Samson is trifling with the sacred things in his life. He’s "Playing marbles with diamonds" to borrow a phrase from vocalist Steve Camp from a few years ago. Samson was entrusted with something precious, something special that God doesn’t give to every man. In fact, God didn’t give it to any man except him. Samson could have accomplished so much for God in his life, but where is he? What is he doing with his great strength? He’s playing around with it, dangling it in front of this loose woman like a ball of string in front of a kitten. God’s gifts are not to be used that way.

According to Rod Dreher, writing in the latest issue of National Review, 55 million Africans will have died of AIDS between the years 2000 and 2020.(1) Dreher's grim prediction is based on United Nations projections. Let's see if I can illustrate that number using something a little closer to home. Imagine that the Center for Disease Control were to estimate that over the next 20 years, 20% of the population of the United States, or the combined populations of California, Florida, and Missouri(2) would die off completely in a killer epidemic. In a nation that rightly mourns the seven astronauts lost in the space shuttle accident, I think we would call that a national tragedy. Likewise, I believe we can call the devastation of lives in Africa due to the deadly AIDS epidemic a great human tragedy.

From the midst of this distressing news coming from Africa however, is the story of the efforts of the nation of Uganda in the face of this epidemic. Uganda's HIV rate has declined more dramatically than that of any other country in Africa or, for that matter, any other country in the world. How could that be, you ask? It seems that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni benefited from what some might consider a critical stroke of luck early in the fight against the deadly AIDS virus in his country: He didn't have any Western experts on hand to tell him what to do.

Lacking a multimillion dollar budget or ready access to state-of-the-art medicine, President Museveni was left to use something largely overlooked by leaders in the West: common sense. He mobilized community groups behind a national AIDS-prevention effort and asked religious leaders to preach even more forthrightly to Ugandans about the need to abstain from premarital sex and be faithful to their partners. He reinforced this with a massive public-relations campaign, warning Ugandans that sexual morality was a matter of life and death. The strategy came to be known as "A.B.C.," The letters stand for "Abstain, Be faithful to your partner, or, if you're not willing to do either of these things, use a Condom." That third part presumably came from the "secular" participants involved in the effort. Uganda's HIV-infection rate peaked in 1991, and has steadily declined ever since, in great contrast to that of all the other countries on the African continent, in which the infection rates have continued to skyrocket or, at best, remained constant.

So this successful campaign is now duplicated in other countries of Africa, right? Dream on. "I got very excited," says Edward C. Green, a Harvard researcher who went to Uganda on a USAID funded survey in 1993. "Here was an approach to AIDS prevention that we experts had dismissed as unrealistic and impossible to achieve. But it seemed the Ugandans had done it, and done it at low cost, without requiring any products… I thought those who worked in AIDS prevention… would be excited," said Green. "But," concludes Rod Dreher in the National Review article, "noting happened… When he tried to tell the AIDS establishment what was going on there, he was met with indifference at best, hostility at worst."

It may well be (and these are my words based on Dreher’s conclusion) that at least a portion of those 55 million predicted African deaths will be sacrifices made on the altar of Western political correctness, in the name of protecting the so-called "progress" of the sexual revolution.

Prohibitions against sexual immorality are found in both Old and New Testaments of the Bible. In the Old Testament, God told His people in no uncertain terms the benefits of following His counsel in this area. He said to Israel in Exodus 15:26: "If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His sight… I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians…."

The next time you hear someone parroting that old saw that Biblical morality is backward and has no place in modern society, you have my permission to laugh in his or her face! The truth is that such people seem determined not to allow Biblical morality to have any place in modern society because it would cramp their loose lifestyle.

We've been pursuing the topic of "Sense and Sensuality" in several recent messages. Last Sunday I brought you a lesson from Judges 13-15 that I called, "How to Make Your Life Miserable by Not Controlling Your Passions." It was based on the earlier parts of the life of the Biblical judge, Samson, who lived in the days of Israel just prior to the kings. This morning I want to finish Samson’s story.

I divided the Bible's account into four parts, each pertaining to some aspect of his life: 1) His strength, 2) His weakness, 3) His seduction, and 4) His vindication. We covered the first two last time. We'll finish the last two in this message.

God gave Samson his great strength for the purpose of delivering the Israelites from Philistine bondage(3) near the end of the period of the judges. Keeping his strength depended upon keeping his commitment to live as a Nazirite, which included touching nothing unclean, consuming nothing from the vine, and never cutting his hair. As long as he did these, his strength remained.

Though he was physically the strongest man ever mentioned in the bible, Samson had a weakness that would be his downfall. While it might or might not be too much to say that he was a skirt chaser or womanizer, on at least three occasions he allowed unbridled sensuality to have the upper hand. The first involved a short-lived marriage to a Philistine woman that we looked at last time. That occasion ended in tragedy as their own people burned both her and her father to death. We’ll see the second and third blunder in this message. Point number two in last week’s lesson had to do with his weakness. Since I stopped just short of finishing that point, I'll do it now.

