The Final Act: The Conclusion of Samson's Story

THE FINAL ACT

 

This is the final act in Samson’s tragic story. And the question is: Is this episode about the restoration of a failure or does this episode say something deeper about the person of God? 

            I know what you’re going to say: “Can’t it be both?” Yes, it can. But in a moment of revelation this week (I get those now and then), the Lord revealed something about himself that I had not grasped in this text. It sent a shiver through me as a holy awe overcame me. And while we are encouraged that someone like Samson, a man influenced by what he saw and desired, led astray by his passions, can be redeemed and used by God, it is overwhelmed by what this event tells us about our holy and awesome God. 

            Certainly, God worked in history to restore failures for the honor of his own name. And you can be sure that the Lord by his grace does this in your life today. But what I saw in the brief flicker of revelation that Jesus allowed me to see was THE FINAL ACT of God to vindicate his name in all the earth. I am compelled to tell you about this revelation.

            Let’s return to the story of Samson. Israel’s judge has told the secret of his strength to his girlfriend, the Philistine woman, Delilah. She cut his hair off and left him like a naked mole-rat, weak and helpless. He was the blind and hairless trophy of the Philistines sentenced to grind grain in seclusion.

            And then his hair began to grow back…

            Charles Spurgeon once said, “The Philistines should have sent a barber into that prison cell every day to keep him shorn.” 

 

1. When the World dishonors the Name of the LORD 

 

If I have learned anything from movies and crime shows it is that the “bad guys” gloat too much. They talk and talk and should just shut up and eliminate the hero. But they can’t help themselves; they have to boast.

            Our narrator tells us that the Philistines are no different. “Now the rulers of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to celebrate, saying, ‘Our god has delivered Samson, our enemy, into our hands.’” (23). 

            This is a lesson in how not to interpret stuff, good or bad, that happens to us. The Philistines are celebrating their capture of Samson and consequently how they defeated Yahweh. But they didn’t defeat the LORD. They defeated Samson. And the only reason they defeated Samson is not because Dagon was stronger than Yahweh, but because Yahweh “left” Samson. Dagon didn’t hand Samson over to the Philistines; the LORD did. 

            The Philistines were mocking the LORD. They wouldn’t be able to mock Yahweh if not for Samson’s sin. If he had been true to God none of this would be possible. It’s one thing for people to mock the LORD, but when it’s because of our actions, our sins, our failure, that is tragic. And because of Samson, the Philistines mock Yahweh’s name.    

            The world hardly needs encouragement to mock God. More than 130 years ago, Friedrich Nietzsche declared “God is dead.” Nietzsche was an atheist, but he didn’t mean that God had actually died, but that our idea of God had. After the Enlightenment, the idea of a universe that was governed by physical laws and not by a divine being became popular. This led to governments and rulers no longer organizing their nations around references to God. Nietzsche didn’t think this was a good thing because he knew that if we abandon Christian faith, we remove the foundation of morality. 

            On April 8, 1966, Time Magazine published an edition with “Is God Dead?” on the front cover. While it elicited the fears and imaginations of millions of people, the question reflected a world that had seen countless atrocities, the spread of communism, and the friction of the civil rights movement. Churches were teaching that believing in God was an irrational leap in the dark. And many were unwilling to take that leap anymore. Most would say then and even today, God’s not dead, but where is he? 

            People, it’s not 1966, but this is the world we have inherited. The dominant thinking is like this: God is irrelevant. And when the world sees the “Samsons” mess up, they mock, “This is your God?”

            But God will not be mocked. Isaiah wrote that God would allow his people to go through the fire of suffering because of their sin, but “I will rescue you for my sake – yes, for my sake! I will not let my reputation be tarnished, and I will not share my glory with idols,” (Isaiah 48:11 NLT).

 

2. When the World shames the LORD’s people 

 

The Philistines were drunk and brazen in their victory. They decided to bring Samson out to make sport of him, to humiliate him. The depraved mind can imagine all kinds of terrible things to do to a victim. They may have made Samson try to lift heavy weights or catch objects while blind or tear his clothes off of him and make him guess “who done it.” 

