Lesson 33: Hide and Seek

This week's lesson deals with the prophet Jonah. You're probably familiar with the story: God calls Jonah to preach to the people of Nineveh, Jonah decides to go AWOL and head to Tarshish instead, storm comes up, Jonah gets thrown overboard and then swallowed by a big fish who apparently doesn't like Hebrew food and spits him up on the shore three days later. Jonah preaches, the city repents, and he pouts because now the Lord won't destroy the city.

What do we know about Jonah? Not a whole lot, really. The Book of Jonah doesn't really talk your ear off with details. Fortunately, in 2 Kings 14:25 there is another reference which identifies Jonah as a prophet (which his book does not), and as living in Gath-hepher (Hebrew, "the winepress of digging") which was a small town about three miles north-east of Nazareth.

Why did Jonah get on a boat when the call came to go to Nineveh? He must've known you can't get to Nineveh by sea any more than you could take a cruise liner to Las Vegas. I think part of what motivated him was the belief that the house of Israel was somehow special, almost to the point of being an exclusive club. Yes, they had been given special promises and blessings, but if they checked the fine print they would've seen those promises extend to anyone who was obedient to God's commandments.

So Jonah opens up his mission call, "Jonah, you are hereby called to serve as a missionary and are assigned to labor in the Assyria Nineveh mission..." To really understand the reaction to the call, imagine being called to serve a mission in Germany during World War II. The Assyrians had quite a reputation for being very brutal in battle, and afterward with any survivors.

He didn't get on the boat because he was afraid of the Assyrians, he got on because he didn't want to waste his time on a people he felt didn't deserve a chance to repent. Even after the whole city of Nineveh were in the process of repenting in sackcloth and ashes, and the king had imposed a mandatory fast for the whole city (including animals), Jonah went outside the city to pout and hoped the Lord would still use the smite button on Nineveh.

Great story, but what can we apply in our lives today?

First, how about "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God" (Doct and Cov 18:10). We tend to prejudge others, a lot. So much that we don't often realize we're doing it. We feel someone is more trustworthy because they are wearing a clean crisp suit, or less trustworthy because they are wearing a thread-bare t-shirt and look like they haven't shaved since birth. But "the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Sam 16:7).

The resurrected Savior taught the Nephites, "unto such shall ye continue to minister; for ye know not but what they will return and repent, and come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I shall heal them; and ye shall be the means of bringing salvation unto them" (3 Nephi 18:32).

Second, God is the undefeated champion at Hide and Seek. We could sooner hide ourselves from His sight than we could hide our thoughts and desires from Him. To say that God is all-seeing and all-knowing isn't exaggeration or hyperbole. To the faithful, this means there is no depth of despair or suffering where He cannot reach with comfort and peace.

Third, if God can show mercy to a bunch of "heathens", maybe I have a shot too. One of Satan's tactics is trying to get us to believe that we have traveled beyond the Lord's reach or past the "point of no return". "There's no way you can come back after the things you've done..." I find it somewhat ironic that Satan tries to lure us out by telling us we can go back any time we want, but once we're out he says we've come too far to go back again. Remember the story of the prodigal son? The Father is always watching and will not let us make the return journey alone.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland taught:
"Just because God is God, just because Christ is Christ, they cannot do other than care for us and bless us and help us if we will but come unto them, approaching their throne of grace in meekness and lowliness of heart. They can't help but bless us. They have to. It is their nature" ("Come Unto Me", BYU Fireside address, 2 March 1997).

I wonder if Jonah had accepted his call to Nineveh with the same zeal as the sons of Mosiah had when they took the gospel to the Lamanites (see Alma 17-26), would the people have been truly converted? It's hard to tell from Jonah's brief account if the people really understood why they were repenting. Judging from Nahum's prophecies, it didn't fare well for them later. If Jonah had tried to help them instead of standing back far enough to get a good view when they were destroyed, would he have had results similar to Ammon and his brothers?

Lesson 30: Learning from Zeke

This week's lesson has a few points which have great application for daily life.

