Drunkenness

In 1900, a former schoolteacher named Carrie Nation walked into a bar in Kiowa, Kansas, proclaimed, “Men, I have come to save you from a drunkard’s fate,” and proceeded to hurl bricks and stones at bottles of liquor. The men, interested less in spiritual salvation and more in physical safety, fled to a corner. Nation destroyed three saloons that day, using a billiard ball when she ran out of bricks and rocks, which she called “smashers.” She eventually—and famously—switched to a hatchet, using it across years of attacks on what she considered to be the cause of society’s moral failings. The movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries—which eventually brought about Prohibition—considered alcohol to be unhealthy for women, families, and the general state of humanity.

In modern times, the Dry January challenge began in 2012 as a public health initiative. Dry January is choosing not to drink beer, wine, or spirits for one month. In a 2025 article for The Atlantic Shayla Love writes that younger generations are staying away from the booze at higher rates than previous generations, sparking the rise of a neo-temperance movement. This new drop in alcohol consumption is not about the moral tragedies of drinking (alcoholism or drunk driving), but self-improvement and wellness:

Today’s sober-curious post on Instagram about how Dry January has reduced their inflammation, sharpened their jawline, and improved their sleep score. The sanctity of the home, or the overall moral health of society — not to mention the 37 Americans who die in drunk-driving crashes every day — appears to be less of a concern […]

In a 2020 Gallup poll, 86 percent of respondents said that drinking alcohol was morally acceptable, an increase from 78 percent in 2018. By contrast, more than half of young adults surveyed in 2023 expressed concerns about the health risks of moderate drinking.

In an article in Esquire, Denzel Washington discussed his past drinking problems:

Wine is very tricky. It’s very slow. It ain’t like, boom, all of a sudden. And part of it was we built this big house in 1999 with a ten-thousand-bottle wine cellar, and I learned to drink the best. So, I’m gonna drink my ’61s and my ’82s and whatever we had. Wine was my thing, and now I was popping $4,000 bottles just because that’s what was left.

I never drank while I was working or preparing. I would clean up, go back to work—I could do both. However, many months of shooting, bang, it’s time to go. Then, boom. Three months of wine, then time to go back to work.

I’m sure at first it was easy because I was younger. Two months off and let’s go. But drinking was a fifteen-year pattern… I never got strung out on heroin. Never got strung out on coke. Never got strung out on hard drugs.

I wasn’t drinking when we filmed Flight, I know that, but I’m sure I did as soon as I finished. That was getting toward the end of the drinking, but I knew a lot about waking up and looking around, not knowing what happened… I’ve done a lot of damage to the body. We’ll see. I’ve been clean. (It will) be ten years this December. I stopped at sixty and I haven’t had a thimble’s worth since.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Bible repeatedly warns that excessive alcohol use leads to sorrow, physical ailments, impaired judgment, addiction, and social or spiritual decline. While moderate use is not universally condemned, the scriptural emphasis is clear: alcohol, especially in excess, is hard on the human body and soul.

Every year, 2.8 million people around the globe die from alcohol abuse or misuse. The alcohol industry racks up an annual revenue of $1.5 trillion. Alcohol is also the leading cause of death globally for people age 15–49. It causes more than half of the 1.35 million traffic fatalities every year and is involved in the majority of homicides and cases of domestic violence.

Furthermore, despite the widespread belief that moderate alcohol consumption is good for your health, the only amount of alcohol consumption that doesn’t carry significant risk to your overall health is none.

Fifteen years ago, Sherry Hoppen was a mom of three, a ministry leader in her church, and a volunteer at her local pregnancy center when her younger brother was killed in a drunk driving accident. The tragedy triggered her own slow spiral into alcoholism—one that nearly destroyed her marriage and her life.

Over the next decade, Hoppen evolved from a casual drinker to an addict who barely recognized herself, always secretly drinking or causing scenes at family holidays due to her dependence. Like many who struggle, she thought she could “fix” herself and moderate her drinking, even as she daily hid vodka-filled water bottles inside her purse.

