Let’s Get Drunk Not Bewitched!

The title may seem a bit shocking coming from a former full body tatted Baptist and now Assembly of God lad. Stay with me! It is not as shocking as it sounds, but you may be shocked as we study a few verses in Galatians and Ephesians.

Galatians 3:1  O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? 

2  This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 

3  Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? 

4  Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. 

As we see, Paul’s preaching clearly presented the Gospel in such a way it was as if they could see it happening before their eyes. Others felt Paul’s oratory was rude or not very sophisticated. But when it came to the Gospel the power of the Spirit let him paint a picture with words with such passion and urgency that you had to be moved to either accept or reject.

Yet, when men came from Jerusalem trying to add the Law to the Gospel these same people who heard that message were bewitched or fascinated by the robes, titles and profound oratory that they were ready to leave the simplicity of the Gospel. They were ready to be circumcised and whatever else these Rabbis told them to do.

Paul had to take them back to the beginning and asked how did you get saved and receive the Holy Spirit, by law or faith? Obviously, by faith as being Gentiles they had no knowledge of Jewish law until the Judaizers appeared. They had been walking in the Spirit and now they wanted to revert back to the flesh.

You cannot add to the work of Christ. When you start in the Spirit, you must end in the Spirit. So many times the Word shows that the flesh profits nothing and gets you away from what Christ is doing in you by the Holy Spirit.

They had obviously suffered some persecution when they became Christians. We do not know the complete background of the Galatian Christians. Yes, they were pagans and idol worshipers, but they may have come from various false gods to the living God. A few may have been Jews that were converted to the Messiah. No matter what, they were going to be ridiculed by family and friends for their faith especially for believing in only one God and Savior in a polytheistic culture which we still have today.

Paul asked if they had suffered all of that in vain if they were going to cast away their faith in grace and take on the Law? I think many Christians have to ask themselves the same thing. Many start out in simple faith and receive the blessings of the Spirit transforming them into Christ’s image. Then somehow they start resting in their works instead of His work. Maybe a modern Judiazer lured them away showing them they had to keep a certain list of things to progress in Christ. We don’t smoke and we don’t chew and we don’t kiss the girls that do. They keep that dirty dozen list and then think they are more sanctified when in many cases they, like Samson, do not realize that the Spirit has left off working with them because they are trusting in their plan and not Him. In the NT, the Spirit does not leave us like Samson but we can resist, quench and grieve Him so that He cannot work. Your faith is in the wrong things rather than in Him.

For pastors and other teachers or leaders it can easily become falling into relying on our education, experience and even seeming success. We have a plan. We work the plan and if the plan works we rejoice and if not, we work a new plan rather than seeking Him. Older saints rest on their laurels and past victories, even past miracles rather than seeking fresh oil and fire. In essence, we are relying on flesh and not the Spirit.

I can see how that is easy to do for people who do not expect the Spirit to act as He did in the early church, but it ought not be in a Pentecostal Church. Unfortunately, even people who expect great things can also rely on flesh or man made laws. I think it can happen if we have a wrong perspective on what the Spirit is here to do besides lead us into all truth and convict the world of sin and righteousness.

Ephesians 5:18  And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;