Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut

In scriptures, the closest human thing we have to the immovable object was Samson. In battle after battle, nothing could stop him. Not a lion[i]. Not thirty men[ii]. Not a thousand men[iii] No matter what man came after him, Samson could take them all. But a woman, well that was a different story.

Samson had always had trouble letting the lust of his eyes make his decisions, (Judges 14:1-3; 16:1-3) and it happened again with Delilah. He fell for a woman that cared more for money than for him. So time and time again she attempted to seduce the secret of his strength from him. And he would give her a story. Then lo and behold, his enemies would attack him that exact same way.

You would think he would be smart enough to figure out what was going on and leave her. Maybe he was. Maybe he just didn't care. He was strong enough to get out of whatever trouble would come.

But the day finally came that broke him. It wasn't an army of men that got him however. In Judges 16:16 we read “It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death.” It wasn't the irresistible force that brought him down but the constant harassing . The urging, the nagging, the pestering, until death didn't seem all that bad. So he gave in and gave up his secret.

Even then, Samson didn’t think they could get to him. He would beat them just like he did before. But not this time. This time they got him. The immoveable object was immoveable no more.

We make laugh at his foolishness but really are we any different? We get cozy with temptation. Rather than run, we think we are strong enough to hold it at bay. And for a while, maybe we are. But just like Samson, little by little we get worn down, and our strength fools us into think we can't be defeated, so finally we give in thinking we can escape again. But we don’t and the Devil gets us.

Samson is a living example of 1 Corinthians 10:12, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.” You are not stronger than sin. You won't get away with it. Flee temptation before it gets you. As long as you keep toying with sin it is not a matter of if it gets you, it is just a case of when.

[i] Judges 14:5-6

[ii] Judges 14:19

[iii] Judges 15:16

Comments

Until Midnight

In Acts 20, there is the tragicomic event surrounding a young man by the name of Eutychus. He did what a lot of folks before and after him did, he fell asleep during a sermon. Unfortunately, he was setting in in the third story window at the time. So instead of nodding off and hitting the pew in front of him, he fell to his death. The good news was the apostle Paul was delivering the sermon and had the ability to bring him back. I don’t know, however, if we can judge Eutychus too harshly. The sermon had gone on till midnight. Paul wouldn’t finish it up till daybreak. That’s a long lesson. I know some folks that might want to jump out of a window if I had a lesson that long, yet these Christians wanted to be there to hear Paul. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pushing for all night sermons but I think we might need to adopt these folks' dedication. They knew that Paul was only in town for a limited time only and they were determined to ...

The Gift You Give Yourself

I always hated buying gifts for my Mom. If I got her something like a new set of pans, it was like saying “Here’s something you can use to go make me something to eat”. A gift for her was seemingly a gift for me. There are however gifts you give that benefit you more than the receiver. For example, forgiveness. When you give it, you are giving it to yourself as much as you are giving it to them. Jesus said that when we forgive others it means God is forgiving us our wrongs (Matthew 6:14-15). I once read: “ Heaven is where everyone's forgiven. Hell is where nobody's forgiven. So, when we forgive we pull heaven down into our lives. When we withhold forgiveness, we pull hell up into our lives ” Give yourself something nice today, Forgive.

Why Does A Lion Tamer Use a Chair?

Ok, I know you have seen the image. A lion tamer enters in the cage of the beast and forces it to obey his commands using a whip, a gun and a chair. Now you can see how the whip and gun could come in handy but you might be wondering why a chair would intimidate an animal as powerful as a lion? Clyde Beatty taming a lion with a chair It's not that the lion is afraid of the chair -- it's that the lion is confused by the chair. Cats are single-minded, and the points of the chair's four legs bobbing around confuse the lion enough that it loses its train of thought. Casually put, the chair distracts the lion from wanting to claw the lion tamer's face off. The powerful creature could destroy the chair in moment’s notice but instead it is distracted into submission. It’s not too much different than how Satan controls us today. By the power of God we could overcome anything that he would use to subdue us. We can overcome the evil one (1 st John 2:13-14). ...

Ecclesiastes 12:10

Search This Blog