“And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit” -- Eph. 5:18

In the course of my ministry I have sought out certain Christian men whom I knew were saved from lives of drunkenness, and have asked them what it was that drew them to drink. These men, plucked as brands from the burning, were willing to tell, for the honour and glory of the Lord, though with shame and sorrow, some of the terrible experiences that were theirs before the Lord so gloriously saved them. The Word of God tells us that no drunkard shall enter the Kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:10), but without a pause we go on to read, “And such were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”

And now the command comes to those of us who have thus been born from above to be filled with the Spirit. The astounding thing is that God couples it by contrast with the drinking of wine. You are to be filled with the Spirit, rather than to be drunk with wine. Wine here stands for all of the natural excitements of the old Adam, and is comprehensive enough to embrace drugs, gambling, and all the pleasures and lusts which excite the emotions, or provoke the passions. Why do men indulge in excesses? The only answer possible is that they are not satisfied with that which life brings them, and they wish to escape from its tedium. They do not have the hidden springs within their own hearts which flow forth in a stream, quenching the thirst of its possessor before going forth as living water to those round about. We who are in Christ have that fountain of the Spirit, and have been told by the Lord that we shall never thirst again.

I might point out, in passing, that the mere giving up of drunkenness is not commended here in this Scripture. A reformed drunkard is no nearer to salvation than an unreformed one, unless the cause of his moral amendment is a living faith in Christ. There are some men who, through reformation, are able to boast, ‘I am not as I once was.’ This, however, is no more acceptable in the sight of God as a basis of salvation than was the boast of the Pharisee, ‘I am not as other men.’

The only basis of salvation is the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ; apart from that men are lost. An amended criminal is not, for that reason, a forgiven sinner. The only ground of confidence on which faith can stand is the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ Who took the place of the sinner on Calvary. And, in addition to the salvation from the penalty of sin which was provided by the Saviour’s death, there is the life and fulness of Christ which is placed to the account of the believer, empowering him to cease, in a practical way, from his former sins.

The Word of God tells us some of the things that men seek in wine, and do not find there; and the Word tells us also that these things are found truly in the fulness of the Spirit of God. We read of a heaviness of heart, “Give...wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more” (Prov. 31:6, 7). But show me one man in all the world who has rid himself of the heaviness of his heart for more than a few hours at a time through the drunkenness that comes from wine, or any of the indulgences for which it stands! The unsaved man seeks in some deceptive cup to forget his cares. There is no peace for the Christless soul. The slightest reflection brings to him the realization of his lost condition. He must have something strong enough to cause him to forget, even if but for a brief hour, that he lives on and on, coming ever nearer to his meeting with God, Whom he is outraging by his life and thought. Yet to this very man who hopes for so much from wine, this goddess proves herself to be a mocker. These indulgences never give what they seem to promise. A moment of forgetfulness may be won, but never any peace. Cares and troubles may seem to have been left in oblivion, but they are waiting again the next morning—and with a headache. While the poor victim is under the influence of his drug, his wine, his gambling, his passion, whatever it may be, he escapes from his dreary world for a moment, forgetting the want in which he finds himself, and the misery in which he sees the loved ones who have a right to look to him for supply. The man who has come to God for the fulness of the Spirit will receive as a permanent, abiding possession all that the worldling seeks through his drunkenness. He is, of course, born again, and thus knows the certainty of sins forgiven on the ground of the redemptive work which the Saviour accomplished while dying on the Cross. But, yielding to the Spirit of God, and receiving this life of God in its fulness, the believer has, “the peace of God which passeth all understanding.” Show me a home of drunkenness which has sent forth sons to honour and glory in the land. Yet we can show thousands of the simplest of homes which have sent forth sons that have become the leaders of church, school, and nation. Men in tiny cottages often think that they must drink in order to forget their poverty. In reality they are trying to forget the restlessness within their hearts, which God hath declared to be like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt (Isa. 57:20).

