Familiar Failures, Part 1

Many decades ago, one young man was sent home from school with a note from his teacher. The note said, quote, This boy is too stupid to learn. Those are the precise words. As it turned out, the young man had a number of learning disabilities, but oftentimes, as those are identified and weaknesses minimize, and generally it's found that there's brilliance in other areas.

Because this young man who was too stupid to learn made 5,000, or reported 5,000 attempts to perfect the automobile battery and finally succeeded. And maybe even closer to double that number of attempts to design these things we have called light bulbs giving us light. And of course, his name was Thomas Edison. There's another man many decades ago who was arrested a number of times for disturbing the peace.

He was disturbing the peace with the unbearable smell that came from his shop in the backyard. He was in a city area, and the neighbors continued to complain of the stench throughout the area. And so the police came a number of times. But you see, that man was seeking to perfect the process that became known as the vulcanization of rubber. And his name was Harvey Firestone. And Firestone is a company to this day that deals with tires. Not that long back, there was an extremely talented young man.

Well, perhaps that talent wasn't that perceived at that time. But a young man was cut from his ninth grade basketball team. He didn't make the cut. He didn't have the skills. And yet, most of us watched his phenomenal career as Michael Jordan broke one record after another and took the Chicago Bulls to the top a number of times.

And I miss Michael Jordan out on the basketball court. One rather average, even mediocre tenor was told that he ought to give up trying to sing and find another occupation. He was told that he simply did not have what it took. But he persisted and persisted and strove for excellence. And in time, he became one of the greatest tenors of all time, whose name was Enrico Caruso. Now, we could go on and on with many stories. The Wright Brothers and development of airplane and others besides the Wright Brothers, who were striving to do so.

Robert Fulton and the steam engine and the story of Fulton's folly and people would invest in his project only if they could do it anonymously because they were sure it was going to fail and they didn't want their name being attached with a failure.

But all of these individuals are examples of those who persisted in the face of failure and with time succeeded. I think in the Church of God, we ought to be in a biography habit. We ought to be in the habit of reading biographies because biographies give us an insight into real people's lives. And every one of us has times of success and we have those many times of falling down. And if a biography is written about someone, generally it denotes the fact that they persisted and they were able to hang in there until finally they broke through.

Let's look at Romans 14. I want to give, actually, this will be two sermons, although I'm not sure when I'll come back to part two. But I simply call this sermon Familiar Failures of the Bible. And Paul wrote to the Church at Rome, and we read in Romans 15 verse 4, "...for whatsoever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." And so what I want to do today is go back and look at some of the rather familiar stories we have of individuals, men and women, back in the pages of the Bible.

And they had their successes and they had their failures. And in many cases, through failure, they persisted and out of weakness became strong and succeeded. And we can learn from these lessons. There's nothing like having trailblazers to go show us the path and show us where some of the landmines of life are buried. Let's consider, we'll probably look at three individuals today. We'll look at Lot, then we'll look at Delilah, and then we'll look at Solomon. And next time, oh, we'll probably look at Ahab, and then we've got some from the New Testament like Pilate and Martha and Peter.

All of these are individuals who made grievous mistakes. And yet in many cases, not all, many cases, they became tremendous successes at the end. But we start with Lot, and for that, of course, let's go back to Genesis chapter 13. Lot is mentioned a few places. We first find him at the end of chapter 11, rather, where it's giving the genealogy of Tyra and his sons Abram and Nahor and Haran. Haran was the father of Lot, and then Haran died even before their own father, Tyra. And so Lot was orphaned. We don't know if it was when he was quite young or whether he was a young adult, but we do find that he tends to tag along with his uncle Abraham, as he was called later on.

And that sounds like a wonderful thing, because Lot was not left without an absence of male role models. He had a grandfather, he had an uncle, he had more than one uncle. And so we do find his name kind of tacked in there from time to time that when Abram moved, then here went Lot and his family along with them. But in chapter 13, we have the foundation that we need to cover as far as looking at Lot. And in verse 1, then Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him to the south. So here we are introduced to the fact that wherever, at least for this period of time, wherever Abraham went, Lot tagged along.

And maybe we began to, as we look later on at some of the mistakes that he made as he chose to go down in the area where Sodom was, maybe he was a bit too much of a good follower.

And you know, somewhere along the line, we all have to learn to stand on our own two feet. Growing up in my household as a young man, it was great to have parents, grandmothers, older cousins, older siblings who had blazed the trail before me. It made it easier.

And I can see where Lot, certainly as he was younger, it would have been great to have Uncle Abraham to follow along with. We have to stand on our own somewhere along the line.

