Today’s passage is Judges 16:15-31. Delilah nags Samson saying that if he really loved her he would tell her the secret of his strength. He does and while he’s asleep she has his head shaved. He’s taken by the Philistines, who blind him and make him grind grain in prison. His hair grows back. On a celebration day, the Philistines take him out of prison to entertain them. He prays to God and he pulls down the temple of Dagon on their heads, destroying the leadership and thousands of others.
Why do the Philistines blind him, not kill him? Why don’t the Philistines worry about the return of Samson’s strength?
Despite his flagrant sins, Samson is a Christ figure because he sacrifices himself at the end for the destruction of the enemy and the salvation of his people.
In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis makes that point when Aslan, the Jesus of Narnia, sacrifices himself at the end of the story, letting the enemy shave his mane and mock him and then dying to destroy the enemy’s power.
Milton sees Samson in a similar light in his Samson Agonistes.
Samson’s physical blindness is a confirmation of his spiritual blindness.
He fails to see his sexual folly, sleeping with prostitutes and having an affair with Delilah.
He is arrogant of his strength, depending on it, not the Lord.
His unrepentant actions guarantee his fall from grace.
In his prison of suffering he finally sees the Lord, prays to the “Sovereign Lord” (28), and has a successful end to his life.
Samson reminds me of myself.
I followed my sexual desire into an adulterous affair with the woman who became my first wife.
In the arrogance of my dependence on my own young strength, energy and philosophy of life, I married her, had babies, went to university, and later worked at three jobs at the same time#8212;I taught high school and then at two different universities at night!
I had the strength of Samson and depended on it, not God to fulfill my dreams.
All the while I was blind to my wife’s alcoholism.
My life degenerated into misery.
I couldn’t understand why we were always short of money and why my wife had no interest in me or any of my hopes or plans.
Life shrunk to living in a poor house in a beautiful part of the world.
Then, like Samson, my sexual desire led me to another adulterous affair and, after my first wife’s death, to making a daughter with that woman but not marrying her.
Like Samson, I was blind to my sins and my folly and my failure to interpret my life through God’s word.
My life collapsed and I entered a prison of pain, self-pity and despair that lasted five years.
Where else could I go except to God and Wooridle Church?
In the humility of being an assistant teacher in ESL classes, often reduced to merely pronouncing words, God began restoring my strength, his strength.
He did this through opening my eyes to my sins and leading me to confessing them and sharing my story.
Fifteen years after my first wife’s death, I saw why I had been blind to her alcoholism.
It was a failure to love.
I was too busy with my own selfish self-interest to attend to my wife or to God.
I loved myself and my happiness more than I loved God or my wife.
I did not want to care for anyone other than myself.
Only when I prayed to my “Sovereign God”, the ruler of my life, did my sincere repentance begin.
My dependence on God has grown year by year since coming to Wooridle.
My new marriage seems new all the time because my wife and I love God more than each other.
We interpret our lives daily through the word and share with each other.
We depend on God, not each other, and that has made all the difference.
We will grow old and die but God won’t.
Application: Opening my eyes to my sins through my daily QT and praying for my Sovereign God’s strength to see with his mind.
Lord, let my hair grown again that I may serve you more truly.