            But they made a fatal error. This party was made up of the cream-of-the-crop of Philistine leadership and nobility. They were praising their god, Dagon, who could not prevent the site of his celebration from becoming a massive cemetery. The Philistine elite were gathered under (or on) one roof – it would have been like the gathering of the joint session of Congress with the Pentagon and the Supreme Court (think Designated Survivor). For these leaders to be in one place at one time was a devastating error. If all these people died it would leave the Philistine nation powerless for years.

            Remember how we worded Samson’s fate? Dagon did not deliver Samson to the Philistines, the LORD did. Do you see the plan coming together? 

            But meanwhile, the LORD’s servant is being ridiculed and mocked and shamed. I’m going to tell you a fact: God does not like it when his people are shamed! 

            When the world persecutes Christians, God takes it personally. If you suffer for the name of Jesus – I don’t necessarily mean persecution or martyrdom - I mean, if you are merely made fun of for being a Christian – Jesus will not let that go. 

            Saul was persecuting people of The Way in Acts 9, throwing believers of Jesus into prison and making sure they suffered and died. Then Jesus met him on the road to Damascus and said, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”Saul didn’t know what he meant or who he was. Jesus said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” (Acts 9:4-5). Jesus makes himself intimately connected with his church. What happens to us, happens to him. And he does not take it lightly. 

 

3. The Vindication of the LORD’s Honor (28-30)

 

While the world mocks our faith in God, we pray that God will reveal himself. Our prayers are imperfect and lack the direction we ought to have. Sometimes they are filled with our own agendas and how we see life playing out in our favor. 

Like Samson’s prayer… (see v. 28).

            This is the second time Samson prayed in the whole story. He starts out well, “Sovereign LORD, remember me…” he uses the name “Yahweh” where before he only said “Elohim.” He continues, “Please God, strengthen me just once more…” Okay, not a bad request, but…he says, “and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.” Yeah, he can’t help himself. This is a bit too self-centered; it’s all about Samson again. 

            But…God answers his prayer. What? Yes, it was not the ideal prayer to follow as an example, but God used it for his own purposes. And that’s the key. This story is not about Samson’s redemption or his repentance. I will not make Samson a model of how to receive forgiveness or restoration. He is listed in the Hall of Fatih in Hebrews 11, but I don’t think that’s important here right now. I believe the emphasis is on the LORD’s honor and what he will do about it.

            What we preach on very little is God’s judgment. Evangelicalism today focuses heavily on the grace of God and Christian living. What we are afraid to say is that there is a Day of the LORD coming and it will be frightening. 

            Paul wrote the Thessalonian believers about this day saying, “For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape,” (1 Thess. 5:2-3). The final act in the Samson story is a foreshadow of The Final Act of God. This is what I saw this week: this is a thumbnail of how the LORD will vindicate his honor. 

            As the world mocks God and declares him irrelevant, he takes note. As our society rejects us and our faith telling us we are not “good Canadians” because we believe in biblical values, the Lord takes note. And as Samson pushed the pillars of the temple down so that 3000 Philistines were destroyed, we see a picture of the LORD taking out the foundation of the world of those who denied him. 

            Christ is denied in the Congresses and Parliaments of the world. Christ is regarded as irrelevant in the consideration of the laws of our land, the protection of unborn babies and the dignity of the elderly who are pressured to consider MAID, and the injustices faced by the races and peoples of different walks. Christ is disregarded on the battlefields as people fight for borders and rights and ideologies that the dead will never enjoy. 

            But God the Father, who will not be mocked, gave Jesus “…the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father,” (Phil. 2:9-11). 

            As we consider the story of Samson, its adventure, its violence, his misguided desires, we must consider the strange choice of Yahweh. Why would Yahweh use a character like Samson as his servant? He is not the model of discipleship we need. He is someone who breaks the rules and ignores his vows. He uses his gifts for his own amusement. He doesn’t know how to pray and he’s kind of a jerk. 

