Samson： The fall of the Consecrated

Well, praise the Lord, we're another day. That song we just got done singing on that last verse where it said, On, ever, on, and then it said the end is, and I thought it was going to say the end is near. But it said the end is sure. And I just kind of, kind of all of a sudden changed a little bit what I was thinking there, but I thought like, We think the end is near, but we know the end is sure. You know? But today we have another day. It's the only one we know of that we'll have for sure. And we're thankful for that. Oh. Let's stand for a word of prayer. Oh God in heaven, we thank you and love you and praise you for all your goodness and your mercies and your wonderful works to the children of men. We thank you that we can be here, that we have a day, that we're alive, that you've given us healthy bodies, at least for the most part, and sound minds. We thank you for these. Help us, Lord, to use them to bring honor to you and that we could present our bodies a living sacrifice and be in your service. We pray for your blessing on this day. We pray that you would be with Brother Leroy and his family and my two daughters as they're traveling or visiting people in Ohio, that you would keep them safe and bless their day. All the saints scattered abroad, Lord, help us to be faithful. Shining lights in a dark world. Help us to be of good cheer because you've overcome the world. And help us to be a people consecrated to you, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I have this problem. I think it's a problem. It seems to be getting worse as time goes on. My wheels don't get started turning for a message until the last minute, you know. I feel ill-prepared. My intentions are always to think about these messages more and then go back and do a little wordsmithing. Here I am. These are the thoughts of this morning. I hope they fit together. I think they do, at least to some degree. God has always been wanting a people. A people that are his. A people set apart. A people that he is known by, right? It's often a little flock, he calls it in some places. It's a chosen generation. It's a royal priesthood. It's a peculiar chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar people. He wants a people to love him, to worship him, to serve him. I think that's why he made Adam and Eve to start with. That's what he wanted for them. But they sinned. Sin entered the world and with it all kinds of things that God has no part with. He has no part with the lawlessness, the darkness, the demons, the unbelief, the idols, the death, and everything that came with sin. He cannot tolerate it. It can't stand in his presence. He has no part in it. So what does he do? He wants a people to come out from that and be separate. To be separate from that. Why is it important? Why is it important that he says, come out and be separate? Why doesn't it work for him to just say, or why doesn't the concept work? We can just let the good and the evil mingle together. The lawlessness and the lawless, the light and the darkness, we can just mingle these things together. Maybe, perchance, these good things will improve the bad things. The reason he puts a verb in there saying, come out, do something about this, come out and be separate, is because the very nature of good and evil, the very nature of sin and righteousness, they don't work that way. You get one boot muddy and you start walking, the clean one doesn't clean the muddy one. The muddy one dirties the clean one. The prophet Haggai says something to the people, this may be a paraphrase, but he says, if something unclean touches your skirt, is your skirt unclean? Yes. But if your clean skirt touches something unclean, is that unclean thing clean? No. That's not the nature of good and evil. And so he tells his people, come out, be separate, touch not the unclean thing, do something about this. But separation, and I just want to add this, because I think a lot of people get the wrong idea when you talk about separating. Separation does not mean the same as isolation. Separation, it is a common thing for man to get this idea when they really get a concept of separating from the world, that we're going to isolate ourselves, we're going to insulate us from everything else that could potentially defile us, and we're going to withdraw to the mountains, or thus people start monasteries, and they look for the most rugged, faraway place, and they start this place where monks and nuns will go, and there they will live this consecrated life. And I think I can somewhat relate to that desire. I remember as a young boy, I used to dream about the possibility that maybe, maybe somewhere there's a remote island in the wildest parts of the sea that no man has ever found, that Satan himself doesn't know about. Maybe we could just take a handful of good people there, and we could just live there, and it would be a good place, isolated from all this wickedness. Boyish thoughts. But that's not what is meant when he says, come out and be separate. I can't necessarily fault somebody for removing himself from a vile place. I can't fault somebody for taking his family away from whatever, a wicked city. That's not wrong. However, I guess I just want to say, was Jesus separated from the world? Of course he was. And yet he came right down to it. He came to us, and he ministered to the people. Were the disciples separated from the world? Of course they were. But they went from city to city to city, to people, day after day after day, right into the midst of the darkest places to preach, or to bring light. And so, just in the same way that the people are not necessarily the world, in the same way separation from the world doesn't necessarily mean somehow separating us from people. At least I could say the flesh and the blood of people is not the world. But it's the lust of the flesh, right? I think it's John who says something like, in the world there is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. These things are in the world, and these are the things to separate from. I didn't do an exhaustive search on this ever, but I think if you would search it, you know how the New Testament frequently talks about the flesh, and how it is at enmity with the Spirit, and how in Galatians it says, it's in my mind in German, but it says something like, about the flesh, I can't get the first part, but the works of the flesh are these. And then it gives a whole list of things. Notice it says, what I wanted to say is, I think if you would search it, it may be always, or nearly always, when it's talking about these things, it is not saying that the flesh is evil, but it's the desires of the flesh that war against the Spirit. It's not that the flesh is something wicked to be abhorred, but it's the works of the flesh. It's the things that our flesh desire, which war against the Spirit. What Jesus wants us to do is to