Closer Day By Day

Bible Passage:  Judges 14

Of all the judges, Samson is probably one of the notorious and controversial ones. During the period of judges, some of the judges raised by God to deliver the people were not only ungodly but were even evil.

Let us look into this chapter. The first thing I noticed was that Samson’s wife was unnamed and was a Philistine. The Philistines were oppressing Israel during that period and were considered their enemy. Yet Samson wanted a wife from the Philistines.

Secondly, it was God’s Will that Samson went to Timnah and that the Philistines were killed by the hand of Samson. A bit controversial as first Samson did something against the will of God and yet it was still according to God’s will that he married that women.

Thirdly, Samson’s actions were ungodly. He did not heed the advice of his parents. He lusted after women and love them only because of their looks and disregarded whether these women were of the same faith.  He was arrogant and wanted to win in the puzzle. When the Philistines cheated, he killed them in revenge. Interestingly, even though this was unrighteous anger and revenge it was still according to God’s plan. Remember the Bible says that vengeance belongs to God?

What I deduced from this story is that God’s power or miracles need not necessarily be performed by holy or godly people. Moreover God can use wicked people or nation for example Babylonians to punish His people. By human logic, we tend to associate that if a miracle is performed or judgment is executed it has to be done by a holy or righteous person. This can potentially be dangerous because we may associate certain leaders who have performed miracles as being very holy or righteous. In this story and other stories in Judges this is not necessarily true.

Also, as workers of God we should not be arrogant and think that God is pleased with us when church work is done smoothly or even when great things were accomplished through us. We have to examine ourselves constantly and ensure that our lives and attitude is holy and pleasing to Him.

God has His Will and we are just only a vessel for his Will to be accomplished. Conversely we could be behaving like Samson, doing evil in the sight of God and worse still thinking that what we are doing is pleasing to God.

Lastly, the Spirit of God was upon Samson and through His Spirit, Samson had this supernatural strength to defeat the Philistines. In the OT it was God’s prerogative to abide in whomever He chooses and to give power and wisdom to them. In Acts 1, it states that we shall receive power when we receive the Holy Spirit. Through the grace of God our church has the abidance of the Holy Spirit and it is possible that we who are baptized to receive Him through prayers. Have we felt that we indeed received power from on high? Have we cherished the Holy Spirit within us and do our best not to grieve Him. Samson’s ungodliness paid the price as the Spirit of God left him in the later chapter.

2 Timothy 1:7 “For God did not give us a Spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control.”

May our Lord Jesus continue to abide in us and give us the power to preach His gospel to people around us and keep us in His love.