Delilah’s Seduction
I have heard and read quite a number of analysis of the weakness of Samson, his lack of self control and his inability to resist the power of a woman…well, guess these are all correct in their own ways but I would like to look at this man of God from another perspective. I believe Samson’s problem was a matter of the heart. Bible says guard your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life.
I wouldn’t say that Samson lacked self control. Samson was a strong man who had everything but lacked love. In chapter 14 of Judges this “strong man” had a wife but his wife was taken and given to his “best” friend. So, here is a man who’d been married before and had enjoyed the companionship and intimacy of marriage, now very lonely. Married folks would tell you that it is a bit difficult to live by yourself after enjoying the companionship of marriage. Believe me, as a single man there are times you feel very lonely…you just want to be held and pampered…especially after winning a serious battle! You want someone to share the victory moment with you. You even want to be pampered like a child at times. Someone said there is a king in every kid and there is a kid in every king.
Samson is introduced in chapter 16 “Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her. Looking for love in all the wrong places you’d say. He fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. In his search for companionship and intimacy he found himself in the house of a woman from Timnath, in the house of a prostitute and now finally his wearied soul has “fallen” in love with a certain Delilah. Samson was lead in his search by his passion and desire rather than by the spirit of God. Isn’t that what we all do in some areas of our life? We are very spiritual in certain areas of our life but very sensual in other areas.
I would like to submit that Samson is an example of an average Christian today. We may be very anointed and strong in the battlefields of life but still not fulfilled in the matters of the heart and you and I know that the matter of the heart is the heart of the matter. Guard your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. Samson lost his sight, his destiny, his anointing, his strength, and then his life because he did not guard his heart well enough!
The Shepherds Call
There once was a shepherd that lived in the Scottish highlands. This shepherd had a daughter and he would take her with him when he went out on the moors to take care of the sheep. The thing that the little girl liked best was to hear the call of shepherd. His voice sounded so free and beautiful as carried across the valleys of the moors.
As the years passed the little girl became a beautiful young woman and went off to one of Scotland’s great cities–Edinburgh or Glasgow. It was there that she was determined to build a life. On her arrival, she would write back home to her parents every week. But as life began to take her by the hand, her letters soon dropped off in their frequency and soon there were none.
Rumors begin to filter back home to that shepherd and his wife that their daughter had started hanging out with some unsavory characters and they were having a very negative influence on her life. One day one of the boys from back home ran into her in the city streets and she acted as if she did not even know him. When the old shepherd heard this, he gathered a few things together and dressed in his rough shepherd’s clothes went to the city to find his daughter.
For days on end he looked for her. He looked everywhere; the slums, the rows of houses, the markets, the taverns, and everywhere in between to no avail. So after all of this searching he became very discouraged with the thought that he had lost his daughter to the evil city.
As he started the long trek back home, just as he was on the outskirts of the city, he remembered that his daughter had always loved to hear the voice of the shepherd calling out to the sheep.
So he turned around and on this quest motivated by his sorrow and his love, he began to stalk the streets. His voice rang out the shepherds call. The citizens of the city all looked at him as if he had lost his wits. It wasn’t too long as he walked the streets of one of the degraded neighborhoods that inside of one of those houses, his daughter sitting among the vermin who had led her astray, heard his voice. With great astonishment on her face, she heard that call of the voice of the shepherd, the voice of her father calling out to her. She leaped up and rushed out to the street and ran into the arms of that old shepherd, her father. It was then that he took her back home to the highlands of Scotland and brought her back to God and to decency and modesty.
This is a moving example of what happens to those who can hear the voice of a shepherd!
Leave It To A Woman!
One day three men were walking along and came upon a raging, violent river. They needed to get to the other side, but had no idea of how to do it. The first man prayed to God saying, “Please God, give me the strength to cross this river.” Poof! God gave him big arms and strong legs, and he was able to swim across the river in about two hours.
Seeing this, the second man prayed to God saying, “Please God, give me the strength and ability to cross this river.” Poof ! God gave him a rowboat and he was able to row across the river in about three hours.
