Upon Delilah’S Knees: A Serious Call to Christian Holiness

By Francis N. Agyin-Asare

Are you tired of being enslaved to sin? Are you fed up
with the fruit of ungodliness and iniquity in your life?
Do you long for a true, above-average Christian life of
holiness and consecration to God? If so, Upon Delilahs
Knees is what you seek!
This exciting book presents to you, dear reader, unrefined
biblical holiness, showing you not just theory about but
also practical steps to living holily and being set apart for
God, and shows you how to draw closer to God. Whosoever
immerses himself in this book will never come out living the
same way as before!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Jun 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462889112

Francis N. Agyin-Asare

Francis N. Agyin-Asare, originally from Ghana, but residing in the UK, is an Undergraduate Business Management and French student at the University of Surrey, Guildford. He is a polyglot whose gift God has been using to affect lives in different parts of the world, mainly through his presentation of the Gospel in the different languages, and also by the demonstration of God’s healing and delivering power. Reaching his generation with the purifying fire of God is his ardent desire. Francis is the second of Dr. Charles Agyinasare’s three blessed and inspiring children, who share Francis’ passion for this generation.

Book preview

Copyright © 2011 by Francis N. Agyin-Asare.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011909929

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4628-8910-5

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4628-8909-9

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4628-8911-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

0-800-644-6988

www.XlibrisPublishing.co.uk

[e-mail]

301764

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Pre-Chapter: Where It All Began

PART I: A WAY?

Chapter One: In the Valley of Sorek

Chapter Two: The Secret of His Might

Chapter Three: Wasted with Wicked Wine

Chapter Four: What Manner of Man Doggone!

Chapter Five: Lust of the Flesh

Chapter Six: Sexual Sins

Chapter Seven: Consequences

PART II: A WAY?

Chapter Eight: Holiness, Fitness for Heaven

What is not holiness: Holiness vs. Morality

Is it possible to be holy?

Why should we be holy?

Consequences of not being holy

How can we be holy?

Chapter Nine: Avoiding, Escaping, Conquering Sin, and Remaining in Holiness

Message for the Recently Born Again

Foreword

In a generation where sin is rife and people have substituted hollering for holiness, rebelling and reveling for reverence, playing filthy for prayer, it is very refreshing to see a young man who believes that it must not be so, and is trying to do something about this canker.

UDK is a book that seeks to show the dangers of allowing Delilah to get the best of you. This is a book that is very revealing, incisive and curative. Many have talked about Samson and Delilah and how he lost his hair. However, very few have tried to make us know that today we could be a Samson and that our Delilah may be waiting to shear us of our strength.

I have known Francis all his life. I do not recommend this book because of our biological connections. Instead I recommend this book to you as a preacher, teacher, educator, author and a mentor to many. This book comes from a young man who takes his money to go on board public transport so he can tell others about the danger of not being reconciled to their Maker. This is from the heart of one who has risked being thrown off a UK public bus because he wanted to warn people about the future state of their soul. This book comes from the pen of one who has sacrificed his pocket money to write tracts and distributed them around in the UK.

This book will draw you closer to God, make you want to live a holy life, and will equip you as to how to do it. It will also stir you to pray, pray, and pray more. The author says, Every holy man must be a praying man. This is a book for the pastor, the elderly, and the young; as also for mentors who want their protégés to avoid the pitfalls of life, and for the protégés who want a lasting future. It is material that the scholar will enjoy, and will make the semi-literate desire to polish his literary knowledge. Upon Delilah’s Knees is theologically sound, the words carefully chosen, and the script well written.

I recommend UDK to you and ask that you get another copy for a friend; it is your perfect package for a consecrated life. Get UDK now!

Dr. Charles Agyinasare

Preface

As the year 2009 was drawing to a close, I wrote the poem Upon Delilah’s Knees or UDK, retelling the Bible story of Samson and Delilah. I used the plain (and somewhat modified) account of the events as a metaphor to relay a subject that I found very interesting and important—the godless man’s trinity, i.e. the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. I observed a prevalence of this fiendish godhead in my society, and kept wondering if things could only get worse. What was the cure to immorality and the nefarious impiety in the church and society in general? The answer that came to my heart was this: a true and genuine faith in the pure and Holy Lord Jesus, the fruit of which would be works of righteousness and holiness. Therefore I thought it ideal to write a book on Christian holiness, but from a rather different perspective: this time, from the simple and non-fictitious biblical story, giving rise to allegories, and then on to present-day practical life application. The title Upon Delilah’s Knees: A Serious Call to Christian Holiness was hence chosen, which was meant to recall William Law’s most serious and famous work, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.

