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