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This is Glendale Presbyterian Church People Moving Power. This tape includes the reading of scripture and a message by the Reverend Dr. Bruce W. Thielman titled Delilah. This tape is copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Any public or commercial use in full or in part requires the advanced written permission

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of Dr. Thielman. The private use of this material for the spiritual gain of yourself or others is heartily encouraged. Let us continue in our worship by giving reverent attention to the reading of God's Word as it is recorded in the book of Judges, the 16th chapter, beginning at

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the verse numbered four. After this, Samson loved a woman in the valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. And the lords of the Philistines came to her and said to her, "Entice him and see wherein his great strength lies and by what means we may overpower him that we may bind him to subdue him and we will each give you

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1,100 pieces of silver." And Delilah said to Samson, "Please tell me wherein your great strength lies and how you might be bound that one could subdue you." And Samson said to her, "If they bind me with seven fresh bow strings which have not been dried then I shall become weak and be like any other man." Then the lords of

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the Philistines brought her seven fresh bow strings which had not been dried and she bound him with them. Now she had men lying in wait in an inner chamber and she said to him, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson." But he snapped the bow strings as a string of toes snaps when it touches the fire. So the secret of his

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strength was not known. And Delilah said to Samson, "Behold you have mocked me and told me lies. Please tell me how you might be bound." And he said to her, "If they bind me with new ropes that have not been used then I shall become weak and be like any other man." So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them

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and said to him, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson." And the men lying in wait were in an inner chamber but he snapped the ropes off his arms like a thread. And Delilah said to Samson, "Until now you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me how you might be bound." And he said to her, "If you weave the seven locks of my

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head with the web and make it tight with the pin then I shall become weak and be like any other man." So while he slept Delilah took the seven locks of his head and wove them into the web and she made them tight with the pin and said to him, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson." But he awoke from his sleep and pulled

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away the pin, the loom, and the web. And she said to him, "How can you say I love you when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times and you have not told me wherein your great strength lies." And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day and urged him, his soul was vexed to death.

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And he told her all his mind and said to her, "A razor has never come upon my head for I have been a Nazarite to God from my mother's womb. If I be shaved then my strength will leave me and I shall become weak and be like any other man." When Delilah saw that he had told her all his mind she sent and called the

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Lords of the Philistines saying, "Come up this once for he has told me all his mind." Then the Lords of the Philistines came to her and brought the money in their hands. She made him sleep upon her knees and she called a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him and his

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strength left him and she said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson." And he awoke from his sleep and said, "I will go out as at other times and shake myself free." And he did not know that the Lord had left him. And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with

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bronze fetters and he ground at the mill in the prison. And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his Holy Word. Amen. [Music] [Music]

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Let us pray. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. The curtain goes up on Act 3 of the story of Samson and the episode may be summed with a single word and that word is "Delilah." Now the Valley of Sorek ran from Mount Zion on the west to the Mediterranean Sea on the east. From the

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highlands of Judea on one hand to the plains of Philistia on the other. And Samson knew that valley. There is no reference in Scripture which implies that Samson ever stepped outside of that valley. He knew its beauties, he knew its business like the palm of his own hand. Yet strange to say Samson got lost in

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the Valley of Sorek. Not lost physically but lost spiritually. For Samson went down to dwell with the Philistines in the tents of Delilah. Samson turned his back on his own people, those who supported him in his faith and went to live in the tents of unbelief. He turned away from those who loved him and led

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him to love and went instead to the fellowship of evil men and evil women. Now it's not really too hard, too difficult to understand why Samson might have done this. To a certain degree he was led by his assumption that he was strong enough to defeat anything that would confront him. And there is no doubt

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that he saw himself as the Lord's anointed and assumed this to mean that no one would ever be able to defeat him in any contest of faith. This kind of pride of course goes before destruction. This kind of haughty spirit before a fall. There is no doubt that this was part of Samson's problem. But I think of