            God's choice of Samson is not based on Samson's performance. God's choice of us is not based on our performance either. It is based on the performance of Christ. That is where we put our hope and our faith. 

            During the US Civil War, a rumor spread that General Grant was drunk during the battle of Shiloh. A man who had President Lincoln’s ear went to share that story. He told Lincoln that popular opinion was against Grant, and he should be removed from his command. Lincoln listened, was quiet, and then said quietly, “I can’t spare the man; he fights.”

            We cannot explain Yahweh’s choice, but we can admit that Samson knew who he was fighting. God will act in strange ways. God will choose unlikely servants. God will answer prayers that lack eloquence or the right words. God will even use us to do his will. And we are headed for that day when God will vindicate his Name and he will reveal his honor to us. 

            When we consider the world events and the decline of morality in our present context, we are apt to conclude "all is lost." It seemed that way for Britain when Germany was bombing them into oblivion during World War 2. But The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill addressed the nation with these words of hope: “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning,” (Churchill).

            For the follower of Jesus, this perspective is helpful. We are not looking at the world's decline and sighing, "all is lost." But we are full of assurance that Jesus is coming back as King to restore Creation and reign over his Kingdom. What we see then is "the end of the beginning." And all creation groaning in anticipation of Christ's return. 

            God will not tolerate the world system mocking him.

            God will not ignore the mockery of his people.

            God will vindicate his name, the LORD, and in his vindication, we find our hope.

 

                                    AMEN

Tangled: Samson's Story of Sin and Defeat

TANGLED:

SAMSON’S STORY OF SIN AND DEFEAT

 

I once had hair. It’s true. The hair that does grow on Mount Klassen, my wife (my Delilah) shaves twice a month to keep me humble. She’s trying to keep me as weak as a kitten. 

            I once had great hair. In high school, I grew it long and visited a stylist regularly. But one awful day, a fellow classmate, my antagonist, spit a big wad of gum in my hair. I could feel it sitting lightly on top of my well-combed coif. If you have ever experienced gum in the hair, you know the trouble it brings. 

            I immediately reached for the gum to remove it from my hair. It should have been an easy extraction, I thought. But the more I tried to get the gum out, the more embedded it became. Can you imagine going to class with gum in your hair? And everyone had a remedy to offer. 

            When I got home, my mother worked to remove the gum. But she too just drove it deeper into my hair. Peanut butter, shampoo – nothing worked. Eventually, my mom had to take scissors and cut a chunk of my hair out. Even that procedure left an awkward vacancy in my hair. Gum in the hair. The only solution was to cut it out. 

            Sin in your life is like gum in your hair. When it becomes obvious how embedded sin is in your life, it is humiliating; it shames you; it reminds you of your weakness. The only way to deal with sin is to cut it out, right? Oh, if it were that easy! 

            Samson’s is the true story of how sin entangles itself in your life (like your hair) and brings you down to defeat. 

 

1. The Sin that so easily Entangles (16:1-4; Heb. 12:1)

 

In this episode, Samson goes down to Gaza, the Philistine capital. He often strayed into enemy territory; he wasn’t afraid to cross the tracks and dance on the dark side. He simply had no fear, and that was one of his many problems. A strong man like Samson is overconfident in his ability to escape trouble.

            His real problem is not his strength or confidence, however, but his eyes. Look at verse one: “One day Samson went to Gaza where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her,” (1). This is a subtle reference to his ongoing propensity to see something and take it. Remember his wife in chapter 14? “Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines,” (14:1). We can only imagine that Samson did not fall in love with Delilah for her bookkeeping skills as well. 

