We break tradition—no song this morning.
All right. Let’s turn to Galatians, Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia. There’s one verse we’d like to look at there. That’ll be our theme verse for our time together.
Galatians 5:7. Paul writes:
You were running well;
who hindered you from obeying the truth?
Let’s have another word of prayer.
Lord, we have been so struck by Your kindness this morning—Your marvelous, wonderful kindness. We all were grasping for words, in many ways, to describe it.
When we think about Your kindness, Lord, we’re thankful that You didn’t leave us alone, but You sent the Holy Spirit, Lord, to continue to teach us and to show us more of Yourself. We’re thankful that, in Your kindness, You have given us this written Word, Lord.
So we look to the precious Holy Spirit to breathe upon this Word, that there would be words of life. And Lord, that the words shared with our hearts, as we present them to You, would be united with faith; that we could be those who really obey You, Lord, and continue following You in these days.
Lord, we’ve heard much recently about the days that we’re living in. We just look around, and we see the crisis of every day. Lord, we want to be those who have ears to hear what You’re saying every day. We need to be strong and equipped in You.
Lord, we don’t want to be those who are hindered from really following You, following the Lamb wherever He goes. So today, as we’re in Your presence, Lord, we offer ourselves to You afresh, that You would speak to us.
Lord, defend this time. We’re thankful that You’re Lord over the time, and that You would keep out anything that would distract or compete for Your attention. In Thy name we pray. Amen.
I was thinking of this verse after the conference: “You were running well; who hindered you?” In the sense that so often, when we go to a conference, we come out of the conference and we’re ready to go. We feel that there’s a new strength, there’s a new reviving, there’s a going on in the Lord.
But then, sooner or later, we find that that starts tapering off. We find that the zeal that we had has kind of faded away. We don’t quite have the zeal and the zest for the Lord and all that He has for us. We find ourselves, as it says in this verse, kind of being hindered.
When we think about the conference, we’re very thankful for how the Lord spoke to us on preparing the way of the Lord. We have a desire that, within our hearts, we could continue in that spirit—that every day, as we’re living, we would allow Him to prepare us. As He prepares us, it is preparing the way for Him to come. That is our great cry and our great prayer.
Even if we didn’t come to the conference, we can relate to this verse. So often in our lives, as I’ve said, we’ll have those times where the Lord really captures us and we’re going on, and then we fade off again.
Brothers and sisters, I was thinking about this as it applies to every one of us in our Christian life at the very beginning. When we were born again, we were born again with a solid foundation. Every one of us had a good beginning.
Praise God, within the body of Christ there are no partial births. Within the body of Christ, there are not even deformed births. When we’re born again, we’re born complete. We’re born full and anew. We’ve got a solid and sure foundation.
Everything that had hindered us in the path has been settled. Now, it’s true, experientially it might take us a little while to enter into all the reality of that. But in spiritual reality, everything has been settled. We have a good beginning, and we can start running well.
But then we find that there are some hindrances there. Who has hindered us?
I love how it says in this verse, because so often, if we go over it quickly, we can say, “What hindered you?” But this says, “Who hindered you?”
In the Wuest translation, it says:
You were running well; who cut in on you and hindered you from obeying the truth?
The picture here is of a runner in a race. He’s in his stride, and he’s running well, and someone cuts in on him. He finds himself out of step, and he’s not running like he used to.
Now, John’s got a message on that, so I’m not going to elaborate too much. But that’s just a picture of the runner getting cut off. How often someone can hinder us and knock us out of stride.
So often, as we’re driving down the freeway, we can be in a good place. But then somebody cuts in on us, and all of a sudden something comes out of our mouth, and we’re in a different spirit. We’re not running well like we were. Something has hindered us.
We find that there are these things in life—the “who’s” and the “what’s”—that hinder us.
As I was thinking about this in application to our lives, I was thinking of going back to the Old Testament and looking at two individuals. They both had a good beginning. They both had a solid beginning. But as we look at their lives, one continues to follow the Lord fully, while one kind of goes his own way.
