Commitment or Compromise

I will now sing a piece from the symphony No. 2, which I have just performed. I will now sing a piece from the symphony No.

2, which I have just performed. a prayer. Hope is rising, new day dawning, sound of singing fills the air.

Two thousand years and still the flame is burning bright across the land. Hearts are waiting, longing, aching for awakening once again. Let the flame burn brighter in the heart of the darkness, turning night to glorious day.

Let the song grow louder as our love grows stronger. Let it shine, let it shine. We'll read the scriptures first.

Judges chapter 16 and verses 1 to 22. A sad story of a man who was called from birth to serve the Lord, but he played with sin and reaped the consequences. Judges chapter 16.

One day Samson went to Gaza where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her. The people of Gaza were told Samson is here.

So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They made no move during the night saying at dawn we'll kill him. But Samson lay there only until the middle of the night.

Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate together with the two posts and tore them loose bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron. Sometime later he fell in love with a woman in the valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah.

The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said see if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so that we may tie him up and subdue him. Each of us will give you 1,100 shepherds of silver. So Delilah said to Samson tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued.

And Samson answered if anyone ties me with seven fresh thongs that have not been dried I'll become as weak as any other man. Then the rulers of the Philistines brought her seven fresh thongs that had not been dried and she tied him with them. With men hidden in the room she called to him Samson the Philistines are upon you.

But he snapped the thongs as easily as a piece of string snaps when it comes close to a flame. So the secret of his strength was not discovered. Then Delilah said to Samson you have made a fool of me.

You lied to me. Come now tell me how you can be tied. He said if anyone ties me securely with new ropes that have never been used I'll become as weak as any other man.

So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them. Then with men hidden in the room she called to him Samson the Philistines are upon you. But he snapped the ropes of his arms as if they were threads.

Delilah then said to Samson until now you've been making a fool of me and lying to me. Tell me how you can be tied. He replied if you weave the seven braids of my hair into the fabric on a loom and tighten it with the pin I'll become as weak as any other man.

So while he was sleeping Delilah took the seven braids of his head wove them into the fabric and tightened it with a pin. Again she called him Samson the Philistines are upon you. He awoke from his sleep and pulled up the pin and the loom and the fabric.

Then she said to them how can you say I love you when you don't confide in me. This is the third time you've made a fool of me and haven't told me the secret of your great strength. With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death.

So he told her everything. No razor has ever been used on my head he said because I've been a Nazirite set apart from God from birth. If my head was shaven my strength would leave me and I would become as weak as any other man.

When Delilah saw that he had told her everything she sent word back to the rulers of the Philistines. Come back once more he has told me everything. So the rulers of the Philistines returned with silver in their hands.

Having put him to sleep on her lap she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair. And so began to subdue him and his strength left him. Then she called Samson the Philistines are upon you.

He woke from sleep and thought I'll go out as before and shake myself free. But he did not know that the Lord had left him. Then the Philistines seized him gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza.

Binding him with bronze shackles they set him grinding in the prison. But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved. He still for the friends of the Lord the glory for him still.

Now I'll be before him now. So we think tonight about spiritual decline and recovery. And we have as our illustration in Scripture that remarkable character so often referred to, so little understood, whose name is Samson.

Do you know six million people in the United States of America are bald? Well that staggering fact is obviously shaking you all. Forty percent are affected by hair loss after the age of about, males generally, after the age of about 21. There is a drug called Regaine, I believe that's it.

It's well entitled if my memory is serving me correctly, which if applied to the scalp will help recover what has been forfeited. Where do I get these amazing incredible statistics? Well actually completely by accident. I tried to record a program on my video on the television a few days ago and I hit the wrong button.

And what actually I recorded was someone called Donovan, a Donaview or something like that. He's an American equivalent to David Frost. He had in front of him the president of the Bald Man's Association of the United States.

He also had a surgeon who had gone through a hair transplant himself and it had been successful. Then they got to the grizzly bit in the program, where they actually showed how they take little bits of hair out of the back of your neck and plant them into the areas where absence is making the heart grow fonder. Well I was quite fascinated.

Not that I've got any problem at the moment but you never know. And then I thought of all the money, it costs in the States, I don't know what it is in Sterling, it costs in the States about $14,000 to get your hair back. I thought of all the money and of all the concern, then I thought of the arguments of the president of the Bald Man's Association who actually believes that baldness is a sign of virility and strength.

