Brethren, two weeks ago, my wife was in the hospital, and I thought a little bit about the hospital scene over the last few days. That hospital, the third floor that we were on at Ellis, full of patients who have one injury or debilitation or disease or the other, That hospital wherein there are doctors and nurses applying various remedies of a surgical and or medicinal nature. You're aware that it has been somewhat frequent that the Church of Christ has been analogously described as a hospital for sinners. And there are connections between the nature of Christ's church and the hospitals to which we go to seek remedy for our bodies. The hospital for sinners, thankfully, has as the head doctor the great physician of soul and body, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord Jesus has effectual remedies applied by His Spirit, applied through His Word. He has His people whom we might liken to P.A.s. aiding him in ministering to the patients of these New Covenant Hospital for Sinners. Well, apparently in the Galatian Hospital for Sinners, there were some who formerly had been sickened by the moral disease of drunkenness. And the great physician of souls had come and ministered an effectual remedy to them. They were justified. They were sanctified. They were pardoned. They had the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit within. And as a result, there was a definitive remedy, a definitive break from that bondage to the bottle that marked their past. Now this morning, with regard to the first of five headings, unfolding Galatians 5.21, drunkenness carousing, I noted that the inclusion of these two sins strongly suggests that in the Galatian churches, as in the Corinthian church, There were those to whom these sins were real and personal, but Paul could say of them, such were some of you. We take up now tonight with the second of the headings unfolding, 521, drunkenness, carousing, that second heading, capital letter D, is this. And it reflects the language that introduced these deeds of the flesh, the language of verse 17. The Spirit and the flesh being in opposition to one another, that struggle, that war that is now going on, against what remains of sin within us. Effective warfare against the evil of drunkenness, or to say it in another way, the maintenance of spirit-wrought freedom from this deed of the flesh requires the alert self-denying willingness to avoid the circumstances, to avoid the occasions that are conducive to our falling again, that are conducive to our indulgence to our abuse, circumstances and occasions that we know from our past promote our moral failure. Now, our text in this connection is a text parallel to Galatians 5.21, turning your Bibles to Romans 13. And I read at verse 12. The night is almost gone, and the day is at hand. I would understand that analogously to the imminence Paul felt of the coming of the Lord. Let us, therefore, lay aside the deeds of darkness that's the equivalent to the deeds of the flesh, and put on the armor of light. Let us behave properly as in the day, and now the very two words that are found in Galatians 5.21, not in carousing and drunkenness, Not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality. Not in strife and jealousy. Quite a bit of reflection on Galatians 5. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and now here's the point I want to make. And make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lust. Now, one of the lusts in the context is the lust for excessive alcohol signified by drunkenness. Make no provision, that is, no opportunity, no circumstance, which predictably, from your past, from the patterns of your life, predictably is opportune for your going back to the bottom. That provision, that situation, that circumstance that you are to avoid It may be being around certain people, you've got to avoid them. No matter what they think, you've got to stay away. You know that there are certain people that if you are around them, you know where it's going to go. You make no provision for that. That provision might be certain places. And you know if you go to that place or that place, you know from your past track record what is almost surely going to follow. You stay away. That provision may be certain moods arising from difficulties and pressures that you have confronted during the day. And you must not do as you have done in the past, isolate yourself, remaining idle and passive and going into that state of despondency. No, you've got to actively defy that mood with prayer, with the Word of God, with a counteractivity that is productive, with communication and fellowship with others, that provision that you must not make, that provision might be the table wine provided by a well-intended host at dinner. That glass of table wine might be fine for others, but for you, it's tempting God in playing with fire. You must avoid it. For you, yes, all things are lawful. But I will not be mastered by anything, and I know my past. The glass of table wine leads to my bondage and its mastery of me. I must avoid it. Yes, all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. It may be profitable for him, but I know the plague of my own heart, and it's not profitable for me. All things are lawful, Paul says, but not all things edify. And