Proclamation
“And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with
her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; that he told
her all his heart … If I be shaven, then my strength will go from me … And when
Delilah saw that he had told her … she sent and called … the Philistines … and
she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head … and his strength left
him … And he wist not that The Lord was departed from him.” Judges 16:16-20 (KJV)
Explanation
These are the words of God which were
written by the prophet Samuel under the influence of The Holy Spirit of God.
After he slew the Philistine army with the jawbone of a donkey, (Judges 15:14-17)
Samson then went to Gaza. There he went
in to spend the night with a prostitute. (Judges 16:1) The people of Gaza surrounded the place where
he was and they were going to kill him in the morning, but Samson left in the
middle of the night. (Judges 16:2-3)
Some time later Samson fell in love with a woman from the valley of
Sorek named Delilah. The rulers of the
Philistines went to her and asked her to get Samson to tell her the source of
his strength. They promised to each give
her eleven hundred shekels of silver. (Judges 16:4-5) So Delilah asked Samson to tell her the
source of his strength. She asked him three
times, and each time he gave her some false information. Delilah told Samson that he didn’t love her
because he had made a fool of her three times.
She continued to nag him daily until he told her the truth. If his head was shaved he would lose his strength. She sent word to the rulers of the
Philistines and for a man to shave his head.
After his head was shaved, she woke him and told him that the
Philistines were attacking him. Samson
did not know that his strength was gone and that The Lord had departed from
him. (Judges 16:6-20) So the Philistines
seized him, gouged out his eyes, bound him in shackles and put him in
prison. The rulers of the Philistines
gathered together for a feast to offer a sacrifice to their god Dagon for
delivering their enemy to them. (Judges 16:21-24) They brought Samson out of prison to the
temple where the feast was being held so they could make fun of him. The temple was crowed with about three
thousand men and women. They stood
Samson between the two central pillars of the temple. Samson prayed, then he put his right hand on
one pillar and his left hand on the other, and pushed with all his might, and
the temple collapsed killing all of the people inside. Thus Samson killed more people when he died
than he did when he was alive. (Judges 16:25-31)
Application
Some of the time we talk too much. We should learn to keep some things to
ourselves. If we are asked a question,
we do not have to tell them all that we know.
We should also learn to just say yes or no, when we say more than that
we frequently fall into condemnation. (James 5:12) Additionally, we should not get mad at people
who tell others the secrets that we told them. We could not even keep our own secrets or we
would not have told them in the first place.
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