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[ Silence ] [ Background noise ] What if God is unhappy with our praise? What if He is not pleased with the words we say?

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What if He takes away His love and His spirit from us? What if God is unhappy without grace? What if God is unhappy without grace? What if he is not pleased with the words we say?

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What if he takes away his love and his spirit from above? What if God is unhappy with our praise? What if God is unhappy with the way we live? What if he is not pleased with the way we give?

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What if he takes away his love and his spirit from above? What if God is unhappy with the way we live? We must change the way we walk. We must change the way we talk.

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We must live a life that's pleasing to our King. We must read God's holy word. Let His praises be heard. ♪ Lord, just be pleased with our praise ♪

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♪ We must change the way we walk ♪ ♪ We must change the way we talk ♪ ♪ We must live a life that's pleasing to our King ♪ ♪ We must read God's holy word ♪

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♪ Let His praises be heard ♪ ♪ Lord just be pleased ♪ ♪ Lord just be pleased ♪ ♪ Lord just be pleased ♪

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♪ Lord just be pleased ♪ ♪ For praise, praise ♪ ♪ Praise, praise ♪ [MUSIC]

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>> The Lord is nice to our Lord, amen. There is a word, Which is recorded in Judges, the 16th, and the 19th. the 16th chapter in the fifth verse. Judges chapter 16 verse 5, "And the Lords of the Philistines came up unto her and said unto her entice him and see wherein

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his great strength lieth, and by what means we may prevail against him, we may bind him to afflict him, and we will give thee, every one of us, eleven hundred pieces of silver. "See wherein his great strength lies." Those are the words I'd like for you to underscore in your minds and hearts as we consider the subject, "Source of your strength." Source

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of your strength. The Philistines and the Israelites are in Canaan when God

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led the Israelites out of Egypt he did not lead them by way of the Philistines, lest they face the threat of war. So he led them roundabout on the longer journey.

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Well, the Philistines were known for their militarism. They had weapons superior to those of the Israelites. The Philistines are the enemy. They are uncircumcised.

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They are not true believers. Samson, a strong man from the camp of the Israelites, fell in love with a Philistine woman. Samson is regarded as the strongest man of the Old Testament.

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He fell in love with this Philistine woman. It was like rain falling on parched ground. She was not acceptable to his parents, however. She was considered offensive to these orthodox Israelites.

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She belonged to another faith. And it seemed to the parents that this was not a good marriage for their only son. What you should do, they said to him, son, is find a woman from your own group. We have many attractive, wonderful girls among the Israelites.

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Select one of them." But Samson would not hear this. He said to them, "This woman, this Philistine woman is the one for me." So he had seemingly fallen helplessly in love with this Philistine woman.

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His parents did not approve because she had unconventional ways. She often was guilty of engaging in activities that were not honorable. In other words, to put it in the language of one of our popular songs, the lady was a tramp.

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She may have been a lady among the Philistines, but she was a tramp in the eyes of the Israelites. Both the Israelites and the Philistines, I said, are in Canaan. The Philistines had five cities presided over by lords. These lords of the Philistines had what was known as a pentapolis.

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Escalon, and Ekron, and Gath, and Gaza, and Ashdod. These were the five cities. They were regarded as being strong because they had weapons that were made of iron while the Israelites did not.

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But by the hand of God, Samson is mysteriously raised up in their midst as a strong champion. He is divinely designed to be strong. At his birth, an angel of the Lord appeared and announced to his parents,

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even though his mother had been bound for so many years, that she would bear a son. And his name was to be Samson. And the name Samson means son. So he might well have been given the name Sonny Boy.

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He was to be strong and manifest himself as one who was possessed with the power of the Lord. A razor was not to touch his face or his head. He was to drink no wine, he was to be a Nazarite. God has his own recipe for strength.

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This man, Samson, is to be a strong man. He is to follow a certain diet and not eat food from the king's table, but his strength is to come from God. He's not to engage in the drinks that are produced by the distilleries among the Philistines.

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is to be faithful to God's command for his life. But somehow, Samson goes out of bounds. He goes down to Timna, and there in Philistine territory, he meets a Philistine woman who captivates his attention. He just couldn't keep his eyes off that woman. She had a smoothness in her talk, and she had a certain way of walking and speaking that seemed to reach

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Samson at the very core of his being. Samson said to his parents, "Get her for me." And the parents knew that this religious woman was not right for Samson, and so they protested.

