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The Better Cup: Drunkenness as False Salvation and Christ’s True Joy · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to reformed thinking. I have to say, looking at the
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  the stack of books and articles we have for today, I felt a
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  distinct shift in my spirit. Oh yeah, How so?
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  Well, usually when we talk about this topic, drunkenness, it's
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  framed in a very specific way. You know, we think of the high
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  school health class with the scary photos of liver cirrhosis.
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  Right or the Highway Patrol showing mangled cars.
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  Exactly. It's almost always a
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  conversation about biological health or public safety.
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  It is. And look, those are valid
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  conversations. They're important, but if you
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  stop there, you miss the actual tragedy of the issue.
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  That is what hit me. We're looking at this through
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  the lens of Reformed theology and the Westminster Standards
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  today. And the sources you pulled
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  suggest that drunkenness isn't just a bad habit or a health
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  risk. Not at all.
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  They call it a sin wearing a kindly mask.
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  They refer to it as a counterfeit liturgy and even a
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  rival theology. That just that caught me off
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  guard. We don't usually grant that much
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  weight to a six pack of beer. We don't, but maybe we should.
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  I mean, think about it. Theology is the study of God,
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  right? But it's also the study of where
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  we place our hope, where we look for salvation, and how we
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  comfort ourselves in a world that is often, well, painful.
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  OK, The thesis we're working with here is that the world
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  offers intoxication as a kind of social sacrament.
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  It's a ritual. It's the thing you take to find
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  relief, to bond with your neighbor, to quiet the noise in
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  your head. It functions as a false
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  comforter. A false.
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  Comforter. So the tension we're exploring
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  isn't really about the legal limit or blood alcohol content,
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  it's about the throne of the heart.
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  So the question isn't, is my liver OK?
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  The question is who is ruling me?
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  That is the diagnostic question. Who is the master?
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  Let's get into it. Our mission today is to sort of
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  bypass the standard secular arguments.
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  We aren't here to lecture on calories or driving records.
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  We want to expose the heart beneath the ACT and do some some
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  heavy lifting in Ephesians in the Old Testament.
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  We want to see why the spirits of this age are so empty
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  compared to the Spirit of God. And to do that, we have to start
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  with a definition, and I suspect the biblical definition is going
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  to be a lot tighter than the cultural 1.
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  Oh, the cultural definition is pretty loose.
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  I mean, for most people, drunk means you're slurring,
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  stumbling, maybe getting sick. If you can still hold a
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  conversation and walk to the bathroom without hitting the
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  door frame. You tell yourself I'm just
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  buzzed, I'm fine. Right, that's the Can I
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  functions standard. And it's convenient, isn't it?
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  Because it sets the bar for sin so high that you almost never
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  trip over it? You can be significantly altered
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  and still claim you aren't drunk by that metric.
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  So what's the biblical standard? The sources we're looking at
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  define the biblical concept as voluntary impairment.
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  Voluntary impairment, that is a much, much lower threshold.
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  It is. Think of it as the dimming of
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  the lamp. God created you with the Imago
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  day, the image of God. A massive part of that image is
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  your reason, your judgement, your conscience, your ability to
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  exercise restraint. The things that make us human.
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  These are the faculties that separate us from the beasts.
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  So when you drink to the point of a buzz, what are you actually
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  doing? You're choosing to dull those
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  sharp edges. You are voluntarily taking the
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  ruling faculty of your soul and, you know, putting a Butte button
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  on it. That puts a whole new spin on
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  the phrase taking the edge off. We usually mean taking the edge
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  off our stress, but you're saying we're taking the edge off
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  our humanity? You're taking the edge off your
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  vigilance. The boundaries of this sin
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  include the pursuit of an altered consciousness.
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  It isn't just total collapse, it's the intention to be
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  impaired. The intention?
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  Cute. Question is to what end?
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  Why is that glass in your hand? Is it a beverage used for
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  gratitude or is it a tool used for anesthesia?