In what I consider to be the greatest of all his poems, Robert Burns has described just such a simple cottage, poor if you like, yet rejoicing in God. In “The Cotter’s Saturday Night” he tells the story of the home–coming of the man who has the life of God upon him. From the point of view of the world there were reasons enough for him to drink to forget his cares. It was a cold, dark November night. That reason has been taken by many men. Others take the reason that it is a hot, light July evening, or a warm, soft April evening; reasons are never lacking. The poet tells us that the man is “toil–worn.” That is also the reason some men give for indulgence. Others indulge because they have nothing to do. This man had a wife and many children. That is another reason that men sometimes give for getting drunk. In reality, these are not reasons, they are merely excuses. The Cotter’s supper is nothing but porridge and milk; it would be disdained by many in our day and time, and would be valid excuse for drinking in order to forget the meagre fare. But now Burns’ description rises to its noblest proportions. The Bible is brought forth. The family sings praises to God.

“The priest–like father reads the sacred page
   How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage
   With Amalek’s ungracious progeny;
   Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven’s avenging ire;
   Or Job’s pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah’s wild, seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.

“Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme—
   How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in Heaven the second name,
   Had not on earth whereon to lay His head;

                       *       *       *       *
“Then kneeling down to Heaven’s Eternal King,
   The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope ‘springs exulting on triumphant wing,’
   That thus they all shall meet in future days:
   There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
   Together hymning their Creator’s praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;
While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere.”

Then when the family worship is over, and the visitors have gone, and the children have been put to rest, there is a second scene where the father and mother pray alone.

“The parent–pair their secret homage pay,
   And proffer up to Heaven the warm request;
   That He who stills the raven’s clam’rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow’ry pride,
   Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little ones provide;
But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside.”

Thus the Holy Spirit, in the life of the believer, does for the man who is yielded to Him to receive Him in His fulness, what the worldling seeks from indulgence and can never obtain. Quiet contentment is the atmosphere of His indwelling whose fruit is peace.

Blest is my lot whate’er befall;
   What can disturb me, who appal,
While as my Strength, my Rock, my All,
   Saviour I cling to Thee?

In the second place, the worldling seeks a positive happiness through wine, and the kindred indulgences symbolized by it. The Bible speaks of “wine that maketh glad the heart of man” (Ps. 104:15), and there are many witnesses who speak of that exhilaration which comes from drugs, or the thrill and lift that comes from gambling, or indulgence in anything else that is typified here by wine. Practically everything in this world that exhilarates has some reaction that enervates. But the fruit of the Spirit is joy. The most remarkable quality of joy is that it is stable. It is not like gaudy mirth, which must vanish at the first sign of sorrow or premonition of pain. It was because of the fulness of the Spirit that Paul was able to say, “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing...” It makes no difference if death, tragedy, or catastrophe come to us or to ours. Our joy reaches to the rock beneath the deepest sea and we can outride any storm. So seek not your joy in any vintage of the world’s fields; joy is only to be found in the fulness of the Holy Spirit.

In the third place, there is a false conviviality in drunkenness. The man who has taken a little too much drink, looks upon every comer as a bosom friend. The baron is found exchanging confidences with the butler. The drunken general thinks the callow lieutenant a wonderful fellow, in fact everybody is a wonderful fellow, until he sobers up and is correspondingly grumpy the next day. But one of the glorious realities of the fulness of the Spirit is that there is the true love of the Lord Jesus Christ shed abroad in our hearts for the souls of men. “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren” (1 John 3:14). The man in whom the Holy Spirit dwells sees humanity through the eyes of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why William Wilberforce worked for the freeing of the slaves; that is why William Booth threw himself into the East End of London; that is why ten thousand missionaries have gone to the fevered spots of the earth to take the Gospel to unlovely natives. Be ye filled with the Spirit! then your neighbours will get along with you, and your home folks, too. You will lose any traces of Anti-Semitism. You will display the truth that God is love. Yet you will not do this with the maudlin brotherhood of the drunken man. The Spirit–filled believer knows the marvelous miracle of the spiritual communion of the saints; he holds out his hand with the Gospel to all men, treating every, soul with the dignity and kindness that befit an ambassador of Heaven to the hearts of men.

