Samson, the man who might have been, is presented as a cautionary tale about the consequences of moral compromise despite a godly heritage. The sermon traces Samson's life, highlighting his repeated failures with pagan women, his violation of his Nazarite vow, and his eventual capture and blinding, illustrating how impulse and lust lead to compounding sin and a life unfulfilled. The core lesson emphasizes that a strong back and weak morals, or spiritual myopia, lead to disaster, and that true godliness requires moral excellence, self-control, and perseverance, not just initial faith. The message concludes by underscoring God's pardoning grace, which can restore even a life as tragically flawed as Samson's, urging listeners to bear It of hope to a society without standards.
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Thank you so much. I tell you, ladies, I appreciated that music. I am so grateful that Tuesday night fiasco didn't spoil those bells. Well, we've come to the final evening of this week of conference, and it's certainly appropriate that I should express my deep appreciation, not only for myself, but for Martha. We've certainly sensed a warm, warm fellowship here. But we're just most grateful for the kindness that so many of you have shown, for the privilege of being with you, for the privilege of getting to know some new friends, and to keep alive friendships that we've known for many years, and to share the good things of our Lord.
And I trust that the messages of this week will be helpful to you, and that as we move on in our... conscious need to honor our God, even in a society without standards, that some of the things that we have contemplated from the Scripture will be of help to you. The Word of God is good. Whenever we turn to the Scriptures, there is profit there, and I trust that that's been your experience in this week and that it will be again this evening. And as we turn to the Word tonight, I must admit that there is a bit of ambivalence in my mind. We certainly have not exhausted the Book of Judges. There is so much, for example, in the life of the man of Bimelech that would help us because I think we need some, we see some very important lessons regarding leadership and the problems of leadership in a society without standards.
Not only a problem of leadership in terms of the leader himself, but in terms of the way the people of God go about looking for, are looking to, are choosing their leaders. And one is as significant as the other. And there's some very vital lessons in that rather unbelievable account of Abimelech for us who live in a society without standards. And then there's Dear Jephthah, my oh my, what an enigma, what a puzzling situation we have there. But again, I think some very significant things for us to ponder, so don't stop your reading and studying in the book. We're not exhausting it this week.
And then I was telling Jim, it's Dinertime, he was saying, well, you haven't finished the book. I said, well, I guess the only good thing about just taking one book in the book of Judges is that it sort of spares us from going into those last two chapters or three chapters. And I guess I shouldn't say that. All Scripture is profitable, but I want to tell you, if it's been a while since you've read the last chapters of the book of Judges, maybe it would be good to reread them and to let your mind, again, be overwhelmed with the perplexity and the unbelievable mess that the people who name the name of God can make of their lives when they let the standardlessness of the society around them afflict their lives. It's a tremendous thing to ponder the awful situation that even those who name the name of the living God can create for themselves when they get away from the revealed Word of God.
And it will certainly encourage you to be a man of the book or a woman of the book in a very crucial way. But tonight we want to take some time to reflect on this interesting character, Samson. Samson. And I'm going to call him the man who might have been. I didn't coin that expression. I saw it long ago in a children's lesson. Samson, the man who might have been. And it seems so fitting that I've retained it. Let's read tonight from Judges chapter thirteen. We'll read just part of this chapter. And then we also want to read together a familiar New Testament passage that I believe is a very helpful commentary for our studies in Samson.
Judges thirteen, verse one. Now the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, so that the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines forty years. And there was a certain man of Zorah, his family of the Danites, whose name was Manoa, and his wife was barren and had borne no children. Then the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, Behold, now you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and give birth to a son. Now therefore be careful, not to drink wine or strong drink or eat any unclean thing, for behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son No razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb.
And he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines. And now to verse twenty-one. Now the angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoha or his wife than Manoha knew that he was the angel of the Lord. So Manoha said to his wife, We shall surely die, for we have seen God. But his wife said, If the Lord had desired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things, nor would He have let us hear things like this at this time. Then the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson. And the child grew up and the Lord blessed him, and the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him in Mahanadan between Zora and Eshto.