the glass of table wine, I know from my sorry past, won't edify me. For you, to whom the abuse of alcohol has been a besetting, entangling, binding sin, that which has readily overtaken and mastered you, the glass of wine at dinner that others may partake of and have no problem. For you it does not edify. It's the first step back down the road to bondage. Romans 13, make no provision for it. No provision for the lust that may include having to take the position of a total abstainer. What a small price to pay for the good of your soul. Effective warfare against the evil of drunkenness requires the alert, self-denying willingness, the honesty to say, I know what that circumstance, that occasion can do to me. I'm not going to make provision for it. I'm going to avoid it. These provisions must not be made. Living in the freedom and in the fullness of the Holy Spirit requires that you put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lust. Your willingness to honestly, alertly, steadfastly do so is the index of your seriousness to deal with your sin. If you're not willing to do so, don't make a mockery of prayer by praying for God's help for deliverance. The writer to the Hebrews says, let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us. For many in our generation, that sin has been the abuse of alcohol. If so for you, you must avoid those circumstances conducive to that besetting sin. Now thirdly, or capital letter C, effective warfare against the evil of drunkenness requires the positive, I could have substituted proactive, Christ-like restructuring of your life parenthetically, not simply getting off the bottle. It's not enough to simply stop boozing it up Not enough to simply stop getting wasted for a season. Merely quitting, merely avoiding, merely stopping is insufficient and it won't last. True repentance, the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit, the direction of the Word of God produces not simply negative change, but positive change, the transformation, the replacement of evil ways with Christlike, righteous ways. In Romans 13, there are the deeds of darkness, carousing drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, sensuality, strife and jealousy, Surely they must be eliminated. But again, negative change is not enough. There must be new deeds. And this is what is conveyed by verse 12, put on the armor of light. And even more so, verse 14, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. That is, Christlike graces. Christ-like virtues. Christ-like ways and habits. Yes, we put off. We mortify. We put to death. We forsake. In the language of J. Adams in a little brochure I'll make available on Wednesday evening, God willing, he calls that negative change. Yes, that's a part of sanctification. But it's only one part. The whole of sanctification includes positive change. You are familiar with Ephesians 4, verses 20 to the end of the chapter. There is the negative change, we may call it, of laying aside and putting off. And then there is the positive change of putting on. Colossians 3.8. Put them all aside. The negative change of getting rid of anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive speech. And then the positive change. Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, love. We don't live in a moral vacuum. We see this reflected even in the chapter. of Galatians 5, there are the deeds of the flesh that we are to war against and to put away. But thank God there's coming very soon the positive change of the fruit of the Spirit that is the alternative and the replacement to that which we put away. The work of the Spirit and the work of our renewed faculties is the work, summarily speaking, of restructuring our lives, the work, yes, of tearing down and of building up, the work of casting out and replacing, the work of repenting and forsaking, and the work of new obedience, the work of putting off the old and putting on the new. For that one, with a history of drunkenness, The old way of addressing problems was the way of quick frustration, anger, depression, and then the bottle. The one in Christ with that history must search out biblical ways to address those problems. Proactive and wise ways to address those problems that formerly sent him into a little pity party and slough of despond that ended up with his bottle. They are the old ways of using leisure time, the ways of boredom. the ways of idleness, the ways of mindless entertainment, that is, the television. He must put on new ways of using time, serving others, useful work, reading the Word of God, etc. There are old friendships that must be replaced with new friendships. There are old ways of relating to wife and children that must be replaced by biblically directed ways of a man loving his wife and leading his wife and bringing up his children in the fear of the Lord. There are old ways of using money, squandering it, using it impulsively. There must be the biblically directed new ways of discipline and farsightedness and liberality Old habits of indulgence must be torn down and replaced by new patterns of self-control. The point is this. The Spirit of Christ within moves and energizes to restructure life, removing the old and putting on the new. The bondage of excess with alcohol requires such restructuring if