Quakes, Samson and Sin

Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much, Michael, for the special music today. We're meaningful for this time of year, especially. So thank you very much for the time and effort and work and emotion put into it. Thank you very much. Welcome to those who are watching or listening on the webcast. It's been a nice service to offer for those who don't have services in their area or have to listen to tapes or whatever. I was mentioning one time that it's only costing us 20, 25 cents per connection for someone to watch for a two-hour service.

It's less than a postage stamp. And, of course, if there's a group there or 10 or 20 people, it could maybe just be a penny per person to watch the webcast. So it's very good use of the technology. Mr. Antion mentioned Beyond Today. We did have a record-breaking program two weeks ago, Get to Know Your Bible, by Mr. Darris McNeely.

It received 1,275 responses. That was the first time we offered our Bible study course on the Beyond Today program. And it also featured an interview with six of our ABC students from this year's class. And that program did very well and became number one. The moment after you die, which aired on March 6th, became our third highest. So that was very good, too. The program Easter Exposed also did very well. I'm sorry, the moment after you die was number one. It got pushed to number two. Our Easter program became our third best so far. Anti-Easter program, that is. And we're actually going to air that again on the Easter Sunday.

A lot of people don't even watch television on Sunday morning, so we decided to air it early this year. Once Easter morning comes, it's too late anyway, pretty much. So we aired it four weeks ahead of time, our Easter program. And it's so far our third best in response. And we'll air it again four weeks later on Easter as well. So please continue to pray for the success of Beyond Today, that God will bless us in our work and effort, that the dollars spent will go far, and that the resources will be there for us to continue.

So just an update for you on Beyond Today. There's a famous Bible story that has stood the test of time and intrigued children and adults for thousands of years. It's a story of zeal, sin, but finally triumph. It's also the story of moral decline, a moral earthquake, if you will. The largest earthquake in the world was off the coast of Chile on May 22, 1960. It was a magnitude 9.5 on the Richter scale.

Approximately 1,655 were killed, 3,000 injured, 2 million left homeless, and $500 million damage in southern Chile. Of course, remember these are 1960-dollar figures here. A tsunami caused 61 deaths and $75 million damage in Hawaii. 138 deaths and $50 million damage in Japan, 32 dead and missing in the Philippines, and $500,000 damage to the west coast of the United States. So this was the most powerful, the largest earthquake of the 20th century, back in 1960. The death toll for this huge earthquake was less than it might have been because a series of very strong foreshocks, of course each of them very strong in their own right, had made the population wary.

The earth was starting to shake and tremble. As we move into the sermon today, I'd like you to keep in mind this idea of foreshocks or warning tremors that can save a life. You've heard about the big one, right? Southern California is bracing for the big one. The San Andreas Fault could go literally at any moment. It has moved in a major way, on average, every 150 years over the past few thousand years. It has now been 300 years since it last slipped. It's twice overdue and the pressure is building.

So California is bracing for the big one. And we all know that two weeks ago Japan was hit by a massive 9.0 earthquake, which I believe is the third one, the third strongest recorded in recent times. The sciences of plate tectonics and seismology have advanced to such a degree in recent years that no earthquake is a complete surprise.

It's somewhat predictable, but of course not the exact time and date. Thus, they're expecting the big one to hit California. They know it's going to happen at some point. So scientists can accurately identify general at-risk periods and regions of the world. In 1975, for instance, seismologists forecast a major earthquake in the Liaoning Province of Manchuria. More than 2 million people were evacuated from their homes in the industrial city of Yingkao, and a little over four hours later, a massive earthquake struck.

Instead of tens of thousands of deaths, only 300 people died. They'd been warned, and they got out. They had four hours to do so. The same is true with moral earthquakes. If we allow secret faults to remain in our lives, cracking our character, we may not be able to say precisely when a moral earthquake will happen, but we can be sure that it will. Next week, next month, next year, or even as it was for our Bible hero that we're going to look at in a moment, 20 years later.

An earthquake is inevitable. Faults create an innately unstable foundation. The Apostle Paul warned us, do not be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever man sows he will also reap. It's in Galatians 6, verse 7. So what Paul is saying is, when we violate God's standards, we can be sure that we're not going to get away with it in the long run. When we break God's laws, whether they're physical laws or spiritual laws, we will eventually have to pay the consequences.

