How Men Drift Away from God | One Compromise at a Time

Most men don't wake up one morning intending to sabotage their lives.

It happens one compromise at a time.

In this episode of The Valiant Forge, we examine the life of Samson—not just as one of the strongest men in the Bible, but as a warning about the slow drift that can pull any of us away from God.

Through Samson's victories, compromises, failures, and restoration, we discover that God's faithfulness is greater than our failures, and no one is beyond His grace.

Key Takeaway:

"Drifting away from God doesn't happen all at once. It happens one compromise at a time."

Whether you've drifted a little or a lot, this episode is a reminder that your story isn't over. God still restores broken men.

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Transcript

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No one wakes up one day intending to sabotage their life. It happens one compromise at a time. One poor decision. One excuse. Boundaries crossed. And before you know it, you're heading somewhere you never intended to go. I know because I spent years believing I was headed in the right direction, but I was taking all of the wrong roads to get there. But what if it didn't have to end that way? Samson shows how a man can drift away from God's calling, but God can still remain faithful to him. I'm Mark Osborne and this is the Valiant Forge where Christian men come to forge purpose and strengthen Christ. Today we're going to be looking at Samson and how he had little compromises along the way that led him to almost a path to destruction and how God saved him. Let's start at the beginning. Samson is set apart before birth. The angel comes to Samson's mother and says, You're going to have a son who is going to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines. But some ground rules are laid for Samson before he's even born. And those ground rules are laid because Samson needs to be set apart. So Samson was to be raised like a Nazarene. A blade never touched their head. And they never touched dead carcasses. But the key here is like Samson's purpose was set apart even before his birth. God knew his purpose. Well, now you're probably saying to me, Well, I don't know my purpose. I'm still waiting on my purpose. Your purpose is laid out before you right here. And you may have a specific purpose and a specific call. But it starts by walking into the purpose that you already know. Men are called to lead, to love God, to pursue holiness, to make disciples, to lead their families. Those are things you don't have to wait for God to lay out for you. Start living in the callings that God has already made clear. I spent years looking for God's purpose, ignoring the things that God had already told me to do. Drifting away from God doesn't happen all at once. It begins one compromise at a time. So Samson is born, and before long he starts walking into his purpose, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him repeatedly. God kept empowering him and giving him victory over the Philistines. And in one of those victories, he defeated many Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. It's key right there, he was holding the jawbone of a donkey, which is part of a dead carcass. So it was a little compromise. But God still showed up, God still used Samson. That doesn't mean that God approved. We can compromise a little bit here and there, and God will still show up, God will still bless us, but it doesn't mean that God approves of our little compromise. Looking back at my life, I can see where God was faithful to me when I wasn't always faithful to him. Samson didn't suddenly fall, he slowly drifted. Drifting away from God doesn't happen suddenly. It begins one compromise at a time. So Samson's little so Samson's little compromise started leading him down more compromises. Samson was supposed to stand against the Philistines, but instead he started hanging out with them. He hangs out with them at Timni. He hangs out with them in a vineyard. And here's an interesting part of Samson's story that doesn't get talked about a lot. He comes upon a lion and he kills the lion. He comes back later, and the lion is dead, a dead carcass, and he sees honey inside the lion. Bees had made honey inside the lion. Don't know how any of that works, but that's what the Bible says. Samson reaches in, tasted some of the honey, and it says the honey was sweet. That's how compromise starts. It feels good in the moment, it looks good in the moment, it tastes good in the moment, whatever your compromise is. It's gonna be nice in the beginning before it starts taking you away. Samson eats that honey and he takes that little compromise inside of a dead carcass. Now he didn't touch the carcass, but he did scoop inside and get some of the honey. Gave some of that honey to his parents, but he didn't tell his parents where he got it from. His parents knew that he wasn't supposed to be touching dead carcasses or even slowly reaching into dead carcasses. He knew it was wrong. Otherwise he wouldn't have hit it. And from there he goes to a party with the Philistines. And he thought he was gonna be clever and he came up with this riddle to try to take some stuff from the Philistines. And while he was there, he saw a woman. He told his parents, I want that woman, go get her for me. That woman was a Philistine. The people that he told the riddle, the Philistines that he told the riddle to, they told the woman that they need to know the answer to this riddle so Samson doesn't take all of her stuff. And she deceived him. Not like Delilah, this wasn't Delilah, this was the first woman. She got him to tell the secret. They told the secret. Samson got mad. He ended up killing those Philistines to get his stuff back, but he was messing around with the Philistines, hanging out with the wrong crowd. That's a compromise right there. That's a compromise in a place where us men can slowly drift. And I'm going to use a phrase that the self development phrase, the self development world uses all the time. You are the essence of the five people you hang around with the most. The crowd you're hanging around? Are they causing you to level up in Christ, to grow stronger in Christ? Or are they causing you to drift? Are they causing you to compromise? You have to have discernment. Compromise rarely begins with rebellion. It begins with curiosity. It'll be okay. No one will know. It's only once. And it looked sweet. It looked nice. Comprise usually is that way. If sin looked disgusting in the beginning, nobody would choose it. Just like the honey. Samson forgot where that sweetness came from. It was something that God told him not to touch. I've