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Samson
What more could God, or man, or angel of God have done for Samson that was not done? … From his birth, and for long before his birth, the gifts of God were simply showered on Samson. He had a father and a mother of the very best.
AW-BC, p. 196
The name “Samson” means “sunny, sunshine,” and yet he ended up in darkness.
Samson was chosen by God to begin the work of defeating the Philistines (Judg. 13:5). This work was continued by Samuel (1 Sam. 7:13) and completed by David (2 Sam. 8:1; 19:9).
Samson, however, though he had great physical strength, had but little mental force, and even less spiritual power. His whole life is a scene of miracles and follies. He had but little grace, and was easily overcome by temptation. He is enticed and led astray. Often corrected, still he sins again.
CHS, 4:474
You go out, like Samson, against the enemies of God and His Church, but all the time you make your campaign an occasion for your own passions, piques, retaliations, and revenges.
AW-BC, p. 198
And yet he failed, as many another has failed, partly because he persuaded himself that restraint in one direction allowed license in others; partly because he trusted to the outward sign of his consecration to carry him through.
G. H. S. Walpole, Personality and Power, p. 146
Samson got out of touch with God unconsciously through presumption. King Saul got out of touch with God deliberately through disobedience.
J. Oswald Sanders, The Cultivation of Christian Character, p. 42
So accustomed did Samson become to the cooperation of the Spirit, that he grew presumptuous, and trifled with the secret of his strength.
Sanders, The Cultivation of Christian Character, p. 44
He played with his enemies as a lion plays with its prey. His full, frolicsome life breaks out in all he does. He is a great, good-natured boy, passionate and excitable, but susceptible and impulsive, and apparently keeping no strong hatred even for the people whom it was the mission of his life to punish.
Phillips Brooks, The Law of Growth, p. 255
Dr. James Stalker finds six classes of the tempted, three on the right and three on the left. On the left are those that are being tempted, those that are yielding to temptation, those that are leading others to temptation. On the right are those that are resisting temptation, those that have outgrown some temptations, and those that are helping others to overcome temptation.
A. T. Robertson, Passing on the Torch, p. 159
Samson’s loss of strength came soon after his greatest exploits. Pride goes before a fall. Victory can demoralize an army as readily as defeat.
A. T. Robertson, Passing on the Torch, p. 158
[Judges 16:21] The blinding effects of sin, the binding effects of sin, the grinding effects of sin.
[Judges 13:23–31] They thought they were summoning their fool, these thousands. They did not know they were summoning their fate.
GHM, Footsteps of the Flock, p. 123
For God’s watchmen to become the world’s showmen is a miserable business.
CHS, 37:87
[Judges 16:28] “Only this once!” That was the remarkable thing in that final prayer of Samson, “O Lord, remember me and strengthen me, only this once.” That phrase in Samson’s prayer suggests the power of one sincere prayer, one right decision, of one quick obedience to the Spirit of God, of one turning to God, one act of repentance.
CEM, Chariots of Fire, p. 111
It was not an elevated prayer, but is, like all the rest of his actions at their best, deeply marked with purely personal motives. The loss of his two eyes is uppermost in his mind, and he wants to be revenged for them.
Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, 2:256
[Judges 13:25] What text shall we write on that sequestered grave? Jeremiah 9:23–24.
GHM, Footsteps of the Flock, p. 123
At first thought the life of Samson impresses one as a wasted life. But Samson never fell altogether away from God. He knew where the secret of his great strength lay. We take this final prayer of Samson as a token of his genuine repentance. In his life and in his death he rendered great service to the people of God. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews puts Samson among the heroes of the faith (Heb. 11:32).
CEM, Chariots of Fire, p. 115
But man’s extremity is God’s opportunity. And in such words as were possible to Samson’s Old Testament biographer, that sacred writer tells us that in Samson also, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, and that God’s strength was made perfect in the day of Samson’s weakness.
AW-BC, p. 200
Samuel
He was the last of the judges and the first of the prophets for that new era in Israel’s history (Acts 3:24; 13:20; Heb. 11:32).