And the same is true for all of us as individual Christians. God has called each of us individually and separately. And we won't make the kingdom based on hanging on the coattails of our spouse, or our brother, sister, or anyone else. In the next verses, we have the story where they were very rich in livestock, silver, and gold. And it led to the point of verse 7, where there was strife between the herdsmen. And Abram suggested the solution, we don't want our people to fight, so we were just too big. We need a little elbow room. And so that's where it led to him saying we've got the hills of Judea, and then we've got the well-watered plain down below.

Verse 9, Abraham gave Lot the choice. Every time I read this, it just strikes me that a man of class, a man of respect for his uncle, would have deferred back to the family patriarch and said, no, no, Abraham, you choose, and I'll take what's left.

But we're told in verse 10, Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well-watered everywhere. And then it mentions, this is before the time the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as you go down toward Zor. Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east, and they separated from each other.

I think we begin to see that there's a character problem, and he'd been following along, and perhaps was unable to see what was best and what was most important.

He knew full well what was down in those well-watered plains, because as we read down to verse 13, he goes down and he pitched his tent as far as Sodom, verse 13, but the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord. He chose that. He chose to get as close to sin as he could. He chose to live on the fringes of sin. It's interesting that after he separates, verse 14, the Lord said to Abram, after Lot is separated from him, lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are, northward, southward, eastward, and westward, all the land which you see I will give to you and your descendants forever. It is interesting that after Lot and his group left, God begins reiterating and by increments expanding.

The promise that Abraham was given there in chapter 12 is expanded a little here. It's expanded in chapter 15 and 17 and 22. Then Romans tells us that he was the heir of the whole world.

Verse 18, then Abram moved his tent and went and dwelt by the terebinth trees of Mamre, which were in Hebron and built an altar there to the Lord. So he chose the rolling plains of the hills of Judea. Not as well watered a land where you have to trust God to give you rain and deuce season. You also didn't have the influences that Lot was going to find. Well, we have a lot of territory that skipped. Lot's mentioned a little bit here. We have the battle of the kings in chapter 14. We have, it's interesting, chapter 14. As these kings come in from Mesopotamia into this area, and they take a lot of people captive and they take a lot of plunder, verse 12, they also took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom. Okay, so we've moved from, he went down to the well watered plains and he pitched his tent in the area of Sodom.

And now he's dwelling in Sodom and his goods and departed. Well, the rest of the story is that Abraham and his 318 servants went and they freed the people who had been taken captive, including Lot and family, and their goods and brought them back. Now, we have chapters that don't really apply as much. We have, I mean, as far as the story of Lot, we have a story of Abraham giving tithes the Melchizedek. We have the expansion of the Covenant, chapter 15, story of Hagar and Ishmael in chapter 16. Again, Covenant, this time with the sign of circumcision in chapter 17. But we come back to Lot as we get into chapter 18 and then in particular chapter 19.

And notice in chapter 18, verse 20, that as the God of the Old Testament and two angels have come to the tent of Abraham, verse 20, and the Lord said, because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, because their sin is grave, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it. That has come to me, and if not, I will know. Well, the story where the two angels went on down and Abraham played Let's Make a Deal with God, as far as, well, what if there are 50 righteous, what are there 40, and so on. But in chapter 19, it's distressing to see Lot choosing to live in an area where he knew what the people were like. Then he lives in one of the cities. Chapter 19, verse 1, the two angels came to Sodom in the evening and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom, which tells us that was basically the way it's worded speaks of he was in a position of leadership where at the city gates you would have some of the elders and they would sit there if someone came needed help needed assistance they would make their appeal to those who were there in a position of responsibility. And he insisted that they come spend the night at his place.

So he has a house in Sodom. And so it just it goes on and on and we know the rest of the story.

We know what happened. The people of the city, we have an insight into what they were like.

And no wonder God sent fire from heaven down and destroyed the whole area. But let's go to verse 15. When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city. And while he lingered, you see, we have in this chapter enough to tell us, even though Peter refers back to Lot and he was a just and righteous man who vexed his soul, his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. And Jesus referred to him in Luke 17. Back to Lot's example and he said, Remember Lot's wife, someone who was called out and went so far and then turned back because her heart was in the world. But Lot and family have to be pulled out. Verse 16, they actually put hands on them and pulled them out.

Then, the end of chapter 19, we have the last that we really know about Lot.

He goes up and dwells in the mountains. He goes back to where he could have been all along.

And the wine and the two daughters and the incest and the two children, Moab and Ammon, and the people that came from him. Isn't it interesting that many, many years later, that God grafted a woman named Ruth, who was a Moabiteus. She was a descendant of Lot. Grafted her back into the very Jewish lineage that would lead to Jesus Christ.

So, even in abject failure, God can come back later and bring it all for good.

