The Strong Fool's Folly | Sunday, September 22, 2024

In the time of the wheat harvest it happened that Samson visited his wife with a young goat. And he said, "Let me go in to my wife, into her room." But her father would not permit him to go in. Her father said, "I really thought that you thoroughly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister better than she? Please, take her instead." ... So Samson said to them, "Since you would do a thing like this, I will surely take revenge on you, and after that I will cease." ... He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it. (Judges 15, condensed)

When a man does the right thing in the wrong way, his strength becomes his folly—and yet God's grace remains surprisingly abundant.

The Right Thing in the Wrong Way

History and pop culture are filled with individuals who did the right thing in the wrong way. In Breaking Bad, Walter White receives a terminal cancer diagnosis and wants to secure his family's financial future—a good thing—but he uses his expertise as a chemist to manufacture meth and become a drug kingpin. Right thing, wrong way. Robin Hood addresses economic inequality and cares for the poor, but he does it by robbing the rich. Right thing, wrong way.

We see it in American history too. Many would name Abraham Lincoln the greatest president, yet to preserve the Union he suspended habeas corpus. Franklin Roosevelt, seeking national security, ordered the internment of the Japanese during World War II—maybe the right thing in the wrong way. Scripture has its own examples: Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar trying to help God out; Moses killing the Egyptian; Ananias and Sapphira giving a gift to God in the wrong way.

We are confronted with these situations regularly. We want to accomplish something good, but there's a temptation to do it in our own strength, by our own ingenuity, and maybe by unrighteous means. The challenge is that the outcome may seem so good that we make excuses for the method. Do the ends justify the means? How you answer says a lot about what you value and what you believe.

We Are Ambassadors of Christ

As Christians, we have a value system given by the Scriptures, and that creates an ethical system we ought to live by—especially since the New Testament makes clear that you and I are ambassadors of Christ. There are more than a few people at your work, in your family, or in your neighborhood whose only representation of Jesus is you. What does your action or inaction say about your Lord and Master?

Remember that Samson's name appears in Hebrews 11, the "Hall of Faith." He is presented, under the inspiration of the Spirit, as a champion of faith. Then you read Judges 13–16 and think, really? I have to keep reminding myself of that as I read through the foolish things Samson does. And if as you read this passage you don't see any problem with what Samson did, you may want to question your own ethical positions this morning.

A Culture Doing What Is Right in Its Own Eyes

This story is applicable to us even though these events happened more than 3,000 years ago. Just as God had a purpose, plan, and call on Samson's life before he was conceived, I'm convinced God has a purpose, plan, and call for what He desires to accomplish in and through your life. But like Samson, you will stand before situations where you must ask: God may want to use me here, but am I doing the right thing in the wrong way? Am I justifying wrong actions based on the wrong actions of someone else?

I've heard this mindset expressed recently: "The lawfare against Donald Trump is so bad that if he wins, he and the Republican party need to do the same thing to the other side—fight fire with fire." That is something we really need to think through. It's not a new mindset. Jesus confronted it: "You have heard that it has been said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'" Honestly, sometimes I wish that were the application. But Jesus gives a different teaching, one that is all but impossible apart from the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

This is the principle of lex talionis, the law of retaliation—"an eye for an eye"—which Christians have written about for centuries. We are constantly confronted with the question: does one person's wrong action give me license to respond, maybe in a gray area sort of way?

Four times the book of Judges tells us, "In those days there was no king in Israel," and twice it adds, "everyone did what was right in his own eyes." There was no superordinate governing principle for the people. I suggest we are increasingly living in a culture like that. When someone in 2024 says "that's my truth," that is an indication of libertinism moving through moral relativism toward anarchy.

Study history: when a culture moves through libertinism into relativism and down toward anarchy, society loses its ordering structures, and people—who psychologically crave order in the midst of chaos—seek a king to rule over them. The desire for a king is actually a God-oriented desire, because what we ultimately long for is a king who rules righteously. The problem is that the true King, the King of Kings, is not here yet, so when we seek a king we get a substandard one—often a dictatorship or tyranny. We'll see this when we move from Judges into Samuel, where the people grow tired of judges like Samson and demand a king.

Samson Returns and Demands Vengeance

In chapter 14, Samson went down to a Philistine city, found a Philistine girl he wanted, and against his parents' wishes married her. During the seven-day wedding feast, he got into a riddle contest, was cheated, grew angry, and left his wife before the marriage was consummated.

In the time of the wheat harvest it happened that Samson visited his wife with a young goat... "Let me go in to my wife, into her room." But her father would not permit him.

Some time has passed. Samson wants to consummate the marriage, but according to the custom of the day, having left her at the altar, her father had already given her to the best man. So the father offers the younger sister instead—strange to us, customary to them. Then Samson says, "This time I shall be blameless regarding the Philistines, if I harm them." If that doesn't trouble you, that might be an issue.

This isn't really "eye for an eye" thinking. The eye-for-an-eye teaching of Scripture is not a prescription requiring you to wound someone as they wounded you; it's a limitation—the punishment must fit the crime. What's happening here is, "You stepped on my toe, you wounded my pride, so I kill you." Samson decides that because he didn't get what he wanted, he has license to do whatever he wants. There is no way to ethically justify his thinking, yet it is exactly how we tend to think—tit-for-tat escalation that spirals into a blood feud.

God's Permission Is Not His Approval

Amazingly, God permits this, because His endgame is judgment upon the Philistines. But you can't argue this was God's perfect will. This brings us to the difference between the perfect will of God and the permissive will of God. God's permission does not imply His approval or blessing. He is not blessing what Samson does, though He will use it.

