Living for Christ
is a Confused and Confusing Age
A Study of the Book of Judges
Sermon # 12
“God Never Abandons His Own!”
Judges 16:22-31
Are you a failure?
Sure you are, because there are no perfect people. So if you have failed this message is
for you. In fact you may be like the man who said, “I don’t fail often but when I do it is a
dozy.” The question this raises is, “What do we do after we fail?” “A visitor at a fishing dock asked a old fisherman who was sitting
there. ‘If I were to fall in the water, would I drown?’ It was a different way
of asking how deep the water was, but the old fisherman had a good answer. ‘Naw,’ he said. ‘Fallin into the
water don’t drown anybody. It’s staying under it that does.’ ”
Samson is in prison, bound and blind, a
total and complete moral failure, and yet God has not abandoned him. Some may say, but isn’t
that just what happened in the last sermon. Verse twenty had said, “… and the Lord departed from him.” But remember
we said that had to do with God removing his power not his presence.
First, God Can And Does
Bring Good Out of Our Failures.
“A few years ago, an angry
man rushed through the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam until he reached Rembrandt’s famous
painting “Nightwatch.” Then he took out a knife and slashed it repeatedly before
he could be stopped. A short time later, a distraught, hostile man slipped into St. Peter’s
Cathedral in Rome with a hammer and began to smash Michelangelo’s beautiful sculpture
The Pieta. Two cherished works of art were severely damaged. But what did officials do?
Throw them out and forget about them? Absolutely not! Using the best experts, who worked
with the utmost care and precision, they made every effort to restore the treasures.
By His sovereign grace, God can
bring good out of our failures, and even out of our sins.” [Source unknown - www.bible.org/illus/
Let me state again that Samson in spite of
his failure is listed in the Hebrews 11 – “Hall of Faith.” Hebrews
11:32-34 reads, “And
what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and arak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: (33) who through faith subdued
kingdoms, worked righteous-ness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, (34) quenched the violence of fire,
escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle,
turned to flight the armies of the aliens.” Some of the heroes of Hebrews 11 lived
lives of faith and faithfulness, some of them, however, had only great moments of faith
such as Samson’s last moments. In a significant way Hebrews 11 is both a “Hall
of Faith” as well as “God’s Hall of Reclaimed Failures.”
Samson is a great gem of God’s restoring
grace. Look back again at Judges 16:22, “However, the
hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaven.” That really is
a beautiful verse if we take the time to look at it. Even in the midst of the worst kind
of failure, God was not only present but He was working to restore Samson. I believe that
Samson has genuinely repented and God has refused to give up on him.
In fact in verse twenty-two we find implied
three things about restoration ([Gary
Inrig. Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay. (Chicago: Moody, 1975) pp. 258-261]
(1) We
Can Never Fall Too Far For God Too Reach Us.
No matter how we fail, or how far we fall
in our spiritual experience, we can never fall beyond the possibility of God’s
forgive-ness. The Bible is full of story after story of man’s failures and God’s
forgiveness.
It happened to King
David, he was guilty not only of adultery with Bathsheba, but he complicated his sin with
the murder of her husband in an effort to keep it a secret. It was a horrible act of
selfishness, sin and deception, but he repented asked for God’s forgiveness and
received God’s restoration.
His prayer is
recorded in Psalm 51:10-12 “Create in me a clean heart, O
God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. (11) Do not cast me away from Your presence,
And do not take Your Holy
Spirit from me. (12)
Restore
to me the joy of Your salvation…”
Note with me that
David’s prayer is not for the return of his salvation but what he had lost was the
joy of his salvation.
It happened to the
Apostle Peter. After all of his brags about how he would stay with the Lord no matter what
happened he denied the Lord three times. Yet the Lord forgave him, he was restored and
used in a mighty way by God.
(2)
Forgiveness is Immediate,
Restoration
is gradual.
The promise of the New Testament in 1
John 1:9 is, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.” The assurance of Scripture is the very
instant I turn to God and call out in repentance, I am immediately forgiven. Forgiveness
is instant, restoration is a process.
(3) The Consequences of Sin are not Erased.