The third man had seen how this worked out for the other two, so he also prayed to God saying, “Please God, give me the strength, ability, and intelligence to cross this river.” And Poof! God turned him into a woman. She looked at the map, then walked across the bridge.
Aw, come on now..let me check and see who contributed today’s story! LOL, Have a great day, friends. God is good and HE always takes care of us no matter what the situation may be! Do you believe that?
Keep Praying..Keep Believing!
Ruby Hamilton, a businesswoman in her fifties, was stunned at the loss of her husband of 32 years in a car accident. Her anger and disappointment went deeper than a more typical expression of grief though. She had become a follower of Christ in her late twenties, but her husband didn’t share her newfound interest in spiritual things. Nonetheless, she had set about praying for him feverishly and unceasingly that he would come to know the Lord. And one day when she was praying, she felt a wave of peace wash over her, and that still small voice assuring her that her husband would be okay. She eagerly awaited the day when her husband surrender his life to Jesus. And now this.
What do you do when faith doesn’t make sense? When God doesn’t seem to be answering or opening doors or being found? Ruby Hamilton stopped living for God.
Roger Simmons was hitchhiking his way home. He would never forget the date - May 7th. His heavy suitcase was making him tired and he was anxious to take off that army uniform once and for all. Flashing the thumb to the oncoming car, he lost hope when he saw it was a black, sleek new Cadillac. To his surprise the car stopped.
The passenger door swung open. He ran toward the car, tossed his suitcase in the back and thanked the handsome, well-dressed man as he slid into the front seat. “Going home for keeps?”
“Sure am.”
“Well, you’re in luck if you’re going to Chicago.”
“Not quite that far - do you live in Chicago?”
“I have a business there, the driver said. My name is Hamilton.”
They chatted for a while, and then Roger, a Christian, felt a compulsion to share his faith with this fiftyish, apparently successful business man. But he kept putting it off, till he realized that he was now just 30 minutes from his home. It was now or never.
“Mr. Hamilton, I would like to talk to you about something very important.” Then he simply told Mr. Hamilton about the plan of salvation and ultimately asked him if he would like to receive Jesus as his savior and Lord.
The Cadillac pulled over to the side of the road. Roger expected that he was about to get thrown out of the car. Instead, the businessman bowed his head and received Christ, then thanked Roger “This is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.”
Five years went by. Roger married, had a couple of kids and a business of his own. Packing his suitcase for a trip to Chicago he found a small white business card that had been given to him by Hamilton five years previous. In Chicago, he looked up Hamilton enterprises. The receptionist told him that it was impossible to see Mr. Hamilton, but he could see Mrs. Hamilton. A little confused, he was ushered into a beautiful office where he found himself facing a keen-eyed woman in her fifties.
She extended her hand “You knew my husband?”
Roger told her about how Hamilton had picked him up while he was hitchhiking home after the war. “Can you tell me what day that was?”
“Sure it was May 7th, five years ago, the day I was discharged from the army.”
“Anything special about that day,” she asked.
He hesitated, not knowing if he should mention how he shared the message of Jesus with her husband. “Mrs. Hamilton, I explained the gospel to your husband that day. He pulled over to the side of the road and wept against the steering wheel. He gave his life to Christ that day.”
Explosive sobs shook her body. Finally getting a grip on herself, she sobbed, “I had prayed for my husband’s salvation for years. I believed God would save him.”
“Where is your husband, Ruby?”
“He’s dead. He was in a car crash after he let you out of the car. He never got home. You see, I thought God had not kept his promise. I stopped living for God five years ago because I thought God had not kept his word!”
Frog Seduction, A Would Be Prince..An Ornery Old Lady!
An 80 year-old woman was walking down the main street in her hometown one evening when she heard a low voice say, “Hey lady.” She looked around to see who was talking but upon seeing nobody there she shrugged it all off and continued walking. Before she got another five feet, she heard the same voice, only a little louder, say, “Hey lady!”
