Judges 16 – Part 2
QUESTION: Delilah and Blindness - 2ANSWER:Judges 16 – Part 2by Pastor Nathan Shepherd (Dive Chapel, Candle Key, Florida)
“Delilah starts enticing Samson and he falls for it! In verse 6 she says, ‘Please tell me where your great strength lies, and with what you may be bound to afflict you.’
“Sam just messes with her. He tells her that if he’s bound with seven fresh bowstrings, not yet dried, that he’ll become weak. So she gets those seven bowstrings and binds him and yells for Philistines who were ‘lying in wait’. But he broke the bowstrings with no problem and made fools of Delilah and the Philistine ambushers.
“So Delilah tries again with her pleases and her beggings. Now stop right there. What’s going on with Samson? This woman is clearly trying to betray him, but he keeps hanging out with her. Could it be that he is enticed?
“This time he tells her that if he is bound with new ropes that have not been used, he’ll become weak. Same song, different verse, Sam breaks the new ropes easily.
“So she begs and pleads and we go to round three. He lies to her and says, ‘If you weave the seven locks of my head into the web of the loom…’ So she does and she calls for the Philistines lying in wait. But, once again, Sam gets up and pulls down the loom by the hair on his head.
“Okay, now wouldn’t you think he’d be done with Delilah? Nope. In verse 15 she pouts, ‘How can you say, I love you, when your heart is not with me?’ And in verse 16 it says, ‘And it came to pass, when she pestered him daily with her words and pressed him, so that his soul was vexed to death, that he told her all his heart, and said to her, No razor has ever come upon head…’
“Now folks, the rest is, shall we say, history. She lulls him to sleep and shaves off his hair. Now watch this: at the end of verse 19 it says, ‘Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him.’ How incredibly sad that this Judge of Israel, this blessed man of God, was enticed by a sorry, no good, slut of a woman. And he apparently didn’t even see it coming! I would suggest to you that the Spirit of the Lord left Samson when he allowed to get himself caught in Delilah’s web – even before she cut his hair.
“The story goes on that the Philistines gouge out Samson’s eyes and set him to work grinding, just like an ox. But the terribly sad thing is he no longer had his strength. So it really was a painful struggle. Did you see that? Because he turned away from God – didn’t take God seriously – now he is literally caught up in the daily grind. If we are doing work that stresses us, that gets us down, that we hate, that is the daily grind, we have to ask ourselves if we have gotten away from the favor of God.
“At the end of the chapter, the Philistines throw a huge party and worship their stupid half-man, half-fish god, Dagon. They thank the fish-boy for the capture of Samson. Then someone has the bright idea to bring Sam down from the prison so they can put his now pitiful self on display.
“They put him between the pillars and Samson gets his tired, ragged hands on the support pillars. There were about 3,000 Philistines in the temple where they were partying. Scripture says the Philistines watched as Samson performed. What the performance consisted of, we’re not told.
“Now, here it comes. Samson, this spoiled brat, rock star Judge, whom God has blessed with incredible strength throughout his misguided life, stands before a crowd of the enemy. He is weak, tired, eye-less, and humbled. Just where God needed him to be. No longer are the young girls lining up for his attentions. But, with all of that against him, Sam finally gets it. He finally understands and it’s about time.
“He sincerely calls on the LORD out of his weakness and says, ‘O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray! Strengthen me, I pray, just this once, O God, that I may with one blow take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes!’
“Then he took hold of the support pillars of the temple of Dagon and said, ‘Let me die with the Philistines!’ He pushed, God honored his cry and the walls came tumbling down!
“The end of Verse 30 says, ‘So the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life.’ Wow. Did you get that? Remember when Jesus appeared to Samson’s mom? He said, ‘he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.’ Not, he will totally deliver Israel! Jesus is ALWAYS right!
“I think we should really be saddened by the waste that was Samson’s life. He did not take the things of God seriously. He was an extremely carnal, fleshly man. Yet, God used him mightily. It seems that Scripture would tell us that even when God’s man is acting like an idiot, God still has a plan and God is all-knowing and all-powerful! Amen!!”
Judges 17 – Go!