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  That distinction, gratitude versus anesthesia, that seems
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  like the dividing line, right? There it is, and it brings us
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  right back to governance. If a person cannot say no to a
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  drink, or if they use it as the automatic escape hatch when life
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  gets hard, well, the substance has become the master.
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  And you can't serve 2 masters. You can't.
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  And there's also the law of love to consider.
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  Drunkenness, even what we'd call mild intoxication, diminishes
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  your ability to love your neighbor.
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  How? So I mean, what if I'm just
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  sitting on my couch by myself? Can you listen as well?
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  Are you as patient if your wife or child needs you in a crisis
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  AT-100 PM? Are you reliable or are you
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  slow? The law of love requires us to
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  be available and attentive. Voluntary impairment is a
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  voluntary reduction in our capacity to love.
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  That's convicting. OK, now before we go any
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  further, I want to make sure we don't swing the pendulum too
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  far. We are reformed.
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  We aren't prohibitionists, right?
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  We aren't Gnostics who think physical pleasure is somehow
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  inherently evil. We need to clarify what
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  drunkenness is not. That is a vital guardrail.
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  If we aren't careful, we can fall into legalism, which is
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  just as dangerous as license. The Reformed position based on
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  Scripture. It distinguishes between the
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  wine and the wine diver. The liquid itself is a creature
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  of God. Psalm 104.15.
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  It's explicit. It says God gives wine to
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  gladden the heart of man. It's listed right there
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  alongside bread and oil. It's presented as a blessing.
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  It is. It's part of the goodness of
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  creation. I mean, Jesus turned water into
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  wine at cana, and let's be honest, it wasn't grape juice.
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  It was the best wine. So the sin is never in the
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  bottle. The sin is in the abuse.
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  So we can't add to scripture. We cannot bind the conscience of
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  a believer and say total abstinence is the law of God for
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  everyone. That's adding to Scripture.
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  But Christian liberty isn't a blank check.
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  No, that's the other ditch. Christian liberty is the freedom
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  to obey God, if not the freedom to dull the conscience or
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  enslave the will. It's the difference between
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  enjoying a gift as a gift versus using the gift to escape the
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  giver. OK, that's a good place to
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  pivot. Let's move into the biblical
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  witness. I spent a lot of time on the Old
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  Testament typology section of the notes, and I have to say the
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  connection to Noah, it just floored me.
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  It's. Powerful, isn't it?
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  I've read Genesis dozens of times, but I never thought of
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  Noah as a new atom in this specific context.
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  Well, you have a look at the narrative arc.
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  The world is washed clean by water.
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  It's a decreation and a recreation.
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  Noah steps out of the ark as the head of a new humanity.
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  He is given the command to be fruitful and multiply.
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  He's a man of the soil. He plants a vineyard.
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  Just as Adam was placed in a garden, the parallel is right
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  there. Right.
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  And where did Adam fail? He failed regarding the fruit of
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  a tree. He failed to keep the command of
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  God and maintain dominion over the serpent.
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  Now look at Noah. He survives the judgement of the
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  flood. He is the righteous man of his
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  generation. But he fails in the vineyard.
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  The text says he drank of the wine and became drunk and lay
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  uncovered in his tent. He fails to exercise dominion.
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  Instead of mastering creation, he's mastered by it.
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  The fruit of the vine overpowers him.
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  And the result. Shame, nakedness and a curse on
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  the family line. It is a replay of the fall.
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  The righteous man let down his guard.
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  He sought comfort in the harvest rather than the Lord of the
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  harvest, and it led to humiliation.
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  That really shatters the idea that, you know, good people
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  don't have this struggle. Noah was the best of them, and
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  he fell right here. It shows that the temptation to
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  seek false comfort is universal. And there's another Old
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  Testament example that's equally chilling, Leviticus 10.
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  This is the establishment of the priesthood.
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  And this is right after Nadab and ABBA who die, correct?
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  Immediately after Nate Ave. and Abaahu offer strange fire before
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  the Lord. Unauthorized worship and fire
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  comes out from the presence of the Lord and consumes them.