In 2 Kings 18/2 Chronicles 29 we are introduced to King Hezekiah (Hebrew for "Jehovah is my strength"). His father, King Ahaz, had taken all the gold and silver from the temple and given it to the king of Assyria. 'Zeke's first order of business after assuming the throne is to repair all the damages done to the temple and get the priests sanctified and back on track. The priests "brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the Lord ... and ... [carried] it out abroad into the brook Kidron" (2 Chron 29:16).

Passover was to be held on the 14th day of the first month, but since the priests and temple wouldn't be properly sanctified in time, passover was rescheduled for the second month. Apparently it has been a while since they had observed the passover, so he invited the Northern kingdom to come for passover as well. It might not seem like much, but North and South haven't been getting along, so this was a huge step. Many who were invited "laughed them to scorn, and mocked them" (2 Chron 30:10), but there were a few who humbled themselves and accepted the invitation. The passover celebration was such a success, the people decided to extend it for another week.

Later, the king of Assyria was rampaging through Israel and Judah with no signs of slowing down. 'Zeke prepared Jerusalem as best he could, repairing the walls, making weapons and shields, and appointed military captains. He also had his workers tunnel 540 meters through limestone under the city to bring the waters of the Gihon spring into the safety of Jerusalem. Then he approached the Lord in prayer, pleading for help.

Meanwhile, the Assyrians are taunting the people, essentially saying "the gods of the other nations couldn't save their people, what makes you think your god will save you?"

The prophet Isaiah came to reassure 'Zeke, and during the night an angel of the Lord came and killed 185,000 of the Assyrian soldiers (2 Kings 19:35).

So, it's a really cool story, but what do we get out of it. Let's see how many I can get through:

1. "...be ye clean..." (Isaiah 52:11)
'Zeke recognized the need to be clean before the Lord and made sure the proper steps were taken to sanctify the temple and those who officiated there. Through the power of the atonement, we have the precious gift of repentance so even if we weren't clean yesterday we can become clean today (or at least start the process). When we "...[bring] out all the uncleanness" from our lives, we should take it to our "brook Kidron", which was well outside the city, and leave it there. Whatever our individual weakness is, we need to remove the triggers which lead to that behavior. Elder David A. Bednar taught, "The standard is clear. If something we think, see, hear, or do distances us from the Holy Ghost, then we should stop thinking, seeing, hearing, or doing that thing" (David A. Bednar, "That We May Always Have His Spirit to Be with Us," Ensign, May 2006, 28–31).

2. Better Late Than Never
Rather than wait another year to hold the passover on the prescribed dates, 'Zeke wanted to have it done as soon as possible. How many times have I heard people say "I can repent later" as they do something they know is wrong. Some even made plans to "live a little" and then repent in time to serve their missions (several of them didn't actually end up going). 'Zeke and the priests didn't calculate how much time it would take to repent and be cleansed so they could leave it to the last minute, they worked to put things in order now.

3. Do What it Takes
I imagine tunneling through 540 meters of limestone isn't an easy task. If they decided to only go 530 meters, the whole city would've been taken because no one would have any water. Christ referred to Himself as the "living water" (John 4:10-11) and it's not a big stretch to apply this to the efforts needed to bring the spirit of Christ into our lives. According to other sources, workers were carving out the tunnel from both ends. In our lives we'll find that as we work to move closer to Christ, He is also moving closer to us. Just as the father of the prodigal son didn't let him make the journey home alone, Christ doesn't make us walk home on our own either.

4. Trust God
After we have done, or are doing, everything we can, we need to trust God to keep His promises (and He has a very good track record). I think the story would've had a dramatically different ending if 'Zeke had sat around saying "please help me out of this one" without doing anything on his part. I heard someone say once, "if you want God to direct your footsteps, you have to move your feet." I'm sure we'll all have times in our lives when we are figuratively surrounded by an unbeatable army. Whether it is by an angel during the night, chariots and horses of fire, or three hundred men with trumpets and lanterns, trust God to deliver us (and usually in a way we haven't considered). The world will taunt and try to discourage us, but we need to stay strong in our faith.