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But Samson insisted. Where is the source of your strength? What makes you strong? Is it following the will and way of pious parents?

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or is it following your own selfish will? What makes you strong? They tried to talk to Samson. Son, can't you listen and follow our request

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selecting a woman from your own people? Samson would not be persuaded. But God has a way of making things that are not work for good.

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Samson marries this uncircumcised Philistine from Timna. What is the source of your strength? What makes you strong?

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When God uses you as his witness against the Philistines, against forces of opposition, what makes you strong? Samson, I said, went down to Tinder. When he reached the vineyards,

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he encountered a lion. It's dangerous to travel in Philistine territory, but the spirit of the Lord came upon him and he tore the lion into pieces.

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Similar experience, David recalls when he was a shepherd boy and a lion came to destroy the flock And God's Spirit gave him the power to overcome the lion. What makes you strong?

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What is the source of your strength as you encounter the lions of this life? He came back, and he noticed that in the carcass of the lion, there was a beehive.

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there was honey. And he took some of the honey and he ate it. And he gave some of it to his mother and father without telling them the source from which it came.

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What's the source of your strength? What makes you strong in times when you seem to be surrounded by temptations to make you weak? What makes you strong?

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Is it in showing a good disposition towards your heritage? Samson is determined. And so he has the wedding set.

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And at the wedding party, Samson proposes a riddle to the Philistines, which if they saw, He would give them 30 changes of garments. And they found it very difficult to solve the riddle.

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They were given an allotted period of time and time went on and they just could not solve the riddle. And they coaxed Samson's fiance. They threatened to burn her and her father's house down if she did not give Samson the answer to the written.

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So she did. She gave the answer. She wept. She said to Samson, "Oh, sweetheart, you claim that you love me, me and you told me time and time again one thing after another, but that's not the secret of your strength." They wanted to know the secret of his strength.

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And he said, "If you really want to know the secret of my strength," after she had pestered him with tears. On that last day, which was the seventh day, he told her that if somehow he was bound in a certain way that he would not be strong. But that's really not the secret. The secret is that the riddle of this man who conquers a lion is in the fact that the

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lion is strong and the honey is sweet. And out of the eater came forth sweetness. And when he told her that secret, then of course, Samson had lost his bet with the Philistines. And he said to them, "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have known the

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answer to my riddle." And Samson showed weakness in this case, but somehow, even in the midst of our strength, we may find ourselves encountering weakness. What is the source of your strength?

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When the Philistines set a trap for you, how do you get out? What makes you so strong? God, you see, controls the traps that may be set.

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God somehow provides opportunities for us to be released even when we find ourselves trapped by the Philistines. Samson went home to his in-laws to be with his wife. And when he got home, he discovered that his wife

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was no longer his wife, that his father-in-law had given his wife to his best man. And the father says, I thought you probably wouldn't want her after this incident

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where she betrayed you. And so here's a sister, take her. And so Samson takes her sister. He seemed to just like these Philistine women.

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Samson decides that he's going to even the score. So he takes 300 jackals and fastens torches to them, burning torches to their tails, and turns them loose into the fields of the Philistines

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and destroys the crops of the Philistines. And the Philistines determine that they're going to get even with Samson. And so as a last resort, the Philistines marshaled their military forces and come up before the

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Judeans and say to the Judeans, "Send us Samson, or else we are going to wage war against you." And the Judeans were afraid, and they came to Samson and they said, "We are commanded to bind you and bring you to the Philistines. We must do this because we are no match for the Philistines.

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So Samson permits himself to be bound by his own people and taken to the Philistines. But the spirit of the Lord seizes him when he is in the midst of the Philistines. The ropes melt away and Samson is able to slay a thousand Philistines. What is the source of your strength?

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When you find yourself surrounded by forces of opposition, when you find yourself bound, what is the source of your strength? Well, Samson just couldn't stay away from the Philistines. He went to Gaza and went to bed with a prostitute there.

