Keep Going Down and You'll Hit Bottom
The Life and Times of Samson
If You Keep Going Down, You’ll Hit Bottom
Judges 16:4-21
 
We are nearing the end to our studies on the life and times of Samson. In the closing scenes of his life we are reminded that if you play with fire, sooner or later you will get burnt. As the old-timers used to say, the chickens always come home to roost. Time and time again we have seen Samson going down. If you keep going down, sooner or later you are going to hit bottom. In the next to the last study of Samson, we see Samson finally hitting bottom.
 
Among all the lessons and details of Samson’s life, there is one that is more apparent than the rest and I certainly don’t want us to miss it and that is God’s mercy. Over the course of more than twenty years God had been extremely merciful to Samson. Failure has been quite common in Samson's life, but time and time again, failures that often put him in precarious positions. Yet, God in His mercy intervened and delivered Samson.
 
Moses said, "For the LORD your God is a merciful God”. Perhaps no one single character of the Scripture better portrays the words of Moses than Samson.
 
And before we get too critical of Samson, let me just insert, “Aren’t you thankful we don't always get what we deserve? If we did, He would act in judgment when we sin and would be just in doing so.
 
 
 
God was very patient and merciful to Samson. Yet,
there comes a time when God's patience and mercy reaches a limit. God had shown His mercy to Samson numerous times and that mercy had delivered Samson from certain death. However, Samson failed to learn from God's mercy and allow it to lead him to God. Instead, he insists on living a life dominated by the flesh, a life that led to repeated violations of his Nazarite vow and the defilement of his life.
 
Time and time again God showed mercy and delivered him, but there came a day when God did not step in and show His mercy. Instead, he allowed Samson to reap the consequences of his actions. Samson had gone down time and time again, and one day, he hit bottom.
 
Let's walk through this scene in Samson's life by first noticing:
 
1. THE LOVE
 
Judges 16:4
 
Is that not descriptive? “Hhe loved a woman." We are now introduced to the third woman that played a major role in Samson's life. As we have seen in the past, Samson's great weakness was women. They were his besetting sin. They were the major reason for the constant downward spiral you see in his life.
 
Now understand, it was not wrong for Samson to be in love with a woman. Love between a man and woman is a God-given blessing. In the beginning of time God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him."
 
Love between a man and woman was a part of God's plan for the human race.
 
Now while love for a woman is not wrong, love for the wrong woman or for the wrong reasons is wrong. 
 
It seems that in Samson's case, it seems that his love was often motivated by appearance (cp. Judges 14:1-3). In the case of the woman at Timnath, it was more lust than it was love. Besides that, whe was a Philistine. His marriage to her was strictly forbidden by God. The second was a prostitute. No comment is needed.
 
The third woman is the only one of the three that we know her name. We know little about her except that she was from the "valley of Sorek." This was an area near the hometown of Samson and was inhabited by both Jews and Philistines. And we don’t know if she was a Jew or Philistine.  If she wasn’t a Philistine, she sure was friendly with them. 
 
But her race is really not important. However, her actions and attitudes are. She was certainly not the kind of woman that Samson should have let himself fall in love with.
 
The heart of Samson's problems lay in the fact that he loved that which had been forbidden by God. The heart of most problems in the Christian life is in loving the things that God has condemned. The Bible tells us in 1 John 2:15, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." 
 
 
 
Warren Wiersbe gives us this definition of the world. It "is Satan's system for opposing the work of Christ on earth. It is the very opposite of what is godly and holy and spiritual."
 
The world is a system of unholy pleasures, unholy practices, and unholy people that live and walk contrary to God's holy commands. Behind this system is Satan. He is called the "Prince of this world" in John 12:31. He is the great evil influence behind the world.
 
God's command is that the believer is not to love this world or any of the things that are in the world. However, there are many who name the name of Christ yet are still in love with the world. Like Samson, it is a love that which has been forbidden and condemned by God.
 
And I’m afraid that our pulpits and pews are often occupied by people who come to church on Sunday and smile like saints yet live no different than the sinners around them the rest of the week.  Do not love the world or the things of the world.   
 
In fact, John said, "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John 2:15). John pulls no punches and makes it plain that if there if the love for the world is present; a love for God is absent. If we are in love with the world and the things of this world, we do not love God with all our heart, soul, and mind.
 
