Relate Community Church
Relate Community Church
Baby Monsters | 2 | “The Secret That Cost Everything”
Baby Monsters, Week 2: “The Secret That Cost Everything”
Main Text: Judges 16:16–21 | Key Themes: Compromise, Desensitization, Consequences, and Redemption
This week, we explored the tragic story of Samson—once chosen, strong, and anointed—but taken out by a series of small compromises and unchecked desires. His downfall didn’t happen all at once. It started subtly: honey from a lion’s carcass, hidden from his parents. Over time, Samson became desensitized to danger, flirting with sin and ignoring warning signs. His strength wasn’t lost in one moment with Delilah—it was worn down through a series of choices that made room for the flesh and silenced the voice of the Spirit.
Eventually, he didn’t even realize the Lord had left him. That’s the heartbreak of compromise: it blinds us before it binds us. But even in the pit, God wasn’t done. The message ends with hope: “But his hair began to grow again.” A fresh start is always possible when we turn back to God.
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All right, welcome to church everybody. I'm glad that you're here. Come on somebody. How many of you are excited to be here? Awesome, awesome, awesome.
Speaker 1:I'm glad that sometimes it's that week or two after Easter where everybody comes on one day and they don't come for another month and I'm left here to preach to myself. But that is not happening this week, so I'm super glad to see all of you guys in the house. I'm glad to some of you haven't seen in a little while and I'm, in fact, the first service. There were a few people that I hadn't seen in probably years, and so it's one thing about the house of God. It feels like a reunion sometimes, where we're just getting together, and sometimes it feels like a reunion and you've never even been there before. I love being around people and it just feels like these are my people and if you are new to Relate, I love that. We are the kind of church that you can kick the tires and figure it out and figure out how you fit where you fit. Kick the tires and figure it out and figure out how you fit where you fit. We have a no-hassle guarantee that we're not going to pressure you to give or serve or do any of those kinds of things, although those things are available. I love that we are that church where there are people serving. In fact, I tell most of our serve team you don't have to serve every week, every service. You just a couple times a month and some of them just won't hear it, they just want to serve all the time. So I'm thrilled that you guys are here today and I'm thrilled about this new series. I also want to take just a second and look at the camera and say welcome to everybody who's watching online. I know every week there are people checking us out and you might be just like. In fact, I met somebody this morning that said they watched the live stream last week and they live less than five minutes from here, and so that is so awesome that we can reach people on the live stream who are like just a block over. And if you haven't noticed, I believe that the work they're doing right behind the building here in the woods. I think they're putting another neighborhood in, so that's awesome that we're going to have some more neighbors. We'll keep praying for those future neighbors, but if you are a current neighbor and just trying to find where the Lord wants you to be. I'm glad that you've chosen to click in and join us. Maybe you are five minutes away, maybe you are five hours or even further away. We're glad that we can worship together this morning and open up God's Word. Somebody said amen, awesome.
Speaker 1:We're going to dive right into week number two of Baby Monsters. If you have notes, pull them out. We are a note-taking church. Something happens when you take notes more than when you're just reading it. I love we have it on the screen. That's good, I'm going to say it, I'm going to read it. Read the word to you.
Speaker 1:But something happens when you write things down yourself, your mind calculates and processes and is able to. You're able to think from a different perspective and you walk away and it sticks better. So that's what we're looking for. We're looking at how do I make God's words stick in my heart and in my mind and in my life better, so that when I walk away I'm a different person. So this series is a new idea for us that we've never quite approached this from this angle.
Speaker 1:But we're looking at some things that are baby monsters. Last week we looked at Cain and some of the things that he did that went from very small problems that turned into huge, huge problems. And the premise of this series is that there are huge, huge, terrible deeds come from teeny tiny seeds from teeny tiny seeds, and it's a lot easier to take out the problems in our life when they're very small instead of waiting to where they are crushing and life-changing and destructive, having grown into big, big problems. So I thought, as I was processing this week and preparing for this message, I was thinking that sometimes good ideas, most good ideas and bad ideas start small and they're easy to crush, and when it came to this building, that was no exception. In fact, I got a few pictures on the screen I'll show you to remind you of what this place looked like.
Speaker 1:But I can tell you it was difficult for me to see that we could potentially possibly have service here, and I could tell you that even once the vision was locked in my heart and in my mind, I thought there's nothing can stop us. Even if it takes us a decade, we're going to do whatever it takes to get this God's going to provide. But I will just go ahead and let you know that Pastor Angela was not always on board. She sometimes takes a little longer to come along. She said I just don't know, I can't see it. And so every time I would come in with, this is what we're going to do we're going to rip out everything.
