Proverbs 16:18 CSB – Pride comes before destruction, and an arrogant spirit before a fall.

1 Corinthians 10:6 CSB – Now these things [OT examples] took place as examples for us, so that we will not desire evil things as they did.

James 4:6 CSB – …God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Samson’s Pride: As a Young Man, He Resists His Parents’ Authority 

Judges 14:1-2 CSB – Samson went down to Timnah and saw a young Philistine woman there. He went back and told his father and his mother, “I have seen a young Philistine woman in Timnah. Now get her for me as a wife.”

Proverbs 11:2 CSB – When arrogance comes, disgrace follows, but with humility comes wisdom.

Ephesians 6:1-3 CSB – Children, obey your parents in the Lord, because this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may go well with you and that you may have a long life in the land.

Proverbs 17:11 CSB – An evil person desires only rebellion

Samson’s Pride: Indulging Passions and Impulses

Judges 15:1 CSB – Later on…Samson took a young goat as a gift and visited his wife.

“I want to go to my wife in her room,” he said. But her father would not let him enter.

“I was sure you hated her,” her father said, “so I gave her to one of the men who accompanied you. Isn’t her younger sister more beautiful than she is? Why not take her instead?”

Judges 15:3-6 CSB – Samson said to them, “This time I will be blameless when I harm the Philistines.” So he went out and caught three hundred foxes. He took torches, turned the foxes tail-to-tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. Then he ignited the torches and released the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned the piles of grain and the standing grain as well as the vineyards and olive groves.

Judges 15:7-8 CSB – Then Samson told them, “Because you did this, I swear that I won’t rest until I have taken vengeance on you.” He tore them limb from limb and then went down and stayed in the cave at the rock of Etam.

v.10, “We have come to tie Samson up and pay him back for what he did to us.”

11 Then three thousand men of Judah went to the cave at the rock of Etam, and they asked Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines rule us? What have you done to us?”

Samson responds: “I have done to them what they did to me,” he answered.

v.12, They said to him, “We’ve come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.”

Then Samson told them, “Swear to me that you yourselves won’t kill me.”

No,” they said…. So they tied him up with two new ropes and led him away from the rock.

Judges 15:14b-15 CSB – The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully on him, and the ropes that were on his arms and wrists became like burnt flax and fell off. 15 He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand, took it, and killed a thousand men with it.

Judges 15:16-17 CSB – Then Samson said:

With the jawbone of a donkey
I have piled them in heaps.
With the jawbone of a donkey
I have killed a thousand men.

When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone and named that place Jawbone Hill

Judges 15:18 CSB – He became very thirsty and called out to the Lord, “You have accomplished this great victory through your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

Judges 15:19-20 CSB – So God split a hollow place in the ground at Lehi, and water came out of it. After Samson drank, his strength returned, and he revived. ….20 And he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.

Judges 16:1 CSB – Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute and went to bed with her.

Samson’s Pride: No Signs of Repentance

James 1:14-15 CSB – But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. 15 Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.

Judges 16:2-3 CSB – they surrounded the place and waited in ambush for him all that night at the city gate. They kept quiet all night, saying, “Let’s wait until dawn; then we will kill him.” But Samson stayed in bed only until midnight. Then he got up, took hold of the doors of the city gate along with the two gateposts, and pulled them out, bar and all. He put them on his shoulders and took them to the top of the mountain overlooking Hebron.

Samson’s Pride: Increasingly Comfortable in Dark Places

Judges 16:4 CSB – Some time later, he fell in love with a woman named Delilah

1 Peter 2:9 CSB – a people for [God’s] possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

John 3:19 CSB – This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.

Judges 16:5-7 CSB – The Philistine leaders went to her and said, “Persuade him to tell you where his great strength comes from, so we can overpower him, tie him up, and make him helpless. Each of us will then give you 1,100 pieces of silver.”

So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me, where does your great strength come from? How could someone tie you up and make you helpless?”

Samson told her, “If they tie me up with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, I will become weak and be like any other man.”