any sin ever did and requires it throughout a man's entire range of life. His use of time, money, his relationships, his management of pressure and problems, his use of food and drink, the places he goes, the activities he engages, these all must be biblically directed and restructured. And that's why the one with a history of the abuse of alcohol needs to draw close to a mature man or woman of God who can direct them in that restructuring and rebuilding process. Now, fourthly tonight, with regard to the headings that are before you, effective warfare against the evil of drunkenness will be supported by internalizing the warnings of the Proverbs. Now, I say internalizing, meaning incorporating them within you such that they become a part of you, a part of your thinking, a part of your decision making. Effective warfare against the evil of drunkenness will be supported by internalizing the following warnings. Proverbs 20, verse 1. Wine is a mocker. It'll make a fool of you. And here's the tendency. Strong drink a brawler, and whoever is intoxicated by it is not wise. The fundamental sense of the warning is this. The tendency of intoxication is for a man to become combative and violent. Who needs proof of that? If you've had ten minutes of real life out in the world, who needs proof? The Proverbs make it clear what experience confirms. The tendency of a drunk is to quarreling and fighting. Here's another warning, Proverbs 21, 17. He who loves pleasure will become a poor man. He who loves wine and oil will not become rich. Why? Because he wastes. He wastes his time. He wastes his opportunities for gainful labor. He wastes his money on his extravagances. One of the experiences that I still remember as a teenager that this morning reminds me of with the summer I was working with a bricklaying crew doing the labor of mixing the mud and building the scaffold and loading the mud in the pans and hauling the brick up wherever it needed to go. Get picked up very early in the morning. And we'd ride across town to pick up or try to our two bricklayers. There was work. These were well-paid men. We would go to one of the worst sections of my hometown where these men lived. But they didn't have to live there. They lived there because they were an illustration of this proverb. Their love of wine put them there, not a lack of funds. And morning after morning we'd pull up there and many of those mornings we'd leave without them because in the morning they were drunk. I have another memory of that same summer. It served as a kind of moral inoculation. Often, we'd work out of town. These were the days where seatbelt laws didn't exist. Normally, as the laborer, my place to ride was in the back of the truck outside on the pile of sand and mortar. The boss and whoever the bricklayers might have been were in the cab. Friday, they got paid. And we're out of town, and there was, I would say, cautiously, conservatively, more than one Friday. We're on the way back. We'd pull up at some bar. They'd go in and drink. I'd sit out in the sand and the mortar, waiting for them to finish, and then have to ride home. with those guys in charge. In a way, I'm thankful for that because it served then as a kind of moral inoculation that put a bitter taste in my mouth for that lifestyle. I say that not saying I'm beyond it, but going back to where I launched, Proverbs 21, 17, he who loves wine will not become rich. That's illustrated in my memory by those two bricklayers we'd go to pick up morning after morning, well-paid men who lived in a rundown section of my hometown because they loved wine. Do not be drunk with wine for that is dissipation, squander, waste. And then there is this extended warning. You might want to turn in Proverbs 23 to verse 29. What a section of warning this is. Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Trouble? Pain of heart? trouble, regret? Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaining? The Authorized reads babbling, signifying the incoherent speech, the loquacious speech of the drunk. Who has wounds without cause, those wounds being the result of his fighting and quarreling, who has redness of eyes, bloodshot eyes and that flushed face. Solomon answers, verse 30, those who linger long overwind. It's the language of excess. the language of abuse, the language of a close devotion to one's wine. Those who linger long over wine, those who go to taste mixed wine, do not look, that is, gazing such that it entices and tempts and snares ensnares. Do not look on the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly. And hear the painful effects described by figures. At the last, it bites like a serpent and stings like a viper. the imagery conveying the misery and the suffering and the loss of the man who lingers long over his wine. And then Solomon describes the temporary insanity of the alcohol-poisoned man. Your eyes will see strange things. Your mind will utter perverse things. And you will be like one who lies down in the middle of the sea? Or like one who lies down on the top of a mast? They struck me, but I did not become ill. They beat me, but I did not know it. And now here's the only thing that counts. When shall I awake? I will seek another drink. Another drink to mask and stupefy and render insensible the drunk who does