The grace of God—we know it is beautiful when we think on it. But with Samson, and Israel, our hearts are prone to forget it, ignore it, but assume it is always ours. We want it and we want the world. This is why our hearts need to turn again and again to Christ.
Did the Saviour struggle with his special calling? Yes, he did. It was a weighty calling, far heavier than Samson’s. But he fulfilled it for us, by doing exactly what the Father told him to. He kept his eyes and his heart in check, for us. He had a holy hatred for temptation. But those temptations were there till the bitter end. They were their heaviest in his last hours, in the Garden, where the weight of our sins squeezed out of him bloody sweat falling to the ground. And those temptations were there on the cross, where the various voices around him were taunting him. And where in a way far worse than Samson, Jesus’ Father abandoned him. Left him all alone, in total humiliation, in utter darkness, to bear the full, eternal wrath of God against our sin. But did Jesus give up? Did he cry out, My God, my God, I just want to be like every other man!
? Praise the Lord, no! He fulfilled every last bit of his calling! So that you and I would nevermore be forsaken by God. So that in Christ, and Christ alone, we may now have fullness of hope. He’s the deliverer who did not put himself first. He put his prideful, lustful, worldly family first. He is your only hope. It’s only by you trusting in Christ that God sees you as clothed in righteousness. Only in Christ are you safe from falling. Only in Christ do you actually get the promise of his last words on earth, “I am with you always.”
20 And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had left him.