Having erred through strong drink

Last night I visited a friend who contracted the shingles even though she got the shingles vaccine. Through On Demand, she rented for us the movie “Martian,” starring Matt Damon.

Coincidentally at church tonight a friend I was catching up with after the service mentioned the movie. We were talking about Damon and I couldn’t help but tell him about the time I met the actor while I was living in New York.

It was on Valentine’s Day, 2001. A co-worker friend coordinated for a group of us singles who didn’t have a date to treat ourselves to a night at the historic Keens Steakhouse in Midtown.

Sitting at a big old red-vinyl banquette table, we were informed by my co-worker (a career veteran NYC ad saleswoman) as she returned from a trip to the bathroom, “You’ll never believe who I just saw at the bar! Matt Damon!” She then told us that she asked him if he would stop by our table and say “hello.”

Not even a minute went by and there he was, dressed in a T-shirt that wasn’t tucked in, a pair of hipster jeans with a fashionable tear and a baseball cap he had on backwards.

Before I even thought about what I was doing, I said with a genuinely surprised tone, “I can’t believe you’d come into a place like this dressed the way you are.” He quickly responded, “I didn’t come over here to be insulted.”

Fortunately, my co-worker expertly smoothed over the exchange in split-second damage control and all was well in the end. We had a nice exchange with him and he was a really good sport.

The thing about it is we were all consuming alcohol. None of us were over-the-top, or even close, but there it was. I never would have made such a comment if not for being intoxicated.

Thankfully, I am finished with alcohol. I can’t of anything more destructive in my life as I look back at it all.

As Paul writes in Ephesians 5: “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, [16] Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
[17] Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.
[18] And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.”

Proverbs 20:1 says, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.”

Proverbs 23 says, “Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way.
[20] Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh:
[21] For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.”

Verses 29-32 say, “Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
[30] They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
[31] Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.
[32] At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.”

*****
Here is an old sermon passage:

“I used to love that ad slogan talking about, ‘The Finest Product of the Brewer’s Ark,’ " says Jordan. "Some beer company. I used wonder why somebody didn’t talk about the FINISHED product! I wondered that at 18 years old down at the rescue mission where you SAW the finished product!

“At the last, look at what it does. ‘It biteth like a serpent and  stingeth like an adder.’ I mean, they’re just hooked. They got to have it, got to have it. Though it’s stupid and foolish they’re hung up by it. If you haven’t got sense enough to get beyond that in your life, well, you’re going to find out that what God says about it’s true, okay?

“I say all that to say to you that is not exactly what Paul’s talking about in Eph. 5:18. I’m going to disappoint you. Eph. 5:18 is not a verse where Paul is teaching abstinence. It’s a verse talking about drinking wine in a little different context.

“Come with me to Isaiah 28. When Paul’s talking about the ‘be not drunk with wine’ over there, he’s got something more in mind than just social drinking and social issues. He has some religious issues in mind. Isaiah 28:7 says, ‘But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.’

“I mean, you went down there to church in Jerusalem and the priests were up there drinking and carrying on and they just were vomiting and puking. You ever been on a dance hall on a Sunday morning after a Saturday night spree?

“I remember years ago down in Mobile when I was working at the rescue mission there was a little church that started in a dance hall. It was called a Junior Achievement building. On Saturdays they would rent it out to this dance band and they had dances in there and then on Sunday morning this church would use it.

“And I used to go down and preach for them every now and then and you’d go in there sometime and there’d be people just get sick and you know, if you’re drunk and you’re sick, you’re going to get up and be careful you go to the restroom and take care of it, right? Yeah, sure you are! I mean, you just find an empty pocket and puke, is what you do. I don’t mean to be uncouth but that’s what you do. Might as well call it what it is. Listen, they’re not called ‘upholstered sewers’ for nothing.

“Only in this verse they’re not down at the Club 500 and they’re not down at the discotheque; they’re at church! They’re in the temple. And what they’re doing is they’re worshipping idols and the idolatry.