And we all know that if you jump off a tall building, you're going to come down. Gravity is going to take effect. There are physical laws that will impact you. And it's the same when it comes to spiritual laws. This is the story of the Passover. This is the story of unleavened bread. This is the story of putting every sin, no matter how small, out of our lives completely, so that the cracks of a moral earthquake do not take root in our lives.

We must avoid the big one. God's moral laws, just like his physical laws, are not to be trifled with. Break them and they'll break you. And we know that. And so the Bible reminds us in Numbers 32, verse 23, be sure your sin will find you out. You don't get away with it forever. We can't violate God's spiritual laws and get away with it.

So we're going to cover a subject today that is unfortunately timeless. It's the subject of sin. Let's introduce the subject with the hero of our story, Samson. The story of Samson gives us a window into the deception of sin and how it can take over a person's life.

There's much caution in this story for us to take note of, particularly at this time of year as we get ready for our living bread and taking the pass over. In the sermon today, I've divided it up into seven sections that focus on the danger of sin, and I've titled this message, Quakes, Samson, and Sin, avoiding the big one.

Quakes, Samson, and Sin, I guess a colon then, avoiding the big one. And as you'll see, the example of Samson is generally not a good one, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. This true story, one of the most well-known in all the Bible, especially by children, because of course, who doesn't like to read a story about a superman, provides an important insight into deception and sin, and we must not be deceived. Samson is a striking biblical example of a man who suffered a moral slide, and he's all too familiar story is told in the book of Judges, beginning around about chapter 13.

He was a man who had it all going for him. He was young, strong, handsome, and influential. He was a natural leader, and his life story is one made for children's books. He came from a good family, and he enjoyed all the advantages of a solid upbringing, yet in the end, despite the advantages he had, his life ended in ruin.

Of course, it didn't just happen. In fact, Samson's demise was preceded by years of secret little faults, four shocks that he should have taken note of that we might be tempted to believe there was hardly anything to them. But in fact, these four shocks in Samson's life ran their course for 20 years, cracking his character beneath the surface. So what was it that really caused Samson's failure? Many of us who have a casual acquaintance with the story might be tempted to exclaim, Delilah.

It was that conniving woman. He was undone by that conniving woman, Delilah. And the movies in Hollywood, the children's books, tend to make a big deal about Delilah. Almost everything written and taught about Samson and his ultimate failure centers on her. We're all too prone to think that she was his greatest fault, the root of his downfall.

But in reality, some 20 years before that, a few secret faults began to run their course through the character of his life, cracking it here and there, finally resulting in a catastrophic moral earthquake. Delilah just happened to be there at the end. It's easy even for us to slip into sinful habits, moral compromises, ethical lapses or spiritual accommodations that we might rationalize away as unimportant if we're not careful.

Cracks in our character, regardless of how imperceptible they may seem at first, can eventually cause uncalculable damage in our life at 9.5. We may deceive ourselves. Leonardo da Vinci said, the greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions. And of course, we must base our opinions on the Word of God. Da Vinci said, the greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions. So let's take a look at seven key points to help us be aware of the danger of deception that can lead to sin. What can we learn from the life of Samson? How can we avoid the big one?

And the first section I've titled, commit yourself to God. Commit yourself to God. And of course, that's the foundation of our spiritual life, isn't it? There was a cyclical pattern in the history of Israel during the tumultuous days of the judges.

The people would indulge in sin and rebellion for a period, and as a result, they would fall captive to their oppressors, usually evil oppressors. Then in the midst of their slavery, in the midst of their servitude, they would cry out to God and repent. And God would mercifully deliver them by raising up a champion or a good judge. But then, in their newfound freedom, they would be lulled into a sense of complacency, and then the cycle would repeat itself once again, and then they'd go into servitude again.

And the story of Samson is set against this backdrop. Once again, the people of Israel find themselves under the fierce tyranny of the Philistines. Samson's birth, then, is an answer to prayer for a childless couple. And in addition, an angel of the Lord announces that Samson will one day be a champion to deliver his people from this bondage of the Philistines. Let's turn to Judges 13, verse 1.

