September 5, 2001
The Source of Righteousness
by Gary Zanow
"For a righteous man falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked are overthrown by calamity." - Proverbs 24:16
"A righteous man falls." Can you fall and still be righteous? Seven times? Isn't falling once enough to make you unrighteous? What does it mean to be righteous anyway?
We sang a song in church last Sunday based on Proverbs 18:10: "The name of the LORD is a strong tower, the righteous run into it and they are saved." When we got home, my son asked me an astute question: "Why would the righteous need to run into the strong tower and be saved? Shouldnt it be the unrighteous who need to be saved?"
Great question-which brings me back to the question I already asked: "What does it mean to be righteous, anyway?" Now, before I go any further, I need to state what to some of you might be obvious: The best way to interpret Scripture is with Scripture. That is to say that everything should be read within the context of the sentence, paragraph and book in which it was written, and then within the context of the testament (Old or New) as well as the entire Bible. God does not contradict Himself. He is the source of wisdom, knowledge and understanding.
With that said, in Psalm 50 verse 5 the LORD says, "Gather my saints together unto Me; those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice." (KJV) (The NASB version reads: "Gather My godly ones to Me, Those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.") This is an interesting verse, especially considering that a few verses later God tells His people that He doesn't want or need their sacrifices. So if God doesn't want or need sacrifices, how can these folks have been made godly (or saintly) by sacrifice? I believe this is a prophetic Psalm, and that "the sacrifice" (notice, it's not plural) is the same sacrifice spoken of in Hebrews chapter 10, verses 4-7 and verse 10: "it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins."
Therefore, when Christ came into the world, He said: "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You prepared for Me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings You were not pleased. Then I said, 'Here I am---it is written about Me in the scroll---I have come to do Your will, O God.'" And by that will, we have been made holy throuugh the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
So righteousness in our lives is by sacrifice-by THE sacrifice Christ made when He gave up His life on the cross. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:21: "God made Him who had no sin to be bin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." How are we made righteous? In Him we become righteous.
So a righteous man may actually fall and still be righteous; because his righteousness isn't based on how perfect he is, but on the perfect Son of God who became sin for him. How many times can a righteous man or woman fall? Seven times? Anyone who is familiar with numbers in the Bible knows that "seven" is the number of fullness or completeness. God created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th day. Seven days make one complete week. How many times can you fail and still be forgiven by God? How many times can you screw up and still be within God's will? How many times can you totally blow it and still come to God for mercy? Every time you screw up you can still be forgiven. Every time you fail you can still be forgiven. No matter how many times you blow it, you can still come to Him for mercy because "the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases and His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning!" - Lamentations 3:22, 23.
So why would the righteous need to "run into the tower to be saved?" For the same reason the unrighteous need to run into that same tower: Our righteousness is from Christ and not from ourselves. I am righteous in Christ, and not in myself. It is what He has done for me, not anything that I have done for Him.
There's another old hymn we sing that says: "Rock of Ages, cleft for me; let me hide myself in Thee!" What the heck does that mean? Well, to cleave a rock means to split it or break it, which signifies that the Rock of Ages was once whole but has now been broken-broken for a purpose-broken that we might hide ourselves within it. Jesus Christ is our Rock of Ages who was broken for us-that we might hide ourselves in Him. When He died on the cross, we died with Him. As Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The live I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
You are righteous. I am righteous. You're a saint. I'm a saint. But not by anything we've done to earn that title-only by the blood of Jesus Christ. That's something you and I need to claim every day-the blood of Jesus. And that reminds me of the prayer Martin Luther taught his congregation to pray:
"Lord Jesus, I am Your sin and You are my righteousness. You became what You are not so that I might become what I am not."
Praise God for His mercy, His grace and His lovingkindness. In Christ we are righteous, and are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ (see Romans ch. 8). If we fall, we can get back up again because our righteousness is in Christ. When we need help, we have a strong tower we can run into and be saved. Our righteousness is untouchable, because it doesn't depend upon us, but upon Him who is our righteousness.
