3) Sin Blinds You
By today’s standards, Samson would be called a macho man, a stud if you will. He had a sex drive as strong as his physical strength, and he could not control it! Preachers: A young preacher in his 20’s spoke with a preacher in his 90’s. “How do you deal with lust?” “Son, you had better ask a man older than me.” Samson did not run from sex outside of marriage. He ran to it! (Read Judges 16:1-3). Samson was a passionate man. This is how he lived his life. A man who is this passionate for life will also be passionate in his love for women. Pastor Chuck Swindoll calls Samson a he-man with a she-weakness. Here was a man who had a bent toward the sensuous side of life. He focused on physical appearance only! He did not learn his lesson from his first marriage that focusing on the sensual side of life will bring one anxiety and one heartache after another. Samson went to the Philistine city of Gaza and spent the night with a prostitute. The Philistines hid from him, planning to kill him at dawn. Samson surprised them by leaving at midnight. He was so strong that he carried the doors, door posts, and bar that secured the doors to the city for 38 miles! The power of God was on Samson’s life, and he took it for granted! God delivered him from his sexual immorality once again. When God delivers you from sexual sin, turn from it! Don’t go back to it! The next time might be the last time! Pastor Chuck Swindoll states: “Lust is one flame that you dare not fan. You’ll get burned if you do.” Lust is unbridled sexual desire. It is a longing for what is forbidden! A married man who was blinded by lust as he was committing adultery stated: “Sex with my wife is awful.” In the adulterous liaison, sexual pleasure is heightened by the devil! It is the devil’s goal to convince you that sex with your spouse is awful. You are so blinded by the devil that you cannot and will not listen to the convicting power of the Holy Spirit that what you are doing is so very wrong! “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them” 2 Cor. 4:3-4 (NKJV). Lust can become a very powerful stronghold in your life, and you may not even realize it! Charles Ringma states: “If evil was always visible in blatant form, most men and women would readily reject it. But because evil frequently comes in subtle form, it is embraced before it is recognized.” Prov. 5:15-23 states: “Drink water from your own cistern. And running water from your own well. Should your fountains be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be only your own, and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth. As a loving deer and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times; And always be enraptured (intoxicated) with her love. For why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman, and be embraced in the arms of a seductress? For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He ponders all his paths. His own iniquities entrap the wicked man, and he is caught in the cords of his sin. He shall die for lack of instruction, and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.” Samson had just signed his own death certificate and he did not have the spiritual sense to know it! He was about to learn that Sin Blinds You. Samson and His Sin. (1) Sin Finds You. (2) Sin Binds You. (3) Sin Blinds You.
Jeff Harvel 