Disappointment and Foxes - Samson : Part 1

I thought I would carry on writing up my notes on the speakers and sessions from my week at Detling, continuing with the teaching of Judges and Samson by Jeff Lucas.

Previously we read that Samson was gifted with the Holy Spirit, which was brought upon him by God to stir amongst him. We saw that Samson was a man that, even though blessed by God with the Holy spirit time and time again, he also made mistakes over and over again, going against what we would think God wants.

Each action in the previous chapter, Samson saw what he wanted and decided to do it or take it as his own, each time using a very specific term "it was or is right for me." This term usually referred to a moment when a man felt that God was urging them to do something. It is right for me - it is right by the wishes of God.
Samson made assumptions. Don't we all? Samson was similar to the rest of us, and his assumption was that he was "holier than thou", " I am gifted by God", " I am one of God's children, chosen and blessed by the Holy spirit".

Samson was definitely blessed by God, just like many, if not all, of us are. But what a lot of people do not realise is that a blessing from God can be dangerous. Can you cope with the responsibility of being blessed by God? Can you use what God has given you without becoming arrogant and thinking the you are "special" because of it?

For someone like Samson, as we saw in chapter 13 "24 The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson. He grew and the LORD blessed him, 25 and the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him while he was in Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol. "

The Lord blessed him and then, following the event in Chapter 14, God continued to do so by sending forth the Spirit and Power of God. But keeping this in mind, what do we know about the relationship between Samson and God?

We are aware that, although God had blessed him several times and flipped the mess that Samson was making for himself, God was very much in a relationship with Samson, but what about Samsons relationship towards God? In the entire story from Judges 13 - 16 how many times do you see Samson building on or having a relationship with God? Only twice do we even see Samson pray.

Once, before he is about to die in Chapter 16, he asks God to help and prays aloud to Him. The second time is in Chapter 15 (we will explore this further in this post) where he asks God to save him and feed his thirst. (Judges 15 v 18)

Ok, I know that up to this point I haven't really started the Judges talk, and that was a very long introduction. But hopefully you will see the relevance of it later in this post.

We begin to read Judges 15:

1 Later on, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. He said, "I’m going to my wife’s room." But her father would not let him go in. 2 "I was so sure you hated her," he said, "that I gave her to your companion. Isn’t her younger sister more attractive? Take her instead."

3 Samson said to them, "This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines; I will really harm them." 4 So he went out and caught three hundred foxes and tied them tail to tail in pairs. He then fastened a torch to every pair of tails, 5 lit the torches and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks and standing grain, together with the vineyards and olive groves. 6 When the Philistines asked, "Who did this?" they were told, "Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because his wife was given to his companion."

So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death. 7 Samson said to them, "Since you’ve acted like this, I swear that I won’t stop until I get my revenge on you." 8 He attacked them viciously and slaughtered many of them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the rock of Etam. 9 The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi. 10 The people of Judah asked, "Why have you come to fight us?"

"We have come to take Samson prisoner," they answered, "to do to him as he did to us."

11 Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, "Don’t you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?" He answered, "I merely did to them what they did to me." 12 They said to him, "We’ve come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines."

Samson said, "Swear to me that you won’t kill me yourselves."

As the story continues, we see that Samson decides, after insulting his wife and her family in the previous chapter and walking out on his marriage, that he returns some time later to his wife, only to find that she has been given to someone else. He was upset, angry and went on a vengance rampage.

Often we become disappointed with our own, people we trust, people within our community and sadly people within our church. Are you disappointed with what Samson, our hero, did? Or are you disappointed in his wife? Or the Wife's father? Does it matter? We see this disappointment in the story with Samson, not because we are disappointed with him, but his disappointment with others.

Examining the text closer we a find out a few things. He is disappointed in his wife and her family, to the point that he inacts vengance. This I will expand on in a minute. But later in verse 11 and 12, Samsons own people came to arrest him, and knowing of his great strength, they also sent 3000 men to arrest him. 3000 against 1. Not good odds for anyone. He then begs them for his own life, making them swear not to kill him. Why? Because he already expects them to. Samson again, as above, is assuming his previous disappointment is not entagled and married with assumption. We saw in the last post that sin often marries itself to other sins. Last time it was deception and immorility, this time disappointment and assumption. Samson expected his family, his people, to kill him and to let him down (though probably not in that order).

How often do we see this in our own churches? Internal anger and wounding through disappointment and assumption.

We should NOT be like this, we should be a field hospital and heal the sick within the battle and war that is raging. The church is not a trophy case of grace-it's the front line.

There is often the phrase "if you have friends like these who needs enemies" could we not translate that to "with a church like this who needs Satan"?

And sadly, within our own, how often is pain caused by upset and disappointment over such tiny things?

We should also come back to the foxes about now. And this is a lesson that should be reminded for all!But as this is long I will make it into a part 2.