Pastor Samson’s Secret Sins
Liberty Gaines
Pureread.com
Contents
Dedication
A Personal Word From Liberty
ACT 1 - THE RISE OF SAMSON
1. God’s Gift
2. Look Inside
3. Behind Every Great Man
4. Pride
5. If You Think You Are Humble
6. Darkness Cannot Stand
7. No Goodness At All
8. Work With Others
9. Sunshine & Shadows
ACT 2 - THE GREAT DECEIVER
1. The Pleasures of Sin
2. Be Bold, Be Careful
3. Faith Carries The Light
4. Guilty Conscience
5. Never Too Bad
6. The Worst Sin of All
7. Broken
8. Divide & Conquer
9. Never Wrong To Do Right
10. Stretching The Truth
11. Secret Love
12. Delilah
ACT 3 - DELILAH
1. Children Are A Gift
2. The Devil’s Own
3. Victory Belongs To
4. Wide Open
5. Flattering Lips
6. Love’s Triangle
7. Confession
8. The Hardest Lesson
9. A Debtor To Sin
ACT 4 - REDEMPTION
1. Divine Light
2. Ripening Corn
3. Power & Grace
4. Never More
5. Epilogue
Also by Liberty Gaines
1. BONUS CHAPTER - UNEXPECTED LOVE
Dedication
This book is dedicated to you - the reader!
Thank you so much for downloading this book.
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A Personal Word From Liberty
“For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb.”
Judges 13:5
“Pastor Samson’s Secret Sins is a roller coaster story in four acts that charts the shocking rise and fall of dreadlocked megachurch pastor, Samson Jackson. Sam’s rise to fame and fortune convince him that he is ‘special’ - so special he is above the laws of man and God, with tragic consequences; infidelity, dishonesty, greed and even murder. Be prepared for a fast and furious Christian thriller where all of Samson’s unfaithful conquests finally lead to his own heart being conquered by a power and a love bigger and stronger than himself.
I want to thank my pastors, friends, family, and above all the gracious God who forgives and never gives up on any one of us.”
In His grace,
Liberty Gaines (Author)
ACT 1 - THE RISE OF SAMSON
Chapter 1
God’s Gift
GOD’S GIFT IS God’s work
“And the angel of the LORD appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren, and bearest not: but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son.”
Judges 13:1-34
It was so busy that particular Sunday morning at Crystal Lake Community Church that Noah Jackson wondered if he and Amber would still be able to get in. From his place in the queue, he could see the deacons of the church standing at the door. Their faces were plastered with grand smiles as they shook hands with the faithful and guided the hungry flock inside the sanctuary. But how much more room was there? Noah ran his fingers through his well-trimmed, dark hair. He feared the church would be filled to capacity soon.
It was always busy in the small, black church on Sunday. After all, for the inhabitants of Firwood, church was an important part of their social life. Here, people were accepted for what or who they were and the place served as a safe haven from life’s social pressures and the racial injustice so rampant in the early sixties. Lawyers would sit next to janitors and garbage collectors would sing along with doctors. Crystal Lake Community church was the right place to lay your burdens down for a few hours and where you would get strengthened spiritually. And that was precisely the reason Noah and Amber had joined the church long ago. And even though Noah, with his bulky frame and gentle brown eyes wasn’t so old yet, the community had affectionately started to call him ‘old Noah’, because of his many years of faithful service.
“Old?” he had complained to Amber when he first heard it. “I am not even fifty.” But Amber smiled and reassured him it was a title of honor. “It’s because of the gentle wisdom that you radiate,” she said, “It puts people at ease.”
But Noah wasn’t so sure. He guessed Amber just said that because it was something wives were supposed to say to their husbands. Nevertheless, the name stuck and Noah accepted the nickname.
But today none of that helped, because once the church was full, it was full and there was nothing anybody could do about it.
“You think we can still get in?” His eyes twitched as he counted the people in line before him. At least fifty still.”
They could hear the singing had started as the words of one of Noah’s favorite hymns reached his ears.
Come on sister with your ups an’ downs,
Want to go to Heaven when I die;
Angels waiting for to give you a gown,
Want to go to Heaven when I die.*
“Don’t worry, Noah,” Amber said. “God will make a way where there is no way.”
Typically Amber. She was always so full of trust and Noah often marveled at her faith. He had to admit, she was the more spiritual one in their marriage. Almost ten years younger than Noah, and she still looked as beautiful as she did when they first married. Her long, wavy black curls were cascading down to her shoulders from under the straw hat she was wearing. She always wore it to church. Every week she would tie a different colored ribbon around the rim of the hat that would trail down and today it was yellow. “As a light in the darkness,” she said.
Noah had smiled when she showed it to him after breakfast. He considered himself to be blessed with such a good and beautiful wife. She was wearing the beautiful red dress today that he had bought for her birthday two years earlier. They had gone to the big city for the day. That was something they hardly ever did, but birthdays were exceptions and she had picked up the dress as a birthday present.