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greater significance is the fact that the man was probably just looking for some excitement. There's nothing wrong with excitement, is there? He wanted to get away from all those religious folks at home and have a little ball on his own. It's not too difficult to comprehend, is it? He wanted a change. Now all of us

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feel at one time or another the importance of knowing a little change in our experience, don't we? I mean, wouldn't it be nice one weekend and not to have to sit and listen to that preacher yelling at you? Having people walking up to you and saying, "We missed you last week." Getting that people mover through

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the mail or that other subtle suggestion via an empty envelope that you made a pledge and have not yet kept it. Wouldn't it be nice for a little while at least to have some fun in Philistia? That's the way Samson felt. I mean, church people are so stuffy and they sing the same songs all the time and the same meetings

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and the same speakers and the same subjects. Isn't it legitimate to want a change? Have you heard that little six-line poem which goes, "To live in love with the saints above, oh that will be glory. But to live below with the saint you know, that's another story." Well, Samson probably felt that way and I

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think we can understand that. He wanted to can the whole thing and go somewhere where no one could call him. That's the rub. No one to call him. No one to challenge him. No one to chasten him. No one to comfort him. No one to console him. Say what you want to about the church. Say what you want to about the

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fellowship of faithful people. It stands altogether unique upon this planet of ours. It is made up of every representation of man, rich and poor, laborer and business executive, Democrat and Republican, the lettered and the ignorant, the old and the young, the black, the white, the red, the yellow. They're all

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here and they're all here voluntarily. They are not forced to be apart and they stay together. They stay knit in this fellowship which crosses every human demarcation because here in the fellowship of the church, unlike any other fellowship on the face of this globe, there is a concern, a desire to

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console, to challenge, to lift up, to strengthen one another. I care not what organization is part of your life. I care not what fellowship you understand yourself to be a part of. If you really belong to it and are really a part of it, still I say without any fear of contradiction that it is within the

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fellowship of the body of Christ that you are most loved and most ministered to, especially in your times of need. And Samson turned his back on the fellowship of belief. Last Tuesday I was talking to a lady who was very much involved in working with young people who are on drugs. She told me of a young

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man who had a particularly serious problem who came into the midst of a group of other young people who had shaken the habit. And these young people were trying to minister to this one, to bring him to an honest confrontation with himself. And it was somewhat of a hot spot he was upon and the

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heat was building. And so in the middle of this conversation he suddenly got up and said, "Excuse me for a moment," and went over into a corner of the room, turned his back on the group, and was apart there. After a minute or two this lady walked over to see what he was doing and she saw that he had his rosary

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in his hands and was going through his prayers. She watched that for a minute or two more and then she tapped him on the shoulder and he turned and looked at her indignantly and said, "Can't you see I'm praying?" And she responded, "Can't you see that God is already speaking to you and answering your prayers in the counsel of

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these young people towards whom you have turned your back?" He had turned away, you see, from the counsel and the challenge and the chastening that he so desperately needed to hear. Now I want to ask you a very personal question. Think back over your life to that time when you were being led down into the Valley

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of Sorek, when some person whom you trusted was leading you astray. Think back to the time when you made the mistake of believing that an evil man can be a good friend or if not that, then think back to the time when you led someone astray. Think back to that moment when you took the hand of someone who

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trusted you and led them down into the plains of Philistia. Think of either of those moments and answer me in the silence of your heart. Had you, if you were the one being led, or had this individual, if you were the one leading, been counseled at the moment of temptation by those who stood beside him

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or her and spoke the word that needed to be heard, had that happened, would you have ever gone to Sorek? Samson, you see, turned away from faithful friends and friends in the faith. He had only one person down there by the Mediterranean and her name was Delilah. When you read about what happened to Samson there in

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the tents of that ancient Mata Hari, you find yourself being amazed. It seems astonishing that anyone could stand and submit himself so repeatedly to one temptation after another. You think to yourself that Samson must have been a man of all brawn and no brains, and to a certain degree I'm sure that's true, but

