THE POWER OF A NEW CONSECRATION

Series: PrayerLesson #2

Jdg. 16:11 And he said unto her, If they bind me fast with new ropes that never were occupied, then shall I be weak, and be as another man.

Jdg. 16:12 Delilah therefore took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And there were liers in wait abiding in the chamber. And he brake them from off his arms like a thread.

Jdg. 16:13 And Delilah said unto Samson, Hitherto thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: tell me wherewith thou mightest be bound. And he said unto her, If thou weavest the seven locks of my head with the web.

Jdg. 16:14 And she fastened it with the pin, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awaked out of his sleep, and went away with the pin of the beam, and with the web.

Jdg. 16:15 And she said unto him, How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me? thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth.

Jdg. 16:16 And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death;

Jdg. 16:17 That he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother’s womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.

Jdg. 16:18 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.

Jdg. 16:19 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.

Jdg. 16:20 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. The Power Of A New Consecration.

1. We are children of God, born again, yet we recognize there is a need of something in our lives.

2. If we are honest, we know we need something to meet the challenge of this hour.

3. We are at war with an aggressive enemy.

4. He and his demons are spiritual.

5. We must meet him on spiritual grounds.

2Cor. 10:4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)

6. We must affect our communities; therefore, we must disturb the devil.

II. I Want To Demonstrate In This Message What A New Consecration Is And The Power Connected With That Consecration.

1. First of all, consecration means the regaining of the vision.

2. Samson lost his sight when he lost God.

3. That was a physical thing; but with you and I it is a spiritual thing.

4. Let the presence of God begin to wane in a Christian life, and the first thing you notice is their blindness.

5. When the preacher deals with issues in their life, they cry, “I don’t see anything wrong with that.” Once it was wrong, now it isn’t - what happened?

6. The devil has punched out their spiritual eyes.

7. A new consecration in its truest sense is to regain our spiritual sight.

III. Second, A New Consecration Is A Rebirth Of Spiritual Desire.

1. It is very sad to see people who once were hungry for spiritual things, who now, like Gallio, “care for none of these things” (Acts 18:17).

2. These people were once excited about God and His kingdom, now they look to the world for their excitement.

3. The Bible is closed. There is no family altar.

4. You can get these people to a singing, but don’t wait on them to come to the prayer meeting.

5. The appetite for the spiritual has been lost.

6. A new consecration will restore this appetite for things spiritual.

I look at my life. I was twenty-seven years old when I came to know Christ. I knew nothing about God up to the point of time when I was birthed of God. So in those twenty-seven years, I never went to church. Why? I did not want to go to church. I never read the Bible. Why? I never wanted to read the Bible. I never went to a prayer meeting. Why? I never wanted to pray. I had no desire for spiritual things. I was dead to those things.

7. Many Christians, most of them in our churches today once had a great hunger for spiritual things. But now that is not true. A new consecration will restore that spiritual appetite.

IV. Every Revival In History Has Come Through Someone Who Has Prayed Through To A New Vision Of Jesus Christ.

1. They saw Jesus and the flame was rekindled.

2. Nothing is more contagious than a revival.

3. We must “pray through” to see Jesus and begin to really walk in the Spirit to the point that others see Jesus in us.

4. Revival is on the way when others are able to take knowledge that you have been with Jesus.

5. A new consecration, then, is the spiritual man gaining the ascendancy.

6. The new creation is a spiritual being, he is a creative being. So a new consecration brings the whole emphasis back to the spiritual.

V. A New Consecration Is To Reopen The Channel That The “Rivers Of Living Water” Can Flow Unhindered.

1. “Is not this the fast that I have chosen?” (Is. 58:6-7)

2. That fast is the releasing of the spiritual. And as we have pointed up over and over again, you are birthed of God, you are filled with the Spirit of God, the river is within you pressing against those restrictions. You don’t have to beg it to flow, all you have to do is remove the restrictions.

3. God has given the fast to break the flesh, to release that which will heal that which it touches.

4. The entire struggle of the Christian then is with the “old man.”

5. The river is pushing against the dam. You need only release that river. Blow up the dam.

6. {Backsliding is reverting back to type.}

7. God never deals with the old, only with that which is born of God.

VI. As Long As Samson Could See God, Samson Knew His Weaknesses.

1. He knew that in “self” there was a great potential for evil.

2. When that happens, whether it be Samson or you and I, that is, when we lose sight of God, we begin to think more highly of ourselves than we should.

