Judges 13:24
How do you go from hero to zero and back to hero?
He was the physically strongest man ever to live, but spiritually and emotionally, he was a weakling.
Every time you meet a person with great strengths, they also have significant weaknesses.
"Can that be avoided?"
“Most Likely to Succeed.”
Rebellion is a choice.
#1. Self-indulgence weakens your life.
Most everyone has a pet indulgence, or one that you tolerate, one that we give into most easily.
"Get her for me because she pleases me."
All he considered was his own pleasures.
“Just this one time.”
"It's just a small thing."
The problem is that a little leak turns into a big leak.
Galatians 6:7, 8 (LB) "Don't be misled. Remember that you cannot ignore God and get away with it. A man will always reap just the kind of crop he sows. If he sows to please his own desires, he will be planting seeds of evil and will surely reap a harvest of spiritual decay and death."
Strong people discipline their desires.
1 Corinthians 6:12 "I will not let anything master me."
Proverbs 25:28 "Anyone who lacks self-control is like a city whose walls are broken down."
#2. Bitterness will weaken your life.
He lived his life to get revenge or get even.
Judges 15:3 "This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines."
Judges 15:7 "Since you acted like this, I won't stop until I get my revenge on you."
Judges 15:11 "I merely did to them what they did to me."
Spending your entire life reacting to people instead of making your own choices will weaken you and make you bitter.
Resentment or getting even is a waste of time, energy, and creativity.
When you get angry and resentful, you are wasting your God-honoring creativity.
Proverbs 29:22 "A hot-tempered man starts fights and gets into all kinds of trouble."
Proverbs 16:32 "It is better to be slow-tempered than to be famous and to have self-control than to control an army."
“Be angry and sin not.”
Proverbs 29:11 "A fool gives full vent to his anger. But a man of understanding controls himself."
#3. Carelessness weakens your life.
The biggest mistake in Samson's life was that he refused to take his vows seriously.
Samson was so far off track that he could not reason with reality.
His lifestyle had been weakening him for years.
"He did not know the Lord had left him."
What are you committed to?
"The Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes, and then began to make fun of him."
God never gave up on Samson.
"The hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved."
On the last day of his life, he did an act of faith that God said was worthy of being put in the Hall of Fame.
What are you committed to?