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  It is terrifying. Just a shocking moment in the
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  text. And right then the Lord speaks
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  to Aaron. He gives a permanent statute.
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  Drink no wine or strong drink you or your sons with you when
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  you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die.
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  The timing implies A cause. Most commentators agree it
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  heavily implies that Nate Ave. and A Bayou were likely under
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  the influence. When they offered that strange
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  fire, their judgement was impaired.
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  They couldn't tell the difference between the holy fire
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  and their own fire. Exactly, and the command is
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  given, the text says, so that they can distinguish between the
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  holy and the common. And there's that idea of
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  blurring again. That's the key.
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  Drunkenness blurs distinctions. It makes everything fuzzy.
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  But a priest is called to sharp discernment.
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  He has to know what is clean and unclean.
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  He has to be alert to the holiness of God.
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  Now the listener might say, well, OK, but I'm not a
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  Levitical priest. I don't work in the Tabernacle.
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  But the New Testament changes the address on that letter.
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  First, Peter calls the Church a royal priesthood.
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  We are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
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  We don't visit the Holy place once a year.
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  We are inhabited by the Holy One, so the call to sobriety is
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  universalized. You can't clock out of your
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  priesthood. You were always on duty.
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  You can't say, well I'm off the clock so I can blur the lines
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  between holy and common now. Not if you were a temple.
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  Wow. OK, let's go to the wisdom
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  literature, Proverbs 23. The notes call this a
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  physiological exegesis of the drunkard.
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  It's incredibly descriptive. Solomon is acting like a
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  clinician here. He's observing the symptoms, who
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  has woe, who has sorrow, who has strife, who has redness of eyes.
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  He describes the physical reality of the hangover and the
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  brawl. But then he uses this image in
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  verse 32. At the last, it bites like a
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  serpent and stings like an adder.
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  A serpent That has to be intentional.
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  It has to be. It's the Hebrew word nachash.
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  It is the same exact word used in Genesis 3 for the tempter.
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  Solomon is directly linking the bottle to the fall.
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  So what's the connection he's making?
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  Think about what the serpent promised Eve.
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  Your eyes will be opened. You will be like God.
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  It was a promise of expanded consciousness, of wisdom, of
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  something more. And alcohol makes a similar
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  promise. Drink this and you will feel
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  better. You will be wittier.
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  You will be happier. It promises heaven, but it
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  delivers a bite. It's venom.
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  It poisons the system. And the most terrifying part of
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  Proverbs 23 is the end. The drunkard wakes up beaten and
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  bruised, and what does he say? When shall I awake?
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  I must seek it again. That's the cycle of bondage.
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  It's right there. It's.
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  Spiritual insanity. You return to the very thing
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  that bit you. It's the definition of a master
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  that abuses its slave. Yet the slave keeps coming back,
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  thinking this time it will be different.
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  That leads us right into the New Testament.
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  Ephesians 5.18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is
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  debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.
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  I want to slow down here because the Greek grammar is doing some
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  heavy lifting that we miss in English.
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  It really is. The command is do not get drunk.
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  The verb is mephiscus in the passive voice.
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  The passive voice meaning the subject is being acted upon.
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  Correct. When you drink to excess, you
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  are the passive recipient of an action.
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  You are being acted upon by the wine.
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  You are surrendering the driver's seat.
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  You're letting a chemical dictate your mood, your words,
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  your reaction time. You are displacing the ruling
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  faculty. And Paul, contrast this with
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  debauchery. That feels like an old fashioned
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  word to us. What is the Greek there?
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  The word is a socha. It's a compound word.
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  A means without and Sozo needs to say save.
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  So literally means unsavableness.
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  Unsavableness. Or dissipation.
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  Think of the prodigal son. He wasted his substance on loose
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  living. Same word.
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  It implies a life that is disintegrating, a life that
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  cannot hold water. It's the scattering of the
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  personality. Drunkenness is the systematic
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  dismantling of the imago day. It takes the ordered, structured
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  soul that God created and dissolves it into chaos.