Now over to the New Testament. Second Peter, chapter one. Second Peter, chapter one. Peter writes, and we'll dip into the record at verse three, seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence. For by these he is granted to us his precious and magnificent promises. in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust now for this very reason also applying all diligence in your faith supply moral excellence and in your moral excellence knowledge and in your knowledge self-control and in your self-control perseverance in your perseverance godliness in your godliness brotherly kindness and in your brotherly kindness Christian love.
For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Pause again and seek God's blessing. Help us, Father, tonight. As we seek to understand the scriptures, give us, we pray. your blessing, illumine the page, that our hearts may respond, that Jesus Christ may be honored. We pray in his name. Amen. Now in the country where I grew up, and I grew up on a farm, you can probably tell that, we had an expression that I heard in a lot of different situations, and people talked about individuals who had a strong back and a weak mind.
And that was considered to be a sad case. That was considered to be lamentable. But I want to tell you, folks, if there's anything more lamentable than having a strong back but a weak mind, it's having a strong back but weak morals. And that was Samson. Now, we need to be careful, as I've said before, because this man's name is in Hebrews eleven. And in no way do we want to detract from the fact that that in spite of all of the tragic situation in the period of the judges, in spite of the fact that most of the people who named the name of the living God were just living in spiritual squalor and confusion, there was in Samson's life that spark, that expression of faith in God that brought delight to the heart of God.
and we may well envy him for having his name in God's Hall of Fame. So we don't want to detract at all from any expression of faith in Samson's life. But I see him as the man who might have been. His background is interesting. It's given to us here. He was from the tribe of Dan. You will recall that when the tribes came into the land under Joshua's leadership, each tribe was given a portion of land that God's instruction and Dan was given a portion of land just north of Judah and just west of Benjamin. It was choice land. If you look at a map of the land as it was laid out by God's instruction, the original territory for the tribe of Dan was really choice land.
It included a pretty sizable chunk of the Mediterranean coast, and it was good land. It was some of the best in the nation. And they not only had access to the hill country and the main north-south highway that went through the land, but they had access to the Mediterranean. And that gave them very, very distinct advantages. But Dan, the tribe, never occupied their territory. The tribe of Dan was a renegade tribe from the beginning. And virtually everything you read of the tribe of Dan, something is radically wrong. They were a mess from the beginning, and they never got their act together. And yet we see godly people here.
Manoa and his wife were obviously godly people. The Lord could use them. The Lord could speak to them, and they were willing to respond to the Lord and obey him. And they were delighted, of course, when the Lord promised to them a son. And in the conclusion of that promise, they offered an offering to the Lord, and the Lord graciously accepted their offering. The birth of Samson announced Even the fact that he would be a Nazarite, and you will recall that back in the Levitical Ordinances, one of those unique things that God presented to his people was this possibility. That is, that some in the nation would live under a Nazarite vow, a vow that represented a special consecration to God.
Obviously, not all would so live. But this was an option, this was a spiritual option given to the people of God. And the three things that were characteristic of this consecration to God that the Nazarite would take in making a vow, the three things that characterized this Nazarite vow was, first of all, that person could have no part of the fruit of the vine. Fermented or uninfemmented is not even said. Just stay away from it completely. No part of the fruit of the vine, no wine, no grape juice, nothing. Stay away from it. The second thing that characterized the Nazarite vow was that such a person with such a vow should not come near or touch a dead body.
And the third part of the vow was that the hair would be uncut. And thus in a society like that, A man with his hair uncut would be identified at a long distance. And these were unique things, and we don't take time tonight to study the implications of the Nazarite vow, but it was a spiritual option that God gave to his ancient people. And to my knowledge, this is a unique thing, that God told these people that that son that they were going to have was to be a Nazarite, and that he would be a Nazarite from the womb. That is, his vow of consecration to God was sovereignly ordained.
