Sermon by Bob Bradley - PDF Free Download

Living to Your Full Potential Sunday, June 25, 2017 Bob Bradley Judges 16:31 Then his brethren and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the buryingplace of Manoah his father. And he judged Israel twenty years. What I read to you is about Samson. Samson, when you read chapter 16, the later part of chapter 16; Samson has died. The great champion. The guy that killed the many Philistines. The guy that won many battles. The guy that had superhuman strength. A guy that had a great beginning. Now he is dead. He is gone. The Bible says here he judged Israel 20 years. Probably his dad and no doubt his dad is gone and probably his mother has already passed away his family, his relatives come. They find him in a very horrible place. He is dead. He has committed suicide. When you read what happens, he actually kills himself. He kills 3,000 other people with him. But he is dead now. Laying in a pile of rebel, in a heathen temple, to a god he made no claim on. He is there. How did he get there? What happened? What happened to a guy that had godly parents. We studied in our lesson this morning in chapter 13, he had parents that no doubt, believed the Lord. We know the Philistines had oppressed the children of Israel for 40 years and caused them all kinds of issues and all kinds of problems. The Lord, we know he speaks unto Manoah s wife. We don t know her name. We know that the Lord speaks unto a woman and says, I know you are barren. I know you don t have any children. I know that. He says, You are going to have a son. Even though it may not look like you are going to have kids, but you are going to have a son. He is going to be a Nazarite from the time that he is born to the time that he dies. He tells the woman, Don t drink any wine or strong drink. Don t eat anything that is unclean because this child is going to be devoted and dedicated unto me as long as he lives. We know that as we read the chapter this morning, chapter 13, the last couple of verses; we know the time was fulfilled and Samson was born. A time of great rejoicing. A time when the family would have rejoiced that a man child was born into the world. This is a promised son. She knows the God of heaven has promised a son. Now he has been born. Everybody no doubt, in this whole family, has got some great expectations for Samson. God has blessed him. He is going to be a Nazarite. They are not going to cut his hair. He is going to be consecrated to the Lord all the days of

his life. At least that is what God s will was. That is what God wanted. That is what God said. Things were fine. As I said this morning, his name means sunny, or brightness, when you look at his name in the Hebrew. He had all kinds of potential. He had everything going for him. However, somewhere along the line things started going wrong. it didn t take long. It didn t take long. When you read in chapter 14, we know that he goes down into the land of the Philistines. The Bible says he goes down there and meets a woman down there. Amen! He goes down there and Timnah and meets a woman down there. Samson should have never been in the land of Philistines. I don t know what was on his mind. I don t know what is going on here with him. Do you know what he does? He knows better than this. He knows that the Philistines are the enemy. He knows they are the ones that he has been raised up to defeat. Samson has to know that. No doubt, his dad and mom has taught him well. They had taught him about God, taught him about the consecration that is upon his life and this vow that is upon his life. He is a Nazarite and God is going to bless him and use him to do some great things. He goes down to the city here in the land of Philistines. The Bible says he goes down here and sees a woman that is down here. This woman gets Samson s attention. He is awe struck by this woman. The Bible tells us when you read the story that he goes back home and says, Hey, I went down into the land of Philistines. I went down here. I saw a woman down here. She is the greatest thing. She is as pretty as a picture. She just does so many great things for me. I want you to go down there and I want you to get her. Listen. There are times in our lives when we are raising our kids, there are times we have to say, Absolutely not! We are not going to go there. You are not going to go there. You are not going to do that. That is wrong. That is contrary to the will of God. I know in our society today, we don t want to tell our children wrong. We are afraid that we might give them some kind of a complex. Do you know what I say to that? I say bologna. Listen. Your children don t always know what is right for them. Samson here, even though he was a man that God had His hand upon, the Bible will tell us that the Spirit of God was upon his life. Samson said, Hey, I want this woman. She just pleases me so well. His mom and dad said, Surely, there has to be a woman among your own brethren, among the Israelite people, that you can get. Samson would not take no for an answer. Do you know what Samson s parents did? After a while they give in. Listen. We cause our children a lot of problems sometimes simply because we won t say no. we give in. they scream. They holler. We give in. we cave in. we want them to be happy. I want my children to be happy too. I want my grandchildren to be happy. Do you know what? There are things that I absolutely will not let them do. When they