Speaker 1:The AC didn't work. There were records living in the building, so when you walked in you could smell them. You could see all the evidence. I'll just leave it there. More than you could smell them, you could see all the evidence. I'll just leave it there. More than you want to know, there was lots of evidence of them living in the AC ductwork and it was very, very nasty, and most people who walked in the building could not see it. And so I just got to where I was not telling anybody what we were doing, unless I could give them a big explanation and show them pictures and drawings, and otherwise I would explain it and they would say sure, you're going to do that, because sometimes it's an idea that starts small and if it has no momentum behind it, sometimes it's vision, if that vision doesn't have momentum, and in order to get to the big things that God has for us, we have to not let them get crushed when they're small.
Speaker 1:This series is focused on stopping the problems before they get too big. And I want us to camp out a little bit in Judges, chapter 16. We'll be in the Old Testament. Last week we were in Genesis, this week we're jumping a little further ahead. God has brought the Israelites out of slavery, so out of Egypt, through the desert and into the promised land. And maybe you've read the story, heard the story, and Joshua leads the children of Israel into. They've conquered Jericho and several other cities and they have a place to live and build homes and a future. And something happens that's very common even to us that after Joshua, some other judges are put into position. That's where we pick up with Samson.
Speaker 1:There's a moment in time where God's people have stopped pursuing God so much because they were desperate for God to get into the promised land. They needed to listen to God, they needed to obey God, they needed God's blessing and God's favor. So they were right where God put us, where you want us. They got themselves together, they got their act together in the desert, followed God into the promised land. He gave them the promised land. They started getting. They became inhabitants of the land, they took over the land and then they weren't following God so much.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we get what we prayed for and then we stop paying attention. Or, even worse, it's a problem with us getting our values and our dependence on God into the next generation. Unless we implicitly make, unless we plant it in our children that they have to be desperate for God, they just take for granted that, oh, mom and dad are blessed, mom and dad have a house, mom and dad have jobs, or somehow we got here, we have clothes on it, doesn't really? You know, we'll be fine. There's this casual nature that we take a hold of as believers, as humans. It's human nature that we go from dependent on God and desperate for an answer to hey, everything's going to be fine, we're in good shape, everything's cool, we're not fighting anybody right now and I'm not worried about anything.
Speaker 1:So here's where we pick up the stories. There is a couple that is unable to have children. His name is Manoah and we don't know his wife's name, but we know that when the children of Israel start to cry out to God, we need help. Their enemies in the land were the Philistines. How many of you guys know of the Philistines? If you read the Old Testament, you've seen the Philistines. One probably most famous Philistine is Goliath. When David fights Goliath later, that's much later in the Bible in the Bible, but right now we see Joshua is gone and nobody is leading God's children.
Speaker 1:And the angel of the Lord comes down to this couple who can't have children and say you're going to have a baby. And they're very, they're like, trembling and shaking with fear. They're afraid of this angel. They don't, they think they're going to be killed, and so they make an offering to God. And then God accepts the offering. And then the angel tells them look, here's what's going to happen. God's going to give you a baby. You've been praying for a baby. Israel, god's people, the nation of Israel, has been praying for an answer from the Philistines, for God to rescue you, for God to save you, for God to take care of you. And so this baby is going to be the answer to that prayer, to your prayer and to the nation of Israel. And this will be Samson. And listen, what he's describing is not just I'm going to send you a deliverer, because we've already seen several deliverers. Moses had come and delivered the children. This is going to be like on a different level. What he starts describing is that this baby is going to be a superhero. This would be like if the angel of the Lord showed up to you and said hey, you're going to have a baby, and then it'll be like Superman he's going to have superpowers and he'll deliver people and he's going to set our people free. And that's exactly what happens.
Speaker 1:And when you go back and read the story in Judges, chapter 13, you see Samson gets there chapter 14, 15, we're going to pick up in 16, but I want you to imagine that the angel of the Lord. Almost every time when the angel of the Lord shows up, what is the first thing that is said? Angel of the Lord shows up. What is the first thing that is said? Do not fear, fear, not why? Because there's something about the angel that is overwhelming. There's something about the angel that causes people to like, fall down on their faces, and this is scary stuff. So this is not just like a person appears and they're just a normal person. There's something about them and so he's afraid. We see it throughout the Bible. The fear of the Lord is this respect and honor and trembling. That part of me says I am nothing compared to this. We sense this awe and inspiration that this is much bigger than me and we're going to jump into the story.
Speaker 1:But I need you to understand one thing when the angel of the Lord shows up, he gives them some rules. He says here's what's going to happen. You're going to have a superhero son, but your superhero son maybe like Iron man, superman, we could name a whole bunch of them but he's going to be different. But he's going to have some rules that he has to live by. And he gives them three rules. And the first rule is that he can never cut his hair Everybody say he can't cut his hair. The second rule is that he can't drink wine. Say he can't drink wine. And the third rule is that he can't touch anything dead. Some of y'all are with me, that's good. Three rules, three rules.
