Avoiding The Mistake Of Sexual Immorality Series

Introduction:

A. The story is told of a church secretary who would typically answer the phone saying, “Jesus loves you. Karen speaking. How may I help you?”

1. One day she was distracted when the phone rang, and she answered, “Karen loves you. Jesus speaking. How may I help you?”

2. There was a pause before the caller said, “Somehow I thought your voice would sound different.”

B. If you are like me, then you make a lot of mistakes in life.

1. Some of our mistakes are funny, and the best thing we can do is to laugh at ourselves.

2. Some of our mistakes are painful, and the best thing we can do is try to learn from them.

C. Someone has said, “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

1. That’s what I want to try to do in our next sermon series – I want us to learn from the mistakes of biblical characters.

2. Some biblical characters are excellent examples of what to do, others are excellent examples of what not to do.

3. I’m calling the series, “Avoiding Life’s Biggest Mistakes.”

4. Hopefully this series will help us not only better know our Bibles, but also help us recognize and avoid the tempting and sinful traps with which Satan wants to catch us.

I. Samson’s Mistakes (Judges 13 – 16)

A. Today we will begin with the serious subject – Avoiding the Mistake of Sexual Immorality and the person we will use as our good, bad example is Samson.

1. We live in an age of loose morals. An age when multitudes are yielding to sexual sin, and many have given themselves over to unbridled lust and passion.

2. Immorality has become so acceptable that we have lost our ability to blush. Nothing shocks us any more.

3. Sex is used for entertainment, recreation, humor, pleasure, and even for securing business.

4. We are so exposed to sexuality that we have been desensitized and hardened to its inappropriateness.

5. And God’s perfect plan for sexuality’s meaningfulness is being lost.

B. Immorality and unbridled lust are condemned by God because of the destruction they bring.

1. Samson is a prime example of how they can destroy a person.

2. Samson became a womanizer and engaged in immorality throughout his life.

3. His two greatest weaknesses were revenge and romance.

4. In fact, his weakness for romance often led to his drive toward revenge.

5. Because of his lack of control, his life and legacy are one of the most tragic in all of Scripture.

6. His story is so legendary that most people know something of Samson and Delilah.

C. But before we get there, let’s start at the beginning of the story.

1. Israel was in a bad place at the time. Judges 13:1 tells us, “Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.”

2. But then God decided to send a deliverer. His name was Samson.

3. Judges 13:2-5 reads, “A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was sterile and remained childless. The angel of the LORD appeared to her and said, ‘You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son. Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean, because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.’”

4. A Nazarite vow included no grapes, raisins, or wine, no razor, and no contact with dead bodies.

5. Most people took a Nazirite vow for a short period of time. Samson was to follow the Nazirite laws from his conception in his mother’s womb, until the day he died.

6. Manoah and his wife were overjoyed, but they were also overwhelmed by the responsibility of raising such a boy, and asked for the angel to teach them how to bring up such a boy.

7. Chapter 13 ends, “The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson. He grew and the LORD blessed him, and the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him while he was in Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.” (13:24-25)

D. As Chapter 14 begins, we begin to witness the mistakes that Samson made…one after another.

1. The first mistake - he went to the wrong place.

a. Look at verse 1, “Samson went down to Timnah.”