Hoppen said, “I was scared to tell anybody because I knew if I did, my drinking days were over. And I didn’t want people to see [our family] fail.”

Her husband was a church elder, she led the children’s church choir, and they were beloved business-people in their small Michigan community. She said, “I couldn’t imagine letting anybody see what was really going on. I didn’t want to go to rehab because . . . everybody knows if you go to rehab, including my kids.”

It took Hoppen four more years after recognizing her dependence to commit to sobriety. Her story as a churchgoing suburban mom concealing alcohol addiction is increasingly common. In 2023, around 9 percent of adult women in the US struggled with alcoholism—about 11.7 million women. This means that in an average church of 500 people, at least 20 women attending likely struggle with alcohol dependence as well.

Alcohol abuse is rarely discussed with or even known by a woman’s closest friends or spouse. Until recent decades, alcohol brands marketed themselves primarily to men. In the 1990s, however, the industry recognized that women were an under-tapped market. This led to the introduction of sugary drinks for “entry-level drinkers.” A decade later, “skinny” versions of premade cocktails launched for women who wanted low-calorie options. Rates of alcohol use disorder rose by 83% between 2002 and 2013, on par with the rise in feminized alcohol marketing.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Our silent shame robs others of community, solidarity, and support. Churches have an opportunity to meet women in the midst of their brokenness. People ultimately just want to belong, feel seen, and not be judged in their brokenness.

While booze has, for thousands of years now, been the most socially acceptable form of self-medication, its many health detriments have pushed some to seek alternatives: shrooms, weed, pharmaceuticals, kratom, or some other wellness industry offering.

But why not just skip the drugs? What’s so bad about sobriety? In an article in Vox, Rebecca Jennings notes: “The world is really tough. The world has only gotten more anxiety-inducing and more challenging over the past decade or so. People are looking to numb out, they want to medicate their anxiety.”

But Jennings concludes with some startling observations about the movement, ones that point well beyond alcohol replacements:

There’s a dream that basically everyone in the world shares. It’s the dream of an alcohol that isn’t quite alcohol but almost is — a substance that will make you feel free and happy and sexy and chatty but also won’t get you addicted, won’t shave years off your life, won’t make you groggy and achy and anxious the next day. It’s the dream of a substance from which taking an entire month off as part of an annual challenge would be laughably absurd because why would anyone ever need a break from it?

Possible Preaching Angle:

If this sounds like the search for utopia, you’d be right. For her part, Jennings is deeply skeptical this utopia is ever possible: “Such a substance could never be more than fantasy because of course human beings would find a way to render it destructive.” But for Christians there is the always available, always effective promises of God (Psa. 23:1-3; Phil. 4:6-7).

According to court documents, Sean Higgins had been working from home when he fielded an upsetting call with his mother about a personal matter. But he’d also been drinking, which according to his wife, had become a pattern as of late. So clearly there were many issues that contributed to the sense of chaos and discord in his life. But none were more destructive than his choice to get behind the wheel of his Jeep and drive, while talking on the phone, with an open container of alcohol in the car.

Later that evening, Higgins was driving down a rural road when the two vehicles in front of him slowed and veered to the left to avoid two bicyclists in the roadway. But Higgins was impatient, so he instead accelerated and tried to pass those vehicles on the right. Higgins didn’t see the two cyclists until it was too late. He drove his vehicle into them, and both cyclists were killed.

This instance of vehicular death would be a tragedy under any set of circumstances, but it just so happened that those men were Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau. Johnny played hockey for the Columbus Blue Jackets of the National Hockey League, and he and his brother Matthew were scheduled to be groomsmen for their sister’s wedding in Philadelphia the next day. Johnny and Matt were both married; Johnny had two children and Matt’s wife was pregnant at the time of the crash.

“Johnny and Matt were incredible hockey players and students, but even more amazing human beings,” said Gloucester principal Thomas Iacovone Jr. in a statement. “Their loss will be felt forever by the entire Gloucester Catholic community and by me personally. I will continue to pray for them and their families during this unimaginable tragedy.”

