J.D. Greear - When the Strong Become Weak - Judges 14

can I tell you guys how honored I am to be able to stand here this is one of the most significant places on the planet for me spiritually some of the people that have impacted me the most have still work here your president is a dear friend of mine and in many ways a mentor men like dr. Reid and dr. motley is Sam Williams and many others I would name my best friend now going on over two decades Bruce Ashford we were students together and then I'm one of us failure to launch Bruce stuck around became a professor married a student I went on and went into ministry so I am a two-time graduate of this institution spent eight of the best best but slowest years of my life here at the seminary I was one of the original guinea pigs and the 2+2 program before they worked all the kinks out they gave us one week of language training dropped us off in Southeast Asia where the nearest person who spoke English lived a hundred miles away from me I could say hi my name is JD where's your bathroom my house is on fire and said bring this people group to Christ so I think they've worked out a lot of that since then but it was a one of the most foundational and vision giving places ever I you know when I came here to South Eastern I remember somebody I think it was the president saying that South Eastern aspired to teach you to be four things a preacher pastor scholar and soul winner other institutions will focus on one of those but there is honestly I can say now no institution on the planet that excels at doing those four things together like southeastern seminarians so I'm very proud to be able to call it home and to be able to be able to have anchored by ministry here if you got your Bibles if you take them out now and you would turn them on and scroll down to Judges chapter 14 if you have them Judges chapter 14 earlier this summer at our church the summit church which is here in the Triangle I studied and taught through the life of Samson it's part of a series and judges I was doing in the middle of my study through Samson I told my wife that Samson reminded me a lot of myself but not for the reasons that you might assume it is because Samson's enemy was Sampson Samson's problem was not that he lacked strength to deliver Israel quite the opposite Samson's problem was that he sabotage everything that God wanted to do in his life I had a friend at MIT who was putting the final edits on his senior thesis when he said he watched to his horror on his computer screen when it was almost finished it's going through editing a few grammatical things when he saw every line of his senior thesis over 50 pages turned to gobbly Glueck just one line at a time they've gotten a lot better these days at eliminating viruses like that from computers but if you're old enough you might remember when that kind of thing actually happened every single bit of his fantastic thesis was just destroyed Sampson has a virus that sabotages him and is going to turn his strength into destruction that's why I think I relate to Samson how many times have you looked back on a chapter of your life and just ask yourself the question why did I mess that up why did I have to say that why did I have to respond why did I have to get the last word why could I not control the temptations and the lust of my flesh why was I so impatient this morning I want to convince you that every morning when you wake up and you look in the mirror you look at the greatest threat to the kingdom of God and what God wants to do in your life you look at them in the mirror on the weakness the problem is not a weakness in the power that God has made available to his people in this generation the weakness is in the character by which we sabotage what God is doing especially when I talk to you men this morning because Samson in many ways represents the temptation for every man of God the girls do not feel like his story leaves you out Old Testament scholars point out that Samson the way the story is set up was supposed to represent all of Israel the author of Judges sets up Samson's life so that people who knew the history of Israel would see the parallel right from the beginning both Samson and Israel were brought into the world through a miraculous birth to an older couple Abraham and Sarah of course were the the father and mother of the Israelite nation Manoah and an unnamed been their old age to give birth to Samson in the case of both Samson and Israel God took something weak and made it incredibly strong both were given a special law code that was supposed to separate them from the nations around them Samson of course was given the Nazarite code which consisted essentially of three rules don't ever cut your hair don't touch a dead body and don't touch alcohol literally what it says is don't touch anything from the vine which meant no Cabernet no Coronas no stella's no Miller light not even two buck shots from Trader Joe's even Welch's unfermented grape juice would have been off-limits to save some nothing from the vine on Israel of course had much more than the Nazarite vow they had the Book of Leviticus that was to separate them from the nations around them and finally Samson was drawn to foreign women like Israel was drawn to foreign gods so Samson's story is supposed to give you a picture of Israel story all the people of God story and so I say if you listen this morning that will tell you your story too so what I'm going to do is I'm going to walk you through the story of his adult life at least and then show you how like Samson you and I become the greatest enemy to what God wants to do through us and then what God's answer is to that Judges chapter 14 the first story of Samson's adult life opens up with him informing his mom and dad that he wants to marry a hot Philistine girl that he's seen in town chapter 14 verse 3 but his father and mother said to him is there not a woman among all our people