8-28-25 Study of Revelation Ephesians Chapter 5:18-19 Drunk or Spirit-filled? Part 2

➡ The text discusses a Bible study focused on the book of Ephesians, emphasizing the importance of self-assessment in one’s relationship with Jesus Christ. It warns against being ‘drunk’ with distractions like money, drugs, or business, which can hinder one’s focus on their relationship with Christ. The text also contrasts pagan religions, which were often associated with drunkenness and debauchery, with the true worship of God through Jesus Christ, which is empowered by the Holy Spirit. Lastly, it encourages believers to make a clean break from their past and fully commit to their faith in Christ.
➡ This text emphasizes the importance of fully committing to a spiritual life in Christ, rather than trying to balance it with worldly desires. It warns against the dangers of false religions and sinful behaviors, using the example of the ancient cult of Dionysus. The text also highlights the transformation that comes with salvation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers. It concludes by warning that failing to fully commit to Christ can lead to spiritual downfall, using examples from both ancient and modern times.
➡ The text discusses the spiritual transformation that occurs when one turns away from sinful behaviors, such as debauchery and drunkenness, and embraces a life of purity and holiness under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It emphasizes the importance of avoiding harmful behaviors, like excessive drinking, for the sake of one’s relationship with God and personal well-being. The text also highlights the difference between the alcoholic beverages consumed in biblical times and those of today, suggesting that the former were less potent and often used for their antibacterial properties.
➡ The text discusses the biblical perspective on drinking alcohol, particularly wine. It explains that in ancient times, people mixed wine with water for safety and hydration, as clean water was scarce. Today, drinking alcohol isn’t necessary, but it’s not forbidden in the Bible, as long as it doesn’t lead to drunkenness. The text also mentions the Nazarite vow, a commitment to abstain from all grape products, including wine, as a higher level of devotion to God.
➡ In the Bible, God uses the story of the Rechabites, a tribe who obeyed their ancestors’ command not to drink wine, to illustrate the importance of obedience. Despite God’s command to drink wine, they chose to follow their ancestors’ rule, showing their commitment to tradition. The Bible also warns against the dangers of alcohol, especially for leaders who need clear minds to make wise decisions. While drinking is not explicitly forbidden, it can lead to addiction and destruction, so it’s best to avoid it.
➡ The text discusses the negative impacts of drunkenness, referencing various biblical figures who condemned it. It emphasizes the importance of not causing others to stumble in their faith by our actions, particularly in relation to alcohol consumption. The text also highlights the need to respect our conscience as a guide and warns against actions that could harm it. Lastly, it encourages self-assessment and consideration of our actions’ effects on others, our faith, and our personal growth.
➡ This text discusses the importance of maintaining a strong spiritual connection with God and not letting physical desires or hobbies become idols that distract from this relationship. It emphasizes that activities or possessions aren’t inherently bad, but they become problematic when they take away from time spent with God. The text also highlights the importance of listening to one’s conscience as a form of communication with God, and the need for constant conversation with God, even during quiet times. Lastly, it warns against idolizing anything, even good things, as it can lead to sin.
➡ We are expressing gratitude for the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding we gain from scripture. We appreciate the guidance it provides in our lives and thank you for the plan you have for us. We seek your protection, peace, and joy, and acknowledge that everything happening is under your control. We ask all this in your son’s name.

Oh, by the way, I was going to mention this before we started, but I am going to mention I had been in Ezekiel all day. I got so excited after Tuesday night I began to just start writing just discussion points and anyway, I just want to give you heads up on that. We’re going to get to that and it’s going to be fun. All right, so tonight is Thursday night. This is our Bible study in the book of Ephesians. And this is in conjunction with the Acts Bible study on Sunday mornings in order to for you to have a basic self assessment, a period of time that you could, you could actually determine where, where your walk with Christ is.

Okay. Because when we get in back into revelation and we talk, start talking about the Rapture and everything, we’re going to primarily be out of not looking at what your life thought to be in this relationship with Christ, but what is going to happen in relationship to whether or not you have a relationship with Jesus Christ or not. And, and this is the time that you really need to, to do a self assessment on yourself and making sure that everything is in order with, you know, walk in Christ. So we’re back into Ephesians 5. We’re going to look at verses 18 and 19 tonight.

This is the second part of looking at being drunk or filled with the spirit. Now drunk, we’re not talking about drunk is alcohol, but that’s part of it. But we’re talking about drunkenness as it relates to everything that you have in your life that is not focused on your relationship with Jesus Christ. So whether it not be money or whether it be alcohol, whether it be drugs, whether it be your business, what, anything, anything that you are focused on and that’s really gets you focused on. That’s your drunkenness, that’s your, that you’re looking at that from an idol type worship.

Instead of being filled with the Holy Spirit, you can only have one. Okay, so you, I said this before, we are our worst enemy. And in understanding that you control exactly what you do and it is from what you do will determine what your relationship to Jesus Christ is. So I’m going to read verses 5 through 18, 5, 18 and 19 and then we’ll, we’ll continue on to get there. So I’m still letting people in. Okay, so Ephesians 5, 18 and 19 and do not get drunk with wine for that is the despac this se of dissipation.

But be filled with the spirit speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making not even your heart to the Lord. Now we’ve been doing that in regards to, we don’t sing, you know, that type of stuff, but we come to fellowship in looking at scriptures and how it applies to our lives. And we do this because the context of this text is about worship. It is clearly about worship. Verse 18 is the curious verse that we need to address. We begin to do that, we begin to do that last time.

Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit. What does that have to do with any worship, you might ask? Well, that is the question that we’re going to answer and the answer is to understand something of a historical background that Paul was facing in the Roman and Greek world. Now it’s interesting to note that a lot of what is being disclosed to us from various settings from a historical representation of the ancient world is exactly what’s going on today. I made a, I posted something out on the other, other website and I said, and I talked to you guys and said, you must at least look at the first part of that video because biblical history and Roman Empire history would show that what they did then is exactly what’s going on now.

So when Paul contrasts drunkenness with the spirit field, he’s contrasting pagan religion with the true worship of God through Jesus Christ. Now we, when you look at this, two weeks ago in the study of Acts, we basically came to the knowledge that, that there’s no true religion today, that every religion that exists today is pagan religion because it is not totally scriptural based. It is the process of man trying to determine how they want to control a congregation with regards to their beliefs, not the beliefs of Jesus Christ. So pagan religious experience was induced by drunkenness in the ancient times.