Sean Higgins served in the United States Army as a second lieutenant for four years, and had earned a Bronze Star during a 15-month tour of duty in Iraq. He also served as a major in the New Jersey National Guard. During a recorded phone call from jail, Higgins admitted that he had a problem with aggressive driving.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Given Higgins’ domestic conflicts and propensity for drinking, it’s obvious he had issues adjusting to civilian life. If only he’d had the humility to ask for help sooner, he might have developed a set of healthier coping habits that could have prevented this tragedy.

When police in North Yorkshire, UK arrested a man for drunk driving, their social media post announcing the arrest revealed a surprising source of intel – the man himself. The post said, “Well, it’s not every day that this happens. A suspected drunk-driver (willingly turned) themselves in to the police.”

According to authorities, the man dialed 999 on a Monday morning, gave the call handler his location, explained that he’d had a heavy weekend, and that he was drunk behind the wheel and doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Police quickly located his vehicle, a black transit van, and after administering a breathalyzer test found that his blood alcohol level was over three times the legal limit. He was swiftly arrested.

A similar situation arose in the United States in March 2023, where a motorist in Lancaster, Nebraska dialed emergency responders to report that a car almost collided into him driving the wrong way on the freeway, unaware that he himself was the wrong-way driver.

In both cases, officers were fortunate enough to arrest the offenders before any significant injuries occurred.

Possible Preaching Angles:

No matter how bad a situation someone may have gotten into, it’s never too late for them to admit they have done wrong and seek restoration and healing.

Actor Matthew Perry, best known for playing Chandler Bing on the hit TV show Friends, recently died at the age of 54. Perry was cast in Friends, the sitcom that shot him to fame, at age 24. He starred as Chandler for the sitcom's entire 10-season run, a sarcastic yet affable fellow.

According to an obituary on NPR,

[B]ehind the scenes, Perry struggled with addiction. He opened up about his decades-long excessive use of alcohol and pills in his memoir published in 2022, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing. In the book, which he dedicated to fellow sufferers of addiction, he detailed his painful struggle with drug use and his related health problems: He said he'd spent half of his life in treatment, detoxed an estimated 65 times and underwent 14 surgeries.

Perry estimated that he had spent more than $7 million over 15 rehab stays treating his addictions to drugs and alcohol. While on set, Perry tried to hide his addiction problem, which he said went hand-in-hand with the pressure to get laughs. Perry wrote in his memoir:

I felt like I was gonna die if the live audience didn't laugh, and that's not healthy for sure. But I could sometimes say a line and the audience wouldn't laugh and I would sweat and sometimes go into convulsions. If I didn't get the laugh I was supposed to get I would freak out. I felt that every single night. This pressure left me in a bad place. I also knew of the six people making that show, only one of them was sick.

The term “deaths of despair” was coined in 2015 by Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton. The researchers were seeking to find what was causing the decline in U.S. life expectancies in the later part of the 20th century. They discovered the dramatic increase in death rates for middle-aged, white non-Hispanic men and women was coming from three causes: drug overdoses, suicide, and alcoholic liver disease. Deaths from these causes have increased between 56 percent and 387 percent and average 70,000 per year.

The researchers said, “The pillars that once helped give life meaning—a good job, a stable home life, a voice in the community—have all eroded.” Those pillars are certainly important, but another factor may have an even more detrimental effect.

Research suggests a potential cause of deaths of despair could be the decline in religious participation that began in the late 1980s. The researchers found “there is a strong negative relationship between religiosity and mortality due to deaths of despair.”

In 2010, country singer Jason Aldean released a song called “Church Pew or Bar Stool” in which he complains about how he’s stuck in a “church pew or bar stool kind of town.” He sings, “There’s only two means of salvation around here that seem to work / Whiskey or the Bible, a shot glass or revival.” That’s a crude dichotomy, but it appears to increasingly be the choice many Americans face. They’ll either find hope from a community of faith or the lonely despair that leads them to self-medicate with alcohol and drugs.

