Judges 8

Chapter 8. Separation and Strength—a Lesson From the Life of SamsonJudges 13-16Therefore come out from themand be separate,says the Lord.Touch no unclean thing,and I will receive you.(2 Corinthians 6:17)The story of Samson is an illustration of this text. The principle of which Samson’s life is a sad embodiment is set forth in the symbol of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream: the iron and clay mixed together and the image partaking of the strength of iron, but also, of the weakness of the clay. This is the story of Samson—divine strength mingled with human weakness, supernatural power hindered by the touch of earth and the taint of sin. The Vision The story of Samson forms one of the closing chapters of the period of the judges. He had godly parents. The angel of the Lord appeared in a vision and promised the birth of a son, accompanying it with the most solemn injunctions: First, that the mother should be separated according to the law of the Nazirites before his birth; and, then, that the child that should be born should also be a Nazirite from his birth and separated unto God from his mother’s womb. “Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean, because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines” (Judges 13:4). The Nazirite In due time the child was born and carefully brought up according to the divine command. His hair was allowed to grow in perfect naturalness, and he abstained from wine and all strong drink and lived a life of abstinence and purity. When he reached manhood the Spirit of God began to move upon him in the form of extraordinary physical strength. But along with this came the peculiar temptation of his life—a tendency to self-indulgence and unhallowed associations with the daughters of the Philistines. This, at last, became the snare that ruined him. His First Error His first error was to set his affections upon a Philistine maiden of Timnah and to marry her contrary to the advice and wishes of his parents. On his way to her home he performed the first great exploit of his life—the slaying of a lion in a thicket by the road. This marriage was a sad one, and ended in the murder of his bride and the family by the Philistines, followed by Samson’s retaliation with the burning up of their grain fields by sending an army of blazing foxes across the country. His Triumphs and Failure For 20 years he was the terror of his enemies. He used to boldly visit their towns and hamlets, usually in some doubtful association with one of their women. He defied their attempts to take him—until he fell into the snare of Delilah. After winning his confidence, she tricked him into revealing the secret of his strength. Delilah then cut off his hair and delivered him to her countrymen, who bound him, put out his eyes and then placed him for the rest of his life in a solitary dungeon. There he deeply repented of his sin and folly. God heard his prayer and gave him one more opportunity to use his colossal strength for God and his country. His hair began to grow again, and the strength of the Lord returned to him. Some time later, the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to their god, Dagon, and to celebrate the capture of Samson. They mocked him, making him perform for them. As he stood among the pillars of the temple, he asked the servant who led him around to place him next to the two main columns that supported the temple. Then he prayed to God, “O Sovereign Lord, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes” (Judges 16:28). Samson then pushed the columns with all his strength and the temple came crashing down, killing more people with this one blow than he had done in his entire life. And so he passed out of Jewish history—a marvelous example of what God might have done with a thoroughly separated man, and yet of what self-indulgence and sin can do to hinder the glorious promise and the gracious purpose of God. A Good Beginning Samson’s life had a bright beginning, full of promise and possibility. We see God choosing a human life and revealing a high and mighty purpose for a human career. But we also see all this hindered and defeated by earthliness, selfishness and sin. What more could God have done to show His purpose of love and blessing? Twice He sent His angel to announce the birth of Samson. Time after time He manifested His supernatural power in the life of His servant and the mighty possibilities which He was ready to accomplish if He could only have found an obedient and faithful instrument. Yet all this was brought to nothing by the disobedience and folly of the man whom He had sought to bless and use. It is a very solemn and awful thing to think how we can hinder God’s purposes of love for us. This is an important lesson. Despite the fact that we may have been born to Christian parents who brought us up to fear God; despite the fact that our early days were overshadowed by the Almighty and our consciousnesses felt the touch of heaven and heard the whisper of His calling on our lives; we may, by our willfulness and folly, destroy all this. Sad will be the day when we hear our Master say, as He said of Jerusalem, “how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37). Separation We see in Samson’s story the necessity for a life of separation and consecration if we would become the vessels of the Holy Spirit and the instruments of God’s highest blessing. The Nazirite, under the Mosaic institutions, was the peculiar type of a life of separation. He was set apart from his childhood to be dedicated to the Lord and separated from all earthly and sensual indulgences. Just as the priest represented the idea of nearness to God, the Nazirite represented the idea of separation to God. This is one of the profoundest principles of God’s whole plan of redemption. From the very beginning God purposed to separate a peculiar people to Himself. We see this in the separation of Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Israel and others down to the Church of Christ, which just means the called-out ones. The word ekklesia means “the separated ones.” Man’s failure to meet God’s ideal has been the cause of all the failures and disasters of the past. The awful wickedness that preceded the flood was brought about from the intermingling of the holy seed with the people of this world, the intermarriage of the children of God with the daughters of man. And today the same cause is about to produce similar effects. There is a melting away and a breaking down of all barriers between the Church