SURELY, HE WILL DO BETTER NEXT TIME? Or will he?
Samson went to Gaza.Another place where he shouldn’t have gone. His weakness, again, is a woman, and he went into a harlot. (1) a foreigner, (2) a prostitute, both forbidden by God (Deuteronomy 23:7). Disobedient yet again. He is lonely, depressed, but LOOKING IN THE WRONG PLACES.
It happens often, Christians looking for a girl/boyfriend in the world. As I’ve said before, If we look in the world for a partner the devil will see to it that we find one.
It was dangerous (v2) because the enemy surround the house immediately. He only escaped by the grace of God and the strength God gave to him. We must be careful where we go and who with. We may not see the enemy surrounding the place but be certain he is there in the form of his demons.
It seems incredible that a person who has been blessed and used by God should stoop to such low places. God doesn’t hide the fact that he went to a prostitute, but it was definitely not in the will of God that he should. Sadly, it still happens today and should be a warning for us all.
He was in grave danger. It is obvious that he was being watched – the enemy knew he was there – and surround the house. We must be careful who we associate with – the devil will see to it that someone sees us. We are urged to FLEE FROM SEXUAL TEMPTATION. If only he had done as Joseph did when he fled from Potiphar’s wife. Joseph was not even in the wrong place, when trapped by Potiphar’s wife who asked him time and time again to go to bed with her, had to leave in a hurry and left his coat as he fled. We might have to leave our coat behind which becomes our accusation. If only Samson had done the same! Sadly, even Joseph faced imprisonment for something he never did, upon lies and that coat.
Samson only escaped by the grace of God – taking the gates and gateposts with him. Not only does he escape by these unusual means, but he carried the gates and posts several miles to the top of the hill that faces Hebron. Surely one of the most amazing sights conjured up in the mind of us as youngsters at Sunday School.
Samson had got himself into a difficult situation, and not for the first time, but the amazing thing is that God gave His Spirit to get him out of these situations. Does he learn? Surely, he will! But no.
WHEN WILL HE EVER LEARN?
He goes to the valley of Sorek, still in enemy territory. He is oblivious to the fact that he keeps looking in the wrong places. You would have thought that he would get as far away as possible, but no.
He now loves a woman called Delilah (v4)a Philistine I presume (v5). We are led to believe by the films that Samson was married to Delilah. Nowhere do we read that Delilah was his wife. She was an enemy agent (v18). She is definitely in the pocket of her people, the Philistines. They could have killed him outright, but that is not how the devil deals with us. He wants to humiliate us and make us ineffective.
They ask her to ask Samson where his strength comes from, surely another evidence that he wasn’t naturally strong, otherwise it would have been obvious. A pity he didn’t tell her the truth. If he had told them the truth, however, they would probably have said, and rightly so, “What are you doing here then?” A man endowed by The Spirit of God should not have been there in that situation.
Again, he should have done as Joseph did – flee for his life. Surely, he could see the Delilah is not genuine in her ‘love’ for him. They say, ‘love is blind’ well it certainly was with Samson.
Having compromised he seems to have become careless and wanton. Sin does that to us – it blinds our eyes to the truth, good and bad, right and wrong. We are no different.
We see in v7-16 He plays games with the enemy as Delilah tries to get his secret for the Philistines. Delilah turns on the tears, “How can you say you love me when your heart is not with me”
It is fatal to play games with the devil. We must take the devil seriously – never over-estimate him, but don’t under-estimate him.
Samson played fast and loose with Delilah as she taunted him, then as time progressed, he is completely under her ‘spell’. By then he was completely besotted and enslaved by his passion for her and she spoke to him so falsely – ‘You don’t love me, you keep mocking me.’ (v15). If only he had been more careful! As she kept pleading with him, he got closer and closer to his secret until in v13 he told her to weave his hair into a loom. He was now dangerously close. Finally, he told her all. It must be stressed, however, that it was not simply the fact that he had not had his hair cut that gave him his strength, but what it was a picture of, or what it represented, namely, his commitment to God as a Nazarite.
The devil doesn’t like to let go. Delilah kept on pressing him and he gave her several scenarios which were false and must have been quite amusing, but eventually he told her his secret. This is what happens when we play with the world – sooner or later we become careless in our actions and talk.