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  And the alternative is the filling of the Spirit.
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  But we need to be precise here. Some people here filled with the
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  spirit and they think of something erratic.
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  They think of people falling down, rolling on the floor,
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  losing control. That's a Pagan view of spirit
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  filling in the mystery cults of Ephesus to be filled with a God
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  meant to go into a frenzy mania. You lost your mind to find the
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  God. But the Holy Spirit is the
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  spirit of order, not chaos. Galatians lists self-control as
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  a fruit of the Spirit. Spot on.
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  The Spirit brings more control, not less.
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  If you look at the parallel passage in Colossians 3, being
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  filled with the Spirit is equated with letting the word of
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  Christ dwell in you richly. It's a rational word, centered
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  fullness. So it's not about emptying the
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  mind, it's about filling it with truth.
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  The Spirit elevates the mind to think God's thoughts.
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  Alcohol suppresses the mind to the level of the beast.
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  So the choice is, do you want to be controlled by a depressant
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  that lowers you, or by a helper who raises you?
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  That framing, rationality versus dissipation, changes the whole
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  argument. It isn't just fun versus boring,
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  it's human versus less than human.
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  It's about maintaining the dignity of your design.
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  I want to pivot to the anatomy of the heart.
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  We've talked about the what and the where in the scripture, but
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  we need to talk about the why. Why do we do it if we know it
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  bites like a serpent? Why do we hold out our hand?
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  The notes call this functional idolatry.
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  This takes us to the Westminster Larger Catechism, question 136,
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  regarding the First Commandment. Thou shalt have no other gods
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  before me. The Catechism is brilliant here.
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  It defines idolatry not just as bowing down to a statue, but as
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  trusting in fearing or loving anything more than God.
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  OK, when we get drunk, we are treating alcohol as a
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  counterfeit savior. A counterfeit savior?
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  Unpack that for me. Well, what does the Savior do?
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  A savior delivers. A savior rescues you from
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  trouble. The bottle offers a form of
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  salvation. It offers immediate deliverance.
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  You're stressed. Deliverance is 20 minutes away.
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  You're sad. Deliverance is in the glass.
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  You're haunted by failure. The bottle washes it away.
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  But it's a false deliverance. It's a lie, but it's a very
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  persuasive lie because it works for about an hour.
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  It functions as a rival refuge. It's a false Sabbath.
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  God offers us rest. Come to me, all who are weary.
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  But that rest requires faith. It requires waiting.
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  It requires prayer. The bottle offers a rest that
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  requires no faith, only a credit card.
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  All right. It's a chemical pause button.
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  We have 4 core motives listed here that drive this idolatry.
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  I want to walk through them because I think if you're
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  listening to this and you're honest, you'll probably see
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  yourself in at least one of these mirrors.
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  The first one is escape. This is the most common 1
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  anesthesia for the soul. We live in a fallen world.
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  We face sorrow, anxiety, financial pressure, grief.
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  The motive of escape says I cannot handle reality right now,
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  it is too sharp. I need to turn down the volume.
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  It's a refusal to suffer. It is.
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  Instead of casting our cares on God as Peter commands, we try to
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  drown them. We want to check out of the life
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  God has given us. Is running away from the God of
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  all comfort to a substance that cannot comfort?
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  The second motive is fear of man, and this one is huge for
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  social drinkers. This is using alcohol as a
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  social mediator. How many times have we heard
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  someone say I need a drink to loosen up or I'm more fun when
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  I've had a few? Liquid courage.
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  We have a phrase for it. We do.
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  But think about the theology of that statement.
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  It reveals a deep insecurity. It says I am not enough as I am.
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  I'm not interesting enough, confident enough or funny
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  enough. It reveals a lack of confidence
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  in your justification. Wow, OK, that is a massive
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  connection. My justification.
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  If you are justified in Christ, you are accepted by the only
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  opinion that matters. You have standing.
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  But when you use alcohol to fit in, you are saying God's
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  acceptance isn't enough to make me feel safe in this room.