When Heather Kopp arrived at rehab, she was a 40-something mom of two and a veteran of Christian publishing. She had never been in jail or on the streets, she’d simply let a nightly glass of wine turn into two, which turned into a bottle, which eventually led to additional mini bottles hidden and secretly chugged in the bathroom. Soon enough, every moment of her life revolved around her next chance to sneak away for a drink.

Karen’s story opens a window into the mind of a burgeoning alcoholic. But as she moved through her rehab and recovery phases into her struggle to understand God’s presence amid her alcoholism, she arrives at a universal truth: Substance abuse is a physical manifestation of a spiritual addiction to sin. And everyone, it turns out, is an addict.

But this isn’t a story of how addiction led Karen to God, or how God pulled her out of addiction. Instead, Karen’s story is one of confronting the nature of sin and understanding more fully the necessity and beauty of God’s grace.

Karen now reflects on her sobriety, “(People) think I just resist temptation over and over because I’m a good person or because I have all this willpower. Can you imagine? How do you explain to people that it’s not anything like that?” Recovery is a living example of the miracle of grace. When addiction removes the illusion of self-sufficiency, the addict must reach a point of surrender from which to accept grace without conditions, and to have confidence that God really is in control, no matter what.

Possible Preaching Angle

It’s tempting for the nonalcoholic to hear Karen’s story about alcoholism as a detached observer. We can marvel at the depths from which God can save a person from pursuits that bring only harm, pain, and grief—and thank him that we haven’t fallen as far. But Karen’s story reminds us that we are each living our own addiction story. And we can’t lose sight of the complete and total dependence on God’s sustaining grace that offers any hope of a way out. Whatever your addiction, God’s grace is the only hope for a way out.

The following was taken from a newsletter for a medical group, not a Christian organization:

Do you indulge in a glass of wine every now and then? You are not alone. More than 85% of adults report drinking alcohol at some point. In 2020, alcohol consumption in the U.S. spiked, with heavy drinking increasing by 41% among women.

Alcohol affects your body quickly. It is absorbed through the lining of your stomach into your bloodstream. Once there, it spreads into tissues throughout your body. Alcohol reaches your brain in only five minutes and starts to affect you within 10 minutes.

After 20 minutes, your liver starts processing alcohol. On average, the liver can metabolize 1 ounce of alcohol every hour. A blood alcohol level of 0.08, the legal limit for drinking, takes around five and a half hours to leave your system. Alcohol will stay in urine for up to 80 hours and in hair follicles for up to three months. Drivers with a BAC of 0.08 or more are 11 times more likely to be killed in a single-vehicle crash than non-drinking drivers.

During the late 18th century, Thomas Thetcher was a much-respected soldier by his fellow grenadiers in England. He was so revered that when he tragically died, his fellow soldiers commissioned a gravestone to memorialize his untimely demise. His death was not only untimely, but very bizarre, as it was not by sword, or gun, or cannon fire, but a drink that killed the soldier.

In a corner of the graveyard belonging to the Winchester Cathedral, Thetcher’s gravestone marks his final resting place. It also features this inscription:

In Memory of Thomas Thetcher a Grenadier in the North Reg. of Hants Militia, who died of a violent Fever contracted by drinking Small Beer when hot the 12 May 1764. Aged 26 Years.

Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire Grenadier,

Who caught his death by drinking cold small Beer,

Soldiers be wise from his untimely fall

And when ye’re hot drink Strong or none at all.

An Honest Soldier never is forgot

Whether he die by Musket or by Pot.

Many years later in 1918, an American soldier stationed in Winchester visited the cathedral and came across Thomas Thetcher’s grave. The soldier, Bill Wilson, was deeply affected by the inscription that even years after returning from the war, it may have saved his life.

Wilson became a successful businessman shortly after returning home, but within a few years his life was controlled by heavy drinking. His drinking was so detrimental to his health that it was believed the only way to save his life was to lock him away. Against all odds, Wilson along with a fellow group of alcoholics found a way to achieve and maintain sobriety. He eventually wrote a book about his experiences, a book that is world-renowned, Alcoholics Anonymous. Wilson would go on to co-found Alcoholics Anonymous. He considered the gravestone to be a major influence on his own recovery.

