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Guest (Male): Welcome to PowerPoint with Jack Graham. We can begin to feel entitled that we deserve what we have and pridefully forget the source of the secret of our strength. And then we can get entangled in the world and in temptation that becomes our failure.

On today's PowerPoint, Dr. Graham brings a message about why God promises to forgive you when you turn back to him. Now, here's Dr. Graham with his message, "Samson: A Flawed Champion."

Jack Graham: Our epic adventure in the Bible today is one of my favorite stories in all of the Bible. It's the story of Samson. So I want you to begin right now finding Judges chapter 13, verse 2. Here's the story, here's how it begins. It begins with such promise. There was a certain man of Zorah of the tribe 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, "Behold, you are barren and have not borne children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. Therefore, be careful and drink no wine or strong drink and eat nothing unclean. For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son, and no razor shall come upon his head, for this child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall begin—notice begin, he didn't complete the assignment God gave him, but it was set of him he would begin—to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines."

Then the woman came and told her husband, "A man of God came to me." This was the angel of the Lord we've met him several times along these adventures, side-by-side working with men. "I did not ask him where he was from, and he did not tell me his name, but he said to me," behold this is verse 7, "you shall conceive and bear a son, so then drink no wine or strong drink and eat nothing unclean, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God." You see, even this mother was dedicating her own life in purity and faith in preparation for her son, who would be a Nazirite, a dedicated man of God from the womb to the day of his death.

And so he was born, and down in verses 24 and 25, the woman bore a son and called his name Samson, and the young man grew, and the Lord blessed him. And the spirit of the Lord began to stir him. God's hand was upon him. The Lord blessed him, and he ascended. He soared to great heights. But something happened in the heart of this hero. He began to play fast and loose with his life. He found himself seeking entitlements in arrogance and pride, finding himself with entanglements.

As is true of all of us, it was true of Samson. We can begin to feel entitled that we deserve what we have and pridefully forget the source of the secret of our strength. And then we can get entangled in the world and in temptation that becomes our weakness and our flaw and our failure. And that's what happened to Samson. Someone said he was a he-man with a she-weakness. That would describe Samson.

We like to remember him for his valor and his strength, but God always shows us the reality of the people of the Bible. It's one reason I love the Bible, because when you read of the heroes, if I was writing the story, I might just omit some of the bad stuff. I might not tell the whole story of the flaws and the failures and the foibles of some of God's greats. But God tells it just like it is.

And this is a warning, and what I want to capture in this message is I want you to see a warning, a clear warning, because what happened to Samson, as we're going to see in just a moment, can happen to you. Let him who stands take heed lest he fall. Not one of us is immune from the sins and the defeats of this man.

And while I'm going to give a very hard, strong message today and a hard, strong, straight warning today, it's also a message of faith, because even at the end, when Samson had lost it all, God's grace and God's mercy reached down to him, and Samson took one final step of faith, and he ends up in Hebrews 11, which we've called God's Hall of Fame. All of the people who live by faith. Samson, who went from hero to zero, from the heights to the depths, is in that Hall of Fame.

And I thoroughly expect to see Samson in heaven one day. Not because of what he did or didn't do, but because of God's grace to forgive his sin. And if you're a person here who wonders whether you've messed up so much that God could never forgive you or God could no longer use you, this message is for you. It's also a reminder that we have friends all around us, neighbors, friends, co-workers who are bound and defeated by sin, and we have a message of hope and grace to all people.

Well, let's talk about this story. Let's talk about the cause of this man's collapse, because it was a great collapse. As we've noted, God's spirit was upon him, so where did this sin come from? Well, it came from within. He was a man. He wasn't a Superman. He was a man, and he had certain desires and proclivities and propensities and weaknesses in his life, just like any human being.

James chapter 1 tells us how sin works, how temptation works. Verse 13: "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted of God.'" Verse 14: "But each person is tempted when he is lured," and that's a fishing term for you fishermen, "is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death."

