A LEGACY NOT LIKE SAMSON’S

By Michael Pursley

 

Men, I want to talk to you a second. Now that I am getting older, I have been thinking a lot about the legacy that I am leaving.

I am afraid that a lot of us are going to be leaving a legacy much like Sampson did. You see, Samson’s end was both bitter and sweet. God answered his last prayer, and he achieved his greatest victory against the Philistines, but it happened at the tragic cost of his own life. Furthermore, as you read his story in Judges 16, you can’t help but come away with the feeling that it didn’t need to end like this.

One pastor has pointed out that Samson is a picture of the believer in disobedience. God did use him, but his life ended in great personal tragedy, shadowed by the waste of great potential.

You see, Samson died like a modern day suicide bomber. His words, “Let me die with the Philistines,” rings like a suicide note, but his purpose really wasn’t to kill himself; instead, it was to kill as many Philistines as he could. Yes, Samson is much like modern day suicide-bomber, and that is not a good legacy at all.

However, in another sense, Samson is a hero. Samson is even mentioned in Hebrews 11. There, he is spoken of as a person who is an example to all of us for his faith in God. Even in Hebrews, however, there are no extra kudos, neither for Samson nor his end. No, Samson is not portrayed as a glorious hero whose life is to be emulated. Instead, Samson was a tragic hero, whose life should have ended much differently. Yes, Samson is an example of how one may have faith in God’s providence, even when one has messed everything up really badly. In fact, we find God’s providence coming to Samson at the end of his life after badly messing up, and it came to him by an opportunity that came to him tragically.

The fact that Samson was able to destroy the heathen temple simply by pushing on the main columns could only happen with God supernaturally empowering him. Yes, this circumstance shows that God never forsook Samson, even when he was disobedient. And yes again, God’s mercies were ever there for Samson, even in a Philistine prison. All Samson had to do was to turn his heart back towards God and receive them. But the sad news is that God had to break Samson and discipline him severely before he could submit to God and humbly receive God’s power for his last great task.

It has been aptly pointed out, “This last great victory came only as he was broken, humiliated, and blind. He could no longer look to himself.” Prior to this event, we don’t see Samson as a man of prayer, but here he is praying. Here he has been humbled enough for God to use him again.

 

The problem with rationalizing

Samson shows us the danger of underestimating our own sinfulness. Samson probably figured in his mind that he had things well under control. I am sure that he believed that he could get away with his own fleshly lusts; he probably even started small, just to see. But all of of his private indulgences and rationalizing, all of it, led directly to his own personal destruction. Samson was the great conqueror who never allowed God to completely conquer him.

Further, Samson shows us the danger of being a loner and a leader. This isolation is especially a very formidable issue for many of us in the ministry. By both personality and by position, we often find ourselves alone and lonely. Sometimes, even within our own families, we are isolated and under pressure. And then, when the pressures become the greatest, so, it seems, is our isolation. Usually, the issues pile up until things become so unbearable that we explode. We may explode outwardly, or we may explode inwardly. Either way, it will be very messy and utterly destructive—for us and for everybody touched by us.

Yes, sin will take us farther than we ever wanted to go; it will cost us far more than we ever thought we would have to pay, and it will be far harder to come back than we ever thought it would be. I wish I could write more here on how this happens, but most of you know exactly what I mean.

It has been said that “Old Testament biographies were never written for our imitation, but they are written for our instruction,” and I think the author of that statement has a point that applies well to the story of Samson. You see, Samson was a man just like we are. He was a man full of infirmities; sometimes he was a sorry fool, and yet, through his desperate faith, his legacy lives on as an instruction for us when we are in terrible places of our own making. Certainly, however, he was not a man whom we would want to imitate as a life example.

It was Spurgeon who once said, “I look upon Samson’s case as a great wonder, put in Scripture for the encouragement of great sinners.” But the legacy of Samson is not the legacy I want to leave, how about you?

“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity (Joel 2:12-13).

May God help each of us to leave a legacy that is not only instructional, but is worthy of imitation.