Judges 13, verse 1. What we see here, Israel about to be delivered from the Philistines, is in response to Israel admitting its sin and committing itself to God again, at least for a period of time. So Israel has decided to commit itself to God again, and so God is about to deliver a good judge, a champion, someone to free them. Judges 13, verse 1. Again, the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord, or the eternal, delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for 40 years. And it basically went in 40-year cycles.

Good 40 years and a bad 40 years. Good 40 years and a bad 40 years. Verse 2 now, there was a certain man from Zorah of the family of the Danites whose name was Manoah, and his wife was barren and had no children. And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, Indeed now you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. Verse 4, Now therefore please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean, for behold you shall conceive and bear a son, and no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. So you notice the great advantages that Samson had. He was dedicated from birth.

He was a true gift to a godly couple. He was given a special calling. Indeed, he did prove to be strong and clever, winsome, the sort of young man destined for success in life. As I mentioned in the introduction, he had it all going for him. At this point in the narrative, the nation of Israel approached about 40 years or one full generation of oppression. So God raised up a deliverer when the nation turned back to God and was recommitted to him, raised up Samson of the tribe of Dan. He was the son of Manoah, whose wife had been barren. And though you'll see throughout the scriptures that God often used a barren woman to bear one through whom he would work. You ever notice that? This was done as a sign of God's involvement with the child from the start, from the womb, and that any glory and any accomplishment would be due to God, not to the person. Manoah's wife was visited by the angel of the Lord, whom they later understood to be God himself, that is, the one who became Jesus Christ, which this may have been. Manoah recognized the seriousness of the news and asked God how to raise the child. Notice verse 8. Manoah and his wife instinctively knew that if they were to raise a son who would do the works of God, they would need divine assistance in their parenting. Judges 13 verse 8. Then Manoah prayed to the Lord and said, Oh, my Lord, please let the man of God whom you sent come to us again. He wanted that angel to come back, which actually was God, and teach us what we shall do for the child who will be born.

This is certainly the case for parents today, isn't it? Because we live in a world that is largely lacking in godly values. We who have children need to ask God for wisdom in the process of rearing them. Do we, just like Manoah did, need to make sure we ask God how to do the best job? So God prepared to deliver Israel from their oppressors through the person of Samson after the nation admitted the error of their ways and turned back to a commitment with God, a full commitment to God. And seeking His teaching is the first step in avoiding the big one.

That leads us to number two, which is avoid the situation that precedes the sin.

Avoid the situation that precedes the sin.

Samson was particularly advantaged. In fact, we are told that he was a Nazarite from his mother's womb even she wasn't allowed to drink wine while she was pregnant with him.

And Nazarite was someone peculiarly set apart for the work of God. He was distinguished in holiness by three vows that he was to keep forever for his whole life. First, he vowed never to drink wine or eat grapes or raisins. Second, he vowed never to touch a dead body or an unclean body because he was to live a separated holy life unsullied by the curse of death. And third, he vowed to never cut his hair. All that is in Numbers 6 if you want to read about it. Numbers 6 verses 2 through 8 especially. Each of these vows outwardly represented an inward commitment to God. And they were intended to be the external symbols of an internal reality of how this person was living his life. And so when men and women saw a Nazarite walking down the street, they immediately recognized him as a man of commitment, a man of resolve, a man who was striving to live by the Word of God. Now sadly, Samson trivialized his status as a Nazarite early on in his life. Notice Judges chapter 14 verse 1. And I'm pretty much just going to stay in the book of Judges here today and not go elsewhere. Judges 14 verse 1. Of course, we're talking about avoiding the situation that precedes the sin. Now Samson went down to Timnah and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. The Philistines were pagans.

They were the very oppressors God had raised Samson up to defeat. Yet there he was. Samson knew better, but still he went. That was his first mistake. Now the account says that he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. Right then and there he was smitten.

God warned the Israelites about marrying outside of their faith.

Samson was supposed to be different, a Nazarite, representing God's way of doing things. And yet there he is down in Timnah with the Philistines. Thomas Jefferson, the third U.S. president, said, do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.

And of course, right here we see Samson biting at the hook. And he hasn't checked very far.