There you have this downward spiral of how temptation happens. Again, you can't say, well, God made me do it, or it was just circumstances, or it was the devil made me do it. It comes from within. We have certain desires, and if that desire is turned to sinful thoughts and behaviors, then ultimately it leads to sin and death. Sin, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus our Lord. So it's the whole idea of a lure and attractions. And in Samson's case, his was his own love and lust for women.

First Corinthians 10:13 says that there's no temptation that has ever taken you but such is common to man. In other words, everyone is tempted. There are three people sitting in your seat today. One is the person you are right now. The person you are, and the person you are is a result of the choices you've made in your life. We make our choices, and then our choices make us.

And so, right or wrong, good or bad, who you are today is a result of the choices you've made. Now, you can't change the past, so you are the person that you are today, but you don't have to stay and you shouldn't stay as the person you are today. But there are two other people in your seat. One, there's the person that you could be for good and for God.

God could use you greatly and mightily in his church, in his kingdom, for his glory. The person you could be for good. But there's also a third person in your seat, and that's the person that you could be for evil, for sin, for wrong. And I tell you, if we take our eyes off Jesus, there's no sin that we could not commit or would not commit. You say again, well, this stuff that happened to Samson, it could never happen to me. Oh yes, it could. Oh yes, it could. If you don't stand on guard, if you don't stay alert.

Guest (Male): You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and the message, "Samson: A Flawed Champion." We are excited to share that we have a new way to connect with us. It's our texting service designed to keep you connected with everything happening here at PowerPoint. You'll be the first to know about upcoming events, special announcements, and truly enriching content. To join, start a new text conversation by texting the word CONNECT to 59789. Again, text CONNECT to 59789.

Every day, people are hearing the truth of Jesus Christ through PowerPoint's broadcasts, podcasts, and digital outreach. And friends like you help make it all possible through your support. So this month, we want to say thanks for your gift of $10 or more to help share the biblical truth with more people around the world by sending you Dr. Jack Graham's book, "Ask." In this encouraging resource, Dr. Graham helps you discover that prayer is not about performance. It's about knowing God personally and learning to come to him with confidence, persistence, and faith.

Text JULY to 59789 to give today and request your copy. Again, text JULY to 59789 so that everyone has a chance to receive this helpful resource. Please limit one per household. Now, let's get back to today's message, "Samson: A Flawed Champion."

Jack Graham: So Samson now begins a series of compromises in his life. You read his story, we don't have time to read it all today, but you can go home and read chapters 13, 14, 15, and 16, and you discover that he's gambling, he's drinking, he's making jokes about his power and his strength. He's just losing it. He's angry, he's full of rage. He's losing it, and he's becoming carnal.

First, it was just careless, but his carelessness led to his carnality, and ultimately he became callous. He disobeyed his parents, he denied his calling, and then ultimately he defiled his life and his body. Chapter 16 and verse 4, notice what happened. Now he's already had an affair and he's broken relationship with his first wife, and now he starts keeping company with a prostitute by the name of Delilah.

So here's how it starts. Samson went to Gaza, this is verse 1, and there he saw a prostitute and he went into her. The Gazites were told Samson has come here, and they surrounded the place, set an ambush for him all night at the gates of the city. They kept quiet all night. "Let's wait until the light of the morning. We shall kill him." But Samson lay till midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts and pulled them up by the bar and all and put them on his shoulders, carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron.

And after this, he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. And the lords of the Philistines came to her and said to her, "Seduce him, see where his great strength lies and by what means we may overpower him that we may bind him and humble him, and we will give you 1,100 pieces of silver." Well, Delilah was used to taking money for her actions, so she took the deal as the seductress, and she begins to talk to Samson. And Samson likes her, he loves her. And so she says, "Honey, why are you so strong?"

So he started making up a bunch of stuff. Just again, playing fast and loose with his strength and who he was and what he was really about, supposed to be about. And he says, you know, bind me with cords and new ropes, and each time he does this and she's egging him on, it doesn't work. He's still strong. Finally, he finds, you can read it there, his head in her lap. She says, "Samson, if you really loved me, you would do this for me." And he says, "Okay, you cut my hair, I'll be as other men." Boy, it's a long trip from his great start now in Delilah's barbershop.

