Let's turn to Ephesians chapter
5. Ephesians chapter 5. Let's pick up here in verse 17. Our subject this morning is be
not drunk with wine. Be not drunk with wine. Verse 17 says wherefore? And Lord, here speaking through
Paul, said, you've been called into the church to speak the
gospel, the truth. And he began to speak, he said,
and don't walk anymore as Gentiles, Paul. You used to walk when you
were in darkness. He goes through showing all these
different ways that Gentiles walk. All of these things he's
showing us, he said, that which manifests light, light, that
which proves light. He's showing us that these things
are the opposite of light. Primarily, as we saw Thursday
night, they have to do with the Gentiles' thoughts and beliefs,
the things they used in their religion, lives, and fornication,
wine, and all these different things. It was all a great feast. of variety and magnitude in their
religion. He comes here now and he just
got through telling us now, you see vessels of light, you preach
Christ to light, you look to Christ to light, you walk in
Christ to light, and he says here now, wherefore be ye not
unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. You
know what the will of the Lord is. Where you find it's right
here. Everything we've been seeing
before this passage and everything we'll see after this passage
is the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, his precepts, gospel
precepts that he gives to the believing people saved by his
grace. Put these up and they have to be able to preach the
gospel, walk in according to the light, to not bring any disparagement
on that gospel. Wherefore, Be not unwise, but
understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk
with wine. I like this. Be ye not unwise,
and be not drunk with wine. That's unwise. Wherein is excess,
but be filled with the Spirit. Now, drunkenness, drunkenness. Without any question, drunkenness
is a sin. Drunkenness is forbidden in the
scripture. It's forbidden in the scripture. Drinking wine is not forbidden.
Drinking alcohol is not forbidden. Drunkenness is forbidden. It's
not the things that are the sin. It's the heart that's the sin. Do you understand that? It's
what's coming out of this heart that's the sin. Things are not
the sin. It's not a sin just to drink
alcohol. It's drunkenness that is the sin. That comes out of
a lustful, covetous, excessive heart. That's what the sin is.
And he says, but rather be filled with the Spirit. But now, the
Holy Spirit here is not using Paul to just cut off one of the
limbs of the corrupt tree. I can sit here and preach about
drunkenness and don't get drunk, and here's what'll happen. If
a body here that gets drunk starts sinking down in his seat, you'll
feel horrible, and you'll feel like, well, I put away my drink,
and I'll be all right. I'll be done. And you that don't
drink will sit and look at the oven and go, uh-huh. You better
be listening to that message. We're just cutting a limb off
the tree. We need to take the ax and lay it to the root of
the tree. The root's the heart, it's the
sin nature. That's where we're going here,
the sin nature. Drunkenness that's caused by
drugs and alcohol, it's intoxicating just like walking after the flesh
is intoxicating. If you begin to drink from your
corrupt heart and the old man of sin that's in a believer,
you begin to drink and follow after that man, you're going
to get drunk. You're going to get drunk. It'll
have the same effect on you that wine will have on you. Exactly
the same. And when we give ourselves to
our sinful, fleshly man of Adam, it's like giving ourselves to
wine. And if we, in fact, give ourselves to wine, That's not
the literal problem. The cultural problem is the heart
from where that desire is coming. That's the sinful root. That's
what the big people don't have. You understand that? When our
works, our works of self-righteousness and self-sacrification and self-salvation,
when our works, when our bedding, when our flesh, when our senses,
when our pleasures and the cares of this world, when they are
our God ruling us, We're walking after those, we're drunk, we're
drunk. And the effects of those things,
brethren, he said, we're in his deck seat. They used to call
alcohol the gateway drug. You say drunkenness, you start,
you begin. You get drunk, that's going to
lead you to the worst thing. Well, walking after your flesh,
the sinful flesh, that's the gateway drug. Because it's religion
without Christ. It's righteousness without Christ,
our righteousness. Sanctification without Christ
is sanctification. It leads to worse and worse and
worse sin. It leads to intemperance. It
leads to all kinds of rioting and banqueting and excessive
lusts and all these things. And it's mainly in religion.
It's mainly what most people in this world look at and say,
oh, isn't that so? All right, there's something else. And God calls it drunkenness
and riot. That's what He calls it. I'll
show you that. I'm going to show you that. It's
coming from that self-righteous heart, that self-righteous nature.
