The History, Mystery and Tragedy of Samson - Part 2 — Ian Paisley

Samson's Separation and His Nazarite Calling

Let us turn to the 13th chapter of the book of Judges. We are continuing our studies and meditations on this great book, and we're considering the history, mystery, and tragedy of Samson. Now, in the last message I delivered to you, we considered Samson and his generation, and Samson and his education.

This morning, I want to look at Samson and his separation. If you look at chapter 13, you will find that a very strict obligation was placed on Samson's mother. She was to be separated unto God in the days of her conception and in the days of her carrying of Samson in her womb.

Look at verse 4,. Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine, nor strong drink, eat not any unclean thing. There was a strict rule of separation to be followed by Samson's mother. God the mothers of our land today, separation to the children that they begat and to their families in bringing them up for the Lord.

There is a solemn responsibility upon you, sons of God, for your obedience to God's command will be reflected in your home, reflected in your children, and reflected in the blessing of God upon you. God says He'll pour out His wrath upon the families that call not upon His name.

Now if you look at verse 5, you will find that Samson was to be characterized by separation. For thou shalt conceive and bear a son, and no razor shall come in his head. For the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.

So the son was to be like his mother, as his mother was not going to drink wine, nor strong drink, nor touch any unclean thing. So her son was not to drink wine, nor strong drink, nor touch the unclean thing.

But there was something more. He was to take the Nazarite vow from his youth, and it was to be a perpetual vow. He was vowed to the role and the power of separation as the result of his birth and from his birth.

God's people have had a spiritual birth. It is a birth that is begotten of God by the Holy Spirit. It is a holy birth, and from the day of the birth of the believer, the believer is bound and tamed to a path of separation in obedience to God.

There can be nothing, there can be nothing of surrender to the world and the believer's life, or surrender to sin, or surrender to the devil. He must keep that path of crystal clear, clean-cut separation in obedience to God's law.

If he surrenders to the world, if he surrenders to the flesh, if he surrenders to the devil, then his separation is marred. And immediately the separation of the believer is marred. The power leaves him.

The answer of God forsakes him. The spirit of God leaves him. And the man becomes powerless. He becomes as a sounding brass and as a tinkling of the cymbal. Now turn with me over to the book of Numbers, chapter 6, and you'll find set out there for you the law of the Nazarite.

The Nazarite Vow and Samson's Defilement

And I told you on my last message that you should consider carefully this sixth chapter of Numbers. And there is something very important and particular about the vow of the Nazarite. When the vow ceased, when the period of the vow was complete, that was not to be shaven, was to be shaved off in a very special manner.

It was only when I started to study the life of Samson of Price that I discovered this very important aspect, which reveals the heinousness and awful sinfulness of the sin that Samson committed. He allowed himself to be put to sleep on the knees of the harlot.

He allowed the hand of a Philistine barber to cut off his locks of separation. And instead of those locks being treated as a holy thing, even though they were cut off from his head, they were trampled underfoot by the feet of the Philistine as they attacked the now impotent Samson.

Now look with me at verse 18 and you'll find that only a holy hand was to be placed on the locks of the Nazarite in a holy place. ...of the harlot Delilah. How unholy was the sacrilegious hand of the Philistine barber.

In verse 18,. And the Nazarite shall shave the head of his separation at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. At the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, a door that was always open, there stood the altar, there stood the laver, and beyond altar and laver, the holy place and the holiest of all, God's meeting place with his people.

And that's the place that the laver should always stand. He should be standing in accessibility to God. He should be standing with the shadow of Calvary upon him. He should be standing with the shadow of the laver of God's holy word and blessed spirit upon him.

He should be standing in the shadow of the holy place and in the shadow of the holiest of all. But poor Sass, he's in Tifnah. He's in the house of the harlot. He's in the place where he's going to lose his power because he's going to lose his separation.

And what was to be done with the hair of the head of the Nazarite? After it was shaved, it was to be put in the fire which is under the sacrifice of the peace offering. The only other thing ever offered on the altar beside the burnt sacrifice was the hair of the Nazarite's separation.

Separation Through the Cross and From the World

I want to tell you that separation flows from the cross and separation brings you to the cross. If I'm going to be a separated man of God, I've got to come to the cross. And if I'm going to be a separated man of God, I'm going to take up my cross and follow Christ.

This is the way the Master went should not his servants tread it still. Brethren and sisters in Christ, it's the way of the cross leads home. It is sweet to know as I onward go that the way of the cross leads home.

There is a separation from the world and that separation is important today for it seems to me that the world is infiltrating the lives and the homes and the society of those that profess the name of Christ.

Today believers will do things that 20 years ago, aye 10 years ago, were generally condemned by the Christian public. Why is that? Because the walls of separation won't help us to be totally and absolutely separated from the world.

May God see to it that there is a battlement around our home. In the Old Testament, no home was to be without its battlement. May God help us to put up the battlement of the family altar, the exaltation of God's word and the prayers of parents as a battlement around the home to keep out the world, to keep out the things of the world.

To see to it that the world doesn't reign, doesn't dominate, doesn't control and doesn't infiltrate our lives. We need separation in all walks of life. Now separation is not isolation. That's what the church of Rome did.

