Gooding, David: 20 - Contending for the Faith

As you have seen, gentlemen, I have spent a disproportionate amount of my time this morning on the first third of the story of Samson, and have concentrated first on assessing the enemy, what were the issues in the conflict of cultures between the Israelites and the Philistines in those far off days, and also on the preparation of God, preparation that took place in the person of Samson's parents rather than in Samson himself. That is not altogether unfortunate as far as I'm concerned, because having a short time to deal with the other two-thirds, I shall be able to run over them quickly and thus hide from you my extensive ignorance. And if in doing that I also raise more questions than I answer, that might be also not by chance. Not to put to you the fact that these things do require quite a lot of thought, and that we should be careful not to jump to conclusion. I'm not saying that we cannot come to conclusions, but they need a lot of thought. And when you have come to your conclusion, you need to be able to support it by thorough and keen and fair analysis and criticism. It was also gives me the chance, of course, knowing I'm amidst friends, to expose my ignorance, to let you see the tremendous gaps in my knowledge and understanding, so that I might at last provoke you into coming to my aid and helping me to understand these things. But we come now to Samson's own ministry, as distinct from the preparation of him. The first thing was that he saw a woman in Timna of the daughters of the Philistines and asked his parents to get her for him to wife. That was the method in those days, as it still is in some countries. Then his father and his mother said unto him, is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren or among all my people that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines. And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me, for she pleases me. And the rule is not what God says, but what pleases me. If she pleases me, it must be right. Bother any rules and regulations about not marrying Gentile girl. You say, that's terrible. And the Bible literally said that they must not marry these foreign nations. And you side with his parents. He should not have done it. But his father and mother knew not that it was of the Lord. Oh dear. Let's hope our young converts haven't discovered that verse in the Bible. Might complicate our pastoral sessions with believers who are proposing to marry unbelievers. How will you explain it? Well, it is the fact that God used this, seeking an occasion against the Philistines, and it brought, uh, Samson very close to many Philistines and allowed God to exhibit his supernatural power through Philist- through Samson, much to the discomfort, but to the profitable learning of the Philistines. But God used it. The question remains, gentlemen, what it means when it says it was of the Lord. Was this the ideal? Was this what God had planned? What the- was this what God had in fact commanded? You wouldn't have got that impression even listening to Samson. When his parents said, you shouldn't do it, and doubtless gave their biblical reasons why they shouldn't, he shouldn't do it, and cited them as the commands of the Lord. Samson didn't reply, apparently, well, it's not the commandment of the Lord, and you're misinterpreting the scripture. How could you have misinterpreted those plain scriptures? He simply said, it pleases me. That was the end of the story. He was a bit of a hedonist, like some pi- some people are nowadays, and many more people more all the time. God couldn't possibly mean to restrict my pleasure. Does it therefore mean that the Lord, it was of the Lord in the sense that this was the Lord's command that was written in his word, and it was something that he wanted him to do? Or would you decide that it was of the Lord in this sense, that God who foresaw Samson and his willful habit reserved the right to overrule it and use it for his purposes? That that is a principle of God's providences is to be seen explicitly stated in the prophecy of Isaiah, where God used the Assyrians. Ho Assyrian, rod of my anger, and summoned the Assyrian to chastise his people Israel. But at the same time and simultaneously announced that when the f- when he- God had done his work, chastising his people by use of the Assyrians, he would turn around and chastise the Assyrians. For they, in what they did to Israel, were not seeking to do the will of the Lord. They were seeking to stamp out the people of God, and indeed to defy the God of Israel. We must distinguish, then, between God's direct commands of what is his so- of his will, his holy will, and God reserving his sovereign right, even when his people disobey, to use the result of their disobedience