Samson's Delilah Dillema: Sliding Down the Slippery Slope of Sin

Judges 16:7-14 ESV

7 Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, then I shall become weak and be like any other man.” 8 Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she bound him with them. 9 Now she had men lying in ambush in an inner chamber. And she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he snapped the bowstrings, as a thread of flax snaps when it touches the fire. So the secret of his strength was not known.

10 Then Delilah said to Samson, “Behold, you have mocked me and told me lies. Please tell me how you might be bound.” 11 And he said to her, “If they bind me with new ropes that have not been used, then I shall become weak and be like any other man.” 12 So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And the men lying in ambush were in an inner chamber. But he snapped the ropes off his arms like a thread.

13 Then Delilah said to Samson, “Until now you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me how you might be bound.” And he said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web and fasten it tight with the pin, then I shall become weak and be like any other man.” 14 So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his head and wove them into the web. And she made them tight with the pin and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he awoke from his sleep and pulled away the pin, the loom, and the web.

Have you ever gotten yourself into a situation that you wish you wouldn’t have gotten yourself into, and all because you wouldn’t get out of dodge when you had the chance to?

Well, if you’ve ever been in a situation like that, then you know that you could have walked away before the situation got as bad as it did, but for whatever reason, you didn’t, you just seemingly couldn’t. And so, you just stuck around.

And because you stuck around, things just kept progressively getting worse and worse until you found yourself some place that you wish you never were, and it seemed like there was no way that you were getting out of it now.

It was like a time when I was sponsoring a man from Alcoholics Anonymous. This man had quit drinking, but he still kept going to the bars to hang out with his friends. I told him, “You’re playing with fire and if you don’t watch it, you’re going to get burnt!”

Well, he assured me that he had enough self-control and willpower to go to the bars and not drink, so he kept on going.

A couple of months later, he met a girl at one of the bars that he was hanging out at. She was quite a bit younger than him and she drank like a fish. He told me that he had fallen in love. I said, “You’re a recovering alcoholic and you want to date a girl who drinks all the time?!” So, once again, I told him, “You’re playing with fire and if you don’t watch it, you’re going to get burnt!”

Once again, he assured me that he had enough self-control and willpower to have a girlfriend who was actively drinking and not drink himself, so he kept right on seeing her.

Then not long after that, he started drinking non-alcoholic beer. He said that he liked the taste of beer, so this was perfect, he could still drink beer, but not get drunk.

I knew then that this was getting out of hand, so, I told him, “You are very close to drinking alcohol again and if you don’t stop now, you’ll be drunk before you know it!” Once again, I told him, “You’re playing with fire and if you don’t watch it, you’re going to get burnt!”

He fed me another one of his lines about self-control and willpower, and the next time that I talked to him about a week later, he was drunk.

He played with fire one too many times, he got closer and closer to it, and he got burnt!

He had all the warning signs a guy could ever ask for, but he just couldn’t stay away, and eventually it caught up with him.

In our reading for today, as we continue to examine Samson’s Delilah Dilemma, we see Samson, like my friend from AA, playing with fire, getting progressively worse and worse and dangerously close to being burnt.

Last week we talked about the love that Samson had for Delilah and the seemingly apathetic feelings that Delilah had towards Samson.

Then also in our reading last week, we saw how several of the Philistine lords, that is, the leaders among the Philistines, approached Delilah and told her that if she could discover and reveal the source of Samson’s strength to them, they would give her a handsome cash reward.

Well, as I said, Delilah didn’t really care about Samson, so she thought that it would be a great thing for her to make a ton of money for betraying a man whom she didn’t even really like anyway.

So, at the end of our reading last week, we see Delilah seduce Samson, make him think that she really loved him, and then asked him to reveal to her the source of his strength.

Now, this is obviously a huge red flag. What Delilah was essentially doing here was asking Samson to compromise his relationship with God for her sake, that she may gain.

Now, with this red flag, Samson should have known to get out of there and forget any kind of relationship that he might have with Delilah. I mean, for what good reason would she want to know what the source of Samson’s strength was? There was no good reason.

But just like my friend who struggled with alcoholism, Samson thought that he could have enough self-control and willpower to hang around Delilah and not compromise his relationship with God.

