A Contradicted Man, Samson I Am (Part 5)

10/19/201006/05/2012Leave a comment

A Contradicted Man, Samson I Am.

Part 5

“Now the house was full of men and women. All the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof there were about 3,000 men and women, who looked on while Samson entertained. Then Samson called to the Lord and said, “O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes.” And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other.” Judges 16:27-29 (ESV)

The first recorded words of Samson are, “I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah. Now go get her for me as my wife.” I don’t know old he was when he made this demand of his parents but in this day and age if my son, who is zoning in on 16, came up to my wife and I and made that demand…I would have to pick him up off the floor after his mother let him have it. You see my wife, Kathy, and I made a promise to God that we would break the chains that held us so that our children would come to know Christ. Now we may not have had the visit by an Angel of the Lord, like Manoah and his wife did, but we both were done with Gaza/Egypt.

Samson makes this journey to see this Philistine beauty that is “right in his eyes” and kills a lion. After a few days Samson and his parents make a return trip to visit this beauty when Samson catches a glimpse of the carcass of the lion he killed. He sees honeycombs and then scraps out the honey from the dead lion. So far up to this point, Samson has skimmed violating the Nazirite Vow that he had bestowed upon him from conception. He touches the dead and is not keeping himself separated, but the funny thing here is that God allows these things to occur so that He could seek an opportunity against the Philistines and their fish god, Dagon. Interesting!! I wonder if Samson understood his purpose.

Things kinda settle down after Samson sees a jawbone, kills a whole bunch of Philistines and realizes that his thirst can only be quenched by God who, by the way, opens up a hollow place for him to drink the water that renews his spirit. But then we turn the page to read, “Samson went to Gaza, and there saw a prostitute, and he went in to her.” And now an ambush is in place to capture him because it has been decided by the Philistines that Samson needs to be killed. But it doesn’t happen that way does it? Instead Samson lies in wait, pulls the city gates and their posts from the ground, drags them up a hill in front of Hebron…and then comes Delilah.

I believe that the Delilah we face in our lives can be renamed SIN. It looks like a lot of fun until it takes us farther than we want to go, keeps us longer than we want to stay and ultimately costs more than we can afford to pay. In Samson’s case it cost him his eyesight. In the light he saw things as a Nazirite but in the dark he saw things as Samson. I suspect that at the end of Samson’s life the grapes of the field clouded his thinking and that allowed his spiritual enemies to seize the moment. But to the credit of his story, God intervenes and Samson’s hair grows back and that God uses him one last time against the Philistines.

Samson had one moment of deep repentance and reflective spiritual understanding and God renewed him. I believe that the Lord allows us to wander to bring us to the same moment or moments in our lives even though we may have to bear the scar of His displeasure with our sin. I know I may have my scars that were done by my own disobedience, but praise be to Jesus Christ for winning a victory that cost Him more than we can afford. It is my prayer this morning that we all can be disciplined enough to keep that covenant with our eyes beyond what Job did concerning other women. I pray that he try our eyes away from the Gaza/Egypt in our lives and look upon the work of the Cross. And then may we see truth!! – Chris Hughes is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy and a frequent contributor to Freedom Fighter

Digging Deeper: Proverbs 19, Isaiah 56-58; 2 Thessalonians 2

Dig This Quote: “See the fatal effects of false security. Satan ruins men by flattering them into a good opinion of their own safety, and so bringing them to mind nothing, and fear nothing; and then he robs them of their strength and honour, and leads them captive at his will. When we sleep our spiritual enemies do not. Samson’s eyes were the inlets of his sin, (Jgd 1:1) and now his punishment began there. Now the Philistines blinded him, he had time to remember how his own lust had before blinded him. The best way to preserve the eyes is, to turn them away from beholding vanity. Take warning by his fall, carefully to watch against all fleshly lusts; for all our glory is gone, and our defense departed from us, when our separation to God, as spiritual Nazarites, is profaned.” Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary

Determined Praying: If there is anything under heaven that I am sure as I am of demonstrations of mathematics, it is the fact that God answers prayer. – Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Determined Digging: Level 1: John 1:12-13; Level 2: Proverbs 4:20-27

A Contradicted Man, Samson I Am (Part 4)

10/18/201006/05/2012Leave a comment

A Contradicted Man, Samson I Am.

