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Peggy Joyce Ruth, aka "the Psalm 91 Lady" is author of a variety of Psalm 91 book titles with over six million copies in print. She taught a weekly Adult Bible Study for more than 35 years in her church in Central Texas as she shared how to make God’s Word your final authority. Known for her easy-to-understand style of communicating the Word of God and warm storytelling, Peggy Joyce's heart is that her books and teachings will bring you into the same freedom from fear she experienced and help you put God's Word to work in your life.
Okay. Now this is our second teaching in the Anointing Series, and I'm gonna use an Old Testament story of Samson now to illustrate this second lesson, and I call this lesson now Samson and the Wasted Anointing. Now I think you're gonna find it really helpful because Samson now is one of the best examples in the Old Testament of how a man can carry a tremendous anointing of God and yet waste it and never totally fulfill his intended potential. Now, as an example to us, we're gonna look now at some of the ways in which Sampson abused and misused his anointing. And my objective now of this bible study is for us to see the value of our anointing.
Speaker 1:When God gives us an anointing, we need to value it and determine not to waste it. So in Judges thirteen:one-five, the life of Samson is a very colorful story. The sons of Israel did evil in the sight of God and they had been given into the hands of the Philistines. And a man named Manoah and his wife had no children. Then an angel came and told her, you have been barren, but you shall bear a child.
Speaker 1:And he shall not drink any wine or strong drink nor eat any unclean thing, and no razor shall ever come upon his head. He will be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he will begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines. Now the life of Samson is a very colorful story, and Samson was a Nazarite from his birth. And so in Numbers chapter six, we can see what a Nazarite is. Now later, I want you to read the entire chapter, but I'm only gonna give you five verses to begin with today.
Speaker 1:In Judges six one through five, earlier we find that Israel had done evil in the sight of the Lord. So God gave them into the hands of Midian for seven years. Now Israel was hiding in the mountains. They found caves to hide in. They they found dens.
Speaker 1:They were hiding all over the mountains because they were so afraid of these Philistines. And the Midianites would come against Israel and they would destroy all of their produce. They would leave no food for Israel. They would leave no sheep, no oxen, no donkeys. And the Midianites then would come in like locusts.
Speaker 1:I don't know whether you've ever had a summer maybe when the locusts got bad. But sometimes there'll be a summer and they're several inches deep. You have to move them aside to be able to even walk. And so they said the Midianites came in like a thing of locusts. So that's a lot of Midianites coming in.
Speaker 1:And they had innumerable camels and they devastated the land. Now Samson was a Nazarite from his birth. Now they would take a vow of separation in order to dedicate themselves to the Lord, and this could be a temporary vow or it could be a total vow. And I only know three. That's all I found in the word who were Nazirites from the womb throughout their lifetime.
Speaker 1:And that was Samson, of course, and then Samuel, and then John the Baptist. But many would take this vow temporarily for a special purpose, and they would place a self imposed abstinence now on their life in order to place themselves under god's authority. So they would go to a lot of trouble to be able to be used usually for a short period of time. Now these three gave their life to the lord full time. They couldn't drink any wine or strong drink.
Speaker 1:They couldn't ever let their hair be cut. It was an outward sign that they had made an inward commitment. They were not expected to withdraw from society. They lived among the people, but they were expected to be different. And so Amos two eleven and twelve gave a very strong warning against people who tried to lure a Nazirite into breaking their vow.
Speaker 1:When they made this vow, God was very pleased, and if someone tried to get them to break it, he was very angry over that. Now a Nazirite was a type and shadow of someone who was being set apart spiritually to do something for God, someone different from the world who usually had a self imposed obedience to God. Now Samson was a Nazirite, but he was even different from the other Nazirites in that he had strength that no one could even imagine. In fact, I don't know any other character in the Old Testament or the New Testament that had strength like Samson. It it was amazing.
Speaker 1:We don't really know why he was born with that kind of strength. But just as Satan is after our anointing to keep it from playing havoc in his kingdom, In the same way, the enemies of Samson now, they were continually after his strength because his strength was doing damage to their kingdom, and they were trying some way to destroy his strength. Now in Judges 13 verse eight, when an angel told Samson's father, Manoah, that they were going to have a son, they believed the heavenly messenger and they wanted to be taught what to do. They were different than other people that had gotten this message. They went before God and they were just really getting God to tell us, what do you want us to do?
