Going Out with a Bang for God — E.A. Johnston

Going Deeper with God Through Vows and Service

There have been instances in my life where I wanted to go deep with God, where I desired to experience more of Him, where I felt I was ready to be more useful to Him and I made some vows to God in regard to Him using me more.

God Looks for Those Who Will Risk Everything by Faith

Second Chronicles 16 .9 declares, For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show themselves strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him. I believe that can be translated, God is looking for the man who will go out on a limb for Him by faith and risk everything for Christ and the sake of the gospel.

Some men talk about going all out for God and they'll cry real tears in their desire to be more used of God, but when the rubber meets the road, scant few are willing to be turned inside out by God to get the job done.

I think Vance Havner summed it up the best when he said, If we serve such a dynamite God, why are so many of us living firecracker lives? I keep a spiritual journey journal of my daily quiet times marked by the date, the time of morning and the Bible passage and the experience God was giving me at the time.

A typical entry may read like the following, July 3rd, 430 AM, reading Job chapters 4 and 5. God revealed to me all was not right with my soul and after four hours of prayer, He brought me through to a deeper knowledge of Him.

Finishing Strong Despite Age and Weakness

I wrote that as a younger man, now I am an old man and being old and frail has made me more reflective about my life and what I've done or what I haven't done for God. I've been crying out to God lately to use me more and grant me the grace to be like Samson, who though he was a shell of what he once was, he was enabled by God to bring the house down and go out with a bang for him.

Samson Loses His Strength Through Compromise

Our text today, friends, is from Judges chapter 16. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will begin in verse 20. 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. Let me pause here to say, friends, Samson may have looked better with a haircut, but he lost his power with God. That's the case with our churches today, where in our attempts to reach the world, we let the world into the church and we too lost our power with God.

The Captured Church’s Failure to Preach Repentance

We'll let us return to our text in verse 21. 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. Well, let me pause here to say, here is the once mighty Samson captured and tamed, made blind and impotent in a mockery by the enemies of God.

But the world makes fun of the impotent church of our day. We've been captured by the world, tamed by the fear of man and mocked by the ungodly. We refuse to preach hard against sin. We fail to warn men of damnation in the devil's hell.

And we speak of a cross that we have whitewashed of all the gore and blood of Christ to make it more palatable to sinful man because we don't want to disturb anyone. So we refuse to warn men of their duty of repentance and their utter necessity of regeneration.

So here is Samson, the shell of his former self, blind, fettered, and doing the base work of a mule. So the Philistines throw a big shindig to celebrate their pagan god Dagon, who's a fish god. And as they gather themselves for this great sacrifice and celebration in a feast, they get drunker and drunker as they call for Samson to be brought out of the prison house so they can make sport of him and get some laughs.

Samson’s Prayer for Strength in the House of Dagon

We'll take up the text in verse 25. And they set him between the pillars, and Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them.

Samson’s Final Act of Faith and Judgment

Now the house was full of men and women, and all the lords of the Philistines were there, and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women that beheld while Samson made sport. And Samson called unto the lord and said, O lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines from my two eyes.

And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left. And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines, and he bowed himself with all his might, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people that were therein, so the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.

Finishing Life with a Powerful Witness for God

I will stop there, friends. That story is a powerful story to me, friends, and it speaks volumes of the power of God. I've been calling unto the lord lately to empower this old frail preacher, and to let me go out with a bang for him and his glory.

Maybe you want to go out with a bang for God as well. You know, friend, he's a dynamite God who's got power to save, power to anoint with authority from on high. It's better to make a noise for God while we're still in this world, for soon we could be silent in our grave.

I don't know about you, friend, but I don't want to end my course with a pop or a fizzle, but with an eruption they'll make the angels in heaven turn their necks to see what all the commotion is about.