“The Judges: Samson”

Scripture: Judges 13:1-16:31 (selected)

This week, I received an email from a friend with a list of “Paraprosdokians” – which, apparently, are sayings that have an interesting twist at the end. At first glance, they may not seem relative to our message today, but here is a sample just the same.

- The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.
- Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
- I didn’t say it was your fault, only that I was blaming you.
- A clear conscious is a sign of a fuzzy memory.
- I used to be indecisive, now I’m not so sure.
- To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, then call whatever you hit “the target”.
- Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

As with all humor, there is always at least an inkling of truth in it, but for our “Judge of note” today, the above may hold more than a little truth.

Read Judges 13:1-5

First, just a word on the term “Nazirite”. We sometimes think that the Nazirite vow was for a lifetime, but the norm was for a much shorter period – usually 1, 2, or 3 months. In the case of Sampson, though, it would appear that it was to be for his entire life. During the time of the person’s vow, and the individual could be either male or female, they were consecrated to being “holy to the Lord”. This was not a time of withdrawal from the world, but a time that was to be very active in the normal issues of the day, with one notable exception - burial of the dead. The vow included the restriction on touching any dead body, as well as a commitment to not cut any hair on your head (the long hair represented “the symbol of strength and abundant vitality and was worn in honor of the Lord as a sign that he belonged to the Lord and dedicated himself to His service with all his vital powers.” Of course, there was also an abstinence from any fruit or fruit by-product that came from the vine, including wine, juice, or even the grapes themselves. This implied a withdrawal from the weakness of life that might inhibit sanctification.
Upon completion of the period of the vow, the person was required to go to the tabernacle or temple, and shave their head. The hair would then be sacrificed to God by burning on the altar.
(Source – “The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary”, as found in QuickVerse)

Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist were just a few of the well known Nazirites, but Jesus, interesting enough, was not. He strongly identified with them and probably spent time with them, but never actually joined their sect, as far as we know.
This is the vow that Samson’s parents took for him, and their vow was just as binding on him as it would be if he had made the vow himself. And you will note that the reason given by the “angel of the Lord” was so that he would “begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.” (v. 5)

And begin, he would.

Read Judges 14:1-4

Samson was called to break the law that prohibited anyone from marrying outside of the nation. And the Philistines were seen as being the worst of the worse. But we all know that God has always worked in strange and unexpected ways! But would God, could God, ever go against his own law? I don’t know. So what might the answer be?
From the deep, and sometimes strange reflections of Bill Prentice, we come to this possible explanation. We know that Jesus denounced many of the laws of Israel, stating in Matthew 19 that Moses had created the law regarding divorce because the people’s hearts were hard. We also know that both Moses and Joshua wrote down many of the laws, and it may very well be that the law requiring all Jews to marry within the faith was actually one of theirs, designed to reduce the tendency of the people to fall away from God. Regardless, Samson was to marry a Philistine woman, and it was by God’s design.
And Samson the Judge had been chosen by the Lord to be his instrument to deal with the oppressor.

And this is the chapter (14:5-9) where we read about the power of the Spirit coming upon Samson, giving him the strength to fight and easily kill the lion. Later, he would discover a hive of bees and a good amount of honey in the carcass of the lion. But if you remember our discussion regarding the Nazirite vows, he should never have touched a dead corpse, and yet, he does - twice. He had the power of God to protect himself and others, but he went far beyond that and had already broken his vow to the Lord.

He then begins to fall even further when he offers a riddle, and then a wager of clothing, to the men who come to his 7 day wedding feast – an early form of the bachelor party. Was there wine? Did Samson partake? Did another vow “bite the dust”?
But back to the riddle - the men can’t guess the answer, but persuade the bride to get it from Samson, which she eventually does. And in a fit of rage, he goes out and kills 30 Philistines to get the clothes to pay the bet. And still another violation of the law is committed.
And if that isn’t quite enough, instead of making a home for and with his wife, he returns to the home of his father, and in return, his father-in-law would renounce the marriage and would give his daughter to another man. And anger burns within Samson once again, and he completely destroys the Philistines’ fields of grain and their vineyards and their olive groves. Consumed once more with anger, and the consequences would be far reaching, and even more people surrounding the Judge would die. (15:1-8)

