What They Did For Love

By John Stallings



Yesterday I was looking for a good Bible love story. I love a good love story -don't you?

A good love story is hard to find. It’s somewhat like searching through the Bible for an idyllic family. Most all are dysfunctional.

I looked at Abraham & Sarah’s relationship. There was undoubtedly a lot of love there. When Sarah died Abraham sat down on her grave & cried. Have you heard of anything like that lately? Neither have I. But then there is the part of the story where Abraham turned his wife over to another man to save his own hide. Love? Not so much. For a sizzling, romantic love-story, I thought maybe I should go elsewhere.

I considered Rebecca & Isaac, but then she lies to her husband for the sake of her son &, -well, that kind of spoiled it for me.

Then I looked at Jacob. He had lots of loves & wives but……. all are surrounded by lies & deceit.

Then I thought of David & Bathsheba…..Oh well!

Then Hosea & Gomer……well… not so much either.

So I settled on Samson & Delilah. Did I just say Samson & Delilah? Yes I did. This is definitely a great love story, a story with a few twists. Let’s look it over.

Samson’s story is one with great promise. His mother was barren. A divine messenger appeared & announced an impending birth. This birth came with instructions. Both mother & child were to live according to a special discipline as Nazerites. These folk were holy unto God. They weren’t allowed to touch dead bodies, were to avoid strong drink, & never cut their hair.

When he was born his parents named him Samson—or-“Sunny” or “Man of the Sun.” This was meant to foreshadow the influence he’d have on his people. He’d be the Sun that would shine in a dark time. In the book of Judges things weren’t….well….pleasant, & Israel definitely needed a little sunshine.

After Israel settled in the Promised Land they were always fighting. They always had a “flavor-of -the-day” enemy. Deborah fought with the Canaanites, Gideon fought the Midianites & Samson fought the Philistines. It didn’t take him long to pick a fight either. We quickly see what kind of man he was to be- mainly a womanizer.

IF YOU'RE LOOKING AT SAMSON FOR A HERO & ROLE MODEL-LOOK ELSEWHERE.
Other than a fairly auspicious beginning, most of the story of Samson is a big disappointment. Samson leads no Israelite into battle, isn’t much of a judge for his people, marries foreign women, frequents enemy drinking parties, engages in personal vengeance with no thought of serving God or Israel, spends the night with Ho’s & his flesh is so weak that he gives in to Delilah who was begging to know the secret of his strength. Samson finally spills his secret which leads to his capture, imprisonment, torture, blindness & ultimate death.


SAMSON IS A COMBINATION OF RAMBO & HULK HOGAN

He’s impetuous, conceited, arrogant, boorish, a lone ranger, nearly directionless except for his desire to kill his enemies, & only turns to God when he’s in trouble. He’s the embodiment of all that was wrong with the Judges. He encapsulates all their weaknesses, the most glaring of which was to rely on their own strength instead of putting their trust in God.

The stories about Samson get stranger & stranger. He’s a bona-fide terrorist. He attacks a lion with his bare hands & kills it, then later eats honey out of its corpse. He captures 300 foxes & ties their tails together with torches to set fire to the Philistine crops. Then he goes to live in a cave. When the Philistines catch up with him he grabs the jawbone of a donkey skull & kills 1,000 men. The accounts of his life sound like they come from the pages of a novel.

In many ways Samson sounds like a crazy man & his story definitely wouldn’t fit the Hallmark Channel. His story is more; - boy falls in love, girl breaks boy’s heart, & boy goes on murderous rampage.

WHEN SAMSON WAS ABOUT 30, HE BURSTS ON THE SCENE IN ISRAEL.

He led Israel for 20 years; 20 years of prosperity & relative freedom from the Philistines. In all honesty, at twenty Samson was the quintessential “skirt-chaser,” the only man in the Hall of Fame-Hebrews 11, who ever slept with a prostitute.

One time he left Israel, went down across the border into Philistine territory & had a relationship with a woman named Timnah. In order to get him to tell her the secret of a riddle, she told Samson that he didn’t really love her. That turned out to be the truth; Samson didn’t love the woman- he just loved women.

At the age of about 40 Samson begins to approach mid-life & he goes a little “middle aged crazy.” He starts feeling a little “ill at ease.” Judges 16 tells a story of Samson doing what he often did & that was to go down across the Philistine border[he had a weakness for Philistine women] to the little town of Gaza, about 25 miles from where he grew up to visit a prostitute.

