Drunk in the Spirit?

The alleged revival which is occurring in various charismatic circles today is characterized by strange unscriptural phenomena such as uncontrollable laughter, slaying in the spirit, shrieking, uncontrollable jerking, and SPIRITUAL INEBRIATION. A father of this movement, Rodney Howard-Browne, calls himself the "Holy Spirit bartender."

One of the current headquarters for this "revival" is the Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida. John Kilpatrick is the pastor. Speaking before a meeting of the Peninsula Florida District of the Assemblies of God in November 1996, Kilpatrick testified that he has been so "drunk in the spirit" that he has run his automobile into that of his youth pastor and that he has hit many garbage cans which were sitting on the curb of the road. "He said that his wife has been so drunk that she couldn't cook. He has been so deep in his drunken stupors that he has to be taken from the service in a wheel chair" (The Inkhorn, January 1997). Kilpatrick claims that he feels like 10,000 pounds when the "glory of the Lord" comes upon him. He has testified that "at night they would wheel us out and my son would drive us home. He called himself the designated driver. And my daughter-in-law would undress my wife and my son would undress me and put us to bed. We wouldn't move all night long. It was like we didn't even have to go to the bathroom" (The Plumbline, April-May 1997).

Friends, this is not the Holy Spirit; it is the spirit of delusion.

The so-called drunkenness in the Spirit is nowhere to be found in the Scriptures. Those who promote the laughing revival grossly abuse the passage in Acts chapter 2 in an attempt to prove that the Apostles were drunk in the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. This is nonsense. Those who said the disciples were "full of new wine" were the mockers who wanted to debunk the miracle of tongues which was occurring (Acts 2:13). The mockers did not say the disciples were drunken because they were staggering about and slurred in speech and falling to the ground, but because of the many languages which were used to preach the Gospel that day and because they wanted to slander the apostles. In his reply to these mockers, PETER PLAINLY SAID THEY WERE NOT DRUNKEN (Acts 2:15). In Ephesians 5:18 Paul CONTRASTS drunkenness with the filling of the Spirit. The drunk is not in control of himself but is under the power of a foreign substance. In contrast, the Spirit-filled Christian is entirely in control of himself under the direction of the Holy Spirit. There is absolutely no case in the New Testament of the Lord Jesus Christ or the Apostles or early Christians staggering about in a drunken stupor, unable to attend to necessary duties, as those in the laughing revival are experiencing. THE CHRISTIAN IS COMMANDED TO BE SOBER AT ALL TIMES (1 Thess. 5:6,8; 1 Tim. 3:2,11; Titus 1:8; 2:2,4,6; 1 Pet. 1:13; 4:7; 5:8). If for no other reason, I would reject the laughing revival on this basis alone. "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8).

by David W. Cloud