A young man went down to the local drug store to buy some chocolates. He wanted a one-pound, a three-pound, and a five-pound box of candy, each box gift-wrapped. The Pharmacist helped the young man and had the woman behind the counter wrap the boxes up.
As she wrapped up the boxes the Pharmacist said, “Would you mind telling me why you want three different sizes of chocolates?" The young man said, "I'm so excited. I have a date tonight, with the cutest girl in the whole school. I'm going to her parents’ house and having dinner, and after dinner we're going to go out on the porch and sit on the swing. And if she lets me hold her hand, I'm going to give her the one-pound box of candy. If she lets me put my arm around her, I'll give her the three-pound box of candy. And, sir, if she lets me kiss her, I'm going to give her the five-pound box of candy."
That night the young man arrived at the girl’s house. He sat down at the table for dinner and the dad asked him to bless the food. He prayed and prayed. He prayed around the world once and then again and then prayed some more. Finally, he said amen. The girl turned to him and said, "I didn't know you were so religious." He whispered back to her. "I didn't know your daddy was the Pharmacist."
Last week when we got together, we talked about the fact that sex is not something to act casually about. Sex is a very serious thing and God wants us for our own good to only have sex after we are married because:
Sex is a big deal and can mess up not only your today but your future as well. You see some choices you make can stay with you for a long time and that is the way it is with sex. What you did will be with you for the rest of your life. It really doesn’t go away. Sex is serious with serious consequences and a person can act like it’s not that big of a deal but it is a huge deal.
Not only is sex serious, but sex is also powerful.
That may not be shocking to you. Because, we all know this from different experiences.
For some guys the goal is to conquer, and they use sex to accomplish that goal. Culture gives them this message, friends give this message—guys may even get this message from men they respect like their dads or step-dads, coaches or brothers. The idea is to get with as many girls as possible—hook-up with as many as you can because that is what makes you a real man. That is what some people think but that is not what God thinks.
Contrary to popular belief God isn’t against sex. He created it. Because he created it he knows how powerful it is. He knows that inside of marriage sex can bring a couple together and be a really good thing, but outside of marriage it can cause major damage. That’s why he wants to keep us from casual sex.
It’s like fire. Fire is a really powerful thing. It can be a really good thing or a really bad thing, it all depends what you do with it. In a fireplace fire can keep your whole house warm, fire can cook a meal, it can light up a room. These are all really good things. But fire can also burn your house down, quickly. In the fireplace it’s a gift, outside the fireplace it is catastrophic.
God knows that sex is the same way and his goal is to protect your heart from the consequences of sex in the wrong context. Inside of marriage it can be a really great thing, outside of marriage it can burn you up and leave scars that take years to heal. That’s why this matters so much.
I want to look at a story in the Old Testament about a man who messed up in this area of his life. This story shows just how powerful sex can be.
It’s the story of a man named Samson. Now, based on what the Bible says about Samson, this is not the kind of guy you would want to mess with. In fact, one of the stories about Samson tells us that he tore apart a lion with his bare hands. And the key to Samson’s strength wasn’t some kind of special protein shake or lots of time at the gym. His strength was in his vow to the Lord.
Samson was strong but not strong enough to conquer the power of sex.
When he was a young man Samson fell in love with the wrong kind of woman. And love might be the wrong word for it. The Bible says he “saw” her, and just one look was enough to convince him that this was the girl for him. How many of you know someone like that? They see someone and instantly fall in love with that person, completely clueless about that person.
This was Samson. So, Samson went home to tell his parents the news about him finding the supposed love of his life or better yet the lust of his life and they weren’t too happy. See, Samson had his eye on a Philistine girl—a girl from a different background who didn’t have a relationship with God.
Because dating always has the potential to end up in marriage, God wants us to date people who love him with everything they have got so you are on the same page, serving the same God and you end up being this power couple for God that everyone looks up to and admires and wishes they had a marriage as strong as yours. You won’t get there if you compromise along the way.
Things didn’t end well with Samson and the Philistine girl. There’s a shocker. When we go against what God wants for our life it never goes well.
Years go by and eventually Samson falls in love again. This time with a woman named Delilah and Samson fell hard for this girl. And Delilah knew it. And the Philistines, Israel’s enemy, knew it.
So in Judges 6 the Philistines approached Delilah and this is basically what they said, “Look, it’s obvious this guy totally wants you, and would do anything for you. So you need to do something for us. We need you to find out what the secret to his strength is.
Delilah doesn’t care about Samson. She is just using him and he is just using her. The Philistines offered her a ton of money and she took it. She knew she had the power to get what the Philistines were after from Samson. Look at what happens.
So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me what makes you so strong and what it would take to tie you up securely.” Samson replied, “If I were tied up with seven new bowstrings that have not yet been dried, I would become as weak as anyone else.”
"So the Philistine rulers brought Delilah seven new bowstrings, and she tied Samson up with them. She had hidden some men in one of the inner rooms of her house, and she cried out, “Samson! The Philistines have come to capture you!” But Samson snapped the bowstrings as a piece of string snaps when it is burned by a fire. So the secret of his strength was not discovered" (Judges 16:6-9 NLT).
This couple has a great relationship. She’s trying to figure out a way to have him captured by the Philistines and he lies to her about everything. You know you are in a bad relationship when they are trying to kill you or when all they do is lie to you. That might be a sign that you need to end the relationship.
Delilah tries again to find the secret to his strength and again he lies to her. And it isn’t until Delilah asks him a third time that Samson finally tells her the truth because she nags him over and over again. She wears him down and he finally gives in. And what is so crazy to me is that each time Samson lies to Delilah about the secret of his strength, strangely enough, there are Philistines waiting to try out what he has said. And yet, it never crosses Samson’s mind that Delilah might be trying to hurt him. His heart is so full of lust that he is willing to do just about anything just to be with this woman.
Look at this. Delilah pleads with him: “How can you tell me, ‘I love you,’ when you don’t share your secrets with me? You’ve made fun of me three times now, and you still haven’t told me what makes you so strong!” She tormented him with her nagging day after day until he was sick to death of it" (Judges 16:15-16 NLT).
Samson wanted Delilah so he did as she wanted and he gave away the secret of his strength, the vow God had asked him to keep and he lost everything.
Because he has lost his strength the Philistines overpower him and take him away to prison. They gouged out his eyes and left him there to die.
Breaking a vow to God is serious stuff and it always leads to terrible consequences. You might not find yourself in a prison with your eyes gouged out but you might find yourself in a prison of guilt and shame.
The people you know and the people I know who have made decisions that they regret in terms of sex, all have something in common. And this is true whether dealing with an addiction to pornography—because that can be just as damaging—or whether actually having sex, or whatever it may be.
None of these people realized how vulnerable they were. They didn’t realize how powerful their emotions were and how those emotions would lead them to compromise their own vow that they made to God.
There will come a moment, for all of us, perhaps when you are alone with a computer or your phone, perhaps when you are alone with your boyfriend or your girlfriend, you will be vulnerable to make some decisions that without the emotion involved you wouldn’t make so don’t put yourself in a position to mess it up.
Dating is a chance to get to the other person better and you don’t need to be alone to do that. You can go on group dates; you can invite a third wheel to tag along. You can go over to their parents’ house and eat dinner and mooch off of them and watch a movie with them. There are lots of ways if you are smart where you can keep your vow of purity to the Lord.
Take it from one who knows, you don’t want to get into a moment that you and the other person will regret for the rest of their lives and that is how serious and powerful sex is.
©2024 Sagebrush Church
