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Ring of Truth provides 366 daily ‘proofs’ that the Bible is consistent throughout from Genesis to Revelation, and relevant for our lives today!
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Judges 16:16
With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death.
It’s “Better to live on a corner of the roof than to share a house with a quarrelsome wife” (Proverbs 21:9).
Yesterday, we looked at a good wife - here the tables have turned. Samson may have been ‘set apart’ by God from before birth (even before conception), and have demonstrated the power of the Spirit of God in his life, but he was still very human.
He already had a failed marriage under his belt. He had revealed to his first wife the answer to his riddle, which she in turn had passed on to the Philistines. He killed 30 of them there and then. After that, he destroyed their grain and vines with fire attached to the tails of 300 foxes he let loose amongst them, then he killed 1,000 with the jawbone of a donkey. We read, “Samson led Israel for 20 years in the days of the Philistines” (Judges 15:20).
As we examine his story, however, we find he was a man of swinging emotions, exacerbated by a lack of moral integrity. Here in Chapter 16, we find him first with a prostitute and then, the famous Delilah. (Interestingly enough, the other girls were spared having their names released.) She, however, did not love Samson. She had an ulterior motive. It’s called money. How often money is used to betray others. Joseph, Samson and Jesus.
But Samson was vulnerable to women. He didn’t marry Delilah - there was no covenant relationship. So what was he up to revealing his spiritual gift to her? How come he hadn’t wised up to the fact that she had hidden men in her room each time? How come he did not realise she was going to sell him into their hands? How come he stayed with a traitor? How come he put up with her nagging? Answer - Lust and sex (together with a lack of self-control and invisible moral integrity).
How very strong and powerful they are. They have to be controlled or they will control you. They are capable of arousing the greatest of sins as well as muddling our thinking and playing havoc with our emotions. They finally ruined his life because he gave into his lover and revealed his secret. She completed her treachery and Samson lost his dignity, his strength and his eyes, as the Philistines captured him and gouged them out. (Remember David? - see 2 Samuel 11.)
Perhaps the saddest comment, however, was “But he did not know that the Lord had left him” (v 20). Yes, we can be saved, charismatic, have an incredibly successful ministry, and use the dynamic gifts God has entrusted to us to amazing effect, and still blow it. (See also 1 Samuel 4:21-22 & Ezekiel 10.)
The gifts are from God and are just that. They are not ‘part of us’; they are gifts. They are not so much confirmation of God’s approval as evidence of His love and grace.
Samson’s hair grew again and God demonstrated His power once more. How much more could God have achieved through Samson if he hadn’t blown it?
Lesson -
1) Don’t be like Samson. Instead ...
2) Be like Joseph and keep your moral integrity. Never forget, it is a choice and it’s YOUR choice.
3) Don’t throw your pearls to pigs (see Matthew 7:6). You need to discern with whom you can share your most intimate secrets (particularly the secrets of the Kingdom). Preferably do it only with your wife with whom you are in a covenant relationship.
4) Don’t presume upon God’s gifts and grace.
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