We want to look at a contrast between the life of Samuel and the life of Samson. We’re only going to touch a few points from their lives, but we want to see: what can we learn as we look upon these lives that will help us continue running well in the race that we have?
Now, if you know I’m talking about Samson and I say Samuel, y’all just figure that out in your minds. It’s pretty tough keeping Samuel and Samson separate. I’m going to try, but trust the Spirit: if I say it wrong, y’all hear it right.
Today we’re going to talk about Samson. Next week is going to be Samuel.
But really, if you stop and look back at their lives, they both had an excellent beginning. Look back in Judges 13. This is where we pick up in the life of Samson.
Now, if you remember, within both of their lives—both Samson and Samuel—their mothers were barren. They did not have children at all. Who intervened and promised them both a child? It was God’s intervention.
God intervened in Hannah’s life, which we’ll look at next week, to bring forth the birth of Samuel. God intervened here in Judges 13, in Manoah’s wife, to bring forth Samson.
Let’s look at Judges 13:1-5. It describes the times here and everything.
Now the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord;
so the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines forty years.
There was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah;
and his wife was barren and had borne no children.
Then the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her,
“Behold now, you are barren and have borne no children,
but you shall conceive and give birth to a son.
Now therefore be careful not to drink wine or strong drink,
nor eat any unclean thing.
For behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son,
and no razor shall come upon his head,
for the boy shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb;
and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”
So we can see with Samuel’s and Samson’s births how God intervened in a marvelous way. It was God’s intervention; it was His great grace that brought forth the birth of both Samuel and Samson.
They started off in a similar way: good births. They also had a good home environment. They had parents who loved the Lord—or at least mothers who loved the Lord.
Again, we’re a little more familiar with Hannah. We know how much she loved the Lord. Next week we’ll look at her song, how she burst forth with a heart of worship and adoration to the Lord, because it is a reflection of how much she knew the Lord.
We can see, too, within these verses in Judges, how much Manoah’s wife loved the Lord. Now, that’s a trivia question. Everybody knows the trivia question, right? What was Samson’s mother’s name?
It’s Manoah’s wife. That’s okay. Samson’s mother is never named. She is always Manoah’s wife or his mother.
But if you look, you see a glimpse in this chapter of the relationship she had with the Lord. After the angel visits her and tells her she’s going to have this child, she goes and tells her husband.
Her husband says, “Wow, let’s ask the angel again. How should we raise this child?” The angel appears again to them, and He speaks to her.
They offer a burnt offering to the Lord, and they ask the angel, “What is Your name?” He says, “You don’t need to know My name. My name is wonderful.” It reminds you of Isaiah, doesn’t it? His name is Wonderful.
The angel does many marvelous things in the presence of Manoah and his wife. After the angel leaves, Manoah says to his wife—if we look down in Judges 13:22:
We shall surely die, for we have seen God.
That shows you how much he knew. But look at the spiritual response of the wife in Judges 13:23:
If the Lord had desired to kill us,
He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands,
nor would He have shown us all these things,
nor would He have let us hear things like this at this time.
You see in here a woman who had a relationship with the Lord. She knew the Lord’s heart. She knew how the Lord responds, and how the Lord, in His mercy and kindness, would not have allowed them to see all this if it really were not something upon His heart.
Then Judges 13:24 says that the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson; and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him. The Spirit of the Lord began to stir in him at Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
So again, both Samson and Samuel had mothers—parents—who loved the Lord. There was a good environment for them.
As we’re looking at Samuel and Samson, we can see that both of them had the call of God upon their lives. It was God who put a specific call upon their lives.
We read back in Judges 13:5 how Samson was going to begin to deliver Israel from the Philistines. That was the call of God upon his life. We know, as we look over at Samuel, how he was used in that wonderful way to bring the transition from the judges to the kings, and to usher in King David.
Again, we see the similarities within their lives. We also see that, in the sense of their good beginning, they were both Nazarites.
The Lord told Manoah’s wife that her son would be a Nazarite. We also know that Samuel, by Hannah’s prayer, was committed to the Lord as a Nazarite. Their lives were going to be given to the Lord.
