“What sorrow for those who get up early in the morning looking for a drink of alcohol and spend long evenings drinking wine to make themselves flaming drunk. They furnish wine and lovely music at their grand parties— lyre and harp, tambourine and flute— but they never think about the Lord or notice what he is doing.” Isaiah 5:11-12 NLT
Holy cow! Did Isaiah get some kind of preview of U.S. reality shows in the 21st century? Was The Real Housewives of Israel or The Bachelor on ancient streaming services?
I grew up in the sixties, basically watching 50’s TV shows and some movies. Here’s what I saw, EVERYONE smoked and everyone drank hard liquor. Now, some of the “family shows” toned down both, but an average American house had a booze cart waiting for the man to get home to knock one down and people were constantly talking about a nightcap. Drinking brandy, bourbon, and cream-based liqueurs were thought to be a sleep aid? And, jokingly having morning margaritas or martinis was so vogue!
Oh, now it’s wine that pushed on every show or movie, and puttin’ down a bottle because they’re so stressed by life. Even whiskey and shockingly tequila has made a big comeback! Just about every party you see on media has got booze. Are you kidding me? Humans don’t change, we just rotate our ridiculousness. I am positive that God is not into promoting drunkenness, but He does want us to live a full, good life.
Personally, I don’t prescribe booze, “social” or otherwise, I’ll eat my sin in cheeses and carbs thank you. Isaiah hits hard with this whole idea. We can often wake up WITH sorrow, party-hardy all day and night and not once think about God AND not once even notice what He’s doing in the world around us. So we wake up with sorrow and crash on the pillow the same way.
I think we have seriously mis-read the “good life.” The good life is a godly life. The good life is walking with the good God who created us. The God life is the BEST life! Isaiah’s warnings fall on deaf ears, which still happens today. Isaiah tells Israel, God is going to give them a massive time out – a 70 year captivity under another nation. They all had to go cold turkey with no booze and parties for an entire generation. What’s the point?
You want to live like slaves to pleasure, never thinking about God who wants to do life with us, well here ya go Israel. Welcome to captivity. If folks are wondering if the only thing to get out of life is these cycles of pleasure, emptiness and sorrow, then they know nothing about the life wants us to live – all of us. Jesus came to give a FULL LIFE, not a cheap knockoff of some kind of fake scripted reality show.
Prayer
Dad,
Admittedly, I don’t use booze to boost my emotions and I haven’t thrown a party with live flutes in… well, never. However, I do struggle to find and engage in ways to be happy, oftentimes outside of you. I know the life you want me to live and I’m pushing the boundaries of my own fears and serious limitations to be obedient to the purpose you have for me. I’m sure there have been times you put me in a time-out, thankfully not for 70 years though. I want to find joy in you and be fully aware and fully engaged in what you are doing on our planet.