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Temperance
drunkards through our influence? We are living in the antitypical
day of atonement, and our cases must soon come in review before
God. How shall we stand in the courts of heaven, if our course of
action has encouraged the use of stimulants that pervert reason and
are destructive of virtue, purity, and the love of God?—
Testimonies
5:358, 359
.
The Love of Money Not to Mislead
—I have a few acres of
land that, when I purchased it, was set out to wine grapes; but I
will not sell one pound of these grapes to any winery. The money I
should get for them would increase my income; but rather than aid
the cause of intemperance by allowing them to be converted into
wine, I would let them decay upon the vines....
The love of money will lead men to violate conscience. Perhaps
that very money may be brought to the Lord’s treasury; but He
will not accept any such offering, it is an offense to Him. It was
obtained by transgressing His law, which requires that a man love
his neighbor as himself. It is no excuse for the transgressor to say
that if he had not made wine or cider, somebody else would, and
his neighbor might have become a drunkard just the same. Because
some will place the bottle to their neighbor’s lips, will Christians
venture to stain their garments with the blood of souls,—to incur the
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curse pronounced upon those who place this temptation in the way
of erring men? Jesus calls upon His followers to stand under His
banner and aid in destroying the works of the devil.
The world’s Redeemer, who knows well the state of society in
the last days, represents eating and drinking as the sins that condemn
this age. He tells us that as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be
when the Son of man is revealed. “They were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered
into the ark, and knew not until the Flood came, and took them all
away.” Just such a state of things will exist in the last days, and those
who believe these warnings will use the utmost caution not to take a
course that will bring them under condemnation.—
The Review and
Herald, March 25, 1884
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In the Light of Scripture, Nature, and Reason
—In the light
of what the Scriptures, nature, and reason teach concerning the use
of intoxicants, how can Christians engage in the raising of hops for
beermaking, or in the manufacture of wine or cider for the market?