The Strongest and Weakest Man in the Old Testament

[Pages:4]"Rogers on O.T. Greats"

THE STRONGEST AND WEAKEST MAN IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

(Judges 13--16) Paul Rogers

Ours is a sports-crazed world, with the average major league baseball player having an annual salary exceeding $300,000.00. At least fiftyfive players draw more than $1,000,000.00 a year. A boxer in one prizefight may make more than a schoolteacher does in a lifetime!

Imagine the excitement Samson would generate in the news media of our time! His strength exceeded that of any other mortal ever to have lived on this planet. With his own hands he slew a lion, and with the jawbone of a donkey, he slew one thousand Philistine soldiers.

Samson was the strongest of the strong when facing the enemy, but was the weakest of the weak when handling decisions and

facing hard choices.

Samson was the strongest of the strong when facing the enemy, but was the weakest of the weak when handling decisions and facing hard choices. He appears in the Scriptures as an enigma, a mystery, and a puzzle.

HIS EARLY LIFE Samson lived eleven centuries before Christ in the village of Zorah. He was of the tribe of Dan and the son of Manoah. An angel appeared to his mother, saying, "Behold now, you are barren

and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and give birth to a son. . . . and no razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines" (Judges 13:3-5).

Samson was a Nazarite, a man who was never to drink strong drink, eat any unclean thing, or cut his hair "from the womb to the day of his death." The law regarding such was stated in Numbers 6:

He shall drink no vinegar, whether made from wine or strong drink, neither shall he drink any grape juice, nor eat fresh or dried grapes. All the days of his separation he shall not eat anything that is produced by the grape vine, from the seeds even to the skin.

All the days of his vow of separation no razor shall pass over his head. He shall be holy until the days are fulfilled for which he separated himself to the Lord; he shall let the locks of hair on his head grow long. All the days of his separation to the Lord he shall not go near to a dead person. He shall not make himself unclean for his father or for his mother, for his brother or for his sister, when they die, because his separation to God is on his head. All the days of his separation he is holy to the Lord (Numbers 6:3-8).

Thus was Samson born, a gift of God to his generation. "Then the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson; and the child grew up and the Lord blessed him" (Judges 13:24). However, the story of his life is to a large degree the unraveling of his vow to God.

Samson, the strongest and the weakest of men, is introduced in three great adventures, or should we say misadventures?

1

THE WOMAN IN TIMNAH

Then Samson went down to Timnah and saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines. So he came back and told his father and mother, "I saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines; now therefore, get her for me as a wife . . ." (Judges 14:1-3).

For forty long years Israel had been under Philistine oppression and Samson was raised up as the deliverer. He traveled to a Philistine city and, against the wishes of his parents, fell in love with a Philistine woman. Intending to marry her, he attended a feast hosted by about thirty Philistines. While there he proposed a riddle, wagering thirty changes of clothing. After seven days the men, unable to solve it, threaten his fiancee with death if she refused to obtain the answer. After much weeping and pleading, the woman obtained from Samson the solution, which she then passed on to the Philistines. When confronted with the correct answer, Samson replied, "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle" (Judges 14:18). Angrily, he returned home without consummating the marriage. In turn, his wife was given to a companion of Samson.

But Samson was not through. Returning at wheat harvest to find his wife wed to another, he angrily executed vengeance. Catching three hundred foxes, tying torches to their tails, he sent them through the fields of ripened grain, as well as the vineyards and orchards, burning as they went. The Philistines responded by burning alive his wife and father-in-law.

Now it was all-out war, climaxed by the slaying of one thousand Philistines with but the jawbone of a donkey. The episode closes with these words: "So he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines" (Judges 15:20).

THE HARLOT IN GAZA

Now Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there, and went in to her. When it was told to the Gazites, saying, "Samson has come here," they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city. And they kept silent all night, saying, "Let us wait until the morning light, then we will kill him." Now Samson lay until midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold

2

of the doors of the city gate and the two posts and pulled them up along with the bars; then he put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of the mountain which is opposite Hebron (Judges 16:1-3).

The Philistines, learning of his presence in Gaza, waited in the night for an opportunity to slay him. But Samson arose at midnight and carried away the gates and the post of the city on his shoulders. They were taken to a hilltop in Hebron, forty miles away. This was not only a feat of incredible stamina, but was an attack upon the dignity of the city, for its gates symbolized its strength.

SAMSON AND DELILAH

After this it came about that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. And the lords of the Philistines came up to her, and said to her, "Entice him, and see where his great strength lies and how we may overpower him that we may bind him to afflict him. Then we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver" (Judges 16:4, 5).

It is assumed that Delilah was a Philistine, as she plotted with them to learn the secret of Samson's strength. She was offered a huge bribe, 1,100 pieces of silver, for such a discovery.

Delilah applied all of her feminine charm to the task at hand, yet was unsuccessful. Samson toyed with her, telling her the secret lay in binding him with seven green twigs . . . or by tying him up with seven ropes never before used . . . or by fastening his seven locks of hair with a pin.

Then she said to him, "How can you say, `I love you,' when your heart is not with me? You have deceived me these three times and have not told me where your great strength is." And it came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death. So he told her all that was in his heart and said to her, "A razor has never come on my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me and I shall become weak and be like any other man" (Judges 16:15-17).

Devious, devilish, daring, Delilah lulled Samson to sleep on her lap and called for one to cut his hair. She awakened him, and "she said, `The Philistines are upon you, Samson! And he awoke

from his sleep and said, `I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.' But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him" (Judges 16:20). Samson was easily captured. His eyes were blinded, and he was brought to Gaza, where "he was a grinder in the prison." It was a sight too sad to behold.

