Out of the Strong Came Forth Sweetness — Edgar F. Parkyns

I'm trying to speak, I don't know how far I can get without a bit of trouble. My father was in his last illness. I came home and petitioned for ill health a long time ago and my step-mother and I were in the big house nursing my utterly helpless father he had had a stroke.

Now, things have gone somewhat rough in our home. My young half-brother had written to me having just been converted and, no, it was his mother who wrote to me and she said, Alan has come to the age where he has to be called up during the walk and he doesn't want to fight but he hasn't the strength of mind to be a conscientious objector.

Can you help him in any way? So I prayed about it and I wrote back and I said Well, tell you what I'll do. If he likes to volunteer for the coal mines, I'll go and join him. I was then doing meteorological work up in Scotland with the non-conflict corps and very much enjoying the heather and the wildness and the Scottish people too.

My step-mother, for some reason or other passed the letter straight on to him and very quickly he wrote back to say Dear Edgar, thank you for offering to go down to the coal mines with me. I have put my name down for the coal mine.

Well, that was the figure. I didn't think that he'd do it, darling only that he didn't retest it. So there I was, landed for the coal mines away from the heaven, the highlands down to Yorkshire, down underground.

But, a little one later two weeks later, I got a pain in his mother to say Dear Edgar, you are not going down to the coal mines, surely? Analyst James' mind is going to the air force. I thought I could take anything but half of me objected the subconscious half with the result that I got terrific symptoms of heart trouble which had been with me even until this day.

Only symptoms, it would all show because while with my head I was saying I can take anything somewhere deep inside me. I was revolting against the dirt and the darkness and the hard hat and the hard boots and so on and I got in bleeded hope.

So I found myself with my stepmother who had never apologised to me for letting the boy, who wasn't very bright do these things and I thought, it's time that she apologised nursing our poor old dad, my poor old dad and she never seemed to realise what she had done.

I got more and more sour inside until I didn't know what to do and at last I realised that the only thing to do was to tell her what I felt. So I called her aside and told her. What horrified me was that when I opened my mouth to say a few kind of words the deep bitterness of my spirit welled up.

I was shocked at what was coming out not exactly in the words but in the emphasis. She looked at me and she said well if that's how you feel you'd better leave home. I said no that's not why I told you.

I told you because I wanted to get rid of it and thank God she had the sense to say Well if that's how you feel we'd better pray. We prayed. The bitter resentments in my heart there just flowed out of my misery and sourness and resentments.

She never apologised. I don't think she ever realised what she had done. But that wasn't the point the sourness had left me. I went down to a very small meeting. What so happened in that moment. There were two people one was the lady and myself.

I became the organist and the preacher. We sang Bless Thou the Humble Soul Music for tears. Oh glory to God the old sourness was out. Thank you Jesus Hallelujah. Oh to live there with that tenderness simplicity and honesty.

Christ’s Victory Over the Defeated Foe

Bless Thou the I must be preaching about that. That's just the main thing to what my brother was saying. I want to pick up what David was talking about last week when he spoke about Satan being a repeated foe and it's something that's very difficult to grasp that the when once you've recognised the power of the enemy of our souls and the way he holds sway of this world and the damage he is still able to do especially in the lives of those who love the Lord it is hard to recognise that Satan is a defeated foe.

And I would say that a great deal hinges on the understanding in your spirit and mine of what Jesus really did in that tremendous victory against the prince of this world. It's not easy to grasp. It's not easy to get into.

We're so used to the old pattern of defeat and darkness and being under circumstances instead of on top of them that it's not easy to enter into.

That place of victory with him.

Entering the Rough Water of Spiritual Victory

Down on Victoria Beach Lagos adventuring in the area of swimming. Victoria Beach is steep and the Atlantic comes in there with a good deal of force the breakers build up rapidly and they come crashing down.

My usual experiences on a beach like that are to sort of paddle around waist deep and struggle over the surf every now and again. But I had an ambition this particular day to get past the surf and out into the deep water which was only a little way further out and so I dived through wave number one feeling quite pleased with myself dived through wave number two still feeling I was doing reasonably well and dived through wave number three but something was wrong and I don't know quite what went wrong but all the world turned upside down.