Part 4

“After this 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, “Seduce him, and see where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to humble him. And we will each give you 1,100 pieces of silver.” So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and how you might be bound, that one could subdue you.” Judges 16:4-6 (ESV)

“Please tell me where your great strength lies, and how you might be bound, that one could subdue you.” Can I ask you brothers this question this morning…would you have given Delilah an answer? Better yet, how many you already have at one time in your life or another? I did but her name isn’t Delilah, her name is SIN and the Samson that I believe lies in all of us caved in after being pressed hard and I found myself grinding out an existence at the millstone of punishment. Just going around and around, being mocked and feeling useless. A prisoner to sin because like Samson I allowed myself to get too close and thought I was getting away with it or better yet could just live with it.

In the Book of Judges, we read in the chapters before 16 that Samson has flirted with disaster. He has played with sin like a toy that cannot hurt him and it is in those playtimes that he must have gotten arrogant with his God-given ability. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson and it was that Spirit that should have been given the glory. But after the “Jawbone Incident” Samson must have started to believe his own hype and off to Gaza he went. And I am going to say that now Samson wants to go full blown with his playtime without once counting the consequence. Flavius Josephus put it this way, “However, he at length transgressed the laws of his country, and altered his own way of living, and imitated the strange customs of foreigners, which thing was the beginning of his miseries;”…interesting. Matthew Henry says, “In this chapter we find him behaving in so wicked a manner, that many questions whether or not he were a godly man.” (He is exonerated in Hebrews 11:32)

Three times Delilah has been mocked by Samson in her attempts to reveal his “secret” weakness and she more than likely gently nagged him into exposing where his true strength lie…no brothers not the hair but in the Nazirite Vow, “A razor has never come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If my head is shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man.” He allows Delilah’s greed for money and the Philistines desire to conquer him to ruin his testimony to God and “The Spirit of the Lord left him”. The Philistines find Samson sleeping (more likely passed out from drinking wine) on the knees of Delilah, bind him with bronze shackles, drag him deeper into Gaza and attach him to a millstone in their prison. Oh and they gouged out his eyes.

I want to hold off right there this morning there is more to say about the irony of Samson’s eyes but can you get a sense of the Samson that may live in you. We call him the “old man” don’t we? And as I have read about this Judge of Israel I have found some of myself in him. I may have not had the extreme outward devotion for God from birth like Samson but my mother wanted me to be part of a church. I went to Gaza instead and years later realized my need for salvation. “Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

How about you this morning? Have you had your trip to Gaza and found the same things with the same results? Or are you in Gaza right now? Don’t allow your Delilah to lull you into a false sense of security and have the lords of the Philistines tie you to a millstone of existence. Seek Him and all His riches and live in the victory that has been won for you by what Christ did for you on a cross of wood. Don’t be a slave to the grind! – Chris Hughes is a frequent contributor to Freedom Fighter and is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy

Digging Deeper: Proverbs 18; Isaiah 53-55; 2 Thessalonians 1

Dig This Quote: There is a false sense of self-protection in harboring an offense. It keeps you from seeing your own character flaws, because the blame is deferred to another. John Bevere

Determined Praying: Because God is the living God, he can hear; because he is a loving God, he will hear; because he is a covenant God, he has bound himself to hear. – C. H. Spurgeon

Determined Digging: Level 1: John 1:12-13; Level 2: Proverbs 4:20-27

A Contradicted Man, Samson I Am (Part 3)

10/01/201006/05/2012Leave a comment

“A Contradicted Man, Samson I Am.”