She once again looked around and didn’t see anybody, but when she went to walk again she saw a frog sitting at her feet looking at her. The frog then opened his mouth and said, “Could you please help me?” The elderly woman was shocked at first but picked up the little frog and asked him what he needed. The frog proceeded to tell the woman that he was actually a handsome young prince that had been turned into a frog. All the lady had to do was to kiss the frog on the lips and he would turn back into a handsome prince, and would then be eternally grateful to the woman.
Well, the woman thought for a moment and then quietly slipped the frog into her purse. As she was walking away, she quietly muttered, “At my age I’ll have more fun with a talking frog.” There is definitely a “moral” to this story..feel free to write the climatic conclusion!
Mothers Day, Whose Side Is God On?
A clergyman from New York, during a call on President Lincoln at the White House, said: “I have not come to ask any favors of you, Mr. President; I have only come to say that the loyal people of the North are sustaining you and will continue to do so. We are giving you all that we have, the lives of our sons as well as our confidence and our prayers. You must know that no boy’s father or mother ever kneels in prayer these days without asking God to give you strength and wisdom.”
His eyes brimming with tears, Mr. Lincoln replied: “But for those prayers, I should have faltered and perhaps failed long ago. Tell every father and mother you know to keep on praying, and I will keep on fighting, for I know God is on our side.”
As the clergyman started to leave the room, Mr. Lincoln held him by the hands and said: “I suppose I may consider this as sort of a pastoral call?”
“Yes,” replied the clergyman.
“Out in our country,” replied Lincoln, “when a parson makes a pastoral call, it was always the custom for the folks to ask him to lead in prayer, and I should like to ask you to pray with me today. Pray that I may have the strength and the wisdom.”
The two men knelt side by side, and the clergyman offered the most fervent plea to Almighty God that ever fell from his lips. As they arose, the President clasped his visitor’s hand and remarked in a satisfied sort of way: “I feel better.” I wonder..could it be said today that God stands with us AND is on our side?
The Snake Story
Snakes also known as Garter Snakes (Thamnophissirtalis) can be dangerous Yes,
grass snakes, not rattlesnakes. Here’s why.A couple in Sweetwater, Texas, had a lot of potted plants. During a recent cold spell, the wife was bringing a lot of them indoors to protect them from a possible freeze.It turned out that a little green garden grass snake was hidden in one of the
plants. When it had warmed up, it slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa. She let out a very loud scream.
The husband (who was taking a shower) ran out into the living room naked to see
what the problem was. She told him there was a snake under the sofa. He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it. About that time
the family dog came and cold-nosed him on the behind. He thought the snake had
bitten him, so he screamed and fell over on the floor.
His wife thought he had had a heart attack, so she covered him up, told him to lie still and called an ambulance. The attendants rushed in, would not listen to his protests, loaded him on the stretcher, and started carrying him out.
About that time, the snake came out from under the sofa and the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher. That’s when the man broke his leg and why he is still in the hospital.
The wife still had the problem of the snake in the house, so she called on a neighbor who volunteered to capture the snake. He armed himself with a rolled-up newspaper and began poking under the couch.. Soon he decided it was gone and told the woman, who sat down on the sofa in relief. But while relaxing, her hand dangled in between the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around. She screamed and fainted, the snake rushed back under the sofa. The neighbor man, seeing her lying there passed out, tried to use CPR to revive her.
The neighbor’s wife, who had just returned from shopping at the grocery store,
saw her husband’s mouth on the woman’s mouth and slammed her husband in the back
of the head with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting his scalp to a point where it needed stitches.
The noise woke the woman from her dead faint and she saw her neighbor lying on the floor with his wife bending over him, so she assumed that the snake had bitten him. She went to the kitchen and got a small bottle of whiskey, and began pouring it down the man’s throat. By now, the police had arrived. They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey, and assumed that a drunken fight had occurred. They were about to arrest them all, when the women tried to explain how it all happened over a little garden snake! The police called an ambulance, which took away the neighbor and his sobbing wife. Now, the little snake again crawled out from under the sofa and one of the policemen drew his gun and fired at it. He missed the snake and hit the leg of
the end table. The table fell over, the lamp on it shattered and, as the bulb broke, it started a fire in the drapes.The other policeman tried to beat out the flames, and fell through the window into the yard on top of the family dog who, startled, jumped out and raced into the street, where an oncoming car swerved to avoid it and smashed into the parked police car.