It makes you much more attractive than those of you who are well covered up top. All this concern, a 50 minute program highlighting what is troubling so many poor impoverished Americans. And I thought what does the Bible have to tell us in a much more serious fashion about fall out as far as our spiritual makeup is concerned, about deterioration.

Now the Bible does talk literally actually about the hair. It says that the hairs of our head are numbered, which means that for some of us heaven doesn't have to go in for as much counting as it does for others. It also tells us in the words of the old Bible, the authorized version, that the hoary head, I'm not too sure what hoary means, but the hoary head is something to be respected.

And one of the Old Testament prophets comes in quite heavy on grey hair. And he says grey hairs are here and there and he doesn't know it and actually is referring to Israel and spiritual deterioration. But the man who perhaps stands out paramountly in scripture as someone who illustrates it in the realm of hair loss and spiritual loss is Samson.

To be quite frank, he'd never have got on a Donovan, a Donovue program because it wasn't so much that he lost his hair, he'd been scalped. He was a skinhead but didn't volunteer for that style. Actually he was a man who at birth had been set apart by his mum and dad to work for the Lord God in a special way because the days in which he was born were critical in the land of Egypt, in the land of Israel.

They needed leaders. And he was going to be cut out to be a leader and there would be three or four characteristics of his life which taken together would help to delineate, would help to separate him from all the others. He wouldn't touch anything that was unclean.

He wouldn't take any intoxicating liquor. He'd never stupefy, dull his senses. He would never co-relate with a woman from a foreign country.

But we've got one word in the New Testament that boxes in all that Samson is illustrating ideally in the Old Testament and the word is consecration. If you're not too sure what that means then I'll give you a close runner as far as meaning is concerned next to consecration. Separation.

Being different. And in one sense that's what Jesus calls you and me who claim to be His disciples. He asks us to show that we're different from other people.

Not in a pharisaical sense but simply because we've surrendered the steering wheel of our lives to the Holy Spirit. We've asked Him to take complete and full control. And when that happens, then life as a Christian continues satisfactorily.

But once you claw back responsibility yourself, once you renege on your promise to make Jesus the captain of your salvation, the Lord of your life, then you start to spiral downwards. You do a Samson. What basically is happening is, understand me metaphorically, spiritually, your hair is being chopped off.

Because one of the things that stood for the inner strength that Samson had was the fact that no razor ever touched his head. He would stand out. With lion-like strength he would have a mane just like that animal.

Why is it that Samson becomes such an illustration of a man who loses spiritual stamina? I want to suggest you several things and fairly rapidly. You discover in this story which Jim read to us that the first mistake Samson made was this. He shared his life.

He shared his secrets with someone who passed on to others. Therefore he shared his secrets with those who actually had no sympathy with him nor with his God. There is a sense that when you become a Christian you become exclusive in certain relationships.

Jesus says, through the inspired apostle Paul, that we're not to be unequally yoked. That means to say that a Christian should not marry a non-Christian. There are certain things in our lives which if we share with non-Christians causes us to compromise upon our faith and we're not wholly at the control of the Holy Spirit.

Now Samson was a man who knew something of the Holy Spirit in his life. And yet he believed that somehow he could back off his initial commitment first taken by his parents and then made absolute as he himself as a mature young man entered into those vows. He thought in some ways he could compromise.

And so he started to share his secrets to this woman whom he married. By the name of Delilah. She was a Philistine.

That means she was a non-Jew. Samson was not keeping himself separated as God wanted him to. Now hear me.

I don't believe that because you're a Christian you should chop all friendships you've got with other non-Christians. That would be absurd. How on earth could you tell them about the gospel? But there are certain areas and you can use your own intelligence helped by the Holy Spirit to work these out where unless you back off a relationship then you will compromise upon it.

And that's precisely what Samson did. He shared with Delilah the fact that his hair was sort of a sacrament of that inner strength that God had given him. He was a man with mighty ability.

He could cut off the gates of a city wall when he'd been trapped in the city with the gates acting as security. He was so strong. He was able to turn a lion into a kid as far as comparative strength is concerned and pull it inside out.

He was able to set to flight a battalion of Philistine soldiers. But unfortunately his physical strength was not equaled by his spiritual stamina. And when the day came and he compromised and married the Philistine Delilah and she nagged and nagged and nagged him he told her the family secret that his strength really came about by the fact that he had long hair.

And the long hair was symbolic of the Holy Spirit residing within his heart and life. Which leads to the second point of our analysis of his downfall. Sharing was followed by shaving.