[1 Samuel 3] It was needful that he should exchange the traditions for the experimental [experiential]. His faith must rest, not on the assertions of another’s testimony, but on the fact that for himself he had seen, and tasted, and handled the Word of life [1 John 1:1–3]. Not at second-hand, but at first, the Word of the Lord must come to him, and be passed on to all Israel.
Meyer, Samuel, p. 29
Samuel was asleep, yet he heard God’s voice. But I know some people who are awake, yet have not heard it.
CHS, 54:110
Compare 1 Samuel 2:26 with Luke 2:52.
[1 Samuel 2] Samuel grew up at a time when the spiritual life of the land was at low ebb, and in a home where the father, though a priest, tolerated sin in the lives of his own sons. Eli failed to raise a godly family, yet he succeeded in training Samuel to serve the Lord.
Like his godly mother Hannah, Samuel devoted himself to prayer. See 1 Samuel 7:9, 17; 9:6–12; 12:16–25; 15:11; Psalm 99:6; Jeremiah 15:1.
[1 Samuel 4] They did not realize that God’s very present help depended not on the presence of a material symbol, but on moral and spiritual conditions which they should have set themselves to understand and fulfill. [See Jer. 7:12.]
Meyer, Samuel, p. 37
[W]hen Saul became king, Samuel was compelled to retire into obscurity, and become of no reputation. Samuel was emptied from vessel to vessel till there was no lees [dregs] left in the wine. The noblest thing, in some respects, in all Samuel’s noble life was the way he took the providence of God in the establishment of the monarchy. The monarchy was a great innovation. It was a great revolution. And even more than that, it was a severe condemnation, if not of Samuel’s own life, yet of his office and his order, which are sometimes dearer to a man than life itself. And, in addition to that, it was the disposition and dismissal of his two sons from the office and the rank to which he had raised them…. All Samuel’s past life had been spent in animating and purifying, and restoring the republic, but when he saw that a kingdom was coming in, instead of meeting it with resistance and obstinacy and lifelong hostility, the great man bowed to the will of God and the will of Israel, and cast in his lot with the new dispensation.
AW-BC, p. 225
It takes the very finest natures to pass over from one generation to another, and to work in the new generation as they worked in the old. It was splendidly done by Samuel…. It is only the old, and the ripe, and the much-experienced, and the men fullest of past service, who can do Samuel’s service to our generation and the generation which is coming up after us…. But Samuel, deposed and superceded as he was, was full of new and still more fruitful ideas for Israel. And what did Samuel do to occupy his talents in his ripe age, and still to serve God and God’s people? Never mortal man did a better, or a more fruitful thing than Samuel now did. Samuel planned and set up an institution, so to call it, that has made far more mark on the world than anything else that survives to us out of Israel or Greece or Rome. In his ripe and farseeing years, Samuel devised and founded and presided over a great prophetical school in his old age. That school of the prophets to which we owe so much of Samuel himself; to which we owe David, and Gad, and Nathan, and all their still greater successors; that great school was the creation and the care of Samuel’s leisure from office. How much of the Old Testament itself we owe to the prophets, and the preachers, and the psalmists, and the sacred writers, and other trained students of Samuel’s great school, we have not yet fully found out.
AW-BC, p. 226
But, crowning all and sanctifying all was Samuel’s life of prayer. Samuel was a proverb of prayer. The tradition of Hannah’s psalm and prayer was well known to every young prophet in Samuel’s school, and her best memories were perpetuated and transmitted in the devotional life and labors of her son. “Moses and Aaron among His priests, and Samuel among them that call on His name” (Ps. 99:6). As much as to say that Samuel stands at the head of all the men of prayer in Israel, just as Moses and Aaron stand at the head of all the prophets and priests in Israel…. “As for me,” said Samuel, “God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you” (1 Sam. 12:13).
AW-BC, pp. 227–28
Clovis Chappell entitled a sermon on Samuel “The Man Who Refused to Be Fired.” See his book Meet These Men, pages. 28–38. In another sermon on Samuel, in his book And the Prophets, he said: “This wise prophet became peculiarly interested in the youth of his day. There are few surer signs that one has grown old and sour on the inside than his wholesale condemnation of youth. Because of his keen interest in youth, Samuel ceased to speak only the language of the generation into which he was born. He began also to speak the language of another generation. He found young men hungry for God, but too ignorant to know how to find him and how to interpret him to others. For these he established divinity schools. All the theological seminaries that have been built since that far-off day had, in a sense, their beginning here” (p. 40).