say, Can I do this, Pap? Do you know what I tell them? Absolutely not! You are not going to do that. We don t do those things. Do you know what Samson s parents did? They gave in. Do you know what we know? We know that is exactly what they are going to do. They take a trip. The Bible says they were going to go down Timnah here where he had met this woman. The Bible says, his dad, his mom, and Samson are traveling along. If I read this story and understand it right; somewhere along the line, Samson veers off into a vineyard. Listen. For a man that is not supposed to be eating grapes, a man that is not supposed to be drinking wine, a man that is not supposed to have anything to do with a vineyard; Samson was in a very dangerous place. The Bible says that he goes into the vineyard. There was a lion that met him. I don t know whether God was trying to get his attention. I don t know if God was trying to warn him that there was danger in here. In my own mind, I think that He was. Listen. When you and I get out of the will of God, when we get to places we should not be, the God of heaven will warn us. He will let us know that we are in danger and in a dangerous place. The Bible says that Samson took the lion and tore it in pieces. He goes on down. We know that everything seems to be fine. He doesn t tell his dad and mom that he killed a lion. He does not do that. They go down and make the arrangements for the wedding. There are some things that happen down there with a riddle that I don t have any time to get into. I want you to understand something this evening. When we will not tell our children no, when we know exactly what they are doing is wrong and contrary to the will of God, we pat them on the back and tell them it is going to be alright. We try to pacify them. Instead of saying we are not going to do that you are doing your children a great dishonor. I don t care whether they are 15 or 50. Sometimes we have to tell our children, We are not taking this trip. When you do, you are going to get in trouble. We know the Bible says that they are going to have a wedding. Weddings last 7 days. We know the riddle that Samson tells the folks. Do you remember the riddle? We know that don t we? He didn t tell everybody but just told his to be wife the riddle and we know what they did. We know that Samson was bragging a little bit. He was running his mouth when he should have kept his mouth shut. He should not have been down there anyway. We understand all that story. However, he gets himself in trouble. We know that he does some things here that he absolutely should not have done. We know that he did some crazy things. We are trying to cover probably 35 years here in just a few moments and we don t have time to get through the whole thing. Keep in mind, that there are some things about

Samson that baffles my mind. There are things about Samson one thing we can say about Samson is that Samson was someone that you could depend on to be unpredictable. Being a Christian and unpredictable is not a very good thing. The Bible tells us when we read Hebrews 11; he is a man that had faith in Almighty God and no doubt that he did. We know the Bible says that. We also know he may have had faith in Almighty God of the day but he went out of the night to satisfy the sensual pleasures of his flesh and it got him in trouble. The Bible is going to tell us some other things about what Samson did. We know that through the whole story, when it came out about the riddle. We know that Samson gets mad. He goes up the road and kills 30 people. Up the road, he takes their clothes. He brings them back down. He gives them to the Philistines. He goes home. Listen. When we are outside the place that God that wants us, when we are in enemy territory; there is nothing good that is ever going to come out of it. Do you know what Samson should have been doing instead of having a wedding and trying to find him a wife? He should have been standing up and fighting the battle for Jesus Christ. It is time and high time for you and me to quit messing around with the world, and being friends with the world, and trying to pacify the world. It is time that you and I stand up and say, Hey, I am not going to take that trip. I am not going to do that. I am not going to agree with that. I am going to follow what God says and live that way. That is how we should be. If we will do that God will bless our lives. Samson was a very unpredictable fellow. I told someone just the other day, they asked me a question. I said, Well, you are not going to like the answer. We can depend on you to be undependable. That is what Samson was. Samson was a fellow that you could depend on not being dependable. That would be sad. Wouldn t it? That would really be sad. A guy that has so much going for him. A guy s name was sunny. A guy that had good parents. A guy that had parents that taught him right. Yet, it did not take him long. He wanted to marry a Philistine lady. That did not work out. We know the story. Don t we? We know the story that happens. We know they kill her. They kill her family. The Philistines do that. We know that Samson avenges that. We know that he catches 300 foxes and ties their tails together. He puts some torches on their tails and turns them loose at the time of harvest. He burns up their harvest. The Spirit of God had to be upon this guy to be able to catch 300 foxes. The Lord had to be with him. He had to be a very shred, intelligent fellow. He had faith in God. However, his desires for the flesh; he never got under control. From the time he started until the time he died; there was something eating at him all his life. The very thing he

