{"id":27673,"date":"2023-08-24T22:00:40","date_gmt":"2023-08-25T05:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/judges-16_1-17-copy\/"},"modified":"2023-08-08T23:07:39","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T06:07:39","slug":"judges-16_18-31","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/judges-16_18-31\/","title":{"rendered":"God\u2019s Mercy Over Our Mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judges 16:18-31\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong>Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Judges 16:18-31.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

Judges 16:18-20 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n18\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, “Come back once more; he has told me everything.” So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands.
\n19\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Having put him to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him.
\n20\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then she called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the\u00a0LORD\u00a0had left him.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 18-20:\u00a0 Verse 19 says \u201chis strength left him\u201d and verse 20 says \u201cthe LORD had left him\u201d. In many ways verses 19 and 20 are talking about the same thing.\u00a0 After Samson had ignored God for so long, finally God, who was the source of Samson\u2019s strength, removed His hand of protection from Samson\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

Judges 16:21-30 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n21\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison.
\n22\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.
\n23\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Now the rulers of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to celebrate, saying, “Our god has delivered Samson, our enemy, into our hands.”
\n24\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0When the people saw him, they praised their god, saying, “Our god has delivered our enemy into our hands, the one who laid waste our land and multiplied our slain.”
\n25\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0While they were in high spirits, they shouted, “Bring out Samson to entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them. When they stood him among the pillars,
\n26\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Samson said to the servant who held his hand, “Put me where I can feel the pillars that support the temple, so that I may lean against them.”
\n27\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Now the temple was crowded with men and women; all the rulers of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were about three thousand men and women watching Samson perform.
\n28\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then Samson prayed to the\u00a0LORD, “O Sovereign\u00a0LORD, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.”
\n29\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other,
\n30\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 21-30:\u00a0 Samson went to the grave a spiritually immature person, bent on vengeance till the very end.\u00a0 Still, in his last moments, a blind, short haired Samson finally sees spiritually, possibly for the first time, and realizes that his great strength came from God, not from anything else.\u00a0 So Samson prays that God would strengthen him just once more and with his last breaths Samson uses that strength to bring the temple of Dagon down on all the Philistine rulers and even on himself.<\/p>\n

Did Samson\u2019s life have to end this way?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Samson could have lived a much more inspiring and glorious life if he would have given much more room to God.\u00a0 Amazingly, despite Samson\u2019s sin and mistakes, God still sovereignly accomplished His purpose for Samson\u2019s life.\u00a0 God said, \u201che will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines\u201d (Judges 13:5) and that is what Samson did.\u00a0 Did God accomplish His purpose for Samson the way that God would have wanted to?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 God would have much preferred that He and Samson enjoy a lifetime of walking together.\u00a0 There would have been so much more blessing, peace, joy and victory for Samson and his people had Samson actually walked with God.\u00a0 Instead, God used Samson like a cold, blunt instrument because that\u2019s about all the room Samson had given God.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0In His sovereignty God will accomplish His purpose for your life one way or the other.\u00a0 The question is how.\u00a0 Will He accomplish His will in relationship with you or in spite of you?<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0How much better to be used by God and to walk with Him too than to be a blunt instrument that God uses but eventually throws away.<\/p>\n

Judges 16:31 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n31\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then his brothers and his father’s whole family went down to get him. They brought him back and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had led Israel twenty years.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 31:\u00a0 Despite all of his flaws and mistakes, remarkably Samson is honoured in Hebrews 11 for his faith (Hebrews 11:32-34).\u00a0 That is the amazing mercy and grace of God.\u00a0\u00a0In His mercy God would rather honour the little bit of faith that we have in Him than to harp on all the ways that we missed the mark.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Father, thank You for the all the mercy You have on us, that despite all the mistakes we make, You still choose to honour us for the little bit of faith we have in You.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2021 Justin Lim. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Judges 16:18-31.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

Judges 16:18-20 (NIV)
\n18\u00a0\u00a0When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, “Come back once more; he has told me everything.” So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands.
\n19\u00a0\u00a0Having put him to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him.
\n20\u00a0\u00a0Then she called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the\u00a0LORD\u00a0had left him.<\/p>\n

On verses 18-20:\u00a0 Verse 19 says \u201chis strength left him\u201d and verse 20 says \u201cthe LORD had left him\u201d. In many ways verses 19 and 20 are talking about the same thing.\u00a0 After Samson had ignored God for so long, finally God, who was the source of Samson\u2019s strength, removed His hand of protection from Samson\u2019s life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27675,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27673"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27676,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27673\/revisions\/27676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}