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Upland Indonesian SDA Church

Eric Walsh: Road Map to Heaven

Eric Walsh

God’s Word as our Guiding Light

Staying on the Path to a Healthy Lifestyle

The Road Less Traveled

How to Avoid Pit Falls

Beware of Hitchhikers

Focusing on the Finish Line

Sex Lies and the Fight for Purity

We've been enjoying our week of prayer here these last few days and look forward to the rest of the week.

We serve the kind of God that even though we are humans and we are imperfect yet God loves us anyways and I love knowing that I serve a God who loves me, who loved me even before I was born, and who will love me throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity.

I want to go tonight, as we talk on the subject, the road less traveled, I want to go first to the book of 2nd Corinthians, the 12th chapter, and I'm going to read verses 7 through 10.

2nd Corinthians chapter 12 verses 7 through 10.

The scripture says in 2nd Corinthians 12 and verse 7, and lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh.

The messenger of Satan to buffet me lest I should be exalted above measure for this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me and he said unto me my grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness most gladly therefore will I rather glorify in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake.

For when I am weak, then am I strong." If the Christian life is a journey, if we are going somewhere, depending on the age in which you live, you would need fuel to make the journey.

In our age, Of course, we use automobiles.

If we look at it from a spiritual standpoint, I want to submit to you that the gasoline that it would take to spiritually reach your destination is humility.

In order to get from what you are and who you are to where God wants you to be, the fuel that will drive you there, that will power you there, the engine is humility.

Well, what I mean is As you are going through life, you have forces working upon you.

1 of them is 1 that will always want you to preserve yourself.

But more than just preserve yourself, in our society, it will cause you to want to exalt yourself.

And this is why we are given parents and we're nursed in the way we are, the way that even our minds develop.

So the studies show that even in adolescence, even in our teenage years, the human mind is still developing to the point where they, even in the teenage years, humans still need the guidance of those who are older and wiser.

Because at the end of the day, especially when you're a teenager, You kind of feel like you are invincible.

He gave us aunts, uncles, grandmothers to help to guide us so that we wouldn't, in thinking We are the center of the universe.

When I was a teenager, I can tell you I pretty much did think I was invincible for the most part.

And we did all kinds of crazy things that when I look back on it, I can't imagine how we even survived.

Some of the fights that we got into on the basketball court, sometimes even being chased by people who had guns, and so forth.

I look back on it, and I wonder how did we ever make it through?

And as I look back on it, I realize that God even begins to protect you before you're wise enough to know to protect yourself.

With that said, I want to illustrate my point for tonight from an Old Testament story.

So we're going to flip back to the book of Judges, the 16th chapter, because I want to set the stage for what I think is 1 of the lost pieces of lost secrets, I should say, of Christianity.

You go back to the book of Judges, and you find in Judges the 16th chapter, you'll find 1 of my favorite Bible stories coming to an end.

There was this great, strong young man who, like many young men, thought he was invincible.

And I grew up reading comic books until a preacher came to our church and preached against comic books.

And my mother made me throw them all away.

And I love this idea of people having super, super strengths and super, you know, being superheroes.

So Samson always, I just love Samson because he was the 1 true super strong superhero the world probably has ever known.

As a matter of fact, even in his growth, in the way he was developed, God made it plain that Samson's mother was not supposed to drink alcohol, even before he was born, and set the stage for his life.

But Samson, as he grew stronger, bigger, I'm assuming more handsome, Samson had a problem.

Samson, it turned out, liked women Far more than he was supposed to.

And ironically, he didn't like the women of the church.

For some reason, for Samson, the women of the Philistines seemed far more attractive than the women of Israel.

Maybe in Israel they didn't wear makeup or jewelry.

Maybe their clothes was more conservative.

So maybe he found the women of Israel more boring.

Sometimes, you know, as when you're growing up, you kind of have, you crave sometimes what you know you're not supposed to have.

In our church, it's 1 of the things I always talk about is the fact that so many of our young women seem to want to get with the guys who are the most trouble.

And you know, as when I was a youth pastor and I'd talk to these young ladies, I'd say, now what in the world do you want with this boy?

He's flunked out of every high school in the Inland Empire.

What possibly do you think he's going to do for you?

And a dentist didn't put the metal there.

His breath smells like a bag of quarters.

I mean, what would you want this young man for?

They have the idea that, well, he's cute.

And of course, later down the road, it all plays itself out.

And he goes from the cute thug to every foul name in the book.

Now, I have to admit, as a Christian, God designed men to like women.

Fundamentally, And I'll tell you, in this day and age, I'm actually glad when I hear men do like women.

I run across so many nowadays that don't.

But Samson was dealing with some serious issues.

So here he is, super strong, able to take the jawbone of a donkey and slay 1, 000 of the Philistines, tie the tails of foxes together and burn down their crops and destroy them and take the gate off of the off of the wall of the city even with the post and walk it up to the top of the hill and plunge it into the hill.

He was a strong, strong young man with the ability to literally deliver Israel from her enemies single-handed.

Now let's make sure we get the full depth of the story, because Samson really represents the fact that he had the ability to do, if we were to kind of convert it to our situation, he could preach the gospel with the kind of power where souls would give their lives to the Lord.

He had the kind of voice that if he sang, you know, just to translate it out of fighting in old Israel, if he sang people wanted to just come weeping, crying, and pour out their hearts and give their lives to Jesus.

He was given talent, a special gift as it were, that when used appropriately, it benefited the kingdom of God and moved forward the people of God.

So the Bible shows us what happens to Samson.

I don't think a lot of people realize what happens in the story of Samson.

If you look at it, he goes here, he finds a harlot that he joins himself to, a woman by the name of Delilah, which means deceiver.

So if you look at it, We'll start at around verse 15.

And at this point, the Philistines have come to Delilah and said that they would pay her 11, 000 pieces of silver each if she would find out Samson's weakness and they could destroy Samson.

So it just took 1 time for them to say that, and she was on the game.

She wanted to get Samson now because this would give her riches for the rest of her life.

Verse 15, after he's kind of lied to her a few times, The Bible says 3 times he's lied to her, which tells me that there was something about Samson where he really wanted her to know his secret and knew what the consequences would be.

In other words, sometimes as Christians, we give up.

We almost voluntarily turn over our spiritual strength.

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Series

Eric Walsh: Road Map to Heaven

The Road Less Traveled

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

On the Outskirts of Jerusalem

Follow Up

57m

This One Thing

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Jesus On Prophecy

The Cornerstone of Bible Prophecy

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FYI 2009 Plenary Sessions

From World-class Dancer to Word of God Preacher

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Love, The Only Reason Why

36m

The Blame Game

50m

Mystery of Godliness Vs. Mystery of Iniquity

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Patriarchs, Prophets, and Parental Christ

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Christ and His Righteousness

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Mind Cure- Part 1

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The Joy of the Lord

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Freedom From Fear 2006

Just Like Jesus

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Sound Doctrine