This month has been a month of temptations for me. To prepare myself for surgery, on July 2, I started a diet of just four protein shakes/day. That’s only 800 calories. It meant no Fourth of July picnic, no “National Ice Cream Day,” and no trips to the ballpark for a hot dog.
We all have temptations in our lives. We all have those weaknesses; whether it is for a bag of potato chips, donuts, ice cream, playing just “one more game” of our favorite game. While some of our temptations will not do too much damage if we give in to them (OK, our doctors might disagree depending our BMI, blood pressure, or sugar count), but there are others that can really mess us up. Whether it is alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, there are temptations -- perhaps addictions -- that can grab control over us and make us act poorly at times. We kind of go off the deep end. When that happens, there is a question that we have to answer, “How will I respond now?” In other words, after giving into a temptation, we need to ask ourselves what do we do now? Think about that question as we look at today’s “Liars, Cheaters, Cowards & Other Bible Heroes.”
Last week we talked about Joshua, who lead the Israelites into the Promised Land, but he did really leave a good succession plan. After Joshua and his generation died, the Israelites started to fail to know God, and they started to worship the false gods of the nations around them. This is the time covered in the Book of Judges, the seventh book in the Bible. If you read the Book of Judges you quickly notice a pattern: the Israelites stop following the Covenant with God, they get conquered and cry out to God to help them, and God raises up a Judge to free them. There is a period of the Israelites being faithful to the Covenant, but then the pattern starts again. Today we are going to talk about one of the best known judges, Samson.
Samson was born to an elderly couple. In fact, both his mother and father thought that they were too old to have children, but an angel of the Lord appears to them and tells them that they are going to have a son. They are told that the child is to be consecrated to the Lord from his birth, he will be a Nazarite, which meant that he would not be able to cut his hair, eat or drink anything from the fruit of the vine (so no wine or “strong drink”), and he would be obedient to God. It was a very disciplined life, but God also gave those who lived as Nazarites many blessings.
Samson is born, and God is blessing him right from the beginning. The most notable blessing that Samson had was an incredible strength -- almost Hulk like strength. One of the first ways we see this strength of Samson is recounting in Chapter 14 of the Book of Judges. Samson is in the woods when suddenly a lion attacks him, “But the spirit of the Lord rushed upon Samson, and he tore the lion apart barehanded, as one tears a young goat” (Judges 14:6). I am pretty sure that I couldn’t tear a young goat apart with my bare hands -- I know I couldn’t tear a lion apart. Clearly God was protecting Samson. But Samson also had two weaknesses: his pride and women.
Samson does not use his incredible strength that God has given him just to kill lions. He uses it to fight the people who are oppressing the Israelites at that time, the Philistines. The Philistines can’t stop Samson. They finally go to the leaders of the Israelites saying that they better bring Samson to them, or they are really going to make life for the Israelites miserable. Samson agrees to allow his own people to turn him in, so they tie him up, and take him to the Philistines. A large group of Philistines come to take possession of Samson, but as soon as they get there the “spirit of the Lord rushes” upon Samson again, he breaks the ropes that are binding him, he takes the jawbone of a donkey which was on ground and kills 1000 Philistines with it.
The Philistines need to find another way to defeat Samson, so they turn to one of his weaknesses -- his love for the ladies. They discover that Samson is madly in love with a woman named Delilah, who is not as in love with him. Delilah is more in love with money, so the Philistines offer to give her a lot of money if she can find out what is the secret of Samson’s great strength.
At first Samson resists her inquiries into the secret of his strength. In his pride, he even gives her some misleading answers, only to laugh at her when they don’t work. However, Delilah pouts, says that if he really loved her, he would tell her. So he tells her the truth; that if his hair is cut, his strength would leave him, because it would be an act of disobedience to God. That night, while Samson is sleeping, Delilah has a servant come in and cut Samson’s hair.
After that, Delilah turns Samson over to the Philistines and collects her money. The Philistines torture Samson and even pluck out his eyes. Samson gave into his temptations, made a very bad decision, and now was in big trouble.
And now we get to that question I told you to think about, “How will I respond?” How many times have we put ourselves in a situation that has been compromising or leading down a slippery slope? That what happened to Samson; he knew that Delilah was bad news, but he couldn’t help himself, and his life got out of control. It’s amazing how we can be like Samson, convincing ourselves that we got things under control when we are are putting ourselves in situations of temptation. The big question is what to do now?
Really there are only two ways to respond. The first way is to try to take back control ourselves. We tell ourselves things like, “I am just going to need to work harder,” or “I am going to focus more.” The problem with trying to do it ourselves, however, is that’s what got us into the problem in the first place. No matter how hard we work, no matter how focused we are, we are still finite, limited beings. We will fall short.
The second way we can respond is by handing complete control over to God. That’s a little scary, right? That is hard, and the consequences can sometimes be daunting. But when we hand control over to God, when we allow God to lead us, we also allow Him to bless us immeasurably.
Samson ends up choosing the second way. While enslaved and tortured by the Philistines, his hair grows back. During one of their most important feast days, when thousands of Philistines are gathered in the temple of their false god, Dagon, they bring Samson in to make fun of him and then to sacrifice him to Dagon.
Samson is totally helpless, so he turns his attention to God. Samson prays, “Lord God, remember me! Strengthen me only this once that I may avenge myself on the Philistines at one blow for my two eyes” (Judges 16:28). He then grabs the two central columns in the temple, and with his great strength restored, pulls the temple down, sacrificing himself, and killing over 3000 Philistines. With most of the Philistines’ leaders dead, the Israelites are freed.
What we learn from the story of Samson is that no matter what we have done or where we have been or how we have messed up our lives, if we give God control of our messed up lives He will bless us. We really need to allow God to lead us, because once we try to take the reins, we will not only lead ourselves down the slippery slope, but we will set ourselves up for disaster.
This week think about how you can give control over to God. Make the simple prayer, “God, I want to give this to you,” and then name specifically what “this” is. When you give the reins to God and let Him bless you, you will avoid the pitfalls in life. And God will lead you to something great.