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  I need a buzz to feel safe. You're fearing the opinion of
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  man more than you are resting in the opinion of God that.
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  Hurts. That hits steep.
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  All right. The third motive is love of
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  pleasure. This is the pursuit of
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  intensified sensation. We live in a hedonistic age.
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  We want the highs to be higher. We want the laughter to be
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  louder. The flesh crave sensation
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  without discipline. It's the desire to weaken the
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  inward guardrail so we can just feel OK.
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  And the fourth motive is control, which seems ironic
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  because we just said drunkenness is about losing.
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  Control. It's a paradox, but think about
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  it. People drink to control their
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  internal state. I feel bad and I want to feel
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  good now. I am thinking about work and I
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  want to stop thinking about work now.
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  It's an attempt to micromanage your own soul.
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  You're trying to force a mood shift on your own timeline.
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  You're playing God with your own emotions.
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  You are. You're seeking A controllable
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  experience by surrendering to an uncontrollable substance.
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  It always, always backfires. So the verdict on all these
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  motives escape fear of man. Pleasure control is that
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  intoxication is functional unbelief.
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  That is the bottom line. Yeah, it's saying God is not
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  enough or God is too slow. God offers peace, but that takes
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  prayer and wrestling. The bottle offers peace.
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  Right now, it's Unbelief dressed up as happy hour.
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  And we know from Scripture that bad trees produce bad fruit.
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  We've talked about the heart. Now let's talk about the
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  consequences. Segment 4 covers the fruit of
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  the vine, and again I want to look past just the hangover.
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  What is the spiritual fruit? Jesus gives a specific warning
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  in Luke 21.34. He says watch yourselves lest
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  your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness.
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  The first spiritual fruit is drowsiness.
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  Spiritual gravity. Yeah, it weighs down the heart,
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  makes you sleepy towards the things of God.
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  You stop watching for His return.
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  You stop caring about holiness. You just want to nap.
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  Romans 13 calls it a work of the darkness.
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  It thrives on secrecy, it thrives on hiding, and it
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  creates profound self deception. The drunkard is always the last
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  to know. The deception is part of the
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  disease. They say I'm fine, I can stop
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  anytime while their life is crumbling around.
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  Them and that crumbling effects everyone.
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  The sources describe the absent presence that that phrase just.
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  It's stuck with me. It's heartbreaking.
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  It's the father sitting in the recliner.
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  His body is there, but he isn't there.
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  His wit, his empathy, his fatherly attention.
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  They're gone. He is checked out.
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  He's a ghost in his own house. It just destroys trust.
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  Reliability evaporates. Promises made at night are
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  forgotten in the morning. I'll do that tomorrow.
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  But tomorrow comes of the fog, and Proverbs is clear.
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  It brings wounds without cause. Arguments that shouldn't happen,
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  word said that can't be unsaid. Strife.
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  And the Westminster Standard brings up the 6th commandment
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  here thou shalt not kill, which seems extreme at first glance.
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  It does, but it frames drunkenness as a violation of
• 18:16
  the 6th Commandment. It's an assault on life.
• 18:18
  You're dulling your senses, which invites danger, driving
• 18:22
  accidents, foolish risks, but you're also slowly destroying
• 18:25
  the body which the temple of the Holy Spirit.
• 18:27
  It's a form of slow motion self murder.
• 18:29
  OK, I can hear the objections piling up in the listener's mind
• 18:32
  as we speak. We need to address these head on
• 18:34
  because they are the standard defenses.
• 18:36
  Let's do it. The big one, the one everyone
• 18:38
  throws on the table first, is the CANA objection.
• 18:41
  Jesus made wine. Right.
• 18:42
  If Jesus made wine, and the best wine at that, he clearly isn't
• 18:45
  against drinking. So stop being so uptight.
• 18:47
  We have to answer this with theological precision.
• 18:50
  The argument is since Jesus made wine, heavy drinking is fine,
• 18:54
  but that's a logic fail. How so?