Here's the truth of the matter. You could become a teetotaler. You could get to the point where
you don't touch any alcohol at all, and the roots still be there.
The roots still be there. The roots, the old man of sin,
that we're born with. The drunkenness caused by literal
alcohol is because we're first drunk with our flesh and our
souls. So, do we have this point? What
I'm saying here, this is what the Lord's teaching us. The Lord's
teaching us here to walk after the Spirit, not after the flesh. Notice each one of these things,
Mitch, is going to fill us with something. Verse 18 says, be
not drunk with wine, be not filled with wine, but rather be filled
with the Spirit. You're going to be filled with
one or the other. You're going to be either filled with the
flesh or filled with the Spirit. You cannot be filled with both.
You'll be filled with one or the other. And then it says,
but both affect something in us wherein is excess. The flesh,
when you walk after the flesh, you become drunk in the flesh.
You know what it produces? It produces a type of rejoicing,
a type of singing. The scriptures call it the songs
of the drunkard. The songs of the drunkard. Rejoicing
in the works of the flesh. But being filled with the spirit
produces a song too. It's a different song. Speaking
to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Singing and making melody in
your heart to the Lord. Giving thanks always for all
things unto God in the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ. So you understand this, that we're talking here about
the wine of the flesh. The wine of that sinful, corrupt
nature. You can't be drunk. You can't
walk after people. It's going to have horrible effects. You have to be filled with the
Spirit. You're drunk. The Gospel will
be followed after you. Remember that great day of the
feast? It was a religious feast. And I'm going to show you, the
Lord describes it as a drunken feast. It was a religious feast. They claimed to be following
the law. And they were there that day. There was all their
various religious acts going on, and it was just like they
were just drinking flagons of wine. And they were drunk. Boy, they were self-puffed up
and haughty and thinking everything they were doing right, and the
Lord was pleased with them. And the Lord Jesus Christ stood
there on that right there at the feast, and He said, there
they are out there drinking of their, drinking of their, figurative
wine with all their works and all their self-righteousness.
And the Lord said, if you're thirsty, come to me and drink. Don't be drinking this flesh. Don't be drinking your fountain. Don't be drinking your self-will
and your self-righteousness. Come to me and drink. You see,
this is the place you can come to and you can drink flagons
of the Holy Spirit. Flagons of God. You can drink
gallons of the Holy Spirit. It'll do you good. You can take
a cup of salvation and drink it and drink it and drink it
and drink it and it'll do you well. Not so, Mr. Fletch. Alright, so first of
all, for our divisions, here's what we're going to do. We're
going to go to some scriptures that describe drunkenness. And
we're going to use those scriptures to contrast them with what it
is to walk in the Holy Spirit, to walk after Christ. Let's start
with the first man that ever got drunk in the scriptures.
Go to note, Genesis 9. There's something as evil as
drunkenness. The first man that could be mentioned about doing
it was this, some blue, corrupt sinner. No. Not at all. It's a man that had
been delivered through the flood by God's grace. It's a man to
whom God had made an everlasting covenant with. It's a man that
was delivered into a new creation. This is what happened. Verse
20. Genesis 9, verse 20. Noah began to be a husband, a
farmer, and he planted a vineyard. And he drank of the wine, and
he was drunk. And he was uncovered, but he
was hidden. Noah typifies Adam greatly, because
God put Adam in a brand new creation. Here he put Noah in a brand new
creation. It's just Noah and his family. Everybody else is
destroyed. And God made a covenant with
Adam. God made a covenant with Noah. I never destroy the world
again. Why? put a rainbow in the cloud,
a picture of Christ, showing us a picture of everlasting love.
Seven, seven colors, the number of perfection. And here he is in his new creation,
shortly after Adam's sin, shortly after Noah's sin. Very beautiful picture of Adam
right here. And now after what God's done for us, friend, in
making us a new creation, making this covenant with us, bringing
us through the flood of judgment, after what everything God's done
for us, Whether we walk after the Spirit to be filled with
the Spirit, or whether we walk after the wine of the flesh to
be filled with it, we're going to have to make a determination
to do it, and we're going to make a choice to do it. Understand
this, when God saves you, He takes all your choices away and
shuts you up to Christ alone. We've seen that. But when you
sin, unless it's sin you don't know anything about, If you do
it willingly, you make a choice to do it. If you plan to do it,
you determine to do it, you do it. And so, with all of us, there's
folks that go around saying, oh, you can't blame me for being
this way. I was born this way. Yes, you were born a sinner.
