Remember Me, Strengthen Me, Avenge Me

Summary

Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon's captions — published in summary form; watch the full sermon at the source.

Williams carries into the Sunday-night service at Bossier City the burden he had preached that morning: the last prayer of Samson. The text is Judges 16:25-28 — Samson blind, shaved, and mocked in Dagon's temple, set between the pillars before three thousand Philistines, praying the only prayer left to him: "O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes." The sermon is built to win the last fight. A man may have lost most of his battles — Samson vacillated his whole life between anointing and carnality — but failure is only final if he finishes that way.

The first movement refuses despair over falling: "a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again" (Proverbs 24:16). Falling is not evidence of unfaithfulness; you cannot fall if you are already on the ground, and the just man has seven falls precisely because he kept getting up. Do not let your low point become your living room. And the record backs the hope: the writer of Hebrews puts Samson — of all people — in the hall of faith, named in Hebrews 11:32 among Gideon, David, and Samuel, right in the middle of the faithful.

"Remember me," Williams insists, is not a cry to a God who forgot. God cannot forget what he is mindful of; Samson's *remember* is a plea for God's face and favor to turn toward him again — show up one more time, and strength will follow the favor. "Strengthen me" is the second petition of a man who has swung until he cannot swing: stir up the gift, put both hands on the pillars, and pray the one more prayer. "Avenge me" is the third, and it is a surrender of the fighting itself: the Bible points to the Lord as the one who avenges (Psalm 138), vengeance is his, and his payback lands in one final blow — what warred against you for months, God can settle in one night. The persistent widow of Luke 18, who kept coming to the judge crying "avenge me of mine adversary," is the model: quit on the sixth time and Jericho's walls don't fall, the rain cloud doesn't come, the healing doesn't happen. One more time is the ministry.

The altar becomes a comeback season: get back everything the enemy siphoned off — faith, strength, victory, backsliding children prayed for with one more tear. With his hands, so to speak, on both pillars, Williams leads the house in the push: this next season is a getting-it-all-back season, for those who will war for it in prayer.