True communion with God, the only true God is empowered by the Holy Spirit. Now this is a, this is a stark contrast that exists in the ancient pagan religion and not just in the Greco Roman world, but all across the planet. As long as there has been false religion, a drunken stupor has been thought to somehow elevate people out of the mundane world and lift them up to commune with the deities where the guides. Well, we understand that when that happened in our Western culture today, we open the door to allow all of the pagan gods that had put to been put to rest by the apostles.

We open the door to allow them to return. And we’re going to get, on the 8th of September when we get back into the return of the gods, we’re going to see Bell actually coming back and taking over America. And all of its fine glory. But Paul says just the opposite is the case. Drunkenness doesn’t lift you up, it actually takes you down. Drunkenness, he says in verse 18 produces this dissipation or debauchery. Now it actually goes further than that. It exposes people to drunkenness. And I’m not talking here as Paul is not either about drunkenness in and of itself, but drunkenness associated with false religion, false worship.

That is what we talked about. Now why was that an issue for Paul to understand that understands why it’s an issue today? Because it was an issue everywhere in the ancient Roman and Greek world. Well, that’s an issue today. I’ll remind you a couple of scriptures we looked at last time to clarify this even further. If you, you don’t have to turn to this. I’m just going to reference this, the First Corinthians, chapter 10. Whether you were in Ephesus or whether you were in Corinth or just about any other city, if you were a pagan and you were engaged in pagan worship, you worshiped by becoming drunk.

That was what they did in the ancient times. You went to some temple, you began, you became inebriated, you became inebriated and you participated in gluttony. There were temple prostitutes available there. It was the height of debauchery and dissipation. But that was Santana portion. And obviously that is Satan’s objective. He wants to lead people into irrevitable, self destructive, external and eternal damning debauchery. And so that was the form of false religion. Well, let’s look at today, you don’t find so much as the alcohol content within the church confines, nor do you find prostitutes in the church confines as you had then.

Matter of fact, back then you had outside of the temples, you had areas where you could indulge in any prostitute that was there. In today’s world, that doesn’t exist inside the church or attached to the church. But I will say this, every church started in that environment. All right, I want you to think about that. We all started from the Catholic Church, right? And then we went through, we went through, you know, all of the process of trying to get away from the church by Martin Luther and those guys and the Reformation period, but they didn’t change the doctrine of the church.

And inside the Roman Catholic Church is alcohol is prostitution. Look at the bishops, all that stuff. Don’t you can’t tell me it doesn’t exist there. So our whole founding basis of every religion in this world today is based upon the Roman Catholic Church doctrine. So just that it’s fundamental, it’s corrupted. So when people came to Christ, they came out of that society then, and everybody participated in it. There was no separation between religion and social life, or religion and political life, or religion and economic life. Everything was intertwined. And if you were at that time, you were part of the culture, you were part of all of it.

And when people came to Christ, they had to leave that behind. Old self to new self. Ephesians. Well, we learned that in Ephesians 1 and 2. So Peter says in 1st Peter 4, 3, these words for you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans chose to do. Living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, forgies, carousing and, and divestible idolatry. Again, the category, the realm, is false religion and pedalogy. And within that framework of that false religion, this is what people did. They lived in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, or genes, carousing. That was their culture, that was their form of worship.

And that, that is a very popular form of worship during that time. That was the ancient world. So what happens when someone hears the Gospels and comes to faith in Christ? They have to make a clean break. You cannot ride this fence. You can’t have one foot inside of what you understand to be in worshiping of Christ and another inside the world of your lust. It Christ requires you to have a clean break. Why? Because if you don’t have a clean break, you will not be regenerated and transformed. Therefore your salvation is totally a question. That’s why Peter said, you have spent enough time in the past doing that.

Do it no more. First Corinthians 10 then, and verse 14, Therefore my beloved flee from idolatry. What was happening was the people were coming to faith in Christ in Ephesus or Corinth or anywhere else, and they were still hanging on to some of their previous adulterous behaviors. He said, you have to stop it. Verse 20. Because the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to become sharers in demons. Well, we’ve talked about this. In communion we say you cannot. You’re going to come to the communion table in one of two ways.

You’re going to come in obedience to Christ. And therefore the functioning of the communion table will work for you. Because in that communion process, you give up your dying self for that which is living in Christ. And there is a transition that goes on every time you have communion. But if you’re not coming to the table in obedience, then you’re coming to the table with your demonic friends. And therefore you’re not coming to Christ’s table. You’re coming to your demonic friend’s table. You don’t have a choice. It’s one or the other. So false religion was participating with demons.

And he says bluntly in verse 21, you cannot drink the cup of the Lord at the table of the Lord and the demons. You can’t cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons at the same time. It’s just what we said. You’re going to provoke the Lord to jealousy if you come to the table, as Corinthians tells us in the wrong manner, with the wrong heart, you’re going to be judged. Now, that’s not a good idea, since you’re not stranger or you’re not stronger than Christ is. You, you must separate yourselves from the worldly self that you were before salvation took place.

What was going on in Corinth was that some of the behaviors from the pagan experience were being dragged into the life of the church and even into the Lord’s table. Now, if you go over to chapter 11 for just a moment and look at verse 20, he’s still talking about the Lord’s table. He’s talking about Paulus. Therefore, when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord’s supper. You’re not coming to the Lord’s supper. You may say you are, but you’re not. Why? Because in your eating, each one takes his own supper first, and one is hungry and another is drunk.

Pagan religion was demonic possession in this. You can’t bring that into the life of the Church of Jesus Christ. We’ll stop right there. In the Old Testament, we completely understand that the spirit did not live inside of the people. It came and went in the people that God directed the Spirit to come to to do whatever task that that individual is asked to do. And upon completion of that task, the Spirit left. God was the protector of the people, and he used men induced by the Holy Spirit to do whatever he called them to do. Now, in the New Testament, anybody that gets saved receives the Holy Spirit automatically.

And instead of being controlled by God externally and being taught by God externally, we now are the temple of God. And we have God inside of us to teach us every day. If that has not happened, you’re not safe. So when we talk about drunkenness in the New Testament, we’re not talking about drunkenness only as a stupid Behavior only as a potential moral issue, nor only as sin. We have to see drunkenness in the framework of its large dominating presence in the ancient culture. Why? Because all we have done is instead of being the nation of Israel, we’re now the Church.

