Hebrews Chapter Eleven, Samson, David, & The Prophets

 

Into this milieu of spiritual intermingling came Samson. His birth was foretold by the Angel of the Lord, as was his purpose: to begin delivering Israel out of the hands of the Philistines, whom they had served forty years, Judges 13:1, 5. Before Jacob died, he said this about Dan’s heirs, “Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent by the way, a viper by the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that its rider shall fall backward,” Genesis 49:16, 17. Samson would grow to become an exemplary Danite, using military tactics and violence to oppose and overthrow his enemies. While his birth’s purpose certainly make Samson a type of Christ, his lifestyle and death reveal a sinful man effectively used by God despite his nature.

Samson was a jealous man, easily provoked to anger, self-centered and sometimes entirely childish. If that critique sounds harsh, no worries, we are that, too. Samson might have been a national hero, filled with the Holy Spirit, but the writer of Judges revealed his very flawed, very sinful character for a purpose. Samson’s rash behavior cost a father and daughter their lives when he acted out of anger, and rather than accepting his fault, he instead blamed the Philistines for their retaliation when he burned their fields, Judges 15:7. Like Esau, Samson was focused on the flesh; he was carnal. He complained about a lack of water after God brought an immense victory through him, Judges 15:18, 19. He satisfied his sexual desire with a harlot, nearly getting himself killed, Judges 16:1-3. He enjoyed deceiving people with his cleverness, Judges 14:12-14. He finally and only relented because his wife harassed him into revealing the answer, killing thirty men and taking their clothes to fulfill his part of the bargain they made at his wedding celebration, Judges 14:19. At last he died, not to glorify the Lord, or to liberate Israel, but to avenge himself on the Philistines for the loss of his sight, Judges 16:28-30.

 

Despite his flaws, God used Samson mightily in a manner entirely unique in Scripture. Endowed with supernatural strength, Samson killed a lion barehanded, a thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey, and collapsed the temple of Dagon, filled with three thousand Philistines, including their nobility. Solomon noted, “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps,” Proverbs 16:9. Though God does not condone sinful conduct, He may still, through us accomplish His sovereign purposes, which is typified quite clearly in the life of Samson. God came upon Samson mightily, it was said, on more than one occasion, to accomplish His will despite the foibles of the man being called. Israel had gone astray after Joshua, and throughout the era of the Judges. The universal theme was: every man did what was right in his own eyes. It would be fruitful to meditate on this. How much of what invades our thoughts and practices has nothing to do with God’s word, or worse, is contrary to it? Israel’s problem in general, and Samson’s in particular, was that they had strayed from fidelity to the God that revealed Himself in Sinai and went chasing after self-deification. No, not false gods: false gods such as Baal, Chemosh and Asherah were mediums to initiate the novice into Satan’s only true religion, one that wears a thousand faces: self-deification.

 

Lorenzo Snow put it this way: “As God once was, man now is. As God is now, man may be.” Religion under any heading is the path to self-deification. It was a path Lucifer tried in Heaven, resulting in punishment and eventual death in the Lake of Fire. Eve commended it to Adam, and they too suffered sin and death. When man errs by exchanging a relationship with God for the sacraments of religion, they have supplanted the Savior for self-help tools. Paul warns, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers,” 2 Timothy 4:3. The teachers Paul refers to are, of course, false teachers masquerading under the guise of Christians that seek to lead the gullible and wayward away from Jesus Christ for their own profit, Acts 20:30, Philippians 3:18, 19, Galatians 6:12, 13.

 

Yes, even in Samson’s time, all the way back to Moses, Israel was without excuse doctrinally. We read, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth,” Deuteronomy 5:6-8, see also Exodus 20:2-4. The generation led out by Moses heard these words spoken by God at the fiery mountain; forty years later, when the rebels were dead, Moses reminded the next generation what their parents had known and seen, but ignored and challenged. God stated that He would show mercy, “to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments,” Deuteronomy 5:10. Read in: God would show mercy to those who love Him, and demonstrate that love as being more than mere lip service by obeying His revealed will. If you are married, and you tell your spouse you love them but never act like it, will they believe you? If you have children, and tell them how much you love them but never demonstrate that love in your behavior, do they have reason to believe you? So it is with God, 1 John 4:20, 21.

 

We come finally to David, and the mention of the “prophets,” (including Samuel) collectively. David was, “a man after My heart, who will do all My will,” Acts 13:22, NASB; see also 1 Samuel 13:14. Further, Ethan the Ezrahite writes of David, “Buy My faithfulness and My mercy shall be with him, and in My name his horn shall be exalted…My mercy I will keep for him forever, and my covenant shall stand firm with him. His seed also I will make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven,” Psalm 89:24, 28, 29. David’s story is told in 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, and reiterated through the books of Kings and Chronicles.

 

During the Millennial reign of Christ on earth, it would appear that David will be a prince in Israel once more, appointed by God to govern over the people, who will now have made a covenant of peace with Israel, Ezekiel 34:23-25, 37:24-26. This prophecy is further confirmed by the prophet Hosea, Hosea 3:5, the latter days in this verse being a descriptor for the Day of the Lord. Like Samson (and us), David’s life is fraught with triumph and tragedy, much of which came about through circumstances of his own creation. Scripture doesn’t white wash the saints; rather, God the Holy Spirit depicts them as being every bit as human as we are for a purpose. It gives us hope to know that even the greatest men and women in the Bible were as fallible as we are, but they were used mightily by God. Nothing prevents us from entering into His calling, because He isn’t calling us to be perfect; He is calling us to be obedient.