Samson, what a life, in our weakness God is glorified. Judges 13-16.
The Judges are as we mentioned last week were a group of leaders of Israel. We started with some discussion about Othniel last week and how out of all the Judges he nailed the role, and then the rest started into a down-ward spiral. I will talk this week about Samson who many see as a miscreant sort of a bloke. He was chosen by God as a leader of Israel prior to his birth, as a Christ type character, not the Christ but of that type, like superheroes, like great leaders, but Samson had his flaws and was not your typical hero. His life was anything but ordinary, this bloke could easily have been the stuff of soap operas as well as a legend. As a Christ type, lets tag him and I don’t think it’s an unfair observation to say he was pretty rough around the edges.
Here's a bit of a list of the goings on of Samson’s life, it’s a big list and I will have to come up for a breath from time to time: Judges 13-16.
• He was born at a time when the Israelites had sinned by worshipping other god’s…again. So, God let them be conquered by the Philistines for forty years
• Then an angel appeared to his Mum, the wife of Manoah, of the tribe of Dan, she was barren but was told by the angel who wouldn’t give his name she would have a son. Bit of a Biblical theme that
• She got the run down on her diet during pregnancy, no beer, no wine, and no non-kosher food
• No haircuts for the lad, he was to be a Nazarite…the Nazarites are…check out the vow of a Nazarite in Numbers 6, both men and women are eligible
• He would rescue Israel from the Philistines. All this was spoken to his Mum prior to his birth but wait there’s more.
• She tells her husband
• He prayed and asked that the angel would come back with clear instructions on how they were to bring up their son, I’m thinking with my two boys that could have been handy, an instruction manual
• The angel comes back and tells them, Mum is to have no grapes or raisins, or wine or beer and only to eat kosher food
• The angel stays a while then ascends into heaven as Samson’s Dad is making a sacrifice offering to the Lord
• Then Samson is born
The kids only just been born and already his life has been eventful, then:
• The Lord blessed him as he grew up
• He got excited when he visited the tribal army grounds as a child
• He fell in love with a Philistine girl, wanted to marry her, told his Mum and Dad and they objected strenuously, but this was part of God’s plan to beat the Philistines
• As they were heading off to arrange the marriage a young lion attacked Samson and his parents. Samson pulled its jaws apart and killed it as the Spirit of the Lord had come upon him and gave him strength
• The marriage was arranged
• He returned home and on the way found the lion carcass, took honey from it, as a Nazarite he had broken the vows he would have taken by touching a dead animal
• Big wedding party, tricky riddle for the guests to solve, guests couldn’t solve it, so they threatened Samson’s bride, she, the bride found out the answer, told the guests, the cost of which was thirty fancy outfits which Samson got from killing thirty blokes in the city of Askelon
• Because his wife has ruined his riddle, Samson left his wife and went back home to live with Mum and Dad
• His wife married his best man
Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of Samson’s life
• Later on, Samson changes his mind about his wife, takes a goat to try and whoo her back as there were no chocolates but surely there must have been florists back in the day. Here’s a tip for all you young single men, a young goat may be the way to a girl’s heart
• “The Father-in-law tells him, slightly paraphrased, To late, she married your best man, here’s her prettier younger sister.”
• Samson spits the dummy, goes out and catches three hundred foxes, ties a flaming torch between pairs of them and destroys the Philistines grain crops, grain reserves and olive trees
• The Philistines find out why and they get Samson’ ex and her Dad and burn them alive, no you can’t make this stuff up
• Samson seeks revenge and kills many of them and then goes to live in the rock’s of Etam
• The Philistines go to Judah to find him
• The Judean’s find Samson and capture him for the Philistines, to whom he is delivered, yip a political move, a little like the Jews and Jesus, “Better for one to die than many.” (John 11:59).
• Samson breaks his bonds and kills a thousand Philistines with jawbone of a donkey
• Samson prays for water and a spring gush’s forth
• Samson was then Judge of Israel for twenty years, but the Philistines still controlled the land
• Samson goes to Gaza, yip same city, spends the night with a prostitute, ANOTHER Nazarite rule broken, a plan is devised by the Philistines to capture him, he escapes with the gate posts to the city
It then turns to custard, serious custard, in chapter 16 verse 4, we read “Later on he fell in love with a girl named Delilah over in the valley of Sorek.”
