Samson - Selfish Desires

Colossians 3:1–11 CSB

1 So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 5 Therefore, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, God’s wrath is coming upon the disobedient, 7 and you once walked in these things when you were living in them. 8 But now, put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator. 11 In Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.

Intro

They say never meet your heroes, because they can sometimes disappoint. People loook up to others that have gone before them and done a good job and emulate their lives after them.

There was a man who worked for one of the big shoe stores and had won a contest to go to the All-Star festivities for the NBA. He met a lot of current and former players and coaches and had a blast. Until he met Michael Jordan. Being a sneakerhead, my friend owned originals or rereleases of every shoe Jordan ever had up until that point. It was something like 30 shoes if you counted the different colorways. Posters, jerseys, trading cards, and memorabilia of all types adorned a room at his apartment. He sees Jordan and decides to just kind of hang out until he is done talking and just get a quick meet-and-greet, no photo, no autograph, just to say hey. Jordan ends his conversation, and my friend steps up near him, and Jordan basically asks him who he is, what he wants, and acts like [a jerk]. My friend just tells him that he was a big fan and it was great to finally meet him. Jordan basically says, "Yeah, whatever," and walks away.

Those of you who remember the music of the 60s may know Neil Sedaka’s “Run, Samson, Run.” It went as high as No. 28 on the Billboard chart in 1961. It tells of Samson as “a fella who was strong as he could be,’Til he met a cheatin’ gal who brought him tragedy. Then, the song urges, “Run Samson run, Delilah’s on her way, Run Samson run, you ain’t got time to stay, Run Samson run, on your mark you better start, I’d sooner trust a hungry lion, Than a gal with a cheatin’ heart.” Our Sunday school teachers never taught us this song, but I wonder if this song was a hit today,

smells. We may look up to someone like Samson because people think he was a good guy. But our text this morning is more of a tragedy. . It is often regarded by Christians as a tragedy ending in victory. Many Christians even regard Samson as a hero of the faith because he is mentioned in the “hall of faith” in Hebrews 11. Some also consider him as a type of Christ, because of a few similarities in his birth, life and death. But was he really a faithful judge? Was he really a type of Christ?

Today, we will meditate on the last days of Samson’s life

Main ideas - In the end of Samson’s life we learn again that when one becomes self interested instead of God centered it leads to sin. We are not to emulate people like Samson but learn from how they made mistakes.

16:1-3 - Samson and the City Gates.

There are three I did not know statements in the story of Samson I find interesting. His father was the first one when he said he did not know that the angel of the Lord was actually an angel.

Judges 13:16 ESV

16 And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “If you detain me, I will not eat of your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, then offer it to the Lord.” (For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord.)

If you remember the story, Manoah should have realized at this point that it was no mere human that appeared to them. But this theme of not realizing what was going on continues.

Judges 14:4 ESV

4 His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines.

This was not something they should really have known so I would give them a pass on this one.

the third one we are going to look into this morning, Samson did not know that the Lord had left Him, we will get into that a bit later.

We start out with Samson in bed with... a lady of the night... if you will. Samson seemed to have a great weakness for women. and although this was not against his Nazerite vow, it was none the less against the law of God.

This does not seem to be his original reason to be in Gaza but he was tempted while He was there. It was the type of sinful immature behavior that got him into trouble in the first place.

The people knew that He was there and laid in wait so as to ambush him. But no city gates are going to stop the strongman. He lifted the gates up off the posts and for some reason carried them all the way up on to the mountain near the city of Hebron. They tried to stop Him but even in his sin God still had a plan for Him.

16:4-9 - Delilah’s first deception

Samson meets another young women who he falls in love with. But this time instead of threatening the try to bribe her with a lot of money. No wonder why she was intent on figuring out the source of Samson’s strength

It never says that they are married just that he loves her and wants her and she seems to be making a prerequisite to anything happening to see what makes Him strong.

In these conversations it seems like he is being very self centered. Ya he is lying to through them off but through it all he seems to put his strength down to himself and his own powers.

The Philistines goal seems to be to subdue Samson and put his strength to use as their slave. That is what the wording makes it seem like anyways.

Samson is a man who seems to be pushed towards danger rather then repelled by it so he cant resist the temptation to flirt with Danger with His wife.

Of course this does not work, she calls in the Philistines and he snaps the strings like they where nothing. .

16:10-12 - Delilah’s Second Deception

The second time is much like the first. Samson knowing that Delilah is trying to decieve him but he just cant seem to help hinmself. This time the lie is being tied up with new rope. But this works about as good as the first time.

16:13-15 - The Third Deception

Judges 16:13–15 ESV

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. 15 And she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and you have not told me where your great strength lies.”

16:16-20 - Samson breaks His vow.

rom the outset, he lived his life as if there was no God. He was a member of God’s covenant people, but he always violated God’s covenant laws. He knew that he should not disobey his parents and the traditional marriage arrangement. And he knew the covenant prohibition against having fun with foreign Philistine women.