Speaker 1:Now I won't tell you today that those are our rules. Those aren't rules that we have to live by. Sometimes we set a higher standard and say, okay, god, I'm going to hold myself to a higher standard, I'm going to fast, I'm going to pray, I'm going to read my Bible. We have devotions that we live by. They're not necessarily his, but he's held to a higher standard. And so, just like the Avengers and superheroes, we're kind of given this idea that with great power comes great responsibility. He has to do something. There's a cost to the blessing that God's going to give in answering their prayer. And I'll just tell you right off the bat there's a lot of times where you and I, we want the blessing, we want the answer of God, but we're not willing to pay the cost, we're not willing to accept the great responsibility. And so of course, samson's mom and dad say of course we'll follow the rules. They were falling down on their. In fact, manoah thought that the angel was going to kill them and his wife had to remind him. No, he accepted our sacrifice. He doesn't want to kill us, he's blessing us, he's answered our prayer. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference Whether you're in a curse or a blessing, or whether you're being crushed or whether God's answering your prayers.
Speaker 1:So Samson is born and Samson is very good at killing Philistines. Samson is very good at defending Israel from the Philistines, from the enemies, and in his lifetime he kills a little more than 1,000 of them with his bare hands. He doesn't have to have a lot of strategies, he just can get into fights with hundreds of men and kill them all. He is a superhero. In fact, the only weapon that he has is at one point he picks up the jawbone of a donkey and that becomes his weapon. I guess he just feels so good in his hand. He kills so many Philistines with it that becomes. I imagine that there's a wanted poster of him in the Philistines' camp that just shows a picture of him with his jawbone. He is wanted and they can't take him out. And so the Philistines look to recruit a spy. Nothing they can do can take out Samson. And at one point they finally decide let's recruit one of the people in his community to help us. So they recruit a spy and they find this woman and they pay her and then she lures him in to destruction.
Speaker 1:So that's where we're picking up today and we're going to read where everything goes bad. So if you've read this before, stick with me, and then we're going to unpack it a little bit. So we're going to read Judges, chapter 16, verse 16. We're going to read a few of the verses there. It says so. She tormented him with her nagging, day after day until he was sick to death of it. Enough said.
Speaker 1:Finally, samson shared his secret with her. He said my hair has never been cut, for I was dedicated to God as a Nazirite from birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me and I would become as weak as anyone else. You want to stop Samson? And say Samson, what are you doing? And then Delilah realized he had finally told her the truth. So she sent for the Philistine rulers. Come back one more time, she said, for he has finally told me his secret. So the Philistine rulers returned with the money in their hands. Now I researched this a little bit and found that they paid her today's equivalent, about 15 million dollars 5,500 pieces of silver, because five different rulers give her 1,100 pieces of silver. So a bunch of people came together because they could not defeat Samson. All of their efforts were failing, so they had to sneak into his camp and do something tricky. Let me just stop right there and say that the enemy will go to great lengths to wear you down. Give in to it, the devil's outworking a lot of us and wearing us down. So the Philistine rulers came with money in their hands.
Speaker 1:Delilah lulled Samson to sleep with his head in her lap and she called in a man to shave off the seven locks of his hair. In this way, she began to bring him down and his strength left him. Then she cried out Samson, the Philistines have come to capture you. Now she had done this several times before. If you've read the story, you know that she tied him up multiple times. He told her lies, and if you tie me up with this amount of braids or with this kind of cords then I wouldn't be able to escape. So somehow. Even so, she did that. She tied him up and he broke loose. Somehow, he finally tells her the real truth.
Speaker 1:Then Samson cries out she cried out Samson, the Philistines have come to capture you. And when he woke up he thought Watch this. He thought I will do as before and shake myself free. In other words, every other time that he had ever been tied up or attempted to be captured, he would just shake it off, rip the bonds off, and then it was like this moment of like Superman, where he rips his shirt off and then he kills everyone and saves the day. Somehow. In his mind, he was so comfortable with the idea that, no matter what trouble I get in, I can get myself out. He thought that to himself, but he didn't realize that the Lord had left him. How dangerous of a place is that? So the Philistines captured him, gouged out his eyes.
Speaker 1:That's graphic, but I will say that this is a story that is meant to be graphic because we're meant to learn something here. It says they took him to Gaza where he was bound with bronze chains and forced to grind grain in the prison. So he starts off God's superhero to rescue his people with superpowers and all of a sudden seems like all of a sudden one bad decision leads to gouged out eyes. Now he's a prisoner. Now he spends his life enslaved and grinding grain in a prison. So if we can learn anything today, we need to wake up and realize.
