John Gray - Don't Leave Me Alone
Listen I want to get right into the word. Do me a favor. Go to judges, the book of judges. And I want you to go to the 16th chapter. And I wanna talk to you and I wanna share from the scripture, probably one of the most profound scriptures that I have ever read. And I would love to tell you that I can memorize, that I've memorized the Bible all the way through, I haven't, I'm not that spiritual, but this scripture is one that resonates with me for a number of reasons. And it's a very frightening scripture on the surface, but I wanna dive into it and I believe that there are some treasures in this scripture that will help us to grow and develop.
Are you guys willing to take this walk with me this evening? Judges, chapter 16, and I want you to go to the 18th verse, this is the story, a part of the story of a man named Samson and Samson was a judge in Israel. This is before the days of the kings. God used judges to deal with the issues and the affairs of his people. And at this particular point, Samson was nearing the end of his reign for a number of reasons. And here in the scripture we are privy to an encounter that he had with a woman named Delilah. And in this scripture we find some principals that I believe the body of Christ needs to grab right now.
Judges, chapter 16, starting at the 18th verse, it says this, "When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the Lords of the Philistines, saying, 'come up once more, for he has told me all his heart.' So the Lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hand. Then she lulled him to sleep on her knees, and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him. And she said, 'the Philistines are upon you, Samson!' So he awoke from his sleep, and said, 'I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free!' but he did not know that the Lord had departed from him. Then the Philistines took him and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza. They bound him with bronze fetters, and he became a grinder in the prison. However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaven".
I wanna talk to you tonight from the subject, don't leave me alone. Don't leave me alone. When dealing with issues of faith, when dealing with issues of spirituality, we must deal with the concept of eternity invading time. When you look at the circumstances of your life, it is very easy to get discouraged by what you see in front of you, which is why you need a different perspective on the life that you are currently occupying. Because the life that you are living, is not the only life you have. And the circumstances that you are walking through, actually are temporary. For every particular assignment and attack of the enemy as I've said a number of times has an expiration date. And so do not be moved and do not be consumed by the current circumstances that you face, because it's a very, very, very tragic thing to make permanent decisions because of temporary discomfort.
In this scripture, we see a man who is making a bad decision. If you only look at this decision, you'll be like, how in the world? Why would you even allow yourself to get caught up in something like that. But before we judge Samson, can you do me favor and take look at your life? Have you ever been caught up in something, and woke up and said, how in the world did I get here? Nine of us, I'll be number 10. I know sometimes we don't wanna say amen to certain things, this is like, we got visitors, I don't need them to know all my business. It's very easy to look at Samson and say, why would you tell somebody the key to your strength? Why would you tell somebody your heart? Has it ever happened to you?
You thought a person was one thing, you shared certain things, you thought there was an intimate exchange, you though there was a face to face, a visceral connection, only to find out that, that individual or those people did not have your best interest at heart, and they didn't wanna know your heart in order to cover your heart, they wanted to know your heart in an effort to expose your heart. This woman, Delilah, represents playing with the wrong thing too long. We have Romanticized sin. In popular culture, on TV, people mess around, sleep around, do what they want and they just get up and move on with their lives and I've seen different TV shows where people broke up with this one and then got with that one, then the other one end up getting with somebody else and they were all friends and they all go to dinner and they're just talking like nothing ever happened, like, hey, how are you, good, good to see you, I can't believe you're with my ex, that's amazing, you guys want some pizza? But real life, it doesn't happen that way.
I'm married. And if I see anybody that she used to talk to, if it was elementary school, he'd better not speak to her. Hey, aventer, what, I'm aventer, now what, what? Dude, it was 6th grade, I don't care when it was, you better back up. I only been saved 30 years, I ain't all the way there. I'm for real. Samson, was caught up with the wrong one. And let me just speak to you that in this season, I believe prophetically, that God has been speaking to many of us and maybe you're even watching or listening that there are certain relationships that are just not honoring God. And it's not, I'm not just talking about Romantic relationships, some platonic friendships are not producing spiritual fruit and God has been speaking to you and you've been saying ah, they're fine, it's just, that's who they are.
