酒类交易与基督为敌
怀爱伦
耶稣来到我们的世界，要争撒但的权威，撒但声称自己对地球有至高无上的霸权。耶稣来在人类身上恢复那被毁损了的上帝形像，赐给悔改的人神能，使他能藉以超越腐败和堕落，得到提升，成为高贵，适合与天使作伴。但人却没能与耶稣在祂的神圣使命上合作，反而置身于黑暗之君的黑旗之下，献身作黑暗权势藉以毁灭人类的媒介。撒但的目的是要抵消基督的工作，在他的议会中，他制定了计划，要使每一个人都成为黑暗的渠道。地球乃是战场，光明和权势和黑暗的权势正在其上争夺基督为之而死的人类灵魂。{PH141 1.1}
当耶稣在地上时，祂宣布了自己的使命和工作的性质。祂说：“主的灵在我身上，因为祂用膏膏我，叫我传福音给贫穷的人;差遣我报告：被掳的得释放，瞎眼的得看见，叫那受压制的得自由，报告上帝悦纳人的禧年”(路4:18,19)。{PH141 1.2}
基督和祂的同工们的使命和工作就这样被描绘出来了，但黑暗之君的作为和那些在他那边作工之人的作为却多么不同啊。那些与黑暗之君联合起来使同胞的灵魂降格的人，往往用宗教的外衣掩盖他们的罪孽，但主却论到他们说：“你们举手祷告，我必遮眼不看;就是你们多多的祈祷，我也不听。你们的手都满了杀人的血”(1:15)。那些把酒卖给同胞的人受到这种指责。他们向酒徒收了钱，却没有给他等价的东西。相反，他们卖给他的东西令他发狂，使他变成一个残忍的恶魔。他在酒商的酒吧里用他的理性交换了一杯朗姆酒或白兰地，在它的影响下，他可能残忍地虐待他的妻子和孩子，甚至可能直接杀死他们，或通过忽视，通过不给他们提供生活的必需品，逐步杀死他们。那些有醉酒丈夫的心碎女人，即使没有死于虐待或直接而可怕的谋杀，也一定死于饥饿、衣服不够穿，以及由于饮酒习惯所带来的贫穷、匮乏和痛苦而不断产生的堕落感和羞耻感。这些可怜的女人看到他们的孩子遭受苦难、被人轻视、受虐待、被贬低。她们看见他们因为与醉酒父亲的关系而被人轰赶嘲骂，甚至连卖酒的人也不小心避免施加侮辱伤害。所有的东西——衣服、食物、舒适、家庭的自尊、幸福与和平——都被吞没了，最后生命本身实际上也被舍弃了，成了酒贩子的牺牲品。{PH141 2.1}
但上帝的天使目睹了这条堕落道路的每一步，记录了人将酒瓶放在邻居嘴边所产生的每一个结果。酒商被列在双手沾满鲜血的人中。他被定罪是因为不断地销售有毒的饮料，使他的邻舍受到试探走向灭亡，许多家庭也因而充满不幸与堕落。上帝要酒商对他钱柜中从可怜的酒徒那里赚来的每一分钱负责。酒徒已完全丧失了道德力，将自己的人格淹没在酒中。{PH141 3.1}
基督来到我们的世界，遭受了羞辱、嘲弄和侮辱。祂被诬蔑和虐待，最后被可耻地钉死在十字架上。祂忍受了这一切，以便把人类从道德堕落中搭救出来，使灵魂恢复所失去的上帝的形像。但酒商却在黑暗权势之君的手下做着完全相反的事，反对基督的工作，正在抹杀基督所要恢复之形像的每一点痕迹。请看看酒徒。看看酒在他身上做了什么。他的双眼迷糊，布满血丝，面容肿胀恍惚，步履蹒跚。他的全身写满了撒但作为的记号。连自然本身都说她不认识他;因为他滥用了上帝所赐的能力，藉着纵饮而出卖了自己的人格。{PH141 3.2}
人若有一头恶兽，他虽知道它会伤害男人、女人和小孩，却让它自由，他就会被带到法律面前，要为他的粗心或恶意负责。但是把这样的恶兽松开会比允许人们销售有毒的饮料、使人丧失理性和人格好多少呢?给人发执照去卖那些毁灭人的身体和灵魂的东西，还说这种臭名昭著的买卖给国库带来了一笔收入，可以用来照顾酒徒的孤儿，这有什么常识呢?世人都知道，醉人的酒剥夺了人们脑神经的能力，把他们送进失去理智的社会。世人都知道，最可怕的罪行是在酒的影响下犯下的，也知道酒徒被撒但引导，照他的吩咐行，使他们的手沾满邻舍的血。法律授权酒类的销售，然后必须为受害者建造监狱;因为十分之九被关进监狱的人是那些已经学会喝酒的人。他们是那些把收入花在酒吧里的人。从这种交易获得的收入怎么能弥补人类理性的丧失、人身上上帝形像的丧失、许多家庭沦落到苦难和堕落中、孩子沦为乞丐，他们在无知和恶习中长大，把他们醉酒的父辈所遗传的邪恶倾向延续到他们的后代呢?这就是这种可怕的酒类交易的结果，它就这样使痛苦和犯罪永久化，直到人类的声音无法述说，笔墨也无法描述所有的悲惨状况。{PH141 4.1}
酒徒在狂饮的影响下不知道自己在做什么，可是那卖酒给他使他不负责任的人，在做他毁灭的工作时却受到法律的保护。他夺走寡妇维持生命的食物是合法的。他使受害者家庭的孩子挨饿，把无助的孩子赶到街上乞讨要饭也是合法的。日复一日，月复一月，年复一年，这些可耻的场面不断重复，直到酒商的良心像被烙铁烙惯了似的。受苦孩子的眼泪，母亲悲痛的哭喊，只会激怒卖酒的人。他不知道也不在意主有一笔账要跟他算。当他的受害者死亡时，他的铁石心肠无动于衷。他毫不迟疑地从酒徒那受苦的家庭收取债务，并且会把他家中极为必须的东西拿走，抵偿那已故丈夫和父亲的账单。如果那死人的孩子饿死，对他来说算什么呢?他看他们就像下贱无知的动物一样，他们被虐待，被踢来踢去，被降格;他一点也不关心他们的福利。{PH141 5.1}
在这片土地上到处都是酒店老板的房子，卖酒的地方——死亡陷阱，在那里不仅男人，而且年轻人和孩子都被众生之敌俘虏了。法律声称限制酒贩的工作，规定当一个人达到一定程度的醉酒状态时，就要拒绝给他喝酒。但是谁能判断一个人什么时候到了再喝就不安全的地步呢?这竟留给那些利用他可怜的受害者的弱点来获利的人去判断。而且没有法律禁止我们的年轻人酗酒。法律允许卖酒的人引导他们步步往下走，直到他们养成了喝酒的习惯，年轻人便成了酒鬼。把酒送给那已经毁了的可怜的酒鬼，总比给乡下和城里的如花少年，教育我们的青年养成这些可怕的习惯要好得多。难道立法者不明白他们将变成什么样子吗?——可怜的酒鬼，身心俱毁。我们的世界处在多么可怕的状况啊!{PH141 5.2}
酒徒并不是一无所能的。上帝也把才干赐给了他，可以用来荣耀祂。但是他的同胞却设下陷阱要陷害他，毁灭他来建造自己。他们自己过着奢侈的生活，而他们所抢夺的可怜弟兄，却生活在贫困和堕落中。有多少爱宴乐的人啊，他们花了成千上万的英镑来取悦和娱乐自己，满足自己的幻想，而世界上却充满了不幸和贫穷!先知描绘这些与撒但同工的人是在贬低上帝正设法提升的人。他说：“他们埋伏窥探，好像捕鸟的人;他们设立圈套陷害人。笼内怎样满了雀鸟，他们的房中也照样充满诡诈;所以他们得成为大，而且富足。他们肥胖光润，作恶过甚，不为人伸冤，就是不为孤儿伸冤，不使他亨通，也不为穷人辨屈”(耶5:26-28)。{PH141 6.1}
统治者和立法者们并非不知道因酒类交易的影响而污染世界的痛苦和堕落、恐怖和不断的犯罪。但他们尽管并非无知，却不采取措施去阻止这种可怕的交易;然而他们岂能逃脱审判呢?“耶和华说：我岂不因这些事讨罪呢?岂不报复这样的国民呢”(耶5:29)?上帝必向那帮助酒鬼在灭亡之路上加速前进之人的手中追讨这一切。“悖逆的和犯罪的必一同败亡”(赛 1:28)。那些使酒类交易合法化的、那些靠酒类交易得利的，和那些被烈酒玷污的，都必一同败亡。那纵情饮酒的人不要以为可以通过责怪卖酒的人来遮掩自己的污秽;他将不得不为自己的罪、为他妻儿的堕落负责任。“离弃耶和华的必致消灭”(赛1:28)。{PH141 7.1}