And because that was the case, he didn’t get away from her, instead, he toyed with her as he started down the slippery slope to a damaged relationship with God.

First, he told her that if you bind him with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, he will become as weak as any other man.

*Bowstrings image

So, Delilah then reported this to the Philistine lords, who brought her the bowstrings. Delilah then in turn bound Samson with the bowstrings that they had brought to her as he slept.

After she bound him with the bowstrings, she shouted “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” She thought that his strength would be gone after binding him with these bowstrings, but he arose and snapped the bowstrings as easily as a thread of flax snaps when it touches the fire.

Now, if Delilah asking him where his strength lied wasn’t warning enough, then this certainly should have been! He should have known at this point more than ever before that sticking around Delilah was only going to be trouble for him.

But he didn’t leave, he didn’t get away when he had the chance. He stuck around. And because he stuck around, Delilah kept working on him. She came to him, and she said, “You’ve mocked me! You lied to me! And after all the love that I’ve shown to you!”

Well, Samson didn’t want his dear Delilah to feel this way, but he also didn’t want to reveal the source of his strength to her. He thought that maybe if he lied to her again, she wouldn’t try to test what he told her again like she did last time.

So, this time he told her that if she were to bind him with new ropes, then he would become weak like any other man.

*New ropes image

So, we see here Samson continuing to venture down this slippery slope of a damaged relationship with God. First it was bowstrings, now it’s ropes.

So, with this new information that Samson had just revealed to her, Delilah tested what she had been told as she bound Samson with new ropes as he slept. And after he was bound, once again, she shouted, “The Philistines are upon you Samson!”

But his strength still was not diminished. Instead, he arose and snapped the new ropes as if they were thread.

Once again, this should have been a huge red flag for Samson. And then, more than ever, he should have known to head for the hills.

But you see, the more you commit sin, the more accustomed you become to committing it, and the more accustomed you become to committing it, the more hardened your heart becomes when it comes to sin. And so, the more hardened your heart becomes to sin, the easier it becomes to sin without really feeling all that bad about it.

This was the case with Samson. As strange as it was for Delilah to be asking Samson what the source of his strength was, Samson was becoming used to it. It seems as though it got to where he didn’t really think anything bad about the way that Delilah was acting.

So, when Delilah came to Samson and told him that he was mocking her and lying to her, he probably kind of started to feel bad for lying to her. After all, he loved her, and she was acting like she loved him, so he started to think that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to tell her the secret of his strength after all.

But he wasn’t quite ready to reveal that secret to her yet. But what he told her next came dangerously close to revealing the secret source of his strength to her.

He told Delilah: “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web and fasten it tight with the pin, then I shall become weak and be like any other man.”

*Samson hair image

You see, the source of Samson’s strength was God, but he kept this source intact so long as he didn’t cut his hair. If his hair were to be cut, his strength would vanish.

So, while Samson didn’t outright tell Delilah that if she cut his hair his strength would be gone, he still was getting dangerously close to it by telling her to mess with his hair.

And so, the practices of Samson and his association with Delilah were causing him to blur the lines of good and evil, of what was right and what was wrong, of what was godly and what was ungodly.

Samson was playing with fire, he wouldn’t stop playing with the fire even amid many warnings, and now he was dangerously close to being burnt by that fire. And all because he was choosing to forsake his relationship with God in order to enjoy the company of sin for a spell.

And as we will see in our message next week, Samson enjoying the company of sin would result in him ending up some place he never wanted to be.

Beloved, this is a warning not for Samson alone, it’s a warning for us all. Like Samson, we all can go down this slippery slope of sin.

Even despite all of the red flags and warnings that come our way, we can keep on sliding down the slope until we become so hardened to the sin that we’re committing that we do it without it even bothering us.

And after we become this hardened to our sin, we find that our relationship with God is damaged, not what it used to be, and we find ourselves in a depressed state like no other, wishing we never would have been there.

And the way that we keep ourselves from doing this isn’t just by doing our best to be really good people. No, we do this by doing what Samson failed to do. We do this by not trusting our own will, our own wisdom, but instead, trusting in what God tells us and commands of us, believing that He knows what’s best even if it’s not something we really want to do.

So, beloved, trust in the strength of God, trust in His grace today!

Amen?