POWER LOST AND RECOVERED
By
D. M. PANTON, M. A.
A
constant phase of today is the going down of leader after leader into a
bankruptcy of power, or even into complete spiritual extinction: something hidden
perhaps, of which none knows the secret but God, and there is a sudden fading
of the old splendid glow. So Samson is perhaps the most vivid example in
the Bible of giant power, accompanied by an utter unconsciousness of danger -
always the greatest danger of all - sinking in a moment into total moral
bankruptcy. Samson is an example etched in lightnings
of what all of us may become: at first a spiritual giant; a doer
of exploits vivid, dashing, marvellous; a solitary hero dominating a nation; a
lonely warrior of God in his race and generation: then, a secret passion; a
fearful public collapse; and only in the far sunset, a going out in a sudden
burst of the old splendid power, after years of lost vision (the eyes put out)
and a manacled life.
Samson
is the summary of power resting on
consecration; and his huge muscular strength is the Old Testament
counterpart of spiritual dynamic in the New. For Samson was not born
strong: apart from the Spirit of God his stature was no more colossal, nor his
muscle iron, than any other man's; but with him the on-fall of the Spirit was
such, as was the clothing of the human with the naked power of the Holy Ghost,
that one man - and that man unarmed - could rout three thousand.
And the symbolism is extraordinarily striking. Unshorn locks falling
down picture the descent of the Spirit, drenching him as the sacred Oil did
Aaron; seven
locks (Judges 16: 19), the plenitude
of power; and locks untouchable, as the
God-given symbol of his Nazarite consecration and the
sole secret of his strength. The Nazarite who put a razor to his head knew that he had lost
his consecration. 'Nazarite'
means 'separated,' separated to God, a man whose power dwells solely in his
separation; and the power remains so long as (contact with a corpse being
forbidden) he is 'out of touch' with a dead world. And the
name 'Samson' means 'the sun,' or strength - the
sun as it shineth in its strength; the chief
receptacle and transmitter of the Light of the World.*
So Samson was no mere prodigy of brute force, but, as a unique
example of Holy Ghost power, the very choice of his weapons, ridiculously
inadequate, designedly revealed a power purely of God.
[* Our Lord's sevenfold unction (Is. 11: 2)
in the perfect antitype of God's limitless deposited Light.]
Now
Delilah appears upon the scene. 'Delilah'
- meaning 'languishing,' seductive - is the embodiment and summary of all that
is fair covering all that is false. The Lion which Samson encountered and
slew had nothing like the peril for him that Delilah had: it is safer to face
open martyrdom than concealed lust: Delilah and Samson are always seen
alone. A secret passion mastered and threw him. Delilah comes in
many shapes: impurity; drunkenness; notoriety; reputation; popularity; power;
money: and where drink or fornication slays its hundreds, money or
popularity slays its tens of thousands. Delilah is most dangerous
when she is most concealed. Already, earlier, this fatal self-indulgence had been foreshadowed when Samson, a Nazarite, had eaten honey out of the carcass of a dead
world he had overcome. Now another stage has been reached when, instead
of using his power in routing God's enemies, he begins displaying it at the
bidding of a harlot world. On behalf of the Powers of Darkness behind her, … Delilah now plies him, again and again, with the
question of the source of his strength - "wherein his strength was
great" - not that she might share it, but that she might steal it. No
prayer; no alarm; no self-examination; no self-distrust; no self-denial: resting on a blind presumption of privilege,
Samson confronts Delilah.
Now
we get a parallel that could not be closer to the sapping seductions that bring
down the loftiest spiritual characters with a crash. Three times Samson eludes
the questioning of Delilah: three times she probes his secret, each time
getting closer to its heart: yet all the time the power continues. God
never leaves His worker at the first sin; but interposes delays, warnings, and
opportunities of repentance; and may even continue to use him mightily.* Broken
withers, snapped cords, a dragged frame prove that nothing is yet irrevocably
gone. But each time, unheeding the red lights, Samson drew nearer
betraying his trust, and each time he drew nearer with a lie - ever skating on
thin ice, as when he wound his hair about the beam that might, if sharp-edged,
have severed it. All indulgence in sin is like feeding a tiger - each
sop thrown has to be succeeded by a bigger. And all the time, beneath the
mighty iceberg the warm waters of temptation, dallied with and encouraged, are
eating away the foundations of the glittering pinnacles, until suddenly -
without a moment's warning - the huge berg gives one mighty heave, and is gone.
[* It is a striking proof that the baptism of power (Acts 1: 8) is not primarily in intent, nor
necessarily in effect, a transmission of sanctity. The idea, therefore,
that the baptism of the Spirit produces an eradication of sin is a pure
illusion.
For
now that moment has arrived for Samson. What must never leave our memory
is that, in exercising power we are dealing with a Person, who will act as
He chooses, and when He chooses, and may stop the power at any moment: and we
must also remember that the Spirit in power (as distinct from the Spirit in
regeneration) is granted to Samson, not on the ground that he is an Israelite,
but that he is a Nazarite; and therefore that power
was not his inalienable possession, whether he used it or abused it, but was
only sent to him for combating God's enemies. The power seized him only
when he was fighting the battles of God:
rest, and we rust. But how solemn Samson's
ignorance of the Spirit's departure! The machinery may still run
for a little after the dynamo has ceased throbbing. God can come in
earthquake, but He can leave in shoes of silk. "Samson wist
not THAT THE LORD HAD DEPARTED FROM HIM." [*See
footnote.] Faculties
that get numbed by sin, get numbed also 'sensing' the
Spirit. No outward event announced it; no great convulsion, no ringing
alarum: while he was asleep the power departed. A Christian
worker can flatter himself, in the midst of his lusts, that his power is as it
was in his consecration; but in the agony of the supreme need of the power,
with everything at stake, in full view of a lifework's ruin, on the edge of a
scandal to the world of the first magnitude, Samson shakes himself - and the
power is gone. For alas, how keen is the world's razor on the locks
of consecration! Samson never shaved his locks; he allowed himself in
company where, falling into profound slumber, they were shaved for him: he had
power to keep out of Delilah's company; but we can trifle once too often; we
can sin away our freedom; the tide may have ebbed beyond recall while we
slept. Lock after lock falls, power ebbs with every slash, and Samson
awakes to agony. A picture follows of almost intolerable pathos.