It seems that Samson was completely dominated by the desires of his flesh. It doesn't say he had a conversation with her. It doesn't say he'd even met her. He knew nothing about her except what she looked like. Was Samson avoiding a situation that could cause him to slip into sin, even violate his Nazarite vows? Was Samson following the advice of the Lord regarding marital relationships? We too must put God first in our life. We must avoid every situation that may cause us to fall short of the mark, to sin. Anything that comes between us and our Father in heaven is nothing short of idolatry. Samson was where he should not have been, down there at Timna, down there with the godless people, down there among the Philistines. He was not avoiding a situation that could lead him to fall short of his calling. And as we proceed, you'll see that the cracks in Samson's character, what at first seem to be minor foreshocks, finally explode into an unstoppable situation, and he gets hit by a 9.5.

What can we learn from this? How can we avoid the big one? So remember, first of all, or second of all now, avoid the situation that may precede a sin. Thirdly, heed wise counsel. Heed wise counsel. Judges 14 verse 2.

So Samson went up and he told his father and mother, saying, I've seen a woman in Timna of the daughters of the Philistines, now therefore get her for me as a wife.

He went back home and he said, Mom, I found the one. Dad, go down there and get her for me. He was ready for his parents to begin arranging the marriage.

And he had yet, it seems to even meet, his prospective bride.

And so thus began the small quakes in his character. Of course, Samson knew better. He was an Azerite. But he persisted in his obstinate commitment to fleshly desires. And it seems he's rather arrogant, too, when you see the way he's talking to his parents. Judges 14 verse 3. Then his father and mother said to him, Is there no woman among the daughters of your brethren, or among all my people, that you must go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said to his father, Get her for me, for she pleases me well.

His dad said, Look, this isn't how he brought you up, son.

This isn't what we taught you. Today we might say, Couldn't you at least find someone who's in God's church?

Couldn't you find someone of our faith who would be able to help you raise your children in the truth?

But Samson would hear none of that.

He was resolute in his passion. He said, Get her for me. I know what I'm doing. I can handle it.

Samson decided that he knew what was better for him. And so he rejected the wise counsel of his parents.

Samson did not heed wise counsel. And his relationship with the woman from Timna actually ended in a mind-numbing catastrophe.

Notice the first part of verse 5. So Samson went down to Timna with his father and mother and came to the vineyards of Timna.

Where did he go? The vineyards of Timna.

Almost without warning, Samson comes precariously close to violating one of his basic vows as a Nazarite.

To avoid even the appearance of evil, a Nazarite would stay clear of a vineyard.

A Nazarite was not even allowed to eat as much as a single raisin or a grape leaf in a Greek salad. They stayed away from everything to do with the vine, and of course, especially, the wine itself. Yet there he was, walking through the vineyard, flagrantly coming close to defiling his vow.

Why go anywhere near a vineyard if you're a Nazarite?

The fact is, when we let a little fault begin to spread, we are well on our way toward a moral quake. One thing can then lead to another, and we find ourselves irretrievably on the downgrade.

And Samson avoided the wise counsel of his parents. Contrary to scriptural principles and wise counsel, Samson then married a Philistine woman, who was eventually given away to another man, by the way.

He could have chosen any Israelite woman, but Samson allowed his impulsive desire, rather than his faith-guided counsel, to control his behavior. And he appears lustful and arrogant about it. What's the lesson for us today?

At little leaven, leaven's the whole lump.

And so, Samson descended even further into sin, because he was unwilling to control his desire and submit to God. Next, he went to a Philistine harlot, Samson was now fully set to follow his lust.

So a key point in avoiding deception and sin, in avoiding the big one, is to heed wise counsel, even to the point of listening to your parents, by the way.

Then, number four, replace wrong actions with righteous actions.

Replace wrong actions with righteous actions.

So what should the hero of our story do? Next time, he should steer clear of the vineyard. Don't go there, right? Do something positive and right and godly to replace something wrong. Notice Judges 14, verse 5 again, the last part of verse 5 now.

A lion attacked Samson while he's in the vineyard.

Judges 14, verse 5, Now to his surprise, a young lion came roaring against him. And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion apart, as one would have torn apart a young goat, though he had nothing in his hand. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he'd done. Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson well.

Sin has consequences.

