A Lion and a Handful of Honey

I feel like I've been to camp but got back early. Hope you've been praying for the camp.

I got a text from Tyler, and he didn't give me a name, but he said one of the campers was saved so far this week and another one was called to preach. And I was excited about both of those.

Not many young men feel that God's calling them to preach, but it would be great to have another preacher out of this church and so continue to pray. It's not too late to pray. I read something today.

It says, gas is going up, food is going up, rent is going up, but when prayers go up, God's blessings come down. And so let's make sure that we keep setting the prayers. I want to speak tonight on this subject. A lion and a handful of honey. Did you know where.

You know where that is in the Bible? Anybody want to guess? My wife's cheating because she already asked me what I was preaching on.

It's not preached on very often, and a lot of people may not remember it, but take your Bible and turn to the Book of Judges, and we're talking about Samson. And Samson killed a lion.

And he went back a few days later, and the carcass of the lion was still there, but some bees had gotten inside of it and there was honey in it. And he took the honey out and took some for himself, and he took some for his mother and father. Kind of an interesting thing to think about.

The Bible's kind of like a picture album, and you just kind of go through and remember we talked Sunday, how to get the most out of your Bible and to look for Jesus. Think about this. Imagine a picture of Jesus with his foot on the head of a lion and honey dripping off of his hands.

Just think about that for a moment. Wouldn't that make a beautiful picture? Because Jesus has conquered the devil. He hasn't been thrown into hell yet, but he's dead.

He's already declared it's done, it's over with him, and that's why he's working so frantically. The Bible says he knows that his time is short, but the Bible teaches that Satan is destroyed.

And you think of Jesus and picture him every time you're looking at the Bible. I heard a story of a man who had a big head of a lion in his office. And somebody came in. I'm sure a lot of them did. And they said, is that your lion?

Did you kill that lion? He said, well, yeah. He hesitated for a moment and then said, how in the world did you do it. He said, well, I cut off his tail.

He said, ah, you can't kill a lion cutting off his tail. You got to cut off his head. And he said, well, somebody already had done that.

And you know, sometimes we can't hardly kill a mouse with telling everybody that we did it. And Samson never mentioned it to his parents. You say, well, Samson doesn't have a very good testimony. Well, that's true. It's very true.

In fact, he did more for God while he was dying than he was while he was living. You may have seen pictures of that. But Samson failed a lot. I may have mentioned this already to you, but it's worth writing down if you forgot.

Charles Spurgeon said it. He said God uses people who fail because there aren't any other kind. Let that sink in for a minute.

You don't find anybody in the Bible that God used that had not failed. That means there's hope for me. I have more failures than I can count or remember. And God can use you even when you don't think he can.

In fact, that's one of the qualifications really for God to use. Is somebody think I can't be used. God can't use. No one's ever too small for God to use. A lot of them are too big for God to use.

And so in the book of Judges, chapter number 14, in verse number 5, then went Samson down and his father and his mother to Timnath. And came to the vineyards of Timnath and behold, a young lion roared against him. So this wasn't an old lion. This lion was probably in the prime.

He was a very strong young lion. Invokes verse 6 says, and the Spirit capital S. The Holy Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him.

I mentioned this to you the other night, that the early church. What changed the early church dramatically was they were now indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Up until then, no one had been indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

From Adam and Eve all the way through. The Holy Spirit would come upon them for special needs or meeting temptations or problems. But they didn't have him indwelling them.

And you and I, if we're saved, every saved person has the Holy Spirit in them. If you have not the Spirit in you, the Bible says Christ is not in you.

Because I mean every saved person, but most saved people do not yield enough to the Holy Spirit to have the power that that God wants us all to have. And so Samson had disobeyed God and he wasn't living the way he should have lived, but God was going to use him.

And it says here that the Holy Spirit came mightily upon him and he rent him the lion as he would have rent a kid a little goat. And he had nothing in his hand, but he told not his father or his mother what he had done. And he went down. I don't know.