should have dealt with very early in life is actually the very thing that killed him way too soon in life. Me and you; we have things we have to deal with. I have issues in my life. I have things I have to deal with. There have been things in my life 20 or 30 years ago that I was able to conqueror with the help of the Lord. They don t bother me at all now. If I hadn t of dealt with those things then those things would be destroying me today. It is the same thing with you and the same thing with Samson. Samson could not control his lusts, his lusts for women. We know that he goes down to Gaza when you read on down through the scriptures. Gaza was a place that Samson should have never been. It was God s enemy territory. He goes down there and he goes into a harlot the Bible says. I that doesn t make a lot of sense to you and me. How in the world could a man have the Spirit of God in him by day and do horrible things by night? I can t explain that to you but I know the Bible says that. Amen! The Bible says he goes down to Gaza and he meets a lady here. We know that she is a harlot. We know that while he is in with the lady the people of the city compassed around him. They are going to catch him. They are going to kill him. They are going to wait until the next morning to kill him. Do you know what they do? Samson surprises them. He did not wait until the next morning. He comes out at midnight. We know that he picks up the gate. He picks up the bars of the gate, a big old iron gate. I don t know how many tons it may have weighed. Do you know what the Bible says? He takes this thing and he carries it all the way to where he could see Hebron. If I understand things correctly, I don t know how many miles that would have been. It could have been up to 40 miles that he picks up this big iron gate and takes off. Listen. This is a guy that the Spirit of God is upon his life. He has some power with Almighty God. Do you know why? It is because of his hair that is on his back. It is because of a vow his parents have made, God has placed upon his life. Listen. You and I today, if we will live right do you know what we can have? We can have some awesome power with Almighty God. No. I m not going to pick up any gates. I m not going to kill 1,000 people with a jaw bone of a donkey. I m not going to do that. Do you know what you and I can do? we can get a hold of God. We can touch the throne of Almighty God. I was praying about some things just the other morning. God knows what they were. He knew when I needed help. It wasn t long that I had forgotten about praying the prayer. It wasn t long that God sent the help that we needed. Listen. There is a God in heaven that listens to you and me. We can have power in prayer and there is power in prayer when we live as we should live. If you are not living as you should live then don t waste your time praying. Amen! Pray for forgiveness.

Pray for cleansing. But if you are praying for God to use you and bless you, and do something for you and you are living in sin; you are wasting your time. We know that the children of Israel, the people of his hometown had a lot of anticipations for Samson. They had a lot of hope for this man. They had a lot of hope that he was going to be the one to do some great things and deliver them from the oppression of the Philistines. He did win some battles but he really lost the war. He really did. The Bible tells us here and this is what I want to talk about. The Bible tells us here in this chapter chapter 16 that after the incident here with the gate here at Gaza, he takes off with it. the Bible says that in verse 6, of chapter 16, well let s go back to verse 4 Judges 16:4 And it came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. Judges 16:5 And the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and said unto her, Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lieth, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him: and we will give thee every one of us eleven hundred pieces of silver. Here he is in a place he shouldn t have been. Our relationships and the people we loaf with, and where we go; there is danger there. There can be a lot of danger there where we loaf, who we loaf with, relationships, with people can be very dangerous. It may be very pretty. They may smell good. They may look good. They may be attractive. We may think that they are the very individuals that we need at the time. It may be just awesome for a day or two, or a week or two or three. I promise you when you are flirting with the enemy, you are going to get killed. The Philistines say, Hey, Delilah we have a proposition for you. I don t know that she was a prostitute but she probably was. The Bible says here, Hey this is what we are going to do for you. We want to know where Samson s great strength comes from. We want to know that. Each one of us will give you 1,100 pieces of silver if you find out where his great strength is and you tell us, we are going to give you all this money. I don t know how many of these guys there were here for sure, but this would have been a lot of money that Delilah is going to get. A story, if you read books, if you watch movies; the story here of Samson and Delilah is a story of betrayal, of love, and of sadness. It has been on the Hollywood screen. Samson, I promise you when he goes to Sorek and meets Delilah, he never knew that thousands of years later it would be on the big screens in Hollywood of what he did. He never thought about that. He never thought about what was going to happen. He was thinking about him and what he wanted.

