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Spiritual Drunkenness
By way of introduction, it is vital to understand the connection between spiritual darkness and spiritual sleep with spiritual drunkenness. God self-defines this language for us, saying, such and such men are “drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink” (Isa. 29:9), which means that they are spiritually drunk rather than physically drunk, and this spiritual condition, according to Isaiah 29:9-10, is directly connected to spiritual sleep: |
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“Stay yourselves, and wonder; CRY ye out, and CRY: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered” (Isa. 29:9-10).
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Is this not a woeful scene? Instead of pouring out upon these people God’s Holy Spirit, like the gladsome word given through Joel when God said, “I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh” (Joel 2:28-32, Acts 2:16-21), but here – WOE to them! – God is pouring out another spirit! It is the spirit of devils! And God hath “poured out” this “spirit” upon them! Do you remember the commandments of God which decree sovereign deceptions, called, the “statutes” of God which are “not good” (Ezek. 20:25)? Like those which were referenced before, God gave this command in Isaiah 6:9-11 -->
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“And He said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And He answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate” (Isa. 6:9-11).
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God blinds men so that they stumble at the truth (Isa. 8:14). God hardens their heart so that they are offended (Isa. 8:13). Therefore, they walk the course of the deception of God, which is to “stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken” (Isa. 8:15). How and why? God did “bind up the testimony” and “seal the law among” His disciples, which is, to hide it from all others who are not His disciples (Isa. 8:16, Lk. 8:10). Hiding the truth from them is, as God has coined it many times, the very same thing when He “hideth His face” (Isa. 8:17), and the spiritual effect of this is as it was written: -->
The hiding of God’s face brings darkness upon the individual hearts of men, rendering them blind, and worse, they become demonized preachers who herald eye-blinding heresies. You may understand the metaphor of darkness, by now, but Isaiah describes this very same deception in other terms. When it is being poured forth from false prophets, Isaiah describes it in terms such as “wine” and “strong drink” (Isa. 28:7)! False prophets preach until everyone hearing them is intoxicated into body-poisoning drunkenness – until – “they err in vision, they stumble in judgment,” and “all tables are full of vomit and filthiness” (Isa. 28:7-8). It was the lying demon-spirit which deceived Ahab and his 400 prophets, “deceiving and being deceived,” but look closely at the spiritual language in which God defines the devil’s deceptive powers and their effects: "The LORD hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof,” to the end that “they have caused [Ahab] to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit" (Isaiah 19:14). Do you hear the language of it? Ahab was a “drunken man” staggering, and it was through the perversity of the demon possessed false prophets! Chasing a lying mirage because your senses are numbed to near-hallucination, because spiritual starvation and dehydration are setting in, because you are burning and beaten down by the heat of a dragon-infested desert land, you are wandering in the cursed wasteland which is under a God-sent famine. Well…we can understand this. But even so, just as this man, so is the man who has gouged-out eyes in a darkened, sunless land – double dark – so that men are left staggering about in spiritual darkness. These are horrid spiritual conditions which exclaim incoherence, incapacity, and deception, but there is one more great term which prophetic language uses to describe “The Deception of God,” and it is spiritual drunkenness. Staggering men are blind men or dying men, and also, they move in the same ways as intoxicated and drunken men – “as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit” (Isa. 19:14).
God calls men “blind,” “ignorant,” “dumb,” “sleeping,” “loving to slumber,” “greedy,” “shepherds that cannot understand” – and what spiritual term can all of this be compared with? “Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant” (Isa. 56:9-12). And again -->
- “behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness” – Isaiah 8:22
- “that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken” – Isaiah 28:13
The hiding of God’s face brings darkness upon the individual hearts of men, rendering them blind, and worse, they become demonized preachers who herald eye-blinding heresies. You may understand the metaphor of darkness, by now, but Isaiah describes this very same deception in other terms. When it is being poured forth from false prophets, Isaiah describes it in terms such as “wine” and “strong drink” (Isa. 28:7)! False prophets preach until everyone hearing them is intoxicated into body-poisoning drunkenness – until – “they err in vision, they stumble in judgment,” and “all tables are full of vomit and filthiness” (Isa. 28:7-8). It was the lying demon-spirit which deceived Ahab and his 400 prophets, “deceiving and being deceived,” but look closely at the spiritual language in which God defines the devil’s deceptive powers and their effects: "The LORD hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof,” to the end that “they have caused [Ahab] to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit" (Isaiah 19:14). Do you hear the language of it? Ahab was a “drunken man” staggering, and it was through the perversity of the demon possessed false prophets! Chasing a lying mirage because your senses are numbed to near-hallucination, because spiritual starvation and dehydration are setting in, because you are burning and beaten down by the heat of a dragon-infested desert land, you are wandering in the cursed wasteland which is under a God-sent famine. Well…we can understand this. But even so, just as this man, so is the man who has gouged-out eyes in a darkened, sunless land – double dark – so that men are left staggering about in spiritual darkness. These are horrid spiritual conditions which exclaim incoherence, incapacity, and deception, but there is one more great term which prophetic language uses to describe “The Deception of God,” and it is spiritual drunkenness. Staggering men are blind men or dying men, and also, they move in the same ways as intoxicated and drunken men – “as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit” (Isa. 19:14).
