Under The Influence

Under the Influence

Isa 7:2 And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.

In life there are negative and positive things that will exert an influence upon your speech, actions, and thoughts.

In the Isaiah passage we learn once again that words are containers.

They can carry fear or faith,

Anger or peace,

Conviction or lust.

We see the house of David came under the influence of a spirit of fear, and it caused them to act and behave as if a gale force wind of fear attacked them. Which is very interesting. The text seems to be describing a situation where a bad news report caused them to be knocked around. There was a force and a power behind those words that caused them to be so affected.

This begs the question what influences are you most susceptible to?

In John 3 we read this:

Joh 3:8 "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit."

In a nutshell Jesus is saying that there is a visible and tangible effect that can be observed in the life of people who are touched by the Spirit of God. People may not see God directly but they should be able to see the effect He is making in your life.

When you look out the window and see it is windy, you are not seeing the wind, you only see the effect the wind is having on a particular object that causes you to say the wind is blowing. God has so ordained this life that people don't see Him, but He wants them to see the effect He is having on us, so that they can conclude wind (God) is real even though they can't see it.

1. The first thing I want to say about being under the influence of the Spirit is that it simply is God flavoring your life.

Think of the chef Emeril. Bam!

Spices change the flavor of food. When you are under the influence of the Spirit of God, God is changing your flavor. Its not so much about doing something as it is about you becoming flavored the way God wants you.

The moving of the Spirit is often more about influences in your heart and mind than it is about doing something.

Jud 13:24 And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him.

Jud 13:25 And the Spirit of the LORD began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.

This is an interesting text concerning the moving of the Spirit of the Lord, because we are not told of Samson actually doing anything as a consequence of it. Later we will read that when the Spirit of the Lord comes on him he ripped a lion in two, another time he rips multiple ropes off himself, another time he takes the jawbone of a donkey's carcass and kills a thousand Philistines with it. But in this case nothing visible happens. Nothing that we can see anyway, but there is a clue in the text that indicates what might have been going on.

Dan is the Hebrew word for judge; Zorah means hornet, and Eshtaol means entreaty.

Reading this verse they way a Hebrew person would, it comes out like this, "And the Spirit of the LORD began to move him at times in the camp of the judge between the hornet and earnestly asking."

In the camp of God, because of all the Philistine hornets encircling them Samson began to really cry out to God about the situation.

I think the text is trying to tell us this was about God placing a burden and a calling on the life of Samson. A burden in a persons life is evidence that someone is living, "under the influence." Under the hidden promptings and workings of the Spirit of God.

Let me tell you something about a God given burden that you won't often hear. It involves secret pain and suffering.

The Spirit moves upon Samson and he begins to be wounded with the idea the enemy is ruling over God's people. God is influencing him with a wind that says, "this ought not to be so."

2ndly Samson is wounded with the inability to do anything about it just yet. He will have a season of just sitting under the suffering of what he perceives as wrong. It is not time to act, it is time for a burden to grow.