THE SOBER DRUNK

THE SOBER DRUNK

                “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even our Father.” Ephesians 5:18-20.

                On our way to our family Christmas celebration last evening, we were following the guy ahead of us who had obviously had a little too much Christmas cheer. His car kept drifting off into the median and I silently prayed that he and everyone else around him would make it safely home. But it got me to thinking about Ephesians 5: 18.

                Now, I fell asleep in too many English classes to remember whether this is called a simile, or some other fancy word, but it is interesting that the Lord compares drinking wine to being filled with the Holy Spirit. They are intended to be compared because you would not say something like,” Don’t drive a car, but plant a tree” there is no relationship between the two choices and therefore it makes no sense.

                So the obvious meaning here is a choice between being drunk with wine, and being drunk with the Holy Spirit. And this is not talking about having a glass of wine with your meal as many do, for that is not getting drunk and Jesus turned water into wine as His first miracle and regardless of what some may say about it being grape juice, those who have studied the culture of the day, know that it was real wine, for fermentation was the way of preserving  juice in wineskins and all of the language of that feast indicates that they had been drinking real wine and the wine that Jesus made was better than what they had been drinking. But I digress.

                This “simile” is not a treatise against having a glass of wine with you meal. This is intended as a choice between being stone drunk, either with wine or with the Holy Spirit.

                The lesson to be learned here is that drinking a lot of wine or any other kind of spirits, begins to change you. It changes the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you think, the way you act, the way you see life. Alcohol makes you less self- conscious. It breaks down barriers between people. But it is also dangerous because it can cloud your judgment, cause you to lose control and in some cases  things can turn ugly and result in irrational fights and even murder, or in the case of our fellow driver, cause a horrible accident.

                So what is it about being drunk with the Holy Spirit that would be a good thing? It is for the very same reasons as being drunk with wine changes you; only this kind of inebriation pleases God.

                When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, it changes the way you walk. It changes the way you talk, the way you think, the way you act, the way you see life. It makes you less self-conscious and more God conscious. It breaks down barriers between the people of God, bringing precious fellowship and love between those who share the same Spirit. Instead of clouding your judgment, it gives you discernment and understanding and guides you into all truth. Instead of losing control, we receive and produce the fruit of the Spirit one of which is temperance or self-control and it changes drastically the way we treat each other. It does not get ugly and turn into fights. If we are really filled with the Holy Spirit, then we forgive our enemies and love our enemies and do good to those who spitefully use us and this action absorbs the friction even as Jesus absorbed Satan’s worst on the cross and then trumped it all by raising from the dead as our conquering King.

                Most of the church today is satisfied with a glass of wine with meals. They get a little touch of the Holy Spirit, or an occasional chilly bump. They space it out enough so that it doesn’t become habit forming and so they live like the world all week and then put on a righteous act for church.

                But we are entering into a time where we have a choice between becoming drunk with the wine of her (Babylon’s) fornication, (Rev 17:1-5) or fully filled and saturated with the Holy Spirit. We will become a part of the crowd that is drunk with the blood of the saints, or covered and empowered by the blood of Jesus Christ. We will have the mind of this world or we will have the mind of Christ.

                It is going to completely change the way we walk and talk and act and believe and treat our fellow man… and in fact it will even change the vessel in which the wine is kept for God does not put new wine into old wineskins, for as the Bible tells us, when you put new wine into old wineskins, when it ferments it will burst the old wineskins that have become brittle and weak.

                God not only fills us with new wine, but He makes us into new wineskins. We are new creatures. When we are born again, we receive a new spirit and it is in this new spirit that the Holy Spirit comes to dwell. We become temples of the Holy Spirit and to verify this, we see in the tabernacle of Moses that it was divided into three compartments. And along with many other things that it shows us, (for as David said, “Thy way O Lord is in the sanctuary.”) It also shows us the nature of man, that we are tripartite beings, made up of body, soul and spirit… and just as the presence of God dwelt in the Most Holy Place, so does the Holy Spirit dwell in our spirit.

                As a born again children of God then, we are first of all spirit beings. We have a soul and we dwell in a body, but it is in our spirit that we are made in the image of God for God is spirit. But this is the whole point of Paul’s treatise in Romans 8. If we have been born again, then we are learning to live by the spirit and not by our flesh. And as our soul (or mind) comes under submission to the Spirit our soul is saved.

