Wake Up! the Story of Samson

The title is Wake Up. The title of the message is Wake Up, Sleepyhead. Wake Up.

And you've heard that phrase before. My dad used to tell me all the time. And often it was always to go somewhere, right? Or to do something.

I remember duck hunting early in the morning, getting to the blind early, fishing early. Wake Up. Wake Up, Sleepyhead.

Or going to work. Work in the morning, right? You have to come in and wake me up. Wake Up, Sleepyhead.

And the reason I want to talk about this is we need to wake up. There are things to do sometimes. And we need to be shaken sometimes.

We need to be woken up. We need to look at life the way it is being thrown at us and be able to discern what God's Word says and what's happening. Here's the interesting thing.

When you know what God has called you to do, it makes it a little bit easier. And I know He's called me to wake up men. I know He's called me to preach tough messages.

So I don't get my feathers ruffled and say, why aren't you like this other pastor? They're nice and it's always about grace and love and reaching out to our neighborhood. And they never upset me. Well, that's good.

That's their calling. God has not called me to do that. Now, granted, we need all of those things.

Encouragement and grace. But I'm seeing in our culture, we need sometimes to be woken up more than we need to be put to sleep. And that's what I'm going to focus on.

Actually, from Judges 16, Judges chapter 16, we're going to talk about Samson. Now, even unbelievers know who Samson is, don't they? You mentioned the word Samson. And you think of strength, but you also think of failure.

You think of a mighty man of God, but also a man who fell in many different ways. And it's going to take me exactly two minutes to read this. And I don't want to just browse through this and pick out certain things.

I want you to feel the full weight of this story. And hoping we can be challenged because, and I've said this before, we will rarely change unless we're challenged. We will rarely change unless we get a wake up call.

The person who needs to do something about their health, it's not until the doctor says something, or they feel something or their kids say something. The man who needs to change his marriage, it's not until the wife packs her bags and says, listen, I'm leaving because of this. It's not until those things that we wake up.

And this is on my heart, because I don't know, maybe your life is different. But I hear a lot of the tragedies that are out there. Just recently, I tried to reach out to a man who left his wife and two young children.

One is a recent newborn. And they're just moving on with plan B. I've got their girlfriend. And I'm glad that's over with.

We're going this forward as if God is going to bless that. Another family that I have known for years, they both sit down and they told their kids they're getting a divorce. And the kids, the pain in the kids faces, little kids, five to 10, 12, I think is the oldest.

And we just see the devastation. I see the devastation. And I can name, not talking about this church or just in general, I know a lot of people in this valley, I can name probably a dozen marriages right now that are falling apart and going to divorce.

And without a shadow of a doubt, no hesitation, what I'm about to tell you either, all of those could be repaired easily, easily. But they're too proud and arrogant to make the change. I can tell them, oh, guys, this is easy to fix.

No, it's not. She doesn't. No, no, no.

Humble yourself. And one of the marriages actually, they don't go, he doesn't go here, they don't go here. So it's, it's okay to open up.

And I try to be careful on where I draw the line, because people hear it on the radio. Oh, you're talking about me, I'm so mad at you. And, you know, so I try to be careful, but I want to bring real life experiences in.

And he actually, this guy wanted to chew me out a couple years ago, because he said, you only beat up on the men, you only beat up on the men, you don't tell the wise to do anything. Now, anybody who's heard me preach would know that that's not necessarily correct. But the problem is his own heart, right? He didn't want to be convicted.

He didn't want to change. He wanted her to change. So that's coming out.

Now they are heading for divorce. I think it's already been filed. All these people have to do is humble themselves and repent and wake up, and you can, they can restore their marriages.

Now, it takes two. I understand that. But often, when the man leads, the woman follows.

I've seen enough, I've talked to enough people, when the man leads, the woman follows. God has given us the design. But as men, and I've been there before, I've done that, it's pride gets in there, and I'm not doing that.

Who does she think I am? And in this pride, I think the most dangerous thing on the planet is the prideful heart. And that's why we need a wake up call, many times. Not all of you are married, some of you are older, some of you are younger, but the story of Samson speaks volumes to men.