Part 3

“And Samson said to them, “This time I shall be innocent in regard to the Philistines, when I do them harm.” So Samson went and caught 300 foxes and took torches. And he turned them tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails. And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to the stacked grain and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards.” Judges 15:3-5 (ESV)

“Temper, temper there Samson, don’t you remember you gave your wife back? Why not have her sister instead.” I don’t see when it is announced that Samson has become the Judge yet but I think it is safe to say that by this point in his life, he is pretty much on the road to become a Judge of Israel. And what he decides to do to the Philistines at this point in time is not only a massive act of arson according to our laws but he would upset P.E.T.A and make Michael Vick look tame. Then in retaliation for burning up the Philistines crops they in turn burn two of their own and go looking for Samson. Josephus has it recorded that the Philistines went further into Samson’s former wife’s family. This story is getting brutal.

This act of murder angers Samson and he goes at them “hip and thigh”. Gods plan against the Philistines is now in full throttle and Samson has created such a ruckus that his own people turn to him and say, “Holy Smoke Samson, most people would stopped at wheat fields but you make the Philistines, our rulers, really angry. You Go Now!!” But if we could take a moment here to reflect on Jesus, yes in the midst of all this chaos we can see Jesus. You see Samson is doing the will of the Father, just as Jesus had done. And the tribes of Judah, just as the Jews of Jesus’ time, want to bring punishment on one of their own to save themselves. And lets us forget Moses and what happened to Korah, “And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods.”

(Num 16:32)

So now when Samson allows his fellow tribesmen to bind him and surrender him over to the Philistines his fellow tribesmen get to see the mightiness of God. The Spirit of the Lord comes upon him, burns the ropes and melts the bonds right off of Samson. And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey and with it he kills 1,000 men. Wow!! The jawbone of a donkey, really? For any of us who doubt that God can use anything He wants to do His will you better think about this one. I don’t think that this jawbone was anything spectacular but it was of God and that is all that matters…right?

So anyway, Samson cries out, “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey have “I” struck down a thousand men.” I put the “I” in quotations because of something I read in Josephus’ account of this moment. He wrote, “Upon this slaughter Samson was too proud of what he had performed, and said that this did not come to pass by the assistance of God, but that his success was to be ascribed to his own courage”. Now of course there is more to this account but this stuck out to me. Because after this moment Samson gets very thirsty and then we read in Scripture that Samson called upon the Lord and said, “You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” Hmmm…

Now of course the Lord split open the open the hollow place and Samson drank and his spirit returned and this chapter ends with the announcement of Samson becoming Judge. But I wonder…with all the chaos up to this point how many times had Samson forgotten his favor with God? Better yet how many times have we forgotten our favor with God? How much grace does He give us and how thankful are we for the mercy of the living waters? I see the same battle of salvation in my own life through this story of the donkey’s jawbone. God has given me the tools to win the everyday battles and all He wants is obedience and praise. I believe that like me, Samson had his moments where he forgot just who was bringing the jawbone into his hand. Have you forgotten who gave you your tool to win the battle? I sure hope not. Stay tuned…Samson and Delilah is still yet to be covered. — Chris Hughes is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy and a frequent contributor to Freedom Fighter

Digging Deeper: Proverbs 1; Isaiah 11-13; Ephesians 4

Dig This Quote: “Let’s take another desire-why does a man long for a battle to fight? Because when we enter the story in Genesis, we step into a world war. The lines have already been drawn. Evil is waiting to make its next move. Somewhere back before Eden, in the mystery of eternity past, there was a coup, a rebellion, an assassination attempt. Lucifer, the prince of angels, the captain of the guard, rebelled against the Trinity. He tried to take the throne by force, assisted by a third of the angelic army, in whom he instilled his own malice. They failed, and were hurled from the presence of the Trinity. But they were not destroyed, and the battle is not over. God now has an enemy…and so do we.” Wild at Heart John Eldredge

Determined Digging: Level 1 — Habakkuk 3:18-19; Level 2 — Psalm 139:17-22

Determined Praying: We have not the remotest conception of what is done by our prayers, nor have we the right to try and examine and understand it; all we know is that Jesus laid all stress on prayer. — Oswald Chambers

A Contradicted Man, Samson I Am (Part 2)

09/30/201006/05/2012Leave a comment

“A Contradicted Man, Samson I Am”

Part Two

“Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. Then he came up and told his father and mother, “I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah. Now get her for me as my wife.” But his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.” Judges 14:1-3 (ESV)

So I Google the name “Dagon” and then surfed over to Wikipedia and research how many people worship this Pagan god. The account that sticks out the most, however, is in 1 Samuel 5:2-7. The Philistines capture the Ark of Yahweh and the following morning their silly statue of “Dagon the fish god” is lying face down before the Ark.

