The man who could resist anything but temptation (10)

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1 The man who could resist anything but temptation (10) Three men were captured in the jungle by cannibals. They got tied up and carried back to the cannibal village. When they get there two of the men are untied and put in the cooking pot. The cannibals untie the third man and let him go. The other two men said to the chief, We re awfully sorry old boy, but why exactly are you letting the other guy off the hook? The chief replies, Because the last time we put him in the pot he ate all the potatoes. You see loved ones, there will be times when we all will end up in a cooking pot. And the only way to get through that pain, suffering and trial is to have a constant hunger for God. The Israelites were in this cycle of sin, instead of driving out the Canaanites like God asked them too. They would allow the Canaanites to influence them and they ended up joining in, in their practices which led to idolatry. When they got to the point where they were being oppressed, they cried out to God for a saviour and so God raised judges to deliver them once again. But not long after that deliverer died, they got involved with the Canaanites and Philistines again and the sin cycle started all over again. I read a story about a Christian who had reached old age but with some major regrets. He said, he wanted God to use him, but his lifestyle got in the way. There was very little he d accomplished of eternal value. And the reason he gave was simple, When he first trusted Christ he allowed the enemy to remain. You see loved ones, Christians aren t sinless, but they genuinely try to sin less and resist evil. That Christian and many Christians today find themselves still in bondage to the very things they should have gotten rid of at the beginning of their Christian journey. And today we re going to look at a man who had the same problem, a man named Samson. And what we are going to see is that Samson is a man who became very much enslaved by his own cravings. Yes like we saw the last time, he strangled a lion but as we shall see, he couldn t strangle his lust. Yes we saw last time, he burst his ropes but as we shall see he was bound by his appetite. He burned the enemy s crops yet he was enflamed with desire for their women. Yes he was strong, but he wasn t really in control. And yes, he could conquer his enemies but sadly, he couldn t conquer himself. Now one of the things I love about the Bible is its honesty and openness when it comes to Bible heroes. The Bible tells us about people s high points as well as their failings. And in Judges 16, the very first verse is one of those verses concerning Samson. Judges 16:1 One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her. Now notice the author of Judges tells it as it is, he doesn t try to cover up Samson s scandalous behaviour. Now think about what Samson is doing. He is supposed to be God s deliverer, He s supposed to be the saviour of Israel. I mean, didn t Samson feel any sense of shame in seeing a prostitute and associating with the enemy? It was Mark Twain who said, man is the only animal who blushes, and who needs to. Samson is a total embarrassment to Israel. You know loved ones, we need to understand, when religious leaders fall to temptation, it makes all believers look bad. And sadly in the world today, people will judge a whole religion based upon one person s actions, especially if there is sin involved. But there are times, we have to remind ourselves, when such individual sins, we blame them, not their religion. And that s because all believers are not alike. But as we are going to see, Samson sowing his seeds here and now in Gaza is going to have consequences. And his sin is going to be reaped later in his very own destruction with Delilah, in other words, sin has consequences. Judges 16:2+3 The people of Gaza were told, Samson is here! So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They made no move during the night, saying, At dawn we ll kill him. But Samson lay there only until the middle of the night. Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron. The people of Gaza know that Samson is there, so it s not as though he was trying to keep a low profile. The Philistines thought to themselves, I know, we ll secure the city gates and we ll lock him in. But what does Samson do? Samson lifts the gates with his enormous might and carries them to Hebron, 40 miles away.