I have at home a life application Bible. The print is so tiny, I take it and I blow it up as much as I can and get it on a page. But the life application Bible, I like a number of features in it. And one is that they, every so often, they'll have these personality profiles.

And here's the one they have on Lot. Let me just read a few things that they point out.

Some people simply drift through life. Their choices, when they can muster the will to choose, tend to follow the course of least resistance. That seems to be the way Lot lived life.

Following the course of...he was taking the easy road.

Lot, Abraham's nephew, was one such person. While still young, Lot lost his father. Although this might have been hard on him, he was not left without strong role models in his family. Still, Lot did not develop a sense of purpose or their sense of purpose. Throughout his life, he was so caught up in the present moment that he seemed incapable of seeing the consequences of his actions. It is hard to imagine what his life would have been like without Abraham's careful attention and God's intervention. By the time Lot drifted out of the picture, his life had taken an ugly turn. He had so blended into the sinful culture of this day that he did not want to leave it. And then we read of how his daughters committed incest with him. His drifting finally took him in a very specific direction, and that was destruction. And yet, Lot, however, is called righteous in the New Testament. And then he goes on and mentions how Ruth, a descendant, was grafted back into the line of Jesus Christ. But we look here at Luke, not Luke, one of those L, Lot. We look at the story of Lot.

We look at the story of Lot. And I'd like to draw three lessons from his life.

The first one is that nine times out of ten, we bring trials on ourselves.

Nine times out of ten, we bring our own trials on ourselves. We do that by the decisions, the choices we make. In Lot's case, he wanted what appeared to the eyes to be the best.

He chose the well-watered plains, and we see that it led down the path of destruction.

Let's turn to Luke 9. I think we're through back here in the story of Lot in Genesis.

Luke 9. At one point in Christ's ministry, he had, probably throughout his ministry, had people come along saying, oh, wherever you go, I'll follow.

They just wanted to get on the bandwagon. They got caught up with a movement, apparently, because he gave examples of different ones who'd say, well, let me go bury my father.

Anyhow, let's just read what Christ said. Luke 9, verse 57.

Now it happened as they journeyed on the road that someone said to him, Lord, I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said to him, foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no word to lay his head.

So essentially, Christ was saying, you know, words are cheap.

Realize you don't know where following me is going to go.

And the animals in the world around you, in creation, they have their own places.

They have their own homes in that sense. And you may have to give up your home. You may not have a place to lie down that's comfortable.

You may have some of the rigors of hardship and travel.

Well, then another said, follow, or he said to another, follow me.

But he said, Lord, let me go first and bury my father.

And Jesus said to him, let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.

Another and another also said, Lord, I will follow you, but let me first go and bid them farewell, who are at my house. Now, in reading these, we have to read between the lines here. It was not a matter that the person above wanted to just go home, have a funeral, and come right back.

It was an excuse. They did not want to follow. And this one, it's not a matter of go back to the house, buy mom, buy dad, buy brothers and sisters, and be right back. It was an excuse.

But Jesus said to him, no man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. You know, we could contrast Abraham and Lot. We're introduced to Abram there at the beginning of chapter 12. Well, he was mentioned in chapter 11 a little earlier. In chapter 12, God just appears to him. He says, you know, get out of your country and go to this place I'm going to show you. And we find repeatedly through Abraham's life, wherever God sent him, God later on said, take that son of promise and you go to the land of Moriah and you'll sacrifice him in the place that I show you. And then it says, so Abraham departed.

But we don't find that in Lot. He was a good follower. He moved along hanging on to the coattails of Abram for some time. But nine times out of ten, we make decisions and we bring trials on ourselves. Sometimes it's we're in a hurry. We're impatient. We make a hasty snap decision.

We don't take the time to ask God in prayer to lead us, to inspire us, to see what is right, what is his will. We don't always search the scriptures or seek a multitude of counsel where there is safety. And because we get in such an all-fired hurry, or we don't think it through, we oftentimes, too, shoot ourselves in the foot. It might be who we marry, what we buy, how we use credit, what we say, the other words that come out, who we associate with, how we just go through life. And so many, many times, like Lot, we bring trials on ourselves.

Number two. Number two. It is easy to become enslaved to that which is not very important.

It is easy to become enslaved to that which is not very important. And we see that in Lot's life.

He became a slave of the second best. He wanted what was easy, the well-watered plains, and then we find he's in Sodom. And we find that he wanted to blend in, apparently. And you go back and reach after 19, when the mob came to the house that night, and he's offering his daughters something's happened to that man's thinking. Because you can't fringe on sin without it getting honest. It's kind of like working with paint or working with roofing tar. If you're careful as you want, as you may be, you are still going to get some of it on you. And the same is true with sin. Again, Lot made decisions, and that led him to becoming enslaved by things that are not that important. We have to look at our life and learn to prioritize. There are things that are absolutely most important.