There’s really no difference. Why? We’re joint heirs in Christ. So there’s no difference from the ancient historical representation of the nation of Israel. In the Church today. It’s a matter of covenant, of how the Holy Spirit interacts with us. That’s all because everyone worshiped. So everyone was engaged in drunkenness, which then invited demonic possession. And that was what led to the debauchery, the deadly debauchery that damned their souls. Well, think about you. If you have not gone through the regenerative process and the transformation process, then your soul’s still damned. The cult of diocese was a dominant form of pagan religion in the Greco Roman world.

Now, we talked about Dionysus because he was a ruler. We’ve talked about it last time and I wrote about it in the History of the Roman Catholic Church. Now I’ll just review briefly so that we can get our mind around this. Prevalent through the whole Roman Empire. There is evidence of the worship of Diotis, an archaeological evidence in Rome, in Corinth, in Samaria, Alexandria, Philadelphia, Ephesus, and just about any other place you would go to find archaeological digs. Dionysus was supposedly the God who was born to the great God Zeus. The cult of Dionysus began to dominate the Roman world 900 years before Christ, so about 900 BC and it survived all the way into the first couple of centuries after Christ, till the day of the Church Fathers when they spread of the gospel in the Mediterranean world again to obliterate the cult.

What is that? That is the apostles. We talked about this. That is the apostles taking the gospel into the people and at the same time removing the pagan gods and moving them into their place of holding to allow God’s system of government to be put over the people. Now, in archaeological digs, they. They have found vases and paintings and sculptures and house plant plates and jars and drinking vessels. Pictures from all over the Roman world have been found that they had imagery that is associated with Beccus. Now, who is the Roman name for Dionysus. Debauchery and drinking, emblematic of their lifestyles of religion, is often marked by clusters of grapes.

Now, it would have been probably impossible to go to an ancient city and not run into this cult or one of its companion deities, particularly since we’re Talking about the Ephesians letter, it’s good for us to know that the worship of Dioces in Ephesus had penetrated every area of the culture. Every area of all of the culture, civilization. Not just the culture, but civilization at large. You have to understand that, because this is a very different social structure than we are used to, where there is a secular life and a spiritual life. Oh, that’s interesting. Why? Because they wanted to separate you from the entire understanding of how God controls your life.

They want you to have a social, secular life that is completely outside of your spiritual life. Therefore, you have one foot in one area and the other foot in the other. And Satan is just one, because you can’t have your life to be that way. Theirs was one life and everybody was involved in it. Women, children, slaves, free men, nobility, imperials, poor people. Everybody was involved in it. Everybody was so involved in the cult. It was basically an emphasis on fertility. Now here we’re getting back to the garden. Sex, sexual perversion, gluttony. Wow. Frenzies, festival, dancing, wine, drinking, music, flutes, cymbals, drums, tambourines, orgies, all of this stuff.

Well, that’s what started in the garden. That’s the downfall of the nation of Israel, that is the downfall of the church, and most importantly, that’s the downfall of you. Because that lust that you have felt for so many years is hard to let go. It featured eating of raw flesh, cannibalism. We think what’s going on today is any different than ancient times? Absolutely not. And what were they trying to do? Well, this is the theology of the cult. It is simply this, that as you become inebriated and as you engage in the sexual mad frenzy that is going on in the name of worship, you are allowing this cult demonic spirits to enter your body.

Attention. What it’s telling you is if you maintain your worldly focus, your worldly life, that’s a door that’s open for you to be. You have demonic possession, oppression, depression. You are allowing evil to enter your body and to take over. And that’s what happened at that time. It. And it wasn’t just Dionysus, it was all the demons impersonating him. And so people became demon possessed. That’s why Paul called it the Table of Demons, the cup of demons. And they manifested that demon demonic possession in radical, out of control, debauched kind of behavior. Now, why would anybody want to have this experience and to have the demonic possession to enter them, just like Finn? So, so is today because they were basically deceived to think that his power, his strength, his wisdom, his abilities would become there.

This is the selling out of Hollywood financiers, corporate CEOs that would be empowered to be almost godlike. If you don’t believe me, go look at Taylor Swift’s videos where she’s sitting on the ceiling with all kinds of demonic stuff around her. And that’s just one. Furthermore, if the demonic took over, then they would submit to his will as he controlled them in their debauchery. That should make absolute sense to you. If you’re in the world controlled by the prince of the power of this world, therefore debauchery, chaos is your goal. If you’ve truly been saved and you basically turned from your wicked ways and you’ve been regenerated and transformed, then your salvation is locked.

They were thus doing the will of the deities and that would satisfy the deities. So he didn’t do any harm to them. Back then as well as today. We live in a spiritual realm. Arm from the demonic can pass over from the spiritual world to the physical world. Matter of fact, it can go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth is fast as it wants to go. Now when we look at this, they were doing this, the will of the deity, and they would satisfy the deity, so he didn’t do any harm to them.

So the worship of the cult had everything to do with debauchery, disp, Dissipation, drunkenness and wild frenzy. Just to show you how connected the two were, look at verse 18 and you see the word dissipation, that is the Greek word Asia a so sosha a s o T I a that became a name for Dianesis. It became a proper name for him. It was debauchery itself. And what did associate mean? It’s. It’s a word that means debauched, desolate, a profligate behavior that results in self destruction, undisciplined, complete destructive behavior. Now out of that people were coming to the gospel and coming to salvation, starting in the church.

And Paul is saying here, from now on, you need to worship the one true God. And you worship him not under the power of drunkenness and debauchery, but under the filling of the Holy Spirit. So Satan produces debauchery. You’re born in this world with a demonic spirit controlled by the prince of power, air. Your whole focus focus is chaos. That’s debauchery. And the Holy Spirit produces holiness. Once you’re saved, truly saved, you turn from your wicked ways. You give up the old Never to go back. You stop it. And once you are in that process, you regenerate.

It means you, you get a new DNA, you get a new body. It says that you get a new nature, get a new focus, and you get transformed. Being filled with the spirit is, is living under Christ power, living in the truth and purity and holiness and virtue. Being sober minded, clear thinking, self control, having pure thoughts. Well, the first thing we talk about is purity. Well, that happened in Ephesians 4:1, okay? Where the first thing that you are to do with you is to maintain purity. Now I’m going to give, I’m going to give you a little tidbit here.