And in the text that I set out in the no I haven't set it out in the notes in you so let's just emphasize it from the from the reading in the 16th chapter of Judges. We read verse 19. Having Delilah put him to sleep on her lap she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair and so began to subdue him.

Have you ever thought that in one sense those of you who are Christian people you're always coming across the threatening razor in the hand of someone who's acting on the part of the devil. Here is Samson and he's asleep in the seductive embrace of his mistress. And with his senses dulled she gets someone to shave his hair.

Locke follows Locke until he is absolutely bereft of hair itself. And when he wakes up he discovers that the strength he once had is no longer there. Not simply because of the hair but what the hair symbolized his commitment to the Lord.

He didn't realize the scripture says that the Holy Spirit had gone from him. He's been bound with cords. Cords for Samson previously had just been like cotton threads.

He expanded his muscles and they broke. He now expands his muscles and discovers that there's no expansion. There's no tension.

There's no break whatsoever. His head has been shaved as he has shared his secrets and Samson finds himself in such a spiritually weak condition. And I tell you that there are many Delilers who will take young Christians and older Christians and seduce them and produce the razor and try to get you to compromise in this area and in the other area.

To go to places that you ought not to go to, to see things you ought not to see, to peruse things that you ought not to read. To compromise in many areas of your faith. At the beginning it doesn't seem very important if you've got seven locks of hair, what's one if it goes? But then the other goes and the next one and the next one until ultimately you've lost your credibility.

You claim to be a Christian, but in the arms of Deliler, your strength was shaved away as you commit yourself to a lifestyle and making decisions that you know full well the Lord Jesus Christ did not want you to make. Spiritual deterioration. The first step, sharing.

If my head was shaved, Deliler, I'd lose my strength. And with this information she gets people to do just that, to engage in the shaving process. She called a man to shave Samson's hair.

And then you discover the sharing and the shaving is followed by the shackling. His strength left him, verse 20. She called that the Philistines are upon you.

He awoke from his sleep and thought, I'll go out as before and shake myself free, but did not know that the Lord had left him. Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison.

It's terrible to see a man fall, or a woman fall. The Old Testament laments, how are the mighty fallen? What did I say, six million Americans? If my memory's got it right from that documentary or that dialogue that I witnessed being conducted on television a little while ago. What percentage do you think of Christian people in Worthing Tabernacle or down the centuries in the history of the church have known what it is to be shackled because spiritually they have lost the hair.

They have lost the fullness of the Holy Ghost. If you start to read the Old Testament scriptures, if you were to cite characters who perhaps might illustrate spiritual deterioration, it seems to me that with rare exceptions, you have to bring in the whole lot as befitting that particular criticism. Jacob knew a time of compromise when he lost his strength, his spiritual stamina.

What about David, the king, who compromised in the affair of Bathsheba which led to murder? What about Solomon? What about Peter, who said, Lord, in effect my locks are strong, I will never compromise upon you, but he discovered himself to be warming his hands by the fire in the high priest's courtyard in a place where he should never have been. And the net result was he saw the flash of the razor. You talk like a Galilean.

You must be one of his men. No, says Peter. And the lock falls.

I saw you with him. No, says Peter. As the razor again glints over against the flames of the fire.

And gradually, you see the process. He's shaven of his hair. He loses his self-respect.

You see, the condition that I'm addressing this evening is so commonly illustrated in the Old Testament and the New Testament that it makes me say that down the course of Christian history and in Worthing Tabernacle tonight, we have a number of people like Samson, who though they have committed their lives to Jesus Christ, who though they claim that he is Lord and Savior, have in some area had their spiritual lives reduced, if not to a state of meaninglessness, certainly to a state of abject weakness. But I really want to major in not so much on the negatives of Samson's experience, but rather on the positives. I show you the steps of his decline, the sharing, the shaving, the shackling.

There is one bit of light, however, isn't there, in that text. Because you read in the 22nd verse that the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved. I don't believe that it's possible to lose your salvation, but I do believe that it's possible for you to forfeit your effectiveness.

Samson was not a bald man. He was a man who had just let the Lord down. But one thing remains true about God, however much you let Him down, He does not let you down.

His love in times past forbids me to think He'd leave me at last in trouble to sink. He remains faithful, despite your unfaithfulness. The prophet Micah says this, Rejoice not, and he's speaking to the devil, Rejoice not, O my enemy, When I fall, I shall arise.

