God's Power Remains

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💡Big Idea

Takeaways and Next Steps

📖Bible Passage

Judges 16:22

Points

• What would it have been like to live in the time of the Judges? It would not have been a pleasant time to live.
  • The Israelites regularly rebelled against God doing what is right in their own eyes
  • Therefore God often gave them over to be conquered
  • Then the Israelites would cry out to God
  • And then God would send a Judge to deliver them.
  • This cycle repeated many times.
• How often do we today do what is right in their own eyes?
  • There are over 500 million people living in North America and yet only 500 thousand NAPARC (North American Protestant and Reformed Church going people).
  • Samson, the judge also did what was right in his own eyes. Living in sin.
• How did it come to this point where Samson was captured by the Philistines in Gaze and blinded and chained?
  • We can see that there was tremendous pride in Samson.
    • His pride was not entirely unfounded. On many occasions he had bested his enemies with his tremendous strength.
    • But this strength that he had was not from him but from God.
    • How often do we also have great pride in our own accomplishments yet ours are also from God. Everything that we have is from God.
    • Three times the harlot, explicitly told him that she wanted the secret to defeat him. Samson was so prideful that he kept coming back to her, even though she betrayed him already. He had no fear that he would be bested.
      • He thought that he knew better.
  • Great sexual immorality
  • Unbelief
    • Samson was not allowed to touch dead bodies and violated his Nazirite vows.
    • Samson showed that he despised the word of God:
      • Samson rejected God’s promises. Samson chose to break his Nazirite vow thus rejecting God’s promise for his life.
      • Nazirite vow Numbers 6
      • How many times do we also reject the word of God in our lives?
        • How often do we treat God as simply an abstract concept?
• How did it come to the point where we are today, with rampant unbelief in our churches and culture?
  • Where a pride flag flew over the church where John Knox once preached at.
• Sometimes the discipline that God has over Christians is immediate death.
  • But God did something here with Samson.
    • God allowed much suffering happened to Samson but God allowed Samson to live.
    • But Samson did not know that God had departed him. Judges 16:20.
    • And yet there was still hope for Samson. Judges 16:22.”However, the hair of his head began to grow again,”
      • This was the sign of the LORD being with Samson.
      • by growing his hair back the LORD was reminding Samson of His presence and His power.
    • It seems clear in the text that Samson repented of his sin then.
• The power of God remained with Samson, and it remains with us, His church today.
  • The power of God remains!
  • There is power in the blood of Jesus Christ.
    • This is powerful still, and always will be.
    • The fountain of the living water and the blood of Christ remains.
    • We must go back to that water.
• See Samson’s prayer to God in vs 28:
  • Judges 16:28

Application

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Further Study

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💬Discussion Questions