What a privilege. What a privilege to live under such a blessing from God. And notice the purpose of his life. He will begin to deliver Israel from the Philistines. He made a start. By the way, you recall, it wasn't until years and years later in the time of King David that the problem of the Philistines was finally resolved. And not totally so even there, because even after the death of Solomon, when under Solomon's son Rehoboam, the kingdom split in two, the Philistines were still there to take advantage, to free themselves from Israel's control. And it was a long time before the Philistine problem was really finally solved.
But he would begin. to deliver Israel from the Philistines. Now, unfortunately, when we look at the life of Samson, we look at the fact that really the recorded events in this man's life revolve around three affairs with pagan women. How's that for a part of the scripture? It's rather astounding. And I have to tell you, folks, when I read the events of Samson's life, I stand in awe. I stand in awe. Because it is true. Read it again and you will see that the major events of the adult life of Samson revolve around affairs with three pagan women.
And there are some things recorded here that are rather striking. First of all, we see in chapter fourteen, the first act of his adult life recorded is that he went down to Timnath. That's Philistia. And there he saw a beautiful woman, pagan, forbidden by God. He shouldn't even have been down there in the first places. We'll see a little bit later. And certainly not casting his eyes on a pagan woman, but he did. Went home and insisted that his parents get her. Those were days for arranged marriages. They didn't date like we do and decide on their own. And he went back and told his parents, didn't give them the option, commanded them. Get her, get her.
She turns me on. And they did. You recall the sad story of that marriage. You recall that in that marriage there was a wager, a bet over a riddle, and Samson lost the bet. And so to fulfill his part of the bargain, he went out and slew thirty Philistines and took their clothes off of them and paid his debt, that bet, in that wager. with the clothing from these dead Philistines. And then in an angry huff, he left his wife and went back to Mama, back home.
Now usually it's the wife, according to our stereotype, who runs off to Mama. But in this case, it's this big hulk of a man who got angry, peeved with all of this, and left his wife down in Philistia and went back to Mama. When he cooled off, came to his senses, he went back down to Philistia to get his wife And lo and behold, found that her pagan father had given her to another man. And you know how sin compounds itself. The vicious cycle, we call it. And so he blew his stack again. And he went out and caught a bunch of foxes, tied their tails together with firebrands in them, and turned them loose.
And they ran out through the grain fields of the Philistines and burned the whole countryside, the ripe grain. And in their anger, the Philistines came and killed his wife. I guess she was his wife and her father. And so the vicious cycle goes. And then they came to get him with an army of men. And even the Hebrews were fearful and pleased with Samson. What are you doing? You're creating problems for us. And you recall the promise. if if if you take me down there you promise me that you won't fall on me no we won't hurt you but we feel like we need to turn you over to the Philistines so that they do not afflict us and I was on that occasion that the Spirit of God came upon him again and he slew a small army of men single-handed from there you would think the man may have learned his lesson about Philistine women but you come to chapter eighteen And he's down in Phyllisia again, this time a prostitute.
And they thought they had him trapped. And so they locked up the city, waiting until the light of morning. But before the light of morning, Samson went out, ripped the gates of the city off their hinges, carried them to the top of the nearest mountain, and thus taunted the Philistines who thought they had him trapped. Well, you would think that would teach him a lesson, to get himself in a trap over a Philistine woman. But you read a few more verses, and he comes enamored with yet another Philistine woman whose name has gone down in infamy, Delilah. And there, of course, we find Samson taking his final step down.
And he not only succumbed to the wilds of this pagan woman, but he eventually, at her pleading and bidding, because her life was in threat, you recall, the pleading and begging, he disclosed to her the secret of his Nazarite vow. And in his sleep, his vow was violated, his hair was cut, and the Philistines were able to capture him, gouge his eyes out, and chained him to an instrument that was really designed for an animal to turn this grinding wheel and here is Samson how low can a man go doing the work of an animal in prison but the story doesn't end there you recall the Philistines were celebrating they were having all kinds of special religious occasions praising their gods their pagan gods for their victory over this Hebrew who claimed that he could fight them in the strength of his God but now having brought his God's name into reproach he was a slave in their prison grinding like an animal in
fact they had a national festival and they decided during this national festival of victory over this man who was relying on his Hebrew God they decided to bring Samson in and they would like to make a public spectacle of him, make sport of him. And so they brought this sightless man in and were taunting, jeering, mocking him, making sport of him, whatever it was, the Scriptures spare us the horrible ordeal of what it must have been for Samson. Totally blind to be brought into this spectacle and taunted or goaded in some way with thousands of people there jeering him and his God.
