GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
JUDGES 16:18-21
18 When Delilah understood that he had told her everything, she sent word to the Philistine rulers: “Come once more, for he has told me everything.” The Philistine rulers came to her and brought the silver with them.
Milt was a candy maker. He tried a small start-up venture when he was 19 that didn’t do well. He tried again with a little company that closed after three years. A third try failed, too. His fourth try was called the Lancaster Caramel Company, but when he had an idea for selling milk chocolate instead of caramels, he sold the Lancaster company for a small profit, and in 1900, Milton Hershey could finally begin Hershey’s Chocolate. It was so successful that the company town—Hershey, Pennsylvania—became a small city. He kept trying, and finally he had success.
Delilah was going to try one more time with the candy she hoped would win her a big profit. The Philistine kings might have shrugged off Delilah’s message: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” But their desire to get rid of Samson made them think twice about complaining that Delilah kept slipping up. She was as persistent as Milton Hershey, and this time she got paid.
19 After she let him fall asleep on her lap she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair. In this way, she subdued Samson, and his strength left him. 20 Then she called out, “Samson, the Philistines are here! ” When he woke from his sleep, he thought, “I will escape like I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had left him.
Maybe he thought that God would never leave him no matter what he said or did. Maybe he felt that the outer sign of his vow to the Lord wasn’t important. But those things were important, after all. God had made a promise to his parents, and Samson had shrugged it off. He had benefited from the special favor the Lord had shown him, but now? The Lord had left him.
Samson’s Defeat and Death
21 The Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes. They took him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles, and then they made him grind grain in the prison.
Everything up to this point in Samson’s story has been very entertaining; even amusing. With the Lord on his side, Samson could not be beaten. But now the Lord wasn’t with him, and Samson lost everything. When he discarded his hair (by betraying his own secret) he discarded the Lord’s protection, and he lost his freedom, his eyes, his liberty and his dignity.
Now Samson was like a picture of Israel itself. He thought that because he had been chosen, that he was entitled. He thought that because he had a special status that he didn’t need to worry about God’s will, God’s word or God’s law. Samson was a living prophecy of the exile to Babylon. Now at last Samson knew captivity and grief (“We sat and wept…” Psalm 137:1). They made him do slave work; animal work. Usually it was an ox that turned the wheel to grind the grain (1 Timothy 5:18); now Samson was treated like an ox.
How quickly it all happened! Delilah’s name is never mentioned again in Scripture. Samson had closed his eyes in her lap, and when he woke up to her shouts of betrayal, he lost his eyes completely, and he lost Delilah, too.
In the resurrection, Samson’s eyes will be restored, just as you and I will be restored and made whole once again. We will be perfect, with glorified bodies, just as Job confessed: “After my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God” (Job 19:26). Those who have been blinded will see heaven, and see their children’s children in heaven (Psalm 128:5-6). Those who have lost their hands in life will lift up their hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord (Psalm 134:2). Those who lost their legs in life will stand on level ground and praise the Lord (Psalm 26:12). Those who lost their strength will have it restored (Psalm 119:28). Those who have been disgraced will be restored with honor (Psalm 119:39). All of this will be ours because Jesus covered over our sins, and ended the curse of sin. Release from the curse, we will be freed for all eternity to serve God in perfection and holiness. We will be content, we will be happy, and we will be forever free. So live today freed from the burden of your guilt, and do the work God would have you do while you wait for the glory to come.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota