“And it came to pass, when she pestered him daily with her words and pressed him, so that his soul was vexed to death, that he told her all his heart”
Judges 16:16-17
If you want to have strength to resist sexual temptation, learn a lesson from Samson, one of the weakest men who ever lived. Samson’s birth was announced by an angel. He was a Nazarite from the womb, separated by God as a judge to deliver his people Israel from the hands of God’s enemies, the Philistines. He was a man of tremendous physical strength who on one occasion killed 1,000 Philistines with nothing but the jaw-bone of an ass. But Samson had a fatal moral weakness.
Despite knowing the Lord and despite experiencing the Lord’s hand in his life, Samson lusted after harlots. One of these prostitutes was Delilah, a Philistine. The lords of the Philistines bribed Delilah with 1,100 pieces of silver to discover the source of Samson’s weakness by uncovering the source of his great strength. “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and with what you may be bound to afflict you,” she begged of Samson. So what did Samson do? Run away? No. He gave in to his seductress. Not once. Not twice. But three times. Three times he lied to her about the source of his strength, three times she betrayed him into the hands of the Philistines with that phony information, and three times Samson prevailed over the Philistines when they attacked him.
Samson didn’t learn from these repeated failures, and neither did Delilah give up. She pestered and pressed him daily. She nagged him so hard and so often that his soul was vexed to death. And Samson, because he had a weakness for harlots, even women who proved repeatedly that they wanted to cause him harm, finally relented. He told Delilah the source of his God-given strength, she told the lords of the Philistines, and the Philistines captured him and overpowered him, and he died in the custody of God’s enemies.
If you want God to use you in mighty ways (or even in modest ways), avoid the seductress you see in pornographic images and videos. She entices you if you keep listening. She tempts you if you keep looking. She invites you to relinquish your God-given strength for a few minutes of self-pleasure—and a lifetime bound in sexual sin. And your end is the same as Samson’s. She leads you to your death. The secret to victory over sexual temptation is to refuse to listen to the temptress. Throw her out of your house. Block her on your phone. Avoid her online. Spend zero time in her company. To conquer sexual sin, you don’t have to be as strong as Samson. You just have to avoid his weakness.
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