And you need to understand that who they are is impacting where you're called to go. But the Word of God says, bad company corrupts good character. Who are you hanging with? What are you guys talking about? What's the goal? Samson was caught up. Caught up caught up it happens. It happens to the best of us. And he was caught, but he wasn't just caught, he was caught sleeping. Wake up, body of Christ, the enemy is trying whatever he can to lull you to sleep. To get you anesthetized to the attack and to the tactics of the enemy so he can take out your marriage, and take out your family, and bring division between you and your children. He wants you to have a distorted view of God's plan for your life so that you make unwise decisions at critical moments. Wake up, ask the Holy Spirit to refresh your heart and to strengthen your vision so that you can see the plot of the enemy, before you make a decision that you cannot recover from.
Somebody say, don't leave me alone. We see Samson in judges 16. But in order to understand what really is taking place you gotta go back to judges 13 where the angel of the Lord encounters the wife of a man named Manoah who was of the tribe of Dan, which is one of the 12 tribes of Israel, and Manoah and his wife were good people, but apparently Manoah's wife was barren. And in this culture to be barren was like saying you were cursed by God. And so apparently it doesn't reference it, but I'm sure, that somewhere, Manoah being a good man and his wife being a good woman, they prayed to God saying, God, remove this reproach, remove this curse.
Just give me a seed in the earth. Give me something that will perpetuate my legacy and the angel of the Lord shows up and speaks to Manoah's wife and says, you're gonna have a son and he's going to do this, this, this, this and this and then Manoah's wife runs and tells her husband and says, I got a visitation from an angel. And the angel said this, this, this and this and Manoah, 'cause some of us are like, girl, you crazy, you've been out in that desert too long, I don't know what's wrong with you. But apparently his faith was stirred up. And so, there was another moment, where the angel came back. He said, well, let's pray, let's ask the angel to come back, because I need to make sure that this is the Word of God.
And so the angel shows up and Manoah sees the angel and he says, are you the one who spoke to this woman? He says, I am. He says, well be it unto her. Let everything you said come to pass. In this season, let me just freeze right here and tell you, find people who will get in agreement with the promise of God over your life. You don't need any naysayers, any people saying, well that sounds farfetched, I'm not sure if that can happen. Anything is possible. If God speaks it, it's as good as done. Is there anybody that has enough faith to believe that the Word of God that he has declared over your life is active and it is coming to pass. The Word of God is heading your way.
So, Samson didn't just show up out of the will of man, Samson was an answer to prayer, this is very important. Stay with me for a second. Samson was an answer to prayer. He was a solution to an issue in the earth. He showed up because mama and daddy prayed. Now I don't know who this is for, but there are certain things that you have tried to get yourself into, things that you've tried to do, and somehow by the grace of God, he kept you from it, or it didn't work out. Or things that the enemy tried and somehow God blocked that thing. And let me help you to understand why. Because you are not here of your own volition. You are not here of your own will. You are the answer to a prayer that was prayed before you got here. And you need to understand that God made a promise to somebody else and that's why you're here. Oh, if we could understand that we are living in the grace of somebody else's prayer.
See, Samson was a word made flesh, because the angel of the Lord spoke who he was gonna be and then he showed up. I know this might sound crazy, but you are exactly what God spoke. Now, I know there've been some commas in your sentence. And there've been some pauses and some hyphens and some other expletives and things in your sentence, but I promise you the sentence will be fulfilled. The word will be fulfilled over you life, whoever you are, whether you're watching or listening or here live, I want you to be encouraged in your spirit that whatever God has said about you has to come to pass and I firmly believe that we're in the season of breaking with the things that have held us hostage. God is gonna break us free from those things so that we can function in the fullness of what we are called to be. It's a deep, spiritual truth. But the actual you, predates the you, you're aware of.
