every dollar they add to their gains brings a curse to the spender.
With a liberal hand, God has bestowed His blessings upon the human family. If His gifts were wisely used, the world would know little of poverty or distress! But wickedness has turned His blessings into a curse. Through greed of gain and the lust of appetite, the grains and fruits given for our sustenance are converted into poisons that bring misery and ruin.
Every year millions and millions of gallons of intoxicating liquors are consumed. Millions upon millions of dollars are spent to buy wretchedness, poverty, disease, degradation, lust, crime, and death. For the sake of gain, the liquor dealer sells that which corrupts and destroys mind and body. He entails on the drunkard’s family poverty and wretchedness.
When his victim is dead, he does not hesitate to take the very necessities of life from the destitute family, to pay the drink bill of the husband and father. The cries of the suffering children, the tears of the widowed mother only exasperate him. He grows rich on the misery of those whom he is leading to perdition.
To a great degree, prostitution, vice, violent crimes, and poverty are a result of the liquor seller’s work. Like the mystic Babylon of the Apocalypse, he is dealing in “bodies and souls of men.” Behind the liquor seller stands the mighty destroyer of souls, and every art that earth or hell can devise is employed to draw human beings under his power. In the city and the country, on the railway trains, on the great steamers, in places of business, in the halls of pleasure, in the medical dispensary, even in the church on the sacred Communion table, his traps are set. Nothing is left undone to create and to foster the desire for intoxicants. On corner after corner stand taverns or night clubs, with their brilliant lights, welcome, and good cheer, inviting the working man, the wealthy idler, and the unsuspecting youth.
In private lunchrooms and fashionable resorts, women are supplied with popular drinks containing alcohol. For the sick and the exhausted, there are the widely advertised tonics, consisting largely of alcohol.
To create the liquor appetite in little children, alcohol is introduced into confectionery. Such confectionery is sold in the shops. And by the gift of these candies the liquor seller entices children into his resorts.
Day by day, month by month, year by year, the work goes on. Fathers and husbands and brothers, the hope and pride of the nation, are steadily passing into the liquor dealer’s haunts, to be wrecked and ruined.
More terrible still, the curse is striking the very heart of the home. More and more women are forming the liquor habit. In many a household, little children, even in the innocence and helplessness of babyhood, are in daily peril through the neglect, abuse, and vileness of drunken mothers. Sons and daughters are growing up under the shadow of this terrible evil. What outlook for their future but that they will sink even lower than their parents?
From so-called Christian lands the curse is carried to developing nations. The poor and ignorant are taught the use of liquor. Men and women of intelligence recognize and protest against it as a deadly poison, but their efforts to protect their lands from its ravages have been in vain. By civilized peoples, tobacco, liquor, and opium are forced upon various nations. The ungoverned passions of the people, stimulated by drink, drag them down to degradation unknown before, and it becomes an almost hopeless undertaking to send messengers of the gospel to these lands.
Through their contact with peoples who should have given them a knowledge of God, pagans and idolaters are led into vices that are proving the destruction of whole tribes and races. And in the dark places of the earth the representatives of civilized nations are hated because of this.
The Responsibility of the Church
The liquor interest is a power in the world. It has on its side the combined strength of money, habit, appetite. Its power is felt even in the church. People whose money has been made, directly or indirectly, in the liquor traffic are members of churches “in good and regular standing.” Many of them give liberally to popular charities. Their contributions help to support the enterprises of the church and to sustain its ministers. They command the consideration shown to the power of money. Churches that accept such members are virtually sustaining the liquor traffic. Too often ministers do not have the courage to stand for the right. They do not declare to their people what God has said concerning the work of the liquor seller. To speak plainly would mean offending the congregation, sacrificing popularity, and losing income.But above the tribunal of the church is the tribunal of God. He who declared to the first murderer, “‘The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground’” (Genesis 4:10), will not accept for His altar the gifts of the liquor dealer. His anger is kindled against those who attempt to cover their guilt with a cloak of liberality. Their money is stained with blood. A curse is upon it.