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you do him injustice if you think that's all there is to it. You see, you must pause to ponder the entrancing power of temptation, the hypnotic power of evil to entice and to ensnare. Delilah wants to discover the secret to his strength. "Bind me with seven bow strings," he says. She does and tests him. He breaks the

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strings, so she pouts a little. "Samson, you didn't play fair." So he tries again. "Bind me with new ropes." She binds him with new ropes and tests him, and again he breaks the ropes, and now she accuses him of lying. It's interesting how evil always accuses good of doing wrong. And so he tries once more. "Weave my hair into

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braids." You see, he's getting closer to the truth. His defenses are wearing away, and so while he sleeps she weaves his hair, and then she tests him again. "Samson, the Philistines are upon you," and he jumps up, but in a moment he loses himself. And so now she turns to him and says, "If you loved me, you would tell me." And

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before that temptation repeated again and again and again, he falls. He's been charmed, you see, hypnotized by the fact that he stays in the presence of temptation, and at the very moment when his eyes are closed in prayer, he's peeking between his fingers at it. What else could you expect to happen? I

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remember this morning a biology class in the 10th grade. We had a teacher whose name was John Maynard. We called him Bugsy Maynard. One day he required the class to watch him feed a live white mouse to his pet boa constrictor. He had a four-foot boa, a shiny green emerald serpent. He kept it in a cage at the side

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of the room. We gathered around the cage. It was lying in casual and somewhat beautiful folds in one corner of the cage. The little mouse was about that long, white, had eyes like diamonds, little pink nose, whiskers that twitched, and a tail that was wagging. He dropped the mouse into the cage. The mouse ran all

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over the cage, up over the snake, over its back, down into its coils, out over the edge of its face. It ran back and forth across the cage, peering out of the wires at us, seemed to be having a great time. Then slowly but surely, the serpent began to move. It moved so slowly that the only way in which you could tell it was

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moving was to watch the lines of print on the newspapers on the bottom of the cage disappear beneath its snout. It moved slowly and deliberately across the cage. The mouse noticed its moving, but it didn't seem to bother the mouse. He ran all over the snake anyway, enjoyed himself from one end of the cage to the

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other, and then as the snake got closer, the mouse became fascinated with its presence. As the serpent moved subtly, stealthily, the mouse came to attention. Its tail wasn't wagging anymore. It was totally engrossed in this moving, green thing. It even sat up on its hind legs and held its little pink paws up

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in front of it. They looked like human hands. Its mustache still twitching, sitting there watching while the snake came closer. And we, sitting around the outside, we were fascinated by it too. There wasn't a sound. None of us wanted to be there, and yet all of us were keeping absolutely quiet and watching

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everything that was going on. It happened so suddenly, of course, the mouse didn't even see it occur. There was a blur of green and the squirrels were about that little creature, and its tail wagged like that while the convulsive constrictions occurred until gradually, in about a minute, it slowed and was still.

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"Samson, get out of Zorak. Samson, run while there's still time. Samson, can't you see what's happening? You've been charmed, hypnotized. You're being sucked in. That's what always happens when you toy with temptation. The scriptures say that no temptation comes upon a man that he cannot defeat, that he cannot win over,

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but the scriptures also say the first thing to do in the presence of temptation is to run for your life. Flee temptation. That's the testimony of the scripture. Play with it and you die." And Samson, he played with it. He played, or was played with, by Delilah. I think it worth a moment to pause to notice the

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temptation that finally brought about his fall. Delilah looks at him and says, "If you loved me, you would tell me." That's the prostitution of love. That's the most contemptible thing that a human being can do. We don't know much about Delilah. We know from the fifth verse of this chapter that she was paid to entice

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Samson, but if that isn't enough to turn us against her, then certainly this. She takes the most noble emotion which God has put into the heart of a man and turns it into an instrument of evil. Now you see, the seriousness of an act of desecration is dependent upon the worth of the object that is desecrated. If you

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cut into ribbons a painting by myself, there would be no loss, but if you cut into ribbons the Mona Lisa, millions around the world would mourn. The seriousness of your act, you see, is determined upon the value of that which you have desecrated. This is why, when our Lord Jesus was arrested and crucified, in