to further his purposes. Gentlemen, if God never used us except when we were a hundred percent obedient, I don't know that he'd ever use us at all, would he? And it can be, and often is, a magnificent spectacle of the grace of God, that he will take the occasion of our very disobediences and their results and turn them to good account. I remember the story of a girl in England who fell in love with an unsaved young man, she herself being a believer, and against the wishes of her elders and their plain pastoral care, she continued courting him and brought him along to gospel meetings, and he got converted. And after he'd been converted a while and begun to read the scripture, he found out that it wasn't right for Christians to marry non-Christians, and he ditched the girl. You may care to, to ponder the implications of the matter, gentlemen. And that led on to the next thing. We're told that Samson went down and his father and mother to Timnah and came to the vineyards of Timnah. And you might want to inquire what Samson was doing there. He was supposed to be a Nazarite, wasn't he? And not to touch anything of the vine. Well, you say he managed to keep his skirts clear and studiously avoided every vine that stood in his way. Well, I said, I hope he did. It was taking a big risk, wasn't it? If you're a Nazarite to go to the best vine bearing country, uh, part of the country that you could find. And there came out a lion and roared against him, and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid. You know the story well. Uh, when he came back, he saw honey, and he took it and gave it to his father and mother. I think he couldn't have told them where he got the honey from, but it would have given them a stomach ache even if they'd not been sick. Taking honey out of an unclean beast when it was already dead in a carcass. Then he went on to the banquet, you'll see, and there he put forth his riddle to the Philistines. But I must be careful. I have spoken of one mystery, here's another. Would you rate this riddle on the level with that other great mystery that we saw in the first chapter? He proposed the riddle, uh, saying, out of the eater came forth food, and out of the strong came forth sweet, and challenged the Philistines to find out the interpretation of his riddle. Now, what do you say? Some of you say, marvelous, marvelous. Preaching the gospel, was he in turn suited to that ancient time? Yes, the lion was an unclean beast, but in the hands of the great Savior Samson, endued with the Spirit of God, the old unclean beast had its very nature changed. Whereas before the Savior came and the Holy Spirit worked, the lion would have eaten you up, for he walks about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, and he tried to frighten Samson himself, the Savior, and roared against him, and the spirit came on him, and he defeated the great enemy, completely transformed its nature, so that out of the eater, who would have gobbled you up, there came forth meat. That reversed his nature completely, didn't it? And out of the strong, aggressive creature there came forth honey, smooth and delightful and attractive and nourishing. You say, what a magnificent miracle of the Spirit of God in the hands of the Savior. Was not Samson a deliverer? What a picture of him who met the roaring lion that goes about seeking whom Whom he he may may devour. desire. Chained. Change, uh, well, oh, no, no, didn't quite change his nature. No, that wouldn't be right, would it? No, but by the Spirit of God rendered him harmless anyway, we'll say that, uh, and annulled him and turned the victory to a source of food and sustenance and delight to his people. Magnificent ministry, you say. The Holy Spirit on the Savior, des- on the Savior Samson deserving to be a prototype of our Lord. Nonsense, undiluted nonsense, say the other side. Man was meant to be a Nazarite. If it was wrong for an ordinary Israelite to, to, to deal with a lion, touch, uh, to eat anything that came from him, he was an unclean beast, and defiling to touch the carcass and the dead bone. How come a Nazarite whose head of his consecration would be defiled by contact with the dead? How did he ever come anywhere near a lion, let alone stoop to take honey out of it? The others replied, but you're missing the point. For an ordinary man, it would have been disastrous, but for Samson, with the special endowment of the Spirit of God and raised up as a savior, he turned, he brought the clean out of the unclean. Ah. Tell me more, gentlemen, about this riddle. I'm not quite sure if I got the point. I'm aware that the great true gentleman a little more about this riddle. I am aware that the great truths of the gospel are mysteries to all unregenerate people of whatever age, and they cannot understand the power