Speaker 1:We wanna be obedient. Now, there were no questions in Manoah's mind or in his wife's mind. They knew that God had sent an angel and that they were to have this special child and they wanted to do everything right. It just seemed like they were a really special couple. And in Judges 13 verse thirteen and fourteen, so the angel said to Manoah, let the woman, he was talking about Manoah's wife, pay attention to all that I've said.
Speaker 1:She shall not eat anything that comes from the vine, nor drink any strong wine, nor any strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing. I think it's interesting that the mother had to have the same things on her that would be on on on Samson. And he said, let her observe all that I have commanded. And then in verse 24, then the woman gave birth to a son, and they named him Samson. And the child grew, and the Lord blessed him.
Speaker 1:Okay. Now we don't know how many years passed, but a lot of years passed. And in Judges fourteen one and two, Samson then went down to Timnah, and he saw a woman, one of the daughters of the Philistines. And he came back and he told his father and mother, I have seen a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines. And he said, get her for me.
Speaker 1:I want her as a wife. And so in Judges fourteen three, his parents are horrified, and they tried to discourage him saying, is there no woman among our people that you would take an uncircumcised Philistine? But in verse seven, he went down and he talked to the woman, and she looked good to Sampson. Okay. Now, sadly, Sampson has a mind of his own, and he definitely had a lust of the eye.
Speaker 1:You know, she looked good to him. And he said, I want her. Get her for me. So for some reason, it doesn't seem to concern him that she's uncircumcised. So the parents made the arrangements, and Sampson married her, and they had this huge wedding feast.
Speaker 1:Now Sampson gives out a riddle, and he makes a bet with all of her countrymen. And from there, we see that the harassment begins. Now everyone seems to be just having a lot of fun and games. When I read it carefully, though, I realized the others weren't having fun. You know, they were participating with him, but they weren't having fun.
Speaker 1:Sampson was the one having fun with this. And it seems that he delights in challenging and stirring up the people. And, boy, they were getting stirred up. And in verse 15, the the Philistines decided that they would use fear tactics, and they were going to try to blackmail Sampson's wife. And as she gets in fear and starts listening to them, she begins to compromise.
Speaker 1:Now when we get into fear, what we do, we run away from God's protection. And the sad part is she compromised and she manipulated and she tricked Sampson until he finally gave in. And, sadly, it didn't protect her and her family. If she could have submitted herself to her husband, he was the strongest man anywhere. They there was no one stronger than Sampson.
Speaker 1:And he could have been her protection. His god could certainly have been her protection. And it was his strength and his anointing now that would have protected her from everything. But fear causes us to run from the very protection of god that he's offered to us if we don't sell out to God. And so she she took the fear on.
Speaker 1:This came home so vividly several years ago. We had a pretty deep snow for the season and a lot more than we usually get in this part of Texas. And all of Bill's goats were beginning to kid. We could walk across the pasture, and wherever you saw a hole in the snow, you knew if you reached down in that hole, you were gonna pull out a baby goat. You knew that.
Speaker 1:There were baby goats everywhere. Now Bill was afraid that they were gonna die in the extreme cold, and so he and Jack got really busy, and they built an extension onto the barn so that they could have a warm place to get. Now they went to a lot of work, and they themselves got extremely chilled just trying to find a place for the goats to be warm. And then they all started trying to herd the goats into the barn. But instead of running into that place of safety, out of fear, they scattered and they ran in every direction.
Speaker 1:And I stood there exasperated as I watched them run from the very protection that had been given to them to to protect them. And I was so irritated thinking, you know, how can they be this stupid, you know, when suddenly the Lord reminded me that we do exactly the same thing. He has so many good things for us and so many times we run from the very thing that God has put out to protect us. We often run from every protection that He provides because of one fear or another. Fear is one of the biggest enemies that we have, and that's why we need to absolutely make sure that we get the fear out of our life.
Speaker 1:And in the same way, Sampson's wife couldn't see her God given protection. And so out of fear, she desperately was trying to protect herself. She wasn't thinking about anybody except herself. She wasn't even thinking about the fact that she just had a husband that could have protected her. She had a husband that had strength like no other man.
Speaker 1:But she betrayed Samson, and she gave them the answer to his riddle. And the Philistine men were able to come back, you know, and they had the answer to the riddle. And, of course, you can imagine, Samson was furious. Well, the last part of verse 18, Sampson is so furious that he leaves her, and she's given now to someone else as a wife. Now sadly, what we compromise to keep, we usually always lose.
