"Destruction In The Lap Of A Wicked Woman!”

“Destruction in the Lap of a Wicked Woman!”

Judges 16:18-20

18) And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once, for he hath shewed me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and brought money in their hand. 19) And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. 20) And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord was departed from him. I’m gonna talk about:

“Destruction in the lap of a Wicked Woman!”

Once again we find Israel, God’s chosen people, the people He loved so much; right back in a place they’ve been before, a place of suffering because they did evil in the sight of the Lord again. Because of the sin of Israel, God delivered them into the hands of their enemy, the Philistines, just as He’s done before when they were defeated by Ai, whose army was smaller than the Israelites’ army.

This is the same Israel that God once delivered out of Egypt. This is the same Israel that God allowed to walk across the Red Sea on dry ground. This is the same Israel that saw Pharaoh’s army swallowed up in the same sea they just crossed. This is the same Israel that God provided for everyday in the desert. This is the same Israel that God fed with fresh manna even while they complained. This is the same Israel that brought down the walls of Jericho with a shout. This Israel. This is the same Israel that God spared during the Passover. This is the same Israel that continued to sin, even after seeing the hand of the Lord setting them free from bondage many times before. I don’t know about you tonight brothers and sisters, but God has brought me out of some things and I’m determined to remain faithful to Him for the rest of my days. I know there’s somebody here tonight other than myself that has seen God step in right in time. For I remember the older saints use to say that He may not come when you want Him, but He’ll be there right on time.

The interesting thing is that this is the only place in the book of Judges where we do not read about Israel crying out to God to deliver them from their oppression. That’s right. They didn’t even hope for deliverance. That is because of the most important weapon the Philistines used which was intermarriage. The Philistines were patient as they watched the religion of Israel disappear as they began to blend in with them. Israel had actually become comfortable and at ease with this silent form of enslavement which had continued for forty years. And because God keeps His promises to His people and because God is faithful to His Word, He looked past their faults, and sent a deliverer.

In chapter 13 of Judges, the bible says that there was a man named Manoah, he and his wife had no children and she was barren. I believe they held on to their trust in the Lord despite their situation. The scriptures don’t say it but Manoah and his wife had to be the type of people that didn’t join in with the way the rest of the children of Israel were living. She didn’t hang out with the rest of the ladies in town, gossiping about what happened at church last Sunday. She wasn’t at the town market talking about the teenage girl down the street that’s having another baby. No, that wasn’t her. She wasn’t on the phone talking about who’s sleeping with who in the church choir. I’d like to think that she was a worshiper and a prayer warrior because when she was alone, the presence of the Lord appeared to her with good news of joy. The angel of the Lord told her that she was to become with child and give birth to a son. Manoah and his wife were given specific instructions to raise this child as a Nazirite.

A Nazirite was more than a person who has made a vow to the Lord. A Nazirite means to separate, consecrate, or abstain. They had to separate themselves to the Lord and temporarily observe certain practices: 1 being they were not to drink wine nor eat any part of the grape. The reason for this is because the grape signifies the world and its influences. This is the same instruction the angel of the Lord gave to Manoah’s wife to do the first time he came to her. And once again when he came to both Manoah and his wife after Manoah prayed for whom he thought was just a man of God, to return so they could be taught how to raise their child. The reason the Lord gave this to the parent is because it was the parents’ responsibility to make sure their child is protected and covered from the world’s influences. That’s for us today. Parents of today have to be careful of what they allow their children to watch on T.V., such as Harry Potter, Pokemon, That’s So Raven, and all these other innocent looking things that the enemy is now using against the children now a days. Be careful of what you let your children listen to on the radio. All of that mess gets in their spirit and causes them to rebel later on in life. That’s why the Word of God says to train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.