Blogspot Message #9

The Need To Be Sober

Our topic is the need for spiritual sobriety. We begin our examination of the topic with reviewing two scenarios.

In the first scenario, which is found in Daniel Chapter 5, Belshazzar is the king of Babylon. He “made a great feast to a thousand of his lords and drank wine before the thousand (v.1).” The Bible goes on to tell us that “Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives and his concubines, might drink therein. (v.2)” Belshazzar and his party took the golden and silver vessels, which had been dedicated to the service of the Lord, and used them for a profane purpose, that is, a drunken party. In their drunken stupor, they praised heathen idols (v.4). While we do not worship goblets or cups, the fact is that these vessels had been dedicated to the service of the Lord, and Belshazzar’s profane use of the temple vessels constituted an extreme disrespect for the God to whom the vessels had been dedicated.

Belshazzar undoubtedly knew of Nebuchadnezzar’s encounter with the God of the Israelites and should have taken cognizance that (see Daniel Chapter 4), this Almighty God had taken Nebuchadnezzar’s mind and his sanity from him for a period of time, until Nebuchadnezzar learned his place in the universe, i.e., Jehovah is God, Nebuchadnezzar is just a man, and therefore, infinitely inferior to and lesser than Almighty God. Belshazzar was without even the remotest of excuses for his drunken orgy and affront to the God of the Israelites. In verses 16-23 Daniel reminded Belshazzar of how the Lord had dealt with Nebuchadnezzar and that king’s sin of pride, and proceeded to indict Belshazzar for failing to heed the example of how God had dealt with Nebuchadnezzar’s pride.

At core, it was Belshazzar’s pride that led to his contempt of the Lord and consequently, Belshazzar’s drunkenness.

So many people in our society are familiar with the phrase “the handwriting on the wall,” but few grasp its dire importance and meaning. In the same hour that Belshazzar got drunk on wine poured into the temple vessels, “…came forth fingers of man’s hand and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.” (vv.5-6). This is polite 1611 Elizabethan English expression of the fact that Belshazzar was so terrified by the hand visibly writing on the wall that he urinated on himself.

Later in the chapter the handwriting is translated for Belshazzar to explain that God had numbered his kingdom, Belshazzar himself had been weighed and was found lacking in the balance, and his kingdom would be taken from him and given to the Medes and the Persians (vv.25-28). The same night, Belshazzar was slain and Darius the Median captured the Babylonian kingdom’s capitol city.

Our second scenario is early 21^st century America. We live in a nation that has been blessed like no other. When we needed chastening and correction to lead us back to God, He sent it. The 1920’s roared with homemade bathtub gin, “flappers” dancing the night away, clad in indecently short skirts, increase in sexual immorality, and the turning of our society toward the secular, toward materialism and away from the Lord. The October 1929 stock market crash and resulting economic depression lasted until December 1941, when the advent of WWII required American industry to produce the considerable needs of a nation at war.

World War Two ended in 1945 and our economy turned from satisfying the needs of the war machine to the wants and needs of the civilian populace. For the first time in almost five years, civilians could buy new cars and other consumer goods that had to be delayed to accommodate military war production. Sugar and gasoline rationing ceased. Five years of working, earning and saving ended in a spending spree that continues to this day, 62 years later.

The 1950s saw the American military and America’s civilian economy growing and flourishing like never before. America became the undisputed pre-eminent military and economic power in the entire world. Having at least one automobile in the driveway and a television set in the den or living room became the norm for middle America. Economic prosperity to a level never seen before in this country became not only a common experience, but a driving, consuming passion and goal. Americans tasted riches and like sharks tasting blood, wanted more.

All the while, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ was in steady decline. In love with the world and the things of the world, forgetting the Lord’s command to be salt and light. Forgetting the command to be in the world, but not of the world. Just like the world, seeking a bigger better family car, then two cars, better clothes, flashier clothes, bigger houses, higher paying jobs, more and better vacations, and every other comfort that the world sought. We were experiencing our own wine-tasting orgy, just like Belshazzar, only this time, we did so under the guise of “being blessed” and “enjoying the blessings of God.” We were intoxicated with materialism and prosperity. By 1960 at latest, Americans, including the church, were drunk with this world and the things of this world. All the while, we thought that we were alright because we still went to Sunday School and Church, put money in the plate, and had “Leave It To Beaver” haircuts, clothes, furniture and lifestyles.

