By Mark Proctor
Pastor, Highland Park Baptist Church, Columbia
Focal Passage: Judges 16:4-6,13-20
Cornelius Plantinga wrote a delightful little book called Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be (Eerdmans, 1995) that every one of us should read. It’s about sin and sin’s opposite, shalom with God. There, he states, “… shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness and delight — a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed … in other words … the way things ought to be.” God has a way things ought to be, a perfect order and a perfect peace.
Read the entire story of Samson, chapters 13 through 16, in order to set the stage for this lesson. Beginning in Judges 13:5 when the angel told Manoah’s wife, “he shall be a Nazarite” and “he shall begin to save Israel,” it is obvious God had a plan for Samson. As the plan progressed, right on schedule, at the close of chapter 13 we see “the young man grew, and the Lord blessed him. And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him … .” Stop. All’s well so far, right? Blessed before birth, blessed after birth, and stirred of the Lord. This is shalom. What could possibly go wrong?
How we answer that question determines our entire theology about God with regards to Samson and determines how we teach these chapters. Samson, like all of us, was created for shalom with God. But Samson had a problem with his “saw:” “I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines …” (Judges 14:2) and “ … he saw a prostitute …” (Judges 16:1). Samson’s eyes led him down the path of moral failure and that never goes without a response from God because it destroys shalom. God continued to use him for God’s original purpose, to begin to save Israel, but Samson should have never understood God’s delayed response to be a disregarded response.
When Jesus taught on the mount about the “great ladder to blessedness,” the beatitudes (Matthew 5), He said blessed are the meek. Meekness is strength under control, a character trait probably not found in Samson. Samson had strength but the lack of control cost him his meekness which in turn cost him his blessedness. And shalom with God was destroyed. Sin. This wasn’t the way it ought to be. God’s plan was to use Samson’s strength under control. Samson’s plan, “… for she is right in my eyes” (Judges 14:3) was motivated by pride.
We see this often in the world around us. They say, “I’m strong therefore what I see is what I get.” But friends, the gospel doesn’t teach us to pick up our lives; it teaches us to lay down our lives. We lay down our eyes, we lay down our strength, we lay down our offenses, and we cease to demand our rights. In their place, we pick up one thing, a cross (Matthew 16:24). That’s strength under control. Hoist that mighty, blood-stained cross onto your shoulder and follow Him. That’s strength under control and that’s the way it ought to be.
