What should we learn from the account of Samson and Delilah?

I have thought much of this telling the secret of his strength to the Philistines, and of what it means for us. What spiritual lesson are we to learn as to telling the secret of our strength to God's enemies? Is it not the fact that we have a secret? It is not so much what the secret is, though it is a very real one, but it is the fact that the heart is willing to tell a secret to the world. We meet people, for instance, in our business, and we are polite to them, and that ends the matter. We are thrown casually with persons to whom we are introduced, a temporary acquaintance, or a permanent acquaintance springs up, but it is simply external, there is nothing to compromise one in it. But now the friendship grows more intimate, and some of the springs of the life are gone into; and then it gets still more intimate, until the very secrets of the heart are laid bare, and there is nothing but what one soul has in common with the other. That would be telling the secrets. It is telling out everything that marks one's separation from another.

And it was so with Samson. This telling of the secret of his strength was breaking down the wall that separated him from the Philistines. It was giving up the very citadel of his soul, which, at least, had been kept inviolate up to this time. You will at once think of illustrations of this, and I want to point out how in a threefold way there is just this danger for the Lord's people individually; for the Lord's servants particularly; and for the Church of Christ in its corporate testimony before God, and before the world.

And it was so with Samson. This telling of the secret of his strength was breaking down the wall that separated him from the Philistines. It was giving up the very citadel of his soul, which, at least, had been kept inviolate up to this time. You will at once think of illustrations of this, and I want to point out how in a threefold way there is just this danger for the Lord's people individually; for the Lord's servants particularly; and for the Church of Christ in its corporate testimony before God, and before the world.

Samson met his end because he told his secret; right here at the beginning his telling the secret forebodes what the end may be. Samson tells here the secret, and finally has to tell the deeper secret of his whole separation to God, the secret of any testimony and power that he may have.

Samson met his end because he told his secret; right here at the beginning his telling the secret forebodes what the end may be. Samson tells here the secret, and finally has to tell the deeper secret of his whole separation to God, the secret of any testimony and power that he may have.

Samson sins again through his intercourse with "the daughter of a strange god"; he connects himself again with women of the Philistines, amongst whom his father's house and the tribe of Dan were placed. But he retains his strength until the influence of these connections becomes so great that he reveals the secret of his strength in God. His heart, far from God, places that confidence in a Philistine which should have existed only between his soul and God (Judges 16).

To possess and keep a secret proves intimacy with a friend. But the secret of God, the possession of His confidence, is the highest of all privileges. To betray it to a stranger, be he who he may, is to despise the precious position in which His grace has placed us; it is to lose it. What have the enemies of God to do with the secret of God? It was thus that Samson gave himself up to his enemies. All attempts were powerless against him so long as he maintained his Nazariteship. This separation once lost, although Samson was apparently as strong, and his exterior as goodly as before, yet Jehovah was no longer with him. "I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that Jehovah was departed from him."

Now mark this well, and let me press it earnestly upon you, that separation was the secret of his strength. The secret of Samson's power was his Nazariteship; and that meant that he was completely and thoroughly separated to God. The moment that he divulged that secret, he lost all his power. Now I am struck with this history, for this reason, that I find the blessed God succoured Samson even whilst he was being enticed by allurements; God was succouring him in a wonderful way up to the moment this seventeenth verse records. He had been enticed by allurements, turned aside by them frequently, and yet up to the last God helped him; but the moment he divulged the secret, God succours him no more. It is most solemn. The moment you lose your separation, God succours you no longer. Of course there is ever His recovering grace, blessed be His name for that; but that is not our subject to-night. That will be before us, the Lord willing, on the next occasion; but I am now speaking only of declension; and, oh, do let me earnestly press the solemn nature of it upon you. In this instance the secret of this man's wonderful strength was, that he was a Nazarite unto God. He did not touch wine or strong drink; i.e. he gave up all the joy of nature. He was God's altogether. Well, I say, as long as that secret was kept intact, as long as ever he held fast that secret between God and himself, as long as he did not allow Delilah into that which was in his heart, God helped him; but the moment he gave that up he was weaker than the weakest. Is not that very solemn, beloved friends? You may say, "Oh, but it was in a moment of extreme temptation that Samson gave up that secret!" Not so; let us go back over the history for an instant. What was the beginning of it? Turn back to chapter 14, and see what was the beginning of the declension in this man? You will find it in the first verse of that chapter. "And Sampson went down to Timnath, and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines. And he came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines: now therefore get her for me to wife." That is much farther back, let me tell you, than his sleeping upon Delilah's knees and telling her the secret of his heart. In this was the beginning, the seedtime, of the declension in his heart, which bore its fruit in the long run; even his want of discernment of the incongruity of being united with one who belonged to the enemies of God. It is, in a word, unholy association; and, beloved friends, how often that has happened. How many a pillar of salt there is amongst the saints of God as witness of the solemnity of it! How many a one has given up the truth of God in that very same way — entering into unhallowed association, and losing every feature of distinctness, and thus giving up all testimony. I do not mean merely in the relationships of life, but in everything. We are left here in this world, through God's grace, to maintain the principle of separation in everything, whatever it may be. I cannot limit it to any one particular sphere; it applies to everything. There is no way whereby the saints of God are more effectually allured from the place of simple separation to Him, and which becomes the glory of His Christ, than in this way of unholy association. It is this worldly principle which bids fair to destroy the whole testimony at this present moment, and therefore I warn my younger brethren about it to-night. Here was the beginning of all that Samson fell into afterwards — "Give me this woman to wife;" this woman of the Philistines. In the PROVIDENCE of God his wish was defeated, and God turned aside this terrible slip for a time. The woman was given to his friend; Samson did not get her. That was the PROVIDENCE of God. But when I say that, I am not in any wise making light of that which is entirely foreign to the path of faith for His saints. The providence of God is what God does here in this world to keep evil back, when everything is out of order. Everything is out of order in this world; the whole condition is disorganized, and in moral chaos and confusion; and I find the blessed God (who has not given up the reins of government, though He works as it were in secret) acting to turn aside that which would be opposed to His purpose. But faith, is the principle by which His saints track the divine path through the intricacies of present confusion. Faith alone can guide you and me. I thank God for His providence with all my heart; but still that is not the saint's guide along this world.