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all of the experience on that Thursday night and that long Friday, there was only one thing against which he protested. He did not protest about that prayer in the garden. He did not protest about his arrest. He did not protest about any of his three trials. He did not protest about that blasphemy in the

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barracks. He did not protest, not in the least, about that walk to Calvary. He did not protest even when they nailed him to the cross or in the moments of his dying. He protested only once, and when was that once? It was the moment when Judas came and kissed him. He turns to Judas and says,

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"Betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?" The sign of love and affection, of respect and regard, of deepest commitment, desecrated, made into an instrument of treachery. There is no more contemptible thing to be seen than love used to manipulate. I have no sympathy with that parent who seeks to manipulate the life

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of a child using love as the mechanism of manipulation. If you love me, you'll marry him. How many girls are there who are now social butterflies trapped in the net of the upper crust of this community or others, who would not be there but would be free were it not for some mother who said, "If you love me,

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you'll do what I say." I know young men who have not gone into full-time church occupation, young women who have not gone to the mission field because though the Holy Spirit was calling them, the voice of a parent was heard to say, "If you love me, you will not go." In the backseat of an automobile, in a drive-in theater, or in a

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living room where either the boy or girl are babysitting, and he turns to her or she turns to him and says, "If you love me, then you'll let me." And I speak not only to young people but to older people who engage in forbidden games. Love never asks for evil as an expression of proof. Love does not ask for proof. Love proves

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itself. Love does not demand sacrifice of you. If you love, you sacrifice. Love stands for what is right and not for what is wrong. The grandest words about love that have ever been written were those of the Apostle Paul. Love does not exalt in the wrong. Love exalts in what is right. And that one who would debase

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you sexually, treats you like a piece of fruit, like an orange, feels you, peels you, takes what's good out of you, and throws the rest away. If there are levels of torment in hell, then the deepest hell is reserved for those who, claiming love, manipulate, twist, and make what could be beautiful into what is ugly. The word

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Samson means "sun child." The only thing that can extinguish the sun is the night. The only thing that can blot out all of its light is the night. Well, the Philistines had a word for night. It was Canaanite in origin. Do you know the Philistine Canaanite word for night? I will tell it to you. It was Delilah.

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And now the words are spread across the pages of scripture like tumbled teardrops. And he told her all that was in his mind, and he said to her, "A razor has never come upon my head, for I have been a Nazarite to God from my mother's womb. If I am shaved, my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak." He'd

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broken the last of his vows. The first vow was never to be near the dead, and he was himself a murderer. The second vow was to stay away from strong drink. The third, to avoid impure foods. And he had filled himself again and again at pagan Philistine feasts, but until this moment, he kept the vow of his hair. And so while

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he slept, and the scripture says he slept across her knees, oh Samson, while he slept, she had his hair cut. And then she said, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you." And he arose and he said, "I will go out and shake them off as before." And then one of the saddest lines in all of scripture, "And Samson knew not that the

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Lord had departed from him." We think of men departing from the Lord, not often of the Lord departing from men. We're quick to remember the parable of the prodigal son, not quick enough to remember Samson. You see, it is possible to jam so much of yourself into your life that you squeeze God out. It takes a long time, but if you

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work at it, you can do it. It is possible across the years to so harden yourself or to so fill yourself with yourself that there will be no room for God and he will depart from you and will come to you no more unless you call him. And that's what happened to Samson. There's a picture by Holman Hunt called "Christ at the Door."

