2011-01-14 - The Pull and Price of Sin on Samson's Life

Part 2

Read Judges 16:15-21

Now that sin has become a habit and he has forsaken following the Lord he winds up with sins consequences. He discovers the cost of sin. We can’t turn to the world without turning our back on God. When he chased pleasure instead of God he discovered that sin has its price. He discovered the pain of sin's price

The Pain of Sin's Price – Samson Suffering for Sin

Sin cost Samson six things and these things represent areas in which sin can damage us all.

1. Smarts / Senses

   First Samson lost his smarts or senses. Samson was left senseless. Sin takes away our smarts or dulls our sensibilities like an alcohol or a drug. A drunk thinks he’s OK to drive until he wraps around a phone pole or slides under the rear of another car. Samson was about that dumb. Just look at his girl history. Philistine girl one, the wife, betrays him to the Philistines. While fooling around with Philistine girl two, the prostitute, he gets into trouble with the Philistines. And yet he goes for Philistine girl number three. Just what was he thinking? That’s just it. He wasn’t thinking. His senses were dulled by sin. For more proof consider this. Delilah, the lady who's supposed to love him, asks him how she can remove his strength. Three times she asks and three times he tells her and goes to sleep just to find out that he’s been tied up for the Philistines to haul away and yet he tells her the truth the fourth time. Hello McFly! Why weren’t bells going off in the boy's head? Most women want a strong man but she wanted his weaknesses. Those who love us want to shield us and help us not find our weaknesses.

   Yet like Samson, we become senseless. We think sin won’t affect us but that’s when sin is just getting started. It's like a story Gary Richmond, a former zookeeper, shares. He had a friend named Julie who owned a pet raccoon so he warned her that raccoons go through a glandular change at about 24 months. After that they often attack their owners. He told her a 30-pound raccoon can be equal to a 100-pound dog in a fight. Julie politely listened and nodded as he explained the danger. Then she smiled and said, "It will be different for me. . ." And she added, "Bandit wouldn't hurt me. He just wouldn't." Three months later Julie underwent plastic surgery for facial lacerations sustained when her adult raccoon attacked her for no apparent reason. Bandit was released into the wild.

   Sin, too, often comes dressed in an adorable guise, and as we play with it, how easy it is to say, "It will be different for me." The results are predictable.
   

2. Strength

   Samson was left without strength. In his senseless state Samson thought his hair was his source of strength. He forgot it was God. He forgot what the Psalmist knew: The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust. (Psalm 18:2a). And so in Judges 16:16 when "pressed daily with her words", he gave in. He didn't have the strength not to because he had misplaced the true source. Temptation often presses on us or nudges at us day by day until we cave. That is why we must renew our strength daily. Give us this day our daily bread.

   Sadly Judges 16:20 informs us, "He wist not that the Lord was departed from him" Deprived of his senses, deprived of his source of strength, and deep in the pleasure of sin, he did not even recognize the change. He did not realize his strength was gone. He wasn't even aware sin had cost him his hair.
   

3. Strands of Hair

   Samson was left scalped. Sin cost him the strands of hair but for others sin may have a different physical price. The world is good at covering those costs up but sin often has physical consequences. Ads can make a lot of things look glorious. You see the beach parties and the great times at the football games but you don’t see the beer-bellied man with cirrhosis of the liver. You see the beautiful young woman or rugged cowboy man puffing on a cigarette but you don't see the 35 year old lady with premature wrinkles who looks 60 and has lung cancer from her two pack a day habit nor do you see the man with the small pipe stuck out of his throat from cancer surgery. A lot of ads show the teens chatting with their buddies online but they hide the pedophiles trying to hook up with them and it hides the man addicted to Internet gambling and pornography. Sin looks glorious. Sin starts out like midday but ends like midnight. And as it darkens we discover another cost.

Until next time.

IHFHBOH

adam@cfdevotionals.org
http://www.cfdevotionals.org

All verses are from the King James Version unless otherwise specified.