Drunk: Spirit or Demon?

Daniel 8:27 “And I, Daniel, fainted and was sick for days; afterward I arose and went about the king's business. I was astonished by the vision, but no one understood it.”

In this section, we will discuss the phenomenon of people becoming "drunk" as they encounter the power of the Holy Spirit. As with all the phenomena discussed in this section, there are potentially three different types of manifestations that can occur in this area:

·         People becoming "drunk" under the power of God.

·         People pretending to be drunk under the power of God.

·         People becoming drunk from a demonic power.

Firstly, we will discuss the biblical evidence of the genuine phenomenon of people becoming "drunk" as a result of encountering the power of the Holy Spirit. There is no scriptural evidence for what many call being "drunk in the Spirit." There is, however, scriptural evidence for people becoming physically weakened when they have an encounter with the Holy Spirit. The passage above is one of the scriptures that reveal to us the human body's reaction to a powerful encounter with the supernatural. In this passage, Daniel relates to us how he physically felt when he experienced a powerful vision from the Lord. Firstly, he describes how he fainted or fell to the ground, and then he goes on to describe how his body felt as a result of that encounter. The word translated as "sick" can also be translated as "weak," and so Daniel was not sick as in being ill, but rather his body was so weakened by his encounter that he had to be picked up and carried to his home and put to bed for a number of days afterward. Eventually, his body was sufficiently recovered for him to be able to get up and continue with his normal daily functions. There are numerous believers who can attest to having had an experience similar to Daniel's, albeit not to the same degree of being weakened for days after their encounters with the Holy Spirit. I personally have had encounters with the power of the Holy Spirit flowing through my body to the extent that after the encounter, my body was physically weakened, and at the end of the meeting, it was with difficulty that I was able to walk to my car and drive home. And so, I suppose that someone viewing my walk to my car in that weakened state could have assumed that I was slightly intoxicated.

Acts 2:13-16 “Others mocking said, "They are full of new wine."  (14)  But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words.  (15)  For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.  (16) But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel.”

The above passage of scripture describes the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the church on the day of Pentecost and records the unbelieving Jews mocking the saints and accusing them of being drunk. So, what evidence did the mockers see that led them to suppose that the disciples might have been drunk? Besides hearing the disciples speaking in tongues, they would have seen varying displays of the disciples laughing, trembling, weeping, and becoming physically weakened as they encountered the power of the Holy Spirit. But at no time would they have observed any behaviour that could have been described as reckless indiscretion, for that sort of behaviour would not have been tolerated by the Jews in the temple of God. For do not forget that God had warned the priests that they could die if they entered the temple after drinking wine or intoxicating drink (Leviticus 10:9). God is not a hypocrite, and so He would not have caused His saints to behave in the temple in a manner that He would not tolerate among the Jews.

This brings us to the discussion of people becoming drunk from a demonic power. Those who display such behaviour do experience a very real spiritual intoxication, but not from the Holy Spirit. Their behaviour mimics almost exactly that of people who are intoxicated through the use of drugs or alcohol, in that their behaviour becomes foolish and draws complete attention to themselves. The reason their behaviour becomes blasphemous is that they attribute such behaviour to the work of the Holy Spirit when it is, in fact, the work of a demonic spirit. And so, in order to justify their behaviour, they rely on the above-quoted passage of scripture. But even though this passage does not endorse or encourage drunken behaviour in the church, they twist this passage to say that it does. This passage, they claim, proves that Peter and the rest of the disciples were acting drunk on the day of Pentecost because the unbelievers viewing them supposed them to be drunk.

Ephesians 5:18-19 “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, (19) speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.”

Ironically, the second passage of scripture that people use to justify their shameful behaviour when "drunk in the spirit" is the one quoted above, where Paul admonishes the church not to be drunk with wine because it leads to dissipation, which effectively means shameful behaviour. And so, the very passage that admonishes the saints not to behave in such a manner is the one they use to justify their behaviour. In the same passage, the Holy Spirit, through the apostle Paul, tells us exactly how the saint that is filled with the Spirit will behave: they will speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in their hearts to the Lord. Those who take this passage out of context, however, state that Paul was encouraging Christians to become drunk in the Spirit as an alternative to becoming drunk with wine. These people then act in exactly the same manner as they would if they were drunk with wine, i.e., shamefully, and claim that now their behaviour is condoned in scripture because it is done in the "spirit." False prophets in the church love to promote this type of behaviour as evidence of the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon an individual, when in truth it is the power of an unclean spirit coming upon that individual. Many carnal believers have flocked to meetings that display such behaviour because they too desire to experience being "drunk in the spirit." The devil accommodates them in their greed to become drunk, and each one comes away from those meetings with demons attached to them that they never had before.

Sadly, there are also those in the church who pretend to be "drunk" in the Spirit to appear to others as being "spiritual." These individuals are normally able to behave in a drunken manner at the drop of a hat, and they claim that they can do that because they are walking in such close fellowship with the Spirit. Because of their ignorance, however, they do not realize that their behaviour is the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit's counsel, and so they end up grieving the One they claim to be walking with.

Michael E.B. Maher

Holy Spirit Encounters

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