Judges 14:1-20


All of us want to be strong.  We like to think of ourselves as strong and able to be powerful and take care of ourselves.  However, there is a different kind of strength that is even more valuable than physical strength; that is spiritual strength.  When we are strong spiritually, we have the ability to withstand strong temptations and live in a way that is pleasing to God.  Samson was a man who had great physical strength, but was spiritually weak.  God had blessed him with a strong body and his parents had consecrated him to the Lord from his conception; but he was still unable to face the temptations of his flesh and lived a careless and sinful life.

SAMSON WAS WEAK IN OBEYING THE LAW: As a Nazirite, there were some very specific laws that Samson was to follow.  He was not to marry outside of the children of Israel, he was not to cut his hair, he was not to eat certain foods and he was not to touch anyone or anything that was dead.  In this chapter we see that this strong man has a gift from God in his strength when he easily kills a lion with his own hands, but we also see his spiritual weakness in his disobedience of these laws.  He wants to marry a Philistine woman and then he eats honey that he takes from the carcass of the dead lion he had killed.  We often want to be used of God for great things, yet we refuse to be obedient to God in the basic areas of life.  If we want to be spiritually strong we must exercise restraint of the desires of our flesh.

SAMSON WAS WEAK IN CONTROLLING HIS LOVE: He insisted with his parents that he be able to marry this Philistine woman.  At the wedding feast he is overcome by greed and wants to get rich by telling a riddle in a bet with the Philistine men.  His “wife” pleads with him to tell her the riddle and he ends up giving in to her and she tells the men so he loses the bet and then goes out and kills men to pay off his bet and ends up losing his wife to a man from the wedding party.  He is controlled by his passion and his anger and ends up being controlled by his lusts and not be the Spirit of God.  We truly must learn to value spiritual strength over physical strength so that we might live for the glory of God.  

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