and the world, and the end of it is going to be conditions as shocking and terrible as those of Noah’s day. The progeny of such frightful and monstrous unions will once more bring upon the earth a deluge—not of water, but of fire—and the godless will be swept away. God must have separated vessels. He will not drink out of the devil’s cups. We must be His and His alone. We must bear His monogram and be His peculiar people. If you who bear the name of Jesus are still playing with the world, receiving its attentions, intermarrying with its people, allowing it to invade the very Church of Christ and in the name of religion turn God’s holy sanctuary into a place of social entertainment and sometimes indecent exhibitions that would even disgrace a theater, you are opening the floodgates for a coming judgment. You are contaminating the Body of Christ with the poison of your sin. You are draining the fountains of spiritual life and power and, in effect, repeating the story of Samson. And the end can only be the same as his—blindness, bondage, paralysis and death. “‘Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.’ ‘I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty’” (2 Corinthians 6:17-18). Divine Life for the Body We see in Samson a picture of the supernatural life and power that God can give to a consecrated human body. There is no reason to suppose that Samson was a physical giant. The Philistines could not understand his supernatural strength. If he had been like Og or Sihon or Goliath—men of gigantic stature—they would easily have comprehended it. But he seems to have been a man of ordinary appearance and his power was entirely superhuman. It did not come through brawn or bone, but it was because of the divine life that possessed his being and filled his frame with the very strength of God. The Illustration of David Just as the electric wire, when filled with the current, has in it the whole power of the battery and can turn the huge wheels of a mighty factory, so a human frame may be so possessed with the Holy Spirit that the feeblest may be like David, and David like the angel of the Lord. There is no doubt that David attributed his stupendous exploits entirely to the abilities that came to him from Jehovah. His battles were battles of faith, and he could literally say, “He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze” (2 Samuel 22:35). We have seen the power of demon possession in a human body so that such a person had the strength of a dozen men. Why should not the Holy Spirit be able to give the same power to a human arm? And so Samson was able to tear apart a lion with his bare hands, to carry on his shoulders the pillars and city gate of Gaza with their weight of tons and walk with them 10 miles to Hebron and to lift up the pillars which supported the vast amphitheater and literally tear the building to pieces by his arms. So still, God is able to put His strength into a human frame if it is wholly separated unto Him. He could endue us with the power to resist disease, to persevere under the influence of a harsh climate, to endure hardship and suffering and to go through life, like Moses, with unabated strength until our work is finished. The Holy Spirit has this for His separated ones in these last days. It is part of the purchase of Christ’s redemption and the partnership of His resurrection and ascension power. And if we are empty of all that hinders and open to His unrestricted life and power, He will dwell in us and fill us with His great power. That power is “for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 1:19-20). But not only was Samson an example of physical power, but also of God’s supernatural working in the circumstances and providences of life. When Samson was ready to faint from thirst after his victory over the Philistines (Judges 15:18-19), he cried to God, and God opened a fountain of water from which Samson could drink until he was satisfied. There is a realm of natural forces and providential surroundings where faith may still claim the interposition of our Almighty Lord in all the emergencies and circumstances of life. While the Spirit dwells within us as the Source of every needed grace, the Son of God is reigning at His Father’s right hand. He said to His disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me…. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:18, Matthew 28:20). This mighty Christ is able to do anything for us that we really need in the line of His purpose for us and the work He has committed to our hands. Are we proving all the power of Jesus’ name and all the possibilities of the Spirit-filled life? The Touch of Earth We see, too, the withering touch of earthliness and sin. Very gradually did the poison insinuate itself into Samson’s life; very gradually did he allow the snare of temptation to weave its meshes around him, until at last he was a bound and helpless captive in the power of his destroyer. His first offense was a visit to the enemy’s country. He had no business in going down to Timnah to start with, except as God might send him as a soldier or as a judge. But he went, and then he looked, and then he loved, and then he longed, and then disobeyed his parents’ counsel, and then he took the fatal step that linked his life with the daughter of his enemy. Yet God did not forsake Samson immediately. Again and again He showed His power through His servant over a number of years and helped him out of a multitude of troubles. No doubt God often spoke to Samson and warned him of his folly. But Samson continued down the same self-indulgent path, getting deeper and deeper into sin. At last we find him at Gaza in the house of a prostitute, Delilah, who represents the world’s delights and abandonment to selfish pleasure. Even there an instinct of self-preservation and peculiar sacredness seems to have lingered with Samson. This evil woman, Satan’s masterpiece of temptation, had been urged by the enemies of God and of Samson to find out the secret of his strength. They offered her a bribe of $3,000, which in those days was worth 10 times that sum. Using her female charms, she begged Samson to tell her his secret. “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me?” she said to him (Judges 16:15). At last, Samson gave in. It was his heart that betrayed him in the end. Perhaps you have found yourself in a similar situation. You never intended to yield your principles, your virtue, your conscience, but this person convinced you to do just that. And in one impulsive moment, you were lost. That