God can use man's unrighteous wrath to accomplish His plan. The best example is the crucifixion of Jesus—unrighteous on every level, conducted on false witness, yet through it God accomplished our redemption. Psalm 76:10 says, "Surely the wrath of man shall praise You." God is able to use even man's unrighteous acts for His glory.

But that does not mean our unrighteousness produces God's righteousness. James says the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God—or, as the NIV puts it, "human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires." Ephesians 4:26 says, "Be angry, and do not sin." Every guy hears "be angry" and rejoices, but it doesn't stop there. Be angry for the right reasons, and respond in the right way. That's challenging, because it requires being thoughtful, prayerful, and careful—which is not my nature.

Burning, Slaughter, and the Spiraling Feud

Samson went and caught three hundred foxes... and put a torch between each pair of tails. When he had set the torches on fire, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.

You have to give Samson creativity points—this took strategy and time. But if you burn others, expect to get burned. The Philistines learn who did it, so they burn Samson's wife and her father with fire. Samson responds, "Since you would do a thing like this, I surely will take revenge upon you," and attacks them "hip and thigh with a great slaughter." Down burns them, they burn him, and now he feels justified to take whatever vengeance he wants. The blood feud spirals out of control.

One of the most memorable movie scenes for me is in The Count of Monte Cristo. Edmond Dantès is wrongfully imprisoned, and an old religious man teaches him, then on his deathbed reveals a hidden treasure and says, "You must use it for good." Edmond says, "No, I will use it for my vengeance." The old man replies, "This is your final lesson: do not commit the crime for which you now serve the sentence. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord." Those words have rung in my ears more times than I can count when I feel the stirring to work out my own vengeance. The Scriptures teach, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."

David Guzik observes that if Samson had been obedient, God would have furthered His plan in a way that blessed Samson. But Samson was a fool. Proverbs says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death," and "a fool's wrath is known at once." That's the person who is immediately angry and responds instantly—you cannot be angry and not sin by immediately responding.

Aggression That Spreads to All Israel

The Philistines went up and encamped in Judah... "We have come up to arrest Samson, to do to him as he has done to us."

Samson's aggression now invites Philistine aggression upon all of Israel—it always spreads. So 3,000 men of Judah go down to the cleft of the rock where Samson is hiding and ask, "Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? What is this that you have done to us?" Samson replies, "As they did to me, so I have done to them." This is the infantile wisdom of a fool.

Jesus said, "Wisdom is justified by her children"—you can see the wisdom of a decision by its outcomes. Samson's folly is evidenced by his constant foolishness. He's a strong man but a dumb man. It was God's will, from before Samson's birth, to begin delivering Israel through him, but Samson never acknowledges God's call or desire to deliver Israel. He's only upset about how he has been wronged. A good rule of thumb: God's perfect plan never involves personal revenge.

God's Surprising Grace and the Jawbone

Samson agrees to be bound and handed over, as long as his own people won't kill him. His self-absorption here marks him as a major narcissist, and his narcissism turns his own people against him. And yet—strikingly—God is not finished with Samson, because God is gracious. I'm frequently surprised by the graciousness of God despite our manifold failures.

The Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him; the ropes that were on his arms became like flax burned with fire... He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey... and killed a thousand men with it.

This either says a lot about how poorly the Philistines fought or a lot about the power of God working through Samson—I think it's the power of God. It's a good reminder that God doesn't need the perfect plan, the perfect strategy, the perfect weapon, or the perfect man. So often I think I need everything in place, and God says, "I can do what I want, with whomever I want, whenever I want." He can use the jawbone of a donkey, and He can use a donkey like Samson.

Had Samson been fully obedient, I think God could have done far better through his life—perhaps using him to lead those same 3,000 men against the Philistines to deliver Israel. But Samson won this victory through God's power, and an instant later his self-absorption shines through again:

Then he became very thirsty; so he cried out to the LORD and said, "...now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?"

He just killed a thousand men, and now he's worried about himself. Yet God is still gracious—God's grace is surprisingly abundant. God split open the hollow place, water came out, Samson drank, and his spirit revived. "And he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines."

Living as Children of God

God uses imperfect people for His purposes because He is perfectly gracious. I'm grateful He doesn't walk away and leave us high and dry because of our manifold inconsistencies. Yet there is a point where one can go too far in foolish self-absorption—which is what we'll see next week when Samson meets Delilah and goes out "as before," not knowing that the LORD had departed from him. What a frightening place to be: not realizing the Lord has left.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye'... but I tell you, do not resist an evil person. Whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.... You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and bless those who curse you... that you may be sons of your Father in heaven."

I'm a child of God, called to live after the pattern and example of Christ—one of the most difficult things in all of life, impossible apart from His enabling power and grace by the Holy Spirit. The fool's method is plain; just read Samson's life. But God calls us to walk in wisdom, circumspectly, understanding that the days are evil. God help us, because we live in a time where everyone does what is right in their own eyes.

Closing Prayer

Father God, we come before You as we close and ask You to give us Your strength, Your Spirit. Holy Spirit, would You help us to have Your power, Your meekness, Your self-control in the situations we face—when we are tempted by our own flesh and emboldened by a culture that says, "You have the right, you have the justification." God, let us give those things into Your hands and say, "Vengeance is Yours." Help us to trust that You will bring about ultimate justice, and help us to shine brightly Your grace and truth in this world. Do a work in me, I pray, as I need Your grace in abundance. We ask this today in Jesus' name, and all those that agreed said, amen.