Chrysostom
Beloved of All
The state of your soul, as you describe it, is one of being besieged. When you say demons do not leave you alone, we must understand that their grip tightens not through open assault alone, but through the willing surrender of our members to sin. You pray for your life and sobriety, and this is the very battlefield. For the man who gives himself over to drunkenness makes himself no different from a demoniac, for like him he is lost to shame and raves. The demoniac we pity, but the drunkard becomes the object of aversion, because he brings upon himself a self-chosen madness and makes his mouth, his eyes, his nostrils, mere sewers for the filth of excess.
You ask for deliverance, and rightly so, yet you must understand the manner of God’s working. He does not always promise deliverance from the death of the body or the immediate cessation of trial, but He grants something far greater: the power to despise the death that sin brings and to triumph over the passions that wage war against the soul. The Apostle Paul was weighed down exceedingly, beyond his power, so that he despaired even of life. God permitted this affliction to teach him to trust not in himself, but in God who raises the dead. So it is with you. The lingering presence of this temptation is not a sign that God has abandoned you, but a call to a more complete reliance on the only deliverance that matters, the deliverance from the curse of the Law and the promotion to sonship. This is the true and due payment for which Christ came: to snatch you from the dominion of darkness and make you a son of God.
The pleasure you think you find in the cup is a liar. It goes no further than the palate and the tongue. When the table is removed and the drink swallowed, you are like one who has not partaken, or rather much worse, for you bear away oppression, distension, a sleep like death, and often sleeplessness from repletion. You would curse your belly bitterly, when you ought to curse the immoderate desire. Do not be ignorant of the devil’s schemes. He shows the bait but hides the hook. The cloud of demonic oppression you feel is the foul breath of that hook tearing at your soul.
Therefore, stand up and put on Christ, who is the Son. You have not only put Him on, but you have received the Spirit of adoption. How then can the sons of a King live as slaves? Cry out to this Spirit with groans that words cannot express. Do not simply pray to have the trial removed; pray for the resurrection of your will, to choose death to sin rather than to accept its false deliverance. Those who were tortured and refused to accept deliverance did so that they might obtain a better resurrection. You must now choose the temporary pain of sober wrestling over the fleeting numbness of wine, fixing your eyes not on the agony of the moment, but on the crown laid up for you.
I will pray for your life, that it may be snatched from the sewers of excess and restored to the harmony and concord that befits the Church of God. Sober up, you sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
You ask for deliverance, and rightly so, yet you must understand the manner of God’s working. He does not always promise deliverance from the death of the body or the immediate cessation of trial, but He grants something far greater: the power to despise the death that sin brings and to triumph over the passions that wage war against the soul. The Apostle Paul was weighed down exceedingly, beyond his power, so that he despaired even of life. God permitted this affliction to teach him to trust not in himself, but in God who raises the dead. So it is with you. The lingering presence of this temptation is not a sign that God has abandoned you, but a call to a more complete reliance on the only deliverance that matters, the deliverance from the curse of the Law and the promotion to sonship. This is the true and due payment for which Christ came: to snatch you from the dominion of darkness and make you a son of God.
The pleasure you think you find in the cup is a liar. It goes no further than the palate and the tongue. When the table is removed and the drink swallowed, you are like one who has not partaken, or rather much worse, for you bear away oppression, distension, a sleep like death, and often sleeplessness from repletion. You would curse your belly bitterly, when you ought to curse the immoderate desire. Do not be ignorant of the devil’s schemes. He shows the bait but hides the hook. The cloud of demonic oppression you feel is the foul breath of that hook tearing at your soul.
Therefore, stand up and put on Christ, who is the Son. You have not only put Him on, but you have received the Spirit of adoption. How then can the sons of a King live as slaves? Cry out to this Spirit with groans that words cannot express. Do not simply pray to have the trial removed; pray for the resurrection of your will, to choose death to sin rather than to accept its false deliverance. Those who were tortured and refused to accept deliverance did so that they might obtain a better resurrection. You must now choose the temporary pain of sober wrestling over the fleeting numbness of wine, fixing your eyes not on the agony of the moment, but on the crown laid up for you.
I will pray for your life, that it may be snatched from the sewers of excess and restored to the harmony and concord that befits the Church of God. Sober up, you sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