            Samson is led by his desires. Desire seeks satisfaction. Desire is not evil in itself; it is a gift from God that we might seek satisfaction in him alone. What we seek in life ultimately has something to do with our desire for God. It follows then that sin can be defined as seeking satisfaction in other places. Samson was seeking soul satisfaction outside of a relationship with God. His eyes were leading him to what he thought he needed.

            We are warned in John’s first letter, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life – is not from the Father but from the world,” (1 Jn. 2:15-16). There is a clear distinction for the Christian between relationship with God and what the world offers as an alternative. The “desires of the eyes” is but one third of the formula but is intricately connected to the desires of the flesh.

            It is often said that “lust” is a “man problem,” but I say that it is a human problem. Books and sermons have zeroed in on men as driven by the lust of the flesh. However, statistics show that 35% of online porn users are women, and the number is growing. In one country listed, 50% of porn views were women. We are all driven by what we see. It’s not just sex that drives us. We long to fill the void in our lives with sex, material things, or power, or fame, or whatever we feel would dull the ache of meaninglessness in this world. Lust is an ”us” problem.

            The Tenth Commandment is “You shall not covet…” (Ex.20:17). Someone once said, and I agree, that when we covet (when we want what someone else has) it is the root cause for breaking all the other commandments. If I covet something so bad, I will kill to get it (Js. 4:1-2). The Israelites even wanted the gods of the other nations as well as Yahweh – they coveted gods that they felt filled a need. 

            When we covet what others have, when we want it so bad it consumes our imaginations, our dreams, our longings, it leads us to adultery, murder, theft, and lying. I wonder if this is what the writer of Hebrews meant when he said, “…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us…” (Heb. 12:1b). What is the “sin”? Coveting…

 

2. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave…” (16:5-14; Js. 1:13-15)

 

Sir Walter Scott penned these famous words, “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” When you lie or act dishonestly, you are asking for trouble that will have a domino effect of complications. This deception will (note the certainty) run out of control.

            Samson loves Delilah. We don’t know if Delilah loves Samson. I’m pretty sure Delilah loves money because the Philistines pay her handsomely to betray Samson. 

            The name “Delilah” is a Semite name. That means it’s a Jewish name. But she’s in a Philistine city. We can only assume that she is a mixed blood woman, half Israelite and half Philistine. She is the product of intermarriage, which God forbade. Delilah thus represents the immorality of Israel. 

            And Samson toys with her. Three times Delilah tried to pry from Samson the secret of his strength, but three times he tricks her; he plays with her. Each time, she springs her trap with the words, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” And each time he snaps the bowstrings, ropes, or the loom that holds him. Samson thinks these are bedroom games. He is flirting with his life, possibly not knowing that there are men ready to jump him if his strength really does leave him.

            Samson is too confident. He has broken all his vows as a Nazirite: touching a dead body, consuming the fruit of the vine, and so on. He’s gotten away with it time after time. He’s been trapped at Gaza and walked away with the gates of the city. He believes there is nothing that will hurt him. Samson is dancing with the devil; flirting with sin; trying to find out how close he can come. Every time he crosses the morality line, he thinks, “humph, nothing happened.” Don’t we do that?

            Paul said, “…if you think you’re standing firm, be careful you don’t fall…” (1 Cor. 10:12). He’s talking about temptation. It’s dangerous. Don’t dance with it.

            Moral compromise always makes us vulnerable. It might be subtle; it might be obvious. We watch something we think we can handle and “boom” it triggers an impulse. But like an alcoholic, if you have been entangled in porn, you can never look at it again. It will grip you once more in its talons.

            Delilah was beautiful. That’s the problem – the eyes. Eve saw the fruit was good…and boom. Sin will not come to us in an ugly form but as something we desire. It can even be good in essence and fulfilling, but the timing is off, or it comes to us when we are committed to something else.

            When we toy with temptation as Samson did with Delilah, it will eventually trap us. As followers of Jesus, we have a calling. The Bible doesn’t tell us to fight temptation; it tells us to run away. To flee (see 1 Cor. 6:18; 1 Tim. 2:22; 1 Tim. 6:11).