But they slipped up, didn't they? I think that if I had been a Philistine, I would have kept a barber pretty close at hand for this man, but they didn't. And his hair had grown again. And not only that, Samson had learned some lessons. And finally, we find him praying. Now to be sure his prayer was a prayer of revenge. Lord avenge me of my eyes. He wasn't praying for the glory of God. He wasn't praying for the deliverance of Israel. He was praying a prayer of vengeance. But God in his mercy and grace heard his prayer.
and the Spirit of God surged once more through that massive body of his, and he bowed with all of his strength and pushed down the supporting pillars of this pagan temple they were gathered in, and the Scriptures say he slew more Philistines in his death than he had in his life. And the impact of this man's onslaught against the Philistines was enough to break their power against Israel for a number of years. But he was a man who might have been. Let's ponder the implication of some of these things. Some of the lessons that I learned from the life of Samson. Lessons I believe we need to learn living in a society without standards.
The first lesson I see is that a godly heritage is a wonderful thing, but it does not ensure that the life so lived will be fully to the glory of God. Many people have had a godly heritage and made a mess of their lives. It's wonderful to have a godly heritage. The Bible speaks of the glorious privilege of godly heritage. Think of Psalms like Psalm ninety-two. Think of Psalms like Psalm one hundred and three. Think of the scriptures like the respect that Paul shows for Timothy's mother and grandmother and tracing the faith of this man.
to his parentage and to his heritage. What a marvelous thing it is when the purpose of God is fulfilled. And God has made it very clear that his purpose is one generation shall influence the next for God. The greatest responsibility we have as parents is not just to put shoes on feet and clothes on backs and bread in tummies. Our greatest responsibility is to pass on the truth of God to the next generation and nurture them and disciple them that they too will live for the glory of God.
But a godly heritage doesn't solve all of the issues. Samson had a godly heritage, but he passed nothing on to his posterity. A useful life. The godly life involves discipline. It involves self-control. It involves moral living. And of course, I suppose that everybody was doing whatever they well pleased in that day, the scriptures say. So every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And that doesn't make for godliness, folks. And we sure see it in the life of Samson. Another thing I learn in Samson's life is that being turned on is not a sufficient basis for marriage.
Oh, he was desperately enamored with this woman and then another and then another. But it takes more than that to fulfill the purposes of God in marriage. Marriage is far too sacred than to drift in on the basis of merely chemistry, as our world likes to call it, merely sensual arousal. That's a pretty shallow foundation. for a life together to the glory of God. And it's certainly a mess when someone who names the name of the living God enters into an unequal yoke. If there's anything in the scriptures that God warns us against again and again and again, it's the unequal yoke.
And this poor fellow walked right into it, willfully and intentionally, to his own grief, to his own hurt and to tragedy. You know, sometimes parents wrongly give in to their children. Now let me tell you this. As I read a passage like this, it tells me that being a parent in a society without standards is tough. It's tough. Because you see, society doesn't reinforce anything you're trying to do. It works against what we're trying to do as parents. And being a parent in a society without standards is tough. Let's face it. By the way, we ought to be praying for and supporting those in our assemblies and in our families who have the care of young children.
We ought to be praying for them and supporting them with every ounce of spiritual energy we have. We do not live in a world where it's easy for young people to grow up. Our world has found all sorts of ways to make its evils rest heavily on the shoulders of our youth. It's not easy to be a parent in a society without standards. Stuff. And we need to stand with one another and stand encouraging one another. And we need to pray for these kids in our Sunday schools and our clubs and our own grandkids and our own great grandkids. We ought to be like Job, who daily, daily, daily was in the presence of God on behalf of his family.
