Cry Out Like a Drunkard

2/20/1993

I have always kind of wondered about the one part in the beginning of Isaiah 54. It is also in Galatians about, “Sing, O barren woman, you who have never bore a child. Burst into song, shout for joy.” That section through there—what does that mean? Why is it, “Break into joy and celebrate? Why, if she doesn’t have any children, why is it that she should be celebrating? Because she will have children? It’s the promise of the Spirit? Do you understand my question?

It’s the process of defining Christianity. That’s, basically, the context that Paul wrote in Galatians, was let’s see if we can understand together what Christianity really is. He is trying to clear up this problem that mankind slumps into continuously, of beginning in the Spirit, and then trying to obtain their goal by mere human effort. The case and point that he gives right before quoting from Isaiah is Ishmael, Isaac, Hagar, Sarah, and Abraham. The point that he was trying to establish is that the way God blesses us, the way He brings supernatural fruit into our lives is through a barren womb. You don’t get the fruit of God out of self-effort, and self-help programs, and will power.

If Abraham had stayed on course and trusted God and believed God—if he really understood how God worked. It wasn’t a heart problem, it was an understanding problem. And that’s basically what has happened to the Galatians and to most of the religious world today. They feel like God issued this big set of laws and decrees and good ideas, and if we execute this list properly, then He has to bless us, and wonderful things will happen. We’ll be able to read enough church growth books, we will be able to evangelize the world in our generation. This sort of mentality that we can do God a favor, rather than preparing our lives, rather than dying to self, rather than accepting the humiliation of the cross. Somehow we’re going to ride into Jerusalem, not on a donkey, but on a white horse. And we’re going to go in and make ourselves king over Jerusalem, and throw the Roman Empire out, and set up an earthly, physical kingdom, with blessings of prosperity in the physical realm. That’s what they wanted during Jesus’ day, was that misunderstanding that really goes back to Genesis 3 and the Garden of Eden. Where man can somehow make himself to be a God. He can see that thing is good to eat and pleasant to look at. He can have that, consume that and make himself something.

That’s what Paul was addressing with the Galatians. They had the initial right idea of who Jesus was for salvation. They had totally the wrong idea about who Jesus is for sanctification and for the propagation of the kingdom. Again, Abraham, as cited as an example, and Hagar is the logical way, the child born in the logical way, always persecutes the child that is born of the Spirit. It is the same now, Paul wrote. So what he is trying to say to the Galatians, and to us, is that there are miracles through a barren womb if we watch, and pray, and fast, and, like Hannah, we cry out like a drunken person to God, rather than calculating in our mind…”Oh, Hagar. That’s it. That’s what God meant. Here’s how we can do God’s will. Here’s how we can multiply and fill the earth.” Drawing on a manmade answer to God’s dilemma in order to bail God out of this terrible problem that He has. We want to solve God’s problems by taking matters into our own hands. And what Paul was saying was, “It’s not like that. You began in the Spirit. Can you remember? Did God work all these miracles in your midst because you did good works? Because you were so bright? Because you tried so hard? Or because you believed? Because you trusted Him? Because you knew He could do this thing. The child born of the Spirit—the thing that was born in the Spirit of God’s womb, birthed out of nothing—calling things that are not as though they are.

That sort of faith, Paul said, is what Christianity is about. And that’s what “church” is all about. And that’s why he drew that passage out of Isaiah. He said, “You have to walk the way of the cross on this thing.” It’s a willingness to be despised and rejected and to be a failure. It’s a willingness to have no hope, whatsoever, your body is as good as dead. Your wife’s womb is barren. There’s no hope. That’s the only way that God can get all the glory. It’s not us executing in some systematic way, borrowing principles from the shelf of the bookstore in the business section. The Megatrends 2000, the E-Myth, and the this thing and another kind of Myths. Instead of borrowing all these world principles and trying to do God some big favor, and fulfill this thing that God has called and commissioned us to do. It’s waiting on Him, and like Hannah, with her barren womb, being drunk with passion, and saying “God, only You, only You, only You.” Then who gets the credit? He takes unlearned and ignorant fishermen and fills the earth with His glory. A mighty rushing wind, tongues of fire, thundering waterfall, 3000 people die—and live.

It’s something that only God can get glory and credit for. And that’s why He said, “Barren woman, you don’t have it so bad. If you will leave Hagar out of this thing -- if you will stay away from your refrigerator, if you’ll stay away from your sexual vises, if you’ll stay away from your selfishness and your jealousy, and your loose tongue. If you’ll stop using the world’s goods and all these other issues in order to fill yourself up. Out of a barren womb, you’ll cry out to Me – you will be able to sing, you’ll be able to dance, because your descendants – by My Hand -- will be greater than the descendants of the woman who has a husband. Sing barren woman. Your descendants will be as numerous as the sands on the seashore. And I will get all the glory and all the credit, because it won’t be your self-help efforts trying to accomplish my will for me.

So be foolish, be stupid, be dead, don’t be cunning and crafty, like the men of this age and all their knowledge and conceit and advice, counsel, wisdom, technique, and marketing skill. But be willing to be humiliating with a barren womb. And cry out to God, like a drunken woman. And watch and see if I don’t make a great name for myself, like I did with my Son on Calvary. His utter humiliation, and His descendants—His offspring, as Isaiah said—numerous as the sands on the seashore. Look what I did out of one stupid uneducated carpenter, born an illegitimate child—look what I can do through this little ol’ carpenter, with nothing attractive about Him. See what I can do? I can give Him the Name above every name—Myself. I can raise Him from the dead and exalt Him and teach Him while He is asleep words that sustain the weary. I can do this because He has made Himself nothing. I can make a name for Myself. And let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. That’s the way of the cross—the foolishness of the cross, as the Greeks would say. The wisdom of this age considers this foolishness.

But that’s how God makes a name for Himself rather than us making a name for Ourselves—using Him as our logo.