However, the hair on Samson's head began to grow again, and his strength secretly returned. At a giant celebration in Gaza honoring the god Dagon and the capture of Samson, he was set forth as a public spectacle. Taunted and ridiculed, Samson managed to reach the pillars upon which the temple stood.

Now the house was full of men and women, and all the lords of the Philistines were there. And about 3,000 men and women were on the roof looking on while Samson was amusing them.

Then Samson called to the Lord and said, "O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me just this time, O God, that I may at once be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes." And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and braced himself against them, the one with his right hand and the other with his left. And Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" And he bent with all his might so that the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed in his life (Judges 16:27-30).

Where on any page would one find a story to compare with this one? The elements of strength and weakness, vice and virtue, tragedy and triumph are perfectly mixed. The moral of the story is easily discerned, and each reader must decide in favor of strength or weakness.

We choose weakness when we choose to reject the wise counsel of those who care.

Hear, O sons, the instruction of a father, and give attention that you may gain understanding, for I give you sound teaching; do not abandon my instruction (Proverbs 4:1, 2).

Hear, my son, and accept my sayings, and the years of your life will be many (Proverbs 4:10).

My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight; keep them in the midst of your heart (Proverbs 4:20, 21).

Samson refused the counsel of his parents, insisting that they "get her for me as a wife." He discovered the girl, and she discovered that she

had been discovered! Nothing else mattered at the moment.

How foolish we are to reject entirely the wisdom and counsel of those who wish us well-- parents, elders, ministers, youth workers. To do so is usually to run against the grain of life and get a splinter in our soul!

We choose weakness when we choose to settle down in a den of iniquity.

Three times did Samson go down to Philistia for companionship and love in spite of their being the avowed enemies of Jehovah. Any man is in trouble who is in the wrong crowd. Both Old and New Testaments abound with warnings against such.

My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent (Proverbs 1:10).

My son, do not walk in the way with them. Keep your feet from their path (Proverbs 1:15).

Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not proceed in the way of evil men (Proverbs 4:14).

Do not be deceived: "Bad company corrupts good morals" (1 Corinthians 15:33).

The sad fate which befell Samson is being repeated in communities without number even yet. The graveyards are full of those young people who chose sinful associations. The divorce courts are crowded with those who went down to the Philistine country to find a wife!

We choose strength when, having done wrong, we choose to repent.

While mixed in the mud, grime, and filth of a Philistine prison, Samson was "born again," giving his heart and soul back to God. He was sightless indeed, but not mindless or heartless. The goodness of God and the wretchedness of sin led him to repentance and restoration.

How many there are in our world who, unlike Samson, never repent and return to the God of their salvation.

. . . It is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame. For ground that drinks the rain which often falls upon it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God (Hebrews 6:6, 7).

A man who hardens his neck after much reproof will suddenly be broken beyond remedy (Proverbs 29:1).

3

Our Lord warned in the most solemn of sentences that, "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:3). Where there is no repentance, there is certain ruin, rot, and regret!

We choose strength when we choose fervent, faith-filled prayer.

And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much (James 5:15, 16).

Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart (Luke 18:1).

As Samson trod round and round the mill in Gaza, he was apparently devoted to prayer. At the end of his life, he prayed, "O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me just this time." Jehovah heard that prayer and answered abundantly.

Prayer changes things . . . and persons. It furnishes renewed strength and fills with renewed hope.

O how praying rests the weary! Prayer will change the night to day; So when life seems dark and dreary, Don't forget to pray.

We choose strength when we give ourselves afresh to the word and will of God.

After being blinded, Judge Samson saw more clearly than ever before the purpose of his life, to be the deliverer of Israel from Philistine oppression. In a single night he became just that, slaying the leadership of the nation.

Now the house was full of men and women, and all the lords of the Philistines were there. And about 3,000 men and women were on the roof looking on while Samson was amusing them.

. . . And Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" And he bent with all his might so that the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed in his life (Judges 16:27, 30).

It is impossible to atone by personal acts of heroism or self-sacrifice for sins committed in the past. The grace of God and the blood of Christ alone are sufficient for cleansing. Yet ev-

ery forgiven sinner ought to spend the rest of his days seeking to redeem the wasted years of sinful neglect.

Paul never forgot that it was he who "persecuted the church of God beyond measure, and tried to destroy it" (Galatians 1:13). His memory of sin seemed to be a reminder that he ought to spend and be spent in Christian service.

John Newton was born in London on July 24, 1725. When he was 7, his mother died of tuberculosis. At age 11 he was put to sea as an apprentice sailor on his father's ship. At 20 he set sail for the East Indies, only to be capsized by a terrible storm. Afterward he was transferred to a slave ship, where he became increasingly vile, vicious, and lustful. But, on a return voyage to England from Brazil, the ship Greyhound was caught in a fearful tempest, during which John prayed for mercy. The ship survived, reaching Liverpool with a quite different young man on board. For the next four years, he continued to captain slave ships, though conducting Sunday services and seeking to act mercifully toward his captives. By age 30 his troubled conscience led him away from the slave trade to become the minister of a village church at Olney. He often wore his old sea coat, sharing the account of his wayfaring, seafaring life as a testimony to the change God could accomplish in a man's life. In time he served in London, devoting himself to the least and the lowest, the slave and the sinner. He died on December 21, 1807, his last words being, "I am a great sinner . . . and Christ is a great Savior." He was buried beneath the church of St. Mary Woolnoth, and a tablet was placed on the church wall, with an inscription he had written himself: "John Newton, clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy."

Who does not know the immortal words penned at Olney by Newton:

Amazing grace--how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found-- Was blind, but now I see.

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved; How precious did that grace appear The hour I first believed!

4

?Copyright, 1988, 2005 by Truth for Today

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download