There's no doubt about that. You're doing the dictates of
your corrupt nature. But when you do it, you willingly
do it. You're making the choice to do
it. You can't excuse yourself for
sinning. It just don't happen. And if
we follow the Spirit, go ahead and make a determination to do
it. The Lord said, My people shall be willing when they will
not. That means they're going to be willing. They're going
to be willing. Now, look at this. Look at what Noah did. Noah began
to be a husbandman, and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the
wine. It took planning for Noah to
be a farmer. He took the seed God gave him. He planted it.
He tilled the ground. He planted that seed. As that
vine began to come up, God made it to grow. He tended it. He chewed away the foxes from
it. He kept it hedged about. And when the fruit began to produce,
He drank the fruit. He processed it. He drank it. It took time to do all that stuff. Here's what I'm saying, brethren.
God put all His elect in the heart, just like He did at Christ
the Lord. And Christ, with us safe inside
Christ, Christ bore the flood of God's judgment for His people
so that it didn't touch us, it touched Him and He absorbed it
all and satisfied justice for His people. And so God delivered
us through that flood of judgment to the new creation just like
He did Adam. There's an article in the book
that says we have obtained that eternal inheritance. We've been
predestinated to it, and God worked it after the Council of
His own will. He did it. We have it. We're
in the new creation if you're born of God. We are in the new
heavens and the new earth, just like Noah was delivered to that
new heavens and new earth. And it'll never be taken from
us. It'll never be changed. We have it now. All this old
heavens and earth and our flesh and everything else is going
to pass away, but we have this now. Christ came and He made
us a new creature within. have this everlasting eternal
inheritance, this salvation in our redemption. And as I said,
he says, those that are born of me, they're going to be made
willing. He's made this covenant with us. And he says, I'm going
to make you willing to follow after me. So if we're going to
follow after him, we're going to have to do what Noah did here
in a positive way. We're going to have to determine,
I'm going to be a husband. I'm going to take the seed Christ
gives me and I'm going to make sure it goes in the good ground,
that ground He's made for me. I'm going to make sure it's lodged
deeply in the inner vein. That means I'm going to have
to pray to God to bless it. I'm going to have to ask Him
to bless it because He's the only one that can bless it. He's the
only one that can make it grow within me. I'm going to have
to, when the foxes come around and try to steal the fruit, I'm
going to have to shoot those foxes away. Get those foxes out. I'm going to have to not make
provision for my flesh. I know it's difficult because
our flesh wants to sin. Our flesh lusts to sin. And I
know that's hard to put it off and not make provision for the
flesh. And you have to work at it. I
just don't want to see it. I just don't want to see it.
I just don't want to see it. I just don't want to see it. And you fall and it just hurts
you because you've done it against your redeeming. And so you really do have to
strive against the flesh. It's a warfare between the spirit
and the flesh. And there's some planning and
determination and provision that has to be made for the spirit
rather than for the flesh. If I sit, you know, if I hear
the gospel preached and I go home and I turn on my a TV and
I sit there in front of the television all day, every day, or I turn
on a video game and I sit there and play a video game. And they
just, these video games, they're just so easy. I mean, they're
just doing everything God said, don't do. And we're just sitting
there playing them like crazy. And if I sit there and do that,
I'm making provision for my family. I'm feeding my family. I'm not
going to get anything from this world. In fact, I can sit here
and preach to you, like Brother Scott said, and bring up these
illustrations in the Old Testament, and if you're not reading this
Word, you don't have a clue what I'm talking about. See, you have to try to be fed
with the Spirit. In other words, I'm saying, the
Spirit can make you know and understand and hear without your
consent, without your willingness. The Spirit can do that. But back
up in Ephesians 4, he said, but don't read the Spirit. Don't
be a hindrance to the Spirit. Don't be fighting against the
Spirit all the time. Be a help to the Spirit. And
that new man within, every believer, wants to be a help to the Spirit.