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And the men of the city waited for him, and Samson arose at midnight and walked off with the gates of the city. What makes you strong, Samson? What makes you strong when you find yourself surrounded and in midnight experiences and

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no help seems to be available from outside sources and you must depend upon yourself and no one else seems to be there? What makes you so strong? Jesus is encountered by his parents and they come to him and say, "Come home." They

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thought he does not know what he's doing, but the Spirit of the Lord is upon him. He answers them when he's told that your mother and father want you to go with them. He said, "Who is my mother and father? Those who do the will of God, those of my mother and my father. Samson, sonny boy, what makes you so strong? You

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married a Philistine woman against your father and mother's advice. What makes you so strong? Well the Philistines discover the answer to your riddle, what makes you so strong? Your own people put you into the hands of the Philistines and you get out? What makes you so strong? Well the Lord came upon

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him. In every instance it is said here that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. It's a wonderful thing to know that the Spirit of the Lord comes in the midst of all of our weakness. It's the Spirit of the Lord that comes upon him and this man who has such an inclination toward the the opposition and finds himself

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time and time again in their clutches is able to come out because the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing to know the power of God in the midst of all of our differences, in the midst of all of our weaknesses. It's a wonderful thing to know the power of the Lord. Well, the psalmist said, "The Lord is

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my strength." The Lord is the strength of my life. When the wicked, evil, and mine enemies, and my foes came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. My strength is in the Lord, the psalmist says. Well, I looked at how Samson is delivered time and time again, and we'll have to continue this in another episode next Sunday, but it's

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the Lord. In all of these cases, it's the Lord that delivers him. And I thought about Paul as he found himself weak. He said, "I had a thorn in the flesh and with all of the pain that I had to deal with, I found myself trapped by illnesses and ailments and yet in the midst of it I cried to the Lord." And the Lord said, "Well

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"Paul, I'm gonna leave it just as it is. "I'll leave you with that thorn in flesh." And I'm gonna do it because my strength is made perfect in weakness.

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Isn't that something? That God's strength is made perfect in weakness so that Paul says, "The weaker I am, the stronger I am." That's a strange paradox, but that's the way it is.

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That God in the midst of all of our weaknesses, God makes us strong. And so my word to you today, my brothers and sisters, is be strong.

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Be strong. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Be strong. We're not here to dream and drift.

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We have hard work to do, loads to lift. So be strong. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. As we sing the hymn of invitation,

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we extend the privilege of the church, the invitation to Christian discipleship, to become a part of the family of God. Here at Ebenezer, we invite you to come.

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If you're living in Austin without a church home, We invite you to come. If you have not accepted Christ as your personal Savior, we invite you to come now.

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This is a good time to make that decision as we sing, "God, mill thou great Jehovah." We invite you to come. It's an open door that he sets before us.

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Come. [MUSIC] [singing] [Singing]

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[MUSIC] [Music] [Music] ♪ Through the ages ♪

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♪ Mary ♪ ♪ I am weak ♪ ♪ Yes, but Thou art mighty ♪ ♪ You can hold me with Thy powerful hand ♪

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♪ I am weak ♪ ♪ When we first ♪ ♪ Got ♪ ♪ On ♪

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♪ My feet ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ He ♪ ♪ It's time ♪

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♪ Oh ♪ ♪ Bread of heaven ♪ ♪ Bread of heaven ♪ ♪ Feed me till I want no more ♪

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♪ It's the bread ♪ (choral singing) (choral singing) [Music]

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[MUSIC] [Music] [singing] [MUSIC]

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[Music] ♪ Lord have mercy ♪ ♪ Lord have mercy ♪ ♪ Have mercy, have mercy, Lord ♪

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♪ Have mercy, have mercy, Lord ♪ ♪ Have mercy, Lord ♪ ♪ Have mercy, Lord ♪ (cannoneers.]

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[MUSIC] Next Sunday, the mission program, next Sunday evening, will be sponsored by Mission 2, and we ask you to be here. It will be on the Y2K program, and it will be helpful, I'm sure, for all of us.

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So be present next Sunday afternoon for the mission program. Would you bow your heads now for the benediction. Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling, present you faultless before his glorious presence with exceeding joy.

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To the only wise God our Father, be glory, majesty, dominion, and power, now and forevermore. Amen. [MUSIC - "THE LORD BLESS YOU AND KEEP YOU"] [MUSIC]

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♪ With his countenance upon you ♪ ♪ And give you peace ♪ ♪ And give you peace ♪ ♪ And give you peace ♪

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♪ And give you peace ♪ ♪ The Lord makes his face to shine upon you ♪ ♪ And be gracious unto you ♪ [MUSIC]

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