We love being strong. For us, strong is good, weak is bad. The creed in our society is Darwin’s 'Survival of the fittest'. That’s why people drive 4 wheel drives. That’s why the big kids get chosen in the first 15 rugby team, or for the A grade League team. It makes sense. Success is in strength and size. Big is beautiful.
But so often it is not the way God works. God loves to work in weakness. The apostle Paul learned this. He learned it from Jesus, and from his own experience.
Paul had some impressive spiritual experiences. God revealed many things to him. Some things even that he was not permitted to tell. Of course, these things could make a person proud. And perhaps they would have made Paul proud. Except, God decided to torment Paul with a ‘thorn in his flesh’. We don’t know what it was, except it was a messenger of Satan. And it tormented him, or tortured him. We read that:
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. … For when I am weak, then I am strong.”(2 Corinthians 12:8-10 NIV).
What is your weakness? Is it a physical weakness? Failing strength, immobility, inability to see and hear? Chronic illness, pain or fatigue? In God’s sovereignty, you seem to have had more sickness and poor health than most? Or is it a mental weakness? Timidity, anxiety, mental illness, depression. Is your mental health likely to go downhill before your physical health?
No matter what species your weakness, we should remember that God’s power is made perfect through weakness.
Hudson Taylor was throughout his life a sickly man. He seemed to have a weak constitution. Yet God used him to take the gospel to the interior of China.
Charles Spurgeon endured long periods of depression. Yet he spoke gospel words of consolation and comfort to thousands.
Joni Eareckson went to the beach one day, and was carried out of the water a quadraplaegic. She remains so to this day. Yet she writes (with a pen in her mouth’, ‘Jesus is alive and his power is available to you … He proves himself daily in my life…” (Joni, 127).
Soul Surfer Bethany Hamilton was a very promising surfer until a shark took her arm off when she was 13. It didn’t stop her and she was ranked in the top 10 in the world. She uses her fame to testify to God the Father and Jesus his Son.
Nick Vujicic was born without arms and legs. But that hasn’t stopped him believing in God, or riding a surfboard with Bethany Hamilton, or speaking all over the world to churches and bible classes.
A Christian man I know got to age 25 until it was discovered he couldn’t read. So he had to learn how to read. A while later, he applied to study at Bible College. But they knocked him back. Never mind. He decided to do ministry anyway. And he started doing gospel ministry with people from middle-east countries. He taught them to read the bible. And he developed great ways to help them read the bible. Eventually, the man ended up going to the same Bible College, but not as a student. He ended up being a Lecturer. He now Lectures students about his ministry. And he said to me, He would never have been able to do the ministry he now does if he had gone to bible college.
God’s power made perfect in weakness, in sickness, in disability, in mental illness, in failure to master basic skills. God loves to work that way.
Well, we’ve come to the last judge, Samson. There is still more to Judges (we have two more sermons after this on 5 chapters), but Samson is the last Judge we meet. He is thought to be the bible’s strong man. But it is not through his great strength that God wins the victory. No, God wins the victory through his weakness.
Of course, we now know Israel’s situation off by heart. No prizes for guessing the context. Chapter 13 verse 1:
Again Israel did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years. (NIV)
Previously, Israel cried out to the LORD. But now, she doesn’t seem to care. There is no repentance, no returning to Yahweh, no crying out to him. Israel doesn’t want to be rescued, doesn’t want to rock the boat. They prefer to live with the status quo of Philistine rule. Take mighty Judah, the lion of the tribes of Israel. At the beginning of Judges, Judah clears almost all their land. Yet, by chapter 15 verse 11, Judah says to Samson:
Don’t you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us? (NIV)
Only one, it seems, cares about the oppression of Israel: Yahweh.
So what does Yahweh do? He chooses a nameless, barren women from the tribe of Dan to have a baby boy. That’s what chapter 13 is about. The angel announces that help is on its way.
Because of the boy’s mission, he is called to be separate (Judges 13:7; compare Numbers 6). That is what a Nazarite is: one set apart for God. From the womb to the tomb, the boy is to be different from other men. No razor is to be used on his head. He will grow long hair, showing his difference. Neither he nor his mother will drink alcohol or grape products. They will not eat ritually unclean foods, foods forbidden by the law of Moses. And he must not touch dead bodies (Numbers 6:1-21). This was Samson’s destiny, according to the angel.