that you must go and take a wife from the uncircumcised philistine this of course is not racial prejudice it's just that they want him to marry someone in the faith but Samson said to his father get her for me because she pleases me well if I had to boil down all Samson's weaknesses into one statement this would be it Samson's primary driver in life is what pleases him and he is not going to let anybody get in the way of what he wants not his parents not God not anybody this is kind of like a Disney movie in Reverse Samson rejects his parents counsel and lets his heart decide except that this story shows you where that kind of decision-making usually leads well Samson throws a Mista to celebrate his engagement which is Hebrew for beer keg party which is of course a problem since Samson is not supposed to touch any alcohol and then a few days before the party he's travelling and the lion attacks him and the author records what might be my favorite line in Samson story judges 14:6 in Samson when the lion attacked him tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat was that common in those days in Israel I've never torn a young goat it actually sounds kind of difficult to me but evidently it's what you did back then for entertainment what did you do for the forth oh you know the usual we played some cornhole we set off some fireworks we tore a few young goats it's just what you did Samson tears the lion that way then a few days later as he's on his way to the Mistah he passes by that same spot and he sees the carcass of the lion that he killed and he notices a beehive in the abdomen one of the problems that befuddled Hebrew scholars is how did the Beehive get there was it in there before Samson killed it maybe that's why the lion was in such a bad mood we were not told but he sees the beehive in the abdomen which sparks an idea for a riddle so when he gets to the beer keg party which is filled with Philistines since the girl he's marrying is a Philistine he says I know you Philistines think you guys are so much smarter than me but uneducated Israelites so since you're so smart I got a riddle for you now I'll tell you what let's make it interesting if you can guess my riddle within seven days then I'll give each of you a suit of clothes and if you can't guess my rattle then each of you all thirty of you will give me a suit of clothes and they're like no problem and we're a lot smarter than you what's the riddle and Samson says here it is out of the cedar came something to eat out of the strong came something sweet which is of course a reference to the honey from the lion's abdomen well they try for several days to figure it out in the camp so they go to Samson's bride-to-be and they say listen you're one of us if you don't get Samson to tell you his riddle and you tell us then we're going to kill you so she goes to Samson and ask and he won't tell her so she pulls the oldest trick in the book verse 17 she wept before him seven days that the feasts lasted talk about a miserable bachelor party and on the on the seventh day he told her because she pressed him hard then she told the riddle to her people in the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the Sun went down Oh Samson what is sweeter than honey in what is stronger than the lion and then what is by far my favorite line in this whole story Samson says only if you had not plowed with my heifer you would not have found out my riddle men there are two very obvious lessons for you in here number one don't let anyone plough with your wife number two don't call your future wife a heifer you should write that down verse 19 and the sphere of the Lord rushed upon him and he went down to Ascalon and struck down thirty men of the town and took their spoil and gave the garments to those who had told the riddle and hot anger he went back to his father's house here is a question that I have for you why would God feel Samson with his spirit to do something petty and in vindictive that arose because he was at a party that he should not have been in the first place because he is marrying a Philistine and he's celebrating it with alcohol which he is forbidden to touch why would God spirit fill him there the answer when you step back from the book of Judges is when you see that God had a much bigger purpose and while he was using Samson you see Israel by this point in the book of Judges had grown very comfortable in their captivity with the Philistines the Philistines were smart they were educated it was a very comfortable existence so God needed to stir up some trouble because they've gotten very at home so enter a hot blooded meathead guy on roid-rage Samson and so God is going to use Samson even though Samson's heart is not right with him and it communicates something that I think is so vitally important as you think about going into ministry do not ever assume that just because God uses you powerfully means that you are right with him this is one of the oldest deceptions in the book and sometimes fatally fatally deceptive Jonathan Edwards talked about the mystery of how God's Spirit could so powerfully work through people who showed no evidence at all of his work inside them and there are many people who go through life thinking that the fact that God uses them powerfully means they have to be right with him they have to be pleased he has to be pleased with them because how else could they grow the church like they have how else could they preach such powerful sermons but the work of God through them ends up destroying them making them proud and complacent as we'll see with Samson in fact for some of you I say maybe the greatest mercy of God that he is extending to you right now is letting you struggle in ministry letting you fall flat on your face so that he can destroy the idols in your heart those he loves he disciplines it's those that he doesn't care about that he lets go on and get hardened in their pride verse