God calls men “blind,” “ignorant,” “dumb,” “sleeping,” “loving to slumber,” “greedy,” “shepherds that cannot understand” – and what spiritual term can all of this be compared with? “Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant” (Isa. 56:9-12). And again -->
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"All ye beasts of the field, come to devour, yea, all ye beasts in the forest. His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter. Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant." (Isaiah 56:9-12)
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These men are trained in a craft which makes men drunk, and the devil knows that “whoredom and wine, and new wine take away the heart” (Hos. 4:11). Cursed are the people who have such men as their prophets and pastors! God warns, “Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction. If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people” (Micah 2:10-11). Do you see the direct connection? How the lying spirits of falsehood deceive men by spiritual powers, resulting in that these men became spiritually drunk? Can you judge your time? “For this time is evil,” God says, and it is Him that does “devise an evil” (Micah 2:3)! Namely, it is His sovereign decree which has let loose a hoard of fallen angels and demons to establish their “spiritual wickedness in high places,” and thus they have dominion over the will of men (Eph. 6:12). Do you walk “according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2)? It is no coincidence that alcoholic drinks are often referred to as “spirits” by the vendors that sell them!
These wicked generations! They make God’s holy people spiritually drunk with deceptions, and all men that stand apart from them are sober! They are under the influence of the sober Ghost! And look – behold the great clash – as drunken sinners angrily command the sober saints to – “prophesy not” (Amos 2:12)!
These wicked generations! They make God’s holy people spiritually drunk with deceptions, and all men that stand apart from them are sober! They are under the influence of the sober Ghost! And look – behold the great clash – as drunken sinners angrily command the sober saints to – “prophesy not” (Amos 2:12)!
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“they all slumbered and slept.” --> - Matt. 25:5 “at midnight there was a CRY made” --> - Matt. 25:6 |
“For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes” – Isa. 29:10
“God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear” – Romans 11:8 “Stay yourselves, and wonder: CRY ye out, and CRY” – Isa. 29:9 “Awake thou that sleepest” – Ephesians 5:14 “Awake, ye drunkards” – Joel 1:5 |
The God-ordained method of salvation for spiritual drunkards is – EXACTLY – just as the call for those who are sleeping in the darkness – “CRY OUT” (Isa. 29:9) and WAKE THEM UP! If you find yourself in the company of drunkards and sleepers, God commands, “STAY YOURSELVES”, or, BE ASTONISHED and “WONDER” about it, and don’t just wonder, but “CRY ye out, and CRY” the words – “Awake thou that sleepest” (Eph. 5:14), and again, “Awake, ye drunkards” (Joel 1:5)! This is God’s trumpet-call for salvation to backslidden saints, and thus it is written – “at midnight there was a CRY made” (Matt. 25:6). Why was this cry made? Because the beloved virgins of God, the saints, “they all slumbered and slept” (Matt. 25:5), and God would have them “awake to righteousness” (1 Cor. 15:34). Woe to us! For we live in a generation which does not know what spiritual drunkenness is, and for that we should be astonished and wondering, being constrained forthwith, CRYING OUT.