We may be ingenious in our efforts to avoid those consequences, as Samson was when he faced the lion in the vineyard. But ultimately, even our best efforts at ingenuity are to no avail. And I sometimes wonder, this is just speculation on my part, if God didn't allow that lion to be there in the vineyard, to threaten his life, to wake Samson up, as a warning, saying, you shouldn't be here, Samson. This is not a place for you.

You just sometimes wonder if God didn't warn Samson when this lion attacked him. It's possible, I guess. Many Bible authorities feel that throughout his life, Samson did disregard his first Nazarite vow, regarding grapes and wine.

And it's felt that Samson only took one of his vows seriously, that of not cutting his hair. Or did he?

Could some of these initial quakes lead to a major 9.5 in his life?

Did it happen in the life of Samson?

What about you and me?

What do we allow into our lives that we shouldn't?

How seriously do we take this holiday season to root out all of our character flaws and faults, all of our own little fault lines and mini quakes and foreshocks, in order that we will prevent the big one in our life?

One compromise can lead to the next. Samson very nearly met with disaster because he was where he never should have been, doing what he never should have been doing with someone he never should have been with.

Yet lo and behold, at the very next opportunity, he returned for more.

It was almost as if he was winking at danger and sin.

He apparently thought he could get away with about anything. Benjamin Franklin, the American scientist, said, sin is not hurtful because it is forbidden, but it is forbidden because it is hurtful. God doesn't want us to get hurt. He wants us to obey him for our own good.

Samson was continuing in his sinful actions, and there was no righteous behavior to counteract it. Look at verse 8 now. After some time, when he returned to get her, he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion.

And behold, a swarm of bees and honey were in the carcass of the lion. He took some of it in his hands and went along eating. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them, and they also ate.

But he did not tell them he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion.

So, Samson returned to the vineyard. Wrong move! Wrong move. We know that, okay? But when he did, he turned aside to revisit his narrow escape, and there he violated the second of his Nazarite vows, that he would not touch an unclean or a dead body. So not only does Samson touch the carcass of the lion he had slain, he actually eats from it. Samson is not doing anything here to replace his sinful actions with righteous actions.

He continues to revisit the scene of the crime or the scene of the sin, and he's setting himself up here for a bigger fall, a much bigger fall.

Despite such promising beginnings, Samson is showing himself susceptible to being foolishly enticed. God did not want the Israelites intermarrying with pagan Gentiles, but Samson took a Philistine woman as his first wife.

Also, Samson as a Nazarite should have avoided any uncleanness, but he took the honey from the carcass of the lion, which would have rendered the honey unclean. You can read about that in Leviticus 11, especially verses 24 on Leviticus 11-24.

In short, Samson was a hard-headed man, but God would use that as a means of provoking the Philistines and eventually delivering Israel.

So one of the keys to avoiding sin is to put righteousness into our life, to replace the sinful actions and avoid a major spiritual quake.

And so far in the story, we do not see Samson living up to these standards.

Number five, stay close to God.

Stay close to God. Of course, number one was commit yourself to God, but now you've got to continue that commitment and stay close to God.

Notice Judges 15 verse 6.

Judges 15 tells the story of the demise of his relationship with the woman from Temna.

Judges 15 verse 6. And the Philistine said, who has done this?

And what had happened was, and of course we skipped over quite a bit of the story here, Samson caught 300 foxes and burned down a vast amount of Philistine grain, vineyards and olive groves. First of all, I'm not quite sure how you catch 300 foxes, but anyway, Samson caught 300 foxes. He tied their tails together and put torches between them and sent them off across the land and burned down the Philistine crops and trees and olive groves and all kinds of stuff. So the Philistine said, who has done this?

And they answered, Samson, the son-in-law of the Temnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion. See, what happened was, when Samson went to get his wife, down in Temna, the dad said, oh, I'm sorry, I already gave her away to somebody else. Actually, it was someone Samson knew. The dad said, I gave her to one of your companions.

And so Samson got angry. You can't do that to me. And Zoffie went and burned down all the crops. So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire.

So then her and her dad were burned alive. That's what happened to Samson's first wife.

His marriage ended in tragedy. Now, remember, all these events we've read about so far here today occurred some 20 years before Samson met Delilah.

It appears that he thought he could get away with violating his Nazarite vows without diminishing his effectiveness. He still had his strength.