Gaza was one of five principle cities in Philistia. Why Samson went there is anyone’s guess, but remembering his choice of a wife early on, it surely looks like he had a thing for Philistine women. It may also be that in Gaza he would have relative anonymity, being away from his home and the accountability of his family and people. Times and places of anonymity sometimes bring out the worst in people. Being away from home for long periods of time in strange surroundings where you know no one and no one knows you, makes it easier to do things you would not normally do. A wise person who wants to continue in faithfulness to God will build in safeguards to minimize or compensate for periods of anonymity.

What a contrast we see here between Samson’s great physical strength and his corresponding great moral weakness! He could kill a thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey but he couldn't control his passions. Was this the only time he behaved like this? We don’t know. What we can ascertain is that there was a pattern of poor choices in this area. It would get worse, and it would cost him dearly. In fact, it would be his downfall.

I remember a time when I was in high school when the football team picked up the Jr. Varsity coach’s VW Beetle and put it on the sidewalk between two buildings where he couldn’t drive it away. I’ll never forget the look on the Coach Moore’s face! We all thought that it was funny and quite an accomplishment of strength. Of course, the Vice-Principal didn’t share the same admiration.

But that was a whole team. Samson here was just one guy. If there were yet some Philistines who doubted his brute strength, this event confirmed it for them. He ripped up those gates - pulled them right out of their footings - put them up on his shoulders, and carried them off to the top of a mountain. If the Lords of the Philistines learned anything from this event, they learned that defeating Samson would not be easily accomplished by force. But they weren’t out of ideas. In fact, I believe Samson’s visit to the harlot of Gaza tipped them off to the one area of weakness they could exploit. Don’t leave these three verses thinking that there were no consequences for Samson’s irresponsible action. This was the beginning of the end of his days of freedom and great strength.

Biblical Scholar, Alfred Edersheim, says of Delilah, "Her very name – ‘the weak’ or ‘longing one’ - breathes sensuality…."(4) He also points out that Sorek was called "The Valley of the Choice Red Grape," which probably was an indicator that it was wine country. Tell me, what is a man bound to a Nazirite vow that forbids touching anything from the vine doing in grape country? Samson would soon wish he had never entered Sorek.

The author of Judges tells us that Samson "loved" Delilah. If he did, he was certainly looking for it in all the wrong places. I'm sure the Philistines had been keeping an eye on his travels. When they saw him hook up with Delilah, they knew it was their big chance.

By this time Samson was of no small concern to the Philistines. Judges 3:3 tells us that there were five "Lords" or rulers of Philistia. These are the ones who came with their sizable sum of silver to purchase Delilah's services. Samson was at the top of Philistia’s Ten Most Wanted list. This sizable offer of quick cash was all it took to enlist the sensual Delilah in their plot. Samson was playing with fire and it would burn him badly.

I suspect that these words are intentionally stilted. Yet I think we can imagine at least a portion of the scene – Delilah running her fingers through Samson’s long hair and her hands over his bulging biceps. Probably this first suggestion of revealing his strength to her was nothing more than a coy bit of joking. Samson, joining in the fun, told her a foolish lie.

Samson did not know that Philistine soldiers were waiting in the next room. To him it was all a bit of harmless fun. He was sure his secret was safe so he played along.

That was easy enough. If Delilah wanted to play cat and mouse, Samson was OK with it. It was fun! Nothing was lost. What could a little harmless flirting hurt?

There was probably a little more urgency in the woman’s voice this time and perhaps she really started turning on the charm.

Samson is playing a game with Delilah. He feels safe. He hasn’t told her anything. What harm is there in that?

There is great harm in it! Samson is trifling with the sacred things in his life. He’s "Playing marbles with diamonds" to borrow a phrase from vocalist Steve Camp from a few years ago. Samson was entrusted with something precious, something special that God doesn’t give to every man. In fact, God didn’t give it to any man except him. Samson could have accomplished so much for God in his life, but where is he? What is he doing with his great strength? He’s playing around with it, dangling it in front of this loose woman like a ball of string in front of a kitten. God’s gifts are not to be used that way.

Precious gifts from God must be guarded and appreciated and used only for Him. As Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:14: "Guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you." Samson wasn’t doing that with his treasure and he was about to lose it.

It sort of reminds me of those recent news video clips (if you have seen them) of Michael Jackson holding his infant child out over the porch rail of his apartment. You don’t even play around with things like that!

Likewise, you shouldn’t play around with the precious gifts of God - especially your salvation. Salvation isn’t something all men come by as easily as we do in this country. Yet sometimes we see people cycling in and out of the church as though Christ’s dying for them meant nothing. Warnings are met with half-hearted responses like, "Don’t worry about me. I’ll come back one of these days when I’m finished playing around." Sometimes they do, but more often, in my experience, they never do. Don’t trifle with the sacred gifts of God or you may lose them.