On the schools of the prophets, see 1 Samuel 10:3–5; 19:20–24; 2 Kings 2.
On Samuel and the witch of Endor, see Saul.
Sarah (Genesis 12–23; see also Isa. 51:2; Rom. 4:19; 9:9; Gal. 4:22–31; 1 Peter 3:6)
Even though she laughed when she heard the Lord’s announcement that she would bear a son (Gen. 18:9–15), and then lied about her laughter, Sarah was a woman of faith (Heb. 11:11) and an example of obedience (Gen. 16:12; 1 Peter 3:6). She was wrong when she gave Hagar to Abraham (Gen. 16) but right when she told Abraham to dismiss Hagar and Ishmael from the camp (Gen. 21:8–21, note v. 12). She symbolizes “the heavenly Jerusalem” and the freedom of its children in the new covenant (Gal. 4:22–31). She helped her husband show hospitality to the Lord and two angels (Gen. 18:6). The first mourning and funeral in Scripture involves the death of Sarah, and she is the only woman in Scripture whose age at death is recorded (127; see Gen. 23:1). On two occasions, Abraham jeopardized the Messianic promise by lying about his wife in order to protect himself (Gen. 12:10–20; 20:1ff). It was a selfish thing to do and Sarah willingly cooperated, but the Lord overruled and delivered them both.
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When Abraham made the great venture of faith, renouncing hearth and home for conscience’ sake; when he lived a nomad life among strangers, summering and wintering under canvas, enduring trials and afflictions, she was always by his side, lightening the way he traveled, doubling his joys and dividing his sorrows; ordering the peace and comfort of his house, cheering him to face all hardships with constancy of mind, and sometimes in hours of temptation and danger putting him to shame by her quiet-hearted heroism…. Sarah was a princess in name and in nature. She understood her husband’s divine vocation, shared his religious aspiration, and never ceased to be his true helpmeet.
Strahan, Hebrew Ideals, p. 111
[L]et us note what a happy circumstance it is when a godly, gracious man has an equally godly, gracious wife. … It is said of her that she did well, “whose daughters you are as long as you do well” (1 Peter 3:6). She did well as a wife. … She did well as a hostess. … She did well as a mother. … She did well as a believer.
Summarized from CHS, 27:677–81
[Genesis 18:9–15] When it was announced to Abraham that he should have a son, Sarah was not present, Eastern etiquette requiring a lady of rank to remain in her private apartment during a visit of male strangers…. Through the intervening curtain she listened to the promise, and laughed at it with bitter incredulity. It sounded [more like] irony than truth, and awoke in her the spirit of doubt and denial. But when she heard the Guest rebuke her secret laughter, and expose the dissimulation into which she was then betrayed by fear, and ask in tones which seemed more than human if anything was too hard for God, she was shaken out of her doubt, and restored to the humility of faith. She received the great blessing “because she judged Him faithful who had promised” (Heb. 11:11).
Strahan, Hebrew Ideals, pp. 109–10
[Genesis 21:9] Sarah’s watchful eye fell upon him [Ishmael] mocking and teasing her son—Isaac-ing him—turning the beloved name into a jest. It was not innocent mirth, but unmannerly rudeness and wanton cruelty [Gal. 4:29]. The jealous mother’s smoldering wrath was quickly rekindled with the result that she demanded the instant expulsion of the bondwoman and her son.
Strahan, Hebrew Ideals, p. 146
[Genesis 23] The presence of death drew from Abraham the pathetic confession, “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you” (23:4)…. He had never been able to say in Canaan, “I am at home.” … The thought of life as a pilgrimage sank deep into the Hebrew mind; and even after the Children of Israel had conquered Canaan, and were wanderers no more, but settled owners of the soil, they were still but strangers and pilgrims with God (Ps. 39:12; 1 Chron. 29:15). See also Hebrews 11:8–10, 13–16.