“‘To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?’ says the Lord. ...Drunkards are capable of better things. They have been entrusted with talents with which to honor God and bless the world, but fellow humans have laid a snare for their souls. They have built themselves up by degrading others, living in luxury while the poor victims whom they have robbed live in poverty and wretchedness. But God will call to account those who helped speed drunkards to ruin. He who rules in the heavens has not lost sight of the first cause or the last effect of drunkenness. He who cares for the sparrow and clothes the grass of the field will not pass by those who have been formed in His own image, purchased with His own blood. He will heed their cries. God marks all this wickedness that perpetuates crime and misery.
‘When you come to appear before Me,
Who has required this from your hand, to trample My courts?
Bring no more futile sacrifices. ...
When you spread out your hands,
I will hide My eyes from you;
Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear.
Your hands are full of blood.’”
Isaiah 1:11-15.
The world and the church may have approval for the person who has gained wealth by degrading the human soul. They may smile upon the one by whom men and women are led down step by step in the path of shame and degradation. But God notes it all and renders a just judgment. The liquor seller may be termed by the world a good businessman, but the Lord says, “Woe unto him.” He will be charged with the hopelessness, the misery, the suffering, brought into the world by the liquor traffic. He will have to answer for the want and woe of the mothers and children who have suffered for lack of food and clothing and shelter and who have buried all hope and joy. He will have to answer for the souls he has sent unprepared into eternity. And those who sustain the liquor seller in his work are sharers in his guilt. To them God says, “Your hands are full of blood.”
License Laws
The licensing of the liquor traffic, it is argued, tends to restrict its evil. But the licensing of the traffic places it under the protection of law. The government sanctions its existence and thus fosters the evil that it professes to restrict. Under the protection of license laws, breweries, distilleries, and wineries are operating all over the land, and the liquor seller carries on his work beside our very doors.Often he is forbidden to sell intoxicants to one who is drunk or who is known to be a confirmed drunkard, but the work of leading youth to become drunkards goes steadily forward. The very life of the traffic depends upon creating the liquor appetite in youth. The youth are led on, step by step, until the liquor habit is established and the thirst is created that at any cost demands satisfaction. It would be less harmful to grant liquor to the confirmed drunkard, whose ruin, in most cases, is already determined, than to permit our youth to be lured to destruction through this terrible habit.
By licensing the liquor traffic, temptation is kept constantly before those who are trying to reform. Institutions have been established where the victims of intemperance may be helped to overcome their appetite. This is a noble work, but as long as the sale of liquor is sanctioned by law, the intemperate receive little benefit from these institutions. They cannot remain there always. They must again take their place in society. The appetite for intoxicating drink, though subdued, is not wholly destroyed, and when temptation assails them, as it does on every hand, they too often fall an easy prey.
A person who has a vicious beast and who, knowing its disposition, allows it unrestricted freedom is by the laws of the land held accountable for the evil the beast may do. In the laws given to Israel the Lord directed that when a beast known to be vicious caused the death of a human being, the life of the owner should pay the price of his carelessness or intention to harm others. On the same principle the government that licenses the liquor seller should be held responsible for the results of his traffic. And if it is a crime worthy of death to let a vicious beast kill someone, how much greater is the crime of sanctioning the work of the liquor seller!
The argument for granting licenses is that they bring revenue into the public treasury. But what is this revenue when compared with the enormous expense incurred for the criminals, the insane, the extremely poor, that are the fruit of the liquor traffic!
A person under the influence of liquor commits a serious crime and is brought into court. Those who legalized the traffic are forced to deal with the result of their own work. They authorized the sale of an intoxicating drink, and now it is necessary for them to sentence the person to prison or to death, while often the family is left in financial straits, dependent on church or civic organizations.
