Samson - Saint and Sinner
(Part 1 - The Making of a Judge in Israel)
Chapter 6

THE GRACIOUS WAYS OF THE LORD

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IN the last chapter we were introduced to what can only be described as ways of God which are very strange. Samson desires to marry a heathen woman. This is against the direct instructions of God concerning his people. God had prohibited the Israelites from marrying heathen partners, because of the danger that the heathen partner would lead the Israelite away from Jehovah to the practices and worship of a heathen deity. Yet we are told distinctly in verse 4 of Judges chapter 14 that this marriage of Samson was from the Lord. God was promoting it.

We are further amazed by the reason that is given in verse 4 why God was promoting this marriage. We are told that it was to be the means that God would use to bring about a confrontation between Samson and the Philistines. This marriage was to be the means by which God introduced Samson to his work of being a deliverer in Israel, and starting his work of achieving for the people of Israel a release from the bondage and persecution they were under from the cruel oppression of the Philistines.

This is all very strange to us. Our culture does not naturally tune into this sort of action and thinking. Nonetheless it is an example of God in action, the action of God who works all things well and in truth and justice. If we are to be informed and true Christians in our fallen culture, we need to be continually finding our thinking changed and re-taught by the Word of God.

In these two verses before us in this chapter we come face to face with the gracious ways of God for his people. This incident of meeting the lion and of being given power to slay it was a gracious act of God to prepare, encourage and give confidence to his servant in his forthcoming ordeal with the Philistines.

How wonderfully do we see the hand of God ordering the life of Samson. We are not given much detail in these two verses. We know that Samson and his parents were on their way to Timnah to visit Samson's future wife. We can deduce, from the fact that the whole incident of this confrontation with the young lion was secret from Samson's parents, that Samson had got separated from his parents at this time. He had gone off on his own for some reason, but what we need to understand is that there was nothing of chance in all this.

Why did Samson go off on his own? In the immediate situation, no doubt, there was a very simple reason. We are not told this reason because the important thing was not the immediate reason, but the fact that God was bringing about the whole action. We can come to no other conclusion than that the appearance and attack of the lion was no coincidence, but undoubtedly of God's designing. We must come to this conclusion. We have seen already that Samson's marriage was part of God's plan to bring about a confrontation with the Philistines. The lion and its carcass, together with the honey later found in this carcass, are an integral part of the means whereby confrontation was to take place with the Philistines. God is not at the mercy of chance happenings. If God was bringing about a confrontation by this marriage, then the events which are part of it, and leading up to it, are also ordered by God.

We may learn from this that God is in all the happenings in the lives of his people. God's providence is real. Christians in the past were much more conscious of this fact. We may learn that God is often teaching us important things in his graciousness, so that we may be strengthen and encouraged. We need to understand that things do not happen to God's people by chance, and that we need to be sensitive to God's instruction and guidance in our experiences. On the other hand we must not become silly or foolish in the way we read and interpret our experiences, otherwise we will be led astray by Satan in many silly and damaging ways. God's people need to be living in the Word of God, so that our minds and thinking may be constantly kept in the true wisdom of God.

Let us see the graciousness of God towards Samson in this incident with the lion.

This marriage of Samson was leading up to a confrontation with the Philistines where Samson would start to bring God's judgement upon them for their oppression of Israel. It was the means of introducing and starting Samson on his life's work of delivering Israel from the domination of the Philistines.

Samson was on his own. He was just one man against all the might of the Philistines. The people of Israel were cowed and demoralised. Samson could expect no help from them. The Philistines were numerous, powerful and vicious. All the going, up to this point, was in the favour of the Philistines. What could one man do against the might of Philistia? Samson would naturally be reluctant to start any confrontation.

What Samson needed was assurance and encouragement to engage in battle with the Philistines, and so God provides this incident and experience for Samson to give him what he needed. Here he experienced immediate confrontation with a superior force, but at the same time, he experienced God's power given him just at the time he needed it. He also experienced the victory which was against anything he could have expected.