放纵堕落食欲的恶果广泛漫延，地被其上的居民败坏了。地在其罪的咒诅之下枯干。麻烦是什么呢?为什么这样呢?——因为百姓离弃了上帝的律法，地就在其罪过之下受了咒诅。尽管有上帝圣言的警告，自从亚当的日子以来，罪过还是增加了，而且咒诅越来越沉重地压迫着人类家庭、地上的走兽和大地本身。持续违犯上帝的律法已经带来了其必然的结果。撒但用他所有的鬼把戏设法诱导人们陷入会毁灭人败坏人的恶习中，那不悔改也不转向上帝求医治之恩的人必然灭亡。{PH141 7.2}
卖酒的和饮酒的，手都满了血，上帝的道却临到他们：“你们要洗濯、自洁，从我眼前除掉你们的恶行，要止住作恶，学习行善，寻求公平，解救受欺压的;给孤儿伸冤，为寡妇辨屈。”祂又加上这个恩慈的邀请：“耶和华说：你们来，我们彼此辩论。你们的罪虽像朱红，必变成雪白;虽红如丹颜，必白如羊毛。你们若甘心听从，必吃地上的美物，若不听从，反倒悖逆，必被刀剑吞灭。这是耶和华亲口说的”(赛1:16-20)。{PH141 8.1}
PH141 - The Liquor Traffic Working Counter to Christ
(Mrs. E. G. White)
Jesus came to our world to dispute the authority of Satan, who claimed supremacy over the earth. He came to restore in man the defaced image of God, to impart to the repentant soul divine power by which he might be raised from corruption and degradation, and be elevated and ennobled, and made fit for companionship with the angels of heaven. But men have failed to co-operate with Jesus in his divine mission, and have placed themselves under the black banner of the prince of darkness, giving themselves up to be the agents through which the powers of darkness work for the destruction of humanity. It is Satan’s purpose to counteract the work of Christ, and in his counsels he lays plans by which to convert every soul into a channel of darkness. The earth is the field of battle in which the powers of light and darkness are in controversy over the human soul for whom Christ died.?{PH141 1.1}[1]
When Jesus was upon earth, He announced his mission and the character of his work. He said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath?anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor: He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”?Luke 4:18, 19.?{PH141 1.2}[2]
Thus is pictured the mission and work of Christ and his co-labourers, but how different is the work of the prince of darkness, and the work of those who labour on his side of the controversy. Those who are united with the prince of darkness in degrading the souls of their fellow-men, often cloak their iniquity under the garb of religion, but of them the Lord says, “When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood”?Isaiah 1:15. Those who sell strong drink to their fellow-men come under this reproof. They receive the earnings of the drunkard, and give him no equivalent for his money. Instead of this, they give him that which maddens him, and turns him into a demon of cruelty. He exchanges his reason at the bar of the liquor-dealer for a glass of rum or brandy, and under its influence he may treat his wife and children with cruel abuse, and may even kill them outright, or do so by degrees, through neglect, through failure to supply them with the necessities of life. The heart-broken women who have inebriate husbands, if they do not die of abuse or of outright and horrible murder, do die from the effects of starvation, insufficient clothing, and a continual sense of degradation and shame through the poverty, want, and suffering that are consequent upon the drink habit. These poor women see their children suffering, despised, abused, debased?They see them hooted at because of their relation to their drunken fathers, and even the liquor-seller is not careful to refrain from adding insult to injury. Everything,—clothing, food, comfort, home self-respect, happiness, and peace, is swallowed up, and at last life itself is practically laid down, a sacrifice to the liquor-dealer.?