Charlton Rhinehart

There is a restaurant that my family and I often eat at and across the road from that restaurant is a liquor store. I have noticed the store a time or two, once there was a man stumbling around out front of the store that my wife and I watched for a moment, but aside from that I have paid the store very little attention. Recently I was leaving yet again from our favorite restaurant, and as I pulled out onto the main road I noticed that far down from the liquor store was shelves and shelves of liquor. I did a double take as pulled out onto the road watching careful for traffic coming also, but I had to see; was that liquor store really that big? It was that big, the store went down much further in the shopping center than I thought it did. I was impressed to see all the bottles that I did on those loaded shelves, and just to think it stretched all the way down to that entrance and beyond was surprising. I thought to myself, “that’s a lot of liquor”.

I was driving alone this time having drove separate from my family, and that gave me time to think. I wasn’t trying to think on the alcohol, it gives me hardly any temptation and perhaps even more disgust to dwell on it, but still I thought about all those bottles in that store. My first thought was that’s a lot of money – a lot of value to all those bottles, which lead to the next thought, that’s a lot of drunkenness. My mind wondered on still picturing all those rows and rows of bottles, I wonder how many DUI’s those bottles will cause? Worse yet, how many of those bottles will lead to wrecks on the road – or how many family’s will loose someone in one of those wrecks? I wonder how many will lose their job because of one of those bottles, as I thought of the man at work that most recently lost his job to his last DUI. That’s a lot of problems, that’s a lot of liquor.

That’s a lot of hangovers and miserable days. That’s a lot of money, not just the $50 bottles of vodka or tequila, but the wastefulness of a man under it’s influence for the night. That’s a lot of fights, arguments and hurt feelings. A lot of black eyes – physical and to the reputation. That’s a lot of bold words with no thought texted, and lot of apologies and shame in the following days. That’s a lot of foolish choices, that’s a lot of liquor.

That’s a lot cheap laughs at sinful things that should be despised (1 Cor 13:6). That’s a lot of excuses to sleep with a person that isn’t yours. That’s a lot of fornication, adultery and divorce. That’s a lot of broken homes, children with heartaches, and children tempted to turn to sin as they grow up empty. That’s a lot of missed house payments and bankruptcy. A lot of cost to society, but all our city council sees is the initial tax revenue. That’s a lot heavy cost to us all, that’s a lot of liquor.

Half of the liquor stores in my home town are still called package stores because there was a time when we were ashamed to admit what we had permitted to be sold. Instead, when we think of a liquor store or restaurant bar now, we think of dollar signs, good times, and prominent men making big business deals over a drink. We have somehow learned to ignore the true cost of alcohol.

There was a time when I would have liked to walk into that liquor store and pick out a bottle or two like I did at others. A time when all of those rows of liquor would have been appealing to me though I thought I was a Christian, liberalism told me I was fine. I can see beyond the appeal of such folly now thanks to truth and I can see what each of those bottles really are, and I can despise it. I am sure most all of these problems were sitting on one of those shelves of this store, and I am sure at least some of these problems were in each of these bottles. That’s a lot of problems, that’s a lot of  liquor.

“Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine, And valiant men in mixing strong drink;” (Isa 5:22) NASB.

“Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? Those who linger over wine, those who go to taste mixed wine. Do not look on the wine when it is red, When it sparkles in the cup, When it goes down smoothly; At the last it bites like a serpent, And stings like a viper” (Psalm 23:29-32).