We’re not going to get off a lot on what all the Nazarite requirements are, but if you want to look at it in more detail, it is in Numbers 6:1-8.
One of the first things about being a Nazarite was that it was completely voluntary. It was open to any man or woman who wanted to serve the Lord and be dedicated to the Lord, who was not within the priestly family.
They could offer themselves: “Lord, I want to be a servant unto You.” Even in the Old Testament, where we know that through the priesthood they were the only ones who could really serve, God made a provision for everyone among the children of Israel to serve the Lord through the Nazarite vow.
There were three conditions set forth.
In Numbers 6:3-4, it says that you cannot taste anything from the grapevine. Don’t eat or drink grapes, anything from the wine, any wine—anything from the vine. Don’t touch it.
Why is that? In a simple way, the wine in the Old Testament speaks of the joy of life, the joy of the world, the joy of man. These were set apart because they were a testimony that the Lord was their true joy.
There was no joy to be found in this world for them. They were not going to have any joys other than the Lord. Where others could go to the world and find joy, they were saying, “The Lord is my joy. We’re separated unto Him.”
How the Lord is calling us in this day to be separated unto Him and find Him as all of our joy.
In Numbers 6:5, it says you are not supposed to shave your head while you are under this vow. In the Old Testament, that was a sign of humiliation, a sign of being a servant under a master.
You were there with long hair as a testimony that the Lord was your Master. As people looked around, they did not see an earthly master, but you were testifying: “The Lord is my Master. I’m a servant of the Most High God.”
Finally, in Numbers 6:6-7, it says you are not to touch anything dead. You are to keep away from death.
We know that sin is death. You are to keep away from the world, the sin, and the flesh. You are to be a person of life. We touch life.
There is this call to really follow life. As the things of the world, sin, and flesh entice, we say no to all of that because it is not profitable, it is not edifying, and it just ends up enslaving us.
As we look at the Nazarite, we see one set apart with a life to be lived for the Lord. Both Samson and Samuel were Nazarites, set apart for the Lord and for His glory.
To us, this is simply a picture of consecration—a picture of being a living sacrifice, living for the Lord and nothing else, with Him being our all in all.
This is what the Lord is calling each and every one of us to. We’ve heard at the conference, and we’ve heard many times, how He desires that we would be consumed by Him, that the love of Christ would capture us.
This morning, we remembered the kindness of the Lord. That kindness of the Lord captures us. We would put aside the things of the world. We would put aside our own selfish, fleshly desires. We would put aside the other things in which we are finding joy and satisfaction, and find Him as our all in all.
This is the life of a Nazarite, and this is the life of a living sacrifice.
As you look at Samson and Samuel, both of them had a good beginning. Both had a solid foundation. They were both full of promise. They had many blessings in their lives. What a life they had to start with. They were blessed. They were without excuse.
But then there came a point in time where each one of them had to make a decision. They had a good beginning. They were running well.
As we saw in Judges 13:24, it says the child grew and the Lord blessed him; the Spirit of the Lord was with him. Samson was running well. He had that good beginning. He had a sure and solid foundation.
But then there came a point in life where he had to make a decision. This point in Samson’s life is in Judges 14.
As he became of age, we see him starting to go out and venture out on his own. Judges 14:1 says:
Then Samson went down to Timnah and saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines.
I love how the Holy Spirit puts words in here, because it says he went down. Some say, “He goes down.” It is a picture of him leaving that place of spiritual ascendancy and going down to the world.
He is leaving the land—all the privilege and blessing of the land of his inheritance, the land of promise, where every provision is there in Christ. He is leaving the land and going down, leaving that place of ascendancy that he had.
We were reminded at the conference how the Lord has provided everything for us. If Samson would simply have abided in the land, he would not have gotten into all the trouble. But he chose to go down to the Philistines, going down to the world.
What did he get caught by? It says he saw a woman. Oh, the eyes—the lust of the eyes. He started seeing things, and he testifies later, “She looks good to me.”
