It is not by accident or coincidence but through God’s providence that you are reading this teaching today. There are things going on in your life today that are the devil’s way of keeping you down.
Like a ship at sea, heavy-laden with barnacles, satan loves to attach his barnacles to our Spiritual life hindering our walk with Christ. Boats and ship must occasionally be cleaned, removing the barnacles for continued smooth sailing.
Has satan secretively attached to an area of your life which is keeping you defeated, depressed, discouraged and distraught? If you aren’t having the impact for Christ like you know you could, you’ve probably allowed the devil to slip in and drag you down or distract you from doing the Lord’s will.
The devil not only wins by luring us into evil, but by luring us away from God’s will. The devil is a professional distracter. Just when we are focusing upon God’s plan and will for our life, satan approaches, not with an evil attack, but with an inviting lure. This is Spiritual warfare!
All week I will be teaching on Spiritual warfare from Judges chapter 14-16, the life of Samson.
Samson, a man of great strength, was lured by Delilah to reveal the secret of his great strength(Judges 16:5). It wasn’t so much that she lured him into evil, but lured him through distraction so that he was outside of God’s will. In fact, there is so much that we can learn about Spiritual warfare from Samson.
Samson is often called a renegade judge of Israel. Being extremely strong, he was brought down by such a small weakness. There are similarities between Samson and the nation of Israel during the time of Judges. As Israel prostituted herself to the false gods of Canaan, so Samson chases women of ill-repute which leads to his downfall. Yet, even in the midst of it all, God is at work.
Just prior to Samson’s birth Israel was doing evil in the eyes of the Lord. So the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years (Judges 13:1). Samson’s birth was announced to his parents by an angel, and his name means “brightness”. Given all of this, Samson is a special individual, given by God to be a judge on behalf of God and Israel.
In addition to his God-announced birth Samson was also given special strength from the Spirit of God (Judges 14:6). “He grew and the Lord blessed him, and the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him” (Judges 13:24b-25a).
Samson wanted a Philistine who lived in Timnah for his wife. When he told his parents, they tried to talk him into taking a wife among his own people rather than from the “uncircumcised” Philistines (Judges 14:1-3). This seems wrong. Why would Samson entertain such an idea and why would he be so demanding of his parents to fulfill his wishes?
Sometimes when everything seems so wrong we conclude it is from the devil. This was not the case with Samson and his Philistine wife. “(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)”(Judges 14:4). This was not only not from satan but was actually from the Lord!
God uses the weaknesses of Samson to accomplish His purpose. God desired to confront the Philistines for how they were ruling over Israel and He accomplished His confrontation through the weaknesses of Samson, a man of great strength.
Samson accomplished great things through great strength prompted by great weakness and even sin. This is not an example so that we might live likewise. However, it is an example of God’s providence, reminding us that God is at work even when situations aren’t right and even when the intent of man is meant as evil.
As Samson buddies-up with the Philistines he lures them to solve a riddle: “Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet”(Judges 14:14). If his Philistine friends can solve the riddle within the seven days of the marriage feast, they win thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes. If they cannot, Samson gets the same.
A Spiritual warfare principle we gain from Judges is that even though God works through our sinfulness and weaknesses, there are still consequences we must face. This was the case for Samson and the case for Israel-thus the book of Judges.
His Philistine friends were so obsessed with solving the riddle that they threatened Samson’s wife, to burn her and her father’s household if she did not get the answer from Samson.(They actually did burn Samson’s wife and her father to death in chapter 15.) On the seventh day she was successful, and she stole the answer and gave it to “her people”(14:18).
They used violent means to accomplish their will and violence came back upon them. Little did they know Samson would strike down thirty Philistine men and strip them of their clothes and belongings in order to fulfill his end of the bargain.
Let me summarize several aspects of Spiritual warfare from our study of Samson so far.
God used the weakness and sinfulness of others to bring about His discipline.
To flirt with evil in any way, shape, or form will not only separate us from a close walk with Christ, but invites greater evil influence into our lives.
We can never afford to make any sort of bargain with the enemy. If we ever sit down at the bargaining table with the devil, we have already been taken.
Even though God works through us in the midst of our weakness, we will reap the consequences of what ever evil we sow.
Finally, Spiritual warfare always has the potential to leave deep wounds, even after victory. While Samson may have defeated some Philistines his wife was given to a friend.
Friend, the battle between good and evil is very real. It begins In the book of Genesis and will not end until satan is finally thrown into the Great Lake of Fire as mentioned in Revelation 20.
In our greatest Spiritual battles, like Samson, our human nature can lead us into heartache and ruin. Before we defeat the enemy within, we’ll have little effect on defeating the enemy out there.
Today, consider your own renegade qualities which are keeping you in conflict with others and less Christ-like. Christ knows the evil qualities within us that must go. He knows the Christ-like qualities that we must embrace.
Perhaps like Samson, every day we face our own “Philistines.” It’s not so much that God would defeat the enemy through us, but the enemy in us.
Dear Heavenly Father, sanctify our hearts, our minds and our ambitions. Redeem any renegade spirit within so that we might not operate in the flesh, but in the Spirit. Destroy the evil desires of our hearts so that being more like Christ we might become the salt and light which destroys evil. In Jesus’ Mighty Name,
AMEN!