• 18:57
  Bread is good. Jesus calls himself the bread of
• 18:59
  life, but gluttony is a sin. Sex is good.
• 19:02
  It's a picture of Christ in the church, but fornication is a
• 19:05
  sin. The abuse does not negate the
• 19:07
  use, but the use does not justify the abuse.
• 19:10
  Precisely. Jesus made wine to gladden the
• 19:13
  human heart in the context of a wedding feast.
• 19:16
  He did not make it to facilitate the associate.
• 19:19
  The dissipation that Ephesians forbids.
• 19:22
  To draft the Lord Jesus into the service of your flesh, to use
• 19:25
  His miracle as an excuse to get smashed is a violation of His
• 19:28
  Lordship. It's twisting scripture to serve
• 19:31
  your appetite. OK, what about the private sin
• 19:33
  objection? I'm doing this in my basement.
• 19:35
  I'm not driving. I'm not hurting anyone.
• 19:36
  It's my business. We have to push back hard on the
• 19:38
  very concept of private sin. In a covenantal world of you,
• 19:42
  sin is never isolated. First, it's an offense against
• 19:45
  God. You were violating the first
• 19:47
  commandment in your basement, but second, it violates the law
• 19:50
  of. Love because you're off the
• 19:51
  clock. Exactly.
• 19:53
  Even if you're alone, you are rendering yourself unavailable
• 19:56
  for service. You are surrendering the
• 19:58
  self-control that the Spirit gave you.
• 20:00
  What if a neighbor knocks on the door with an emergency?
• 20:03
  What if your wife needs you? You've taken yourself off the
• 20:06
  watchtower. You've made yourself useless to
• 20:09
  the Kingdom for the sake of your own pleasure.
• 20:11
  That is not a private matter, that's a dereliction of duty.
• 20:15
  What about the cultural objection?
• 20:16
  It's just my culture or it's my coping mechanism?
• 20:19
  My job is incredibly stressful. You don't understand the
• 20:21
  pressure I'm under. And we can have compassion for
• 20:24
  the pressure. Stress explains the temptation.
• 20:27
  But stress does not justify the surrender.
• 20:30
  That's a crucial distinction for pastoral care.
• 20:32
  OK, we can weep with those who are overwhelmed, but we cannot
• 20:35
  affirm their sin. The call of the Christian is to
• 20:38
  be transformed by the renewing of the mind, not conformed to
• 20:41
  the pattern of this age. If the pattern of your age is to
• 20:45
  drink to cope, you're called to a counter cultural holiness.
• 20:48
  Then there is the medical objection.
• 20:50
  It's a disease. It's genetic.
• 20:51
  I can't help it. We need real balance here.
• 20:54
  We are not denying Physiology. Addiction absolutely alters
• 20:57
  brain chemistry. Withdrawal is physically
• 20:59
  dangerous. We believe in common grace,
• 21:02
  which includes medicine. Detox is often necessary and a
• 21:05
  mercy, but we must maintain moral agency.
• 21:09
  If it is only a disease like diabetes or cancer, then the
• 21:13
  person is a victim. Victims don't need to repent,
• 21:16
  they just need treatment. But the Bible calls it sin, and
• 21:19
  that is actually good news. How is that good news?
• 21:22
  That sounds like bad news. Because if it's sin, there's
• 21:25
  forgiveness. If it's sin, there's a Savior
• 21:26
  who died for it. If it's sin, there's power to
• 21:29
  break it. The scriptural category is
• 21:31
  slavery or bondage. Christ breaks chains, He doesn't
• 21:35
  just manage symptoms. So we treat the body with
• 21:37
  medicine, yes, but we treat the soul with the gospel.
• 21:40
  That leads us perfectly to the cure.
• 21:42
  This is segment 6, and this is where the rubber meets the road.
• 21:45
  We're reformed, so we talk about law and gospel.
• 21:48
  How does the law function in the cure?