that can deal even with things like lions. And I understand that if you try to explain it to the unregenerate, they find it absolutely impossible to comprehend unless the Holy Spirit enlightens. So that the very gospel itself in our age, let alone in Samson's, is a mystery. You say, that's right. So Samson was a very spiritual man, endued with the spirit, and in the spirit he spoke mysteries to these unregenerate, uncircumcised Philistines, and they couldn't understand him and came to their destruction because he... Is that how you go about preaching your mysteries to the unregenerate? Setting riddles in the ancient world was a game. It was the, uh, sport of kings, actually, when there was no TV. What would you do at a banquet? After the main courses, the king might set you riddles. Woe betide if you solved them, because that showed he wasn't very clever, uh, you'll see. But it was a kind of a game you played, setting riddles and trying to guess the meanings, and some of the riddles that have survived are very queer. It was a game you played at parties, and this was a banquet, and all the leading young bloods were there, and Samson was among them, and he's marrying one of the Philistines too. And he proposes a riddle. And not only so, but it's got some stakes to it. If they decode the riddle, he's got to give them thirty pieces of raiment, but if they can't, he takes thirty pieces of raiment from them, and he's hoping they can't. So he may profit by it and get some new suits of clothes. Is that the kind of way to spread the mystery of the knowledge of God to unregenerate? Turn it into a game? For your personal profit and aggrandizement. How did they find out the riddle? Well, not by the Spirit of God, gentlemen. Illuminating their poor Gentile minds, they, they cracked his riddle because they had seen a certain weakness in Master Samson. He was a showboy, wasn't he? Um, and though he might face a roaring lion unperturbed, he couldn't face a woman's tears unperturbed. And if he was strong in spirit, he had ungovernable emotions. And when his bride wept sore, he couldn't stand it, told her the secret, and she told it to the Philistines, and they sold his riddle, but it wasn't a case of conversion, gentlemen. When they sold his, sold his riddle, and he had to go and get the clothes to pay now because he'd lost the bet, and he just went and slaughtered a few Philistines down the road, otherwise innocent citizens, I presume, stole their clothes and gave them to pay his, to pay his betting debt. What will you tell me to make out of it? Say, but it was the Spirit of God came upon him. Are we then to turn the Spirit of God and the great mysteries of the faith or something into a sheer game of entertainment? Has it ever been done? And what would you think? Any rate, the real question I'll ask you is what good came out of it? Save this, that it was an exhibition of supernatural power, apparently. When Samson came again to those parts, for this was the manner of marriage in that ancient civilization, you didn't go and live with your wife, you visited her from occasion- occasionally, and she remained living in her father's home. So when on a subsequent visit, Samson went down to, uh, greet his wife, he found that her father had given him to somebody else. So, to treat the father as he deserved, uh, Samson collected a lot of foxes, tied the tails together, and put firebrands in. And my, didn't it look spectacular in the night air, with all the sparks going off in all directions? Surely this was a great spiritual demonstration, wasn't it? Why not arrange a similar thing up in your assembly if you've got some particularly hardened, uh, unregenerate men. Let's give them a demonstration of the spirit. That'll have to be full of sparks, light, and impressive. It burned up the standing corn, and the Philistines were very impressed. They were very angry, I might say, as well. Can you tell me what good he did? Philistines got so angry they came and burned the man and the woman with fire. And Samson, to take revenge, you'll say, smoke them hip and thigh with a great slaughter. They'll say how I wallow in the slough almost of despond. How would you interpret it? Is there some interpretation that will make good sense of it, show the action was all to profit? Samson's Samson's brethren. brethren then began to feel distinctly uncomfortable. This man was a deliverer, but I tell you something, if you're going to be a deliverer, make sure you deliver. Don't go out off half cock and just make the enemy feel uncomfortable, because if you do, he'll take reprisals. That can be decidedly uncomfortable. If you're going to deliver, deliver. If you're not going to deliver, do be careful about going off half cock. And the Judahites now come and said, look here, Samson, we can't