                This is something we need to understand: Justification is when we receive a new spirit as we are born again. Sanctification is the process of learning to live by the spirit rather than by the flesh. This is represented by the Holy Place wherein dwells the Word of God (Table of Showbread) and the Holy Spirit (The Menorah) of God to shed light on the Word and fellowship with God (at the altar of incense) as the Holy Spirit mixes our prayers with His incense so that our prayers go up to God within the veil as a sweet smelling savor.

                Learning to live by the spirit is our most pressing need in these end times. We must become drunk with the Holy Spirit… completely saturated with the presence and purposes of God so that it radically changes the way we walk and talk and act and the way we see life.

                We are the called out ones. We are called out of Babylon, out of Egypt, out of the drunkenness of the blood of the saints and the wine of her fornication.

                We are called out, not for an occasional glass of wine with our occasional meal, but we are called out to a complete saturation of Christ in us the hope of glory. (Co. 1:27.) He is our treasure in earthen vessels. (2 Cor. 4:7.) We are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. (2 Cor. 10:5) We have become temples of the Holy Spirit. (1 Cor. 3:16, 6:19, 20)

                There is an 80/20 rule that applies to most churches. 20% of the people do 80% of the work, the sharing, the caring, the witnessing and the giving. The rest, the 80%, just stop in for an occasional glass of wine.

                But a great shaking is coming in which the wheat and tares will be separated. It will become obvious which ones have been drunk with the world’s wine and those who have been filled and saturated with the Holy Spirit. There will be no way to fake it in those days, because we are either learning to live by the Spirit or we are not. We are either learning to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, or we are living according to our own will.

                For much of the church today, the word “Sanctification” has become outdated. We love to talk about justification. “I’m saved, Hallelujah!” But most no longer talk about sanctification, of living holy lives, of overcoming even as He overcame, walking in obedience to the Word and in the Spirit.   Much of Christianity has become a bar where most people stop in for a glass of wine, but far be it from them to become drunk  and saturated with the Holy Spirit to the point where it changes the way they walk and talk and think.

                We try to satisfy God by adhering to a certain creed or set of doctrines, or days or new moons or Sabbaths, but all of that can be done in the flesh… intellectually… with no help from the Holy Spirit. In fact, if the Holy Spirit didn’t show up, most churches would not know the difference. He has already been programmed out of their services… relegated to ancient history. They even say that the gifts of the Holy Spirit ended with the apostles. But they totally ignore what Peter said on the day of Pentecost. He said: “For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself.”

                Interestingly enough, the people on the day of Pentecost were accused of being drunk. But Peter explained that it was not with wine, but with the Holy Spirit, for when He, the Holy Spirit came upon them, He overwhelmed them with His saturating power. They staggered under the weight of His presence as He invaded their entire beings… and there was great joy and celebration. And Peter had to explain to them saying: “These men are not drunk as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day; but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel: “and it shall be in the LAST DAYS” God says. “That I will pour out My Spirit upon all mankind…” Acts 2:15-17.

                And yet today, most churches carefully guard against any sign that the Holy Spirit may be at work in their midst. Heaven forbid that anyone should speak in tongues, or act in any way like they have become saturated with the Holy Spirit. We have become spiritual tea drinkers... all proper and respectable to the flesh, but not to God.

                Pentecost is for today my friends and not only Pentecost, but we await the latter rain of the Holy Spirit when both the spring rains and the harvest rains will come together to bring the harvest of the Lord to maturity. This is a separate study, but the outpouring of the Holy Spirit will only be poured out upon mature sons. It will come upon the sons and daughters… who have been made into sons and daughters by the Holy Spirit. Jesus received the dove of the Holy Spirit at the Jewish age of maturity. God endorsed Him saying, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” And from that time on, Jesus went forth to carry out His Father’s business.

                We are warned to be sober in these last days. Paul said this in comparing us with those who will be caught unawares at the day of the Lord:

                “But you brethren are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of the night, nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober. For those who sleep, do their sleeping at night and those who get drunk, get drunk at night.  But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us, that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him.” 1 Thess. 5:4-10

                So the” sober drunk” is one who is completely saturated with the Holy Spirit and instead of this saturation having made him drunk like the world is drunk, it has made him alert and sober and well aware of the times in which he lives so that he is not caught by a thief in the night, like those who are drunk with the world’s wine.