Who was he thinking of? He was thinking of himself—his own self-interest, his self-desires, his self-satisfaction. He says, “Oh, I want to go where I want to go, and I want what I want. When I see something I want, I want immediate satisfaction.”
“I, I, I.” Those selfish desires led him away from the blessing of the good start, the run that he had in his life. He finds himself starting to be hindered here.
We know the story of how he sees this woman. He tells his parents, “I want her as my wife.” His parents try to argue with him, but he persists, and they go down to Timnah.
Now, his parents go on ahead into Timnah, but Samson makes a little detour. Where does he go? He goes into the vineyard.
A Nazarite is not supposed to be in the vineyard. He is not supposed to touch anything from the vine; he is not supposed to be in the vineyard. But again, he makes a choice.
He goes into the vineyard, and we know the story of the lion that comes out. Then the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him, and he tears that lion apart.
The question I have is: who sent the lion?
To me, the lion that he encountered is a great demonstration of the love of God—how much the Lord loved Samson. He knew he was in a place where he should not be, and in His great love and mercy, He sent this lion as a wake-up call: “What are you doing here? This is a dangerous spot.”
Praise God, in the mercy of God, the anointing comes upon him. He tears the lion apart, and he leaves. But the tragic thing—and we see this over and over within Samson’s life—is that he did not learn the lesson.
He doesn’t learn. Brothers and sisters, we can relate to times when we find ourselves in situations where we are not supposed to be, and God in His great mercy delivers us from it.
I’m thankful in my life for how He has delivered me from times. But do we learn from it? Did Samson learn, “Wait, I’m not supposed to be in that vineyard. I’m not supposed to be out in this world. I’m supposed to be back with my own kinfolk there in the tribe of Dan. I’m not supposed to be mingling with the Philistines, mingling with the world”?
But no, he does not learn anything. He just continues on in his own self-way that is leading him home.
Even after he goes and sees his parents, as he starts back home, he sees that lion again. He is back by that vineyard because the lion’s carcass is there. He reaches into that carcass and pulls out the honey.
Now, that Nazarite was not supposed to be touching anything dead.
Does he know that it is not right? He knows it is not right, because within these first verses of Judges 14, twice it says Samson did not tell his parents.
What don’t you tell your parents? If you have done something you were supposed to do—something of wonderful faithfulness to the Lord, serving the Lord, serving the brethren—you have a way of going home and saying, “Hey, look what I did for so-and-so.”
But if you have done something you were not supposed to do, somehow that slips our mind, and we do not tell our parents that part. But the Lord knows.
It shows, by the very choice he made not to tell his parents, that he knew what he was doing. He knew that he should not have been doing that, and yet he continued down this path, breaking this vow.
It is tragic within Samson’s life that when he became of age, he had a choice set before him: to continue in this Nazarite vow or to continue along his own selfish ways. He chose self.
He chose his own self-interest and selfish desires, and he did not choose the way of the Lord. He chose to follow his youthful lusts. He chose to neglect his great heritage from his parents—all the blessing, environment, and teaching that he had received.
There is no evidence after this that Samson ever, on his own, entered into this Nazarite vow. His mother had been very faithful in it, but he did not enter into the fullness of this vow.
It is tragic how he had such a beginning, but then he ended up not running well.
So the question is: who hindered Samson? Who hindered Samson? Samson hindered Samson.
There is no mention of the enemy here. It is self. We are our own worst enemy.
So often, when we ask, “You were running well; who hindered you?” we are the ones who hinder ourselves by our own selfish interests and our own selfish desires. Because of that, we end up hindered and do not enter into the fullness of all that the Lord has for us. We come short.
We see within Samson how he was so controlled by self that he would often get himself into situations, and God in His mercy would deliver him. But he never fully entered in to become the man of God that God desired him to be.
I believe this is why the Lord said to Samson at the beginning, “He shall begin to deliver the people of Israel.” The Lord knew he really was not going to finish it. He just began. He began, but he did not finish.
Praise God, as we look at Samuel next week, we see one finishing, continuing to run well in all that he does. But it is tragic within Samson’s life how he goes through these lessons and does not learn anything about life.