You can’t be spiritually pure unless you’re physically pure. You might think you’re spiritually pure because you’re doing the things that you’re supposed to do, but you’re living in the physical world in an un purity state. Therefore your, your soul, your, your spiritual life is unpure. That’s why Peter said it’s time to leave the other stuff behind. So we talked about that. There is no place for drunkenness as a general issue because the Bible continuously from the Old Testament all the way through the New Testament identifies what it as a sin and identifies drunkenness as a sin in the categories of sins for which the people are excluded from the kingdom of heaven.

I’ll tell you, I want you to get this in the New Covenant. It identifies drunkenness as a sin in the categories of all sins. So what does that say? That drunkenness is where your thought process, where your actions are, where your life’s focuses for which people are excluded from the kingdom of heaven. Okay, Self assessment can’t live in two worlds. We see that really all over the New Testament, where wherever you have a list, whether it be in Romans or the Galatians and First Corinthians, drunkards do not inherit the kingdom of heaven. That’s not alcoholics, guys.

People can be saved from that. As Paul said, such were some of you, but you have been washed and you’ve been sanctify. Washed is salvation, regeneration, transformation. Sanctifying is you teaching yourself the truth about the word of God so that your physical being gets out of the way and allows the spiritual side of your being to be in control. It says to be sanctified in Christ. Well, you have to do that. So that’s the issue of drunkenness. And that’s an explanation sort of of the background of this passage. Which then brings us to the question. We don’t worship God by getting Drunk.

Now, we can all agree on that. We can also agree and affirm that the question then arises, and this is where we’re going to look at tonight, is what is. What does being filled with the spirit me? So it’s okay? It’s okay for me to drink as a Christian today? Probably, yeah, it’s okay. Okay. Is it. Is that forbidden by God? Is that disallowed? Is there a commandment against that? How do I approach the alcohol? Be religious. Now, I have talked about this several times, but I’m gonna give you some questions to start walking through this.

Question number one. Remember last time, this is a question where it has to start. Is the alcoholic beverage being consumed in biblical times the same as the alcoholic beverages today? Is the wine then the same as wine today? And no, it’s not. In ancient times, the wine was boiled, therefore all the alcoholic content was out of it. It was turned into a paste, almost the consistency of jam, and it was put in an animal skin and squeezed out like you would squeeze out honey or jam. And then it was mixed with water to be mixed 3 to 1, all the way to 20 to 1, depending on the size of the pot.

That’s what people did because they needed to drink wine. Why did they need to drink wine? Because if you drank water, you could become very, very ill. There was no purification of water. Remember we said, Paul said, stop drinking water to Timothy and take a little wine for your stomach’s sake. Because even though wine ferments and that can be also a problem, that fermentation at a low level degree in the wine. Hey, buddy, I’m going to email you this list instead of writing it out because you’ll never be able to read my doctor’s. Sorry, guys, let me get rid of that.

So. So the fermentation is at a level degree in the wine when mixed with water, kills the bacteria in the water. That’s why they did it. So it purifies the water. You could also boil the water and have that same effect. But people were very careful about it and they did not drink unmixed wine. Straight wine, as is dropped today, and other alcoholic beverages that go in anywhere from 10% to 80% alcohol are basically manufactured with the alcohol content as its objective. It’s really what the strong drink of the Bible, okay, which was forbidden. So the argument that you can drink alcoholic beverages because people in the Bible drank wine falls apart when you realize that what they were drinking was very different even than the wine today.

And the wine may be the most benign of all possibilities, you can go all the way back to 80% whiskey and things like that. It was not the same as today. There was no invention of the science of creating alcoholic beverages such as there is today. And again, I say it was fermented, but that was a gift from God to kill the bacteria that was in the water that could be dangerous to people. However, over the course of a day, as we’ve learned in looking at the response from Peter, that if the wine set throughout the day in the heat, it would become intoxicated.

And he responded to the, the Sanhedrin by saying, no, they were not drunk because it was nine o’ clock in the morning. So if you’re a Christian believer, you would understand that you needed to be sure you avoided drunkenness. All right, so let’s, let’s stop it. In certain parts of the scripture it talks about not taking wine or strong drink. In other parts of the scripture it was permissible to have alcohol content because they’re wine fermented. But knowing the process of futuristic times, Paul says don’t do it in excess so that you would become drunk. That’s the whole position.

So if you were a Christian believer, you would understand that you needed to be sure you avoided drunkenness. You needed to be sure that for the sake of your relationship to Christ and his church, but for the sake of your own life and well being and productivity and everything else. So you did what everybody else did back then. You mixed it with water, or you boiled water, turned it into some paste and then remixed it when you squeeze it out. Now there’s also an illustration of Jesus making wine, which is a very important illustration in John chapter two, he made wine in six large pots for our wedding.

But do you remember when the wine ran out, what did Jesus tell them to pour in the pots? And told him to pour in the pots water. Because it never would have been assumed that there would find wine unmixed and undiluted, nor would he have created wine unmixed and undiluted. So it was obvious that that would be acceptable for the use of the folks at the wedding. So that’s just a little review of the first question of drunkenness. Second question, is drinking necessary? Is drinking necessary? And the immediate answer is no, it’s not necessary. In ancient times you had to drink what you had to drink.

And so you had to protect yourself by mixing it with water and basically purify, purify the water. You were always drinking more water than wine, but you would didn’t have a choice. In that culture, it was part of the family growing of the vines. It was a very simple life and you did what you could to produce what you needed to survive in the heat. And you needed to be hydrated, you needed to be given drink fluid in that climate. Pretty much all year long they were in the desert and so they had no choice because the water was not safe.

So they had to mitigate against the potential of drunkenness. In the world in which we live in today, there’s no such necessity. You don’t have to make that choice. It’s not necessary. They didn’t have a choice. We had a choice. Now I can tell you for me personally, and you guys know this, I like an alcoholic beverage. I like a glass of wine. I like a beer and a hot day after 1 yard. I like a cocktail sitting on the porch watching the sunset. But I focus on limiting that to excess to not become drunk. And you don’t need to put yourself in a position where you could fall victim to drunkenness and the loss of your sober mindedness.

So this, so that, that second question, is it necessary? No, it’s not necessary. You have plenty of other things that you could take place of alcohol. You know, whether or not it be coke or whatever else, which is just as about as bad as anything else because of what they put in it. So there’s the third question that immediately follows and it’s this, is drinking wine the best choice? If I can choose to do that, is it the best choice? Well, the best choice is to avoid drunkenness at all costs. That’s the condition. So that would be the best choice.