High on that list, of course, at the top of that list is our relationship with God.

And we have to maintain that. Pouring over the Scriptures and praying to God and meditating on His Word. Periodically fasting and fellowshipping. And we've got to maintain that relationship.

But we also have family, whether it's marriage, whether it's extended family, children. We have family. And then we have work. Sometimes we male types have a bad habit of placing work above family. And it usually comes back to haunt us when we do that. But we have to learn to prioritize. There needs to be time for work. There needs to be time for continuing education. We have to have time to work on our own health, take care of ourselves. And we have to have time, frankly, for leisure time. To recharge batteries. To rest. To recuperate. You know, there were times when Christ, you know, He was flesh and blood. And there were times when He just was tired. No, let's get in the ship and go over there. Or He'd get away from the crowd where He'd been serving. You know, let's go up on this mountain. He set the example. And we need to prioritize as well. But it's finding the balance. Number three, I think we also see this from Lot's example. Number three is that love of God. Love of the Kingdom must come first. You know, as Matthew 6, 33 tells us, seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. And the physical things are going to fall into place.

We have some of the Kingdom parables where Christ talked about the one with the man that found the treasure hidden out in the field. Sold everything and had to go and buy that field. And then right on the heels of that, you have the one who had searched for that pearl of great price. And when He found it, He likewise went and got it. And He said, the Kingdom of Heaven is like that.

Go, place your eyes on that Kingdom upon God. Everything else falls into second place.

I have a set of old books at home. They're called daily Bible illustrations.

Written by John Kitto. K-I-T-T-O. They're so old. I mean, you smell them. And to this day, I've had them for years and years. But they're probably 100 years old. They smell like they were in somebody's musty garage for about 50 years. They still have that smell. But I love the way Kitto writes. As far as Lot, let me just summarize it by some of the words of John Kitto about Lot in Sodom. He says, it is dangerous to palt her with duty, to venture too near a stronghold of sin. And then you use the example of a moth careening around a flame, and then finally gets too close, and its wings are burned, singed, and it falls into its ruin.

And then, so Lot, long ago, left his tent and got a home in Sodom. And there he forms his family ties. And there his daughters marry. And he gradually gets more and more entangled there.

So strong is that entanglement that even his capture and then rescue by Abraham do not suffice to break the chains that the world has cast around him. No, he goes back to Sodom and lives there.

It would appear that this was under circumstances which inflicted great pain upon Abraham.

A little further down, he says, no good can ever come from such intercourse with the world in his day or in ours. Let none of us, as Lot perhaps did, rely too much on our own strength, for who can daily touch pitch without being defiled? Or, as I put it a while ago, who can mess with roofing tar and not get some of it on you? Well, if Lot had been thinking properly, not the finest pastures of all the world, not all the conveniences and apparent advantages for the settlement of his daughters, which a residence in a town presented, would have induced him to go there and stay. Rather, he would have fled that place, and he would have plunged at once out into the desert. There was nothing to prevent him. A little bit later, he says, Lot was content to sit and mourn over the guilt that he saw around him. He would rather passively sit down amid the certainties of danger and the probabilities of judgment than rouse himself to one great and energetic effort to be free and at whatever sacrifice depart from that tainted and abominable place. And then, kiddo sums it up and says, still there are Sodom's, and still there are lots who may think that with a religious profession they may live in the world and pursue its prophets and pleasures at no danger. Let them beware they are in great peril, and if we be God's people, let us come out of the world and not touch the unclean thing, and let us remember that the church of God is not to be mixed up in the world and undistinguished from it. So I like the way he puts that. At any rate, with lot, we bring trials on ourselves, we become slave to that which is not as important, and we need to remember, love God, love the kingdom, seek the kingdom above all things. Let's go to the book of Judges and consider Delilah. Her story is told in Judges 16. There are only, well, less than two dozen verses that tell the story of Delilah, and what a tragic story it was. The name Delilah means delicate or dainty. It's actually 18 verses we have about Delilah, and it involves a story of the betrayal, the fall, the bondage, and the death of one of the more colorful judges of ancient Israel, whose name was Samson. But perhaps her greatest failure, and in her case, as far as we know, her life ended as a failure. She completely wasted her life. Her greatest failure was perhaps in preventing Samson from achieving the greatness God expected from him as a judge of Israel.

But, you know, there's that old saying that beauty is as beauty does.

And when we look underneath the skin, as far as what she's made of, we find not much beauty.

