POWER

POWER

Judges 13:1-5; Judges 16: 6-31

I had in mind to say a few words as to power. No one would deny the great weakness that marks Christians, in which we all share, and yet it is wonderful that the strongest man of Scripture is found in this book of Judges in a day such as ours. The public position was that there was no king in Israel and the people did evil in the sight of the Lord. Israel’s position was one of captivity to enemies, departure from God, unfaithfulness, brokenness, abject weakness, and yet, in these conditions there arises the strongest man of Scripture. I think it might help us in our weakness to look a little at the source of power.

The Psalmist says, that twice he had heard that power belonged to God. We are always in the presence of one character of His power. The visible things disclose to every man His eternal power and Godhead. Men boast in the power that they have accumulated through knowledge, seen in what they make, and one admits that man has learnt how to do remarkable things, but you would not connect eternal power with man. Take any great leader of science. Where is his power in the presence of death? What abject weakness is evident. Where is all his intelligence? What can he do now? There is nothing calculated to make a man feel weak like death. All have to bow to its mighty force sooner or later, but the sun still shines, the stars still proceed on their courses, the rain still falls, the grass still grows, maintained by eternal power. There is no diminishing of the power of God the Creator.

Think of the power that has been emitted from the sun over these thousands of years, and yet, as far as we can measure, it is undiminished. It is well for us who are to be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures to think constantly of God as the possessor of eternal power, who not only brought the universe into existence, but upholds it by the word of His power. Men would like to believe the universe upholds itself, but Scripture says, that it is upheld by the word of Christ’s power. The universe is supported by the eternal power of God. How well, in these days of boasted human ability, to keep our eye on the visible things that disclose the eternal power of God.

Then the apostle indicates a further expression of God’s power, and that is the cross. He says, “the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” What a contrast to creation. You can understand that the sun, that mighty orb, evidences His eternal power, but think of the cross being His power. The preaching of the cross is to us who are saved, the power of God. The mighty power of God finds expression in the cross of Christ. You say, What can it do? What does this power perform through the preaching of the cross? Christ crucified exposes by divine power the true character of this world with all its deceptiveness, as under the influence of the deceiver. God has a power that lays bare the world’s true character, and that power is the cross. The whole system of this world and its rulers are so against God that, when the Lord of glory, the blessed Administrator of every true glory in the universe came, the princes of the world, its great leaders, crucified Him.

God uses the light of the cross to disclose to us the world in its true character, even as He uses the sun to dispel the darkness of the night, and show things in their true character. But the power of God in the cross does not stop there. Christ crucified is the power that God uses to draw troubled hearts to Himself. As the sun in the heavens draws, by its influence, the whole solar system, so Christ crucified is the power of God to draw our hearts out of this world to Himself. As the Lord said, “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” This he said, signifying what death He would die, not only that He would die, but by what death He would die. We are all accustomed by necessity to the thought of death and also of burial, but crucifixion is something additional. It is Christ lifted up, not only to expose the world in its true character, but to disclose what God is towards us, so that we might be attracted, as the Lord says, “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”

Another source of power is the blessed Spirit of God here. The Lord said that His own were to tarry in Jerusalem till they were endued with power from on high. The Spirit of God is the source of heavenly power for the saints of this period. God has given us a spirit of power. The “demonstration of the Spirit,” the apostle says, “and power,” so that, on the divine side, God would strengthen us by calling our hearts’ attention to Himself, to Christ and to the Spirit as the great sources of true power for the believer. On the other hand, Samson brings before us how power can be known by us experimentally, and it was that, I particularly wanted to touch on tonight.

In selecting Samson, God goes right back to his beginning, a most important matter for parents, for God has His eye on those He would use even before their birth. He speaks to Manoah’s wife by His Angel and warns her that the son that is to be born is not to have a razor on his head, but first of all, that she is to refrain from strong drink and from eating anything unclean. That is her side, and the matter is confirmed by a second appearing to Manoah and he is also warned that this is to be maintained. We understand what these things mean. They represent spiritually that the parent is not to come under the control of the joys of earth as dominating her. The joy in relation to God’s people being delivered from their enemies and serving God, makes her superior to the control of the joys of earth. Then she is to be careful that she eats nothing unclean, Scripture carefully helping, in that day, to make clear what is clean and what is not clean. That was the mother’s side.

I would speak to mothers and to parents generally. If our hearts are finding their joy and their portion in earthly things, however right, and especially if we are feeding upon what is unclean, are our children likely to be mighty men of God? Do you not see that they must be influenced by what we are? If our joys are the wine of this life, if our souls dip into the unclean things that man feeds upon, is it to be wondered at that our children are weak spiritually? If our minds are feeding upon the unclean literature of the day, if the joys of earth are really that for which we live, do we need to wonder why it is that our children are so feeble spiritually? Inevitably they are going to be affected by what they see in us; it cannot be otherwise. God knows it cannot be otherwise, so that He begins even before Samson is born, so that he should be formed typically under the influence of one who knows something of the joys of heaven, and who loves what is pure. Those of us who are parents, but have lost our children in this world, must go back and see that either the wine of earthly joy or unclean things have been given place in our souls, and the effect is seen in our children.