Cuts off his hair, the Philistines come in, everybody shouts. Samson gets up to defend himself, to defeat them as always. Verse 20, she said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson." And he awoke from his sleep and said, "I will go out as other times and shake myself free." But here's one of the most tragic statements in the Bible: "But he did not know that the Lord had left him." That's something that I think about personally. God forbid that I would ever be up here preaching and serving and leading and not know that the spirit of God had left me because of something in my life that I'd forfeited, the blessing of God.

So the enemy rushed in and took Samson down. They blinded his eyes. The man who was called sunshine would never see again. With hot searing pokers, they blinded his eyes. They bound him and they took him to a warehouse and hooked him up there to a mill. Think of a pepper mill where you're just grinding pepper like that. Well, in the old days, they would take a mill like that and put it in there, put ropes, and put animals, oxen or donkeys, and these animals would grind the wheat or grind the grain in some way.

And so they took Samson and like a beast, hooked him up to this mill and he's just going around in circles, around in circles. And this tells us that sin will find you. They found him in this weakened condition. You think, well, I can sin and get away with it. That's what Samson thought was happening. He'd been doing this so long, he thought no big deal. I'm still strong. Doesn't matter what I do. But be sure, the Bible says, your sin will find you out. Sin has a way of chasing us down and revealing who we really are.

The finding power of sin, the blinding power of sin. Sin finds us, sin blinds us. His eyes were out, but already he couldn't see. He'd lost the eyes of his soul. I mean, when Delilah is working him over, getting the information out of him, it's like a CIA movie, right? She's working him over for the enemy. You think, Samson, come on, what's wrong with you? But he couldn't see.

The Bible tells us that Satan blinds the eyes of those who do not believe. So sin will find you, sin will blind you, sin will bind you. He's bound up like an animal around in circles. This is the result of sin. I mean, the devil doesn't show us the real results of our sin. The devil doesn't show us the addict who can't overcome his addiction and his behavior.

Girls, the devil's not going to show you that pregnant girl at the Prestonwood Pregnancy Center who doesn't know how she can go on because now she's pregnant and the father's nowhere to be found. The devil doesn't show you that stuff. The devil doesn't show you that homeless person on the streets of New York, maybe one of that was somebody's baby, that was somebody's child. But a series of choices. See, the devil doesn't show us that. The devil doesn't show us Samson and the breaking, grinding of sin.

That's why I'm trying to show it to you this morning. You can't sin and win. Don't minimize the power and the consequences of sin. There's an axiom: sin will take you further than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you far more than you want to pay. You say, I want to be free, I want to do my own thing. Well, how free is Samson now? He's captive to his own life.

But thank God the story doesn't end that way, and I'm not going to end it that way either. And here's the balance that I want to bring you, because Samson does show up as a man of faith in Hebrews 11. How in the world did it happen? Let me tell you how it happened. One day Samson's grinding at the mill. They said, the Philistine said, "Hey, remember Samson? Go get him and let's make sport out of him." That means bring him in, we want to laugh at him. We want to be entertained by Samson. Bring the big boy and let's see how strong he is now.

Now Samson's a clown. He's dishonored God. He's in a shamble, he's a wreck, he's a laughingstock. They bring him in, he's now led by the hand. Remember he can't see, so he's blind, he's broken. Little boy leads Samson in. They start laughing, mocking. And Samson said to the little boy, "Son, take me over to where the pillars are." They're in this great temple where Dagon, a Philistine god, was worshipped. Said, "Help me find the pillars." And the little boy took him over there and Samson put one hand on one pillar and he put another hand on another pillar. This is what I loved when I was a little boy, this story.

