“Then Samson called to the Lord and said, “O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me just this one time, O God, and let me take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes.”
Being a cyclist, I have completed some long rides. I say completed because starting a ride is different than finishing it. I started out one morning planning on riding 100 miles. A century to the cycling crowd. Starting out was great and even easy, filled with anticipation and strength. As I road mile after mile, I had to manage my food intake per hour and also my liquid intake per hour. The hardest part is always the last 10 to 15 miles. Tired and worn out, I kept saying to myself just follow the route, you can do this, don’t quit. I made it! 100 miles was completed some 6 plus hours later.
Samson was a man called by God before he was born and he had a mission. He was a Nazirite, holy to the Lord, set apart from the rest of the Israelites to do the Lord’s will. He was not called to live in church or wear robes and teach the masses the good things of God’s word, no, has born for battle. This battle was with the Philistines. You might know them today as the bad guys in Gaza, Hamas. Yes, this is the same place that Samson was taken to after Delilah had worn him out with her constant nagging about his strength. The Philistines captured Samson (vs.21) and gouged out his eyes and put him in shackles and sent him to grind grain in the prison.
What an epic fall. A man born for battle, called by God and empowered with supernatural strength is now grinding grain in a prison in Gaza for same people he was born to take out. From his youth he was rebel. Marrying a Philistine women, bragging about his strength and his own father gives his wife away to another man after a huge fight. Samson goes on a killing spree several times in response to the Philistines and their murderous nature. His own people, the Israelites, want him gone because of the violence and he agrees to be given to the enemy. Here Samson kills 1000 men with the jawbone of donkey. And after all that, the Bible tells us that he still is going to Gaza to meet women where he meets Delilah, the one who will finally get to the bottom of his strength. I can think of most of the men of God the Bible speaks about but Samson’s resume is very different. He was not the priest wearing the robes slowly walking around the people telling them what the Lord says, no his story reads like someone straight out of 2023. We would not call him a good man at all nor would we say that he was a man of God, we would never see him in church, yet the Lord was still with him.
The Philistines are having a party celebrating the capture of Samson in the temple of Dagon, their god. Everyone is there including the important people in the Philistine nation. This was huge deal. Samson had been a thorn in their side for awhile now but today he was prisoner. They bring him out in the temple to perform for them, reading between the lines, this was a chance to mock Samson. He asks to be placed between two pillars so he can rest on them and it is here we see him pray to the Lord. In fact it is the only prayer recorded by Samson in the Bible. A prayer to the Holy God of Israel to give him strength one last time. Samson brings down the temple and kills everyone in the temple along with himself.
Our Christian walk starts off new and fresh when we commit our lives to the Lord. As we grow in Christ, we have to deal with the world pulling us away as the tempting of sin that comes all the time. Just because we give in to temptation sometimes does not mean that the Lord gets disgusted with us and turns His back. No, He is like the father of the prodigal son, waiting for you to come back home. Samson’s story is a crazy one but we read that the Lord was with Samson even in the middle of him acting like he was not a Nazirite called by God. The last stand for Samson came when he could finally see that he was nothing without the Lord. Before imprisonment he was a cocky man that bragged about the gift he had and it got him into some major trouble. In prison, Samson understood that he was nothing without the Lord.
We need to understand what Jesus said in John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” Are you tired of trying all you can and you still come up short? You may have been given a great gift from God of speaking or intelligence and you are trying to use this gift. I can tell you that without Christ you can do nothing. Solomon called it meaningless and chasing after the wind. Samson had a gift from the Lord, super strength, but it took him being imprisoned with his eyes gouged out to finally realize that he was nothing without the Lord. You don’t have to take it that far, you can submit your life to Christ today and start walking by the Spirit and not by the flesh. On that long bike ride my strength was gone, but I had the route, the plan laid out for me to follow. As long as I just stuck to the plan I was going to finish strong. Some of you have made your own plans for life and you are lost and out of strength. Today, Christ is waiting for your call on Him so He can give the plans He has for your life, the route from God. Samson’s last stand tells us that the Lord will never leave us nor forsake us. You are never too far off the path that He will not come find you.
Let It Go 
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