Lessons from the story of Samson

Today, I'm going to expand on a previous Facebook post in which I wrote this:

The story of Samson teaches at least these four lessons:
1)     God protects and rescues the undeserving.
2)     God uses people for His purposes, even if they are moral failures.
3)     Just because God protects, rescues or uses you in mighty and powerful ways, this does not mean He approves of your lifestyle.
4)     Even after our greatest failure, God is not finished with us. 

I'll take them one by one:

God Protects and Rescues the Undeserving

Israel had walked away from God (Judges 2:10-11)

After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals.

As Israel was adjusting from the life of nomads to the life of a landed people, they were surrounded by a world of people experienced successful agricultural practices and technologies. That world had a powerful affect on them (as ours does on us). Without their own experience of God and His power, they drifted into the atmosphere that surrounded them.

But let's face it: it's hard to live on inherited testimony. It's hard to remain faithful to a God, Who, in our experience, seems absent, and distant; Who only exists in the memory of those who have since died.

God handed them over to the people they admired and the protection of gods they followed (Judges 2:14):

In his anger against Israel the Lord handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist.

They forsook Him and He let them go. But He did not forsake them. When they turned back and cried out to Him He sent deliverers (Judges 2:16):

Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders.

They weren't judges in the way we think of them in court rooms where "all rise" when the enter the room. They were leaders sent to administer God's justice on the oppressors of His people.

They didn't deserve to be rescued. They deserved the consequences of their own unfaithfulness. But God in His mercy, and faithfulness to His promises to their forebears, rescued them anyway.

The next time you see a drug addict, a street punk, a thief, murderer, or sex criminal, remember God rescues the undeserving. The next time you look in the mirror and remember something terrible you did, perhaps even hurting someone beyond what anyone (even you) could ever accept, remember: God rescues the undeserving.

God Uses People for His Purposes, Even if They Are Moral Failures.

Samson is known for two things (outside of children's Sunday School lessons, at least!): his physical strength and his moral weakness.

The first thing we are told Samson did after the Spirit began to stir in him (Judges 13:25), is marry to a foreign woman (or at least try to) - a direct and flagrant violation of the law of Moses (Deut. 7:3). How could God possibly be in this!

Yet God was in this. Let the moralists beware! What we read next in the book of Judges, when Samson's parents object to his choice, is not an endorsement of Samson's parents' correctness, but something unexpected (Judges 14:4):

(His parents did not know that this was from the Lord, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines; for at that time they were ruling over Israel.)

God is actually using Samson's weakness for women to accomplish His purposes through Samson. This will not be the last time. In chapter 16, Samson spends half the night with a prostitute, before walking off with the city gate. Then he'll get in real trouble with another foreign woman: Delilah (more on her later).

Though Samson was a moral failure in many ways, God still used him. He still empowered him by His Spirit. God still worked through him, sometimes in spite of, and sometimes because of his moral weakness.

This should set aside every argument that would dismiss the ministry, or writings of any small church pastor, to big-time Christian 'celebrity' who has fallen into sin, or been discovered to have been living a life of sin. God did work through Samson while he was morally weak, while he was living a sinful life. God works through people, despite our moral objections that they should be disqualified from such a distinction. (Thankfully, God does not work only through the qualified.)

Let me suggest that the same could be said of people with bad theology. Just because I believe that someone's theology in a certain area is bad, doesn't mean that God won't use them, or isn't using them. This goes for evangelism, as well as "power ministry." I have some real problems with the theology of some of the people I see on TV, or read about. But that does not give me license to dismiss their ministry, nor the fact that God is working through them. (Just to be clear: I'm not talking about the kind of theological error that puts someone outside the Christian faith.)

Just Because God Protects, Rescues or Uses You in Mighty and Powerful Ways, This Does Not Mean He Approves of Your Lifestyle.

This is the corollary to the previous lesson. If God can (and does) use moral failures, even while they are failing morally, the fact that God is in your life doing great things does not mean He approves of your lifestyle (or your theology!). 

The assumption that God only works through the worthy, relates to those doing ministry as well as those receiving it. So if I have a greedy streak in me, or have a habit of gossip, or tend to be judgmental, or have an addiction to alcohol, or porn, or engage in domestic violence, or like to read certain kinds of literature or watch certain kinds of movies or TV programs, but despite that, God uses me to bring others to Christ, or to heal the sick, cast out demons, cleans the lepers and raise the dead, this doesn't mean God approves of everything in my heart. [Sorry for the really, really long sentence there!]

You and I are not exempt from self-deception. One kind of deception is self-justified sinfulness (who's it going to hurt? what's the big deal? I'm no worse than..., etc.). One of those self-deceptions is right here: if God is using me anyway, it must be okay - at least for me, for now. The devil could be a million miles away, and we could still fall for that one. Our "flesh" doesn't like to submit to God. It will come up with all sorts of excuses to delay or refuse such submission. 

Nor does His work in you or through you means He approves of your theology (understanding of Who God is, and how He works in this world). You could be dead wrong about baptism, or spiritual gifts, or the place of women in church and home, or the church's response to homosexuals, or whether God saves primarily by His choice (Calvinism), or ours (Arminianism). Samson took full credit for killing the 1000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey (Judges 15:16), when it was God Who empowered him to do it (Judges 15:14). That's bad theology (and hubris).

When God works in us and through us it is because He is gracious, not because we are deserving. It may have more to do with God's desire to bless others, than anything to do with us.

Even After Our Greatest Failure, God Is Not Finished With Us. 

Samson failed with Delilah. He stupidly disclosed the secret of his strength and suffered a terrible and humiliating defeat. The consequences of all of his dalliances finally caught up with him. On the one hand we feel for him, on the other we shake our heads and wonder why something like this didn't happen sooner. He gets what he deserves: he's taken out; no longer Israel's leader/judge. It's about time.

How many thousands of times since Samson have church or other leaders fallen into sin, or been discovered to have been living a life of sin? How many times has that been the end of their leadership? In the church, especially, we have been quick to judge the sin, but slow to restore the sinner - especially when the sinners are leaders. They have disqualified themselves.

At least, we do that for certain sins. Sins like arrogance, judgmentalism, even greed, go unchecked. But if the leader is found in some sexual sin (as was Samson), then the door becomes forever closed. Even spousal abuse can be forgiven, and a man restored to leadership, after some counselling. But if he is discovered having slept with a woman other than his wife, he cannot.

There is some truth here, in that it takes a lot of time and effort to rebuild trust in a leader, once that trust is broken. I will not dispute that, nor suggest that the process be short-circuited in any way. Doing so would be another violation of trust!

However, permanent disqualification does not seem to be God's response, neither to Samson, nor David, nor Peter. Genuine sorrow for sin, true repentance, and authentic dependence on God's mercy seem to be enough for God to restore someone to their calling.

If you have sinned (ever), then genuine sorrow for sin, true repentance and authentic dependence on God's mercy is what you need to be restored. The same is true for your sister or brother who has sinned publicly, perhaps as a leader. The same is true for you, if you were the one who sinned publicly, or whose private sin became publicly known. Such have not permanently disqualified themselves/ourselves.

The God of grace still has grace greater than our sin.