His Hair Began To Grow Again

HIS HAIR BEGAN TO GROW AGAIN

Jdg. 13,14,15,16

INTRODUCTION

A. HUMOR

1. The longest recorded hair belonged to a monk in a monastery in India. His hair in 1949 was 26 feet long. The longest beard belongs to a man in Norway, measuring 17 ½ feet long. The longest beard of a bearded lady, Janice Deverce of Kentucky, measured 14 inches. The longest moustache belonged to a Brahman and spanned 102 inches!

2. Some don’t want a haircut. A teenage boy was rushed to the hospital with an appendicitis. Surgery was scheduled. The father approached the doctor and asked if there was a barber in the hospital. “Why do you want to know,” the surgeon asked. “I thought,” replied the father, “that we might as well get his hair cut while he’s under the anesthetic!”

3. There are 3 ways a man can wear his hair: parted, unparted, and departed.

4. There’s someone in the Bible who didn’t want his hair cut – Samson.

B. TEXT

24 The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson. He grew and the Lord blessed him, 25 and the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him while he was in Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol. 13:24-25. 14:5 Samson went down to Timnah together with his father and mother. As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring toward him. 6 The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he told neither his father nor his mother what he had done. 14:5-6.

15:14 As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands. 15 Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men. 15:14-15. 16:17 So he told her everything. “No razor has ever been used on my head,” he said, “because I have been a Nazirite dedicated to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.” 19 After putting him to sleep on her lap, she called for someone to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him. 20 Then she called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him. 21 Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding grain in the prison. 22 But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved. 16:17,19-22

C. THESIS

1. I want us to notice the three stages of Samson’s Life which might parallel our own.

2. The title of this message is “His Hair Began to Grow Again!”

I. A MAN MOVED BY THE SPIRIT

A. HE KNEW HOW TO YEILD TO THE SPIRIT

Would you agree with me that…

1. Samson was sovereignly used by God?

2. God used him to impact his generation;

3. He knew how to cooperate with God;

4. We could learn from him how to yield?

B. HIS EXPLOITS & EARLY LIFE

1. Even as a child “the Spirit of God began to stir him” (13:25,NIV).

2. Killed a lion w/bare hands (14:6);

3. Slayed 30 Philistines (14:19);

4. Tied 300 foxes together, with fire, & burned grain, vineyards, olive trees (15:5);

5. Slay 1,000 Philistines w/ jawbone (15:14);

6. Carried the Gates of Gaza 38 miles (16:3).

7. But Samson was not strong naturally; his strength was a manifestation of the Spirit.

C. DO WE HAVE ALL WE WANT OF H.S.?

1. May God help us to yield to the Holy Spirit!

2. I heard about an “optimist” cab driver who thought the “E” on his gas gage stood for “Enough.”

3. Many Christians have gotten so used to being almost EMPTY (and calling it ‘ENOUGH’) that THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT FULL IS!

4. God is still speaking, trying to move people. In Isa. 6, Isaiah got a coal touched to his lips, then heard the voice of the Lord. If we want to hear from God, we must have the same divine fire purify our hearts too!

II. SAMSON: A MAN WHO LOST TOUCH WITH GOD

A. HE NEVER INTENDED TO LOSE TOUCH

1. Before birth, he was set apart to God (consecrated) in a special covenant as a Nazarite. He belonged to the Lord.