Super Sampson

“The angel of the Lord appeared to her and said, “You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son. Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean, because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”

Judges 13:3-5

Stronger than 100 men!

Able to destroy enemy fields with only a torch and foxes!

Look, the man with the long, long hair – its’ Super Sampson!

Well, of course that is silly.

The Bible did not have super heroes in the way comic books stories tell of super heroes today.

I suppose if they did, Sampson would have been one of the Old Testament’s best.

At least, he started out that way.

You see, he had a course laid out for him as a Judge in the Nation of Israel.

He was dedicated to God at birth with a Nazirite vow.

He was renowned in the land for his great feats of strength and for

humiliating Israel’s enemy, the Philistines. 

But along the way, Samson veered of that course set for him.

It is a life that we can learn much from.

It is a life filled with advances and retreats.

His story is a story of broken vows and self-gratifying appetites.

So what can we say?

How much greater the exploits recorded and how much greater glory might God have received, through his life, had he stayed on course.

We too have a course set for us.

We too have temptations to stray from that course.

We too have opportunities to dedicate our lives to God.

Let’s look together, this week, at how we stay the course.

What can we learn from Sampson’s life to apply in our own lives?

We’ll find out together how to stay the course!