bring our flesh, our being, into subjection of the Spirit, into subjection of the things of the Spirit. Somewhat a side note, maybe, but what he does want, he wants us to be a consecrated people. Consecrated means the Hebrew word that gets translated consecrated sometimes gets translated dedicated, sanctified, hallowed, holy, prepared, appointed, purified, fulfilled. If you read Leviticus, Exodus, Leviticus, he talks about consecrating the priests. In other words, these people are set apart to do something particular. Consecrating the offering and the altar, like one of the things, when the things on the altar were consecrated, one of the things that was not supposed to happen is they were not supposed to feed that to the strangers. No strangers were supposed to take a part in that. It was consecrated. It was set apart. It was for the people of God, not for the strangers. In 1 Kings 9, God consecrates the temple. When Solomon got done building the temple, it says here in chapter 9, it says, Now when Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king's house and everything Solomon wanted to do, the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, and he appeared to him at Gibeon. The Lord said to him, I heard your prayer and supplication you made before me. I have done for you everything in your prayer. I consecrated this house you built to place my name there forever, and my eyes and my heart will be there all the days. Now if you walk before me as your father David walked with integrity of heart and in uprightness, notice these conditions here. He says, I will put my eyes there, I will put my heart there all the days. And then he puts some conditions. Now if you walk before me as your father David walked with integrity of heart and in uprightness, and you do everything I command in him and keep my statutes and my judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, and I will sit as I said to David, your father, saying, there will not fail a man to be ruler in Israel. But if you or your sons turn from me and do not keep my commandments and my statutes Moses set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land I gave them. I will cast them from my sight. This house which I made holy by my name, Israel will be destroyed and will become but prattle among the peoples. As for this exalted house, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will hiss and say, why did the Lord do this to this land and to his house? Then they will answer, because they forsook the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and out of their house of bondage, and they embraced other gods and worshiped and served them. That is why the Lord brought all this calamity on them. So Israel builds this temple and God consecrates it and he says, I will be there. I will have, what did he say? I will have my eyes and my heart will be there. But then we come into the new covenant and Jesus comes and the church begins and the apostles start seeing that a lot of this stuff in the old covenant was shadows and figures of a real thing to come. And Stephen, when he gave that sermon there in Acts before the Sanhedrin or somebody there, he said, after a long sermon of Israel's history, he ended up saying, however the most high dwell not in houses made with human hands, as the prophet says, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. God had said to Moses, I will dwell in them and walk among them. The prophets frequently make this kind of mention, this kind of language. Forget this idea that heaven is up there and hell is down there and God is somewhere up there, somewhere in the invisible world God is, but among us. Do we believe that he's right here with us today? Do we believe that he wants to be? I believe so. So with that, let's look at 2 Corinthians 6. This was one of the main passages I wanted to talk out of. 2 Corinthians 6, starting in verse 14. Do not be bound together with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial? Or what has the believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. Just as God said, I will dwell in them and walk among them and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord, and do not touch what is unclean and I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. Be not bound, he says, together with unbelievers. Now that could mean some very obvious things, but I think it can mean more than maybe what some people would think of in first glance. I think it could definitely mean don't be bound in some kind of a commitment or union with unbelievers. Marriage would be a good example. We would nearly always discourage, maybe just plain always, discourage somebody from being married to an unbeliever. I would discourage people from joining a business partnership with an unbeliever. These kind of yoking ourselves with people is just, it almost always ends up bad. Communion, it is why we don't bind ourselves together in the breaking of bread and taking the Lord's Supper with people who aren't in the Lord. In fact, I almost wonder if Paul writing this to the second Corinthians isn't just somewhat following up with what he wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians. When they had this immorality among them and yet they were just having this man in their midst, this man who was in gross sin and he was taking part in the Lord's table. And Paul said there in the first letter, he said, can you partake of the Lord's table and the devil's table? I think this second letter is a follow up to the first letter and he may just be emphasizing that again. But I think it means even more than just that. We are the temple. Paul says this multiple times. We are the temple. The temple is to be consecrated, remember? God wants to consecrate the temple. He wants it to be set apart for him. He wants his things to be there and not other things. He doesn't want to share this space because he's a jealous God, right? And it's right that he can be jealous. And so he doesn't want us, whether we look at this as an individual, as our body being the temple, whether we see it as the church being the body, I think both ways can apply. He wants the temple clean. He wants it not bound with unbelievers, with darkness. And he doesn't want it bound with the world. And what is the world? The world is bound by the lust of the flesh, by the lust of the eye, by the pride of life. And he wants his church to be something else, to not be bound by those things. Not only to not be bound with the people that are bound like that, but to not be bound by those things, right? There's this poem, I'm guessing, I think it's popular, I've known it a long time, or known about it a long time. The church and the world walk far apart on the opposite shores of change. The world was singing a giddy tune, wait a minute, on the opposite shores of time, I think. And the church was, the world was singing a giddy tune and the church a hymn