Today's passage is Judges 15.
When Samson goes to visit his Philistine wife, he finds that her father had given her to Samson’s friend. Samson uses pairs of foxes tied together with torches attached to them to burn up the Philistines’ harvest, vineyards and olive groves.
The Philistines then burn Samson’s wife and her father. In revenge, Samson kills many of them, hides in a cave where the men of Judah, fearful of the Philistines, tie him up and hand him over to 3000 Philistines. Samson breaks the ropes, picks up a donkey’s jawbone and kills 1000 of them with it. In thirst he calls to God for water, which the Lord provides with a new spring. Samson leads Israel for 20 years.
Why does Samson use foxes? Why does he use a donkey jawbone? Why does God create a spring?
Samson seems to be almost a force of nature.
In Chapter 14 he killed a lion with his hands, took honey from the beehive made in the carcass, and made a riddle out of the circumstance which led to his killing thirty Philistines.
In today’s passage he uses foxes to burn up the harvest, vineyards and olive groves of the Philistines.
What a fire it must have been! Later he kills 1000 armed Philistines with a donkey’s jawbone and, when he afterwards calls on God for water, he’s given a new spring to drink from to restore his strength!
A lion, bees, three hundred foxes, a donkey jawbone, a new spring.
Samson depends on nothing but the power of God-created nature, on the power of God himself, as yesterday’s passage and today’s show: the “Spirit of the Lord came upon him in power” occurs twice in Chapter 14 (6, 19) and once more in Chapter 15 (14).
Where does my power come from to see my sin and overcome it through repentance?
Where does my power come from to carry my cross, further my salvation, and serve others?
Is it my own will, my morality, my sense of social responsibility, my desire for praise from others, my guilt, my fear that unless I do it, God won’t love me?
In terms of salvation and my redemption history, all of those are worthless.
They are all my own power. They are me being righteous. They have nothing to do with God, only me and my humanism.
When I first allowed my brother in law to live with us I did not do it with his salvation in mind.
I did it because my wife asked me to, I felt I ought to do it for her family’s sake, and I felt sorry for him.
My motives were thoroughly humanistic and I suffered for them.
I came to despise everything about my brother in law.
I hated having him live with me but I gritted my teeth and continued to allow it because it was the “right thing to do.”
By my own power and my own will, I tried to be a good family member.
As my own perception of my sinfulness deepened, however, I saw what a worthless gesture I was trying to make.
I began to see that my brother in law was God’s prescription to me to see my own sins, not my brother’s in law.
I slowly came to realize he was my spiritual trainer, which I resented and resisted.
Recently, however, I’ve managed to see#8212;by Gods’ grace alone!#8212;a little further than that.
God has given me a lot.
Sharing it with others is part of what I’m supposed to do with it, just as Jesus showed me.
By the grace of my salvation, I am a steward of God, a servant of the Lord.
I serve God by serving those around me who are suffering.
I serve Jesus by serving the Jesus in others.
My brother in law is my training ground for that. It has not been easy these last years with this irresponsible, immature, fantasy-ridden man who doesn’t want to face himself, especially when I see so much of myself in him! I don’t really anticipate it getting much easier to live with him.
But God is changing my attitude and giving me his power to serve my brother in law who does suffer from many self-inflicted hurts.
Helping him interpret his life through God’s word is my greatest service to him, far greater than room and board.
It’s what God calls me to do and gives me the power to do.
I have no power on my own to do it. I know because I tried it for years.
Application: to continue to sit with him at night and encourage his QT.
Lord, let me be a steward of your grace. Give me your power to perform my minimum obedience of your will. Let me not shirk from that or dream of saint-like abilities. Let me drink of your spiritual spring.