Editor’s Note: There is debate among medical professionals as to the cause of Thetcher’s death. Some medical professionals have proposed that Thetcher’s death was the result of fainting when a cold liquid is consumed on an extremely hot day. Others say that it is most likely that he passed from cholera or typhoid from a contaminated beer. Regardless of the cause, his death inspired the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous which has saved thousands of lives worldwide.

It’s no secret that many college students spend much of their four years at school drinking way more than they probably should. Now, a new study is actually putting a number on the plethora of unfortunate consequences that comes from a wild night of college drinking.

Over four years, researchers say the average college student deals with 102 alcohol-related consequences the morning after. These range from blacking out, suffering a hangover, being pressured to have sex with someone, or having to miss work or class because they drank too much the night before.

However, the team found one major factor keeps many students from overdoing it at a college party—strict, disapproving parents. Researchers say college students who thought their parents would disapprove of their alcohol-related dilemmas ended up reporting fewer negative incidents after drinking than their peers who partied harder.

Research professor Kimberly Mallet said, “Kids really look to their parents for guidance in a lot of ways even if they don’t outwardly say it. It’s empowering for parents to know that they can make a difference. We often think of peers as having an influence on drinking behaviors, but we found that parents can make a difference, even after their child has left home.”

Federal law enforcement officers were dispatched to the Gold Coast Airport in Queensland, Australia after a drunk, disorderly woman refused to follow the crew’s instructions. Jetstar Airlines explained the situation in a brief statement afterward. “The safety of our customers and crew is our number one priority and we have zero tolerance for disruptive behavior.”

The woman, who one TikTok user referred to as a “drunk Karen,” clearly wore out her welcome among the nearby passengers who had to endure her belligerent behavior. On the posted TikTok video, police can be seen entering the plane and forcibly removing her from the aircraft, while onlookers began chanting the chorus to a 1969 hit from the band Steam. “Na na nahhh na, na na nahh na, hey hey hey … goodbye.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

In the words of the ancient African American proverb: “God don't like ugly.” While we're not to seek vengeance because it belongs to God, it's natural to be relieved when wrongdoers experience the consequences of their actions.

The final straw in Pitt’s 11-year relationship with Angelina Jolie came in September 2016, when they fought about his drinking while aboard a private plane. Now, Pitt is committed to his sobriety. Pitt told a reporter, “I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges.” After she filed for divorce, Pitt spent a year and a half in Alcoholics Anonymous.

His recovery group was composed entirely of men, and Pitt was moved by their vulnerability. Pitt said, “You had all these men sitting around being open and honest in a way I have never heard. It was this safe space where there was little judgment, and therefore little judgment of yourself.”

Astonishingly, no one from the group sold Pitt’s stories to the tabloids. The men trusted one another, and in that trust, he found catharsis. “It was actually really freeing just to expose the ugly sides of yourself,” he said. “There’s great value in that.”

Pamela Perillo was on death row waiting for execution by lethal injection when she found Christ.

Pam grew up in the 1960s in Los Angeles. Two adults and five children struggled for living space in a tiny two-bedroom rental house. Church and the Bible were unknown. Her mother had a fiery temper and Pam always felt that she cared the least for her. That feeling led to a spiraling loss of self-esteem. When Pam was nine, her mother ran off with the cook where she worked as a waitress. She died in a car wreck shortly thereafter.

Pam’s father was an alcoholic who molested her. When the police investigated, her father and brothers convinced them that it was just a bad dream. She felt so isolated that at age 10 she ran away from home. She spent the next three years running away from foster homes and being sent to juvenile hall.

Pam writes:

At age 13, I met Sammy Perillo, who was 19. We crossed the border into Mexico and married in “quickie” fashion. Just like Sammy, I started shooting up with heroin. After he went to prison, I delivered his twins, but only one survived. I never saw Sammy again.

To support her drug habit and her son, Pam danced at a strip joint. She then teamed up with a man named Mike to rob a frequent customer. Fleeing California with Mike and his wife, they hitchhiked to Houston, Texas, where they were picked up by a stranger. Mike noticed that the man had a roll of money. High on PCP, they murdered him and his friend and left for Colorado.