• Samson is a wanted man, the five head people of the Philistines approached Delilah with the opportunity for her to gain big money through finding his weakness
• She asks what it is that makes him strong, and how he can be captured, so he tells her. I’m wondering here if Samson is not the sharpest tool in the shed, there should be warning signals going off. Young people, well all people be careful about what you share with others about personal things, if ever…run
• Seven raw leather bowstrings will make me weak, didn’t work
• Tied with brand new ropes, didn’t work
• Weave my hair into your loom, didn’t work
• You would think by now Samson would see that there is evil afoot. A lesson here young people, keep relationships in perspective, don’t let your heart rule your head and if you are seeing odd stuff going on in your relationship take it as a warning, get gone
We are getting to the end of this story, well sort of:
• Samson tells Delilah that his strength is related to his hair being long as he is a Nazarite
• Delilah has Samson’s hair cut, by a barber while he is asleep and she hits him as his strength was leaving him
• Samson is captured and the Philistines gouge out his eyes and bind him in bronze chains
• Samson’s hair had begun to grow back
• The Philistines have a big celebration party and make sacrifices to their god, Dagon this in part to humiliate Samson. It is quite likely that the sacrifices were human sacrifices also…at this stage Samson’s own future on Earth may have been seen as quite short
• The Philistines get Samson out of prison and have him preform for them at their big Dagon worshipping party
• Samson is standing beside the pillars of the Dagon temple building he reaches out to the two central pillars and prays “O Sovereign Lord, remember me. O God, please strengthen me once more and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.”
• He pushes and down comes the building with about three thousand Philistines present. My Bible says “Thus he killed many more when he died than when he lived
• He was retrieved by his family and buried in the tomb of his father, Manoah
What a life, as I mentioned earlier a Christ type figure in that he rescued his people, but Samson was as rough as old boots, a Judge of his people but under the rule of the Philistines as he never really followed God’s leading to the letter. A bit like the vegetarian who celebrates at the end of the week with a nice juicy Sirloin Steak. It’s true I’ve meet them.
After Samson the rest of the book of Judges is about the nation of Israel going really badly with lots of idol worship, infighting, tribal warfare etc, etc. The last verse of the book reads this way. “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” Judges 21:25.
But back to Samson, this hero, this great warrior Judge appears to in embracing his sinful nature, have blown it, blown it in a messy forbidden relationship, betrayed by the woman he loved for her personal gain, after she had wooed him off to sleep. But at his last hour Samson cried out to God and as prophesied, in his weakness he literally brought the house down, defeating his enemy, defeating Israel’s enemy. A violent and bloody conclusion to his life and the lives of those there thousand worshipping Dagon.
As Christians, I am hoping that none of us ever have to be in a situation anywhere resembling anything like this. But the truth is that God can use us for his good purposes in our weakness.
Paul tells us this in 1 Corinthians 1:27 “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”
I mentioned that Samson, in his living even prior to his birth had been chosen to defeat the enemies of Israel, his initial journey sounds a bit like that of John the Baptist. Weak as Samson was, foolish as he was at times, God did use him when he cried out to him. We might look at our lives and say but what do I have to offer God? The truth is that many in living for God and ministering The Word of God did so, and do so in and out of places of brokenness and defeat. Some of the greatest of sinners have become the greatest of saints, they know what it is to be set free and want for others the same freedom. They know the life changing light that came into their darkness, In those humble vessels God was seen in his light. They were consistent in their connection with God.
I don’t know if I have shared this with you previously but one of the greatest witnesses of God’s grace to me as a young Christian was a lady called ............. She was a lady, I knew through the Stoke Methodist Church who had served God in the Solomon Islands at times at very real risk of her life. ........ married later in life to ......, her mid-forties I think, and they adopted a child. However, at the age of ..... she died of cancer. Her funeral service was one where the goodness of God and his presence was evident as the life of this humble and at the time of her going to Glory, frail lady of faith was celebrated, but her funeral was also an ongoing witness. As was her life and is the memory of her now. None of us know how far our witness will carry. ........ was consistent in her life of faith.
God as Paul says, Paul who by his own admission approved of the stoning of Stephen. God, choses the weak to shame the strong, you might be thinking I’m young, too old, just learning, caught up in things of my past, suffering, not that clever with words, whatever you may be thinking, but when you cry out to God as Samson did, he hears your prayer and responds if you are sincere in what you pray.
As we approach Easter, and I am saying this as it’s the first weekend, the first Sunday of Lent, when we celebrate those 40 days of Jesus’ fasting and temptation in the desert. That at those times when Jesus was fasting and tempted by Satan to move away from the purpose of his life. That in his physical weakness due to his fasting, his response was one of responding in his scriptural knowledge and honouring God alone, He was physically weak but spiritually strong, consistently spiritually strong. He was offered bread, but refused it; tempted to show his divinity before his time, but refused to; offered all the kingdoms of the earth, but knew at that time of weakness he was only to worship and serve his Father. It was at his weakest on the cross and after his death that his true divinity as God the Son was revealed.
In Samson we see a man who until his physical strength left him, whether due to thirst or during his time of suffering in Dagon’s temple didn’t understand his need for spiritual strength or for God to intervene in his life. But God did answer him when he did cry out to him.
We are living in times of trial, when we will be tested, but armed with scriptural understanding and living in relationship, close relationship with God, infilled by the Holy Spirit, praying without ceasing no matter our physical state, then God will be seen at work in us and through us. Be encouraged for it is in your weakness that God is glorified.