Are we ones who learn? As we go through various experiences of life, do we learn?
As we see that we are living in these end days, to me, one of the great characteristics needed in these end days is that we have a teachable heart.
Samson was not teachable. He did not learn. Proverbs describes one who does not learn, or one who is not teachable, as a fool.
In Proverbs, there are two people often described: a wise man and a fool. One of the characteristics of that fool is that he never learns.
Tragically, within Samson’s life, as you look at it over and over again through the many lessons, he did not learn.
He went on and married this Philistine woman. We know how he presents the riddle during the seven days of the wedding ceremony. They cannot figure it out, so they go to his wife and say, “You’ve got to find out from him what the answer is.”
So she pesters him and pesters him and pesters him—like none of our wives here. But she pesters and pesters and pesters, and finally he gives in. He tells her the story of when he got the honey out of the lion.
Then they go back and tell him the answer. He says, “You would never have found out that answer if you had not persuaded my wife to tell you.”
They had a wager over the riddle, so he goes and brings them their thirty garments of clothing. But he leaves them and gets out of there.
Then, in Judges 15, Samson has gone back home, and the woman’s father has given her to another man. Samson goes back and says, “Hey, I want my wife now.” The father says, “Sorry, I gave her to another man.”
How does Samson react? He has not learned. He gets revengeful. He catches all those foxes, sets their tails on fire, and sets all their fields on fire, causing all this destruction.
That is self-revenge. When self has been turned on, it is going to get even. He is going to get his own revenge. It is self-satisfaction.
Then his own countrymen come to him and say, “Don’t you realize what you’ve done against all these Philistines?” They end up turning him over to the Philistines, but he breaks free.
Even in the Lord’s mercy of breaking him free and saving him, he does not learn. He just continues, because the first part of Judges 16 is that Samson is back down in Gaza, back with the Philistines. He has another harlot that he likes, so he goes down there and spends the night there.
All of a sudden, he is surrounded, but he escapes again. He keeps repeating these incidents over and over again.
One of the things we see within Samson is that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he would break free. But he misused that. He used it even for his own selfish interests.
Brothers and sisters, it is a picture to us of how each and every one of us has received gifts from God. We have not only received His life, but He has given us gifts. He has equipped and blessed each and every one of us with many precious gifts.
Are we using those for ourselves, or are we using them for Him?
Samson never demonstrates a spirit of worship or thanksgiving for how the Lord kept him or delivered him. He just continued to use the help of the Spirit of the Lord for his own selfish interest.
Are we using the things the Lord has blessed us with just for our own selfish interest, or are we using them for His glory and honor?
The Lord, in His mercy and kindness, allows us to go through these things to wake us up. Samson had many wake-up calls. The problem was, he just never woke up. He never really came to that place of fully surrendering to the Lord during his life.
This matter of being teachable has been on my heart lately. Particularly in these days, we can go through an experience, but do we really learn from it? Are we really learning something of the Lord from the particular situation that we were in?
As we continue in Judges 16 with Samson, we come to this tragic story of Delilah. We are familiar, in general, with the story of Delilah.
Again, this woman is a Philistine, and Samson says he is in love with her. He goes to Delilah, and the Philistines come to Delilah and say, “Delilah, we’re going to make you super rich—mega rich.”
The amount of money they offer her—eleven hundred pieces of silver, multiplied by the five Philistine lords—was five thousand five hundred pieces of silver. That is a lot of silver.
They bribe her and entice her to find out where Samson’s strength comes from.
She goes to him one evening and says, “Oh, Samson, I love you so much. You’re my beloved. Samson, I love you so much. Just tell me one thing: where does your strength come from?”
He knows he should not tell, so he makes up a story. She quickly does what he says and ties him up with different cords. Then she says, “The Philistines are upon you!” He wakes up as though the cords are not even on his hands.
Then she says, “Oh, you don’t love me. You’re tricking me.” So he does it again. This goes on about three times, and he never tells her.
But let’s pick it up in Judges 16:15. You talk about somebody not learning, not waking up to the situation. As she accuses him of not loving her, it never dawns on him: “Wait a minute. She doesn’t really love me. She is just trying to use me.”