Speaker 1:And in chapter 15, because of their fear of Sampson, they end up burning her and her father's household to death. And in revenge then, Sampson, in Judges fifteen eight and nine, he struck them ruthlessly with a great slaughter. When he finds out what they they done to his wife and her family, well, I mean, he just goes in with his strength and he kills hundreds of them. Then he goes down and he lived for a while in the cleft of the rocks. That unnerved the men of Judah, his people, because they were afraid of the Philistines.
Speaker 1:So we find out that down in chapter fifteen, three thousand men of Judah, his own countrymen, come after him. Now can you imagine? They were told to get him and bring him to the Philistines, and they took 3,000 men. They didn't just send a committee. They didn't just send an army.
Speaker 1:They sent 3,000 men to take one man who was one of their neighbors. So that gives you a little picture of how they saw his strength. So it wasn't just the enemy that saw his strength. His own countrymen saw his strength. And in verse 12, Sampson basically says, okay.
Speaker 1:Just promise me that you won't kill me. Because when his people come after him, they said, you know, we're in trouble. You're gonna have to help us. You know, let us take you to them. So he says, okay.
Speaker 1:Just don't kill me. Now Sampson's still seen it as a lot of fun and games. He knows their ropes could never hold him. And so in verse 13, they promise not to kill him if he'll allow them to wrap him in these new ropes. Well, evidently, no ordinary man could have broken free from these new ropes because in verse 14 now, when the Philistines saw him all bound up in these new ropes, they shout a great victory cry.
Speaker 1:They think, you know, we got him we got him at last. And so in chapter 15, verse fourteen and fifteen, the spirit of the lord then came on Sampson so mightily that the ropes on his arms were just as flax that had been burned with fire, and his buns just drop off in the on the ground. Don't you know the Philistines were terrified when they saw that happen? Because here they thought with new ropes, he could never get out. So Samson continues then to rely on his god given anointing to protect himself, But he also continues to cater to the lust of the flesh.
Speaker 1:When we have an area in our life that's not going with God, oh, it's dangerous. And we need to take authority over that area and get ourselves right because we're gonna find out the two don't work together. Now in Judges 16 verse four and five, we don't know how much time passes, but he falls in love with another woman, another Philistine woman named Delilah. And the lords of the Philistines told her, if you will entice him and see where his great strength lies and how we can overpower him, we're gonna give you 1,100 pieces of silver. They've gone overboard to be able to get her help.
Speaker 1:Now they wanted to play on his weak area because his strength was doing damage to their kingdom. Okay. That's exactly what Satan does. He looks for our weakness because it's the strength now of our anointing that's doing damage to his kingdom. So he looks to find any weakness we have.
Speaker 1:So they offer silver that amounted to $3,520. I don't know how we came up with that, but, anyway, that's what they say. And Samson's first Philistine woman was coerced by fear. She was afraid, and it and it caused her to to die. His second Philistine woman was coerced by greed, and we see where Satan really ups his attack then.
Speaker 1:He uses the fear in the first woman, and he uses then the evil in this second woman. Now notice that it was the lords of the Philistines, in verse five, who came. Now I did some research on the lords of the Philistines, and I found out that there were five main cities of the Philistines. And over each one of these huge cities, they had a a governor or a a lord or a chief. Each one of them had someone that controlled the town.
Speaker 1:And these five men now were the head honchos, so naturally, they came to Delilah. And since all five from all these different cities came, they were representing the whole Philistine nation when they came to her. And they needed bait to trap Samson, so they decided to play on his weakness, and Delilah was going to be their bait. Now remember, Satan never tries to defeat us in our area of strength. When when we're strong in an area, when we're following God and we're strong in that area, the enemy usually doesn't try to attack us there.
Speaker 1:He comes after our areas of weakness. And every one of these five cities had been taken at one time or another, and they had all been under Jewish rule at one time, they realized that Samson's weakness now was a woman. And the number one lord of the Philistine now was the lord of Gaza. Now Gaza was a big Philistine city, and the word Gaza meant strength. It meant stronghold.
Speaker 1:Now today, I want you to realize that there may be demonic strongholds, lords of Gaza, over our life, and we may have gotten temporary control over these strongholds just like Israel did at one time. But these strongholds may still now be there under the surface ready to rise up in a weak moment just as it happened to Israel. And we have to stay obedient to God. Doesn't take much for us to have little areas here and little areas there that's not committed to God. And, boy, that's when the enemy comes in and he uses those little areas to pull us down.