However, the fully-grown Samson is very different to his job description. Judges chapters 14 to 16 do not seem to describe a Nazirite, someone set apart for Yahweh. They don’t even describe a Judge, as we have come to expect them. Othniel, Ehud, Barak and Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, all raised armies. All lead armies into battle against the enemy.
But not Samson. Samson’s more like a long haired hippy. His motto is “make love, not war”. The other Judges fight against their enemies. Samson shares his bed with them. Samson, you see, wants to be like other men. Samson wants to intermarry with the Philistines. He is happy to live peacefully with them and their gods. And for Samson, a war would get in the way of the idyllic life he seeks. Samson is the reluctant hero, a Judge in denial.
Throughout the narrative, Samson is portrayed as a serial offender against the Nazirite law. He’ll eat honey out of a dead carcass. He’ll touch dead bodies to get the clothes off them. He’ll touch a jawbone to slaughter a thousand men. But not only does he break his Nazirite obligations. He also breaks God’s law against intermarriage. God’s word to Israel was clear.
Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods…(Deuteronomy 6:3ff NIV)
But Samson had a weakness … Philistine girls. It was a fatal attraction, really. He chooses his Philistine bride because ‘she is right in my eyes’ (Judges 14:3). In other words, Samson is just like Israel. He does what is right in his own eyes just as Israel does whatever is right in her own eyes, and even if God has given the clearest ‘No’.
Who Samson married mattered. His parents pleaded with him: “Isn’t there an acceptable woman among your relatives or among all our people?” And who we marry matters. Who Christians marry matters. And to some who go on missionary dating, we say: “Isn’t there an acceptable marriage partner amongst Christians? Must you go among the non-Christians to find a marriage partner?”
Let Samson’s weakness not be our weakness. Our apostle says “do not be yoked together with unbelievers”. And the biggest yoke you can have is marriage. He commands Christian widows that if they marry, they must marry “in the Lord”. In other words, Christians marry Christians. And if someone says, "Well, Samson played around with this one, so I can too!", remember this: Samson’s disobedience cost him much pain, both his eyes, his dignity, and indeed, it cost him his life. God brought good out of it, but at Samson’s terrible personal cost.
Now, Samson does eventually get around to fighting the Philistines, but never in Holy War. He always acted on his own, with only one motive: revenge, personal reprisal, vengeance, vendetta.
Even at the very end, when he stands blind and humiliated in Dagon’s temple, when he wants to end it all and take as many Philistines with him as possible, Samson isn’t doing it for Yahweh’s honour. He isn’t doing it to save Israel. He’s doing it for his two eyes (Judges 16:28). Only when it gets personal, does he do anything.
However, God has promised to begin salvation through Samson. God’s promise stands firm. Chapter 13 verse 5:
He will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines. (NIV)
And God will bring the beginning of the salvation he has promised. God will do it through Samson, whether he likes it or not, despite Samson’s disobedience, and even through Samson’s disobedience.
And Yahweh’s power will be made perfect through Samson’s weakness. And here, it is Samson’s weakness for three Philistine women that show God’s power.
From a human point of view, Samson’s marriage to his first unnamed Philistine wife is a disaster. And it is of Samson’s making. He ruins the wedding feast by his macho riddle. He wants to get more wedding presents, it seems. So his 30 groomsmen threaten to burn his wife and father in law. No wonder the poor bride cried the whole 7 days and pestered him until he told her the riddle (Judges 14:16-17). Then after he lost the bet, Samson storms off in a huff, so his wife is given to his best man. And then she is murdered by the Philistines. Again, we see women treated badly at the end of Judges. Humanly speaking, it was a complete disaster.
But from God’s perspective, this was the occasion he was looking for. If Samson will not begin the rescue of Israel from the Philistines in the orthodox way, God will accommodate to Samson’s weakness. And thus, we witness a brutal chain of vengeance and reprisals. We see escalating violence from both Samson and the Philistines. After each violent act, the other party seeks to square up the ledger. But the retaliation never ends the violence. It only increases it.