But if you want to hedge a little bit and on it and ask the question, is it’s, is it not forbidden in the Bible to drink wine? I will have to tell you just like we talked about the alcoholic beverage is when the scripture says and and strong drink, there is no command to not drink wine. There is an assumption that you want drink unmixed wine that was widespread in both the Old and New Testament. But it’s not forbidden. There is nothing in the scriptures that says you cannot have wine. And the only thing in scriptures that it says when Christ makes a point to particular people, do not drink wine and strong drink.

But Paul makes a point that you’re not to become drunken. So if I make that choice, is it the best choice? Well, if we go back to Leviticus, chapter 10 and there’s instruction given by the Lord, direct instruction given by the Lord to Aaron, the high priest, the brother of Moses about himself and the priestly line that would come from his family. Leviticus 10, verse 8. The Lord then spoke to Aaron saying, do not drink wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons with you when you come into the tent of the meeting. Okay, so look at that.

It says don’t do it. And then come into the 10 of meeting. Didn’t say not, didn’t say they couldn’t do it. Just don’t do it. And come into the 10 of meeting when you go to do your priestly duty and to lead the people in the worship of God and to offer this sacrifices and do what priests do, do not drink wine or strong drink. And he says, if you do that and you come into the 10 of meeting, you’ll, you’ll, you’ll die. Okay? Because that was a commandment in the worship activities of Christ and the people.

So what God says is, don’t do that and come into the tent or you’ll die. So God may take your life if you come into priestly responsibility drunk. And that is a perpetual statute through all of generations, the whole erotic priesthood, so as to make a distinction between the holy and the profane and between the unclean and the clean. The profane and the unclean religions were marked by drunkenness. The holy and the clean were marked by seriousness, gravity, sobriety. This is for you. In verse 11, teach the sons of Israel all the statutes which the Lord has spoken to them through Moses.

You don’t come drunk to the church. So here’s, here’s how to be understood. Let’s go back to the beginning of the chapter, chapter 10, verse 1. Two of Aaron’s signs, Nadab and Abuha, were functioning in the tent of the meeting, the place of worship. They took their respective fire pans, they put fire in them, placed incense on it to offer the incense offering, and they offered strange fire before the Lord which he had not commanded them. They did something not prescribed out of order, and fire in verse two came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them.

And they died before the Lord. So what did they do? Now Scripture doesn’t tell us specifically what they did, but the implications of this in the 10th chapter are they were drunk. Because down in what we just read in verse eight and following, if you come to the tent of the meeting and you’re drunk, you’ll die. So clearly drinking is not the best choice. It could be bring about in ancient times, execution by God if you got drunk and went into the tent of eating. Now in the sixth chapter of Numbers, the Lord Speaks to Moses again and he says this, Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, when a man or woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazareth to dedicate himself to the Lord.

Now this was just a time of serious connection, consecration to the Lord. It is a dedication of your life at a higher standard. That’s what it was, a Nazarite. That’s what it was. You, you vow to Christ to be more holy and pure than what the normal standard was of the Jewish tradition. And it’s called a Nazarite vow. And it means to separate. So Jewish people could say, I want to separate, consecrate myself to the Lord for a period of time. It could be 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, or your whole life. It would be like a prayer and fasting, a serious time of consecration to the Lord.

A man could do it and a woman could do it. But during that time of complete consecration, dedication, the individual that is vowing the Nazarite vow, he shall abstain from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar, whether made from with wine or strong drink. Nor shall he drink any grape juice, nor eat fresh or dried grapes. You completely stayed away from grapes in every form as part of that consecration. And not only the drinking of the juice, but even the delicacies that were produced with raisins, raisin cakes that were elsewhere referred to almost like aphrodisiac.

You completely stayed away from those kinds of things. This was the. During this time, this was the highest act of consecration. And so if you wanted to take the highest ground of holiness and devotion, and that’s what you did. And by the way, there were three people in the Bible who took that vow for life. One was Samson, the other was Samuel, and the third was John the Baptist. There are more people throughout scripture that took about. It was common for Israelites to do that off and on. They’re referred to, for example, in the second chapter of Amos, verse 11 and 12, unnamed folks who took that vow.

But as time went on history you would, you’ll begin to see in the prophets that vow began to disappear. And by the time you get to Jeremiah and you get to Lamentations and the cries of Jeremiah over the defective apostate religion of Israel, Lamentations 4, 7 and 8 says that these kinds of vows disappeared. The people were no longer held to a higher standard, lying because they didn’t have the relationship in Christ to even make the vow. Israel had had spiraled out of fellowship with God. And it became something that God didn’t Even recognize part of what brought about the captivity was people indifferent to the level of consecration.

That was really the high ground. Through Jeremiah, God gives us a really amazing illustration along the same line. So I want to show it to you in chapter 35th, the first fifth chap. Chapter of Jeremiah. God’s going to give an illustration here. So the word of The Lord, chapter 35:1 comes to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Jean, the son of Josiah, king of Judah. And here’s what the Lord says. And this is so interesting. Go to the house of the rechabites and speak to them. This is some family of people, some tribe of people outside of it, Israel proper.

Go to the house and speak to them and bring them into the house of the Lord, into one of the chambers and give them wine to drink. Bring them into the house of the Lord and give them wine to drink. So he does that. Verse four, brought them into the house of the Lord. Verse five. I set before the men of the house of Recabites pictures of full wine and cups. I said to them, drink wine. But they says, we will not drink wine. Really? These are pagans. Why wouldn’t they drink the wine? So basically Jeremiah says, you shall not drink wine.

You are your sons forever. Their tribal father and their tribal son of that father commanded them not to drink wine. And they didn’t do it. That was a test that God had given Jeremiah to this house. He tested them. Now look at verse 8. We have obeyed the voice of Jonagab the son of Reykab. Who are they? They’re not really nobody, okay? They’re nobody with reference to God or the kingdom of God or to the nation of Israel. Who are those people then? But we have obeyed in all that he commanded us not to drink wine in all our days.

We, our wives, our sons and our daughters. And then go down to verse 14, the words of Jonadab, the son of Reykab, which he commanded his sons not to drink wine or observe. So they do not drink wine to this day. Hear me out. That’s a commitment in the Old Testament based upon fathers of fathers of fathers of fathers. And throughout the generation to today, this group of people do not drink wine to this day. Now this is the Lord now giving you the commentary. They do not drink wine to this day wine because some guy told them not to, which happened to be grandfather, grandfather, grandfather, all the way back generationally, and they obeyed his command.

