Pauls's Epistle to the Ephesians
Chapter XVIII.
WORLDLY AND SPIRITUAL EXHILARATIONIST.
"And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess ; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."- EPH. 5. 18-20.

THIS is the end or completion, as I take it, of the second section, or subdivision, of the practical part of this epistle; the section or subdivision which views the church in its relation to antagonism to the world. The next verse (ver. 21) seems to mark the transition, or mode of passing, through a general principle or maxim, into the third section or subdivision; connecting the submission which Christians universally owe to one another as such, with the special natural relations of domestic and social life. The text, meanwhile, closes and crowns the previous line of thought.

It is assumed that the two opposite and contrasted sets, or systems of principle and practice, of influence and action, the Christian and the worldly, will ultimately find different ways of expressing themselves. For both of them are powers which, originally working from within, must ultimately act also outwardly. They are like opposing streams which, after crossing and vexing one another too often in their course, branch off from one another in the end ; like inconsistent and irreconcilable forces, which, after much mutual collision and consequent confusion, find opposite vents by which to discharge themselves at last. The forces, the streams, are those of worldly darkness on the one hand, and spiritual light on the other. The first works naturally in the line of such excitement and exhilaration as may be best sustained by material stimulants or appliances, and may but too readily issue in outward excess, or reckless mirth and riot. The second works spiritually in the line of a safer and holier elevation, which, even if it should become intoxication, would yet be safe and holy; for its stimulant is not wine, or anything coming in the room of wine, and working as wine works, but the Spirit; and its vent or issue is not the rude excess of ribald speech and senseless voice and walk; but "speaking to yourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Here, therefore there is a double contrast, suggesting a double test, as to your life.
I. What is the stimulant that is most congenial and welcome to it?
II. What is the vent or issue in which it naturally comes out?

I. What is the stimulant? It is wine in the one case: Be not drunk with wine. It is the Spirit in the other case: Be filled with the Spirit (ver. 18).
The prohibition, be not drunk with wine, is to be taken in its most literal sense, and urged home, in that sense, upon Christians, true Christians, as well as upon other men. It is needed for them; sometimes for them even more than for other men. The use, or the abuse, of wine, is apt to creep on them as a habit of moderate indulgence in regard to which, being spiritual men, they may without serious risk allow themselves some liberty; or as a solace in hours of anxious thought and depressed spirits, in seasons, perhaps, of spiritual heaviness and gloom. Let no child of God put away from him as unnecessary or inapplicable, the strong, plain warning, taken in its strongest, plainest meaning. Be not drunk with wine.

But the force of the warning is not weakened, but rather enhanced, by its being construed as involving a somewhat wider principle. It is a warning against your being dependant on any outward, carnal, worldly stimulant, for the exhilaration which you need. For it is assumed, as being conceded on all hands, that exhilaration of some sort is really needed. Human nature, under the pressure of its earthly experience, requires something of that sort. It cannot stand the dull, dead level, passionless and emotionless, of a monotonous round of continual work, or a mere tame routine of decency. If it is genuine human nature,- not stunted or warped, but real and living,- it is impatient of stagnation, and welcomes stimulants.

And it is not in that respect altered in conversion. The new man, or manhood, as well as the old, is intolerant of prolonged and uniform quiescence. It demands to be in a sense, at least occasionally; frequently, it may be; if not indeed always, intoxicated. It cannot consent to unbroken and perpetual sobriety. That may suit the formalism and self-righteousness of the old man; it will not do for the living loving soul of the new man. I call for the full glass; the overflowing bumper. The wine, the rich and generous wine, unmixed and undiluted, let me be thoroughly drunk with that. Yes. Let me be filled with the Spirit. Let that be my wine. Let me be drunk with that wine; filled with the Spirit.

