The Life and Times of Samson the Great
Growing up in church, Samson is one of those stories growing up romanticizing. What kid doesn't love to hear of the modern day herculean acts of a valiant warrior who kills 1000 men with the jawbone of a donkey, or who carries off the gates of the city, or ties foxes tails together and lights them on fire. I mean what's not to love?! Well, the answer is a lot. Have you ever actually read the story of Samson for yourself? I mean this guy made a lot of foolish decisions. He was hell bent on violating just about everything God had in mind for him in being a Nazirite; and yet somehow God used him mightily. I thought God used the good people to do His will, but how is the will of God achieved over and over in the life of this rebellious deliverer. So was he a good guy or not? Well the text seems to be divided over it. Was he a good guy or a bad guy, the answer is yes, but maybe that doesn't matter. What if what God was doing in His life was more important than whether or not he was a good guy. These are a few of the things God taught me today from Judges 13 & 14.
Highlight:
'He said to me, ‘You will conceive and give birth to a son. Therefore, do not drink wine or beer, and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite to God from birth until the day of his death.’” ' Judges 13:7
Explain:
Minaoh and his wife are barren without children and the Lord comes to her and tells her that her son that God will give her is to be a Nazirite from birth. There is much significance and much to consider in his life and ministry. The Nazirite vow meant that the child was dedicated to the Lord for His use, from the beginning they were not to cut their hair, they were not to drink wine or beer or eat anything unclean. These things were about setting the person apart as holy before God.
In less than a chapter, almost all of those vows are broken and they cause problems. He was to be holy and set apart so you can imagine how egregious it was for him to have insisted on having a wife that wasn’t an Israelite. These were holy people who were not supposed to have heathen wives because they would turn their heart from God. Both Moses and Joshua had warned them of this and yet this one who was to be “holy” from birth was intentionally violating that oath. In chapter 14 we see him violate the oath regarding the dead carcass. It’s wrapped into the riddle that he took it from the carcass. Then we know exactly what happened with Samson’s hair eventually, all of the Nazirite vow was completely destroyed. Here’s a man who was hell bent really on destroying the purpose God had for him right from his very birth!
…And yet in the midst of all these violations, God is systematically accomplishing exactly what He desires despite Samson’s apparent contradictions. We learn that even though he insisted on a foreign wife, God was still at work. 14:4 clearly says it was from the Lord. The same is true in the midst of the violation of the vow, at the end of the chapter 30 of the Philistines are killed. Remember God had designs on delivering Israel according to 13:5. Eventually, the hair is cut, the slavery occurs, and the Philistines are killed. Every part of the vow was violated and yet right along the way, God was working even through his complete incompetence.
Apply:
What can we learn form all of this. Well I think there are some pretty incredible truths to recount. First recall the peculiar way in which Samson’s birth was predicted. Here’s a woman who is barren cannot have children. The people have fallen into the cycle of live for God > forget God > carried into captivity > repent > deliverance > live for God. A cycle that happens over and over in the storyline. Into this cycle of rebellion and repentance God steps into the story over the life of a barren woman. This occurs 40 years into the Philistine captivity. Manoah’s wife is told she will bear a son and he is to be a Nazarite from his birth. It is peculiar then when she tells Manoah, He wants more information. When the angel reappears, Manoah begins to question the angel regarding the future of the boy. The angel then repeats the same information and when Manoah coyly asks what the angel’s name is. The angel’s peculiar response is “my name is beyond understanding.” There is so much in these words. The words the angel spoke refer only to a supernatural work of God. When Manoah asks for his name, the angel’s response was basically, you wouldn’t get it. My ways and my name are far more wonderful that you could ever imagine. The word that I have been summoned to is a work of God and it WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED.
This has several implications that should be meditated upon. First the fact that God’s work began inside the womb of a woman is significant for us to consider. These are the same words “beyond understanding” that speak that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made, who can know it?!” God’s plans for Samson began before he was even born. This must inform our views on abortion and life before birth. God’s plans were set and in His mind regarding the life of this child before He was even born, we cannot therefore stand in the way of God and say that what God has designs for later in life has no purpose of life within itself.
Secondly we must understand the great truth of Judges, that God means to use the base and weak things of the world to confound the mighty. God meant to use a hopelessly rebellious man to accomplish His own peculiar purposes. Every judge had his own set of disadvantages and they are each incomplete pictures; imperfect models of a perfect deliverer. God means to use all of them to represent Jesus. Consider Samson was a deliverer of His people, with a supernatural birth, and an angel foretelling of it, who saved more in his death than he did in his life. Samson is an imperfect picture of Jesus.
But that’s the whole point of the book of Judges and the fact that God can use anything to accomplish His purposes, its far beyond our knowing and understanding. The more demanding we get to know and understand the farther we get from the heart of God. We will never know and understand, God means for us to have faith and obey as Manoah did, as Gideon did, as Deborah and Barak did, as Ehud did and so many others. God means for us to have faith and obey His plans even when we don’t understand all the details.
“By Fatih Abraham when we was called obeyed, and set out for a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance, he went out even though He did not know where He was going.” - Hebrews 11:8
We have to trust that God that is beyond our understanding by faith and that faith is lived out in obedience and with full confidence that God will ultimately complete His plan in this world. He will accomplish it over our dead body if He has to. What is at stake is not the plan of God but how God means to use us in it. We can kick against it, we can fight it, we can resist it, but God is going to accomplish His purpose and He will use us, how He uses us is really up to us and our ability to obey Him and have faith in His promises and plans.
Respond:
Jesus help me to see Samson as a flawed man in a flawed time that points to a perfect Savior for all time. Give me the courage to trust You and obey You when I don’t understand all of the details. Help me to realize that Your plan for me is beyond imagination anyway. It so much higher and greater than me and my understanding.