Speaker 1:I also want you to notice that the lords of the Philistines came to Samson through Delilah. That was his weak area. God wants us to look at the lords of Gaza in our life, those old strongholds. It can be a stronghold of control, maybe where we're a bad controller, or maybe anger, or maybe fear. We have to really want the Lord of Gaza out of our life permanently before we're ever going to be able to see a change.
Speaker 1:I remember one particular incident when I started seeing the victory and things began to change. I'm so thankful for that day. But Bill was feeding 60 head of cattle on our place, and we hadn't built our house yet. So we were up on a hill and we were watching Bill down in the valley and, he was feeding the cows. Now Bill had a large sack of range cubes and, of course, cows love range cubes.
Speaker 1:So he was pouring out the range cubes and the cows started following after him. But when they started after him, he started going a little faster. So they started going faster, and they completely overlooked the cubes that he was pouring out on the ground. And they were running after the sack that was in his arms. And so he began to run with that sack because they were coming so fast after him.
Speaker 1:And the faster he ran, the harder they ran after him. And then all of a sudden, he was no longer in sight. We couldn't see him anywhere. So all we could see was just this large cloud of dust as 60 huge cows. They rushed down the lane, and I panicked as I watched in horror desperately trying just to get a glimpse of Bill because when they overtook him, you couldn't see him anymore.
Speaker 1:And he was nowhere, absolutely nowhere to be seen. Well, from where we were standing, it looked as if the cows had completely run over the top of him. And I knew it wasn't just me. I knew it scared Jack too because he immediately jumped in the pickup, and he took off down the hill to get to Bill. Then suddenly, I heard the Lord's gentle voice saying, I've given you the knowledge of how to overcome fear.
Speaker 1:And I remind you that I've given you an exchange system, but you have to master it. You have to use that exchange system. Well, I knew to exchange every thought of fear for a promise from God's word. God had shown me that. I knew to do that.
Speaker 1:But I thought, but, Lord, this one's too serious. You know, I I can't pull this fear down this time. Bill may have been trampled to death. This is, this is something big enough to to get panicked over. And so I was arguing with God, letting him know that this was too big, you know.
Speaker 1:But the Lord said, if you don't take care of this stronghold today, you never will. Now remember that got my attention. He said, there will always be some good excuse for putting it off. So before I even knew that Bill was safe, the Lord had me sit down and start taking authority over the situation by quoting God's promises. And he said, I want you to take authority and I want you to render the devil helpless in in Jesus' name.
Speaker 1:Well, that was one of the hardest things that I've ever done because the situation looked hopeless. I mean, I I could see and I I realized Bill was nowhere in sight and they had run over the top of him. And so fear was all over the situation. But as I started doing what God was telling me to do, before I had a chance to know that Bill was okay in the natural, I began to take authority over that fear. And when I did, I started feeling the the difference.
Speaker 1:I did it until I pulled down that fear in the spiritual realm. And all of a sudden, peace started coming and I knew it was going to be okay. I'd never had that much authority over the fear before. And so I was realizing this really works. It works even on the big things, not just the little things.
Speaker 1:It works. And about that time, I could see the pickup coming. And sure enough, when he got close enough, Jack and Bill were both in the pickup. And I remember just I literally almost fell on my face there on the ground just thanking God. Because I I I knew Bill had been overtaken with those cows.
Speaker 1:I mean, there I couldn't make myself believe that hadn't happened. Well, the Lord began to show me that if we put off taking authority over the strongholds in our life, even when the situation looks so serious, we are never ultimately going to get the victory because tomorrow never comes. Just never does. Today is the only day that we can conquer those strongholds in our life. And if we put it off until tomorrow, there's always gonna be another tomorrow and then another tomorrow and another tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Today is the day that we have to look at the Lord of Gaza and do something about it. Okay. Now the second Lord of the Philistines was the lord of Ashdod on the second city, and that name means ravager, destroyer, and depressor. Now this particular city, Ashdod, was the center of pagan worship, and the big idol Dagon was in that city of Ashdod. So we need to take inventory and find the lords of Ashdod in our life, the areas of idolatry, things that we've put over God.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we think, no, I haven't put anything over God. But if we'll be careful and ask God, many times he'll show us things that we've exalted in our life. Now many of the New Testament writers would end their letter with little children guard yourself against idols. And I used to think, Lord, there weren't any idol worshiping going on in The United States at that time. Well, we're not idol worshipers, I thought, so what's the significance?
