Judges 13:24-25 describes Samson as having it all spiritually speaking. Verse 24 says, “He grew and the LORD blessed him and the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him while he was in Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.”
You could say he was an All-American boy… well, actually an All-Jewish boy who had it all. Who could compete against his birth story? An angel showing up not just once, but twice to predict his birth to his folks! Even before he was born, he was set apart as a Nazirite, fully dedicated for God’s purpose. He was a man of destiny to carry out the LORD’s deliverance for Israel. And, as a young man, he experienced the power of God’s Spirit stirring him!
Wow, truly an impressive beginning, won’t you say? If you were to read the book of Judges up to chapter 13, you would be highly anticipating Samson getting into action to deliver Israel out of miserable oppression, all with the powerful help from God’s Spirit.
Well, latter is true; whatever he was able to accomplish, he did it because the Spirit helped him. But, what we are going to see in chapter 14-16 is not a story of faithful man who carried out God’s will to deliver Israel. Instead, the story of Samson is a story of a fallen hero who had it all, but squandered it away because he lived not by faith but by sight!
1. What happens when you let yourself be ruled by sight and not by faith?
Judges 14:1-4 spells out for us the beginning of Samson’s troubled life. It says, “Samson went down to Timnah and saw there a young Philistine woman.” Timnah was a city on the border between Judah and Dan. And, according to Joshua 15:10 and 19:43, it was assigned to the tribe of Dan. But, the fact that Samson saw Philistine woman living in Timnah belonging to Dan tells us that the Philistines ruled this town.[1] Samson went down 4 miles southwest from his town of Zorah to Timnah. There, he saw a young Philistine woman.
Listen to what Samson said to his parents having returned from Timnah, “I have seen a Philistine woman in Timnah; not get her for me as my wife.” To this his parents replied, “Isn’t there an acceptable woman among your relatives or among all our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?” Today, a young Jewish man might hear from his Jewish mother chiding him, “Can’t you find a nice Jewish girl?” Samson insisted in verse 3, “Get her for me. She’s the right one for me.”
Samson was a young man full of promising future to achieve great things for God. He was to be a man who walked not by sight, but by faith in God. He was to be a man whose faith in God was to drive him to desire more of God. Instead, what we see in this passage is Samson letting his sight drive his appetite.
In this case, it was a young Philistine woman. For an unknown reason, he went down to Timnah occupied by Philistines. There, when he came across and saw this young Philistine woman, he was certain that she was the right one for him.
Was this young Philistine woman right one for him to get married? In Deuteronomy 7:1-5 God told the Israelites that they were not to marry many of the foreigners living in their land. Although the Philistines weren’t specifically mentioned in this passage, it is understood that the Israelites were not supposed to intermarry the Philistines. Inevitably Philistines would turn the Israelites away from following God to serve other gods. No, she was not the right one for him if Samson were to be a Nazirite, fully devoted to the LORD. He was going about it all wrong; yet he was so convinced that she was the right one for him.
After ignoring his parents’ plead for him to abandon his desire to have the Philistine as his wife, he and his parents together went to Timnah. On the way, we read about Samson’s encounter with a young lion. 14:6 says, “The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he told neither his father nor his mother what he had done.” Again, having set his sight on the Philistine woman, he disregarded his Nazirite vow. By killing the lion and touching it, he violated his Nazirite vow not to touch anything dead. Numbers 6:9 says, “If someone dies suddenly in his presence, thus defiling the hair he has dedicated, he must shave his head on the day of his cleansing- the seventh day. Then, he was to offer sacrifices to rededicate himself to the LORD.
He chose not to follow God’s word when he killed and touched the dead lion. Instead of taking time to rededicate himself to the LORD according to the Nazirite rule, he just moved on; he didn’t tell his parents what happened. To him, there was a better thing to do like seeing the Philistine woman again than to stop his journey to fulfill his Nazirite vow. Having seen her again and talking to her, 14:7 says that he liked her.
Samson and his parents made another journey back to Timnah where the Philistine woman lived. When he went back to marry her, he turned aside to look at the lion’s carcass. It wasn’t an innocent glance. He knew what he was doing. He purposely turned to look at what happened to the lion he killed.
In it were a swarm of bees and some honey. He scooped it out and ate it. And,when he rejoined his parents, he gave his parents the honey from the dead lion’s carcass; but, he didn’t tell them where he got it from.
Again, he blatantly ignored his Nazirite vow to the LORD by touching the dead lion in order to get the honey. He was driven by the sight. He turned to look at the dead lion and saw the honey. Driven by the sight, he went for it breaking his vow. By giving the honey to his parents he got from the dead lion, he also defiled them as well.
He let his sight drive his appetite for some sweet honey while breaking his commitment to the Lord.
Verse 10 says that Samson made a feast there, as was customary for bridegrooms. Well, it is highly unlikely that the feast was held without wine. It is most likely that Samson broke the Nazirite vow by drinking wine with the wedding party of thirty companions.
He made a bet with them; he told them a riddle about the dead lion and the honey in it. The bet was over thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes. The Philistines tried for three days to solve the riddle; they couldn’t do it. So, on the forth day, they threatened Samson’s Philistine wife; they told her that they would burn her and her family alive if she didn’t find the answer to the riddle from her husband Samson.
What did she do? She told him in verse 16, “You hate me! You don’t really love me. You’ve given my people riddle, but you haven’t told me the answer.” When Samson refused to give her the answer, verse 17 says that she cried the whole seven days of the feast. And it says, “he finally told her, because she continued to press him.” She told the answer to her people. And, Samson lost his bet.
