I WANT A NEW DRUG
INTRODUCTION: If you're a child of the 80's like me you are no doubt familiar with this song from Huey Lewis and the News. The song is filled with statements regarding the kinds of things Huey doesn't want his new drug to do like-make him sick, make him nervous, cost too much, or come in a pill. One that won't keep him up all night or make him sleep all day. He says he wants, "one that makes me feel like I feel when I'm with you".
Perhaps Huey's point was that the way he felt when he was with his special lady was something he hadn't been able to find in anything man made. In thinking of this I see how we need to think the same way. We go through life looking for the things that make us feel good; the things that get us high. And yet at some point we realize that these things aren't cutting it; they're not fulfilling-we know there's something missing.
So, in essence, we are saying, 'I want a new drug'. And then we find Christ and that void is filled; we have that 'new drug'. And we come to realize that there's no drug that will make us feel like we feel when we're with Jesus.
1) The 'value' of the old drug.
Although the bible highlights the dangers that alcohol can cause, this is a principle that can apply to other things as well. So when we read bible verses that pertain to alcohol, we can also insert whatever our drug of choice is and no doubt come to the same conclusions. Prov. 20:1, "Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise."
The Family Bible Notes commentary for this verse reads, "Since wine and strong drink darken the reason, bring the soul under the control of excitement and passion, and thus prepare it for folly and wickedness of every sort, no wise man will give himself up to their power."
A mocker and a brawler. Alcohol can turn us into someone who is verbally abusive and physically abusive. If we are wise we will not be taken captive by it. Satan can glamorize alcohol to make it appealing. The commercials make drinking look elegant or fun. Alcohol can help us to relax. It can help us to be more sociable. And although we might avoid getting sloshed, perhaps we do like catching a buzz.
These are some ways that we can be led astray. We get caught up in the glamorization of alcohol and then set ourselves up for falling into the trap that it sets for us. From a sermon by Curtis Rowe, "Wisdom for Successful Living": Killer Alcohol. Thomas Edison was asked why he didn't drink. The scientist replied, "I have a better use for my brain."
An E.R. Doctor wrote, "Recently we saw another preview of hell in the Parkland Hospital in Dallas. A woman struck down by a drunken driver. Four other drunks with lacerations and stab wounds waiting to be treated. Night after night, year after year, the same bloody trail of horror, major automobile accidents, stabbings, rapes, wife-beatings, nightly emergencies treated and released or admitted to the hospital or pronounced dead on arrival.
I wonder if there is that much joy to be gained from the total consumption of all beers and whiskies ever made, ever to equal even a small fraction of the innocent suffering, the damaged bodies, the broken marriages, the discarded children, the total brutalities and crimes that will inevitably accompany its use. What a quiet place our emergency room would be if alcohol was abolished from our city!"
Who costs the American people 130 billion dollars every year? Who destroys 1 in every 4 families in America? Who kills over 200,000 Americans each year? The undisputed heavy-weight champion of the drug world is alcohol." These are some of the "values" of the old drug.
Prov. 23:29-35, "Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes? Those who linger over wine, who go to sample bowls of mixed wine. Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly!
In the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper. Your eyes will see strange sights and your mind imagine confusing things. You will be like one sleeping on the high seas, lying on top of the rigging. “They hit me,” you will say, “but I’m not hurt! They beat me, but I don’t feel it! When will I wake up so I can find another drink?”
Woe, sorrow, strife, needless bruises and bloodshot eyes. Sounds like fun, right?! Bed spins and beer muscles are always enjoyable. All these wonderful joys of the old drug and then we get up and do it all over again. We have all these wonderful results from alcohol but yet we are led astray by how tantalizing it looks, how good it tastes and how smooth it goes down. We go out and pound them down and because we aren't feeling anything right away we think everything is fine and then all of a sudden it hits us.
That delayed reaction is another thing that leads us astray. It deceives us into thinking we're handling it just fine and then it sneaks up on us and bites us like a snake and we suffer the effects of the venom. Ironically, some of the effects of venom mimic the effects of too much alcohol; namely slurred speech and blurred vision. Slurred and blurred; I've been there. I want a new drug.