Speaker 1:I couldn't see what God was trying to tell me. And the Lord began to show me that anything in my life that I placed above God is idolatry. Doesn't matter what it is. If I place it and give it more importance than God. It doesn't matter what it is.
Speaker 1:It can be TV. It can be money. It can be pleasures, whatever. But if we place it above god, we are in idol worship. And as long as we leave it in that position, it's gonna do exactly what the name Ashdod means.
Speaker 1:It will bring destruction and oppression. Okay. The third lord of the Philistines, Ascalon. It's meant to spend, to use up, and to wait down. Now this lord can even appear to be good at times, but so often we can be busy doing a lot of good things.
Speaker 1:But if they're not things that God's told us to do, it can be using up our energy, our time. It can be using up our peace, our strength, our money on things that God didn't call us to do. So it can look like something good, but we've got to see, Lord, I wanna do your thing, what you're calling me to do, not just because it looks good to me. And I can remember a time now in my life when I was meeting myself coming. I I had a lot of civic responsibilities.
Speaker 1:We were running the church and we had this committee and that committee, they were all respectable things, but not necessarily the things that God had called me to do. And I had all my energy and time and my patience used up, and I really didn't have any reserve for some of the things that really were important from an eternal perspective. See, God needs to be the Lord of our calendar. Whatever it is on our calendar, we need to run it past God and see, Lord, is this what you're calling me to do? And then we won't have all those areas where we're weighted down and we're used up and spent.
Speaker 1:If our burden is not easy and our yoke is not light, we're either doing some things that are not God or else we're trying to do what God called us to do, but we're trying to do it in our own strength. We need to be honest enough with ourselves to let God speak to us. Hebrews 12 verse one says, lay aside the weights and the sins that so easily beset you so that you can run the race with endurance, keeping your eyes on Jesus who is the author and the finisher of your faith. Well, that's a scripture that we need to memorize. So important.
Speaker 1:Okay. Now the fourth lord of the Philistines was the governor over the city of Gath. Now this was a home of all the giants. I think it's interesting that all the giants seemed to be in this one city. And if you'll remember, the giant Goliath came from the city of Gath.
Speaker 1:Now, Gath means to tromp down and to tread underfoot. Now, Gath can be whatever rises up big in our life that exalts itself against God and against the work of God. It can be any number of things. It can be guilt from past forgiven sins that we allow to continue, to haunt us. God's telling us to trump it down, but so many times we don't.
Speaker 1:It's it's overtaking us. It can be memory calls that give us problems. God is warning us to get rid of the giants in our life by using our covenant and our new identity in Jesus Christ. We have a brand new identity that works against anything, but we need to be led by the holy spirit. Just like David spoke to the giant Goliath and said, who do you think you are to taunt the armies of the living God?
Speaker 1:You don't have a covenant with God. We need to face these harassments in our life. If David could know that that man didn't have a covenant, so he didn't have any rights, we, under the new covenant, should certainly understand that and put it to work. We need to face the harassments and and say the same thing. We're in covenant with the eternal god.
Speaker 1:Who do you think you are to taunt the armies of the living god? We need to speak to the enemy and put him under our feet. We have a contract. We have a covenant, and it's cut in the blood of the lord Jesus Christ. And that covenant now is stronger than any giant.
Speaker 1:No matter how big the giant looks, what we have is stronger and bigger. Then the number five lord of the Philistines is Ekron, and this simply means eradication. The ultimate plan of the enemy is to totally eradicate our anointing. That's what Satan's after. If he can eradicate our anointing, he can get on top of us.
Speaker 1:Now the lord of Ekron can seem like something very insignificant, but you can be assured if it's from the enemy, it's not insignificant. Just like its name, its goal is to eradicate something good out of your life. For example, a spirit of perfection. That can sound almost good, but that spirit now will cause us to be continually in a state of striving and irritability and and frustration. And so we need to we need to put it before God and let God speak honestly to us.
Speaker 1:And so be honest and examine things that you justify, things that you put up with in your own life. In chapter 16, all the lords then of the Philistines, all these five cities, and these were big cities, they were all at work against Samson. And finally, they came up with the idea, and they came to Delilah. They thought, ah, this is our answer. They saw that he was overwhelmed sometimes with women in his life.
