The Cost of Compromise
The Cost of Compromise • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 21 viewsSamson lived a life of compromise before Delilah
Notes
Transcript
Judges 14-16
Judges 14-16
And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” So he awoke from his sleep, and said, “I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free!” But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him.
One of the saddest verses in all of Scripture.
How did Samson get to this point in his life? This did not just happen overnight. He did not just wake up one day and God was gone.
Delilah was not Samson’s first failure. She was the culmination of a life lived in compromise. There was a pattern of decisions in Samson’s life that led him to the lap of Delilah.
Samson is the last judge of Israel listed in the book of Judges. Throughout the book of Judges, Israel went through a cycle. They would serve the LORD for a time, then they would turn their back on God. God would hand them over to oppressors for a time. They would eventually repent and God would save them and appoint a judge over them.
In Judges 13, “The Angel of the LORD” appeared to a woman who was barren and told her she would have a son. Her son would be a Nazirite from birth.
Nazirites took a vow to separate themselves to God. They could not drink any wine or even eat anything that grew on a grapevine. They could not cut their hair. They could not be near anyone dead.
Samson’s mother accepted the vow on behalf of her yet unborn child. She did not drink any wine or eat anything considered unclean.
God’s promise was that her child would deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines.
Her husband Manoah prayed to God that he could see and speak to the Man who had spoken to his wife. God listened and the Angel of the LORD came and told Manoah all that He had told his wife.
When He left, Manoah realized who he had been talking to and was afraid they would die because they had seen God.
Samson’s greatest weakness was the same as David’s - women
Samson’s compromises
Now Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. So he went up and told his father and mother, saying, “I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines; now therefore, get her for me as a wife.”
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.”
But his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord—that He was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines. For at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.
So Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother, and came to the vineyards of Timnah.
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 had done.
Samson marries a Philistine woman. Jews were not permitted to marry foreign women. God has commanded them not to intermarry. This had nothing to do with race. None of the other nations worshipped God. They worshipped their false gods. Philistines worshipped Dagon. God did not want His people to be mixed in with false worship.
“Can’t you find a Jewish girl? Why go after a girl from the people who do not have a covenant with God?”
“She pleases ME!!” - Compromise is always about what I want over what God wants. It pleases me over what pleases God. Samson’s parents did not know God was going to use this decision to start causing trouble with the Philistines.
Just because God allows something and plans to use it does not mean He approves of it. God can even use your bad decisions to bring about His will and His purpose. Do not get that confused with God approving of your bad decisions.
God often used evil nations and evil leaders in the Bible to cause Israel to repent and turn back to him. It did not mean He approved of the evil nations.
Then he went down and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well. 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 that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion.
Lions were not considered clean animals. No Jew was permitted to touch an unclean dead animal or eat from it. Honey was not bad but Samson took the honey from something unclean.
Temptations, when we first meet them, are as the lion that roared upon Samson; but if we overcome them, the next time we see them we shall find a nest of honey within them.
John Bunyan
Samson overcame the lion but he could not overcome the honey. If you overcome a temptation, the enemy does not just give up and quit. He brings it back a little bit sweeter next time.
Not only did Samson sin, he fed it to his parents. Your compromises do not only affect you. They can impact all those around you.
Samson devised a riddle to try to trick the Philistines. The bet was for 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothes
Judges 14:14 “So he said to them: “Out of the eater came something to eat, And out of the strong came something sweet.” Now for three days they could not explain the riddle.”
The men threatened Samson’s wife and her family. She pressured Samson and he gave in.
The Philistines solve the riddle.
Judges 14:18 “So the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down: “What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?” And he said to them: “If you had not plowed with my heifer, You would not have solved my riddle!””
Judges 14:19 “Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty of their men, took their apparel, and gave the changes of clothing to those who had explained the riddle. So his anger was aroused, and he went back up to his father’s house.”
Samson ties the tails of 300 foxes together, placed a torch between each pair and sent them into the fields of the Philistines. They then burned his wife and her father.
CYCLE of Samson and the Philistines
Samson Compromises Again
Now Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there, and went in to her.
The Gazites decide to wait and kill him in the morning. He escapes by taking the gates of the city on his shoulders.
Samson may be able to uproot the gates of a major city and carry them forty miles uphill, but he cannot withstand the wiles of a woman.
Daniel I. Block
Afterward it happened that he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.
So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and with what you may be bound to afflict you.”
And Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings, not yet dried, then I shall become weak, and be like any other man.”
Judges 16:9 “Now men were lying in wait, staying with her in the room. And she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he broke the bowstrings as a strand of yarn breaks when it touches fire. So the secret of his strength was not known.”
Then Delilah said to Samson, “Look, you have mocked me and told me lies. Now, please tell me what you may be bound with.”
So he said to her, “If they bind me securely with new ropes that have never been used, then I shall become weak, and be like any other man.”
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”—
Delilah keeps blaming Samson for lying to her. He keeps coming back for more.
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
Delilah was not Samson’s first failure but she was his biggest. His decisions with Delilah were the culmination of a life of compromise. He was never able to overcome temptation. His decisions were always based on what he wanted and all about what pleased him.
He had plenty of chances to escape. He took none of them.
Temptation comes but God always provides a way out. You do not end up in another person’s bed without plenty of choices before that. A person does not just wake up in a bar drunk. You had plenty of choices before you got to that point.
Each time up until now, when Samson made a bad decision, God had bailed him out of it. God had plans to use Samson and even used his stupid mistakes to bring about His will and fulfill the promise He made to Samson’s mother.
If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.
For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
God had made a promise to Samson’s mother who kept her vow to God. Even though Samson was unfaithful to His vow, God remained faithful to His.
Then she 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.”
And it came to pass, when she pestered him daily with her words and pressed him, so that his soul was vexed to death,
that he told her all his heart, and said to her, “No razor has ever come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite 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.”
And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” So he awoke from his sleep, and said, “I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free!” But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him.
COMPROMISE KILLS DISCERNMENT
The more you compromise, the less it bothers you. The more you sin, the less connected you are to the Holy Spirit’s voice.
Samson expected God to bail him out again.
KIDS WHOSE PARENTS ALWAYS BAIL THEM OUT OF TROUBLE
Which compromise will be the last one? Which one is too far?
Drifting away from God does not happen overnight. It is one compromise after another. It is a small step here and another step there until we find ourselves at the place where Samson is.
It is never that God leaves us. We walk away from Him by choosing our own desires over His.
This is a picture of much of the church today. Homosexuals and trans people did not get into the pulpits overnight!!! It is years and decades of compromise that led to this point. Now so many sit in church not realizing that God is no longer there. Our eyes have been plucked out. We are blind to our own failings and blind to the will of God.
The Philistines put out Samson’s eyes. His physical blindness now matched his spiritual blindness.
Then the Philistines took him and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza. They bound him with bronze fetters, and he became a grinder in the prison.
However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaven.
As the Philistines mock Samson and God, Samson calls out to God one last time.
When he was with Delilah, he just took for granted that God’s mercy would still be there. Now he cries out to God for strength and asked to die with the Philistines.
Samson’s life is a tragedy. God had a plan and purpose for his life, to free Israel from the hand of the Philistines. God brought about his plan but Samson wasted his destiny.