stick this. We propose to deliver you into the hands of the Philistines to put an end of all this, uh, aggravation. He said, all right, promise me you won't fight against me yourself, then you can bind me up and deliver me to the Philistines. And they did. And you'll see the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he broke the ropes. And finding the jawbone of an ass, he took it and smote them, hip and thigh. What will you tell me to make out of that? We'll say it is a sorry state of affairs when the people of God themselves become afraid of the use of, uh, supernatural power, and because it disturbs the unregenerate, they ask you to soft pedal it. It's a sorry state of affairs, isn't it? But then on what the other side will you turn me to do with the story that he got the, the jawbone of a dead ass? It wasn't supposed, an ordinary Israelite wasn't supposed to touch dead bones. It defiled them. And needed for their cleansing the sacrifice of the red heifer, if ever they came near the t- the tabernacle of the Lord after contact with dead bones. And if ordinary citizens couldn't touch them without being defiled, pray, what was Samson doing, who was supposed to be a Nazarite? Would you advise me to use unclean methods in the work of the Lord then? Saying it doesn't matter so long as they're effective, the Lord will bless you. How will you, experienced pastors as some of you are, expound these incidents to me that they might form guidance for me in my service? You say, I shouldn't try, old chap, it's nothing to do with you anyway. It's Old Testament history. Better leave it unstudied. No, sir, you don't really mean that either, do you? What is its lesson? Samson had so now expended his strength, notice it, that he developed an enormous thirst and was near to die. You have to be careful with spiritual power, don't you? The use of it can exhaust you. And too much current, as one man said, burns the wire. How many people getting carried away with what may have been, in great part at least, spiritual power have gone to excesses and ended up with nervous breakdowns? Spiritual power will need to be used responsibly, wouldn't it? And should not lead us to lack of self-control and wild excesses that would threaten our very emotional and physical life. And God had mercy on him, did a miracle to supply him drink, and he revived. The well was named Ein Hekore, the well of him that calls. It's in Lechi unto this day. I often think a museum of Samson's exploits would make an interesting museum, wouldn't it? Jawbones of asses, carcasses of lions, and other like things. And now the historian draws a line under these exploits. In spite of what you might think are some undesirable features, some positive disobediences, and some things difficult to explain, there were evidences of the Spirit of the Lord. God, in his mercy, overlooked the disobedience, turned some of them to advantage, and achieved this at any rate, that there was some kind of witness to the reality of spiritual power and supernatural power that was the first lesson that Philistines needed to learn. The Holy Spirit draws a line under things so far. There is to be one more chapter. Pray see how different is this second chapter. For there came a point in Samson's unwisdom and disobedience in which he went beyond the place of no return, and his disobedience wrecked him. That's a somber lesson. Let us never be encouraged to think our disobediences do not matter because the Lord has blessed us. In all use of spiritual power, gentlemen, we are to retain our moral judgment. That is a thing we can easily forget. The Corinthian believers were much impressed by spiritual power and spiritual gifts, to the point where they had to be reminded, gentlemen, when it comes to spiritual gifts and spiritual power, in In intellect, intellect. be grown up men. It is an exceedingly dangerous thing to do as some people do nowadays and say, God is moving us away from our intellect to concentrate on the spirit. A dangerous thing to give people the impression that the less intellectual, the less you think, the less you exercise your judgment, the less critical in the true sense of the word critical you are, the more you abandon yourself to uncritical, unthought out, unself-controlled surges of the spirit, the more godly you are. The very opposite is the truth. The Holy Spirit himself says, in the very chapter where he discusses spiritual gifts and instructs us a- about our attitude to them and how we should use them. It is the Holy Spirit himself says that when the prophets prophesy, you don't say, ah, there speaks a spiritual gift, so it must be true. You must not. Let the others judge. Is this thing of God or not? We are to test the spirits. And the test of whether an exhibition is truly an exhibition of the power