Speaker 1:So they saw his weakness. So she took the bride in verse five. And in chapter 16 verses six through nine, Samson was teasing. He was playing around with the things of the enemy. Sometimes there's things in our life that we're we're aware of, you know, Maybe an area of rebellion or maybe we've got a little area over here of self will or anti submissiveness.
Speaker 1:And sometimes we think, oh, it's not that big. And we laugh about it. We tease about it. Make light of its importance. Oh, that's not big.
Speaker 1:I I can handle that. Well, that's what Sampson was doing. He was playing around with the enemy, taunting them with his strength because he knew that there was no one that was as strong as he was. Pay attention to the things now that you tease about. Sometimes we can get a little bit cocky and prideful, and then when we do, we get careless.
Speaker 1:I remember watching a football game. It's been ten years or more ago. One player got the ball and he was running down the field way ahead of his opponents. And he was feeling so sure of himself because he was so far ahead of them that he got cocky and he got prideful. And he held the ball way out to the side taunting and harassing them.
Speaker 1:He he knew he was so far ahead they could never catch up with him, and he was gloating over that fact. But in all of his teasing, he got careless and he dropped the ball. I'm gonna tell you what. It they almost had a funeral that day. You know?
Speaker 1:I mean, they were ready to kill him. He was taunting them, thinking that he had everything under control. How many times do we think we're strong enough spiritually that we can play around with some of the things of the enemy and not get hurt. We can't play around with the things of the enemy. When we do that, we're living just as dangerously as Sampson did.
Speaker 1:He played around with these women. That was a weak part in his life, but instead of giving it to God and getting help, he he he held on to it. There's a period of time when it does look like we get by with some things that aren't quite right. We've all get in areas maybe where we know it's it's not real huge sins, but it's not quite right. And we think, well, I'm getting along.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm doing fine. Sampson was having his fun, and he did appear to be invincible. So Delilah realizes again that she's been teased and she's been tricked, and Sampson is playing closer and closer to the danger area. Up until now, all he would say is, well, you have you can bind my hands or you can bind my feet and I won't be able to move, and they would do that and then he could just walk out of it. But he's getting a little braver and he mentions his hair, which is the symbol of his strength.
Speaker 1:So you see that he's he's he's playing around in areas that he shouldn't play around with. And in Judges sixteen sixteen, it came about when Delilah pressed him daily and urged him. The bible said that his soul was annoyed to death, so he finally told her everything. He told her, a razor has never come on my head for I am a Nazirite to God. If I am shaved, I will become weak like any other man.
Speaker 1:And she made him sleep on her knees, and she shaved off the seven locks of his hair, and his strength then had left him. I'm sure he was thinking, my strength has never left me. There's no telling what was going on in his mind. I can't imagine why he told the secret, but, anyway, for some reason, he did. We do think, you know, how could Sampson be that stupid?
Speaker 1:This time he told her something that she could use against him. And I thought, you know, where was his brain? You know? How could he have thought that when she finally knew the truth, she wasn't gonna use it against him? And I thought, but you know what?
Speaker 1:We do the same thing so many times. But what happens when a person plays around with the enemy? Deception does begin to creep in, and sometimes it comes in at first just very gently, just small amounts. And so we think, oh, that's not that big a deal. We read the story of Sampson, and we wonder how he could have been that foolish.
Speaker 1:But we do the same thing if we'll look at areas that we give into many times. We play around with the stronghold of the enemy, and we reveal things to the enemy now about ourselves, often through just our bad confessions even. We walk down that same pathway of gradual deception. If it came on big and strong against us, we saw the deception, how big it was, we'd see it, but it comes on gently, a little bit at the time. It's kinda like playing Russian roulette with our life.
Speaker 1:And in verse 16, then the inevitable happens. He becomes weary in all the gains and the deception, and he doesn't realize that he was one day gonna lose his strength. He'd never been without strength. And so I'm sure in the back of his mind, I'm never gonna lose his strength. I've always had it.
Speaker 1:He had never felt weakness before. He had never experienced having the anointing lift. No one ever sells out planning to fall. When when a person gets into sin, they don't go into that sin thinking, I'm gonna fall. They go into that sin thinking, oh, this is no big deal.
Speaker 1:They get deceived. But when we stay in an area of sin, our faith begins to gradually weaken. If it just if all of a sudden we just became totally weak, that would get our attention. But it just begins to to gradually weaken. And he flirted with the enemy, and he enjoyed then watching the enemy's frustration.
