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Samson was ordained from the womb. The Angel of the LORD visited a barren woman and expressed to her she would have a son. She was to drink no wine nor eat anything unclean as her son was dedicated to the LORD as a Nazirite from the womb. The LORD had a much bigger plan in mind than a new judge for Israel. He was going to use Samson to move against the Philistines. The prowess of Samson is depicted in his many acts, yet his judgment isn’t as wise as one would think. He was blessed by God with mighty strength, and brawn of body, but his eyes languished for women outside his clan, his tribe and country which proved to be his downfall. His strength was such that he could kill 1,000 men with the jawbone of a donkey, he could slay a lion with his bare hands, but he could not gather enough self-control to bend his knee to the holy God. He was prideful in his strength and only recognizing his deficiency when the Spirit of God left him along with his long hair.

To be fair, Samson did not have James 4:7 to draw wisdom from. James 4:7 Then be subject to God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. Antistete resist. ἀνθίστημι anthistēmi anth-is'-tay-mee; to stand against, that is, oppose: - resist, withstand. Take a stand against the Devil. Satan will always go to God and tattle on us. He is the first to condemn which is why he is called the Great Accuser. Our Father wants us to be at the throne of Grace before Satan gets there, confessing our sin and making things right with Him. Μεθοδεία this is the word translated “wiles”… “schemes”. Methodeia (meth-od-i'-ah) Our word Method comes from it; traveling over, that is, travesty, (trickery): - wile, lie in wait, this is the method of Satan, no surprise there. Following and pursuing of an orderly and technical procedure in the handling of a subject. And the subject is us! Satan is a wily trickster and as methodical as the most extreme scientific process. In other words, there is a method to his madness. He also has a method, and orderly plan for our life.

John MacArthur said, “Satan is the antithesis of every Godly attribute.” Satan’s will for us is that all things work for evil…Satan takes what is behind us, anticipates what is before us and weaves it together for our harm. We must see this from God’s point of view.

John 10:10 The thief does not come except that he may steal, and kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life and may have it abundantly.

John 8:44 You are of the Devil as father, and the lusts of your father you desire to do. That one was a murderer from the beginning, and he has not stood in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own, because he is a liar, and the father of it.

Compare with God’s Will for us…

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the purposes which I am planning for you, says Jehovah; purposes of peace, and not for evil; to give you posterity and a hope. 12 Then you shall call on Me, and you shall go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you shall seek and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

Romans 8:28 But we know that to the ones loving God all things work together for good, to those being called according to purpose;

Lesson Three…

Satan’s method is against us individually. Ephesians 6:12

12" target="_blank">Ephesians 6:12 because wrestling against flesh and blood is not to us, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world's rulers, of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual powers of evil in the heavenlies.

Samson had the Spirit of the LORD with him which was manifested by his supernatural strength. Even with the Spirit of the LORD, he chose to love women outside the Law of Israel. One has to wonder, “What was he thinking?” Samson didn’t wrestle with his physical desires, he just allowed them wild abandon. From a Philistine woman, he embraced a harlot and then shared his heart with another treacherous Philistine woman called Delilah. Satan knew exactly where Samson’s weakness was and he pierced him with it time and again. One wonders why Samson didn’t recognize it from the first moment his bride betrayed him.

Wrestling is a struggle in hand to hand combat. The war is hand to hand and denotes the struggle between individual combatants during a military campaign. In essence, Paul is saying that we are arm-wrestling with Satan individually. We cannot rely on anyone else to fight the battle for us except Christ Himself. No one knows our weaknesses better than Jesus except Satan, and make no mistake, Satan will use every trick and wile to find that chink in the armor. He did that with Samson.

Judges 16:5 And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, "Entice him, and find out where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and every one of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver."

Delilah knew Samson’s weakness, too, and so did the lords of the Philistines. So she plied her wiles of persuasion. After several false attempts, she pestered him daily to know the secret of his strength until he was vexed to death. This is exactly how Satan works, amazingly like Chinese water torture. Even Solomon said that living with a contentious woman was like the constant dripping of a rain-filled day.