And carried along by the passions of the moment, he somehow forgot that actions always have consequences. And those consequences may not be immediate. They're not happening to you right now. But they are sure, nonetheless, your sin will find you out. God is not mocked.

It would be 20 years before Samson was finally undone. But the stage was set in those vineyards of Timna.

The cracks in his character made the foundations of his life less secure. His secret faults, well hidden beneath the surface to some, made what seemed to be unimaginable all too inevitable.

Twenty years later, Samson met Delilah.

And then came the final blow.

And thus, his life ended in ruin.

But disasters don't just happen. They're always preceded by faults.

And so it is with all of us. And marriage just doesn't fall apart.

It's slowly and imperceptibly undermined over a long span of time.

Cracks in the integrity of the relationship finally erupt into a catastrophic quake, and then there's a divorce or something.

In the same way, ethical violations in the workplace all begin with small indiscretions but end in great devastation. We must stay close to God to avoid such happenings.

If we don't stay close to God and avoid the warning signs of sin, we will fall, just like Samson did. Almost everyone has heard of the term slippery slope.

And that phrase refers to some sort of process that occurs so smoothly, many times unwarily, that whoever is on that slope cannot perceive it until it's too late and then you can't get off. You can't get back up again.

Most people don't wake up one morning and think, you know, I think I'm going to begin an affair today.

It doesn't happen like that. It's more imperceptible than that. Instead, it takes place in stages, one leading to another in a sort of a chain reaction. But once you're on that slippery slope, if you don't quickly avert your slide, you'll drift ever downward, unable to arrest your inertia. And eventually, then, the speed carries us further than we ever thought possible.

So it's vital that we stay close to God.

I will turn to James 4, verse 7, for a moment here. James 4, verse 7 and verse 8. And verse 8.

James 4, verse 7, we read, Therefore submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Verse 8, Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

And so that's our point. Stay close to God.

You would think that somewhere along the way, Samson would have learned his lesson.

But sadly, though, his disappointing experiences with the Philistines only deepened the pattern of rebellion in his life, exacerbating the cracks in his character.

Samson claimed belief in God, but he didn't act like it. He said, I'm an Azerite. I got long hair.

That was about as far as it seems to have gone right now. An expediency had made a mockery of his confession as an Azerite, and before long, it reduced his life to utter ruin.

By the time Samson had his infamous encounter with the tempterous Delilah, he had actually reinforced his impassioned, rebellious habits for some 20 years. And during that time, the character of Samson had become so damaged, so weakened by secret faults, cracks in his character that he was unable to stop himself.

And even in the face of obvious danger, he became a slave to his passions.

And you can read about some of those other sins in the intervening chapters of Judges 15 and 16. There's a whole lot more to the story of what he did in his life, including prostitution, touching more dead animals, and generally relying on himself instead of the strength that actually came from God.

You know, just because you have long hair doesn't do anything. Obviously, the strength was coming from God, and he tended to forget that. And you'll see that in the rest of Judges 15 and 16 there.

The slope for Samson had gotten too slippery.

And this is what happens when we don't stay close to God. We will not see the big one coming. And then, number six, don't become enticed.

Don't become enticed.

Judges 16, verse 4.

Afterward, of course this is 20 years later now, it happened that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. Verse 5.

Verse 6.

Queen Elizabeth said, I pray to God that I shall not live one hour after I have thought of using deception.

Deception is a terrible thing. It's a tannic.

Apparently, Samson still had some of his wits about him, and he lied to her.

Delilah, who was intent on her betrayal, proceeded to bind him while he slept.

I don't think I could sleep that deeply just by the way.

But when his attackers came out of hiding, they came into the bedchamber and pounced on him. Samson, of course, surprised them all. He snapped off the ropes, and then he furiously smote them.

And what's amazing is Samson failed to learn from this betrayal and his narrow escape. He was so smitten by his attraction to Delilah that it remains captive to her affections.

And in a very real sense, Samson went from dumb to dumber.

Just as we do when we become slaves to our temptations, become captive to our temptations. And so, undeterred, Delilah pressed her ploy further. And although Samson was toying with complete disaster, he kept his wits about him, and he deceived Delilah again. And so Delilah called the Philistines out of hiding, and once again, Samson defeated them handily. Then notice verse 13, now the third time. Delilah said to Samson, "'Until now you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me what you may be bound with.' And he said to her, "'If you weave the seven locks of my head into the web of the loom.'" Notice Samson has weakened a little here.