Thank You Jesus for taking on my sin, and thus becoming for me my righteousness. I am at a loss for words when I think of the marvelous things You have done. Sometimes all I can do is sit in awe of Your love and Your mercy and Your grace. Please help me to live each day in the realization that I am holy and righteous in the sight of the Father, and that I can do everything through the strength You give me. Amen.
Gary Zanow
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The Grace Cyber Cafe
September 12, 2001
Samson: A Great Man Who Pursued Little Things
by Erwin W. Lutzer, Pastor
Moody Church, Chicago, IL
Part 1 of 4: The Man Who Had It All
Judges 13-16
The greater the potential for success, the greater the possibility of failure. The higher our expectations, the farther we can fall.
No one was born with greater potential than Samson, whose birth is recorded in the book of Judges. Here is a man who had it all and lost it all. But it is because he had so much that his loss was so great.
He was a great man who spent most of his life seeking after small things. He squandered incredible opportunities. He was a man of contradictions; he had incredible physical strength, but a weakness for women. He was a man who had the Holy Spirit but was fascinated with trivial things; he amused himself with riddles and tricks. A great muscle, but a little mind. A man of God who lacked common sense. He was a gigantic child.
What made Samson a candidate for success? What made him such a mystery; such an enigma?
The Israelites again "did evil in the sight of the Lord. " But this time they did not even cry to God for a deliverer. They were content to be influenced by paganism through commerce and intermarriage. We learn only one thing from history and that is that people do not learn from history!
God sovereignly chose to intervene even though the Israelites did not cry to God. There was no national revival; Samson always acted alone. There was no one else there with him. Because there was no national repentance there was no national deliverance. Samson was a one man show.
We can't help but be impressed with the opportunities he had. God chose an ordinary family to bear an extraordinary child to become an extraordinary deliverer.
Two features make his birth exceptional. First, he would be born to a couple who previously had had no children. Ever since Genesis 3:15, the promise of a deliverer was associated with the "seed of the woman" that is, childbearing. So to not have a child was considered a curse of God. God never said that, but that's the way couples felt if they were childless. Now an angel appears to this couple to say that they would bear a special child.
To grasp just how privileged Samson was, consider the fact that only three other times in all the Bible did an angel announce a birth. Sarah was told she would bear a child in her old age and Isaac was born. An angel told Elizabeth that she would bear a child and John the Baptist was born. And, of course, we know the story of Mary who was visited by Gabriel with a message that she would bear a special son. Samson is in great company! Heaven is taking note!
In fact, this was not an angel of the Lord, but rather the angel of the Lord, that is a manifestation of Christ. The angel reappears and Manoah invites him to eat with them, but he refuses. When he is asked his name, the angel says, it is "Wonderful," that is, "Beyond Understanding." Yes, his name is "The Wonderful Counselor," beyond understanding!
Manoah then offered a sacrifice to God, and while the flame is burning, the angel disappears. Manoah and his wife now know that they have "seen God." Obviously, Samson was destined for greatness.
Samson also had a privileged career. He was to be a Nazarite. That word comes from the Hebrew word "Nazir" which means "to set apart." A Nazarite was someone who took a vow to be set apart by God for special service. From Numbers chapter 6 we learn that this vow was voluntary. It was a vow motivated by love and faith. A man or woman could take it for six months, a year or longer. It was to help someone devote himself completely to the Lord. Also, the person was to abstain from anything that was alcoholic; there was to be nothing in his mouth that was of the fruit of the vine. Nothing was wrong with wine in itself, but it was a symbol of the good life and God wanted this person to live simply and find his joy in God.
Finally, the Nazarite was not to touch a dead body. God wanted to teach Israel that death was the result of sin. So even the priests were not to defile themselves by touching a dead body. So also the Nazarite.