I was surrounded by clean water and sand and I had no idea which direction I was facing up or down until my head hit the bottom and eventually I struggled up the steep sand. And an African said to me I don't think you'd better try to go down there sir.

And I feel that very often when we seek to enter into the great secret of our Lord's victory over Satan and seek to apply we get into rough water and it requires a great deal of grace and persistence to win through to the place where you really know the victory that Jesus has won.

Many of us find ourselves every time we try to break through the shadows into the leaves we face unexpectedly rough water. Isn't that what happened even to our Lord when he was anointed with the Holy Ghost and power and equipped to go out and deal with Satan immediately he was led of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil and for forty days and nights he was in rough water until he came through triumphant and was able to fulfill his ministry.

If he went that route we may be sure that when we come to our turn to find the strong man and spoil his good which is what Jesus did we too may find the going rough. But the truth is there. Hallelujah he did win.

Christ’s Resurrection Triumph and the Believer’s Victory

Hallelujah he did win. And one of the great purposes of God is that you and I should enter into the victory of our great heavenly brother. I don't know whether you remember but a few weeks earlier I myself have been seeking to open up Revelation chapter 12 and showed how the war there mentioned in heaven was the war associated with the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead when through death he destroyed him that had the power of death that was the devil and delivered them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

And I sought to show in that chapter that once again we look back to the great victory which Jesus won. I don't think that it would be as a place for me to try and emphasize the same truth again this morning.

May God grant that some of us and I speak of myself too may get hold of the reality of the victory of Jesus triumph over Satan to such a degree that we too experientially become more than conquerors through him that loved us.

There are some Christians who get through to this. The majority must stay paddling around in the rough water or in the shallows. But there are some who get right through and I hope there are hearts sufficiently eager to get, to be set on getting right through even though the water and the wave goes over your heads to come through into the victory which Jesus has won on his own behalf and begin to exploit that victory here.

It's all very well to sing about it when we get around the throne. But don't you think that God would like us to do a bit of exploiting here. A delightful illustration of that victory is the well-known story of Samson Edward found in Genesis 14.

Do you all know it? When I was a kid I used to I think I began to read at a rather early stage and my parents were delighted to see me reading the small print on a Tate and Lyle golden syrup tin and to their amazement they saw their precious little child not only discerning the line and the enormous beads that post around the lion's head.

They must think lots of beads have a three feet wingspan and then by the the drawing is only about this big. The lion itself is difficult to draw small beads around such a small lion. But not only was I fascinated with the picture my father was very pleased to tell me about it but I was also able to read that the words underneath out of the strong came forth sweetness.

I remember rejoicing on that day. So the story of Samson and the lion is an old one and a familiar one and I don't suppose that anyone that anyone here is a stranger to it. So it will be fairly easy to share it with you.

Samson’s Calling and the Angel of the Lord

Samson is a fascinating character one because of the greatness of his calling. He had a tremendous calling from before his birth. A whole chapter chapter 13 is given to the account of the angel meeting with the mother-to-be and then with the father.

And the more you read that story the more you realise this angel is no ordinary angel but is the angel of the Lord. That same angel with whom Jacob wrestled long ago. If I remember rightly no one in the whole Bible has such an auspicious announcement to his birth our Lord Jesus.

No one greater than Moses did have a certain amount of announcement. They discerned that he was a proper child. The angel of the Lord actually appeared twice to make sure that the parents understood that this was an extraordinary saviour who was being brought into the world.

And that's unusual. Even John the Baptist didn't have this honour paid to his initiation into this world since whatever did God intend for this man when he was introduced on the scene. First of all the angel came to the woman and she didn't quite know who he was.

The angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her behold now thou art barren and barest not. But thou shalt conceive and bear a son. Therefore beware I pray thee and drink not wine nor strong drink and eat not any unclean thing.

For although thou shalt conceive and bear a son and no razor shall come upon his head for the child shall be a nasal mite unto God from the womb and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.

And the woman came and told her husband saying a man of God came unto me and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God very terrible. But I asked him not whence he was. Neither told me he is made but he said behold thou shalt conceive and bear a son and so on.