3. You often hear a child of God say, I don’t have to go to church to live right. He is blind. Something has happened to that spiritual vision when he believes that he can independently make it.

4. When we arrive at a place that we do not feel that we need the fellowship, the exhortation, and encouragement of other Christians, then we spiritually have come to the place where we think more highly of ourselves than we should. It is spiritual pride, and it always comes before the fall.

5. As long as we can see God, we will know that “in our flesh there is no good thing” (Rom. 7:18).

6. Seeing God allows me to see the weakness of the flesh. And when I see that, I can overcome.

7. When Samson lost his eyes, he became a slave to the enemy. The control of his life was lost. He spent his life grinding at the devil’s mill.

8. Whatever we submit ourselves to, we become a slave to. If we submit to “self,” then we become a slave to “self.” If we submit ourselves to God, then we become a bondslave to God.

VII. At One Point In His Life Samson’s Own People Turned Him Over To The Enemy.

1. Samson was the champion of Israel.

2. He camped out in the mountains of Lehi where he could spot the enemy caravans as they were coming along with the supply.

3. He was alone in the battle. Israel had compromised the movement.

4. Israel had moved into this ecumenical thing, and had made agreements with the enemy like much of the church today, saying, if you will leave my people alone, I’ll leave your people alone.

5. We have now entered into agreements where we’ll not proselytize the Catholics, and they won’t proselytize the Pentecostals. This is the place that Israel had come, and now Samson is largely alone in the battle.

6. Samson never entered into that ecumenical thing.

7. The elders came to him at the rock Etam, demanding that he cease causing trouble. This is always the way. The man who refuses to submit to the ecumenical unity is always the problem.

8. It was Elijah that Ahab called, “the troubler of Israel” (1Kgs. 18:17). But Elijah quickly turned the blame where it belonged. I’m not the troubler. You are the troubler.

9. The troublers are those that have made it a mixed multitude as it was in those days of Jezebel.

10. Samson refused to enter in to the ecumenical so He was looked upon by the church of his time as the troubler. They demanded that he quit making waves. They deliver him into the hands of the enemy. His own people delivered him over to the enemy.

11. It there the new consecration comes in.

a. They bound him up. Samson said to them, I’ll let you do this to me on one ground, that you will not touch me.

b. He was not afraid of the devil. It was the church, the religious crowd that he was afraid of.

c. He said, “If you will promise not to touch me, I will allow you to bind me up.” This he did. They bound him up, and delivered him to the enemy.

d. When they delivered him into the hands of those who hated him, the enemy of God shouted.

e. That was the wrong thing, for when they shouted, the Spirit of God came upon the man of God and he broke those bands, picked up the jawbone of an ass and slaughtered a thousand of God’s enemies.

12. I have heard preachers preach on this story. They talked about that as an old dry jawbone of an ass. That is not what the scripture said. It was a new jawbone.

13. In the Old Testament, God had instructed Israel that the firstborn of every creature was His. But the firstborn of an ass, they were either to redeem it with another animal if they wanted to keep it, or they were to break its neck.

14. So what we have with this new jawbone in type, is a new consecration. Somebody has just dedicated that little ass to God. It was with that new consecration that Samson defeated his enemies.

VIII.The Provisions Of God Are Always Available When The State Of Our Being Is Right.

Jas. 5:16b …The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

1. After slaughtering a thousand of the enemy, Samson thought he would die of thirst.

2. But out of that jawbone, out of that new consecration, there began to flow this water of life. It is always true. In that new consecration, the river begins to break out. The water, of the Spirit, begins to flow.

3. Out of that new consecration Samson drank and was revived.

4. When you pray through your envy, gossip, your murmuring, your bitterness, you will think you are going to die.

5. You will be shocked at how these things have motivated you.

6. When they are gone you feel depleted, near death, because you begin to recognize how you were motivated them.

a. You thought you had a right to be bitter, and that pushed you, it made the adrenaline to flow.

b. That envy in your soul, that gossiping spirit, it pushed you when you got on the telephone to talk about your brother and sister.

c. When you mused over the bitterness and envy in your heart, the flesh was activated excited. You would be surprised how much those things drive you.

d. Once you have prayed through and those things are gone, you feel depleted, broken. It is only then that the river can flow.