Abraham did not take Sarah’s body back to Ur for burial, for he would not return to the place of the old life (Gen. 24:1–9). Nor would he merely abandon the body, or bury it hastily, for Sarah had been his faithful wife and he loved her too much to do that. In spite of his sorrow, Abraham went through the long and tedious bargaining that was so typical of the Eastern peoples. The Hittites respected him, but when Ephron asked far too much money for the property, Abraham still paid it and did not argue. By God’s grace, he owned the whole land, but he couldn’t explain that to his pagan neighbors; so he paid the full price and maintained his testimony. Sarah’s body was the first to be deposited in the cave, but in years to come, others were placed there with her—Abraham, Isaac, Rebekah, Leah, and Jacob. The entire land was Abraham’s, but all he owned in it was a tomb. However, should you and I die, we will take nothing with us from this world but will leave behind only a burial place.
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Saul, King of Israel
His character, indeed, is obscure, and we must be cautious while considering it; still, as Scripture is given to us for our instruction, it is surely right to make the most of what we find there, and to form our judgment by such lights as we possess. It would appear, then, that Saul was never under the abiding influence of religion, or, in Scripture language, “the fear of God,” however he might be at times moved and softened. Some men are inconsistent in their conduct, as Samson; or as Eli, in a different way; and yet may have lived by faith, though a weak faith. Others have sudden falls, as David had. Others are corrupted by prosperity, as Solomon. But as to Saul, there is no proof that he had any deep-seated religious principle at all; rather, it is to be feared, that his history is a lesson to us, that the “heart of unbelief” may exist in the very sight of God, may rule a man in spite of many natural advantages of character, in the midst of much that is virtuous, amiable, and commendable.
John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, 3:35–36
Unbelief and willfulness are the wretched characteristics of Saul’s history—an ear deaf to the plainest commands, a heart hardened against the most gracious influences.
Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, 3:42
Note Saul’s fears: he feared the enemy (1 Sam. 13:11; 28:5), his own people (1 Sam. 15:24), Goliath (1 Sam. 17:11), and David (1 Sam. 18:12).
Samuel had grown gray in a service that made all Israel acknowledge and know God from one end of the land to the other; but Saul, all the time, did not know Samuel when he saw him.
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Few have had a fairer chance than Saul. Choice in gifts, goodly in appearance, favored by nature and opportunity, he might have made one of the greatest names in history.
Meyer, David, p. 9
He was elected and crowned king over all Israel, but he was as ignorant all the time of the God of Israel as he was of Samuel, the great prophet of the God of Israel. The Spirit of God came upon Saul for outward and earthly acts, but never for an inward change of heart…. Saul all along was little better than a heathen at heart.
AW-BC, p. 231
[1 Samuel 9:21] Saul all his days was never so near the kingdom of heaven as when he said to Samuel, “Am I not a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel, and my family the least of all the families of Benjamin?”
AW-BC, p. 232
[1 Samuel 10:9—“God gave him another heart”] Saul has no longer the heart of a husbandman, concerned only with corn and cattle; he has now the heart of a statesman, a general, a prince. Whom God calls to service He will make fit for it.
Matthew Henry
I do not think that he ever did really, in his inmost soul, know the Lord. After Samuel anointed him, he was “turned into another man,” but he never became a new man; and the sense of God’s presence that he had was not, for a moment, comparable to that presence of God which a true saint enjoys.
CHS, 48:521
Whenever God calls a man to high vocation, it is not merely true to say He will confer upon him what he needs for the fulfillment of that vocation; it is also true that He has chosen the right man for the work…. The call of God is always answered by the capacity that lies within a man; it is made to that.
GCM, 9:13
[1 Samuel 11:17–25] If God has called a man to kingship, he has no right to hide away … if that man out of any sense of modesty shall hide away and try to escape the responsibility, therein is the first evidence of his weakness. So it was with Saul.
GCM, 9:14
The fundamental wrong of this man was that he failed to submit to the one King. Lack of loyalty to God; that was it…. This man in his government of Israel was a warrior and nothing more; he was never a shepherd.
GCM, 9:16–17
[1 Samuel 13] His impatience really amounted to distrust of Jehovah. His presumptuous offering was not really because of concern to propitiate God, but to impress the people.
