The story of Samson is one of the incredible feats he performed by God’s Spirit. However, at times, it is difficult to understand what we can gain from these passages in Scripture that apply to us today. After reading about Samson’s life, we will be able to take away a better understanding of God’s work in time, and the frailty of even the best leaders.
Read Judges 13:1-16:31
The Lord is a mighty Deliverer. However, He does it in His way and according to His schedule. Throughout Scripture, we are reminded of that truth. He also has much more patience than we do. God took 400 years before delivering Israel out of Egypt. God waited 40 years in our current passage before bringing Samson in the picture and then worked through Samson’s entire life from birth to death, to deliver Israel from the Philistine rule. Furthermore, God worked through eternity past to the fall of man, through several millennia to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ to bring us salvation. Now, we have gone through almost 2,000 years of waiting for the second coming of Christ. God works at His own pace, but we can be sure he is not slack concerning His promises (2 Peter 3:9). God may take a decade or a millennia or two, but He will keep His word. He makes things happen according to His divine plan. We must remain faithful during the in-between times.
The second thing we learn from Samson’s story, and many others in the Bible, is that even good leaders fail. There are undoubtedly toxic leaders who never seem to do good, but there those like Samson, Moses, David, and Peter, who are God’s people but still make mistakes or even fall into grave sin. Moses worked with anger issues. David was a man after God’s heart but yet was caught up in the act of adultery. Peter liked to stick his foot in his mouth or could be hypocritical depending on who he was around. When we do things on our own, we can be tempted and will fall. Judges 16:20, noted that Samson did not even know the Lord had departed from him. He had allowed the temptation to overtake him. We need to pray for our leaders and ourselves to be vigilant in God’s Spirit. Even the mighty can fall, and it only through the Lord’s grace we can keep standing tall against the tactics of Satan (Eph. 6:10-12).
Jeremy Kamer Ministries 