her chapter 15 after some days Samson went to visit his wife with a young go you know what's what you did for date night is you get together and towards some young goats and he said I will go into my wife and the chamber and the father said well I really thought you utterly hated her so I gave her to your companion hey she's got a younger sister that's hotter than she is who cares verse 3 Samson said to them this time I shall be innocent in regard to the Philistines when I do them harm so Samson went and caught 300 foxes another unanswered question how did he do that and he turned them tail to tell and put a torch between each pair of tails and when he had set fire to the torches he let the Foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to the standing grain and the olive orchards now as far as practical jokes go this one is awesome he ties foxes together and lights their tails on fire and has them go burn you know Samson was here into the into the cornfields well the Philistines retaliate by killing this woman and her father verse 6 Samson said I swear I will be avenged on you and after that I will quit and he struck him hip and thigh with a great blow hip and thigh that is a hebrew way of saying that he opened up a can of whoop trash on them it's a slang term and when he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Edom which was a small Israelite town well the Flitz did the the thief listings come to eat them and they say to the Israelites who live there we've come now to bind Samson to do to him as he did to us then 3,000 of the men of Judah Israelites went to the cleft of the rock at Edom and they said to Samson don't you know the Philistines are rulers over us what is it that you have done to us see they want peace they want harmony with the Philistines Samson said to them just swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves and they said him no we will only bind you and give you into their hands so they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock verse 14 then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that had caught fire and his bonds melted off of his hands and he found the fresh jawbone of a donkey and with it he struck a foul and then he did the whole hip and thigh thing on him again which is pretty cool of course except that he is not supposed to be touching anything dead and the jawbone of a donkey is certainly something that was dead and Sampson then sang verse 16 with the jawbone of a donkey heaps upon heaps with the jawbone of a donkey have I struck down a thousand men and as soon as he had finished speaking he threw away the job on a hot his hand now I mean honest I just think I say how cool is that with the jawbone of the donkey still in his hand he composes a song and I know it doesn't rhyme in English but they say it would have rhymed in Hebrew and I think you got to read it more like a like an Eminem kind of rap with the jawbone of an ass I have piled them in a mass with a jawbone of an ass I had a blast and then he drops the jawbone like he's dropping the mic and he just backs off that's just layers of Awesome right there chapter 16 Samson went to Gaza and there he saw a prostitute and he went into her now whoa now he's not just with the Philistine girl he's with a Philistine prostitute and Gaza by the way is the Philistine capital so in other words his sin is getting even more brazen well the Flitz teens find out and verse two they surrounded the place and set an ambush for him all night at the gate of the city they kept quiet all night saying let us wait till the light of the morning then we will kill him but Samson laid till midnight and midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts and pulled them up bar and all and he put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron now what spiritual lesson is there in there and there for us the answer is nothing that is just an awesome story he ripped the city gate and carried it to the top of a hill when that happens you just have to write it down verse 4 after this after the prostitute incident he loved the woman whose name was Delilah that's right now in Hebrew Delilah sounds like the phrase the night if you go back to the opening verses of this chapter you'll see that the word night keeps recurring throughout the story night in Hebrew literature represents darkness so in other words Samson is now lying down in the night's bed in other words this is a literature literary indicator this is the end verse 5 the Lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her seduce him and see where his great strength lies and by what means we may overpower him that we may bind him to Humble him and we will each give you 1,100 pieces of silver verse 6 so Delilah says to Samson please tell me where your great strength lies and how you might be bound so the one might subdue you verse 7 Samson said to her if they bind me with seven fresh bow strings that have never been dried then I shall become weak and like any other man so he lets her bind them with these bow strings verse nine she had men lying and ambush and an inner chamber and she said to him the foot steeds are upon you Samson he snapped the bow strings as a threat of flax snaps when it touches the fire might as well have been wrapped in wet toilet paper just threw it off first him then Delilah said to Samson behold you have mocked me and told me lies please tell me how you might be bound so he says okay actually its new ropes that's what I didn't tell you so she ties him up with new ropes and then she says Samson the Philistines are upon you but he snapped the ropes of his arms like a weak thread same deal same deal they come back and they he said to her if you weave the seven locks of my head now and fasten it tight with the pen then I'll become wheat and be like any other man all right no wait a minute we're getting pretty close to the hair now right so he's getting closer to it well again