Baxter, Mark These Men, p. 29
[1 Samuel 15] Everything hinges upon absolute obedience. If you cannot obey, you cannot command.
Meyer, Samuel, p. 137
[1 Samuel 15:35] Saul’s rejection reminds us of other Scriptures. “Ephraim is joined to his idols: leave him alone” [Hosea 4:17]. “He that is filthy, let him be filthy still” [Rev. 22:11].… “Be not Thou silent unto me, O Lord, lest if Thou be silent, I become like unto them that go down into the pit” [Ps. 28:1].
[1 Samuel 18:5–9] It is a dangerous crisis when a proud heart meets with flattering lips.
John Flavel
[1 Samuel 26:21—“I have played the fool”] A man plays the fool if he halts when God calls him to some pathway of service … when he neglects his best friends … if he marches upon the Divine enterprise when God has not commanded him … if he disobeys in even the smallest matter … when he attempts to justify the wrong he has done … when he allows some hatred to master him, as Saul did in the case of David.
GCM, 9:21–22
It was Saul’s folly in consulting the witch of Endor that brought about his death (1 Sam. 28; 1 Chron. 10:13).
[T]he tragedy of King Saul is the tragedy of a man who has been led by the events of his life into a position which he is not qualified to hold. It is the tragedy of a man who is not strong enough and not weak enough to pass through life successfully. He did not have it in him to be master and yet he had it in him not to be satisfied with the second place…. It is the tragedy of everyone whose ambition is beyond his endowment.
John Hutton, The Tragedy of Saul, p. 81
“How the mighty have fallen!” lamented David when he received the report of the death of Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. 1:25, 27), but when Saul began his reign, he was admired for standing taller than any of the people (1 Sam. 10:23). Yet he fell on his sword on the battlefield and took his own life (1 Sam. 31:1–6). “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (1 Cor. 10:12 NASB).
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Simeon (Luke 2:22–35)
[Luke 2:25] What a biography of a man! How short, and yet how complete! … Beloved, that is enough of a biography for any one of us. If when we die, so much as this can be said of us—our name, our business—“waiting for the consolation of Israel,” our character—“just and devout,” our companionship—“having the Holy Ghost upon us”—that will be sufficient to hand us down, not to time, but to eternity.
CHS, 11:625
Simeon was led by the Spirit and taught by the Word, and his heart was focused wholly on seeing the Savior. When he saw him, he received him and sang praises to God. Can we find a better example to follow?
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[Luke 2:30] For salvation in that day, as in this day, had as many meanings as there were men’s minds…. To one man in the temple that day the salvation of God meant salvation from Caesar; while to another man it meant his salvation from himself. To one man it was [salvation from] the tax-gatherer; and to another [from] his own evil heart.
AW-BC, p. 454
Solomon
The shipwreck of Solomon is surely the most terrible tragedy in all the world. For if ever there was a shining type of Christ in the Old Testament church, it was Solomon. If ever any one was once enlightened, and had tasted the heavenly gift, and was made partaker of the Holy Ghost, and had tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, it was Solomon. If ever any young saint sought first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and had all these things added unto him, it was Solomon…. If ever it was said over any child’s birth, “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound,” it was surely over the birth, and the birth-gifts and graces of Solomon.
AW-BC, pp. 278–79
His wisdom as his life went on descended not from above. The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable.
AW-BC, p. 283
[T]he secret worm … was gnawing all the time in the royal staff upon which Solomon leaned.
AW-BC, p. 284
That which lay at the bottom of all Solomon’s transgressions was his intimate partnership with foreigners…. In the whole Jewish system, no principle was more distinct than this—the separation of God’s people from partnership with the world.
F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 4:163–64
The world is that collection of men in every age who live only according to the maxims of their time…. No marvel if Solomon felt the superior charms of the accomplished Egyptian and the wealthy Tyrian. His Jewish countrymen and countrywomen were but homely in comparison.
F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 4:164
The second step of Solomon’s wandering was the unrestrained pursuit of pleasure…. There was another form of Solomon’s worldliness…. He had entered deeply into commercial speculations…. The truth seems to be, Solomon was getting indifferent about religion.