of the Spirit is this primarily, there are others, but this primarily, what is being said through this spiritual gift? What is its doctrinal implication? For I give you to know, says Paul, that no man speaketh by the Spirit of God, says Jesus is anathema, nor can anybody truly say that Jesus is Lord in the full sense of that term and meaning, except by the Spirit of God. You judge therefore, spirit manifestations by the doctrine. That is enunciated when people are, so to speak, under the influence. And of course, it follows if you don't know what their doctrine is because you cannot understand the language they're talking in. You cannot decide that this is of the Spirit of God. You mustn't. You must first test it. You must know what is being said. And you must judge what is being said, according to the basic doctrines of the faith. For the Holy Spirit is never interested in mere spiritual fireworks. Everything, says the Holy Spirit of God, as he advises us on the use of spiritual gifts, everything in the church must be done for edification. You must be able to show how this edifies the church in their faith and practice. So much so is edification the criterion of the use of spiritual gift, that if a man speaks in a tongue and there's no interpreter and you don't know what's being said, then he must not speak in the tongue. Or for edification to be possible, everybody must understand what is being said. And it is strictly forbidden to use the gift of tongue if people do not understand what is being said. When you've heard what is being said, then you must criticize, not in any harsh, unkindly spirit, but in the true function of criticism, assess whether or not the doctrine that's being enunciated is true to the faith. This is not the reaction of some extreme old men. This is the word of the Holy Spirit himself speaking to us, admittedly in our Christian and much more advanced age, age than Samson lived in, but it is nonetheless the instruction of the Holy Spirit over the use of spiritual guilt. In intellect, in analysis, be grown up men in malice be bathed. And secondly, if a prophet is speaking and something is revealed to a prophet sitting by, says Paul, the first prophet must sit down. And it's no good his saying, but I can't, I'm so in the grip of the spirit that I can't go on. I mean, some preachers do go on far beyond the time that is set, and it results in all sorts of inconveniences, but that's not the mark of the Spirit of God upon them. It's a mark of their incompetence, you'll see. Uh, but a prophet cannot say, oh, I can't sit down for the Holy Spirit so got hold of me, I couldn't possibly cease. No, no, no, no, says the Holy Spirit. The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. And the Holy Spirit induces self-control and not abandonment to powers that take over and remove our self-control. It might be harsh to bring those standards back to this primitive age in which Samson lived, when so often the Spirit of God manifested himself not in, uh, doctrinal matters, but in feats of physical strength. But does not Samson's life tell us that the power to do great and perhaps magnificent feats of physical strength are not safe, unless it leads to control of our physical faculties? Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there. Dear, oh dear, I know Old Testament standards were not ours. And other notable men like Judah himself had done a similar thing. They must not judge that far, God aid, by our Christian standards. But how could it be right? The Savior raised up by the Spirit of God. How far we are from Othniel's days, aren't we? A Nazarite was to drink no wine. He was not to indulge himself, but keep strict control. It is important to distinguish the Spirit of God from the results of alcoholism, gentlemen. The Greeks didn't. They worshipped Dionysus. He was the god of ecstatic experience. He was also the god of the vine. And the Greeks weren't particularly concerned all the time to distinguish between the results of in drinking too much wine and intoxication and the power of their god who came upon them, for Dionysus was the, was the vine, was the God of wine. Not in Israel, he isn't. There had to be strict distinction between the spirit of God and the results of alcohol. Wasn't to indulge himself. His hair was to be solely for God. But indulge himself he did. And he went down and visited the hollow. The Philistines surrounded the house. He made a mockery of them. He rose, got up, took the very gates of the cities on his shoulders and took them up to the top of the mountain. You'll say that's magnificent, isn't it? That's the spirit of God for you, getting a man out of trouble when he came out of a brothel. What about that for the leading of the Spirit? Gentlemen, I just must ask you, is it possible to abuse