He goes. He meets Delilah. No doubt, Delilah was a very beautiful lady. I d say Samson was a very good-looking fellow. If you saw them, they probably would have made a pretty looking couple. My, my, my, when you and I start flirting with the enemy and loafing with the enemy and making friends with our enemies, and making friends with God s enemies. Disaster is on the way. We know that she asked Samson, Where does your great strength lie? we know that three times he told her some stuff here. He didn t tell her the truth. Finally, after a while she begins to cry and carry on. When you go over here and read in verse 17 of chapter 6, the Bible says that Samson told her his whole heart. Do you know what that means? There wasn t anything here on the inside that Samson did not tell Delilah, nothing there. I m going to tell you what folks. You had better make sure who you are talking to when you do that. You had better make sure who you are talking to when you tell someone your whole heart and exactly what is going on here from the inside out, from the depths of your heart; you had better make sure you know who you are talking to. Samson didn t. he thought he did. But Samson did not know how dangerous and how deadly Delilah was. Sin will kill you folks. Sin will kill. Messing with the world and the enemies of God will kill you. Judges 16:19 And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. Do you know what that means? Samson laid his head right down in her lap. After he has told her now. If you cut the hair off my head then I am going to become as weak and just like any other man. My strength will be gone. He makes that statement and he lays down and goes to sleep, never stopping to consider what he has just done, never dreaming that Delilah is going to call in the enemies again. He never thought about that. Sometimes we mess and gom around with stuff and with people that we should never be around. They steal our joy. They put us in bad predicaments. They make us make choices that we don t want to make. We shouldn t do that. He lays his head in her lap and he goes to sleep. It is serious stuff when you lay it all on the line. Samson has told her the very thing that if it is gone, if it is cut off his strength will be gone. The strength wasn t in his hair. That wasn t where the strength was at. There is not any strength in your hair. It isn t there. The strength was inside. This was a devotion that he was dedicated to God. The strength was in the Holy Spirit. They cut his hair and his power was gone. The very thing that made him and gave him the ability to have this awesome strength and awesome power, the very thing was his consecration to God.

The very thing that will give you power and strength in your life is your consecration and dedication to Almighty God. The greatest tool that you and I have on planet earth is this Bible and praying. The greatest thing we have today, power can be released in our life in a tremendous way today. We can do some things that we never imagined we could do when we will simply keep ourselves consecrated and dedicated to God. He lays his head down in her lap and goes to sleep. Just like he has before, just like he has so many times before. The Bible says that Delilah hollers for the Philistines. They come in running. Samson wakes up and thinks he is going to do just like he has done before. He thinks everything is fine. However, Samson did not know something. He did not know that the Spirit of God had departed from him. It was gone. The thing that gave him so much power, that gave him strength to be able to kill 1,000 with the jawbone of an ass, to be able to pick up gates that probably weighed many tons and carry them 30 or 40 miles; the thing that gave him that strength was gone. Listen. Sin will drive the Spirit of God out of our lives. When the Spirit of God is not in our lives, we have no power. We are powerless. The Bible says he jumps up and is going to do as he has done before but something was missing. He did not know what happened. The Philistines took him. Do you know what the first thing was that they did? They gouge out his eyes. Keep that in mind. The first thing they did to him, they come in. they take him. Verse 21 will tell us they poked out his eyes. A man that had so much potential, a man that could have done so much, a man that could have been so much of a blessing to the God of heaven and to his family and to his nation, a man that could have done so much; he could not control and he never conquered himself. I ve been doing this for 40 years and I have met a lot of people in life that has never been able to conquer self. They got saved. There is no doubt in my mind that they got saved, but they never ever have been able to conquer self. Their self runs wild. Their lusts run wild. Their mouths run wild. Their passions go wild. After a while when that happens, they destroy self. The Bible tells us here they gouge out his eyes. They took him down here, the Bible says, when you read on down through here; do you know what they put Samson doing? The put Samson down in the prison and put him down here where there is a big grinder, a big mill that grinds wheat, it grinds grain. They have a big grinder here. They have a pole tied on it. The slaves would get on the end of the pole and they would walk in circles. The mill would turn. They would grind their grain. That is what Samson was doing. He was in the prison in a land where he should have never been, in a place with his eyes gouged out. He was doing the job of a slave. It is sad to see when Christian people are living like slaves. Amen! We are free folks. We are not slaves. We are not slaves of this world. We shouldn t be! We are free people.