Still, life had not been easy for them. Noah suffered from rheumatism and Amber was…well, Amber couldn’t get any children. She was barren and it had been a source of discouragement for Noah.
“We’ve got each other, Noah.” Amber always said. “We’ve got the good Lord watching over us; we’ve got friends…We just have to count our blessings. There’s no reason not to be happy.”
Of course, Noah had to agree. Still it was hard.
But today it was blessing time again. Going to church was great. He and Amber needed the church. They needed the fellowship. They needed the singing, the dancing and the shouting of the amens at all the appropriate places, but most of all they needed the spirit-filled words spoken by their dear old pastor, Jamie Shatterton, whose eyes were already dim with age.
But today Jamie Shatterton wouldn’t be leading the service. Today there would be a prophet among them. Jeremiah Black, well-known for his prophetic vision and his gift of knowledge, was visiting Firwood and would be
leading the worship service. People were flocking in from far and wide to personally see this charismatic man of the cloth and were secretly hoping for a miracle or two. But Noah didn’t come for the miracles. He came for the word of God and was now greatly worrying they wouldn’t get in.
“At least twenty more people before us,” he sighed. He bit his lips and tried to push forward. “We’ll never make it today.”
“Honey, don’t worry,” Amber said once more, as she too took a step forward.
Finally, they were standing near the entrance and faced the beaming face of Deacon Fumblesteyn.
“Old Noah and Amber!” The old Deacon smiled while he extended his hands. “I thought you’d been inside already.”
“Hello, Deacon. Can we still get in?” Noah asked with concern.
The deacon frowned. “It’s getting awfully busy in there. We will have to close the doors soon; orders from the fire department.”
Noah’s face dropped but the old deacon reassured him with a tender smile. “Don’t worry, Old Noah. You two are the last to get in. Find yourself a spot.” He waved them forward and Noah heard him speak with a loud voice to the remaining queue of thronging people, “Sorry folks. Don’t have more room.”
“Told you so,” Amber smiled as they stepped into the warm sanctuary where people were jumping up and down and singing at the top of their lungs. “God is good, Noah. He always makes a way.”
*
Jeremiah Black was an anointed speaker. His preaching was full of dynamism and life and the whooping preacher screamed and shouted as he paced back and forth over the stage near the altar. Sometimes he would stop in the middle of a sentence and hold up his hands and motion for silence. Then, he would close his eyes, think for awhile and shout in the microphone, “I feel the Spirit of the Lord is telling me there is somebody here tonight that…” He would point to somebody in the audience and give a prophetic word for that person. Everyone in the audience would get excited and shout their ‘amens’ after which Jeremiah Black would continue his sermon as if there had been no interruption.
Noah had never experienced this and wasn’t quite sure what to think of it. He bent over to Amber and whispered, “The sermon is good…I wonder if God has a message for us?”
Amber shook her shoulders. “Just listen, Noah. Just listen.”
“Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going into a garage makes you a car,” Jeremiah Black shouted in the mike and Noah nodded in agreement. “Just because you shout your Amens and show up here in church doesn’t make you…”
Jeremiah Black stopped in mid sentence. Another prophetic word was coming. He closed his eyes again and while he lifted his hands in the usual fashion he spoke. “There is….” He stopped for a moment in concentration, “A couple here tonight that have no children.”
Noah jerked up.
“I’ve got a message from the Lord for them.”
Now Noah was all ears. Amber sat frozen in her seat. Could it be that he was talking about them?
Jeremiah Black opened his eyes again and glanced over the sea of faces. He was searching for the particular couple and after having looked around, his eyes rested on Amber.
“My daughter, hear the Word of the Lord,” he began. “I have seen your tears and heard your prayers. You have not complained but have kept the faith. You will bear a son and shall call him Sam.”
“W-What?” Amber stammered.
Noah was glued to his chair and looked wide-eyed at the stage and realized everybody was looking at them. How did Jeremiah Black know they had no children? Maybe pastor Shatterton had told him.
Jeremiah Black cleared his throat. “Thus saith the Lord…I sense there is doubt in your heart, but I say unto you do not doubt the words of God. Within one year, you will become pregnant. Your child shall be called wild. He will have a difficult life, but in the end he will come through. I have a special ministry for him and as such he needs to be fully consecrated to me. Do not cut his hair as a sign of his calling. He will be a sensitive instrument and Satan will seek to derail him, but hold him fast in prayer and you shall succeed.”
A shiver went through Noah’s body. The atmosphere seemed charged with electricity. Amber was shaken too and had become pale. Was this a true word from God?
Jeremiah Black had given his message. It was done. He paced back and forth again on the stage and continued with his sermon, as if nothing had happened. But Noah did not hear a word of what he said anymore and stared at Amber. She looked back at him and had tears in her eyes. “D-Do you think this was really the Lord speaking?” she whispered.