she does it and she weaves his hair into a loom and then she wakes him up and says the Philistines are upon you he wakes up with a start he rips the entire loom he's swinging it around the room tied to his heads and where where are they verse 15 and she said to him how can you say I love you when your heart is not with me you have mocked me these three times and you've not told me where your great strength lies and she pressed him hard with the words day after day and she urged him until his soul was faxed to death has not Samson been burned on this before why would he fall for this write this down guys are stupid that's why he doesn't have the strength to withstand her displeasure Samson like a lot of guys went harmony in their homes and that's good until they wanted so badly that they began to cave when they shouldn't verse 17 and he told her all of his heart and said to her erasers never come up on my head for I've been a Nazarite to God from my mother's womb if my head is shaved and my strength will leave me and I'll become weak and be like any other man verse 18 when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart she sent called the Lords of the philistine saying come up again for he has told me all his heart then the Lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in her hands she made him go to sleep on her knees you see by the way how over confident he's grown grown right he just told her his true secret and then he falls asleep on her lap no worries because he's confident his strength can never leave him God is about to wake him up and she called a man and hadn't shave off the seven locks of his head verse 20 and she said the Philistines are upon you Samson the awoke from his sleep and said I will go out as at other times and shake myself free but he didn't know he didn't even know that the Lord had left him like Israel he didn't even know he needed deliverance he's just gotten so comfortable with the Philistines verse 21 the Philistine seized him and gouged out his eyes actually they say they probably would have first burned his eyes out with a heated metal prong and then just dug out with a spoon whatever remained they brought him down to Gaza bound him with bronze shackles and he ground the male of the prison Samson here gives you a picture of the trajectory of sin it starts fun it's all strength and beer parties and practical jokes and prostitutes and Delilah just never ends that way remember here in an Old Country Southern Baptist pastor preached when I was a teenager I remember his outline sin binds and blinds and sin grinds I'm usually not for cheesy Southern Baptist outlines but when you can remember one 22 years later that's pretty good verse 22 but the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved what a fantastic verse we'll come back to it at the very end 23 and now the Lords of the Philistines gathered all for a great sacrifice to Dagon their God and to rejoice and they said our God has given Samson our enemy into our hand so this big party they bring out Samson like a circus act and when the people saw him they started to praise their God and when their hearts were merry they said call Samson that he may entertain us so they called him out of the prison and he entertained them they made him stand between the pillars and Samson said to the young man who held him by the hand let me fill those pillars on which the house rest that I may lean against them Samson called out to God and he said Lord God I know I've sinned I know that I'm here because of my sin let me be avenged against the Philistines Samson grass the two middle pillars on which the house rested any his weight against him his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other then he bowed with all of his strength and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people who were in it and him as well so the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life so what is it that we are supposed to learn from Samson's life well Samson is supposed to represent all the people of God I would tell you it shows us three things that you ought to understand about your life and ministry here they are the first one is by far the longest number one we are our own worst enemy we're our own worst enemy the problem was not that God had not given Samson the grace or power to deliver Israel it's that he sabotages it let me break down Samson's weakness into five components here they are they're born he is impulsive he's driven by his lust he's driven by his stomach he's driven by his anger you cannot be desire controlled and spirit led at the same time Paul said you will either be controlled by the lust of the flesh or you will walk in the spirit you cannot do both in the 1970s a group of psychologists at Stanford University did perform what is now kind of famously referred to as the marshmallow test so ah it's been repeated in multiple times and the results confirm but basically it went like this they brought in a bunch of five-year-olds one at a time into a room and in this room they put a marshmallow on the table and they said you can have this marshmallow right now if you want but we would counsel you to wait because if you wait for an unspecified amount of time and we won't tell you how long we'll come back we'll give you two marshmallows and so they will leave the room just leave the five-year-old there with the marshmallow and they'd watch them with a camera they've been divided the group into two categories those who immediately you know bird in the hand is worth two in the bush picked up the marshmallow popped at the mouth and ate it those were the marshmallow grabbers then there was the marshmallow waiters these were the ones that waited until they you know they come back because they thought two marshmallows was better than one the the psychologist said what was interesting is how the kids develop different coping mechanisms to deal with the temptation of the