But I have spoken to you again and again and you do not listen to me. Now, what a dramatic Illustration A tribe of pagans do what their traditional fathers told them to do. You don’t even do what I, the true enemy God, tell you to do. God told them to drink wine. They picked their pagan fathers over the one true God in determining their life’s outcome. So you can see that drinking wine was an issue with God. Of course it is. Do not be drunk. It was particularly an issue if you were in leadership. You remember how in the 31st chapter of Proverbs, verse 4, we read it’s not for kings.

Millennial it’s not for kings to drink wine or for rulers to desire strong drink, for they will drink and forget what is decreed and pervert the rights of all the that’s what people who have the well being of a nation in their hands should not drink wine or strong drink. If somebody needs strong drink, give it to the one who is in such agony because he’s in the throes of death, and wine to him whose life is bitter. Rulers shouldn’t drink. When the angel announces to Zacharias the birth of John the Baptist, he said that he would never drink wine or strong drink all his life.

That’s what John the Baptist said. First Timothy 3:3 where it says about elders that they are not to be peronus, meaning alongside. If you’re an elder, you can’t be alongside wine. You can’t settle down at the table to drink for the same reason that a king can’t drink, because he can’t function with a discarded awareness. In other words, don’t get drunk. Titus 1:7 says exactly the same thing. Elders cannot be those who are alongside. 1 Titus 2:3 even says of older ladies, they’re not to be those who are much enslaved to wine. Very dramatic collection of words.

The point is, those who are leaders, those who are spiritual, spiritually responsible, mature women in the church are not to be alongside wine. They’re not to settle in as drinkers. Those who are leaders, those who are arbiters, and those who are mediators, those who are truth teachers, those who have to display wisdom, can’t have any lack of mental clarity, don’t get trump. So the best choice, as always, is don’t drink at all. It’s not really necessary. But there’s no commandment that says you cannot. So the fourth question leads us to is it habit forming now? I think you know the answer to that.

First Corinthians 5. I’m sorry, First Corinthians 6, verse 12. Paul is talking about the things that we maybe aren’t commanded not to do. He says all things are lawful for me. All things that are lawful are lawful. If there’s not a biblical prescription forbidding it. Well, there’s no prescription in the Bible. Forget forbidding to have wine or strong drink and a lot of things like that in life. A lot of things that the Bible doesn’t say are sins. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. Oh, profitable, nice word. What does that mean? It becomes habit forming, you can’t control it and in doing so you become drunk and it takes over your mind, your sober mindedness.

The over translate translation was expedient. Now that’s an English word that has at its core which means feet. That word literally comes from a root, a Latin root that means to have free feet, to not be bound up. So what he’s saying is there are plenty of things that aren’t forbidden, but they’re not going to keep me free. They have the potential to bind me. And to what extent? Well the rest of the verse, all things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by any. I will not be dominated by any. Why would I be dominated by something like wine? Well, can it dominate me? Now I also think that you know the answer to that question.

I think, you know, some of you experience the horrors of alcoholism. 38 to 40 million people in America are known alcoholics and it’s gaining more all the time. Why? Because we’re living in a demonic world. It has the power to take your life and totally destroy it. Talk about homeless people. The vast majority of those people are the products of alcohol and the addition of drugs. I saw a statistic this week that said 50% of the homeless people are ex militant. And of that almost all of them have a condition of dependency. Anything that can take control of you, anything that can make habits that make you dependent upon them, you want to avoid because you’re going to get your feet tangled up.

And there can be a lot of things beyond just alcohol, but certainly alcohol is the, is the point because it was dramatically connected to the false worship that was the backdrop to these passages of what was going on in the life of the church before salvation. So let’s go Back to Ephesians 5, 18. Don’t get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation. Now I looked up this word and I checked a number of lexicons because we’re in the Old Testament. So therefore I looked at Hebrews, I looked at Greek, I looked at Persian lexicon and I found that it’s Almost a terminal word.

You might put it in the category of the word addict. When we say someone is addicted, we mean they’re unable to break the hole or the power of what they’re addicted to. Not just. We’re not just talking about alcohol. You could be addicted to money. You could be addicted to sex. You could be addicted to stealing. You could be. That’s drunkenness, guys. Now, in the lexicons, they gave me synonyms, words like incurable, irremediably ill, hopelessly sick, undisciplined. The literal meaning is, one who, by his manner of life, debauches himself, destroys himself. This kind of inebriation leads to all kinds of transgressions, inequities and sins.

And we understand that as well as the destruction of the human body. A good illustration is found in Luke. Luke 15. And Luke 15 is the story of the prodigal son. Don’t need to go through that. But he lost everything, and he finally woke up to the fact that I would have a better life at home working for my father, making just a wage, than I am out in the world today. So the question is a simple question. Is it potentially destructive? Now, again, I think we all know the answer to that. The question is, do you want to risk it? See, God warns us.

And we saw that in Proverbs in several places. Proverbs 20:23, particularly in chapter 23, Isaiah condemns Judah for drunkenness. Joel condemns Judah for drunkenness. Hosea condemns Israel for drunkenness. Amos condemns Israel for drunkenness. Habakkuk condemns Babylon for drunkenness. Now, we all know alcoholics. Matter of fact, my dad was one. We all know people who reached the level of addiction where they had to go through some type of withdrawals and then some kind of separation with a hope that they could somehow break the power of that dream. Now, again, all you have to do is drive down the street, go find a homeless camp, and you’ll see its power.

So the sixth question quickly, is it offensive to other Christians? This is an important point because I think this is the crust of the issue. It’s a very important point. And I’ll show you in Romans 14, just to make the point First Corinthians 8, 9 says, you don’t want to do anything. That’s a stumbling block to another brother. You don’t want to do anything. That’s a stumbling block to another brother. Romans 14:21 says this. It’s not good to eat meat or to drink wine or to do anything by which Your brother stumbles. So you have this scenario.

Back in ancient times, somebody was saved out of paganism. Think about the church today, where he was in a debauched life. Consistently. He comes to Christ. You don’t know what to say to him. Oh, by the way, now that you’re in Christ, you’re free to drain. He’s going to see that as an unholy freedom. And if you tell him that he’s free to do that, you’re going to lead him into a terrible stumbling. Yes, you could. You don’t just state that. As a matter of fact, there has to be conditions by which that statement is made.