Then the next thing is that when the child appears, it is repeated twice that no razor must come on his head. That from the day of his birth what speaks of subjection must be found with him, for the growth of long hair in Scripture is simply that; it represents the feminine side, the outward position of subjection. So Manoah’s wife is exhorted to see, from the outset, from the birth of Samson, that the element of subjection is maintained; that no razor removes it. Can we expect mighty men of God if our children are allowed to be insubject from the outset? Of course we cannot. The maintenance in the children, from birth, of the principle of subjection is the first step in them towards being mighty men here for God. You see that expressed in all its blessed perfection in Christ. Not only was He subject to God from His birth, “I was cast upon thee,” He says, but in His relationships here as Man, as it says, He went down to Nazareth and was subject to us parents. Never did subjection disappear from His blessed path. His locks were black and bushy, Song of Songs 5: 11, right to the last day of His sojourn here.

Now this is the secret of the strength of Samson, the man who could take a young lion and rend it in two as a kid; the man who could take a jaw bone of an ass and slay a thousand Philistines; the man who could take the gates of the city and doors, and carry them up the hill before Hebron. The secret of his strength, in the typical teaching of it, is that he never had a razor on his head. The great feature of subjection was set forth typically in Samson and was to be maintained by him. If we desire our children to be men of God, let the principle of subjection begin with their birth. If we want sisters strong in the service of the Lord, it will be as subjection to man as head is maintained. If we want men who are strong to serve God, it is as subjection in every right sphere is maintained, whether to employers, to government, or to the rule that God maintains amongst His people, or to the Lord Himself. The secret of strength lies in that which appears to be weak, namely, subjection. Feminine glory is to have long hair, a symbol of subjection, and that principle, accepted in every sphere of life to which it applies, is the secret of strength on our side. In the measure in which we maintain it, we will find that there are no powers, no bonds that men and the world can make that will be able to bind us. If we are bound successfully it is because we have departed from the principle of subjection.

Samson makes clear that they can test this out. They could bring their new withs that never were dried, fresh efforts and movements of man to bind God’s people, but they break like tow. They may bring their ropes, stronger still, to capture this man, but they snap like thread. They may fasten his locks to a beam, but as long as he has his locks, the beam will give way. The truth is, dear brethren, there is no means known to the modern world — the Philistine world — that can successfully bind God’s people while they maintain the great principle of subjection, first to the Lord above all, and then in every sphere to which it properly belongs. Let that principle be maintained, and all the withs, the ropes and the beams that the world can produce are but thread to God’s people.

But be assured that the Philistine element is unrelenting in its efforts to bring into bondage those who maintain the principle of subjection. Delilah was after those eleven hundred silver pieces. She had no love for Samson. She was after the spoil that she would get for herself, till at last he disclosed the great secret of his strength. That which speaks of subjection is that which is outwardly weak, especially in a man, for it is a shame for a man to have long hair. Subjection is outwardly a position of weakness, but the true acceptance of that position is the great secret of the mighty power of Samson. But, alas! what is in his heart is ultimately laid bare to a Philistine world. “He told her all his heart.” These holy features of subjection are not to be paraded. Where they exist they are the secret of the soul. But by Samson they are laid bare to the Philistines and in a few moments his strength is gone and he wist it not. He is bound now, his two eyes are taken out, he grinds in the prison house, he becomes the sport of the Philistine world!

I speak to the dear young men and women whom Satan is seeking to decoy into a Philistine world. If you give up the position of subjection to the Lord or in any other sphere to which it belongs, you will lose both your eyes. What was once so bright and clear to you will be lost to your sight, and darkness will supervene. You may think that you will find liberty in a wider sphere in the world, but you will be in cruel bondage; you will grind in the prison house of this world and you will be the sport of a world that hates Christ. I appeal to you to look at Samson, that mighty man before whom previously no Philistine could stand. A thousand had earlier sought to take him and could not. He becomes the sport of his enemies, as many a Christian, who has gone into the world, becomes positively the sport of the world, not really one of them, but a subject of their sport and mockery.

But Samson’s hair began to grow again. He began typically to come back in self-judgment to this great principle of subjection to God. With the return of the hair there was a return of some of the power that was once his. How we thank God for that, especially those of us who are older, whether we look at it individually or in relation to the present position of God’s people. How many of us as individuals have known the loss of true might, true strength, by insubjection in some form or other, but have also known the blessedness of a return of strength, at least in measure, as that principle began to be accepted again. We are at this very moment enjoying the same thing together among God’s people. The church has turned away from allegiance to Christ and what a sport to the world it has become. What mockery, what darkness, what bondage, is in the public position of the professing church! But in recent times the principle of subjection to Christ as the church’s Head has begun to appear, and to those who accept it the whole world is coming down.

With the return of the principle of subjection in the soul of Samson, the Philistine house crashes, and it is going to crash in the great religious Philistine world as the principle of subjection to Christ is re-established in the hearts of God’s people. I think we can truly say that the hair is beginning to grow again. The acceptance of our true allegiance and subjection to Christ is coming into many a heart amongst the saints, and with its coming falls the mighty power of this world over God’s people.

Well, I would call attention to these great matters. First that we should see in God, and in Christ and in the Holy Spirit, the great sources of true power compared with which the might of the whole world is as nothing. The whole force of this world, however great it may appear, is small and weak compared with the mighty power of divine Persons. On the other hand, the strength for God’s people to face enemies, to face even the roaring lion maybe, lies in subjection to the Lord. We learn there are no withs,

there are no ropes and there are no beams that can bring God’s people into bondage if we are subject. But if we allow a razor on our heads so that the hair of our Nazariteship disappears, what a spectacle we become!

May the Lord help us to see this great subjective side of power, the acceptance of subjection in every sphere. May the Lord help us to learn these lessons.