Isaiah 29:9-12 Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry you out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.… nt: — Drunkenness in itself is a horrible vice, and it is the mother of innumerable more. But besides this there is a spiritual drunkenness. I. This worse drunkenness, says the text, is SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS, SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY, OR INSANITY. In this respect it resembles the other drunkenness. The man who is drunk has eyes, but he cannot see; ears, but he cannot hear; a heart that has not ceased to beat, but he cannot understand. He mistakes one person and thing fur another. So it is with the spiritual sort in regard to the spiritual world. Look at a few of the varieties. Drunkenness — 1. From ignorance of the truth. 2. From perversion or profanation of the truth. 3. From rejection of the truth. II. WHAT IS THE QUALITY OR CURSE OF THIS SPIRITUAL DRUNKENNESS, compared with the other? Compare it — 1. In regard to the drunkard's intelligence or powers of perception. 2. In regard to the drunkard's life, affections, passions, habits. 3. In regard to the drunkard's state before God, the salvation of soul and body. What shall we say, if we discover the terrific truth? (1) That the spiritual is more besotting and blinding to the spirit. (2) That it is more maddening and brutalising to the drunkard's life. What crime will the drunkard not perpetrate? But what is the life of the spiritual drunkard who goes on in his wickedness? One lifelong defiance of God. (3) That it is a drunkenness still more infernal, more devilish, and more deadly to both soul and body. (R. Paisley.) Parallel Verses KJV: Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. |
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