Speaker 1:What would Samson show us? What would he say to us? I think he would say to us there's some things that you think you know, you think God's blessed you, you think you're in the right place, you think that one decision can't hurt you. But there's some things you can't see and even though you might have eyes that you're not seeing everything that there is to see, and it seems like in one decision he's having the worst day of his life. I was trying to imagine what. I don't think there's anything that can even put us. There's no illustration that I could give you. That would say hey, imagine if you had superpowers, and then, all of a sudden, you didn't have superpowers.
Speaker 1:This is Samson. He wakes up, he thinks I'm fine, I'll just shake it off. I'm the strongest man in the world, and yet in an instant he's not. The only thing I could even remotely think of was this that what would happen if all of our cell phones disappeared? That seems like it's not that big of a deal, especially for me. I grew up without a cell phone so I could go back to not have. For some of you, you're trying to touch your cell phone right now, thinking that if it disappeared, I can't live without my cell phone. I'd rather die than not have my cell phone. If we lost our cell phone, some of you couldn't find your way home today because you don't know how you got here, because you need GPS to figure it out. We need our cell phones for everything. We use it. So this is Samson who every day he's depending on his strength. Every day it saves him, he's become accustomed to it and then all of a sudden, in the snap of a finger, it's gone. He takes a nap and he wakes up and he's changed.
Speaker 1:How could you be willing to tell your secret, samson? That's my thought through the whole thing, is Samson? How could you be willing to tell your secret, samson? That's my thought through the whole thing. Is Samson, how could you do this to you? You did it to yourself. Sometimes I look at the situation that I'm in and I think I did it to myself, but it's never this bad. It's never quite as bad as Samson telling Delilah she tricked him so many times. How could he imagine she wouldn't do this? I don't know, but it made me think.
Speaker 1:He tells this thing that should be a secret and there's a secret place that you and I should have between us and God that we don't hold. It goes right back to where his father, manoah, held this great fear of the Lord. When the angel of the Lord showed up, he was scared Because this was much bigger than him. It was a reverence and an honor and a respect, and I'm telling you that most of us have lost that for most everything. I'm not scared of anything, much less God. We have such a small image, a small perspective, this small thought of who God is. Most of us think this. Well, when I get to heaven. I'm going to have a talk with God because there's some things I just don't understand, like just the idea of that. But I promise you, when you get anywhere near God, your thought's not going to be hey, why did this happen? God, you're going to be on your face, probably crying, and he's going to have to say don't worry, don't fear, calm down.
Speaker 1:A couple of weeks ago, this really hit home for me when we went to pick up the baptistry that we were given that we'll use on Wednesday night. We thought, angela and I thought we're spending all this time just to drive all the way from California back to Houston. And we're on a short timeline, but I've never seen the Grand Canyon. Let's stop at the Grand Canyon, take a quick stop and see what we can see. And then I allotted us two hours, and so I'll just tell you that two hours is not. I got to the Grand Canyon. We finally pull up to the rim of the Grand Canyon and see it, and I thought I have severely underestimated the grandness of the Grand Canyon. Why? Because I've seen it a hundred times on pictures, I've seen it on videos, I've seen movies. I had read so much about the Grand Canyon, just preparing, trying to figure out how can I see the Grand Canyon in two hours, and it never quite occurred to me that I was way out of my depth.
Speaker 1:This is one of those moments where Samson's not paying attention, samson's not realizing the depth of problem that he's in. He's not realizing how grand this situation. He's just coming into it like this is just an everyday. I'll just do what I've always done. But what would have happened years ago, decades before when he was born? When his dad encounters God and has this encounter with destiny, it says that he's so scared he thinks he's going to die when I was a kid.
Speaker 1:Okay, so first off I'll just say I hate saying back when I was a kid. Things have changed quite a bit. We weren't allowed to run in church. A few weeks ago, kids were running through this building so violently that the women's door flew off the hinge. We try to tell them not to run, but when I was a kid, if we were running through the church, they weren't going to just say stop, they were going to lay hands on us. They put the fear of God into us. If my mom said you better be quiet, I knew that there was something behind that. I knew that my kids, when my kids were born, they were much more well-behaved at my mom's house than they were at my house, because they knew that grandma don't play. I finally figured out. I said, mom, are you hitting our kids? And she said well, we have a rule what happens at Grandma's house stays at Grandma's house. I said, okay, all right, I didn't have any more questions. I was just like they're very obedient, just keep doing what you're doing, I don't.