Now if your neighbor took the vow you would want to know about it. You would want to spare yourself the embarrassment of offering him a glass of wine when he came for a visit. So the outward symbol of this vow was that the person would let his hair grow long.
In the case of Samson, his vow was not voluntary. His mother took the vow and Samson was to be a Nazarite from when he was born until he died. This is not what Samson chose; God made that choice for him. He was chosen from before birth to do great things.
Along with all of this came a special anointing of the Spirit. We read, "Then the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson; and the child grew up and the Lord blessed him. And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him in Mahaneh-Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol" (13:24,25).
Single handedly, Samson now began his exploits. He will kill the Philistines by the hundreds, walk off with the gates of their city and burn their fields by catching 300 foxes and putting their tales on fire and sending them through the barley fields of the Philistines.
What are the great lessons to be learned so far? First, God prepared a leader by preparing the parents.
How many parents would be ready to handle this revelation from an angel and be willing to follow instructions without complaining?
Manoah knew that his wife was a partner in the process and they would learn from the Lord together. When his wife told him about the angel, he (Manoah) now prays that the angel will reappear to give them wisdom regarding this child. He says, "0 Lord, please let the man of God whom Thou hast sent come to us again that he may teach us what to do for the boy who is to be born" (v 8). He saw that rearing this child was a sacred responsibility for both of them. "Teach us" he says.
God can give us wisdom for all of the tasks of life. Commit your next step to Him and He will guide you.
Why was the mother asked to also take the Nazarite vow? God knew that Samson needed to have an example of commitment. If he saw his mother drinking wine, it would have been much easier to rationalize his own lifestyle. God knew that the influence of the mother during those formative years would be greater than that of the Father. I can't prove it, but I think he also took this voluntary vow. He appears to be a very dedicated and committed man.
God's dreams for our children are often shaped by our dreams for them. The most powerful motivation for Christian living is still the Christian home. It is the example of mother and father that will be lasting and life changing.
Some of you parents are being shaped by God right now because your children have a special calling from God. When God wanted to prepare the Wesley brothers to bring revival to 18th century England, He gave them Suzannah Wesley, a godly woman who, though she had 19 children, gave each of them religious instruction each week.
Almost always God prepares the parents to shape the life of the leader. I must qualify this, however, with a second lesson: The commitment of the parents is often greater than the commitment of the children. Godly parents do not always produce godly children. Samson had weaknesses his parents did not have. He was a mighty deliverer. Even in death he killed a thousand Philistines. But his life was marred by a weakness for beautiful women and a fascination with trivia.
That's why I've titled this series: "Samson: A great man who pursued small things". I don't think that his failures were a fault of his parents. Parents are responsible to shape their children to grow up to love God, but when the children are grown they just might choose to walk in a different direction.
Some parents have endured endless false guilt about their children, tracing each of the child's failures to their own failures. But there is not a one-for-one correspondence. Godly parents sometimes produce ungodly children. And sometimes, though not often, the reverse is also true: godly children have sometimes grown up in some rather ungodly homes.
Finally, and most important, it's not how you begin but how you end that really matters. Samson had a great beginning, but ended badly. You might have a bad beginning, but have the potential to end well. Samson took his chances, rolled the dice and, at least for a time, lost it all. He blew the whole thing! He went from position of privilege to prison. He went from killing Philistines to serving them. He went from sight to blindness.
What was Samson's name? It means, "Little Sun." Perhaps it was a nickname, "Sunny." When the sun arises, a new day has dawned. But it was a day with plenty of clouds.
Samson reminds us of another deliverer. Christ is the "Sunrise from on high", "To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. To guide our feet in the way of peace. " (Luke 1:78,79).
Christ can do what Samson could not. He is the deliverer, the one who can cause us to be brought from darkness into light.
