No compromise

Some good quotes gleaned from various sources and found in Dr. Gareth Crossley's chapter on Judges in his "Old Testament Survey" (Evangelical Press):

"Samson, when strong and brave, strangled a lion; but he could not strangle his own love. He burst the fetters of his foes, but not the cords of his own lusts. He burned up the crops of others, and lost the fruit of his own virtue when burning with the flame enkindled by a single woman." (Ambrose)

"There is a potential 'prodigal' in the heart of every believer. We find it hard to believe some of the things God teaches. We find it hard to obey some of the commandments he gives. We find it hard to walk in holiness and subdue self-interest and deny ourselves our sinful pleasures. We find it hard to pray as we ought, to read Scripture as we should, to attend worship as God directs. We find it hard to love our brethren as our Saviour requires. We find it hard to seek the lost, share the gospel, do good to all, to love our neighbour. In a hundred and one ways it is evident that our greatest enemy is within. Is it our 'self'. My greatest enemy is me! 'The heart os deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked' (Jeremiah 17:9)." (Crossley).

"If we wilfully spare a single Canaanite, or enter into a tacit agreement with the enemy, though we may perhaps not fail of heaven at last, we shall have stripes of sorrow on our journey thither: 'they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you'. Our prospects will be dim, our usefulness will be impaired, our light will be turned into darkness, and our songs into dirges of lamentation; while the remorseless, tyrannous lust humbles us again and again, sinks us lower than the dust, and reduces us to exquisite and abject misery; the just penalty of refusing to take up the cross and deny self, that we might follow Christ. Merciful Lord! Deliver me and thy whole Church from the humiliation and bitterness of being subject to the Canaanite!"