I've never really counted how many times you find that word down in Samson's life. I remember Jonah went down to Nineveh. He went down into the ship. He went down into the water. He went down the mouth of a whale.

He just kept going down, down, down. When you're running from God, there's no place else to go but down, okay? And a lot of people say, well, I don't do that. I'm just coasting.

Well, you can't coast up. You can only coast down. A lot of people go to church, but they're just sitting in the boat and being carried through life down instead of up.

And so he went down and talked with the woman. He had a woman problem. There's no doubt about that. And she pleased Samson well. And after a time, he returned to take her.

And he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion. And behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion.

And he took thereof in his hands and went on eating and came to his father and mother, and he gave them, and they did eat, but he told not them that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion. Now we read that say, well, okay, Brother Weatherby, but what in the world has got to do with me?

How in the world am I gonna get anything out of that? For what I face today and how I live? Well, all the Bible is not written to us, but it's all written for us.

And God didn't just put things in the Bible to make those columns line up straight in your Bible, okay? No, in fact, the Bible says he put every word. And Jesus said, even the little jots and tittles, everything was there for a reason, okay?

And so a lot of people don't understand. They think, well, inspired means God just kind of gave them an idea. Like a person gets inspired to write a poem or inspired to write songs.

Well, inspiration literally means breathed. God breathed the Scriptures. That's what it means, inspired. If you've ever met Brother Savoloski, he's a Jewish man in our church at Victory.

And he, of course, knows how to speak. And it's amazing to Me, I've heard him do it several times. He said, you know how when it says God breathed?

He said, the Hebrew word means, that's what it means. That's how you would pronounce it. All scripture is given by ha of God. That's what it literally means. And he breathed his word into those men.

Different men, different ages, different backgrounds. And so we have the scripture.

And in the early days, of course, in the early days of the church, they didn't have the New Testament yet, and so they read from the Old Testament and they knew these stories. But we need to understand what is the value of that. For me, the Bible's kind of like an art gallery. It's like so many wonderful things.

You like to go to an art gallery and just wander around and look a little closer at pictures and wonder how in the world could somebody paint such a beautiful picture? Well, sometimes that's the way I look at the Bible. Like walking through an art gallery.

It seems to me that this well known hero, Samson with a slain lying in the background, standing in the open road with his hands, he didn't have a cup, he didn't have a bowl.

He's holding honey in his hands, he's eating a little and he's gonna take it to his parents and they're gonna taste of the honey, but he's holding it in his hands. Isn't that interesting? So much like Christ, the Bible says, taste of the Lord and see that he is good.

I think I recently preached to you about bearing fruit and fruit is to let other people taste of Christ. They don't read the Bible, so they meet a Christian and they get a taste of what a real Christian is.

If it's not a real Christian, it's a bitter taste and they don't really want anything to do with it. Tasting Christianity, you ever thought about your life in that particular thought?

When I'm around people, unsaved people, they get a taste, The taste of it. Gandhi said I would have become a Christian if it hadn't been for Christians.

Did a work in India, he tasted of some Christians go, no, that's not for me. But as he is now, here's where we're gonna get the application.

The Bible says, as he speaking of Jesus is, so are we also in this world we are to represent Christ. Jesus said, you're the light of the world, you're the salt of the earth. He said, as the Father hath sent me, so send I you.

He was our substitute on the cross, right? Well, strange as it May sound we are his substitute on the earth. I don't know why God planned it that way.

Long before he created the world, he could have done it countless ways to get the gospel.

But he said, I'm gonna redeem a people and I'm gonna let them represent me as an ambassador of Christ in their life, in their neighborhood, in their home, in their job, in their vacations, wherever they may be. That's the plan. That's the way Jesus wants it done. If I would have done it, I probably would have done it another way.

Even Paul said, lord, I'm the least of thy servants. But God used him in a mighty way because he was weak. And he said, when I'm weak, I'm strong. So as he is, Christ is, so are we also.

In this world, the devil is referred to as a lion. Like a lion. He's not a lion, but like a lion.