It is the. highest notion and ideal of the Spirit's office that is here suggested. There is no disparagement or degradation in his being compared to wine ; nor in his spiritual working being compared to the exhilarating influence of wine. No reader of the Old Testament can stumble at the comparison, when he calls to mind what is there said of wine, whether literally or symbolically. "Wine that maketh glad the heart of man" - "wine which cheereth God and man." "He brought me to the banqueting-house, and his banner over me was love. Stay me with flagons: for I am sick of love." "Eat, 0 friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, 0 beloved." Itis fitted to bring out the fulness of the work of the Holy Ghost in our salvation. It is one of many comparisons; but it consummates and crowns them all. He is likened to wind and to water; to wind, blowing for the soul's new birth, breathing or inspiring new life; to water, a well of living water in the soul, springing up and flowing forth. But here he is as wine; instead of wine ; himself wine ; superseding and setting aside that material stimulant; being himself a spiritual stimulant, which is far better.

Let this office, this function, of the Holy Spirit, be duly recognised and honoured; his most congenial office; the function which assuredly pleases him best. He is willing, most willing to be to you as wind, in respect of your being born of him; and as water, in respect of his being in you a well of water, springing up into everlasting life, and causing rivers of water to flow forth from within you all around. These operations of the Spirit are needful for the beginning of your spiritual life, and for its inward growth and outward influence and power. But he would be more to you than these. He would be to you as wine. Are you not apt to grieve the Holy Spirit in this most elevated and blessed sphere of his agency, which is that in which he himself must chiefly love to move? The necessity of his initial movement as the wind, in your regeneration, you humbly and thankfully acknowledge; and you feel your need of his continual watering of your souls for the preservation of some growing life in them, and the going out of some good savour from them. But the wine! What of that? Is he instead of wine to you? Is he himself wine to you?

He will be so, if you let him take of what is Christ's and show it to you. For it is always as not speaking of himself but glorifying Christ that he works towards you and in you, as wind, or water, or wine. In your new birth, your being regenerated or bom from above, he makes over to you Christ's birth as yours; so that you enter into the kingdom of God, in and with Christ, blameless and righteous, as he is when he comes under it; renovated also and regenerated in Christ. In your being sanctified as well as justified, he causes Christ to dwell in your heart by faith; and to be in you a new life for yourselves, and out of you, a new life for others. But he has more of what is Christ's to show you than all that, more than may suffice for your becoming new creatures in Christ, and your living more and more daily, not unto yourselves, but unto him who died for you and rose again. There is such a thing as joy in the Holy Ghost. And it is Christ's joy, the very joy of Christ himself; the joy which he felt when he said, "I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes;" and again, "These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full."

This is the stimulant which is put against wine: your being filled with the Spirit instead of being drunk with wine; filled with the Spirit as thus taking of what is Christ's and showing it to you; of his entire fulness of joy; filling you thus with all the fulness of God. It is more than deliverance from death. It is more than life; more than pardon and peace ; than a quiet sense of reconciliation ; a calm trust and humbly contented walk of consistent welldoing. It is all that; and that is much. But to be filled with the Spirit when it is put against being drunk with wine means I repeat, more than that. It means spiritual elevation; some sort of spiritual experience or state, analogous though not akin to being drunk with wine. It means your being spiritually agitated, excited, exhilarated; somewhat after the fashion of the physical effects that strong drink so sadly works.

There is room under this image for the most intense, rapturous, and enthusiastic fulness of the Spirit being recognised as a legitimate means and method of excitement and exhilaration in the Christian life. And if we allow such a joyous spiritual frame to be not always and everywhere indispensable, we must insist on it as being that which is in itself most honouring to the Holy Ghost, and most likely, in respect of its energy and influence, to meet and overcome any tendency to have recourse to more carnal and worldly ways of what is called keeping up the spirits.