That new man wants to be filled with the Spirit. He wants to
walk after Christ. He wants to follow Him. He wants to be honorable
to Him. The Incarnate does that. So we
have to be attentive to hear Him. We have to give ourselves
to study, and have to give ourselves to ask God to bless the Word,
and we have to go and compare Scripture to Scripture, and look
these things up. Give some diligence to Scripture,
you see. And opposite to how Noah was drunken, when he did
all that, he became drunken because he was making provision and determination
and planning for his flesh, and he was drunken. But opposite to that, you'll
be drunk in this period. You'll be filled with the wine
of Jesus Christ, the wine of our beloved, his precious blood
that makes you, makes you literally 10 feet taller than the moon.
And not just a faint 10 feet taller, but grander. But not among winebibbers, riotous
eaters of flesh. For the drunkard and the glutton
shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall mow the man with rags.
After he became drunk, he was naked. He was uncovered in his
tent. But you know what will happen
if you walk after the spirit instead of being naked? The Lord
will cover you. He hedges you about Him, protects
His people so that nothing shall ever separate us from the love
of God in Christ Jesus. We're clothed in His righteousness,
in the garments of His righteousness. That's the effectual fruit that
He produces. And He brings us to sing and
to make melody in our heart to the Lord and give thanks to the
Lord, to God our Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus. So there's
the first thing. Let's make a determination and
a plan. I want to be a husband. I want
to cultivate this garden. I want to see it grow. You know, the farmer can't make
the thought, he can't make it grow. But he can do what God's
given him to do and patiently wait on God to do what God has
said to him. And that's what Christ says to
us. You do what I've given you the ability to do, trust me to
do everything for you. That's it. Alright, now secondly,
let's go and see what we're to do with the stubborn, drunk son. Deuteronomy 21. Deuteronomy 21. Verse 18. How long do we need
to make a determination and a striving to be filled with this Holy Spirit?
There's something else we need to do. We've got to do something
with the trumpet, the son that's a trumpet. All right, look at
this. Deuteronomy 21, 18. If a man have a stubborn your
son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice
of his mother, and that when they have chastened him will
not arcanum to them. Then shall his father and his
mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his
city, and unto the gate of his place." They had to bring him
to the judgment seat. And they shall say unto the elders
of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious. He will
not obey our voice. He is a glutton. He is a fraud. And all the men of his city shall
stone him with stones, that he die. So shalt thou put evil away
from among you, and all Israel shall hear your fear. And the
first thought that occurred to me when I read this is, is there
anybody here that wants to try to cover God by their works?
I can't do this alone. Anybody here taking their stubborn
and rebellious son to the judge in the city and saying, kill
him? Just kill him. We can't come to God anymore.
But now, here's what we can do. Well, this one is a dead son. He's dead insane. He walked after
his flesh. He's drunk. He's filled with
excess. No chasing will correct him. Okay? He's stubborn. He's
amazed. He won't even divorce his father
or his mother. So God commands him to be brought
to the judges. To be brought to the judges.
And for the father and the mother to bear witness against this
son and say he's evil, he's a drunkard, he's stubborn, he's rebellious,
slay him. And the judges are to kill this
boy and to put him away. That way, the true Israel, the
true people there in the midst will hear about it and they'll
tremble in their heart and they'll have reference from God in their
service. Now, the root problem. The root
of the tree is our flesh. It's this old son that we have
within us. This old son that we have within
us is full of gluttony, full of drunkenness, full of stubbornness,
full of rebellion. He refuses to hear. He refuses
to be chastened. That's the old son of our sin
nature in good name. He will not hear. He will not
obey. He will not follow after the
mold. We must walk after the Spirit and hear Christ our everlasting
Father correct us. But this part of me won't do
it. He's a stubborn son. We've got to hear the voice of
his bride correct us with this gospel. But the father or the
mother can speak, and this son won't hear it. He won't pay it
any attention. We've got to take this sinful
son of the flesh, and we've got to take him to the gate. We've
got to take him to Christ the Father. We've got to take him
there to our elders, the elders of our city, to God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We've got to take him
to them. We've got to confess to them.
