From His Heart

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Today on From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve, learn the inevitable harm that comes when you play with fire.

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The message of Samson says, God's not done with you either. And I don't care how much you've sinned. I don't care what you've done. I don't care how bad it's been. If you get your heart right with him, he will abundantly pardon and he will use your life yet again.

And maybe you only have a few months to live or maybe it's a few years to live. Whatever it is, you can come to your senses now. You can get your life right with him now. You can get serious about serving him with the time that you have left.

The challenge is, will you get right and will you get serious? He can heal every scar with real truth, real love, real hope. From his heart.

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Samson is just about everybody's favorite Old Testament Bible character. He was a Hebrew he-man, but he had a terrible weakness. A physical giant, but a moral midget. He could conquer anything except his own lusts. And there are great lessons we can learn from the life of Samson.

Hello. This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve. And thank you for being with us today for part two of the lesson called "When You Play With Fire." It's from Pastor Jeff's new 10-message series, "Before There Were Kings: The Cost of Compromise." We've been in this series all this month, and this is the second to last message of the group.

If you're interested in getting this series, which will be a real blessing to you, go online to fromhisheart.org and make a gift of any amount to From His Heart, and we'll send it to you in the format of your choice. All 10 lessons—again, go to fromhisheart.org right now. Open your Bible to the Book of Judges, chapter 13. Here again is Pastor Jeff.

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So let me share with you five lessons from the life of Samson. And the last lesson is filled with hope.

**Lesson number one.** Every Christian has a high calling in Jesus Christ. Samson had a high calling. I mean, his birth was very, very special. And so many times in Scripture, the Lord comes to a woman who can't have children, and this special child is born. And so you're to give birth to a son. He shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines. He’s going to be a Nazarite from the womb, a Nazarite from his birth. Now, how does that relate to us? Well, every Christian has a high calling in the Lord. Ephesians 4:1 states, "I therefore, Paul, says, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called." Every Christian has a high calling in Jesus Christ.

**Second lesson.** Every Christian must take his calling seriously. Now this is one of the big downfalls in Samson's life. He never seemed to take seriously what he was called to do: to be a Nazarite and to begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines. Now, God's gifts for you and me are tools, not toys. If God has given you a gift, you need to use that gift for His glory. And God's commands are not suggestions.

**Lesson number three.** Every Christian must beware the lust of the flesh. Every single Christian, especially Christian men, must beware the lust of the flesh. Isn't it interesting about Samson? This he-man with a she-weakness. The very first words out of his mouth that are recorded in Scripture are these: Chapter 14, verse 2, "I saw a woman." I bet you did. You're seeing women a lot. Samson was dominated by the lust of the flesh, and it caused him so much trouble. He says to his mom and dad, "I saw a woman, get her for me." Now when he says to them, "Get her for me," why does he want to marry her? What does he know about her? Is he enthralled with her personality? Does he like the way she treats her parents? Is she a godly person that he would want to be with? No, he doesn't know anything about her like that. He just knows she is good-looking.

Now we can cut him some slack here because guys see with their eyes. Every guy in this room knows that when you see a girl, especially when you're younger, you just latch on. She's pretty; she looks good to me. I'd like to get to know her. There's nothing wrong with that. But it can't just be that. And Samson, because he could not control his lust in his heart, got into all kinds of trouble.

Now remember, this sexual sin starts when a look turns to a longing. When a look turns to a longing. It's not a sin to see something that is not appropriate for you to see. You know, you can't control everything that you see. You can't control the first look. You can control the second look. And so Samson sees a woman. He longs for this woman. He lusts for this woman. "I have to have this woman." Well, she's a pagan. Who cares? I want her, and I get what I want.

Matthew 15:19 states, "For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders." It comes out of the heart. The eye sees what the heart desires. And Samson desired the flesh. He had a she-weakness.

And sexual sin, you say, "Well, what do I do about that?" Because there's a pull in me to want to look and to want to keep looking. What do I do with that? Well, sexual sin is a problem for most guys. It's a problem for girls too, but it’s really a problem for most guys. What do you do with that? Well, sexual sin is defeated through safeguards. Samson didn't have any safeguards. He didn't want any safeguards. He was very careless. He was very unfocused on what his mission was to deliver Israel.

You say, "What do I do with sexual sin?" Well, you put up the safeguard. 1 Corinthians 6:18 states, "Flee immorality. Every other sin a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body." Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own, for you have been bought with a price? Therefore glorify God in your bodies.

You know, Joseph, in the book of Genesis, was confronted by Potiphar's wife. And I don't think Potiphar's wife was an unattractive woman. She wanted to have sexual relations with Joseph. One day, she grabbed his coat and said, "Lie with me." He spun out of that coat and ran. Because that's the way you deal with sexual sin. You have to get out of that place. You have to saturate that place with your absence and say, "I can't handle this. It's too much temptation." So you flee it.