God's mighty judge, the supreme leader of the only people of God in the world
at that moment, is filling the office of a public buffoon, and dancing, in
blundering blindness, to make sport for a hating, scorning, laughing mob.
Oh, the tragedy to which a backslider
can come! "And Samson made sport before
them" (Judges 16: 25)
But
now there rises before us as supreme a beacon-light against despair in the
child of God as perhaps the whole Bible contains. God preaches hope where
the devil preaches despair. "Howbeit the hair of his dead began to grow again AFTER he was
shaven": the thick shaggy locks - sign-manual of the Nazarite - slowly reappeared in the long agony of the
lonely vigil in the prison in
[* A razor could have slit Samson's throat as easily as his locks: it is
solemn to remember that a Spirit-forsaken backslider can be more valuable to
Satan than a dead saint.]
So
we arrive at last at one of the most wonderful sunsets in Scripture. In the
thrilling words of Napoleon: "There is time to
win a victory before the sun goes down." As soon as
Samson can pray, he is the hero again; the
strength he lost by sin he regains by prayer; and lo, the Spirit of God falls
once more upon the wrecked life! "And he
bowed himself with all his might" - it is the servant of God
once more pouring his whole soul and strength into the work of God, using "the
weapons of our warfare which are mighty before God to the casting down of
strongholds" (2 Cor.
10: 4): "AND THE HOUSE FELL."
How marvellously God's grace can retrieve the fearful error of a
lifetime! The roof and galleries, crowded with their thousands, crash
down upon the masses below: princes and priests, with the idol-cups to their
lips, and the mockery of Jehovah in their songs, are snowed under by an
avalanche of falling stone: a terrific crash, a fearful cry, and the temple is one vast sepulchre. His last heroism cost Samson
his life, but he instantly takes his place on the Gallery of God's Immortals (Heb. 11: 32): he stands once more, and for the
last time, a giant among the enemies of God. "For
the dead which he slew at his death were MORE than they which he slew in his
life." The fearfully
overcome can become the mighty overcomer: Samson gains the supreme victory
of his life AFTER his great fall: the last evidence of strength was the
greatest he ever displayed: the Spirit was never more with him than in his final
fight for God: he leapt into the Glory from the tragic spectacle of a
public shame. "A troop shall overcome him: BUT
HE SHALL OVERCOME AT THE LAST" (Gen.
49: 19).
-------
FOOTNOTE
Does
the Holy Spirit indwell a regenerate believer at all times, and regardless
of his behaviour? Many Christians believe so! But, according to the
Scriptures, this is not the case. G. H. Lang has rightly written
the following:-
"
… Twice in the history of
Four
centuries later this terrible double event was used by Jeremiah to warn the
then people that their sins would bring a like recompense of reward and wrath:
"Go ye now to My place which was in Shiloh, where
I caused My name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people
Israel" (Jer. 7: 12; 26: 6). Though wicked they are
still acknowledged by God as His people. Ezekiel saw the fulfilment
of this warning (Ezek. 10: 18, 19; 11: 23). Reluctantly, by stages, the presence of God
withdrew from the temple and the city, and destruction followed.
It
were impossible, inconceivable, that Philistines could
have destroyed the tabernacle or Caldeans the temple
so long as the God of glory was in residence. It is
equally inconceivable that Satan could have destroyed the body of the
incestuous brother at Corinth, or other
carnal Christians there, so long as the Spirit of God was in residence in them (1 Cor. 5: 5; 11: 30).
Types and histories agree to teach a withdrawal of the Spirit followed by
the destruction deserved. Twice it is affirmed in the Epistles that covetousness
is idolatry (Eph. 5: 5; Col. 3: 5).
Covetousness is simply the longing to have more, whether much or little more
being immaterial to the nature of the sin. It implies dissatisfaction
with the present ordering of God. Shall this idolatry be less offensive to the holy and loving Father than
the other form of idolatry that provoked His anger against
Nor
can it be questioned that upon many a once Spirit-energised life there stands
the dread notice "Ichabod,"
the glory is departed (1Sam. 4: 21). As with an individual Christian so with a church.
To the Laodiceans the Lord speaks as from outside
the house knocking for admission (Rev. 3: 20).
The Ephesians were warned of impending destruction as a church: "I come unto thee" (so that He was not then
dwelling among them), "and will move thy lampstand out of its place, except thou repent"
(Rev. 2: 5).
"Except thou repent": therefore restoration was
possible as it was to Israel of old ... "As many
as I love I reprove and chasten," which shows that it is real
children of God who are thus reproved and chastened in order that they may
"become zealous and repent" (Rev. 3: 19). Carnal churches have been
quickened and backslidden individuals have been restored, whereupon the Spirit
of God has reoccupied the house and beautified it afresh."
"For this son of mine was DEAD and is alive AGAIN"
(Luke 15: 24). The parable is one of restoration: not
regeneration.
-------