It is possible for us in our infatuation with the world to be ignorant of the fact that our spiritual strength has gone. Whilst we as Christians never lose the Holy Spirit, we can become utterly powerless and useless by our actions and state.
GOING WITHOUT GOD.
This spells disaster.
He didn’t realise that God had left him. (v20) “l will go out as before, at other times and shake myself free; but he didn’t know that The LORD had departed from him.” What a profound statement! How we need to be careful that whatever we are doing is in THE STRENGTH OF THE LORD. It may be in our own strength and if it is, we are in grave danger. For a man so blessed he was rather silly to go out thinking God was with him as He usually was.
Samson’s life story is clearly one of tremendous potential, but one of self-will and disobedience but in it all we see God’s marvellous grace and mercy. Yes, he did lose his eyes but that was as a result of sin, but Praise God – v22 says “His hair began to grow again …. ” I love that verse, it is almost stated in passing, but it is so important, his captors never even noticed. Perhaps they thought there was no hope for him now and his God would never help him again! How wrong they were!
God hadn’t finished yet. Remember it wasn’t his hair that gave him his strength, but The Spirit of God. His hair was the sign of his commitment to God. This seems to be the sign that God was renewing his power in him and Samson’s faith.
LET’S GET IT RIGHT ABOUT RECEIVING THE HOLY SPIRIT
If we are The LORD’s, since Pentecost, He has come to indwell us and He never leaves us, even though at times we may appear to have been abandoned and too far gone in our sinfulness and sunk to the lowest level. The Bible says that when we repent and receive Christ as LORD and Saviour, we SHALL receive The Holy Spirit. (Acts 2v38) Whoever does not have The Spirit does not belong to Christ. (Romans 8v9)
THE END.
The main factor was not just his hair growing, which they amazingly overlooked, but that Samson repented – something the world could do nothing about.
If we want our own way, we will never experience the blessings of God. It will only come through obedience to Him and He wants the very best for us. He wants us to share in His glory. Samson led a thoroughly torrid existence – his latter years were spent in torment, blindness, slavery and shame, chained to his work grinding at the mill, chains which he would have broken like matchwood when he had his God-given strength, but God was there when he cried out to Him. We often refer to the daily grind. Well that was how Samson ended up, literally grinding in the prison. Someone has said that Judges 16:21 reminds us of the blinding, binding and grinding results of sin. Samson’s life is a clear warning of the dangers of disobedience to God’s Word.
Sometimes we choose wrongly and suffer the pain, while God works it out for our good and His glory. Paul said he was prepared to suffer pain for God’s glory, and John (1 John 5:3) that we keep God’s commandments and they are not burdensome. Let God control you and you will be the person He wants you to be.
Some feel that God asks too much when He asks for our all. But that is only because He has given His all and He wants the very best for us having given us His very best. However low we have stooped; God will hear the prayer of faith and will answer. It is often when we are at or lowest that God can only do something for us because it is only then that we recognize our need. But there is no need for us to get to that situation. Complete surrender of life, heart, soul and will to God will save us a lot of needless heartache and pain.
The writer to the Hebrews 12:5-11 says, “My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.” “If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
Peter in 1 Peter 1:3-9 wrote, “Blessed be the God and Father of our LORD Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honour, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.”
Samson was utterly degraded and disgraced, chained to his work at the mill. He now had no choice in his work. The devil and the world will shackle us. It is only when we turn to Christ that our chains are broken and fall off. He is doing the job of the lowest slave.
The Philistines gather to worship their god Dagon to thank him for delivering their enemy into their hands. Sure, Samson was in their hands but not for good. Their god could not save them from their enemy – he had nothing to do with it. They might have their hands on him now, but disaster was looming. They didn’t realise what they were saying – “Our god has delivered into our hands our enemy the destroyer of our land’ and the one who multiplied our dead.” For Samson was about to do even more ‘multiplication’ by the power of God. Satan does get carried away and careless at times when he thinks he has won the victory, and this is what happened. Satan is not almighty.
Firstly, we saw it was overlooked that Samson’s hair began to grow again. I wonder if people who knew anything of the cutting of it, remembered? As I said it wasn’t the flowing locks that gave him his strength that was only a picture, but, surprisingly, the world forgot the picture and, as usual, became careless. Secondly, and the main factor was, that Samson repented, a fact that the world could do nothing about.