I therefore started looking more into the story and scrutinized the Scriptures—both Old and New Testaments—seeking an authoritative basis whereon to build my story. Also, a wide range of extra-biblical sources and tomes of philosophical works were used—though not all were employed—in order to give UDK a sort of ‘all-round’ feel in its content. Most importantly, in addition to all these ingredients, this piece was birthed in the corridors of prayer so as to transmit the power of God into the inner depths of the reader’s soul.

As has been observed in the writings of such famous and mighty revivalists of the past centuries as, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Charles Finney and William Booth, a general revival of religion is only possible by individual or personal revivals, where the saints straighten their very own crooked paths and bring low every mountain in their lives; where the saints return to holiness and consecration to God, where they elevate the standard of Christian living to where God wills for it to be. In the words of Finney, It is evident that the standard of Christian living must be raised, or the world will never be converted.

In my hunger and thirst for a revival of religion, I therefore felt the real need and urgency to construct this timely tool, which, by the grace of God and by the force of His Spirit, would stir up the believer to return to his first Love and to holiness. Once this book is able to provoke the child of God to personal separation and sanctification, this would pave a way for the pending general revival of religion in our churches and even our nation. It is my wish and desire that this book will be a resounding call to Christian holiness for you, dear reader; for my writing is directed at that singular individual, Hiin Enkelte, as Kierkegaard put it. For you must be affected first, before we can hope for any change in our generation in general. Admittedly, this book is no masterpiece of art but I trust that it portrays a piece of my Master’s heart.

To conclude: how can one be warm alone? Ecc.4:11, and how can a man stand if there be no ground beneath him? Therefore if there is any good in this book, it’s not the result of a hermit constructing new ideas, or of an isolated man releasing all the wisdom from within his own soul. Without denying, I wrote this book with the help of certain individuals without whom this piece would never even see the light of day. I extend my special thanks and gratitude to my parents, Dr. and Mrs. Agyinasare, as well as my siblings Selaise and Charlene, for all their support and inspiration, and to my beloved friends from University, who never ceased to encourage me. Nana Duker, thanks a lot for your help. Obed Gyamfi, God richly bless you for working tirelessly and selflessly to see this thing come to life. Most importantly, I thank my God and Father, through Jesus Christ, without whom I would have no time or skill or opportunity to put any of this together. Dear Lord, I’m eternally grateful and will thank You even more when we meet in Your celestial Kingdom!

Introduction

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life 1 Jhn. 2:16

This is a novel-like manual that takes you on a journey to holiness, using a parable from the Samson-and-Delilah story. It draws upon the failings of the story’s persona and how these are mirrored to our lives; and yet through this, ways to be victorious are brought to the fore, equipping the child of God with a multi-faceted view of living in Christian holiness.

Delilah, that famous, or rather notorious, woman in the Bible is known all over the world, by Christians and non-Christians alike. Her name alone transmits some sort of evil or seductive connotations, and hardly would one find a child named Delilah. But what is she most famous for? Is it not for causing one of the strongest men in history to fall? Indeed, that is all she ever achieved, and without question it was a great and mighty feat which even the hosts and armies of the Philistines could not envisage in their wildest imaginations. He who killed a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass (donkey) was softened by the spears of this woman’s words and suffered his own destruction by the arrows of her caresses. He suffered from the woman’s thighs. It is here that the ‘weak’ are ensnared by the aroma of Delilah’s knees, where they go in one form and return in another. No one goes to that land and returns the same, and history bears witness to that.

This Delilah, who we think is dead, is still ‘alive’ in spirit and is causing many modern-day Samsons—committed church members, pastors, reverends, and even bishops—to fall. She is deceiving many who have their faith in God, and is poisoning and killing them by the venom of her knees. You see, it is on her thighs (which the King James calls knees) that most of the damage is caused—it is there, where pleasure and relaxation seem to have been gotten, that Samson is weakened and faces a most regrettable and disgraceful loss of power from God’s Spirit. I believe that those thighs represent the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, as mentioned in 1 John 2:16 above.

As you might already know, you cannot love God and the world at the same time; neither can you serve two masters who are totally opposed to each other. As Finney explains in his Sermons on Important Subjects:

A man cannot love two objects that are entirely opposite to each other, at the same time. The apostle immediately subjoins to the text, "for all that is in the world, the lust