You might not know this but I am a Chicago Cubs fan. The Cubs have not won a World Series since 1908 when they beat the Detroit Tigers.
So there are a lot of joke about the losing ways of the Cubs.
One of those jokes makes a good introduction to this message.
A Cubs fan passed away and unfortunately did not go to heaven. When he arrived in hell the devil asked him if it was hot enough. The cubs fan replied, “It’s not too bad, reminds me of a typical July day in Chicago.”
The next day the devil turned up the heat and went back to the Cubs fan and asked if it was too hot yet? The Cubs fan answered, “No it’s not too bad, reminds me of an August day at Wrigley Field.”
This upset the devil so much that he thought, I show this guy and he turned the temperature in hell to 100 below zero. He went up to the Cubs fan and asked, “Now what do you think of my place?”
Shivering the Cubs fan answered, “It’s tooooo cooooooold but that’s ok because the Cubs must have won the World Series.”
Although it is a good joke, it does not really portray hell in a true sense. The truth is that hell is not a pleasant place.
The Scriptures describe hell as a place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, a place in which there is no relief from torment, a lake of fire that burns without end and a place in which there is no escape.
Why would anyone want to spend an eternity in a place like that? I am not sure, but I know this, God does not desire for you to be there, that is why His Son came to earth and went to heaven to prepare a place for us.
Today I want to talk to you about sin.
Pray
Father,
Open my eyes so I can see Your truth.
Open my ears so I can hear Your voice.
Open my mind so I can understand Your Word.
And open my heart so I may receive all that You want me to receive.
AMEN
We live in a world in which sin is very prevalent. I have said it before and I will say it again, there are more opportunities for people to sin now then there ever has been throughout history.
The devil has made it easy for people to sin. He has been perfecting sin for thousands of years.
What is sin? I should state that I am qualified t speak about sin since I am a sinner.
Simply defined; Sin is doing anything that causes a separation from God, which includes anything that we do that is contrary to God’s Word, the plan of God or the will of God.
Paul tells us in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Everyone sins from time to time, the difference between a Christian and a non Christian is how we react when we sin.
We don’t have to sin but we often do fall into temptation.
Sin is different from temptation. Everyone is tempted to sin but the sin doesn’t happen if you can overcome the temptation.
You can be tempted to look at something you shouldn’t, say something you shouldn’t, cheat, lie, or anything else that would separate you from God but the temptation is not the sin. Remember that even Jesus was tempted to sin but He did not.
The temptation comes and if you begin to dwell on it, think about it, or even consider it for a moment, when you do you are opening yourself up to falling into a sin.
And when you open yourself up to sin you are spiritually separating yourself from God. Paul puts it this way in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
That spiritual death is what causes us to spend our eternity in hell.
Regardless of being saved by Jesus or not, everyone is eternal. What determines the place of our eternity is if we decide to live in our sin or if we try to live righteous, sin free lives before God.
God has given everyone the same opportunity to every person who has ever lived and to every person who will live and that opportunity is for the forgiveness of our sins and the promise of eternal life.
This does not mean that we won’t struggle with temptation from time to time, but what it does mean is when we do fall we can be sure that the grace of God will be enough for us and when we ask, we will be forgiven.
Sometimes sin may seem harmless but when we look at it in terms of our eternity it is far from harmless because sin always takes you further then you want to go, keeps you longer than you want to stay, and will always cost you more then you want to pay.
Today we are going to look at a man in the Word of God who found these three things out the hard way. His name is Sampson and his story in found in Judges 16.
Samson was the son of Nanoah of the Israelite tribe of Dan. His parents were given strict instructions by an angel of God in regards to how they raised their son. He was not supposed to drink any wine or other fermented drink, he was not to eat anything unclean, and no razor was ever to be used on his head.
He was chosen by God to be a Nazirite and to begin the deliverance of the Israelites from the Philistines.
A Nazirite is a person, male or female that is bound by a vow to be set aside for service to God. They were to be holy before the Lord according to all the Laws and customs of the Israelites.
In Hebrews 11:32 we read that Samson was a great leader and judge in Israel but his heroic deeds are over-shadowed by the problems he experienced in Judges 16.
Samson was a powerful man with supernatural strength that came from his faith in God and from his confident reliance upon all that God had given him.
But Samson had a problem. At times he would dishonor God and squander away his God given power.
Samson was easily enticed to fall into sin and by giving into the temptations; Samson would use his God given powers to satisfy his own lust and desires.
Sin had a negative effect upon the life of Samson and in Judges 16 we find three things that sin did in his life and will do in our lives if we allow them too.
