The Dangers of Puffery (Isaiah 5:22)

Passage:

• Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink. (Isaiah 5:22)

Introduction:

• Context:
  • Timing: 8th century B.C. — almost 3,000 years ago!
  • People: Israel (God’s people)
  • Theme: Song of the Vineyard—woe!
    • God uttered the woes of funeral lament—God grieves the death of their holy culture.
  • The woes:
    • 1. Materialism—join house to house (5:8)
    • 2. Hedonism—party early and late (5:11-12)
    • 3. Cynicism—Let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near (5:18-19)
    • 4. Moral Relativism—who call evil good and good evil (5:20)
    • 5. Autonomous Wisdom—wise in their own eyes (5:21)
    • 6. Misplaced Admiration—heroes at drinking wine (5:22-23)
• Isaiah is being sarcastically ironic.
  • Hebrew: mighty men (like David’s warriors)—able men of strength and valor.
    • They were valiant men, champions, or heroes, but only of drinking wine and mixing drinks!
    • They felt like heroes at the bar. Legends at the club. The top-dog on the street. I am the man!
  • Don’t worry: Isaiah spoke to a group exactly opposite to us.
    • Isaiah rebuked people who didn’t want recovery but mocked God with their lives.
    • This is a group that wants recovery and to honor God with their lives.
• But I would like to Isaiah’s sixth woe to warn against the dangers of puffery.
  • Sometimes, in the recovery space, we stop short of making an important shift.
    • From: I’m the man.
    • To: He’s the man.
    • Not: I was the man (which is code for, “I’m still the man!”)
  • We don’t want to celebrate our greatness as sinners, but confess our deadness in sin—a corpse is never the hero!
    • Dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1).
  • Puffery (or the puffication of our story): puffing up our story, which leads to suffocation of our current spiritual life.

Danger 1: Glorification of the Terrible

• Philippians 3:19 (ESV) — 19 Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.
• Romans 6:21 (ESV) — 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
• Ephesians 5:12 (ESV) — 12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.
• Stumbles others.

Danger 2: Hypocrisy and Pharisaism

• Galatians 6:3 (ESV) — 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
• Matthew 23:27–28 (ESV) — 27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
• You have to promote a facade of holiness.

Danger 3: Past-Tensism

• Philippians 3:13–14 (ESV) — 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
• Luke 9:62 (ESV) — 62 Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
• Keeps you from truly growing.
• Example: When Matt and Bree quit the World Series mid 18th inning—had to act like they watched the whole game. All that for nothing!

Danger 4: Misplaced Capacity

• Romans 6:19 (NLT) — 19 Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy.
• 1 John 2:14 (ESV) — 14 I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.
• Fails to reroute your God-given gifts and energy.

Danger 5: De-Platforming the True Hero

• Galatians 6:14 (ESV) — 14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
• John 3:30 (ESV) — 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”
• Fails to celebrate the true hero.

Example: Gonzales—Gateway to the Pinnacles