On this third attempt, he came tantalizingly close to telling her the truth.

He'd become so overconfident that he thought he'd get away with almost anything. And that's what habitual lying and sin can do to us. We become myopic in our thinking. We can become enticed.

The Greek philosopher Plato said, "'Pleasure is the bait of sin.' Pleasure is the bait of sin." And that's what Satan uses to tempt us. That's the bait. Notice verse 15, then he 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 have not told me where your great strength lies.'" That line may be the oldest cliché in the book, right?

And so, like many before and so many since, Samson fell for it.

Delilah pestered until, finally, his resistance was worn down and he relented.

It's remarkable that, in spite of knowing what Delilah was up to, three or four times before being attacked as a result, Samson actually told her the truth.

He'd become so entrenched in this way now. Judges 16 verse 16, and it came to pass when she pestered him daily with her words and pressed him so that his soul was vexed to death.

She was whining so much. Verse 17, that he told her all his heart and said to her, No razor has ever come upon my head, for I have been a Nazarite to God from my mother's womb. If I am shaven, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man.

Even in the midst of his final collapse, Samson could still articulate the truth.

He still understood the significance of his Nazarite calling. Of course, he had not lived up to it.

He could still stand there and pronounce the truth in a persuasive manner. But he wasn't living it, was he?

Right up until the time of the whole collapse, he could still speak the truth.

And the lesson for us is that you have to live it, not just know it. And so Delilah finally overcame him. As Abraham Lincoln said, you can fool some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.

That night, Samson's ruin was assured.

Delilah cut away his long Nazarite braids, and the final remnant of his righteous commitment was shorn from his life.

Samson was not close to God. He didn't follow his Nazarite vows, and he paid the penalty for it.

Overpowered and blinded by the Philistines, he was afterwards forced to grind wheat.

Some commentators suggest that he ground wheat as the women did, using a grinding stone and a plate, but others suggest that he was harnessed to a grinding stone as a beast of burden. You may remember from the old Bible study courses from the old days, Basil Wahlwarden's cartoons, the Samson, the drawing, pulling the grindstone around, grinding the wheat for the Philistines.

For years, he had flaunted his power over the Philistines, and now his enemies flaunted their power over him. While he was forced to live out his final days like an ox, like an animal, and his humiliation was complete, the Philistines took him, they put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza. They bound him with bronze feathers, and he became a grinder in the prison.

Samson was blind, bound, and belittled.

For their parties, for their festive occasions, probably in front of the God Dagon, the Philistines would bring him out to mock him and to mock his God.

Samson lost his strength, he lost his sight, he lost his freedom, he lost his usefulness, he lost his reputation, he lost everything.

But it didn't just happen.

It was preceded by secret faults. That finally led to a 9.5.

What lesson is there in all this for us? Think about this during the Passover season.

How many cracks are we allowing to form in our life?

What are we doing about it?

Are we turning to God every day, and changing, and growing, and repenting? Don't become enticed in the past by the world.

Watch out for the big one.

This leads us to the seventh point, the last one, and that is, join the list of the faithful.

Join the list of the faithful.

In our story, we now turn to the point where we see Samson himself turning to God.

And here is a lesson for us, point seven, join the list of the faithful. Notice Judges 16 verse 25.

The Philistines had a great feast, as they often did. So it happened when their hearts were merry that they said, call for Samson, that he may perform for us. So they called for Samson from the prison, and he performed for them as they stationed him between the pillars. So it's almost like they just saw him as a circus act. They had the man of God. They wanted him to perform for them. Blind, bound, belittled. Samson was a little more than a humorous sidelight, a grotesque freak show.

Notice verse 26. Then Samson said to the lad who held him by the hand, let me feel the pillars which support the temple so that I can lean on them. Verse 27. Verse 27. Now the temple was full of men and women. All the lords of the Philistines were there. About 3,000 men and women on the roof watching while Samson performed. Verse 28. Then Samson called to the eternal, saying, O Lord God, remember me, I pray. Strengthen me, I pray, just this once, O God, that I may with one blow take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes. Then Samson took hold of the two middle pillars which supported the temple, and he braced himself against them, one on his right and the other on his left. In verse 30, then Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people who were in it, so the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life.