There is a significant difference in Samson’s response this time. What is it? He mentions his hair! This is the first time he has come this close to the source of his strength. Those who trifle with the sacred are giving up, inch by inch, the security of their position. They are weakened though they hardly notice it. While they are in danger, they think they’ll just run back to God as they always have and everything will be fine.

Samson is still not caught, but the enemy is getting very close.

Let me paraphrase that for you. "She nagged him day after day until she wore him out."

You might remember back in chapter 14, verse 17, the description of Samson’s bride trying to discover the solution to his riddle. It says, "However, she wept before him seven days while their feast lasted. And it came about on the seventh day that he told her because she pressed him so hard."

Did the Philistines know about that? Did they use what had worked on Samson before to trip him up again? I don’t know the answer to that, but I can tell you that Samson hadn’t learned his lesson. Lessons we don’t learn are often the lessons that will be repeated. I also know that the enemy of our souls knows our weaknesses from past experience. Like a computer that constantly adapts to exploit our newly learned defenses, He knows how we respond to various stimuli and various pressures and will not hesitate to use those discovered weaknesses of the past against us in the present.

Uh-oh! The secret is out. Something in the way Samson responded to her this time made her sure she had penetrated his last defenses.

What treachery! Samson is looking for love. What he gets is betrayal. This is a classic illustration of a very common occurrence.

I’m reminded of something I once heard about Satan’s treachery that parallels this fairly accurately:

"Satan promises the best, but pays the worst. He is a liar from the beginning. The foolish are deceived by him… the promised crown becomes a halter; the promised comfort a torment; the promised honor, shame; and the promised heaven a hell."(5)

So Samson awoke to the blows of the one person he had convinced himself he could trust - only to discover that she actually despised him. She sold his most intimate secret for money. Betrayal of someone close is the worst kind of treachery.

As the sleep dissipated from his brain and he looked around, at first he figured he’d just break free like he had done so many times before.

That has to be among the most sobering statements in the entire Bible: "He did not know that the Lord had departed from him."

A person can trifle with sacred things too long and discover only too late the same verdict.

Without the presence of God in his life – that presence he had grown so familiar with that he took it for granted – Samson was too weak to overcome his enemies.

What a terrible plight for a life with so much potential! God didn't make Samson to be a grinder in a prison. He made him to be a victor over the enemies of His people. What a tragic waste! Samson would never regain his eyesight. He would never escape his captors in his earthly life. This one with so much potential to do the will of God was now reduced to pushing around a heavy millstone.

Yet there is one remaining part of this sad story about Samson.

The Philistines worshipped the idol, Dagon, the fish-god, the so-called god of the sea. The idol consisted of the body of a fish with the head and hands of a man.(6) This was a high day of special festivities and worship to Dagon. They celebrated the triumph of Philistia over the God of Israel and for it they sent to the prison house to retrieve their greatest trophy.

Can you imagine the mockery as they dragged Samson in his chains out before them? They ridiculed him and laughed at him and cursed his God (and ours). To all this, all Samson could manage was a blind stare into the perpetual darkness that his life had become.

Yet while he couldn’t see with his eyes, Samson had gradually become aware of something he could feel increasing in weight upon his shoulders. His hair was growing back. Could God perhaps use him one more time in that great purpose for which he had been born? Could God accept one final act of repentance, something that had been lacking in his life for so long?

This was a meeting of all the "Whose Who" of Philistia. All five of the Philistine Lords were in the hall, along with various dignitaries of the administration. If Samson had his strength back one time, even briefly, he could yet set the Philistines back many years in their domination of God’s people. But would God do it? Would He give back the gift to this one who had squandered it so foolishly throughout his life?

This is the one time in his recorded life that Samson was actually in tune with God and His great purpose for his life instead of just following after his lust. God worked in harmony with him this time rather than in spite of him like the times before. The result was decisive.

The fall of Samson is a vivid reminder of the danger of not applying good sense to our sensuality. If, by some form of twisted logic, we wanted to make our lives miserable by not controlling our passions, we would need look no further than the life of Samson. But that's not what we want, is it? We want what's best. We want to live in harmony with our purpose and with our Creator. That isn't an impossible undertaking. It's doable. Here are the several lessons from this passage that can help us:

It makes good sense to use good sense when it comes to our sensuality.

Footnotes: (Use your "Back" button to return to your place) 

1. This prediction and the other information in this introduction come from an article called "Death in Africa… and stoppable death at that: How to combat AIDS," National Review, February 10, 2003, pp. 25-28.
2. A rough calculation made by the author of this sermon based upon the figures taken from the U.S. Census Bureau at: http://eire.census.gov/popest/data/states/tables/ST-EST2002-01.php
3. Judges 13:5
4. Commentary located at SEARCHGODSWORD.ORG: http://www.searchgodsword.org/his/bc/edr/ebh/view.cgi?book=3&chapter=20
5. Author unknown
6. Edersheim: http://www.searchgodsword.org/his/bc/edr/ebh/view.cgi?book=3&chapter=20

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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