The Progression of Sin

Judges 13-15

Sampson....a great fighter with a great temper. I reflect on so many faults in his life...

1. In finding a mate, he didn't respect his father and mother's wishes. He thought he knew what was right. He wanted to marry a Phillistine rather than an Israelitte.

2. When he killed the lion with his bare hands, he knew as a Nazarite he wasn't supposed to touch anything dead, but he was sneaky and didn't tell his parents.

3. Later he kills a lion and makes a joke of it by telling a riddle about it. He makes sin like it's fun and games.

4. He later loses his temper because they find out his riddle. He was so arrogant and prideful.

5. He tosses aside his wife because she told his riddle and later he comes back trying to have her back. Her father had let her marry another because he forsook her. Sampson becomes enraged and ties the foxes together, lights their tails and sends them into the camp of the Philistines. Their crops are destroyed. He wasn't willing to accept the consequences of his decisions.

6. Later the people of Judah find out what Sampson has done, and they bind him and deliver him to the Philistines. He didn't care that his decisions affected more people than just himself.

7. In the midst of the Philistines, Sampson breaks free of his ropes and takes the jawbone of an ass and kills a thousand of them. He still has no regard for his rules of separation, and he doesn't give credit to God but instead brags on himself and what he has done. He felt the end justified the means.

8. I need to post this verse, so I point out some things....
15:18
And he was sore athirst, and called on the LORD, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?
I can almost detect an arrogant tone. "You did this God. Why can't you do this for me?" I am amazed, though, because God does listen to him and hallows a place out of the jaw of the ass. This reminds me again that God uses everyone. He knows their intentions, and He uses them to propetuate His will. Though Sampson went about it wrong, God used him to bring deliverance to the Israelittes from the Philistines.

Sampson pictures the progression of the power of sin in one's life...
Choosing just something I want instead of God's perfect will...."little sins" that are secretive...become boastful and find sin amusing...become angry with those who call out my sins...seek revenge on those who deliver consequences for my sins...absolutely no regard for how my sin affects others...completely numb to any more conviction of sin

Abba help me to have a strong distaste for sin. I don't want to see this progression in my life. Weed out the little stuff before I have a whole garden of weeds.