is how Samson fell. So it is that the lost sheep ever goes astray. It is just a foolish sheep. It wanders, it forgets, it dallies and it perishes all the same. Evil is wrought by want of thought More than by want of heart. Oh, how tragic is the picture of Samson’s last temptation and fatal fall! Oh, how the fingers of the devil felt for his very heart, closer and closer, until at last they stole his secret and crushed out his life. He knew there was danger, and he played with it, day by day, putting it off and still holding the citadel. But each day letting the enemy come nearer and nearer. First, he told Delilah that if he were to be tied with seven fresh thongs then he would be as weak as any other man. Then she betrayed her true character, and he might have seen the fiend in the fond lover, as she called his cruel foes. Hastily, Samson sprang to his feet, tore his bonds asunder and drove them from his presence in dismay. Next, he told her it actually took new ropes. Again, in the test, the cords tore asunder and she fell, hysterically weeping, and told him that he did not love her, and pleaded for his confidence. And then his heart was touched, and, how near he grazed to the very edge of the precipice! One trembles when one hears him talk of his Nazirite locks and tell her he would be helpless if she braided his hair into a loom. Now she thinks she has him, and, again, the ambush of men is sprung upon him, and again Samson springs through the meshes of his snare and, perhaps, seizes the pin of the loom to beat them from his presence. How narrowly he has escaped! If he had but taken the warning! Oh, if he had but listened to the throbbings of his heart when the Spirit knocked. But a woman’s tears and a woman’s hysterical pleadings at last conquered Samson’s own weak heart. God’s hour of longsuffering had reached its margin, not through Samson’s triumph, but through Samson’s failure. The man who might have been a lighthouse on the shores of time must become a beacon on the sunken rock and the dangerous reef, warning others to avoid the place where he was lost. In the end, the strong man bowed, the surrender was made and the secret was told. Doubtless, he extracted from her the most sacred pledge, and she vowed she would never tell it. Doubtless she swore all that he wanted—she would keep his secret. But she had him lulled to sleep and the locks were shaven. The bribe had been taken and the enemy was upon him. Samson rose, as before, and shook himself as at other times, and thought he was as strong as ever. He knew not that the Lord had departed from him. The awful progression was completed. Lust had been conceived and brought forth sin. And sin, when it was finished, brought death (James 1:15). The Retribution Samson’s retribution was as terrible as his sin.

1. He lost his strength; and spiritual paralysis always follows surrender to temptation and compromise with evil.
2. Next, he lost his liberty. He was bound and helpless in the hands of his foes. When once we yield to the enemy, we have no power to keep from yielding again. Our defense is departed from us, and we are given over “to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done” (Romans 1:28). Eternal sin is the most terrible part of eternal punishment.
3. Samson lost his sight. When we yield to sin and to Satan, our spiritual eyes are blinded, and we cease to know the difference between right and wrong. Our once clear conceptions of God’s will are blurred and blotted out, and we wander in the darkness not knowing what we stumble over.
4. He became a sport and spectacle for his enemies. They used him to grace their entertainments, to be a public mockery at their revels, to honor false gods and put to shame the very name of the God he loved. And the most terrible part of Samson’s punishment was to hear the shouts of his enemies as they boasted of the triumphs of Dagon over Jehovah and the defeat of Samson and Samson’s God. All the while, though, Samson knew it was his sin and folly that caused this shame to the name of Jehovah—the name he, above all men, was sent to uphold. His Restoration In the end, Samson was repentant. In his humiliation, bondage and sorrow, he awoke at last to the meaning of his life, and he asked God for one more chance to be true. To prove his sincerity, and the deep reality of the death of self, he was willing to sacrifice his life in his last exploit. He asked of God that he might die in the service of his country and in the destruction of his enemies. He was like the Roman nobleman who plunged full armored into the chasm at the city gate, which none but he could fill. He was like the soldier, who, having betrayed his colors, asked only that he might once more lead the forlorn hope on the battlefield, and die with his colors in his bloody hand—his life laid down in the midst of his enemies. Our service is never worth anything until our life goes along with it and everything is laid down, even life itself if God requires it. Samson had sought only his own pleasure his whole life. But in the end he died to self and, in doing so, accomplished the noblest achievement of his life. One day in the height of a great national carnival, while hundreds of thousands of Philistia’s nobles are crowding the galleries of the vast amphitheater, God takes him at his word. All are waiting for Samson to come forth and make sport for them in his blindness. But Samson’s strength is given back to him for one last achievement. Gripping the mighty pillars, which support the immense building, with one stupendous effort he tears them from their foundations and with a crash of thunder and 10,000 cries of terror, the building is in ruins and the proud boast of the Philistines is turned into a death shriek of despair. Samson is victor in his death and accomplished more by dying than he had done in all his 20 years of living. Let us learn from this story to die to self and sin. If we can do so, then we will be like those individuals of the Old Testament “whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies” (Hebrews 11:34). Let us see in Samson’s death the type of a greater than Samson, whose death accomplished also the destruction of His enemies and ours, and taught us both how to live and how to die. He died for us that we might live, but He also died for us that we might die. In the power of His cross, with its holy sign translated into every fiber of our being and every service of our life, let us go forth to live for Him who died, in “the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10).