“Come, thou Fount of every blessing;
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above;
praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of God’s unchanging love!

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let that grace now, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart; O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.”

(Author: Robert Robinson, 1758)

Only by God’s grace…

Judges 15

Samson’s Vengeance on the Philistines

Later on, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. He said, “I’m going to my wife’s room.” But her father would not let him go in.

² “I was so sure you hated her,” he said, “that I gave her to your companion. Isn’t her younger sister more attractive? Take her instead.”

³ Samson said to them, “This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines; I will really harm them.” ⁴ So he went out and caught three hundred foxes and tied them tail to tail in pairs. He then fastened a torch to every pair of tails, ⁵ lit the torches and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks and standing grain, together with the vineyards and olive groves.

⁶ When the Philistines asked, “Who did this?” they were told, “Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because his wife was given to his companion.”

So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death. ⁷ Samson said to them, “Since you’ve acted like this, I swear that I won’t stop until I get my revenge on you.” ⁸ He attacked them viciously and slaughtered many of them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the rock of Etam.

⁹ The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi. ¹⁰ The people of Judah asked, “Why have you come to fight us?”

“We have come to take Samson prisoner,” they answered, “to do to him as he did to us.”

¹¹ Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?”

He answered, “I merely did to them what they did to me.”

¹² They said to him, “We’ve come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.”

Samson said, “Swear to me that you won’t kill me yourselves.”

¹³ “Agreed,” they answered. “We will only tie you up and hand you over to them. We will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock. ¹⁴ As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands. ¹⁵ Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.

¹⁶ Then Samson said,

“With a donkey’s jawbone
    I have made donkeys of them.
With a donkey’s jawbone
    I have killed a thousand men.”

¹⁷ When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was called Ramath Lehi.

¹⁸ Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the Lord, “You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” ¹⁹ Then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived. So the spring was called En Hakkore, and it is still there in Lehi.

²⁰ Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Samson lost his betrothed wife to his best man. Obviously angry, Samson took revenge on the Philistines. Samson initiated a cycle of violence and revenge between himself and the Philistines. This vicious cycle continued to grow in scope.  Forgiveness did not seem to be an option in this story.  Samson’s revenge caused trouble for his own people for committing agriculture arson.  The Philistines are coming with full force to capture Samson.  However, we must keep in mind that God was using Samson’s exploits to harass the Philistines and prepare them for the sure defeat that was coming in a few years.

Revenge births violence which escalates more violence. The Philistines, a hostile people group, weren’t about to stand around doing nothing while their food and fortune went up in flames. They figured out that Samson was behind the burning of their crops, and they knew they had to retaliate. Since they couldn’t hope to overcome Samson, they did the next best thing and vented their wrath on his wife and father-in-law—their own Philistine people. The Philistines were godless, unmerciful, full of hate and evil. 

Samson’s weakness as a leader was not including anyone in his battles against the Philistines.  He took on the evil behaviors of the Philistines as his own personal battle of revenge that only belonged to him.  But God intervened to show him he was just a man who got thirsty like every other man.  God will do this a few more times in Samson who is learning the tough lessons of life of total dependence on God. Just because you have the strength of many men; God is stronger still.  God is in control. It is God who is Samson’s strength.  Doing what God says will always be the best plan of action.

Samson’s real strength was realizing the Source of his abilities. After the battle, Samson humbly bows to God with prayer for his needs with thanksgiving.  Samson’s prayer indicates that he considered himself God’s servant and that he didn’t want to end his life falling into the hands of the godless Philistines. So God was merciful and performed a miracle by opening up a spring of water in a hollow place. Samson quenched his thirst and then gave the place the name “Spring of the Caller.” And he obviously told others what God had done for him there, because the event was eventually recorded.

Come and talk with me first, beckons our God.  As believers we must seek God before, during, and after the battles of life as a way of life.  This is vital to our growing, intimate relationship with God through Jesus.  Jesus died for our sins then by God’s resurrection power raised Jesus in victory over death! God completed the work that secures our hope of eternal life with Him!  Why would we trust anyone else? God knows all, created all, is in all, and desires His very best for all who believe, trust, and obey.

The Apostle Paul writes of weakness that served as catalyst to know God more intimately!

“Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  2 Corinthians 12: 7-10

As demonstrated in the hard life of Paul and others; God does not spare us trials, but He helps us overcome them in ways that build our faith in Him! God works in our weakness, because when we are weak we are ready for His strength to accomplish the task in His way.  God still uses ordinary, unlikely, with various weaknesses, humans to accomplish His purpose and plan in and through us. There is no one like our God! To God be the glory!

Don’t wait to exhaust all human resources, coming to the end of our “ropes” that bind us.  Sometimes, we think we must handle all of life on our own first to appear strong and not weak.  That is what most of us are taught.  But we waste precious time with our Lord when we do that while putting off the blessings God wants to pour out over us!

Run and bow humbly to THE SOURCE who gives Life—FIRST!  No regrets when we do.  

Lord,

I come to you now, in the quiet of this first hour of the day, seeking You first. Make your desires be my desires for this day.  Lift the burden of thought and actions of self-reliance as I fully rely on You!

Give me wisdom, Holy Spirit, to live in ways that reflect the characteristics of You, Lord, who saved us and set us free. Lead me all day long, reminding me of your love in and for me, making my love for others more like your love for me.

In Jesus Name, Amen