            James counseled believers regarding temptation, “…each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death,”(Js. 1:14-15). If you play with sin, you may get away with it for a while, but it doesn’t mean that the enemy isn’t waiting in the closet for an opportunity to take you down.

3. Baldly Going Where No Man Should Go (16:15-21)

 

Finally, Delilah plays the “you-don’t-love-me” card to get Samson to spill his secret. He’s heard this before. His wife used it 20 years prior to get him to give her the answer to his riddle about the lion. Did he learn? No.

            Samson is a fool for love. Until now, Samson has escaped every trap despite his foolishness. Under pressure, perhaps sick to death of her nagging, he tells her “everything” (see 17). Why did he do it? Did he think he could trust her? Did he think he could handle the consequences? And then sleep? How could he sleep with his secret exposed?

            Our hearts belong to the LORD, but when we stray from him, we make ourselves vulnerable. Satan wants our hearts, but he knows he can’t get them head on; so, he goes through someone like Delilah. Samson gave his heart away to someone who only wanted to exploit it. That’s what sin does.

            Figure this out: Samson broke all his other vows, but he never cut his hair! Wow! There was nothing magic in his hair – it was a symbol – perhaps the last one – of his separation to God. And Delilah started shaving…

            There are jokes about baldness that recede into the “dad” category. “Don’t think of it as losing your hair but gaining face.” Or “God only made so many perfect heads, the rest he covered with hair.” I often refer to Tony Campolo’s quip, “Some people use their hormones to grow hair; I use it to grow brains.” 

            This is no laughing matter. Once more Delilah calls out, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” (20). They seize and gouge his eyes out and make him grind their grain. 

            Isn’t it ironic that it is the eyes they take? His eyes have been his Achilles heel. Samson saw a woman – he takes her. He sees – he wants. Now his eyes are gone. He can no longer see except in his mind’s eye. He can only grieve what he has lost and mourn his captivity. 

            Ambrose, an early Christian writer, wrote, “Samson, when brave, strangled a lion; but he could not strangle his own love. He burst the fetters of his foes, but not the cords of his own lusts. He burned the crops of others and lost the fruit of his own virtue when burning with the flame enkindled by a single woman.” 

            

This is a tragic tale of sin and defeat.

            We are left with one little verse, “But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved,” (22). One little note of hope. Of course the hair grew back – it does that.

            I can relate to Samson’s struggle with sin. Can you? Sin is not something that you can chuck like a banana peel; if you dabble with it, it sticks with you. Like gum in the hair, it embeds itself into your person and it is hard to get rid of, to deal with, to eliminate. 

            Like Samson, whose hair was shorn, whose confidence was shattered and replaced with humiliation and shame, we know the feeling of futility as we pray for relief from sin’s effects. It is even more frustrating when, like Samson, we are led by our eyes to return to our sin, to know the further humiliation of being shackled to it with no hope of escape. What are we to do?

            Have you ever watched those video clips of dog owners confronting their pets? Three dogs sit in a row – one of them made a mess in the living room (either pooped or chewed up a pillow) – and the master says, “Which one of you did it?” Two of the dogs immediately look at the offending dog who at that moment looks away in shame. 

             When we sin, our natural inclination is to hide. How can I look at Jesus again after betraying his love with my chronic habit of sin? I’ve sinned again. How foolish! How shameful! But Jesus wants us to look at him…

            The writer of Hebrews, after telling us to cast off the sin that entangles, says this: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God,” (Heb. 12:2). 

            Samson’s eyes led him astray. What are we focusing on? Jesus calls attention to sinners not to look away but to consider him, gaze upon him, look him in the eye, and consider the cost of our sin. The cost of our sin, the look of love in his face, the grace that has been lavished on us, should remind us of our true desire. When you sin (again), look at Jesus fully and know that he has taken away your humiliation and shame and guilt. Do not fight your desires; run from them; and run straight to Jesus.

 

                                                                        AMEN