Considering only the financial aspect of the question, it is irrational to tolerate such a business! But what revenue can compensate for the loss of human reason, for defacing the image of God in a person, for ruining children, reducing them to pauperism and degradation, and often perpetuating in them the evil tendencies of drunken parents?
People who have formed the habit of using intoxicants are in a desperate situation. Their brains are diseased, their will power weakened. Without divine help, their appetite is uncontrollable. They cannot be reasoned with or persuaded to deny themselves. When in the company of others who are drinking, a person who has resolved to quit is led to pick up the glass again, and with the first taste of the intoxicant every good resolution is overpowered. One taste of the liquor, and all thought of its results vanishes. The faithful spouse is forgotten. The children may be hungry and without clothes, but that no longer matters. By legalizing the traffic, the law gives its sanction to this downfall of the soul and refuses to stop the trade that fills the world with evil.
Must this always continue? Will souls always have to struggle for victory, with the door of temptation wide open before them? Must the curse of intemperance forever rest like a blight upon the civilized world? Must it continue to sweep, every year, like a devouring fire over thousands of happy homes? When a ship is wrecked in sight of shore, people do not idly look on. They risk their lives in an effort to rescue men and women from a watery grave. How much greater the demand for effort in rescuing them from the alcoholic’s fate!
We are all woven together in the web of humanity. The evil that befalls any part of the great human family brings peril to all.
Many men and women who through love of gain or ease would have nothing to do with restricting the liquor traffic have found, too late, that the traffic had a terrible impact on them. They have seen their own children become alcoholics and ruined. Lawlessness runs riot. Property is in danger. Life is unsafe. Accidents by sea and by land multiply. Diseases that breed in an environment of filth and wretchedness make their way to lordly and luxurious homes. Vices fostered by the children of debauchery and crime infect the sons and daughters of refined and cultured households.
There is no one whose interests the liquor traffic does not imperil. There is no one who should not do everything possible to destroy it.
Above all other places having to do with secular interests only, legislative halls and courts of justice should be free from the curse of intemperance. Governors, senators, representatives, judges, people who enact and administer a nation’s laws, people who hold in their hands the lives, the reputation, the possessions of other humans, should be persons of strict temperance. Only thus can their minds be clear to discriminate between right and wrong. Only thus can they possess firmness of principle and wisdom to administer justice and show mercy.
But how does the record stand? Many of these authority figures have their minds beclouded, their sense of right and wrong confused, by strong drink. Many are the oppressive laws enacted, many the innocent persons condemned to death through the injustice of drinking lawmakers, witnesses, jurors, lawyers, and even judges. Many there are, “mighty at drinking wine,” and “men valiant for mixing intoxicating drink,” “who call evil good, and good evil,” “who justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away justice from the righteous man.” Of such God says:
“As the fire devours the stubble,The honor of God, the stability of the nation, the well-being of the community, of the home, and of the individual, demand that every possible effort be made to arouse the people to the evil of intemperance. Soon we shall see the result of this terrible evil as we do not see it now. Who will put forth a determined effort to halt the work of destruction? As yet the contest has hardly begun. Let an army be formed to stop the sale of the drugs and liquors that are making people mad. Let the danger from the liquor traffic be made plain and a public sentiment be created that shall demand its prohibition. Let drunks and alcoholics be given an opportunity to escape from their thralldom. Let the voice of the nation demand of its lawmakers that a stop be put to this infamous traffic.
And the flame consumes the chaff,
So their root will be as rottenness,
And their blossom will ascend like dust;
Because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts,
And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.”
Isaiah 5:20-24.
“Deliver those who are drawn toward death,
And hold back those stumbling to the slaughter.
If you say, ‘Surely we did not know this,’
Does not He who weighs the hearts consider it?
He who keeps your soul, does He not know it?”
“What will you say when He punishes you?”
Proverbs 24:11, 12; Jeremiah 13:21.