Bunbury
Wed pm
5/10/2011
“Unintended destinations”
Intro: *** I heard about an airline in Africa that took its passengers to a wrong destination altogether. The passengers boarded thinking they were going to one place but due to a communication error somewhere in the boarding process the flight actually went to a different destination. The airline had to fly back to the right destination getting an angry plan load of passengers to where they should have gone several hours late!
It’s not so bad when you have a flight heading in the wrong direction but its disastrous when you have a life that ends up at the wrong destination.
A destination that was never intended but nonetheless arrived at!
The Bible is filled w/ the accounts of people who ended up at the wrong destination …..
T.B.S. of Saul ….
1 Samuel 31:4 ( NKJV ) 4Then Saul said to his armorbearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised men come and thrust me through and abuse me.” But his armorbearer would not, for he was greatly afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword and fell on it.
Gehazi is another prominent example of a man who ended up at the wrong destination through disobedience…..
2 Kings 5:27 ( NKJV ) 27Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and your descendants forever.” And he went out from his presence leprous, as white as snow.
Bearing in mind that the W of God is filled w/ these accounts what action should we take?
We’d be wise to check our spiritual compass & make sure from time to time that we are on track & continually heading towards the right destination.
I want to preach t/n on ‘unintended destinations’.
Text: Judges 13:3-5 ( NKJV ) 3And the Angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Indeed now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son.
4Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean.
5For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.”
Judges 16:18-22 ( NKJV ) 18When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up once more, for he has told me all his heart.” So the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hand. 19Then she lulled him to sleep on her knees, and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him. 20And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” So he awoke from his sleep, and said, “I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free!” But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him. 21Then the Philistines took him and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza. They bound him with bronze fetters, and he became a grinder in the prison. 22However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaven.
# 1. Decisions – the pathway to destiny.
A. The decisions we make lay a pathway to our ultimate destiny.
a. Most of the time we don’t think about the incredible impact of our daily decisions.
i. We often traffic in the decisions of life w/ great carelessness failing to comprehend the weight our decisions carry.
ii. Our approach in the decision making process is often quite flippant / lax when we consider the great impact those decisions may ultimately bear upon our lives.
iii. We can be making choices which are laying a pathway w/o the appropriate degree of concern.
iv. As God’s people we need to u/s that our lives are moving irreversibly towards destiny we need to make the impt choices of life w/ great sobriety.
*** The old adage written by Samuel Smiles is hauntingly true!
Sow a thought and you reap an act;
Sow an act and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit and you reap a character;
Sow a character and you reap a destiny.
b. Every decision you make is edging you towards your eventual destiny.
i. So the all impt question is – based on your decisions, what is your destiny going to be?
ii. Your choices in life are not just neutral steps ….. they are like paving bricks in a road that you are constructing – a road that is going to lead to your destiny!
iii. But the question is where? Where is that road going to lead you to?
c. If only Samson had realised the all impt power of his decisions.
i. You see sometimes our choices lead us along irreversible pathways of destruction.
ii. Samson’s life is one that begins w/ great promise & we see the promise of God beginning to take shape in his life as he grows & develops.
Judges 13:24 ( NKJV ) 24So the woman bore a son and called his name Samson; and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him.
iii. But it was the ongoing choices of Samson’s life that began to lead him off course along a pathway of destruction…… look how it begins –
Judges 14:1-2 ( NKJV ) 1Now Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. 2So he went up and told his father and mother, saying, “I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines; now therefore, get her for me as a wife.”
iv. Now we know that even in this God was bringing about a victory for Israel b/c the Bible tells us so …… but we see that Samson is all too willing to skate on edge of righteousness.
v. Next we find him in a place as a Nazirite he never should have been – a vineyard – & a lion attacks him but thankfully the Spirit of God came upon him & he killed the lion.
Judges 14:5-6 ( NKJV ) 5…… Now to his surprise, a young lion came roaring against him.
6And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat, though he had nothing in his hand.
vi. Look what happens next ….. another step in the wrong direction – we now find Samson eating honey out of the dead carcase of a lion – he was not to eat anything unclean.
