Judges 15-16: Samson - Failing the Tests
C.S. Lewis’ introduction to his Chronicles of Narnia novels began with the famous story of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. If you were paying attention to Samson’s story in Judges 13-14, you’ll see that the original lion, witch, and wardrobe was laid out for us thousands of years ago. If you’ll recall: Samson killed a lion, he married a witch, and all the drama broke out with the groomsmen over a bet on a wardrobe of clothes. I rest my case.
In that story we learn a lot about Samson and the struggles he has early in his story. He is extremely impulsive, entitled, and downright immature. Even with his struggles though, we see that God loves Samson and is sovereignly working through him for his own agenda. The same story continues with Samson in Judges 15-16, and —spoiler— unfortunately, Samson never grows up. He continually gets similar tests by God to confront his sins of pride and lust, but never passes the test. As we look at the text, let’s apply Samson’s story to our own, and use it as a sort of study guide to prepare the personalized tests that God will give us.
Pass The Test
The Goal: Spiritual Maturity
The fancy word for the concept of transforming into Christ’ image throughout the course of your life is called sanctification. If you are a disciple of Jesus, He will sanctify you one way or another, whether you like it or not, because, well, He loves you. Another term for this concept is spiritual formation, or growing in spiritual maturity. Jesus doesn’t want you ‘on the teat’ for the whole course of your life. He wants you to grow and mature to the point where you can feed yourself, and do the things that He has called you to do with your life here on earth. This maturity comes to those “who by constant use (eating solid food) have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:14) It takes practice and intentional training to get to the place where we are spiritually “lacking nothing” as James 1:4 and Psalm 23:1 say. To grow in spiritual maturity, we’ve got to be aware of the current spiritual state that we are in and let the Holy Spirit reveal that goals that need to be met in our lives. Simply put, we’ve got to start passing the spiritual tests that God puts in our lives. In passing the tests, it gives us an opportunity to “graduate,” so to speak, to the next level in our journey with Him.
My wife Ashleigh, who happens to be a lot prettier and smarter than me, got a doctoral degree at a fancy institution. I remember in her second year, there was a statistics course that was notoriously difficult. It was so difficult that about half of her class had to drop out of the PhD program because they couldn’t pass the class. In fact, you only one chance to retake the class if you failed the first time. If you failed that class, you were not permitted to obtain a PhD. Here’s the point: we can not graduate in our walk with Jesus if we keep failing the tests that He gives us. God’s grace is great, and I believe if you’re still breathing, you’ve got an opportunity to pass the test. But the fact remains, if you keep failing the tests that God is allowing in your life — forgiveness, lust, anger, cowardice, shame — then you are not living in the freedom of spiritual maturity that God desires for you.
Spiritual maturity and rejecting God’s anointing is at the heart of what Samson’s story, and the entire book of Judges, is all about. It is a terrible tragedy to be singled out by God and called to greatness, and then squander it. Take notes from Samson’s story so that you can pass the test and live in the fullness that Jesus offers.
Judges 15:1-8
1 Later on, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. He said, “I’m going to my wife’s room.” But her father would not let him go in. 2 “I was so sure you hated her,” he said, “that I gave her to your companion. Isn’t her younger sister more attractive? Take her instead.” 3 Samson said to them, “This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines; I will really harm them.” 4 So he went out and caught three hundred foxes and tied them tail to tail in pairs. He then fastened a torch to every pair of tails, 5 lit the torches and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks and standing grain, together with the vineyards and olive groves. 6 When the Philistines asked, “Who did this?” they were told, “Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because his wife was given to his companion.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death. 7 Samson said to them, “Since you’ve acted like this, I swear that I won’t stop until I get my revenge on you.” 8 He attacked them viciously and slaughtered many of them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the rock of Etam.
You’ll notice the continued diversion from God’s intended order in Samson’s life. This family is dysfunctional. Samson rejected his parents’ and the Lord’s directions not to marry foreign women, and now he doesn’t even live with his wife. His wife’s father and family don’t have the same worldview and moral standards as the (supposed) worldview of the Jews, and now the sins are multiplying. In addition to the living situation, the father is overly involved, and gave away his daughter in marriage to someone else. This is strange, and messed up. Samson thought so too.
Samson apparently takes payback seriously, and his stewing anger and bitterness causes him to develop this intricate plot to destroy their crops. Even though it was an act of rash anger and immaturity, God used it for His own purposes: the judge the Phillistines. Samson’s wife and father in law were killed as a result, and the revenge cycle continues in Samson’s heart. He is grieved by the loss of his family, yet it happened because of his anger. Now he looks console his grief by angrily attacking his foes.
Does this cycle of anger and grief take place in your life? What are strategies to overcome this type of anger?
There are two agendas at play here: Samson’s and God’s. Samson wants to be a roid-rage hero that does whatever he wants and parties whenever he wants, and God wants to redeem the world through Israel and punish His own enemies. God's agenda is winning out even if Samson is chasing his own desire. God’s sovereignty is at play even through random events like these. We can rest assured in the sovereign, good agenda of God, and know that God will accomplish his purposes.
