<TITLE>02. Par 2-4</TITLE>L-2 It's so nice to be here tonight, and for this grand opportunity to address this most gracious group of Christian people. And greetings to all of you. And these days that I have been here has been some of the most glorious days of my life.
And this morning when I was making my confession of something that I had done wrong, minister after minister, and business man after business man, met me weeping back there to go out and pray through. So I like that. That knows that as long as there is confession, well, there is hopes for a revival, isn't there? And so we're happy for that.
And now, last night the--our noble Brother Roberts directed his message straight to the Christian Businessmen. So I thought tonight I would direct what few words I was to say to the church, because there is many of the sponsoring ministers here, that's in the meeting. And so I thought I would direct this to the church. My subject is tonight, "Where Has Thy Strength Gone Samson?"

L-3 Let us bow our heads just a moment for prayer. Dear heavenly Father, as we come to Thee with all our hearts, and all our strength, and all that lies within us, asking of Thy favor, and that if something that we might have done or said, or even to have thought, that was not pleasing to Thee, we would ask, Lord, that You would forgive us for these things; for it's truly we want to stand in Thy Presence someday, wrapped in the righteousness of Thy beloved Son, the Lord Jesus, ready to be received into Thy kingdom.
And now, while we are in our right mind, we ask forgiveness of all of our sins. And there might come a time in our life where we would be called quickly and would have no time to repent. We pray tonight, Lord, as the Word has been read to us, may the Holy Spirit take those words and divide them to our hearts as we have need.
We would pray also, Lord, that You would continue to bless this convention. After, we want to thank You for what has been said, for noble and gallant soldiers of the cross, that spoke the sincerity of their heart in testimony and sermons. And all that's been done, we're thankful for it, and ask that You'll continue on.
Bless Brother Shakarian, and all of the Christian Businessmen, and every minister, and--and organization that's assembled together here. And may this turn to be one of the greatest conventions that's been held on the West Coast. May something happen here in the next day or two, Lord, that'll just awaken the entire state of California and bring them to a repentance and a knowledge of the saving grace of Jesus Christ our Lord. Bless us together now as we wait farther for the Holy Spirit to minister us tonight. For we ask it in Jesus' Name, Thy Son. Amen.

L-4 This fellow Samson, he's always been to me kind of an outstanding character of the Old Testament. I remember the first sermon that I ever undertaken to try to preach on was, "Samson, the Mighty Man of Valor," because I--I like strength. And Samson had strength, strength of the Lord.
I could not believe him to be a great big prehistoric giant. There would be no glory to God to see such a man take a--the doors of the city and pack it up on the hill, or slay a lion with his hands. But I believe Samson to be just a little bitty, what we would call, shrimp, just a little bitty fellow. And when the Spirit of the Lord came on him, that's where God got glory. They knowed there could be no strength of his own could do that, so it had to be the strength of the Lord.
God takes simple things to His--perform His great works. And it just common things... Sometimes we pass right over the top of the real thing that God wants to use, trying to find something great.


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