In some European countries, property is often protected by a high wall, the top of which is covered with embedded broken glass to discourage intruders who might try to climb over it. One can sometimes see a cat walking along the top of such a wall. The cat walks circumspectly, carefully, precisely, and assiduously. It picks up one paw and carefully places it where there is no glass. When that paw is in place, the cat reaches forward tentatively and gingerly with the next one.

The Greek word translated “evil” is ponēros, from which we derive our word “pornographic.” We live in a pornographic society. Pornography is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid, especially during our spare time. Some of the books we are given to read plant impure thoughts in our minds. At strategic locations magazines wait to be picked up so their stories and photographs can pollute our minds. And television is the worst pornographer of all.

Once impure thoughts plant themselves like evil seeds in the receptive soil of our souls, they are difficult to eradicate. They grow like poisonous, prolific weeds. Their deadly fruit is temptation and sin.

The way to keep our thoughts pure, of course, is not to allow this world to plant vileness in our minds in the first place. Some contamination cannot be avoided, but much could be avoided if we simply decided to redeem the time. To “redeem the time” means to “buy up the time.” We could avoid many traps if we were to buy up our spare time when the temptations of pornography are strongest. We must convert our spare time into another kind of time: time when we study the Bible; time when we turn our thoughts toward the throne of God in prayer; time when we pick up a good book, go for a walk, do some gardening, or visit someone in the hospital; time when we do what we have sinfully neglected because we were “too busy.”

Failure to do what the Holy Spirit says is the height of folly. The Greek word translated “unwise” here is aphrōn; it can also be translated “senseless.” Surely it is the height of stupidity to have in one’s hand the very Word of the living God—inbreathed by the omniscient, all-wise Creator of the universe—and neglect to read it, study it, memorize it, and obey it! The angels must look at our foolishness in astonishment. We spend years going to college to study medicine, physics, chemistry, business management, engineering, and history. We invest time and money to sit at the feet of those we consider to be learned. We buy their books, attend their lectures, apply our minds to master what they have to say. But we neglect our Bibles. What folly! What an exposure of our warped sense of values!

The Holy Spirit draws a deliberate parallel—one we would not dare to draw had He not drawn it for us first—between a man filled with wine and a man filled with the Holy Spirit. Since He has given us the illustration, we can examine it closely and see what it implies.

Most of us have seen an intoxicated person. First he deliberately chooses to drink intoxicating spirits. Then he drinks more and more until he is drunk. At this point his behavior changes. I have known men who were timid when they were sober, but who became belligerent and pugnacious when they were drunk; men who were hard as nails when sober, but sentimental and tearful when drunk; men who were congenial and friendly when sober, but morose and surly when drunk. I have seen drink turn a moral man into an immoral man and make a filthy-minded man sing hymns learned at his mother’s knee or argue about religion. Drink turns a man into another kind of person. It distorts his conduct and degrades his conversation.

Drink temporarily transforms a person’s personality, but there is no such thing as permanent intoxication. The man who is drunk on Saturday night is sober on Sunday morning. If he wants to remain intoxicated, he needs another filling. Of course over the long run, drunkenness deteriorates and destroys a person’s character.

Being intoxicated illustrates—in reverse—being filled with the Spirit. To be filled with the Holy Spirit is a deliberate choice. In Ephesians 5:18 Paul said, “Be filled.” Most of the Holy Spirit’s ministries to believers are once-for-all, sovereign acts of God. The indwelling, the baptism, the sealing, the earnest, and the gift of the Spirit are in no way dependent on us. They are wrought in us by the Holy Spirit at the time of our conversion; they are irreversible and irrevocable. The filling of the Holy Spirit, however, is different. It is conditional because it depends on our cooperation with the indwelling Spirit of God.

When a Christian is filled with the Spirit, he is transformed into another kind of person. He exhibits the loveliness of Christ and the fruits of the Spirit. It is evident in his walk and in his talk that something has happened. People take knowledge of him that he has been with Jesus.

The Holy Spirit’s filling is not permanent. Paul used the present continuous tense: “Be ye being filled with the Spirit.” A person can be filled with the Holy Spirit one moment and grieve the Holy Spirit the next. When he grieves the Spirit, he needs to confess his sin, claim cleansing in the blood of Christ, and seek a fresh filling.

With this simple figure in mind, note what happens. As we begin to read the Word of God, the Spirit of God brings some divine truth to our attention: a promise to claim, a sin to confess and avoid, a command to obey. Because we have established the basic premise that Jesus is Lord and made that the foundation of all our behavior, our immediate response is to obey. We yield on whatever issue in the Word of God the Spirit of God has brought to our attention. As we yield, He fills us and we receive the power to turn that teaching into practical reality. As this process continues, the Holy Spirit enlarges our horizons, increases our capacity, deepens our spirituality, and enables us to grow in grace and increase our knowledge of God.

Sin or self can short-circuit this process. A person can be filled with the Spirit one moment and be filled with self or fall into sin the next. Peter’s experience just prior to ascending the mount of transfiguration is an example. At the time he was not indwelt and filled by the Holy Spirit, but his experience illustrates how swiftly a change from spirituality to carnality can take place (Matthew 16:13–23). The Lord asked His disciples who people thought He was. The disciples replied that people were ranking Him with John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, the prophets—the greatest men of the past and present. That answer was not good enough, so the Lord asked the disciples, “Whom say ye that I am?”

Instantly Peter replied, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus responded, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” Jesus then began to talk to the disciples about the cross.

Peter was aghast. “Be it far from thee, Lord,” he blurted out.

Jesus turned on him. “Get thee behind me, Satan,” He said. “Thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” Peter was a channel for the Holy Spirit one moment and was speaking in the flesh the next. Such is human nature.

That is why Paul wrote, “Be ye being filled.” When we lose the infilling of the Spirit, we need a fresh filling. The way back is the way of the cross, the cross Peter so vehemently rejected. We must come back in repentance and with confession to the gracious Spirit of God, beg His pardon for having grieved Him, ask for cleansing, and receive a fresh filling. (We should note that in this age no believer loses the indwelling of the Spirit.)

When the truth about the filling of the Holy Spirit is first revealed to us, there is a crisis. We have to choose whether or not to yield to the Spirit. The crisis sometimes coincides with conversion, but more often comes later. Often we spend time in a spiritual wilderness first, and God has to bring us, like Israel of old, to the Jordan for a fresh, more mature comprehension of our spiritual death, burial, and resurrection with Christ.

How then can a believer be filled with the Spirit? The Apostle Paul does not tell us here in Ephesians; he merely commands us to be filled. But from other parts of the word, we know that in order to be filled with the Spirit we must:

1. Confess and put away all known sin in our lives (1 John 1:5–9). It is obvious that such a holy Person cannot work freely in a life where sin is condoned.

2. Yield ourselves completely to His control (Rom. 12:1, 2). This involves the surrender of our will, our intellect, our body, our time, our talents, and our treasures. Every area of life must be thrown open to His dominion.

3. Let the word of Christ dwell in us richly (Col. 3:16). This involves reading the word, studying it, and obeying it. When the word of Christ dwells in us richly, the same results follow (Col. 3:16) as follow the filling of the Spirit (Eph. 5:19).

4. Finally, we must be emptied of self (Gal. 2:20). To be filled with a new ingredient a cup must first be emptied of the old. To be filled with Him, we must first be emptied of us.

An unknown author writes: