When It Makes You Weak

What makes you weak? What’s that one vice you have that just grips you and takes complete control over you? What is it that grips you, gets a hold of you and takes control of your emotions or your thoughts? What makes you weak? Weakness is defined as the “state or condition of lacking strength.'' Some examples of weakness can be our anger issues, lack of social skills, or even certain physical qualities that we do not like about ourselves. However, a weakness in a person is more than that. Many times, the weakness of a person can be their honesty. Beloved, I'm not in the business of trying to get in your business, I'm trying to tell you a lesson about life. GE Patterson who now rests with the Lord says “If you can have it, God can heal it.” No matter how strong you are in one area of your life, you will never rise above the weakness you suffer with in other areas of you life. God can gift you with great strength, God can favor you with unprecedented opportunities. God can birth you with skills, talents, and abilities like non-other. God can open door after door in your life, but you will never rise above those real weaknesses in life until you choose to no longer ignore them.

If you don't know anybody who was limited by their weakness, allow me to introduce one to you. His name is Samson. We read about Samson in Judges chapters 13-16. When you go home and read those chapters you will find that Samson is the last Judge in Israel. He is from the tribe of Dan. His fathers name is Manoah, and Manoah’s wife who is unknown by name is a barren woman. God in due time decides to bless her with a child. And like many barren women in the bible, the prophecy of her pregnancy is given by an angelic visitation. An angel shows up to Manoah’s barren wife and declares that she shall become pregnant, and gives her some restrictions about what she can and cannot do. What she can and cannot eat, and what she can and cannot drink. The reason the angel restricts her movements is because God has declared that the child she shall have will be a Nazarite (Let the church say Nazarite). Nazarite by Hebrew literally means something that is consecrated, something that is set apart, something that God says has a special purpose.

If you go home and you want to read more about Nazarites, you need to read Numbers Chapter 6, and you’ll find that any man God deemed to be a Nazarite had some restrictions on their life. 3 in particular. #1 He could not touch a dead body. #2 He couldn't drink anything that contained alcohol. (Nudge somebody and tell them “Well you ain't a Nazarite.”) and #3 He could never have his hair cut. So, when Monah’s son is born his name is Samson, and deemed to be a Nazrite. He could not touch a dead body, he could not drink alcoholic beverages, and he could never have his head shaved. The reason is God has consecrated Samson to be the military leader to lead the Army of Israel against their dreaded foes, called the Philistines. In preparation for that divine assignment, God has gifted Samson with unprecedented physical strength. Anybody that’s been to Sunday school you learned that Samson is the strongest man in the bible. Samson’s so strong that he killed a lion with his bare hands. He’s so strong that he takes the jawbone of a donkey and killed 1000 Philistines. No man has ever defeated Samson. Samson is the strongest man in the bible. But in spite of all his physical strength, Samson surprisingly never lives up to the full call of God in his life. Because in spite of his great physical strength, he is hindered by some real weaknesses.Those weaknesses are fully exposed in Samson’s relationship with a bad sister named Delilah. Delilah is one of those biblical names you don't give a child. Anyone who reads scripture will never name their daughter Delilah, Jezebel or their son Judas.

To understand Delilah, you have to understand that the Philistines are sick of Samson. They are tired of losing battles to him, they are tired of him destroying their armies, and they realize that they cannot get to Samson through another man, because no man can defeat Samson. No, Samson’s weakness is not men- it’s women. So they go to her and they say “Look D, we will give you 1,100 pieces of silver if you just can find out where his strength lies.” Delilah takes the money and agrees to set up Samson. She goes to him and 3 times she asks Samson “what is the source of his great strength?” And 3 times he lies to her. She says “Samson, where does your strength come from?” He says “Well baby, if you tie me up with 7 bow strings I’ll lose my strength.” He goes to bed, when he wakes up he’s tied in 7 bow strings, and Philistines all around him. He breaks the bow strings, kills the Philistines. The next night, Delilah says “baby, where does your strength come from?” Samson says “well, if you tie me up with new rope I will lose my strength.” He goes to sleep, when he wakes up he’s tied up in new rope, Philistines all around. He breaks the rope, kills the Philistines. The next night, Delilah says “bae, where does your strength come from?” Samson says “baby, my strength comes from my hair. If you braid my hair, I’ll lose my strength.” He goes to bed, wakes up with his hair braided, Philistines all around, takes the braids out and kills the Philistines. And now Delilah flips the script. She says “you don't love me. Cause if you love me…..” Brother’s, let me just tell you that when your woman says…. “If you love me,” you’re about to give up something. I'm just letting you know. She says “If you love me, you wouldn't lie to me like that.” Samson, in love with her, says “alright baby, let me be honest with you. If you shave my head, I’ll lose my strength.” Let me paint the picture of just how trifling Delilah is. When she finds out that his hair has to be shaved, the bible says “she puts him to sleep on her knees.” She puts him to sleep on her knees, she calls another man into the house to shave his head while he’s sleeping. Whatever she did to put him to sleep on her knees was so good, that he didn't even recognize another man was shaving his head. He slept through a haircut, and when he wakes up the Philistines are surrounding him. He wakes up and this is what he says “I’ve killed Philistines by the dozen. I’ve beat them time after time. I’m just gonna go out and beat them like I always have.” And the bible says that he did not know that the Lord was not with him. I want you to hear the depth of that. “He did not know that the Lord wasn't with him.”

Listen, that phrase right there gives me a frightening reality and a horrible tragedy. The frightening reality is this, that you can live your life in such a way that you wake up one day to discover the Lord is not with you. Ooh, I know that frightens you. But what this verse should remind us is that you can not take grace for granted. And you can not abuse the mercy of God. You can not decide to live willfully in sin, disobeying the commandment of God and just telling yourself that “I can do what I want to do cause God will always have my back.” There can come a time when you find out that God isn't with you. And hear me, it’s not because God left you. It’s because you have chosen to walk away from God.

Now those who want to live in sin will argue with me and tell me “God’s mercy is everlasting, His grace and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. The Lord said he will never leave me nor forsake me.” NAW, let me give you some bible. Saul was so disobedient that in 1 Samuel chapter 15 God says He regretted him and took his spirit. When David committed adultery with Bathsheba, In Psalm 51 he prayed unto the Lord and said “Lord do whatever you want, but the one thing I don't want you to do is take your spirit from me.” And Paul says to the church in Rome in Romans 1:28 that you can be so disobedient that God turns you over to a reprobate mind. You know what that means? It means that you can reach a place where God says “Listen, since you are dead set on living in sin, I'm gonna stay right here and let you go do whatever you want to do. When you get yourself together, and you want to repent you can come back to me. But I will not go with you while you decide to live in sin.” That you can wake up and find out the Lord ain't with you. That's the freighting reality. But here’s the horrible tragedy, are you ready? He didn't know it. It’s sad for the Lord not to be with you, it's tragic for you not to know it. It’s a sad thing to wind up “reprobate,” but it's a tragedy to think you're righteous when you are reprobate. It's a sad thing to wind up in a place where God’s hand isn't on you. But it's a tragedy to think He is still with you when He ain’t. It’s a horrible thing to live in a life of sin, but it's a tragedy to think that God is with you in your life of sin and blessing you because you are not reaping any immediate consequences because of your sin. And you deceive yourself into believing that God must be still blessing me because you're still living. He did not know that God wasn't with him. And how appropriate it is that the Pharisees took his eyes out cause he's already blind.

The question you ought to be asking right about here is “How could Samson not know the Lord wasn't with him? How could this man of great strength be so weak? Here it is, Samson is in his feelings.” And when you are in your feelings without some facts, you will always make bad decisions. Watch how this goes down. Delilah asks him 3 times “what is the source of your strength?” and 3 times he lies to her. Every time he lies to her, she does to him what he lied about and when he wakes up he knows she did AND she called the Philistines to come get him. She says where does your strength lie? He says “if you tie me up.” He wakes up tied up. He knows who did it and on top of that the Philistines are around him. She asks again where does your strength lie? He says if you braid my hair. He wakes up, his hair is braided, he knows who did it, AND the Philistines are around him. I’m trying to tell you that Samson knows this chick ain't no good. She’s setting me up and she's trying to take my strength, and he knows he can't trust her. That's why he lies to her, cause he knows Delilah ain't no good. Now if he knows that this sister ain't no good, why would he tell her the source of his strength? Because she flipped the script, and she said “if you love me.” She made Samson get in touch with his feelings. And in his feeling of love, he ignores the fact of knowing she’s no good. Because he's in his feelings, he allows his feelings to cause him to ignore the fact and that makes him weak. Listen, let me give you this one for free, the greatest damage done to you and me in life will never be the lies other people tell you. The greatest damage done will be the lies you tell yourself, of fact you ignore. Of truth you close your eyes too. Of stuff God has shown, but you refuse to accept and receive because of what your heart feels. Hear me, having feelings doesn't make you weak, it makes you human. But when you allow your feelings to override fact and truth that's when you become weak. You will drown in a sea of feelings if there's no fact to hold on to because feelings will mislead you. As a matter of fact, let me tell you how I found that out. I read my bible and I found that there is nowhere in scripture where God spoke to somebody through their feelings. God never revealed his will through emotions. God speaks to his word, God speaks to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, God speaks through wise counsel, God speaks through angelic visitation, God speaks in dreams, God speaks to the prosthetic word, God speaks to the song, God speaks through evidence in your eyes, God speaks through signs and wonders. But nowhere does He speak through your emotions. You wanna know why? Because your emotions can't be trusted. Here are the facts though. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not unto your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your path” You feel like you can't handle this but the fact is “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.” You feel like it will never end, but the fact is “Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.” You feel like this is too much but the fact is “we know that all things work together for good to them who love God. to them who are called according to His purpose.” Look at your neighbor and tell them “Stick to the facts.”

Samson knows Delilah ain't no good, but he ignores it because he thinks he's in love. And one of the ways the devil keeps us out of the will of God is through false feelings. Especially, being in love. Love and the feeling of being in love can easily pull you outside of the will of God. Let me prove it to you. Let me prove it to you. Let me see the hands of grown folk. Grown, grown folk. You go to work everyday and pay your own bills. Grown folk won't confess this, but they know it's true. Everybody who’s grown has done something stupid because you thought you were in love. You gave yourself to somebody who wasn't no good cause you felt like you were in love. You spent thousands of dollars on somebody that could never pay you back, but you did it cause you were in love. You were so in love you and your girlfriend drove by his house and stayed out there till 3 in the morning just to see who came out the door cause you were in love. The feeling of being in love will cause you to ignore fact.

I’m done here, but be reminded of the facts that were mentioned here today. And you know what Samson needed, he needed what all of us need when we’re in our feelings. He needed some help right through here. He needed a special kind of prayer. He needed a prayer that goes along these lines; “Now Lord, you know how I feel, but I'm gonna ask you to do me a favor right here. Open my eyes so I’m not hoodwinked, bamboozled or run a muck. Share with me the truth of what I’m dealing with, and give me the ability to accept that it is what it is. If it aint not good, it aint no good. If she's low down, she’s just low down. If he's a liar, then he’s just a liar. If this thing is over, then it's just over. If it’s not for me, then it aint for me. If I gotta walk away, then I gotta walk away. If you don’t want me in, then I won't be in it. GOD GIVE ME SOME FACT.

God grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world As it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right If I surrender to His Will; So that I may be reasonably happy in this life And supremely happy with Him Forever and ever in the next. That I don't want to live life following my feelings. I want to live life following you and the facts.

I’m in my seat, but my prayer today is that you stick to the facts. It’s gone get hard sometimes, but stick to the facts of your faith. Its gone hurt a little while, but I want to remind you to stick to the facts. The fact is if you put your hands in God’s hands, he’ll hold you when it get rough. The fact is if you trust in God, he’ll hold when you got a pink slip on your desk. Friends will walk away, family sometimes will mistreat you but the fact is God will never leave you or nor forsake you. God Bless you.