Speaker 1:There comes this thing where we have an intimacy with God in fear and reverence and honor. That keeps me from Keeps my eyes open. It keeps me from being blindsided by the things that Samson was blindsided by. Watch this Psalms, chapter 25, verse 14, says the secret of the Lord is with those who fear him. The secret of the Lord is with those who fear him. The Bible says that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. There's some things you can't see in life, but when we have the fear of the Lord unlocks this secret place and Samson stomps all over the secret place and gives it to Delilah and shares the secret, we, naturally we drift unconsciously, like subconsciously. We drift into limiting God down to our size and making the things that should be holy. We just make them commonplace. There's things that God says should be holy Don't touch dead things, don't drink wine. These are the things that he gives to Samson to be holy, and in a moment I'm going to show you how he makes them. They're not quite holy, they're just commonplace.
Speaker 1:There has to be some things in your life where there's awe sang a song about it this morning that he's holy. Like what does that mean to you? It just means, oh, I'm going to wave my hands and sing and it makes me feel amazing that he is holy. No, holy means set aside different marked. If there's not something in you that says this is different, this is a holy moment. Aw Tozer says this.
Speaker 1:With our loss of the sense of majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine presence. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence, like. I know that's deep, but some part of us needs to say wake up. God is holy and God demands something more of us than just living like everything is commonplace. There's something terrifying about God, but there's also something very tender about God. And if we make it all casual and I can just come to church in my flip-flops and shorts, and fine, that's fine.
Speaker 1:But if there's not part of your heart that has a fear of the things of God not that you should be afraid that God's going to smash you and crush you, but there should be a reverence inside of you that says this is holy and I'm not touching it. This would be like if Superman invited Lex Luthor into his house and just said hey, come on in, let me tell you about. There's this thing called kryptonite. It's like playing with fire. There's a lot of Christians that are playing with fire. They're touching things they shouldn't be touching. They're talking about things they shouldn't be talking about. They're looking at things they shouldn't be looking at. They're in places that they shouldn't be in. They're in relationships that they should not be in. I'm telling you, you've got to wake up and you've got to open your eyes up to see that there's some things that you need to step back from.
Speaker 1:So what does that look like? How could it start so well, with the reverence and the fear of God, and then God's answering prayers, and now we end up with our eyes gouged out, in slavery, grinding grain, and everything is lost. How can we go from that to that? It's not a single decision. It doesn't happen overnight, like it seems like it does when you read it, but I'm going to show you what that looks like. So, number one, here's our baby monster, small compromise. If you're taking notes, write that down. Small compromise turns into something much, much worse if we let it. So he ends up with a prostitute sharing these divine secrets, with his eyes gouged out, enslaved. But that's just the end of the line. It starts off much, much different.
Speaker 1:So let's back up a little bit to Judges, chapter 14, verse 5. It says that Samson and his parents were going. Now, y'all remember the rules that he had to live, the laws that God gave him. It says that Samson and his parents were going down to Timnah. A young lion suddenly attacked Samson. Near what? The vineyards of Timnah. They're going down to Timnah. Why, hold on?
Speaker 1:I thought you weren't allowed to have wine. Why are you in a vineyard? Well, I just, it might be you. Maybe you've gone down, and well, I'm not going to drink. I just like the scenery. I just love the peaceful. I love how the vineyard sits just this beautiful over there. I love hanging out with everybody at the vineyard. Everybody's having a good time. I won't drink, but also maybe he's just taking his wine and swirling it around in the glass and then smelling it, but he's not actually drinking. What's your vineyard? What's that thing that you're getting too close to? But you should have never been there in the first place.
Speaker 1:And almost as if on cue, he comes near the vineyard and then, as if it's a warning, here comes a lion that pops out. It says a lion suddenly attacked Samson near the vineyard. So we have to ask why are you near the vineyard? But this is almost as if have you ever been fasting or dieting? And yet you make a bad decision, like, guys, I'm not going to, I'm not going to be eating tonight, but I'll come hang out with you guys at the restaurant or at the steakhouse or at the Mexican food restaurant and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna eat. But then you get there and you realize there's like chips and salsa and it's right here and I won't have a meal, but I'll just have, I'll just have two chips. And then that two chips turns into five chips. You've already eaten five. Exactly, you might as well you've already eaten five, exactly. You might as well you already broke your fast. You might as well just eat what you want. So as if, on cue, here comes a lion that pops out. It's almost as if God is saying hey, you're not supposed to be here, why are you here, samson? And yet Samson doesn't come into his senses, samson doesn't wake up and say hey, guys, I shouldn't be here, I'm going to head out. He doesn't do that. What he does is this lion pops out and he kills it.