The Philistines start it by threatening to burn Samson’s wife. So Samson kills 30 Philistine men to give them the clothes. Then his wife was given to his best man. So Samson destroys the Philistines corn fields and olive oil. Then, the Philistines burn his wife and father in law. So Samson slaughtered them viciously and then fled to hide. So the Philistine army comes out to find him. And in response, Samson, by the Spirit of Yahweh, slaughters them in heaps with a fresh jawbone.
Samson thinks he will have his revenge, then quit the violence. So a literal translation of Chapter 15 verse 7 is:
“If this is what you do, I swear I will be avenged on you, and after that I will quit” (ESV, compare RV)
But as long as you operate on the principle of revenge, you cannot stop the cycle of violence, once it is started.
We see that in the Middle East today. A rocket attack is responded to with a missile strike, which is responded to with a suicide bomber on a bus, which is responded to with bulldozing houses. There can be no end for as long as you say: “The ledger must be square. I need to pay this back.” For both parties now claim victim status.
The Philistines army goes to find Samson. Why? Chapter 15 verse 10:
“We have come to take Samson prisoner,” they answered, “to do to him as he did to us.” (NIV)
Samson attacked the Philistines. Why? Chapter 15 verse 11:
“I merely did to them what they did to me?” (NIV)
And God is using the escalating vengeance to judge the Philistines.
Again, we see God working through Samson’s lust. He visits a nameless Philistine prostitute in Gaza. And ends up ripping up the city gate, rendering the city defenceless.
And finally, we see God working despite Samson’s weakness, in the story of Delilah, that was read for us. With Delilah, Samson no doubt was seeking the quiet life. But neither God nor the Philistines will let Samson have the peace he wants. Samson loves Delilah. But his love is not returned. Delilah loves money, not Samson. After his strength is gone, she is actually the first one who afflicts him, even before the Philistines get to him.
Again, Samson went looking for love in the wrong places. He went outside the boundaries God set. And in the end, it brings Samson undone, from the human point of view. He loses both his eyes and his freedom.
But again, Samson’s folly doesn’t thwart God’s purposes. Samson will be everything God destined him to be. Samson will begin to save Israel from the Philistines. God is Sovereign. And his ways are beyond tracing out. Samson refused to use his great God-given strength to wage war on the Philistines and their gods. So God will use Samson’s weakness, captivity, and blindness to bring about victory over Dagon and Dagon’s people. When Samson was weak, then he was strong, in fact, at his strongest. The last part of Chapter 16 verse 30:
“Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived” (NIV)
It was in his death that Samson won his greatest victory. His seeming defeat was a surprising victory. When he stretched out his arms, and pushed over the temple.
Samson never finished the job that he was called to start. In fact, he was never called to finish it, only to start it. Chapter 13 verse 5 again:
He will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines. (NIV)
And of course, this begs the question, ‘Who will finish it?’ When Samson stretched out his arms, he could not say ‘It is finished’.
Only Eli, then Samuel will follow as Judges. Samuel is the last of the figures described as a Judge. And Samuel didn’t finish the task of salvation. He appointed a King, Saul, who likewise failed. King David followed. He was a man after God’s own heart. He brought down Goliath of the Philistines. Yet, for all that achieved, he could not bring Israel rest from the Philistines. But God did promise David a Son, one who would sit on his throne after him and rule the nations forever in an everlasting Kingdom. Solomon did for a time, and gave rest from Israel's enemies on all sides. But he followed false gods, and his kingdom fell. None in David’s line thereafter finished the job.
Until another King came in weakness. Oh, he is strong, Yes, he was powerful. He had to be. For he was chosen from birth, no, from before the birth of the universe, to carry the sin of the world on his shoulders. He took up a world of sorrows and iniquities. But it was in his weakness that he won his greatest victory. It was in his death that he defeated our enemies. I am, of course, talking about Jesus, Christ crucified, a crucified Messiah, which is denied even today as a nonsensical contradiction, but which is God’s strength.
And when Jesus stretched out his arms that last time, hanging on the cross, he said: ‘It is finished’. Jesus did not just come to begin the work of salvation, as Samson did. He came to complete it. For Jesus is the beginning and the end, the first and the last. He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
And the message of Jesus’ death and resurrection for us and our salvation is powerful. It is the gospel which is the power of God for salvation for all who believe. It appears weak, unimpressive, foolish. But it is God’s gospel. It is God’s power that will save all who believe.
Amen.