Influence and, and the example is the issue here. Regardless of that is the core issue. I said that that’s. This is the core issue. Regardless. Leadership, non leadership is the same issue. Parents, your children are watching. Well, I can tell you I learned to drink by my dad, who I had. I was born with asthma, was in an oxygen tent 18 months out of my first 24 months. I couldn’t have anything to drink. No milk, no orange juice, nothing other than water. And my dad gave me beer in my bottle. Go to bed. It is what it is.

I had enough control. You drink in moderation and the kids go to college and you get drunk and binge drink. 50% of the people in America drink. 25% of them are binge drinking kids. You say it’s okay that, that you maybe have the maturity to deal with it without ever becoming inebriated. They don’t. They give up their liberty. Go back to verse 15 in Romans 14. If because of food your brother is hurt, that’s if you’re eating food. Offer to idols more of that ancient worship. You are no longer walking according to love. Don’t destroy your brother with food for whom Christ died.

Don’t let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Verse 20. Don’t tear down the work of God for the sake of food or drink. It’s good for you not to eat meat or drink wine if it causes your brother to stumble. Foreign Romans, verses 1, 2 and 3. Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. For for each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification.

For even Christ did not please himself. See you set aside your freedoms so as you do not offend a weaker brother. Another believer. You may, he may be able to handle it. A believer seeing you do that may say it must be okay, he can’t handle it. And you set an example from which he may been destroyed. So don’t live under yourself. You don’t. You live for everybody else. Selfishness, guys, self assessment. That’s how it is in the Christian life. You don’t do anything that offends somebody else. Wow, that’s interesting. That’s very interesting. To what degree do you think your actions, responses, conversations have offended others? You don’t take those liberties.

You don’t want to be responsible for the debauchery and dissolution of a life. So you set the highest possible standards. What does he say? Be still and know that I’m God. Speak if you’re spoken to. God didn’t ask for your opinion. Neither did anybody else. Well, let me give you two more examples. I will never use my liberty to offend somebody else or to cause them to stumble. Let’s see, number seven. Here’s the next question. Well, what I do harm my Christian testament. Now 1st Corinthians 10 is a very good place to find the answer to that because it’s right at the end of the chapter.

First Corinthians 10, verse 31. Whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense either to Jews or to Gentiles or to the church of God. Well, that says everybody. You don’t want to offend anyone. You don’t want to harm your chest line because that’s what comes in the next verse. Just as I also please all men and all things, not seeking my own profit, but the prophet of many so they may be saved. I don’t want to do anything that’s going to cause someone to think I’m not a believer if, if I conduct myself with the way they did in the ancient times, that may cause someone to be indifferent to the gospel.

Well, when you look at your self assessment, where in that spectrum do you fall? So this is my final question in this review. Would what I do now we’re not talking alcohol here guys. We’re talking about drunkenness on whatever state. Would what I do wound my consciousness? If I get it, you don’t want to wound your conscious. This again is Romans 14. You want your conscious to functions since sensitivity. It’s a God given mechanism that warns you. We’ve talked about this warning system. Your it is your conscious with your emotional system that tells you whether or not you’re going to be okay.

You need to Flight, run or you’re in danger. That’s what’s given there. So if whatever you do wounds your consciousness, then you are going to hurt the mechanism that God has given you to warn you of upcoming danger. It’s your warning system. You don’t want to train yourself to ignore your conscience. You don’t want to have a seared conscious. You don’t want to have a seared conscious. And you don’t want to train yourself to ignore the acute, the accusing that comes out of a conscious that’s offended because you have done something against your conscience. You are dealing within yourself.

We are our worst enemy. Romans 14:23. He who doubts is condemned. If he eats, your conscience is your guy. So if you have wounded your conscious and now you’re doubting everything you do, what you’re doing is you have condemned yourself. So in all of these things, drunkenness, which means all facets of your life, and you go and say to another person, oh, you’re free in Christ. Come on, take a drink or come with me. Let’s go to, let’s go down to this red district. Let’s go. Do you know a drug or let’s go, you know, rob a store or let’s go, you know, do whatever.

It’s fine. It’s not going to be an issue. You co somebody into your own habits, whatever they may be. Money. Oh, I, I have a great investment portfolio. Let me, let me show you that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay? I have, you know, many houses. Let me blah, blah, whatever, okay? You violate your own conscious. You’re gluten. And there’s no freedom in that. There’s no freedom because he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith. It is not from your spiritual being. It’s from your physical self. And whatever is not from faith is what sin.

Now, you don’t want to train yourself to fight your conscious. It’s a losing battle. By the way, you don’t want to eat meat that was originally offered to idols if that is against your conscience. In ancient times it was, you don’t want to drink if it’s against your conscience. That’s not going to be a liberty for you. It’s going to be a way to train your conscience into silence. And now you have no control mechanism over your physical to understand what your spiritual is telling you. So you now have the issue before you. You now know the difference between drunkenness, not alcohol specific, and being filled with the spirit.

That’s my hope that you now Have a complete understanding of that. Why? So you can ask yourself the questions, should I do that? Well, let me just tell you this. In order for you to exchange your old self for your new self, what keeps your physical self out of issues with your spiritual self? Are asking you these questions, Should I do that? Is it necessary? Is it something that is best for me? Is what I’m going to be do turn into a habit forming activity? Is it destructive? And more importantly, can it be offensive to another Christian and cause them to stumble? Can it be harmful to my Christian test demon? Will it wound my conscious? So therefore I have no ability to know right from wrong in the future because I have taught my conscience the evil side of this world, not the basis that God gave it to you for consideration of understanding what you’re going to be faced with.

Now that’s how you need to look at all of this. Why? Because we’re studying how to what walk worthy of your calling. Walk not as unwise, but as wise. Scripture says that is wisdom. So when we come down to it and we look at our walk with relationship to our relationship to Jesus Christ, the point of your decisions in the physical world must be drawn from your spiritual side. Because if you allow your physical side to take charge in producing the outcome that you want to do, then you are not pure. And that’s the first requirement of Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 1 is the as what you are to maintain yourself is purity.

That’s the end of this focus on drunkenness and being filled with the Spirit. Next time we’re going to look at these, these three verses 18 and 19, 4, 1821 from a different viewpoint to get a different perspective on what these scriptures tell us. But what they tell us in what we’ve discussed the last two times is you’re not to be drunk with idols. You’re to be filled with the Holy Spirit. So this is working on your decision making abilities of your Christian life. Questions? Comments? Yes sir. So would a hobby be considered a sin as well? If you, if you idolize it, it’s what if you idolize it? Yes, that’s what my point was going to be.