Because raising a family for God in a society without standards is not easy. And sometimes as parents we give in too easily. Too easily. The unequal yoke as we said, ha, what a tragedy. You know, God has said in his word that he expects marriage to be two becoming one flesh. God's standard for marriage is oneness. Not just togetherness. Now you see, a believer and an unbeliever may experience togetherness, passionate togetherness.
But togetherness is vastly different from oneness. You read even during the marriage feast how these two were on a totally different wavelength. Totally different. You see, read some of the interesting dialogue there, especially when she was appealing to him to tell her the secret to this riddle. For example, he says, I should tell you, I haven't even told my parents. Well, we won't analyze that, but I tell you, folks, when you find that kind of dialogue in the private chambers of a newly married couple, you know you've got problems.
They were not on the same wavelength. Togetherness, yes. Oneness, no. No. Paul says, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. What fellowship has light with darkness? What's the answer? None. What part has Christ with believial? And the word translated part there means category or sphere. As believers, we are not even in the same category or sphere as unbelievers. To use it colloquially. We're not even in the same ballpark with each other. In one of the most important dimensions of life. The spiritual dimension. How in the world can you expect to have oneness?
When we're not even in the same ballpark. When one is in Adam. When one is in Christ. That's pretty far apart. See? Together this is not enough. To make a marriage what God intends for it to be. God wants oneness. And an unequal yoke will never know that. Glower Samson willfully walked in to one of the greatest pitfalls that the Bible warns us about from Genesis to Revelation. So you see, sin tends to compound itself. And as you read through this, you see the increasing pace.
Now it is true that there are interesting statements injected here. that God was using this man to afflict the Philistines to break their yoke of bondage on the Hebrews. There's no doubt about that. No doubt about that. But the human narrative speaks of the tremendous compounding of one thing leading to another, and that leading to a reaction, and that leading to a greater, it's just an increasing violent sphere. You see, what you sow you reap, the scriptures say, What you sow, you will reap. And we see a lot of sowing and reaping here. But the sowing is an awful lot of impulse.
It's a lot of fleshly lust. It's a lot of inordinate desire. It's a lot of short fuse blowing your top and anger. Wow, when you sow seeds like that, folks. When you sow the seeds of unbridled lust. When you sow the seeds of of venting your spleen in furious anger, you're bound to reap something that's pretty great. Because you see, one of the laws of the harvest is that we reap more than we sow. You're aware of that, aren't you? You sow one grain of corn, the saw grows, but you don't get one grain of corn off of it. You get one year, maybe two.
You got good Iowa soil, six, two, three hundred grains. We sowed one. One of the laws of the harvest is you reap more than you have sowed. And so it is whether we sow to the Spirit or whether we sow to our own flesh. In either case, we reap more than we have sowed. And so you see an intensity. You see a snowballing of this thing leading up to that awful moment when they took this man and chained him down and gouged his eyes out and chained him in an animal's slot in turning a grinding machine in their prison. Poor Samson.
Another thing I see in this note is that Samson was blind to the danger of Delilah. He walked right into that one, leading with his chin. He stuck his neck right in the noose. And you say, Samson, haven't you learned? These flesh-eyed women are bell-poisoned. They're bad news. Haven't you learned yet? Samson, you walk again right into the trap. Are you blunt? Yes. Did you see what we read? Go back to this reference here in First Peter. Where does he start? He says, now, apply diligence in your faith.
Samson was a man of faith. There were those ingredients in his life. which God saw his faith and God honors him for his faith. But what Peter is saying is don't stop there. To that add what? Moral excellence. Samson ever make it? I'm afraid not. Wasn't much virtue in his life. Far from it. He never took the next step. Moral excellence? Oh, my goodness, I should hope not. Unfortunately, never. Knowledge? Oh, how stupid can you be? Self-control? Oh, he was not a man of self-control.