I'm not going to go into a lot of what happened in his history, but I'm going to pick up at chapter 16, verse 16. You know Delilah. Many of you know Delilah.

And you might say, I don't know what you're talking about, Shane. Well, we all have a Delilah. There is something that the enemy has sent, that the main purpose of it is to take you out.

Whether it's same sex attraction, whether it's attraction for females, whether it's, it's pride, it's arrogance, it's, it's, it's, you name it. There's a Delilah. What's your Delilah? Because here's how Delilah works.

It's how she took Samson out, and that's why it doesn't, probably not real specific on what she looked like, because it can be, for some, it's a, it's a 12 pack of shock top. For others, it's going back to pornography. I, I've known men, I, friends of mine, they're not really anymore, because it's hard to be friends with somebody who don't want to, doesn't want to change, but they'll, they would stop in, in, in Hollywood, and go into those bars, or pick up a prostitute, and get home, tell her, oh, I'm sorry, I blew it, and her wife's, oh, it's okay, better, you know, next time, and what is that? That's enabling.

See, they're not woken up. They're not rattled to their core, and these are Christian men, and they, now, I want to be careful there, because I think Christian men can fall, like the prodigal son, but there, there can't be a habitual pattern of sin that you just enjoy, and I'm not going to do anything about, because that's the heart, the heart that's drawn to God has to break free of that. They, they're miserable in that.

They, they want what, what God has for them, but they're caught in this, and, and that's what happened with Samson. And it came to pass when she pestered him daily. Can anybody relate to that? Don't say yeah, because I know who your spouse is.

And it came to pass, I can't relate to that, right? No, Morgan's great. It's, thank God for this. Thank God for her, because I don't, I'm not, can't relate to some of this for sure.

And it came to pass when she pestered him, Delilah pestered him daily with her words, and pressed him so that his soul was vexed to death. Have you ever been to the point where you've, like the, the drop of rain on the rooftop, Robert says, and this pestering and pestering. I've had enough.

I'm out of here. That's what he's feeling right now. I'm being pestered.

Then he told her all that was in his heart. And he said to her, no razor has ever come upon my head, for I have been a Nazarite, a Nazarite to God from my mother's womb. If I am shaven, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man.

When Delilah saw that he told her all his heart, she said, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, come upon Samson. He's told me all of his heart. So the lords of the Philistines came up to her, and brought the money in her hand.

And then she lulled him to sleep on her knees, and called for a man and had his, his hair cut. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him. And she said to the Samson, the Philistines are upon you, Samson.

So he awoke from his sleep and said, I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free. See, there's a long history here. She would keep asking him, where's your strength lie? Where's your strength lie? Oh, it's in this.

Oh, it's in this. Oh, it's in this. And she kept asking.

He finally, I'm going to get to the reason why in a little bit, I think. But he finally revealed his heart. He says, it's no big deal.

My head's shaven, it's no big deal. I'm going to fight the Philistines just like I have before. And he got up to fight the enemy.

But, he did not know that the Lord had departed from him. Now, I often quote that, if you've been coming any length of time, I often quote where the Bible says that there's a King James, that he knew not that the Spirit of the Lord, he, he wist not that the Spirit of the Lord had departed from him. Now, it's interesting.

Old Testament, the Spirit of the Lord can depart from a person. New Testament, we know that we have the Holy Spirit at conversion. But, we can quench and grieve the Holy Spirit to such a degree that it feels like he's gone.

Lord, where are you at? You've departed from me. Then the Philistine took him. The Philistines took him, put out his eyes.

And you can research how they used to gouge out the eyes. They would hold, I don't want to get into it, but they would hold the person down, strap him down, and they would actually remove their eyes. I'm, talk about, it shows the depravity of sin and where that can lead.

So, they removed his eyes and brought him down to Gaza. Gaza, depending on your pronunciation. Then they bound him with bronze fetters, they tied him, and he became a grinder in the prison.