For these two reasons then I press home the precept, "Be filled with the Spirit." Let the Spirit largely shed abroad in your hearts an animating sense of the love of God. Let him fill you with all joy as well as all peace in believing. Rejoice in the Lord. "Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." "Prove me now, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it." So you best honour the blessed Spirit. So also you can dispense with the relief or recreation which being drunk with wine, or any other worldly and sensual stimulant, may be supposed to give.

II. Such being the two opposite stimulants or sources of exhilaration, let us now look at the two corresponding vents or issues. The one, being intoxicated or excited with wine, leads to, or has in it, excess, revelry, unruly speech and behaviour, profligacy, riotous living. The other, being filled with the Spirit, finds its appropriate and congenial outcome in the voice of rejoicing and salvation; the melody of joy and health that is in the tabernacles of the righteous. Is any merry, filled with the Spirit? Let him sing psalms.

1. Being drunk with wine, drawing whatever elevation of spirit they have from an external cause, from what can only minister to their animal and carnal nature, men can scarcely fail to seek an outlet for their excited frame in some form or other of boisterous mirth or sensual indulgence. The steam thus generated refuses to be shut up or suppressed. It must and will break out in a manner kindred to itself. And its breaking out may often be disorderly and disastrous indeed.

This is notoriously true of literal intoxication. "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; wine, the new wine, takes away the heart." "People, priest, and prophet err through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way." Hear the poor victim, as the poet makes him so pitifully to lament: "Drunk? and speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear? and talk fustian with one's own shadow? 0 thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil! 0 that men should put an enemy into their mouths to steal away their brains, that we should with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!"

But it is not wine alone, or strong drink, that will so take and turn a man's head as to throw him off his balance, and destroy or paralyse his power of self-command. Any kind of excitement or elevation of feeling that is merely sensual, or sensous—occasioned by what touches the senses only, whether the lower or the higher—may in a different way and in a lesser degree move a man to conduct unbecoming and unwise. What folly, for instance, may be committed, what mischief done, in the mere exuberance of animal spirits, allowed to run riot without curb or check. Are not the absurdities and extravagances of weak-brained, half-crazy enthusiasm about 250 WORLDLY AND SPIRITUAL EXHILARATION. some favourite whim or hobby the standing themes of humorous wit and satire 1 Is not many a man, in the heat of highly raised emotion, caused perhaps by what may not in itself be wrong, hurried into scenes, and hurried on to sayings and doings, from which, in a calmer mood, he would recoil and shrink ?

For, in truth, all excitement or desire of excitement,- all exhilaration, or craving for exhilaration, for what may raise or keep up one's spirits; every taste, in short, or tendency, or inclination that is altogether natural, carnal, worldly, is. apt to become thus dangerous. It may not perhaps break out into riotous living. But if it breeds disorder in the inner man; if it insidiously leads to waste of precious time; if it deranges the economy of the household; if it encroaches on holy study, devout meditation, cheerful good-doing ; if it disposes to sloth and self-indulgence, or over-indulgence in what may be innocent and even good; if it indisposes for active exertion, and diligent working, and willing self-sacrifice ; it has in it substantially the very element of evil, the excess, that there is in being literally drunk with wine.

2. Turn now to the other kind of exhilaration; otherwise created or caused; your being filled with the Spirit. How, does it express itself, and work itself out? "Speaking to yourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Observe, generally, in the first place, how manifold are the ways in which this sort of intoxication, your being filled with the Spirit, may find vent and utterance. For, as I take it, there are more ways than one indicated here in these verses; three at least;
(1.) your speaking to yourselves; that is, among yourselves, to one another, and with one another, in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs ;
(2.) your making silent melody in your heart unto the Lord; and
(3.) your giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
If you are in sympathising companionship, then the utterance is in loudest strains of highest music. If you are alone, it is in music still, the deep music of a soul allured to heaven's harp. If you are at work, or on a journey, toiling or travelling, it is in music still, the music of a grateful sense and acknowledgment and proclamation of God's manifold providential care and kindness, as connected with his saving grace.