Isn’t that the way the world treats us? The world says it loves you. The world will tell you it loves you for anything, but as soon as it gets what it wants, it writes you off and throws you away.
Judges 16:15-17 says:
Then she said to him,
“How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me?
You have deceived me these three times
and have not told me where your great strength is.”It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him,
that his soul was vexed to death.
So he told her all that was in his heart and said to her,
“A razor has never come on my head,
for I have been a Nazarite to God from my mother’s womb.
If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me,
and I shall become weak and be like any other man.”
That persistent wearing down—that is the pressure of the world. The world will consistently pressure us. It is not going to stop. We say no one time, and it is going to come back again. We say no again, and it is going to come back.
This is what Samson found himself in: persistent pressure. Finally, he yields.
After he has told her the truth, she ties him up, and they come in and capture him. They put his eyes out.
It cost him his strength. It cost him his eyes. It cost him his freedom. What a thousand Philistines could not do with their swords, one woman could do with her deceit.
That is the subtlety of the world—what it can do. Sisters, I’m using that as the world. Don’t anybody get upset. The woman is the world. I’ll get stoned before I leave here if I don’t clarify that.
But that is the way the world treats us.
It is strange how we as Christians act sometimes. Obviously, at the conference, people were asked to serve in different ways, and there are a lot of opportunities even in the assembly here. People serve in many different ways.
Maybe someone is asked to serve: “Would you do this? Would you consider this? Would you consider praying about opening the Lord’s table? Would you consider maybe taking someone a meal?”
It is strange how immediately, when we are asked to serve, we say, “Oh, I can’t do that. I can’t. I’m not—I can’t do that. I’m just so—I don’t have the gifting. It’s not me. I can’t do that. No, no, no, no, no. Can’t do that. Somebody else will do it.”
But if there is something going on in the world that we want to do—maybe there is a movie we want to see, and maybe that movie puts down our Lord and uses His name in vain a hundred times; or maybe there is an event, a new fashion, or a new trend we want to get involved in—all of a sudden we become real strong.
“I am a strong Christian. I can go out to the world, and it’s not going to bother me. I can sit through that movie, and even though they’re blaspheming the name of my Lord, it’s not going to bother me a bit.”
“I can go into the midst of this event, and everybody is in a drunken stupor, but it’s not going to bother me because I’m a strong Christian.”
It is amazing, the paradox of our lives—the strangeness of how, when the Lord wants us to serve Him, we are weak. But if there is something we want to do, something we want to go out into the world and do, we say, “I’m strong. It’s not going to affect me.”
“I can buy that. It won’t have any effect on me. I can do this. It won’t affect me. I am a strong Christian.”
Oh, would the Lord wake us up to our folly? It actually shows how weak we are. We think we stand, and we are going to fall. Would the Lord awaken us?
This was what entrapped Samson. He got entrapped in this, and it continued in a downward spiral.
Samson’s life up to this point can all be summed up in 1 John 2:15-17:
Do not love the world nor the things in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eyes,
and the boastful pride of life,
is not from the Father, but is from the world.
The world is passing away, and also its lusts;
but the one who does the will of God abides forever.
The one who continues running in an unhindered way, obeying the truth, abides forever.
Samson’s life can be summarized up to this point by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—self, that love of self.
We see him brought to this point of destruction, brought to this point of despair, and see what it has gotten him.
I am so thankful, though, that the story does not end here. Praise God, it does not end here.
As we look at the last part of Judges 16, we can see how Samson finally comes to his senses and repents of his sin.
He is taken captive by the Philistines, and they put his eyes out. Then they are having this big ceremony to worship their god, Dagon. There are thousands of people in this building, worshiping this god and having a wonderful feast.
They say, “Bring Samson out so we can have sport with him. We can make fun of him. We can see this one who thought he was so great.”
But Samson finally comes to his senses. We see his prayer in Judges 16:28:
Then Samson called to the Lord and said,
“O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me just this time, O God,
that I may at once be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.”