The Life Application Bible has a personality profile on Delilah. Let me read just a few sentences. A person's greatest accomplishment may well be helping others accomplish great things, and likewise, a person's greatest failure may be preventing others from achieving greatness.

Delilah played a minor role in Samson's life, but her effect was devastating. She influenced him to betray his special calling from God. Motivated by greed, Delilah used her persistence to wear down Samson. His infatuation with her made Samson a vulnerable target. For all his physical strength, he was no match for her, and he paid a great price in giving in to her. Delilah is never mentioned again in the Bible after this story. Her unfaithfulness to Samson brought ruin to him and her people, and may well have ruined her life as well, until a second resurrection, perhaps. Judges 16, breaking in toward the end of the life and times of Samson. In verse 4, afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah, again. Beautiful name, means dainty or delicate. Beautiful name, but because of this story, you don't hear it used very often, do you? Verse 5, the lords of the Philistines. Now, there are places where it refers to the five lords of the Philistines, Ashdod, Asculon, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza. The lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, entice him and find out where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to afflict him, and every one of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.

So, if there were five, if that's accurate, and the other places where it talks about five lords of the Philistines, if there were five and they were all going to give her eleven hundred pieces of silver, she was, you know, as they say, follow the money. She was after the money. That was what interested her. That was what enticed her, and she was willing to sell herself out. We have the term, and the unpleasant term, prostitution, and that refers to selling yourself out. There are many ways of doing that. It's not just through sex, but she sold herself out for monetary gain.

But Samson, as we know, as we remember from the rest of his story, he was physically strong, and that came as a gift from God. There were times when the Spirit of the Lord would come upon him, and there was apparently a physical strength. And yet, at the same time, he was morally weak.

Earlier in his story, he told his parents, well, you know, go down and get me that wife from the Philistines. He's always looking somewhere else for happiness. As we read his story, he could break bonds, but he couldn't break his own bad habits. He could conquer Philistines, but not his own emotions. He could tear a lion into pieces, but he could not control his own lusts. Verse 5, we just read, she apparently is blessed with a phenomenal charm and natural beauty.

But again, remember that old saying, I remember my grandmother saying this, beauty is as beauty does. And the most important beauty is that which comes from the inside, from the heart. And she sold her beauty and her apparently phenomenal attractiveness to lead a man to physical ruin and death. Now, I have read commentaries, they call her the female Judas, because for money she sold out Samson, as Judas sold out his Savior. But she possessed a charm.

She obviously was quick-witted, had a tremendous intellect, and she was persistent, and she had some nerves. But that was all just simply to go after the money. Well, we have the story here, where she's persisting, and he says, you know, bind me with seven fresh bowstrings, and well, that didn't work. And then, you know, bind me with new rope, or new ropes, and that didn't work.

And verse 13, she continues, you know, and he says, well, weave my hair into seven locks.

Well, that didn't work. Verse 16, it came to pass when she pestered him daily with her words, and pressed him so that his soul was vexed to death, that he told her all his heart, and said to her, No razor has ever come upon my hair, for I have been an Azurite to God from my mother's womb. And we find here, she realized, he finally has told her all that was in his heart.

And so what did she do? She sold him out. He was taken captive. His hair was cut. He was just like any other man. His eyes were put out, and he was put in a position where he turned to grindstone, apparently, until, you know, there at the very end, God brought, God came back to him, and 3,000 of the lords of the Philistines were killed. But we look at Delilah. We don't, I don't think we have to read further than that. What can we learn from Delilah's beguiling failure?

Well, let's once again consider three lessons we can learn. Number one is the folly of being unequally yoked. And this applies in all facets of life. You know, we can make the same mistake, and we can get into business dealings with people who live by other principles.

That's why I always tell church members, you know, get it in paper. I also recommend don't get into a business dealing with somebody else in the church unless you put it down on paper. You know, that way you've got a clear agreement. Otherwise, things tend to change, and in someone's perception, it usually comes back to haunt you. But the folly of being unequally yoked. You know, here's Samson from one of the tribes, Dan, one of the tribes of Israel. And you know that there were their laws in the Old Testament law that, you know, the Israelites were told, just marry within your own people. And I think to this day, there are people of different races would generally say that, but it's becoming more and more obvious in our world that we have marriage across racial boundaries. And that's not, you know, the Bible does not say that sin. But I think it's, as far as a marriage, you want to stack the deck in your favor as much as you can, and look at so many of these factors, such as background, you know, and certainly marriage in the faith. And you see what he typified was, he kept saying to his parents, oh, go get me that woman from, you know, another people, what was outside the stock of Israel, the people in the covenant with God. And so we want to marry in the faith. We want someone with, you know, as similar of a background, similar educational backgrounds, you know, all of these things are factors that any marriage counseling book would point a person toward. You want to be as alike the other as possible. Samson kept looking outside of his own people, outside his own country, and outside his own religion to find a wife.