Romans 13:14 states, "Make no provision for the flesh with regard to its lusts. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh with regard to its lusts." You don't go there. Debbie would tell our girls when they were teenagers, "Listen, what does it take to be pure? In dating, it's all about geography. Location, location, location. Don't put yourself in a place where it's just going to be you and a guy and there's opportunity there. You need to have other people around. You need to know that at any moment mom and dad can come into the living room and bust you."

And so you have to watch for that. Don't make provision for the flesh. And then accountability. James 5:16 states, "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." Yes, we confess our sins to God, but we need to have a trusted brother or sister in the Lord that we can confess to and say, "Hey, will you help me with this? Will you hold me accountable in this area because I am weak?"

And listen, every guy, you're going to struggle with the lust of the flesh. You're going to struggle with women, or you're going to struggle with power, or you're going to struggle with money. Sometimes you'll struggle with more than one of those things. Everybody struggles with something. Ever get the idea that you can graduate in the Christian life to the place where you're not tempted by anything? That's just not true.

And so Samson judged Israel for 20 years, and it's at the end of the 20 years that he falls prey to Delilah. Chuck Swindoll says, "Hey, that sin can be dormant, but it's not dead. It still can rear its ugly head." So beware the lust of the flesh.

**Lesson number four.** Every Christian must know that sin will bring devastation. I mean, we have to know that and remind ourselves of that over and over and over again. But each one is tempted, the book of James says, when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. And when lust is conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death every single time. Sin is not your friend.

And sin can really look good. You know, that person that is not your spouse can really look good. But you just remind yourself, if I go in that direction, it's going to lead to death. It does every single time. Sin is not your friend. And so we have to keep telling ourselves that there is a high cost to pay. It will bring devastation.

Now, you can't play around with sin. That's one of Samson's biggest problems. He kept playing around. He would play at the edges of sin. He thought he could handle it. So it says in chapter 16, verse 4, "After this, it came about that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah." Her name, the root of her name, means to impoverish or to weaken. Isn't that interesting? Because she's going to weaken him.

The strong man came about that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, "Entice him and see where his great strength lies and how we may overpower him, so that we may bind him and afflict him." Very straightforward. "Then we will each give you 1100 pieces of silver." That's 28 pounds of silver. And there are five lords of the Philistines, five cities of the Philistines. So it's going to be a hefty sum, probably in today's money, anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000.

So Delilah, verse 6, said to Samson, "Please tell me where your great strength is and how you may be bound to afflict you." Very straightforward, right? I mean, she's not trying to be deceitful at all. "Hey, I need to know your secret so that we can bind you and afflict you." And you would think Samson would be like, "Whoa, no, I mean, I thought we had something going here. I loved you." Never says that she loved him. Obviously, she didn't. But she just lays it out there, and you think, "Well, how dumb can Samson be?"

I don't think he was dumb. I think he was blinded by arrogance. "I am bulletproof. I am Samson. I can kill a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. What can you possibly do to me?" So he thinks it's a game. He's all the time wanting to play. And so he's like, "Oh, okay, well, I'll play along." So he tells her, "Oh, okay, this is how you can bind me. If you get some fresh ropes."

"Oh yeah, tie me up with fresh ropes, and then I'll be weak as any man." And so she does it. "The Philistines are upon you, Samson." Then he breaks them like it's nothing. And she said, "Well, you lied to me." He said, "Tell me the truth." "Okay, well, if you do this." And he comes up with another scenario, another kind of rope that you put on me. "Oh, tie me tightly with this." And so she does it. "The Philistines are upon you, Samson." And he breaks it like it's nothing. And he laughs. He thinks, "This is so funny."

And she keeps on. And she says, "Well, you're not telling me the truth." And he says, "Well, you know, if you take my hair," he had to have a lot of it, right? It's everywhere. Razors never come upon his head. He said, "If you take my hair and you kind of weave it into a bunch of... then I'll be weak as any man." And so she does it. And then she says the same thing every time, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson."

But he pulls out the pin that was holding the bun and shakes himself and says, "I'm ready to go." He thought it was so funny. He's playing around with sin. You can't play with sin. Playing with sin is like playing with a poisonous snake. It's playing with fire. You keep playing with fire, playing with fire, playing with fire. You're going to eventually get burned. And he's fixing to get burned.

So she says to him in verse 15 of chapter 16, "Then she said to him, 'How can you say I love you when your heart is not with me? You have deceived me these three times and have not told me where your great strength lies.'" And it came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him that his soul was annoyed to death. It says in one version that he wanted to die. She just was on and on and on.

Verse 17 states, "So he told her all that was in his heart and said to her, 'A razor has never come on my head, for I have been a Nazarite to God from my mother's womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I will become weak and be like any other man.'" When Delilah saw that he had told her all that was in his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, "Come up once more, for he has told me all that is in his heart."

Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands. She made him sleep on her knees and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his hair. Then she began to afflict him, and his strength left him. And she said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson." And he awoke from sleep and said, "I will go out as at other times and shake myself free." But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him.