We know the story of how he grasped those two pillars and pushed them. Thousands were killed, and more were killed in his death than during his life.
Praise God, he came to his senses. One of the things that has always touched me about this is the nearness of God. As soon as Samson cries out to the Lord, regardless of his past history, God is right there to answer him.
When Samson came to that place of repentance, my translation says, “Lord, please remember me.” I looked that word up in the Hebrew, and one of the secondary meanings there is the spirit of confession.
I have always wondered: was this really repentance? Or what is this? But it speaks of confessing. In this confessing, in coming to this place of repentance, we see how near God is to him.
God did not say, “Well, Samson, you’ve got to straighten your life out a little more. You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to do that.” As soon as he humbled himself before the Lord, as soon as he cried out to the Lord, God came in and answered him.
Oh, brothers and sisters, what an encouragement that is to us. How often, when we find ourselves in these messes that we have created in our lives, the enemy lies to us and says, “God will never listen to you now. You’ve wrecked your life so much, God will never listen to you.”
“You talk about being hindered in your running—you’re not even in the race anymore. You’re so far off.”
But praise God, as soon as Samson cried out to the Lord, the Lord answered him. He continued—we could say he continued running. He was back in that race. We’re thankful for that.
We see in this how Samson loved not his life unto death. This is really what he should have been doing his whole life. He should have been saying no to self and yes to the Lord.
But in the end, he does come through. He loves not his life unto death.
It is tragic within his life that he never fully became the man of God that he could have been. He was cut short by his self-life, self-love, love of the world, and not learning.
Brothers and sisters, we can never be the men and women of God that He fully wants us to be until we are fully surrendered to Him—until we are in that place of being a living sacrifice.
But praise God, it is so wonderful that if we find ourselves in a place right now where we are hindered, if we find that we have been our own great hindrance and we are not going on, praise God, we can come and repent.
We can cry out to the Lord. He will meet us. We can give ourselves to Him in that fresh spirit of consecration and keep right on going.
It is how you finish the race.
It is wonderful how Samson finishes this race in a wonderful way. Even though his life was not what it should have been, in the end he cried out to the Lord. The Lord was his strength. The Lord was his portion. The Lord delivered him.
There were consequences, obviously, because he died. But because of this, Samson is mentioned in Hebrews 11.
It is interesting: in Hebrews 11, both Samuel and Samson are mentioned in the same verse as heroes of the faith. He had that faith, but he did not fully use it. He came short during his life. But praise God, he ended up in that right place.
There is always that time; there is the opportunity. Would we not have to wait until the very end of life? When we find ourselves in those situations, may we immediately come back to Him.
We began by trying to put this in the perspective of following up on the conference, of when we are running well. We have heard things at the conference that stirred our hearts, and we are wanting to press on.
This thought of preparing the way of the Lord, and knowing the days we are living in—we do not want to continue the way we normally have been. We do not just want to go on, que será, será. We want the Lord, in a fresh way, to be touching us.
Praise God, if we can stay in that place of first love, He will continue to add to us more and more life within us. But if we do find ourselves hindered, there is a way back, brothers and sisters.
As we said, that word hindered means to cut off. If somebody cuts in on you when you are running in a race, it is almost virtually impossible to regain your stride and get back in the race.
But praise God, in this race that we are in, there is a way back. We can get right back in stride. As we return to the Lord, as we repent, as we get right with Him, we are right back in stride, and we can keep going on.
That is what the Lord is calling us to in this hour. We will all find ourselves hindered, but would we turn back to Him in a very fresh way?
One final question I wanted to ask about Samson, especially as we think about Samuel next week: if Samson and Samuel walked in this room, do you think you would be able to tell them apart?
Most people, because of Hollywood, would say, “Well, sure. Samson’s the guy who looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s the big, strong guy, and this little wimp is Samuel,” or something.
I guess nowadays you should get a different example than Arnold Schwarzenegger. That’s not a good one. Some muscle-bound guy out there.
But actually, I am not sure we could tell the difference.
Remember what the Philistines wanted from Delilah? They wanted to know: “What is the secret of his strength?”