I'm sure there are countless other applications we can pull from the story (and I didn't even get into King Josiah). Feel free to comment on anything that sticks out to you. One of my favorite parts of teaching Sunday School is hearing the insights from the class.

Lesson 29: Advanced Math

I won't actually be teaching the lesson on Sunday, so I'll try hard not to steal any thunder. One of my favorite scriptures is covered in this week's reading, so I couldn't resist jumping in.

It seems the Lord repeatedly tries to teach Israel that He does math a little differently than we do. A couple of examples to set the stage:

1. Gideon (Judges 6-7)
The armies of the Midianites and Amalekites came up against Israel and Gideon was chosen by an angel to lead the armies against them. The Lord told Gideon there were too many people in the army and they would boast of their own strength rather than attribute the victory to God. Gideon tells them they can go home if they want and 22,000 leave. The Lord tells Gideon the 10,000 who remain are still too many, so Gideon calls a break and selects 300 men who remain watchful. These 300 men go into battle armed only with trumpets and lanterns and are lead to victory without ever having to raise a sword (don't be surprised when the Lord doesn't answer your prayers in the way you expect).

2. Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20)
The Moabites, Ammonites, and another group identified only as "other beside the Ammonites" (verse 1) come up against the newly appointed king Jehoshaphat. He is a little worried and prays to God for help while instituting a city-wide fast. He gathers the people together and offers a prayer asking for deliverance. The answer comes, "Be not afraid, nor dismayed... for the battle is not yours, but God's" (verse 15). They are to go down to the battle against their enemies with the reassurance "Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you..." (verse 17).

Just imagine being told to show up to a battle (unarmed, no less) when you are vastly outnumbered, and not to worry because somehow you'll win without having to fight.

The king "appointed singers unto the Lord" (verse 21) who went out in front of the Israelite army. When they started to sing, their enemies began attacking and killing each other to the point where "none escaped" (verse 24). Makes me wonder, just how bad was their singing? But I digress...

To give us an idea of how vast the defeated armies were, the record indicates it took three days for the Israelites to gather all the spoils from dead soldiers.

Okay, ground work set, now onto the story (2 Kings 6). The king of Syria is a little upset with the Prophet Elisha, who keeps warning the king of Israel what the Syrians are planning. So the king of Syria's master plan is to surround Elisha during the night with "horses, and chariots, and a great host" (verse 14). Elisha gets up early in the morning and sees the army surrounding him, and his servant gets a little stressed about the situation. Elisha calmly responds, "Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them" (verse 16).

The poor servant is probably hoping the ninja convention is in town, because he's not seeing all these people who are supposed to outnumber the Syrians. I'm sure Elisha could sense the fear in his servant and prayed, "Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see" and sure enough, there were horses and chariots of fire surrounding Elisha (verse 17).

It is so easy in life to get caught in the trap of believing we have to do everything ourselves. Walk into a bookstore and check out the self-help section, there are shelves of books devoted to all the different ways you can help yourself overcome various problems from gambling to addictions to depression to debt to time-management and more. I strongly believe one of Satan's most effective tools is getting us to believe we have to fix ourselves before the atonement will work in our lives. "You've sinned, you can't pray now" or "how can you even think of reading your scriptures after what you've done?!"

I think we try to fight too many battles which the Lord has designated as being His, not ours. We should follow Jehoshaphat's example more closely in our lives. Start with prayer, real prayer, not your pre-recorded "prayer #7" (admit it, you have prayers you pull out when you don't want to put in the effort). Whenever possible, we need to "study it out in your mind; then you must ask [God] if it be right" (Doct and Cov 9:8), but there are times when all we can do is admit we have no idea what to do and plead for guidance. Sometimes fasting is needed, and you might have to enlist the help of those around you as well.

Once you've done all you can and receive your answer, go out to the front of the battle and sing praises to the Lord and let Him take care of the rest. Be where you should be, doing the things you should be doing and you'll find there are more that be with you than against you. Stop to open your eyes and see the horses and chariots of fire set to protect you.

"Any two people can be a majority, as long as one of them is God."