Judges 14:8-9 ( NKJV ) 8…….. he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion. And behold, a swarm of bees and honey were in the carcass of the lion. 9He took some of it in his hands and went along, eating. …..
Vs 4. 4Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean.
vii. By this time Samson is developing an appetite for all kinds of things he should have nothing to do w/.
Judges 16:1 ( NKJV ) 1Now Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there, and went in to her.
viii. Can you see the pattern? Each time Samson makes decisions that lead him just a little further away from his God ordained destiny.
B. The choices of life are ours – but so are the consequences.
a. Every one of us are free to choose / decide for ourselves what we want to do & how we want to live.
i. One of the great privileges of life is that we are free to choose for ourselves the direction of life.
ii. God leaves this great freedom w/ us.
Deuteronomy 30:19 (NLT) “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!"
Joshua 24:15 ( NKJV ) 15And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
iii. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that the consequences for our bad decisions ….. the pathway we pave through our wrong decisions is going to lead us somewhere.
# 2. The enemy on the road to your destiny.
A. Along the pathway to your destiny the enemy is going to be waiting for you!
a. It shouldn’t surprise us that we’d meet the enemy of our souls on the pathway to our destiny….. Think about it!
i. The serpent was waiting for Eve in the garden –
ii. Here is the mother of the human race – a pure God glorifying human race & the serpent’s waiting for her in the garden.
iii. Satan is committed to destroying not just you but the destiny God has called you to!
b. We find a curious story in the O/T of a prophet who is commissioned by God to bring a word from God to the king.
i. God gives him specific instructions about what he has to do ….. don’t eat bread / drink water in the city, leave a different way to the way you entered the city.
ii. But as he is travelling along the path of his destiny there is an enemy waiting for him – listen to what happens here to how the enemy persuades him.
1 Kings 13:18 ( NKJV ) 18He said to him, “I too am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, ‘Bring him back with you to your house, that he may eat bread and drink water.’” (He was lying to him.)
iii. You see the enemy is willing to do anything he can to divert you from the destiny God has called you to.
c. In Matthew’s & Mark’s gospel Jesus reveals to the disciples that he’ll shortly go to the cross but an enemy is waiting for him along the path to destiny!
Matthew 16:22-23 ( NKJV ) 22Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!” 23But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”
i. Something tells me that is the devil tried to sidetrack Jesus from his destiny that he will also attempt to sidetrack you from your destiny.
B. The question here is how many wrong choices do we need to make b/4 we are sidetracked to an unintended destination?
a. As we track Samson’s path we see that he keeps making decisions that take him a little further off course each time.
i. We see him in the vineyard / eating honey from a lion’s carcass / marrying an unsaved woman / sleeping w/ a prostitute / now he is going to shack up w/ Delilah!!!
Judges 16:4 ( NKJV ) 4Afterward it happened that he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.
ii. The first thing that comes out of this verse is that he is has gone down a pathway that is leading him further away from God.
iii. This chick lives in ‘Sorek’ …. Lit = ‘a vine’ ….. now he’s not just passing through the vineyard he’s camped there.
iv. Secondly – it looks as though he is shacking up w/ Delilah! …… even her name should have warned him of the impending danger.
v. Delilah’s name lit = ‘languishing’ & comes from a root word which means ‘slacken or make feeble’ …. & that’s what she is going to cause to happen to Samson!!!
b. What’s amazing about this story – which highlights human nature – is just how far people can be off track & still not realise something’s wrong!
*** Ps Walsh was sharing a story w/ me about how he caught train to Canberra one time to preach there. He had to get on a train to from his home to go into the city first & then get another train to Canberra. He gets onto the country train which is to take him southwest to Canberra but after about an hour he realises that he is heading north & not south! He had gotten onto the train to Newcastle which is 2 hours north of Sydney …… he should have been travelling 3 hours southwest to Canberra! By this time he had to get off the train at Hornsby, catch another train back to Sydney & when he arrived at the correct platform he had already missed the last train to Canberra for the day. He ended up convincing someone to drive him down to Canberra.
i. Listen what happens to Samson next ……
Judges 16:6 ( NKJV ) 6So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and with what you may be bound to afflict you.”
ii. What’s frightening about this is that Delilah is toying w/ his destiny & Samson is playing the game.
iii. Firstly he tells her to tie him up w/ bow strings ….. then green ropes that have never been dried.
iv. But then he begins to toy w/ his very focus of his consecration …… his hair that has never been cut!
v. He doesn’t quite tell her the truth at first but he has now come to the place where he is moving towards an unintended destination.
