August 2017
How Spiritual Power Is Lost?
R. A. Torrey
One of the strangest and saddest stories of the
Old Testament history is that of Samson. It is also one
of the most instructive. He was by far the most
remarkable man of his day. The grandest
opportunities were open to him, but after striking
temporary victories, his life ended in tragic failure
all through his own inexcusable folly.
Time and again it is said of him that “the Spirit
of the Lord came mightily upon him,” and in the
power of that Spirit he wrought to the astonishment
of his people and the discomfiture of the enemies of
the Lord. But in Judges 16:19-20, we see him
deserted of the Lord, though unconscious of it, his
strength gone from him and he about to be taken into
wretched captivity, the sport of the godless, and to die
with the enemies of the Lord a violent and
dishonoured death.
Unfortunately Samson is not the only man in
Christian history, who, having once known the power
of the Holy Spirit, has afterward been shorn of this
power and laid aside. There have been many
Samsons, and I presume there will be many more
men whom God has once used and has afterwards
been forced to lay aside. One of the saddest sights on
earth is such a man. Let us consider why it is the Lord
departs from a man or withdraws His power from
him, or in other words, “How power is lost.”
1) First of all God withdraws His power from
men when they go back upon their separation to
Him
This was the precise case with Samson himself
(Judg 16:19. Compare Numbers 6:2, 5). His uncut
hair was the outward sign of his Nazirite vow by
which “he separates himself unto the Lord.” The
shearing of his hair was the surrender of his
separation. Once his separation was given up, he was
shorn of his power.
It is at this same point that many a man today is
shorn of God's power. There was a day when he
separated himself unto God. He turned his back
utterly upon the world and its ambitions, its spirit, its
purposes. He set himself apart to God as holy unto
Him, to be His, for God to take him and use him and
do with him what He would. God has honoured his
separation. He has anointed him with the Holy Ghost
and power. He has been used of God. But Delilah has
come to him. The world has captured his heart again.
He has listened to the world's siren voice and allowed
her to shear him of the sign of separation. He is no
longer a man separated, or wholly consecrated to the
Lord, and the Lord leaves him.
Are there not such persons among those who
read this? Men and women the Lord once used, but
He does not use now. You may still be outwardly in
Christian work, but there is not the old time liberty
and power in it, and this is the reason you have been
untrue to your separation, to your consecration to
God. You are listening to Delilah, to the world and its
allurements.
Would you get the old power back again? There
is but one thing to do. Let your “hair grow” again as
Samson did. Renew your consecration to God.
2) Power is lost through the incoming of sin
It was so with Saul, the son of Kish. The Spirit
of God came upon Saul and he wrought a great
victory for God (1 Sam 11:6). He brought the people
of God forward to a place of triumph over their
enemies, who had held them under for years. But
Saul disobeyed God in two distinct instances (1 Sam
13:13-14; 15:3, 9-11, 23), and the Lord withdrew His
favour and His power, and Saul's life ended in utter
defeat and ruin.
This is the history of many men whom God has
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