Noah shook his head. “He’s famous for his gift of knowledge…But we will find out soon enough. If what he said was from God, we will have little Sam with us before the year is over.”
“Amazing,” Amber whispered again, “Simply amazing.”
*
Only 11 months later Noah was looking down with a beaming face on the tiny baby in his arms. Amber could not stop smiling and although labour had been difficult, seeing the shiny eyes of her son made her forget each and every difficulty she had ever had in relation to childbirth.
“God did it, Noah,” she said. She was almost singing the words. “I told you so. God makes a way where there is no way.”
Noah smiled back. “I guess we know what to call him, don’t we?”
“Right,” Amber said. “His name shall be Sam.”
* Listen to the Lambs-Old Negro Spiritual
Chapter 2
Look Inside
YOU MUST LOOK into people as well as at them
“…the child grew, and the LORD blessed him. 25 And the Spirit of the LORD began to move him.”
Judges 13:24-25
From: Abraxas
To: Boghule
This despicable fellow, the project we told you about, is now no longer a child. He is, at present, trying to become a servant of the ‘One whose name we dare not speak.’ As you know, you have been selected to stumble this twerp. At this moment in time, he is still under the full protection of the ‘One whose name we dare not speak,’ but things are progressing. The choices he is making are starting to lead him away from the favor of our enemy. His weaknesses are apparent and we feel the time of his temptation is drawing nigh. Therefore, carefully study your object’s every move and be ready at a moment’s notice. Soon we will call upon your services.
In the name of our great Master.
Yours
Abraxas
*
Pastor Sam Jackson sucked on his pencil and leaned back in his office chair. The finance book that Deacon Thompson had given him to check was lying open before him on his mahogany desk. The church was growing by leaps and bounds, but the finances were a problem. As he rested his head on the headrest and his long, black dreadlocks fell backward, he sighed and thought back over his time as pastor of Happy Redeemer’s church. Had it already been a full year since he became the pastor here?
He closed his hazel-brown eyes and a small smile appeared on his face with the well-trimmed little round beard. He had done well for himself.
After he successfully finished seminary training and worked for a while as an assistant pastor in Lake Crystal Community church, the church of his parents, he had moved here and it had been a good move.
He was glad to have left Lake Crystal Church. That was the church where he grew up in and it had been a good starting place. It was a sweet and spirit-filled church, but he had mostly taken the job there as a favor to his parents. Because Sam Jackson had bigger dreams; much bigger.
Young and ambitious and fresh out of seminary he needed more than a sleepy church at the edge of a lake. He wanted to storm the gates of Heaven, pray down the Spirit and change the course of history; all things that could not be done in that stuffy old place of his parents. That church would eventually quench the Spirit and before long he would only be visiting people as old as his father and mother.
Of course, his parents were good people
, but they were old fashioned. According to them, everything had to be done by the Book and that left little room for innovation. His father, Old Noah they called him, was about 75 years old now. Imagine that. Mother was younger, but she too was old. The day he announced he wanted to leave that old church, he had gotten in a fight about it. First with pastor Oldham and later with his parents too.
“Sam,” Pastor Oldham said, “These are your formative years. I know you feel called to do great things for the Kingdom. But God takes His time to sharpen His instruments. Don’t be so impatient. God never places you in a place so small that there is no room for you to grow in.”
But the words of the pastor rolled off like water rolls off a duck’s back.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Sam had wrinkled his nose. “God has greater things in store for me than being your assistant pastor. Remember how it was prophesied of me, that I am a special instrument for the Kingdom of God. Those days have arrived.”
The pastor raised his eyebrows. “Beware of the sin of pride, Sam.”
But Sam did not agree. “People with dreams are not always arrogant, pastor.” He forcefully shook his head and his long, black dreadlocks swung around, almost hitting the pastor in the face. “Jeremiah Black is a true prophet.”
His parents, of course, agreed with Paster Oldham. Mother had even cried and told him she would pray for him. Fine; prayer was never wrong, but there was a time for action too. A man couldn’t always be praying.
The day he heard they needed an assistant pastor at Happy Redeemer’s church he knew it was the chance he had been waiting for. It had not taken him more than two minutes to decide. Happy Redeemer was small, but it was in the big city and they had told him he would become the main pastor as soon as he would find himself a suitable wife. The old pastor wanted to retire and was looking for a young, vibrant pastor to take his place.
A wife?
That shouldn’t be too difficult. And indeed, he had found one. The day he found Precious had been a good day…
*
“Hello? Are you all right?” Sam Jackson looked at the young woman who was sitting on her knees in front of a chair. Her eyes were glistening and it was obvious she had been crying. “What are you doing?”
Pastor Samson's Secret Sins: The Story Of A Strong Man of God With A Weakness For Women Page 1