Judges 16:13 ( NKJV ) 13Delilah said to Samson, “Until now you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me what you may be bound with.” And he said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head into the web of the loom”—
vi. The next step takes Samson along a pathway to an unintended destination ……
Judges 16:16-17 ( NKJV ) 16And it came to pass, when she pestered him daily with her words and pressed him, so that his soul was vexed to death, 17that he told her all his heart, and said to her, “No razor has ever come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaven, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.”
vii. Samson could deal w/ the challenge of a lion but he couldn’t deal w/ the challenge of a lioness!
** Someone has said of Samson that “He was a HE MAN with a SHE problem.”
c. If you don’t do something about the enemy that is waiting for you on the pathway of destiny the enemy will definitely do something about you!
i. The enemy wants to shear off the locks of your consecration & he will is you allow it.
Vs 19. 19Then she lulled him to sleep on her knees, and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him.
ii. Samson hadn’t checked his spiritual compass by this time for quite some time …… he didn’t even realise that he was heading south instead of heading north.
iii. Here’s the frightening part of the saga …….
Vs 20. …..So he awoke from his sleep, and said, “I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free!” But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him.
iv. By the time Samson realised that the Lord had departed from him he was already well on his way to an unintended destination.
v. Never forget that an enemy is waiting for you on the pathway of your God given destination.
Proverbs 16:25 ( NKJV ) 25 There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.
# 3. Unintended destinations.
A. Our hope is that none of us would end up at an unintended destination.
a. But what if you do? What if all the wrong choices have been made & through those wrong choices you have found y/s at an unintended destination?
i. That’s what happened to Samson & it was his own fault ….
Vs 21. 21Then the Philistines took him and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza. They bound him with bronze fetters, and he became a grinder in the prison.
ii. He certainly ended up in the wrong place / wrong destination but …….
Vs 22. 22However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaven.
iii. God doesn’t just abandon us at this point & throw us away …… the Bible teaches us that God perseveres w/ us through our mistakes / bad choices.
Jeremiah 18:4 ( NKJV ) 4And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make.
iv. What this means very simply is that God doesn’t just write us off as human wreckage & abandon us – He has a heart to restore what’s lost.
v. The fact is that Samson’s hair began to grow tells us something about the nature of God …. He doesn’t just write us off as lost property!
vi. We don’t have to just give up & quit if we’ve found our/s at the wrong destination – God can help us.
b. We don’t want to just say that destiny doesn’t matter & that you can retrieve it if you squander it – but we also want to make it clear that God can bring us back on course.
i. No matter how far off course we wander b/c of God’s redemptive nature he can bring us back & reshape destiny through us.
*** A Thai wife & mother of 8 children who regularly crossed the border into Malaysia to do her shopping left home one day to do just that. She was living in a little village in southern Thailand in 1982 when she was 51 years old. B/c it was such a common thing she crossed the border into Malaysia to do some shopping for the family.
When she caught the bus home she mistakenly caught the wrong bus a bus that was going to Bangkok 1200 km north. Finding herself in Bangkok & only being able to speak her local dialect she then makes a second mistake & catches another bus which takes her a further 700 km north to Chiang Mai, now 1900 kms from her home. B/c she can’t speak the dialect there or read or write she ends up as a beggar on the streets for 5 years. In 1987 she is rounded up along w/ a bunch of other homeless people by the police & put into a shelter for the homeless. It was only when some students dressed in muslim clothes began chatting to her that they realised that she wasn’t mute & the discovery of the fact that she come from a little village 1900 kms south was made.
She was reunited w/ her family for the first time in 25 years in 2007 when her family who were told that she had been run over by a train received their 76 year old mother & wife again.
All b/c she got on the wrong bus!
ii. We may have gotten onto the wrong bus at some time but b/c of God’s grace we don’t have to remain in an unintended destination.
