“Eye Trouble” – FBC Morning Light (3/29/2024)

Well, a good Friday morning to you, and indeed, good Friday, isn't it? A day that we recognize the crucifixion of our Lord, a couple days before Resurrection Sunday. Looking forward to Resurrection Sunday, are you not?

We're gathering at 8 o 'clock in the morning for a sunrise service Sunday, and then we're going to have a brunch together and a regular Bible study time and a morning service at 1030, celebrating our Lord Jesus and His resurrection from the dead.

I hope you're looking forward to gathering with God's people on this coming Resurrection Sunday. Well, today, in our Bible reading plan, we're reading the story of Samson, Judges chapters 14 -16. I think of all the stories in the book of Judges, that one has to be the most common, and it's probably one of the most popular stories in the Bible.

I mean, there's the story of David and Goliath, everybody knows about that, and the story of Daniel in the lion's den, a lot of people know about that one, and the story of Samson and Delilah, a very dramatic story that was made into a movie in 1949 by Cecil B. DeMille.

Saint-Saëns wrote an opera that was produced in the late 1800s, Samson and Delilah, and yeah, very popular story. But a very tragic story, a very tragic story. And what is the root of the tragedy? Well, the root of the tragedy is actually a thread that runs throughout the story.

And you read about it right away, as the story begins in chapter 14, very first word, very.

First verse.

Now Samson went down to Timnah and saw a woman in Timnah, saw. The theme of the eye runs through his whole story, follow it, trace it with me. In verse 2, he says to his father and mother, I have seen a woman of Timnah.

In verse 3, he says, get her for me, for she pleases me well, literally, she is right in my eyes. In verse 7, he went down and talked with a woman, she pleased Samson well, she was right in his eyes. And again in verse 8, after some time when he returned to get her, he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and that's what you remember when he ended up breaking his Nazarite vow.

He wasn't supposed to touch a dead corpse, but he reached in the corpse, the carcass of that lion, and got honey out of the lion. He saw the carcass. And then in chapter 16, chapter 16, verse 1, Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there and went into her.

In verse 21, verse 21, the Philistines took him and put out his eyes, put out his eyes. And then verse 28, as he prays for vengeance and the opportunity to destroy the Philistines, Samson prays, oh God, strengthen me, I pray this once, oh God, that I may with one blow take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes.

His eyes got him into trouble, and his eyes ended up getting dug out, and he asked for vengeance because of his two eyes. The root of Samson's calamity, his eyes. He sees, he wants what he sees, he demands to have what his eyes want.

And yet, God in his sovereignty, isn't it odd, isn't it interesting, that God in his sovereignty used that moral weakness of Samson as part of his plan to benefit Israel? Does that give an excuse for Samson and his lustful eyes?

No, not at all. In the New Testament, the Lord said if your right eye offends you, pluck it out. It's better to go with one eye into eternal life than to have two eyes and be doomed. Your eye offends you, cut it out.

Samson had a problem that's a typical problem in a day of so much visual enticement. Seeing, wanting, demanding what I see, demanding what I want. You see that in the store a lot of times, children. This is one thing with children, but what do we do with it, parents?

What do parents need to do with this? The child sees something that he wants, and he wants what he sees, then he demands that he gets what he sees. It's up to the parents to help our kids learn to say no, that just because your eyes see something that you want, doesn't mean you should go after it and have it.

Say no, no, not now, not at all. This was the key to Samson's downfall, but again, as I mentioned a minute ago, isn't it fascinating that the Lord used that moral weakness as part of his plan to benefit Israel?

It was the defeating of Philistines over and over again by the hand of Samson, and he used his weakness to accomplish that end. Oh, the strange and marvelous ways of our God. Father, I pray that on the one hand, we would not use the story of Samson as an excuse to justify or minimize the seriousness of the weaknesses of the flesh.

May we instead, as Jesus exhorts us to do, seek to mortify those weaknesses. But then, Father, we also thank you for how you can, in your sovereign power and authority, you can use the weaknesses of men to accomplish your greater purposes for your greater glory, and we thank you for that.

Lord bless these thoughts to our hearts today, we pray, and we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well, listen, have a good rest of your day today, Friday, and look forward to Resurrection Sunday this Sunday.

God bless.