Again, it was not wrong for Samson to love a woman. What was wrong was the woman he loved. It would seem that a godly Jewish woman among his own people had not appealed to him.
The love he had for an evil Delilah, and the other women in his life, revealed a lack of love for women of contrast in character.
 
A Christian is someone who belongs to Christ, and to have such an admiration for the world is like an husband or wife being unfaithful to their spouse.
 
Moses spoke of the wholehearted and single love that God's people are to have for the Lord. He said in Deuteronomy 6:5, "And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might."
 
Jesus, echoing the words of Moses said in Mark 12:30, "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment."
 
Neither Moses nor Jesus called for a casual love for God. He is to be loved with all that we are. It is a love that has no rivals. A Christian is not to love the world! If so, love for God is wanting. One of Samson's major problems was the love he had for those who were prohibited by God. If only he had loved in contrast, what a different story his life would have been.
 
Then think about
 
THE LAW
 
I guess the story of Samson and Delilah is the best known part of his story. Movies have been made about their relationship and it has been the subject of writers and composers.
The scene of Samson having his hair cut is perhaps the best-known of all in his life. I once heard a preacher preach on getting a haircut in the devil's barbershop. Not a bad title for the story.
 
Everything that we see happening finds it roots in Samson's Nazarite vow.
 
verse 5
 
The word "lords of the Philistines' were the chief rulers of the Philistines and were rulers over the five main cities of Philistia, Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath.
 
After all the havoc Samson had caused the Philistines, the "big-guns" decide something had to be done. He had been a thorn in their side long enough. They came up with a plan to learn the secret of Samson's strength.
 
They approached Delilah to learn that secret. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that they didn’t know the secret to his strength, but they sure knew the secret to his weakness. 
 
His reputation for being putty in the hand of a pretty woman was well-known. If they found out the secret to his strength, using a woman was their best chance.
 
They each offered Delilah "eleven hundred pieces of silver," a total of 5,500 shekels of silver if she would get Samson to tell her the secret of his strength. They were making her an offer of an exorbitant reward if she succeeded. At today's prices, this amount would near a million dollars.
They tell her that their aim is not to kill Samson, but capture (bind) and torture (afflict) him. She assents and begins to try and get Samson to tell her his secret. It would appear that on four different occasions she interrogated him about where his strength lay. Samson was deceptive in his answer on the first three occasions, but finally gave up his secret on the fourth.
 
verses 6-7
 
There are different ideas about those bowstrings.  Some think they were tendons from an animal freshly slaughtered. Others say they refer to green bowstrings or tent cords.  Whatever they were, it was not the key to his strength. So they tried again.
 
Verses 8-9
 
Delilah knew that Samson had deceived her so on the second occasion.
 
verse 10
 
This time she is more intense in finding the answer. She tells Samson she knows that he lied to her the first time. Yet, another lie he told her.
 
verse 11
 
This time he tells her that if he is bound with new ropes that had never been used then he would be as any other man.
 
verse 12
 
 
On the third occasion you can sense a touch of anger in Delilah's words.
 
Verses 13-14
 
On the fourth occasion she made an appeal to his emotions.
 
verses 15-16
 
Let me give you my translation of the words "so that his soul was vexed unto death." She nagged and nagged him day after day until she nearly drove him crazy. Finally, he broke down and told him the secret.
 
verse 17
 
At last she and the lord's of the Philistines got the answer they wanted. In verse 18 Delilah informs the lords of the Philistines that she has finally got the real answer and they bring her the money they had promised. All that we see happening is another example of how the world, the flesh, and the devil are persistent in their attacks and attempts to destroy the effectiveness of every Christian.
 
verse 19
 
Here we read of the most costly haircut anyone ever received.  To prove that the cutting of his hair would leave him weak, she personally began to torture him. The proof was in the loss of his extraordinary strength.
 
 
 
The great tragedy in the whole scene is the desecration of his Nazarite vow. We have seen throughout our studies that his Nazarite vow involved several aspects.
 
For one, a Nazarite was not to come into contact with the vine or any product of the vine. When Samson went down to the vineyards of Timnath he violated this aspect of his vow.
 
By the way, the name "Sorek" there in 16:4 means "a vine." Once again we find Samson in a place that was forbidden by his Nazarite vow.
 
