Dealing With Deception

Journey Into The Promised Land

Judges 16:21–25 (CSB)

SAMSON’S DEFEAT AND DEATH

21 The Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles, and he was forced to grind grain in the prison. 22 But his hair began to grow back after it had been shaved.

23 Now the Philistine leaders gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon. They rejoiced and said:

Our god has handed over

our enemy Samson to us.

24 When the people saw him, they praised their god and said:

Our god has handed over to us

our enemy who destroyed our land

and who multiplied our dead.

25 When they were in good spirits, they said, “Bring Samson here to entertain us.” So they brought Samson from prison, and he entertained them. They had him stand between the pillars.

The God Of A Second Chance

Galatians 6:7 says, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap!” God means what He says. That is why Samson was unable to feel the power of God after he played with sin for so long. Judges 16.20 says that Samson “wist not (or knew not) that the Lord was departed from him.” But he soon found out! For the Philistines took him, put out his eyes, bound him, brought him down to Gaza, and caused him to grind at the millstone.

One of the first things sin does is to blind you. Sin looks good at the beginning, but all of a sudden, you are blind. You don’t know where you are going. You don’t have any direction at all. They brought Samson down to Gaza and put him in the prison house to grind, binding him to a stone wheel. There he is, blind, bound, and grinding day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out. Around, and around, and around he trudges.

Samson has plenty of time to think now. He has plenty of time to say, “If only I had listened to God!” What thundering, pulsating words! If only! He knows now that the pleasures of sin for a season are not worth the price he is now paying.

When you sin, you not only hurt yourself, but you hurt those around you, even those you love the most. Looking at Samson now, you would never recognize what God wanted him to be — a prophet of God, a ruler, a judge. Satan has reduced him to a nothing: A big zero!

And this is Satan’s purpose for your life, to reduce you to a nothing, to so humiliate you through disobedience to God that he can hold your life up before the world as a washed-out nothing — a zero!

Perhaps you have watched people fall into this trap of Satan. Thankfully, God has an answer for everyone in this tragic position. God still has a purpose for your life, a high and noble purpose. He does not want to leave you blinded, bound, and grinding day after day in the despair of defeat, humiliation, and the inability to overcome. God wants you to be able to hold your head up high in this world, to be an overcomer, to be someone who radiates the power of the life of Jesus Christ!

Sin may bind, blind, and grind; but God is able to deliver. Whatever Satan has done to you, God can undo from this day forward! He is the God of a second chance.

Make this declaration:

From this day forward, God is undoing everything Satan has done in my life. Praise God — He is a God of a second chance.

*Adapted from MCWE email – Journey Into The Promised Land by Morris Cerullo

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