Revealing Too Much

Introduction

Samson was God’s man, raised to know only God, yet he allowed his desires to take precedence over his calling. In Judges 16, we read the story of Samson and Delilah—an intriguing and perplexing account of his downfall as God’s leader. The story demonstrates the destruction of sin and the need to be on our guard against temptation. Making a deal with sin never results in a favorable outcome. Let’s learn from Samson this morning.

Destruction

By the time we come to Judges 16, Samson has demonstrated his strength in extraordinary ways. But we also begin to see the demise of his character. Samson in chapter 16 is a confident man—but his confidence is not in God but in his own strength. Notice 16:1-3. He goes down to Gaza, one of the principal cities of the Philistines, a place where the people hate him and consider him their enemy. While in the city, Samson sees a prostitute that he immediately wants to be with. No self-control. He spends the night with her. While he engages in sexual sin, the men of the city prepare to kill him. But Samson arises during the night and took the city gate literally out of the ground. The city gate would have been wood with deeply imbedded posts, surrounded by a metal skin, all held together with large spikes. It would have been large, heavy, and nearly indestructible. The NIV says that he lifted them and took them to a hill that faces Hebron. The Hebrew can be understood to say that he carried the gates to Hebron, which was 38 miles away. Either way, the point is that Samson made the men of Gaza a laughingstock. We might use words like arrogant to describe Samson. He is associating with the enemy beyond God’s word.

Quickly, the writer turns his attention to another woman named Delilah. Delilah lives in Philistine territory. Each of the leaders of the five major cities of Philistine promises five thousand to Delilah if she will use her relationship with Samson to learn the secret of his strength. She agrees and the trap is laid for Samson. Verse 6 should have been a red flag to him. An obvious question about his strength should have caused him to avoid being with Delilah. Instead, Samson gives Delilah three answers: tie me with bowstrings; tie me with new ropes which have never been used; weave my hair into the fabric of a loom. Three answers; three attempts to tie Samson up. Does he just not see the correlation? Is Samson this stupid? No. He is this self-confident. He is so sure that he cannot fall that he doesn’t keep his guard up. He trusts in his physical strength, not in God.

Then Delilah pulls out the final weapon. “If you love me, you will tell me what makes you so strong.” You have mistreated me, she says. You have made me look foolish, all the while trying to bring about Samson’s destruction. “If love” is rarely real. But because Samson does what is right in his own eyes, he gives in to Delilah. He tells her what it will take to destroy his strength. And the cycle is repeated. His hair is shaved and his strength is gone. Captured by the enemy, Samson is blinded, shackled, and given a woman’s job to do in prison. Grinding grain was a woman’s task. Just as his eyesight has been taken away, so is the arrogant self-confident demeanor. He is humbled by the job he is given to do in prison.

Temptation

Samson’s story teaches us several lessons about temptation. Temptations come to all of us. There is no sin in being tempted. The sin is in giving into the temptation. But moral decline doesn’t occur overnight. It is the subtle temptation which brings us the most difficulty. Moral decline isn’t jumping off a cliff; it is the descent like going down a hill on a sled. We start out slowly, but then begin to pick up speed until we realize that the only way to stop the plunge is to throw ourselves off the sled. This is what sin does to us. Some clue should have hit Samson when his secrets were being carried out.

Temptation comes in beautiful packages. Who did the Philistines hire to do their work? Delilah isn’t an ugly woman. She is beautiful, at least in Samson’s eyes. That is the nature of sin—it appeals to us. But this appeal, while obvious to us, has its effects hidden from us by Satan. If Satan approaches us with obvious sin, we would reject it. But instead he hides the consequences of the sin, so that we accept it more readily. Temptation is presented so that it appears to be good, right, and fulfilling.

We need to avoid temptation. Who we choose to be with, where we choose to go, what we choose to view affects our ability to say “no” to temptation. An alcoholic must avoid bars to more effectively say “no” to temptation. Teens who date must avoid being alone with their friend unsupervised in order to say “no” to sexual temptation. Those tempted by pornography may need to say “no” to cable, video stores, and the Internet in order to say “no” to temptation. Like Samson, we begin to believe that we can handle the temptation. Like Samson, we begin to think that we have enough strength to deal with temptation. We become confident in our own abilities, and as a result Satan wins.

This is the reason the Bible tells us to flee from sin. 1 Corinthians 6:18 says to “flee sexual immorality.” 1 Corinthians 10:14 says “flee from idolatry.” In 1 Timothy 6:11, Paul tells Timothy to flee the things associated with materialism. And in 1 Timothy 2:22, Paul tells Timothy to flee youthful lusts. When it comes to temptation, we aren’t to stick around. We are to run away. There is no shame in leaving sin behind.

Look at verse 20. This is an apt description of what happens when we give into temptation and allow sin to overtake our lives. But “Samson did not know that the Lord had left him.” Are we to assume that God leaves us when we sin? Does this text mean that God separates from us at our weakest moments? No. What the writer is describing is Samson’s realization that which he needed for strength was now gone. All this time, he thought it was him. He thought it was his strength. But in reality it was God’s strength, and when he forfeited his dependence on God, then he forfeited his strength.

Sin matters. God doesn’t want to leave us in our sin. This is why he provides a way back. God gives more chances. God doesn’t want you to be separated from him, and to make sure you had every opportunity to be near him, he sent Jesus into this world.

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