DON’T GET DISTRACTED 

JUDGES 13:1-7, 24-25

          We are going to spend some time today looking at the story of Samson.  Though many of you may know this story already, I trust that God will make a few new points to you today.  Now before his conception Samson’s mother was told that he would be a Nazarite.  The Nazarite was a person who was devoted or consecrated to God.  There were specific rules governing Nazarites.

Numbers 6:2-7

          The Nazarite was not to ingest (eat or drink) anything that was fermented or could be fermented.  This included all wines or grapes in any form.  He was not to cut his hair and he was not to go near anything dead, even if it was his mother or father.  In other words there was no acceptable reason for making himself unclean before God.  He was to be separated for God’s use for the length of his vow.  Nazarite vows were normally for a limited period of time but verse 7 lets us know that Samson was to be a Nazarite of God all his life.  Also in verse 5 we see God’s purpose for Samson.  He was to begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines.

JUDGES 2:11-19

          After Moses and Joshua died, the Children of Israel just went hog wild.  They started doing whatever they saw the heathens of the Canaan doing.  They got in a pattern of doing evil in the sight of God, God would deliver them into the hands of their enemies, they would moan and groan and promise to do right, God would raise up a deliverer called a judge, they would be freed from their enemy, they would have rest in the land for as much as 40 years and during the restful period they would start the cycle all over again.  Samson was the 14^th of these judges and his charge was to begin the end of the Philistine rule.  We might wonder at this stage, “Why Samson would be able only to begin what other judges completed.”  The answer to that question is found in the title of today’s message which is “DON’T GET DISTRACTED.”

          It is difficult to fulfill the will of God for our lives when we allow ourselves to be easily distracted by all that is going on around us, but more importantly by our own desires.  This was Samson’s problem.  He could not focus on what he was to do for God because he was too distracted by his own desires.  Samson knew that he was a Nazarite and that there was a call of God on his life, but nowhere in the story of Samson do you see him discussing or even questioning God about what he was to do.  Samson was too distracted with what he wanted to even bother to find out what God wanted from him.  As believers we should never get so distracted with our own lives that we forget that our lives belong to God and we are charged with seeking God for his will for us. 

          From the life of Samson we can see several pitfalls of being distracted.

JUDGES 14:1-2

          When we are distracted we can easily find ourselves disobeying God.  Samson saw a beautiful woman and he wanted her.  It did not matter to him that she was forbidden, not because he was a Nazarite, but simply because he was an Israelite and she was a Canaanite.  Speaking of the Canaanites, God tells the Israelites in Deut. 7:2-3 “And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shall smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them:  Neither shall thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shall not give unto his son, nor his daughter shall thou take unto thy son.” But Samson did not care what God wanted.  He was distracted by what he wanted.

2 CORINTHIANS 6:14

          What is the difference in the command given to the Children of Israel in Deut. 7:3 and the one given here to believers?  The Children of Israel were warned that entering relationship with the Canaanites would draw them away from God and into idolatry. Believers are warned to avoid relationships with unbelievers for the same reason.  The unrighteous will always seek sooner or later to draw the righteous away from God to do that which is ungodly.

          Samson was distracted by his flesh and it led him into disobedience.  Likewise we too are often distracted by our flesh and led into disobedience.  It is important that we not become distracted.

JUDGES 14:3-4

          Being distracted led Samson to insult and shame his parents.  Here his parents had received a word from God concerning their son.  They had raised him to be exactly what God said he was to be and a soon as he came of age to make decisions for himself he insulted, dishonored and shamed them by choosing a philistine woman over all the women of Israel.  He became distracted by her beauty and insisted on wedding the enemy.  This was shameful to his parents and to his people.  When we are distracted it is so easy to find ourselves doing that which will shame and insult God.  Paul tells us in 2 Cor. 6:3 to “Give no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed.”   In other words, as believers we are to live in such a way that no one can find fault with Christ or his Church because of what we have done.  Don’t become distracted and find yourself insulting and shaming Christ or his church.

JUDGES 14:5-9

          Why do you think Samson failed to tell his parents about killing the lion?  In fact why aren’t his parents with him?  Could it be, that Samson having come that way before knew that the grape vineyard was there, sent his parents on ahead of him so that he could eat grapes which were forbidden to him.  In any case we see that Samson’s distractions with his own desires led him to shun his calling.  The fact that the honey was in the dead carcass of made it unclean.  As a Nazarite he was to touch nothing that was dead or unclean.  Maybe he was not eating the grapes but for sure he ate the honey.  When we focus on ourselves our attention will be drawn away from God’s desires for us to our own desires.  When we choose our desires over God’s desires we are walking outside of his will for us and shunning the call to righteous living that he has placed on the lives of believers.