When I sit in darkness, The Lord shall be a light unto me. Now there's a man who knew what it was to be spiritually shaven, and yet he says when that happens, when through his own deliberate sinfulness, he finds himself and the rest of his nation in this condition, God will remain faithful and recover him. The Lord will take away my darkness and shine in His light, sharing, shaving, shackling, shining, but the hair on his head grew again.

If you'd looked at his scalp, you would have seen that the little follicles, or whatever they call the roots, or what the roots push up into the, from the depths of the scalp to the surface of the scalp, they are still healthy. Now here is this man, and he's been the saviour politically of Israel, but the Philistines have got him in their grip, or so it seems. They gouge out his eyes, and they strap that powerful body to the wheel of a mill, and gradually as he increases his strength, so he is able to perform this derisory act of a labourer.

Now one thing you ought to know about the devil, and the Philistines stand as an illustration of his power, as they were working against the plan of God in the lives of the Israelites, is that though he has knowledge, he does not have all knowledge. He can overreach himself. I sometimes wonder why it was that those Philistines didn't come to Samson day by day and shave his head.

But they got him where they wanted him. They had him with his eyes out of their sockets, they had him tied up to the mill, and he was just churning that mill, and as his hair started to grow, so his strength increased. Did they believe that's all to the good, because we're getting more work out of him? Here's a topic of derision.

People are coming to see Samson, and to laugh at Samson. What they did fail to appreciate was that God's hand was still upon Samson. Their hair was still beginning to grow.

I want to tell you that my address this evening is directed to anyone here who comes under the category of a prodigal. Whatever you may have done, however you may have compromised upon your faith, the fact is that your faith was given you by God Almighty. It comes about as a result of Jesus dying on the cross of Calvary for your sin.

The Holy Spirit, though grieved by you because he's a person, he can be offended, he can be blasphemed, still has his finger upon your life. And here my text almost leaps into its own and bursts out with joy as you discover that though Samson is in such a derisory condition as far as the Philistines are concerned, God is not through with him. His hair starts to grow.

He commences to pray. I was dealing with a man just a little while ago and he told me in this very sanctuary that despite all that he had done, he recognized the goodness of God. It's an amazing thing that you can't run away from this God, however much you may have let him down, when basically, essentially, you committed yourself to him and the cross work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So Samson's hair starts to grow again. It's not true to say that he assumes the position that he had before. Prodigality, sinfulness, unfaithfulness, it doesn't impair your effectiveness.

Samson's eyes are never made sighted once more. Samson never moves into a position of leadership in Israel again. But when his strength is restored, he is enabled by God in the last act of his life to set at naught the enemies of Israel.

I don't know, my friend, where it is that you have grieved the Holy Spirit. What area of your life has caused him to be hurt? But this I argue in the name of the Lord Jesus who loved you so much he bled and died to save you that there are still incredible possibilities that open out for you provided you'll come back. I will arise, said the prodigal, and go back to my father.

And he discovers that father is waiting. I will go back to my first love, says Hosea's promiscuous wife, Doma. And he discovers that Hosea has his arms wide open to receive her.

And Hosea illustrates the attitude of God as far as prodigals are concerned. There is an empowerment of God's Spirit that he longs to pour out, are you listening to me, on your life to give you the strength that once you had or even to advance upon the strength to which you attained so that you can again know your hair growing receiving the abilities to come against all the forces of evil and to make an impact with your life on this world. Samson's hair grew again.

Peter's hair grew again. The hair of many a person in this tab has grown afresh as they came back to the Lord and in prayer besought him for forgiveness and for reconciliation. Let's bow our heads together.

The only hope for all of us who are Christian people is the renewal of God's Spirit in our hearts and lives. For those of us who don't know the Savior our only hope is to confess Him as Lord. I want you to do that right now.

Into my heart, into my heart, come into my heart, Lord Jesus. Come into day, take sin away. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.

Will you ask Him to do that right now? And those who've done a Samson there's a way back to God from the dark paths of sin. There's a door that is open and you can go in. At Calvary's Cross it's where you begin when you come as a sinner to Jesus.

A way in, a way back. Spiritual recovery, a solution for Christians in a state of declension. Let's stand and sing, Spirit of the Living God fall afresh on me.

Listen to that song being played. The Spirit went from Samson but then He knew His return. So can you as you reach out for Him right now and ask Him to overwhelm you with His power to renew your vows of consecration and to work effectively in His kingdom.