They confounded separation with isolation so they built their monasteries and their nunneries and they built big walls to keep out the church, to keep out the world. You cannot keep out the world by building walls.

Jesus Christ was separate from sinners, yet He was a friend of sinners. He went among them, but His garments were unspotted by the tint of their sin. And thank God I can walk in this world and not be off this world.

I can be separated in the midst of all my mingling with man. I can be separated as a man of God walking in the ways of God. Then, of course, there is another matter. Some people will say to you, yes, I believe in separation from the world, but there is separation from ecclesiastical compromise and apostasy.

Separation From Ecclesiastical Apostasy

Oh, when you touch this subject, then they get really mad with you. They say, oh, no, we will still go to the old apostate church. After all, our minister in our church is a sea of man. He may be a sea of man, but in what presbytery does he sit with a bunch of apostates?

In what union does he hold his fellowship with men who deny the virgin birth and blood of the Lamb? How can he go to ordination services and ask God's blessing on men that know not God and obey not the gospel?

He cannot do it if he's a man of God. How could I go and lay my hand... who's a Unitarian, a denier of the blood, a denier of the book, and ask God's blessing in his ministry? It cannot, it must not, and it will not be done if I'm going to walk the path.

So we must come outside the camp and bear reproach with Jesus Christ. Oh, well, I'll not be in a World Council of Churches church, but I'll fellowship with them. I'll go and preach for them. I'll go and win souls among them.

Let me say to you, it is not your task nor mine to build the Church of the Antichrist. And today we have compromise on every hand, and we can see people today who in the name of evangelism are prepared to blur the great difference between those that are saved and separated and those that are mixed up in the mixture of unholy apostasy.

I cannot build the Church of Antichrist and will not. And those people who say that they would have an evangelistic campaign for the Pope if he invited them are flying in the face of God's holy word. You can't go under the sponsorship of the devil to do the work of Jesus Christ.

Let's get it, please. And more and more the pressures are going to be on us. More and more the pressures are going to be upon us all. Can't you compromise a little? The other day a person said to me, if you would just lower your flag just a little.

It's too high. Just bring it down a little and you'll have more friends and people will love you more. The only love I want is the love of God's sweet approval. That's the only love I want. And if I've got the love of God's sweet approval, what need I care what man may think or say?

And sisters in Christ, there's no such thing as degrees in separate books. Not the unclean. Put your finger at it. Don't touch it. Some people are putting their arms around it. Some people are kissing it and embracing it.

God says you have not even to touch it with the tip of your finger. And this is the stand that God has called this church to take and to maintain. It's easy to take a stand, but it's far harder to maintain it down through the years.

Christ's Cleansing of the Temple as a Model for Ministry

May God keep us faithful. I was greatly encouraged the other day, reading again the life of the blessed Savior. There's no greater example than we could have of a God-anointed ministry than the ministry of the blessed Son of God.

You know the first public act that he did after his baptism, his temptation by the devil, he came and purged the temple. Cast out and admit it, a devil feed. He did a reforming work. And I was struck in the last days of his ministry, he went back and did the very same thing.

There are two cleansings of the temple. One at the beginning of his ministry and one at the end of his ministry. And I've got to commence by purging God's temple. I have to continue purging God's temple.

I have to finish my ministry purging God's temple. There is no discharge in this war. The apostasy will ever be with us. And God's plan for clean-cut separation is ever in the book. And at the end of the day, the locks of separation were to be a holy and acceptable sacrifice unto God.

A Life of Separation and the Final Judgment

But could I draw a parallel when I come to the end of the journey and I stand in heaven's court of which these earthly tabernacles were but a pale reflection? Will I have a life of separation to offer to God as an acceptable sacrifice?

Gold, silver, precious stones, or will it be wood, hay and stubble fit only for the fire? That's the question that every one of us must ask themselves. So I cannot go, let me say this this morning, I cannot go to a church in the World Council of Churches and have an evangelistic campion.

I cannot associate with those that are in the great apostasy. I cannot be found on a mixed platform where you have evangelicals and pseudo-evangelicals and evangelifish. I cannot be there. I shall be alone, walking with God in the light of His Word.

Of course, I will be most unpunished. Of course, I will be misunderstood. Of course, man will say he's a bigot, he's an extremist. Or in this country, he's a P .S .B .I. They will say that. But I shall obey God rather than them.

Samson was only mighty. He only delivered Israel when the seven locks of separation hung from his hand. Brethren, we must keep to the book. In running a race, a fellow can get to the winning post quickly if he breaks the rules.

But the only man that gets the reward is the man that keeps to the rule book. Now let us keep to the rule book. There's no quick cuts for God's blessing. We have got to walk the way of God. May God help us in this church and in this fellowship to be totally and absolutely separate from apostasy.

And if you're in a church that's in the World Council of Churches or in any way associated with the World Council of Churches, that's what the Lord says in this book. And if you do it, God will bless you.

He has blessed us in this house 10 ,000 times over. And hallelujah, the best has yet to be. And the end is not yet. Praise the Lord. I'm glad there's not even a cobweb between the bricks in this church that belongs to the apostasy.

We wouldn't even give them the spider's web. Hallelujah. Thank God we're totally and absolutely outside the great apostasy. May it always be so. For Jesus' sake and everybody's sake. Amen.