He flew off the handle all the time. The matter of perseverance, stick-to-itiveness. I know his life was a life of total impulse and so on. You see, It's marvelous to identify the man's faith, and we don't want to take away from that. Please be aware of that. But Peter says, folks, that's only the foundation. And the purpose of God is that you build on that. And apparently Samson never even took the next step. Virtue. Moral excellence. Now notice what happens, Peter says, when you lack these things. Did you see it? Down in verse nine.
He who lacks these things is blind. He's myopic. He can't see beyond the end of his nose. Poor Samson. I want to tell you, folks, if you settle for spiritual myopia and you live in a society without standards, you're going to end up sticking your neck in an awful lot of nooses and getting burned an awful lot of time. You live in a society without standards. You'd better let the Lord give you some spiritual vision. To experience in spiritual growth and progress, the ability to look down the road, the discernment that God gives people who walk carefully with Him, so that you can see through the smoke and the dust that our confused society is kicking up.
And you can see clear and you can see straight and you can see down the road. You can see the outcome tomorrow of today's choices. Someone said the reason why it's not fun to sow your wild oats. The reason why the philosophy, drink and be married for tomorrow we die as folly as because characteristic of you we don't die tomorrow. We live tomorrow to reap what we've sown today. And God says, look, I'd like to give you some distant vision. I'd like to give you the ability to discern and to see beyond the end of your nose. and to see the outcome of various kinds of conduct and behavior. So that you don't keep blundering into all kinds of messes. That's what our world is like. They fall from one mess to another.
Their lives are miserable reaping the consequences of their own folly. It ought not to be so for the people of God. We ought not to grope along as near-sighted Christians who can't see beyond today. God wants to give us discernment. He wants to give us a perspective that will help us to avoid the pitfalls and the traps, not walk in them. But in order for that to be true, our lives must be characterized by spiritual growth and by the vitality that comes in spiritual growth, in moral living, virtue, in growing in our knowledge, of the Lord and His Word.
And all of these virtues that Peter says are available to us as the people of God. But if you don't avail yourself of them, if you're not growing spiritually, you're short-sighted, Peter says. And anybody who tries to go through life, near-sighted, short-sighted, is bound to take a lot of tumbles and falls, then pick up a lot of cuts and bruises. That's dear old Samson. So here's an appeal. You live in a society without standards? Better make sure that you give your life to spiritual growth and progress.
Let the Lord give you the kind of vision, the kind of insight, the kind of discernment that will help you to walk for His glory and not stumble from one angry impulse and one mess and one bit of folly to another. Just a couple more thoughts on this. Their moral prostitution led to spiritual prostitution and Samson compromised his own vow and was robbed of all of that strength that God gave him. My what a pity to see this man bound, eyes gouged out, haunted and abused. Now mind you folks, the Spirit of God was not in a hurry to leave.
Remember the Nazarite vow? Stay away from the fruit of the vine. Stay away from dead carcasses, dead bodies. Hair uncut. Where do we find Samson in the first recorded act of his adult life in Timna? You know what that means? The place of vines. It was the heart of the wine industry of the Philistines. Samson, what on earth is a Nazarite doing there? A Nazarite? A man who is committed to live for the glory of God and keep himself from these things?
Samson as a Nazarite, what are you doing in Timnath? The heart of the Philistine wine industry. What are you doing there? A few verses later, we find a lion attacking him. And the great strength that God gave this man, he tore that line to pieces with his bare hands. But the next time he came by, the scriptures say, I will turn aside. He went out of his way to go to that dead carcass and to get honey out of it. Samson, remember your Nazarite vow.
That's a dead body. That's a carcass there you're handling so eagerly to get that honey. You see, the Spirit of God was not in a hurry to leave. He could have left when Samson went down to Timnath, came home smelling like a brewery. The Spirit of God could have left him when he handled that dead carcass. You see, the Spirit of God was not in a hurry to leave, but Samson took the presence of the Spirit for granted in his life. And then the last straw came. And that spiritual adultery in which he sold himself out in his vow and told a pagan woman what the secret of his consecration to God was.