Next week, Part 2: A Marriage Doomed To Fail
By Erwin W. Lutzer
All rights reserved, the Moody Church, Chicago.
www.moodychurch.org
September 19, 2001
Samson: A Great Man Who Pursued Little Things
by Erwin W. Lutzer, Pastor
Moody Church, Chicago, IL
Part 2 of 4: A Marriage Doomed To Fail
Judges 13-16
Samson - If there ever was a man who typifies the "If it feels good, do it," philosophy, it was Samson.
Samson was a mysterious man. The Holy Spirit came upon him and he became strong. Yet, he was filled with self-will, and moral weakness. Eventually, he judged the nation for 20 years but first of all had to be trained, taught the lessons of submission.
His career began when he made several major mistakes in searching for a wife. He searched in the wrong place. "Then Samson went down to Timnah and saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines" (Judges 14:1).
That was his first mistake.
Where is Timnah? He went into the territory occupied by the Philistines. He went to a place where he had no business going. These were his enemies, not his friends.
When the writer says Samson went "down" to Timnah, he opens up a world of meaning. He had to walk about four miles from his own town of Zorah; to get there he walked down a ridge into the Sorek valley and up the other side.
Geographically, he went down to Timnah; but spiritually he also went down; he began the long slope that would eventually end in humiliation and blindness. He was convinced that the "grass was greener on the other side." He went into forbidden territory to make friends with the people God had already judged.
Everything in this scenario is now predictable. He had hit the first domino, and even if you had never read the rest of this chapter, you know that Samson is going to have trouble. You know that this is not going to end well.
"Why, Samson thought, "should I confine myself to the rather reserved Israelite ladies whose morals just might prevent a good time? Why not check out the Philistine gals who had a broader perspective on life in general and marriage in particular?"
Sounds good, but there was a problem. The Israelites were expressly forbidden to intermarry with the pagans of the land.
If you take the time to put this story together, you will learn that he made wedding plans before he even had spoken to this young lady who struck his fancy. No matter, she looked great!
His parents counseled him. They ask, as every parent would, "Is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives or among all of our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?"
This conversation goes on in a Christian home somewhere, every day of the week. "Why can't you find a nice church boy to date?" parents tell their teenage daughter. "Why this boy you met over at the bowling alley? Why don't you date someone from some of our church families?"
And of course Samson answered as all teenagers do, "That makes great sense! Come to think of it. I'm sure there are some beautiful girls in Israel too. In fact, I remember meeting a beautiful Israeli girl on the other side of Mr. Mishpat's vineyard!"
No. There is nothing more futile than to tell a young person that he is in love with the wrong person! The heart simply does not respond to logic. Never has, never will. "Get her for me, for she looks good to me! " This was love at first sight. This was the ticket to happiness
I won't take time to tell you the story that you can read for yourself in Judges 13-16. But on the fourth day of the wedding feast, he loses a bet and has to kill thirty men to get thirty suits of clothes. In violation of his Nazarite vow, he had to touch the dead bodies to get the clothes off. I have a feeling that he had long-since forgotten about his commitment.
What mistakes did he make? He was more interested in a riddle than relationships More interested in a good time than in godliness More interested in his plans than God's three important lessons emerge:
First, in love and marriage we must follow our head, not our heart! I've often reminded young people that it is possible to be madly in love with someone you should not marry. It happens to singles and it happens to married people who fall in love with someone else who is married.
Here is a scenario that happens often. A business man sits at his desk, attracted to a woman who just joined the work team. He watches her as she goes to the water cooler for a drink. He notices her as she walks to the files across the aisle. On the third day she brings him coffee. On the fourth day she sits on a chair beside him and they talk. Within a week they are having lunch together. He discovers more understanding and care than he has ever known in his own marriage. He has found an oasis, feelings of fulfillment he has never had before. Now he faces a decision.
Jesus, you recall, when speaking about lust said, "If your right eye offends you (or causes you to stumble) cut it out and cast it from you; for it is better for you that you enter into heaven with one eye than into hell with two." Christ was saying in the strongest possible language that we must do whatever is necessary to keep us from "stumbling." Breaking a relationship is painful, often very painful, but it is necessary. No matter how much the heart screams; no matter how many tears are shed; no matter how much genuine love and understanding there is between two people, the Lord says, "Cut out your eye if necessary, but do it!" We must run from the temptation before we have crossed the line.
