Tag: drunk
The ‘wine’ of Pride
Scripture reading for August 31: Daniel 4-6
Alcohol has been around for many years. Alcohol impairs judgment and often brings delusional thinking and uninhibited lewd behavior. (Proverbs 23:29-35) These effects of alcohol are also a picture of the effect of sin on the body, soul, and mind of a person made in God’s image for His glory!
King Belshazzar of Babylon had a party for a thousand of his nobles where they drank wine. After drinking for a while, the king ordered that the golden goblets that his grandfather had taken from the Temple of God in Israel be brought out. They were filled with wine and toasts were offered to the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone. These idols of Babylon were thought to bring protection and power to the King of Babylon. As they were toasting, boasting and celebrating, there appeared what looked like human fingers that held a writing instrument and wrote upon the wall. (Daniel 5:1-6) This sight was so deeply sobering that the king’s knees began to knock with fear and his legs gave way.
The king called all his wise men and astrologers to read the writing but no one could tell him what it said. Then the queen, very possibly his own mother or grandmother, told him about Daniel, probably in his 80’s. He was not among those drinking in the palace because of his life of prayer and consecration to the one true God. (Daniel 5:10-12) It was the Spirit of God in him that made the difference.
Daniel spoke plainly to Belshazzar about God’s dealings with his father Nebuchadnezzar. He then told Belshazzar that he had failed to honor the God who held his life in His hands. (Daniel 5:22-24) Belshazzar had mocked God and angered Him by his refusal to humble himself and by drinking wine from the sacred goblets. Now the decree of God on the wall stated that God was sending judgment and Belshazzar’s kingdom would fall that very night and be given to the Medes and Persians. (Daniel 5:25-31)
What can we learn from this incident? It is easy to become drunk on the wine of this world and put what is profane in our holy goblets (our bodies and souls). Only those who are consecrated to God have insight and ability to read the handwriting on the wall because they truly know God and His Word! Daniel had read God’s Word in Jeremiah 51:39 and could understand what was happening. Let’s apply the lessons taught by Daniel and stay alert to speak prophetically to those drunk on this world system.
The drunken prostitute
Scripture reading for December 22nd: Revelation 17, Psalm 105, Ecclesiastes 7
Revelation 17:1-6 “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute, who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.” And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.”
John encountered one of the seven angels who had poured out the bowls of wrath on the earth. This angel invited John to see the judgment of the great prostitute who was seated on many waters. Earlier, we found that the waters were the peoples of earth. This prostitute had committed ‘sexual immorality’ with the kings of the earth and the inhabitants of the earth. The immorality represents acts of rebellion against God, His Word and His people. She held in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and impurity. In fact, John saw that this prostitute was drunk on the blood of God’s saints and martyrs! (Remember the night of the fall of the Babylonian empire described in Daniel chapter five.) This ‘woman’ is the world system of humanism and self-gratification, named “Babylon the great” . She defiles everything, offering intoxicating and defiling pleasures that kill and destroy. She has lived in luxury, but now suddenly falls under God’s wrath.
Psalm 105:7-8 “He is the Lord our God; His judgments are in all the earth. He remembers His covenant forever, the Word that He commanded, for a thousand generations, . . .”
Holy Father, I thank You that You are Lord of Heaven and Earth and my Lord. I thank You that all vengeance and justice belong to You Alone and You will judge justly those who have rebelled against You and mistreated Your people and murdered them. Use me to warn those still under the sway of the seductive prostitute. May none perish in Your wrath, but may they come to repentance and life.
Ecclesiastes 7:26 “And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her.”