So, in the prison, they would grind the wheat, and they would grind, they would, they would, with the oxen, they would tread, and the wheat would be pressed and grinded, so they would have flour to work with. So, Sam said, this mighty man of God, this deliverer of Israel, one of the judges, the Bible initiated judges to rule the land, this mighty man of God is now grinding in the prison. And he's putting all this food together for the Philistines.

However, I'm The hair of his head began to grow again, and after it had been shaven, after it had been shaven. Now, the lords of the Philistines gathered together to offer great sacrifice to Dagon, their God, and to rejoice. And they said, our God has delivered Samson into our hands.

Samson, our enemy, he is here. Let's make sport of him. Let's watch him.

Make, let's make fun of him as we watch him. And if you just keep reading there, I encourage you to read Judges 16 to 9. It talks about that the lords of the Philistines and all the people were gathered on this great platform to watch. And as Samson's hair began to grow back, his strength began to grow, grew back, he met a little lad, a little boy, and he said, son, lad, lead me to the pillars that hold up the Colosseum.

And he was being led to these pillars, and he put his hands on the pillars, and he said, oh God, avenge me for my two eyes. God, avenge me for these Philistines. And he pushed with all his might, and that whole Colosseum came down.

And the Bible says that the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew at his life. So he killed more people at his death when that whole place came down than all of his victories being a judge. So what do we do with that? Well, a couple things I want to pull from this.

The first thing I mentioned, he was pestered. He was pestered. And the title of the message is, wake up.

Well, wake up to this, discouragement has a purpose. You're not just being pestered. You're not being discouraged at work.

The greatest, I believe one of the greatest weapons the enemy has is discouragement. When he discourages me, I'm not effective. He tried to discourage me to plant a church.

He tried to discourage me to come here. He tried to discourage me to even go into ministry. I've wanted to quit a dozen times over.

Discouragement. Pestering. Do you ever have it where, like Popeye, once he said, I can't, I can't take it anymore.

I can't, I can't take it anymore. Be careful. Be careful when that starts to happen in your life.

Because that's often the first step of breaking a man down. That's what happened with Samson. I think personally, and she kept pestering him and pestering.

And he said, fine. My strength lies in my hair. And I guarantee, he knew the Philistines were coming each time.

I don't think he really knew that was going to happen. I think he was so prideful and self-confident. You can shave off my hair.

But, you know, that's what they say. But see, I don't, the power wasn't in the hair. The power was in the consecration.

See, it's never in something you, you do for, for religious purposes. It's in the consecration. Samson was not supposed to touch a dead thing.

He went and got honey out of a dead carcass. He was supposed to be sexually pure. He would go marry a Philistine.

He laid with the whore, a geyser, or something like that. I mean, you read this guy and say, what is wrong with this guy? I mean, he's just, just this, this consecration he was, he was flipping about. So she was pestering him and pestering him.

And he said, okay, I'm just going to get rid of this pest, this pestering, even though he was losing his consecration. So here's the key. You have to offset the discouragement.

When you're getting discouraged, something has to offset that discouragement. Why do you think most of my messages are focused on prayer, and the Word, and praising God, and worshiping, and all these things? Why? Because that refocuses your heart. Because we come, do you come in discouraged, or is it just me? I mean, my goodness.

I get letters in the mail, no address, no name, but they just really like to chew me out. And I'm just discouraged, and this, and you're, you know, and just discouragement in the world, and the kids growing up, and the society, and just, I'm so discouraged about things. What's happening? And you have to be careful, because that discouragement is often the first step toward your Delilah, to listening to your Delilah.

Because when you're encouraging the Lord, you're not going to be an easy target, are you? You never are. It's that discouragement. So be careful.

Whatever is discouraging you, how to offset that, get back into the Word of God, obey the Word of God, and pray. Make those things part of your day, and you're going to say, well, Shane, no kidding, you talk about that often. Well, I want to put a little different twist on it.

One of the questions that came in was this, how do I stay committed to God's Word every day? Now, many of you can answer the same question. And when I answer these questions, I want to be very careful, because I don't want people to have the perception of, oh, there's Shane up there, walks on water, the pastor does everything right. It's not like that.

