At the age of 19, Frederick Charrington, heir to the famous brewery family fortune, received Jesus as his Lord and Saviour.

About a year after this, the young Christian man was walking through Whitechapel one evening when he saw the poorly dressed woman with her children begging her husband to leave a public house and give her money for food. Her begging just angered her husband who proceeded to knock her into the gutter.

Charrington received the same treatment as he went to help the poor woman. As he climbed to his feet he saw, above the door of the pub, his own name and from that night he decided that he would have nothing more to do with the brewing trade.

“When I saw that sign,” he later wrote, “I was stricken just as surely as Paul on the Damascus Road. Here was the source of my family wealth, and it was producing untold human misery before my own eyes.”

Charrington abandoned the family business to devote his life to helping the poor in the East End of London. He moved into cheap lodgings and spent his days and nights campaigning against the evils, including excessive drinking, that afflicted poor families.

Frederick Charrington forsook his trust in his family’s wealth, and instead placed his trust in his Saviour and in 1886 he opened a huge prayer hall and preached to the five thousand people who flocked to the meeting. He fought hard against the exploitation of women and by the time he died, the East End was a better, healthier and happier place to be - thanks to his tireless work.

For part of his career, my own dad worked as Chief Stock Taker for another Brewery, Allied Breweries (formerly Ind Coope) and one of my mum’s brothers actually worked for Charringtons themselves. (With such a similar background you can imagine the topic of conversation whenever they got together!)

But the difference was that both my dad and my uncle were kind, loving family men, and not given to excessive drinking or violence. Both loved their wives and their families despite enjoying a glass or two of beer whenever they met up.

We are grateful for God’s Word, the Bible, which always shows how God instructs in the way of wisdom – even in regard to alcohol.

The Bible does not suggest we do not drink it:
“No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.” (1 Timothy 5:23)

but just not drink it in excess:
“And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18)

Being filled with God’s Holy Spirit is to be filled with His goodness, His love and His kindness.