What? Now just pause for a moment and think about this. This is not the 6 foot 3, Lithuanian Zydrunas Savickas, who is the world s strongest man. This is a Samson and it s estimated that these gates may have weighed over a thousand pounds and he carried them 40 miles. We may wonder how Samson performed his amazing feats but we also have to remember that there are no limits with God s power. Yes Samson was an embarrassment and yes he was out of control and yes he was sinful but God still used him to achieve His goal. And what was His goal? To deliver God s people once again from their enemies. And remember God doesn t create evil men but He does use evil men to accomplish His plans. You see in Bible times the gates of cities were considered the symbol of their strength. And so in effect by removing the city gate, Samson totally humiliated the city of Gaza. And now Samson found himself on the Philistine s Most Wanted list. Something had to be done about him, but the Philistines were too afraid to take action. They had to learn the source of Samson s strength which tells us that Samson couldn t have looked like a remarkably strong person. And so Samson moves from one woman to another, but this is no ordinary woman, this is Delilah. Judges 16:4+5 Sometime later, he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so we may tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver. Samson fell in love with this Philistine woman and because of his openly soft spot for women, the enemy soon discovered his weakness. Delilah becomes their secret agent and her name has become synonymous with seduction, and she s often blamed for Samson s fall. But we have to remember the context of it all, she was merely doing her job as a loyal Philistine informant. She turned on the charm, and Samson was very, very vulnerable. Our Scripture reading was Judges 16:6-16 and its here we find Delilah pleading with Samson to reveal the secret of his strength. Now let me ask you, what s wrong here? Why is she asking him the secret to his strength? I would have thought that it would have been totally obvious or at least it should have been. It should ve been obvious that God was the source of Samson s strength. The Philistines thought that Samson was using some kind of magic, or some kind some illusion. But isn t is sad that Samson s lifestyle didn t lead them to consider that he was a religious man? You see we may think of religion as private and personal, but nowhere in Scripture does it say that. There should be some evidence, some observable indication that we re following God. Jesus says in Matthew 5:13 You are the salt of the earth. Salt is no use to anyone if it stays in the shaker, we re supposed to be out there influencing people s lives with the Gospel. Jesus also says in Matthew 5:14 You are the light of the world. We re supposed to be the light of the world, not the light of our meeting place. When we choose to serve God, we re not enrolled in the Secret Service. People are supposed to be able to see the influencing work of God in our lives, in our speech, in our dress and especially in our attitude. So we can understand and possibly even forgive the Philistines for thinking that God wasn t a part of Samson s life. And no wonder they are asking, how on earth did this guy get so strong? And Samson who is so wrapped up in love, thinks Delilah is just teasing him, and so he playfully goes along, misleading her as though this was a big joke of some sort. But as someone once said, Samson was playing a game with Delilah which turned out to be Russian roulette, and he bought the bullet. Now you would think that Samson would have learned his lesson from his previous experience with yet another woman. Remember back in Judges 14, his promised wife to be, persuaded him to reveal his riddle. He hasn t learned anything, because Delilah entices him to disclose the sacred mystery of his strength. But not only has Samson got a bad memory, so have the Philistines. Look at Judges 16:22, If anyone ties me securely with new ropes that have never been used, I ll become as weak as any other man. You see the Philistines have also got a bad memory because they forgot what happened a few days ago back in Judges 15, where they actually did tie him up with new ropes but he broke loose. 2

Now it s pretty obvious that Samson was infatuated with Delilah and wasn t thinking straight. As someone else once said, Rather than break his relationship with Delilah, he allowed it to break him. And so Delilah becomes like the woman described in Proverbs 27:15 An endless dripping on a rainy day and a nagging wife are alike. Frustrated Delilah sobs and questions his love, and so he tells her of his vow. Judges 16:16+17 With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it. No razor has ever been used on my head, he said, because I have been a Nazirite dedicated to God from my mother s womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man. I don t think Samson knew what love was and he simply couldn t resist Delilah s allure and persuasion, so he gives his enemy the answer they have been looking for in Judges 16:18. Judges 16:19 tells us, After putting him to sleep on her lap, she called for someone to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him. Now it s commonly believed by some that it was Delilah who cut Samson s hair and even in quiz shows people who answer that question always give Delilah as the answer. But that s not what the text says, the text clearly tells us that she called someone else to do it. And then we come to one of the saddest verses we find within the Scriptures. Judges 16:20 Then she called, Samson, the Philistines are upon you! He awoke from his sleep and thought, I ll go out as before and shake myself free. But he did not know that the LORD had left him. What a sad scene this is, isn t it? You see Samson lost his hair, but he lost something else even more important, he lost the presence of the Lord. Now let me ask you, if that were to happen to us, would we sense any change? Like we saw the last time, Samson had broken other aspects of his Nazarite vow, yet he didn t get punished for it. Yes it s possible that he didn t think anything would happen, after all, he wasn t really living the life of a Nazarite who had taken a vow. And Samson s hair by itself didn t make him strong, but, it was the most observable sign of his vow, which set him apart as a Nazarite. In other words, by cutting his hair, he is actually cutting his tie to God. Samson had grown insensitive, he was bound by his appetite, and he was blinded by his desires and then literally blinded and bound. You see loved ones, if we continue to sin as Christians and totally grieve the Holy Spirit in the process, He will just leave us, because He won t stay where He is not listened to anymore. That s why when David is praising God for His greatness, and realises that he has a lot to be forgiven for, he says to God in Psalm 51:11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your holy Spirit from me. The one thing which showed the world that Samson belonged to God was his hair and he ended up losing that and the Lord s presence too. Judges 16:21+22 Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding grain in the prison. But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved. The Philistines who were now full of themselves, capture Samson, cruelly gouge out his eyes, and throw him into a dark cell. They put him to work grinding corn, this was tedious and degrading labour, the kind of work that only slaves would perform. It was only back in Judges 15 we found Samson burning their grain, but here we find him grinding the enemy s grain. And loved ones, isn t it true, that sometimes it takes a great fall to get our attention? Many commentators believe that Samson s time in prison became a place and time of his repentance. And I believe that too because the text very quietly says, the hair on his head began to grow again. It s almost as if the author of Judges is softly reminding us that God is not finished with Samson yet. And so as his hair begins to grow, possibly his faith in God begun to grow too. After all we find Samson listed in the Hebrews hall of faith in Hebrews 11:32 as a man who demonstrated what faith is. And if this teaches us anything loved ones, it should teach us that the power of faith isn t in the amount of faith we may have, but the Object of our faith, that is God. Judges 16:23-27 tells us that the Philistines held a huge celebration at the Temple of Dagon, who was their god of grain. 3