Speaker 1:1 Peter 5, 8, we talked about this last week a little bit. It says stay alert, watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. We know that sin is trying to devour us. We know that the enemy is out to kill, steal and destroy, and yet we don't take the warning seriously. When the lion pops out of the bushes, we just kill it. We don't pay attention, we don't take the warning and it's almost as if God is saying hey, you shouldn't be here, you're too close to the problem. And so here's an instance where he should never have been there.
Speaker 1:There's some things in your life that, just because you can doesn't mean you should, just because it says that all things are acceptable but they're not all beneficial. This is where we get bad. Well, it's not a sin, pastor Sean, why are you trying to make me feel guilty? Listen, I'm telling you that God has more for you and unless you're willing to pay the price and set yourself to a higher standard and reach for holiness, you don't get the prize. You don't get the prize If you're not willing to say well, I know it's not a sin, but I choose not to do it anyway because I know God has more for me in life.
Speaker 1:It's not about whether or not we can do something or whether or not we can't, should or shouldn't. It's about if God has more for me, what do I have to do to get it? If God has more for my family and my kids and my, what do I have to do to get that? I have so many people who want to argue about. Well, I don't have to tithe, I don't have to go to church every Sunday, I don't have to not drink, I don't have to do this, I don't have to be modest. I can do anything I want. God's grace will cover me. Sure, do whatever you want to do, but you're not going to get what God wants you to have and you'll never become the person that God made you to be. I got all the choirs cheering me on.
Speaker 1:Right now Some of you guys are thinking I want to go back to the fun message that we had. Here's what I know. I believe that God has more for us, that God has a higher expectation to call us up to a higher level to be holy, to be righteous, to put not our righteousness, not our holiness, but to put his on. And if we're willing to accept it, it's like here is your mission. Are you willing to accept it? And some of us leave that mission sitting on the shelf. Watch this In Judges, chapter 14, verse 6, it says and he tore the lion apart.
Speaker 1:So this lion pops out almost as if this giant warning saying you should not be here, and he takes for granted his own strength. It says he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat. Now I'll just say I don't know what that means, that he tore apart the lion with his bare hands, as if you and I would have torn apart a goat. Now, I would never tear apart a goat, and I tried to research and Google and there was a few crazy things on there that I didn't believe. So I maybe there was, it was like a feat of the day, maybe it was like a who knows, I don't know, so we'll just leave that there. It says he had nothing in his hand, so, barehanded, he kills this lion. And here's what I think, though here's what I do see in this Sometimes, that sometimes it's the very blessing that God gives us that blindsides us to the problems near us.
Speaker 1:Like I'm so strong, I don't have to worry about these problems. Like God has blessed me and given me so much favor and he always takes care of me. He's not going to not take care of me so I can do whatever I want. And it becomes this blind spot that we're not willing to see past. And it becomes this blind spot that we're not willing to see past Is God blessing you in a place and you're so far, you've become so entitled that you think that blessing is just going to happen no matter what you do. God forbid that becomes us, and I think if Samson was here today, he would say wait a second, I shouldn't have been at Timnah, I shouldn't have been at the vineyard. God tried to warn me with a lion. I need to move on. Here we go. I'm going to read verse 8.
Speaker 1:It says watch this the lion. He kills the lion, leaves the lion there. It says later, when he returned to Timnah, so he was back at the vineyard. It says he turned off the path to look at the carcass of the lion. Now, wait a second. He wasn't supposed to drink wine and he wasn't supposed to touch a dead thing. And yet here he is. He goes out of his way, turned off the path to look at the carcass of the lion. So he remembers I killed that thing. Let me go look at it again.
Speaker 1:How often does something pop up and you think, well, I'm not gonna do anything, I'm just gonna go look, I'm not going to do anything, I'm just going to go look. I'm not going to actually do anything, but maybe I'll just send a text, I'll just download the app, but I won't actually do anything. It says and he found that a swarm of bees had made honey in the carcass, and so he's not supposed to touch any dead thing. But he scooped some of the honey into his hands and ate it along the way. Now I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he figured out, put some sticks up or some rocks, or somehow he figured out how to not touch the lion and get the honey. But that's an awfully close thing. That's such a compromise and we know that he knows this is a problem, because the very next verse says but he gives some to his parents when he gets there, but he didn't tell them he had taken the honey from the carcass of the lion. Why didn't he say anything to his mom about where he got the honey? Because mama don't play. He knows what mom would say.
Speaker 1:It's the same reason that we don't tell people everything that we're doing because we know that they wouldn't quite agree. So let me ask you this who are you not telling all the details of your life? Because you don't want them to know how close you've come to the line. This is a really. This is the telltale sign that you are compromising, because you're being evasive and you're not telling all the details and you're leaving out little pieces of information. And you're leaving out. You're not telling a lie, you're just not giving the whole truth. And so we evade so that we don't have to tell anybody what we're doing. What are you not telling the godly people in your life? Because you're afraid of what they might think or what they might say, and we blame it on the fact that, oh, they're just judgmental. Wait a second.
