Judges Chapter 16 Verses 14 – 16

● Samson has met his match and it’s not 10,000 men, or an army, or the Philistines or even Delilah…it’s himself (his flesh). He’s lost. He’s gone. He’s vexed to death! In other words, he is suicidal. Why, next verse…

Judges Chapter 16 Verse 18a

● His heart belongs to the enemy. Why, because that’s where he has invested his treasure…and now what is his greatness worth, his strength, his talent, his potential?   It’s worthless… You gotta see this! Sin is a trap! It steals your heart and then all the rest of you goes too!

Judges Chapter 16 Verses 18 – 20

● It’s interesting here. His strength was never his hair. It was always the Lord. And we enter into another tragic pattern that many are in today…the first product of sin…you drift from the Lord and you don’t even perceive it…Samson should have closed the door on sin a long time ago.   But he toyed with her. He played with his vow. He shouldn’t have been with her in the first place but even after he was, why not just say, “Look little darling, you ain’t getting it out of me so you may as well stop trying!”
● I remember when I quit drugs the calls would still come but one by one, “Hey man, I’m out the game. I’m off that path now. I’m going to follow Jesus.” Well guess what, they never called again. So don’t tell me you struggle with it. You love it! That’s why you don’t stop. Samson loved his sin. Couldn’t face his demons. Was super strong physically but weaker than the child on Jesus’ lap in the Gospels. And along with his downfall falls the heart of his parents. The hearts of his people. The consequence of sin has begun. The Lord has departed from him.

Judges Chapter 16 Verse 21

● Second product of sin. In all ways one can be blind…Third product of sin, bondage…from hero to grinder and this ain’t no deli! He is in prison. I wonder if he knew back in verse 1 where he’d be in verse 21 if he would have chosen more wisely…?

Judges Chapter 16 Verse 22

● This is a statement of God’s grace…and the meaning is much more than his hair growing again…the meaning is that he has been brought so low that somehow he is finally wanting to begin again…here’s the tragedy, it’s too late…

Judges Chapter 16 Verse 23

● Our own compromise Christians gives people opportunity to mock God…

Judges Chapter 16 Verses 24 – 25

● How extreme and disgusting. The would-be champion of the people of God is now the object of the world’s idolatrous entertainment. Another way to say that…he’s their puppet. They pull a string and he dances. They demand and he complies…is that you? Are you wrapped up in the things of this world? What wraps you up? Strings…man when my eyes opened to this in my own life, everything changed…

Judges Chapter 16 Verses 26 – 27

● Absolute lowest part of Samson’s life. Remember Timnah. Remember the dead lion. Remember the vineyard of the philistines! Remember the harlot! Remember the foxes! Remember Delilah…this is the product of sin as he ultimately fails in life and loses his own…

Judges Chapter 16 Verse 28

● He’s nearly three chapters late on this sentence…, “Then Samson called to the Lord…” and notice, his call is for personal vengeance…poor Samson, even with his last breaths he was lost in the sorrow of self…

Judges Chapter 16 Verses 29 – 31

● His family watched and suffered. Revealed to us in these last statements of his story. How they yearned to cut his puppet strings…but you know what, they can’t. And I can’t for you…only the Lord can cut them…but here’s the thing…the only scissors that work on your strings are in your own hands since birth. You’ve got the scissors, Jesus has the strength. Until you see the strings they will never be cut and until you give the Lord your treasure, your rights, your will, your life…your scissors, then man you may as well adopt a new nickname,
● This sad story of Samson is being repeated over and over in countless lives…but so is the story of eternal and everlasting life. Freedom and license to live in such a way as to surge with righteousness and strength. Lives that deliver other lives…lives that have traded their scissors for staffs and now shepherd folks to life…Samson could have been so much for God, so much for his people, so much for his wife…but Samson wasn’t. His flesh beat him…

Buried between Zorah and Eshtaol…literally those words mean, “The hornet,” and “Entreaty.”   My kids are terrified of a hornet. They flee. They will scream, they will cry. To live after the flesh is to enter into a treaty with that spirit against my family and against my calling…I am out of that game, so might as well quit calling.