Lesson 27: Wachutalkinbout Willis??

There's a brief story tucked away in the reading for this week's lesson (#27) which is a bit confusing on the first time through. It's not really covered in the lesson, so I thought I'd go through it here.

As a brief preface, the end of Solomon's rule wasn't a happy one for the people, unless you were lucky enough to be of the tribe of Judah. King Solomon placed a heavy tax on the people and placed them in conditions similar to slavery. When Jeroboam took over, he made things worse instead of better. To keep people from going to Jerusalem to the temple, he made two golden calves for the people to worship from the comfort of their own land; one in Bethel and the other in Dan. He then appointed a feast day which coincided with the official feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem.

Imagine a state-sanctioned party which included a feast, lots of drinking, and ceremony consisting of offering sacrifice and some fertility rites. Sounds a bit like the Calgary Stampede, doesn't it? (Oops, that was my outside voice again, huh)

Anyhow, an unnamed man of God comes on the scene in 1 Kings 13. He comes in, tells Jeroboam another king will be raised who will overthrow the idol worship, splits the altar by the power of God. Jeroboam does a little bit of back-pedaling and invites this guy (who really needs a name) to come back for supper.

"...If thou wilt give me half thine house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place:

"For so it was charged me by the word of the Lord..." (1 Kings 13:8-9)

Not only was he told not to eat or drink until he got home, he couldn't go back the same way he came. He tells the king there is no reward worth breaking a commandment from the Lord.

On his way home, he met up with "an old prophet" (1 Kings 13:11) who told him an angel came and said it was okay to come in and eat. The King James Version reads "...but he [the old prophet] lied unto him [the man of god]" (1 Kings 13:18). The Joseph Smith Translation offers a bit of help here: "...Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water, that I may prove him; and he lied not unto him." (footnote b)

Wait a minute, now I'm even more confused. It's easier to read this story as if the prophet had been a false prophet, but here he is acting under the Lord's direction and intentionally trying to trick the man of God. It almost seems a bit under-handed. But I guess it wouldn't be the first time the Lord has tested his prophet, remember Abraham?

So the man of God goes back with the prophet and has dinner, then on his way home is killed by a lion as a result of his disobedience (1 Kings 13:20-24). Ouch, that seems a bit harsh. But what can we learn from the story?

The man of God received his directions from the Lord Himself. Pretty straight-forward: 1) don't eat or drink until you get back, and 2) don't go home the same way you came. Fairly simple and direct personal revelation. So on his way home, someone else comes and says it's now okay (for whatever reason) to do contrary to the Lord's command, and he goes along with it. He received the original instructions through personal revelation, shouldn't any amendments or adjustments also come through the same channel?

The punishment of physical death seems to be a representation of the natural spiritual consequences we face when we are disobedient. There are many "spiritual lions" just laying in wait, ready to pounce on us when we step off the path.

Is the natural consequence of an action a punishment, or just how things work? For example, if we choose to disobey the law (in Alberta, anyway) by driving without wearing a seatbelt, when we get thrown through the windshield as the car hits something, is that our punishment or just the natural consequence? When we disobey a commandment, are we punished by being separated from the Spirit, or is that just natural cause and effect?

So, here's what I take from this story:
1. It is sometimes harder to be faithful under seemingly good circumstances than it is in the face of opposition. There wasn't anything Jeroboam could throw at this man to make him go against what the Lord had commanded. We see this many times in the Book of Mormon where the Nephites can stay faithful during times of war and hardship, but when things started getting easy for them they started to waiver.
2. Continuing personal revelation is vital, especially in our day. The directions we receive from the Lord through personal revelation are as binding as those which come to us from the prophet or other leaders.
3. There will be all kinds of convincing arguments on why we should disobey the commandments (usually just one or two at a time). In the end, the reasons and reasoning are irrelevent.