made compromises in my life that seemed harmless at the time. Looking back, they weren't isolated decisions. They were teaching me to drift. They were drawing me away from God. A DM here, a DM there, more messages here, a little compliment here, a little compliment there, and before I knew it, I was somewhere where I didn't want to be. Drifting away from God doesn't happen all at once. It happens one compromise at a time. Samson kept moving towards the thing that God told him to stand against. The Philistine wife, the Philistine companions, the wedding feast. It was all Philistine stuff. This wasn't one mistake. It ended up becoming a lifestyle. So ask yourself what keeps pulling you away from God? Who keeps pulling you away from God? Is it pride, pornography, success, money, comfort? Friends that you shouldn't be hanging around with? People that you shouldn't be hanging around with? Now it's okay it's okay to hang around with sinners, but don't let them pull you away. Don't let them cause you to drift. You're supposed to be there to pull them towards God. Is it approval? And that's where it can go wrong with friends because you want to be accepted so you fall into their lifestyle. If approval is something you're chasing, it will definitely draw you away from God. You don't notice yourself suddenly drifting away from God. You just wake up one day wondering how you got here. Drifting away from God doesn't happen all at once. It happens one compromise at a time. And where did all these compromises get Samson? Let's get to the end of the story. Those compromises got Samson to Delilah. Delilah was set by the Philistines. The Philistines saw how easy it was for Samson to compromise, how easy he fell into the pretty women, the ones who caused him to drift. So they used Delilah to manipulate him and deceive him to find out his strength. And it wasn't like, hey, just go ask him what his strength was. They used her. She got to know him first. Those little compromises, cohorting with the Philistine woman. And then she says, If you love me, you'll tell me what the secret of your strength is. And three times he deceives her. And three times she says, The Philistines are upon you. And he breaks away from whatever the thing was. I'm not going to tell all the things, but he breaks away from them and defeats the Philistines and escapes the fourth and the third time. She uses her manipulation. You you don't love me. You say you love me, but you don't, because you're never telling me the real secret of your strength. Finally, he tells her the truth. You cut my hair, I won't have strength. And then again, she says, The Philistines are upon you. But what the Bible says right here is very interesting. Because he wakes up thinking, I'm just gonna take care of them again like I have every other time. But what the Bible says is he didn't know that the Lord had left him. And that's how it happens when those compromises and that drifting, and before you know it, you're so far from God you wonder how you got here, and then the enemy can come in and attack. You're vulnerable and open for attack. Delilah wasn't the beginning, she was the destination. All those little compromises, all those little choices he made led him to Delilah and getting captured by the Philistines. They blinded him, they put him in chains, they put him to work, they made him grind, I don't know what it was called, grinding the grindstone, but they put him to work. That's the danger of compromise, though. It slowly numbs your heart. It's where you don't even realize that the spirit of the Lord is gone from you. Eventually what once convicted you doesn't bother you anymore. Drifting away from God doesn't happen all at once, it happens one compromise at a time. But thank God Samson's story does not end there. He was blind, he was broken, he was humiliated, they put him in an arena and made sport out of him. I don't know what that means in the Bible. They were finding ways to humiliate him when he had humiliated them for years. But then the hair of his head began to grow again. Before Samson ever prayed, when he thought he was defeated. God was at work, and that first sign of restoration wasn't dramatic. It was quiet, and that's how God does it. Sometimes he does it slowly, sometimes he does it dramatically. For my story it was it was dramatic, just from my wife and I's standpoint. But I was like, okay, we're gonna make a change. But then slowly, as I started applying some spiritual disciplines, slowly into my life, God started restoring me. God brought me back after I had drifted so far that I didn't know how I'd gotten there. Maybe you've drifted, maybe you're living with consequences. But here's what's awesome. Your story isn't over. God still restores broken men, and I can tell you there's hope because I haven't always gotten it right. I've experienced the faithfulness of God when I didn't deserve it. Now let's wrap up Samson's story. When he his hair begins to grow again, he starts to feel his strength coming back. He feels the presence of God, subtly but slowly. Then he prays God give me strength one last time to fulfill my purpose, to defeat the Philistines, to restore the Israelites, because once the Philistines were defeated, the Israelites would be delivered from their hand. He had them all in a temple. They were all there humiliating and making fun of Samson. He asked a boy to put his hands between the two pillars. God gives him all of his strength back. He tore down the temple with all of the Philistines in it, and he fulfilled his purpose after praying. So that's where the best part of the story is. It doesn't matter how far you've gone, God's grace and his mercy will always be there for you. And all you have to do is say, God, I'm sorry, I've drifted. I don't know how I ended up in this place. God take me back. It's just a simple repenting. God, I'm ready. And then you start taking those baby steps back towards God. Start reading, start praying, start hanging out with the right people. Start asking, get around some men who know a little bit more than you do, and ask them questions. Tell them your struggles. Tell them where you've compromised and how you want to not drift anymore and you want to be back to where you were, where you once were, back into your purpose. If this episode if this episode challenged you, encouraged you, let me know in the comments below. I'd love to be able to help you to walk alongside you. I do have a community that you can join where you can ask questions. And if you don't want to ask them openly, you can DM me on there. It's totally free. There's going to be a link in the show notes. With that, stay strong, stay valiant, keep forging your path, and be blessed.