Samson just has a thing for pagan Philistine women. He visits a prostitute in Gaza. 💃🏼Seriously, Samson. Dude walks down into the heart of Philistine country when he is Philistine public enemy #1 and visits a brothel. (Tell me you think you’re an invincible hotshot without telling me you think you’re an invincible hotshot.) 🙄
And word gets around. And there is a plot to kill him. 🥷
The city gates are barred and locked at night so the Philistines think Samson will be there all night. But he gets up at midnight, and pulls the city gates (posts and all) right up and carries them 30 MILES to Hebron. 🤯
Again, Samson may have been a good-sized fella, but this feat is supernatural. He’s a real-life Superman. 💪🏼🤨
Samson & Delilah… sigh. I cannot, for the life of me, understand how Samson didn’t get a clue that his lady love was trying to do him in. Every time he tells her some new way he could be captured, the next thing you know, he finds himself tied up in that way. 🤦♀️
Maybe he did know and it was all an amusing game to him because he thought he couldn’t lose. (Again, invincible hotshot.)
This is a good place to talk about Samson’s hair. He describes it as “seven locks.” The word for locks can mean “ringlets” (implying a circular idea) or to “glide over” which is what you do with hair when you braid it. Samson probably had his hair braided into seven strands in some way. Or maybe each braid had seven strands. Or both.
Nowhere in the Torah do we read instructions from God on how a Nazarite was to style his hair.
Whatever style it was, when he told Delilah he could be captured if his hair was woven in a loom, he was getting dangerously close to revealing the truth.
And that’s how Samson has been in this whole narrative – seeing just how close to danger he can live. I mean, he’s literally sleeping with the enemy for cryin’ out loud.
And just like his Philistine wife had whined and wheedled him until he revealed the answer to his riddle about the honey from the lion, Delilah nags and cries 😭 and plays the “you don’t love me” 💔 card until Samson caves and tells her the source of his strength. 💇🏽
How many times has Samson had the opportunity to get outa there? I’m no psychologist but I think he’s behaving like an addict. He overestimates his level of control of the situation. “I can quit anytime.” But he can’t. Why doesn’t he leave? He can’t seem to tear himself away from this relationship even though the red flags 🚩 are everywhere 🚩 and it’s obvious 🚩 she is in league 🚩 with the enemy. 🚩 Heck, she IS the enemy! 🚩
Sin will take you further than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and will cost you more than you can afford.
🫳🏽🎤
Samson is what happens when God flows through someone and great things happen and they get to thinkin’ they’re pretty big stuff. “I’m a mighty saint. Look at what I did!” Lots of people with big ministries fall into this trap. The success goes to your head and you start believing all the glowing praise that is laid at your feet. Then the enemy lures you into believing you are an exception.
😈 You’re not like those other puny Christians. You can handle this. Look – you did that one thing that was probably not ok but God still used you. He doesn’t mind. If He did, He would’ve stopped you.
🤔 That’s logical.
😈 In fact, here’s a list of 10 reasons why what you’re doing isn’t actually sin. You’re in control and it’s not really hurting anyone.
🤨 That’s true!
😈 Other people can’t handle this but you can. Look how powerful you are! Most people haven’t experienced what you have. Don’t listen to them. They’re ignorant.”
🤩 I got this. I can handle the bad guys.
“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
Proverbs 16:18 ESV
I once heard a preacher say that one of the saddest verses in the Bible is this:
“And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, ‘I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.’ But he did not know that the Lord had left him.”
Judges 16:20 ESV
It is indeed the darkest moment of Samson’s life. His cocky, self-centered ways have caught up with him. He had become so desensitized that he had no idea the Spirit of the Lord had left him.
Friend, never take the presence of the Lord in your life for granted.
I learned something from my voice teacher that deeply impacted me. She would pray, “Lord, we cherish Your presence.”
Being in the presence of the LORD is a great privilege, not a right. It’s a privilege to be treasured, not taken for granted.
Those of you with a few more revolutions around the sun under your belts can attest that our culture has become rotten. Sinful things you would never hear mentioned 40 years ago are now talked of openly and carelessly. Profanity is everywhere, even among those claiming to follow Jesus. It’s an icky world and, like Noah’s dove, the Holy Spirit cannot find a place to rest on the rotting bloated carcasses of a sin-rotten culture.
Now, I’m not here to be some kind of Holier-than-thou, Puritanical Miss Priss, but I know I do much better when I can shut out the online garbage and get my mind stayed on Jesus. How about you? Let’s do more of that starting this week, shall we? Let’s cherish the presence of the Lord and not just assume He will show up at our beck and call. Let’s seek the Lord and cherish time with Him.
Samson’s eyes are put out. But in truth, he lost his ability to see long before. Samson (whose name, remember, means sunshine) is living in permanent darkness.
And he is put to work grinding grain in prison. He would’ve been pushing a beam, turning a millstone round and round. That’s also a fitting picture. Samson has spent most of his life going around in circles with women, in prison to the lust of his flesh.
There comes a festival day for the god Dagon. And about 3000 Philistines are gathered at a great temple to Dagon for the party. Samson is brought out for sport. Perhaps they thought they could get him to do a strong-man circus act. It kinda reminds me of when King Herod wants Jesus to put on a performance of miracles.
Samson has had a LOT of time to think – going round and round day after day in utter darkness. His hair has regrown and with it, some humility. When he prays his brief prayer it is humble. The pride and cock-sure attitude are gone. He calls Yahweh “Adonai” (Sovereign, Master) and asks to be recognized – like a servant asking permission to speak freely. He doesn’t assume anymore – that he can just power his way out of this or that God will have to back up whatever wild plan he concocts. He asks to be supernaturally strengthened one more time to avenge the loss of his eyes.
He then follows up this quick prayer with an act of faith. If God doesn’t come through, Samson is going to look very silly pushing against the two key pillars in this temple.
But God does come through.
“But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’” James 4:6 ESV
It’s tragic really. Samson (sunshine) had finally been shaped to the point where he could’ve been such a shining example. And now he lay dead among the rubble with the Philistines.
But God did use him, sledgehammer that he was. He brought a little bit of reprieve and set the Philistines back several years. But Samson’s legacy wasn’t that “the land had rest” for so many years. Israel continues to plod along growing more idolatrous by the day. And that’s what our next story is about. Remember how the tribe of Dan couldn’t drive out the Canaanites so they found a city they could conquer and they took it over? We’re going to get the detailed backstory on that.
To The Reader 