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Christ knocking at the door of the heart and the door is closed. A father and a son stood looking at it. The boy said, "Daddy, why don't they let him in?" The father replied, "They do not hear him." The boy said, "Why do they not hear him?" "Well, I guess it's because they're living in the basement." "But Daddy," the boy said, "why

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would anyone want to live in a basement?" That's a good question, isn't it? Perhaps it's so they don't hear the knocking. And what is so sad, you see, is this. When you don't hear the knocking, you don't notice when the knocking stops. If you are so far away, so lost in other things that you do not know is coming, then you don't

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know the moment when he doesn't come anymore. That's what it says of Samson. He did not know that the Lord had departed from him. Just as Eve didn't know when the Lord departed from her. It wasn't when she picked the fruit, but when she desired it. Just as Achan didn't know. It wasn't when he took the Babylonian

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treasure. It was when he coveted it. Just as the Pharisees didn't know. Jesus said, "You're blind." They said, "We can see." They didn't even understand their own blindness. Just as Judas didn't know when he went out into the dark that night that he went alone. Well, let me ask you. Do the words of no sermons touch your

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heart anymore? Does no hymn that we sing open you up to truth? Do you come here so locked into the feelings or thoughts of yesterday, so caught up in the life which is yours that the Holy Spirit cannot penetrate? Do the prayers of your son or your daughter that you listen to not open you to that which is beautiful? Can

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you see a temple hill or a scintillating star and not hear some word in your heart? Can you think back to how your mother hoped for you and prayed for you? Perhaps still hopes and still prays here or hereafter and not be changed. Oh, then my friend, beware, for God may have departed from you. I call you friend

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though you may not think of me as such. Most friends will tell you about a spot on your tie but not a spot on your soul. They'll talk to you about politics but not about prayer. They'll talk to you about business but not about blessing. They'll talk to you about a multitude of things but not about your faith. Well, I'm

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your friend and I'm talking to you about your faith and I'm saying to you, are you sure that you are at peace with God? If you were to die tonight, are you sure, as a Christian can be sure, that the kingdom of heaven is yours for all eternity? So they held him fast and they heated two irons and they brought those irons

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toward his face, toward his eyes. Don't you wonder what the last thing he saw was? Was it his own hair at his feet? Was it the food and the drink still partly uneaten upon the table? Was it the leering stares of those Philistine soldiers getting their revenge now against what Samson had earlier done to

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their friends? And the irons are closer to his eyes now. He can feel their steamy heat upon his face. Maybe he couldn't see anything in those moments. Maybe he was remembering. Did he remember the face of Manoah, his father? Or that woman he married in Timnah? Or that blood-speckled jawbone of an ass? Did he see that prostitute in

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Gaza? And now the irons are almost upon him so that all that he sees is their redness. It's only when he looks to the left out of the very corner of his eyes, struggling to be freed but weak now so that he cannot be freed. It's only when he looks to the left out of the very side of his eyes that he can see anything.

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And what does he see? What is the last thing that Samson sees? It was Delilah. And they bound him in fetters of bronze and they took him to Gaza. Through the gate he'd torn from its sockets. I wonder if he knew that. Did they walk past the house where the Gazite prostitute lived? He of course could not have seen her. But

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did she see him? Did she squirm upon her bed and say, "I knew it would be so." And like a poor dumb blind beast they chained him to their mill and made him grind their grain. And the curtain descends on Act 3 and it's a mercy of God that it does. For the sun is in eclipse, but even when the curtain is

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down you can still hear the grinding of that stone. And the grinding of that stone is the sound of conscience. Do you hear the grinding of that stone? Is your conscience speaking to you this morning? Is your conscience saying to you what it said to you before and you have answered, "When I have time I will talk to

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you of this." Well you have time right now. Now is the time. It's quiet here. So close your eyes with me. Close your eyes and become still. And think. Do you hear the grinding of the stone? Are there still fetters of habit that are binding you? Do you live in a darkness that's far from God like Samson did? Then now at

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this moment seek the waiting father. For he does wait to come again and will come at your slightest invitation. Listen to him. He says, "Samson, Samson old or young, Samson male or female, Samson anyone living in dark and fetters, Samson I so love the world that I gave my son. Believe him and believe in him and

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eternity is yours. Come to me if the grinding stone of conscience makes you heavy-laden and I will give you rest." Oh listen Samson. Listen to what he's saying Samson. He really means it. So Samson pray.

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Amen. Amen. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]