And we also, just as Jesus did, we can overcome the devil because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. We have the word of God that the devil is scared to death of. Now, if he just stays on a table somewhere, he's not too worried.

But the devil is scared to death of the word of God getting into the head and heart and life of believers. But we have the word of God and the spirit of God in us. And the Bible says, resist the devil and he will flee from you. We can overcome temptation.

We do not have to sin. We all sin, either in thought or in deed. We have to fight sin and the devil and the flesh every single day.

But nowhere in the Bible does it say, you might as well accept it. You're gonna have to sin. No. In fact, Paul said, sin shall not have dominion over you.

Most people, sin has a lot of dominion because most people don't know much about being filled with the Holy Spirit. And they don't know much about the Bible. They think, well, that's why we hired the preacher. He knows the Bible and he'll tell us what it says.

Well, a preacher ought to know the Bible. But it's not just for preachers. In fact, you could know more of the Bible than preachers know. There's no limit.

God didn't say, you can't go past this verse and the congregation. There's no limits on how much of the Bible you can know and you can understand. God didn't give us a book that we just have to say, I don't get it.

I don't understand it. It doesn't make sense to Me? Well, you have a teacher called the Holy Spirit. And we do.

God did put preachers and teachers in the church to equip people, to equip believers. But God wants you to know the Bible. And you can overcome sin shall not have dominion over you. So here's a picture.

We see Samson with this dead lion that he torn in half. And it reminds us of Jesus, who the Bible says, he'll bruise your heel, but you will crush his head. And that day is soon to come.

But we don't have to wait till then to overcome the devil. We don't have to just give in. We can have victory.

But also in this picture, just as Samson looked at this lion that he had killed, he had honey dripping off of his hands. We also have honey in our hands. The gospel. You ever thought of the gospel as honey, you say? Well, I don't like honey. Well, try a doughnut.

Maybe you'll like that. You know, the Bible does talk about honey on several places.

And God told the children of Israel, I'm going to take you to a land that flows with what? Milk and honey. We're going to have milk and honey in heaven? I don't know. But there's not anybody going to be disappointed.

Whatever we have, there's not anybody going to turn their nose up. What is that? I promise you there won't be anything like that. But what about down here? Well, we have Christ, our Savior. What a savior.

And the honey's dripping from his hands for us. And we're to take that honey and give it to other people. We're to tell people, hey, taste this. Let me tell you about Christ.

Let me show you how the darkest day in the history of the world, Calvary, became the brightest day for you and I. Because Jesus paid it all. In fact, he said, it is finished. Oh, I'm so glad those three words are in the Bible. We have honey.

We are to be as Samson and as Christ, a conqueror. Listen. A conqueror and a comforter. We're to be both. Think about that. We conquer. We're more than conquerors. We're soldiers. We have victories.

That God said he would make sure that we wouldn't have to give in and give up and lay down and die. He said, you can do it. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. But he also said he would give us a comfort. A comforter. Amen.

And in Second Corinthians, my wife reminds me of this verse a lot. The first chapter of Second Corinthians said, we are comforted. That we may comfort others.

We're giving honey so we can give something sweet and something good and something appealing. Not more religion, but Jesus Christ. You got to picture yourself, think maybe you haven't ever really thought about it or done that. But imagine.

I mean, here's something that actually happened, but it's put in this picture album for you and I. And imagine you in that picture. Imagine you meeting people and sharing with them the gospel, slaying lions and distributing honey.

That's kind of the way the Christian life is to be about. We're to slay, we're to win. We're not to be victims. We're to be victors. And we can. We don't have to cross our finger.

We don't have to have good luck charms. All we have to do is yield to the Holy Spirit. You can't fail when you're filled with the Holy Spirit.

Most of my life, when I'm walking up them stairs or any other stairs in any churches, I've been. And under my breath, oh, God, fill me with the Holy Spirit or I'll be a complete failure and nobody will get a thing out of my sermon.