2) The value of the new drug.
Eph. 5:15-18, "Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit."
We just learned from Prov. 20:1 that whoever is led astray by alcohol is not wise. So when Paul says to be careful how we live, not as unwise but as wise, he may have had this principle in mind. We are to make the most of every opportunity. Instead of taking the opportunity to grab the old drug we need to make the most of every spiritual opportunity. The benefits of the old drug is debauchery; which means lewd, wild, immoral, shameful behavior.
We can't be filled with wine and filled with the Holy Spirit at the same time. However, when we're acting in accordance with being filled with the spirit some people might mistake that for being filled with wine. It happened at Pentecost. When the tongues on fire rested on the believers and they began speaking in other languages, some of those who saw this thought they were drunk. Peter explained that wasn't the case but their behavior made those people think so.
When the joy of the Lord is upon us we might act a little peculiar to some folks. Sadly, in today's society, when people are smiling or laughing they're thought of as weird. It's not normal to be joyful; people may look at us and think we've been hitting the sauce. People may witness our joy in the Lord and think we need to up our dose. But that's okay because we know that being filled with the Spirit is the best high possible.
The new drug is better than the old one because the old drug produces a temporary feeling. With some drugs your high lasts only a few minutes and then you crash; which causes you to feel terrible. But with Christ the high isn't something that will wear off in a few minutes. It's not temporary; it's permanent. Paul said be joyful always. The joy of the Lord can be a constant in our lives regardless of the situation we're dealing with.
The new drug is better because it produces more than a feeling; it produces positive change. The old drug produced changes that affected our mood and behavior, but not in a good way. Yes, it felt good for a minute but the other effects were not so good. And one of the effects comes in the form of physical changes. Look at some before and after pictures of people who are on meth. In a matter of a few months the physical changes are shocking.
The new drug produces visible effects too; just not in a negative way. When we have the Spirit of Christ living in us and we allow the light of Christ to shine through us it will be noticeable. People will see us smile more. People will see us remain calm when facing a difficult situation.
Sometimes you will hear people refer to a pregnant woman as 'glowing'. We who are in Christ should glow too; and for a similar reason. As a pregnant woman glows because she has a person living inside of her-so we too glow because we have a person living inside of us.
And as the baby grows in the womb; so Christ grows in us-in the sense of us allowing him to have more control over us. And as mom gives birth and releases the baby into the world so we too need to 'release' Christ into the world. Only we shouldn't wait nine months to do it.
But why do we have this joy? With being filled with the Spirit we see through a different lens. We see life from a different perspective-a spiritual perspective. We have a newfound purpose. We have a new relationship with the living God. When we know his love and grace and mercy towards us we are filled with joy because we realize that the creator of the universe has the desire to know me and bless me.
You know how exciting it is when you get involved in a new relationship. You're happy; perhaps even giddy. You find yourself unable to stop thinking about the other person. You enjoy new experiences and adventures with them as well as enjoying just being in their presence.
We have those similar feelings when it comes to our relationship with Jesus. We enjoy getting to know him. We enjoy spending time with him in prayer. We enjoy our new experiences and adventures with him. The things we do are more meaningful and the joy is deeper.
3) Why do we turn back to the 'old drug'?
If we come to Christ and experience the 'high' that being in Christ brings then why do we sometimes turn back to the old drug? One reason is because of pain and suffering. We might find ourselves turning back to the old drug when dealing with trauma, loss, as well as serious or abrupt changes in our lives.
When Jesus was talking with his disciples about the events before his second coming, he mentioned persecution and the desolation of Jerusalem. He talked about the people being in great distress and the natural disasters that will happen. All that could be overwhelming.
So Jesus gives this warning in Luke 21:35, “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap." It's interesting that Jesus groups these things together-dissipation (self-indulgence-similar to debauchery), drunkenness and anxiety. He says the heart is weighed down by these things.