Verse 19 says that the Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power. He went down to Ashkelon, a city near the shore that belonged to Philistines. There, he found thirty men, kill ed them, and stripped them off of their belongings and clothes; he gave them to the Philistines who solved the riddle. Burning with anger, he took off and abandoned his wife behind; he went back home to his father’s house. Verse 20 says that his wife was then given to Samson’s friend at his wedding.
In chapter 15, sometime later we see Samson going back to visit his wife; he didn’t know what happened to his wife. After leaving his wedding without his wife and with the fiasco that happened, he thought everything was hunky-dory. Talking about insensitivity!
When he found out what happened to his wife, he got really enraged. He said in verse 3, “This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines; I will really harm them.”
And, using his super-human strength, he caught three hundred foxes; he tied them tail to tail in pairs with a torch. Then, he loosened them into the grain field. 15:1 says that it was the time of wheat harvest. Well, hundred fifty pairs of foxes with the burning torches ran around frantically and burn down the field of grain, vineyards, and olive groves.
When Samson revenged the Philistines in rage, they in turn burned his wife and her father to death (verse 6). Samson told them in verse 7, “Since you’ve acted like this, I won’t stop until I get my revenge on you.” He attacked and slaughtered many of them. Then, he hid in a cave.
The Philistines went up and camped in Judah to capture Samson. The people of Judah asked them, “Why have you come to fight us?” When the people of Judah found out that they were after Samson, they were more than happy to turn him in. The people of Judah, the Israelites would rather turn in one of their own people into the enemies’ hands than fight to protect him. I am sure they reasoned this way fully convinced that they needed to preserve the peace with the Philistines. They were completely deceived and confused to think there was any peace; there was no peace. They were enslaved by the Philistines. They thought being enslaved and oppressed was better than to stick their necks out to fight for the freedom and the blessings from God.
The Israelites from Judah bound him up with two new ropes and brought him to the town called Lehi. When the Philistines came toward him shouting, the Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power to loosen the ropes.
What did Samson do when the Spirit gave him the power? Well, he looked around and saw a fresh jawbone of a donkey and used it as a weapon to kill a thousand men. The fresh jawbone came from the dead donkey. Again Samson broke the Nazirite vow by touching the dead animal.
Having broken again the Nazirite vow to kill the Philistines, he found himself extremely thirsty. And, what did he do? He told God, “You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”
To this, God graciously provided him water to quench his thirst.
Chapter 15 ends with the remark that Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines in verse 20.
2. Live by faith, not by sight!
The problem from the very beginning with Samson was he lived by sight, not by faith. Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:7, “We live by faith, not by sight.”
Seeing is connected to what you really want in your life. For Samson, he let his eyes to rove to satisfy his desire that was not compatible with God’s way. This gazing on things that are not compatible with God’s way is essentially what lust is all about. Living by sight, not by faith, is really living by lust, to go after things that are not what God wants to give us, but what we want to get it for ourselves.
Do you see this pattern of lusting, living by sight instead by faith like Samson’s pattern?
I read an article in Reader’s Digest titled Left for Dead. It is a story about how the climbers faced a choice near Everest’s peak: head for the summit, like others had done, or stop to save the injured man.
Lincoln Hall and others made it to the top of the highest mountain in the world. Within hour of descending from the summit, Lincoln began to loose his mind. He was experiencing cerebral edema brain swelling related to being in high altitude. This caused him stumbling, intoxicated gate, hallucinations, and eventually death. This happened to him in a placed called “death zone” where many climbers perished. His teammates went down ahead of him, leaving Hall with two Sherpas, members of a people of Tibetan descent known for their ability at mountaineering. Soon, Hall lost his conscious and went limp. Sherpas left him behind thinking that he was dead.
For next twelve hours, Hall was left behind presumed dead. When another group led by Daniel Mazur came across Hall, he was taking his jacket, gloves off, perilously sitting next to the stiff cliff. Mazur’s teammates each paid some $20,000 to fulfill their dream to reach the summit. They decided that they should help this injured man. They radioed for help and waited. They saw an Italian team. Mazur asked for help, “We’ve got a guy in trouble here! Can you help?” The men kept moving toward the summit. “Sorry, no speak English” was all they said. Mazur later spot them at base camp, speaking English very well. The help arrived soon and badly injured Hall got medical care he needed at the base.[2]
Many have perished near the summit because others would not stop to help them. Because to stop to help the injured meant some of them would have to give up the summit just few hour within their reach. It sounds inhuman and crazy that anyone would do such thing, right?
But, we are fully capable of doing inhumane things when we set our eyes on the idols. Human depravity is such that when we live by sight we do things that don’t make sense.
Why would Samson given so many promises, blessings, and the experience of the Holy Spirit’s power give up walking closely with God to carry out his will? It is all because he lived by his sight, not by faith. He lusted after the Philistine woman instead of waiting for God to provide him with a woman of faith.
What we need is the change of direction that leads us to God. David prayed in Psalm 141:4, “Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil, to take part in wicked deeds…” and he goes on praying in verse 8, “But my eyes are fixed on you, O Sovereign LORD; in you I take refuge- do not give me over to death.”
This is the kind of prayer we need to every day. We need to ask God to direct our foot steps to his way. We need to ask God to incline our hearts to what is truly the best, to his Word, to his promises, to his presence.
I again find the prayer of Psalm incredibly helpful for redirecting my heart, my eyes to what is truly important! Psalm 119:33-37 says:
Teach me, O LORD, to follow your decrees; then I will keep them to the end. Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart. Direct me in the path of you commands for there I find delight. Turn my heart toward your statues and not toward selfish gain. Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.
No comments:
Post a Comment