Daily Devotions
July 8th, 2014 by Pastor SolleyJudg 13:11-13 And Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came to the man, and said unto him, Art thou the man that spakest unto the woman? And he said, I am.
12 And Manoah said, Now let thy words come to pass. How shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him?
13 And the angel of the Lord said unto Manoah, Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware.
The Bible indicates that Manoah and his wife did all that the angel directed them to do before and after Samson was born, that he would have been raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Samson had a very good beginning to life. (Judg 13:24-25 And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him. 25 And the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.)
Now it is time to begin to make his own choices. The first thing we see Samson do as a young man violates his vow as a Nazarite and God’s will in marriage for His Children.
(Judg 14:1-3 And Samson went down to Timnath, and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines. 2 And he came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines: now therefore get her for me to wife. 3 Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well.)
Those last words of verse 3 give a picture of the life of Samson and the choices he would make. His main objective in life seems to be to please himself. Yes he was saved as we would say, yes he was used of the Lord to defeat the enemies of God. But in this first choice of Samson we see that he kept back part of himself from the Lord, that he wasted to please himself. The other choices he will make all have this in common, they were made in part, most likely the greater part to please himself. When we put self ahead of Christ we will make poor decisions just as Samson did. Tomorrow we will begin to see what poor decisions led him to.