• 21:49
  The law is the mirror. Its primary function is to
• 21:53
  expose the sin plainly. We have to stop using soft
• 21:56
  words. We have to stop calling it a
• 21:58
  mistake, a slip up or unwise. We have to call it what God
• 22:02
  calls it, idolatry, disobedience.
• 22:06
  It shuts our mouths. It drives us out of self
• 22:08
  justification. It forces the drunkard to hit
• 22:10
  bottom and say I cannot control this, I am guilty, I am
• 22:13
  enslaved. That desperation is the
• 22:16
  prerequisite for grace. And then comes the gospel.
• 22:18
  And this is where the source material just blew my mind.
• 22:21
  We have to talk about the two cups.
• 22:22
  This is the theological core of the solution.
• 22:25
  To understand the cure for the cup of demons, we have to look
• 22:27
  at the cup of Christ. Go to the Garden, to Gethsemane.
• 22:30
  Jesus is praying, agonizing. He says, Father, if it be
• 22:33
  possible, let this cup pass from me.
• 22:35
  What was in that cup? What was he so afraid of it?
• 22:38
  Wasn't just physical suffering though that was part of it.
• 22:40
  In the Old Testament. Isaiah, Jeremiah.
• 22:42
  The cup is almost always the cup of YHWHS wrath.
• 22:46
  It is the foaming wine of God's fury against sin.
• 22:49
  It is spiritual intoxication. It's the staggering, blinding
• 22:53
  judgement of God. And Jesus drank it.
• 22:55
  He drank it to the dregs. He absorbed the spiritual
• 22:59
  intoxication judgement that we deserved.
• 23:02
  He took the hangover of the cosmos into his own soul on the
• 23:06
  cross. And here's the contrast that the
• 23:08
  research pointed out. That's just it's staggering.
• 23:11
  When he is on the cross, effectively drinking that
• 23:15
  spiritual poison, the soldiers offer him a physical drink.
• 23:18
  March 15, they offered him wine mixed with myrrh.
• 23:22
  It was a narcotic. It was an ancient painkiller.
• 23:24
  It was a way to take the edge off the crucifixion.
• 23:27
  And he refused. It he would not take it, he
• 23:29
  refused the anaesthesia, He refused the numbing cup.
• 23:32
  He maintained agonizing sobriety to secure our salvation.
• 23:36
  He would not be impaired while he was making atonement.
• 23:39
  He had to be fully awake to the wrath of God so that he could
• 23:42
  fully pay the debt. That is incredible.
• 23:44
  He drank the cup of wrath so that we could have the cup of
• 23:46
  blessing. That is the great exchange,
• 23:48
  because he drank the judgement. We get the Lord's Supper, we get
• 23:52
  the wine of the covenant. The antithesis is stark.
• 23:55
  Paul says in First Corinthians, you cannot drink the cup of
• 23:58
  demons in the cup of the Lord. The Lord's Table is the antidote
• 24:01
  to the Tavern. The Tavern is the counterfeit
• 24:04
  communion. Absolutely.
• 24:06
  The drunkard is looking for communion.
• 24:08
  He's looking for lifting up. He's looking to forget his
• 24:10
  sorrows. The Lord's table actually gives
• 24:12
  those things. It gives true communion with God
• 24:15
  and neighbor. It gives the lifting up of the
• 24:17
  countenance. It gives the forgiveness of
• 24:19
  sins. The Tavern is a hollow mockery
• 24:22
  of the communion table. So the cure isn't just
• 24:25
  willpower, it isn't just try harder.
• 24:28
  It's union with Christ. It is the expulsive power of a
• 24:31
  new affection. To quote Thomas Chalmers, you
• 24:34
  won't stop loving the bottle until you love Christ more.
• 24:38
  The believer is in Christ. The old self that loves stupor
• 24:42
  is dead. We fight not for victory, but
• 24:44
  from victory. OK, let's land this plane with
• 24:47
  practical application. We need head, heart and hands.
• 24:50
  Let's talk about mortification, killing, sin.
• 24:52
  Mortification is violent. It's not a gentle process.
• 24:55
  Jesus used the language of radical amputation.