When pain and suffering happen in our lives we can turn to the old drug for quick relief. We grab the quick high instead of being patient and waiting on God to work it out. When we find ourselves becoming anxious about something we can be tempted to settle our nerves the old way. But if we do that we end up with a heavy heart.
In the parable of the sower, when Jesus was talking about the seed thrown among the thorns, he said this in Mark 4:18-20, "Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.”
The worries of this life and the desires for other things come in and choke the word. As we saw in Luke, when things happen in life we can develop anxiety and turn to that old drug for relief. And when we worry about things and when we develop a desire for other things ie: the old drug-the man made high, we are in great danger of having the word choked out of us.
Heb. 4:12 says the word is living and active. When the truth is in us it changes us and it moves us into action. However, when we turn back to that old drug the opposite happens. We begin to lose that passion and zeal. The positive changes we made start to undo themselves and we revert back to our old selves. When we replace our desire for the things of God with a desire for the things of the world we will have the impact from the word of God choked right out of us.
Vs. 20-it's safe to say that if we want God's word to germinate and grow in us we need to be good soil. We need to be receptive; we need to allow the seed to generate and produce. If we don't allow the desire for other things to choke and kill the word planted in us then we will be fruitful. The positive results from the new drug are numerous. But the negative results from the old drug are numerous also.
A member of A.A. sent Ann Landers the following: "We drank for happiness and became unhappy. We drank for joy and became miserable. We drank for sociability and became argumentative. We drank for sophistication and became obnoxious. We drank for friendship and made enemies. We drank for sleep and awakened without rest. We drank for strength and felt weak.
We drank "medicinally" and acquired health problems. We drank for relaxation and got the shakes. We drank for bravery and became afraid. We drank for confidence and became doubtful. We drank to make conversation easier and slurred our speech. We drank to feel heavenly and ended up feeling like hell. We drank to forget and were forever haunted. We drank for freedom and became slaves. We drank to erase problems and saw them multiply. We drank to cope with life and invited death."
The wisdom from this person's poignant observation is what will help us to not keep turning back to that old drug. As Paul said in Rom. 6:21, "What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!"
We can be deceived into thinking there is a benefit to the old drug. We might think we need the old drug to enjoy life. When we're depressed, discouraged or dissatisfied about our lives we turn back to the old drug to make us feel better; even though we know deep down that it won't.
Robin Williams said, "Kid, if you need booze or drugs to enjoy your life to the fullest, you're doing it wrong." If we feel we need something man made to satisfy us then there's something missing in our relationship with Jesus.
Not that there's something wrong with finding a sense of satisfaction in non-spiritual activities but when we feel we need them in order to be truly happy then something is wrong. We're saying Jesus is not enough. We need to find out what happened to our spiritual high? What can we do to get the fire back?
We pray. David prayed in Psalm 51:10-12, "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me."
Psalm 51 came about after Nathan confronted David regarding his adultery with Bathsheba. David chased after the old drug and it resulted in some serious consequences. Bathsheba became pregnant so David brought her husband Uriah home from the battlefront in hopes that he would have sex with his wife so he could attribute the pregnancy to him.
But that didn't work as Uriah felt guilty for leaving the rest of the troops in battle. So, David felt he had no choice but to set the stage for Uriah to be killed in battle. Then he married Bathsheba before anyone knew she was pregnant. On top of that, the baby died shortly after birth. Good things never come from chasing the old drug.
But David had the right response to being confronted by Nathan. He realized that he needed some things. He knew his heart wasn't pure. He knew his spirit had become unstable. He knew that something had happened to his joy. And these things resulted in going after an inferior high.
When we find ourselves going back to the old drug hopefully we will allow the Holy Spirit or a loving brother or sister in Christ to confront us in our folly. If we're humble like David we will see why we fell short and pray for God to create, renew and restore. Then we get back to enjoying the new high.
Are you looking for a new drug. There's one that can do what no other one can-and it's found only in Jesus.
