Judges 16:20 …And he wist not that the LORD was departed from him.
The Strength to Say “No”
Who is the strongest man who has ever lived? Wouldn’t most of us say that it was Samson? The Bible seems to verify that. For instance, Judges 16 tells us how Samson took the massive city gate of some of his enemies and carried it to the top of a hill. He was a monster of a man with incredible, supernatural strength.
Now, if Samson, this man of muscle and might, were to get into a fight with a Navy SEAL, who would win the fight? Well, Samson defeated a whole army with the strength that God supernaturally provided for him. So, I think Samson would win. What if Samson were to get in a fight with the woman named Delilah? Who would win that fight? Well, this was a fight that actually happened, and Samson lost.
Delilah asked for the secret of Samson’s strength even as she exploited his weakness. Samson was dominated by his weakness because he never yielded his strength to God. In Judges 16, Delilah said to Samson, “The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the LORD was departed from him.”
Delilah laid a trap for Samson in clear view. Samson knew exactly what she was doing, but he was so smug and confident in himself that he thought he could play along with this danger and somehow get by as he always had before. He did not know that the Lord had left him. A man is no stronger than his ability to say “no” to self. Samson could defeat an army, but could not say “no” to himself.
You see a pattern of this in Samson’s life. Samson insisted that his parents get him a Philistine woman for a wife even after his parents tried to reason with him to take a wife from among the Israelites instead. Samson’s greatest weakness was not women; it was rebellion against the authorities in his life. He didn’t obey God because he couldn’t even honor his parents. He could not say “no” to his own lust.
Samson couldn’t say no to his own appetites. In Judges 14:8 he found that bees had made honey in the carcass of a lion he had killed. As a Nazarite, Samson was forbidden to touch dead bodies, yet he was cavalier with that vow. He touched that dead lion, ate the honey, and thought nothing of it. It may seem like a small thing, but it was not. He could not say “no” to himself.
Strength is not measured by how much you know or by what you can do, but by the Person to Whom you yield these strengths. It wasn’t that Delilah was overly smart; it was that Samson was dumb. A man’s strength is measured by his ability to say “no” to self and “yes” to God. May God help us to seek Him for the strength that we need and to yield ourselves to Him in order that we can live in His power and not in our weakness.