When Pam realized she could no longer withstand the emotional upheaval within, she confessed to the police. She was extradited to Texas, where she had been indicted in absentia for capital murder. A swift trial followed, then a verdict of death by lethal injection.

Pam writes:

While I waited in Houston before my execution, a woman involved in prison ministry visited. This angel talked about Christ and his path to forgiveness and I recited the sinner’s prayer. After 24 years of being tossed about like a dry chunk of dirt, God poured in the waters of life and began molding me for his purpose.

When I first accepted Jesus, I felt a change, but I found it hard to believe the change was for real. How could God ever forgive me for the horrible crime I had committed? My soul was in torment.

Then Pam met Karla Faye Tucker on death row. Karla Faye’s redemption was dramatic and the subject of movies. Her commitment to Christ resounded throughout the world before her execution. And her magnificent conversion was the spiritual cement that Pam needed. She said, “I knew then that in Christ, God can forgive anyone, no matter how severe their transgressions.”

Pam says:

In 2000, I received welcome news: My sentence had been reduced from death to life in prison. And today, after nearly 40 years of incarceration, I give thanks for how God directed my path to salvation. As grateful as I am to have escaped death row, I am a thousand times more grateful for the promise of eternal life. Fortunately, the Texas prison system allows for church and Bible-study groups, and I have shared my testimony on many occasions.

Editor’s Note: Today Pamela Perillo trains service dogs for disabled veterans through the Patriot PAWS program.

Taylor Grant was convicted in May 2022 of aggravated assault and possession of a firearm in connection with a shooting. According to authorities, Grant was at a party at his cousin’s home when a game of UNO got heated and turned into a verbal altercation with another man.

Prosecutors say that Grant shot the man once in the bicep, and threatened to fatally wound him. The Assistant District Attorney said, “Intoxication seemed to be the catalyst. However, it was no excuse for the excessive force that Grant used.”

The victim of the shooting initially claimed his wounds were the result of a drive-by shooting, and claimed not to know the perpetrator. However, after undergoing surgery for his wounds, he revealed the truth. He said he initially misled authorities because “he did not want to get anyone in trouble.” After changing his mind, he told the police the truth, which resulted in Grant’s arrest.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Violence, especially when intoxicated, is a poor way of resolving interpersonal conflict, it only ends up with heartache and trouble. Instead, trust the LORD to bring justice in his own timing.

When Bradford Weitzel left a bar recently, he was having difficulty locating his car. Most responsible individuals might consider such a development as a potential sign of impairment and find an alternative mode of transportation--other than, y’know, driving. But Bradford Weitzel is not most people.

Which is why Weitzel stole another car so that he could drive around and search for his vehicle. Unfortunately, his plan ran into a snag. And by snag, I mean “moving train.”

According to a post on the Martin County Sheriff's Office Facebook page, the vehicle Weitzel stole stalled on some train tracks. “Within seconds, the train hit the car, catapulting it into a nearby home where the homeowners were sound asleep. Fortunately, they were not physically injured, although the explosive sound of a driverless car smashing into the side of their home was clearly jolting.”

Undeterred, Weitzel continued in his rampage, vandalizing a fruit stand and attempting to steal a forklift. In the end, authorities didn’t have to find Weitzel to arrest him--he flagged them down for help because he still couldn’t find his car. “Bradford Weitzel was arrested and charged with grand theft and criminal mischief. Additional charges are expected.”

John Joseph shares his testimony of coming out of a life of drug abuse through the grace of God who gave him a new heart:

In high school, life revolved around sports and popularity. My life got further out of control with each passing year. The weekend parties of my freshman year became weeklong parties by my senior year, as casual drinking metastasized into alcoholism.

I began selling drugs and I (was) also introduced to cocaine. And cocaine stole my soul. Then I started selling cocaine. I became a monster—a liar and a thief. I used everyone and everything to serve myself. I didn’t care who I hurt.

I decided to make drastic changes, and I enlisted in the US Coast Guard. And although boot camp gave me some much-needed structure and discipline, it couldn’t change my heart. I fell back into the same way of living.