And the final scene is well known.

Samson brings down the temple by toppling two pillars which killed him and all the Philistine lords within.

Until recently, critics thought it very unlikely that this actually happened. That's just a dramatic myth.

How could a whole temple, when you've seen, you know, the Parthenon in Athens, how could a whole temple be destroyed by toppling two huge stone pillars?

Well, just this past decade, archaeologists finally excavated an ancient Philistine temple.

They fully excavated it, revealing that the structure of the temple rested entirely upon two central pillars barely six feet apart.

Go figure.

And given the weight distribution on these pillars, it would have been entirely possible and likely for this biblical story to have ended just as it's recorded in the Book of Judges. The end of Samson's life is a solemn reminder that there are consequences for sin. For 20 years, Samson assumed that he could ignore all of the secret faults that lay beneath the surface of his life. But he was wrong.

The tectonic plates finally collided in a major way.

He thought he could get away with a few minor indiscretions from time to time, but he couldn't. Thankfully, at long last, he realized that the strength he once possessed was not his, but God's.

With all of his great advantages thoroughly squandered, Samson finally began to understand as he ground that wheat hour after hour in blindness.

He surrendered his life completely to the will and purpose of the Almighty God.

But it's almost a tearful thing.

As the saying goes, better late than never.

But do we have to go through that ourselves before we will turn to God fully?

And now we find Samson listed in the faith chapter in Hebrews 11 verse 32. Let's turn to Hebrews 11 verse 32. This is so encouraging.

We can turn to God at any time, even when all seems lost.

Samson's name was, and is in the end, recorded in the Hall of Faith. Hebrews 11 verse 32. What more shall I say?

For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson.

Jephthah also of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight, the armies of the aliens.

The lesson in it for us?

Don't wait for the 9.5 to hit you, to hit me, spiritually.

Join the list of the faithful now.

Become listed in the faith Hall of Fame.

Let me just take a couple of minutes for those of you who are interested in biblical typology.

The story of Samson appears to offer, to a limited degree, a type of Christ.

Let me take a couple of minutes just to give you a few additional thoughts you may want to put into your notes about Samson. Just for a couple of minutes here.

Samson's name means like the sun. Samson means like the sun, S-U-N. And he was Israel's deliverer and strong man.

Now Christ is called the son of righteousness in Malachi 4.2. S-U-N. He's also called a son and shield, S-U-N, in Psalm 84.11. And of course Christ is Israel's deliverer and strong man.

Compare that to Luke 11.21-22 as well, if you want. So Samson's name means like the sun.

Samson had miraculous physical strength.

Christ had miraculous spiritual strength.

Samson's conception was announced by spirit messenger from God, as was Christ's.

Both Manoa's wife and Mary conceived as a result of divine intervention. Samson was separated to God from conception and for the entirety of his life, as was Christ.

Though Christ was not a Nazarite, as some seem to think. Christ was not a Nazarite. Samson's greatest victory came at the hour of his death, as did Christ's.

Of course, there are some marked differences between them, too. The typology breaks down when we see Samson unwilling to submit to God for so much of his life, unlike Christ who obeyed his father perfectly. But still, there are some interesting parallels here in the story. Samson is a striking biblical example of a man who suffered a moral slide. Of course, it didn't just happen.

Samson's demise was preceded by years of little faults. Faults that began so small, so imperceptibly, that we might be tempted to believe there was hardly anything to them. And as we know, these faults ran their course in his life for two decades, cracking his character beneath the surface, but ending in a 9.5, ending in the big one for Samson. Thankfully, at the end of his life, he realized that his strength he once possessed was not his, but was God's.

With all of his advantages gone, Samson finally began to understand.

We can learn from his mistakes. That's why the story is here for us to read, to learn from it, to take note of it. So, I trust that these seven points we've covered today will be helpful to us all, as we strive to draw closer to God, admit our sins, repent, not allow ourselves to be deceived, avoid the pitfalls of human nature, put sin out of our lives, like that proverbial breadcrumb, and make the very most of this Passover season.