spiritual gifts? When I pray in a tongue, says Paul, my spirit prays. He doesn't say necessarily that it's the Holy Spirit praying. We'll say the same is true of other gifts, as I have caused to know. A man who's been given the gift, the spiritual gift of teaching. Don't suppose to you, gentlemen, that every time he uses his gift, he's being used of the Holy Spirit, do you? What miserable sermons I have preached, or positively wrong things on occasions I have said. Would you attribute it to all, all that to the Holy Spirit? There lies the danger of spiritual gift. Once it's given, it can stay. And the man who has a gift to persuade people of the truth of God can sometimes use those same abilities to persuade them of error. It is possible to abuse spiritual gift. And to suppose that it was the Holy Spirit of God coming upon Samuel to strengthen him to carry the gates, to get him out of the trouble of being in a brothel, I will suppose would be very difficult. But the next story puts the matter beyond question. For he took this woman, Delilah, laid his, the hair of his Nazarite ship on her seductress's. Teased him, find out for the Philistines the secret of his strength. It was a mystery to them. Samson was not necessarily a very big man, like the giants of the Philistines. He could have been a man of ordinary size. Where was his strength then? You could say it was the Spirit of God. What did Philistines know about the Spirit of God? That explained nothing to them. And then they took a look at him, and he had long hair like a woman. That increased the difficulty. Where was his strength? Samson teased Delilah, making up all sorts of yarns that weren't true. The truth of it was his hair. What is this business of the Natterite's hair? I do hope you're going to tell me in the discussion period. Whatever it signified, this it signified. Complete and utter separation to the Lord. It was a voluntary thing in Israel, gentlemen, for most people, though Samson didn't have free choice, most people did. There were degrees of separation to God and devotion to God in the Old Testament that were voluntary. And even when somebody undertook them voluntarily, he didn't have to undertake them permanently if he didn't want to, but only for a period. There are degrees of devotion to Christ, allow me to say it without heresy, that are voluntary. If you marry, you have not sinned. If you don't marry, you haven't sinned. If you want to, you could remain unmarried for the sake of the Lord. You don't have to. Voluntary, you know. The Nazariteship normally was therefore voluntary, but it was absolute consecration to the Lord. The vow of his separation to the Lord, like a high priest whose holiness had to be almost of the same. So devoted to the Lord that he mustn't come near the dead, even for his close re- relatives. Like a pot in the temple, devoted to the Lord's service, may never be taken and used for anybody else's satisfaction. It is wholly for the Lord. And if Mrs. Brown down the road runs out of a saucepan to cook the Brussels sprouts in, well, so she will. She mustn't come and take a pot that's been devoted to the Lord's service. It's utterly for the Lord. Samson was called to a life event of utter devotion to the Lord. As the hair of his Nazarite ship grew, it must not be touched. Because at the end of the Nazarite ship, it was to be cut off and put upon the altar as a sacrifice to God. He was growing it not for his own beauty's sake, like Absalom. Master Absalom, you know, had a magnificent head of hair. Set the style in Israel amongst all the up and coming. And it was so massively beautiful that when he pulled it, I- I- it weighed considerable weight, you know. Oh, he was the sum total of masculine ego elegance, you'll see. None of this short cropped hair, back and sides business, not with Absalom. He summed up the sum of all beauty. Oh, he was attractive to the younger generation. That's why they went over to him. There's a thing from middle-aged old David that was going a bit bald. You'll say, ah, with Absalom hair was a thing of beauty, beautifully cultured, but then it was being done for his own aggrandizement anyway. A Nazarite's hair wasn't grown for his own aggrandizement. Some people would have thought it was a shame to have hair that length. What is he growing it for? Just for God. At the end of the period, it would have been cut off and put on the altar as a sacrifice of devotion for God. Not even for my own aggrandizement, but for him. No razor come upon it. It's a similar regulation as, uh, as concerned the altar. If you build an altar of stone, says God, don't you lift up a tool on it? For the moment you lift up a tool on that natural stone, you have polluted it. There's something moving in untouched nature, isn't there? Virgin nature. You come across