sublime. And then the world, come give me your hand, said the merry old world, and walk with me this way. But the faithful church hid her gentle hand and solemnly answered nay. The poem is really long, you can go look it up, but the world enticed the church to take her hand and finally she gave in. And she brought her hand out and took hands with the world and the world started saying, you know, your garments are too plain, too drab. Here, let me dress you up a little better looking. You give too much to the poor. Anyway, time goes on and finally nobody could tell the difference between the church and the world. Anyway, I thought of that poem this morning. That is not what God's intent is for the church. We can see it from the beginning of scripture to the end. That is, he wanted a physical nation of Israel to be separate from the heathens. He wants his people, his church, to be distinct, not just outwardly though, but inwardly. Not to just appear that way by the way we dress, by the way we drive, by all these things. Sure, that is right, that is good. But it should be very visible in other ways. We should be the ones that stand out as the ones who are thankful, as the ones who are patient, as the ones who don't complain and don't grumble. We should be the ones who stand out that seek love and peace and joy and suffer long and are gentle and kind and have words that are different than the world. In those ways we should stand out as being consecrated, as being separate. Jesus did not just come to show what needs to be changed outwardly. He came to lay the axe at the root of the tree. It is why he says to a people who knew already that adultery was wrong, and he said, I say unto you, if you look at a woman to lust after you, you have already committed adultery in your heart. It is why he said to a people who already knew that it was wrong to murder, and he said, if you are angry with your brother, you are a murderer. That is not the exact words, but something like that. He came to lay the axe at the root of the tree. Sometimes we succeed in separating ourselves from others who are wrong while we fail to separate ourselves from the world within us. We identify the enemy without, and we conquer it, but we fail to conquer the enemy within. While we are willing to expose other people's temples, we are just never quite willing to expose our own. We try to be outwardly consecrated while inwardly defiled. This brings me to a certain man in the Old Testament. His name is Samson. He is an extremely fascinating character to me. People are bewildered about the story of Samson. They don't know what to make out of him, and I understand. I think even we brothers here maybe had some debate whether he is a good man or a bad man. I would like to say some good things, but also some bad things that I think we can learn from about Samson. He obviously, the Spirit of God worked through him, no question about it. But one thing that I think we learn from Samson, and I think we learn it maybe through the whole book of Judges, maybe through the whole Bible, but I think the book of Judges is full of this, and I think Samson is a perfect example of this. The empowerment of God's Spirit does not equal the endorsement of human choices. If I had a marker board here, I would write that down. Remember that. Just because the Spirit of God moves in someone, in some people, in somehow, some way, some shape or form, that does not equal God is pleased and endorses the choices this person or these people make. God is sovereign. He had something for Samson, and he used him in spite of the fact that I think Samson made some really, really, really bad choices, and he did some really, really, really bad things, and yet at the end of it all, God accomplished what he wanted to accomplish. He delivered Israel from the bondage of the Philistines through Samson. Maybe, as some people say, he wanted Samson to do more. I don't even know about that. The Bible doesn't say that. One of the reasons I don't want to come down too hard on Samson is because the New Testament speaks well of him. His name goes down in Hebrews as a man of faith. It's listed in a list of names with Samuel and David and Gideon. Do we question these men's standing with God? Not too much. And Samson is right in there, and I actually think there are some very striking types that Samson is of Jesus. Let me just give you a few. Before we go into the things I want to warn you about Samson's life, here are some types of Samson that I think he's like Christ. His birth is announced by an angel. There's only three people in the whole Bible whose birth got announced by an angel. Isaac, Samson, and Jesus. That makes him pretty special. Of him, it was said to his parents that he will begin to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines. What was it said of Jesus? He will deliver his people from the enemy. Samson was betrayed by his own people, by the Israelites, just like Jesus was betrayed by his own people. Samson was made a public spectacle and mocked, just like Jesus. Samson sacrificed himself for the deliverance of his people, just like Jesus. Samson accomplished his purpose in his death, just like Jesus. For Samson, the victory in his death was greater than the victories in his life, and I think something like that could be said of Jesus. I think there's at least something here that God did in his sovereignty with this man that he deserves credit for. But, as I said earlier, he made these poor choices. He was what I'm talking about when I'm talking about being outwardly consecrated but not inwardly. I think he was a man who, there were some things as a Nazarite that were not supposed to happen to him. There was no razor supposed to be put on his head, he was not supposed to drink alcohol, I don't think he was supposed to touch a dead body, whatever all goes with that. Those outward things he was not supposed to do. He was set apart from the world. And those things were not so hard to keep. I think he ended up violating most of these. Most of these got violated eventually, but for a long time, not. But inwardly, he had this problem. He had this lust of the eye, he had this lust of the flesh, and this pride of life that never really got consecrated. He never really got separated from them. They always ended up getting him into bad things. And that's how it goes. Like putting on a show of consecration is only a temporary condition. The inside defilement will eventually make the outside fall. Just like a strong wind easily fells a large tree, even a healthy looking one, if its heart is rotten. You know how we sometimes talk about somebody's strength being their weakness? We have these personality traits that are our strengths. And that very same thing that's our strength is sometimes our very weakness. Like sometimes we're, let's think of an example, someone that's just really pursues holiness, and he is zealous