When the people of the city found out Samson was in the house they surrounded the house but Samson tricked them by leaving at midnight. As he left he took hold of the doors of the city gate together with the two posts & tore them loose bars & all. He lifted them to his shoulders & carried them to the top of the hill which faces Hebron. [Judges 16:3.] These doors weighed about 700 pounds so to pick them up & move them one foot would take enormous strength. The city gates were a symbol of their security & Samson removed them to humiliate his old enemy the Philistines.

I GUESS HIS MOTTO WAS- "Catch me if you can.” They never could.

As he aged, Samson hadn’t really changed & gotten more mature with the years. He’d just learned to cover his tracks real good. He had never dealt with the sin problems that had plagued him all his life. Now the same problems he refused to deal with are finally going to bring him down. If ever a man had a “woman problem” it was this man called Samson.

I read somewhere a few years back that a psychologist said Samson was probably what we today call a sociopath. He was impulsive, reckless, always getting into fights, setting things on fire, torturing animals, stealing & bullying, all without remorse. If you meet someone like Samson you’d better steer clear of a meaningful relationship because unless God gets involved it ain’t gonna happen-not for long.

BUT LET'S BE HONEST

As we hear Samson described, the reality is that the rage & terror he exhibits probably isn’t that far removed from us. If we look deep enough, we all have a bit of Samson in us. Jealousy, uncontrolled libido, anger, rage, trickery & lying aren’t that foreign to us where our old nature is concerned. Who of us hasn’t had our “Samson side” to stand up & take a bow? Yes, there is a part of Samson most all of us can relate to in some way. If we don’t have a “fit’ of one kind or another once in a while it’s not because we don’t feel like it in our flesh-man.

SAMSON MEETS DELILAH

The story of Samson & Delilah is one that has captivated generations with its intrigue, romance, deception & power struggles. In this story we see a strong man that has met his match. For centuries, poets & painters, musicians & movie-makers have all paid tribute to this love story.

Remember Tom Jones song, My, My, My, Delilah? Cecil B. DeMille even brought the story to the screen. But what was the reality of this relationship? Was theirs a true love story or just a tragic tale of deceit & backstabbing?

We don’t really know much about Delilah. What we do know is that she was in league with the Philistines. They asked her three times to find out the secret of Samson’s great strength & promised her a great reward if she could. So three times she asked—three times Samson lied.

First he told her that if he were tied up with 7 bowstrings, he’d lose his strength. He broke them easily. Then he told her if she tied him with new ropes he would lose his strength. So she tied him with new ropes, the Philistines came in & he snapped them easily.

Then Samson told her that if she wove his hair into a loom & tightened it, he’d lose his strength. That too was tried but it didn’t work because it wasn’t true.

Now at this time in the story you have to start to wonder about Samson. If I’m Samson, I’m either:

A} really a dummy, not to catch on to what is happening.

B} really overcome or blinded by love or lust or something that brings me back time & again to this woman that clearly doesn’t have my best interests in mind.

Or C} really ignorant -or really arrogant. Does he think she’s really “into him?”

We never find out because the fourth time Samson finally tells Delilah the truth -that if his hair is cut from his head, he will lose his strength. He finally betrays his sign of the Nazirite vow, his conviction to follow God. And to no ones surprise, Delilah cuts his hair. When the enemy comes in this time Samson has no supernatural strength. Samson is led away to prison while Delilah receives her payoff.

We are left to wonder about Delilah:

Was she an unwilling pawn forced by an oppressive regime to hand over the man she loved? In John Milton’s dramatic poem he depicts Delilah in almost a positive light presenting her as a wife at the mercy of the Philistines & their pressure on her to betray the man she loves.

Was she a wily temptress knowing full well the effect that she had on this poor sap Samson & seducing him to make a fortune?

Or was it somewhere in the middle…maybe she was tortured by her sympathy for Samson & at the same time enjoying the fact that she had the power over him to make him dance like a puppet on her string of seduction?

Maybe, -just maybe she was just a woman looking for love. Maybe she was just looking for someone to spend some time with her & who better than handsome, powerful, famous Samson? She was ready, Samson was willing & obviously they were both able.

One thing is sure for men, unless we watch carefully in the sexual area of our lives, we risk falling prey to the Delilah’s of this world. It can happen to you, it can happen to me.

