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Friday 5 October 2012

Judges 14 - Killing Lions

Samson now starts to make his mistakes. First he wants to get a Philistine woman as a wife, directly against what the Law said. He also asks his parents to do this for him. Our reaction might be, why didn't he get on do this himself, but in the culture of the day parents often arranged marriages.
His parents were against the idea. Then it says it was part of the Lord's plan. Now there is something important for us to understand here. Just because something is part of God's plan and is used by Him does not mean that He approves of it. It would have been far better of Samson had been perfectly dedicated to the Lord. At the same time, God knows all about our vagaries and twistedness, and this does not stop His plans working. Moreover, we may sometimes see things in our own children that we do not like, or know that they are wrong, God still use even these things as part of His plan.
Samson then went down to the Philistines and killed a lion along the way (as you do!). Later he got honey from the lion carcass. He then held a party and told the people a riddle. The Philistines used his wife to get the answer out of him. This succeeded. Samson was furious, and in the power of the Lord struck down the thirty men.
So we see the power of the Lord here working in strange ways, first to kill a lion, then to attack these thirty men. When we are given gifts from God we have a responsibility in how to use them, and are given a degree of freedom. We have a duty to use them properly, we also need to live our lives in a righteous way. Samson did neither of these things.

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