My reader, has no one ever told you about spiritual drunkenness, and how in the Last Days, which are now, half of the saintly virgins will be caught lingering in a drunken slumber. They slumber and sleep too often, you see, until finally…when they wake up for preparations just as Judgment nigh approaches, look at them! They will go here…then they will go there…seeking to fear and trying to prepare, but behold – “THE DOOR WAS SHUT” (Matt. 25:10). My reader, you have not been told about spiritual drunkenness because, these days, the pastors give the strong drinks. This day is woefully like the old generation in which God said, “their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men” (Isa. 29:13). My reader, let God make his own case; let Him tell you about why there is a generation-wide oblivion and ignorance that regenerate men can fall into damnable spiritual conditions, and how awful the warning! We are forewarned of a sweeping plague of slumber which apprehends and damns half of God’s darling virgins! Does this make you wonder? Let God give an account of His own doings, for after all, it was and is He that “hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep”, and of drunkenness, “and hath closed your eyes” (Isa. 29:10), and for what? -->
My reader, has no one ever told you about spiritual drunkenness, and how in the Last Days, which are now, half of the saintly virgins will be caught lingering in a drunken slumber. They slumber and sleep too often, you see, until finally…when they wake up for preparations just as Judgment nigh approaches, look at them! They will go here…then they will go there…seeking to fear and trying to prepare, but behold – “THE DOOR WAS SHUT” (Matt. 25:10). My reader, you have not been told about spiritual drunkenness because, these days, the pastors give the strong drinks. This day is woefully like the old generation in which God said, “their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men” (Isa. 29:13). My reader, let God make his own case; let Him tell you about why there is a generation-wide oblivion and ignorance that regenerate men can fall into damnable spiritual conditions, and how awful the warning! We are forewarned of a sweeping plague of slumber which apprehends and damns half of God’s darling virgins! Does this make you wonder? Let God give an account of His own doings, for after all, it was and is He that “hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep”, and of drunkenness, “and hath closed your eyes” (Isa. 29:10), and for what? -->
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“Stay yourselves, and wonder; CRY ye out, and CRY: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered. And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned. Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.” (Isaiah 29:9-14)
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The Spirit of God is a Holy Spirit, not an unholy one, and, it is likewise a sober Spirit instead of a drunken one. My reader, God would sober you up! He would wake you up! Therefore is it said, “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess” (Eph. 5:18). My reader, do the opposite! Rather “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18)! Be filled with alcohol or the Spirit of God, for the two have the opposite effects. Do you think that Paul was meaning literal “wine” when he preached against drunkenness in Ephesians 5:18? Surely Paul knew of the prophetic language well already, the language which coined the spiritual typology of wine and drunkenness as a renowned symbol of carnality and darkness (Isaiah 19:14, 28:7-8, 29:9-10, 56:9-12, Hosea 4:11, Micah 2:10-11); thus Paul would so render it again here, in Ephesians 5, above other places. Why? For in this chapter, he did sorely rebuke “fools” who are in “darkness,” commanding them to live righteously, henceforth, to dwell rather in the “wisdom” of spiritual “Light” (Eph. 5:6-17). Paul’s very next charge is connected to the former charges by the word – “and” – and, look, is it of any significance to you that he immediately renders the same calling through different typology? à “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18)! My reader, he knew that spiritual darkness, foolishness, blindness, and slumber, are all the same spiritual definitions as spiritual drunkenness…and there are still more evidences: -->
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“But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that Day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:4-9).
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My dear reader, in the exact same context as Ephesians 5 is written in, now again in 1 Thessalonians 5, the correlating metaphors are in sync. Paul says again to the Church of Thessalonica, “For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation” (1 Thess. 5:7-8). “Darkness” (1 Thess. 5:4) and “Light” (1 Thess. 5:5), “day” (1 Thess. 5:5) and “night” (1 Thess. 5:5), are categorically connected to spiritual “sleep” (1 Thess. 5:6) and standing awake, but to be awake is otherwise rendered as, to “watch” (1 Thess. 5:6). Finally, showing all metaphorical renderings from the OT to the NT in there perfect consistency, now again, to “sleep” and to be awake are directly parallel to the spiritual drunkenness and spiritual sobriety – therefore Paul declares, “and they that be drunken are drunken in the night…but let us, who are of the Day, be sober” (1 Thess. 5:7-8). Sobriety is “faith and love,” and whosoever has these two fruits abounding in their life do also have a sound and sure “hope of salvation" (1 Thess. 5:8). “For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love” (Gal. 5:6). The only way the Day of the Lord will take you as a thief in the night, is, if you are surprised by it, and you are found by the Lord in an unprepared condition. Only those in spiritual darkness, slumber, and drunkenness will be such persons; hence, Christians should be telling the season of the Lord’s coming, how that “it is near, even at the doors” (Matt. 24:32-33), and therefore they should be awake and watching for the exact day and hour of His coming! Noah was preparing for 120 years, and then the floods came! So what about you? Will you hear the terrifying words of the Savior as He speaks today? Hear ye Him, when He said:
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“For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: Lest coming suddenly He find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch” (Mark 13:34-37).