Judges 16:9 CSB – While the men in ambush were waiting in her room, she called out to him, “Samson, the Philistines are here!”  But he snapped the bowstrings as a strand of yarn snaps when it touches fire.

v.10, Then Delilah said to Samson, “You have mocked me and told me lies! Won’t you please tell me how you can be tied up?”

Judges 16:12 CSB – Delilah took new ropes, tied him up with them, and shouted, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” But while the men in ambush were waiting in her room, he snapped the ropes off his arms like a thread. 

Judges 16:13 CSB – Then Delilah said to Samson, “You have mocked me all along and told me lies! Tell me how you can be tied up. He told her, “If you weave the seven braids on my head into the fabric on a loom.”

Judges 16:15-16 CSB – “How can you say, ‘I love you,’” she told him, “when your heart is not with me? This is the third time you have mocked me and not told me what makes your strength so great!”

16 Because she nagged him day after day and pleaded with him until she wore him out

Proverbs 5:22-23 CSB – 

A wicked man’s iniquities will trap him;
he will become tangled in the ropes of his own sin.
23 He will die because there is no discipline,
and be lost because of his great stupidity.

Judges 16:17-20 CSB – he told her the whole truth and said to her, “My hair has never been cut, because I am a Nazirite to God from birth.

If I am shaved, my strength will leave me, and I will become weak and be like any other man.”

18 When Delilah realized that he had told her the whole truth, she sent this message to the Philistine leaders: “Come one more time, for he has told me the whole truth.” The Philistine leaders came to her and brought the silver with them.

19 Then she let him fall asleep on her lap… [she] called a man to shave off the seven braids on his head. In this way, she made him helpless, and his strength left him.

20 Then she cried, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” When he awoke from his sleep, he said, “I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.”

But he did not know that the Lord had left him.

Judges 16:21 CSB – The Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles, and he was forced to grind grain in the prison.

Judges 16:22 CSB – But his hair began to grow back after it had been shaved.

Judges 16:23-24 CSB – Now the Philistine leaders gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon. They rejoiced and said:

Our god has handed over
our enemy Samson to us.

24 When the people saw him, they praised their god and said:

Our god has handed over to us
our enemy who destroyed our land
and who multiplied our dead.

Judges 16:25-26 CSB – When they were in good spirits, they said, “Bring Samson here to entertain us.” So they brought Samson from prison, and he entertained them. They had him stand between the pillars.

Samson said to the young man who was leading him by the hand, “Lead me where I can feel the pillars supporting the temple, so I can lean against them.”

Judges 16:28-30, He called out to the Lord, “Lord God, please remember me. Strengthen me, God, just once more. With one act of vengeance, let me pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.” 29 Samson took hold of the two middle pillars supporting the temple and leaned against them, one on his right hand and the other on his left. 30 Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” He pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the leaders and all the people in it. And those he killed at his death were more than those he had killed in his life.

Proverbs 16:18 CSB – Pride comes before destruction, and an arrogant spirit before a fall.

Lessons From Samson’s Pride

Pride Makes Samson His Own Worst Enemy

Matthew 16:24 CSB – Jesus said, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

Galatians 5:24-26 CSB – Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited,

Proverbs 25:28 CSB – Like a city whose walls are broken through
is a person who lacks self-control.

Pride Makes Samson Unteachable/Isolated

Proverbs 18:1 CSB – One who isolates himself pursues selfish desires; he rebels against all sound wisdom.

Sin thrives in isolation

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 CSB – Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their efforts. 10 For if either falls, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to lift him up.

Proverbs 11:14 CSB – Without guidance, a people will fall,
but with many counselors there is deliverance

Samson’s Pride = Entitlement

Proverbs 29:23 CSB – A person’s pride will humble him,
but a humble spirit will gain honor.

Samson’s Defeat is not the end of the Story

Judges 16:22, But [Samson’s] hair began to grow back….

Matthew 10:39 CSB – Anyone who finds his life will lose it, and anyone who loses his life because of me will find it.

Luke 14:27 CSB – Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

Galatians 2:20 CSB – I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.