Meanwhile, neighbors saw the burning drapes and called in the fire department. The firemen had started raising the fire ladder when they were halfway down the street. The rising ladder tore out the overhead wires, put out the power, and disconnected the telephones in a ten-square city block area (but they did get the house fire out). Time passed! Both men were discharged from the hospital, the house was repaired, the dog came home, the police acquired a new car and all was right with their world. A while later they were watching TV and the weatherman announced another cold snap. The wife asked her husband if he thought they should bring in their plants for the night.
And that’s when he shot her.
Prison Tales!
In the 4th century AD in Korea a man had two sons. The elder rose to become Chief Justice in the land and the younger became an infamous bandit.The elder brother loved his younger brother but was unable to persuade him to change his ways.
Eventually the younger son was caught and brought before his brother, the Chief Justice. Everyone in the courtroom thought the younger brother would get off because it was well known that the Chief Justice loved his brother. But at then end of the trial, the Chief Justice sentenced his brother to death.
On the day of the execution, the elder brother came to the prison and said to his brother “Let’s swap places”. The younger brother agreed thinking that once they realised that it was the elder brother, the execution would not go forward. He went up on the hill to watch proceedings. His brother was brought out at dawn and to his horror executed.
Filled with remorse, he ran down the hill and told the guard his name and that he was the criminal who should be executed. The guards said to him.“There is no sentence outstanding on anyone with that name” In the same way, Christ has died for our sins so there is no sentence outstanding. All we have to do is to accept his death in our place.
AND..
Do you remember the story about the Allentown guy who survived at least five attempts on his life? The homicidal attempts were arranged by his dear wife and her lover. She arranged for assailants to beat him over the head with baseball bats. On one occasion she put a tripwire across the basement stairs in their house, hoping that he would trip over it & plummet to his death. Twice she arranged for him to be shot. The first time she drugged his chicken soup so he would sleep soundly and he was shot in the head, but miraculously survived. The second time he was shot in the chest, but only sustained minor injuries. “A great picture of a happy couple.” But, even more miraculous than his survival was his attitude toward his wife once he found out she was responsible for all of this. A self confessed lady’s man himself, the victim said that he held his wife blameless.
When she was found guilty and sent to prison for arranging for his murder, he took their 4 children and visited her every week - every single week. Then when she was released from prison, she went back to their red brick home to resume her married life with the man she had attempted to murder. His arm around her, he said, “We’re more in love now than ever before. I don’t understand why people break up over such silly little things.” Right! Alrighty then..love may be blind but sometimes it’s just downright stupid!
The Power of Commitment
As Alexander the Great was carrying his triumphant military campaign towards the East, he had a section of his army approach a strongly fortified, walled city. Alexander approached the city, demanded to see the king and set out terms for surrender. The king only laughed: “why should I surrender to you? You can’t do us any harm! We can endure any siege.”
In response, Alexander offered to give the king a demonstration. Nearby, within sight of the city walls, was a sheer cliff. He ordered his men to line up in single file and began to march them toward the precipice. The city’s citizens watched with horrified fascination as the column moved unhesitatingly towards and over the edge. Only after several men had plunged to their death did Alexander order the rest of his men to halt. He then called his troops back to his side and stood silently facing the city.
The effect on the citizens was numbing. From spellbound silence they moved to terror. They realized they had no walls thick enough and no resources extensive enough to defend themselves against that kind of loyalty and commitment. Spontaneously they rushed through the gates to surrender themselves to Alexander.
It is impossible to be sure of the authenticity of this story! But there can be no doubt about the power of commitment. People loyal to a leader or a principle and willing to pay the price required will always overwhelm the weak and timid in their ranks who value comfort and convenience more than a cause.