And he said be a nasal mite to God from the womb. Manoah entreated the Lord. That's rather nice to find that even Old Testament saints could pray to the Lord without temple without priest without sacrifice without any complication.

Isn't that interesting. He could talk to the Lord direct and the Lord could hear him a way back in those days uncluttered by ritual. And Manoah entreated the Lord and said O my Lord let the man of God which thou didst send come again to us and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born.

God hearkened to the voice of Manoah. And the angel of God came again to the woman who sat in the field. But Manoah her husband was not with her. And she made haste and ran and showed her husband and said behold the man of God who appeared unto me and came unto me that came unto me the other day.

And Manoah rose went up to his wife came to the man and said are you the man. He said yes let thy words come to pass. How shall we order the child and how shall we do unto him. The angel repeated all that he had told his wife and Manoah said let's detain thee until we have made ready a kid for thee.

It don't take long to do that kind of thing. The kid can be slaughtered and cooked cooked for a meal within half an hour. The angel said though thou detain me I will not eat of thy bread. And if thou wilt offer a burnt offering thou shalt offer it unto the Lord.

Manoah knew not that he was an angel of the Lord. So Manoah asked his name and the angel said why askest thou thus after my name seeing it is secret or wonderful. The same answer that was given to Jacob.

Manoah took a kid offered it to the Lord and the angel did wondrously. When the flame went up from heaven from off the altar the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar and Manoah and his wife looked on it and fell on their faces to the ground.

But the angel of the Lord did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the Lord. And Manoah said to his wife we shall surely die because we have seen God. It means that Samson was designated for great things in Israel.

This outstanding announcement. And I don't give any doubt that the angel is identical with the one who wrestled with Jacob. And the same confession is made we have seen God here is one of those epiphanies of our Lord before he ever was born in a manger with typical negative thinking said to his wife we shall die.

That's the best thing. A negative thinking you can be dead right was more pragmatic than he. And she said if the Lord were pleased to kill us he would not have received a burnt offering and a meal offering at our hands.

Neither would he have shelled us all these things. Nor would nor would at this time have told us such things as these praise the Lord. Two ways of looking at the same event. One says we shall die and the other says we are in favour.

Why envy those people who have a heart that's full of hope don't you? That always looks on the bright side. I covet that kind of heart. I know it's a bit late at night but I still covet that kind of heart that hopes in God who is the help of your countenance and doesn't turn every promise of God into something negative but sees the good and the glorious and the possible.

Dying to Self-Will and Entering God’s Purposes

Hallelujah. Oh once again here if we can see that Satan is a defeated foe it's going to help us a lot not to look on the negative but to anticipate the positive and bring us into the great yes of God instead of into the prohibitions of God blessed that he has good things in store for us.

God educate all our hearts to this blessed optimistic simplicity. Amen. Lord give me grace to hope in God who is the help of my countenance and my God. I tell you when we go through the breakers in conceiving that Satan was indeed defeated once for all at the cross we shall get many a temptation to go back into negativism.

And we've got to come out of it into the positive believing in God for Jesus is the yea and amen to all the promises of God. Where is the man. Where is the woman who will break through into the calm supporting water to the fullness of God in Christ Jesus in his calling and in his birth.

And we don't know what he invited him in. But there was not only a calling in the life in the life of Samson there was a crippling and the crippling thing in him as you all know what his own self will.

Mighty purposes. Samson had his own purposes. Samson we're told a lot about him. You'll find that these two principles were operating in his life the mighty purposes of God for him and Samson's own purposes saying I want my way.

The blue and the white Nile meet. The white Nile comes down with a good deal of sediment from the hills and the blue Nile flows deep and true and transparent. Where these two meet they continue in the river and for miles down the river you can see the water of the blue Nile clean and transparent and the water of the white Nile before ever.

They are all merged into one muddy stream in Samson's life. And in many of our lives there are two principles operating. The principle of God's purposes and the principle of my purposes. God says go on now step in.

I say just a minute. I've just got one or two things I want to do. First our lives are muddied by that intermixing of the two purposes God's and mine. And that's because we are all deceived and under that satanic always liable to satanic deception.