Notice the secrecy of this incident. God caused Samson to be separated from his parents. God holds Samson from speaking about the experience to his parents. This is all part of God's design. The secrecy was important to the whole of God's purpose. Without secrecy the giving of the riddle and the consequences that followed could not take place as purposed. Notice also how God wastes nothing. In the incident that was to bring strength and encouragement to his servant, God also made to be the means whereby the riddle could be composed.

The lion that God provided was a young lion. It was a lion in the prime of life, with all its natural strength, vitality and ferocity. If it had been an old lion, it could be said that due to it being past its prime, it would be weak, and therefore easily overcome. With a young lion there could be no suggestion that Samson on his own could have overcome it. Being young the lion would be full of natural arrogance and pride of strength. As Samson reflected on this incident, he could not fail to see a parable in it all. He could not fail to see a similarity between the strength and ferocity of the lion and the power and malice of the Philistines. Just as the lion, under normal circumstances, could have easily overcome a single man, so the Philistines would be able to subdue and overcome Samson. Samson, no doubt, had often wondered how he could possibly on his own do anything against the Philistines.

Isn't this so true, in so many ways, as God's people face the tasks for God in the church and its work today. How often do we think and brood over the task of evangelism. The power of godless thought. The power of Satan's domination of the minds of people. Our own puny strength. We have no idea how any victory can be gained over the powers of darkness. We need to appreciate our own impotence, but we also need to appreciate, as Samson is taught here with this fight with the lion, that with God's power all things are possible.

Let us get the full flavour of this event. There was Samson, entirely on his own, suddenly confronted by this lion. There is no way of escape. He is unarmed and no match for such an animal. Then at the moment of need he has this great experience. The Spirit of the Lord comes upon him. A whole new set of experiences happen to him. His natural fear suddenly is taken away. His indecision and how to defend himself is removed. His lack of knowledge as to how to fight the lion is reversed. His arms and body are pulsating with supernatural power miraculously given to him. He finds himself doing amazing things which he could never have thought possible, and doing them with ease, and with no harm to himself. He defeats and kills the lion, and that with no harm to himself. All this when he has no weapons, but only his bare arms for his defence.

What assurance this must have given him! What encouragement as he faced the might of the Philistines! What confidence for the task ahead! Though totally weak in himself, yet at the moment of need, he was given by God all the power he needed to accomplish victory. When confrontation came with the Philistines, and they were ready to devour him as this lion had tried to do, he would have in his memory this deliverance from the lion. So Samson was given graciously by the Lord the assurance that sufficient resources would be given him to defeat this oppressive foe.

Here is the doctrine. God does not call his people to great and difficult tasks in the spiritual war without equipping them with necessary power. The power is not necessarily, nor is it often, a permanent endowment, but it is given at the moment of need, and is more than adequate for the purpose it is given. God gives his people victory when they are engaged in fulfilling his divine purposes.

We learn also that God gives his power at the right time and at the proper time. God had given Samson his work. He was given it while his strength was of an normal man. He was required to go forward in this work believing in God. It was only as he went forward and at the point of need that the power was given. This is God's way. We go forward feeling our weakness and great need. We go forward trembling, but then as we obey the call of God we find his power at work in us to accomplish his purposes. How important it is that we walk in the purpose of God, because if we do not, at the moment of need, the power will not be available.

We live by faith. This is the truth revealed here and throughout the Bible. We must believe it and go forward. We must not let the evil one paralyse us.

God's graciousness is seen in the comprehensiveness of this experience given to his servant. By this incident, Samson is given a foretaste of the way God works, and the way Samson could expect God to work in the future. God would give him guidance. When power was needed this also would be given. He need not be afraid. He could face his life's work with confidence. He could go forward in the full assurance of faith.

So it is always. In the will of God we need never fear. The Word of God, such as this recorded history before us, is meant to encourage us and strengthen our faith. God gives us experiences, like he gave Samson, to prepare us and strengthen us for what is to come. We can go forward, our own real weakness feeling, but at the same time be sure that God's power will never let us down at the time of need, and will fully compensate for our weakness. God will accomplish his purposes which he calls us to be his servants in accomplishing.