marshmallow some of them would walk around the table and just stare at the marshmallow some of them would pick the marshmallow up and throw it and bounce it against the wall some would lick the table beside the marshmallow as if the marshal had transmogrified into the table they said but whatever they chose it kept him from eating the marshmallow they said they divided him into these two groups and then track them for the next 20 years and they said we have never discovered one single factor that so shaped the trajectory of somebody's life by this one character quality as to whether or not they could wait and not give in to the urge of their impulse these psychologists said that this one factor mattered more than any other under health their material prosperity and their relational harmony that one factor was could they control their impulses it was more significant than social class wealth their family or even their IQ now that's a secular study but so much more spiritually here is the question you're smart you get great grades you're a fantastic order can you say no to the lust of the flesh if not then there is an expiration date time stamp on your ministry and it is only a matter of time before you become an example from a pulpit like this one and you become a laughingstock and you become an object of scorn and blasphemy in the church King Solomon who would know said this proverbs 25 28 a person without self-control is like a city that is broken down without walls in those days walls kept out petty thieves it kept out it kept out the enemy it kept out wild animals he said when you don't have self-control it ever have some your buildings and how luscious your gardens and now rich your homes you just have a wide-open door that anybody can walk in and take whenever they want there is an enemy who would love to set you up as the best graduate of this institution and put you in the largest church and the Southern Baptist Convention only so we could tear you down and he'll do it if you cannot control your impulses so men I would tell you this specifically and I know there's applications for the girls too but if you cannot bring your addiction to pornography under control you should not let yourself graduate from this seminary and you should not go into ministry because it is just a matter of time it is just a matter of time before the enemy uses it to destroy you your family and when you fall from that perch it's going to destroy a whole more people that it is just you number two compromising he's compromising Sampson treated the commands of God casually he didn't mind breaking them sir he said to himself what can this hurt I mean I cut my hair I mean why what's he got to do with my strength he even got away with breaking the law I mean touch dead things all the time and he drank beer nothing happened what is the harm here's the question what if the harm was not in the action itself what if the harm was in driving out the presence of God from your life you see we naturally tend to look at our actions and we say well what harm is there in the I can compromise a little bit here in my academics I can break this rule I know that this is what I said I do but I can break this rule I can compromise a little bit with my integrity with my entertainment habits with my academics what if you really can get away with it what if the real problem however was that it removed God's blessing from your life I realize that every single action I take every statistic I exaggerate every little white lie I tell every wicked image I view every penny I misappropriate that there is a God who sees and is grieved even if nobody else does and Samson's life screams to us that we should never take the presence and power of God for granted because it most certainly he can pull back his hand and leave us to destruction number three he was unteachable nobody could persuade him this one connects number four so I'll do these together for times sake he was a loner did you notice that nobody is a part of Samson's life he's a one-man wreck it Ralph here's a lesson we see tragically played out again and again again in national church leaders a crown in the country they get to a place where nobody can speak into their lives they become uncorrectable again Solomon an isolated man watch this will always begin to serve himself an isolated man will always begin to serve himself apart from community community that can speak into your life you will always start to make it about you I think David policin was the one who said things that grow in a secret garden always grow mutants I will tell you probably the greatest temptation I faced as a pastor the greatest one is to isolate myself it is so much easier to lead from isolation but I understand that it is deadly let me ask you let me ask you would those people that are closest to you right now would they say that you are teachable is that one of the qualities that they would bring up about you who is there in your life that can speak into your life right now how do you respond to criticism when people criticize you what areas are off-limits what areas you like don't talk about that because that is precisely the place that the enemy is destroying you at our church we've tried to develop a culture we say of giving and receiving godly feedback and it's difficult I get it for every sermon that I prepare and I want them to be just really honest with me about things they see and things they don't see and sometimes when they're giving it I'm just like well who are you never graduate from seminary Cancri come out sermon you know you preach like three times of the rest home you coming here letting but I'm just like this is what it means to open yourself up and say you speak into my life here's the last one proud proud Samson was proud you see that in at least two ways the first one is he never he assumed he'd never lose his strength and then secondly he felt entitled to use his blessings