If a Believer Takes Wine Moderately, Does Not Get Drunk and Does Not Weaken His Brothers Conscience nor Hurt His Testimony, Has He Sinned?
1) Direct answer
No—if he truly remains sober, is not under its power, does not wound a weaker conscience, and his own heart is clear before God, he has not sinned. But the higher, cleaner way is abstinence.
2) Scriptural explanation
- The Bible shows real wine existed and could be used without sin in proper measure: Jesus made wine at Cana (John 2:10), and Timothy was told, “use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake” (1 Timothy 5:23).
- Drunkenness and being influenced by drink are condemned: “Be not drunk with wine” (Ephesians 5:18); drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom (1 Corinthians 6:10; Galatians 5:21).
- Liberty is judged by love and conscience: “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth” (Romans 14:21). “Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth… whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:22–23).
- Wisdom warns of its snare: “Wine is a mocker” (Proverbs 20:1); “Look not thou upon the wine… at the last it biteth like a serpent” (Proverbs 23:31–32).
3) Simple clarifying logic
- The sin is not in the mere existence of wine, but in loss of sobriety, bondage, and harmful influence.
- If there is no drunkenness, no offense, and no self-condemnation, there is no sin in that act. Yet the safest testimony and the strongest walk is to abstain, to avoid the snare, and to be filled with the Spirit rather than influenced by wine (Ephesians 5:18).
4) Reinforcing statement
You see, the Bible does not command drunkenness; it commands sobriety. But love chooses the higher road. Abstinence keeps the vessel clean and the witness bright.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
Believing God
52-0224 §37
You get what I mean? Then in there is a spirit, and from there is your immortal life. Then, "A man that's born of the Spirit of God does not commit sin." You get the Scripture straightened out then. If he, if ... "The worshiper once purged has no more desire of sin, or no more conscience of it." In the Old Testament, the worshiper come in and offered his sacrifice, went back out with the same desire to sin. But here, here it is, get it, Hebrews said, "When the worshiper, in this case, who puts his hands on the Son...
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever
61-0516A §5
...mind. There's only one sin. Now drinking, gambling, committing adultery, using profanity, that isn't sin. That's the attributes of unbelief. Jesus said, "He that believeth not is condemned already." In the days of our Lord He found many men who lived holy lives---clean, respectable gentlemen. And they were scholars, masterpieces of scholarship. And yet He said to them, "You are of your father the devil," because they did not believe Him. The message, they did not believe. That made them unbelievers. He could not h...
We would see Jesus
61-0208 §16
...s---there the heart is also. And what makes people want to go to things of the world? You know the reason you do that? The reason people does that? What makes a man want to get drunk? What makes people want to act the way they do? The world. What would a person stay home on Wednesday night, from a prayer meeting, to watch a certain television program? What would they do that for? It's because there is something in them that desires to be satisfied. There's a little place in a man's heart, or a woman's heart, and Go...
When their eyes were opened
56-0420 §7
What is sin? Unbelief. Smoking, drinking, committing adultery, lying, stealing, that's not sin. That's the attributes of sin. You do that because you're an unbeliever. If you was a believer, you wouldn't do that, see. Just because you quit drinking, and quit smoking, and quit drinking and committing adultery, that doesn't make you a Christian. You're a Christian because you are a believer, see. You are a sinner, you do the things that you ought not, because the life that's in you makes you do it. The tree's known b...
Position of a believer in Christ
55-0227A §50
Now, how in the Old Testament... The first thing the believer... If he committed adultery, or if he did anything evil, he went and got a lamb. He took the lamb up to the priest. The priest looked the lamb over, not the believer; he looked the lamb. He never seen the believer. He didn't care nothing about the believer. The believer wasn't even in the picture. The believer come and presented a lamb. Oh, brother. Oh, if you could only see it. You say, "Well, I--I know what I done when I was a young man. I--I know when...