I had a similar thought during a service a little over 2 years ago.
I posted the thoughts on my forum.
Here is what I wrote about it.
Quote:
During a service the other night I began to think about Samson.
Samson was a judge.
Samson was annointed by God with much strength.
Some picture Samson as some huge muscular individual because of the tales of his great strength. I don't think that was the case. Samson didn't have this strength until the Lord came upon him. When Delilah deceived him and his hair was cut he rose up and began to fight not realizing that the Lord had not come on him as before. He was easily overtaken.
If Samson had possessed rippling bulging muscles there wouldn't have been much question as to where his strength came from.
But the thoughts I had about Samson were less about his beginnings and more about his end.
Samson had taken a bad path and it led him to a bad place. It led him to a place where he found himself slave to those he had conquered so many times. Those who had been the conquered he now found to be his conquerors. Grinding at the mill with blinded eyes he appeard to be a broken remnant of the man he used to be.
As if forcing him to push a grinding mill around and around all day wasn't humiliation enough they brought him into the temple for their big festival to show off the great Samson who they had defeated.
There is a reason the temple came down on the day of Samsons death. When they brought Samson in they "set him between the pillars". If they had remembered who Samson was they would not have set him between the pillars. They had forgotten who this man was that they scoffed at and gave praise to their god over his downfall.
Samson was a judge.
Samson was annointed by God with much strength.
And on top of their forgetting who Samson was there was another crucial element to the temple coming down that day. God did not forget who Samson was. Oh yes, Samson had fallen. Samson had taken wrong paths that led him to a bad place. But God never forgot 2 things.
Samson was a judge.
Samson was annointed by God with much strength.
That day, in spite of all of Samsons wrongs and all of his human weaknesses, God remembered who Samson was and God gave Samson more victory in his death than Samson had experienced in all of his life.
That day...
Samson was a judge.
Samson was annointed by God with much strength.
The last thing written in the story of Samsons life recorded in the book of Judges is this...
Then his brethren and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought [him] up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burying place of Manoah his father. And he judged Israel twenty years.
Samson was still counted a Judge even during his time of imprisonment by the Philistines.
The gifts and callings of God are without repentance.
Some you know may have fallen. Some you know of may have failed. Some you have seen may have taken bad paths that have led them to a bad place.
Don't ever forget who God called them to be because God doesn't.
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