What would history have recorded about Samson had he married someone like Sarah, or Rebecca, or Miriam, or Abigail, or Ruth, or Esther? What could have been? We will never know.

But Samson chose one after another who was of a different religion. And with Delilah, it sealed his fate. And he paid it with his life in the end, and with a lot of suffering in between.

But the folly of being unequally yoked, whether it's with business or marriage or whatever, just our friendships, our associations, we ought to have friends in and out of the church.

But let us beware that like Samson, it doesn't start pulling us away. Or like Lot, he ended up being drawn into Sodom, and the world closed in around him. So there is a warning to us here also that's similar with Delilah and the effect that she had on Samson. They were unequally yoked, and you know what the New Testament says about that, not being unequally yoked with unbelievers.

Number two, we look at Delilah. Number two, and we see the tragedy of misusing the gifts of God.

Because, again, we don't have a photograph of her. We don't know what she looked like.

But apparently she was phenomenally beautiful. She certainly got his eye.

But true feminine charm and attractiveness and beauty are gifts that God gives to a woman.

With the sixth day of creation, God formed Adam and then later took a rib and formed the woman. And at the end of day six, like with the first five days at the end, God looked and behold, it is very good. And he created us that way. The way that we are created was for the purpose of binding two into one as far as a marriage. In the Song of Solomon, you may, if you're familiar with that, you get this every so often this chorus chimes in, and the daughters of Jerusalem will sing, Don't open love before it's time. Don't open love before it's time. There is a proper time and place and manner, and that's within marriage. And Samson tended to follow what he saw with his eyes. He told his parents, Get me a woman from the Philippines. Philistines. And then here later, he comes across Delilah, and she winds him around her pinky finger in no time. And misused her beauty, her charm, her resourcefulness, her intellect, misused it for destruction, for prostitution, instead of building one up. And you know, that's the beauty of a marriage. There were two together. There's a synergy where the two become greater as a singular unit than they ever would become as separate individuals. And I think not long back, I think I read something here about the mule competition up in, where was it, Chicago or something like 1895. And you know, the winning team could pull eight, what was 18 tons, and the second team 17 tons. But, and you would think, you know, let's gang them together and they can pull 35 tons, maybe. Well, they did many times more than that. And there is a strength. And these attributes that God gives a woman, and attributes God gives a man, are designed by God for benefit of the other person, marriage or just our relationships in general. But when the the fairest gifts of God are misused or deliberately abused and trifled with, then we see the end is always destruction. And Delilah, we read nothing more about her and all the Bible after this story. After this story, she disappears. And I'm sure God has a plan for her in a resurrection. So the tragedy of misusing the gifts of God. And then number three, number three, the horror of abject selfishness. The horror of abject selfishness. She was totally, completely unconcerned about the needs of Samson. She was completely concerned about what she could get for herself. She saw Samson as a conquest to be had for selfish gain. She saw dollar signs, and she went after them. She was unconcerned about his weakness for attention, companionship. He had a void, obviously, in his life, the way he lived it. Looking for someone to fill this void, but you know, like the old country song, he was looking for love in all the wrong places. You know, she just, she just made it worse. And this, this man that could have been a tremendous tool in the hands of God. He was a judge of Israel a long time, but what a different story could have been written, except for the selfishness, self-centeredness of Delilah. All right, let's, let's go on now to number three example, and that's Solomon. Solomon. And we know quite a bit about him.

We know that his reign began with a bang. What did it ever? We pick up his story in 1 Kings. David is at the point of death, and he dies, and then Adonijah, his brother, is trying to steal the throne. Bathsheba gets involved. David gave instructions on his deathbed, and of course, Solomon ends up as king. And we have that story early on where God appears to him there at Gibeon in a dream, and you know, ask what you want. And he asks for an understanding heart and wisdom, the judge. You're so great a people, and wow, what a, what a remarkable beginning. And you have the story of the two women with one child. One child was laid on and killed in the night, apparently, and the two came with the one fighting over who's the mother of the living. And he says, bring me a sword, you know, and then the one who truly was the mother, her heart cried out and give the baby to this woman. And he was able to see. We have events then that lead to laying aside. Let's go over to 1 Kings. Laying aside, making contracts with Hyrum. Laying aside some of the materials for the building of the temple. Chapter 5, getting all the cedar and cypress. We have the navies of Tarshish and Hyrum and all the goods that are brought. We have the construction of the temple that's related beginning in chapter 6. And verse 14, so Solomon built the temple and finished it. And at the end of chapter 6, to me we begin to have a glimpse that it's not paradise yet.

