The bible has some very fascinating stories about how God blessed men and women with the courage to do great things for the Kingdom of God. One of those is a story about a man named Samson, which is located in Judges chapter 13-16. Throughout the bible men have possessed God’s power, however Samson was one of the men who possessed God’s strength. Some of you never heard about Samson, but this young mans mother was visited by an angel (like Mary the mother of Jesus) and told that she would give birth to a son who was to be set apart for the work of the kingdom. The angel told his parents that a razor must not touch his head as a covenant with God.

The great thing about Samson was that he was blessed with physical strength however this man was spiritually weak. Now, I don’t know about some of you but there are times when I have felt physically strong but spiritually weak. We all will be tested at some point during our Christian journey to see if we can withstand the attacks of the enemy. The great part for Samson and all of us is God will provide a way of escape, unfortunately Samson didn’t and he tried to relay on his physical strength instead of depending on his spiritual connection with God. Because he didn’t escape it cost him.

What happened to Samson is he came across a woman named Delilah who was friends with his enemies and they bribed her to find out the source of his strength. Delilah allowed the greed of money to poison her therefore she became a poison to her man Samson. You see dear brothers and sisters its one thing to have poisonous people outside of your home and another thing to have poisonous people inside of your home.  

We don’t just have poisonous women we also have poisonous men. Unfortunately there are some people who are designed to take you out. For some of us we are poisonous to ourselves. We are slowly sabotaging our destiny with the bad decisions that we are making.  

What made Delilah poisonous was that she pressured Samson to tell her the source of his strength so that he would be destroyed. If you have someone who keeps asking a question they shouldn’t be asking or trying to get you to do something that you shouldn’t then maybe that person is poisonous. Reading about Delilah I have found out there are signs of poisonous people we need to be aware of. The first sign of a poisonous person is someone who will try to get you to compromise.   When a person is trying to get you to compromise it means they want to see if you are willing to do what you vow not to do. Delilah wanted Samson to compromise his anointing (cut his hair) which would remove the protection that was placed around him by God as well as the source of his strength. Do you have people around you routinely trying to get you to compromise? Then that’s a warning sign they are poisonous.

Another sign of a poisonous person is someone who doesn’t understand or care about the calling and the purpose that you have over your life. When you have people who might not understand what you are called to do, but they care about you, then they won’t get you to compromise your morals because they want you to be successful because they value you. I distinctively remember growing up in high school how some of my friends wouldn’t let me go certain places with them because they knew that I was different. Delilah didn’t understand everything about Samson’s calling but she didn’t care about his calling nor did she try to understand.

The last and final sign of a poisonous person is someone who only cares about the “come up” meaning on how being with you benefits them. A person who cares about you isn’t concerned about just how things benefits them, they care how both of you can be successful together. Delilah only cares about the money she would get as a result of telling Samson’s secret to his enemies. You need to ask people from time to time, “why are you in my life?”

Now that you know the signs of poisonous people be on the look out for these kinds of people because your calling is worth fighting for. Don’t be so easy to have friends or a mate that you compromise everything that God has set aside for you and your family.

Live Courageously