Do you see what is happening to this man of God? He has been given divine strength and courage, and he constantly uses it for his own hateful and selfish purposes. Remember three weeks ago, when we studied Deborah’s life and service as a Judge? She used her God given wisdom and knowledge to help the people, to lead the people, to bring glory to the people, and she never tried to gain anything for herself.
Gideon made a mistake or two, Jephthah made a few more, but Samson seems to be going over the top. When the Spirit comes into our lives, to enable us to serve in some new and unexpected and strange way, it is solely for God’s purpose, and never our own benefit. The judgeship of Israel, leaders who were raised up and enabled by the Lord God Almighty, was steadily heading downhill! And Samson would be the last of the judges. And Israel would suffer for it.

How do we use our God given gifts? Do we present them faithfully in service to others? Do we use them to accomplish the tasks that the Lord lays out for us? And even though the tasks may seem impossible on our own, impossible to accomplish, impossible to understand, perhaps even unnecessary in our opinion, do we go ahead just the same, and take the steps that our God asks us to take? Several months ago, I suggested that a proper wish to each other as we parted to go our separate ways would be “Take a risk for Jesus!” There is a lady at one of my churches who reminds me of that nearly every time we see each other, and I hope she will continue. We have to remember that taking a Godly risk is really only a risk within our own thoughts and limitations and misconceptions! In Christ, risk is simply stepping out of our own comfort zone, and heading off in a direction that he leads us in!

But even with all of his own self centered actions, 15:20 tells us that Samson led Israel for twenty years, twenty years(!) but that the PHilistine occupation would not be broken. Makes you wonder just what God had in mind for this young upstart who seemed to be doing everything that he possibly could to go against God, instead of serving him.

But the story wasn’t over yet, because Samson was just about to meet Delilah. (chap. 16) And I think we all know that story, and for many of us, we see it as ending in tragedy. But the truth is that the end of Samson’s life is probably the greatest act in faith of any Judge who ever lived or served. Scripture tells us that Samson - blinded, a prisoner of the dreaded enemy, a man who, when his head was shaved, had lost the power of the Lord, would regain just enough of his strength and courage to bring the roof down on the Philistine rulers and many of the people. And in 16:30 we read “Samson said, ‘Let me die with the Philistines!’ Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived.”
He had finally lived out the call of the Lord, to confront the Philistines one more time. The Philistine woman who God spoke of wasn’t the first one, but the last. The act of defiance against the oppressor wasn’t all of the minor encounters, but rather the final enormous one. His twenty years of serving as a Judge has no mention of accomplishments, except in this one last mighty act of obedience.

Samson had been the epitome of a lousy leader, but the Lord continued to work through him just the same. He marries outside of his faith, he has encounters with prostitutes, he uses his great God given strength for his own immoral and self centered purposes, he breaks several of his Nazirite vows, he reveals the source of his great strength – his Naziriten hair, the crown of glory that he was to wear throughout the entire period of his vow, and the final shaving of his long hair was done in Philistia, and not in the Jerusalem temple, and it was never sacrificed to the Lord.
And yet, for some reason, God chose him, and used him, in spite of all his flaws.

But the message for us today isn’t that we can go about doing whatever we want to and God will still be instrumental in using us just the same! I want each of us to be just the opposite of Samson. I want each of us to be a faithful Deborah, not just a powerful Samson. I want us to be a Mordecai who encourages others to do what is right, and an Esther who responds to those encouragements, even though we might be taking a huge risk. I want us to be a Samuel or a Jeremiah, who even though they were only young boys when God called them, and they had no confidence in their own abilities, allowed themselves to be used by God in mighty and faith-filled ways. I want us to be a Job and not one of his friends. I want us to be a Paul, who when he met the Living Lord on that road, turned completely away from his old life, and embraced that new one that Christ had led him into.

Can the Lord use us, even when we are anything but faithful? Yes, of course he can, but why should we lose out on so much joy and presence in the process? Take a lesson from each of these four Judges - discover how to live in the call that Christ places on our life, and how we can avoid the pitfalls that the world throws up in our way. Be a leader in faith - with Christ, in Christ, for Christ, and not just one lives in spite of faith.