It's not like that at all. I'm a leader among equals. That's all I am, with the elder board.

I'm the leader, lead pastor, but among equals. We're equal as men. We struggle with the same things.

But what you have to do, this area...because the only thing that encourages me is encouraging people in the Word of God. That's it. YouTube doesn't.

Facebook doesn't. A lot of things don't encourage me. So you have to spend time in God's Word.

So the question, how do you stay committed to God's Word every single day? Well, obviously, every day doesn't happen sometimes if they're sick or things going on, but it becomes who you are. See, here's the problem, man. The Word, time with God, it needs to become who you are.

Nobody has ever asked me, Shane, how do you find time for Facebook? How do you stay committed to your television and your internet and YouTube every day? You don't, because it's part of who you already are. So that's how you stay committed, is it becomes who you are. I am Bill, Mike, David, Chris, John.

I am a man of God. I read the Word of God. It's who I am.

So then it becomes part of every day. I mean, you go to bed early, so you can get up early to read the Word. You make certain decisions, so you can spend time in the Word.

Everything is revolving around God is my priority. So see, if God is my priority, He's on the calendar first. So that's how I stay committed, is that's a spiritual discipline that must be initiated.

That's priority number one. That's how you stay encouraged, is it becomes a part of who you are. I mean, what's your favorite thing? Does your wife ever say, you know, how do you watch NASCAR all the time? How do you watch baseball all the time? Well, I don't know how I do that.

I mean, it's who you are. It's what's in your heart. So that's the best way to overcome discouragement, is to encourage yourself.

As you're being discouraged, you have to be encouraged. And then we see the biggest point here, number two, compromise. What happened to compromise, or what happened to Samson? What compromises is you have a certain standard, don't you? We have a standard.

I mean, you would never, you know, many people in this room, we'd never cheat on our spouse. We would never do certain things, right? There's a standard. And then the discouragement comes in, the pestering, the compromise, the out of God's word, and we start to lower that standard.

And then that standard becomes the new standard. And then we lower that standard. And before we know it, we're down here swimming in a cesspool of sin and we don't know how that happened.

It happened because compromise. Same thing with Samson. He laid with the whore, the King James says, I can say it, right? He laid with this lady, no big deal, right? He's eating out of a dead carcass.

God says, don't do that, it's forbidden. He's doing all...he's marrying a pagan wife. A couple of things there, the grace of God.

God just doesn't, okay, you're dead. As soon as you start compromising, okay, I've had enough of you. It's a loving God drawing us back.

That's another reason why I preach messages like that because I catch people all the time that they're in this midst of falling, and it draws them back to God. So compromise is setting that standard, and then dropping that standard, and dropping that standard. That's what happened in Samson's life.

So be careful, man, when you're pestered, you're discouraged, and then that line starts to drop. And that's why I have...there's a lot of lines in my life for, let's say, females, for example. I don't counsel women, basically, you know, maybe older, little kids with their moms or something.

I have my wife do that, and I coach a little league baseball team, right? There are some single moms in their 30s, I email them, include my wife, let my wife know. It just, it doesn't go...I can't even think of one female that there's an attraction to even a mental relation. I don't...there's just not there.

It doesn't exist because you have to have those boundaries. Because the potential's there, right? You see what I'm saying? The potential's there, it's in the heart, but these things, setting up boundaries, the websites. I've mentioned before that I have...it's called Covenant Eyes, and every website that I visit goes to my wife's email on a certain day of the week.

Anything that's questionable, Victoria's Secret, Sports Illustrated, whatever, it'll go to her email. Because I want these...it's like I'm not trying to be super spiritual, I want these boundaries so that line of compromise doesn't start to drop. And when it starts to drop, you start to do things and end up places you never thought you would.

So we see discouragement, he's being pestered, he's giving in to compromise, he was consecrated to God, set apart for God, and begin to minimize what that really meant. And that's why I think messages like that are a good reminder, guys. Consecration is important.

Holiness is important. Man, you should listen to sermons 100 years ago. My God, those guys could preach the holiness of God, the fear of God, the consecration.

