Drunkenness

What is going on? You’re coming together, but it’s not the Lord’s supper. It doesn’t qualify. Why? For in your eating, each one takes his own supper first. And one is hungry, and another is drunk. What? Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the Church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you. You can’t do this. So Dionysiac orgies and drunkenness and sorceries and drug use are contrasted with the sweet, pure, serene, beautiful fellowship, power, and joy that comes from the filling of the Spirit.

You need to be filled with the Spirit to commune with God, not drunk. So he’s really contrasting two kinds of worship. Satanic worship with true Christian worship. And they were blending the two. They were blending the two. So he says in verse 18, back to Ephesians 5, do not get drunk with wine. Stop getting drunk. Why in the world are you getting drunk? You say, well, it’s probably hard for them because they had imbibed so long in that kind of stuff. It was a tough habit to break. You got that right.

We know that, don’t we? We know how difficult alcoholism is to conquer. But he just says, stop, stop. The verb is methusco. To be drunk, to become drunk. It’s used three times in the New Testament. Because drunkenness, he says, leads to dissipation. It doesn’t lead to worship. It doesn’t lead to an elevated consciousness of the deities. It leads to a socio in Greek, which means debauchery, abandonment to degradation. We all know that. You know when you’re going to go take an interview somewhere for a job that you want deeply, and you’ve prepared for it, and you know you’re talking to somebody who’s very astute and elevated above you, you don’t get drunk before the interview.

That is not going the right direction. You get undrunk if you have to, because you want to be in full use of your faculties. Don’t get drunk with wine. We all understand the Bible forbids drunkenness. Again, in lists of sins and transgressions about the people who are not in the Kingdom of God, those lists, whether it’s Romans 13, 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Corinthians 5, Galatians 5, those lists that include drunkards say they don’t enter the Kingdom. They’re included with adulterers, fornicators, homosexuals, etc, etc, etc, etc. So just as a general principle, you’ve got to stop drinking.

And think about it, folks. This is not something that some people did. This is kind of what life was like for everyone. I mean, this was basically demanded of people, unless you wanted to make the deities mad and have the deities come after you and incinerate you with lightning bolts, you got into the action. So all of that kind of religion was dependent on intoxication, and that’s got to stop. Wine is oinos in the Greek, it’s yayin in the Hebrew, and in the Hebrew it’s a mixed wine, as it is in the Greek.

I’ll show you that in a few minutes. The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia distinguishes yayin wine shron from sheka, which was the Hebrew word for strong drink, unmixed. And the difference was unmixed, was very strong in alcohol content. The wine was weak in alcohol content, because of its mixture. Now people ask a simple question, shouldn’t Christians be able to drink wine, because people in the Bible drank wine? And you don’t want to have a simplistic answer to that, so let me help you with the answer, so that you’ll know exactly what wisdom would do.

It was part of life. But because it was part of life, it was very important to warn people, because they were dealing with something that could take over their senses, and they were dealing with something that was ubiquitous in the pagan world, and led to all kinds of horrific behaviours. So there’s no place for drunkenness, no place for losing any control. We don’t do that as believers. In 1 Peter chapter 4 verse 3, we read, For the time already past is sufficient, in other words your past is sufficient, for you to have carried out the desire of the pagans.

The pagan part of your life is now over. That’s all past, when you pursued a course of, and listen to these words, sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. There you have it. The idolatries are the mix in which all of these other behaviours take place. The pagans worship abominable idols, and to do so they pursue a course of sensuality, lust, drunkenness, carousing, and drinking parties. And it leads, as verse 4 says, to excesses of dissipation. But Peter says, they are then surprised that you don’t run with them in the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you.

You know, you paid a price. If you didn’t join the religious party, you were not just outside the party, you were outside the culture, you were outside the society, and then you were maligned, and you were criticised, and you were mistreated, and you were rejected, and you made people angry. It would be like going into the CDC without a mask. You were vilified, and so there was pressure to stay with the family and extended relatives and the society. Pressure was really great. In Titus 2.3 it talks about taking care of older women, and it says you can take care of older women.

The church can take care of older women who are not to be lingering long beside their wine. Wine was a staple. Drink. The water was bad. They drank wine, but they didn’t linger long there, because they knew the implications of that. And the church is even told, you don’t have a choice. In Titus 1 says, Wine is a mocha. Strong drink is raging. And whoever is deceived by them is not wise. You want to walk wisely. Be wise about consuming alcohol. Now I want you to go to Proverbs chapter 23 for a moment, and I’ll say a lot more about this next week, so if I leave some stones unturned, we’ll cover that next time.

But in Proverbs 23 verse 19, listen, my son, and be wise. Here we are again with this connection between wisdom and not being drunk. Listen, my son, and be wise, and direct your heart in the way. Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine. This went on in the Old Testament time as well, or gluttonous eaters of meat, because that’s how they express their worship with gluttony and drunkenness. For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe one with rags. You’ll become a stumbling drunk, and it’ll lead to poverty.

We see plenty of that today, don’t we? But notice down in verse 26, give me your heart, my son, and let your eyes delight in my ways. For a harlot, a prostitute, is a deep pit, and an adulterous woman is a narrow well. She lurks like a robber, and increases the faithless among men. Why are we now talking about prostitutes and harlots and adulterous women? Because you go so easily from drunkenness to debauchery, and it immediately comes into verse 29, who has woe, who had sorrow? You are more likely to find yourself in the arms of a harlot and a prostitute, an adulterous woman who will steal you blind if you’re drunk than if you’re sober-minded.

Who has woe? verse 29 asks. Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without a cause? What happened to you? How’d you get all those bruises all over your head? Who has redness of eyes? I’ll tell you who. Those who linger long over wine, and those who go to taste mixed wine. Prostitution to drunkenness, connected. You abandon wisdom, you fall into drunkenness, you end up in sexual debauchery. So verse 31 warns, you don’t even look on the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly, and you see the guys on television with the big wine glass, swirling it around.

Birds are chirping, and beautiful scenery, and mountains and snow. And the guy is a macho man that every woman dreamed of, and he’s swirling this, and the sunlight is bouncing off of it. That’s exactly what the Bible says not to do. Yeah, verse 32 says, at the last, in the end, it bites like a serpent and stings like a viper, and you wind up on Wilshire Boulevard in a tent, and your eyes, verse 33, will see strange things, and your mind will utter perverse things, and you’ll be like one who lies down in the middle of the sea.

It’ll drown you, it will drown you, or like one who lies down on the top of a mast. If you’re a sailor, and there’s a storm, and your boat is in the storm, the last place you want to go is to the top of the mast, because that is the most precarious place on the boat. Get in the bottom, where there’s the least disturbance. If you’re trying to sleep at the top of the mast, you’re going to get catapulted into the sea. It’s destructive. Verse 35, they struck me, but I didn’t become ill.

This is the alcoholic talking. They beat me, but I didn’t know it. I didn’t feel it. When shall I awake? I’ll seek another drink. This is the insanity of it all. So the author passes from harlotry and prostitution and immorality to drunkenness and shows the folly of it. It’s a terrible trap. Isaiah 5.11 talks about those who rise up early and start drinking, and drink all the way till night. The horrors of that. The Bible has a lot to say about it. I won’t take any more time with that, but I do want to balance that off for a moment and say this.

Thank you for joining us in this exploration of drunkenness. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].