Here he is going around in circles. Grinding. Going around. That is all he did, day after day, month after month. A man that had so much potential, a man that had a great beginning, a fellow that had great parents, had a God that loved him, and had a God that called him. Now he is in a prison in the enemy s country and enemy s land and he is walking in circles. That is what sin does to you and me. When we follow it, when we can t control self, we can t conquer self, when we don t conquer self; that is where we end up at. Blinded by sin. Simply walking around in circles. That s what we do. Here is what happens and I m going to close. Some time goes past. I don t know how many months but several months probably. Maybe even a few years, I don t know. However, there came a time when the Philistines were having a big bash. They were worshiping their God called Dagon. They were in a temple. The Bible tells us there were at least 3,000 people in this temple. They were having a big party. They were having a high time. Somebody just happened to remember, hey, we have strong man. Do you remember Samson? Do you remember this guy that done us so much harm and all this stuff? Our god defeated Jehovah, the God of the Israelites because we have him. He is our prisoner. Go get him and bring him out in front of all these thousands of people and we will make fun of him. Come on out and we will make fun of him. Do you know what the Bible says? They go get him. He is being led around by a little boy. They thought his power was gone and it really was. He was done as far as they were concerned. I don t know what Samson did, but I promise you he did something in this little or whatever he did that they thought there was no danger in Samson s life. No danger in Samson in what he could do. his life was over. That is what they thought. However, they forgot about one thing. They forgot about his hair. The Bible says his hair had begun to grow. I don t know how long it was, whether it was this long or this long. I don t know how long his hair was. His hair began to grow. They made sport out of him. They did little things that they did with him. Samson said to the young man that was leading him around, Hey, will you take me to the pillars that holds this place up? evidently Samson had been there when he had eyes. He seen what was inside. He knew what this temple was. In my understanding. Samson had already been there. I don t know what he was doing there but he knew about this building and how it was constructed. The young man takes him to the temple, to the pillars that were holding up the temple. You will find out that Samson prays we have it recorded in the Bible Samson prayed two times. Once he thought he was going to die of thirst after he killed 1,000 men with the jawbone of an ass. He prayed that God would give him some water. God clave a spot in the jawbone of the ass and water came out. He drank. He was revived. The second time that Samson prayed is here when he was in the heathen temple. His eyes had been gouged out. He had been made a slave. He had been made fun of. That is