Read the old Methodist circuit writers. They would go into a town, and they would bring that town to their knees because the fear of God was on that place. And the holiness, it's not weirdness and being legalistic, it's a heart that says, God, I have to follow you at all costs because it's either holiness or hell, they would say.

Now, I'm careful because I'm not talking about this perfect little, you know, you got this image of this holy person. It's just saying, Lord, I don't want the filth of the world. I want to be consecrated to you.

I want to be set apart to you. There's nothing wrong with that. Here's what happens.

When you get away from that, that's when you see all the mess that the church is in. When you get away from the consecration, the holiness aspect, you will see that the church has the highest divorce rate, just as much as the world, if not more so, especially in America. Now, I think this is many years ago, but recent statistics show me one out of 1,200 will end up in divorce who read the word together and pray.

One out of 1,200? I mean, that's pretty good odds. Why is that? Because you're selfless, you're not focusing on self, you're into God's word, you're getting encouraged into God's word. Something me and my wife have done, 7.30 every morning, we're praying together, we have a list.

And some mornings, do I want her coming in and praying? No. I've got 10,000 things to do, I'm irritated, I've got 14 emails, people chew me out, you know, all kinds of... It's like, I don't want to pray right now, but you have to work through that. I'm just opening up because all of you know you've been there.

You're not just walking on clouds, and let's just pray for the next hour and a half, let's fast today while we're at it. You know, no, it doesn't happen. But you've got to fight for those things.

We have a devotion with the family, we're trying to do every other night, make sure we're all home at 5 o'clock. I'm going through the Bible, just what I've learned that day in sermon preparation, just something quick because the kids are little, but you've got to bring that. I don't care if you're making noise, you can go sit in your room.

Be quiet, sit down. It's just constant battling for things that are important. You go sit down in front of a TV for three hours, they'll be quiet.

But when you start to do things that are important, so you have to fight for those things, the consecration, the holiness. And that's one of the times when I get most discouraged in my own personal life because that brings up another question somebody asked is, what is my biggest struggle? What is your biggest struggle? And the biggest struggle for me is not staying filled with the Holy Spirit. I desire that.

I mean, when I leave here Sunday after church, man, I'm just... I could just preach again, I could go to church again, then Monday rolls around. The kids are complaining. They're sick.

Things are happening. Monday's my day off, which rarely works out. And what happened, God? Now I'm not filled again.

And I know we can't...but I think that's probably the biggest struggle for me, is wanting to stay filled with the Spirit of God and not being pulled by the flesh. There's a website, Setting Captives Free, it said this, when your sin is hidden, many things happen. First, there's deception and that you can't handle this yourself.

Have you been there? I can handle this myself. I can handle this myself. Pride.

That's pride. When you're at that point, you no longer look to the Lord for help. Then they're ashamed because you're living a deceptive, dual life.

This always happens. Their sin, they don't want to confess, they don't want to bring anybody's attention because it's not spiritual. Right? I mean, you can't confess our sins even though it's biblical.

And we all sin, we know we all struggle with something. So then you try to hide it. I can deal with this on my own.

And then pride comes in. That's why that doesn't work, because you can't deal with pornography necessarily on your own. You can't deal with alcoholism on your own.

You can't deal... because it already has not been working. So dealing with it on your own, and just not going to tell anybody, I'm just going to deal with it, then you stay frustrated in this cycle of failure. When you expose it and let people pray for you, I believe God can move in a powerful way.

And the three things for guys, you've already heard this before, girls, gold, and glory. Right? So in case you're wondering, that's where the big struggle is going to be. That's your Delilah.

Gold, girls, or glory. It's easy to remember. The less of the flesh, the less of the eye, the pride of life.

That's where the deception is going to come in, the pestering, the compromise. And then we see in him, this is interesting, in the addiction world, there's something called a halt. Halt.

It's a lot of people go back or relapse when they're either hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. And I thought, that's not just implying for addiction. That applies for Christians.

Any of you tired right now? Going to fall asleep? Hungry, lonely, hungry, lonely, tired. Be careful because those are opportune times. See, we see the enemy working here.

