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.
2. Early in his life he had a passion for God – a sense of mission – to deliver Israel from the Philistines.
3. But over time he got cold and hardened his heart. He got too busy for God. He let sin in.
4. He still thought God was with him till the end. That’s why he “shook” himself. But he was deceived.
B. DECEPTIVENESS OF THE GRADUAL
1. Satan mimics many creatures, such as the Praying Mantis, which moves so slowly that bugs can’t detect its movement until it is right on them and springs.
2. Our decline of relationship to God can be so imperceptible that we don’t see it.
3. God’s presence leaves so slowly that we don’t realize He’s gone!
4. A leading Hindu once said, “Don't persecute the Christians or they will become strong and spread. Instead, wherever you find Christians grouped together, build cinemas, drinking halls, night clubs, and gambling dens and they will destroy themselves.” (Nehru, India).
C. TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN
1. He was “Playing with Sin,” thinking that he had it under control. He was mistaken.
2. Sin will become your master. Jesus said, “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin” John 8:34.
3. They took him captive, gouged out his eyes, and bound him to turn a mill like an animal.
4. SEE WHAT SIN WILL DO! This great warrior suffered terrible Loss, horrible Disfigurement, Dishonor, cruel Bondage.
5. Blinded & shorn, Samson is a picture of many who were once devoted servants of God, but got tripped up by the devil.
D. YOU THINK SIN WON’T HURT YOU?
1. During the rainy season in India, a valley with a populous community flooded. The natives fled to a raised peak in its center.
2. As they waited for the waters to subside, they saw a huge Bengal tiger swimming toward them. As the tiger neared the natives became terrified.
3. When the tiger reached the peak, it showed no signs of attacking them. Instead it lay down quietly and went to sleep. The raging waters had frightened the ferocity out of the tiger.
4. But an English Army officer, knowing the nature of the tiger, sent a bullet through its head.
5. The natives naively asked, “Why did you kill it? That tiger wasn’t going to hurt us!”
6. “You’re wrong,” snapped the officer.” Its true nature was only temporarily subdued by fright. When its old nature would have exerted itself, it would have pounced upon some of us!”
III. HIS HAIR BEGAN TO GROW AGAIN
A. DIVINE LIGHT IS DIFFICULT TO EXTINGUISH
1. The devil may shave a Christian closely, but the roots are still there!
2. The world may entice a Christian for a while, but eventually and unstoppably, the hair will begin to grow again.
3. The person who’s really drunk deep of the wells of salvation will never be happy in sin. He/she will be miserable, uneasy, troubled night & day; can’t rest.
4. Remembers the times of being in God’s presence; how real God is; how wonderful it felt. Longs to be right with God. “I can’t live like this any longer! God be merciful to me a sinner!”
B. GOD WORKS DESPITE OUR WEAKNESS
1. POWER GROWS DESPITE CURRENT TRENDS. The Scripture says, “But the hair on his head began to grow again…” It doesn’t take much when God is involved; a small cloud, a little oil, a boy’s lunch. Only a little bit of God in you can change your whole nature! Only one drop of Christ’s blood can wash away the sins of the entire world.
2. UNRECOGNIZED POWER. The supernatural was stirring again. Below the surface, invisible to the naked eye, divine life was operating. Many times in life, God is moving, but we don’t realize it.
3. IT’S NATURAL FOR YOUR HAIR TO GROW.
a. The natural for the nature of Christ implanted in you to grow, despite all adverse circumstances. “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world” 1 John 4:4.
b. The divine nature can’t be eradicated by the world; it pushes back even harder! “But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread” Ex. 1:12.
c. Samson felt like God would never use him again, that God had written him off. But it wasn’t so. “Samson, you may have given up on God, but God hasn’t given up on you!”
d. Think where Samson was when his hair began to grow again! The lowest den of Hell!
e. No matter how low a person gets or how much in bondage, the devil can’t stop God from stirring the supernatural, the New Life, in their lives!
C. IS A WORD OF HOPE
1. There’s hope for you!
2. You can get back your first love for Christ.
3. A Nazarite’s hair stood for his vow of consecration. If you renew your vows/consecration, the presence of God will grow in your life again.
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION:
1. Dr. John Robertson tells when, years ago, in an area of Scotland, all the hearth fires had gone out. (Maybe there had been a hot spell & people didn’t feel like feeding a fire.) It was before the days of matches.
2. The only way to rekindle the fires was to find some home or farm that still had a fire burning.
3. The villagers spread out in all directions searching for fire. They covered many miles without finding any and were about to despair.
4. But finally in a small valley they found one house that had kept the fire alive! Each village sent a delegate to retrieve the living fire for them.
5. People traveled from all around, lit a bed of coals in a pan, and carefully carried them back to their villages again.
6. Everywhere the fires came, there was light and warmth and joy!
7. It’s the same with the fire of your love for God. Have you let it go out? There’s only one place to get that fire – at the foot of the Cross of Jesus!
8. Jesus will gladly restore you if you come to Him!
B. THE CALL
1. Are you aware you need more of God? What will you do about it?
2. God says, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land” 2 Chr. 7:14.
3. The answer to all our problems is to repent and return to God.
4. The blood of Jesus is still fresh: it will cleanse your sins and change your hearts.
5. Let’s all come seek the Lord in the altars and prevail on Him to help us be the Christians we need to be.