I think that verse 20 is one of the most chilling verses in all of the Old Testament. He didn't know that the Lord had departed from him. He thought it was just going to be like another time. "I'll just shake myself free." Listen. His strength wasn't in his hair. His strength was in his God. But the hair was a symbol of his strength. And when the hair was gone, he broke the third of his Nazarite vows. And boom. The Lord took His hand off Samson. And Samson, the strong man, now wasn't strong anymore. He played around with sin, and he got burned.

And listen, you pay a high price for playing around with sin. What happened? Verse 21 states, "Then the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes. And they brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze chains. And he was a grinder in the prison." Gouged out his eyes. Can you imagine? They take Samson and they blind him. And then they bind him. And then they make him grind at the mill. That's a good little rhyme for us to remember. What does sin do? Sin blinds you, and then it binds you. You're going to get caught up in sin. You're going to get chained to the sin. And then it grinds you down.

You pay a high price for sin. I pay a high price for sin. Nobody gets away with sin. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to the flesh, as Samson did, will from the flesh reap corruption. But the one who sows to the spirit shall from the spirit reap eternal life. You and I have to remember and remind ourselves constantly that sin will bring devastation.

**And then lesson number five.** And this is the encouraging lesson of his life. Every Christian must remember that God is gracious. If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, oh, Lord, who could stand? Psalm 130 tells us, "But there is forgiveness with you, that you may be feared." And after they gouged out his eyes and they put him in chains and made him a grinder in the prison, it says in verse 22, "However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it was shaved." That's God's hope that, "Hey, Samson, I'm not done with you yet."

And there is hope because God is the God of hope. And maybe you're here and you've done what Samson did. You wrecked your life, and all that you have to show for it is devastation. Because that's what sin does. And you say, "My life is over. All that's left for me is to just go kill myself?" No. God is the God of hope. And God can turn things around even when your life seems over.

Isaiah 55:6 states, "Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. And let him return to the Lord, and he will have compassion on him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." And God abundantly pardoned Samson.

And Samson, the distracted guy, the unfocused guy, the guy that was fun and games and telling jokes and riddles, and never focused on what he was to do, when he was grinding in the prison, when he was now blind and chained and grinding, that's when he got his heart right with God. And this is what the Scripture says as it finishes out his story.

"Now the lords of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon, their God, half man, half fish, and to rejoice. For they said, 'Our God has given Samson, our enemy, into our hands.' When the people saw him, they praised their God. For they said, 'Our God has given our enemy into our hands, even the destroyer of our country, who has slain many of us.'"

It so happened that when they were in high spirits, they said, "Call for Samson that he may amuse us." So they called for Samson from the prison, and he entertained them. And they made him stand between the pillars. Then Samson said to the boy who was holding his hand, "Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests that I may lean against them."

Now the house was full of men and women, and all the lords of the Philistines were there. About 3,000 men and women were on the roof looking on while Samson was amusing them. The jokester had become the joke. Then Samson called to the Lord and said, "O Lord God, please remember me. And please strengthen me just this time, O God, that I may at once be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes."

Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested and braced himself against them, the one with his right hand and the other with his left. And Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines." And he bent with all his might so that the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed in his life.

Then his brothers and all his father's household came down, took him, brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah, his father. Thus he had judged Israel 20 years. I think that's why Samson is listed in Hebrews 11, the Hall of Faith. Because after he got his eyes gouged out, after he experienced the ravages of sin, he got his heart right with God.

And his hair began to grow again. And God wasn't done with him. And listen, the message of Samson says, "God's not done with you either." And I don't care how much you've sinned. I don't care what you've done. I

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As you were listening today, was your heart convicted to come back to him now? Will you then confess your sin and resurrender your life to walking by the power of the Holy Spirit? If you don't know Jesus Christ in a personal way, come to him now and sincerely cry out to him from your heart. Turn from your sin and put your faith in Christ alone for forgiveness of sin. You can't work yourself to heaven. He promises to forgive you now and forever.

If you'd like to know more about how to surrender your life to him, you can do so when you go to fromhisheart.org and click the "Why Jesus" link. There you'll find some encouraging materials to download and specific messages from Pastor Jeff that'll help you get started in your Christian journey.

Today you heard the message "When You Play with Fire Part 2" from Pastor Jeff's series "Before There Were Kings: The Cost of Compromise." God's people repeatedly compromised with the culture around them, embracing idolatry and disobedience. The result? A cycle of sin and suffering and desperation.

This series that we're in now, "Before There Were Kings: The Cost of Compromise," is our special gift of thanks to you for your support of any amount to From His Heart this month. To get yours, simply call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-24253) and make a gift to From His Heart this month of any amount. Or you can easily go online to fromhisheart.org.

We close with this marvelous scripture: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you." That's Isaiah, chapter 43, verse 2.

That's all the time we have for today on From His Heart. I'm Larry Nobles, inviting you to be here tomorrow for the final message of the "Before There Were Kings: The Cost of Compromise" study of the Book of Judges. Join us for the lesson "When Right is Wrong" next time here on From His Heart.

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There is Truth.

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From His Heart is the listener-supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve, speaking the truth in love to a lost and hurting world.

Remember that no matter what, God loves you and He has a wonderful plan for your life.

Find out about that. Go to fromisheart.org.