This one is my own flesh. We didn't distract y'all if I
had a can of Gordon-Frey while I was preaching. I don't want to see food. It's just blatantly disobeying
what I've asked you to do. I try not to drink from this
water. I try to put my head down. I
put my head down looking up at scripture. I try to drink from
it not to distract you. And the only reason I have it is because
my throat will dry out if I don't have it. Don't you have houses to eat
and drink in? That's what Paul said to his brother. Well, there's nothing there,
right? Alright, look here now. We've got to take this sinful
son to the gate, Christ the way, to the elders, to the trident
of God, and confess, make confession to God. that this, Lord, there's
something in me. He's bone of my bone and flesh
of my flesh. He's a part of me, but he will
not obey. This son will not obey. He's
stubborn, he's rebellious, he's a drunkard, he won't obey. Damn God. God will stone him. God will
stone that son. He will subdue that old man.
This is what it is to walk in this way. Come and ask God, Lord,
put this son down. Put him down in heaven. Alright, that's the second thing.
Here's the third thing. We've got to hear Christ, the
wise one speaking. Look now at Proverbs 23. Proverbs
23. Proverbs 23. Let's look at verse 29. Here's
Solomon. He's Christ, the wise one. We've
got to hear Christ speak. Now, this is what he teaches
us. Proverbs 23, 29. Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath woes
without a cause? Who hath redness of eyes? They
that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine. Mixed drinks. This is the excess,
this is the effect of that literal drunkenness that comes about
from being drunk. But here Christ here described
to us the drunkenness of falsehood, the drunkenness of self-righteousness,
of works, of attempting to become the God without price, of following
and walking in that rebellious Son rather than walking in the
Spirit. This is what Christ is describing to us here. Those
who tarry long at the wine of Babylon's fornications, In falsehood,
in religion, in falsehood, in worldliness, those that tarry
long at this wine, they're going to find that that wine produces
woe, and sorrow, and contentions. But if you tarry long at the
wine of the gospel, you drink of the cup of salvation, it doesn't
produce woe, it produces wealth. His woe to the wicked is well
to the righteous, those made righteous in Christ. He doesn't
produce sorrow. He produces rejoicing in the
Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't produce contentions.
He produces contentment in Christ. That's what the wine of the gospel
does. Terry Long mixing your works
with Christ's works. Mixing your works with Christ's
works, having that mixed cocktail, you carry along there and he
says it's going to produce babbling, it's going to produce wounds
without cause. I don't know how folks get drunk
and just get into a fight for no reason. Wounds without cause,
redness of eyes, but you tarry long in the gospel, drinking
of Christ the Lord. It's not going to produce babbling. It's going to make you praise
the Lord and speak of Him and speak with a right tongue, with
a faithful tongue. It's not going to produce wounds
without cause. It's going to produce healing without a cause
in you. It's not going to produce redness
of eyes, it's going to produce clearness of eyes where you can
actually see the gospel, see Christ. And then our wise Solomon,
the Lord Jesus, teaches us that the wine of flesh through religion
doesn't end with what it promises us at first sight. It doesn't
end with what it promises you when you first look at it. Look
here at verse 31. Look not thou upon the wine when
it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it moveth
itself aright. I'm going to take a cup of wine
or some alcohol beverage and look at it. Oh, it just looks
so pretty in the cup, you know, and it's just moving aright.
It's moving aright, as you can see. I'm not drunk yet. Salvation by works gives a lovely
appearance to food. The flesh loves it. It's like
wine appearing in a glass. It appears lovely. It appears
to be ripe. Christ said, don't look on it.
When you look on it, you look at religion. Think about it.
You look at religion, and they got giant church buildings. They
got masses of people with them. They've got plenty of money to
do whatever they need to do. They got all kind of missionary
programs and all kind of things going on in the world. They're
clothing their feet. They're hungry. They're doing everything in the
world. And that looks, just to the natural eye, you look at
that and you think, man, that looks good. The Lord said, don't
look at it. Don't look on it. Religion without
Christ, it's not only vain and worthless, it's damning. It's
damning, damning. But there's a wine that's beautiful
to look upon. Our Lord Jesus Christ sat with his apostles
one night, and they were having supper together. And they were
drinking wine, real wine, real wine. And he took that wine,
and he held it up, and he said, let me show you how beautiful.
