Heroes of the Bible: Samson
Scott Bayles, pastor
Blooming Grove Christian Church: 8/8/2021
NOTE: This sermon was adapted from my book, Holy Heroes of the Bible. If it's a blessing to you, please consider buying the book which includes chapters/sermons on 17 additional Bible heroes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09SBNJTSZ
As most of you are well aware, we are about half way through an action-packed series on the Heroes of the Bible—heroes who stood up for what was right, sacrificed everything, and even wrestled with God himself. Each of these heroes accomplished extraordinary things because they joined forces with God.
So far, we’ve been inspired by the heroic endeavors of Noah—the hero who built an ark, Abraham—the hero whose faith founded a nation, Jacob—the hero who wrestled with God, and Moses—the hero who was rescued as a baby, rejected by his people, but redeemed and recruited by God. Before we dive into the story of our next hero, though, we need to make an important distinction.
The comicbook world is full of heroes of every variety. Many, like Superman and Captain America, are altruistic crime fighters with strong morals and clear-cut distinctions between right and wrong. But not all characters see things so black and white. For some, heroic deeds fall on a tortuous greyscale that blurs the boundaries between hero and villain. These vigilantes—including characters like Wolverine, the Punisher, and Deadpool—are known as anti-heroes. Anti-heroes battle bad guys, but they’re not exactly good guys. They’re not role models, they frequently compromise their moral integrity and will stop at nothing to accomplish their goals, even if that means violently killing anyone who gets in their way.
Surprisingly, these comicbook anti-heroes bear a striking resemblance to the next hero in our lineup. As we leaf through the pages of the book of Judges, we meet someone who is one of the most flawed, imperfect people in all of Scripture. His name is Samson.
Next Slide: Samson
When I was a kid attending Sunday School, Samson was my favorite hero of the Bible. God chose Samson from birth to become a hero to his people; a champion who would push back against the oppressive onslaught of their enemies, the Philistines—the quintessential bad guys of the Bible. God imbued Samson with real superpowers, including super-strength, stamina, and invulnerability. He performed several feats of super-strength, including ripping a giant iron gate off its hinges, tearing apart a lion with his bare hands, and defeating an entire battalion of Philistines with the jaw bone of a donkey. Samson had all the makings of a real-life superhero. Sadly, Samson may have been super, but he was no hero. In Sunday School lessons, we often gloss over the fact that Samson was an immoral, irresponsible, inebriated jerk who often endangered the Israelites he was supposed to protect. He was about as imperfect as they come. The truth is—Samson was an anti-hero who had more vices than virtues. But there is still much we can learn from Samson’s action-packed adventures.
Since the book of Judges devotes more paragraphs and pages to Samson’s story than any other, I won’t be able to cover the whole thing from start to finish; rather I’ll just hit some of the highlights that help round out Samson’s personality. One of the first things we notice about Samson is his rage.
• SAMSON’S RAGE
To say Samson suffered from anger issues would be an understatement. Scripture first highlights Samson’s rage at his bachelor party. As was the custom back then, Samson threw a week-long party to celebrate his upcoming nuptials and among the guests were thirty Philistine men. Since the Philistines were Israel’s enemies, Samson loved antagonizing them, so he proposed a wager: “Let me tell you a riddle. If you solve my riddle during these seven days of the celebration, I will give you thirty fine linen robes and thirty sets of festive clothing. But if you can’t solve it, then you must give me thirty fine linen robes and thirty sets of festive clothing” (Judges 14:12-13 NLT). Well, Samson tells them the riddle and several days go by. As the Philistines grow more and more puzzled by his challenge, they decide to threaten his blushing bride and convince her to tell them the answer. She coaxes it out of her trusting fiancée and reports back to the Philistines. So, before sunset on the last day of the feast, they find Samson and give him the answer to his little brainteaser. Immediately Samson knew that his bride had betrayed him, so he storms out of the celebration fuming with rage. And, the Bible says, “He went down to the town of Ashkelon, killed thirty men, took their belongings, and gave their clothing to the men who had solved his riddle. But Samson was furious about what had happened, and he went back home to live with his father and mother.” (Judges 14:19 NLT). Samson flew into a rage, murdered thirty men, and called off his wedding over a stupid bet.
But, wait… there’s more.
Since Samson left his bride-to-be standing at the altar, she decides to marry the best man. Several months later, Samson traveled back to Timnah to reunite with his ex. When he finds out that she’s already married someone else, he again sets out to wreak havoc on the Philistines in a fit of rage: “So Samson went out and caught three hundred foxes. He took two foxes at a time, tied their tails together, and then tied a torch to the tails of each pair of foxes. After he lit the torches, he let the foxes loose in the grainfields of the Philistines so that he burned up their standing grain, the piles of grain, their vineyards, and their olive trees” (Judges 15:4-5 NCV). Samson took out his anger toward his ex-fiancée on all of Philistia.
