This is part 4 in a series of posts based on the manuscript from a 2018 talk on the life of Samson. Parts 1-3 provide an overview of the place of Judges in the Bible and the life of Samson in general, and cover some of the more difficult areas of interpretation. All posts in this series are available here.
So how should this change us? If we walk away from this and don’t live our lives differently in light of it, we are guilty of being hearers of the Word and not doers, against which James warns us. Samson’s life should rightly give us pause to stop and evaluate our own lives in a couple different ways. I’ve already mentioned caution when it comes to marriage and a potential spouse who may not object to Christianity, but does not actually worship the Lord. This is valid for our closest friendships also though.
Furthermore, Samson shows us that it is possible to have Spirit-given gifts, but no fruit of the Spirit. We see no change, no maturation, no growth in him over a minimum of 20 years. Each of us has likewise been uniquely gifted and equipped for the work which God has ordained for us to do, and we need to be wary of using those gifts for our own purposes rather than for fulfilling the call God has placed on us. This means we need to be aware of both our gifts and also our calling. Discerning these things requires wisdom, and the Lord does not rebuke us for asking for wisdom when we lack it. In addition, He does not promise that it will be comfortable or easy to utilize our gifts in faithful obedience. We should also be seeing evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit through growth in the fruit of the Spirit. If we are not increasing in our capacity for love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we need to stop and reevaluate exactly who or what we’re serving, and why.
Thirdly, we see the dangers that lurk in our own hearts. Samson is the proof in the pudding, so to speak, for the phrase “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.” Jesus uses some pretty radical words, when He says in Matthew 5 to pluck out your eye or cut off your hand if it causes you to sin, and we understand that He doesn’t mean that literally. Samson shows us that it is possible to literally gouge out the eyes that have led you astray, but still continue to go astray, because the issue isn’t your eyes but your heart. Be killing sin, deal radically with it, and beg the Lord to equip you to strike the death blow to the besetting sin in your life at the heart level, because if you do not, it will be killing you.
Finally, there’s yet another mention of the people doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord. I don’t want to steal any thunder from next week, when we’re told repeatedly that everyone did what is right in his own eyes, but the implication has been that what is right in the people’s eyes is evil in the sight of the Lord. We need to evaluate what is right in our own eyes as well, and hold it up to the standards of God’s Word and what we know to be right in the Lord’s eyes, and base our actions and our decisions and our words on what is truly right.
As we close here, I’d like to leave you with a final thought that will perhaps stick in your mind more than anything I could say. I sing through a hymnal with my girls at bedtime, and one evening as I was preparing and praying that the Lord would make this more than just an intellectual exercise and provide for me a way to recall and to be changed by this, our hymn was one that, though familiar from my childhood, I’m not sure we’ve ever sung here at Parkside. Maybe you’ll find them as fitting as I did: Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee. Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of Thy love. Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from Thee. Take my will and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine. Take my heart; it is Thine own. Take my love, my Lord, I pour at Thy feet its treasure store. Take myself and I will be ever, only, all for Thee.