Developing a Tolerance for Sin
By Bill Roberts, ministerial director
As a boy in Sabbath School, I was told going into a movie theater would make my guardian angel wait outside.
Later I read Judges 16:1-3,
Now Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there, and went in to her. When the Gazites were told, ‘Samson has come here!’ they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city. They were quiet all night, saying, ‘In the morning, when it is daylight, we will kill him.’ And Samson lay low till midnight; then he arose at midnight, took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two gateposts, pulled them up, bar and all, put them on his shoulders, and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.
Samson was somewhere he shouldn’t have been. His guardian angel didn’t wait outside.
The greatest danger is taking grace for granted. Rebellion doesn’t often lead to immediate disaster. But it hardens our hearts. Enter Delilah.
She was offered 5,500 pieces of silver to neutralize his strength. She needled him for the secret, and he teased her. She turned up the pressure, and he divulged. His hair was a symbol of his being set apart.
What symbolizes your being set apart?
Whenever I read this, it is excruciating to watch him saunter into a trap and blindness. He experienced grace repeatedly and developed a casual attitude towards sin. He thought he could play with fire and got burned.
Yet God still had grace for him.
Samson prayed for strength and got it. He is called a man of faith in Hebrews 11. Sin is more dangerous than we think, and grace is bigger than we imagine. Samson paid a high price. Jesus paid a bigger price.