The Philistines then blamed Samson’s ex-fiancée for the fiasco and killed her in retaliation. So, the Bible says, “Samson said to them, ‘Since you’ve acted like this, I swear that I won’t stop until I get my revenge on you.’ He attacked them viciously and slaughtered many of them” (Judges 15:8 NLT).
Samson reminds me of Bruce Banner’s famous line from The Incredible Hulk television series: “Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” Samson’s inability to keep his anger in check made him a menace and a danger to everyone around him.
Do you have trouble keeping your temper in check? How many times have you said something in anger that you wished you could take back the moment the words left your lips? The Bible says, “Short-tempered people do foolish things” (Proverbs 14:17 NLT). Isn’t that the truth? As Will Rogers once said, “Whenever you fly into a rage, you seldom make a safe landing.”
So how do we handle our anger? The Bible says, “Foolish people lose their tempers, but wise people control theirs” (Proverbs 29:11 NCV). Control is the key. If we want to be wise and avoid making a fool of ourselves, we must learn to control our tempers. Self-control is a fruit of Spirit, so when you feel yourself starting to lose your temper, you can quickly go to God in prayer and ask him to fill your heart with his Spirit. Often, the very act of breathing a prayer is enough to calm yourself down and regain control.
If Samson had learned to control his temper, he could have channeled his anger into accomplishing great good. Instead, it mostly caused mayhem and brutal battles with lots of collateral damage. Unfortunately, rage wasn’t Samson’s only flaw. Furthermore, Samson indulged in multiple forbidden romances.
• SAMSON’S ROMANCES
We’ve already seen that Samson was engaged to be married. Judges 14 gives us some background on that relationship:
One day when Samson was in Timnah, one of the Philistine women caught his eye. When he returned home, he told his father and mother, “A young Philistine woman in Timnah caught my eye. I want to marry her. Get her for me.” His father and mother objected. “Isn’t there even one woman in our tribe or among all the Israelites you could marry?” they asked. “Why must you go to the pagan Philistines to find a wife?” But Samson told his father, “Get her for me! She looks good to me.” (Judges 14:1-3 NLT).
Not only does Samson behave like a chauvinist pig in this passage, but he also directly defies God’s commands. Earlier, God instructed the Israelites not to marry Canaanite women, including Philistines. This isn’t because God was prejudiced but because God knew that the Canaanites worshipped all sort of false gods and participated in horribly immoral pagan practices including child-sacrifices. Even though his parents objected, Samson didn’t care. He completely disregarded God’s command and his parents’ advice because the girl “looked good to him.” We already saw how that relationship worked out.
Later, Samson meets another good-looking girl named Delilah. The Bible says, “Some time later Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah, who lived in the valley of Sorek” (Judges 16:4 NLT). Although the Bible doesn’t specify, ancient commentaries identify Delilah as a Philistine prostitute—and she wasn’t the first prostitute Samson visited (see Judges 16:1).
Samson’s lust for Delilah kept him coming back to the Philistine city of Sorek to spend the night with her. Soon, five Philistine kings—the heads of the entire Philistine nation—approached Delilah and offered her eleven hundred pieces of silver if she discovers the secret of Samson’s strength. In other words, they wanted to know what his Kryptonite was. How could they defeat him? Delilah happily accepted the offer.
She manipulatively nagged him every day, saying, “How can you tell me, ‘I love you,’ when you don’t share your secrets with me?” (Judges 16:15 NLT). She whined until Samson couldn’t stand it any longer. Finally, he confessed “My hair has never been cut for I was dedicated to God as a Nazirite from birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as anyone else” (Judges 16:17 NLT). That night, as Samson slept, Delilah held him in her lap while the Philistines quietly shaved his head, stealing his strength.
Without his mighty strength, the Philistines easily subdued Samson, tied him up, and gouged out his eyes. They bound him with bronze chains and put him to work grinding grain in the prison, only allowing him out when they needed some evening entertainment.
Samson may have lost his strength when he lost his hair, but his real Kryptonite was women. Lust was Samson’s downfall. For all his physical might, he lacked the moral strength to make good choices. Of course, Samson isn’t the only one to struggle with sexual temptation and make stupid decisions.