about it, and it's a strength. But then that same person, sometimes that thing, that pursuit of that, is his own undoing. Like he can't tolerate other people because they're like the people that the prophet talks about. I think Isaiah talks about where they're like, you know, stand over there because we're holier than you. And God says that is like smoke in his nostrils all day long. Anyway, that's kind of what I think about Samson. He had this body that was strong. And I don't know if his, in fact, I don't necessarily think that his physical, I think his physical stature was strong. But some of these things he did was obviously supernatural. It says the spirit came upon him, rushed upon him, and made him do these things. And obviously we'll get to that point in the story where it didn't, the spirit wasn't with him, and he couldn't do the things he could previously do. So don't, I guess, don't make me or don't take me to mean that Samson had this all within his physical muscles. And at the same time, it was with his legs and with his arms that he picked up the gates of the city and carried them up on the hill and did all these amazing things. I think he probably had a pretty glorious head full of hair. I think, I have a feeling he was maybe pretty handsome. And this physical strength that he had, this glorious appearance and this physical, his bodily things that were so impressive were also his very weakness. He was brought into captivity through his own lust of the flesh and lust of the eye and pride of life. So, I'm not going to read this whole story, it covers maybe three whole chapters, but remember this is in the book of the Judges. It often says in the book of the Judges, it was in the times of the Judges and every man did what was right in his own eyes. And Samson was one of those men, when he took a liking to that one woman there of the Philistines, he said, fetch her for me for she pleases me well. She is right for my own eyes, I think I could say. That's not how it's worded. And God had a hand in this. It says, though his parents tried to dissuade him of that, they did not know that God had his hand in this. But if that was the only time something like this happened, I would probably say maybe it was totally not Samson's lustful eyes. But we see this thread in his story. He has a lustful eye toward women and it gets him into trouble. He, on his way down, one time on his way down to see this woman, a lion came up to him and he just rose up and slew him with his hands, just like you'd slay a little sheep or a little kid goat. I was the other day at the Chavinos and they have these little baby goats. They're super cute. But they're also, any grown man could, I don't know what they could do, maybe stomp on their head and pull it off. They're really small. And like that, he just took this great big fierce lion and just slew him. And later, I don't know how long later, probably sometime after this carcass had rotted and there was not much more than a skeleton left, he was on his way down again and he decided to turn out of the way to look at it. And there was a swarm of bees had made a nest in there and there was honey in there and he got some and he ate it and he gave it to his parents but didn't tell them where he got it. I don't know. I don't know, was that an unclean thing for him to do? A lot of people say it is and maybe it is. I guess if he touched the dead lion to get it, that would have been... So the point is maybe he's already kind of slipping. Maybe he's already just not being quite faithful to these vows as a Nazirite. But I'm not quite sure about that. But anyway, the part of this is he goes to this wedding, this seven day wedding with this woman and he gives the man a riddle. He says, and he says if you can get this riddle in the seven days of the wedding, I owe you 30 garments and something or another and if you don't get it, you owe it to me. He says, what meat comes forth from the eater and from the strong sweetness? In other words, let me reword that. My growing up years couldn't make any sense out of that riddle. It doesn't even sound like a riddle. It sounds like a statement. But I think what he's saying is, out of the eater comes forth something to eat and out of the strong comes forth something sweet. What is it? I think that would be an understandable way to put the riddle. They thought all the seven days and they couldn't think of it. They tried to get his wife to get it out of him and he finally told her. She went and told them and they came and said, oh well, what's stronger than a lion? Must be a lion. What's sweeter than honey? Must be honey. Must be honey out of a lion. He said, if you wouldn't have plowed with my heifer, you wouldn't have known it. He just decided in order to give them these 30 changes of clothes and whatever else, he just went and killed 30 Philistines, took their clothes and gave it to them. That's the kind of man Samson was. Anyway, from there things went from bad to worse, you could say. Again, maybe God had his whole hand in all of this. But he went back home. After some time he took a little kid and he said, let me go and see my wife and spend some time with her. He came there and this woman's father had given her to another man. He said, oh, I thought you hated her by this time. He said, Samson's anger was aroused. This once shall I be blameless regarding the Philistines, for I will do mischief among them. And Samson went and caught 300 foxes and put torches between their tails and ignited the torches and sent them through the wheat fields and they just burned down the crops, the wheat fields and the vineyards and destroyed the Philistines' crops. Now the Philistines were angry. One thing they did was they went and killed his father-in-law and his wife. They went and killed this woman that he had married and his father-in-law. That only ignited Samson the more. Now they go and kill this woman. I think it did. Anyway, Samson or the Philistines came up to Judah, to Israel, to make war against the Israelites. And the Israelites, they said, why are you coming up against us? We're already serving you. And he said, because of what Samson did to us. And so these about 3,000 men, I think, of the Israelites went and got Samson and said, we're going to bind you and we're going to take you down to the Philistines. This is what I meant by Samson was betrayed by his own people like Jesus was. And so he said, just vow one thing to me, you won't kill me yourself. And they said, we won't kill you, but we're going to take you down there bound. So they bound him. They took him down. When the Philistines saw him coming, they rejoiced. Here he was coming, all bound up, delivered by his own people. But the spirit of the Lord got a hold of him and he broke these ropes and he looked around and he found the jawbone of a donkey. He picked it up and he slew 1,000 men with it. Can you imagine? This wasn't just 