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Look at verse number 10 though, it says this, And Delilah said unto Samson, Behold, thou hast mocked me, and told me lies. Now tell me, I pray thee, wherewith thou mightest be bound. She tied him up. She's trying to take away his strength, and then afterwards, she's like, you mocked me. Now you know what this is, and I'm going to use a fancy, you know, psychological term that's being thrown out there a lot. This is what we call gaslighting, okay, gaslighting. And really, if you want to understand this term, this chapter is a lot about gaslighting. So we're going to take a break in this story, and we're going to talk about this, and we're going to talk about it in this story, because it makes a lot of sense. And you hear this term thrown out a lot, but I think people have no idea what that means, okay? So let's slow down, let's understand it, let's apply it, and let's figure out what's going on in this story. But if you look up gaslighting, according to the dictionary or somewhere online, it says this, a form of emotional abuse that's seen in abusive relationships, it's the act of manipulating a person by forcing them to question their thoughts, memories, and the events occurring around them. A victim of gaslighting can be pushed so far that they question their own sanity. Now, where did this term come from? It came from a play, actually. There's a play where it's basically a husband and a wife and a home. And it's kind of set in an older timeline where they don't have incandescent light bulbs. The lighting in the house is gas lanterns, okay? And it starts off, the room's real bright. Well, as the show goes on, the husband is constantly dimming those lights just ever so slightly. And any time the wife is saying, it seems like it's getting darker in here, then the husband's like, oh, you're just crazy. No, that's the exact same lighting it's always been. And it gets to the point where he can basically turn the light where it's almost off, and the wife is convinced that the light never changed. Because he's just constantly gaslighting her and trying to convince her that her memory is wrong, convince her that she doesn't even have a sane thought. And it's a form of manipulation that can take someone down a dark road. And it's really just to illustrate all kinds of things we see. Plays usually illustrate things that we see in our lives and out in society. And look, there is a lot of gas lighters in this world today. And ultimately, it's just lying. It's just manipulation. It's just deception. And the Bible condemns all these things. And we're going to talk about them in detail so you understand. But this is what she's doing to Samson. She's saying, you mocked me. You're hurting me. You're damaging me. Trying to trick his brain into not realizing, wait a minute. You're the one that's trying to discover my secret. You're the one that's binding me. You're the one that's trying to hurt me and to harm me. She's trying to twist the narrative and trying to convince Samson that he's doing something wrong. This is bizarre, OK? This is a bizarre tactic, but you know what? It works on a lot of people. Now, to understand gaslighting, it has lots of different things that could be attached to it. But there's seven signs. If you go to Wikipedia, they even break it out into seven signs of gaslighting. And I'm going to show you the Bible, because I'm just not going to give you a Wikipedia article. It's all from your Bible. Go to Exodus chapter 32. Go to Exodus chapter 32. We're going to get back to our story and judges here. But I think it's a good time to talk about this. People that are gaslight, what they do is they withhold information. They withhold information. And usually, it's half-truths. Essentially, they're not going to give you all the truth, because then it would expose them. It would show how bad they are. So they'll focus on something that's true that doesn't seem as bad. Or they'll focus on something that's true to shift the blame off of themselves. But they're not going to give you the whole picture. They're just going to give you something that's half-true about the scenario, like what is Delilah doing? She's giving a half-truth in the sense that, yeah, Samson lied to her. But she's not also then admitting to the fact that she's deceiving him and trying to use that information to attack him or any of the other information. She's just kind of pointing out one little portion of the truth. Now, this happens in her Bible. Look at Exodus 32, verse 21. The Bible says this. And Moses said to Aaron, what did this people unto thee that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them? So Moses went up on the mount. He comes back down. They worshiped him in a golden calf. And it says in verse 22, and Aaron said, let not the anger of my Lord wax hot. Thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief. For they said unto me, make us gods, which shall go before us. For as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we woe not what is to become of him. And I said to them, whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me. Then I cast it in the fire, and there came out this calf. You know what that is, is gaslighting. Because first of all, they did come up to him and say, make us gods. That's true. But you know what he forgot to say? Oh, yeah, and then I graved a golden calf. He forgot that part. He's like, I just took there and just kind of threw in the fire and, oh, out came this calf. Whoopsie do. I thought it was going to be something else. No, he purposely made a golden calf, OK, my friend. And so by gaslighting, he's manipulating the situation. Why? Because he doesn't want to take full responsibility for his actions. Because he doesn't want to be proven to be evil like the people who made the golden calf. So he just kind of tries to blame the other people and twist the narrative and twist the situation. And so what does this look like in practicality? Well, it looks like a person named Manly Perry. And you say, how does that work? Well, you know, he wants to say that basically all the things that I pointed out that he was teaching were false doctrine. That is untrue. He's combated. He put out a little sermon at Michael Johnson's church about how I'm lying or something like that. And so what he says, he says, there's only one little thing that they found fault with me. I said that people don't burn in hell. But what I meant to say is they don't burn up. And what I meant to say was nobody burns up in hell. And if you listen to the whole context, it's obvious what I was saying. OK? Nobody roasts in hell. Nobody. It's impossible to roast in hell. All right? See, that's why hell's eternal. If you could roast in hell, then you would eventually burn up. You would eventually be consumed. And it wouldn't last forever for you. Am I making sense? And it's like, well, you did say burn up, number one. But number two, that's a half truth. Because here's the thing. While I did preach about that, I also preached like 20 other heresies that he was saying. But let's ignore all the other ones that he taught because he can't defend them. So he just tells you a little half truth. And he says, if you listen to the sermon, you know what? You just listen to the context. It's obvious what I meant. But guess what? He deleted the sermon, so you can't even check the context. If it's so obvious, why would you take it down? Oh, yeah. Because he wants to withhold information from you. How come a lot of his sermons he never posts online? Because he wants to withhold information from you. How come he disables the comments on his channel? Because he wants to withhold information from you. Why? Because he wants to twist the narrative. He wants to twist your perspective. He just wants a public video out there saying, oh, it's obvious from the context what I meant. I should have said burn up. They're twisting my words. But don't actually look it up. Don't actually look at the context. Because if you do, I'll be exposed as a fraud. So they just have to gaslight the situation and say, oh, Pastor Shelley, he's just going out there and attacking me or whatever. Like Aaron, who he'll take a little bit of fault, but really the fault is just kind of like, oh, I just misspoke or something, right? Oh, I just threw it in the oven and then out came a calf. You know, I was just up here preaching and I accidentally preached that nobody burns in hell. I just accidentally preached that Judas got more people saved than any other disciple. And I just accidentally preached to curse all your church members. And I just accidentally preached that you shouldn't call upon the name of the Lord. Yeah, it's just an accident, you know, Moses. Don't get mad at me. Don't let your anger wax hot. That's a gas lighter.