Usually what we think is or what I think is my will is satanically injected. And God if he is to fulfill his purpose must bring my own self-centered purposes into death. And that's one reason why Jesus died that our self-will and our self-choosing might be brought into death that the pure stream of God's plan for your life and mine might flow unsullied from its source to its destination.

And see how time after time my own muddy thinking has spoiled what God wanted to do in my life. And through quite a bit of heart-searching in the last few years. And I've found this that God had controversy with me over several little things which were all good and I said oh Lord you're not going to touch that are you.

There's nothing wrong with that is there. You would never answer me. And so I said alright Lord I'll yield number one. Let's see what that will do. Alright I'll yield number two. Quite innocent quite harmless Lord you know that I'll yield number three.

Then I found I wanted to take number one and number two back again a long wonder of a long slow to get to the place where I would say oh God not my will but thine be done in every area bring me down to death over everything which I am choosing to prefer.

There is a place where through death not only Satan's power can be destroyed but your own self will be destroyed. And then and not till then can the pure and good and acceptable and perfect will of God flow in your life unspoiled and unsullied.

And remember this that God's will is infinitely better than those little things you thought were your will. They're they're mostly little baits of Satan to keep you out of God's will. That's chiefly what they are.

Oh praise God the Lord calls us to let go and let God have his way. And let go doesn't just merely mean sort of abandon yourself although that may be part of it but very often there are different things we are holding onto and we say Lord don't touch that.

That's mine. God has something better let go and let God have his way. But as for Paul Samson always the two streams were were intermingled and it's amazing to see how they flow together. I'm always staggered by the account of David spending the night with a philistine harlot and in the morning rising on an after midnight rising and finding himself shut in the city in the power of the spirit of God lifting the gates off the hinges of walking away.

In every sense I couldn't have done it. Guilt and failure would have held me prisoner. Pure water came through the filthy muddy water of his own self. Well earlier and now the pure water of the divine anointing came through.

But it is all with that continual intermixing. At last he finished up a blinded and all but defeated man. And only in his tragic death did he bring ultimate deliverance to his people. Mixed up life might appear in the register.

How will your life appear? Like Samson's mixed up the pure purpose of God appearing sometimes and then your own eager blind self will rising to the surface. Is that how it's going to be? God has something better for us.

And once again it's in Calvary that he brings us into death to our wretched little self will that we might rise into the fullness of his purposes. Samson was so tremendous in his divine callings that in some things he became a type of our Lord Jesus.

There are other times when he messed things up so much that he became a type of rebellious sinner. There are other times when he messed things up to such a degree that he became a type of you and me. Oh don't we need a great salvation?

Not just from the evil things not the hideousness of sins only but from the pleasurable little bits of self will that mar God's purposes for you and cause you to miss the train when God has appointed it and you see God has gone on and left you behind because you were busy on some little scheme of your own.

Or else you rushed ahead and you left God behind. Oh God has to baptise us into the death of Christ in every degree and in every way. And that death has to be wrought in us that the resurrection life of Christ might be manifest even in these mortal bodies.

And Samson in the beginning of his anointed ministry he was he was anointed with the Holy Ghost became a type of the Lord Jesus. In fact most of the Old Testament men of faith became types of the Lord Jesus.

Every time they believed God they began to picture Christ. Didn't they whoever they were whether it's Isaac or Jacob or Moses. Whenever they move in faith God says there's a man on whom I can write the name of my son and I can use him to express that which is dearest to my heart my own beloved one.

And on the lives of these Old Testament men God wrote when he could something about the Lord Jesus. And we like stupid old school kids rubbed off God's writing and wrote in our own foolish drawings. Haven't you done it?

Samson did time and again he had plenty of excuses for being carnal. Speaking of you weeks back about a carnal Christian who had been born of God but walked unto the flesh Samson had plenty of excuses.

There was no one teaching the law. He didn't have the benefits of the others. But there were other men in the Old Testament who lived clean without the Bible without the law without worship without fellowship lived clean.

There's no excuse for our sins that will justify us before God. No excuse and allow the convictions of God to come down through your life so that anything which is marring God's purposes in you may be faced unto as sin and rebellion.