So this tidbit of information has me wondering why on earth Samson wants to marry a woman whose people worship a fish rather than the Creator of the fish, knowing that he is under the Nazirite vow and that his parents had an encounter with the angel of the Lord, but God has a bigger plan against the Philistines. So apparently there was a great festival in “Timhath” that Flavius Josephus recorded and Samson sees a damsel…who like Samson’s mother will remain nameless and Samson says to his parents, “Now get her for me as my wife.”I can imagine Samson’s mother just saying, “Why can’t you just marry a good Jewish girl from the neighborhood?”

Now in the recordings of Josephus there seems to be a going back and forth that Samson and his parents are doing. Samson is continually visiting with this damsel’s parents when he encounters the Biblical story of the meeting with the infamous loin.

Both accounts have Samson killing the loin with both hands and then returning to the carcass of the beast and reaching in to take out honey that a swarm of bees has produced there. Now I am going to take a roadside view here for a moment. He kills this loin and then goes back to its dead body and basically defiles himself with it if I run this through the Nazirite Vow.

I find no mention of Samson going to what would have been the Tabernacle at this time and making the necessary sacrifices to bring him back into alignment with God. Now I am sure that his parents have told him about the life he is suppose to lead but he does not tell his parents where the honey, which he has just shared with them, came from. Hmm, here lies contradiction in full color.

When Samson poses the riddle, “Out of the eater came something to eat, out of the strong came something sweet” to the Philistine men it is no surprise that, unless you were Samson (who is halfway confessing the wrong he has done and is the only one that knows the answer), those who seek to gain an advantage over him would find a way to manipulate getting the answer.

So since he is married to a Philistine girl why not go to one of their own and get her to use her position as Samson’s wife to obtain the answer to the riddle. And once they get the answer and recite it back to Samson he says something really odd back to them, “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.”What does that mean?! In any case Samson is wise to the fact that his wife has given away the answer. After all she only pressed him for seven days. I guess in the modern day dialog we would call this nagging.

Samson strikes down thirty men and returns the wife to her father’s house. I can say that there is so much drama going on in just these two chapters of Judges that it makes my head spin. But isn’t it the way we use drama to hide those ugly contradictions in our lives?

I attribute this as to someone being chased down an alley after committing a wrong that they know they should be punished for. As they run they throw obstacles along the way to trip their punishment up. And with all the manipulation that goes on around Samson early in his life it has made me wonder if he ever thought that one day he would be undermined and left for blind.

I still have some more of this contradicted man, Samson I am to work out with you but let’s ponder a few things together this day. One, why start off down the path of the day with an unseen act of disobedience. God has already seen it and why fool ourselves into think that we can share the fruits of it with those we love.

Second, why try to be wise in our own eyes by asking questions that actually hold the confession of that disobedience to those around us who wish to do us harm. And thirdly…can we put off the drama that so ensnares us? They didn’t give out Oscar’s for the best performance of manipulation done by a Philistine woman or her people let alone the best man versus beast fight scene back in the days of the Judges. All that happened was the undermining of the will of God…that’s all. — Chris Hughes is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy and a frequent contributor to Freedom Fighter

Digging Deeper: Proverbs 30; Isaiah 9-10; Ephesians 3

Dig This Quote: Because in our present thought world the horror is “hidden,” “sin” as a condition of the human self is not available as a principle of explanation for those who are supposed to know why life goes as it does and to guide others. For example, why do around half of American marriages fail, or why do we have massive problems with substance addiction and with the “moral” failures of public leaders. Those who are supposed to know are lost in speculation about “causes,” while the real sources of our failures lie in choice and the factors at work in it. Choice is where sin dwells.” Renovation of the Heart — Dallas Willard