It's not utopia. We've got some things pulling apart. Chapter 6, verse 38, in the 11th year, in the month of Bull, which is the eighth month, the house was finished in all its details. This is God's house. And according to all its plans, so he was seven years in building it. Seven years!

It's a long time, but let's go right on into the next chapter.

But Solomon took 13 years to build his own house, and so he finished all his house.

And then he built the house of the force of Lebanon, and it goes on.

Seems to me to indicate, somehow priorities are not the way they should be. Maybe this is a harbinger of things to come. Seven years on God's house, but 13 years on his own house.

We go on, we read of tremendous influx of wealth of goods, and the navies, the ships, the tarses that brought great bounty, and the gifts from visiting dignitaries. And all this wealth carried a price. Someone had to pay. And after Solomon's death, we realize he had oppressively taxed the people, because those who followed came to his son, Rieboem, and they wanted a relief from the oppressive taxation. And you know that story. Rieboem spoke, you know, rejected the input of the elders, those older counselors, and he listened to the young men, and he just made it worse. And so, there goes ten tribes, and they leave him. Well, again, life application Bible.

Personality profile on Solomon. Wisdom is only effective when it's put into action.

Early in his life, Solomon had the sense to recognize his need for wisdom. But by the time Solomon asked for wisdom to rule his kingdom, he had already started a habit that would make his wisdom ineffective for his own life. He sealed a pact with Egypt by marrying Pharaoh's daughter.

He was the first, or she was the first, of hundreds of wives married for political reasons.

In doing this, Solomon went against not only his father's last words, but also God's direct commands. His action reminds us how easy it is to know what is right and yet not do it.

It is clear that all God's gift of wisdom to Solomon did not mean that he couldn't make mistakes, and he made many. He had been given great possibilities as the king of God's chosen people, but with them came great responsibilities. Unfortunately, he tended to pursue the former and neglect the latter. While becoming famous as the builder of the temple and the palace, he became infamous as a leader who excessively taxed and worked his own people. Visitors from distant lands came to admire this wise king, while his own people were gradually being alienated from him. Little is mentioned in the Bible about the last decade of Solomon's reign. Ecclesiastes probably records his last reflections on life. In that book, we find a man proving through bitter experience that finding meaning in life apart from God is a vain pursuit.

Security and contentment are only found in a personal relationship with God.

So it says, be sure to balance your pursuit of life's possibilities with reliable fulfillment of your own responsibilities. Chapter 11. The temple is dedicated. Chapter 8.

You have the blessing on the people. You have the story. Chapter 10, the Queen of Sheba coming.

You have this marvelous picture painted of the glories of Solomon's Israel.

And you know, he reigned for 40 years. And that 40 years of Solomon's Israel is a type of the kingdom of God. The kingdom, the prophecies of the kingdom speak about a time of peace, a time of security, a time of prosperity. But there were cracks in the facade here with Solomon.

Chapter 11, though, we read of his downfall. King Solomon, verse 1, loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites, from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, You shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you. Surely we will turn away your hearts after their gods. Solomon clung to these in love. And he had 700 wives, princesses, and 700 concubines, and his wives turned away his heart. And it was so when Solomon was old that his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. Verse 6, he did evil on the side of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord as did his father David. He built high places. He burned in thanks. He sacrificed to their gods.

And God told him, your kingdom is about to end, and it's going to be torn apart because of what you have done. What can we learn from Solomon? Solomon's familiar failure. You know, at the end of his life, he looks to the harem for happiness. He follows other gods rather than the god whom he had known. He was altered by the world around him, and he began to trust him in himself.

He's a classic example of a second generation Christian who had everything given to them too easily, maybe, and it led to their destruction. So again, what do we learn from Solomon? Well, three points once again. Number one, a person in authority is there to serve. A person in authority is there to serve. A leader is to first seek the well-being and prosperity of those under him. I don't know if maybe that's not the right term to use. A leader is to serve others first and self secondarily. Matthew 20. Jesus and this bunch of Jews that he had called to be his disciples.

Once in a while, the disciples would be bickering about who was going to be great, and it was obvious they didn't get the point. And at one point, one place here, Matthew 20, they had been bickering, and the mother of two of them, Zebedee's wife, had come and asked, can my sons be on your right and left hand? And they got mad.

Matthew 20, verse 25. But Jesus called them to himself and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. And yet it shall not be so among you, but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And you know, hopefully we all have a desire to serve.

You want to have great responsibility. Give your life for others. Serve others.

Don't ride roughshod over others. Don't abuse those under you. Solomon did an awful lot of that, apparently. Verse 27, and whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave.