He said, this wine right here represents my blood, the everlasting
testimony and covenant of God written in my blood. It cannot
be changed or altered in any way whatsoever. That's what this
wine represents. And he said, now drink it. That
represents you taking that wine of our Lord's blood and trying
to put all your confidence in it, all your trust in it, living
upon it. They drank that wine. Now that
wine is beautiful. Unchanging, unchangeable grace
of our God. That everlasting covenant written
in Christ's blood, that's a beautiful wine to look for. But look here,
the mixed wine of grace and works, it appears lovely at first. And
the whole time a man may dwell on this earth, he may go through
his whole life and think it's beautiful. He's tearing long
at this wine. He may think it's good for all
his life. There's an end coming to it. There's an end coming
to it. Sooner or later, here's the end of it. Verse 32. Just
like getting drunk on wine and mixed drinks. Look at verse 32.
At the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like a cat. You
know what the Lord says under our tongue? The poison casts. And that comes from the poisonous
heart that's in us. And so if we meet God trusting
in our work, when we meet God, you know what the result's going
to be? Poison. God won't have it, and
so he's going to turn us over to judgment. And the end thereof
is death. The end of all sin is death.
It's all death. But listen to this scripture.
The end of those things is death. Now, being made free from sin
and becoming servants to God, you have your flute unto holiness
in the end everlasting life. Which one of these do you want
to drink from? That one that's going to end in the biting and
the poison and the death? What do you want to drink of
this cup that's going to end in everlasting life? Oh, at first
you're going to mingle a little of your works with the wine of
grace, but soon this is what that intoxication is going to
lead to. Look at verse 23. Thine eyes
shall behold strangers, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.
There's nothing as sad as when a man He who has a faithful,
beloved first love, gets in trouble and commits adultery against
his first love. That's a sickening thing. It's
a horrible thing. It's utter out and out betrayal. It's horrible. If there's one
that's worse than that, One is worse than that. Sadder than
that is the adultery that the drunkenness of free will birch
religion causes a man to enter into. Adultery. Now, if a man
can do that, if he can leave Christ, if he can leave the gospel,
if he can leave God's people with the gospel of Christ and
truth, he never was joined to this pride. He never was married
in the first place. Here's what happens. The mixed
wine of works and breaks always leads to a strange woman. Always
leads to a strange woman. He'll begin to utter her perverse
doctrines. He'll begin to utter perverse things against his first
love. He'll follow this strange woman.
Who's this strange woman? Listen to the God describer in
Revelation 17. Christ showed her to John. Here's how he described her in
Revelation 17. He began at the middle part of the verse there
and he said, He sought a great pool who sitteth upon many waters. She sits over all the nations
and people of the earth. He says, with whom the kings
of the earth have committed fornication. And the inhabitants of the earth
have been drunk with the wine of her fornication. Revelation 18 verse 3 says, All
the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
And the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her.
And the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance
of her delicacies. Oh, she'll make you rich. She'll make you wealthy in this
world. And she'll make you drunk. She'll
make you commit fornication. She'll make you commit adultery.
She'll make you sin with her all day and all night. This is
everything that's false. It's everything that's sinful. It's politics, it's religion,
it's all things that lead and are sinful. business. It all looks good, it all tastes
good, it all brings you pleasure for a season, but it's Babylon. It's the harlot, and she's a
strange woman. And though you look around the
world and you see, you say, what in the world is wrong with folks?
Why is this going on? Why are folks staggering around
like a bunch of drunks? Because they're drunk on the
wine of her fornication. Drunk on her wine. But even though
that's the case, our God is absolutely sovereign. He's using even the
wine of her fornication to accomplish His purpose. And I can prove
that to you. Listen to this from Jeremiah
51-7. Babylon. Mystery Babylon. the devil and his powers and
principalities and sinful organizations and men and all the civil and
political and religious leaders who love to take bribes and take
rewards and therefore they don't feed God's people. Once he talks
about it in Malachi when he says, for their sakes I'm going to
plow the land like it's farmland, leave it desolate like a forest.
You want to see it? Look over in Israel right now.
That's who he was talking about. It's been that way ever since
70 AD. He plowed it like a farm. He
said, they'll try to rebuild. I'll throw down. That's what
he said in Isaiah. And he does that in nations.