Determined Digging: Level 1: Habakkuk 3:18-19; Level 2: Psalm 139:17-22

Determined Praying: God likes to see His people shut up to this, that there is no hope but in prayer. Herein lies the church’s power against the world. — Andrew Bonar

A Contradicted Man, Samson I Am (Part 1)

09/29/201006/05/2012Leave a comment

“A Contradicted Man, Samson I Am”

Part One

“And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years. There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. And his wife was barren and had no children. And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold, you are barren and have not borne children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. Therefore be careful and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” Judges 13:1-5 (ESV)

When you first heard the story of Samson and Delilah what went through your mind? Did you envision a large man with huge bicep muscles holding a shapely tanned woman with them? What about the story where Samson goes into battle with the jawbone of a donkey? I wonder if you envisioned the jawbone being this huge piece of bone being held in the mighty grip of this muscular behemoth. Well let me ask you this, do you really believe this is a true vision of Samson? According to God’s word it’s not.

If we were to look at Samson right from where his mother is told “for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb”, Samson’s life is not his own. But from what I’ve read he sure didn’t act like it. In the book of Numbers, there in chapter six and starting at verse two God is laying down the law concerning the Nazirite Vow. In the English Standard Bible I read this as plain as day. I do not get confused with what this vow entails and I am quite certain that if El Shaddai has singled you out for this position with Him you should follow this vow to the letter. There are no grapes for you to eat, neither fresh or dried, skin nor seed. There are no grape by-products in your diet. There shall be no razor taken to their hair or getting close to the dead. The Nazirite lives a life of separation.

When the Nazirite has the unfortunate incident of someone dying close to him (close meaning to his physical being) there are hairs to shave and birds to sacrifice. There is a period of separation and then there are more sacrifices. There is a sin offering, peace offering, grain offering and a drink offering. If we were to have this many offerings in our churches today there would be no talk of a falling away, huh? And if the Nazirite wants to go beyond his vow that he has offered then he may do so as he can afford in exact accordance with the law of the Nazirite.

This is a pretty deep vow to take. But not only is Samson supposed to be destined to live in accordance with this dedication his mother is instructed to do so during the entire time she is pregnant with Samson. So what we have here is the double whammy for Manoah and his wife. Not only are they going to be parents after being childless for a long time but they get a visit from the angel of the Lord with special instructions for what will be the last of “The Judges of Israel”. I might just get a little crazy in the head like Manoah did and want to prepare a young goat , have a feast and ask, “Oh by the way, what’s your name?”But I guess there are secrets that are not for us to know and we need to be quite content to be ignorant of them.

The key to the beginning of the story of Samson is the part where Manoah asks the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that, when your words come true, we may honor you?” the response is, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?” Manoah was afraid of what he had no faith in whereas his wife reflects a great faith. Manoah thought he would surely die after this encounter but his help mate encouraged him. In the words of Matthew Henry, “If God designed me to perish under His wrath; He would not give me tokens of His favour.” Mediate on this as you go throughout your day and I will be covering more of the contradicted man, Samson I am. — Chris Hughes is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy and a frequent contributor to Freedom Fighter

Digging Deeper: Proverbs 29; Isaiah 7-8; Ephesians 2

Dig This Quote: Some think Peter was a big talker and cowardly. But in the Garden, when the temple guard came to arrest Jesus, he unsheathed his sword and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear (John 18:10). Not many cowards attack when they are outnumbered by enemy soldiers. So he was strong, but his strength was in his own personality, not in God’s humility, for the sifting had not yet begun. It happened just as Jesus predicted. The same bold, strong Simon Peter, ready to die for Jesus, wielding his sword in the Garden full of soldiers, was confronted by a little servant girl. He was intimidated by her and denied even knowing Jesus. Some think it is the big things that cause men to stumble. Often it is the minor ones that shake us the most. This shows the futility of self-confidence.” John Bevere

Determined Digging: Level 1: Habakkuk 3:18-19; Level 2: Psalm 139:17-22

Determined Praying: If we want to see God do a mighty work, we must be willing to stand alone if necessary. Michael Catt

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