READ Judges 16:4-21
1. Sin always takes you farther then you want to go.
Samson was tempted by women. He liked to hang around women that he was not supposed to hand around. As a Jew, Samson was not supposed to marry a woman who was not an Israelite and yet time and time again he was giving into the temptation to be with women God said not to be with.
Delilah must have been a very beautiful woman because she caught Samson’s eye and he fell in love with her.
Because of his deep infatuation with Delilah, Samson went farther than he wanted to go.
He had a secret to keep; it was the secret of why he was so strong.
The Philistine men wanted to know the secret because they hated Samson. They hated him because he had killed so many of their friends.
So the Philistine men convinced Delilah to get him to reveal the secret of his great strength.
3 times she tried and 3 times Samson gave her misleading information about the source of his strength.
Finally after the third time Delilah let Samson have it, she said, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me?”
Samson was about to go farther than he wanted to go.
The longer Samson entertained his desires, the longer he gave into the temptation of being with Delilah the more willing he was to reveal the secret of his great strength.
He knew that he was set apart.
He knew that he was chosen by God.
He knew that he was to deliver Israel.
And yet sin was taking him farther than he wanted to go. His lust for Delilah was controlling him.
Instead of having his eyes focused on the source of his strength Samson was focused on something that brought him momentary pleasure.
The longer he stayed with Delilah the easier it became to sin.
2. Sin keeps you longer than you want to stay.
Not only did his sin take him farther than he wanted to go, it also kept him longer than he wanted to stay.
By giving into Delilah, Samson lost his power. When he lost his power the Philistines were then able to overtake him, gouge his eyes out, and throw him into prison where he would push a grinding stone until he died.
The longer we stay in our sin the more we are bound by it. There comes a point in time when we become prisoner to sin. We are entrapped by it and unable to escape it.
The Apostle Paul explains it like this, “We do the things we don’t want to do and don’t do the things we want to do.”
Because of sin, Samson was a prisoner. His sin was more important to him than God was and it was
3. Sin will always cost you more then you want to pay.
God had a great plan for Samson. He was to deliver the people from the hands of the Philistines but instead of being all that God wanted him to be, Samson was thrown into prison and then killed in one last attempt to strike at the Philistines.
Samson died.
Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
He was set aside by God to be the ruler of God’s people and instead he died by his own hand.
What would have happened if Samson in history if he would not have been a prisoner to sin?
How much more could have been accomplished if Samson had only kept his eyes focused on God?
Sin cost Samson more than he was willing to pay. It cost him his life.
Sin took Samson farther than he wanted to go, kept him longer than he wanted to stay, and cost him more than he wanted to pay.
And sin does the same thing to you and me.
If you have not accepted Jesus as your Savior you have never asked God to forgive you of your sins. Sin is controlling you. You may not even realize that it is controlling you but the fact is, your eyes are not on Jesus and you have not been washed by His blood.
He went to the cross so that we would not have to be controlled by sin.
If you have accepted Jesus as your Savior you have asked God to forgive you of your sins. And if you are like me, you have asked many times!
I don’t get up each day and say I think I will sin today. I don’t think any Christian ever does that.
But there are times that we do sin. Temptation creeps its way into our lives and we have a moment of weakness.
For a moment in time we are tempted and we give into that temptation and we go farther than we want to go, and it keeps us longer than we want to stay and it ends up costing us more than we want to pay.
The author of Hebrews writes these words that can be a great encouragement for us all;
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:1-3
In chapter 11 of Hebrews the author mentions all the great giants of faith who served God. They provide for us a source of inspiration and examples of how we should live our lives.
They were not perfect people but they were able to live their lives for God and make a difference in the world.
Even though they stumbled and fell from time to time, they were able to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles” and run the race.
The Christian life is a race that is run with patience and endurance, but in order to run that race we must keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. Christ is the beginning and the end. He is the goal of the Christian life. He is the author and finisher of our faith.
He went to the cross so that we can run with perseverance and not become weary and not lose heart.
He knew that we would fall from time to time but He also knew that His blood would wash those sins away every time we asked for forgiveness.
The words “hinders and entangles” refer to a squeezing or binding something.
We need to get rid of those things. Set them aside. Throw them off. And fix our eyes on Jesus.
When we fix our eyes on Jesus we can be sure that God will give us freedom and happiness that comes from knowing that we have been set free from the penalty of sin.
John 8:36, “If the Son sets you free then you are free indeed.”
We may fall from time to time, we may lose a battle now and then, but the more we fix our eyes on Jesus the easier it gets to say no to temptation.
When we are tempted to sin let us remember that there is always a way out and that way is through Jesus.
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
1 Corinthians 10:13
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