Do you know when God is gone? - Episode 8-35, August 27, 2018

A daily devotional walking through God's word together using The Bible Reading Plan at http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.html. Our website http://alittlewalkwithgod.com.

Samson walked away from God in small steps, but he left nonetheless. He walked away slowly enough that he didn’t even know that God was gone.

We’re in Judges 16 now.Samson’s downfall continues. He goes to see a prostitute. The Philistines find out he is there and wait at the city gate throughout the night to seize him at sunrise. Only Samson lifts up the gates, the posts, and the metal rods that lock the gates in place and carries them away in the middle of the night.

Later he falls in love with another prostitute named Delilah. The rulers of the Philistines offer Delilah a pretty good sum of money to find out the secret of Samson’s strength and money is much more important to her than Samson. He keeps his secret for a while and every time he tells her something, the Philistines lie in wait for him, but are defeated by this incredibly strong warrior.

After a while, though, Samson gets tired of Delilah’s nagging and tells her his secret. I find it interesting that Samson keeps telling her these things that might take away his strength when immediately after Delilah’s house is filled with Philistines who have done exactly what Samson told her would defeat him. It seems Samson is either extremely dense or so extraordinarily arrogant that he thinks absolutely nothing can hurt him.

He’s wrong. Remember his three Nazarite rules? Don’t drink alcohol. Already broke that one. Don’t touch anything dead. Already broke that one. Don’t cut your hair. He let that secret out and again let his arrogance think the rules didn’t apply and Delilah brought in a barber while Samson was in a drunken stupor. Three rules. Three strikes. God was gone. Samson didn’t even know it.

You might look at these chapters and think they were big steps. Samson should have known. But I have a feeling it started with little little things. Maybe as a young teenager he broke curfew a few times and got away with it. Maybe he skipped his synagogue lessons and his parents let him off the hook. Maybe he bullied some of the other kids at school or on the playground and no one corrected him.

Little by little, Samson decided he could do whatever he wanted. He lost his morals. He lost his sense of right and wrong. Samson decided he was incharge of himself and could do whatever without any repercussion. We are left with a few snippets of Samson’s life that show us just how corrupt his life had become consorting with the enemy. Violating his vows. Disobeying God’s ordinances. Bowing to his every base desire without thinking of the consequences of his actions.

We can do the same if we are not careful. It can start the same way. We try to get away with the little things. The little things start turning into bigger things. The bigger things turn into things that from the beginning we would never have dreamed we would do.

And parents, Samson’s life is also a lesson to us. Remember what Solomon said in his proverbs? Raise up a child in the way he should go and he won’t depart from it. That means we need to teach our kids to do the right thing. We need to help them understand there are consequences that go along with every action they take. Good action reap good consequences. Bad actions reap bad consequences. It’s just the laws of nature.

If we don’t pay attention to God’s leading, if we don’t listen to his voice and do what he calls us to do, if we fail to obey his commands, we can find ourselves doing exactly what Samson did and then find that God is no longer providing strength, answers, resources. He is gone and you don’t know it. The enemy defeats you, maims you, imprisons you and it all began with little steps that you just never stopped to think would have any consequences.

Learn from Samson.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn't, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.