A second lesson: It is possible to be used by the Spirit without being controlled by the Spirit. Are you surprised at verse 6 and 19 where we read, "And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him..."? Why would the Spirit continue to use him when he was walking in such disobedience?
Judges 14:4 presents us with a difficult statement. His parents try to convince him to not marry this lady of the Philistines, and we read, "However, his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord, for He was seeking an occasion against Philistines." Was God approving of all of this? No, it means simply that God would overrule Samson's disobedience. God would use all of this foolishness to have Samson strike a blow at the Philistines by killing 30 of them and burning their fields. God would even use someone who was violating his laws!
A woman in our church came to saving faith in Christ through the witness of another woman who was a Christian but living immorally. Yes, God sometimes uses people who are not Spirit-controlled. That doesn't justify disobedience. It only means that God is sometimes more gracious than we would expect.
What would have happened if Samson had been obedient? God would have provided another way to break the back of the Philistines, to destroy their strength. Samson would have done a greater and better work if he had followed God fully. God certainly was not dependent on Samson's disobedience to get the job done!
But let me warn you: Don't ever think that God is excusing your disobedience just because you are still being blessed by Him! My guess is that Samson thought to himself, "I can do whatever I like and the Spirit of the Lord is still upon me." Yes, but only for a time. Eventually, the sin that Samson tolerated would ensnare him.
Don't be deceived because God is good to you. His goodness would lead us to repentance, not to freedom to sin. Turn to Him today with your whole heart.
Finally, our greatest temptation is to turn truth into fantasy. When confronted with the reality about ourselves, we are tempted to reject the truth. I'm told there is a counselor who has on his desk the famous words of Christ, "The Truth Shall Set You Free" but underneath it reads, "But it will hurt you first!"
Well stated! Yes, the truth will set us free, but it will hurt us first. And because the truth hurts, you and I will do everything within our power to make sure we are not hurt. Seeing ourselves for what we are is never easy. And that can be why the truth does not set us free!
Everybody saw that Samson had a problem except Samson. By nature we dig a moat around ourselves; we fill it with water, draw up the bridge and tell ourselves that every bit of truth will be reinterpreted so that we will not have to change our lifestyle.
Imagine that we are interviewing Samson. We ask him why he does not take responsibility for his marriage fiasco, call on God and mend his ways.
He begins by deflecting the truth, blaming someone else. It is the Philistines' fault. They are the ones who betrayed him. It was his bride's fault, she is the one who talked him into revealing the secret of his riddle. It is everyone else's fault, because they didn't really understand what his needs were. He is as clean in the matter as a hound's tooth! When we begin to press him about how he violated God's commands, he now misinterprets the truth. He tells us that we have overlooked some of the peculiar circumstances. First, he was an exception because of his strength. The fact that the Spirit of the Lord still came upon him after the wedding feast is proof of God's blessing.
Second, he reminds us that the reason for the marriage prohibition is that Israel would not adopt pagan gods. He assures us that he had no intention of doing that. He fully intended to have his wife accept the God of Israel.
If we begin to probe more deeply and ask whether he thinks that he conducted himself as a man of God at the feast, he will remind us that some laughter and fun is a part of life. He would have begun to ask us whether all this was really our business after all? And why would we waste our time on matters that he and God could work out?
One thing seems certain: Samson would not dare let the truth hurt him. And because he refused to be hurt, he refused to be helped. But he could not be helped until he was hurt; he could not be healed until he was wounded. He wanted to grow without being pruned; he wanted to be strong without being made weak.
How does the truth hurt us? We must be open to God. We must expose all of the hidden parts of our lives in the presence of Christ, inviting Him to do within us what we cannot do. Then we must repair broken human relationships. We must be as open and vulnerable as we can be.
