Samson, Twenty Years a Judge

Samson is handed over by the men of Judah and led bound before the Philistines. Once his hands are freed, he strikes down a thousand men once more. In the end he reveals the secret of his strength to Delilah, loses both his eyes and is made a slave grinding at the mill.

What collapsed was not Samson’s strength but his faith. He always laid the blame for his own actions on others and was shut inside the conviction that his own thinking was right, so even with all his strength he could not work alongside God. When he himself cast aside his Nazirite vow, a secret known only to God and to him, the power of God departed from him as well.

Samson let the twenty years he should have lived as a judge drain away in human revenge and lust. In the same way, no one who squanders the time entrusted to them can offer an excuse, for God has already made known the work to be done, its purpose and even its outcome. Those who examine themselves and live as though today were their last day can receive a salvation without shame.