He does that all over the world. He's going to do it with this
whole world one day. But listen to what he said. Babylon hath
been a golden cup in the Lord's hand that made all the earth
drunk. The nations have drunk enough
of our wine, and therefore the nations are mad. Who's holding
that cup? God is. God is. Think about how much God's real
people, his true people, have been protected by false religion
in a lot of ways. There have been seasons where
false religion harms us, but there have been a lot of ways
in which false religion helps us. Because in this day and time,
everybody's religious. If you're religious, they think,
well, then we're all the same. And they just treat you nicely. See that? So look here. Wine
makes a person sick, though. It makes a person sick. It makes
them forget, though, their sickness real soon and return to it. My
grandfather used to say, labor pain and whiskey sickness are
soon forgotten. It doesn't take long a woman's
going to have a child. If you don't take long, you're going
to be in trouble. Look here. As with the Lord said, falsehood
makes a man to sin. Look at verse 34. Yea, thou shalt
be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea. What happens
when you lay down? Worst thing for you when you
get seasick, God knows, is to go lay down. Worst thing. It
just makes you sick. He's like one laying down in
the sea. He's sick. Or as he that lieth upon the
top of the mast. Imagine being up there. We're
doing this right here. He said, that's what drinking
wine's like. That's what it's like to drink
the wine of all falsehood in the picture. It makes you sick. But now here's the sad thing
about it. Here's the sad thing about it. They strike you down just like
drunkenness strikes you down. Whether it's in the world or
it's in religion, they strike you down. And after they do it,
verse 35, you say, they've stricken me. They've beaten me. But then
you forget. You say, but I wasn't sick. I
didn't feel it. I was not sick. I felt it not.
And when shall I awake? I'll seek it again again. Turn
right back to me. Listen to how God describes Israel
in his day. This is religion, right? Listen
to this. He said, the priest and the prophet
have erred through strong drink. They're swallowed up with wine.
They're out of the way through strong drink. They err in vision. They stumble in judgment. And
all tables are full of vomit and filthiness so that there's
no place clean. Do you think, do you read in
scripture of any place where the Lord walked into the tabernacle
or the temple and literally that the that the priests were in
there drunk on wine and there was vomit all over the place?
No. That's a picture, really. But
that's what was the case every time the Lord went around them.
They were drunk on their words. They were drunk on their so-called
law-keeping, and it was just throwing up on everything they
took, making them defile. That's the picture. All right,
now, let's go hear God's description of this. We're going to see what
He did with them at last. Isaiah 511. Well, it'll be the end of this
drunkenness if a man continues in his false religion, in his
falsehood, in his worldliness, and doesn't have Christ. This
is where he'll end, I think. Isaiah 511, he's describing the
religious approach. Woe unto them that rise up early
in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, that continue
until night, till wine and flame. It's a good thing to wake up
early and follow the Lord, walk after the Spirit from the time
you wake up to the time you go to bed. That will humble you.
The Lord will make you confide and broken and seek Christ at
all. But if you rise up and you follow
the strong drink of falsehood, religion, and worldliness all
day long, it's going to puff you up and make you proud and
make you survive. And this literally describes
them in all their seeking after their own righteousness. Paul
described it. He said, I bear you record that
Israel, they have a zeal of God. God says here they rise up early
in the morning and they follow this strong drink all the way
to the mountain. He says, I bear you record, they got a zeal for
God, but it's not according to God. For they, being ignorant
of God's righteousness, are drunk as they can be, going about to
establish their own righteousness. Because they haven't submitted
to the righteousness of God. They haven't submitted to Christ,
which is the end of the love of righteousness. Now look. Look at this. And our text says,
we're in his excess. Look at verse 12. And they have
a harp, and a vial, and a tapere, and a pipe, and wine are in their
feet. Now, works religion, if you look at it, they always have
excess, they always have more, they always got extra methods
and extra means they're using instead of just using preaching.
They got all these different things, and they're singing all
the time. What's the song of the drunkard? Who does the drunkard sing about?