Let us pay attention to a still more humiliating recital (vs. 4-21). Samson, who had hitherto only formed a passing connection with evil, now went further. The daughter of the Philistines had been pleasing to his eye; the woman of Gaza had ensnared him for a moment; Delilah took possession of his affections. "He loved a woman in the valley of Sorek" (v. 4). This is the termination of the path of the child of God who gives way to, instead of judging, the first movements of his natural heart. Samson had hitherto guarded his intimate and secret relationship with God, in spite of everything. He possessed something which the world could not understand, and to the source of which it could not rise. His strength remained an enigma to his enemies; no doubt they saw the effect of it, but directed against themselves, and that made them all the more eager to wrest the secret of it from him, in order to find out what weapons to use against this servant of Jehovah. Doubtless, also, his long hair, a garb not common to all, was a public avowal of separation to God. But had his secret not been betrayed, the world would never have imagined that what was typical of dependence and of self-forgetfulness, was for the Nazarite a source of strength.

Samson loved Delilah. His heart was divided, and God could not go on with this. It is impossible for our affections to go out to the world and likewise to God. "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other" (Luke 16:13). In loving Delilah, Samson as much as said that he hated and despised God; when, in actual fact, he belonged to Him. This woman's influence over him increased more and more. "How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me?" (v. 15). From that time his heart was taken captive, and it was not long ere he surrendered the whole of his secret. Three times — the seven green withs that never were dried, the new ropes that never were occupied, and the seven locks of his head woven with the web — had not been able to quench the power of the Spirit. God still sustained His poor, unfaithful servant. But when his secret was divulged, the mark of his dependence removed, the bond of communion between his soul and God abolished, what remained for him? All his strength had vanished. The past experiences of God's deliverances, in spite of his moral bondage, only served to deceive him and to lull him into security. Three times he had extricated himself at a critical moment. Why not a fourth? The blinded heart said to itself: "I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself." But, with communion lost, intelligence of the thoughts of God was wholly lacking. "He wist not that Jehovah had departed from him" (v. 20).

Not that Samson was very happy under the yoke of Delilah. "She pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death" (v. 16). That was all he got from what had most attracted him! He would gladly have refused but was no longer capable of doing so. A man of the world may find his joy in the world; a believer, never. At bottom, the heart of Samson was in a measure with God and the Israel of God. From that fact sprang all this conflict, struggle, vexation and misery. Our conscience speaks and we have no real rest, our joy is embittered. At last he took the final step, and "told her all his heart" (v. 17). That was followed by sleep: "She made him sleep upon her knees" (v. 19). The soul loses all sense of its relationship with God, and falls into heavy slumber in the dense atmosphere of corruption. Then the enemy in ambush, watching for this moment, advanced, bound the strong man, put out his eyes, and treated him as one of their most wretched slaves. A condition, alas, worse than sleep! Samson is now only a poor blind slave, the sport of the enemies of Jehovah. Let us not be mistaken as to this, that the enemy was more hostile to God than to Samson, for the vanquished Nazarite became apparently the witness of the victory of the false god Dagon over the true God. The lack of reality in Christians is the world's most powerful weapon against Christ. In despising the unfaithful believer, it is really Him which the world finds the opportunity of despising.

Let us pay attention to a still more humiliating recital (vs. 4‑21). Samson, who had hitherto only formed a passing connection with evil, now went further. The daughter of the Philistines had been pleasing to his eye; the woman of Gaza had ensnared him for a moment; Delilah took possession of his affections. "He loved a woman in the valley of Sorek" (v. 4). This is the termination of the path of the child of God who gives way to, instead of judging, the first movements of his natural heart. Samson had hitherto guarded his intimate and secret relationship with God, in spite of everything. He possessed something which the world could not understand, and to the source of which it could not rise. His strength remained an enigma to his enemies; no doubt they saw the effect of it, but directed against themselves, and that made them all the more eager to wrest the secret of it from him, in order to find out what weapons to use against this servant of Jehovah. Doubtless, also, his long hair, a garb not common to all, was a public avowal of separation to God. But had his secret not been betrayed, the world would never have imagined that what was typical of dependence and of self‑forgetfulness, was for the Nazarite a source of strength.

Samson loved Delilah. His heart was divided, and God could not go on with this. It is impossible for our affections to go out to the world and likewise to God. "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other" (Luke 16: 13). In loving Delilah, Samson as much as said that he hated and despised God; when, in actual fact, he belonged to Him. This woman's influence over him increased more and more. "How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me?" (v. 15). From that time his heart wastaken captive, and it was not long ere he surrendered the whole of his secret.

Three times-the seven green withs that never were dried, the new ropes that never were occupied, and the seven locks of his head woven with the web-had not been able to quench the power of the Spirit. God still sustained His poor, unfaithful servant. But when his secret was divulged, the mark of his dependence removed, the bond of communion between his soul and God abolished, what remained for him? All his strength had vanished. The past experiences of God's deliverances, in spite of his moral bondage, only served to deceive him and to lull him into security. Three times he had extricated himself at a critical moment. Why not a fourth? The blinded heart said to itself: "I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself." But, with communion lost, intelligence of the thoughts of God was wholly lacking. "He wist not that Jehovah had departed from him" (v. 20).