Keeping Bad Company

The story of Samson and Delilah baffles me. Samson makes a litany of questionable choices during the portion of scripture about his life, but his time with Delilah takes the grand prize for bad choices. While staying with Delilah, Samson allows her not once, not twice, but three times to attempt to bind him and turn him over to the Philistines.

Even after she tries to turn him over, he STILL tells her the truth about the source of his supernatural power after just a little bit of nagging. Samson incorrectly tells Delilah the source of his power is his uncut hair. His power truly came from God and the hair was just a symbol of his Nazarite vow and the close relationship he was *supposed* to maintain with God.

The fact that God abided with Samson despite him breaking other tenants of the Nazarite vow (eating the honey from the lion carcass - Judges 13:7, 14:9) and committing blatant sin (fornication - Judges 16:1), shows us how great God’s grace can be. The second we screw up, He doesn’t leave. He gives us a chance to repent and tries to bring us back to Him.

When we don’t change course though, God eventually does depart (Judges 16:20) and allows us to deal with the consequences of our actions. Samson’s problem was his eyes. He was lusting after Philistine women time and time again (Judges 14:2, 16:1, 16:4) and this lust ultimately led to his downfall with Delilah. How ironic that God allowed his eyes to be gouged out. Jesus tells us:

Matthew 5:29 KJV
And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

Now I’m not suggesting you go gouge out your eyes if you have a lust problem, but maybe you should restrict your access to screens or maybe you shouldn’t watch that R-rated movie. If your problem is gossip, maybe you shouldn’t spend time with the friend who ONLY wants to gossip. If your problem is alcohol, you might not want to go to your friend’s Super Bowl party because they’re all going to be drinking.

The company we keep matters. Don’t be like Samson and hang out with Delilah. If you have people in your life that lead you to negative behaviors, you need to prune them from your life or restrict the amount of time you spend with them. We don’t want to let someone or something get between us and Heaven, which was Jesus’ warning in Matthew 5:29.

Thankfully, Samson ultimately repented (Judges 16:28), but let’s not follow his example of a last minute repentance. Scripture tells us obedience is better than sacrifice:

1 Samuel 15:22 KJV
And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord ? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.