{PH141 2.1}[3]
But angels of God have witnessed every step in the downward path, and have traced every consequence that resulted from a man’s placing the bottle to his neighbour’s lips. The liquor-dealer is written in the records among those whose hands are full of blood. He is condemned for keeping on sale the poisonous draught by which his neighbour is tempted to ruin, and by which homes are filled with wretchedness and degradation. The Lord holds the liquor-dealer responsible for every penny and shilling that comes to his till out of the earnings of the poor drunkard, who has lost all moral power, who has sunk his manhood in drink.?{PH141 3.1}[4]
Christ came to our world and suffered reproach, mockery, and insult. He was maligned and maltreated, and at last put to the shameful death of the cross. He suffered all this that He might rescue man from moral degradation, and restore to the soul the lost image of God. But the liquor-dealer, under the prince of the power of darkness, is working in exactly opposite lines, counter to the work of Christ, and is obliterating every trace of the image which Christ would restore. Look at the drunkard. See what liquor has done for him. His eyes are bleared and bloodshot. His countenance is bloated and besotted. His gait is staggering. The sign of Satan’s working upon him is written all over?him. Nature herself protests that she knows him not; for he has perverted his God-given powers, and prostituted his manhood by indulgence in drink.?{PH141 3.2}[5]
If a man has a vicious beast, and he allows it freedom, knowing that it will work injury to men, women, and children, he is brought before the law to answer for his carelessness or malignity. But how much better would it be to let such a beast loose, than to license men to deal out poisonous drinks, to rob men of reason and manhood? What common sense is there in licensing men to sell that which destroys men body and soul, claiming that this infamous business brings into the treasury a revenue by which the orphan children of the drunkard can be cared for? The world knows that intoxicating liquor robs men of the brain-nerve power, and sends them into society bereft of reason. The world knows that most horrible crimes have been committed under its influence, and that drunken men have been led by Satan to do as he dictated, and stain their hands in the blood of their neighbours. The law authorises the sale of liquor, and then has to build prisons for its victims; for nine-tenths of those who are taken to prison are those who have learned