When Strength Becomes Weakness

Prayer

Impulsiveness Incarnate, the story of Samson

We’re back in the book of Judges, which we’ll finish up next week. Today we’re going to be looking at Judges 13-16, which covers the story of one of the most famous judges, Samson. It’s a wild story, to say the least. As we jump into the story, a couple of things.

Judges 13 starts with the story of the birth of Samson - and if you remember from two weeks ago, when we covered the story of Jephthah (one who made the terrible oath to God that led him to sacrifice his own daughter), we learned that God was oppressing his people for their wickedness through two neighboring nations, the Ammonites in the east, in the area of the Transjordan (a few copies of colored maps in the foyer, thanks, Chad), that’s who Jephthah conquered with his army. And in the east, God oppressed his people through the Philistines - this would be the area closest to the Mediterranean Sea). This is where the story of Samson comes into play - God is going to use him against the Philistines, who have been oppressing his people for 40 years.

As we go through the story of Samson, I want to draw your attention to two things in particular

First - Samson is a perfect example of the worsening behavior of Israelites and their behavior. His story gets a little whitewashed because what we know of his story is often through children’s Bible stories. But Samson, as we’ll see, is a very flawed figure.

What we see in Samson is what I want to focus on this morning - his impulsiveness. Samson lives by his whims, by what Paul in the New Testament describes as “the flesh,” the desires of the flesh, our sinful nature. A number of weeks ago we talked about the danger of the influence of the culture around us (which was the whole problem with Israel never driving out the neighboring nations completely - they kept being drawn into their way of living, their idolatry). But our struggle with sin doesn’t just come from outside sources - from the temptations of Satan, from the influence of the world - it comes internally as well. Our own fleshly desires - the very thing we’re going to see in the story of Samson - and it’s a challenge for us. So we’re going to took at how, through Christ, we can live differently, we can live like Jesus.

The Story of Samson

So Judges 13, as I mentioned, begins with the birth of Samson - he is the only judge for whom we get a birth narrative, and it reveals Samson’s special calling. An angel of the Lord comes to Samson’s mother, who is childless, barren, and announces to her that she is going to give birth to a son. And she and the father are to raise this child in a very particular way, Vv. 4-5:

Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean. 5 You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.

Samson is to be raised as what is known as a Nazirite (same as John the Baptist), he is holy to God, set apart, dedicated to him from the very womb. As such, he is to remain clean - special adherence to all the purity laws, as well as , to never to cut his hair. Samson will be the one who frees his people from the Philistines.

This brings us to Judges 14. Samson is now an adult. Things do not start well. He travels to a town by the name of Timnah, where he sees a Philistine woman, whom he becomes infatuated with, demanding to his parents that they get her as his wife, much to their chagrin (remember, the Israelites were not to intermarry with the other nations). But Samson is insistent.

We see this note in verse 4, (His parents did not know that this was from the Lord, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines, for at that time they were ruling over Israel.) Now let me make one thing clear, God using Samson’s desire for this woman is not condoning his disobedience, it simply reveals God’s sovereignty - he can and will use even our sinfulness to his purposes.

So they make their way down to Timnah to make the marriage arrangements, a young lion attacks them, the Spirit of the Lord comes on Samson and he kills the lion with his bare hands. The arrangements for the marriage are made, and some time later Samson goes back to Timnah to marry her. He stops aside to look at the lion’s carcass where he discovers that a swarm of bees have made a home there - and there’s honey inside (which seems awfully gross), but he scoops some of the honey up and eats it.

They go on to the wedding feast, where the family of the woman has chosen 30 companions, young men from the town who were there to provide support for the bride, especially if she ends up being deserted by her husband. Samson challenges them with a riddle based on the honey he took out of the lion’s carcass - the bet being 30 linen garments. The companions are flummoxed.

And here’s where it gets ugly - they threaten to burn “you and your father’s household to death” if she doesn’t get the answer for them. So she starts nagging Samson for the answer, day after day of the wedding feast - understandably so.

He finally relents, telling her the answer, so the young men win the bet. Which angers Samson to no end - to the point where he goes to a neighboring Philistine town, kills thirty men, takes their clothing in order to pay off the bet. Then he storms back to his father’s house, leaving his new wife.

