Samson

by J. Miller | Category: Voices From The Past - Extracted From Jottings | Dec 1983

Wherein lay Samson's great strength? There was no physical evidence, so far as Delilah could see, that indicated that his strength lay in the flesh. We know that the whole secret of his strength was in the fact that the Spirit of the Lord began to move him in the Camp of Dan, and that once and again it is said that "the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him."

There is no more touching scene in a life of wondrous events and fast changing scenes than that which took place at the rock of Etam. Here the great man was alone. The Philistines, the oppressors of his brethren the children of Israel, had come up against them, and the men of Israel allied themselves with their enemies against their friend and saviour. Three thousand men of Judah came to bind him and to deliver him unto the Philistines, and Samson plaintively besought them "Swear unto me, that ye will not fall upon me yourselves." Having assured him that they would not, they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock to the Philistines in Lehi.

Samson was alone in Lehi. The men of Judah were his betrayers. Their saviour they accounted as an enemy. The Philistines shouted as they met Samson. Their enemy they thought was now weak as other men. Bound and betrayed, the prey is theirs. But, ah, the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him! The new ropes that bind him drop from his hands as burnt flax, and he puts forth his hand and lays hold of the unclean thing, the new jawbone of an ass. A thousand men fall to his blows, and the power of uncircumcised flesh melts away before the Spirit of the Lord. This happens that it might be shown to be true then as always that "no flesh should glory before God" (I Corinthians 1:29).

It was the jawbone of an ass in Lehi; it is a cross at Calvary, the place of a skull, but the' story is the same - the end of the flesh as energized by sin and the power of hell. Deliverance by a jawbone of old and by a cross was despised by the men of Judah. To the Jew the cross is a stumbling block. Samson triumphed by a jawbone, and the Saviour by the cross, and the victories of the cross are without number in all continents of this world.

J. Miller | Dec 1983
Voices From The Past - Extracted From Jottings