We forgot the God who made us, instead, opting for keeping up with the Joneses.

The 1960s saw the church sound asleep, allowing: the United States Supreme Court to take prayer out of school; doing absolutely nothing about healing the wounds and scars of racism and its American past, not to mention the need for “being your brother’s keeper”; forgetting holiness and the fear of the Lord; At most quacking a little bit like a duck over the God-hating, atheistic tirades of Madelyn Murray O’Hare but not knuckling down in prayer and fasting to rise up as a standard of righteousness against the flood of evil; the Bible being cast by heretics who called themselves Christians, pastors and theologians, on an ever-increasing basis, as not literal and completely factual, but instead, allegorical and flawed--supposedly the work of men and philosophers rather than the utterance of a Holy God through His Holy Spirit, as dictated by the Spirit to men of God.

1960s youth culture recognized the hypocrisy and vapid futility of the materialistic American quest for more and greater things, and consequently, we felt the backlash: Rock and pop music, in its various forms; The Beatles (John Lennon proclaiming that he and the other three Beatles were “more popular than Jesus,” this spoken in a sacrilegious spirit, but unfortunately reflecting the fact of the decline of worship of Jesus and rise of worship of the Beatles and other secular musicians); Woodstock; Rampant drug abuse; Youthful rebellion; Riots; “Flower power.”

Meanwhile, the church is still in a drunken stupor.

The 1970s saw our situation in America go from bad to worse. Hedonism flourished. Civil and governmental authority no longer was viewed as respectable or legitimate. The 1960s youth culture infatuation with rebellion became institutionalized. The military was no longer respected but was treated like some sort of heinous monster, rather than our protector. “Free love,” i.e., sexual promiscuity, was now rampant, flagrant and open. America and Americans had become cynical, jaded, thoroughly secular and materialistic. Hedonism was a god, and it had many followers in America, as it does today—yes, even in the church. A church that proclaims wealth and prosperity and how to get it, rather than the need for repentance, the new birth, the fear of the Lord, and the need to be converted or processed into a form that is useable for ministry.

Yet, the church was still drunk.

The 1980s and 1990s saw this situation continue to progressively degenerate. The same is still true in the first decade of the 21^st century. An occasional lone, faint voice can be heard from a few isolated men and women of God, calling America to repent and turn back to the Lord. But for the most part, what we want is to fatten our 401 (k) retirement plans like Thanksgiving Day turkeys, make a greater profit on our stocks and other investments, and lose ourselves in selfish pleasures and pursuits. We want to store up acorns and chestnuts—and lots of them—for retirement, so that we can drive around America in an RV, towing the car, golfing, having cocktails at the country clubs and resorts, seeing the sights and generally catering to our flesh, while we wait for our bodies to break down and die. Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. But in the meantime, we will eat the goodies at the next buffet and tranquilize ourselves, while we wait for the inevitable last heartbeat.

Today, September 3, 2007, we—and this includes not only secular American society, but also the church—are almost too drunk with our decades of self-indulgence and wretched excess to see the handwriting on the wall. America, and indeed, the Lord’s church, have been weighed and found lacking in the balance.

II Chronicles 7:14 is still true and America is still the land that has not been healed, because the church did not do what this scripture commanded us to do: “If my people, which are called by my name [Christians], shall humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land [emphasis added]. The present pitiful, rebellious, sinful state of America is the result of the church neglecting this scripture FOR DECADES!

Lack of sobriety destroyed Belshazzar.

Lack of sobriety is doing the same to America, and the church.

But what is sobriety?

Sobriety is not gloom, pessimism or negativity.