to drink. They are those who have spent their earnings in the bar-room. What revenue from this traffic can pay for the loss of human reason, for the loss of the image of God in men, for families reduced to suffering and degradation, for children made paupers, who grow up in ignorance and vice, to perpetuate in their posterity the inherited evil tendencies of their drunken fathers? This is the outworking of this dreadful liquor traffic, and thus it perpetuates misery and crime until the sum of wretchedness?cannot be told by human voice or portrayed by human pen.?{PH141 4.1}[6]
The drunkard has no knowledge of what he is doing when under the influence of the maddening draught, and yet he who sells him that which makes him irresponsible, is protected by the law in his work of destruction. It is legal for him to rob the widow of the food she requires to sustain life. It is legal for him to entail starvation upon the family of his victim, to send helpless children into the streets to beg for a penny or to beseech for a morsel of bread. Day by day, month by month, year by year, these shameful scenes are re-enacted, until the conscience of the liquor-dealer is seared as with a red-hot iron. The tears of suffering children, the agonised cry of the mother, only serve to exasperate the rumseller. He knows not, nor cares, that the Lord has an account to settle with him. And when his victim is dead, his heart of stone is unmoved. He does not hesitate to collect the debts of the drunkard from his suffering family, and will take the very necessaries from the home to pay the drink bill of the deceased husband and father. What is it to him if the children of the dead starve? He looks upon them as debased and ignorant creatures, who have been abused, kicked about, and degraded, and he has no care for their welfare.?{PH141 5.1}[7]
All over the land are the houses of the publican, the places of the liquor vendors,—death-traps, where not only men but youth and children are taken captive by the enemy of souls. The law professes to restrict the work of the liquor-seller by providing that when a man reaches a certain state of inebriety, he is to be denied?drink. But who is to judge as to when one has reached the stage where it is unsafe for him to drink more? This is left to the man who is making gain by the weakness of his wretched victim. And there is no law against making our youth into drunkards. The law permits the liquor-vendors to lead them down step by step, until the liquor habit is established, and the young men are drunkards. Better, far better, would it be to give the liquor to the poor, confirmed drunkard who has already been ruined, than to take the very flower of the country and city, and educate our youth in these dreadful habits. Do not the law-makers understand what they will become,—poor inebriates, ruined in body and soul? O, what a terrible condition our world is in!?{PH141 5.2}[8]