The Bible repeatedly and unequivocally condemns “sexual immorality” (or fornication), which includes prostitution, adultery, homosexuality, and premarital sex. In short, if you aren’t married, you shouldn’t be having sex! Period. If you’re having sex with some you aren’t married to, you are directly defying God’s commands just like Samson did.
Unfortunately, our culture sends the message that sex is no big deal, while at the same time acting like sex is the most important thing in the world. Society demands that people be “sex positive,” approving of any and all sexual activity. But as Christians, we dare to believe that sex is precious, and God created it to be fully experienced only in the most precious relationship—marriage. The Bible says, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Hebrews 13:4 NIV). Sex isn’t casual. It wasn’t created for boyfriends and girlfriends. It wasn’t even meant for serious couples who intend to get married. Sex is meant for one man and one woman united in marriage.
Visiting prostitutes, pornographic websites or promiscuous partners probably won’t result in you getting your hair chopped off or your eyes gouged out, but sexual sin is always harmful in one way or another. Lustful foolishness destroyed Samson. Don’t let it destroy you too. Finally, there is one more chapter in Samson’s saga, which is Samson’s revenge.
• SAMSON’S REVENGE
Anti-heroes like Samson tend to be big on revenge, and when they take their revenge, you can count on it being something over-the-top. We already saw how Samson took revenge for the murder of his fiancée by slaughtering a great number of Philistines. Now, the Philistines have taken Samson’s eyes and he wants an eye for an eye… and then some. Samson will stop at nothing to get his revenge.
Soon after seizing Samson and throwing him in prison, the Philistine tyrants declared a great festival to celebrate his capture. The people made sacrifices to their god, Dagon, and gave him credit for Samson’s defeat. The Philistine temple was filled to capacity. All the Philistine tribal kings were there, and there were another 3,000 pagan men and women on the roof. Half drunk, the people demanded, “Bring out Samson so he can amuse us!” And they all shouted and jeered when Samson came out on stage.
Under the roar of the crowd, Samson whispered a surprising prayer, “Sovereign Lord, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes” (Judges 16:28 NLT). With that prayer uttered, Samson positioned himself between the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Cloaked in darkness, yet able to feel the grainy sandstone pillars with the palms of his hands, he braced himself between them and then, as if still a part of his prayer, Samson sighed, “Let me die with the Philistines” (Judges 16:30 NLT). Amazingly, God granted his request. Suddenly, Samson feels the power of God surging through him. As he pressed with matchless might against the supporting pillars, the whole place began to crack and pop until finally the roof caved in, crushing and killing everyone inside, including Samson himself. Samson got his revenge, but it cost him his own life.
When people hurt us, often our first reaction is to hurt them back! The desire to “get even” seems to be woven into the human psyche. Revenge and retaliation are natural instincts. Maybe you’ve had an employer who unfairly fired you, or a spouse who abandoned you, or a parent who failed you, or a friend who betrayed you. Whatever the case, you have been “done wrong,” and maybe you’re waiting for your moment to get even. We saw how well that ended for Samson. The ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius said, “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” Revenge is often a double-edged sword and it rarely brings satisfaction.
Jesus wants us to know that there’s a better way. He says in the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you… If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other cheek also” (Matthew 5:38-39 NCV). In other words, don’t pay back evil with more evil! The Apostle Paul put it this way, saying, “Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, ‘I will take revenge; I will pay them back,’ says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19 NLT).
God occupies the only seat on heaven’s Supreme Court. He wears the robe and refuses to share the gavel. Only God dispenses perfect punishment. Vengeance is his job. So rather than seeking revenge against the people who hurt you, turn the other cheek and leave your enemies in God’s hands.
Conclusion:
In the end, Samson teaches us how to be a hero primarily by showing us what not to do. His misadventures demonstrate the dangers of uncontrolled rage, lascivious romances, and wanton revenge. But, despite all of Samson’s flaws and failings, God still used him to protect and preserve the people of Israel. God blessed Samson with supernatural strength in order to defeat the Philistines. Even though he did it for all the wrong reasons, Samson still accomplished that task. Perhaps one lesson we learn from this misguided muscle man is that God uses imperfect people. We’ve all made mistakes. We’ve all made some bad choices in life. But if God could find a place in his plan for an anti-hero like Samson, then he can certainly use you! You don’t have to have super-strength to be used of God; you just have to be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power!
Invitation:
Maybe you’ve been struggling with controlling your temper or resisting sexual temptations like Samson. Maybe there’s someone in your life that you’ve been aching to get even with and you need help letting of that grudge go. It’s never too late to make the right choice or do the right thing. If you’re standing between the pillars, ready to make that decision today, let’s talk while we stand and sing together.