Delilah crippled Samson by eroding his self-control. She abraded him until he sought relief from the vexation. Rather than leaving the Philistines, he succumbed to her pleadings and finally disclosed his hair had never been cut. His Nazirite vow was broken when the woman cut his hair. He had turned his back upon God and the Law given to his forefathers, all for temporary relief. It starkly reminds me of Esau’s hunger and how he traded his birthright for a bowl of stew which was a very high price to pay for temporary relief of a temporary problem.

Samson had depended upon his own strength and lost the wrestling match with Satan. The same thing happens when we depend upon our own strength or our bank account or anything other than the Almighty God.

If we do not consistently tend to our armor, patching it when frayed, and keeping it clean and shiny, we lose the supernatural strength which God has gifted us. Chinks in the armor allow the fiery darts entry. They won’t kill us, but they certainly sting, and can even cripple us. Delilah gave Samson this lesson in an up close and personal way.

Lesson four…

Satan starts his file on us early. He does not know the future, but his method is to map out intricate plans for every possibility. His favorite set-up is scandal.

It is possible for Satan to use others to cause us to sin. He is adept at seduction using our own thought processes. We are responsible but we can be set-up to sin by someone else. Jesus says that when you have set one of my children up to sin, you have made Me angry. He doesn't like it when you mess with His children, but He also recognizes our responsiblity in our own sin when we allow thoughts to rattle around in our minds long enough to take root which leads to sinful actions. That is what Satan is counting on, which is why he pesters us with images and thoughts hoping they will take root bearing the fruit of sin.

The Greek word, skandalon has interesting meanings… must come – things are inevitable and will happen σκάνδαλον skandalon (skan'-dal-on) A “scandal”; a trap stick (bent sapling), that is, snare (figuratively cause of displeasure or sin): - occasion to fall (of stumbling), offense thing that offends, stumbling-block. The trigger on a trap where the bait is placed. Satan places that bait on our trap as children. Satan waits for the snap, and then he has us, tied up neatly in a web of deceit and cunning. He orchestrates the enticement to conduct to ruin our minds.

The Bible doesn’t share how Satan baited Samson’s trap, but we do know what the bait was. Beautiful women were Samson’s weakness, and it seemed his taste was not for the women of his own tribe but those of the Philistines. God used this weakness to move against the Philistines, however, it didn’t turn out well for Samson in the end.

There are all kinds of human weaknesses. We can boil most of them down to the three P’s, Pride, Profit, and Prestige. Those three things are the basic causes of our sin. They are the carrots/bait that Satan uses in his traps. As our enemy, Satan is trying to tear apart everything in our life and this battle starts when we are children. Our battle is not against our loved ones or anyone else human.Paul assures us of this so we should always remember our Christian siblings are not the enemy!

Howver, we must take a stand against Satan…

Matthew 16:18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My assembly, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against her.

Judges 16:2 The Gazites were told, saying, Samson has come here. And they encircled and set a trap for him all the night at the gate of the city, and kept quiet all night, saying, Until the light of the morning, then we will kill him. 3 And Samson lay down until the middle of the night, and rose up in the middle of the night. And he took hold on the leaves of the gate of the city, and on the two side posts, and plucked them up with the bar, and put them on his shoulders and took them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron.

Satan set the trap using the Gazites, and they were ready to kill him. Sampson grappled with the gates of the Philistine city and pulled up the side posts, plucked them up with the bar and carried them to the top of the mountain before Hebron. We have that kind of supernatural strength.

Christians begin the Christian life thinking that surrendering, in a falling flat kind of way, to God will bring spiritual victories believing that our role is passive like noodles waiting for spaghetti sauce. Nothing could be further from the truth. We must apply ourselves, work at keeping our minds and hearts free from worldly filth, work our faith as James teaches for that is how our true faith is exhibited. Jesus said we must “labor and be ready”. That is a command to be active within our faith. That means we must not only study, but we must practice what we learn on a daily basis. If we do not, we will stagnate like a sponge left in a sink full of water. In order for the sponge to do what it was designed to do, it must be squeezed out and pressure applied to the project, then rinsed and squeezed out. It’s painful, but the blessings are overflowing.

"God's Words For US" from Cecelia Lester

Praying for the Lord's Will