Judges 15:9-13
9 The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi. 10 The people of Judah asked, “Why have you come to fight us?” “We have come to take Samson prisoner,” they answered, “to do to him as he did to us.” 11 Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?” He answered, “I merely did to them what they did to me.” 12 They said to him, “We’ve come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.” Samson said, “Swear to me that you won’t kill me yourselves.” 13 “Agreed,” they answered. “We will only tie you up and hand you over to them. We will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock.
The passages that tell Samson’s story tend to highlight the overall negative traits that he showed. Credit where credit is due though, here e see a glimpse of humility, and also the strong faith in Samson at this moment of surrender. It’s as if he had a wake-up call - He knew he was made to be a warrior, and he knew this was part of that. His faith is commendable, even when the tribe of Judah didn’t.
Judges 15:14-20
14 As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands. 15 Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men. 16 Then Samson said, “With a donkey’s jawbone, I have made donkeys of them. With a donkey’s jawbone, I have killed a thousand men.” 17 When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was called Ramath Lehi. 18 Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the Lord, “You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” 19 Then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived. So the spring was called En Hakkore, and it is still there in Lehi. 20 Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.
Because of the faith that Samson showed, the Holy Spirit empowered him to cause massive casualties to Israel’s enemies. God's plan and agenda always wins out. Even with that being true, take a second to think about the power that Samson could have maintained if he remained humble and faithful. What do you think he was missing out on by living so often in a state of pride rather than faith? I believe the concept that is true for Samson is also true for us: his flesh restrained him from seeing God’s power move. As Christians today, we have the amazing privilege of having God’s Spirit dwell within us, yet in the same ways as Samson, we restrain his power by not passing the obedience tests set before us.
Samson’s show of miraculous strength understandably resulted in a new town name. The Hebrew term for the place where this event happened, Ramath Lehi, means Jawbone Hill. Though God worked mightily through Samson, we see that he is still has physical limitations and is reliant on God to continue. In his exhaustion, Samson cried out to God, which gives a glimpse of more humility and faith that he had in the Lord. God answered and provided. God’s not done with Samson yet. God would complete the work (Philippians 1:6) in Samson whether he wanted it or not.
Judges 16 : The Same Story
After the donkey devastation, some time passes in the narrative, and Samson again goes back to one of his old vices - sex. I won’t read the whole story, but its the same story again that we’ve read in chapters 13-15. Because of his lust, he gets suckered in by a woman named Delilah, and boy was she a peach. She repeatedly betrays him and tries to kill him by getting him to confess where his strength comes from (Remember, the Nazirite vow). She ultimately succeeds at tricking him, and hands him over to the Philistines.
What’s remarkable in this account is that Samson doesn’t even seem to care that this woman is obviously trying to kill him. If we’re honest, this is what surrender to lust does: it either blinds you or corrupts you. In Samson’s case, you can’t help but notice his enjoyment of the betrayal by Delilah. When a person is ensnared by lust, the deception can run so deep that you enjoy the sin and can’t see how much its hurting you. The only solution to this is repentance. If God has anointed you as His child, he will discipline or reveal things to you in the ways that you need - and that might be pretty painful.
And here are the consequences of his behavior and compromise (ultimately for his good too)..
Judges 16:18-22
18 When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, “Come back once more; he has told me everything.” So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands. 19 After putting him to sleep on her lap, she called for someone to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him. 20 Then she called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him. 21 Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding grain in the prison. 22 But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.
Samson never passed that test of overcoming his lust. This is the third strike (at least, for the women that are recorded in the Bible), and he's literally had this same story happen with Delilah. He didn't learn his lesson, and as a result, God's protection and anointing was taken from him. (V20) What a terrifying thought..
-Be warned: There will be a point when God hands you over to your sin, and you will reap what you sow.
-Be encouraged: God is so gracious and patient, and will not reject your genuine faith and repentance.
Application: God in his grace gives us tests. Sometimes he gives us these tests multiple times throughout the course of our lives. The question is, will we pass those tests? Or will we keep failing, and never learn our lessons. God is calling us to maturity in our faith, and to get there, we've got to start passing the tests he gives us.
It’s better to willingly “pluck” your eye (Matthew 5:29) out before you have them removed for you. If you are God's child, he will strip you of your vices one way or another. Samson was conjoined with the Philistines in their pleasures, and he was with them in their destruction. These are the natural consequences of rejecting God's will and call on your life.
So Samson is drug as a prisoner into a worship service of a false god, blind, shaven, weak, yet, a powerful illustration of hope shines through in his last moments. We see where true power comes from: humility, faith, and God alone.
Judges 16:27-30
27 Now the temple was crowded with men and women; all the rulers of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were about three thousand men and women watching Samson perform. 28 Then Samson prayed to the Lord, “Sovereign Lord, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.” 29 Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other, 30 Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived.
God used Samson mightily for his purposes, even though Samson didn’t surrender and pass a lot of tests in his life. While Samson’s life is in some ways like a mythical being, it is also profoundly relatable. Like Samson, we as Christians have the power of the Holy Spirit within us to literally do anything, yet the failing of our personal tests are restraining us from seeing the power of God. If we are aware of the tests that are coming our way, we can begin to prepare, and can then pass them. Let’s shoot for a graduation in our faith and get to the next phase of our spiritual maturity that He wants for us.
What are some aspects of hope in this story?
What is challenging about this story?