1,000 men standing there in line waiting until he beats them over. These were 1,000 men trying to kill him. And he kills them all off with a jawbone. Even the superheroes in movies don't do what this man did in reality. Okay, so sometime later, and here again we see this man who God wanted to be consecrated. He wanted him to be set apart for his purpose. And he goes down and his lustful eye gets the best of him again. And he goes in and turns in with a harlot. Again, the Philistines think they're going to catch him and bind him, but he gets up at midnight and just rips out the gates of the city and carries them up on the hill. This wasn't a door like that. This was city gates. And he took the gates and the posts and everything. I imagine it would have weighed tons. He just put them up on his head or his shoulder and marched up. You can do your own research, but it sounds like it might be about 20 miles away if he put it on the top of Hebron. That's a long way to carry something. But finally, later, I don't know how much time went by. I'm guessing years. I'm not sure. But he fell in love with a woman named Delilah. And he fell for her schemes. Let me just, well, let me give you a brief description. You probably know, but a brief description of what happened is like, it doesn't really say that he married this woman. It says he fell in love with her, loved her. Whether he did or not, not a big deal. But she got bribed by the Philistines. You get out of him. Where is the secret of this great strength that he has? How could he be bound? And first he tells her, sorry, I was a little sidetracked there. He tells her, if you bind me with seven green whips or something that hasn't been dried yet, I couldn't break those. And so they do that. When he's asleep and she has the opportunity, she binds these things around him and calls the Philistines to the door. And she says, Samson, the Philistines are upon you. And he just gets up and rips these things to pieces and goes out and drives them out. And she says, man, you don't love me. You're mocking me. And she says, where is this great strength? And he says, if you bind me with new ropes that have never been used and so they try that. Same thing happens. He just gets up, rips them to pieces and drives them out. And then she begged him again. Somehow I imagine her just, she's a deceitful woman and she admires his great strength and asks him, where is the secret to this? And he says, if you braid the seven locks of my hair on my head, I'd lose my strength. And she braids them and pins them fast with a peg to something. And same thing, the Philistines were in ambush. And she says, the Philistines are upon you. And he just jumps up, pulls the peg and everything it was attached to and goes out, drives the Philistines away. And then Delilah just said, how can you say you love me? You just mock me. And she nags him. And it says she trusts, she nagged him day after day until he was so weary and at the point of death. And finally, he told her his whole heart. He says, I've been a Nazarite set apart for this. If you would shave the hair off of my head, I'd lose my strength. And she discerned that he had, this was honest, he had revealed it. And I really like how this reads in the Septuagint. I'll read it. And so she went and told the Philistines. He told me the secret. He really told it to me. This time it's going to work. Verse 19 here, it says, Delilah lulled Samson to sleep on her knees and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Thus she could finally subdue and control him for his strength departed from him. And Delilah said, Samson, the Philistines are upon you. So he awoke from his sleep and said, I will go out as before and shake myself free. And he did not know that the Lord had departed from him. Then the Philistines took him and put out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with fetters of bronze. And he was grinding grain in the prison house. This thing that he lusted after lulled him to sleep. And this is where we can take warnings. We have this body. We have these eyes. We have these flesh. They have desires. And if we allow those desires to have their way, if we don't bring them into subjection to the things of the Spirit, if we let our wandering eyes just get us and we start lusting after these things, anything, whatever it is. For Samson it was largely women, but it does not have to be women. Whether it be money, whether it be business, whether it be the earth, whether it be anything of creation, whatever it is. There's a verse in Proverbs that says something like, the eye is not satisfied with seeing. There's no amount of sightseeing we can do that will finally say, okay, I'm satisfied. Once I've seen the Everglades, I want to see the Pikes Peak. Once I've seen that, I want to see the canyons. Once I've seen that, there's no end. And I'm not talking about something wrong with being awed at these things. I'm talking about things, anything from totally evil things to things that are totally not evil in themselves, our eye will not be satisfied with seeing. And soon, if it's something earthly, if it's something other than the things of God, this very thing that our eye is lusted after will lull us to sleep. And the rest of it will be the same thing that happened with Samson. While he was, first of all, he was unequally yoked with this woman. He was bound with a wicked woman. He was bound with an unbeliever. And she got him on his lap and she lulled him to sleep. And with that, the last, probably about the last, remaining thing about Samson that set him apart, about the last remaining thing that made him a consecrated person, was his head full of hair that was never shaved, never cut, and he lost it. And that's what's going to happen. That's what's going to happen to us if we allow the lust of the eye and the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, if we allow these things, if we do not come out and be separate, if we decide we can just kind of yoke ourselves and bind ourselves with these things, and finally we'll lay down and we'll fall asleep on these things and we'll lose every last thing of an outward consecration, of an outward appearance of being separated. And that's what happened with Samson. They came in while he was asleep and they cut off his hair. It says he got up and he was going to just go out. I think he probably just felt like he always did. And he was going to go out and he was going to chase those guys away and he did not know that the Lord had departed from him. And I warn you, brothers and sisters, the Spirit of the Lord can leave us, can leave a people without them knowing what happened, without them really having figured out when it happened. Maybe they'll probably eventually know it. Well, they will eventually know it. But what I'm saying is just because somebody had the empowering of the Spirit once in their life does not mean it's