not want to face the wreckage his prior drunk wrought. Brethren, I'm saying if we're going to effectively war against the evil of drunkenness, we need to internalize these sobering and real-life warnings. They're not far-fetched. And then in Proverbs 31, it is not for kings, O Lemuel, Lemuel's mother is speaking, it is not for kings, O Lemuel, It is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to desire strong drink, lest they drink and forget what is decreed, and pervert the rights of all the afflicted. Give strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to him whose life is bitter. Let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his trouble no more. The point is this, those entrusted with responsibility, Those who require clear minds, good judgment, wise decision-making, they better beware of alcohol. Their position, their stewardship, their responsibility, their entrustment with the rights of others, the welfare of others, aggravates They're sin. If you would walk in war by the Spirit, again, the point is equip yourself, arm yourself with these warnings from the Proverbs. Pray through them. Pray over them. Pray them in. Incorporate them into your conscious thinking. Now, fifthly and finally, as to these sub-headings, Capital letter E. The companion sins, and I mean by companion sins to drunkenness, sin which is a consequence of it and sin of the same kind. The companion sins of drunkenness must be warred against. Sins associated, connected with drunkenness, and sins that in principle are the same. And the first of these companion sins concludes, thankfully, Paul's enumeration of the deeds of the flesh. We're almost finished with this. Note in your Bibles, it's rendered carousing. The NIV renders it revelings. Or, excuse me, yes, the NIV revelings. Another English rendering, orgies. The term carousings is found in the text we've already considered, Romans 13, 13, carousing and drunkenness. It is found in a text considered this morning, 1 Peter 4, 3, drunkenness, carousings, and it goes on drinking parties. The noun carousing, it signifies The wild, loud behavior, simply put, associated with drinking and partying. The kind of behavior that's going to be manifest, no doubt, in the graduation parties of many over the days ahead. And we may hear on the news, some of the tragic effects as some of the party-goers are killed or killed somebody else upon their departure. Carousing was a word associated with a procession at night through the streets with torches and music honoring the false, mythical God of wine, the God Bacchus. The term carousing signifies the dancing, the laughing, the frolicking, the partying, which extends often late into the night, the kind of scene we read of this morning in Daniel chapter 5 in Belshazzar's palace. There is an illustration of carousing. To contemporize, carousing signifies the activities of the bar scene, the activities of the fraternity party, the activities of the pool party, the activities of the beach party, when alcohol is flowing and inhibitions are diminished and those striving after win are pursuing their good time. It's a connected, associated sin. It's an effect, consequence of drunkenness. And then there is the sin of the same nature, the same kind, in principle, the equivalent. And what sin is that? It's gluttony. The American sin. Eating in excess. Eating too much. indulging food, living to eat. And often it is obvious in terms of the oversized, sluggish, exhausted, weak bodies, the health, the strength, the capacities God gave have been wasted by the indulgence of food. Turn to Deuteronomy 21. And note the association at verse 20. Reading of parents who are bringing their rebellious son to the elders of a city. And they shall say to the elders of the city, this son of ours He is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard. And in principle, there is no difference. Both are dissipation. Proverbs 23. Verse 20, do not be with heavy drinkers of wine. Do not be with them. Avoid them. Get away from them. Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine. with gluttonous eaters of meat. Don't associate with either of those life wasters. In Bridges book, you're coming to this. the respectable sin of gluttony. It's not respectable, it's abominable. It wastes your life like drunkenness does. It's just not quite as immediately apparent Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine, or with gluttonous eaters of meat." And now here's why. For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty and drowsiness. drowsiness, a physiological response to the excess of either food or drink, will clothe a man with rags. The point is the equivalent to Ephesians 5.18. And here gluttony is combined with being a heavy drinker of wine. It's squander. It's profligacy. It is the wasting away of God-given powers and God-given energies and God-given opportunities. Excess, fullness leads to drowsiness, has incapacitated the indulgent for work, and resources had been wasted, money wasted, time wasted in the pursuit of food and drink, that man will come to poverty. How was Jesus falsely accused? He was falsely accused of being, quote, a gluttonous man and a drunkard. The point is they go together. Gluttony is one of our national sins. And the consequence of obesity, its