See, you're here right now with your premium clothes on and you're sitting here and you made a decision to come to church, but God had already spoken this. Because every single detail of your life was already written out. God never speaks a thing without finishing it. God didn't just say, it'd be nice to have somebody named John Gray, born in Cincinnati in 1973, on June 26. I don't know what I'ma do with him, but that sure would be nice. God actually finished me and worked backwards. Some of us are so troubled with what we see going forward that we've forgotten to give him a rewind praise. Because truth be told you shouldn't even be here anyway.
Many of us know, some of the things that we've done, and things that we have tried to touch and somehow God just kept us and covered us and forgave us and healed us and cleansed us and washed us. And some of us should maybe give him a rewind praise. Just looking back over your life is enough to give him a praise. If he doesn't do another thing going forward, he's still worthy of a rewind praise. Let me get this out the way, the enemy is a liar. He will lie to you and tell you there's no value in living holy. That there's no value in doing right and serving people. He'll tell you and he'll remind you of the pleasures of sin. Oh, ain't it hard to serve God? And the folk are out there, people you know and both of y'all seem to be doing the exact same, it's like, God, they sinnin'. And it looks like they're also winnin'.
And I'm still at my beginning. The Bible says in Hebrews 11:25 that there is pleasure in sin for a moment. Ooh, but don't let a moment mess up your ministry. There have been times in my life, because I had one of them mothers that just wouldn't stop praying, ugh. Just praying I brought somebody home. Ma, this one right here. Oh, she the one. And my mom say "Oh, praise God. I'ma go to the prayer room". I was like, no, don't please. You're gonna mess up everything I was trying to do later. Why, what, don't pray, just gimme a couple of hours, at least slow dance with her. "Hmm-hmm, just, I'll be right back".
I don't know what Alice Gray had going on with God. But whatever I thought I saw, by the time she got finished praying, I was like urr? You don't look as fly as you did yesterday. You're not talking the same, your words aren't coming out the same. Your spirit just, something about your spirit. Mama, what did you? "Hmm". "It's him, it's him". Anybody grateful for the prayers of a mother? Anybody grateful for the prayers of a grandmother? Anybody grateful that somebody was praying for you? When you were about to make an unwise decision. Anybody other than me wanna just say, God thank you, that somebody loved me enough to pray me out of a foolish... Somebody just say, don't leave me alone.
Samson was a judge in Israel, he was an answer to prayer. But even at an early stage of his life we could tell that his particular weakness was women. And so in the 14th chapter, he goes to his parents and he says, look there's this woman, I like her. I want you to get her to be my wife, hook it up. It's a different version than the version you read. And the father said, no son, what about one of the people who believes like you? What about somebody who loves God like you? No, I want her, she got the plat at plat cow, plat out bow, look at her. Look at her. Yeah, I am looking at her, you don't see what I see. You see curves. I see a curve ball. She looks good on the surface, but she doesn't have what it takes to carry your destiny.
I don't know who this is for. Ask the Lord to show you that person again. If you're single, ask the Lord, give me vision. I know they look good on the surface, but God, if they cannot help me to get to destiny, then remove 'em. No matter how bad I don't wanna be alone, I would rather be alone in this season than broken in the next season. Please, show me! Tryin' to help somebody on this evening. But let's be honest, sometimes it's hard serving God. Because you see other people who aren't serving God and it looks so fun. To some of us, no, mama Dodi's like, no I've been walking with him too long, I know the truth. But as you grow in this thing, there are times when you almost have flesh envy.
Dad, I wish I could do that. Man, they're not getting in trouble. And as soon as you try it. Man, I couldn't even get the thought all the way out of my mind, Jesus, before you showed up with a scripture. My mind's telling me no but my body my body's telling me yes Holy Ghost be over there like, don't do it I don't see nothing wrong I do God won't you just leave me alone. Can anybody be honest to say at some point in your life, you said in your heart, God, please, just. Some of you are like, I don't wanna tell everybody's cameras, I don't want to. Sometimes you desire something in the flesh. But in your heart you know it's not right. You're like, God please, just let me do this just one time, please. How will I know if the blood is real if you don't let me sin and ask for forgiveness. Let me at least get some sin out.