So if you continually run or bike or crochet on specific days all the time. Well, and, and you, and you make make forth the time to go do that and you don’t make forth the time with your relationship to Christ and that becomes what? That becomes an idol in that process? Well what if you’re able to listen to scriptures while doing that? Then too I’m not Saying exam. I just, I just said whatever. You idolize, right. And you, you use it in a manner by which is taking away from your time in worship with Jesus Christ, then it becomes an idol.

Okay. Okay. Thank. I like to sit on the porch every afternoon for an hour to an hour and a half smoking a cigar, listening to my. What I want to listen to. But I am not taking away from my. My worship of Jesus Christ. Why? Because I’m having a conversation with him the entire time. But I like to do that. So I make time to go do that. But I am not taking away time from my relationship with God to go do it. As a matter of fact, I have more, more revelation in doing that than I thought I would ever have.

Why? Because it’s quiet time. It’s quite time. Well, Jim, we always see the people that say he who dies with the most toys, wins. And where did they win? Nothing. Absolutely lost everything. Yep. Now don’t get me wrong. I like toys. Okay? I like toys. I like. I like, you know, toys. In my life I’ve had toys, all right? And in my life to come, I am going to have more toys. But again, it’s a matter of worshiping the toys. Vers versus knowing that you had the toys and could go do those things at time periods of the fact that you don’t or you’re not taken away from your time with the Heavenly Father.

Yeah. David, kind of spin off what Sam was saying. I would just thinking through our lesson tonight, I would. I would think I should grow stronger in faith. Your conscience would start talking to you a bit more if you’re. If the Holy Spirit feels like you’re starting to idolize something else. Is that it? It does. Basically it warns you, but you override your consciousness by. By going ahead and do it. So what your conscious. What you begin to do is know your conscious ability to warn you. So that kind of goes back to the questions. We went over it.

Right, right, right. Your conscious is your communication system along with your feelings. And if you go back and look at. I want to. I. There was. We talked about this in the law of allowing attraction manifestation. We even had some studies on it early on whereby you have two, two communication systems, all right? One of it is the physical communication system, which is your consciousness and your emotional system tied together. And when you get this feeling like the hairs are raised on the back of your neck or you get this uneasiness, or after you’ve made a decision or done an act, you either feel good or bad about it.

That is your conscious giving you a heads up that you need to look at this. That’s God’s system of communication with you saying, might not have, you know, you need to really look at it and you need to do it because that becomes the point where forgiveness ought to be made immediately. The longer you go without the forgiveness in doing that, the less your conscience is going to provide that awareness in the future. You strengthen your consciousness by the values you set in, in evaluating what you’re doing in your life and adhere to what that communication response is telling you is going on.

Make sense? Dave, baby Jim, in your quiet time on the back porch, do you sit there and wait for God to speak to you or do you initiate the conversations? Sort of both. When I walk out on the porch, I say, okay, God, it’s our time. You know, it’s just like, okay, I’m starting this conversation. Where do you want to take it? I, I, you know, sort of feel the spirit leading on. What music I want to play. Sometimes I play Christian music. Sometime I, I play instrumental music. Sometime I play country music. It’s really of what is going on.

It’s not, you know, it’s not distracting, but it’s something that provides an emotional tone. And I walk out the door, starting to talk, and when I walk back in, I’m still talking. Yeah. Thank you. Remember, he sits there side by side. He’s in, he’s inside of you. So why wouldn’t you want to talk to him? Why do you, why do you want to take the quietness of that time and not listen to him or give him the opportunity to converse with you? You know, that’s just, to me, that’s all about life. God says pray without ceasing.

That means talk. All right, so why wouldn’t you want to take that time to do that now? I’d love to do that on the water instead of ski. You know, I’d love to be slalom and on, on the water and doing the same thing. Okay, that’s toys. Okay. But in, in my normal daily routines, in the morning I have quiet time, and in the afternoon I have quiet time and I talk. And then I listen, I ask questions, I do whatever. I talked about Ezekiel today. I told you I was studying Ezekiel all morning. I, and I’m just, I’m just getting excited about getting into that.

I prepared two discussion. They’re two, two hour long discussions already. And I’m, I’m ready to get into that. So I used the time today to talk about Ezekiel and he led me to an 1800 sermon. And he said. He said, listen. So I listened to it. I said, oh, my gosh, you know, thank you. You answered a lot of my questions. That’s how it works for me. Victoria, I wanted to talk about the Jeremiah 35 story. I remember reading through that and. And you certainly gave a different perspective on the father, the. The. The family listening to their pagan elders or, you know, fathers.

I had not gotten that at all. I just thought, oh, you don’t drink. That’s a good thing to do. Leads to addiction, and so on and so on. So I just wanted to say that was fascinating because it is tricky, very tricky what you idolize and what you’re worshiping. And here it is, you know, a good family. A family. I say good family, but a family who is listening to their. Their elders. And it was really pagan worship. That’s just, I don’t know, blew me away. So. Yeah. And the fact of it is, the decision of that generation goes what, four and five generations below because it was their decision.

So therefore it never happens. They’re never going to get their generation out of that. Right. Idol worship. They’re also. Every one of the generations is idol worshiping all the way back to the beginning. And it’s obviously a sin. It is a sin. Wow. I’m gonna have to read the Bible again next year. Thank you. Anything else, guys? Sure. All right, let’s pray. Father, thank you for tonight. Thank you for the ability to get through another area of focus and your book of application. Thank you for being true to us. Thank you for all of the things that you provision us with, mainly in the area of knowledge and wisdom and revelation.

Because without that, everything else is. Can’t even be comprehended. And so, Father, we want to thank you for your openings yourself up to. Up to us through the Scripture, given us the ability to understand points of the scripture that we may not have understood before. May we apply it to our life. Work with us in order to do that in the areas in each one of our lives that you see fit for that to be applied to. And Father, we. We just thank you. We just love you. Love your son, sonship. Thank him. Thanks. Thank you.

Thank you for him creating this host body system that we absolutely have the way to go home. And we just want to give you all the praise and glory and all this be with us wrestling. You know that this weekend is a transformation weekend. This is your plan. This is your coming. This is your doing what it is. Give us the peace and joy and understanding that what is happening and what we see is basically 100 controlled by you. And may you give us protection and give us wisdom as it relates to what we’re seeing, engagement, and all the things about it.

And ask all these things in my son’s name.
[tr:tra].