The drunkard is capable of better things. God has intrusted to him talents with which he was to glorify God; but his fellow-men have laid a snare for his soul, and built themselves up out of his ruin. They have lived in luxury, while their poor brethren whom they have robbed, lived in poverty and degradation. O, how many pleasure-lovers there are, who spend their thousands of pounds to please and amuse themselves, and to gratify their fancies, while the world is full of distress and poverty! The prophet describes these co-labourers with Satan, who are degrading those whom God is seeking to uplift. He says, “They lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit; therefore they are become great, and waxen rich. They are waxen fat, they shine; yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked; they judge not?the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge.”?Jeremiah 5:26.?{PH141 6.1}[9]
Rulers and law-makers are not ignorant of the misery and degradation, the horrible and unceasing crime, that pollute the world through the influence of the liquor traffic. But though they are not ignorant, they do not take measures to stop the terrible traffic; but shall they escape judgment? “Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” God will require for all this at the hand of him who has helped to speed the drunkard on the way to ruin. “The destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together.” Those who legalise the liquor traffic, and those who make gain by it, and those who are defiled through strong drink, shall be destroyed together. Let not the man who indulges in drink think that he will be able to cover his defilement by casting the blame upon the liquor-dealer; for his own sin for the degradation of his wife and children, he will have to answer. “They that forsake the Lord shall be consumed.”?Isaiah 1:28.?{PH141 7.1}[10]
The evil consequent upon the indulgence of depraved appetite is wide-spread, and the earth is corrupted under the inhabitants thereof. The earth withereth under the curse of its sin. What is the trouble? Why is this?—It is because the people have forsaken the law of God, and the earth is cursed under its transgression. Notwithstanding the warnings of God’s Word, transgression. has increased since the days of Adam, and more and more heavily has the curse pressed upon the human family, on the beasts of the earth, and on the earth itself. Continual transgression of the law of God?has brought its sure results. With all his hellish arts Satan has sought to lead men into practices that would destroy and debase, and destruction is sure to him who does not repent and turn to God for his healing grace.?{PH141 7.2}[11]
The hands of the liquor-dealers and liquor-drinkers are full of blood; yet the word of God comes to them, “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.” And He adds this gracious invitation: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”?Isaiah 1:16-20.?{PH141 8.1}[12]
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