The Church of Samson

If you will, friends, take out your Bibles and turn to the book of Judges. We will be in chapter 16. You can turn there now.

I will be in verses 15 through 21. And allow me to read us this familiar passage of Scripture at this time, because it portrays our situation today. Here now is the Word of God.

And may the Spirit of the Lord be pleased to attend the reading of His Holy Word. And she said unto him, How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me? Thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not told me wherein that great strength lieth. And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death, that he told her all his heart.

And said unto her, There hath not a razor come upon my head, for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother's womb. If I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man. Let me pause here, friends.

Samson's compromise began with his desire for a Philistine woman. He was an Israelite, and even more so, a Nazarite, separated unto God. And he joins himself to one who worshipped Dagon.

Keep that thought in your minds as we proceed. And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once, for he hath showed me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and brought money in their hand.

And she made him sleep upon her knees. And she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head. And she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him.

And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord was departed from him.

But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass. And he did grind in the prison house. I will stop there, friends.

Vance Havener commented on this passage by saying, Samson might have looked better with his hair cut, but he lost his power. And here is the very picture of the church today, spiritually impotent, with no power, and little influence, sound asleep with her head in the lap of the world, uncompromised with the world, has stolen all her authority with man. The church should be the voice of authority in the land, and guide a nation to higher and better things.

This was the case during the second great awakening, when pulpits throughout the land rang like a great bell of authority, and influenced an entire generation to forsake family and career, and take the gospel to distant lands. This was the fountainhead of the great missionary movement that sprang from godly pastors proclaiming the need for workers to be sent to the harvest field. I'll never forget it, friends, as long as I live, how I stumbled upon an example of which I speak while conducting primary research on my biography of Asahel Nettleton, who was so mightily used of God during the second great awakening to such a degree that his good friend, Bennett Tyler, remarked that Nettleton had been the human instrument of over 30,000 souls coming to Christ, while I walked down into the basement of Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut, the very theological institution that Nettleton had founded.

And as I climbed down those steps and peered into the darkness, I reached for a light, and what befell my eyes was so startling that it shook me to my very soul. Along a narrow corridor were rows and rows of memorial plaques decorating the walls, forgotten by time. And as I slowly walked and paused at each plaque, I would read words like, A graduate of the class of 1843, so-and-so died a martyr's death at the age of 26 in the islands of the Pacific.

A graduate of class of 42, John so-and-so and his young wife planted themselves on the island of New Guinea to spread the gospel among the cannibals, and they are buried there together. A class of 44, so-and-so died taking the gospel of Christ to India, and on and on. I would read plaque after plaque in this missionary martyr hall of fame of young people who were so sold out for Christ and the sake of the gospel, they literally laid down their lives so others could live.

And I look around today, and the vast majority of the young people in our churches only want to make as much money as they can so they can live lavishly and selfishly. I was speaking to a friend of my daughter's who was in college, and I asked her what God had for her life, and this is what she told me. She said, Well, I feel God called me to be a missionary, but after I looked into it, you have to raise your own support, and you can never make any money to really take care of yourself, so I've chosen instead to study the medical field and earn $80,000 a year so I can support myself.

That's why we have so few young people today, friends, willing to be foreign missionaries. Oh, they'll go on a short-term missionary trip for fun with the church to see the world, but they are in love with the world rather than the souls of men like that generation from the 19th century. Listen, friends.

When the Church of Samson compromised herself and laid her head in the lap of the world, she lost all her authority and influence, and without spiritual eyes, she is blind to the fact that she has no power. The Lord has departed from the church in America through his withdrawn presence, and we go out in the arm of the flesh and do all we can in his name, but we have to do it with money and manpower rather than prayer and Holy Ghost power. And today, rather than influencing a generation to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, we influence them with pizza night, football nights, movie nights, and mud pits.

Meanwhile, the lords of the Philistines of drugs and alcohol, sex and perversion, run rampant all over our young people today and bind them and addict them, and we are powerless to help them. The Church of Samson in America today is a pitiful picture of Samson of old, compromised with the world, with both eyes out, while helplessly chained to the grinding post of worldliness and entertainment. May God, in his mercy, send a sweeping spiritual awakening to this land before the entire palace comes tumbling down upon us.

Let us pray.