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Do the awful words of the Savior grip your soul into attention, when He said: “Lest coming suddenly He find you sleeping” (Mk. 13:36)?! A man who is awake in the night, and watching, is not surprised by a thief; even so, let us not be suddenly surprised by the Lord! The Lord will be a thief on that Day, yea, but only to the damned. Let it not be so with you! Hear ye the Lord again, when He said:
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“Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through. Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of Man cometh at an hour when ye think not” (Luke 12:35-40).
“If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee” (Rev. 3:3). |
Preachers of God’s damning deception do make men lighthearted and spiritually lewd. They are ungovernable, unruly fellows, characteristic of men who are physically intoxicated by drinking. Even so, "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise" (Proverbs 20:1). Men who sit long under their pastoring do therefore “forget the law and pervert the judgment” (Prov. 31:4-5). My reader, look at it all! It is FORBIDDEN! It is written, "Neither shall any priest drink wine, when they enter into the inner court." (Ezekiel 44:21, Lev. 10:9). God forbids the drinking of wine in the “inner court,” scripture declares, but now men administer strong drinks and intoxicating evil spirits from the inner court of God’s NT House! I mean in our “churches!” There, even there, the pastors make men to be mockers who refuse to relate to God in obedient living. They refuse to acknowledge the necessity of obedience, they continually welcome lascivious living, and in it they feel no danger. They actually believe that their disobedience is disconnected and irrelevant to their eternal destiny. Mockers do, therefore, mock God, like drunkards they are, intoxicated and at odds with God’s sober truth: à“Be not deceived; GOD IS NOT MOCKED: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Gal. 6:7-8).
Drunken men are not watching men, nor praying men (Lk. 21:34-36). According to the scripture they are sleeping men, rendered unready. UNREADY, I mean, for Christ’s return! They make room for disobedience, plan provisions for the flesh, and they suppose, vainly, that they will have the time to repent later. They angrily reject accountability, reproof, and truth, like married men in Mexico – OH THE SHAME! They are living now, only for pleasure, caught up in a vacation island mirage where everyone rejoices in sin. These men meet the horrid description of damned men who Christ warned of, when He said: -->
Drunken men are not watching men, nor praying men (Lk. 21:34-36). According to the scripture they are sleeping men, rendered unready. UNREADY, I mean, for Christ’s return! They make room for disobedience, plan provisions for the flesh, and they suppose, vainly, that they will have the time to repent later. They angrily reject accountability, reproof, and truth, like married men in Mexico – OH THE SHAME! They are living now, only for pleasure, caught up in a vacation island mirage where everyone rejoices in sin. These men meet the horrid description of damned men who Christ warned of, when He said: -->
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"if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth His coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken; The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers" (Luke 12:45-46).
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Spiritually speaking, will you be caught by Christ unready? Being made unready through prayerlessness is an unwatchful behavior in the night of this world. Take heed then, my reader, to one of the most terrifying passages in the Bible: -->
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“And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:34-36).
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Spiritual drunkards are the mockers and scoffers of the Last Days (Jude 18, 2 Peter 3:3). Even though they heard of it, that there should be a strong delusion in the last days which is God-sent, they think they can have a little space of time for unholy lusts of “pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2:12). Subtly therein, though they know it not, they are taken by God’s delusion, and, lo, they bless themselves in their heart, even still (Deut. 29:19), that they, their friends, and most people they know, are not among the number of the “Great Falling Away.” Men do not live like it is the Last Days; it is apparent. Most have fallen into the delusion of easy, unrepentant sensuality, or in other words, into BABY “Christianity,” and they vainly trust that they have not become a part of that Great, prophetic, Last Days dilemma called the “Great Falling Away”.