always there. There's conditions, right? There's conditions of him making his dwelling place in the temple forever. There's conditions. The Philistines gouged out his eyes those very things that he wanted to please. When he saw something that pleased these things, he wanted it. Go get it for me. They gouged him out and they bound him with fetters and they made him grind grain in the prison house. Animal work. The big grinding stone and there's this thing that you walk around and around and around day after day. He can't see. He's got chains. And he's just grinding grain for the people. That's the path of sin. There's a preacher. I don't know anything about him hardly. His name's John Barnett. He preached a sermon about Samson. It's titled Sin Binds and Blinds and Grinds. And I think that's what happens. If we don't come out and be separate not only from the unbeliever but from unbelief, not only from the lawless people but from lawlessness, not only from those in darkness but from darkness, not only from idolaters but from idols, if we do not come out and be separate from those things, it will lull us to sleep. We'll lose our identity as a set-apart people. God will no longer dwell and walk with us whether we know it or not. We'll be blinded, bound, and walking in circles, doing the work of beasts and not the work of God. Jesus came to deliver us from darkness to light, from chains to freedom, from working for the enemy to working for Him. That's what He came for. He came to dwell with us. Jesus is the Emmanuel. That means God with us. The very word church means the called-out ones, the called-out assembly. In John 14, Jesus said, He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and I will disclose myself to him. And then one of the disciples asked, well, how is it that you will disclose yourself to us and not to the world? See, Jesus here again is saying, I'm going to do something for you guys that isn't happening for the others. I'm going to reveal myself to you guys. And Judas not Iscariot asked, well, how is that? And he says, Jesus answered and said to me, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him. Jesus came to sanctify us, to clean us out. And remember, we're the temple, right? Paul says it repeatedly. You are the temple of the living God. He wants to consecrate us. He wants to sanctify us. I'm going to read this in Matthew 21, where he went into the temple to clean it. And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And he said to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a robber's den, and the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he had done, and the children who were shouting in the temple, Hosanna to the Son of David, they became indignant and said to him, Do you hear what these children are saying? And Jesus said to them, Yes, have you never heard? Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself. Imagine this scene for a little bit. Here's the temple. And it wasn't the original temple that Solomon had built, but it was a temple, maybe at the same place or at least in the same city. And the merchants, the businessmen, the traders, the people who were minded of earthly things, used this thing to trade, to deal. There were sheep, there were maybe cattle, there were doves. They did their dealings in here. And Jesus remembered what the temple was supposed to be. And he went out in there, and he made himself a whip, and he drove out the animals, and after the last sheep scurried down out of the steps and the last dove flapped their ways out of the temple, guess what happened? Children started coming. Crippled people started coming. Blind people started coming. And he healed them. And he said, This is a house of prayer. Children started praising him and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David. In Proverbs 14.9 it says, The houses of the lawless are due for purification, but the house of the righteous are acceptable. May this happen to us. May this happen to our temple. May this happen in our lives. May this happen in our churches, among God's people. May it be cleansed from the inside out. May the bad and earthly things that get driven out, may they be replaced with the good things. Like those traders and merchants and all those people who were driven out, may the little children of God, you might say, may they fill their place. May it be filled with kindness, gratitude, love, peace, mercy, joy, patience, self-control. May it be a house of prayer. And even if those things, maybe a person's life has been so foul that these characteristics are lame. They're not very active. They're not very strong. We haven't put gentleness into practice very much. We haven't put patience. And so maybe they're very weak and they're very crippled. But if we drive out these bad things and we purify this temple and we allow these things to come in, what happened with those lame people, blind people that came in Jesus healed them. They became strong. They became lively. They became able to do what they're meant to do. And may we be consecrated and set apart for God that he may dwell there forever. Let's close in prayer. We thank you, God, and pray that you would help us. What things that we've talked about that we can apply, that we can do, Lord, help us do them. What things you would do, do it, Lord. And we pray that we could be a place that you want to dwell, that you can and are willing to make your abode. And we just pray that your will would be done. In Jesus' name, Amen. Let's open it up for comments and corrections. Anything else you want to share? Yeah, that was a really good message, Brother DeWayne. One thing I noticed about Samson is the things he did. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's a representation of Christ, and he didn't take a wife from his own people. He took a wife of the nations. So that's how Christ, he's giving salvation to the nations. Revelation talks about the bride. I could be wrong though, but that's how I was looking at it. Yeah, I just wanted to express my appreciation for both messages. A lot of things came forward that I just need to work on daily. And I believe that every one of us would be willing to work on these things daily, especially our speech. Try to perfect that and get it in line with the Master. That's good. Part of the cross bearing that we have to do and want to do and are called to do. Yeah, I really appreciate your thoughts there, DeWayne. It's really good to be taught in those ways. And one thing that dawned on me lately that I looked into a little more, it was after someone had kind of put it to me when I was trying to tell them about being separate from the world. They brought up how Jesus would sit with publicans and sinners. And then when I went to actually look at this, it's there in Luke 15. It says that publicans and sinners often came to Him and just brought on a different thing. This person, and he's