In their drunken state (v25) they brought Samson in for sport, some fun and entertainment.
HE BROUGHT THE HOUSE DOWN – literally.
This once super strength guy, now sightless, they had put out his eyes, and powerless. They placed him between the pillars as they revelled in their pagan god. I guess this was some sort of stage for his performance. In fact, it appears that all they were doing was mocking him and giving credit to their god for delivering him into their hands. They were parading him as a defeated foe. He wasn’t there to perform acts of incredible strength; he was a wreck and had none and they were thrilled by it.
He asked the young man who led him to let him feel the two pillars which supported the house. His request appeared to be simply to lean against them so that he wouldn’t fall over.
Samson prayed to His God. I don’t know if it was out loud or not but never before do we read that Samson prayed like this. In chapter 15 he had cried out to God (v18) but that seems to be a cry of vindication. He seems to have gone ahead and done things his way. But in 16v28 Samson called out to The LORD saying, “O LORD God, remember me, I pray!” It is clear that God had never forgotten him. However far we go from God, He is always there. He went on, “Strengthen me I pray, just this once….” You can almost hear the pleading! If only he had prayed like this before! There is no mention of him asking God to restore him to his previous position. No self-vindication here, he is at his last, ‘just this once’.
The intriguing thing is that God heard him and answered, maybe not in the way he expected. God always answers the prayer of faith which I believe this was.
After his plea to God, he was given the strength which he once had and pulled pillars down so that the house collapsed on the inhabitants. He slaughtered the Lords of the Philistines and all the people in the house, 3,000 people in that one feat, more than he had in his lifetime. Sadly, himself as well.
His family heard about this catastrophe and came to take his body to give him a burial. They seemed to have followed his progress and demise and took his body to the family tomb.
His earthly life was ended but he lives on in Glory because we know that he was a man of faith listed in Hebrews 11:32.
Amazingly, God includes Samson in that hall of faith, together with other failures – Barak (who was afraid to go alone); Gideon (who thought he was a nobody); Samson (who thought he was everybody’s dream but without God was nothing). The Bible never paints glowing pictures of people without pointing out their sin. God can use failures – I’m so glad He can – I’m one.
Samson’s life was a clear warning of the dangers of disobedience. Let God have control of your life and you will be the person He wants you to be.
It is vital, particularly if you have backslidden, or been compromising with the world, or doing things in your own strength, that you REPENT. God has given heaven’s best for earth’s worst. “God so loved the world that He gave …. “ (John 3:16) However low we have stooped God will hear our prayer of faith and will answer. True repentance guarantees God’s answer.
The popular song says, ‘I did it my way’. Please don’t!
Coming from a Christian family, as I did,can be a hindrance to true conversion. Also, we can put pressure on our children to become Christians, there must surely be times when we would dearly love to.
Dr Martin Lloyd-Jones – A Godly home is no guarantee of true conversion – many such children of heroes of faith have lapsed into dead formalism or even outright rejection of parental faith.
What is important is that we encourage them, love them, care for them, however small the need, be there for them, set an example. Be someone they will want to emulate.
God is able to give men the freedom to make choices and yet still be in control, so that we are assured that His purposes will be realized. That is illustrated by God’s use of Samson, even though he is sinfully self-indulgent. Samson’s life story is clearly one of tremendous potential, but one of self-willed disobedience, but in it all we see God’s marvellous grace and mercy. Sadly, the cause of Samson’s failure remains as the number one cause of failure in Christian leaders (and others) today. How many leaders have become addicted to power and to fleshly lusts? How many leaders have been disqualified because of their sexual immorality? Wine, women, and song destroy leaders. That is why King Lemuel (in Proverbs) is warned about the dangers of wine. David and Solomon both found women to be their downfall. In the New Testament, Peter warns that false teachers are dominated by fleshly lusts, and they lure others by the offer of fleshly indulgence.
What ruined Samson continues to ruin Christians (and non-Christians alike) today. It need not always be like that. We can come in repentance and trust in and to God for forgiveness and receive it and live victorious lives.
Hudson Taylor said, “All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them.”
