One Small step to destruction

Well the problem is, men do it all of the time.

Now think about this: Since I'm a pastor, I only work one day a week! Actually I work two, I work Saturdays and Sundays! I'm just joking! But because I don't have anything to do in the week except for watch my Bible hover above the desk, I ask myself, how many steps would a person have to take to walk 25 miles? Well being on this Move program with the VA I learned that 10 thousand steps averages out to 5 miles. I learned that it was about 25 miles from where he was to Gaza. So on the average it took about 50 thousand steps to get to Gaza. That's what I do during the week! Okay, so think about this, it would take 50 thousand steps. How do most men ruin their life? Not all at once, but they do it one of these at a time.

The other thing to think about, which is pretty amazing, is to realize that Samson also had 50 thousand opportunities to say, "This is stupid! What are you doing?" And yet, he didn't do it!

Here's the problem, most men don't plan to mess up their lives. I don't know a single man ever who said, "You know what? My ten-year goal is to be a perverted sex addict. What I want to do is I want to be so locked in this pornographic world of lust that I live in a fantasy world and can't have any kind of real meaningful intimate experience because all I can do is objectify women and get off in this fantasy world." I don't know a single guy that does it, but what happens is, the guy's like maybe on the computer and sees an ad and he goes, "Oh!" Click to another ad and click and "Whoa!" Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click! And then over time, he ends up in a very bad place. He doesn't get there all at once, how does he get there? He gets there one step at a time.

As a Nation we did not fall all at once, we fell one step at a time. Reminds me of a line from Fiddler on the Roof. Tevye is debating about challenging the traditions of arranged marriages. He says, “One little time you pull out a prop and where does it stop?”
Remember what I said about playing in Satan’s playground?
1. He will take you further than you want to go. Samson, like David, is probably looking for a one-night stand, but it is going to take him further than he wants to go.
2. He will keep you there longer than you want to stay. Samson is looking for a short meaningless affair; he spends the rest of his life there.
3. It will cost you more than you want to pay. It will cost him his eyes, and later his life.

One step at a time we can ruin whatever good we have done in the past. It takes years to build a good name, but one indiscretion, one bad step to ruin it all.


There are three more steps to this big destruction:

1. He taunts his enemies (v3)
a. He takes the city gates and rips them off the hinges
b. These gates were said to have weighed 700 lbs
c. He taunts the enemy he sees, he does not know there is an unseen enemy who wants to destroy him.
1. Satan is behind all this destruction
2. He will not stop until Samson is destroyed.
3. He is more powerful, more crafty, bent on destruction, and never grows weary.
Men, we will taunt and underestimate the enemy by putting ourselves in places of temptation over and over and over again. Some of you guys are like real different from the world and you want to honor God with sexual purity