Pestered, compromise, an opportune time. He's ready now to open up his heart. I see an opportune time.

He's not going to attack Samson when he's got a jawbone and he's killing the Philistines. He's going to walk him down one step at a time. And that's what we see here.

So be careful when you're angry, tired, hungry, and lonely. Those are opportune times for the enemy. And then the question came into, what is the greatest lesson you've learned? The best advice and the worst advice.

The greatest lesson I've learned is to trust in God no matter what. Trust in God no matter what. Because the enemy will use discouragement to knock you off course.

Trust in him no matter what. The greatest lesson, the greatest advice I've ever, ever been given is right here in the Word of God. The worst advice I've ever been given is out there in the world.

It never, it never pays. That was an easy question. And then four, I'm getting to the last point.

His spiritual strength left. Interesting. Pestered, discouragement, compromise, gives in, and now his spiritual strength leaves.

And you know, have you ever just walking around, you feel like a spiritual zombie? Just going through the motions? I mean, gosh, I guess I'll read, but I don't want to. It's just, I don't know. I guess I'll go to church today.

I don't know. We got anything else on the calendar? And that's why the new trend, I mean, it's been in America now, it's been going like this. People don't attend church regularly anymore.

It's like two Sundays a month is the normal now. Because of, I mean, when you're hungry for God, you can't get enough of church. And when you're on this path of spiritual strength leaving.

See, so that's why I love the Word of God. Everything I'm talking about is not meant necessarily to be, you know, wake up and upset. It's meant to renew your spiritual life.

So thank God for every negative email, there's 10 positive emails. Of people being transformed because they're woken up out of their spiritual sleep. So we see that, his spiritual strength left.

So that's what will happen. You will compromise, you will be pestered, all these things. And then like Samson, he knew not that the Spirit of the Lord had departed from him.

So think about it. Samson gets up, he's going to fight the Philistines and he gets wiped out. His eyes taken out.

What happened? The Spirit of the Lord had departed from him. So wake up in this area too. If you're saying it won't happen to me, it will happen to you.

It will. Number five, he lost his vision. The final thing, when his eyes were taken out.

He was called to be a deliverer, but now he needed deliverance. This mighty man of God, do you see the parallels? This mighty man of God, called to be a deliverer, was now needing deliverance. Have you ever been there where you're called to do something? Now you're not, you used to control it, but now it's got you.

You used to be this mighty man of God and now it's got you. And I want to remind every man in this room, you are called. You are called to lead your families.

You are called to initiate prayer. You're called to guard your families. If you're a young adult, you're guard.

You are called to pursue purity, not have the girl pursue purity. You pursue purity. You're supposed to initiate going to church.

You're supposed to be the spiritual warrior covering. How many wives, they get up and pray for the family. The husband's watching NASCAR.

They go to church, the husband sits at home. Man, you are called to do that, but I don't feel like it. It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter what you feel like. The wonderful thing about spiritual disciplines is that once you do it, then you start to feel like it. The feelings come.

So you are called to do it. I was just reading recently. I've got to check it out.

I looked at it. It looked pretty accurate. But the battle of Gettysburg, you've heard of that.

Most of you, hopefully. They recovered 27,000 rifles. 24,000 of them had never been shot.

Missed fire. Didn't clean their weapons out in the field and dirt, the mud. Obviously, we have much more accurate weapons today.

But can you imagine that? And I just thought of how many men, they're not cleaning their weapon. They're not ready for battle. They're not shooting the gun that God has given them.

And we have to be challenged. We have to wake up to that fact. Shouldn't the conditions of our families cause us to wake up? He was led, a young man led him, a little boy, a lad.

The Bible says a lad. We don't know the age of that. The lad led him by his hand and led him to the place back to strength.

And the whole Colosseum came down. Now, with those as the wake-up call, here's the closing. But his strength came back when he humbled himself.

He called on the Lord. So he called on the Lord. He humbled himself.

And God began to work in his heart. Now, I was going to play this clip at Father's Day because it fits perfect. But I couldn't get it off of my mind the last two weeks to play it this morning.