Speaker 1:He loved seeing them frustrated when he came on so strong until he was convinced that he could never be outsmarted. He had always been able to break free, so he never dreamed that one day he was going to be trapped. And that's the same with us. We can play around with some things that aren't what they really need to be. Maybe we think, oh, this is not that bad, but we don't realize.
Speaker 1:We do it a little bit, then a little bit more, and we don't realize the enemy is is piling it onto us. He's he's getting us exactly where he wants us to be when when we're listening to him. The enemy gave him just enough rope to hang himself. Now when we think that we're so spiritual or so knowledgeable that we can flirt with evil and always escape with no serious repercussions, we're being deceived just as surely as Sampson was. And sometimes we see how could Sampson have done that?
Speaker 1:But we don't really see sometimes how we're gradually getting to in the same area. Our protection is not in our clever maneuvering or our our self justification or our self confidence. Close to twenty years ago, this young man, we knew he was trying to commit suicide. And God miraculously spared his life and delivered him from drugs and alcohol. I mean, it was a glorious victory.
Speaker 1:Everybody in the church was so excited that he had come in. But then he got it in his head. He was gonna go with God. But he thought, it's okay for me to keep my worldly friends. You know, that's not bad as long as I'm going with God.
Speaker 1:Well, everyone warned him that he wasn't strong enough to have that kind of temptation, that he was flirting with danger. And a lot of people warned him. But he was determined that he could handle it. And it was a very gradual process, but little by little, he got back into his old lifestyle and he's dead today. He was a young man.
Speaker 1:Died early. The big deception is that we think we're strong enough. We think I can handle that. Maybe we think other people less grounded might need to observe the precautions, but not me. I'm past that.
Speaker 1:God's already taught me things, and I know what to do. And when that happens, then deception gradually rolls in. And how often do we put up with our negative words or maybe we put up with our procrastination? I'm gonna take care of that. It's not that big a deal.
Speaker 1:I'll take care of it tomorrow. I've got plenty of time. But we can't play around with the anointing that God has placed on our life. We can't flirt now with the enemy. There's a price to be paid for foolishness.
Speaker 1:And anytime we start playing around with sin, there's no other word to call it except foolishness. There's a price to pay for it, and Sampson was foolish, and it's sad because his uncut hair was a token of his vow to God. And he was so sure now of himself because of all the other times when he had played around and he hadn't gotten caught. But anytime we continue to toy with the things of Satan and become careless with the anointing of God, we reveal ourselves to the enemy. And we do it without realizing it.
Speaker 1:And we've removed ourself from the presence of God. We've removed ourself from God's strength. And it's exactly what happened to Samson. Now in Judges sixteen twenty, Samson was taken captive, and the Philistines not only cut his hair, leaving him with only the strength of an ordinary man, but they gouged out his eyes. We don't think about how evil the enemy can be when we get caught.
Speaker 1:And he was captured and he was blinded, and that's a type and shadow of how we go into the captivity of the enemy when when we mess around with the enemy. And we become spiritually blinded and left without the anointing. We're left without the power of god. We don't see it coming. We don't expect it to come because it just comes on usually gradually.
Speaker 1:He was made to pull the huge grinder hour after hour. He was having to pull it, and this time, he wasn't pulling it there with the strength that he had had. He was pulling it with the strength of an ordinary man. He was doing it with no eyesight. Now that's what happens when one becomes a slave to unrighteousness.
Speaker 1:We don't know how much time passed, but in verse 22, Samson's pride is finally gone and he begins to renew his vows to God. Now this represents his repenting and turning back to God, And God is so merciful. Sometimes I wonder how God can just keep being so merciful, but he is. Now we're having to deal with some of the bad things that have happened because of what we've done. But he's there to take us back when we're ready to repent and and to say, Lord, take me back.
Speaker 1:I need you. So his hair begins to grow and his strength begins to return. When he repents and returns to God, all this starts gradually coming back. And in Judges chapter 16 verse 23, the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon, their god, and they're in such high spirits that in verse 25, they called for Samson to become and be there to entertain them. And they made him stand between the two pillars of the building.
Speaker 1:So Sampson said to the little boy that was next to him, he said, let me fill those pillars on which the house rests that I can lean against them. Now the house was full of all the men and women of the country with all the lords of the Philistines there. Now we're talking about five huge cities, and evidently, they had come from all over all the five Philistine cities. And there were even it says three tells us how many were on the rooftop. 3,000 men and women up on the rooftop, and they're watching.