Lesson 24: Get a Shower Curtain

The story of King David is probably one of the most tragic in scripture. David goes from being highly favored of the Lord to losing it all over a moment of weakness. He went from shepard to war hero almost over night after he defeated Goliath. He was spared from Saul's many attempts to kill him, from throwing spears to putting him in battle so the Philistines would kill him. All the while, David remained humble and obedient. Even when Saul stumbled into the cave where David was hiding, David merely cut off part of Saul's robe (and felt guilty about it afterwards). God even referred to David as "a man after his own heart" (1 Sam. 13:14). For those keeping track, that's a pretty big endorsement which isn't handed out lightly. In fact, aside from this reference to David, I can only find one other instance in the scriptures where the Lord refers to someone's heart (Doct. and Cov. 124:15 where the Lord loves Hyrum Smith "because of the integrity of his heart").

This week's lesson comes from 2 Samuel 11-12. This story, while tragic, has a few lessons we can apply in order to keep us from falling.

1. Do Your Duty
This whole sordid affair would never have happened if David had been where he was supposed to be. This was a time of war, and the kings were supposed to be in battle, "But David tarried still at Jerusalem" (2 Samuel 11:1). It doesn't say why he stayed behind, but it is clear that he wasn't where he needed to be.

President Heber J. Grant said: "There is but one path of safety to the Latter-day Saints, and that is the path of duty. It is ... the keeping of the commandments of God, the living the life of a Latter-day Saint." (“The President Speaks,” Improvement Era, Nov. 1936, 659.)

The army of Gideon, though only 300 in number against the vast hosts of the Midianites, "stood every man in his place" (Judges 7:21) and were victorious. If David had "stood ... in his place", he would never have been in the position to be tempted like this.

"Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved..." (Doct. and Cov. 87:8).

2. "...let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly..." (Doct. and Cov. 121:45)
Dave stays home, but the story still could've had a positive ending. He's out walking on the roof of his house and sees a woman washing herself (2 Samuel 11:2). If he walks away now, nothing happens and we still have a happy ending. But no, he wants to find out who she is. Why does he want to know that? What difference does it make what her name is?

He sends messengers, who should've just told her to buy a shower curtain or close the windows. Instead, they bring her back to David, dinner may or may not have been involved, "Hey babe, what's your tribe?" and boom, the doctor tells them they're in love.

A man with virtuous thoughts would have turned away on the roof and not watched. He wouldn't have pondered on it and tried to find out more about her. He wouldn't have invited her to the castle, and she wouldn't have ended up pregnant.

"...whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matt 5:8).

David's physical actions were only the fulfillment of the actions he had already taken in his heart.

3. It Takes Two to Tango
Let's not forget here that it still takes two to end up with the 9-month flu. Sure, it might be hard to tell the king, "no thanks, I'm married" (you can almost hear Dave say, "that's okay, so am I"), but I find it hard to believe it would have happened without her consent. When do our standards really count? When it's easy, or when times get hard? Maybe if she had the courage to be true to her covenants it would've given David the strength he needed to be true to his.

Would it have been harder for Bathsheba to turn down Dave's advances, or for Esther to reveal her nationality when being a Jew meant certain death? Was it easy for Shad, Rack, and Benny (VeggieTales flashback) to face the fiery furnace rather than worship Nebuchadnezzar's idol (see Daniel 3)? It may seem a little harsh, but I'm not inclined to cut Bathsheba much slack here. Have I done dumb things? Most definitely. But I've also been given the strength I needed to keep from doing other dumb things and I have no doubt that at some point along the line, the Spirit was telling Dave that what he was doing was wrong. Unfortunately a prompting from the Spirit is much like the desire to exercise; if you ignore it long enough, it'll go away.

Peer pressure is a powerful force. I often wonder how my life would have been different without the influence of some truly great friends in high school. I suspect David wouldn't have been in this mess if Jonathan had still been alive to "[strengthen] his hand in God" (1 Samuel 23:16).

4. Trying to hide your mistake only leads to more (and bigger) mistakes
Even if David had admitted his fault, he would've been in an eternally better position than the result of his actions to follow. Instead, he calls Uriah home from the battle and tries to get him to spend some time at home. Faithful Uriah instead spends the night sleeping on the king's doorstep. The only solution David can see is to have Uriah killed in battle and quickly marry Bathsheba (although I'm sure people even back then could tell it hadn't been 9 months between wedding and baby). Sending someone into battle to have them killed is the same tactic Saul had used on David, unsuccessfully, years earlier.