And he looked up and said, "God, just one more time. God, one more time. God, give me a chance. One more chance for your glory to avenge myself of my eyes. I know I've lost it all, I know I can't come back. I know my life is over. But just one more time, God." His arms began to shake and the power of God's spirit one more time, one more time, surged through Samson's broken body. And those pillars began to move and to shake, and then the roof collapsed and thousands of Philistines on top and within that godless temple are dead, and Samson himself dies in this.

And in his death, the Bible says he slew more Philistines than in his life. Yes, he lost his life. Yes, he lost his testimony. Yes, he was a man who might have been. Yes, he was a guy who started strong and did he finish strong or not? I can't really answer that. But I know he had enough faith to trust in a God of grace, who is the God of the second chance and the third chance and the tenth chance and any other chance you need to turn your mess into a message for him.

Maybe God can't use you the way he could have used you, but don't you ever say God can't use me. You can be restored, you can be renewed. God can forgive your sin and give you a future and a hope with him. Samson's in heaven today. I thoroughly expect to meet him and shake his hand and to hear his story. And I guarantee you his story will be much like I told you today. You know, I wasted a lot of my life. God was good to me. God gave me great potential. I wasted a lot of it, most of it. But God was good, and I'm here in heaven today because of his grace and his mercy and his forgiveness. And if my story can help young people or young families, men and women, if my story of failure and defeat can help somebody else, then I pray that God would use it in their lives.

Guest (Male): You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and the message, "Samson: A Flawed Champion." We want to remind you about a powerful resource Dr. Jack Graham has created to help strengthen your prayer life. It's his book, "Ask." This practical and encouraging book explores Jesus's invitation to ask, seek, and knock, helping you discover that prayer is not about saying the right words, but about growing closer to your Heavenly Father through faith-filled relationship.

When you give today to support the outreach of PowerPoint Ministries, you'll help share biblical truth and the life-changing hope of Jesus with people around the world through broadcasts, podcasts, and digital media. Text JULY to 59789 to give your gift of $10 or more and request your copy of "Ask." Again, text JULY to 59789 so that everyone has a chance to receive this helpful resource. Please limit one per household.

We're excited to share that we have a new way to connect with us. It's our texting service designed to keep you connected with everything happening here at PowerPoint. You'll be the first to know about upcoming events, special announcements, and truly enriching content. To join, start a new text conversation by texting CONNECT to 59789. Again, text CONNECT to 59789.

Pastor, what is your PowerPoint for today?

Jack Graham: I know there will be many people listening to me today who have messed up. You've sinned against God and you wonder whether God could ever forgive you or use you again. You may have known God's blessing in the past, his favor, his power, his strength. But you turned away from God. You went your own way. You chose your own path, and now you can't figure out how you can get back.

Well, God's message to you, what I'm trying to communicate to you today, is that God will forgive you totally, completely, and unconditionally. He loves you, and he will restore you and renew you if you will repent of your sin, which means to turn from your sin, confessing your sin and asking him to change your life. He will give you great peace and renew your strength for today.

God can turn any mess into a message for him. Every test into a testimony for him. Maybe God will not use you in the same way that he has used you before, because there are consequences to our actions. But you can be reconciled to God and you can be restored to the work of Jesus Christ through your life if you will totally give yourself to follow him. Live in obedience to Christ and watch God work in your life. God will give you a future and a hope in him.

I want to thank all of you for listening today, for supporting PowerPoint, and I want to invite you to go to jackgraham.org where you can give an online donation to support this ministry, where you can offer your prayer request or your prayers for others, and we can minister to you directly through the resources that are available at jackgraham.org. There are many fine resources that we're offering free of charge if you will just go to jackgraham.org. Also, follow me on Twitter @jackngraham or on Facebook. God bless you and thank you for joining us on PowerPoint.

Guest (Male): And that is today's PowerPoint. Remember, when you give a gift to PowerPoint, we'll send you Dr. Graham's book, "Ask." Just text JULY to 59789. And join us again next time as Dr. Graham brings a message about the great and daring mission God has for your life. That's next time on PowerPoint with Jack Graham. PowerPoint with Jack Graham is sponsored by PowerPoint Ministries.