Speaker 1:So if there's 3,000 on the rooftop, there was evidently an astronomical amount of people inside the building. You can imagine. And Sampson called to the Lord and he said, Lord, remember me and strengthen me that I may be avenged of the Philistines from my two eyes. And Sampson grasped the two middle pillars and he said, Let me die with the Philistines. So with all of his might, he pulled and the entire building fell on all the lords and everyone in it and those on the roof.
Speaker 1:And the ones he killed at his death were more than all whom he had killed in his lifetime. Wow. You know? Now their god had not done anything to bring Samson into their hands. Samson's own flesh, it was his own sin that had brought them him into their hands.
Speaker 1:We don't have to fear the enemy. We just have to make sure that we do it God's way. God will protect us if we're doing it his way. But when we slip around or or or maybe get careless, there's no telling what can happen. But that's what the enemy will often do to us.
Speaker 1:He whispers in our ear and he says, I'm so strong. I can do this to you or I can do that to you. And we get in fear of his threats. But he's lying. It's our own weakness.
Speaker 1:It's our own sins that brings us into the enemy's slave camp. Now Satan is not strong enough to overpower God's protection. Satan has no power over those areas that are under the shelter of the most high. It's only those areas now of flesh out from under God's protection. But we see Samson turning back to God, and then we see a beautiful picture of God's mercy.
Speaker 1:Now you'd think after Samson had done all these things wrong that God said, you know, I gave you chance after chance. Forget it. But, no. We see a picture of God's mercy. And notice he says, God let me die with the Philistines.
Speaker 1:And that must have been some victory that day because the Philistines would always take the dead bodies of the enemies and hang them up, on a wall, you know, so that in the sight of everyone so that they could continue to rejoice of the victory. But they didn't even keep the dead bodies of their enemy. So many died. Maybe they didn't have enough people left to even, take those dead bodies, and so they released his body to his brothers. They they were were through with him now, or maybe they weren't even there to be able to do anything to him.
Speaker 1:But that's a type and shadow when we finally repent and become an overcomer in God. Satan doesn't even want to look at us because the victory stings him so bad badly. God has placed an anointing on each one of us, and Satan will use any scheme to steal it because he sees the value of our anointing. The anointing that God has put on us, Satan sees it. He wants it.
Speaker 1:He's after it. So we need to be at least equally as wise as the enemy. We need to value the anointing and protect it. Now these Old Testament stories are there for us to learn from. So I want us to ask ourselves today, am I still going around in the same circles without ever changing?
Speaker 1:That's what Sampson did. He just kept going after women. He kept going after the uncircumcised Philistines. He quit listening to even the voice of his mother and father who were trying to help him. We need to be honest with ourselves.
Speaker 1:Our very life and our anointing depends on it. Now, there's gonna come a time that we have to give an account of our anointing and we're going to have to say, well, Lord, I buried it. I just didn't do anything with it because I was inadequate or because I was too busy maybe, you know, I had other priorities Or or we'll have to say, I I guess I just played around it. I used it for other things instead of for your glory. We're gonna have to give it an account.
Speaker 1:We're gonna have to be honest. And if we're putting up with the same short shortcomings, the same sins, God is calling us not to wait too long. It's not worth what we finally lose. God's answers are so simple. He's just saying, before it's too late, just repent and get right with me.
Speaker 1:And I say again, it's not worth what we're finally gonna lose to let these little things start mounting up. We think they're so small. What's it gonna matter? But they finally mount up, and the enemy comes in and attacks us. So right now, father, in the name of Jesus, we don't wanna do that.
Speaker 1:Father, we want to learn from Samson. We wanna learn from all these stories in the old testament, the new testament. We wanna learn, father. And so, father, we choose not to just keep letting these little things that don't look big to us, but when we keep letting them mount up and mount up and mount up, they finally it becomes huge and it can take us down. So, father, we just repent right now, we come before you, and we say, Lord, we want to please you.
Speaker 1:We wanna do your will. Thank you, Lord. We know you're there. You're waiting to take us back the moment we're ready to come. And sometimes, father, it's just little things that don't seem that important.
Speaker 1:But, father, you want us to get those little things taken care of too. So we submit to you, and we just say thank you, father. Thank you that you love us that much, that you're willing to forgive us and take us back. In Jesus' name. Amen.