F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 4:166–69
Solomon married many foreign princesses so he could make peace treaties with their fathers and not have to go to war. His father David risked his life to protect the kingdom of Judah, but Solomon preferred to negotiate. In the end, these foreign wives turned his heart away from the Lord and to pagan idols (1 Kings 11; Neh. 13:26). Compromise in one area of life usually leads to deterioration in another area. Some people believe that Solomon was restored to the faith and that the book of Ecclesiastes is his final confession of faith (12:13–14).
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On Monday, April 16, President Harry Truman concluded his first speech to Congress by reading the prayer of Solomon from 1 Kings 3:9, and he concluded with, “I ask only to be a good and faithful servant of my Lord and my people.”
David McCullough, Truman
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 360
On the grave of Solomon are two epitaphs. The first can easily be read: “His wives turned away his heart after other gods.” But if you bend lower and push back the grass and the weeds, you can read there a second inscription, a second epitaph. It is this, and let us never forget it, for we shall all need it: “My mercy shall not depart away from him.”
CEM, The Wisest Fool and Other Men of the Bible, p. 19
Solomon may well be described as the wisest fool in the Bible.
CEM, The Wisest Fool, p. 9
Stephen (Acts 6–7; 11:19)
Stephen began as a member of the church in Jerusalem and was chosen to be a deacon and serve tables (Acts 6:5). Each time he finished with that ministry, he went to the synagogue to witness about Jesus (6:8–12). He was treated just as Jesus was treated, for false witnesses lied about what he said and did. But even as his enemies attacked him, his face shone like that of an angel (6:15). They accused him of attacking Moses, but Stephen’s face shone just as Moses’ face had shone (Exod. 34:29–35; see also 2 Cor. 3:6–18). He bore witness to Christ whose face had also radiated glory (Matt. 17:1–2). He was taken out and stoned to death, rejected by the religious establishment on earth but welcomed into the glories of heaven (7:54–60). This was the third murder in Israel’s history: the religious leaders allowed John the Baptist to be killed, they asked for Jesus to be killed, and they themselves killed Stephen. Their sin kept getting worse. Thus, they sinned against God the Father (who sent John the Baptist), God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51; see also Matt. 12:31–32). Stephen’s address seems to be only a recitation of the history of Israel, but it is actually an interpretation and application of that history. He points out that the Jewish people from the time of Jacob had always rejected their deliverers the first time and accepted them the second time. This was true of Joseph (vv. 9–16), Moses (vv. 17–50), and Jesus (vv. 51–53). When Jesus comes again, they shall look upon him, repent of their sins, and receive their promised King (Zech. 12:10–13:1; 14:1ff).
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[Stephen’s] whole story is told in two chapters of the New Testament. We watch him live for but one brief day of his life…. But he abides long enough to leave his name written indelibly upon our minds and hearts…. Dr. Luke’s admiration for this gifted young man is very evident. He has one word that he applies to him again and again, and that is the word “full.”
Clovis Chappell, More Sermons on Biblical Characters, p. 24
You see that these Apostles were in danger of being sidetracked. They were in danger of giving all their time to work to which they had not been appointed.
Chappell, More Sermons, p. 23
Oh, for a church that the world cannot treat with indifference! Oh, for a band of saints that it is absolutely impossible to ignore! Oh, for a ministry that will divide audiences and communities and cities and continents into those who are either out and out for Christ or out and out against Him…. The Church of Jesus Christ can stand any amount of opposition. “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” But the direst of all dire calamities is for it to become so effete, so powerless, so dead that it is not worth fighting.
Chappell, More Sermons, p. 32
Joseph Parker, at one time the celebrated preacher in London’s City Temple, as a young man used to debate on the town green with infidels and atheists. One day an infidel shouted at him, “What did Christ do for Stephen when he was stoned?” Parker replied, “He gave him grace to pray for those who stoned him.” Stephen’s prayer for those who stoned him was in reality a greater evidence of the power and presence of Christ in his life than any miracle of deliverance would have been.
CEM, The Wisest Fool, p. 139
In the stoning of Stephen there was lost to the Pentecostal Church another Apostle Paul.
AW-BC, p. 585
Stephen—from the Greek stephanos—“a victor’s crown.” See 2 Timothy 4:8 and Revelation 2:10.