a stranger to me, I don't know who he was, just out on the streets. Maybe this guy didn't even really think it through all that well, but it got me to looking into it a little more. It's like, well, yeah, they came to Him a lot, but it's not like the people of the world want to make Jesus look like this guy that just hung out and was willing to eat and drink and carouse with the crowds. In fact, whatever he was doing, I think he was spending lots of time with them because they gave him an ear. But whatever he was doing, the Pharisees took note of it and they probably weren't the guys to be doing that. And here he was doing it, so they brought it to his attention. He said something like that he didn't come to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance. And then he gives the story of the 99 sheep that were saved and secure in the fold. He goes after the lost one. He gives the story of the coin that the woman lost and she rejoiced when she found it. He gives the story of the prodigal son. And there we see how Jesus does really go and help those that are down in the dumps and wants them to come back to the Father. So, I just wanted to say that. Something that I noticed, I don't really know that it would be just a great thing to correct or anything, but just in the separation thing, I think the way you mentioned about not being married to an unbeliever and I guess probably what that means is not getting married to an unbeliever and not having the desire to go marry an unbeliever or something like that, but I just thought that's probably what you meant and that's okay, but anyhow, God bless you all. I too have been blessed with being here today and the teachings we had. And I say amen to it. A thought I had is when I was thinking about the different things that Samson did wrong, and I also think that should be written on the board that just because God works mightily through somebody does not mean that whatever happens after that or even maybe not at that time, but it is not a sign of salvation. Those are my words, I guess, but I thought that different times already and it's so deceptive when we think that we have to somehow, this person has such a gift in this and we somehow have to make this person okay, but there's something wrong and so it's a torment to be in. And I think we just need to call things for what they are, not act to and not take away. If Samson lost it or if he did wrong, then that's what it needs to be called. It seems like God was at least somehow pleased to have him as a man of faith in the New Testament and David as well would have had sins that we know of and he was seemingly obviously forgiven too. He just had more character, better character than Samson. But the thought I had was I've been observing this in different stories that I've heard. There's this one, there's two sisters, one was convicted against telling a lie for the sake of safety and the other was not convicted and so she told lies. And I'm sure none of these ever thought of this, maybe they have, but this is my own thoughts. So they both ended up in jail anyways through circumstances. But the one that told lies spent a lot of time, a lot of misery in jail. The one that didn't lie maybe spent a week and was back out. That just seems to me that that's a hand of God and for Samson I would think, I would like to think and this is just my idea of it, had he not succumbed to these things that were not right, I would suggest that he would not have lost his eyes. He would have delivered Israel in a more excellent way. I think these points of righteousness stand for themselves. We do not have to add to them or take away. And the points of sin, we cannot excuse them or make them better. We need to call them what they are and that's hard to do. Especially with trying to make sure that it's done charitably or with truth or with righteousness. It's difficult. It's difficult. At least to me it seems almost complicated but it is still my desire to be these things that we've been taught and God bless us all. Also thankful to be here and just being blessed. I'm just happy to be with the brothers and sisters here in Missouri. I think I can speak for my whole family. And just blessed by the messages. So I want to be careful what I say because Buddy brought out some good points. And I thought it was always interesting that I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, Samson was the seventh judge, I believe. And it's interesting in Revelation, the seventh church is miserable, naked and blind. God, I think, probably has some of the strongest words for that church of Laodicea. And he says that because they're neither hot nor cold that he would like to vomit them out of his mouth. It seems, despite his misery and his blindness, that he did have one final desire to do what his God's will was. And we know how the story goes from that, but I always thought that was interesting. Yeah, I also want to say thank you for the message. It was good to have my thoughts that direction, thinking about separation from sin. One of the concepts that I don't know if I have a full concept, but just something to think about, regarding in the Old Testament when things would be defiled when it came in contact with defiled things. The defilement always transferred and spread. And somehow there's a concept that Christ worked the opposite direction, that he had a holiness that was able to be transferred to sinners. Like when he goes around touching people, instead of being defiled by touching a person that was with leprosy, he was able to clean them. Like his baptism prepares a way to clean sinners. And maybe that concept appears like Isaiah says he's unclean and then this hot coal touches his lips and he's declared that he was cleaned. So somehow in the Old Testament there's defilement transfers that direction, but then there's a reversal through Christ that is able to clean what is unclean. I guess that concept kind of showed up in our Bible study on Monday with 1 Corinthians 7, that like being married to an unbelieving spouse, it says that the children would still be clean. They didn't have to worry, be concerned that their family was defiled because of this being yoked to an unbeliever. But Paul gives them confidence that they can, through their holiness, sanctify the family. I think that's all the thoughts I had. I don't know if it's a complete one, but something to think on. Thank you, Brother Duane. You had so many points. Samson is just too hot to figure out. Like you said, Brother, you have so many positive points and you have some negative points. I'm glad that we don't have to know all the answers about everything under the sun. We just try to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling and pray for God's mercy and things. On the separation, come out and I appreciate your comments out there on that and all the comments and everybody's. I guess maybe because