Then God put Art Thompson in my life. Art was a young kid who had just joined the Coast Guard. Art loved Jesus, and he loved me. He faithfully shared the gospel with me, always making a point to say, “Jesus loves you, bro.” He described how Jesus had changed his life. Art had a serious joy that I wanted in my own life. I just didn’t know how to get it.

In 2008, I was re-stationed (to California). And despite the change in scenery, the same problems with drinking and drugs followed me. But then I started attending church. The problem was that I still conceived of the gospel as a call to change myself through willpower. I stopped drinking and doing drugs and started exercising self-control. I had saved myself. And then the bottom fell out. While celebrating New Year’s Eve with some old friends, a round of casual drinking turned into an all-out binge. I was so drunk that I blacked out.

I drove home in a state of despair, convinced I could never truly change. Arriving back, I thought I would listen to a sermon to clear my mind. I had learned about a preacher named John Piper. Before long I found myself captivated. Piper’s preaching about God, sin, justice, and hell was unlike anything I’d ever heard. For the first time, I understood that I was guilty of more than doing “bad things”—I had sinned against God and deserved his judgment.

Two nights later, I listened to another Piper sermon, one on John 3:16. Depending on how we respond to it, he preached, we will either spend eternity with God in heaven or apart from him in hell. I distinctly remembering time slowing to a crawl as he said those words. I was replaying the last 10 years of my life: the lying, the drunkenness, the drug use—all my terrible sins against a holy God. I felt the crushing weight of it, and I knew I was going to hell. And then, I knew I wasn’t.

The burden of my sin fell off in an instant, replaced with the knowledge that Jesus was Lord and God had saved me. That moment led to an immediate and radical change, as God removed my heart of stone and gave me a heart of flesh. He had set me free from my sin.

Editor’s Note: Today John Joseph is lead pastor of Cheverly Baptist Church in Bladensburg, Maryland.

49-year-old German brewery worker Erwin Kreuz blew his life savings on a once-in-a-lifetime birthday trip to San Francisco. He’d seen it on TV, and he wanted to visit the Wild West. As the flight from Frankfurt stopped to refuel in Bangor, Maine, before continuing on to California, an air stewardess who had finished her shift told Kreuz to “have a nice time in San Francisco.” Her choice of words would change Kreuz’s life.

Kreuz, who typically enjoyed drinking 17 beers a day, was a little groggy, and on hearing this, got off the plane, jumped in a cab and asked the driver to take him to the city. The cab dropped Kreuz at a hotel in downtown Bangor and he found a tavern to quench his almighty thirst. He wandered Bangor for three days enjoying the sights and sounds that Maine had to offer. Unfortunately, Kreuz still thought he was in San Francisco.

Kreuz was certain he was in San Francisco, and he didn’t stop believing that for three very strange days. At one point Kreuz was reassured by the sight of two Chinese restaurants in the town, something he knew was in San Francisco from the movies. After much wandering, Kreuz decided he must be in a Bay Area suburb, so he hailed a taxi and asked the driver to take him to downtown San Francisco. The driver sped away as though Kreuz was crazy.

Kreuz returned to the tavern and tried to get some help from a waitress. The language barrier was too great, so she put him in contact with Gertrude Romine who spoke German. Romine and her family took Kreuz into their home, and word spread of the lost tourist, first to the Bangor Daily News, then nationally, then the world.

Hearing of his story, The San Francisco Examiner paid for Kreuz to fly out to his initial destination. When there, he was treated like a visiting dignitary. Kreuz was welcomed by the mayor, who presented him with a proclamation declaring that San Francisco does, in fact, exist.

Kreuz was soon due back at work at the brewery and, after four days in San Francisco, boarded a flight back home holding a “Please let me off in Frankfurt” sign.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Confusion; Eternity; Heaven; Lostness – This humorous story also has a sobering application for all who go through life assuming that at the end of life’s journey they will find themselves in heaven, only to discover that they are greatly mistaken. “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” (Prov. 14:12; 16:25).