Who does he sing to? Himself. Himself. That's who
the scriptures speak of the songs of the drunkard. Every natural
song, every secular song we hear is about man. That's the song
of religion. Man drunk in religion. That's
who they're singing about. And it's just the opposite of
the Lord's people. We're singing to the Lord. We're singing praise
unto Him. We're rejoicing in Him and giving
thanks unto Him. Look at verse 12, but they regard
not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his
hand. This is the difference between
the true and the false. No matter where it's at, what
it is, this is the difference between God's true people and
all falsehood. Falsehood glories and honors
and sings songs to self and is inflamed with self and drunk
and intoxicated with self. God's people are carried away
in Christ alone. glory in Christ. We're giving
Him the glory. We're talking of His works and the operation
of His hands and not talking about it. And falsehood is talking
about the work of their own hands and their own operation and not
talking about God's. Well, they might mix the two
a little bit because they like mixed drinks too, but it's still
all falsehood. They're mutually exclusive. These
drinks can't be mixed. They just can't be mixed. Now
look here, let me read this to you. Romans 11.35 says, Who is
first given to God? Think about this. What do you
want to glory? Think about this. God first chose
His people. He didn't choose us. God first
draws His people to Christ. He first gives us life. He first
gives us faith. He first gives us repentance.
God first makes us righteous in his Son. God first makes us
holy in his Son. God first makes us to be redeemed
by his Son. God first makes us, we don't
make ourselves. God first forgives us of our
sins. God first makes us filled with
the Holy Spirit. God first carries us along the
way and keeps us protected by his grace. God first preserves
us so that we persevere by his power. God first raises us from
the dead. Death's going to make a mockery
of himself a little bit. Death's going to show him, you
lied. You lied all the time. You couldn't
do your bit. But God first makes His child,
and His wills will be carried out. He first gives His child
the inheritance that He predestinated us to have before the foundation
of the world. So then brethren, everything we receive in our
life, in our salvation, is of God. So why would we glory as
if we didn't receive it? Scripture says, don't let the
wise man glory in his wisdom. Don't let the mighty man glory
in his might. Let not the rich man glory in
his riches. Let him that glorieth, glorieth in this, that he understands
and knows me, that I'm the Lord which exercises love and kindness,
and exercises judgment, and exercises righteousness in the earth. In
these things I delight, saith the Lord. He said, there's coming
a day when I'm going to punish all. I'm going to punish the
circumcised with the uncircumcised. I'm going to punish those that
have done all these outward works as well as those that haven't
done any of those outward works. Why? Why would he punish them
together? He says, because all these nations
are uncircumcised. You mean even the circumcised
are uncircumcised? Yes, they're uncircumcised. He
says all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in their heart. It's just, he wants God to have
the glory, he wants God to have the honor, he wants to serve
God, and he's serious, and it's for real. It's not a fake, phony
thing. It's between him and his God,
and God knows it. God knows it. And God says, let
me invite you to see my son. You've been circumcised in his
honor. I'll circumcise you. Paul said,
it's not circumcision that unveils one's circumcision. It's a creature.
That's the rule of God. All right, now look here at Isaiah
5.13. It says, Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because
they have no knowledge. That's what Paul said about them.
They got zeal, they're up from morning to dark, but they got
no knowledge of Christ, the righteousness of God. Their honorable men are
famished, their multitudes dried up with thirst. You know what
happens if you drink wine of man's making of any kind, whether
it's real literal wine or whether it's of a wine of man's religion.
You know what happens if you drink it? It makes you more thirsty. It makes you more thirsty. Christ
said, if you come and drink of me, you won't ever thirst again.
You won't be hungry again. You won't be famished. You won't
be thirsty. So with all that in mind, brethren,
he said, if people are going into captivity, they're in bondage.
They're going to be destroyed in the end. So with all that
in mind, this is what our text tells us. In fact, Ephesians
5. Wherefore, be ye not unmindful.
Understand what will of the Lord be. You understand these things. If you don't have spiritual discernment,
you need everything I've shared here today, you've sat here and
thought, well, I think all that just means that you're drunk
as a skunk. Drunk as a skunk. Understand what will of the Lord
be. Be not drunk with the whining of your flesh, with the whining
of your heart, with the whining of your words, all your, your,
your words. Don't be drunk. That's for the
excess. But be filled with God's Holy
Spirit. Speaking to yourselves in Psalms,
in hymns, in spiritual songs, singing and making melody in
your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things. Everything's a good thing. Give
Him thanks for all things, but to God and the Father, and to
the Holy Spirit. Amen.