Just as, so here's our model, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. And of course, in the events that followed, Jesus gave his own life. So a leader is to first seek the well-being and prosperity of those he serves, not his own comfort. And we can say, we can look at what Christ wrote here. This is true for any cross-section of our life. We all carry various roles. We are a member of a family.

We have jobs. We might be in a supervisory role. We have roles within the church. We have roles within the home. We have, of course, the dynamics between a husband and wife. And those in position of responsibility, positions of responsibility, are to be the servants. And here in the church, those in responsibility are to be the servants of the servants of God. And follow the example of Jesus Christ. Number two, from Solomon's familiar failure, number two, marital happiness is only found in a loving, monogamous relationship. You know, we have in our country, we have things that are taking place. We have states, one after another, passing laws that allow for, well, it's misnamed same-sex marriage. That is not marriage. You and I know that. But we have one state after another. I was surprised even Utah was kind of, you know, some decisions rendered where they're following in line. But, you know, that's usually just the tip of the iceberg. The so-called homosexual marriage will be followed by other things, such as polygamy. I mean, you watch, you watch, you start opening the floodgates, then you watch and see what else comes out. You open Pandora's box, just stand back and see what comes. And so, we have Pandora's box of same-sex marriage being opened. Meanwhile, we have other countries absolutely outlawing it, threatening people's death. But in here, in our country, you watch, we'll see what will happen. But I suspect we will begin in time to have rulings that Utah's anti-polygamy laws are unconstitutional, and for the same reason. But, you know, love is not found in a harem, or with Solomon. It's not, excuse me, with Samson. It's not found by seeking out a prostitute somewhere.

Love is found at home. Love is more than hormonal secretions. Love is higher than hormones.

Love involves a decision. A decision of love. Go back and read the story of Abraham sending the servant off to their own people back in Mesopotamia to find him, end up finding Rebecca, to bring, to be a wife for Isaac. You read the story. Isaac chose to love her before he had ever met her. He chose to love. Love is a choice. Love involves selfless service, and it involves loyalty, and dedication, and fidelity. And there are times it involves forgiveness and forgetfulness.

A good forgetting, you know, a good forgetting of things that happen when things have been forgiven.

And it involves sacrifice and unconditional devotion. But you know, anyone can stand there and say, I do, and then a year or two later, go back through legal proceedings to essentially say, I don't. But God has called us to be among those who are devoted within our family relationships. It takes godly character to work hard to make a marriage prosper and to keep it strong. Again, the Song of Solomon, it's interesting, it might be there are different theories about the book and what it means, and the one that makes most sense to me is the one called the Shepherd Theory, where, you know, the shepherd girl rejected the advances of Solomon. She kept talking about, you know, I hear my beloved, and you have King of Israel trying to get her attention, and she would have nothing to do with him because she had a true beloved, and all of the glory of Solomon was not going to divert her eyes and her commitment to that love back home. So love must be the basis for a monogamous relationship. And then number three, a spirit of compromise destroys character. We saw that with Samson, that his great physical strength that God used in many ways to deliver that area of the children of Israel, and how it was turned, and it abated as he began compromising and looking to the world for his happiness. But with Solomon, his strong mind, his desire for wisdom and understanding so he could be a proper leader of God's people, began to be destroyed. He looked at the corruption of those around him, and he became more like them. He married repeatedly into the world and brought them into Israel. He looked into their gods. He began following into their gods and ultimately forgot the true God. And in reality, trusted in himself more than the God that had led him down a wonderful path for at least a window of time.

William Bennett, former secretary of education of this country, years ago, wrote a book that came out.

Just the title is interesting. Wait a minute, I said William Bennett.

The book Slouching Toward Gomorrah. I was thinking, was that Judge Bork? Yeah, so Judge Robert Bork, who, you know, I forget which president nominated him for Supreme Court, and he didn't make it through. Insightful book, as he looked at society, and now here we're another 20 years further down going the wrong way. The society that he described is slouching towards Gomorrah.

Well, let me go back to John Kiddo, because he had something to say about Solomon. He called him the Wise Fool. Writing about Solomon, he says, to see a man set forth as one specially gifted of God, as endowed with a surpassing measure of wisdom from above, to fit him to become a king and leader of men. For him to fall is, with the unthinking, an awful scandal upon the gifts of God.

But you know, God didn't have anything to do with Solomon's downfall.

If he also ascribes heaven-given powers to the influence of demons and commits, as most suppose, the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit, of what sin thank you is he guilty, who gives it occasion to that blasphemy? Well, let me read down a bit further. He comes back to Solomon and says, Solomon, he thought he could stand alone. He relied on his own strength. He trusted in his own heart. And we have Scripture and experience that tells us that he who trusts in his own heart is a fool.