for his own purposes let me ask you those one at a time do you take God's blessing of you for granted that's revealed and how casually you treat sin it's also revealed and how much you pray our church recently has been going through some decisions and one of our elders pointed out the other night is like you know we're about to commit the sin of Joshua 11 Joshua 11 was after Israel had gotten all these successes they had a little small battle and they didn't even check with God on it cuz like we can handle this with his knocked out Jericho we can take care of this and it was precisely that thing that became a long-term plague for them for many many years our past successes can not be a source of blessing us they become a source of curse when they teach us not to be desperately dependent on the power of God in this direction in every single thing do you realize how desperate independent you are on the power of God here's the second question whose glory have you leveraged your gifts for there's nothing more inappropriate for us than to use our gifts to direct our attention toward ourselves now I heard it a guy described it like this one time he's like you know in a wedding there is the greatest moment is when they open those back doors and there she stands the bride and all of her resplendent was resplendent glory as a pastor I get to see you know this is like I get the best seat so look at her and look at him this little thing always happens everything I've never been in a wedding with this didn't happen when the door opens he looks at her he locks his eyes at her and every eye just goes back and forth between because they're watching him look at her you know for the wedding ceremony right now say you got a best man who's standing right beside of her and you know the best man's role traditionally is to just make sure the wedding goes off without a hitch but say you're watching and as she begins to make her way down this long aisle you notice the best man kind of lean out around the groom and start making eyes at her you know making whatever flirtatious symbols he's you know licking his lips or wink out and what it is but you know you're watching this best man flirt with the bride all right what's the groom going to do if he sees that he's going to turn around and punch this guy in the throat right because this is about them not about him inserting himself and stealing her attention here's the Bible calls those of us who were called to serve the church we were called to be John chapter three the best men in the wedding ceremony do you know how evil it is when you and I think more about the attention the bride is giving to us than it is giving to the Lord Jesus when we say I'm going to use these gifts and I'm a worry about my name more than I worry about about your name you say well I would never do that just ask yourself how much you get jealous about other people getting more attention than you you might have heard me tell this story before but when I was about eight years ago I was praying for our city the triangle area that God would send an awakening here like nothing that we've ever seen kind of thing you'd write about in history books for 200 years and it was one of those few times where the Holy Spirit spoke to me in a voice not audibly but so clear that it could have been audible boy spirit said okay what if I say yes to this prayer and what if I really do send an awakening to the triangle that is larger than anything anybody has ever seen what if I don't use your church to do it what if I bypass your church and what if what atonia Marita's church what if his church is the one that gets big and they're the ones that are always talked about when people talk about the trial you still want me to do it and y'all I'd love to tell you and I knew the right answer you know I knew I supposed to be oh yes lord you must increase and I must decrease and that was the right answer that wasn't the real answer the real answer was I'm not okay with that because when I pray thy kingdom come what I really mean is I mean my kingdom come because I've taken these things and I want our church to prosper in to succeed are you jealous of those whom God has put up less and prospered more than you that is a sure sign of the evil manifestation of Pride and God will begin to resist your ministry let me show you how this resolves because I don't want to leave you with a here's five things you should do better let me show you this I'll do this quickly number two the world needed somebody greater than Samson that's what his life teaches us teaches us at the strong are not strong enough the story of Samson is the last one in the book of Judges there's a lot of you know junk that happens after this but he's the last judge and why we didn't go over it today Samson's story is supposed to be like this climatic moment because it started out so promising Lee he has this grand miraculous birth narrative he's given these promises of incredible strength we have such high expectations for him yo when you're reading a book or you're watching a TV series and you come to the finale don't you expect something awesome there's nothing worse than reading a novel and coming to the last chapter and it let you down we're watching a TV show for seven years and then the finale you know can you say lost you know and you're like they were all dead the whole time I want my money back you know it's just you hate a bad for now imagine being an Israelite and reading this story and you come to the end of Samson's life and you're like that's it did that that's it you know there's got to be more to the story Kent in that way and then eleven hundred years later Jesus of Nazareth shows up like Samson he's born miraculously like Samson he's got incredible strength but his is over demons and disease and death like Samson he's betrayed by somebody who acted like a friend and handed him over to the Gentile of pressors like Samson he'd