“These also reel with wine and stagger with strong drink; the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are swallowed by wine, they stagger with strong drink, they reel in vision, they stumble in giving judgment.” Isaiah 28:7 ESV
Reflection: what does it mean when a pastor has become “drunk”?
I watched a program about the fall of a famous mega church over the weekend. While the church attendance was around 150,000 weekly, reaching tens of thousands more with their message and music, the temptations became just too great for the leaders to handle. Several of their leaders, “pastors”, had been caught in all sorts of sinful and evil ways. Money, fame, power became the “wine” they started consuming, and while it felt good to the flesh for a moment, it could not last. The focus had gone from honoring and giving glory to God, to giving glory to man. Each service was like a theater production, with lights, smoke, music and of course an upbeat message. So how can we know that it had turned only to a production show?
When the news came out about the pastors, the house came tumbling down. Many of their church followers became disillusioned, thinking the whole thing was fake as the pastors were obviously hypocrites. Some concluding that Christianity itself was therefore fake. Their anchor obviously was in the church, in the experience, in the pastors and leaders, and not in Christ alone. We read from Revelation the following prophecy “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.”” Revelation 17:1-2 ESV. The wine here means any doctrine or religion of man which does not give glory to God alone.
We run into a similar situation today in Isaiah. In the focus verses today we read “These also reel with wine and stagger with strong drink; the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are swallowed by wine, they stagger with strong drink, they reel in vision, they stumble in giving judgment.” Isaiah 28:7 ESV. While their priests and prophets might have been drunk on wine literally, the meaning here is figuratively. Their focus was no longer on God, on seeking and passing on the word and knowledge of God. They were drunk on worldly things, including themselves.
And therefore the Lord is asking them, ““To whom will he teach knowledge, and to whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast?” Isaiah 28:9 ESV. The need in the people to hear and learn from God, is still there. And we see the approach by these lost priests and prophets, being described as “For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.”” Isaiah 28:10 ESV. They are studying the word, picking a verse or phrase here and there, sort of making up their own stories and doctrines of what the word of God teaches.
Aren’t we often seeing the same today??
Pastors and teachers picking verses and words out of the Bible, a little here and there, and preaching something completely out of context? It might sound good. It might even feel good. But many times they preach what is popular, and not describing the character of God, nor bringing glory to God alone. So what did the Lord to do to the priests and prophets as we read on in Isaiah? Let’s read “For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the Lord will speak to this people, to whom he has said, “This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose”; yet they would not hear.” Isaiah 28:11-12 ESV. They were unable to hear and understand even the basics, such as when the Lord explained “This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose”
Because of their drunkenness of the wine of world, the Lord took from them their ability to understand and teach wisdom and knowledge of God. Isaiah writes “And the word of the Lord will be to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.” Isaiah 28:13 ESV. Utter confusion. And this is a message for many churches today also. So consider your church, your priests, pastors, and church leaders, are they teaching the wisdom and knowledge of God, or are they also drunk on the wine of the world, causing them to “reel in vision”, and “stumble in giving judgment”?