“The idolatry in Israel is associated with the drunkenness because the heathen contacted their gods through getting these out-of-body experiences. Isaiah 5. You see the first drug addicts were not in the 20^th century in America. The drug culture and all that business, like in Revelation 9, all that stuff comes through the occult and the idolatrous systems of the heathen out there.

“Hosea has said, ‘Ephraim has joined idols; let him alone.’ The mark of it and the outward manifestation of it was this drunken debauchery up there in the temple. These are the woes upon the nation Israel for which God destroyed them.

“Isaiah 5:11-12 says, ‘Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them!
[12] And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the LORD, neither consider the operation of his hands.’

“Listen, he’s not talking about somebody having a fling on Saturday night. He’s not talking about somebody sitting with a six-pack in front of the TV eating pretzels and watching football on Sunday afternoon. He’s talking about the religious system out there and this is part of the worship of the heathen.

“It’s part of the idolatrous system out of which the Ephesians were saved. They had that great goddess Diana at Ephesus. These people were saved out of a life and a religious life that consumed them in these ways.

“I Cor. 10:20. If you go back to Deut. 32 where that passage is a quote from, and study down through that thing, you’ll see that cup he’s talking about is filled with wine! And a religious ceremony where they’re taking wine and they transform it into blood! The pure blood of the grape! The only people who take wine and transform it into blood in order to drink it is religion. Paganism.

“When you come to Ephesians in that light, and he says ‘be not drunk with wine where is excess,’ what he’s saying to them is, ‘Don’t try to worship God and serve God like you used to in the heathen church. Lay all the traditions of the former life, all the religion that you used to have, all of you viewpoint about how God can be happy with you, lay aside all of that. We’re not going to worship God today like we used to!’

“Now, maybe you came out of a religion like that. I don’t k now. Maybe you didn’t. I didn’t. I never came out of a religion that did any of those kind of things. They did worse kinds of things in other areas. See?

“Hey people, I’ve seen people so drunk on pride, if they had gotten that drunk on whisky they’d be dead! Let’s be honest about the thing!

“So we’re going to get rid of one sin for another sin. You didn’t improve yourself; you deceived yourself. But when Paul says, ‘Be not drunk,’ he’s saying the Christian life isn’t going to work the way . . . we’re not going to worship the way we used to.

“We’re not going to worship with the wine. Experience-based religion is to satisfy the flesh. That’s the way they used to worship! It was a religion based on their experiences: ‘I feel it, I see it, I touch it, I experience it, my senses are involved in it and it satisfies the lusts of my flesh.’ The desires of my flesh.

“What religion is designed to do is to make you feel good about doing good: ‘Give me something to do and make me feel good about doing that.’ Feelings. Your experience. Listen, folks, when the basic content of your religion is what you experience, and what you can feel . . . I mean the beautiful building and the wonderful music, and the wonderful message, and the warm cordial feeling. Feeling good in the place and that kind of stuff.

“As soon as your religion is based in that you’re going to be outdone a hundred to one by the Adversary because that’s his realm. His wisdom is first, sensual. James 3:15 says, ‘This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.’

“God works on our inner man by His Word resident inside in our spirit and that works out of us. The other is just the religious external form. Experience-based religion. Paul says that won’t get it.

“There has to be a reality in your life that goes far deeper than the external activities you’re involved in. In fact, it has to be exactly the other way.

“I had a woman come to me the other week who was raised in a church just like ours and believes what we believe; more or less, she acknowledges the doctrines that we preach. She sat there and said, ‘Brother Rick, I’m just dead on the inside and I’m tired of carrying all the baggage on the outside.’

“You see, that’s the opposite of the way it ought to be! And yet that’s how we get sometimes.

“Now there’s one of two answers to that. No. 1., you didn’t have any life on the inside to start with. Or No. 2, you put so much baggage on the outside that the life’s gone to sleep. In her case, it was the latter. The answer to it is verse 18: ‘Don’t do it that way but be filled with the spirit.’

“Ephesians 3:16-20 says, ‘That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
[17] That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
[18] May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
[19] And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
[20] Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, inner man.’  "