“And Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee.” (Judges 16:6)
Our Scripture today is taken from the life of Samson. Samson was one of the judges God raised up in the Old Testament to defeat their enemies. He had incredible strength, but he mingled with the Philistines. Through Delilah, they learned Samson’s secret of his strength, cut his hair and captured him. In the end, Samson destroyed more Philistines than he killed all his life. (Judges 14:1-16:31)
God told the Jews that they were to be separate from the other people in the world. In those days it was the Philistines. God commanded the Jews many times not to mingle with the strangers. It was in their Law. “But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the LORD your God, which have separated you from other people.” (Leviticus 20:24) And in verse 26, “And ye shall be holy unto Me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.”
I know you can agree with me that God is all knowing and that He is wise beyond our understanding. God knew that other people were godless and sinful. They had no holy law. The Israelites were a people chosen by God, were kept holy by God’s law. He knew that if they mingled with other people, they would contaminate their souls and they would sin, which happened many times. Each time they sinned, they suffered the consequences of their sin and returned to the Lord.
In the New Covenant that we have because of Jesus, we have the same commandment. Yes, salvation is for all of every nation and race. But to keep ourselves from being contaminated and touched by the sin of the world we must keep ourselves separated. Now I realize that there is a wide spectrum from participating in the world to keeping ourselves totally isolated. Keeping ourselves isolated is not what God had in mind for His children in the New Covenant. Jesus prayed: “I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” (John 17:15-16) God has a plan for us here in the world. But we are not to participate in the evil of the world. We need the discernment of the Holy Spirit to know what that evil is. It’s very subtle and can draw you in before you know it. Some things are obvious, for example, the celebration among Latin countries and people of the Day of the Dead. It used to be a religious celebration of life but has evolved into a celebration of death. Some other things have become a norm in societies. While we want to lift people up and celebrate them as creatures of God, we should not celebrate sinful living. We can love people because God loves them. He sent Jesus to die for all. But God is just and will punish sin when this age of grace ends.
It's so easy to be drawn in. I will give you a personal experience. When we were living in Mexico, we lived in an ejido. Down the hill from us, on the beach, a man who owned horses had a house. Each year he gave a big celebration on December 11. He invited everyone he knew. When we built our house in the ejido, he invited us. There was music, food and dancing. What we didn’t know was that it was a celebration of the Virgin Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico. Before midnight, all the music stopped and everyone went into the little chapel he had next to his house where they kept a vigil, praying the rosary for the Virgin Guadalupe. At midnight, everyone went out of the chapel and the man rang the steeple bell. Needless to say, we never returned to that party.
“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. (Ephesians 5:11) Other similar verses in the New Testament are Romans 12:2; 1 John 2:15-17 and 2 Corinthians 6:17. While we are not to participate in sin and in the celebrations of sin, we are to continue to love our neighbor. Sinners are blind to the eternal things of God. To preach to them is offensive and will alienate those we unconditionally love and to whom we want to bring the message of God’s love. We cannot think that we are so wise we can walk this thin line. We have to depend on the Holy Spirit. There will be an open door to tell them of God’s love. We must tell them not only of God’s love, but His justice. If they accept His gift, they must repent of anything that offends God.
That is our mission. We all know unbelievers. Do we love them enough to pray for them daily? Do we love them enough to pray for that open door? Do we love them enough to show them holiness, by continuing to love them, but refusing to participate in anything that offends God? We don’t have to tell them that their celebrations are sin. But we can tell them that our God doesn’t allow us to celebrate with them.
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