Sermon Tone Analysis

Verse 15 says, “Don’t be a fool, be wise”,

Ephesians 5:15 (KJV 1900)

15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

verse 17 says, “Don’t be stupid, but do God’s will”,

Ephesians 5:17 (KJV 1900)

17 Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

verse 18 says, “Don’t be drunk, be filled with the Spirit.”

The biggest fool, the most unwise person is the person who gets drunk.

On the other hand, the wisest person who does the will of God is the one filled with the Spirit, you see.

Being filled with the Spirit is the will of God and is wise; being drunk is stupid and foolish.

So that’s the comparison.

Ephesians 5:18 (KJV 1900)

18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;

Be not Drunk:

Social Sense:

In the sense that if you’re looking for joy and you’re looking for an escape from your problems, you’re looking for joy and comfort, don’t seek it at the bottom of a bottle, seek it in the Holy Spirit.

Let the Holy Spirit be your resource.

If you want comfort, seek the Holy Spirit.

Don’t seek your answers in the bottle, they’re not there, they just compound the problem.

And whenever you look at the Bible and you talk about drunkenness, it always comes out bad.

Every illustration of drunkenness in the bible is a disaster with no good thing in it, it will never make anything better, it will never solve any problem.

Noah became drunk and in his nakedness he acted shamelessly.

Lot became drunk and his daughters committed incest with him.

Nabal became drunk and at a crucial time God took his life.

Elah became drunk and he was murdered by Zimri.

Benhadad and all of his allied kings became drunk and they were slaughtered.

Only Benhadad was spared and that was a sin to spare him.

Belshazzar, in Daniel 5, met together with a great feast and it says they drank wine and they praised the gods of gold, and of silver and of bronze, and of iron, and of wood and of stone and in the midst of the drunken brawl the kingdom was ripped right out from under Belshazzar.

The Corinthians were drunk and in their drunkenness they desecrated the Lord’s table and God made some of them sick and some of them He executed.

You see, drunkenness is always associated, in the bible, with terrible things, unrestrained living, immorality, dissolute behavior, reckless, wild behavior.

1 Corinthians 5:11 (KJV 1900)

11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.

So Paul is saying to the Ephesians and to us, “Look, you have a higher kind of life, you don’t seek your joy and exhilaration in the bottom of a bottle, you get it from the wonderful Holy Spirit.”

But listen, that’s not the main meaning of what he is saying.

That was just a little free part.

The main meaning of what he was saying Paul’s main thrust here is religious.

Religious Sense:

It is religious.

He is talking about systems of religions.

Now this may surprise you so listen.

Drunkenness was associated with pagan religion.

The pagans believed that to commune with the gods, you had to put yourself in a drunken stupor to come to the highest level of communion with the gods.

This is what was called the mystery religion.

These are the roots of Greek, Roman, Mythological religious systems.

And they believed that you could commune with the gods through ecstasy, that was the frenzies and the ecstasies, the whirling-dervishes, the self-hypnosis, the demonic things that went on, they called it ecstasy, “extasia” and “enthusiasmas,” enthusiasms.

And they would get themselves worked into a literal frenzy and emotional bath.

In addition to that, they would drink and drink and drink until they were drunken and they thought that lifted them to the level of communion with the gods.

Dionysus, also spelled Dionysos, also called Bacchus or (in Rome) Liber Pater, in Greco-Roman religion, a nature god of fruitfulness and vegetation, especially known as a god of wine and ecstasy.

It is not just social, it is theological.

Theological Sense:

He is saying to these Ephesians your background was a place where you communed with the gods through drunkenness but I’m saying to you if you want to really commune with God be filled with what?

His Spirit.

It’s a great truth, isn’t it?

That’s really the heart of what he is saying.

And that’s what he is saying to us.

We don’t need the artificial stuff of the world; if you want to be raised to the highest level of religious consciousness just enter the presence of God through the filling of the Spirit.

You know, this very corruption stood behind the Corinthian church too.

Look at I Corinthians with me for a minute, chapter 10.

In effect, the whole problem of the Corinthian church was that they were never able to cut themselves off from the evil system.

They never were able to divorce themselves from the world.

Whatever corruptions they had known in paganism they managed somehow to drag into the church.

If they were cliquish in their pagan life, they were cliquish in their church.

If they were hero worshipers in their pagan life, they were hero worshipers in their church.

If they were fascinated by philosophers in their pagan life they were in their church life.

If they sued each other in their pagan life they were suing each other in their church life.

If they were proud and egotistical and uncaring in their pagan life that’s how they were in the church.

If they didn’t know how to make a marriage work in their pagan life they didn’t seem to be able to do it when they entered the church either.

If they had trouble with meat offered to idols in their pagan life, same trouble when they became believers.

If they didn’t know what to do about the gifts of the Spirit, if they didn’t know the true gifts of the Spirit in the church, it was because they had corroded them all, and corrupted them all by the paganism.

And you will never understand the meaning of tongues or prophecies or anything in 1 Corinthians 12 to 14 unless you understand what was going on in the pagan world behind the scenes.

That was the whole mishmash.

Everything was counterfeited in the Corinthian church.

The whole thing was being scrambled because they dragged their paganism right into the church and in dragging their paganism in they corrupted everything.

Now, in the early church and in the church today, what is the one ordinance, the one beautiful remembrance God has given the church that is the highest act of worship, what is it?

It’s communion, isn’t it?

That which our Lord Jesus Christ, Himself designed to lift us up into His very presence.

That which the Lord designed for us to remember Him that which the Lord designed for us to commune with Him was His table.

And the Corinthians, you see, they were used to communing with the gods through drunkenness so when they came to the Lord’s table, guess what they brought—drunkenness?

And so Paul is really approaching this subject in 10:16.

He says to them,

In other words what he is saying is hey, we’re all one, we partake of one bread, one blood, one body.

Now that’s the basis of his point, this unity.

Then he goes on to say in verse 20,

Cup of the Lord - Communion

Cup of the Devil - Drunkenness

You see.

You can’t do those two things.

Why?

Back to verse 16, because we are communing with Christ in one body.

Verse 17, as one bread and one body, you can’t divide it that way.

You can’t take Christ and commune with His cup run over here and drink yourself blind and drunk and worship some demonic idol.

You can’t do that.

You can’t be, verse 21 says, a partaker of the Lord’s Table and the table of demons.

Don’t … you can’t mix those things.

You’ll provoke the Lord to jealously and you better be stronger than Him if you do that.

You see, that was the whole point.

They’d drink the cup of the Lord which was the lovely cup of communion, remembering Christ; they’d go drink the cup of demons which was drunkenness, thinking they were getting to the highest level of religious consciousness through drunkenness.

And our Lord was saying you can reach the highest level of religious, spiritual perception by taking simply the cup of remembrance.

What a beautiful contrast.

Well, go over to verse 19 of chapter 11 and this is where it becomes crystal clear that’s what they were doing.