Sermon Tone Analysis

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Introduction
How did the last chapter end?
Samson was doing pretty well right, he had just defeated 1,000 of the philistines and then they Lord granted him 20 years where he was judge over the Israelites.
20 years of peace.
How many of you know the end of the story of Samson?
Samson ends up with his eyes gouged out grinding grain for his enemies.
They basically take him and make a donkey out of him.
They remembered how he made fun of them and called them all donkeys and at the end of his life the tables had turned and he is the philistines donkey grinding grain.
We are left with the question, How in the world did his life go down hills so fast?
How did he go from ruling to destruction?
Have you ever seen a great person fall and you ask yourself the question how did that happen?
Samson was an incredibly strong man with an incredibly weak will.
He was strong physically yet he was weak in his character.
What Samson should have done is allow the weakness that was so evident in his life draw him to God.
He should have seen his weakness and said Lord I need your strength.
But instead he tried to do life on his own in his own way apart from God and His Word.
So how does a person seemingly so strong destroy his life?
One little step at a time.
All self-destructed lives happen the same way, one little step at a time, till you look back and wonder how I got here…
Andy Stanley says this about Choices.
“Your direction not your intention, determine your destination.”
5 LITTLE STEPS TO DESTROY YOUR LIFE
1.
A LITTLE LUST
Samson took about 50,000 steps to travel the 25 miles from his hometown to Gaza.
He went from the Israelites territory to one of the main cities of the Philistines.
And let me tell you in philistine country Samson was public enemy number 1.
They hated him for what he had done.
And he risked everything for a little bit of lust.
And I would bet this was not his first time in Gaza.
The lust of pornography, the lust of greed, the lust of an affair, the lust of power and prestige, all of those sins start with little steps of walking away from God. Samson was taking steps in the direction of Gaza and away from God.
I ask myself what would posses Samson to do that?
Maybe he thought “well I am strong enough, no one can hurt me.
I can handle this, or its only one more time or surely its not a big deal, I’m not living there so it can’t be that big of a deal.
Let me tell you that the self destruction of a life always starts with the rationalizing of ones sin.
Samson was taking steps away from God.
In what direction are you taking steps this morning.
Your direction not your intention determines your destination.
2. A LITTLE TAUNTING
Samson could have sneaked away without making a sound.
But that was not his style.
He decided to make a statement.
He decided to take the gate of the city which is estimated to be between 700 and 1000 pounds and carry it up on the hill towards Hebron so when they woke up they would know what he did and where he was from.
The gates of the city represented the security of the city, and he wanted to taunt them and make the point that he was stronger than the rest of them.
You see Samson’s problem was that he overestimated himself and underestimated his enemy.
Do not make the same mistake Samson made.
ILLUSTRATION: Underestimating the deer on the pine creek rail trail.
When you underestimate the enemy you are caught of guard.
3. A LITTLE LOVE
Love is not wrong.
In fact it is a wonderful thing, but loving the wrong thing is absolutely wrong.
You see this was not a matter of loving someone of a different race.
There is nothing wrong with that at all, but the problem is that she loved and served Dagon a false God.
And Samson was to love and serve the one true God.
In the NT this is talked about as one that is unequally yoked.
What happens if you yoke two animals together that want to go in different directions?
You go nowhere.
Christians and especially young people if you want to be challenged in every direction spiritually in your marriage, if you want to make spiritual life difficult.
Marry an unbeliever.
You see God gives us this command because it is best for us, because that is what works best and Samson decided he was going to love what God told him he should avoid and eventually paid a terrible price.
When you choose to love anything more than you love God and when you choose to go against God’s plans understand that destruction is in your path.
And you put it there .
Samson chose the little step of love, loving someone he was not to love.
Why... because he was compulsive and selfish.
And he took another step towards destruction.
4. A LITTLE LYING
She was a real sweetheart huh… Nothing quite like having a live in girlfriend that nags you to know end to find out your secrets to sell them to someone that wants to kill you.
Yep you know how to pick em Samson.
Good thinking, do things your own way and then you wonder how you got into this.
You know that is not much unlike how we can be sometimes.
You know we get ourselves into a situation because we wanted to do things on our own apart from God and then we wonder how God could allow this to happen to us.
I don’t think that Samson is wondering this yet but I bet he does.
You see our own plans will deceive us.
We think that we know what is best for our life but in reality we are often incapable of seeing our own blind spots and that is 1 reason among many that God is a much better life planner than we are.
And here is the thing, we can often go sideways in the area of picking a spouse.
The most important decision you will ever make outside of salvation is who you will marry.
If you make a wise decision in this area it can be a well of encouragement and strength for a lifetime.
And you can provide the same for your spouse.
And if you have missed on this one it will be felt for years to come.
Young people, choose wisely.
And if you are in a difficult marriage choose to follow God with all of your heart the Lord can redeem and restore.
Lean into the Lord and draw your strength from Him.
5. A LITTLE SELF-INFLATION
Samson was so full of himself, that he thought that he could break every part of the Nazerite vow without consequence from God.
He thought that even though he had told Delilah the “truth” that it was that cutting of his hair that would take his strength, he thought he could not be stopped.
He thought that he was too strong for God’s strength to leave him, He thought that he couldn’t fail, that he couldn’t be beaten, and that was his fatal mistake.
Notice the last part of verse 20.
What does it say?
The Lord had left and he didn’t even know.
Let it never be the case in your life.
It is a scary thing when God says “ok, here is the full weight of your decisions”.
The power of God on his life was gone and he didn’t have a clue.
But he would soon learn who was really supplying the strength.
THE SELF-DESTRUCTED LIFE
How sad… Can you imagine what it would have looked like if he was totally sold out to God? His eyes are gouged out and I imagine he took quite a beating.
He goes from leading a nation to doing the work of a donkey.
He goes from seeing God give him miraculous power to seeing nothing at all.
It appears as though he was humbled in this process.
We have no clue how long the humbling process was but it took his life being destroyed for him to recognize that God provided the power.
It took him losing his eyesight for him to see what he needed to see long ago about himself and God.
His destruction did not come in one decision or one moment but in the little steps of sin away from God.
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