Their [ministers'] usefulness would be much greater if they had control of their appetites and passions, and their mental and moral powers would be stronger. . . . With strictly temperate habits, and with mental and physical labor combined, they could accomplish a far greater amount of labor and preserve clearness of mind.—Testimonies, vol. 3, pp. 486, 487.
ONE OF the best examples in Holy Writ of a man who missed the secret of real strength, wasted his energy, and grieved the Holy Spirit, is found in Samson. His physical power depended on his spiritual strength. There was nothing inherent in his long hair that could maintain his vigor; it was but an outward sign of his loyalty to his Nazarite vow, the insigne of his spiritual knighthood, the sign of his pledge to serve the Lord. He could not have sacrificed that until he had in heart disowned his King. Then there followed naturally the discarding and loss of his badge of service. At the moment he was unconscious of the Spirit's withdrawal. When his temptress cried: "The Philistines be upon thee, Samson," he said, "I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wilt not that the Lord was departed from him."
So it is with the soul in whom the ebb tide of the Spirit has begun. At a superficial glance, and that is all he spares, he recognizes no change; but gradually the rocks of worldliness become uncovered, and then he forgets that once they had been hidden. But the marks of withdrawal are significant enough if only they are noted. There is a diminished sense of sin. The thought that used to cause pain and shame pricks no longer, a sure sign that the conscience is becoming anesthetized. The name of Christ has ceased to warm the glance with the fire of love; instead there is the cold, critical, superior look that judges instead of reverences our Lord. In the library of such a man the Bible has been relegated to the top shelf, out of reach. When we see the Scriptures stranded there then we know that the tide has receded far.
I have stood on the beach when the sea was but a silver streak bordering a vast expanse of sand. At my feet lay some fishing smacks heeled over on their beams, while boys climbing the idle masts and handling the useless rudders played at sailors. Such is the picture of the stranded powers of the soul that has grieved away the Spirit of God. The abilities that were designed for noble service become but useless toys. Samson wasted his God-given strength on frivolous jokes when he might have freed his countrymen and secured the permanent independence of Israel. And finally he bartered his precious talent for licentious pleasure.
But God gave him time to repent. He removed him from the temptations to the chilly dungeons of Gaza. "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out," said Jesus. Samson's wayward glance had led him to sin, and now there was perhaps a reason for the closing of his sight. The chance for transgression was taken away, and the lonely prisoner had time to reflect. The agony of remorse in Gaza's dungeon, as the memories of an ill-spent life mock from out of the darkness of his sightless vision, had its effect on Samson's character. God granted him a second chance. The Spirit descended once again on a soul disciplined by suffering.
Some think Samson's death heroic; but to me it seems cruel, revengeful, and suicidal—as if he tossed aside in childish disobedience the task to which God had called him. The ruling passion is strongest in death, they say, and that this should be the last act of a life that promised so well, crowns with contempt a wasted career. The enigma of God giving a man power to commit suicide as well as to engulf in death a multitude of others still remains. The whole point is that a life of usefulness was terminated prematurely. What a tragic waste! He died as he had lived, a man who had made a plaything of divinely given powers.
In every soul there is an ebb tide of the Spirit; the result is the same. The head may be clever but the heart is hard; there may be a knowledge of facts, but there is lack of faith; wide possessions, perhaps, but poverty of soul; learning, but no love. It is only God's Spirit that consecrates to their highest service these great gifts, and where that is absent we have the tragedy of Gaza repeated, the grave of wasted genius.
Every faculty of the mind, every bone in the body, every muscle of the limbs, shows that God designed our faculties to be used.—Gospel Workers, p. 277.