It's just seven minutes. And it's life-changing if you allow it to really speak to you. Relationships are everything.

God has given all of us people in our lives that are important to us. We have people in our lives that we can't do without. We have spouses that hold us up when we're down.

We have children that take our heart with them as they go through the world. We have friends. We have relationships.

But like this man in our service this morning who is asleep. This man is in a spiritual slumber. They tried to wake him up at the beginning of the service.

They couldn't wake him up. You know who's put this man to sleep? Satan. Many of you today have been lullabied to sleep.

The devil, the spirit of the world has got you. He's got you too busy for God. He's made you a spiritual couch potato.

He's got you into pornography and drugs and alcohol. He's lullabied you to sleep and you're sleeping. And that's right where the enemy wants you.

We usually have children in our lives. Maybe children from exes or whatever. It doesn't matter.

But those kids are going through hormonal changes and they need their dad. They need their mother. And he wants to play ball and he's trying to wake his dad up saying, Dad, please just play with me.

You won't believe the times I do a funeral. And very seldom, very seldom, but it does happen occasionally. The kids will come up and they'll say, My dad never was too busy for me.

He was always there for me. But that's not usually the case. Today we have dysfunctional families everywhere.

Parents who are caught up in their own sins. They're asleep and their kids need them. But you know what? The devil's never too far.

Today we have kids as young as 10 and 11 getting on to pornography. They need to hear from their dad. They need their dad to be there with them, to talk with them and spend time with them and to know what they're doing and what they're not doing.

But the devil's always there. And while we're sleeping, he steals our kids away from us. Some of us have young teenage daughters that, Oh, they have so much potential.

And they come, they have their ballet shoes with them. Dad, come, I have a performance today. I have a performance and I need you to be there, dad.

Please, please. We sleep. They get frustrated over and over again going, Dad, would you tell me I'm beautiful? Would you take me to the father-daughter dance? Dad, would you do something? The devil's always nearby.

And when we ignore them, he's there with drugs and alcohol. Listen to me, gang. Listen to me closely.

Some of you are single parents. And I say to you and I plead with you, Please, please put your dating life aside. Put everything aside and raise these children.

And then you'll have time for you. And as he sleeps, we have coming into the picture a beautiful spouse. Someone that God has handpicked for us.

Someone that will go through the foxholes of life with us. They're there to grow with us through trials. Not to be separated from us during trials, but to grow through us.

Women that will stay by our side and pray for us. But you know what we do very often? We take this precious woman God has put in our life that has 80% of what we need and go looking for someone else who has 20% of what she doesn't have. And we find the person that has 20% of what she doesn't have and we take them when all the while she had 80% of what we need.

Let me tell you, men. There are men out there that will take your wife real quickly and gladly so. She pleads for you.

Love me. Take me out. Let's have a date night.

Something, please. But the devil's close at hand and he's going to take advantage of it. He's going to exploit it sooner or later.

And a woman that we should love and cherish and take care of, the devil takes off into the world and she finds somebody else. And then Pastor Ron is left with the pieces. They write me on the internet every week, say, can you get her back? Can you get her back? I'm sorry.

You slept an hour too long. You stayed asleep when you shouldn't have been asleep. Think about what I just said.

Wake up. Ron Vietti was asleep. And the day my wife said, I'm leaving you.

I hate you. I'm taking our daughter with me. I was dying into pornography and I was into everything I could get into.

Committed adultery in my wife three times. But praise God, I woke up and I came to Jesus. The Bible says repent and believe.

Repent and believe. That's how you wake up spiritually, is you repent and you believe. And if you've been drifting off course, don't use this as a negative message.

Use it as a positive message, a stepping stone. Just like Samson, God tried to redirect Samson back to his truth. God will use convictions from his word to draw you back to his word.

I just talked to a couple guys this morning discouraged about life. And I encouraged them by saying, let this be the stepping stone now. You know what direction to go.

Let this be the stepping stones to start going back in that direction. Because see, we all fall. We all fall.

But it's those who get back up, get back on track are the ones you see succeed. The ones you look up to are those men who learn to fall and get back up on track. And we need to wake up to that.