God does not work in closed hearts but in open ones. He does not work in self-deceived hearts, but open ones. Christ takes you like you are but does not leave you like He found you! The truth does set us free. But yes, it hurts us first!
Next week, Part 3: A Man With Two Hearts
By Erwin W. Lutzer
All rights reserved, the Moody Church, Chicago.
www.moodychurch.org
September 26, 2001
Samson: A Great Man Who Pursued Little Things
by Erwin W. Lutzer, Pastor
Moody Church, Chicago, IL
Part 3 of 4: A Man With Two Hearts
Judges 13-16
You can generally recognize a double-minded man. He has moments of commitment to God; often surprising us with his burst of spiritual discipline and devotion.
Mighty Samson is a picture of double-mindedness. He breaks promises he intends to keep; he overrates his ability to change himself. He has not yet come to the end of self-rule. So his promises are made largely in dependence upon good intentions. It is a sincere promise, but it means little.
Second, his commitment to God was based on convenience, not convictions. When things went bad, he called on God. When God answered, he drifted back to his own ways. He calls on God to help him, but not to change him.
Third, Samson, like all other double-minded people, attempts the impossible. He wants to love God and the world; God and the self. He can't but he tries.
Don't overrate such half-hearted commitment. Such a person will disappoint you, sooner rather than later. He is like Ephraim, whose goodness was like the dew that was there in the morning but dissipated in the hot sun.
Yes, Christians can be double-minded. They do love God, but love the world too. They serve both God and self-will. They are the center of their own lives yet they desperately want God at the circumference so that He can be called in when needed. They are hot and cold; committed one day and undependable the next.
Samson was such a man. But God was working in his heart to lead him from immaturity to maturity. He was growing from pride to humility, from self-centeredness to God-centeredness. The man with two hearts was growing toward single-mindedness. Today we will see that development. First, we see Samson the avenger.
Recall the story. Samson felt betrayed by his would-be father-in-law who gave his daughter to another man. The family did not expect to see Samson again. But to the surprise of all, Samson arrives to bring his bride a present. His father-in-law tries to appease Samson by offering his younger daughter to Samson as a wife. Samson suspects that this insult happened because he was a Hebrew. In a remarkable show of self-restraint he does not retaliate directly against the family. He could have killed the whole lot.
But he does vent his anger against the Philistines as a group. His first act of vengeance was to retreat to the hills and catch three hundred foxes. He ties a thong around the tail of each, knots the tails together and then attaches a firebrand to the end of the thongs. Three hundred foxes go in 150 different directions. They run through the ripened wheat fields, setting fire to both the harvested grain and the standing grain. The fire also spreads to the vineyards and olive groves. It was a serious blow to the Philistine economy.
The Philistines form a congressional committee to investigate the arson. Even the lords of the Philistines must themselves have concluded that Samson's proposed father-in-law had committed a great social blunder. At any rate they go and burn the young woman and her father. So much for that.
This gives Samson a second excuse for vengeance. He thinks that their action against his former wife and her father is unfair. We read, "Since you act like this, I will surely take revenge on you, but after that I will quit. And he struck them ruthlessly with a great slaughter" (Judges 15:7,8).
What do we make of this? Yes, Samson was supposed to subdue the Philistines, but this was not the way a man of God was supposed to act. You might think it fan to catch 300 foxes and watch the field burn; but Samson is just doing his own thing; he is not following God's lead. This man is just having himself a party.
God of course, wanted to have Samson's whole heart. But at this point he was unwilling to surrender.
Next we see Samson the Peace Maker. He ran to a cave to hide, but there he must have had an experience with God. While the Philistines are planning their next move, he is brooding, wondering what he will do next. He does not return home because if he is found there, his family and relatives will be in jeopardy. In fact, the whole nation of Israel would be a target for the Philistines' rage.
While in the cave, he has an experience that humbles him and suddenly we see a different side to this complex character.