Such variety I find here as regards the vent which your being filled with the Spirit demands. But how ample, I say, is the vent! Can I ever be at a loss for a channel through which the fulness of the Spirit in me may find an outlet? Have I access to the house and household of God? Do I go up with the people to keep holyday to the Lord? Do I join in fellowship with loving souls? Then in all sorts of hymnology, psalmodic and spiritual, I welcome what admits of my pouring into it the utmost exuberance and deepest experience of my soul's fulness, as filled with the Spirit. Am I alone, in solitude, with none to join with me in this exercise of praise? I may sing and make melody in my heart to the Lord. Am I abroad in the world, away from the social house of prayer, where voices may join audibly in song, and from the solitary and secret closet, where the song can be only in my hushed silent bosom: am I about my business, my Father's business, cast, in the prosecution of it, into the very midst of the world's bustle, its cares and griefs, and crowded tumult? I may be cherishing continually a grateful sense of divine grace and goodness; always, and for all things, giving thanks to God in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

That surely is an ample channel; these are wide enough mouths, through which a very Nile of the fulness of the Spirit in any heart may discharge itself into the ocean of infinite love;
(1.) all varied speech and song.in holy Christian communion ;
(2.) truest melody of soul in closet exercise ; and
(3.) a thankful, cheerful apprehension and proclamation, always and in all things, of the Father's faithfulness and love in his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Next, observe in the second place how thoroughly safe, as well as sufficient, is this threefold vent for your emotions when filled with the Spirit. There is no risk of excess or disorder here. Let a man be ever so much filled with the Spirit, even to extreme pressure and overflowing; he has in this threefold outlet a suitable and ample safety-valve. Even if he had any one of the three channels by itself, he might well be content. In the communion of saints, worshipping together; in the heart-melody of closet prayer, addressed to him who seeth. in secret; in the continual remembrance and acknowledgment of redeeming grace and providential goodness, always and everywhere, in the midst of the world's turmoil; in any one of these three apart, your fulness, as being filled with the Spirit, might flow forth and find fitting outlet. How much more when you have, as you have for the most part, all the three available! The church, the closet, the very world itself; the church, with its vocal music; the closet, with its silent song; the world with its ever-varying experiences, calling forth at every moment a new feeling of gratitude to God in Christ; and giving thus at every moment a new opportunity of testifying on his behalf; these are, not separately but unitedly, the channels provided for the overflow of your spiritual fulness. And, taken together, they afford a vent or outlet that cannot well be abused.

Any one of them, taken separately, might possibly lead to extravagance. The social element might, by sympathy and contagion, prompt fanatical outcries and wild physical convulsions. The secret devotion might become morbid, self-eating, and therefore self-destructive. And the fond idea of making all work worship, might end in there being no worship but work. But let the three unite and coalesce in one. Be ye, as filled with the Spirit, ready to join with the Lord's people in all manner of Christian fellowship, whether of service or of song. Be ye also, even when you are alone, praising God inwardly, and lifting up your silent hearts to him. And be ye even in the world abroad remembering and showing forth his grace and goodness as your God and Father in Christ Jesus your Lord. This threefold sluice will suffice for any fulness. There is no danger of any excess here.

Observe, thirdly, how the outflow, in this triple channel, instead of wasting and exhausting, tends evermore to replenish and revive the fountain. The case is different when the fountain is a fulness of wine, or of any carnal or sensational stimulant. In that case the force or impetus imparted very soon exhausts itself, and prostrate lassitude ensues. Excitement, simply natural,- or rather, perhaps, one should more properly say artificial,- whether caused by strong drink, or by any other exhilarating means, almost invariably ends, and that very speedily, in a collapse. "Eor, as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of fools." It flares up in a fitful, noisy, outburst of wanton mirth, and soon sinks into ashes, dull and dead. The morning after a debauch; the slow and vacant hours of the day succeeding a night of giddy dissipation in the theatre or the ball-room; the listless apathy that steals over the whole soul when the thrilling romance or startling tale of terror is closed; nay, the very weariness of the flesh which much study proves itself to be; these, and other instances sufficiently familiar, attest this truth, that high-wrought elevation of feeling, fed and fostered by wine, or some virtual substitute and equivalent for wine, consumes alike its food and itself; entailing a sad reverse of helpless depression and despondency.