effect, is epidemic. Amongst the young and the old this past week, we were waiting in a large orthopedic waiting room, and I would estimate a minimum of two-thirds of the patients in there were not just overweight, they were obese. and no doubt or no question as to why they were having orthopedic problems. They were prematurely debilitating their bodies because they will not control their appetites. Paul says to the Corinthians, Come out from their midst. That is, the midst of the world. The midst of unbelievers and the unrighteous. Come out from their midst and be separate. Come out from the midst of the world of gluttonous excess. and its wasting effects. Undue fatigue. Sedentary lifestyles when God has made us to work, not to sit. Laziness. lost opportunities to work and serve, the morally culpable breakdown of health due to self-imposed obesity, blood pressure, diabetes, orthopedic degeneration. Granted, there are many for whom these things come, and they're not morally culpable. But you and I know that a vast host are. They've done it to themselves. We're to come out from their midst and be separate. If we're going to die of heart disease, then let us work ourselves to death and die that way. Come out. Be distinctive. Discipline stewards. of our time, our resources, our God-given opportunities, our bodies, living a life of spirit-enabled self-control and discipline in all things. Briefly and finally tonight, noting the outline and returning to Galatians 5. Roman numeral three, we see the representative nature of the deeds of the flesh that have been named. Note the language, and things like Or we could think, we've heard enough, Paul. This is not exhaustive. This is but representative. And we can assume that these were not the only sins out of which the Galatians had been converted and with which they must continually strive against. There must have been others. Things like these. And fourthly, Paul reminds us, in effect, he'd been a faithful preacher to these people. He had forewarned them more than once. Note how verse 21 concludes. of which I forewarn you." He's doing that now by the writing of this letter. But he had done it previously. Just as I have forewarned you. When did he do that? The evidence suggests, or I should say, makes us conclude that he did it on his initial visit into South Galatia. His initial ministry, His preaching thus, must have included the law of God and the exposure of sin and the nature of true conversion. He's warning them now, and He had warned them previously, that those who practice such things The language signifying habit, a course of life shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. A course of living characterized by these deeds of the flesh and others like them. Paul is saying, I preached to you when I first came among you. And I am writing to you now, it is proof of exclusion. It is proof of your alien status with respect to the Kingdom of God. There is no transforming faith, no transforming presence of the Spirit among a people who continue to live in bondage to these things. The equivalent message is written to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 6-9, to the Ephesians, Ephesians 5-5. The Apostle John wrote the same in his first letter, chapter 3, verses 4-10. When Christ calls one to Himself, When one comes in faith to Christ, there is a definitive transforming change. Yes, a war. Yes, a struggle. Yes, we admit from sad experience an occasional fall. But this is not the course of our life. Heirs of the kingdom. Citizens of the kingdom. bear witness to such by a definitive break with and war against the deeds of the flesh. Paul preached no cheap grace. A definitive break with and war against the deeds of the flesh, that's the negative change. Thank the Lord we're now at the positive change and by the presence of the fruit of the Spirit. And we'll read it for the first time. But, in contrast to all this moral mire and ugliness, but the fruit of the Spirit, that which replaces what we just wallowed in, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and fitting for our concern today, self-control. And God preserving us, it is to that positive change that we now, in the weeks ahead, turn our attention at last. Let us pray. Father, we have considered intensely the destructive, ruinous, the sin of drunkenness. Lord, again we pray at the end of the Lord's Day that those convicted and guilt-ridden by such would not be left in despair, but once again would perceive the great hope that there is in Christ for forgiveness, for restoration and renewal, for the Spirit-wrought restructuring of their lives. Lord, we pray tonight that by the operations of the Spirit of the Living One, you would come in liberating power and release the slave from bondage to drink, from bondage to food, from the indulgent slavery of bodily appetites gratified. Lord, I pray that we would be restored and released and not live as beasts of the earth. May we live as free men in Christ, making our lives count by living in the fullness of the Spirit and in the wisdom of the revealed Word of God. Help us to live that way in the week ahead and to offer to our fellow mortals the hope of the Gospel for their deliverance. Lord, we pray to see more recovering patients in this hospital for sinners. Amen.