Willing Ourselves to the Wolves
Willing Ourselves to the Wolves
Judges 16:5-6
And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, “Seduce him, and see where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to humble him. And we will each give you 1,100 pieces of silver.” So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and how you might be bound, that one could subdue you.”
The tragic irony of Judges 16:5-6 is that Samson has already been overpowered by the enemy, bound up in the ropes of impurity, and humiliated by a critical loss of God-given strength, whether he gives up his secret to Delilah or saves it for some future mistress down the road.
We understand the moral dangers of lust full well. We’ve felt the gut-punch in our conscience after being weak in the face of temptation and exposed by a holy God. But have we realized the devastating effects such sins have on our mental faculties? Impure desires not only deteriorate our moral compass, but also our common sense. In other words, habitual sin makes us dunces as much as deviants, because righteousness and reasonableness are two sides of the same coin. Take note of Samson’s bind here, friend. Think about it: Delilah might be beautiful, but how does Samson stick around for even five minutes after she, a Philistine, blatantly asks for the secret to his Philistine-crushing power? Seduction makes a man weak, but not ignorant. Samson is literally out of his mind right now. As soon as Delilah overtly asks him to give her the secret to his strength, he should’ve stormed out the door for good. Even if he genuinely loves Delilah, he knows by excruciating experience that his heart isn’t safe here. It can’t be. And he knows that as long as he’s in her apartment, there will be a posse hiding in the bushes, barraging her with threats, because she’s the best chance Philistia’s got to bring him down. Why, then—of all the women in the world he could choose to spend his life with—does he pick her, especially now that he knows she’ll give him up for the right price?
Because sin makes fools of us. It makes us sell out our Good Shepherd to the very wolves seeking to devour us.