It is not so, but quite otherwise, when it is being filled with the Spirit, that gladdens and enlivens the soul, and when the life and gladness find their fitting vent in the songs of brotherly fellowship, or the silent melody of the heart, or the cheerful, happy, grateful frame that turns the whole ordinary and commonplace walk of life, with all its trials and troubles, into a continual sacrifice of praise. These ways of spiritual recreation, letting out, and, as it were, letting off the spiritual steam, are not liable to any reaction. Spiritually and wisely used, they minister to that fulness from which they proceed; they gently and genially fan the flame of that inward fire which your being filled with the Spirit kindles. They are exercises fitted to be reciprocally effects and causes. Coming from a heart filled with the Spirit, they tend to keep it full. They contribute to your peace and joy; your peace in believing, and joy in the Holy Ghost; the very peace and joy which are their animating principle and moving mainspring. There is no risk therefore, here, of undue excitement, to be followed by the opposite extreme of dulness. Nay, rather the more you abound in all these varieties of the Christian life and experience, social, secret, active, and busy, the more abundantly will you be strengthened with might by God's Spirit in the inner man; the more will Christ dwell in your hearts by faith ; the more will you be enabled to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God (chap. iii. 17-19).

By way of practical application, let me repeat the warning -"Be not drunk with wine," and press it home as a peremptory authoritative prohibition; a categorically imperative commandment. In that form it is much needed. It is Paul's manner, or rather God's, in dealing with sinful or even doubtful practices and usages, to be thus peremptory. It is not persuasion, argument, entreaty, he brings to bear upon them, but strong and stern denunciation. This is the way in which ungodly sinners are addressed; and not only openly ungodly sinners, but professing Christians too. "Be not deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, shall inherit the kingdom of God." "Of whom I have told you before, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ." "Be not drunk with wine."

0 my poor brother, who art at this very time perhaps in danger of being drawn into this most insidious and subtle snare of the devil, seeking solace or excitement in strong drink, be very thankful that the appeal to you is made on this footing. Lay it to heart: as no remonstrance merely, or argument or expostulation: but a plain, clear command, not to be trifled with. Be not drunk with wine, or with anything that is leading to excess or disorder of any kind. 0 let the word come as with a voice of thunder; loud, emphatic, unequivocal, breaking through all sophistry and special pleading. Be not conformed to the world. "Be not drunk with wine."

Your best security is your being filled with the Spirit, and giving free and wide scope and vent to that fulness in all the channels in which the spiritual life may run. Get some of the indwelling in you of the Holy Ghost, causing Christ to dwell in your hearts by faith. Pray for that. Pray believingly. Pray as expecting to receive the blessing; as willing to receive it. Willing I say. For, alas, may it not be that while asking, not with conscious insincerity, that I may be filled with the Spirit, I rather shrink secretly from the high, holy, heavenly state and frame which my getting what I ask might imply; that I dread being brought so completely out of the world, and so thoroughly caught up into the third heavens? Ah, if so, is it any wonder that I receive not what I ask? Is it any wonder that, failing to receive it, I yield to the temptation of falling back on worldly stimulants? Be sincere, brethren, be earnest in seeking to be filled with the Spirit in all the fulness of that great thought. Then may you bid a final adieu to all the excitements of the world's pomps and pleasures. Then may you indeed live now the very life you are to live for ever, the life of song, the life of heart-melody, the life of joyous grateful service. "Be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (vers. 19, 20).
Go To Chapter Nineteen

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