Because of his interest in pleasuring himself alone, he was not able to deliver Israel from the Philistine oppression. With his extraordinary gift of strength from God, he would have easily defeated the Philistines for good. And men of God today are not exempt from this self-interest. We read and hear of this pastor, this missionary, this televangelist, this seminary professor, who give in to temptations, whether it is women, money, addiction or power. And this falling into sin almost always leads to the destruction of a church or some other ministry.

We are not exempt from being self centered and thinking of our own pleasures then what God wills. That is why they say never meet your heroes, sometimes it is disappointing because people are self centered and cant be nice all the time.

It seems like never in the narrative of Samson does he operate in anyone's interest but his own. we sometimes do the same thing and we need to realize that it will end the same way, not well for us.

After Delilah found out Samson’s secret, she made Samson sleep on her knees, and called a man to clip his hair. Then she woke him up as the Philistines surrounded him. Ever-confident of his super-strength, Samson was not concerned. But the last portion of verse 20 has an ominous statement, “But he did not know that the LORD had left him.” This is the third and final “did not know” statement in Samson’s story.

Judges 16:20 ESV

20 And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him.

vs 20 - Samson was tricked and did not realize the Lord had left Him

He should have realized that though His strength was signified in His outward signs of commitment, it was not his hair that gave him strength but The Lord God through His vow that he was under. He should have told delilah then that his strength comes from God alone and the sign of that is my vow.

16:21-31 - Samson’s defeat and Death

After some months, the lords of the Philistines gathered to worship their god Dagon, and to thank him for their victory over Samson. The 3,000 people gathered at the temple of Dagon, led by their worship team, sang their hymn of praise, 

“Our god has given our enemy into our hand, the ravager of our country, who has killed many of us.Judges 16:23” 

Judges 16:23 ESV

23 Now the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to rejoice, and they said, “Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand.”

Judges 16:24 ESV

24 And when the people saw him, they praised their god. For they said, “Our god has given our enemy into our hand, the ravager of our country, who has killed many of us.”

The Philistines now declare that their god Dagon has conquered Israel’s God Yahweh! So after all the drinking and merrymaking of pagan worship, the people called for the main event: Samson. Just the sight of this great superhuman Samson, now helplessly blind and shackled, was entertainment for them.

Samson requested to be brought between the two middle pillars of the temple. As the people made a spectacle of him, he called to the LORD for only the second time in his life, 

Judges 16:28 ESV

28 Then Samson called to the Lord and said, “O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes.”

Was this a faithful prayer? The first part seemed to be, asking God to remember him in his trouble, to give him back his strength. But the second part of his prayer betrays him again. Why was he now crying out to God? Like his first prayer, it was a self-centered prayer. Instead of praying, “O LORD, please let me deliver Israel,” he prayed for strength so he might exact vengeance against the Philistines for blinding him. Instead of praying, “O LORD, please vindicate your name against the Philistines,” he prayed, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Even in his death, Samson identified with the Philistines.

So What?

So when you here people say Samson reflected Christ, you should not believe them. Like they say never meet your heroes, so we should seek to emulate only Christ. Even though he is amongst those in the “hall of faith” in Hebrews 11 that just means that he did show a little faith at the end. God can use even those that show a little faith.

Instead of Self-Interest we should be God focused

Man’s Selfishness - People see Samson as a type of Christ, because of the way He was called and born. They see him as someone to look up to. But we have more in common sometimes then we would think. He is not someone to look up to but rather someone to learn from. His motivations were based on self interest rather then following God.

What part of Samson’s life are we mirroring? the part crying out to God or the part that is interested in Self. What happened then is that the gifts that He had where used for self interest rather then for the K of G. The other side of that is that everything that we have comes from the Lord God. we are not to use our gifts for our self and keep them to our self but rather use them for the glory of the Lord and the furthering of His Kingdom.

 Samson wasted his life and his God-given gift. He was one of the most self-centered, self-indulged, pleasure-seeking characters in the Bible. He did not care for the purpose given to him by the LORD, that is, to deliver Israel from the Philistines. He did not care about his Nazirite vows. He did not care about the Law of Moses.

God’s sovereignty

- God said from the beginning that He was going to use Samson to make fools of the Philistines. And even in His foolishness that is what happened. We see this even now at the end of samson’s life. We see this all through His life. He failed yet it did not ruin the plan of God.

God wants to use us for His glory, so let us surrender all we have, our own wills, our own self interests for the Glory of the Lord.

There is no doubt that sex, money and the things of the world are powerful attractants. They easily leas us astray. There are many that have and will succumb to their power. But God’s word is full of exhortations and encouragements against the evils of self interest and selfish desires and in doing so we are promised that we will have life! We need to look to the word of God and seek the life that is written within it’s pages.