I can't do it, Lord. I'm not sufficient. That's why John the Baptist said, he must increase and I must decrease. More of Jesus, more of Christ.

In our lives, a faithful servant of God wrestles with the powers of evil. There's no exceptions, but with a far greater delight.

He speaks to his friends and companions, saying, eat ye that which is good, and let your souls delight themselves in sweetness. Taste of the Lord and see that he is good. So this is very simple. Three point message number one.

When we see the lion, we're reminded that a believer's life is going to have conflicts. Now, I don't think I have to convince you of that. But sometimes we still get caught. Why'd this happen? What's going on? I told the truth.

I did the right thing. And now look what happened. The bottom fell out.

Jesus said, in the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world. Second Corinthians. If you're pretty quick with your Bible. Second Corinthians in chapter number four in verse eight. Paul, listen.

Paul said, we are troubled on every side. Can you identify with that? Does sometimes trouble come from all different sides? Sometimes your surprises you? We are troubled on every side.

This is Second Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 8. Yet we're not distressed. We're perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down, yes, but not destroyed.

When we enlist as a soldier of Christ, we got to come to grips that we're. A soldier is to go to war. A soldier is to be prepared for battle. When you get saved, you become a son of God. The Bible says we're all saints.

Isn't that what the Bible says? I've heard people say all the time, well, I'm doing the best I can, but I'm no saint. If you're saved, you're called a saint.

Now, I don't need you to call me Saint Wetherby after church today. But that's what a lot of people think. Oh, well, they're just the saints, boy. They make statues to them and man, those are superheroes.

No, every saved person is a saint. We're stewards, right? We manage. We don't own anything. We manage whatever God puts in our life.

None of us all have the same amount of things or the same abilities or the same talents. We're sons, we're saints. We're stewards. We're sowers, right? Go out into the world and sow the seed.

We're singers, even if you don't have a good voice. The Bible says when you get saved, he puts a song in our heart, and then we're to shine for Christ. We're supplicators.

We're to be praying all the time. Pray without ceasing. We're the salt of the earth. But in this case, we're looking at a soldier. Because, believers, life has its conflicts.

When you line up behind Jesus Christ, it is a glorious honor and it's a serious step.

You know, I think sometimes I don't want to get off my thought here, but, you know, we need to do a little bit better on explaining and telling new Christians what to expect. A lot of brand new Christians think, praise God, my troubles are over. I'm not going to have more problems. This is great. I wish.

Man, I can't believe it. This is wonderful. And it is wonderful. I never met anybody that said it wasn't wonderful, but I met a lot of them.

Boy, did things happen quick that went wrong. They didn't understand. They didn't realize that now they're paddling upstream because the world is going downstream.

Now all of a sudden, they don't fit in. Everybody used to like them. Now they think they're a little crazy. You don't get invited. You get passed over sometimes for promotions.

People you thought would never turn against you can turn against you. Many Times because you're doing what's right, you're doing the right thing.

I won't ask you to raise your hand, but sometimes don't you feel a little lonely because so many people that you used to know seem to not care anymore. Or at least not care like you do. The earlier a Christian realizes this, the better. You'll never regret following him.

But there's no gliding into heaven without a struggle. No cross, no crown, no conflict, no conquest, no battles, no victories. The world, the flesh and the devil is going to continue till Jesus comes.

And by the way, he's on the way. I believe Christ is on the way. You know something that we need to also realize.

We all kind of jerk when we hear this, but you know, if we'll be honest and stop and think for a moment. It's really a dangerous thing to never have any trouble. You say, well, I don't know. I'd sure like to try that.

Well, so would I. I think that if we don't ever have any trouble, we won't pray as much. We won't be as thankful. We'll take it for granted we won't be as thankful. A lot of we'd be totally different.

But in fact I venture to say that if we have never had any problems, most of us might not even be here tonight. It's kind of dangerous. Job said. Man is born into trouble and the sparks fly upward. The Christians conflicts may often be very terrible.

This was no little whelp of a cub. This wasn't a little kitty cat that Samson met. It was a lion. Fullness of its early strength and. Temptations. Sometimes doubts and fears.