7. Out of that consecration will flow the rivers of living water.

8. Samson was revived. Revival came.

IX. The Prophet Said, “Without A Vision The People Perish” (Prov. 29:18).

1. Death is the result of spiritual blindness.

2. In their blindness the dead continue on in their religious routine. They have learned how to be religious, and like zombies they continue to perform as if there was life there.

3. In this state they can no longer see the effect of sin.

4. The worship is mechanical. They continue to walk like robots around walls that never fall.

5. One of the saddest stories in the Bible is the story of King Saul. During the entire rule of Saul, the ark was never present. That means that God was not actively present during the entire reign of Saul. We have no record that Saul ever attempted to bring the ark back to its rightful place.

6. That is not the saddest thing. The saddest thing is they learned how to be religious without it, without God, and they never even missed it. That is what happens. That is happening. We learn how, and go on in a mechanical form that never produces spiritual results.

I was in a meeting in the city where I pastored in Beaumont, Texas. About four hundred were present. It was one of those meetings where you ate dinner, and then the speaker spoke. We had our lunch and they served us coffee. Then the speaker got up, and for forty-five minutes talks about, “a miracle in your mouth.” His message was, all you have to do is speak the word and it will happen. He never believed what he was saying himself, but he spoke it anyway. And at the close of the message, he asked every one to stand up as he called out their needs. He said there are maybe 16 here that have diabetes. They stood up. Sure enough. Insurance tells you that one in twenty-five have diabetes. There are those here that have trouble with your knees. They stood up.

For about ten minutes, this so-called gift operated. When he was through, he said, now everybody give the Lord a good hand for what he has done. They all began to clap and shout. All the while this gift is operating, maybe twenty to thirty times in ten minutes, the waitresses are in there, picking up the coffee cups and dishes and carrying them out. The clank of dishes was everywhere. As I listened to that, my heart became angry and sad. There was not enough power to bring reverence into that room. I said to the people, when I talked to them, “Anytime, anyplace that the Holy Spirit would have worked thirty times in ten minutes, it would shut the cars down on the freeway.” One hundred twenty people were filled on the day of Pentecost, and an entire city was shut down.

Peter discerned two liars at the altar; they fell dead, and fear came on the entire community. Paul discerned a demon possessed girl in Philippi, and a revival broke out.

7. What do you have today? An imitation spirit trying to imitate the real. And for the most part the church doesn’t have enough power to blow her own nose.

8. Without a vision the people perish, and the terrible tragedy is, they don’t know they are dead.

X. Samson Compromised With The Enemy. It Cost Him His Eyes.

1. In his blindness he is forced to grind at the devil’s mill.

2. Look at him. Here is a man whose strength was a terror to the enemy. Now he grinds around and around - no excitement - no power - no victory.

3. Like Samson, the 20th century church doesn’t know who the enemy is.

4. She sends her children forth to face the world, the enemy of God, totally unequipped.

5. It is no longer holiness or hell, it is sophistication.

6. The world is no longer the enemy, she is a misunderstood friend.

XI. “Howbeit, His Hair Began To Grow” (Jdg. 16:22).

1. It seems we must always touch bottom before we look up.

2. Samson is grinding at the devil’s mill like a mule before he ever looked up and saw he was lost.

3. The prodigal never came to himself until he is in the hog pen.

4. From extreme legalism - to extreme liberalism, where nothing is believed has been the history of the church.

5. It is always in the midst of the stench and death of systematized religion that a revival begins.

6. Howbeit his hair began to grow. Samson is beginning to see that he had played the fool. But there is a renewal.

7. There is a way back. We can see revival. We can become the greatest force of the 20th century.

XII. Samson’s Consecration Was His Hair - It Is Coming Back.

1. He is renewing his vows - this is revival.

2. The devil never noticed the locks were touching his collar.

3. Just before filling his belly with the husks of the hog pin, the prodigal came to himself.

4. In that dark moment Samson cried out to God, “Avenge me of mine eyes” (Jdg. 16:28).

5. What is he asking for? Not more money, not a better self-image - he wants a right vision - the ability to see God.

6. A new consecration demands that we literally deal with the false.

XIII.Samson’s Final Act Was His Greatest.

1. The roof is pulled in on the devil.

Hag. 2:9 The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts.

2. Let us come back to that altar. Let us renew our vows. Let us allow the Holy Spirit to remove all restrictions, and the river will flow.