Ecclesiates 3 tells us that there is a “time to every purpose under the heaven” (see v.1), and this includes times of loving, embracing, healing, building up, laughing, dancing, getting, speaking, keeping and peace, but also times of the opposite of each one of those happy conditions or experiences. Sobriety is not contrary to laughing, dancing, loving and embracing, but without sobriety, we will never experience those happy conditions to the full. Sobriety keeps these happy experiences and conditions in proper, eternal perspective.

Sobriety, according to Webster’s Dictionary, involves not being intoxicated or drunk, but instead, being habitually (i.e., as a matter of regular, steady, continuous habit) temperate (self-controlled, moderate), quiet or sedate in demeanor, marked by seriousness, gravity or solemnity, subdued in color or tone, not extravagant or excessive.

Daniel was sober-minded.

So was Elijah, when he was not giving in to his emotions.

Prophets of the Lord, like Samuel and Nathan, exhibited extremely high degrees of sobriety.

The Old Testament prophets were sober men of God. At times they gave in to their emotions, but fundamentally and essentially, they were sober-minded.

Ezekiel 3 and Ezekiel 33, both of which involve the concept of the watchman on the wall, involve extreme degrees of sobriety. We cannot discharge our ministry duties effectively and capably without exercising high degrees of sobriety.

Lack of proper sobriety clouds the picture and dulls our focus, perception and discernment. Quite to the opposite, having and exercising—notice we said “exercising,” not just having or possessing—sobriety will sharpen and enhance our focus, perception and discernment. In the natural, your senses are sharper when you are sober, but dulled by intoxication. The same holds true in the spiritual life.

I Peter 5:8 admonishes us: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” Sobriety is essential to not only the success, but the survival of Christians.

II Thessalonians 5:1-8 bears quoting in its entirety: “But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. 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 a helmet, the hope of salvation.” The word “sober” in v.6 is #3525, nepho, in Strong’s Dictionary, and it means circumspect, sober and vigilant. We need to be sober, but also paying close attention to our walk with the Lord, our lifestyle and its details, and also be very vigilant and watchful for the attack of the devil and all other dangers.

I Timothy 3:1-5 requires bishops (ministry overseers, pastors) to possess a number of positive attributes, among them, sobriety. V.8 of that chapter requires the deacons to be grave, which is #4586 in Strong’s Dictionary, which means grave, honest, honorable or venerable. In v. 11, wives are also instructed to be grave. Christians and Christian ministers who lack this required sobriety and gravity are lacking in basic equipment. Sobriety is not an option for Christians, but is instead a basic requirement.

Consider that operating a motor vehicle, watercraft or aircraft, while intoxicated, is illegal and results in criminal penalties. Repeat offenders can be fined, loose their operator’s license and/or go to prison. Know that there are spiritual applications and parallels to this natural legal principle.

Amos 5:18-20 describes how dangerous and perilous is “the day of the Lord.” While one may have an opinion as to where exactly we are on God’s time line in the last days, there is no doubt that we are in “the day of the Lord.” Understanding this to be a fact, we also understand that a higher degree of sobriety is needed.

Malachi 3:1-4 describes the second coming of Jesus Christ and asks us, “But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap.” Obviously this also requires sobriety of us.

II Timothy 3:1-5 describes negative attributes and perilous conditions of the last days, and v.4 tells us that many people will be more focused on pleasure seeking than on loving the Lord. We live in a society marked by over-indulgence. Again, sobriety is God’s counsel to us.

In the church and in society there are, unfortunately, an abundance of manifestations of riotous living. Remember: riotous living is how the prodigal son spent his inheritance and became impoverished—see Luke 15:11-24.

Titus 1:8 again reminds us that bishops (pastors, ministers) must be sober, but also lovers of “good men, just, holy and temperate (#1468—self-controlled).

Titus 2:2-6 instructs that the “aged men” must be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.” However, most aged men in the church and in American society as a whole are very deficient in these qualities. The aged women are to teach young women to be sober, love their husbands, love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Young men are to be exhorted to be sober minded. To exhort (3870) means to produce a particular effect, comfort, exhort, call to one’s side, beseech with a stronger force, to appeal.

I Peter 1:13 states, “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Our need for sobriety is summed up in this way. I Peter 4:7 declares: “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer.”