Faith, Hebrews 11, and the Type of Christ

On the good side. Samson gets his name recorded among the heroes of faith in Hebrews chapter 11. That's the one thing that pulled him out of the rut and set him among those whom God honors. Even though he was unreliable and self-willed and rebellious.

He believed God in his most desperate hours. He believed God but all things were wrong. And he had spoiled his life and it was shattering around him. He believed God and he came through as one whom God loved.

Without faith it is impossible to believe God. So if you've got nothing else make sure that you have a faith in God that is so real that it will bring you through in your desperate hours. I don't mean the kind of faith which knobs the hay at the Sunday school lesson.

I mean the kind of faith that can cry out of desperation and bring the power of God down. And the pillars of the Philistines crashing upon the host. He was able to be a picture of the Lord Jesus. And he came down from the heights of Ishmael Dam down over the steep slopes towards Philistia where the alien Philistines had landed a few hundred years before.

And he was seeking a bride. And this bride was a Gentile bride. And in this already you can see God beginning to trace a familiar picture of our Lord Jesus coming down from the heights of heaven to this earth seeking a bride who had no rights or claims upon God's favor.

This bride was God's chosen bride. She was there of the Lord. She wasn't the same as the Delilah who brought into ruin later on of this young woman who had little sin against her. Samson loved her anyway and he wanted her.

And his parents after some protest agreed to go down with him. And as he came from the heights of Israel down to the plains of Philistia he reached a vineyard. And in the vineyard a young lion roared against him.

Isn't that a pretty picture. It's not just Samson. God is seizing on this young man known as Sully seizing on him because he has some faith and some love there and writing the future story of the gospel upon his life.

And he sees his own dear son coming down from heaven to bring deliverance to mankind. And he comes to the vineyard of Israel. You know the Old Testament picture of Israel. There's always a vineyard. And strange to say in the vineyard he hears the young lion a Satan going about as a roaring lion roaring against him.

What an amazing thing to find a lion in a vineyard. You find lions in thickets away in the wild. But when Samson came down to Philistia he met he heard a lion concealed in the vineyard a place of cultivation.

How perfectly it corresponds to the large picture of the Son of God coming down to earth in the vineyard of Israel. And even soon after he is born of the Virgin Mary the lion roars against him in the edict of Herod that every child in that place shall be killed that this coming king shall be destroyed.

The lion roared against our Jesus when he came down on his errand of deliverance. And right the way through his life in crisis after crisis you can hear the roaring of the lion. He comes back to his hometown where he had been brought up.

He speaks to the synagogue and he says words which sound innocuous to us but which rouse the whole company against him until a sturge of unnatural anger. They thrust him into the synagogue carry him to the ground of the hill and seek to destroy him.

The lion is roaring against him. He goes down to Jerusalem and he heals one man on the seventh day. And from that time onward his life is not safe in Jerusalem. His brethren say come up with us to Ephesus.

No Ephesus not my time. Yet he knows when he may move in. The lion is roaring against him. There are men coming to destroy his life. And all the way through from his birth through to his death. He is aware that time and again Satan who has the power of death is roaring against him.

And Samson heard the lion but he didn't run back to father and mother and say get reinforcements and lets get a few spears and some men together and a net and see if we can beat the thing that way.

And Samson saw the man of God moving clearly. Can you picture him there in hiding behind the vine his whole body quiver his head low down to the ground his tail twitching very very slightly as his mighty muscles are tense to spring.

He leaps out against the man who is walking through the vineyard and Samson catches him in mid air. And they take hold of him tears him and rams him as one would ram a kid. But I'm not very good at ramming kids myself.

Samson no doubt could have done it. But he in the anointing of the Holy Spirit of God took hold of that king of beasts and rammed that powerful flesh. The bleeding carcass laid aside and defeated. And this is one of the great aspects of the gospel.

Christ’s Conquest of Satan, Sin, and Death

When Jesus died he didn't merely bear.

Our sins in his own body. On the tree. He wasn't only our substitute and our sacrifice but he came down to death as a mighty conqueror. And on that cross he overcame him who had the power of death that is the devil.

He rimmed the carcass he rose from the dead he became the third day triumphant and victorious our greatest Samson our true deliverer all detail by detail. Samson was enacting the great principles of the gospel story because he was walking in faith in the same way.

