Primed for Tragedy: A Warning from the Life of Samson

And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him. -Judges 16:20.

No matter how we try to read the story of Samson, from a literary perspective, it is a tragedy, and like all tragedies, we must take heed. Israel again had done what was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years (Judges 13:1). The Lord had brought chastisement on His people for their sins, but it was now time to set them free, so the Lord sets his plan in motion to send a man to be a deliverer. That man was Samson.

Samson was a promised child to his parents, a man set apart for God through the Nazarite vow, and even as a young man the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him (Judges 13:25). From there, we are all familiar with his great feats of strength. From pulling out the gates of Gaza, posts and all, and carrying them away to a hill in front of Hebron (Judges 16:3), to his defeat of 1000 Philistines with jawbone of a donkey (Judges 15:15), all of it was done because the Spirit of the Lord had rushed upon him.

Perhaps you can think of times the Lord has worked through you to accomplish something significant. Maybe you have been used in ministry or accomplished something meaningful at your job. You may also have seen Him move in your family, or use you to comfort someone who was hurting. Whatever it is, you know that the only reason it happened was that the Spirit of the Lord was upon you, and in it, you greatly rejoice for the favor God has shown you. Like Samson, you have every reason to take pleasure in the goodness of God in those situations.

However, great moments with God in the past do not guarantee we will not fall in the future. There can be no resting on our laurels because we have walked closely with Jesus up to this point. We have not yet entered our rest, and we still have an enemy prowling around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

Though Samson kept his life pure in so many ways, he had a weakness involving lust, and worse than that, he seems to have let God’s work in his life stir his pride. Why else would he tell Delilah the secret of his strength if on three prior nights she had attempted to make him weak by taking advantage of what he told her; unless he thought that it would not make a difference if she cut his hair. Perhaps he was strong in his own strength. Maybe he didn’t need God to continue to be the great Samson.

As we now know, Samson was nothing without the Lord. He woke up, ready to shake off his bonds, but he was no longer the man he used to be. He didn’t even know the Lord had left him. The deception of Delilah, which Samson fell for because of his own self-deception, led to his subsequent humiliation, blindness, and the enemies of God rejoicing.

We all know how the story ends, one last shot at redemption, and the Spirit of God gives him the strength to take down the palace filled with 3000 Philistines, a feat which ended his life as well. It is here you might say, “See, it is not a tragedy because God gave him back his strength,” but that is looking at the situation with one eye closed.

Samson wasted his blessing, and he wasted his gift. His life was cut short. He could have done more for the Lord, and he never would have had to suffer the way he did. There is an extremely clear message here for all of us, and too often it is missed. We must continue to guard our hearts.

We must never rest in what the Lord has done through us in the past, or see them as an indication that we are something special. We should cherish those sweet moments we have spent with the Lord, but we should never begin to think that we no longer need them going forward.

Have you grown distracted from the things of God, is there some sin you continue to play with while you think, “God has always shown me favor in the past, and I will never fall like Samson.” Or have you already quenched the Spirit and you have failed to notice that His abiding presence with you has been missing for some time? If that is you, you may very well be playing into the hands of your own lusts and into the hands of the enemy. You are primed for tragedy.

Any inclination to begin to see ourselves as the champion, the great deliverer of Gods people, is a pride that is sure to lead to a fall. There is only one Promised Child who can truly set us free, and we are entirely dependant upon Him for everything; He is not dependant upon us. It is in Jesus, that we live, move, and have our being.

There is only one way we can avoid a similar tragedy in our own lives, and that is by clinging to our Savior daily. No matter how great a woman or man of God people think we are, every one of us should get down on our knees at this moment and say, “Lord, save me from myself. If you do not keep me, I have no hope.” Holding fast to Christ in contrition is the only place we are safe, and He has promised that He will give grace to the humble.

We must never forget, at the end of the day, we have all wasted blessings, and we have all wasted His gifts to us, but Jesus took our tragedies upon Himself on the cross, and then He rose for our justification. We have no reason to boast. This fact is all the more reason we should say, “Jesus, keep me near the cross.”

-D. Eaton