And they decide to use the occasion to party over captured Samson, who has become a symbol of Israel s shameful defeat, a trophy of their conquest. The five lords of the Philistines, along with over 3,000 men and women are present. It wouldn t have been surprising for Delilah to be seated at a place of honour. The one person the Philistines feared the most, the man that well-armed soldiers were scared to confront, is now led into the pagan temple by a servant and he is brought to the temple to amuse his captors. But while all the celebrations are going on, Samson does something he should have been doing all his life, he prayed. Judges 16:28-30 Sovereign LORD, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes. Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other, Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines! Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived. Samson prays to God, and God grants him one final burst of strength. He asks for justification and death because he now realises he would rather sacrifice his own life and die with the Philistines than be bound by them. Now some people believe his final prayer is typical of Samson, self-serving, it s all out him. But I believe he truly repented and we need to remember that out of all of Israel, he s the only one willing to fight the enemy on Israel s behalf. Now just as a side note of interest, archaeologists have uncovered Philistine temples around the period of the Judges. Their construction design shows them having two large wooden columns on stone bases in the centre of the building, supporting the roof. And so the drunken laughter turns to screams as Samson literally brings the house down. Many are killed instantly, others are trampled to death by the panicked mob and among the dead is the powerless idol Dagon. The Philistines who used this occasion to mock Israel s God along with His champion, came full circle and God once again is victorious. Now I don t know about you but there have been many times in my Christian life when things seemed very bleak but God turned the tables. Psalm 50:15 Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honour me. There are Christians here who lost their jobs and they called upon the Lord to help them in their day of trouble and God did deliver them and now they are working again. There are Christians here who have faced the prospect of prison and they called upon the Lord in their day of trouble and God did deliver them and now they are free. There are Christians here who have gone through major health problems and they called upon the Lord in their day of trouble and God did deliver them with better health. There are Christians here who will tell you, there s no point in throwing yourself a pity party, when the day of trouble comes, you have to call upon the Lord to help you. And so Samson is dead and Judges 16:31 tells us that, His brothers and his father s whole family went down to get him. They brought him back and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had led Israel twenty years. It seems as though, even though Samson is dead, the Philistines are still afraid of him. So fearful of him in fact, that they quietly turn his corpse over to his family for burial, rather than defile it. Loved ones Samson could resist anything but temptation. Time and time again we re warned in Scripture to flee temptation, yes we all have our own weaknesses. And as one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous once said, Everyone either has a problem, is a problem, or lives with a problem. Every one of us may be vulnerable to a certain activity or substance or maybe our compulsion is more subtle. Some Christians may be drawn to ambition, vanity, revenge, comfort, or greed. Whatever it may be, these substitutes for God can take over and ruin our lives if we let them. We need to recognize that when we choose sin, we are choosing to rebel, we are choosing to live contrary to the will of God. And just like Samson we can very quickly find ourselves where either sin controls our lives, or God controls our lives. Now we know that Samson didn t complete the job delivering Israel from Philistine oppression because he lasted only twenty years. That delivery accomplishment didn t happen until the prophet Samuel and King David came along. 4

And we can only speculate on what Samson might achieved had he more carefully followed his calling. So just before we finish let me ask you, what can you achieve? Will our lives amount to anything? Will we make a difference in the lives of others? You see, it makes no difference if you ve been a Christian for one week or fifty years, it s never too late for us to allow God to use us, despite our weaknesses. And when we fully surrender to the Lord, we can look back on our days with fond memories and very few regrets. Let me leave you with Paul s words from Colossians 3:23+24 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. 5