In the fourth place, the tongue of the drunken man is loosed. The man who knows himself to be tedious, dull and commonplace, suddenly finds himself gushing forth with a babbling and fluent wordiness which his condition permits him to mistake for wisdom. He is pleased with himself and talks all the more. He will enlarge his story, amplify its details, repeat again and again, and, at the slightest provocation, begin at the beginning once more. Triviality and filth in prose and song come from the lips of the drunken man. How different from the lips of the man who is filled with the Holy Spirit. The Lord has taken us up out of the miry clay, set our feet upon the rock, Christ Jesus, established our goings, and He hath put a new song in our mouth (Ps. 40:2). And with the new song, that sings itself at times, with no more than a look that is in the eye, there come new words to the lips. “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Spirit has come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto Me...” (Acts 1:8). It is definitely true that words of witness follow the coming of the fulness of the Spirit. Wherever we find a Christian who has no witness we find a Christian who has not been filled with the Holy Spirit.

You may say that your nature is a timid one, and that you cannot speak of spiritual matters to others; in fact you may bring up a thousand excuses. The reason, however, is to be found in the Word of God. You may have trusted Jesus Christ as Saviour, but you have never yielded to Him as Lord of your life, asking Him to fill you with the Holy Spirit. For when the Spirit comes, the witness comes. We must not conclude, however, that every one who has a witness is thereby certainly filled with the Spirit. It is impossible to talk on religious matters, even Biblically, in the energy of the flesh. But where there is a Spirit–filled Christian with a Spirit–filled message, whether it be sermon or conversation, the power of the Lord will be upon it and blessing will follow. No matter how feeble the Christian may know himself to be, though he must needs say, like Moses, “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since Thou halt spoken unto Thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue,” yet may he know the power of the Lord upon him through the fulness of the Spirit and the reality of the Lord’s answer, “Who hath made man’s mouth?...Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say” (Ex. 4:10-19). And though the drunken man is often very sorry for things he has said while he has been drunk, the man who is filled with the Spirit will praise God through all eternity for the privileges of witnessing which have been given and accepted while here in this brief moment of life.

Then again, the drunken man is the victim of a false generosity. He will lend money, give money, his own or another’s, it makes no difference. He wants to pay for all of the bills, and there are usually those around who are glad to share in his generosity, and to provide plenty of bills for him to pay. When the time of soberness comes there is consternation. Money is gone, and the memory of its going is gone. How different it is with the fulness of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian. The widow who came into the Temple, cast her two mites into the treasury, and was praised by the Lord Jesus because she had given so much. It was so pitiably, little when counted financially, but so magnificently generous when measured spiritually. It was “all that she had.” It was, of course, symbolical of that which the Holy Spirit does in the life of a believer when He fills that life. There is a remarkable instance cited in one of the Epistles. The Churches of Macedonia were in “great trial of affliction.” They were in what God calls “deep poverty.” In modern economic terms that would be the equivalent of depression in a distressed area and no dole available, or recession after depression without any relief funds. Yet “the abundance of their joy” in Christ was such that it abounded “unto the riches of their liberality.” They gave what is called “to their power, yea; and beyond their power.” They prayed Paul with much entreaty to receive the gift which was for those who were even poorer in Jerusalem. The secret of it was this: “They first gave their own selves to the Lord” (2 Cor. 7:5).

