Samson

A Quick Look: Judges 15: 9 – 15

Really Read It: Judges 13 – 16

Memorize: Luke 4: 18 – 19 The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

Samson is famous for being tough, for being strong, for being bold. He is also on a lot of lists for Don’t Be Like This Guy. Samson did make some mistakes in his life, but this page is about things from the life of Samson that are right, that are powerful, that we should copy.

The story of Samson is in the Book of Judges. It is not surprising that the Book of Judges has a lot of stories about a lot of different Judges. And all of the other Judge stories went the same way. First Israel walked away from God, worshiped a bad god, and did bad stuff. Next, God went away and enemies ruled Israel. Then, it got bad so Israel cried out to God to save them. Finally God sent a Judge to lead the people, rescue them from the bad guys, and be a big hero. That same story happened over and over for 300 years, and there were some great heroes like Othniel, Ehud, Gideon, and Deborah.

Samson came after those other Judges. The amazing stuff in Samson’s life started before he was even born. An angel told a lady who had no kids that she was going to have a baby, and that the baby would “begin to rescue Israel from the Philistines.” The Philistines were ruling over Israel then, and God picked Samson before he was born to be the rescuer.

Samson grew up and found a Philistine girl to marry. (This was not Delilah. She is in the story later on.) His mom and dad didn’t want him to marry a Philistine girl. They thought Samson should be fighting the bad guys, and he wanted to marry one of them. But the Bible says that this marriage was from God. They did get married, but they were only married for about a week. There were some amazing things in the story of the wedding planning and partying. A little while before the wedding, Samson killed a lion with his bare hands. Later he found some bees making honey inside of the dead lion. That gave Samson an idea for a riddle, and he used it to make his wedding more fun. He thought a riddle and a bet would make the seven-day wedding party more of an adventure, but it didn’t really work. The bet was between Samson and thirty of his wife’s friends. Samson lost the bet because the other guys cheated, but the bet also ruined Samson’s marriage and started a fight between Samson and the Philistines. That fight continued for the rest of Samson’s life. But Samson fought by himself. God helped him a lot, but no other people joined the fight. All of the other Judges led an army and rescued Israel, but Israel would not join Samson.

One of Samson’s solo fights came when 3,000 of his own people arrested him. In Judges 15:9, the Philistine army came for Samson. It was a great chance for Israel to join with Samson and fight the enemy. Remember how it worked with all the other Judges. But instead the Israelites cried like little babies to the enemy. They said, “Why are you coming to fight us? We are your nice little slaves.” And instead of fighting with Samson, instead of fighting with God’s rescuer, they gave Samson to the Philistines. Samson fought them by himself and killed 1,000 men with the jawbone of a donkey, but Israel was not free. Samson kept fighting and even died fighting as God’s rescuer of Israel, but he didn’t get to see Israel become free because Israel did not fight with him.

Samson’s people were never free to worship the one true God. The Philistines with their god Dagon ruled and Israel was happy with that. These people had awful lives of slavery, but they wouldn’t fight to be free. These people had awful lives under a pagan god, but they wouldn’t fight to be free. They told each other everything was okay. They told each other not to bother the Philistines. Don’t cause trouble.

No one in our country worships a god as gross as Dagon, and workers in our country don’t have to give their money to another country. Our country is better than Israel was in Samson’s day, but there are some awful things that a bold rescuer should fight against. The best way to push back the awful is to fight for God. The most important part of my week is fighting for God’s honor, fighting for God to move in power in the lives of His people, and fighting for the Kingdom of God to get bigger in our country. I fight with my family. I fight with the kids at my church. The easiest place to be a bold fighter like Samson is in your church. A lot of kids walk into church every week and act like they don’t care about God. Can you be the kid who shows strength for God? Are you a fighter in your worship? In your words? In your prayers? In your response to the Word of God? Don’t take a donkey’s jawbone to church with you. And don’t fight a lion with your bare hands. But do everything else to copy Samson, the bold fighter for God.

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Nathan is amazed to see God move in power every week at his church. You can see what is happening: http://www.worldrevivalchurch.com

You can find more of Nathan’s writing on lulu and helium.