Samson grew new hair, but he did not receive new eyes. No amount of repenting will
obliterate the consequences of sin. Let me give you an example. In disobedience you
Scripture you fall into sexual sin. You are convicted by the Holy Spirit, and you confess
and repent. Are you forgiven? Yes! Are forgiven immediately? Yes. Are forgiven completely?
Yes. Yet, if doing your sin contacted a Sexual Transmitted Disease, your repentance and
your forgiveness will not erase that disease.
The great truth of
scripture is that God restores failures. This does not mean there is no loss. Samson would
never be able to do, what he could have done if he had not sinned. Understanding the
richness of God’s grace and his forgiveness, does not minimize the seriousness and
consequences of sin. God did not give Samson his eyes back but he did enable Samson to do
in his blindness what he could not have done if he were sighted.
God
Can And Does Bring Good Out Of Our Failures and …
Secondly, God Can and Does
Hear Our Prayer Even After We Have Failed (vv.
24-38)
In spite of Samson’s
past, God still heard and answered his prayer. One of the effects of sin in our lives is
that it keeps us from feeling like praying. Guilt over our past failures can keep us away
from the only means of restoration.
Verse twenty-four states, “Now the lords of the Philistines
gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to rejoice. And they
said: “Our god has delivered into our hands Samson our enemy!" (24) When the
people saw him, they praised their god; for they said: "Our god has delivered into
our hands our enemy, The destroyer of our land, And the one who multiplied our dead."
(25) So it happened, when their hearts were merry, that they said, "Call for Samson,
that he may perform for us." So they called for Samson from the prison, and he
performed for them. And they stationed him between the pillars. (26) Then Samson said to
the lad who held him by the hand, "Let me feel the pillars which support the temple,
so that I can lean on them." (27) Now the temple was full of men and women. All the
lords of the Philistines were there--about three thousand men and women on the roof
watching while Samson performed. (28) Then Samson called to the LORD, saying, "O Lord
GOD, remember me, I pray! Strengthen me, I pray, just this once, O God, that I may with
one blow take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes!"
God
Can and Does Hear Our Prayer Even After We Have Failed ….
Third,
God Can And May Turn Our Failure In to Our Greatest Success (vv. 29-31)
“And
Samson took hold of the two middle pillars which supported the temple, and he braced
himself against them, one on his right and the other on his left. (30) Then Samson said,
"Let me die with the Philistines!" And he pushed with all his might, and the
temple fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead that he killed at
his death were more than he had killed in his life.”
Some times in his sovereign wisdom God
chooses to reverse turn our failure into our greatest success.
“Concerned about the disintegration of
The popularity of the
controversial volume caught the eye of TV talk show guru Phil Donahue. He invited Dobson
to appear on his Chicago-based show in 1978. Donahue made the Ph.D. in child development
look like a child. Dobson readily admits his performance on Donahue's show was his worst
ever. He left the set feeling like a failure. But Dobson's despair was short-lived.
The next day he sought out a 65-year-old advertising agent in a Chicago suburb to discuss
the possibility of a national radio program. Doug Mains invited Dobson to his one-man
studio in Wheaton, where Dr. James Dobson proceeded to record the pilot broadcast of
"Focus on the Family."
What has developed from a disastrous television appearance is nothing
short of mind-boggling. "Focus on the Family" is heard on more than 6,000
stations around the world. The 10 magazines Focus publishes reach 2.3 million families
each month.” [Peter Kennedy, Copyright 2004, Devotional
E-Mail DEVOTIONS IN THE MINOR PROPHETS pkennedy6@yahoo.com -
www.sermonillustrator.org/illustrator/sermon9/lord_is_my_strength.htm]
"I have learned that we can control where we allow things that we can't understand to
fall. They either fall between us and God, and we become angry. Or we allow these things
to fall outside of us and press us in closer to God." - Steven Curtis Chapman
Conclusion
God’s Four
Step Plan to Victory Over Failure
1. Admit Your Failure
2. Accept God’s Forgiveness
3. Be Patient – Restoration Takes Time
4. Trust God To Use You Again