Judges 15:1-20

Samson has a physical strength that we have never seen before.  God empowered him in a way that he did not need to lead the armies of Israel into battle against the enemy, he simply went up and faced thousands of men and was able to be victorious over them alone with the strength the Lord had given him.  The life of Samson is heroic and tragic all at the same time.  He is able to accomplish amazing things, but he is also so flawed in his character and controlled by the lusts of his flesh.  It truly would have been amazing to see what this powerful man could have accomplished had he been able to match his spiritual strength to his physical strength.  The reality is that all of us have been given gifts that God would have us use under His strength and for His glory but we often are lured away from serving Him to our full capacity because of the lusts of our own flesh.  We too are tragic stories of God’s provisions being wasted or underutilized because of the weakness of character and sinfulness.

SAMSON BURNS THE PHILISTINE’S FIELDS: Samson returns to get his wife when he finds out that her father gave her in marriage to one of his friends.  He is enraged and goes out and catches pairs of foxes, ties their tails together and sets them on fire then lets them run through the fields of ripe grain so that the crops are all destroyed.  When the Philistines find out why Samson did this they take Samson’s father-in-law and his entire family and they burn them in hopes that this will appease Samson’s anger, but instead it only infuriates him more and he goes out and kills more of their men.  It is astounding that Samson is so taken with this woman even after she had lied to him and manipulated him, he still desires her and is enraged when she is taken from him.  If only Samson’s passion would have burned so deep for the Lord.  We all allow ourselves to have passions that distract us from our love for and service to the Lord.  We must put these idols away from us in order to avoid the pitfalls that Samson experienced.

SAMSON BURIES THE PHILISTINE’S SOLDIERS: Samson flees to the mountains and the Philistine army comes out and attacks Israel because of what Samson had done.  Israel is enraged at Samson for bringing down this wrath upon them and they go and blame Samson for foolishly bringing this war upon them.  They try to appease the Philistines by binding Samson and bringing him down to them.  However, as soon as he is in the presence of the army he grabs a jawbone and uses it to single handedly kill 1,000 soldiers.  God raised up an extraordinary man with physical strength that has never been seen before, but it was largely wasted because of the weakness of his character.  We must be careful not to allow our gifts and abilities to be wasted because of our sinful lusts and desire.