In Judges 15, Samson decides to return to reclaim his wife, but the father, assuming she was abandoned by Samson, had already given her to one of the companions. This, too, angers Samson, who takes revenge by catching 300 foxes (though more likely they are jackals, who are more common in the area and travel in packs), ties them together in pairs with a rope attached to the tails. He puts a torch in the rope, lights it up and lets the jackals loose in the fields of the Philistines, burning down their grains and vineyards.

In response, the Philistines burn the wife and her father to death. In response to that, Samson slaughters many of them. I’m telling you, this is an ugly story. The killing continues - Samson goes to a cave to hide in the territory of Judah - the Judahites, in fear of the Philistines, turn him over to them.

So Samson has to fight them on his own - again, empowered by the Spirit of the Lord, he takes the jawbone of a donkey and kills 1,000 of the Philistines. Then we get this little story that again reveals the character of Philistine - after the battle, he is extremely thirsty (after all, killing 1,00 people with a jawbone makes you very thirsty). Judges 15:18, Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the Lord, “You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

God blesses him with water by opening up a hollow place, sating his thirst. The chapter ends with Samson leading Israel for twenty years.

So, the final part of the story of Samson, Judges 16 - the most famous story, Samson and Delilah. But before we get to that story, there’s a short little story about Samson going to the Philistine town of Gaza, where Samson sees a prostitute and goes to sleep with her. That becomes another failed attempt for the Philistines to try to kill him, which fails.

Then, Delilah. Samson falls in love with her (he really likes those Philistine women!). No messing with marriage this time, they start spending nights together. Philistine rulers see this an opportunity to get Samson, but only if they can figure out the source of his strength. So they offer Delilah money - a lot of money - to figure it out.

So Judges 16 goes through a series of Samson telling Delilah lies about the source of his strength - first he tells her if he is tied up with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, he’ll lose his strength. So the Philistine rulers bring the bowstrings, she ties him up (presumably while he’s sleeping), there are men hidden in the room ready to kill Samson. Delilah cries out in warning - “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” Of course, he still has his strength.

So this plays out several times, and again, like before, there is nagging. “With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it.” And he tells her everything - the source of his strength is in his hair. If his head is shaved, he will be as weak as any man. Revealing his secret dooms Samson - while he sleeps, they shave his head and he is easily subdued. Not just seized, but they gouge out his eyes and throw him in prison, forced to grind grain.

Story ends with the celebration of the Philistines in their temple to Dagon. Thousands are gathered. Samson is brought out for entertainment, they get to watch the former leader of the Israelites blindly stumbling around. But Samson’s hair has grown back. He asks the servants to lead him to the central pillars of the temple so he can lean against them. Samson, in what seems like his first honest prayer:

Judges 16:28, Then Samson prayed to the Lord, “Sovereign Lord, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.”

God honors his prayer, giving him the strength through his Spirit to push down the pillars, bringing down the temple, killing the Philistine rulers and all the people in it as well.

Living by the Flesh vs. Living by the Spirit

Samson is quite the character, isn’t he?! Beyond his strength, I would argue that his defining character trait is impulsiveness. Samson lives by his whims. Which, tragically, becomes his great weakness. Just consider all the ways his impulsiveness is revealed throughout these stories.

His decision - and insistence - to marry the Philistine woman. As he tells his parents (having never met her before - he’s just seen her). “Get her for me. She’s the right one for me.”

Then, of course, all the events at the wedding feast - eating the honey out of the carcass of the lion (as a Nazarite he should have avoided anything unclean - which includes dead bodies). Then - the challenge of the riddle - not the riddle itself, but the high risk bet, 30 linen outfits. He reveals his impulsiveness when he gets so fed up with his new wife’s nagging that he tells her the answer - even though he knows the Philistines have been pressuring him for it. Finally, his response to losing the bet - he goes and kills 30 innocent men from another town (though they were Israel’s enemies), to steal their clothing. Then, just abandoning his wife, going home in a huff.

Just as impulsively, he decides he does want her as his wife, goes back to get her - when that doesn’t go well, he just decides to burn everything down, the grain fields and vineyards of the Philistines.