Speaker 1:There is such thing as accountability in the body of Christ that we should hold each other to. Hey, hey, hey, hey. We don't do that, and the first thing we go to is don't judge me, listen. I need some people in my life that I trust enough to tell me you shouldn't be touching that, because I can't see everything. I've got some pastor friends in my life, some brothers around me. I've got people in this church. There are people that you need to. You know we say this all the time, but some of you don't hear me. You don't have to tell everybody your secrets, but you need to tell somebody your secrets. You've got to be able to take the mask off with someone, and he's not doing that. He doesn't tell, and so he gets as close as he can to the line without crossing the line. And so number one number one he has small compromises, but that turns into number two. Slowly desensitized, over time, he's making compromise after compromise. He's getting as close as he can to the line without crossing it. And then he wonders why has this bad thing happened to me? It didn't just happen overnight, by one decision.
Speaker 1:Watch this Samson. In chapter 15, verse 20, it says Samson judged Israel for 20 years during the period when the Philistines dominated the land. So for 20 years he's living his life. He's getting close to sin, getting close to these rules that God gave him, but he's not crossing them, he's just getting. He's like he's when somebody says I'm not touching you, but they're really close. So watch this and we finally get to chapter 16, 1.
Speaker 1:It says one day Samson was went to Gaza where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her. Four chapters ago he would not have just gone in to spend the night with a prostitute. Something happened over time that he was desensitized to the point where we thought, hey, he saw a prostitute, he went in to spend the night with her. Because things lead to things, and what you're doing right now might not kill you, but it's leading to the thing that's going to kill you. And so, at 20 years of decision making, 20 years of compromise, 20 years of being desensitized, there may be some things that you are going to do today that you wouldn't have done 10 years ago or that you will do in 10 years because you keep making compromises Well, it's not that bad. Or you let your kids do things that man, when I was a kid that was so bad, but now it's not that big of a deal.
Speaker 1:Let's hold up a standard of holiness. I'll hold up a standard of righteousness that says hey, just because I can doesn't mean I have to. Just because everybody else is doing it, just because it's on Instagram or Facebook or TikTok, doesn't mean that I have to do it. So he let the tiny seeds turn into terrible deeds to see what he could get away with. And Romans, chapter 13, paul says but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh. Make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust. Like don't make a space in your life that you just say well, I'm gonna give all my life to God, I'm gonna go to church on Sunday morning, but Friday night I'm gonna leave that space open, because the devil wants to get into that space that you reserve. It'd be like if somebody was breaking into your house and you just said you know what? We got this place locked down, but I'm going to go ahead and open up the window. You're letting the devil in the back door and then complaining because you thought you had it all locked down.
Speaker 1:1 Corinthians 10, 12 says so beware if you think it could never happen to you, lest your pride becomes your downfall. That's exactly what happens to Samson. He thinks I'm strong enough, I can handle this, I can deal with whatever comes to me, and it leads his desensitization, leads to number three he gets taken out. Finally, it's usually not an overnight thing that takes you out. It's usually not one decision that kills you or that takes away God's blessing or that puts you into the worst position. It's usually a long line of decisions that get bigger and bigger and bigger and finally hits the tipping point, to where you lose. Now he's going around and around in the rain.
Speaker 1:I can tell you this that when God says don't do something, he's not just trying to control you. When God says don't, he means don't hurt yourself, don't leave the door open for the devil that's waiting to crush you, to destroy you. Because, just like Samson had a purpose, that God sent Samson with a purpose to save his people and to be a judge that would destroy the Philistines, destroy the threat against God's people and secure their children and the next generation. God has purpose in you to protect your children, to protect your family, to protect your ministry, your calling. What are you building for God? What are you protecting for your family? And these little compromises are putting that in danger. The devil's plan to take you out slowly, little by little by little, is slowly coming to pass, and so our story ends not in strength, where he's killing all the enemies.
Speaker 1:It ends with humility, where he's being paraded in front of a party of thousands of Philistines and rulers and they finally brought him out in chains with his eyes gouged out, to show this is our trophy, this is the guy that used to kill us. You might feel that way today, like I used to have a calling. I used to have hope for my future, I used to be something, I used to be on track. I thought God was going to use me or help me build a family, or I used to have hopes and dreams. But now I feel like the devil's got me on parade and I'm just a trophy on his shelf. That shows how badly he can destroy people, just like last week. I don't want to leave us. I don't want to leave us with the destruction, because that's not where God leaves Samson. Even though the story doesn't end the way we would like it to end, there's still hope at the end of the story, and so we'll end with all of the destructive things that happen, even though they have him on display as a trophy for the enemy.
