Ever since I was a young child, my mother would read me Bible stories from a large red illustrated Bible called “The Picture Bible.” One of my favorite stories depicted in it was the story of Samson. I thought it was awesome that Samson had supernatural strength because he never cut his hair, and I wished that I could have a similar covenant with God.
Now as I have mentioned many times before, ultimately the entire Bible is about Jesus, and this story has some amazing truths and an amazing lesson that will bless you greatly, and so we conclude our series on the glory of God with one of my favorite stories, and see an incredible picture of Jesus.
In Judges chapter 13, we read that Samson’s life was surrounded by miraculous wonders even before he was born. His parents were visited by a pre-incarnate Jesus who promised them a child and gave specific instructions regarding Samson.
We also read that the name of Samson’s father is Menoah, which in Hebrew means “rest”. There is a pearl of wisdom in this, and that is the greatness and glory of God will always come from rest. As we learned last week, folly will always negatively affect the divine peace and rest of God in our lives, and God will always lead us away from folly and into His rest and peace.
Let’s examine Judges 13:13-14 more closely, these are the instructions that Jesus gave to the parents regarding the time even before his birth:
“And the angel of the LORD said to Manoah, Of all that I said to the woman let her beware.
She may not eat of any thing that comes of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing: all that I commanded her let her observe.”
Now please understand me that these verses are not telling us to observe any kind of “Bible-diet” that are popular in today’s culture, but these are types and shadows that we can learn from and apply today. Remember that God’s wisdom is always manifold; it is always multi-layered and that even the things that seem as though they are out-of-place or not-important always have a meaning.
Here the woman is being instructed to avoid wine, and alcohol and also to not eat any unclean thing according to the law. In the Bible, wine is a type that speaks of worldly pleasures. Now before some people start rolling their eyes and saying that God is a no-fun stick-in-the-mud, I want to explain this in detail… God is not against fun! God is the creator of fun, God is a God of pleasure. What God is against is “worldly pleasure” which is the kind of pleasure that corrupts and kills.
Jesus turned water into wine in John chapter 2, and we read there that it was the best wine. This tells us that when Jesus is the center focus of our life and He is leading and guiding us, that’s when we will have the best pleasure and the true enjoyment out of life. The world thinks that its pleasure is good, but the pleasure that a life with Jesus as the center gives far surpasses the temporary and lesser enjoyment that sin offers. The pleasure of the world seems good at first, but in the end it leads to destruction and death.
We see from the verses we read in Judges 13:13-14, that Jesus tells the mother that she must beware of and abstain from wine and any unclean food. For us today, it is telling us to beware of and abstain from worldly pleasure and sinful desires; to not receive any unclean thing into our lives.
This is a truth that many people still need to learn, and indeed Samson needed to learn it as well. As we read through the life of Samson, we see that his main problem is one that is fairly common among people even today, and that is lust.
Lust is usually born out of rejection and feelings of worthlessness. It is simple logic that states if you do not value yourself, you will not treat yourself with discretion. But Samson was not worthless, he was actually very special, God had called him to be holy, set-apart for a great purpose. How many of you know that God has called each of you to be holy and set-apart for a great purpose in the same way as Samson? That is found in 1st Peter 2:9-12:
“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light;
Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.”
There are several similarities between the call of Samson and his mother and this call to all believers. Notice, my friends, the fact that we have obtained mercy from God does not discount the fact that we are to abstain from evil things which war against the soul. The reason we are to abstain is not to earn salvation, but because it will interfere with our divine glory which God gives to us here on this earth. We covered that in detail in the previous parts of this series, so we will not go over it much today, but this is what Samson failed to understand. Instead of seeing himself as special and set-apart, he chose to focus on the things his heart and his lust longed for but couldn’t have, and sure enough, it ended up stealing his God-given glory.
Yet even though Samson had uncontrolled passions and lusts, his life still has a some marvelous pictures of Jesus for us to see… even through all of Samson’s sins and weakness. For example, I do not believe that Samson was a very physically strong man in and of himself. I do not believe that Samson had great muscles. As you read through the story of Samson in the Bible, you see that he only performs great feats of strength when the Spirit of the LORD comes upon him.