And then the Spirit of God left him. A life of compromise. The Spirit of God left him. You see, although Samson was a man of faith, and although he did strike the Philistine, The scriptures give us no record that he ever led anybody. He never finished anything. And he never touched another life for good and blessing, as far as we know. Isn't that astounding? He never, as far as the record goes, now there may have been incidents we don't know about.
As far as the records go, he never led anybody. Remember, the nation desperately needed leadership. They had a leadership crisis. And here was a man in whose life the Spirit of God moved greatly, but he never led anybody. He never finished anything. And there is no record that he ever touched even one other life for good. Oh, he killed a lot of people, but he never touched one other life. for good and for God. And that's why I think the man who might have been is probably a good name for Samson.
Folks, that's easy in a society without standards. It happens to us very easily. You want your life to count for God? You'd better get some standards in your life. You'd better develop some convictions. You'd better walk a biblical path if you want your life to amount to something for God. Because if we adopt the impressions and the whims and the ways of the world around us, if we become enamored with the world, as Samson did, there'll be a serious limit as to how much your life amounts to for God. He never led anybody. He never finished anything. He never touched one other life for good and blessing, as far as we know. And yet...
When he turned those scarred, sightless eye sockets to heaven and called upon God, the Lord heard him, and the Lord answered his prayer. And our God's a parting God. God's grace is greater than all our sins. Grace that will pardon and cleanse from sin. It's never too late in this life to turn to God. It's never too late, folks. And that's a glorious message. And it's a message we need to bear to a society without standards where there are multitudes of people out there, many of them naming the name of Christ, who've so messed up their lives that you wonder there's any hope whatsoever.
But folks, we need to bear the message. Our God is a pardoning God. And he'll reach into a life, even a life that's horribly messed up. Because our God is a pardoning God. And so may we be his witnesses. May we be his messengers of a gospel of grace. May we be quick to speak to our needy friends and those fellow believers who are hurting and whose lives are in deep trouble. and remind them again, as Isaiah did the nation, let us return unto our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all our sins. Samson learned that. He learned that. In the twilight of his rather mixed-up life, God heard. and answered, our God is a pardoning God. Let us bear that message with joy to the hurting, needy, mixed up lives around us. Because our God is glorified. In touching lives that are messed up and full of sin and full of problems, our God is he who justifies the ungodly.
Our God is the God who saves sinners. And our God is a God who pardons his erring children. Our God is a God of grace. Let's never forget it. Let's never forget it. The world has always needed the gospel of grace. But when we live in a society without standards, We need to see the grace of God proclaimed to all, even fellow believers who have been swept away by a rootless society and have messed up their lives unbelievably. They need the message of grace, of restoration, of cleansing and forgiveness.
Let's be His instruments to bear that message of grace to those who need it so-so Our God is a pardoning God. Help us, Father. We pray to learn from a life like this. We thank you, our Father, that even though we look with awe at the rather confused and unfortunate dimensions of Samson's life, that there was that faith in his life that brought pleasure to your heart, that even in the extremity of his condition, blinded, in chains, having brought the name of his God into reproach and mockery.
Yet, when he turned his heart to God in prayer, you heard him, and you still worked through his life, even after all of that. Oh, Father, we pray that we may not be quick to throw others on the scrap heap because our God is a pardoning God. We thank you for that. We thank you that our Lord Jesus Christ, in his work at Calvary, not only provided salvation and the free pardon of sin for the guilty sinner, but he provided cleansing for the erring, messed up saint.
And we pray that we may be quick to bear the message of God's grace to others in their need. Help us. to live for your glory in a world that's mixed up, rootless. Help us to walk the true and narrow path of the redeemed in a society without standards. May we be your messengers of grace and of forgiveness. And may we, our Father, draw upon your resources that you might be glorified in our lives and through our lives and in our time.
And that the name of our Lord Jesus may be honored. We ask this in his name.