When you walk in faith in love you too will become an example of the gospel story. It happens every time it happens with Samson. It'll happen with you made nothing of it wonderful Jesus more than common.

What a shame that his fathers don't believe it. They don't see. They don't understand the victory. They never really gaze into the vineyard and see what took place down there. They're still fearful. Every time they hear what sounds like the roaring of a lion they begin to tremble and go some other way and are deviated from the purposes of God in their lives.

Oh beloved. We need to know that our Samson has destroyed the lion later. He was taking his father and mother down to arrange for the wedding and their father lay through the vineyard and he thought I'd better have a look see what's happened to my lion.

He pushed his way through the bushes and there was the carcasses of the lion. No meat there. Now the vultures and the ants had done their work. The bones were picked clean the skin the bone flabby bones.

But he heard the murmuring of the numerous bees. When he looked to his delight he found in the carcasses of the nest the hive of the bees. He trussed his hand in the bees the section of the bees sweetness of his own victory held in his hands went on his way eating the fruit of his own triumph with great joy.

His parents came along and he said here have a taste. And they took it a lovely honey and asked him where he got it from. And he told them they just enjoyed the sweetness of it blessed. And there are lots of people who just enjoy.

Don't they the sweetness of the gospel story. They love to sing the hymns. They love the choruses. But they never ask why or how or what is the deep mystery underlying on this. They just take with lightness the sweetness and joy of sins forgiven.

And that's just as far as they go. But I have an idea that most of us in this company want to go further. We want to know the mystery. We want to know the depth the length and breadth and depth of Christ and to know the love of Christ.

We want to know the meaning of his triumph of the satanist. We want to know how and why we may be partakers of the fruit of his triumph and how we may enjoy the sweetness of it all. What a wonderful reviver honey is.

When Jonathan was going through the forest later on everybody was prohibited from eating. But Jonathan didn't hear the prohibition and he saw a hive and he trusted the point of the spirit of the hive and took out honey and enjoyed it.

And he says when they all complained to him he said look at my eyes see them. They brighten up immediately. And he goes to this very day and he is still one of the quickest givers of energy. Now it's assimilated almost immediately.

The Hidden Mystery of the Gospel

Well his parents got all the fun of it but they didn't know the truth of then the wedding was arranged. Thirty young men came to be his friends of all persons and Samson went down to receive his bride.

And they did have some fun at the wedding. You know when.

After the wine and the feasting they're met with a talk of those and it's nice to have a little bit of entertainment at the wedding and so Samson organised the entertainment and he said let's have some riddles come on Kelly.

But if you ask me no you're right you ask us well I've got one for you.

If you guess my riddle during the feast I'll give you thirty garments of praise and thirty garments of service but he said you can't guess it you've got to pay me the same amount and enough they said they're teary this handsome has the unfair advantage of inside knowledge he said here is my riddle out of the Out of the eater came forth meat, out of the strong came forth sweet.

And it was a little rhyme in Hebrew. Once I just said, you know, a piece of this, and they looked at each other, and they repeated it to each other. Out of the eater came forth meat, out of the strong came forth sweet.

And they thought, that sounds quite rather funny, doesn't it? And that's when the day passed, and the guests there, they thought, come on, we're making on with this, because if we don't understand this, we'll not get our garments of praise and our garments of service.

We had better understand it, fellas. And they got together, and they tried every possible way, but they couldn't get at it. It was a hidden thing. There's something about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in its fullness, which is a hidden thing.

Paul says, he calls the Gospel a mystery. He says, I want to make known the mystery, which has been hidden from ages and from generations. I want to make known about Him the secret of the Gospel. There is something about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is secret, it's God's secret.

And a carnal man can't get at it. And they turned one to another, and they worked all the way around it, and they began to become theologians and write books of theology or something, but they couldn't get at the God-given secret of the thing.

And they were really desperate. They got a bright idea. They said, I'll tell you who can get it out of him. His bride. And so they got hold of the bride, and they said, you get that secret from him, my girl, or else burn you and your father and your house.

It was a matter of life and death. The understanding of that riddle was life and death to those concerned. And I believe the understanding of the mystery of the Gospel is life and death to those concerned.