Furthermore, His Nazarite vow prohibited him from coming into contact with anything dead. When he returned to see the carcass of the lion and reached in to remove the honey the bees had stored in the carcass, he violated and desecrated another aspect of his Nazarite vow.
 
Perhaps the most notable aspect of his Nazarite vow was the cutting of the hair.
 
Numbers 6:5 tells us, "All the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor come upon his head: until the days be fulfilled, in the which he separates himself unto the LORD, he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow." Allowing the hair to grow was an outward expression that said to others, this individual is totally consecrated to the Lord.
 
The contact with the vine and carcass were more of a personal matter between a Nazarite and God. The hair was more of a public matter, a testimony to others.
Samson has now violated every aspect of his Nazarite vows. That is what makes the cutting of his hair so significant. It is as if it were the last straw. He had disobeyed God in all areas where he was to be totally consecrated to God.
 
How sad when a believer disobeys God. God call is for a holy life for His people. The command of God to His people was: "Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God" (Lev 20:7). As a Christian, we are to be a reflection of the One who lives within us.
 
But all too often, we as Christians live far beneath God's desire for our life. Like Samson, we are called to be different in the world we live, but we allow our life to be desecrated by the world around.
 
And as we see in Samson, disobedience and defilement of life is never without consequences. 
 
Notice
 
3. THE LOSS
 
Samson after going down so often in his life now hits bottom--as we would say, rock bottom. We have seen him at low moments, but this is the lowest. He can't go any further down. The chickens have come home to roost. Once he had broken and violated the final aspect of his Nazarite vow, we see the serious consequences that followed.
 
Verse 20
 
Those are some of the saddest words in the Bible.
 
Just like other times, Samson did what he’d always done.  But this time something was different.  God wasn’t there. 
 
The tragedy of all tragedies is for God to take His hand off our lives. Time and time again we have seen how the Spirit of the LORD came upon Samson, empowering and enabling him to perform mighty deeds. But this time, the Spirit of the Lord DID NOT come upon him. He was indeed like any other man. He was a powerless man.
 
Powerless and he didn't even realize it. There are churches and Christians who are going through the motions Sunday after Sunday and day after day doing what they do in the energy of the flesh. They think of themselves as "great Churches" and "great Christians," yet not even aware that the Spirit of the Lord is not upon them.
 
A.W. Tozer said: "Whatever God is, He is infinitely. In Him lies all the power there is; any power at work anywhere is His. Even the power to do evil must first have come from Him since there is no other source from which it could come."
 
We must never forget that God is our only source of power. Every great deed of physical strength that Samson performed was due to God's power upon him. Without that power he was as any ordinary man. If we are to be effective in God's work, His power is indispensible. 
 
If we work in the flesh, we only get what the flesh can produce, which is nothing of eternal value. It is only when we work in the Spirit that we get that which is spiritual.
How sad, that we work and many times are not even aware that the Lord has departed from us.
 
And now, here is old Samson and he is absolutely helpless.  In the past, the Philistines could bring their thousands against Samson and when the smoke cleared, Samson stood on the battlefield victorious.
 
But with the final desecration of his Nazarite vow things took a drastic change.
 
verse 21
 
Did you ever think about how radically Samson’s life changed in that moment?  All of a sudden this man whose life is governed by sight and whose actions are determined by what is right in his own eyes becomes a blind man with eyes gouged out.
 
Overnight, a life of coming and going as he pleases turns into a life of bondage and imprisonment.
 
Overnight the person who had spent his life insulting and humiliating others becomes the object of their humiliation.
 
Overnight a man with the highest conceivable calling, the divinely commissioned agent of deliverance for Israel, is cast down to the lowest position imaginable: grinding flour for others in prison.
 
He has hit bottom, and like Humpty Dumpty, great is the fall. Blind and bound he is helpless and the judge of the people is now a lowly grinder of grain.
 
The Bible says “The pleasures of sin are but for a season” (cp. Heb 11:25) and Samson's season of living after the pleasures of the flesh had come to an end.
 
There has been so many lessons to learn from the life of Samson. They all reach their climax in this closing scene. We are reminded that God is merciful and His mercies are distributed with great patience, but there is an hour when His patience reaches a limit.
 
We are also reminded that we may go through the motions of religious exercise, but when God is not with us, we are useless to the Kingdom of God.
 
Let’s pray