be chained and tortured and put on public display to be mocked like Samson he would die with his arms outstretched and through that death when it looked like he was defeated he would actually defeat the enemy but unlike Samson Jesus was not put in Chains for his sin he was put in Chains for mine and for yours Samson was a strong man made weak through his own sin Jesus was the mighty God who voluntarily became weak to save us from the chains of our sin and that's really good news because if you really want to be honest about your life we're probably all like Samson we're all people who are driven by our lusts were all people who compromised and were proud and we live for ourselves but Jesus was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for my pride and my compromise and my rebellion and it is when I behold that and it is when I see that that that's actually what changes me when you see that he was strong was given for you and you let him live inside you then he will infuse into you the fortitude of character that makes you strong where Samson was weak it's when you see that he accepted you freely by His grace even though your life is more characterized by Samson's mistakes than it is Jesus successes it's then that you are freed from the power of the impulses and from the insecurities that made you weak and made you captive to those impulses which leads me to the final thing Samson's life this is never too late a cry out to God when Samson cries out to God he is as low as one can possibly get he's in the midst of day God's temple where he has been blinded and bound because of his sin that's why verse 22 was so important the hair of his head had begun to grow again I love that it didn't begin to grow in the the play it began to grow the moment that it was shaved off God's mercies like Samson's hair grow new every morning they persist even where sin has shortened them away so maybe this summer may have seen that viral video that started went around it was a homeless man Saratoga Springs Florida where an art gallery puts out a piano on the sidewalk remember saying this put out a piano on the sidewalk and this homeless man comes and sits down and starts to play this beautiful song turns out it's come sail away about sticks but it was just Lewis incredible music and you just not expect it it looked like Matt Popeye in fact I texted Matt Popov you know who he is like that you but it was just a guy who literally lived under a bridge and he played this incredible music and and the YouTube video got 15 million views gave him this chance to tell his story he was an ex-marine he went in depression into depression when his wife committed suicide in 1998 and in response he turned to alcohol and drug social workers Caine took his three-year-old son away with all the attention that he got they started this GoFundMe account all these people watching this video it last time I looked it had about a hundred thousand dollars in it which is going to be available when he gets out of rehab social workers came they reunited him with his son for the first time in 15 years his old college offered him a scholarship to finish his education now be honest I don't know how the story's going to turn out you never know how these stories turn out but I do see him at an unbelievable cymbal because that song that musical ability had never really left him it was always there playing in the background of his heart and it's just when he sat down and he started to play it that it became the source of new life what you see with Samson is that God's mercies are like that song that just plays in the background it's like this melody of Amazing Grace that has kept growing even when your sin has shown it away I can't tell you where this homeless man's story ends but I can tell you what can happen to you when you turn and embrace God's Amazing Grace you see I realize that there's some of you that as I'm talking about this I'm going through those five things and you're like guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty and I will tell you that God still has a purpose for you he says he wants to use you to bring forth fruits abundant fruit he wants to use you as a blessing and not a curse he has preordained good works that you should go and walk in them and as many times as you have walked away from God His mercies like a song kept playing every morning and the moment you stand out and you embrace the amazing tune of God's amazing grace through your life then God begins to restore the years that the locusts have eaten he can take even the worst disasters and he beginning began to reweave them and make them into a harmony for good and blessing in other's lives why don't you bow your heads if you would let me just ask you to consider are you impulsive are you proud are you compromising you unteachable and a loner you understand right now what God wants to use you for in people's lives and maybe you just need to confess I don't have it god help me to stand amazed at the one who was stricken for me so that I can overcome these weaknesses and not be a vessel of destruction the way that Samson was but I can become a vehicle of blessing father I pray let's pray as one whose life is more characterized by Samson type of weakness than it is the opposite I pray God that you would save men and women in this room from hurting their families hurting their churches hurting God the cause of your name or Jesus were we are weak would you be strong enough we pray in Christ's name

Channel: Southeastern Seminary

Views: 54,030

Rating: 4.7759471 out of 5

Keywords: Southeastern, Baptist, Theological, Seminary, Chapel, Message, Jesus, Preaching, God, Book, North Carolina, Wake Forest, Gospel, False Teaching, False spirits, Spirit, Danny, expository, Great Commission, Truth, Grace, Love, Discerning, Training, Education

Id: Vts9NC2Ikrc

Length: 38min 22sec (2302 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 13 2015