          The next point I want to make is also seen in verse 9.  When we are distracted by our own desires we often take others right into our sin with us.  The honey was not only unclean for Samson; it was unclean for his parents also.  The Israelite who was forced to handle anything dead had to go through a 7 day cleansing period to make himself clean again.  Samson gave this unclean honey to his parents and never even bothered to tell them that they had been defiled.  Because his heart was not right towards God, he caused his parents to sin also.  I preached a message once on the Consequences of Sin.  When anyone sins, someone else is affected.  When we become distracted and find ourselves in sin, those who are closest to us are normally the one who are most affected and often they are drawn into our sin.

JUDGES 14:10-14

          Samson is so distracted by his own desires that he is now in open rebellion to God.  He has married and forbidden women and is seen here celebrating his disobedience.  While every one else is drinking wine at the feast, do you think Samson is drinking water.  Probably not, he is right in the mix of the party.  I’m betting that he was drinking what everyone else was drinking, after all he had eaten the defiled honey and nothing had happened.  Now some would think that marrying outside of Israel seemed to be okay with God.  Just because God will use your rebellion to bring him glory does not give us permission to act in rebellion.  God did not need any more of a reason to get the Philistines than he need with any of the other nations.  What he need was for Samson to get with the program.  While others saw the Philistine oppression as grievous, Samson obviously was content.  God used this situation to stir up his dislike for them and get him moving against them.  God can use our sin to benefit him, but he does not need or desire for us to sin.  When Paul says in Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” he means both good and bad things.  But just because God can and sometimes does use the bad to his glory does not mean that he is pleased with our actions.

JUDGES 14:15-18

          When we are distracted we will act unwisely.  Common sense should have told him not to tell his wife.  She was too insistent in knowing the answer.  He should have known she would betray him.  But then how would he have known.  He married her because she pleased his eyes.  He had no idea of the character of the woman he had married.  He played right into the hands of the enemy.

EPHESIANS 5:15-17

          We are encouraged here to live our lives being on constant alert that we might avoid danger and the enemies attack.  We are not to be living aimlessly like fools, unaware to the war in which we are engaged.  We are to buy back the moments that others foolishly throw away in their pursuit of evil, by understanding and following hard after the will of God for our lives.  Samson was distracted by his flesh and the beauty of the woman which led him to act unwisely.  Ask yourself is there anything that is distracting me from following hard after the will of God for me and thus causing me to act unwisely.  If you answer that question with yes, I pray that you will choose to drop your distraction and perform the will of God for your life.

JUDGES 16:4

          Being distracted will cause us to repeat the same bad choices.  It would seem that being deceived by one Philistine wife and mistreated by her father would have deterred Samson from going after another.  But not so; you see when we are distracted we rarely make good choices and that is also most often when we fail to heed the warnings given to us by God.  Normally we are distracted because of something we want or we want to do, and we want it so badly that we refuse to hear God saying no.  We make a mistake going after what we want the first time and even when that falls through or we end up in trouble we go right back again and try to get what we want.  We keep making the same mistake expecting a different result.  However if we would do Prov. 3:5-6 “^Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.   In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths”, rather than just recite it we would find ourselves right in the middle of God’s will where he wants us to be.

JUDGES 16:15-19

          When we are distracted we might choose to trust the enemy.  Why would Samson ever choose to tell Delilah the truth?  She wooed him and he played with fire until it got the best of him.  When we are distracted we often can not hear the truth.  In fact, the lie and the liar seem to be yelling so loud in our heads that the truth seems to be silent.  But for the believer the truth is never silent.  We are led by the Spirit of God.  We must cast down the distraction so that we can clearly hear the truth.

JUDGES 16:20-22

          Because Samson has been so distracted by his own desires and not paying attention to the will and Word of God, he now finds himself entrapped by the Philistines.  The enemy’s goal is never to do good by us.  His goal is to imprison us in sin and bring about our destruction.  When we are distracted we often work with him rather than against him.  We don’t see the trap so we slowly and methodically walk right into the trap.

JUDGES 16:25-31

          We see that the end of Samson was his death.  Yes he irritated the Philistines for a time, but there is nothing about this that points to the end of the reign of the Philistines over Israel.  Samson was nowhere near as effective as previous judges in delivering the people.  The distraction of trying to satisfy his own flesh led him to

D – Disobey to God

I – Insult and shame his parents and his people

S – Shun his calling

T – Take others into sin with him

R – Rebel against God

A – Act unwisely

C – Choose badly again

T – Trust the enemy and be

E – Entrapped by the enemy, and finally brought to

D – Death.

As you travel the road to eternal life with God, Don’t get distracted for distraction may lead to death.