All throughout Samson’s life Satan was out to destroy him. In Judges chapter 14 a young lion attacks Samson and Samson tears it to pieces with his bare hands as the Spirit of the LORD came upon him. Entire armies came against Samson and he defeated them all. Eventually Satan puts two and two together, and realizes that every time he uses force and might to try and defeat Samson, Satan is defeated. Every time he tries to match Samson by strength, he is beaten back because the Spirit of the LORD comes upon him. But there is another avenue of attack that he notices from observing Samson’s behavior is an area where he is weak… his passions, his lust.
You all know the story, Satan finds a woman named Delilah; and the generals of the Philistine army approached Delilah and said that each of them – not altogether – but each of them individually would give her eleven-hundred pieces of silver if she would find out and tell them the secret of Samson’s great strength so that they could capture him. Well, she agrees, and this is what the Bible says in Judges 16:16, that she pressed him daily with her words until she vexed his soul to death.
It’s interesting to point out here that Delilah was not Samson’s wife. Delilah was a woman that Samson was sleeping with outside of marriage. Samson did have a wife, but she was taken away from him, and so because he was a man of uncontrolled passions and lusts, he went and filled that void in his life with more women. And this began his downfall. Delilah’s name in Hebrew means “to be made low, to be made weak, to be feeble and to exhaust”. Samson was never even supposed to be with her at all; she was only there to steal his rest.
So she pressed him daily with her words, and at first he did not tell her the true secret of his strength. First he told her in Judges 16:7 that if he is bound with seven fresh bowstrings, that he will be made weak. So when Samson was asleep they tied him with the bowstrings And when he woke up, he snapped the bowstring easily. Then Delilah complained that he lied to her and Samson then told her in Judges 16:11 that if he were tied with new ropes he would be made weak and after he fell asleep he was tied with new ropes, but when he awoke, he broke the ropes easily and Delilah again complained that she was lied to.
The third time, in Judges 16:13, Samson told Delilah that if his hair would be oven into a fabric and held with a pin, he would be made weak – you see he is getting more worn out and starting to get close to revealing his secret. So while he as asleep she did all that to his hair, and when he awoke he tore the pin out easily and loosed his hair.
At this point a wise person would have realized that each time Samson told Delilah something, he woke up and found himself bound. But how many understand, that when we start following our heart, our passions and our human desires, we start to get very stupid. (Proverbs 28:26). Samson should have put two and two together, but wisdom is lost when our heart takes control. So he told Delilah the real secret, that he has never cut the seven braids of hair on his head.
Now there is no insignificant detail in the Bible. It is specifically mentioned that Samson has seven braids. In the Bible seven is a divine number of perfection and completeness because creation was complete and perfect on the seventh day. But that can not be it because Samson was not perfect. However also God rested on the seventh day. Samson was in a covenant of rest, which Delilah was now about to remove.
While Samson was sleeping the fourth time, Delilah called in the Philistines, and they gave him the most expensive haircut in existence. It cost the Philistines several thousand pieces of silver, but it cost Samson something even greater… his Covenant with God. And when he awoke this time, he expected to be as strong as before, but the LORD had now left Him because his covenant had been broken.
The first thing the Philistines did when the captured Samson has to gouge out is eyes. A gruesome image, but it teaches an important lesson, that when the divine peace and rest of God is removed, you will lose your spiritual sight and vision… you will lose your ability to see things clearly; you will be blind. When Samson lost his rest, he lost everything that God had given him. He lost not only his vision, he lost his strength and even his freedom. He became a slave to the enemy. And the Bible says in Judges 16:21 that they bound Samson in bronze chains. And as we learned previously, bronze is always a picture of judgment and reproach.
At the start of this study I said that Samson’s story contained pictures of Jesus, and the first one is the divine rest and glory itself that we just saw Samson give away. As we learned in our previous two studies on the glory of God these past weeks, the very same divine glory that Jesus Himself has, He has also given to us in John 17:22.
The other picture of Jesus in Samson’s story is a picture of His redemption. You may have failed, you might have forfeited the glory of God for earthly pleasure just like Samson, but there is still hope, and that hope is found in Jesus Christ. Just like Samson you have have entered into an immoral affair with sin and lust, but praise be to Jesus, He can bring you back and restore your glory. The Bible says in Judges 16:22, that Samson’s hair began to grow back.
