I can tell you that when my own children were born into this world, I had a lot of anxiety about it, and I was not really prepared. Faith and I had been married seven, nearly eight years, and we both did a lot of reading because we had never been around small children. When they were born I was prayed up and read up, and it was a glorious thing, and they were precious little bundles of love. And then, before too long, I realized that I had right before me the doctrine of total depravity in little diapers. I knew that something was very wrong, that they were little savages, and that they would require a lot of time and energy and effort and a lot of personal time and that it would cut into my study time. I remember saying, "Faith, how could you have done this to me?" Now, the remainder of that conversation will be released shortly after my death someday. But it is mandated upon us to seek God with respect to the raising of our children. We dare not put any confidence in the flesh. Little ones are such a sacred stewardship that they demand all that we can bring to it, and then a lot more. In fact, I have often said when we raise children, we learn a great deal about our own hearts, about our own selfishness, the areas where we are not sanctified. Raising children requires that we stay very close to God. That is not a time when we default. As I read this story, I see Manoah being very diligent, and I am convinced that he did it right, that he heeded directions. Mr. and Mrs. Manoah were conscientious and dutiful in the dispatch of their parenting abilities. I think they did it to the best of their ability, and yet Samson grew up to become a he-man with very serious "she" problems.
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Samson started out in the Spirit, but he wound up in the flesh. He knew God, but he would not serve God, at least wholeheartedly. Yes, he was used, but not mightily. Though filled with the Spirit, he constantly grieved the Spirit. He never achieved God's great plan for his life, though he did fulfill some of the Lord's purposes for his life. The light that God wanted to shine through Samson's life was little more than a flicker, and throughout his life, listen to this, he trifled with what was holy, trusted more in himself than in God. He was fleshly and sensual and unpredictable and irresponsible and vain. He was a disappointment to himself, to his family, to the nation, and to the Lord. You go through his life, and you will find four major weaknesses that contributed to his ungluing. Think about these with me: He focused on wrong objectives. I do not have time to go through and point it out to you, but he did. He handled leisure carelessly. He developed close alliances with the wrong crowd, and he failed to take God and his vow seriously. Now, I can tell you, Beloved, as a pastor/counselor that there is no pain like that when you are a parent, and you are on the other end of the way with children, when your children are out there, away from home, living in some Gaza, some sleazy place, married to some Philistine, being unequally yoked with some pagan. They may be living a licentious life, wandering aimlessly from job to job, never attending church, animated by utterly destructive, carnal appetites, and all the values that you sought to instill in them have been cast to the wind. I can tell you, it is absolutely wrenching, and yet, tragically, it happens. You know, we are never out of the woods with respect to our kids, whether they are eight years of age or forty. And when a boy or girl that was raised in the right ways goes in all the wrong directions, parents often nose dive into Herculean shame or emotional isolation, or we tend to personalize the failures of our children. A lot of private tears get shed, and even worse is the growing guilt that gnaws away day after day. It's a false guilt, of course, but it is terrible and very hurtful and very destructive. I have a real heart, this morning, for such parents. I want to say that if you are related to Manoah's kin and you have a son or daughter living a halfway Christian life or even a pagan life, even though in the yesteryears of your parenting you raised them in the church loving and nurturing them, and teaching them the right way to live, I have a comforting and, hopefully, a helpful word for you. I know there are some here and even others who will hear the tape who will be in need of the kind of counsel that I believe the Lord wants to bring to us in and through His Word. You see, it is all the more necessary because those of us who are en route with our children, though we can trust the promises of God and should, the fact is that our children may, at some point, go through a very difficult time, some season of apostasy, for lack of a better word, some period when they question everything or perhaps throw down what we believe and walk away from it. Then what happens?
