DEVOTION
JUDGES
WEAKENED BY THE WORLD
Judges 16:15-19
15 Then she said to him,
"How can you say, 'I love you,' when you won't confide in me? This is the
third time you have made a fool of me and haven't told me the secret of your
great strength." 16 With such nagging she prodded him day after day until
he was tired to death. 17 So he told her everything. "No razor has ever
been used on my head," he said, "because I have been a Nazirite set
apart to God since birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me,
and I would become as weak as any other man." 18 When Delilah saw that he
had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines,
"Come back once more; he has told me everything." So the rulers of
the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands. 19 Having put him to
sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair,
and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him. NIV
Although Samson had defended himself
against thousands of men, striking them down even with the jawbone of a donkey,
he could not defend himself against that nagging, prodding woman, Delilah. Once
again, she was not interested in the love of Samson, but took advantage of his
love for her because she had a love for that silver she was promised if she
could find out how to subdue or weaken Samson. On the surface, the woman won,
and Samson told her everything. We might think he was a dope for giving in to
her nagging and telling her the truth about his strength, yet we know God would
expect honesty from His people. The fact that Samson was a Nazarite, one set apart
for God, we could call Samson a “Man of God”, which all of us are in some sense.
We are either a man or a woman of God, a brother or sister of Jesus, co-heirs
with him, children of God. We are the sheep of the Great Shepherd, belonging to God, and have been set apart for and to God. Samson was set apart to deliver Israel
from the rule of the Philistines, but we see the Philistine woman accomplishing
what thousands of men could not. We will know the reason he began to weaken was not
just a razor being put to his head, but the LORD left him.
20 Then she called, "Samson,
the Philistines are upon you!" He awoke from his sleep and thought,
"I'll go out as before and shake myself free." But he did not know
that the LORD had left him.
Was Samson true to the LORD, or
did he allow himself to be deceived by his own desire? Because we have accepted
Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and are now called children of God, set apart for
him, and seeing Israel always turning to some other god, or idol, and now even
Samson, a man set apart from birth, turns to a foreign woman, or turns to his
own desires and thus, away from God, and as a result, God left him, and Samson
was weakened. We should know better than to turn to anything or anyone other than
God. The question we have to ask ourselves is, have we? Have we put our trust in
anything other than our Lord? Of course, we would confess we can only trust him
for our salvation, but what about the rest of life? Do we look to our own
abilities, skills, talents, education, profession, or wealth for our success
or security? Maybe we don’t turn away from the Lord, but just get distracted by
all the things of this world. We know God’s intent is not that we are rich or
poor, but that we seek him, and his righteousness first and foremost, and he
will add whatever we need to our lives, and that can include all the things those
who trust in the world chase after. Let us not be like Samson, allowing ourselves to become weakened by the world, but let us remain strong because we are in
Christ and He is in us.
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