Brother Ed Miller

I want to give you a summary of what is on my heart to share in the four opportunities that I have been given.  I have been studying the Book of Judges for more than a year.  The story of Samson has had the largest impact on my life in that study.  I would like to use the Samson story as an illustration of a great burden I believe is on the Lord’s heart.  I am calling the series “THE HEART NAZARITE”.  As you well know, Samson was dedicated to be a life-long Nazarite from his mother’s womb.  Using only the eye of the flesh, it is almost impossible to see Samson as a man of God dedicated all the days of his life to the Lord.  He lived a very sinful life.  He followed some of the outward forms of the Nazarite vow, but in his heart, he was far from living in fellowship with the Lord.  Samson is an extreme case.  How does the Lord take a man like Samson and transform him into a Heart-Nazarite?  His story is rich with the wonderful ways of the Lord in bringing the most rebellious and fleshly person into conformity with HIS purpose.

In the first message I would like to define the spiritual significance of the Nazarite Vow and then present an over-view of the Samson Story.  This overview will take us from God’s original intention for Samson to be a lifelong Nazarite, through Samson’s long road in the opposite direction, until finally, when God brought Samson to the crowning moment when he became a Heart-Nazarite.

In the second message I would like to address the mystery of why the Spirit of the Lord continually came upon Samson even when he was very far from living as a Heart-Nazarite.  We know the Lord sees the heart and was in full knowledge of his willful rebellion; why, then, did it appear that the Lord so often rescued him and used him to bless others while living in that condition?  The answers to this mystery are thrilling.

In the third message I would like to trace the Lord’s hand in bringing Samson to the end of himself, to the place where he actually cried out for the Lord to grant him a Nazarite heart.  This message will underscore the very heart of the Lord and graphically describe for us the bitter road some must travel before they surrender to the Lord’s purpose that leads to victory and to the glory of the Lord.

Finally, in the last message, I would like to meditate on how all the judges, but especially Samson, are types of the Lord Jesus Christ.  I will lay a special emphasis on Judges 15:4-5.  This is the strange story of Samson tying 150 pairs of foxes’ tails together, placing a torch between them and letting them loose to burn the fields of the Philistines.