The Philistines send out a search party to find Samson, giving a show offering that intimidated the Israelites. They announce that they are seeking to bind Samson to get revenge for all the damage he had done to them.
And now Samson's own people, three thousand strong, join the Philistines to find one man, the strong man who was hiding in a cave. They show no loyalty to their fellow Israelite. They ask him, "Do you not know that the Philistines are ruling over us? What then is this that you have done to us?"
Just think! The people of God had become content with their slavery. Their fear of offending the Philistines was greater than their desire to trust God and assert their own independence! They should have been glad that Samson was doing something to weaken their enemies.
And it doesn't stop there. They now ask Samson's permission to bind him and to hand him over to the Philistines! They were saving their necks at any cost. Here now we see a different Samson.
Notice, he controls his words. He does not lash out against them for their cowardice. He does not chide them for their ingratitude for all that he had done to break the Philistine stranglehold on Judah. He just gives them an explanation for what he did and then submits to their authority.
He also controlled his strength. After getting a promise from them that they would not kill him, he allowed them to bind him. He was saddened and humiliated by this rejection. But evidently he thought it would be best to submit.
What is happening here? The Israelites knew that if he were turned over to the Philistines he would be killed, but they hand him over. Samson knew that he had been sold by his own people, the cowards. His would-be friends were giving him to his vicious enemies. At last Samson showed that he was willing to take the risk of surrender; quite probably his trust was now in God. For that reason he could except whatever came his way.
Those who trust are in God's hands even if they should find themselves in the hands of enemies.
Finally, we see what the Holy Spirit will do through Samson's life. The Philistines had assembled on a broad valley called Lehi or "jawbone." When they saw the mighty Samson being led like a lamb to the slaughter, they let out a shout that reverberated through the hills. They intended to torture him to death.
What they had not counted on is a surge of power that surged through his body. "The Spirit of the Lord came upon him. " The ropes with which he was bound became like burned flax (16:9). Grabbing a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he hacked away at the Philistine ranks and when he was done, the dead lie in heaps about him. Tired and thirsty he expresses his contempt for the enemies. The word 'donkey' and the word 'heap' are the same in Hebrew. So making a play on words, he says: "With the jawbone of a donkey, Heaps upon heaps, With the jawbone of a donkey I have killed a thousand men."
This was a miracle of deliverance. This was a blow to the Philistine army and also to their morale. The Philistines choose to let him alone, at least for now. When Samson is thirsty he cries out to the Lord; and this is the high point of his relationship with God. This is the only time we hear Samson pray; the only time that he ascribes glory to God. "Thou hast given this great deliverance by the hand of thy servant, and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hands of the Philistines?" God graciously provided water. Samson drank and was satisfied.
The man with the foolish heart is now becoming the man with the faithful heart. The man who acted impulsively, is now acting prayerfully. Samson is being changed.
What is God's cure for double-mindedness? How does God take us a people with two hearts and make us people who have only one? He wants us to be able to say, "With my whole heart I -will seek you.... "
Samson learned that God often uses our friends, not our enemies to break us. The people of Judah did what the Philistines couldn't. Though Samson was betrayed by those who should have befriended him, that was the high point of his submission.
We learn that the name in which we fight is more important than the number of people who have been enlisted for the battle. Of course we don't fight today like Samson did. But spiritually we do. And when the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, it really did not matter what was in Samson's hand. It could have been stone; it could have been a stick. It could have been his own fists.
If we find this story incredible, we have forgotten that God is incredible. The Spirit can do what we can't. "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts. "
You might feel as useless as the jawbone of a donkey. But many a spiritual battle has been won with unlikely people using unlikely gifts.
Single-mindedness always begins in the heart, not the head. It is letting God into our life that we might be like Him. The cure for double-mindedness, is repentance. We must repent of all that we do. God never gives up on purifying our hearts. He will lead us to single-mindedness, making "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
Next week, Part 4: Physically Strong: Morally Weak
By Erwin W. Lutzer
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