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Eden Valley SDA Church

Frank Fournier

Intoxicated

We're asking you to bless us, but not just to bless us.

We want to be possessed of heaven and of the Spirit of God.

We want to do what you want us to do and to be instruments in your hands.

Now, you probably noticed looking into the bulletin that the title is Intoxicated.

Now, really the title isn't intoxicated, but that's the lesson we want to teach this morning.

And we all have ideas of what the word means, and I suppose I wouldn't have to poll anyone to try to understand if you understand the word, we usually think of it in terms of people who have drunk too much alcohol and they are intoxicated.

I want you to notice that in the very middle of that word we find the root word to be toxic.

You see that, don't you, in the word intoxicated?

And so the word toxic in my mind in any case, I didn't take the time to look it up in the dictionary, but it means poison.

And so it's possible to be Poisoned by drinking too much alcohol.

Alcohol poisoning can impair us, can impair all our faculties, the whole person for that matter.

You can see people staggering around because they've drunk alcohol.

Physically, they're not able to do well what they could do easily if they were not impaired.

A person who is drinking a lot of alcohol usually becomes very free or very angry or very whatever because of the alcohol.

The mental capacities are impaired as well.

But worse than that, we're told, and I know that it is true, the frontal lobe is compromised and we become far less inhibited and so our conscience is hurt and our judgments and our decision powers are all impaired because of alcohol poisoning.

There's no doubt in my mind that you've seen it.

You've experienced it probably firsthand somehow, if not yourself, maybe someone close to you.

I think I've told this story before, but anyway, let me tell it again.

I was working in the mines when I was 25 years old.

I spent 9 years working underground in a nickel copper mine.

And for 1 reason or another, and I don't remember the reason, I came home early 1 night.

It was 1130 and I should have come up at 12 but I came up at 1130, showered and I don't know why, got in my car and was driving home and I found myself in the city at 1 point on a four-lane highway in the inside lane and I was driving down what we call LaSalle Boulevard over there in the city of Sudbury and about a mile or more ahead I saw a little white Nova which is a General Motors car a little white Nova turn a corner and hit the curb and lose control.

And I thought to myself, if that guy isn't careful, he's going to hit somebody.

Well, anyway, he straightened out and he kept on coming down the road.

And as he got closer to me, he hit the curb again and he lost control again.

And he crossed over the 1 lane and into my lane and we had a head-on collision.

And my car was kicked across the the next lane into the ditch, into the field and was on fire.

I remember getting up off the seat, the car was on fire, and I got out the passenger door.

I didn't even try the driver's door, and I fell down.

Well, as far as I am concerned, I got up right away.

But apparently I'd been unconscious for some time on the ground there, because when I got up there was a huge crowd of people around.

And so I made my way back to the highway, and the fellow who had been in the other car was lying down on the road, and he was dead.

The man had lost control because he had been drinking.

Came to find out later on he'd been drinking with my cousin.

Now, this is, I don't know if it has any bearing on anything, but he'd been drinking with my cousin and he got good and drunk.

And he had told his wife after having a fight sometime in the afternoon that she would never see him alive again.

Now, you and I are not likely to be in danger of this kind of intoxication, are we?

But friends, that isn't the only kind of intoxication that there is.

There are intoxications that are far more dangerous, far more prevalent, far more poisonous, impairing, and deceptive.

We're going to go right back to the beginning, we're looking at Lucifer.

We're just going to look at a few words in Ezekiel 28, looking at verse 18, speaking about Lucifer, when he was in heaven, before he fell, really, It says, Thine heart was lifted up because of Thy beauty.

Now, you can keep your finger here, because we're going to come back to this very verse, and we're going to go to Isaiah chapter 14.

These things are all very familiar to Seventh-day Adventists, and we're going to look at verses 13 and 14 to see the outcome of the fact that this individual somehow looked in the mirror and saw himself to be more beautiful than anything else probably he'd ever seen in his life, and it was himself.

Now here's the outcome, verse 13 and 14 in Isaiah 14.

For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven.

I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.

I will sit upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

This is a created being who intends just simply because he has seen himself to be glorious and he's as glorious as anything he's ever seen, and he begins to equate himself to the Creator God.

He is a created being, and it comes to his mind that maybe he can have the Creator's position, the creator's throne, so he's going to usurp the throne of God.

Now, friends, really, if you think about it, it's absolute insanity, isn't it?

Sure, it's akin to 1 of your mothers making a little rag doll for your daughter, and somewhere down the road, the rag doll decides that she's going to be in control of this house, of this family.

Well, that doesn't make any sense at all.

But you know, the insanity is not far away because the little girl who owns the doll who's only 2 years old, Matthew, Matt, is Matt still here?

He taught us some lessons on child rearing this morning.

The little girl that's 2 years old has this same thing in her head.

That insanity goes almost to the human brain practically immediately when we are born.

Well, do you think that Lucifer was drunk that day?

If you go back to Ezekiel chapter 28, we were looking at verse 17, we'll look at that just the next phrase in the verse, Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty.

Thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness." He looks himself in the mirror.

And this is what's happening in that poor guy's brain.

We're going to look at verse 7 in just first 3 words actually in Galatians chapter 6 verse 7.

These are quotations that I use a lot if you've ever heard me preach you've heard me say this.

This is Galatians chapter 6 looking at verse 7, the first 3 words.

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Intoxicated

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