The Philistines had giants. A few books later, we start seeing Goliath. If you look at a bodybuilder, you do not have to ask, “I wonder where his strength comes from?”
But I think Samson, in many ways, may have looked just like an average Joe. Then, when the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, he was able to do something that was not of himself. People said, “Wow, where did that strength come from?”
If he had all this natural strength and natural ability, there would have been no question. They would not have had to ask where his strength came from. You could see it.
So I think it is a testimony that the Lord was actually his strength. Even Samson himself says, “If you cut my hair, I’ll just be like anybody else.”
When God left him—when he woke up and they had cut his hair, and it says the Lord had left him—it was not as though his body changed. He did not wake up in a different body. He did not wake up and say, “Gee, my arms are so small now,” or, “What happened?”
He thought he was the same. He had the same outward, physical appearance. I think it is the testimony of how the Lord was his strength.
Brothers and sisters, this is a great lesson for us. In the days we are living in, we have seen all the crises. We have seen the earthquakes, the tornadoes, and everything. We hear of tragedy and the loss of loved ones.
How do we as believers react during these times?
Praise God for the testimonies you hear of two similar people going through a similar situation. You look at one who is totally distraught and beside himself, while another is sitting there in a place of peace.
They say, “How are you in that place of peace? Where does your strength come from?”
That is the testimony of a Christian. That is the testimony of a believer during a time of crisis.
People see situations at school, situations at work, and situations at home where one acts so differently. Praise God for the one who allows the Lord to be their strength.
They have said no to self and yes to Him. The Lord is their strength, and the Lord keeps them.
How we would be that testimony, allowing the Lord to be our strength—not relying upon our own selves, not even trying to rely upon the things of the world to find our satisfaction, but having all our springs of joy in Him.
When we think also of Samson in the book of Judges, and think of it in the days we are living in, the book of Judges is characterized by the last verse in the book:
There was no king in Israel;
everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Tragically, within Samson’s life, quite often he did what was right in his own eyes.
Isn’t this a picture of the church today? Isn’t this a picture of us today?
I often think, and we have had discussions with others about it: are we living in the time of Laodicea, or are we living in the time of Judges, where everybody is doing what is right in their own eyes? Maybe we are living in both. They are both describing us.
We can all go along, and we are all going to do what is right in our own eyes. “This is what I want to do, and I’m going this way.”
One of the wonderful things about living in a time of Judges—if you can call it a wonderful thing—is this leave-me-alone mentality. “I’m going to leave you alone, and you can do what is right in your eyes. You’re going to leave me alone, and I can do what is right in my eyes.”
Then we will all just go along together and be so happy because we are each doing what is right in our own eyes, and nobody is bugging me. Nobody is bothering me.
How we see this so much within Christianity today. Do we see it in our own lives today?
As the Lord is calling out for a people to return to Him, to prepare the way of the Lord, how can He do that if each one of us is doing what is right in our own eyes?
Would we be willing to say no to our own eyes, no to our own heart, and yes to Him? Would we follow Him in the way that He is leading us into the fullness of what He wants?
As we follow Him, and as we allow Him to lead us into that fuller expression, we will not have the hindrances, but there will be the hastening of the coming of the Lord.
So let’s pray.
Lord, when we come back to that question of who hindered us, how quickly we find out that we are our own greatest hindrance.
But Lord, we are thankful that it is not hopeless. We are thankful that even as we partook of this table this morning, Lord, You have made an abundant provision.
You have made the way for us to say no to ourselves. You have made a way for us to be separated from this world. You have made a way to deal with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
We are thankful for the complete and full provision we have in Christ Jesus. We want to be those, in a fresh way, who are allowing that full provision and that living Word to be working within us, that we could be those who are truly pressing on in this hour, Lord.
Lord, we are thankful that it is still called today, that we have time. Lord, that day is approaching. We want to redeem every opportunity we have, Lord, to really be about our Master’s business, to follow You, Lord, and allow You to lead us into a fuller and greater expression of Yourself, both individually and together as that corporate testimony unto You.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.