a forest, absolutely virgin. No man has ever set foot on it. What an awesome thing that is, isn't it? Say, why was it there? What does it exist for? All these flowers here flowering? Oh, how beautiful. But what's the sense of it if it, you know, I wasn't here. Uh, it doesn't make sense if I'm not here to enjoy it, does it? Oh yes, sir. Your enjoyment wasn't the thing that determined that this planet would be built. No human foot trod in the forest, no ever ear heard the beauty of its birds, no one saw the beauty of its flowers, no human ever came near it. It exists for the pleasure of the Almighty God. If a human foot treads on it, there is a sense in which it breaks its virgin purity. Samson's head of hair, no razor on it. It grows utterly, solely for God. That was the secret of his strength, not given to Samuel to enjoy and to parade himself and to satisfy his own desires. Desires. How often, even in the early stage, he seems to take his spiritual power and compromise it all down the line with simple self-enjoyment. Get me that woman. You shouldn't do it, said his parents. Against God's word. Ah, but it pleases me, said Samson. How far will God go putting up with that? There came the moment when the great powerful Samson laid his head on the lap of a Philistine seductress. She wheedled out of him the secret of his strength, his hair grown for God. The Philistine was not interested in copying it so that, uh, he- the Philistines might likewise be Nazarites for the Lord. They were interested in discovering the secret that they might destroy his power. Samson knew it and chose that fateful night should he live for God, or should he live for his own pleasure and satisfaction? What the point of his spiritual power? And in the end, he bartered his spiritual power for his own satisfaction. He went out saying, I'll shake myself again, knew not that the Lord had departed from him. The Philistines took him to prison, they made him grind. They wrote QED, quod erat demonstrandum, over the whole episode. Nothing in it, they said. Our God is better than his. The man who was raised up to teach the Philistines the distinction between mere human powers and intellect and the supernatural power of God ended in prison, demonstrating, as the Philistines thought, that there was no distinction. In fact, the Philistine God was better than Samson. The use of spiritual power, gentlemen, as we address the unregenerate, is a thing to be guarded with great care, isn't it? Ah, what will the world say if we announce to them the supernatural power of the Spirit of God in salvation, able to regenerate the soul? We're raking in millions to have our palatial home. And if then we fall to the seductions of the flesh, and the world will say, and all that talk of supernatural power being born again, what does it amount to? Put the preacher with his secretary, and you'll see what happens. We do need, in reading Samson's list, surely to take heed to ourselves, and the great claims we make for the Christian gospel, which are surely true, to be sure that when the world looks at the way we live, they see that the power we talk about is a A divine divine react. reality. Then God, in his mercy, once more intervened. Poor old Samson in his prison, who never got the Israelites out of the Philistines' dominion. In fact, he ended up himself in prison, couldn't get out either. No more lifting up of gates and escaping from a brothel. Died in prison. His hair began to grow. Oh, what a merciful God we have. Though even in his last prayer he showed his own selfishness, Lord, let me be avenged for my two eyes. God in his mercy turned it to the final victory as he allowed Samson once more a grant of supernatural power that pulled the whole place down. Samson was killed in the process, as were many Philistines, but in his death perhaps he slew more than in his life, for it demonstrated that the power of the living God was real. If there is one lesson I would like to learn above another from the story of Samson, is this. May God use me. May God keep me dependent upon himself and devoted to him. May God maintain in me that the, uh, the, the goal of any spiritual power he may give me is not my personal satisfaction, but his glory. May God keep me from disobedience. But then may God in his mercy consider my frailty, and in spite of my disobediences, use me. Or if he doesn't do that, he'll never use me. And if in the end, my disobedience lead to disaster, pray God that somehow he'll bring out of it a lesson for good that demonstrates to the world that his gospel is true, his son a reality, the mystery of the faith is holy, and the power of the Holy Spirit is genuine. I haven't answered your questions. You'll have to forgive me. But may God write these simple lessons on our hearts to the study of his word.