Speaker 1:It ends with number four, that there is a possibility of a fresh start. Even blinded, samson cries out to the Lord to save him and give him one last chance. And Samson calls over one of the attendants and says could you put my hands on the pillars? As weak as he is, he still has this thought that if God would just pour out his spirit one more time. And so what does he do? He asks God to move. Watch this in Judges, chapter 16, verse 22. It says, but his hair, though cut off watch this, it says began to grow again. There was a moment where Samson, even though everything seemed lost, even though he was in the worst possible position, he cries out to God. We know that Samson, in his lifetime, killed 1,030 Philistines, and yet on the last day of his life, he says one more time God, use me, god, give me one more chance. God, god, just use me one more time. And he pushes down the pillars and the roof comes down and kills three000 Philistines in one moment. And it was a new day and a fresh start, not just for even though death comes at that moment, but for Israel and for the nation of Israel.
Speaker 1:God's turning the page and bringing hope. Would you stand up on your feet today? My prayer for you is that God's not gonna leave you in destruction. God's not gonna leave you, you, in destruction. God's not going to leave you with lusts and everything having been stolen from you. But you have to be the one that says God, I want you to use me again. God, give me hope today. God give me a fresh start today, and then his spirit gets poured out on you and he can begin to move again. But we have to surrender and pick up the fear of the Lord. Let's worship for just a moment and then we'll close with prayer Father fall into grace.
Speaker 2:I'm done with the hiding. No reason to wait. My heart needs a surgeon, my soul needs a friend. So I'll run to the Father again and again. My heart has been in your sights Long before my first breath, running into your arms, yes, running to life from death. And I feel this run deep in my chest. Your mercy is calling out. Just as I am, you pull me in, and I know I need you. Just as I am, you pull me in and I know I need you. Now. I run to the Father, fall into grace. I'm done with the hiding. No reason to wait. My heart needs a surgeon, my soul needs a friend. So I run to the Father again and again. I run to the Father, fall into grace. I'm done with the hiding. No reason to wait. And my heart found a surgeon, my soul found a friend. So I'll run to the Father again and again and again and again.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Again and again.
Speaker 1:I'd like to close. Would you just open your hands in front of you as a sign of surrender to God? I'd like us to just make commitments in your own heart, in your own voice. I'm going to pray, but I hope that in this series, I hope that there's a moment in your life where you turn back to the things of God, turn away from the things of the world. And I believe when we humble ourselves and surrender to God, he will open our eyes. When we pick up the fear of the Lord, then he's able to bring us into that secret place and he's able to protect us from the thing, even from ourselves. So, no matter where you are today maybe you found yourself in a position that well, I did this to myself Even still, god can rescue you. Even still, the Spirit of God can begin to move and he can begin to lead you into grace and mercy and a fresh start. Would you say that prayer today, god? Today we just come to you, we surrender ourselves, we turn away from our sin, we turn away from the unholy things of this world that would destroy us. God, let our eyes be open as we fear your presence, as we pick up the fear of the Lord, god, we ask that you would open our eyes to see, you would open our ears to hear everything that you have for us and to be able to see the works of the enemy that would destroy us, even though he's a crouching lion. God, we trust you to protect us and lead us into safety. We trust you with our children. We trust you with our children and the purpose that you have built into our lives. We love you, god. Have your way.
Speaker 1:In Jesus' name, before we go, I want to give every person in the room an opportunity to. If you've never given your life to Jesus, you've never decided to be a Jesus follower, you've never decided to make him your Lord and your Savior. That is as simple as saying a simple prayer of faith where you confess out of your mouth that you believe, and that becomes the first step in the rest of your life. The Bible says whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, and so you can start that journey of faith just by saying this short prayer, and I'm not going to embarrass anyone or call you out, but would you just bow your heads right where you are, and I would invite everyone online and in the room. Would you say this prayer with me? Dear Heavenly Father, today I choose to give you my life. I believe that you sent your son to die on a cross for my sin and three days later he rose from the dead. So, jesus be my Lord and Jesus be my Savior, forgive me of my sin and breathe new life into me, and from this moment on I will follow you In Jesus' name. Amen.
Speaker 1:Let's put our hands together for everybody who said that prayer. I'm excited that you said that prayer and I'm proud of you. Today we're going to close in worship and I'm going to invite the prayer team to join me at the front. If you'd like to pray with someone, step out of your chair before you go and pray with someone. They'll say a simple prayer of faith with you. Otherwise, I love you. God bless you. I hope to see you on first Wednesday this week. You're dismissed in Jesus'.