Even in small things, when he gets thirsty after his battle with the Philistines - granted, I’m sure he was awfully thirsty. But he’s so dramatic with it - “Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” I’m dying here. Then there’s the night with the prostitute - the impulsiveness of acting on his lust.

Last, but not least, everything we see in the story of Delilah - the whole relationship. He sees this woman, falls in love, starts sleeping with her. He’s the leader of the Israelites who’d been oppressed by the Philistines for 40 years and here he is shacked up with a Philistine woman. He lets her nagging to reveal the secret of his strength get to him - even though it’s blatantly obvious that her trying to get his secret is for nefarious reasons.

It is literally only at the end, after his great humbling - eyes gouged out, imprisoned, forced into labor, that Samson shows some seriousness, humility. My guess is that if he had survived, he would have been a very different leader.

What we see in Samson is strength turned into weakness

Now God used the strength he blessed Samson with for his purposes, to deliver Israel from the oppression of the Philistines, to punish them for their wickedness (which we see in full display in the story of Samson). But on a personal level, Samson undermined himself - he truly could have been so much more.

It was only in this weakness, his humbling, that he finally turns to God in an honest way. It’s a very different prayer than anything we had seen before from Samson previously.

Before that moment, he lived by his impulses, his whims, what, as we mentioned, Paul calls, the flesh. What does he mean by that? In Galatians 5, he gives us an example when he talks about the acts of the flesh. He offers a whole list of them, some of which are sexual immorality, impurity, idolatry, hatred, jealousy, selfish ambition, factions, envy, drunkenness.

It’s quite a list. But note that he said that these are the acts of the flesh. But it doesn’t start there, it starts with the desires of the flesh, which he holds in contrast to the desires of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Desires of flesh are those impulses, those whims to satisfy what are often perfectly natural and good desires, but we become consumed with them, act on them. Which is exactly what we see in Samson.

He sees a woman - I have to have her. Dallas Willard describes lust as “the desire to desire.” We feel that first initial sexual desire, but then we feed it. We feed the lust with lingering looks and the imagination starts running - the desire to desire. And the desires of the flesh becomes acts of the flesh.

Samson’s impulsiveness is revealed in the response to his anger and how quickly and brutally he seeks revenge. Anger is a natural response to our will thwarted. But the flesh desires revenge. To get back. You will hurt like I do.

We could go down the list - his willingness to give up his secret to Delilah just to get her to quit nagging. Flesh wanting ease, comfort, peace - so he makes a grave moral compromise.

All these things that Paul lists out - and it’s just a partial list - when we act out of envy, jealousy (fleshly desire - I want that, I should have what you have), self-righteousness (desire to feel superior, better). So many different ways to act out of fleshly desires.

Paul’s teaching - led by Holy Spirit versus living by the flesh. Rather than living by the impulses of the flesh, we make the decision to be led by the Spirit.

Which is exactly what Paul teaches us in Galatians 5:16-18, So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

You feel the sexual desire, that spur of anger, desire to “get back”, to get your way in that moment, to not associate with certain people because you want to belong to the right group. But the reason you don’t give in to that impulse is because you’ve made the decision to obey something greater - the Holy Spirit.

This is exactly what we see Jesus do, perfect example is when he is led by the Spirit into the wilderness right at the beginning of his ministry - led by the Spirit in order to be tempted by Satan, in order to allow Satan to play on his fleshly desires (stones into bread, throw himself down from the top of the temple, admiration of the masses). Jesus doesn’t give in because he’d already decided to obey the Father, to “live by every word that comes from mouth of God”, to worship him alone.

Now God used Samson for his purposes, but Samson was not a godly man, he lived by his fleshly desires, his impulses - and it left a wake of destruction.

Paul finishes with this thought in Galatians 5:22-25 - But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

This teaches us two things, if we want to be people who exhibit the fruit of the Spirit, and here’s where we come to the Spiritual Disciplines.

Crucify our fleshly passions and desires…The Discipline of Confession, to be attentive to our hearts, and let our sins be crucified with Jesus.

Walk in step with the Spirit - Review of our Day, begin with a prayer of commitment, self-offering, obedience to the Spirit in us.

That amazing fruit - rather than anger or hatred, love and joy - rather than factions and envy, peace, rather than selfish ambition, kindness and goodness. To be like Jesus.