I've been reading lately on the one, come out. Satan, you can't beat him, you join him. And I guess, like you said, you opened it up, Brother Duane, a holy nation, a royal priesthood. It's a different kingdom. Satan, you can't beat him, you join him. So we had it with Constantine. He started Christians become... It was so fashionable to become a Christian. You have Christian soldiers, Christian entertainers, Christian everything. And that was a downfall, I guess. The witness of Christianity and government entanglement is really... Today it's the ecumenical gospel. How does it go? When you go to Rome, you'd be like Rome. So don't be that hard against people that are living in idolatry, fornication, war, entertainment, you name it. Just try to be their friend. And maybe in about five light years from now, maybe they'll get a little spark and be a Christian. Early Christians didn't do it. Bible Christians didn't do it. Anabaptists didn't do it. We can't do it. And I'm sure that Brother Joel down in Haiti and Seth, they are not doing it. It's a hard line. And I'm blessed to be in this group. The Lord be magnified. Yeah, greetings brothers and anybody watching. After I came home this evening, I was thinking about things about the message today. I felt kind of bad that I didn't finish the story about Samson. I think it leaves him in a better light. I really don't want to just leave Samson as someone who is a completely bad light. I really think he's a hero of faith. And so I just wanted to complete the story here in Judges 16, starting verse 22 to the end there. It says, Soon the hair of his head began to grow, as before it was shaven. And the leaders of the Philistines met to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon, and to make merry. And they said, Our God delivered our enemy Samson into our hands. When the people saw Samson, they praised their God. And they said, Our God has delivered into our hands our enemy and the destroyer of our land, the one who multiplied our dead. And when their heart was merry, they said, Call Samson out of the guardhouse and let him play before us. So they called Samson from the prison house, and he played before them. And they slapped him and stationed him between the pillars. Then Samson said to the young man who held him by the hand, That would lead me to feel the pillars that support the house, so I can lean on them. Now the house was full of men and women, including all the leaders of the Philistines, with about seven hundred men and women on the roof watching while Samson played. Then Samson wept before the Lord, saying, Lord, my Lord, remember me now, O God, strengthen me just this once, so I may with one blow take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes. And Samson took hold of the two pillars of the house, the very two which held up the house, and he leaned himself against them. He grasped one with his right hand and the other with his left. And then Samson said, Let my life end with the Philistines. And with all his strength, he pushed on the pillars, and the house came crashing down on the leaders, and all the people in it. In his dying, Samson caused more people to die than were brought to death in his life. And his brothers and all his father's household came there and took him, and they brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Ethel in the tomb of his father Manoah. He judged Israel for twenty years. And so I just, I wanted to get that part in there. I feel like, you know, maybe perhaps even this utter fall that he went through of getting blind and bound and grinding was what it took to get him to that point where he got to here where he wept before the Lord and called upon him for strength. Another thing is just like, unlike many of the other judges in Israel who surrounded themselves with an army, Samson faced the enemy alone. And the Israelites betrayed him, and they seemed to have misgivings about him, but I have a feeling that they rejoiced at the defeat of the enemy. I think his death should be viewed more as a sacrifice than a suicide, and I think that's just a few more ways that he has a lot of types of Christ about him. Anyway, thanks for watching. Just wanted to add that to help make it a little more complete and to not just leave Samson as a horribly bad example altogether. God bless you. Nearer, nearer, dear blessed Lord To the cross where Thou hast died Draw me nearer, nearer, dear blessed Lord To Thy precious living side Consecrate me now to Thy service, Lord By the power of grace divine Glad my soul of God with a steadfast love Am I well with God's divine Draw me nearer, nearer, dear blessed Lord To the cross where Thou hast died Draw me nearer, nearer, dear blessed Lord To Thy precious living side Oh, the pure being I of a single heart That before Thy throne I stand When I kneel in prayer and with Thee, my God I commune as friend with friend Draw me nearer, nearer, dear blessed Lord To the cross where Thou hast died Draw me nearer, nearer, dear blessed Lord To Thy precious living side There are belts of love that I cannot know There mine cross there so steep There are heights of joy that I cannot reach Can I rest in peace with Thee Draw me nearer, nearer, dear blessed Lord To the cross where Thou hast died Draw me nearer, nearer, dear blessed Lord To Thy precious living side Careless words, O let them never From the tongue unbridled spread May the heart that's in the cellar Shed a commanding sorrowless Love one another, blessed the Savior Children obey the Father's last command Love one another, blessed the Savior Children obey His last command Love is love, true, pure, and holy Friendship is His sacred power For a woman's reckless folly Love's pure, desolate, and long Love one another, blessed the Savior Children obey the Father's last command Love one another, blessed the Savior Children obey His last command Careless words are lively spoken Dangerous thoughts are rashly spurned Brightest wings of life are broken By a single careless word Love one another, blessed the Savior Children obey the Father's last command Love one another, blessed the Savior Children obey His last command Alleluia, through faith and faith My Jesus has prepared the way In heaven's city I would bend And from this path I must astray And now with thorns discovered My Jesus always calls me forth And now with thorns discovered My Jesus always calls me forth All ever on we must not fail With God we go through blood and fire With God our help and closest friend With God our help and closest friend Through tribulation lies the way There in God's kingdom we can stay Through tribulation lies the way There in God's kingdom we can stay All ever on the end is sure The battle must victorious fight The more afflictions we endure The more our heart with joy overflows So love one another all That is the way that heaven is won So love one another all That is the way that heaven is won