Tripping up!

Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw there an harlot, and went in unto her.

INTRODUCTION

Good evening Southpointe!!

I remember watching this race, I am a big follower of the winter Olympics.

This was 1000 meter short track speed skating event with Apolo Anton Ohno. Many believe that he was cheated from winning the gold medal in this race.

Ohno had been holding back for most of the laps and in the last two laps he took the first places position.

But a young sixteen year old skater from Korea fell causing Ohno to fall also.

But what was so impressing was that Ohno was determined to across the finished line that by reaching out and throwing his leg forward and crossing the finished line to win the silver medal.

Ohno made a statement afterward and said, “ I never ever take a race for granted until I cross the finish line. I was in a daze. It happened so quick. I just wanted to finish.”

The reason I bring this up is that we are in a spiritual race.

Apostle Paul said this:

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

So we are running this race of life, and often time we get tripped up in the race also.

Could you imagine training all your life and at the last second, feet before the finish line getting tripped up?

Someone cut you off and tripped and make you tripped.

You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth?

This happen in this spiritual race, you are running along so great and suddenly something unexpected happens.

You are tripped up! Someone else may play a part in tripping you up but the outcome is the same, you are not in the place that you used to be.

You are going to have setbacks in life. You are going to face hardship. Tragedy is going to come. You will encounter unexpected problems.

And you have a choice whether or not you are going to be better or bitter.

We all know of people who had great promise but never reached their potential because when they failed, instead reaching for the finish line, they just laid there.

In the book of Jeremiah the prophet tells the story of how the Lord instructed him to go down to the potter’s house to learn a lesson.

Jeremiah watched as the potter patiently was forming the clay on the wheel. But as he watched he notice that the potter had a goal and a purpose in mind for a certain piece of clay but some of the clay was resistant and was not pliable in the potter’s hands and it was cast aside for a lesser purpose.

In other words, it did not become what the potter wanted it to be.

We are like the clay and God is like the potter. God has a plan for each of our lives that is better than anything we have ever planned for ourselves.

But we have a choice in the matter as to whether or not we are going to accept God’s will for our lives or if we are going to resistant it.

So in our text tonight here a story about a man who had incredible potential. He was a man that could have been so mightily used by God.

And to some degree he was used but really he basically threw his life away. He had so much potential and ability. But he threw it away because of something that was so unimportant.

And His life is also a story of second chance. His name was Samson.

Samson’s life illustrates the truth that a good beginning does not necessarily mean that you will have a good ending.

Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof:

Henry Longfellow said Great is the art of beginning but greater is the art of ending.

Of as Apolo Anton Ohno said, I never ever take a race for granted until I cross the finish line.

When I think about the beginning is good but the ending is better, I begin to remember that horrible day in January of 1986.

Play the space shuttle video

What a horrible tragedy! But they had a great take off but the end was not very good. And the reasons was so very simple, the breakdown of the o-ring.

The o-ring fails and it allow the hot gasses from the burning rocket to escape and the result was that explosion.

What is so unbelievable is that something so large, powerful, and expensive could explode because of something so small as an o-ring.

Certainly that was the case with the mighty Samson. He could have been so used by God.

Israel was living in a very wicked time in their history. The Book of Judges said that Everyone did what was right in their eyes.

God had raised up Samson for this time. He was to deliver Israel out of the hands of Philistines.

And it was very clear from the very beginning God’s hand was upon him.

And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him.

And the Spirit of the LORD began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.

But no sooner do we see this life of promise begin that we find Samson disobeying God and going out and marrying a Philistine woman. This was disobedience to God.

God said not to be unequally yoked together with a unbeliever.

Samson did not care and he went and did what he wanted to do.

This is where the breakdown was beginning that would end in the lap of Delilah.

So let’s read our text:

Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw there an harlot, and went in unto her.

Word soon spread that Samson was there, so the men of Gaza gathered together and waited all night at the town gates. They kept quiet during the night, saying to themselves, "When the light of morning comes, we will kill him."

But Samson stayed in bed only until midnight. Then he got up, took hold of the doors of the town gate, including the two posts, and lifted them up, bar and all. He put them on his shoulders and carried them all the way to the top of the hill across from Hebron.

So Samson spend the night with the harlot, and the men in the city find out that the mighty Samson in their city, so that are going to kill him.

They close the gate of the city and put guards at the gate and they are waiting for the morning to come and they are going to ambush him.

But Samson get up at midnight and he made his way out, the gates closed, that no problem he picks up the entire gate, rips it out of the ground and carries it 20 miles away.

The Lord again delivered Samson.

This is the thing that makes Samson’s life so tragic. Samson had power without purity and he had strength without self-control.

For 20 years Samson had experienced the thrill of victory and he never knew the agony of defeat.

You would have thought that Samson would have been thankful to God instead it produced a deadly complacency about his spiritual life.

This is what I want you to see, sometimes when we get away with sin we thing we will always get away with it.

I want you to understand what I am saying, No one ever completely gets away with sin. God will extend grace and will not always bust you out right away.

You might be getting away with that affair. you might be getting way with that compromise, stealing or lying.

No one has caught you. No one has busted you. Nothing has happened. Then you begin to think maybe God is saying in my case, in spite of what His Word says, it is O.K. for me to do this thing that is supposedly a sin.

We are misinterpret the grace of God for His permission.

When a crime is not punished quickly, people feel it is safe to do wrong.

But even though a person sins a hundred times and still lives a long time, I know that those who fear God will be better off.

The wicked will not prosper, for they do not fear God. Their days will never grow long like the evening shadows.

Let me put my version on this: because you don’t get busted right away you think you will get away with it forever. You must know this:

But if you fail to keep your word, then you will have sinned against the LORD, and you may be sure that your sin will find you out.

You will reap what you sow. It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, it may not be a month from now.

The full ramifications of your actions may not happen until you stand before the judgement of God but we must know sooner or later it is going to catch up with you. There are no exceptions.

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Samson was given warning after warning but he thought no one will ever bring me down.

You need to know that Satan is not easily fooled. He is pretty good at what he does. He has been sizing you up.

Satan is looking for your weakness and he will attack it.

Just like he did Samson. Everyone has their Delilah.

If this was a race for Samson, he just fell and fell hard. Samson could not win the gold but he did reach for the finish line.

Because God is the God of second chance.