Friends turning against you. Loss goes on and on and they usually come when we are least prepared for them. I don't think Samson says, I think I'll go lion hunting today. I don't.

The Bible doesn't say where he was doing, where he was going or what he was doing. But I would venture to say he probably wasn't saying, I feel like going out and killing a lion today. But it happened.

Things can happen to us very quickly. He was alone. No one was within call to aid him. Human sympathy is a precious thing.

But there are some times in our spiritual conflicts when no one's around. I don't think all of us will. Probably none of us will ever really get it.

But we still need to try to not put our faith in friends and money and jobs and all the things that we think are secure. We're not to live in fear and shake up all the time and worry. But God says you're going to have to lean on me. And trust me, you're mine. I bought you.

I'm going to take care of you. I'm not going to forsake you even when you're bad. I'm going to spank you. But I'm not going to throw you away. Not according to the Bible.

Once saved, always say, we are born in the family and you can't be unborn. We can feel like we're unborn. We can live like we're unborn. Walk close to him.

If a roaring lion that goes about seeking whom he may devour finds us alone among the vineyards, where is our hope? It's not in our heels. He's swifter than we are. It's not in our brains. It's not in ourselves. It's in Christ. Walk close to him.

Remember that old hymn, Just a Closer Walk with Thee. The spirit of Lord came upon him. But not only does the believer have conflicts, we have sweets. Am I right? Come on, say come. Everybody say amen.

You've had some sweet times since you've been saved. It hasn't all been downhill. It hasn't all been depression and disaster and problems, problems, problems. We all have had problems.

But we sure have had some blessings. We've had some sweet times with the Lord. We've had peace that passeth all understanding.

We have a joy that doesn't depend on people or things or circumstances or the weather or anything like that. We've been blessed. Sometimes we forget that so far tonight, you've survived all of your worst days so far. Amen. You've survived by the grace of God.

You thought you were finished. You thought, there's no way out of this. Here you are. Paul said what things were gain to me. Those I counted loss for Christ, yea, doubtless.

And I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them as dung that I may win Christ. I would sooner possess the joy of Jesus five minutes than revel in the laughter of fools for a century. There's always plenty of honey from God.

When Samson returned to the scene of the battle, he wasn't afraid. He knew the lion was dead. He had killed the lion. When he saw that lion, it reminded him. We go back to the old places of temptation and sin.

There's some of those that no longer really are as much of a temptation anymore. We have other temptations. There's not anybody here that doesn't have some kind of temptations.

But there's some of the things that used to really, really be a temptation and now you just kind of kick them out of the way. But the devil knows which one to get you, doesn't he? I've never been tempted to take drugs. I've never tasted alcohol. The devil's never.

I'm not saying I couldn't become a drunkard and lose everything I've got. I wouldn't say ever say anything like that. But it's not a temptation for me. There's a lot of things, temptations, they never stop.

But as we grow in the Lord and we grow stronger in the Lord, weaker in ourself, but stronger in the Lord, and we learn how to consider him in all that we do, in all thy ways, acknowledge him and lean on him sometimes. When I think about quitting, I'm probably the only one here tonight that's ever thought about that. But when I think about quitting, I remember.

I remember some of the great victories that God has given me in my life. I realize how far God has brought me. I rehearse that all the time. I don't jump out of bed every morning. My wife does.

She's like a rabbit that I fall out of bed.

But no, seriously, there's a lot of times when I'll lay there and read some scripture and I'll just begin to rehearse how far God has brought me since I got saved at 14. It just. It almost drowns me to think I've come too far to turn back now. Too many miles behind me.

Too many trials are through Too many sunsets lie behind the mountain. There's too much to gain to lose. And then, last of all, the believer's life leads him to share these sweets.

He took the honey in his hands, he went on eating, came to his father and mother. He, you know the moment a man is converted, if he's truly converted.