As a result of David's plot "he hath fallen from his exaltation" (Doct. and Cov. 132:39). That's not a good thing. That's actually the opposite of good. His eternal inheritance was lost over a moment of indiscretion.

It would have been interesting to ask David as he stood on his roof watching Bathsheba if he thought what he was planning in his heart was worth the cost he'd end up paying.

Lesson 19: As Parents in Zion

I know, two posts for the same lesson. Weird huh. Especially after I can go two or three lessons without managing to post anything. I figure in the end it will all average out.

Chapter 2 of Judges seems to be a quick summary, not only of the end of Joshua's life, but also of things to come for the Israelites. We see a pattern start to develop, where the Lord provides a faithful judge who helps to free Israel from oppression, the people repent and are faithful again, the judge dies, and the people return to their old ways.

There was one line that really grabbed me and made me think of a talk Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave in April 2003 general conference. Judges 2:19 reads,

"And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them; they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way." (emphasis added)

It seems Israel has short-term memory problems. As soon as there is no longer anyone to remind them of what God has done for them, they turn and fall away again, "more than their fathers". I wish the record was more detailed, but the focus of the book of Judges seems to be the military activites as opposed to the spiritual matters. I would like to know what the parents taught their children during the faithful cycles.

One of the things Elder Holland said really jumped out at me:

"...no child in this Church should be left with uncertainty about his or her parents’ devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Restoration of His Church, and the reality of living prophets and apostles...

"I think some parents may not understand that even when they feel secure in their own minds regarding matters of personal testimony, they can nevertheless make that faith too difficult for their children to detect."

I wonder what an Israelite "Family Home Evening" would've looked like. Did the parents teach their children why they believed? Why they offered sacrifices to God? Why the Passover was so important to them? Were the children left to draw their own conclusions as they watched their parents?

Then I wonder, "what about my children? What do they know? Again, from Elder Holland:

"Do our children know that we love the scriptures? Do they see us reading them and marking them and clinging to them in daily life? Have our children ever unexpectedly opened a closed door and found us on our knees in prayer? Have they heard us not only pray with them but also pray for them out of nothing more than sheer parental love? Do our children know we believe in fasting as something more than an obligatory first-Sunday-of-the-month hardship? Do they know that we have fasted for them and for their future on days about which they knew nothing? Do they know we love being in the temple, not least because it provides a bond to them that neither death nor the legions of hell can break? Do they know we love and sustain local and general leaders, imperfect as they are, for their willingness to accept callings they did not seek in order to preserve a standard of righteousness they did not create? Do those children know that we love God with all our heart and that we long to see the face—and fall at the feet—of His Only Begotten Son?"

Children tend to take the direction of their parents and take it a few steps further, regardless of the which way their parents were facing. Where parents faithfully teach their children, we find a stronger generation (like Helaman's stripling warriors who absolutely had no doubt of their parents' conviction). Quoting from Elder Holland's talk again, where parents "flirt with skepticism or cynicism... children expand that flirtation into full-blown romance."

I feel chapter 2 of Judges stands as a caution to parents everywhere. We can't let our children just guess what they think we feel is important. We are accountable before God on how well we (not the primary teachers, not the young men/young women leaders) teach our children the doctrines of faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost (D&C 68: 25).

As I reflect on my own teaching moments with my children, I recognize many opportunities for improvement. As an example, earlier this week I decided to do my lesson preparation upstairs at the table rather than down in my "cave". My son asked me if I had a big talk to do or something because apparently that's the only time he's seen me with my scriptures out and writing notes down on paper. Improvement opportunity, knocking at the door.

Lesson 19: Just a Little Off the Top

The story of Samson used to be one of my favorites as a child, probably because he was really strong and was pretty close to being a super hero. As I got older though, I saw this story as a tragic example of someone who had enormous potential, but didn’t use it.

