I feel like what I want to say about Samson tonight goes really well with what I talked about last week. Last week the main message was the question of how are you living your life? Are you living to leave behind something finite like a legacy at work or possessions or are you living for eternal things; and if you are living for eternal things, or at least you are a Christian, then what are you leaving behind in that respect? Would your epitaph read "Nice guy, sat in same pew every Sunday" or "Martyred spreading the gospel"? Obviously those are fairly extreme but nonetheless it is an important question to ask ourselves.
Well, that brings us to Samson. Samson's story is fairly simple. He is a blessed man who had great strength which comes from his long hair (his long, uncut hair was a sign that he was set apart to be God's.).
He meets a girl, gets married, tells her friends a riddle and makes a bet, she pries (or in the NLT translation, somewhat humorously "nags") the answer out of him. Fastforward a few events and he meets Delilah, her Philistine buddies want to know the secret to Samson's strength so she pries it out of him and the Philistines capture Israel's judge. With his last burst of strength at a Philistine party, Samson yanks the pillars down, killing himself as well as many Philistines.
To sum it up, Samson makes mistake after mistake during his time as God's chosen judge, ends up at his lowest low but with his last effort saves the day... somewhat.
I think we often look at Samson and call him dumb. His first wife tricks him into giving her the answer to his riddle and he loses a bet. Then, every time he falls asleep with Delilah he wakes up tied up, and this is after she asks him what his weakness is. After the first couple times you would think he would get it right? I know that's exactly what I thought growing up. But I think we need to look at this story the way we look at the mistake-making Israelites throughout the Pentateuch, the pharisees and often naive disciples. It is easy to condemn them but when we look closely at our lives we're not so far off I think. When it comes to Samson I feel like that is definitely the case. Think of the allure of sin. We know its gonna tie us up, we know its gonna destroy us, in fact, apart from Christ we know our sin condemns us to an eternity in hell. But yet we still sin. We tell that lie, take that glance, say those words, the list goes on and on.
The good news here for those of us who have put our faith in Jesus Christ as the only way to gain salvation and forgiveness for our sins is that when all is said and done, we are God's. No matter how many times we let sin lie to us and fall, God is there to pick us up, and that is great news indeed! The thing is, and going along with last week, how are we living here on earth? Do we want to live our lives dabbling in sin but on the last day still entering in to heaven, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:15 ... he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames." Or, do we want to kill the sin in our life and life to the full extent of how God wants us to live for him?
Samson chose the former. He lived his life listening to stupid lies until finally he was captured, blinded and broken. When it counted yes, he came through and destroyed many Philistines, but he did so in a terrible, humiliating way.
Good advice that has been given to the youth group over the years is to find a friend to confess sin to. Bring the sin, that which loves darkness, to light. I encourage you all to live life to the fullest, in Christ! Don't let sin weigh you down but know that Christ, through is death has freed you from your sin! Your chains are broken and you've been set free!
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