• 24:57
  If your hand pauses you to sin, cut it off.
• 24:59
  So what does that look like for alcohol?
• 25:01
  It means cutting off provision. If you cannot stop after one
• 25:05
  drink, you must not have one drink.
• 25:07
  If the bar is your stumbling block.
• 25:09
  You change your Rd. home from work.
• 25:11
  You pour the liquor down the sink.
• 25:13
  You don't negotiate with a terrorist and you don't
• 25:15
  negotiate with your flesh. So for some people that means
• 25:19
  total abstinence is the only path of wisdom.
• 25:21
  Absolutely. If it masters you, you must
• 25:24
  exile it. That isn't legalism, that is
• 25:27
  survival. But we don't just kill the sin,
• 25:29
  we have to live to God. Vivification.
• 25:32
  That's the other side of the coin.
• 25:33
  You have to replace the spirits with the spirit.
• 25:36
  You have to fill the void. You need the means of grace.
• 25:38
  You need the word to fill your mind, so the alcohol doesn't.
• 25:41
  You need prayer. You need fellowship.
• 25:44
  Ephesians 5 mentions singing, which seems like a strange thing
• 25:46
  to throw in there. It does right after Do not get
• 25:49
  drunk, it says, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and
• 25:52
  spiritual songs. The replacement for the brawling
• 25:54
  songs of the drunkard is the worship of the church.
• 25:58
  Worship is the God ordained way to be filled.
• 26:00
  It's how we express our joy and release our sorrow without
• 26:03
  chemical aid. And the church has a huge role
• 26:06
  here. We can't do this alone.
• 26:08
  The church must be a household of restoration, not just
• 26:10
  condemnation. We need to be a safe place for
• 26:13
  people to say I am struggling. We need to stop looking down our
• 26:16
  noses and start bearing burdens. But we also need real
• 26:20
  accountability. Not just how is your heart?
• 26:23
  No. Did you drink this week?
• 26:25
  How much when specific and real? And leaders have to lead by
• 26:29
  example. First Timothy 3 is non
• 26:32
  negotiable. Elders and deacons must be sober
• 26:34
  minded, not drunkards. You cannot lead the flock of God
• 26:37
  if you are impaired. Period.
• 26:39
  Finally, we have a future hope. This isn't just about saying no
• 26:42
  for the rest of our lives. It's about a better yes.
• 26:45
  The Bible ends with a wedding, the marriage supper of the Lamb
• 26:48
  and Isaiah promises a feast of well aged wine.
• 26:52
  We are saying no to the cheap destructive intoxication of this
• 26:56
  age because we are waiting for the true celebration in the
• 26:59
  Kingdom. We are fasting from the
• 27:00
  counterfeit because we're waiting for the best wine which
• 27:04
  Christ will pour out Himself. That puts the struggle in
• 27:06
  perspective. It's a deferred gratification
• 27:09
  for a joy that will never, ever end.
• 27:11
  It's the promise that the best is yet to come.
• 27:13
  So to summarize, drunkenness is a counterfeit gospel.
• 27:18
  It offers a false rest and a rival theology.
• 27:21
  It's voluntary impairment that mocks the image of God.
• 27:25
  And the solution is not just grit, it is the better cup of
• 27:28
  Christ and the filling of the Holy Spirit.
• 27:30
  That's it. It's replacing the idol with the
• 27:32
  living God. I want to leave our listener
• 27:34
  with a final provocation. We've covered a lot of ground,
• 27:37
  but this really comes down to the individual heart.
• 27:40
  The deepest question isn't just why do you drink, it is what are
• 27:44
  you seeking in that glass that you are failing to seek in God?
• 27:48
  That's the question. If you can answer that, you're
• 27:51
  on the road of freedom. Search your heart, look at your
• 27:54
  habits, and remember the better cup found in Christ.
• 27:58
  Thanks for joining us for this deep dive into Reformed
• 28:00
  thinking. It has been a pleasure.
• 28:01
  We will see you next time.