As he labored constantly in the prison in in total blindness and darkness, he began to think about how far he had fallen, and everything that God had called him to. And as He returned to God, God gave Samson justice.
As we close our Bible study, here is the personal application for us today… what is your own Delilah? What is the area that there is unrest in your life?
If you aren’t saved that area will be lack of peace with God, because if you have not received the atonement of Jesus Christ for your sins, the relationship will not be there. You will have a troubled conscience because of sin.
For believers, the very first area that the enemy will use to trouble you will be your own evil heart, and he will do it the very same way that he did with Samson… with passions, desires and lusts. Look at Judges 16:19 again:
“And she made him sleep on her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him.”
Do you see the last part of that verse which says his strength went from him…? That word “strength” is the Hebrew word koach which means divine power including wealth.
Now I want to show you how what we have sen with Samson ties in for us today. Turn now to Proverbs 5:3-14:
“For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:
But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
Lest you should ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that you can not know them.
Hear me now therefore, O you children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
Remove your way far from her, and come not near the door of her house:
Lest you give your honor to others, and your years to the cruel:
Lest strangers be filled with your wealth; and your labors be in the house of a stranger;
And you mourn at the last, when your flesh and your body are consumed,
And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to them that instructed me!
I was almost in all evil in the middle of the congregation and assembly.”
As I have mentioned before, “strange woman” in the Bible is the Hebrew word zur. It is not a term of gender (these principles apply equally to men and women) but it is a word that means “one who turns aside”. The principle is this: Anything or anyone that causes you to leave your first love (Jesus) and turn aside from Him and be satisfied or fulfilled by another – that is a strange woman in the Bible.
For some people, their strange woman is a car, or a television show, for some it is a habit or addiction, and for others it is actually a person.
Please understand that I am not speaking of works here! This is not about works-justification or blessing because of works. Not at all!
What we are seeing here is how these things, these “strange women” can take our focus off of Jesus and His finished work. They can cause us to leave the truth of who we are in Christ, if we allow them to, and that is when we can miss out… when our foundation becomes these other things instead of Christ Jesus.
We see in verse 3 that the lips of a strange woman drip as a honeycomb. Whatever it is, to us it will be a pleasant and enticing thing, just as it was to Samson. To be an effective trap, it has to be something that we desire. However in verses 4 and 5 we see that is end result is not sweet at all, but bitter as wormwood, which is a picture of curses. Here the Bible is forewarning us of the end result of following desires and distractions… the end is destruction. Imagine how Samson’s life would’ve been different if he had never gone to Delilah’s house. In verse 6 we see that her ways are constantly unstable so that we will never attain to life. In Samson’s case, Delilah kept him distracted enough that he didn’t even realize he was being bound. In-fact we know that he liked it, because the Bible records that he professed his love for her. The most effective trap is the one we willingly walk into.
Verses 7 and 8 give the instruction to stay far away from such distractions, don’t even go near because the pull from them is so strong that once intrigued, very few ever escape.
Verses 9 and 10 show the consequences of such failure to heed the advice of God… that we would end up giving away our honor (another word for glory in the Hebrew text), and our years would be given to a cruel person. And please notice that it is not God who is doing this, but that it is us who is giving away and forfeiting what He had given to us.
Now notice in verse 10, that strangers will be filled with our wealth, that word wealth is the Hebrew word koach again. The same word that we saw in Judges 16:19 when Samson lost his strength.
Verse 11, is the loss of health, again not God’s doing, but us giving it away. And finally verses 12 and 13 is the final cry and lament that results from all of this loss as the person realizes what they have done and how far they have fallen.
If you recall at the start of this study today, I made a statement about Samson being special, but not seeing himself as such. He was focused more on what he was advised to stay away from, instead of the fact that God set him apart for greater glory. Much like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, focused on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil… instead of the Tree of Life.
They were so focused on “trying to be like God” that they missed the fact that they already had everything they could ever need or want.
My friends, an even greater glory than that of Samson is set upon us. The very glory of Jesus Christ is laid upon us as a most magnificent crown (Psalms 8:5). I encourage you today, see the glory and not the distraction. Heed the advice of scripture and guard the precious gift of the glory of God in your life. You already have what you need! Don’t miss the glory of it by being distracted! Stay focused on Christ and what He has done for you, always.