This is synonymous with “be filled with the Spirit,” for to be utterly given to the Lord is to be entirely so filled. It is an infallible rule that the Church which wants to live and work without any budget troubles need only put the emphasis on spiritual matters. Preach the necessity of the new birth to those who are lost, and the necessity of the fulness of the Spirit to those who are saved, and the Church will be on fire with souls saved, young people departing to the mission–field, and Christians generally rejoicing in the Lord and in the salvation which He gives. All will be done without a deficit and without whining for money, and without resorting to any of the worldling’s methods. When God guides, God provides. There is no constraint in the Christian life, especially in such matters as these. The fulness of the Spirit takes the heart, and with it the check–book. Everything is held as a trust for the Lord. What we spend on our own vacation is for Him, as much as what we spend sending forth the Gospel, and when there is the fulness of the Spirit, there is no hypocrisy to get the proportions mixed. “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit,” for true generosity.

The last comparison we shall make with drunkenness is that in the realm of courage. I am told that the Japanese describe the various phases of intoxication under the figure of various animals. When a man is rooster–drunk, he parades proudly. When he is monkey–drunk, he capers foolishly. When he is pig–drunk, he wallows filthily. When he is liondrunk, he roars courageously. It is a remarkable fact that none of the negative results of intoxication accompany the fulness of the Spirit, while any positive results therefrom are the full possession of the Spirit–filled believer, and carried to their highest power in the measure that we submit to the divine influence. There is never any listlessness or torpor accompanying the fulness of the Spirit, even though illness and age may bring these symptoms—as they may bring any other to any person with a human body. But none of these things may be traced to the fulness of the Spirit.

During the era of Prohibition, there were certain illegal mixtures made which were so powerful, so stimulating, that a humorous paper remarked that two drops would make a hare chase a greyhound! Wine gives men just such false courage. But the coming of the fulness of the Holy Spirit gives men that strength and courage in reality, else “how should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight?” (Deut. 32:30). This is not a natural courage, it is a supernatural power. Time would fail me to tell of all those “who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens” (Heb. 11:33, 34). The early disciples were not prepossessing in themselves, but when they were filled with the Spirit they had the courage to stand in the face of all Jerusalem and declare the sin of the city, and the power of God who had raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. The mockers said, “These men are, full of new wine” (Acts 2:13). To the outsider there was a sense of exhilaration, a courage, a power that could not be accounted for under any standards they knew. The peculiarly potent intoxication that comes from new wine might explain it. But Peter stood up and began his great speech of Pentecost with the words, “Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: for these are not drunken, as ye suppose...but this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel...I will pour out of My Spirit...”(Acts 2:14, 17).

How, then, can this gift be obtained? If there were a vintage of wine which would bring half of the gifts of the Spirit, and were they to last but for a month or a week, men would flock the world over to buy and drink of that which could bring such wonders to pass. Yet God offers salvation to the lost, through the death of Jesus Christ, as a free gift, and to all who are true believers in Him He offers the fulness of the Holy Spirit. It is not merely a second blessing, it is a third blessing, a hundredth blessing, a thousandth blessing. There are many ways to describe it. “Be ye filled with the Spirit.” It is synonymous to say, Be ye emptied of yourself ; surrender your will to the Lord; receive the One Whom you have trusted as Saviour, as Lord and Master; yield yourself to Him, give Him your life. Any of these phrases may cover the basis of the experience in your life, providing you follow the full implications of surrender, of yieldedness. Christ must be enthroned as Lord of all. Then the Spirit comes in His gentle fulness to bring His fruit, “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self–control” (Gal. 5:22). Then He brings that which the world seeks and never finds: quiet contentment in the midst of any circumstances, rich joy even in the midst of sorrow, true fellowship with all of the Lord’s own, lips that are open in His witness, a purse that is open in His cause, a heart that is strong to do great things for Him. In short, a life that is hid with Christ in God, and a life that manifests Christ wherever it may please Him to direct our steps.

© Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals Inc, 1716 Spruce St. Philadelphia, PA 19103
This article may be printed and distributed with this notice attached for personal use such as small groups and local Bible study groups. This article may not be reproduced in any other fashion without the expressed written permission of the Alliance.