Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places

From The Desk of Pastor Toby Powers

Truth Baptist Church

Bremen, GA

Looking for Love in All The Wrong Places

Judges 14:15-20

Intro: Samson found him a woman of Timanth of the Philistines. He loved her and took her for a wife. At the marriage feast he put forth a riddle and the people made a bet on the answer of the riddle. It concerned his killing of the lion with his bare hands and getting honey from its belly.

The men of the city were angered that they were going to lose the bet, so they pressured his wife to get the answer. She set on Samson sore for days until he told her the answer, and quickly she forwarded it on to the other men. When they answered the riddle correctly Samson accused them of plowing with his heifer! He went and killed thirty men and took their raiment to give to the men he had gambled with, and while he was gone his wife was given to another man to be wed.

Samson is a picture of Christ wanting to love one that is not worthy of love, yet he would do anything to get her to love him.

But, I am interested in this theme of looking for love in all the wrong places. Samson found love amongst the Philistines, but he found out that it was not true love. Many today have plowed the heifers of this world and sown the seeds of sin only to reap the harvest that it brings and be disappointed. Worldly love made Samson a fool, and his lover left him for another. He was lonely, sad, broken, and angry. Many today are looking for love in places that leave them just as empty. They are trying to find love:

1. In a Can: Beer & Wine. There is no love in the bottom of a bottle or the emptiness of a can! Proverbs 23:29-35, Proverbs 20:1, Isaiah 5:11 “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them!”

2. In a Career: many are not drunk with wine, but with power, success, money, and position. Many preachers are living in this territory! Many men have done like Lot and lost their wife and kids in Sodom while they sought fulfillment in a career! When it was all done, they realized that they were looking for love and fulfillment in all the wrong places!

3. On a Couch: Some think they will find love or concern with a therapist, counselor, or psychologist. They want somebody to listen to the problems, but Isaiah 30:1, 9:7.

4. In a Crown: Others have trusted in the government. They think that the white house or the congress can solve all their problems. Psalms 146:3 “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.”

5. In a Crowd: Many just wish to fit in. They want to be popular, need approval of men, member of the group, but remember wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat! That way seems right, but the end thereof...

6. In a Courtship: Some believe love is found with the right man or woman. The beauty of the natural eye is followed to a fault with the expectation of happiness to follow. Samson thought this, but he was still lonely. The next woman that he loved was a harlot that got him ambushed. Then he loved Delilah who got him captured, tortured, and eventually he died amongst the heathen Philistines! King Solomon sought this route, but it caused him to stumble in idolatry, and it destroyed his sons!

7. In Carnalities: Accumulations, Materialism. Luke 12, The Rich Fool said he would tear down his barns and build bigger, but he died never finding what he searched for in carnal things.

8. In a Collection of Brethren: lodges, fellowships, civic organizations, country clubs, and even the church are being joined by people looking for love and fulfillment, but they still find themselves empty. There is nothing wrong with many of these things, but they can not fulfill the soul.

9. In a Competition: Sports or hobbies.

IF YOU WANT TO FIND TRUE LOVE, YOU NEED NOT LOOK ANYWHERE ELSE BUT:

1. In the Cross: the agony of Christ on the cross shows true love. (Wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities...)

2. In the Crimson Blood: the atonement for sins shows true love. (Sin rested on the judgment seat, but when the blood of Jesus was applied, it became the mercy seat, and we were put in the place of God’s loving mercy and grace!)