And I wish I didn't have to say it that way, but so many people have a counterfeit conversion. I know it. I'm telling you, I've been around. I mean, Jesus said we don't go around judging everybody. But Jesus said, you'll know them by their fruits.

You'll know if it's an apple tree or not because it'll have apples on it. And it's disturbing.

It's scary to know that how many people think they're saved, but they've never really repented and never really put all their trust In Christ, they just want to turn over a new leaf and try to be a better person. But the moment a man is converted, if he would let himself alone, his new nature will immediately lead him to tell other people.

Before I ever heard a sermon, before any preacher ever told me, now that you're saved, you need to go tell somebody else. No. I literally ran out of the church and ran home to tell my family that I'd gotten saved. And I wanted to tell them how to get saved.

No one told me I led my best friend to Christ on the gym floor in junior high school. They had a break and we was in the gym and we sat down against the wall. His name was Rick Johnson. And I shared with him the Gospel.

I said, rick, I gotta tell you something. Something happened to me and I want you to know about it. Cause it can happen to you.

He got saved and we sang in church together and served the Lord in the youth department together. When you first get saved, you know Samson, the first thing he thought of, I want give some of this honey to mom and dad.

Don't give up on your lost loved ones. Tell them of Christ. And then live Christ. Let Christ live through you. The believer will do the best he can.

Samson had nothing to carry the honey in but his hands. But that didn't stop him. You may not know a lot about the Bible yet, but you can give others what you have, what Christ did for you.

Samson didn't just tell them about the honey. He said, here, taste it and see. He took it to them. He didn't say, there's a lion out there in the pasture.

If you need some honey, you're hungry, he's right out there. Go out there and help yourself. No, no. He took it to them. People have heard a lot of talk. They need to taste honey. They need to taste Jesus.

They need to see a demonstration. Carry the grace of God wherever you go. And Samson did all this in modesty. Twice.

It tells us that he didn't tell his parents what he had done, where the honey came from, that wasn't important to him. Guess what, Mom. Guess what, dad. No. He said, here, taste this honey. It's the best I've ever had. That's all that mattered to him.

It's about the honey, isn't it? It's about Christ. It don't come any sweeter than Jesus. I never will. You had any honey lately? You had some time with Jesus?

Taste him again and say, wow, what a savior. Are you in conflict right now in your life? Well, God says You can be more than conquerors if you'll just let me have control.

We want the comfort without the control. God says, I can't do that. I can't comfort you while you're doing your own thing. Give up your will to me and let me have you.

I can take care of all your enemies. And think about the honey the next time the old lion roars, think about the honey. Amen.

Let's stand with our heads bowed and eyes closed for just a moment. A little different type of sermon than I usually preach. But I've been thinking about it for a couple weeks, looking it over and reading it over.

Maybe somebody would feel tonight, you know, that was really help me. That was for me because I'm having trouble with that old devil and I need more power in my life. And I want to let others.

I want to take honey to others. I want to share the gospel. Maybe you're here tonight and you're not even sure you're saved. I wouldn't ever say everybody's here saved. I don't know.

I would maybe guess they are. If you're not sure you could get that settled tonight, forever. Never have to worry about it again.

Whatever your need is, whatever your burden is, Jesus said, come unto me all ye that are heavy, heavy laden and I'll give you rest, take my yoke upon you. That's the part that we get under the yoke with Christ instead of trying to squirm our way out and run away.

Say, lord, whatever you want me to do, I'm going to pray. And if God's touched your heart, you may just want to come and thank him for how far he's brought you.

You may have a burden tonight for somebody that's lost that you've been praying for and trying to witness to for such a long time. Don't give up. Maybe you'd want to come and pray for them. Maybe some of you like to come and pray again for the camp tonight.

Young people, lives could change forever. I don't know your need, but God does. Heavenly Father, speak to our hearts tonight. And Lord, take us by the hand and lead us.

Lord, forgive us when we're stubborn and try to pull back or pull away. Lord, help us to live every day yielded and surrendered. I pray, Father, that you would help us to be leadable tonight. In Jesus name. Heads are bowed.