Friday, December 7, 2007

By Faith... the Judges, Part 41 of 62

TEXT: "What more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets" (Hebrews 11:32).

IDEA: Men and women often come to spiritual disaster because of misdirected love.

PURPOSE: To help listeners realize the danger of sharing life with someone who doesn’t love what you love.

Have you ever taken a music appreciation class? What did you learn?

I had a music appreciation class in 5th grade, and I first learned about Camille Saint-Saens’ opera Samson and Delilah. The most moving scene in the opera is of Samson in the prison house in Gaza. Samson, Israel’s great champion, had lost his sight and his strength, toiling as a slave. I knew the details of the story from Sunday school, but Samson’s song of repentance moved me deeply.

I. Do you find that the story in the biblical text grips you?

Judges 16:20 tells us that Samson lay asleep and helpless in the arms of the woman he loved and trusted with the secret of his strength, his long hair. When Delilah wheedled the secret from Samson, she then had a man shave off his hair as he slept. Then Delilah called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” Then there is the striking sentence: “But he did not know that the Lord had left him.”

I could not tell why, but at 11 years of age I identified with Samson. Can you identify with him?

II. Samson is reduced to a helpless weakling. His fall is described in agonizing detail.

The Philistines gouged out his eyes. Brutal treatment like this to incapacitate and shame prisoners was common (cf 1 Samuel 11:2; 2 Kings 25:7). Samson was helpless.

The Philistines chained him with bronze shackles and took him 37 miles over hot desert sands to Gaza, the place where he had displayed his great strength in carrying off the gates of the city.

They made him grind grain which was woman’s work, usually considered too lowly for men to perform.

III. What do you think the writer of Judges wanted us to learn from all of this?