where we get to in life when we disobey God. When we go where we know that God says we are not to go, when we do what God says we don t need to do. What God says is wrong, we go ahead and do it. this is where we end up at. Here he is. He goes up. He puts his hands on the pillars and he prays. Lord, this one time, will you please give me my strength back? Let me avenge these guys poked out my eyes Lord let me avenge myself of these guys. Let me push this place down. Do you know what the Bible says happened? God answered his prayer. He pushed on the pillars and three thousand people died that day along with Samson. A life that had so much potential. A life that started out so well. An individual that the Spirit of God was upon their life. An individual that could have done so much and changed so many people s lives for the better. He died in a heathen land, in a heathen god s temple. He died there, blind. He was probably 30 some years old. He had a lot of life left. However, because he would not conqueror and get control of self. Listen. Self will get you into a lot of trouble. This old flesh will get you in a lot of trouble. The Bible says here his family came down and they got him. They dug him out of the rebel where he had not only killed three thousand Philistines but killed himself. They take him back home and they buried him. I said this morning this is probably one of the saddest stories that you will ever read about in the Bible is the story of Samson because he had so much potential. He had a God that loved him. He had a family that loved him. He had people in this nation, if Samson would have just lived right and done right, he could have rallied troops from everywhere. They could have run the Philistines out. They could have lived happily ever after. But Samson did not conquer himself. Instead he brought disgrace to himself, to his family, to his God, to his nation. He dies in a foreign land in the temple of Dagon. a sad story. Isn t it? It is Folks listen. The reason that is so important to us today is this. In raising your children don t be afraid to tell them no. Don t always agree with them. If they are wrong, don t agree with them. Don t tell them they are right when they are wrong. do you know what you are doing? You are just throwing fuel in the fire when you do that. Don t let them do what they want to do. Don t let them do things that you know is wrong. Don t let them do things that you know is contrary to the Word of God. I just want to let my kids enjoy themselves. Do you know what? If you are letting your kids do things that are wrong and you know is contrary to the Word of God; do you know what you are doing? You are just putting them in the grave really quick. That is what you are doing. Don t do that. Not only that but also, let s conquer our self. The things that is inside of us, the things that is drawing us away from God, the very thing that is taking us and leading us down the wrong road; let s get that under control. The passions and the desires that we can.

Do you know how we do that? By reading our Bible and seeking the face of God and praying. Do you know what God will do? God will help us. Do you know what God will do? God will prune some things. It is called sanctification. Daily sanctification do you know what that means? That means God will help us get rid of some things in our life that we don t need and causing us issues, if we want to get rid of them. If we don t want to get rid of them, you will have them till the day you die. If you don t want to get rid of them, they are not going anywhere. Listen. Samson died. Horrible story. Don t do that. Don t live like that. Everybody listening to me tonight I mean this sincerely you have great potential. You might say preacher, I don t have any education. I don t care. I don t either. Amen! God doesn t care. Do you know what God wants out of you? God doesn t want you to be someone real smart. God doesn t care if you have 16 letters before and after your name. God doesn t care. You can be DR. this and DR. that and have a PHD in this and that. That is all fine. That might make you money but that won t get you anywhere with God. Do you know what God wants out of us? God wants us to be dependable people. God wants us to be obedient people. If we will do that folks, you will be amazed what God will use you to do. every one of us. I m talking about all of us. You might say I m weak, I can t do this, I can t talk, I m too old or I m too young. That is just an excuse. You have potential. You have great potential and God will do some great things with your life if you will just be dependable. Be someone He can depend on. I m not talking about people that are dependable today and then you won t see them for a month. I m not talking about people like that. I m not talking about people who always have somewhere else to go and something else to do. I m not talking about that. I m talking about people that when God speaks they say, Here am I Lord, send me. I m ready. What do you have? Where do you need me to go? What do you need done today? That is what God wants. He wants dependable people. When God sends people, do you know what God wants us to do? He wants us to go and do the very thing that He has commissioned us to do. God will bless us to those that He sends us to. God will bless us for going. That is the great thing about serving the Lord. Whether I go to the nursing homes, the school; it doesn t matter where I go. A lot of times you go there and many of you know this; some of you go there to be a blessing but do you know who really gets blessed? The ones who go are the ones who get blessed. God has a plan for your life. Listen. You must show up. You must say Lord, I m ready. What do you have for me? I m ready. I m going to be dependable. When you say go, I m going to go. You are going to be first in my life whether the sun is shining or it is raining, cold or hot; Lord when you say yes, I m going to be there.

Listen. Don t end up like Samson. Samson is sad story about a life, an individual that had so much potential. There were some victories, sure. However, nothing like what he could have been if he would have just lived a right kind of life. Listen. God has a plan for you. God wants to bless your life. Come and pray