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.
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.
The little kids.
5 to 10.
12 I think is the oldest.
And we just see.
I see the devastation.
And I can name.
I'm 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 in 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.
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 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.
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 wives 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 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.
Pride gets in there, and I'm not doing
that.
Who does she think I am?
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 pride, it's arrogance, 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's probably not real specific
on what she looked like.
Because for some, it's a 12-pack of
shock top.
For others, it's going back to pornography.
I've known men, friends of mine, they're not
really anymore because it's hard to be friends
with somebody who doesn't want to change.
But they would stop in Hollywood and go
into those bars or pick up a prostitute
and get home and tell her, oh, I'm
sorry, I blew it.
And her wife says, oh, it's okay.
Better next time.
What is that?
That's enabling.
See, they're not woken up.
They're not rattled to their core.
And these are Christian men.
In name.
Now, I want to be careful there because
I think Christian men can fall like the
prodigal son.
But there can't be a habitual pattern of
sin that you just enjoy.
And I'm not going to do anything about
it because the heart that's drawn to God
has to break free of that.
They're miserable in that.
They want what God has for them, but
they're caught in this.
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.
Thank God for this.
Thank God for her because I 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 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 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 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 hair cut.
Then she began to torment him, and his
strength left him.
And she said to 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?
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.
So 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.
And 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 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 Philistines took him.
The Philistines took him, put out his eyes.
And you can research how they used to
gouge out the eyes.
I don't even want to get into it.
But they would hold the person down, strap
him down, and they would actually remove their
eyes.
I mean, talk about it.
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, with the oxen, they would
tread, and the wheat would be pressed and
grinded so they would have flour to work
with.
So Samson, 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 going to circle that one.
That's what I love about God.
However, however, the hair of his head began
to grow again.
And after it had been shaven, now the
lords of the Philistines gathered together to offer
a 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.
Let's make fun of him as we watch
him.
And if you just keep reading there, I
encourage you to read Judges 16 tonight.
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 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.
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 take it anymore.
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 is 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 that's
what they say.
But see, the power wasn't in the hair.
The power was in the consecration.
See, it's never in something you do 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 of Gaza or
something like that.
I mean, you read this guy and say,
what is wrong with this guy?
I mean, he's just this consecration 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 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.
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 realize they're chewing
me out.
I'm just discouraged in this.
And just discouragement in the world and the
kids growing up in the society.
I'm so discouraged about things.
What's happening?
And you have to be careful because that
discouragement is often the first step towards 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, 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 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 it.
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 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, men.
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.
Let's say females, for example.
I don't counsel women, basically.
Maybe older little kids and 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 handle it.
It doesn't go there.
I can't even think of one female that
there's an attraction to, even a mental relation.
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 a hundred
years ago.
My God, those guys could preach the holiness
of God, the fear of God, the consecration.
Read the old Methodist circuit riders.
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've 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.
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.
No, it doesn't happen.
But you've got to fight for those things.
We have a devotional 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.
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, settingcaptivesfree.com.
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.
Pride.
That's pride.
When you're at that point, you no longer
look to the Lord for help.
Then there's shame because you're living a deceptive
dual life.
This always happens.
There's sin.
They don't want to confess.
They don't want to bring anybody's attention because
it's not spiritual.
Right?
We 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 lust of the flesh, the lust 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, compromised, 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
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 pays.
That was an easy question.
And then four, I'm getting to the last
point.
His spiritual strength left.
Interesting.
Pestered, discouragement, compromised, gives in and now his
spiritual strength leaves.
And you know, have you ever been just
walking around and 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
ten 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 a pester,
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, 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 are called to guard your families.
If you're a young adult, 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 obey the spiritual warrior.
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.
Oh, 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.
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, dirt, the mud.
Obviously, we have more accurate weapons today.
But can you imagine that?
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.
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 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 that 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, and, 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.
Our kids need, 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 who 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,
saying, 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 Viette 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
with 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 stone 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.