Israel had been in captivity under Philistine rule for forty years by this time because they had done “evil again in the sight of the Lord” (Judges 13:1). As the Lord often does, He sent a baby to deliver Israel. A barren couple was visited by an angel and told they would have a son who “shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines” (Judges 13:5).

Samson’s mother was told her son was to be a Nazarite (Hebrew meaning ‘set aside’ or ‘consecrated’) from the womb. As such, he was to abstain from wine and strong drink (couldn’t even eat moist grapes), couldn’t cut his hair, and couldn’t come in contact with dead bodies (see Numbers 6:1-8 for more details).

You’d think someone with such potential and great blessings would be faithful and obedient. Angelic announcements seemed to be effective in the other cases (John the Baptist, Christ). You don’t hear about angels coming to tell mothers their child will grow up to be on welfare, or work on the fry line if he really applies himself. This sort of thing seems to be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Sadly, Samson never really seemed to grasp the nature of his calling.

The first record we have of Samson is when he asked his father to set him up with a certain Philistine woman for his wife (Judges 14:1-2). The scripture states “it was of the Lord” (Judges 14:3), but I think that was Samson’s way of trying to rationalize it to himself. He probably had a plan worked out in his mind, much like when King Saul rationalized keeping the flocks of the Amalekites because he intended to use them for a sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:20-22). After the Lord made it very clear how important it was not to marry outside the faith, I find it hard to believe this marriage to a Philistine would be sanctioned, especially when Samson’s specific call was to deliver Israel from the Philistines.

A lesson we can draw here is one many missionaries learn in the field: you can’t do the Lord’s work using Satan’s methods. You can’t convert someone through a “Bible bash”, and you can’t defeat the Philistines by marrying one. That would make for some very awkward moments at family reunions.

At the beginning of the week-long wedding feast, Samson challenged the men to solve his riddle before the seven days were up. After three days, they came to his wife and threatened her so she nagged him until he gave her the answer. Big surprise, she tells the men and Samson loses the bet and has to cough up thirty sheets and thirty outfits (if only someone could’ve seen that coming). He went out, killed thirty Philistines to pay off the wager.

For someone whose call it was to free Israel, Samson only seemed to go against the Philistines when it served his own selfish purposes:

• Killed thirty men to pay off his bet (Judges 14:19)
• Burned the Philistine fields because they gave his wife to his “best man” (Judges 15:4-5). Granted, that had to sting a little...
• Killed 1,000 men who came up against him (Judges 15:15)
• Carried away the gates of the city on his back so he could escape after sleeping with a harlot (Judges 16:3)
• Pulled down the Philistine temple, killing everyone inside so he could be “avenged of the Philistines for [his] two eyes” (Judges 16:28)

Losing his eyes was his own fault, really. He hooked up with Delilah (no mention whether or not they were actually married), who was offered 1100 pieces of silver to find out the source of his strength. She asked Samson, “Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee” (Judges 16:6). Who could resist an offer like that? ‘Tell me how to take your strength away so you can be taken captive.’

He gives her three false answers, and each time the Philistines are waiting to take him. The fact he really didn’t realize the source of his strength is evident when he tells her to cut off his hair. He really expected to be able to shake off his attackers as he had previously, but “he [knew] not that the Lord was departed from him” (Judges 16:20). He really expected to completely disobey the Lord and still receive His promises. Without his God-given strength, he was easily taken captive. The Philistines put out his eyes and forced him to work in the prison house.

The Philistines later offered sacrifices to their god, Dagon, and decided to bring out their trophy for some entertainment. Samson called upon God for one last act of strength, which he used to pull down the support pillars of their temple. “So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life” (Judges 16:30).

Just imagine how different the story could’ve been if he had stayed faithful, if he could’ve tempered his arrogance with humility, if he let “virtue garnish [his] thoughts unceasingly” (Doct. and Cov 121:45) rather than being led by his appetites. People in all the years since would’ve used him as an example of what could be done in the Lord’s strength, but instead he stands as an example of “don’t try this at home”.