In the end we’re not sure of Delilah’s motive but we do know her method. Trickery & manipulation are themes that repeat themselves again & again in Samson’s story. He tries to trick his in-laws with a riddle. Timnah tricks him into telling his secret. Delilah tricks him into revealing his strength & losing his strength.
Sin begets sin.

Can we honestly say that we can’t relate to Delilah even in the smallest way? Have we ever used our power to see someone grimace & twist because we “stuck it to them?” We know how maniacally funny it can be to watch someone finally “get what’s coming to them.”

THE REAL LOVE STORY

The third party in this sad story is often overlooked. We know so well the strength of Samson & the cunning of Delilah…..What is really at the heart of the story is the faithfulness of God!

Woven into the fabric of this story of reckless power & cunning trickery is the love of God who never stops caring for His people. When Samson is used of God to deliver God’s people we’re told,

- The Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon Samson.

The Spirit of God is an active participant in the life of Samson. Like Samson we sometimes go wrong in thinking that God’s power is at our disposal like a painter who decides which colors to use. But the truth is, we don’t use God, God uses us to accomplish His purposes. Let’s make sure we’ve got it right; God is the painter, we’re only the paint.

Samson’s greatest mistake was forgetting whose power it was that defeated the Philistines. God was using him, he wasn’t using God. Samson was arrogant but God was faithful.

The ancient Greeks were good with words. They felt there was a void in their ability to describe someone who was arrogant & full of reckless, destructive pride. They felt a stronger word was needed. Pride & arrogance didn’t quite do it for the Greeks when an individual became so drunk with power that not only did they knock their adversary down & kill him, they went into a crazy & bazaar ritualistic “victory dance” or celebration that almost suggested insanity. What was the word they came up with? Hubris. -- “Overbearing pride & arrogance.”

You might remember that many Greek plays [I’m taking the word of experts about Greek plays] had a story line about a hero with an “Achilles heel” who wasn’t satisfied with success but would cross the line into self-destructive narcissistic hubris. If ever a man fit that description it was Samson.

But Samson finally gets it all figured out..... at the end of his life. After years of rage, trickery & arrogance & hubris Samson has finally been brought low. God will never “let us down” but He’ll surely “bring us down.”

In the final chapter of his life we find Samson weakened & blinded, but his hair is starting to grow back after being shaved. The Philistines are parading him around in the temple before their god. Maybe Delilah is in the crowd, maybe she’s long gone.

Samson has enough strength for one more bit of deceit but this time it’s out of humility & trust in God. He cries out to God to give him strength for one more action of deliverance. Samson now realizes that he can’t do it on his own, so he calls on God. His great prayer in Judges 16:28 never fails to move me.

Samson tells his tormentors that he’s too weak to stand on his own…that he must lean on the main pillars in the middle of the temple. It’s hard to believe that the Philistines could have been so stupid as to let him do this. But they did.

Archaeologists have excavated a Philistine temple that shows it was a long room with two wooden pillars set on stone bases that act as the center support for the temple. It was these pillars that Samson asks to rest against.

In Samson’s final act of deliverance of God’s people as his strength returns, he pushes the columns down, bringing the whole temple with them. Though Samson died in this carnage of cascading rock & rubble, thousands of those inside were also killed. Indeed the leadership of the Philistines was wiped out. This deadly action meant peace for the people of God.

I HAVE MANY MIXED EMOTIONS ABOUT SAMSON

Being human it’s easy to speculate about what Samson could have been if he’d been wholly yielded to God. One thing is certain; he was wildly successful as a warrior. It’s also certain that as a leader he was a flop & most of his problems sprang from hubris.

I rejoice in the fact that in his death God gave Samson one last chance to defeat an oppressive regime, but, in our day we’ve seen too much of one man killing himself & taking thousands with him. Though I hate to say it we’ll probably see many more examples of this type of mass destruction initiated by unstable individuals.

In the final analysis we have to look beyond the weakness of a man & a woman & focus on our ever-faithful God in the midst of it all.

Yes, maybe this is a story of two people madly in love in a day of tumult & trouble. But one thing is certain; God will get His work on this earth done even when the best He can muster is imperfect people like the ones in this story. God has always provided deliverance for His people even when they were rejecting Him again & again.

It’s this love story I celebrate; the love of a God that will not let us go!


Blessings,


John