When you fulfill the pleasures of self and follow after the things of the world, you always end up going down. When you choose to walk with God and talk with God, you will find that in all areas of your life, you will start going up.
“And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him. And the Spirit of the LORD began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.”
Judges 13:24-25 KJV
Samson is one the most interesting characters in the Bible.
An angel of the Lord appeared unto Samson’s parents and prophesied his birth. This angel also told his parents that Samson would be a Nazarite.
What is a Nazarite?
A Nazarite vow is a voluntary dedication of oneself to God that involved specific prohibitions.
These prohibitions or things one wouldn’t do included:
- Abstaining from wine and grape products.
- Refraining from cutting one’s hair.
- Avoiding ritual impurity from contact with corpses.
Samson had no choice when it came to being a Nazarite. God commanded him to be a Nazarite from birth.
Samson was to grow up and be a judge for Israel against the Philistines.
In the book of Judges, we see a few different types of roles that would define each judge: military leader, political leader, religious leader, and deliverer. I believe Samson would fall into that last category, a deliverer.
We never see Samson lead an army or bring peace to Israel, he definitely wasn’t a religious leader but his actions helped deliver Israel from the Philistines for a brief period.
We see in Judges 13:24-25, that as Samson grew the Lord began to bless him. We see that the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at a young age.
What we can learn from this is that even as a child, you can be blessed by God and you can be moved by the Holy Spirit to do something great for the Lord.
If you were paying attention to the title “The Fall and Rise of Samson” you will wonder if I said it backwards. Usually whenever you hear that phrase, it is ‘the rise and fall of such and such.’ I specifically said it backwards because we see a downward path in Samson’s life long before we ever see him go up.
In Judges 14:1, the very first verse after we see Samson as a child, it says “And Samson went down to Timnath, and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines.”
Notice the phrase, “Samson went DOWN.”
Where did Samson go? DOWN!
Where did Samson go when he went down? Timnath. The land of the Philistines. He went down to the enemy.
He saw a girl in Timnath that he really liked and he wanted to marry her. He went up and got his father and mother and brought them down with him.
Judges 14:5
While his parents were going down to Timnath with him, they knew that this wasn’t the Lord’s will. We see in Judges 14:4, that they “knew not that it was of the Lord.”
Samson violating the Nazarite vow.
Samson ate honey out of a dead carcass. Judges 14:8-9
Samson killed a thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey. Judges 15:15
Samson cut his hair. Judges 16:18-20
Samson was a selfish judge. Everything he did, was to fulfill his own desires. In this process, he even dragged those around him, down with him.
Even in his disobedience, we find that God still took care of him and even blessed him.
When Samson had taken the jawbone of the donkey and killed a thousand men, he was ‘sore athirst’ he was dehydrated, he was weak, he thought he was going to die. This was one of two times that we see Samson call upon God. He called upon God for his own needs here. God brought forth water from that jawbone so that Samson could drink from it.
When Samson told Delilah that his strength came from his long her, she betrayed him and cut it while he was sleeping. The Philistines came in and bound him up and he could not escape. They took him and plucked his eyes out and imprisoned him and he ground wheat with the oxen.
Samson had gone down as far as he could in his life. He was in bondage, treated like an animal and blind.
Do you realize that God gave Samson chance after chance? Do you realize that God still used Samson, even when Samson was prideful and selfish?
But in the end, Samson had played with sin one too many times and he was trapped. He was ensnared. He was in bondage.
You may think that you can keep getting away with that little sin, but watch out….it will get you one day!!
We have seen the fall of Samson, we have seen him keep choosing to go down. His whole life was on the downward path. Yes, he had great moments, great victories, but I believe that if we would have chosen to wholly follow God, he would have been one of the greatest servants of God to walk the face of the earth. But the pleasures of this world made Samson take eyes off of God and he ended up in the trap of this world.
You may be thinking, where is the rise of Samson? Did he ever do something that was totally for God and not for himself?
One day the Philistines decided they were going to have a party. There were over 3,000 people at the party, they got bored and decided to bring Samson up and put him on display and make fun of him.
Samson had terrorized the Philistines for years by making fun of them and killing them. Now it was their turn to make fun of him.
They put him up in between the two main pillars of the house so everyone could see and laugh at him.
Samson called for a servant to put his hands on the pillars and then we see Samson call upon the Lord and asked the Lord to remember him and to allow him to avenge the Philistines for taking his eyesight.
The Lord returned Samson’s strength and he pushed the pillars and the house came down and killed over 3,000 people. In that moment, Samson slew more people than he had down in his entire life.
God used Samson one last time to bring victory over the enemy. Samson rose up in the end of his life and became what God needed him to be.
Don’t take the downward path, the end is not good.
Follow the Lord all the days of your life and you will be able to be used by God to do great things for Him.
Counted Faithful 